Ann's in the other room listening to and watching shrub. I can't do it. I made her close the bedroom door. My stomach hurts. I can hear the applause through the shared wall between the office and the bedroom. Even that makes me sick.
How can anyone applaud?
And now Alito on the Court.
And Cindy Sheehan arrested (or so Ann tells me).
Maybe that's what we all need to do...get arrested in protest of incompetence. In protest to lies and deceit. In protest of captialism. In protest to this pathetic thing they call democracy. In protest to this death weilding icon they call patriotism.
In protest to the monitoring of what I type this very minute on my computer from home that is now soaked in rain thanks to global warming.
Don't worry. It's just menopause speaking.
No damnit, I'm pissed! Who said, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention"?
I'm not paying attention (to the TV right now...to the state of the union) and I'm still outraged.
Ann is a better person than I.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
The Uninvited
95% of teaching is not about content...it's about surveying, mapping, and then tracking the soul of adolescence. It's about navigating the rough terrain of emotions, confusion, and insecurity.
Remember Middle School? Or if you are of a certain age, Junior High?
What do we remember? What did we learn?
Sure there were probably bright spots -- teachers who meant something to us, who taught us something useful -- but if we weigh the crap of our experience against the fertile compost of it, which would weigh more?
For me, the crap.
I think about that often when I'm working with my students. In ten years, what will they remember of this experience? Am I falling into the crap pile or the fertile pile?
Some days it's a toss up.
Case in point:
Small, private school. 22 students in the class and two teachers (yes, two). The students come from all over, applying to the school because they believe in the "mission", or they want a more focused education, or they are tired of swimming in the sewage of the overworked, underpaid, and overcrowded public schools (where I taught for 18 years, so I know of what I speak). Since the students don't really know each other in Septemeber, we spend a lot of time "community building", but developing friendships takes time and it's right about now (it happens every year like this) that the kids start to see who has bonded with whom. They have, in essence, created their own visual map of friendships.
Some kids are excellent at making friends. They flit from one group to the next, comfortably discussing movies and music, silly stories and imaginary friends. Other students are painfully shy (and I do mean painfully...one girl has said all of 10 words to me this whole year...but we're working on that one!) and aren't certain how to go about asking another student on a "playdate" or inviting another student to join them on cushions during reading time.
And there are a whole bunch of students in the middle -- some friendships developed, but they are, by no means, the "popular" kids.
So we spend hours, literally hours, talking about strategies for making friendships -- how to be invited into a game or how to invite someone else; how to talk to someone you don't know or ask questions of someone who might be a possible friend; how to carry on conversations that aren't always focused on yourself...and on and on and on.
But recently, two students (twins) asked some of the other students to their birthday party. Notice the focus on "some other students"...not everyone in the class got invited.
And oh the tears...how can this be? I'm friends with that friend who's a friend of yours and a friend of the twins!! How come I didn't get invited? That's it! I'm not inviting them to my party (as one parent said, "oh great, a vengence party").
Where do we begin?
Dream response: Well, kids, it's a fact of life. Friends are far and few between...treasure the few you've got because they are worth their weight in gold. I know it hurts, but thems the way the dice have fallen and you best get used to it because from here on out, it's gonna be a series of "un" invitations. Besides, do you invite everyone to YOUR birthday party?
Actual response: Today, I think we need to talk about friendship. What are the responsibilities of a friend and what are the benefits? How many friends do you need? Do friendships stay constant?
We'll spend hours on this, too and I know, in the long run, these experiences will land me in the fertile memory pile, but this kind of teaching is exhausting. Emotional energy.
And still there will be hurt feelings because when you're 10 or 11, it's all about feeling, isn't it?
So much for the killer bioaccumulation science activity we planned for tomorrow!
Remember Middle School? Or if you are of a certain age, Junior High?
What do we remember? What did we learn?
Sure there were probably bright spots -- teachers who meant something to us, who taught us something useful -- but if we weigh the crap of our experience against the fertile compost of it, which would weigh more?
For me, the crap.
I think about that often when I'm working with my students. In ten years, what will they remember of this experience? Am I falling into the crap pile or the fertile pile?
Some days it's a toss up.
Case in point:
Small, private school. 22 students in the class and two teachers (yes, two). The students come from all over, applying to the school because they believe in the "mission", or they want a more focused education, or they are tired of swimming in the sewage of the overworked, underpaid, and overcrowded public schools (where I taught for 18 years, so I know of what I speak). Since the students don't really know each other in Septemeber, we spend a lot of time "community building", but developing friendships takes time and it's right about now (it happens every year like this) that the kids start to see who has bonded with whom. They have, in essence, created their own visual map of friendships.
Some kids are excellent at making friends. They flit from one group to the next, comfortably discussing movies and music, silly stories and imaginary friends. Other students are painfully shy (and I do mean painfully...one girl has said all of 10 words to me this whole year...but we're working on that one!) and aren't certain how to go about asking another student on a "playdate" or inviting another student to join them on cushions during reading time.
And there are a whole bunch of students in the middle -- some friendships developed, but they are, by no means, the "popular" kids.
So we spend hours, literally hours, talking about strategies for making friendships -- how to be invited into a game or how to invite someone else; how to talk to someone you don't know or ask questions of someone who might be a possible friend; how to carry on conversations that aren't always focused on yourself...and on and on and on.
But recently, two students (twins) asked some of the other students to their birthday party. Notice the focus on "some other students"...not everyone in the class got invited.
And oh the tears...how can this be? I'm friends with that friend who's a friend of yours and a friend of the twins!! How come I didn't get invited? That's it! I'm not inviting them to my party (as one parent said, "oh great, a vengence party").
Where do we begin?
Dream response: Well, kids, it's a fact of life. Friends are far and few between...treasure the few you've got because they are worth their weight in gold. I know it hurts, but thems the way the dice have fallen and you best get used to it because from here on out, it's gonna be a series of "un" invitations. Besides, do you invite everyone to YOUR birthday party?
Actual response: Today, I think we need to talk about friendship. What are the responsibilities of a friend and what are the benefits? How many friends do you need? Do friendships stay constant?
We'll spend hours on this, too and I know, in the long run, these experiences will land me in the fertile memory pile, but this kind of teaching is exhausting. Emotional energy.
And still there will be hurt feelings because when you're 10 or 11, it's all about feeling, isn't it?
So much for the killer bioaccumulation science activity we planned for tomorrow!
And more rain...
The problem with this much rain is that you begin to feel as if you ARE rain. Even for a long-time resident of the Pacific Northwest this rain is too, too much. That's what helped me hold on for so long -- rain like the bejeezuz then sunshine or at least light greyness. Change in weather, that's what I like. Mix it up a bit more dramatically. But now the light greyness or even the bit of sun we do get (like yesterday) is taunting since it is always followed by (at least this year) more and more rain -- steady and driving.
I met a friend of mine on the bus the other day. I asked how she was surviving the rain. She said, "Oh, I love the rain."
She is not from here. She is from California. Of course she loves the rain.
So I asked, "Did you ever get tired of the sunshine in California?"
She said, "Yes, that's why I moved here. I couldn't stand the same weather day in and day out."
Go figure. To me it feels like the same weather day in and day out. Only this weather ain't sunshine or blue skies.
It's rain.
And more rain.
I met a friend of mine on the bus the other day. I asked how she was surviving the rain. She said, "Oh, I love the rain."
She is not from here. She is from California. Of course she loves the rain.
So I asked, "Did you ever get tired of the sunshine in California?"
She said, "Yes, that's why I moved here. I couldn't stand the same weather day in and day out."
Go figure. To me it feels like the same weather day in and day out. Only this weather ain't sunshine or blue skies.
It's rain.
And more rain.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Worlds Unknown
We met with our designer yesterday morning. She's quite wonderful at what she does. Since both of us have simple tastes and have never moved beyond eclectic "used" furniture, it's fun to see the possibilities.
