If you're a longtime reader (I'd guess my mom, dad, and husband), you may remember the colleague of mine who I consider an arrogant bastard. I don't now remember what pseudonym I gave him here on the blog, but Know-it-all Napoleonic Obnoxious Bastard, or KNOB, will do nicely. Last semester, KNOB and I listened to our students' recorded tests together to submit grades that we both thought were accurate and fair. We worked hard on it, and we put in several hours' work. Normally, we submit our scores and someone else, usually in another country, reads them, grades them, and then moves all our scores up or down a point or two to reflect what THEY think is the most accurate score. We hate to get moderated, especially if the scores go down, and we almost always do to an extent. That's what we were working to avoid. Well, we got an email showing all our kids' scores, and to my delight, out of 38 students, only one kid got moved 1 point. I sent him an email congratulating him and saying thanks for the hard work, because it had paid off. He never responded, but it was work email, and not everyone checks it over summer, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. This morning, I saw him, and I delivered basically the same message out loud. He replied, "Well, it's because they pulled all *my* kids for the samples." Essentially, he's saying he still thinks I graded them poorly and gives no credit to the work we did. Now, for one thing, that's an utter, outright lie. They asked for eight samples, and six of them were my kids. But second of all -- eat a bag of dicks. I was trying to be friendly and fucking collegial. You can't muster up a "yeah, nice work"? And third? Oh, don't worry, KNOB; I know why you're pissed at me. It's because you still think I'm an inferior teacher, yet 94% of my students passed the exams to get college credit, and only 33% of yours did. And don't worry, I don't plan on mentioning it to anyone. I'll keep it to myself and this fairly anonymous blog, but there it is. You're pissed because I seriously out-performed you. In fact, I kicked your lily-white ass.* *And as long as I'm not mentioning stuff, I did it with a handicap -- KNOB had two years with his kids, and I only had one, the first year having been taught by a teacher who basically abdicated the job, so the kids had to make up the LAST year's work, too. That's cool, though -- we did that.

Long day, short form.

Hey, so I did take a break from Facebook all day. And guess what? I got a lot of stuff done. I bought some things to donate to the women's shelter. I took care of something I needed for work. I fixed the washing machine.

The other day I needed the washing machine paperwork. Luckily, I found it easily in my file cabinet. But my file cabinet is a mess. So tonight I've been going through it. I'm ruthlessly throwing things out. Can you believe I have the first paycheck I ever got as a teacher? I didn't save it as a relic; I just save my pay stubs, and it was in there. Anyway, organizing this cabinet is going to free up some space, and since storage in this house is like one of those 9-tiles-with-one-empty-square puzzles, that'll help.

I messed up the Mom Cave big time. About a month ago, I set aside the paint to patch the Mom Cave. Yesterday, I decided to paint. (The guys who did the work had to put a big hole in the wall, then patch it, so there was about 1/3 of a whole wall that needed it.) Yeah, so I looked through my paints, found one that looked right, and painted. And it was a little darker, but I figured it would dry to match. It didn't. I cursed myself, realizing that the paint I had was actually the bathroom color. They're almost the exact same shade, but different tones -- a purplier vs/ a bluer.

I went back to the paint closet. I grabbed another can, and this time I stirred it carefully and held it up against the wall in the light. That one was definitely it. I painted the wall again. It wasn't it. It wasn't even almost the same shade; it was precisely the same shade. It was just a little more teal.

Sigh. Okay, fine, I prefer colors in one wee little part of the spectrum. Anyway, while I was in the garage getting our ten-year-old paperwork, I saw a small stack of two cans. Right in the damn open. In the WAY, in fact. The cans I had carefully picked out and set aside.

I guess what I'm saying is I'm a fuck-up, but I'm not a TOTAL fuck-up. I have the paint! I found the washer paperwork! I haven't gotten audited by the IRS, so I can throw away my 2002 tax paperwork! Can I get a whoo-hoo? I may not be organized, but I (eventually) get shit done.

The internets have gone crazy with meanness.

I might need a little internet break. People have... just lost focus on what's important, and that's fine for them, but I don't need to fill my leisure time with it.

To wit: Olympics coverage. Gabby Douglas is an amazing athlete. And I have now seen her picked apart for her hair and her outfits.

