since I last posted. That’s just your imagination.

Last week, one of my bilingual students, one of the ones who speaks and writes no English, spontaneously used an English word in one of her stories. The students had been chanting, “Read! Read! Read!” to get me to attempt reading her work in Spanish, and I gave in, if only because it made sense; I’ve been asking them to take a lot of risks, I guess I should take one too, no? So, anyway, I’m reading along, butchering the Spanish, giving them plenty to chuckle about, and I come to the word “house.” I stopped before I said it, and turned to Maria, and she said, “casa,” as if she thought perhaps I didn’t know how to pronounce it. I said, “No, Maria, it doesn’t say ‘casa.’ It says ‘house.’” I got up and showed her and she flashed me a smile of surprise and pride that literally blinded me. I was thrilled. I said, “Did you know you used the English word?” Someone started to translate my question for her, but she was already shaking her head “no.” Awesome, no?

In my special ed kids class, I barely got out last time without killing someone. The brightest kid in the class refused to participate and spent the entire time folding paper into little claws which he fitted over his fingers. He threw rolled-up bits of paper into the middle of the semi-circle. He stared at me in utter defiance the entire time. Fortunately, I have been well trained to completely ignore those who attempt to get my attention in a negative way, and I did not beat him. I just ignored him, for the most part, aside from periodically trying to draw him into what was going on. Of course, the teacher was absent that day, and today when I taught, he was there, and things went much better, if only because I completely abandoned my set-in-stone plan and winged it. Wung it? Is wung a word? The teacher was part of the process as was the aide, and I think these kids might actually have learned something. Most of them wrote, except for the paper-claw kid, who still refused to participate, but really seemed to want to. I’ll get him yet, the little bastard. He’s extremely adept at playing mind games, and I just have to keep reminding myself that I am NOT 13 years old. I am an adult.

Anyway, Thanksgiving was pleasant. No one argued, so that’s always a plus. I ate so much I couldn’t get drunk if I’d put a straw in a bottle of Grey Goose and sucked on it all day long. Although, I certainly tried. I thought, for about five minutes, about all the things I’m thankful for. I couldn’t really think of anything.

Just kidding. I’m thankful for all kinds of stuff. I’m thankful for my wonderful, usually well-behaved kids, and that they’re smart and healthy. I’m thankful for my husband, who lets me get away with all kinds of crap and only yells at me a little. I’m thankful for my great family-I have awesome parents and brothers, and also in-laws I can stand hanging out with, which sounds like I’m belittling them somewhat, but some people have some really awful in-laws. I do not. I like them all. I have a gaggle of beautiful, healthy, sweet nieces and nephews and it’s really fun to play with them and then when they poop in their diapers or get whiny, I can send them to someone who cares.

I’m really, really thankful for my new kitchen. My new kitchen is fantastic. I made enchiladas for dinner tonight. In my kitchen. The table is back in the dining room now, but is already covered with mail and random crap, so everybody ate in random places, so things are back to normal. I’ll be thankful when my basement has carpet. And when it does? I’m going to go down there, before we put any furniture down there, and I’m going to play loud music and run and skip around. Of course, I’ll be bumping into a lot of walls because my basement is teeny, but it’ll be fun anyway.

I’m thankful that I haven’t had enough to drink to write a bunch of sappy crap about thankfulness and whatnot.  Because Thanksgiving, is, like, so last week.

I’m thankful that this girl in one of my classes told me a little story about just discovering that her boyfriend is addicted to whippets.  And by that I mean, just in case you don’t know, he inhales the nitrous oxide from the little canisters you can buy at both sex shops and Williams Sonoma for use in a whipped-cream canister to dispense whipped cream.  As she put it, he was doing up to 500 a day.  Of course, he’d be brain dead, but whatever!  What a hilarious fucking story that is!  Imagine sitting around in a group session in rehab, and everybody’s telling about their addictions, and among the booze, crack, heroin, you’ve got this guy who blurts out, “Nitrous!  I’m totally addicted to nitrous!”

How could she not have known?  I mean, weren’t there shitloads of little metal canisters around the house?  Wasn’t there a cacophony of high-pitched metallic clanking every time she took out the garbage?   What kind of pussy-boy addiction is that anyway?  I’m also thankful that I have almost no morals and don’t give a shit about talking about this ridiculous story.  Eventually, people will realize that nearly everything they tell me might make it onto the internet, and they’ll stop telling me shit.

Okay, what else?   I don’t know.  I’m rockin’ along on my thesis, at least I’m laboring under that delusion until my adviser calls me up and says, “What is this shit?  Are you retarded?”