And what possibilities there are! Colors, textures, shapes, sizes...my god, it's such a different world from our teacher's perspective.
This happens a lot for me...I get so focused in on what I do for a living (teaching, being with kids, grading papers) I forget there is a larger world out there. Every time we meet with the architect or the builder and now our designer, I see glimpses of the this larger world and then realize that there are hundreds of more "other worlds" out there, each with its own set of descriptors and components.
Then I went to our school's auction night. I've never been to an auction. My god, what an experience. I've never felt so out of place in so many ways.
First, I'm not the kind to get dressed up in anything fancy or girly. I knew last night would be evening gowns and heels and the more I thought about it, the more nervous I got that nothing I had in terms of clothing (since most of it is boxed up and in storage during the remodel) was truly appropriate for such an evening.
Let me back up...added to my wardrobe crisis, I didn't really want to go to this thing. I considered it "work", kibbitzing with parents on one of my day's off, which is something I avoid doing (I want clear lines between my professional life and my personal one). So, not feeling like I had anything appropriate to wear on top of not wanting to really go made my anxiety level rise, rise, rise.
A half hour before I was supposed to get ready, I made Ann go shopping with me at the local ritzy mall just down the street from the house we're living in during our remodel. She was a good sport. Actually, she was more than that as she eventually picked out the shirt/jackety thing I ended up buying (for $135...so much for any money for an auction item!). I figured if I was going to the auction out of obligation rather than desire, I might as well purchase an appropriate "costume" so I could take on a whole different personna than my usual casual teacher role.
But nothing prepared me for the experience of an auction/fundraiser! Sure, I felt comfortable in my clothing, but I wasn't showing any skin like many of the folks, staff and faculty included. Nor did I really understand the world of "open bars", bidding rituals, and accessory diamond jewelery. It was phenomenal.
Once the whole thing started, sitted with my co-workers and feeling a tad bit more comfortable, I was once again blown away by the young woman in her sleeveless evening gown running the auction like some pro at a cattle show.
And the bidding started...and the money flowed just like the booze and after like 10 items going for thousands of dollars, I thought, there's no way anybody has any money left...what are they going to do because there were 30 items left to go!
But the money kept flowing and rich people stood up on their chairs to raise their auction numbers and bidding wars broke out over handmade quilts (one went for $1300 and it was a quilt with digital photographs of my students holding our class chickens...yes, chickens...and all I could think was, hey, wait a minute, I took those photographs!!) and weekends in the San Juans and time-shares in Cabo and fighter jet flying experiences and chocolate mousse in martini glasses ($700!).
Needless to say, my auction number never made it out of my packet. My colleagues played with theirs, throwing them in the air at $100 and then laughing as the bids went higher and higher. Jesus.
There was even a raffle (I bought one ticket for $5, which turned out to be $5.50 with the surcharge!) and whoever won the raffle got half the raffle pot, which turned out to be $900. The woman who won was sitting at the VIP table, which I realized meant she was rich, and she turned around and donated her winnings back to the school. If I had won the thought of donating it back to the school never would have crossed my mind. I would have whooped it up, danced a little jig, and run up to the podium to get my cash, baby!
What a fool I would have been, eh?
Ann and I live comfortably. Sure, we're saving our money, pinching pennies as we try to remodel our house without breaking the bank, but only when I'm in the world of the rich, do I see how different our lives are from those who can toss out $1000 here and there with no thought at all...well, except for the tax deduction they can claim.
One of our faculty members comes from a lot of family wealth. I spoke of my amazement at how much the money was flowing and she said that it's just a fun way for people to donate. It never crossed my mind that "donating" was about fun or that it might even be boring so you have to create entertaining ways to experience it. All the donations I've given were well-thought-out commitments to charities (like Heifer International) who I believed to be doing good work (Red Cross for earthquake and tsunami relief).
Yes, our school does good work...very good work, but I never thought those who donated money needed an "event" to make their giving feel more pleasureable.
A whole different world, I tell you, a whole different world.
Which brings me back to our designer...I'm so glad she makes us feel worthy of her time. I know she works with some big-time clients (Microsoft executives and Amazon big-wigs), but she's been all about budget and creative cost-cutting when she's with us and never at the expense of "cheap" or "ugly" choices.
Not until my auction experience did I realize what a dance she must have to perform with her clients. I asked her once if there were any difference between working with people like us (teachers on a limited budget) and the wealthy. She said that there were no differences really except that the wealthy wanted to overspend far more than the middle class and that folks like us had a better sense of working within a budget.
After last night's auction, I can see what she means. Holy Jesus.
At least I got a nice new shirt/jacket out of the experience!
And what possibilities there are! Colors, textures, shapes, sizes...my god, it's such a different world from our teacher's perspective.
This happens a lot for me...I get so focused in on what I do for a living (teaching, being with kids, grading papers) I forget there is a larger world out there. Every time we meet with the architect or the builder and now our designer, I see glimpses of the this larger world and then realize that there are hundreds of more "other worlds" out there, each with its own set of descriptors and components.
Then I went to our school's auction night. I've never been to an auction. My god, what an experience. I've never felt so out of place in so many ways.
First, I'm not the kind to get dressed up in anything fancy or girly. I knew last night would be evening gowns and heels and the more I thought about it, the more nervous I got that nothing I had in terms of clothing (since most of it is boxed up and in storage during the remodel) was truly appropriate for such an evening.
Let me back up...added to my wardrobe crisis, I didn't really want to go to this thing. I considered it "work", kibbitzing with parents on one of my day's off, which is something I avoid doing (I want clear lines between my professional life and my personal one). So, not feeling like I had anything appropriate to wear on top of not wanting to really go made my anxiety level rise, rise, rise.
A half hour before I was supposed to get ready, I made Ann go shopping with me at the local ritzy mall just down the street from the house we're living in during our remodel. She was a good sport. Actually, she was more than that as she eventually picked out the shirt/jackety thing I ended up buying (for $135...so much for any money for an auction item!). I figured if I was going to the auction out of obligation rather than desire, I might as well purchase an appropriate "costume" so I could take on a whole different personna than my usual casual teacher role.
But nothing prepared me for the experience of an auction/fundraiser! Sure, I felt comfortable in my clothing, but I wasn't showing any skin like many of the folks, staff and faculty included. Nor did I really understand the world of "open bars", bidding rituals, and accessory diamond jewelery. It was phenomenal.
Once the whole thing started, sitted with my co-workers and feeling a tad bit more comfortable, I was once again blown away by the young woman in her sleeveless evening gown running the auction like some pro at a cattle show.
And the bidding started...and the money flowed just like the booze and after like 10 items going for thousands of dollars, I thought, there's no way anybody has any money left...what are they going to do because there were 30 items left to go!
But the money kept flowing and rich people stood up on their chairs to raise their auction numbers and bidding wars broke out over handmade quilts (one went for $1300 and it was a quilt with digital photographs of my students holding our class chickens...yes, chickens...and all I could think was, hey, wait a minute, I took those photographs!!) and weekends in the San Juans and time-shares in Cabo and fighter jet flying experiences and chocolate mousse in martini glasses ($700!).
Needless to say, my auction number never made it out of my packet. My colleagues played with theirs, throwing them in the air at $100 and then laughing as the bids went higher and higher. Jesus.
There was even a raffle (I bought one ticket for $5, which turned out to be $5.50 with the surcharge!) and whoever won the raffle got half the raffle pot, which turned out to be $900. The woman who won was sitting at the VIP table, which I realized meant she was rich, and she turned around and donated her winnings back to the school. If I had won the thought of donating it back to the school never would have crossed my mind. I would have whooped it up, danced a little jig, and run up to the podium to get my cash, baby!
What a fool I would have been, eh?
Ann and I live comfortably. Sure, we're saving our money, pinching pennies as we try to remodel our house without breaking the bank, but only when I'm in the world of the rich, do I see how different our lives are from those who can toss out $1000 here and there with no thought at all...well, except for the tax deduction they can claim.