Breastfeeding. A feminist-leaning web site I usually enjoy regularly seems to attack motherhood, particularly natural parenting choices. It really blew up this week with an article that began thusly;"If you don't breastfeed your child (exclusively, and for a very long time) then you are an uneducated, selfish piece of shit who sucks at being a mother and doesn't love her baby enough to not bottle-feed it the equivalent of rat poison. Or at least, that's the way all this pro-breastfeeding sentiment is beginning to feel." I'm sensing some anger there. And having read people's stories in the comments, I understand the anger on both sides. But seriously, are we tearing each other down over this Breastfeeding was important to me, which is why I went to such great lengths to do it. But if some other woman chooses not to, it's not the end of the world. People make different choices. If we are busy loving our children and trying to make the best choices for our families, can't we all just get along? I mean, as far as I'm concerned, the fact that the U.S. has such piss-poor maternity leave policies compared to other countries is a much bigger deal. Can't we address that?

And then this morning on Facebook my cousin wrote a vociferously-worded rant against people with disabled placards getting free parking at the meters downtown. Initially, I agreed. A woman she cited said she would have to retire if they made her pay for parking. But probably thousands of other people work in Downtown Sacramento, pay for parking, and can still afford to work. Why not her? Well, I let it sit in my brain for a minute, and wondered if paying for parking also meant running to the meter every two hours. For me, that's a (somewhat annoying) cinch. If the elevator's slow, you dash downstairs. If you're really close to your two-hour limit, you jog the block or two. And you could certainly opt to take public transit -- that's what I did when I worked downtown. Of course, from my house (which is close enough to light rail for real estate ads to include it), it's still about an eight-block walk, plus however many blocks from the stop to your workplace, and today it's going to be 104 degrees here. You know, all of a sudden, instead of feeling angry about someone sucking off the public teat, I'm feeling very thankful for my good strong legs and feet and hips.

And there it is in a nutshell. The internet, lately, seems like a place for people who are cranky at the world or have a personal beef to shout about it, and no one seems interested in walking in the other guy's shoes. And it's making ME cranky, too.

Deep breath.

Those of you complaining about Gabby Douglas's hair probably didn't mean it in a cruel way. Perhaps you noticed her glowing smile and thought it would be complemented better by a recently-relaxed 'do. You wanted to see her look her best, because God knows her performance was among the best. And perhaps you have insecurities about your own hair, and if you had taken a minute to think about it, you never would have transferred those insecurities to a 16-year-old girl.

And the ladies who said they would formula-feed their babies just to spite the "breastfeeding Nazis" will likely look into their baby's face someday and do whatever they think is right for their child, and if they stopped to reflect on the horrors of the holocaust, they would take back that word and never call someone a Nazi lightly again.

And the breastfeeding advocates who do think formula feeding moms are selfish would probably keep that sentiment to themselves if only they knew how hard it was for the moms returning to work, or the moms who have trauma associated with their bodies, or the moms who are just too scared to not know exactly how much their babies are getting or the moms who are in physical pain.

And I think if my cousin thought of our charming uncle who walks with a cane after hip replacement surgery, pictured him walking a block or two to feed the meter every two hours all day, she would have a little more sympathy for those with disabled placards.

And you know, maybe there's a different way to pay for disabled parking. A sticker, or a FastTrack-like box. Perhaps it shouldn't just be free.

And I believe breastfeeding really is best for babies, and my belief is based in research. But maybe instead of bashing individual moms, we should work towards getting maternity leave for everyone. Maybe we should work to re-elect Obama, whose health care program just made breast pump rentals free. Maybe we should find other ways to support that choice, rather than insulting those who don't make it.

But attacking each other, calling each other Nazis and freeloaders just shows a lack of charity.

Oh, and speaking of the Facebook? I swear to god, if I get another "click like if you shopped at Woolworths/recognize Captain Kangaroo/know what an 8-track is" I don't know what I'll do. Seriously, when you were shopping at Woolworth's twenty years ago, did you imagine you'd feel nostalgic for it in the future? No! Because shopping at Woolworth's gave about the same amount of warm fuzzies as shopping at Rite-Aid today. Bah.