I’m TOTALLY thankful for my friends, especially those writer friends of mine (JULIA!!!  FRANK!!!  MEREDITH!!!  DARWYN!!!) who invited me to join them on Sunday to sit around and drink beer and write in company, and that we all grooved along on a lovely writerly groove and got a lot done.  I’m also thankful that this is my blog, and if I want to use variations of the word groovy twice in one sentence, I can get away with it.  And there’s only a couple of my regular readers who will bother to make fun of me for it.

Okay, is that enough to make up for not blogging for 10 days?  The semester is almost over, so things are busy busy, but then there’s a whole long-ass break from class and teaching, and I’ll have all kinds of blogging time.  Of course, I’ll be whining about my kids being home from school for two weeks, but that’s okay.

First of all, no, the kitchen is not yet complete.  But it is complete enough for me to have spent the entire weekend putting shit away, and complete enough for me to cook.  With gas.  Because I now have a gas cooktop.  I grew up with gas, and love cooking with it, but I’ve spent the last 12 years cooking on an electric stove.  Which sucks.  And?  My gas cooktop has one burner with something it proclaims is “POWER BOIL,” which essentially (I assume) means that I can put a pot on that burner, turn on Power Boil, and three or four seconds later, be ready to toss in the spaghetti.  I haven’t tried it yet, so don’t you dare try bursting my damn bubble.  I’m aware it might take, say, three minutes.

Anyway, check it:

This is Anthony in the upper pantry cabinet.  This was a couple of weeks ago. 

This is Anthony being a goofball, getting ready to eat a bowl full of peas.  You know what I love?  Is that my kitchen is already a messy hole of food containers and dirty plates.  That’s the way WE ROLL in this house.

A slightly different view.  That’s Jed, the fat-ass Brittany, in front of the fridge.  He’s hoping Anthony will drop something.  He’s hoping for some sour cream or butter or cheese, but all he’s going to get is a pea, and then he’ll try to eat it, hate it, and spit it back up on the floor.  Because that’s the way HE rolls.  Stupid dog.

My new favorite place in the whole world.  Note:  laptop, vodka tonic, telephone, fresh bottle of Grey Goose my bro brought to me last night as a kitchen-warming present (thanks, bro).

That’s where I do all the damn dishes.  Do you like my Cookie Monster cookie jar?  I had a dream, many years ago, and it involved a Cookie Monster cookie jar.  I wrote it up in a class, when we were directed to write a dream (and I’d dig it up, but that would require me to plug in a couple of ancient computers and search on them for old files).  And a few years ago, I was at some shoddy craft fair, and saw this Cookie Monster cookie jar, and HAD to HAVE it.  There’s never any cookies in it (they go from pan into mouth, whoever is stupid enough to have done this hops around in the kitchen pointing to their open mouth, from which steam is shooting, going “Anh!  Anh!” while I say, “I just took those out of the damn oven, you idiot!”).  However, I bought some chocolate chips at the store tonight, so maybe I’ll make some cookies and put them in the cookie jar, just for fun.

I’m confused about why I took this picture from this angle, but you can see my gas cooktop from here.  And my AWESOME microwave.  My awesome microwave that also bakes. 

Here’s the interior of my pantry, and a bunch of small appliances I hardly ever use in the upper portion, where Anthony was stashed in the first picture of this post. 

I am fully aware that none of this is of any interest to anyone but me.  But it’s my damn blog.  So there.

Reservoir

Check it out! I will not make any public admissions about how well I know the woman who wrote this, or about the fact that I also write for Reservoir. There is no nepotism or anything unseemly involved here. I swear.

But I am most DEFINITELY going to buy Miss Molly several cocktails next time I see her.

that Britney Spears has, for reals, y’all, dumped that loser Kevin Federline, and is about to make the world’s most awesome comeback ever.

I am fully aware that there are lots more important things to worry about in the world.

I also hope that people, and by people I mean girls and women who are compelled to purchase and then wear clothing that keeps coming back every twenty years, cease and desist in the wearing of LEGGINGS. And by leggings, I mean, “pants” that are tight enough to make cellulite obvious, which end at the biggest part of one’s calf. Those things are just WRONG. WRONG I SAY. If you all stop buying them, they’ll end up on the sale rack for $3.99. And if you still, regardless of the seeming value of them, resist buying them? They’ll go away. And while it might be nice if the big retailers of the world gave away the clothes that don’t sell, even for 99 fucking cents on the sale rack, to the homeless? They don’t. Which means, with my little scenario here, we won’t be forced to give our pocket change to people dressed in pants that are too tight and too short. This little rehash of the eighties will disappear.

I don’t actually know what I’m talking about. I’m in a bad hotel in a town that is too far away to be considered a suburb of Chicago, typing away as my kids watch Kim Possible (love this show, Kim Possible is THE BEST multi-tasker EVER) at 11:48 p.m., while my husband is in the bad bar across the street with a gaggle of his high school friends. (Oh my! Kim is moving at hyper-speed! I need to watch. She’s moving so fast, time is standing still. I need to watch and learn. Bye.)