One of our faculty members comes from a lot of family wealth. I spoke of my amazement at how much the money was flowing and she said that it's just a fun way for people to donate. It never crossed my mind that "donating" was about fun or that it might even be boring so you have to create entertaining ways to experience it. All the donations I've given were well-thought-out commitments to charities (like Heifer International) who I believed to be doing good work (Red Cross for earthquake and tsunami relief).
Yes, our school does good work...very good work, but I never thought those who donated money needed an "event" to make their giving feel more pleasureable.
A whole different world, I tell you, a whole different world.
Which brings me back to our designer...I'm so glad she makes us feel worthy of her time. I know she works with some big-time clients (Microsoft executives and Amazon big-wigs), but she's been all about budget and creative cost-cutting when she's with us and never at the expense of "cheap" or "ugly" choices.
Not until my auction experience did I realize what a dance she must have to perform with her clients. I asked her once if there were any difference between working with people like us (teachers on a limited budget) and the wealthy. She said that there were no differences really except that the wealthy wanted to overspend far more than the middle class and that folks like us had a better sense of working within a budget.
After last night's auction, I can see what she means. Holy Jesus.
At least I got a nice new shirt/jacket out of the experience!
Thursday, January 26, 2006
January
I'm ready for January to be over.
I'm hoping my energy found its way to February so I can pick it up there.
Dar Williams has a song called "February" where she sings something like, February lasted clear through March...
I'm feeling that way about January...it's lasting through March.
Must be the rain.
Must be the broken toe.
Must be the sick dog.
Must be the remodel.
My life is super good right now (truly, it is) but it's like a Picasso painting...everything is cut up and put together at odd angles.
January...Picasso month. I'm hoping for something a bit more grounded and centered in February. Like a nice Georgia O'Keefe feeling...warm, expansive, soft around the edges...even a white coyote skull sounds beautiful and earthy...or even a good Ansel Adams photograph...light at just the right angle, something grand and magnificent that makes me feel a part of something larger than myself, a feeling of sky.
Ummm, I think I'll go to bed and see if I wake up in February.
I'm hoping my energy found its way to February so I can pick it up there.
Dar Williams has a song called "February" where she sings something like, February lasted clear through March...
I'm feeling that way about January...it's lasting through March.
Must be the rain.
Must be the broken toe.
Must be the sick dog.
Must be the remodel.
My life is super good right now (truly, it is) but it's like a Picasso painting...everything is cut up and put together at odd angles.
January...Picasso month. I'm hoping for something a bit more grounded and centered in February. Like a nice Georgia O'Keefe feeling...warm, expansive, soft around the edges...even a white coyote skull sounds beautiful and earthy...or even a good Ansel Adams photograph...light at just the right angle, something grand and magnificent that makes me feel a part of something larger than myself, a feeling of sky.
Ummm, I think I'll go to bed and see if I wake up in February.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Who's the adult?
It's been an exhausting day, punctuated at the end by 5 kids deciding to chomp down on a raw jalapeno and a parent cornering me to ask me how he can help his daughter break through her "writer's block". The kids with burnt chile lips are, I'm certain, still working through their "natural consequence" of deciding to follow others rather than think for themselves. The parent, on the other hand, needs to realize his daughter's writer's block is yet another strategy she is using to say, "Help me!" In this case, "help me" means get the girl some therapy...as was recommended in December when the girl told me that somedays she feels like killing herself.
On the days when I'm not so exhausted from wrangling students (who behave a lot like cats) into thinking and not just doing, I want to start my own show called the "Child Whisperer"...kind of a combination of "Super Nanny" and the "Dog Whisperer". "Boundaries, rules, and limitations" is what Cesar Milan (DW fame) says over and over to dog owners who have let their dogs rule the pack. "That's unacceptable" is what the Super Nanny always says to the little brats who, like the dogs, control the household, holding the family hostage to their tantrums, rudeness, and often physical outbursts.
Child Whisperer would be more about "training" parents and "rehabilitating" children (Cesar Milan says in his opening credits "I train people, I rehabilitate dogs").
The first lesson I'd give parents -- BE THE ADULT!
Case study #1: Parent to 3rd grader..."Well, honey, next year to you want to be in 4th grade or 5th grade?"
Case study #2: Parent of child with so called writer's block ..."Well, dear, are you interested in going to therapy?"
I could go on and on, but the point is when did parenting become consensus based versus leadership based?
Don't get me wrong...I'm all for communicating with kids, helping them learn to be more empowered to make decisions, but if a kid has said she thinks about suicide, is it really a choice for her to see a therapist? And can an 8 year old truly decide if she is socially, emotionally, and academically ready to skip a grade?
Lesson #2: The only constant is change. Adapt or perish.
Every year about this time, we hear from parents who are up in arms because the don't understand their kid's math homework. "Well, WE never learned it this way? What's wrong with the way we learned it?"
Such a big question.
My first response (because I'm trying to be nice): No one is saying your way is wrong. This is just a different way. The more ways the better, don't you think?
My second response (because I'm trying to remind parents that our way isn't always the best way in the 21st century): And was your middle school education pleasurable? Did you just follow the mathematical rules as you were instructed to do? (My generation was more like dogs than cats as students..."What do you want me to do next, what, what, what? I'll do anything...wag, wag, wag, drool, drool, drool) Or did you understand what "division" really meant, what it actually was doing when you divided 36 into 422? Again the question, did you just DO or were you encouraged to really THINK about what you were doing and understand it beyond the test on Friday?
My third response (again, calling up the idea that maybe how we were taught (trained?) wasn't necessarily the only way to be taught...still trying to be nice, though I can feel my blood pressure rise): Is there only one way to solve a mathmatical problem? Or would it be better if your child learned a number of different strategies that s/he could use in problem-solving?
My fourth response (that I learned from my dear friend David and is a sign that I'm really about to lay into the parent): Do you think thousands of years ago when they made the shift from hammer and chisel to pencil and paper parents were saying to teachers, "What?! They're aren't learning the way we learned? I don't understand this!!"
I guess these are the reasons I'm not a parent...and don't tell me that I should be either. I had the baby cravings back when I was in my early 30s, but I knew then and I'm certain of it now that I was too selfish with my time to share it with children 24 hours a day...you get me for 8 hours a day, when I can still remain civil and really help kids! I applaud parents who do it well. I bow down at their feet every chance I get (and I'm lucky to have some absolutely wonderful parents of some wonderful kids).
But sometimes, just sometimes, I think parents have forgotten their role. Boundaries, rules, and limitations folks...not EVERYTHING is ACCEPTABLE!
And I think they've forgotten how much our world has changed and is changing and how rapidly it will continue to change. If I gave their children the tools of the 1970's, would they find success in 2020? And don't even get me started on measuring success!
Here's one for them: So, when you take your fully computerized Lexus into the dealer (private school so we have a lot of expensive cars) do you want the mechanic to be schooled in the "old" ways of car repair or do you want her/him to know how to fix a fancy computerized Lexus? Sure, some of the skills are the same, but I know my Dad's mechanic didn't have to operate a computer diagnostic machine to fix our old Ambassador stationwagon. Hell, they don't even call them stationwagons anymore!
And furthermore, would you let your child drive said Lexus because s/he showed an "aptitude" for driving at age 4? Or because s/he expressed an interest in taking the $60,000 car out for a spin?
Deep breath...deep, deep breath!
I find myself taking many a deep breath during my time with parents.
My teaching partner and I always joke that we should hand out math homework for the kids and an additional math packet for the parents, which they can work on after they watch the video we've produced instructing them on how to do the math we've been studying in school.
Hey, that's it! We'll give them the instructional video and then insert subliminal messages from the Child Whisperer throughout. Boundaries, rules and limitations...we'll whisper under the lesson on subtracting negative integers...your child's behavior is unacceptable we'll flash up on the screen for a nano-second...be the adult, be the adult is what they'll hear if they play the music from the tape backwards!
