Breaker, Breaker, We've got a Code 10-31

They gave me a walkie-talkie at work.  It takes all my strength to avoid pressing the button when I pee.  

Speaking of excessive accessibility, my schedule is wide open tomorrow if anybody wants to start a pre-Thanksgiving tradition of feeding ducks or spray painting cornucopias on neighborhood groceries or whatever.

Fun!

Unusually Jovial, Uncomfortably Positive.

My face hurts from all the smiling going on around here.  This school is in the most self-congratulatory mood I have ever seen.  Thanks to all those parents who came out for conferences.  We appreciate your kind words and your presence.  And if, in the future, your child does poorly on the standardized tests we talked about, we'll blame the government.  Yay!  Everybody wins when you vilify a system outside your own!

On my desk, two items:

1. A ceramic steak burrito made by a student.  

2. A bowl of dead batteries in a potpourri of brands.  If you're interested in using them for some type of experimental art, please contact me before I throw them into the proper receptacle five years from now.

Makes Shopping a Bit More Complicated

It is Saturday and I forgot I have a blog since I haven't seen it in a while. New firewalls at work. V. Alarming.
In other (equally upsetting) news, I think I'm allergic to caffeine. I gave it up after much headaching weirdness two weeks ago, and today needed a little boost before my read-aloud to a class of misfits (enter Diet Pepsi). Now I'm feeling like maybe somebody punched me in the heart when I wasn't looking. Thumpthumpthumpthump (breath) thump tha thump thump, etc, etc.
(Probably in no way connected to the 25 donut holes I ate, so I won't even mention them.)
(But if I were to mention them, I would give an slightly unrealistic number so you would know I was joking.)
(But it would be closer to the real total than I'd ever admit in person.)
Johnny told me this week that I should start working on a stand-up routine. It's not like the three jobs I'm working take up that much time, so I'm looking into it. Joke ideas so far:

• Whoever invented paperclips obviously didn't intend for them to be used as barrettes. But I think things with similar names should be put near each other in the supermarket. Paperclips are by hairclips, which are by noseclippers and giant clipper boats. All in the same aisle.
• Something about planetariums.

Julie Should Have Used a Ballot Cover

As Nicki and I left our polling place yesterday, we stopped outside a first grade class hearing their own votes read aloud:

Teacher: "....Obama"
The class: "Yay!"
Teacher: "Obama"
The class: "Yay!"
Teacher: "Obama"
The class: "Yay!"
Teacher: "Ok, students, let's tally up our votes. How many for McCain?"
The class: "One!"
Little boy: "That's Julie!"
Teacher: "How many for Obama?"
The class: "Five, Ten, Fifteen, Twenty...."

GObama! DON'TGOFrankenOrColeman!

Gargle.
Gasp.
Choking on my bubbly water.
I need to get to NYC stat. Chris just voted next to Serena van der Woodsen.
Vote, Jerks. I know you don't need the reminder, but I would be sad if you forgot that today was THE day, and you just went about your business, dusting the corner table, murmuring to yourself like that guy in Calhoun Square.
Also, Halloween.
Just to come full Gossip Girl Circle, here: if I thought more people would know who I was, I would have gone as Blair Waldorf, running for president. My platform: headbands for everyone!

They Do a Play, a Musical, but It's About Themselves and They're in It.

I gave blood! I have a total needle wound!
My little friend, Anna, waited until I was captive on the blood sucking machine, to reenact the entirety of HSM3.
I felt a lot nervous and a little chilly, but I had waited too long to back out. [A history of my attempts to poison America.]
Later I took my woozy stomach and some theater geek friends to the Guthrie eve to see Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, starring this guy. There was also blood in this! It is the human experience, is it not?! Tension! Tragedy!
If you're free this weekend, and you want to see something impressive, you have choices:

1. HSM3
2. Anna's rendition of HSM3
3. A View from the Bridge
4. My rendition of A View from the Bridge. Note: performance can occur while you donate blood, or not.

An Excellent Expressor of Reason and Logic

My book budget has tipped the scales. But just you try to say no to a hardbound anthology edited by Jeffrey Eugenides.
I thought so.
Bookclub made an out-of-state trek last weekend to Amery, WI. Lovely everything, except for the townies who gave us the stink eye for crashing their Saturday night bar party. Well, how-dee-doo, Alpha Females. Aren't we a little threatened by five women with unwashed hair and bits of yarn and paper stuck to their sweaters?
On the job front: had a meeting with the Big Bossman today and all went well, in that I did not cry. It could have gone better, in that I basically got the "Prove your worth to this organization in ways we can measure with test scores" message. I think my message: "Get me a full time masseuse and I'll change the life of your school forever or just actually hand me the damn tests and I'll take them myself" really came across.

Really?

Another long weekend gone. I love Castaway. It is one-stop shopping for sleep deprivation and Jesus. This year we heard from speaker, Bill Paige, about keeping it real. Don't front. God already knows.
I'm still waiting for his list of Christian hip hop artists cause Neighbor, you know I love me some hip hop.
Since I come bearing no photographic evidence of waxing Eddie's back on stage, here's Pelican Lake as interpreted with Microsoft Paint and a certain level of exhaustion.

Backing Slowly Away from the Cage

Two gems from the last week, since it was otherwise filled with rocks:

• Rin: "It's the dude with the billy goat beard. Can we all agree that 9 times out of 10 it's the guy with the billy goat beard?" In this case, the billy goat beard was the one smoking up in public, outdoors, at 1 pm.
• Chris: "I'd hire you to write my life, and to provide me with huge, fictional sandwiches." Because in my first screenplay rom-com ever, "Margot and Chris," about Margot, a Canadian, and the lovely Chris, who meet in NYC, they spend the third scene at a deli eating huge sandwiches. Perhaps that quote began with adequate context.
  

So it was another week full of drama and exhaustion. This job is killing me -- loudly, with punches, and scenes in the lunchroom. Get me out of here. In fact, get everybody out of here. Let's start over: a charter school for non-person-to-person violence. If you get into a fight at this new school, we will throw you into the lion's cage and walk away. Because we didn't say anything about animal-to-person violence. And everybody signed the waiver.

Accountability

I'm getting angry. In the five years I have worked here, I have seen too many students come back to visit me with giant proud grins: I'm gonna have a baby!
Um... great.
I ask about their plans. I ask about the other half of the DNA. "Are you together?"
Most often I get something like, "Oh, no. That piece of trash? All he's good for now is sending child support."
And what I really want to say is this: That piece of trash? Really? You let somebody put part of their garbage self inside of you? So that you could feel loved for a moment? You selfish brat. For the record, almost anybody can make a baby. And this one deserves two parents who are fully present to care for it. You are not special, nor are you original. You are a pretty unimpressive statistic, on the whole. At least you graduated first.