UPDATE: FYI: It appears that the hyper speed is due to some fantastic pair of shoes. I MUST GET A PAIR RIGHT NOW!

feeling small and thinking big.

There’s been a lot going on in my life lately. So much going on, truly, that I’ve been kind of mucking my way through my days, trying to keep a smile on my face, trying to remember that every day is a moment of time that can be either gotten through or enjoyed for what if gives. Some days give crap, to be honest. But most days give, at the very least, one moment to be grateful for.
I have a class full of bilingual students (english-spanish, or should I say, spanish-english), 5th graders, and I am trying my little (hard, cold) heart out to teach them to write. Or, maybe, to give them the opportunity to write and to make that 2 hour opportunity the best goddamn 2 hour opportunity per week they’ve ever, or might ever, have. Had? How to properly write that sentence? I don’t know. I’m a writing teacher. But I’ve not got the fortitude to puzzle that sentence out right now. I trust you, dear readers, know what the hell I’m talking about.

Anyway, 23, 24, something like that, bilingual students. Two do not speak or write a word of English, but I know they’re getting some of what’s going on because they remain, after three weeks, enthusiastic and excited to be in my precious little semi-circle. They want to write, they want to learn. Right now? I’m having them write in spanish, participate in our word games and oral tellings in spanish, and the other kids translate for them and for me. I can’t even begin to take on the task of teaching them english. But I can set myself a goal to get them to the point where they can write a solid paragraph in english by the end of our 10 weeks together (with LOTS of help from their regular classroom teacher, bless her fantastic heart). Several are borderline. They can puzzle out reading aloud a story in English, but they have to be given permission to use spanish words in their writing if they don’t know the english. I don’t want the language barrier to block what they want to say. I’ll figure it all out in the end, if I have to beg my husband’s Mexican helper to help me translate their work. This is a challenge for me, because I can’t just go in and do my well-rehearsed thing with a bunch of states-born, english-speaking white kids and hope for the best, hope they’ve gotten their (or somebody else’s) money’s worth. I have to figure out ways to make what I do work for them. And every goddamn moment of it is sweetly gratifying.

Beginning next Wednesday, I will be doing this very same thing with a class of 13 special-ed kids. And this is the real special-ed. This is a class full of letter-designations. LD, ED, ADD, ADHD, ADD off meds, speech impediments (HUGE speech impediments), truly? There’s a bunch of letters assigned to these kids and I don’t know what the fuck they all mean. Two full-blown mentally retarded kids. They’re eighth-graders. I’ve not officially met them, but I’ve observed them while talking with their teacher, and I am so blown away by the opportunity I have been given to teach them, you have no idea. Their teacher ROCKS their world, and they don’t even know it. His last name’s Capone (we’re in Chicago, mind you), he’s got Soprano’s posters on the walls, he’s a big, portly Italian man with his SHIT in ORDER, and he takes no guff. He’s the man with the plan, and his plan is to teach these kids something before they leave his special room. I’m not sure I’ve got what it takes to do what he does. He has these kids every day, all day, all school-year, and when they leave him? They leave him. He has only the time he’s given to do what he can, and he loves every single one of them, that was apparent in the 45 minutes we sat in his room and talked, while he maintained control and somehow managed to continue to teach while we talked. I’m in fucking AWE of this man. I don’t know if I could handle the drain, honestly. I don’t know how I’ll handle the drain that will happen in the two hours I’ll have with these kids each week. But I take my cue from him, Mr. Capone, he of the pasta-red-wine-belly and the Soprano’s posters. Give them what you can, as much as you can, and pray for the best.

I think these kids will teach me a LOT more than I’ll end up teaching them. Bless every one of their labeled heads.

I never, in a million years, thought that this would be something I would WANT to do. If you’da told me that I’d HAVE to do this, I’da said, okay, sure, I’ll do that, if it means at the end I can make ONE MILLION DOLLARS teaching kids who were afforded a well-funded education to write better than they’ve already been taught to, so that it’s not too TAXING on my mental health, so that I can, at the end of the day, go home and write my own shit. But truthfully? I cannot fucking wait for next Wednesday.

I’ll be sure to let you know how that all flies, but I’ve got ideas coming out of my ears how to engage these kids, including giving them the chance to publish their work to the web (via a blog? Wouldn’t that be great?). I think that (and this may very well be my biggest strength, in this as well as in the rest of my life) my best bet is to be fucking honest with them. To lay it out there for them. This isn’t fair, that they’ve got these fucked-up disabilities and problems and issues and roadblocks-to-learning that “regular” kids don’t have. But that they can make the best of it. They can, at the very least, find a way to let the world know what’s in their heads every day. And maybe, they can make some kind of difference in the world. They might be able to knock somebody’s block off. They might find a way to express themselves in a way that their “regular” education doesn’t give them a chance to do.