If that doesn't work, I may just have to handout jalapenos!
On the days when I'm not so exhausted from wrangling students (who behave a lot like cats) into thinking and not just doing, I want to start my own show called the "Child Whisperer"...kind of a combination of "Super Nanny" and the "Dog Whisperer". "Boundaries, rules, and limitations" is what Cesar Milan (DW fame) says over and over to dog owners who have let their dogs rule the pack. "That's unacceptable" is what the Super Nanny always says to the little brats who, like the dogs, control the household, holding the family hostage to their tantrums, rudeness, and often physical outbursts.
Child Whisperer would be more about "training" parents and "rehabilitating" children (Cesar Milan says in his opening credits "I train people, I rehabilitate dogs").
The first lesson I'd give parents -- BE THE ADULT!
Case study #1: Parent to 3rd grader..."Well, honey, next year to you want to be in 4th grade or 5th grade?"
Case study #2: Parent of child with so called writer's block ..."Well, dear, are you interested in going to therapy?"
I could go on and on, but the point is when did parenting become consensus based versus leadership based?
Don't get me wrong...I'm all for communicating with kids, helping them learn to be more empowered to make decisions, but if a kid has said she thinks about suicide, is it really a choice for her to see a therapist? And can an 8 year old truly decide if she is socially, emotionally, and academically ready to skip a grade?
Lesson #2: The only constant is change. Adapt or perish.
Every year about this time, we hear from parents who are up in arms because the don't understand their kid's math homework. "Well, WE never learned it this way? What's wrong with the way we learned it?"
Such a big question.
My first response (because I'm trying to be nice): No one is saying your way is wrong. This is just a different way. The more ways the better, don't you think?
My second response (because I'm trying to remind parents that our way isn't always the best way in the 21st century): And was your middle school education pleasurable? Did you just follow the mathematical rules as you were instructed to do? (My generation was more like dogs than cats as students..."What do you want me to do next, what, what, what? I'll do anything...wag, wag, wag, drool, drool, drool) Or did you understand what "division" really meant, what it actually was doing when you divided 36 into 422? Again the question, did you just DO or were you encouraged to really THINK about what you were doing and understand it beyond the test on Friday?
My third response (again, calling up the idea that maybe how we were taught (trained?) wasn't necessarily the only way to be taught...still trying to be nice, though I can feel my blood pressure rise): Is there only one way to solve a mathmatical problem? Or would it be better if your child learned a number of different strategies that s/he could use in problem-solving?
My fourth response (that I learned from my dear friend David and is a sign that I'm really about to lay into the parent): Do you think thousands of years ago when they made the shift from hammer and chisel to pencil and paper parents were saying to teachers, "What?! They're aren't learning the way we learned? I don't understand this!!"
I guess these are the reasons I'm not a parent...and don't tell me that I should be either. I had the baby cravings back when I was in my early 30s, but I knew then and I'm certain of it now that I was too selfish with my time to share it with children 24 hours a day...you get me for 8 hours a day, when I can still remain civil and really help kids! I applaud parents who do it well. I bow down at their feet every chance I get (and I'm lucky to have some absolutely wonderful parents of some wonderful kids).
But sometimes, just sometimes, I think parents have forgotten their role. Boundaries, rules, and limitations folks...not EVERYTHING is ACCEPTABLE!
And I think they've forgotten how much our world has changed and is changing and how rapidly it will continue to change. If I gave their children the tools of the 1970's, would they find success in 2020? And don't even get me started on measuring success!
Here's one for them: So, when you take your fully computerized Lexus into the dealer (private school so we have a lot of expensive cars) do you want the mechanic to be schooled in the "old" ways of car repair or do you want her/him to know how to fix a fancy computerized Lexus? Sure, some of the skills are the same, but I know my Dad's mechanic didn't have to operate a computer diagnostic machine to fix our old Ambassador stationwagon. Hell, they don't even call them stationwagons anymore!
And furthermore, would you let your child drive said Lexus because s/he showed an "aptitude" for driving at age 4? Or because s/he expressed an interest in taking the $60,000 car out for a spin?
Deep breath...deep, deep breath!
I find myself taking many a deep breath during my time with parents.
My teaching partner and I always joke that we should hand out math homework for the kids and an additional math packet for the parents, which they can work on after they watch the video we've produced instructing them on how to do the math we've been studying in school.
Hey, that's it! We'll give them the instructional video and then insert subliminal messages from the Child Whisperer throughout. Boundaries, rules and limitations...we'll whisper under the lesson on subtracting negative integers...your child's behavior is unacceptable we'll flash up on the screen for a nano-second...be the adult, be the adult is what they'll hear if they play the music from the tape backwards!
If that doesn't work, I may just have to handout jalapenos!
Monday, January 23, 2006
Lying
After 20 years of teaching, I know when a kid is lying to me. The signs are palpable. No eye contact is a sure sign or an unwillingness to stop, look, and listen (as my former 5th grade teacher used to say!). Changing stories. Stories interwoven with enough lilting question marks I'm never certain if the kid is in doubt or in denial. Strange body twitches...wringing of the hands, foot tapping, twitchy fingers.
With kids, 9 times out of 10 if you ask them straight out, "Are you telling me stories?" they'll confess. I never ask if they're "lying" because that triggers an instant denial reflex, kind of like the gag reflex. If I say, "So, I'm getting the sense here that what's coming out of your mouth and what really happened may have miles of inaccuracy between them" they look at me, stunned, partly because they may not really know what inaccuracy means, but mostly because they suspect, that I suspect that the truth is still trapped under their tongue.
I like it when they confess. I like that they think the world is going to come to an end if I find out they've been lying. I like that many of them cry, overwhelmed with guilt they can't begin to work through their feelings so they just shake their lower lips or downright bawl in front of me.
No, it's not that I like to torture them. It just that I like to see the "human" in them, the realness in them. They lie, they get caught, they admit it, they repent, and then the move on, learning from their mistakes at least a little if not as much as I'd like to see them learn.
But...there is that 1 out of 10 kids who won't confess. There is that tenth kid who, no matter how much you can prove their story a lie, they will not, can not, and do not even want to admit they lied. They see no point in confessing. They see their actions as part of something greater, more significant and important than being honest.
These are the ones I really worry about. At age 10 or 13 or 17, they've lost their humanity. They've lost any inkling of guilt or remorse. There is no consequence great enough to steer them back to a more honest path. These are troubled kids. Kids whose futures I don't even want to predict.
So tonight, I'm driving home from work (yep, no cycling today as the broken toe is still, dare I say, broken!) I'm listening to George W. during his speech at Kent State. The quote is something like, "If I wanna ta break the law, do think I woulda talked to members of Congress about it?" He was speaking about his illegal spying of American citizens (though he claims it's legal...ha!). His words didn't get to me as much as his chuckle at the end of his sentence. Like a "ha" only with more disdain, more self-righteousness mixed with insincerity than I've ever heard from him before. That chuckle was evidence to me that he's LYING!
Yes, I know he lies all the time, but this was somehow different. This was that 5th grader who knew damn well s/he was doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, but didn't care one iota that they were lying. This was the kid whose self-preservation was far more important than accuracy or honesty or integrity. This was the kid who'd pin the rap on someone else as easily as s/he'd blow her/his nose or fall asleep at night.
I wonder if W's 5th grade teacher knew Georgie-boy would grow up to be that 1 out of 10? I wonder if she (or he, though Texas elementary schools strike me as a place where "shes" would dominate) knew he was the kid who would grow up to be a pathological liar? I wonder if she gave him extra classroom chores to do or made him repent by writing on the board "I will not lie" or had him scrub the toilets or clean the gum out from under the desks?
Hey, George W's 5th grade teacher...if you're out there reading this, was George a kid who could walk miles between his lies and the truth? And if he was, did you try to talk with his parents about it? Did you say things like, "You know, this boy will never go very far in this world if he can't speak the truth." "If George here doesn't fess up to his dishonest ways, he's not going to have any friends." Did you say to George Sr. and Barbara, "I'm deeply concerned that your son has issues that require counseling." Or did you look Sr. in the eye and hold Barbara's hands and say, "Every child I've seen who has a trouble admitting his or her guilt has ended up in prison"?
I guess you didn't figure that he'd go into politics, eh?
Hey, maybe that's where that 1 out of 10 kid ran off to!
With kids, 9 times out of 10 if you ask them straight out, "Are you telling me stories?" they'll confess. I never ask if they're "lying" because that triggers an instant denial reflex, kind of like the gag reflex. If I say, "So, I'm getting the sense here that what's coming out of your mouth and what really happened may have miles of inaccuracy between them" they look at me, stunned, partly because they may not really know what inaccuracy means, but mostly because they suspect, that I suspect that the truth is still trapped under their tongue.
I like it when they confess. I like that they think the world is going to come to an end if I find out they've been lying. I like that many of them cry, overwhelmed with guilt they can't begin to work through their feelings so they just shake their lower lips or downright bawl in front of me.
No, it's not that I like to torture them. It just that I like to see the "human" in them, the realness in them. They lie, they get caught, they admit it, they repent, and then the move on, learning from their mistakes at least a little if not as much as I'd like to see them learn.
But...there is that 1 out of 10 kids who won't confess. There is that tenth kid who, no matter how much you can prove their story a lie, they will not, can not, and do not even want to admit they lied. They see no point in confessing. They see their actions as part of something greater, more significant and important than being honest.
These are the ones I really worry about. At age 10 or 13 or 17, they've lost their humanity. They've lost any inkling of guilt or remorse. There is no consequence great enough to steer them back to a more honest path. These are troubled kids. Kids whose futures I don't even want to predict.
So tonight, I'm driving home from work (yep, no cycling today as the broken toe is still, dare I say, broken!) I'm listening to George W. during his speech at Kent State. The quote is something like, "If I wanna ta break the law, do think I woulda talked to members of Congress about it?" He was speaking about his illegal spying of American citizens (though he claims it's legal...ha!). His words didn't get to me as much as his chuckle at the end of his sentence. Like a "ha" only with more disdain, more self-righteousness mixed with insincerity than I've ever heard from him before. That chuckle was evidence to me that he's LYING!
Yes, I know he lies all the time, but this was somehow different. This was that 5th grader who knew damn well s/he was doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, but didn't care one iota that they were lying. This was the kid whose self-preservation was far more important than accuracy or honesty or integrity. This was the kid who'd pin the rap on someone else as easily as s/he'd blow her/his nose or fall asleep at night.
I wonder if W's 5th grade teacher knew Georgie-boy would grow up to be that 1 out of 10? I wonder if she (or he, though Texas elementary schools strike me as a place where "shes" would dominate) knew he was the kid who would grow up to be a pathological liar? I wonder if she gave him extra classroom chores to do or made him repent by writing on the board "I will not lie" or had him scrub the toilets or clean the gum out from under the desks?
Hey, George W's 5th grade teacher...if you're out there reading this, was George a kid who could walk miles between his lies and the truth? And if he was, did you try to talk with his parents about it? Did you say things like, "You know, this boy will never go very far in this world if he can't speak the truth." "If George here doesn't fess up to his dishonest ways, he's not going to have any friends." Did you say to George Sr. and Barbara, "I'm deeply concerned that your son has issues that require counseling." Or did you look Sr. in the eye and hold Barbara's hands and say, "Every child I've seen who has a trouble admitting his or her guilt has ended up in prison"?
I guess you didn't figure that he'd go into politics, eh?
Hey, maybe that's where that 1 out of 10 kid ran off to!
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Dreams
They say bad things happen in threes. So last week, after a series of awful seizures, Chester (our dog) bit me. (He has a brain tumor and he's doing okay, but every month or so we go through this bout of seizures and overall, we're just waiting for the day when we have to make the fateful decision...but it's not now...as you might have surmised from his behavior of biting!)
Chester isn't an aggressive dog. He lived on the streets for the first year of his life, but then he chose to live with Ann. While you can't take things from his mouth or roll him over on his back and going to the vet requires a muzzle, he's sweet and gentle and happy. Truly.
But after a seizure, he's very disoriented. After four of them (which was our experience on Monday) he's disorientation makes him do things he's never done before. Like climb up on a four-foot bulkhead in the garden.
1 o' clock in the morning and I'm trying to get him down from the bulkhead. I know he hates to be touched after a seizure (I'm assuming his skin is on fire), but I'm more afraid that he'll fall the four feet down and fracture a bone or bang his already tumor-ridden head.
I cover his muzzle with a strong hand, grab his underbelly, and hoist. He's quick, even post-seizure, and he snaps his mouth right out of my hand and right onto my finger. We both yelp. But I get him down successfully. Except, well, I'm bleeding.
Eventually, after an hour of wandering around -- his mind clearing and my finger throbbing -- he falls asleep.
By the week's end, I still have a sore finger slowly healing over and then I break my little toe.
Two things down, one to go.
I woke this morning to a huge cold sore on my lip. Number three.
And the remnants of a dream hang over me...
I'm back in my past only it's me now back in my past. I'm with my former partner. She's controlling. I lived in a kind of subtle fear that I'd do the wrong thing. After 10 years of it, I got the courage to leave. Still, every once in awhile I have these dreams where me (the now me) is still in the past (with the past me) and SHE (the ex) is there, and I'm feeling controlled.
In this dream she's purchased a new bicycle for me. An exquisitely fancy bicycle with all sorts of features I've always wanted. Only it's her birthday not mine and I can't figure out why she'd buy me such an expensive bike on her birthday especially since she earns a meager salary and I'm the one who purchases the big items for the house. I also can't figure out why I'm there...why I'm in this life that I left years ago. I kept thinking throughout the dream, "This isn't my life anymore, is it?"
Usually when I hate the dream I'm in I can get myself out of it by blinking my dream-self eyes three times (some kind of Dorothy thing like the clicking of the ruby slippers). My eyes wouldn't blink this time. Throughout the dream, I'm oddly aware that there is someone sleeping next to me, but I'm afraid to open my eyes and see HER. I don't want to find out that the dream is real and that all the changes I've made in the past years might actually have been the dream.
I stare at the dream bicycle. I touch the shiny finish and the curious attachments (a place to hold my laptop, for instance, and the special locking system that prevents the bike from being stolen) and I hear myself say, "This isn't your life. Nice bike and all, this isn't your life. You've got to open your eyes and look at the person next to you."
So, I do. I rise out of the dream like emerging from the depths of some scuba diving experience (which I've never done in my life) and look at the person next to me.
It's Ann. Yes, god, it's Ann. I'm in Seattle. The weight at my feet is the dog. The throb in my toe is real. The soreness of my finger is still real. It's Ann. It's Seattle. It's my life now and not my life then. It's even this nasty cold sore that feels like a volcano on my lip.
I am grateful. Even for the broken toe. Even for the seizuring dog. Even for the gouged hand. Even for Mt. St. Helens on my bottom lip.
I will not sell my soul for a nice bicycle.
A therapist once told me that in your dreams you are everything. If that's the case I was the bicycle, I was the birthday, I was HER, I was the life of fear.
I think it must be the same for non-dreaming...for now. I am the broken toe, I am the biting dog, I am the ooze from my cold sore, I am the woman lying next to me.
I am three bad things, but a million more wonderful things all jumbled up, standing on a bulkhead four feet off the ground ready to be saved from myself, ready to feel relief and joy that I've moved forward from fear into something safe and secure and as REAL as a broken toe, a dying dog, and an exploding cold sore.
What a good life.
Seriously. I mean that.