I don’t know what will happen with this. I do know that I want to do my damnedest to give them SOMETHING. Like I said, I never in a million years, would have predicted that this would be something I wanted to do. I want to do this. Truthfully? For myself as much as for them.

I had a tutee (meaning, someone I tutored), who I couldn’t help. This broke my fucking heart. And really? That’s hard to fucking do. Most days, my heart is a million splinters puzzled together and held in place by a giant wad of duct tape. This girl managed to spread those splinters around on the ground again. Maybe I’m too easy. Maybe I’m really just a soft, unprotected wad of cotton balls. Maybe. Duct tape is fucking STRONG, people. That’s why we’re supposed to line our windows with it in case of some kind of terrorist attack. My heart is wrapped in so much fucking duct tape, it might as well be a fucking rock. But this? This was a razor blade. A super-sharp, just-sharpened razor blade. And now, I’m a bit raw. I keep telling myself not to be so damn raw, to let it roll off me like any other stupid thing. But it isn’t working.

Truthfully? I’m angry. I’m angry for many, many reasons. Some of them:

1. I’m angry that I don’t have the ability to help her. I wish I could. And this is why I chose to pursue a combined degree in Creative Writing and Teaching of Writing. Because my cold, hard, splintered, held-together-by-duct-tape heart can’t handle the once-thought-brilliant plan to be a psychologist-counselor-yadda-yadda. I can do it on an amateur basis, when I know the people I do my amateur-psychologist bit with aren’t going to go home and shower 12 times, wash their hands for 6 hours, and lay prostrate on the ground in prayer. They’ll just go out for a couple drinks. Or 10. Usually, with me.

2. I’m angry at the educational system of this country in general. I’m angry, yet heartened, by the open-admissions policy of Columbia College. I’m angry that not everybody can realize their dreams. I’m angry that I have the opportunity and intelligence and ability and talent to realize my own, but I might not, because I might have to do the laundry instead. I’m angry that I’m not, at this moment, fully grokking the lesson that was put in front of me with my interaction with this young woman.

3. I’m angry at myself for not taking advantage of the opportunities that have been laid (lain? lied? laid down?) at my feet. And there’s a lot of them. I should be grateful, and am, but there are a lot of people out there who would do anything to have what I’ve been given.

I can’t go on with all that right now.

I said I had a lot going on.  My kitchen and basement are being remodeled (yet another thing I should be, and am, incredibly grateful for), and it has thrown my regular routine into utter chaos.  Laundry?  Sure!  When I can get into the basement, and nobody is spraying trim-paint all over the fucking place, or sawing trim boards, or putting up drywall, whatever.  Washing dishes?  No problem!  Just let me get into the basement.  Cooking?  Sure!  What can I get you?  I’ll just go outside and stand in sub-30 degrees in the morning and microwave you some fucking Aunt Jemima frozen pancakes!

I am, seriously, outside every morning at 6:30, grinding coffee beans for my husband’s morning coffee.  I’m about done with this shit.  I’m out there in my jammies, some shoes, and a fucking winter coat.  This is ridiculous.  But almost over.  The granite guy is my new hero, and he’s installing early next week.  The floor guys are back on Thursday and Friday, and we’re going to be gone all weekend at a wedding, and when we return?  Counters installed, floors shiny, and then the remaining appliances get installed and we’re in fucking business.

And out of money.

I’m also teaching on Saturdays in a rather fantastic program called Teens Together that is funded, in part, by the Chicago Park District, in partnership with the Columbia College Fiction Writing Department and Music Theater Workshop (MTW), where we recruit awesome teens from all over the city to write, take part in theater games, and at the end, come up with a big-ole cohesive story from which we (they) will write a musical play, and spend next summer performing it, with help from still more teens.  It’s an awesome thing.   And on Sunday, I start a 5-week stint teaching SGI writing classes in Joliet.  I’m pretty sure that Thursday is my only day during which I have nothing to do for other people, although I guess that’ll be the day I need to spend doing laundry and taking care of other people, namely my family.  I hope my children forgive me for all of this one day.  Because right now?  I’m bordering on negligent.

Alright.  Enough of the self-serving whining crap.  How boring is this?  Blah, blah, yadda yadda! For Christ’s sake, VikiBabbles!  Make fun of somebody already!  Talk about drinking vodka!  Be funny!

Heh!

And, my CHILDREN and their FRIENDS (hello Doogie!) showed this to me:

Shoes

And here’s another, which may or may not be all that funny, but is totally hilarious when you’re sitting at your computer, surrounded by 9-11 year-olds, being told what to watch.:  Muffins!

I checked my email this morning and found that someone had left a comment on a brief post I wrote last year: Man in Diaper?  Huh?
Uh, don_dipe? Thanks for sharing. Really.