Chester isn't an aggressive dog. He lived on the streets for the first year of his life, but then he chose to live with Ann. While you can't take things from his mouth or roll him over on his back and going to the vet requires a muzzle, he's sweet and gentle and happy. Truly.
But after a seizure, he's very disoriented. After four of them (which was our experience on Monday) he's disorientation makes him do things he's never done before. Like climb up on a four-foot bulkhead in the garden.
1 o' clock in the morning and I'm trying to get him down from the bulkhead. I know he hates to be touched after a seizure (I'm assuming his skin is on fire), but I'm more afraid that he'll fall the four feet down and fracture a bone or bang his already tumor-ridden head.
I cover his muzzle with a strong hand, grab his underbelly, and hoist. He's quick, even post-seizure, and he snaps his mouth right out of my hand and right onto my finger. We both yelp. But I get him down successfully. Except, well, I'm bleeding.
Eventually, after an hour of wandering around -- his mind clearing and my finger throbbing -- he falls asleep.
By the week's end, I still have a sore finger slowly healing over and then I break my little toe.
Two things down, one to go.
I woke this morning to a huge cold sore on my lip. Number three.
And the remnants of a dream hang over me...
I'm back in my past only it's me now back in my past. I'm with my former partner. She's controlling. I lived in a kind of subtle fear that I'd do the wrong thing. After 10 years of it, I got the courage to leave. Still, every once in awhile I have these dreams where me (the now me) is still in the past (with the past me) and SHE (the ex) is there, and I'm feeling controlled.
In this dream she's purchased a new bicycle for me. An exquisitely fancy bicycle with all sorts of features I've always wanted. Only it's her birthday not mine and I can't figure out why she'd buy me such an expensive bike on her birthday especially since she earns a meager salary and I'm the one who purchases the big items for the house. I also can't figure out why I'm there...why I'm in this life that I left years ago. I kept thinking throughout the dream, "This isn't my life anymore, is it?"
Usually when I hate the dream I'm in I can get myself out of it by blinking my dream-self eyes three times (some kind of Dorothy thing like the clicking of the ruby slippers). My eyes wouldn't blink this time. Throughout the dream, I'm oddly aware that there is someone sleeping next to me, but I'm afraid to open my eyes and see HER. I don't want to find out that the dream is real and that all the changes I've made in the past years might actually have been the dream.
I stare at the dream bicycle. I touch the shiny finish and the curious attachments (a place to hold my laptop, for instance, and the special locking system that prevents the bike from being stolen) and I hear myself say, "This isn't your life. Nice bike and all, this isn't your life. You've got to open your eyes and look at the person next to you."
So, I do. I rise out of the dream like emerging from the depths of some scuba diving experience (which I've never done in my life) and look at the person next to me.
It's Ann. Yes, god, it's Ann. I'm in Seattle. The weight at my feet is the dog. The throb in my toe is real. The soreness of my finger is still real. It's Ann. It's Seattle. It's my life now and not my life then. It's even this nasty cold sore that feels like a volcano on my lip.
I am grateful. Even for the broken toe. Even for the seizuring dog. Even for the gouged hand. Even for Mt. St. Helens on my bottom lip.
I will not sell my soul for a nice bicycle.
A therapist once told me that in your dreams you are everything. If that's the case I was the bicycle, I was the birthday, I was HER, I was the life of fear.
I think it must be the same for non-dreaming...for now. I am the broken toe, I am the biting dog, I am the ooze from my cold sore, I am the woman lying next to me.
I am three bad things, but a million more wonderful things all jumbled up, standing on a bulkhead four feet off the ground ready to be saved from myself, ready to feel relief and joy that I've moved forward from fear into something safe and secure and as REAL as a broken toe, a dying dog, and an exploding cold sore.
What a good life.
Seriously. I mean that.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Helpless on Broketoe Mountain
Some call it a comedy of errors. You know, when things start happening to you, one after the other, as if they were connected and you laugh a little at your luck. Mine started when I slammed my small toe on my right foot into the corner of a wall. It didn't hurt at first. In fact, as slamming toes goes, it felt minor. "Okay," I thought, "it's not that bad" and then I felt a twinge of pain. It wasn't overwhelming pain. It wasn't pain that signified anything different than the usual, "Damn, I slammed my toe into the wall."
So, I got on my bike, rode the 5 miles to school, felt the ache in my toe, but never really suspected that I'd find the swollen purple and red knob that I did when I went to change my shoes at work.
I broke my toe.
As the day progressed, the pain and swelling increase proportionately. By 5, when I'd finally finished up my last parent-teacher conference, I tried calling Ann to get a ride home. "Can I ride my bike?" I kept asking myself. "Hell, yeah," I thought. "I rode to work and that was mostly uphill. I'll be fine." Ann wasn't home. She wasn't at school. I needed to ride if I wanted to get home at a reasonable hour.
I took off my shoes carefully, changed into my cycling gear, and gingerly put on my cycling shoes. Ouch! They're more narrow at the toe than the shoes I wear at school. Ouch!
"But I'll be fine, I'll be fine. It's mostly downhill. Hardly any pedaling until I get close to home."
I have bike shoes that clip right into the pedal. It requires a bit of pressure to lock them in and then a twist of my foot to the right to release them, all of which was uncomfortable, to say the least, and downright painful when I came to stop lights. Normally, habitually, I release my right foot and set it to rest on the pavement. But that hurt like hell so I thought I'd try my left foot.
I almost broke the rest of the bones in my body trying to manuver my left foot out of the release.
And I never realized how often I standup on my pedals to pull me up a hill or move me through an intersection a little faster. Standing? Broken toe. No can do...though I kept doing it.
Old habits die hard.
Just sit in the saddle. Downshift. Don't stand.
Stick to releasing your right foot...just try not to stop so much (it became like a mantra)
And then the last hill up to the house. It takes about 5 minutes. Not long. Except when every time you push on the pedal it hurts. I usually stand up. Not this time.
"I'll just walk my bike." A quick, quick thought instantly cancelled out by "It hurts more to walk than ride." So I slipped into a lower gear and just pushed and pushed up the hill. At home it was an ice pack and fried chicken with scalloped potatoes (comfort food for my uncomfortable foot!).
Today, 36 hours later, it's still throbbing, it's still swollen, and now the purple and burgundy blossom of the injury has spread from the toe into the rest of my foot. Ice, elevation, and anti-inflammatories all day. I walk like a character from some monster movie. Possessed.
Now I'm dependent on Ann for silly little things I've always done for myself.
And I hate it.
She'd argue that I'm not completely dependent on her. I get up all the time and do stuff that she should probably do for me. Every time I ask for something -- a glass of water, the volume on the stereo turned up or down, an ice-pack to wrap on my foot -- I always say "please" followed by a quick "I'm sorry."
I hate being taken care of. Worse, I hate being incapacitated in any way. This is completely debilitating because I can't do the things I normally love to do on a Saturday.
So much for a bike ride. So much for walking the dog. So much for going for a long run just as the sun goes down. So much for just about anything physical.
When we got up this morning, we planned our day around a bunch of errands we never have time to do during the week. I needed to stop by school. I needed to make it to my hair appointment (which I usually ride my bike to, had actually planned on riding my bike to, but it was raining...again...and we decided to drive...but Ann had to drive since it hurts to hold my foot against the gas pedal).
There was a stop at the Post Office. A stop by the house to take pictures of the latest progress on the house. Another stop to print out remodeling pictures at the drugstore. Lunch (which required a long walk from the parked car to the Greek restaurant). A stop at Dusty Strings for some music. The haircut at the end of the day.
As we prepared for the errands, I reached into my school bag for my school keys and my wallet.
They weren't there.
In my pain last night, in my attempt to be delicate with my toe, I'd put all my school clothes into the clothes box I take to work every Sunday so I don't have carry all my clothes for each day on my bike. In the pocket of my pants sat my wallet and my school keys.
I could neither get into the school to get my clothes, nor could I get my wallet to pay for my haircut or anything else I might need that day.
It may seem like nothing. It may seem like a minor bump in the road, but my awareness of my "dependency" became so clear at that moment I had to sit down and just let it sink in for a minute. I was helpless. I didn't even have ID to prove I was the gimp hobbling down the street.
My stomach burned.
More than my broken toe.
Ann laughed. "I'm loving this," she chuckled. "You are now dependent on me and there's not much you can do about it. Ha!"
Comedy of errors? To me it felt like a slice to my thin ego. Slash! Helpless, helpless, helpless.
Some people say that things happen for a reason. Some days I believe them. Other days I don't. Overall, I think "evil" happens because it's evil, not because of some big cosmic plan.
Breaking my toe isn't evil. Breaking my toe is inconvenient. Breaking my toe is annoying.
And so, perhaps, it is a cosmic plan to get me to lighten up a bit and just let someone take care of me for a change.
But I can't do it.
Well, I can, but it's damn hard and it's always filled with "I'm sorrys" to the point where I even irritate the hell out myself.
I have no patience. I want the toe to be healed (no pun intended) by tomorrow.
I'm riding my bike on Monday (the only day for a month that they are actually predicting SUNSHINE).
Broken toe or no broken toe.
"Hey, Ann" I'll say softly into the phone Monday afternoon..."can I get a ride home, please? Sorry."
So, I got on my bike, rode the 5 miles to school, felt the ache in my toe, but never really suspected that I'd find the swollen purple and red knob that I did when I went to change my shoes at work.
I broke my toe.
As the day progressed, the pain and swelling increase proportionately. By 5, when I'd finally finished up my last parent-teacher conference, I tried calling Ann to get a ride home. "Can I ride my bike?" I kept asking myself. "Hell, yeah," I thought. "I rode to work and that was mostly uphill. I'll be fine." Ann wasn't home. She wasn't at school. I needed to ride if I wanted to get home at a reasonable hour.
I took off my shoes carefully, changed into my cycling gear, and gingerly put on my cycling shoes. Ouch! They're more narrow at the toe than the shoes I wear at school. Ouch!
"But I'll be fine, I'll be fine. It's mostly downhill. Hardly any pedaling until I get close to home."
I have bike shoes that clip right into the pedal. It requires a bit of pressure to lock them in and then a twist of my foot to the right to release them, all of which was uncomfortable, to say the least, and downright painful when I came to stop lights. Normally, habitually, I release my right foot and set it to rest on the pavement. But that hurt like hell so I thought I'd try my left foot.
I almost broke the rest of the bones in my body trying to manuver my left foot out of the release.
And I never realized how often I standup on my pedals to pull me up a hill or move me through an intersection a little faster. Standing? Broken toe. No can do...though I kept doing it.
Old habits die hard.
Just sit in the saddle. Downshift. Don't stand.
Stick to releasing your right foot...just try not to stop so much (it became like a mantra)
And then the last hill up to the house. It takes about 5 minutes. Not long. Except when every time you push on the pedal it hurts. I usually stand up. Not this time.
"I'll just walk my bike." A quick, quick thought instantly cancelled out by "It hurts more to walk than ride." So I slipped into a lower gear and just pushed and pushed up the hill. At home it was an ice pack and fried chicken with scalloped potatoes (comfort food for my uncomfortable foot!).
Today, 36 hours later, it's still throbbing, it's still swollen, and now the purple and burgundy blossom of the injury has spread from the toe into the rest of my foot. Ice, elevation, and anti-inflammatories all day. I walk like a character from some monster movie. Possessed.
Now I'm dependent on Ann for silly little things I've always done for myself.
And I hate it.
She'd argue that I'm not completely dependent on her. I get up all the time and do stuff that she should probably do for me. Every time I ask for something -- a glass of water, the volume on the stereo turned up or down, an ice-pack to wrap on my foot -- I always say "please" followed by a quick "I'm sorry."
I hate being taken care of. Worse, I hate being incapacitated in any way. This is completely debilitating because I can't do the things I normally love to do on a Saturday.
So much for a bike ride. So much for walking the dog. So much for going for a long run just as the sun goes down. So much for just about anything physical.
When we got up this morning, we planned our day around a bunch of errands we never have time to do during the week. I needed to stop by school. I needed to make it to my hair appointment (which I usually ride my bike to, had actually planned on riding my bike to, but it was raining...again...and we decided to drive...but Ann had to drive since it hurts to hold my foot against the gas pedal).
There was a stop at the Post Office. A stop by the house to take pictures of the latest progress on the house. Another stop to print out remodeling pictures at the drugstore. Lunch (which required a long walk from the parked car to the Greek restaurant). A stop at Dusty Strings for some music. The haircut at the end of the day.
As we prepared for the errands, I reached into my school bag for my school keys and my wallet.
They weren't there.
In my pain last night, in my attempt to be delicate with my toe, I'd put all my school clothes into the clothes box I take to work every Sunday so I don't have carry all my clothes for each day on my bike. In the pocket of my pants sat my wallet and my school keys.
I could neither get into the school to get my clothes, nor could I get my wallet to pay for my haircut or anything else I might need that day.
It may seem like nothing. It may seem like a minor bump in the road, but my awareness of my "dependency" became so clear at that moment I had to sit down and just let it sink in for a minute. I was helpless. I didn't even have ID to prove I was the gimp hobbling down the street.
My stomach burned.
More than my broken toe.
Ann laughed. "I'm loving this," she chuckled. "You are now dependent on me and there's not much you can do about it. Ha!"
Comedy of errors? To me it felt like a slice to my thin ego. Slash! Helpless, helpless, helpless.
Some people say that things happen for a reason. Some days I believe them. Other days I don't. Overall, I think "evil" happens because it's evil, not because of some big cosmic plan.
Breaking my toe isn't evil. Breaking my toe is inconvenient. Breaking my toe is annoying.
And so, perhaps, it is a cosmic plan to get me to lighten up a bit and just let someone take care of me for a change.
But I can't do it.
Well, I can, but it's damn hard and it's always filled with "I'm sorrys" to the point where I even irritate the hell out myself.
I have no patience. I want the toe to be healed (no pun intended) by tomorrow.
I'm riding my bike on Monday (the only day for a month that they are actually predicting SUNSHINE).
Broken toe or no broken toe.
"Hey, Ann" I'll say softly into the phone Monday afternoon..."can I get a ride home, please? Sorry."
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
As long as you aren't a fuck up...
As usual, the news has me upset.
Looks like Alito will find himself a lifetime position on the Supreme Court. All because he didn't "reveal" his true beliefs. What? You're telling me that because he didn't really answer any questions, that's good enough for the Democrats? Blimey, I thought Justices weren't supposed to be political and yet, here we appoint a guy (well, two guys actually cause that last appointee did the same thing) who dances around questions like a well-seasoned politician.
How do you get appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States I'll ask my class?
(If my class meets that question with silence I guess that means anyone of them could get appointed to the Court.)
"How?" They'll all respond because they are eager 5th graders and not greedy politicians...(yet)...and I'll say..."Well kids, as long as you aren't a fuck up, you've got a good shot...well, let me rephrase that...you can fuck up, but only if you don't answer any questions directly or if you're someone like Tom DeLay or Neal Bush."
"Who's Neal Bush?" They all ask.
"Well, kids, that's another story. You can fuck up, but as long as your family's rich and powerful, you don't have to worry about it."
"So rich politicians can do what they want?" some bright kid will ask?
"Yes, exactly, but I'm sorry to say, young student, that will never be you because you've just shown you can connect the dots. No one in D.C. wants someone who can do that so you better find another profession."
I wonder what profession that would be?
Will the Democrats every wake up?
And where have all the radical subversives gone?
Stand up for christ's sake!
(Okay, I was hoping that would make me feel better, but it didn't. Okay, it did just a little bit.)
Looks like Alito will find himself a lifetime position on the Supreme Court. All because he didn't "reveal" his true beliefs. What? You're telling me that because he didn't really answer any questions, that's good enough for the Democrats? Blimey, I thought Justices weren't supposed to be political and yet, here we appoint a guy (well, two guys actually cause that last appointee did the same thing) who dances around questions like a well-seasoned politician.
How do you get appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States I'll ask my class?
(If my class meets that question with silence I guess that means anyone of them could get appointed to the Court.)
"How?" They'll all respond because they are eager 5th graders and not greedy politicians...(yet)...and I'll say..."Well kids, as long as you aren't a fuck up, you've got a good shot...well, let me rephrase that...you can fuck up, but only if you don't answer any questions directly or if you're someone like Tom DeLay or Neal Bush."
"Who's Neal Bush?" They all ask.
"Well, kids, that's another story. You can fuck up, but as long as your family's rich and powerful, you don't have to worry about it."
"So rich politicians can do what they want?" some bright kid will ask?
"Yes, exactly, but I'm sorry to say, young student, that will never be you because you've just shown you can connect the dots. No one in D.C. wants someone who can do that so you better find another profession."
I wonder what profession that would be?
Will the Democrats every wake up?
And where have all the radical subversives gone?
Stand up for christ's sake!
(Okay, I was hoping that would make me feel better, but it didn't. Okay, it did just a little bit.)
Soggy
It's stopped raining. All day, from the moment I got up, until now (roughly 2 in the afternoon) it hasn't rained. I'd rejoice, but the weather forecast predicts more rain tomorrow and more the tomorrows after that.
I'm home from work today. Chester had 4 seizures yesterday, which requires that one of us stay home to check his status. No seizures for 24 hours...that's what we're aiming for. So far, so good.
I took him for a walk at noon and he's tired. Poor guy, he should be tired after all of those seizures. He finally fell asleep last night a little after midnight and slept the whole night through. Whew.
On our walk, unhindered by a raincoat hood or an umbrella, I got a close look at the ground. It's wet. More than that, it's soggy. Pools of water sit atop lawns all through the neighborhood. Chester loves slogging through the stuff. Must be his Springer heritage.
When we got back I tried to sweep the back sidewalk of all the debris that's floated from the garden beds bordering the walk. Bad idea. The pebbled concrete is wet and no matter how powerfully I push the broom, little moves. Guess I have to wait until it dries more.
When will that be?
I'm home from work today. Chester had 4 seizures yesterday, which requires that one of us stay home to check his status. No seizures for 24 hours...that's what we're aiming for. So far, so good.
I took him for a walk at noon and he's tired. Poor guy, he should be tired after all of those seizures. He finally fell asleep last night a little after midnight and slept the whole night through. Whew.
On our walk, unhindered by a raincoat hood or an umbrella, I got a close look at the ground. It's wet. More than that, it's soggy. Pools of water sit atop lawns all through the neighborhood. Chester loves slogging through the stuff. Must be his Springer heritage.
When we got back I tried to sweep the back sidewalk of all the debris that's floated from the garden beds bordering the walk. Bad idea. The pebbled concrete is wet and no matter how powerfully I push the broom, little moves. Guess I have to wait until it dries more.
When will that be?
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Drooly, Drooly, Drooly do you love me?
Our dog, Chester, has been ill since July 4, 2005. Somedays you'd never know it. He's happy, playful, and full of energy.
Other days, he wants to sleep or he seems lethargic, not excited about his daily walks or interested in much of anything, except food.
He has seizures. They suspect a brain tumor, but they have discouraged a brain scan since Chester is 12 and half years old. As the doctor so directly pointed out, "So, you find that he has a tumor. Are you really going to put an old dog through brain surgery and take the risk that he dies on the operating table?"
He made his point.
So we give Chester drugs every 12 hours. Phenobarbital. Just like humans with seizures.
The drugs make him ravenous. He steals food. He's never done that before. Our walks are spent with nose to the ground searching for anything the crows might have dropped or the cats left behind. He's focused. Intent. A hunger.
The drugs also make him drool. He never drooled before and, in fact, we always hated drooly dogs -- boxers, neopolitans, rottweilers. But now we have a drooly dog. We carry a towel with us at all times. He doesn't much like getting his face swiped with the towel. Much like a 2 year old who puts up a fuss when s/he sees the towel coming. Chester turns or shakes his head or saunters into the other room, drool dragging in the wind.
The drugs make him sleep hard, too. And when we have to "up" the medications, since the levels change as his body processes it quicker, he really sleeps and he really drools -- buckets of gooey-ness.
And now he wears a diaper. We call it his "Speedo" as it fits around his mid-drift like the piece of fabric Mark Spitz used to wear. When Chester sleeps he's incontinent. The Speedo (fitted with a Kotex pad because the pads they sell with the dog diaper are ridiculously small) keeps his bed dry at night. Hell, it keeps our bed dry at night since, in his old age, we've allowed him to sleep with us more and more.
The quality of life question comes up for me all the time. The internal dialogue -- is he in pain? Is he content? Are all these extra measures just prolonging the inevitable?
There's another dialogue as well. The this-is-hard dialogue. Worrying about whether or not he'll have another seizure, coming home right after work to make sure he's safe, cleaning up after his "accidents", listening to him during his nightly whines (which we can't really figure out, but someone said it was probably "sundowner syndrome" and he's anxious during the dark hours), and waiting for some sign that his quality of life has deterioated beyond what any of us could live with.
I don't like those conversations in my head. I don't like to think I'd put a dog down because it's too inconvinient or too exhausting. But the thoughts come up and I have to crawl to the end of the bed where he sleeps and look into his amber eyes and see for myself that he is glad to be here and that the time has not yet come and that he trusts me with his life.
It's a beautiful thing really.
Even if he drools.
Other days, he wants to sleep or he seems lethargic, not excited about his daily walks or interested in much of anything, except food.
He has seizures. They suspect a brain tumor, but they have discouraged a brain scan since Chester is 12 and half years old. As the doctor so directly pointed out, "So, you find that he has a tumor. Are you really going to put an old dog through brain surgery and take the risk that he dies on the operating table?"
He made his point.
So we give Chester drugs every 12 hours. Phenobarbital. Just like humans with seizures.
The drugs make him ravenous. He steals food. He's never done that before. Our walks are spent with nose to the ground searching for anything the crows might have dropped or the cats left behind. He's focused. Intent. A hunger.
The drugs also make him drool. He never drooled before and, in fact, we always hated drooly dogs -- boxers, neopolitans, rottweilers. But now we have a drooly dog. We carry a towel with us at all times. He doesn't much like getting his face swiped with the towel. Much like a 2 year old who puts up a fuss when s/he sees the towel coming. Chester turns or shakes his head or saunters into the other room, drool dragging in the wind.
The drugs make him sleep hard, too. And when we have to "up" the medications, since the levels change as his body processes it quicker, he really sleeps and he really drools -- buckets of gooey-ness.
And now he wears a diaper. We call it his "Speedo" as it fits around his mid-drift like the piece of fabric Mark Spitz used to wear. When Chester sleeps he's incontinent. The Speedo (fitted with a Kotex pad because the pads they sell with the dog diaper are ridiculously small) keeps his bed dry at night. Hell, it keeps our bed dry at night since, in his old age, we've allowed him to sleep with us more and more.
The quality of life question comes up for me all the time. The internal dialogue -- is he in pain? Is he content? Are all these extra measures just prolonging the inevitable?
There's another dialogue as well. The this-is-hard dialogue. Worrying about whether or not he'll have another seizure, coming home right after work to make sure he's safe, cleaning up after his "accidents", listening to him during his nightly whines (which we can't really figure out, but someone said it was probably "sundowner syndrome" and he's anxious during the dark hours), and waiting for some sign that his quality of life has deterioated beyond what any of us could live with.
I don't like those conversations in my head. I don't like to think I'd put a dog down because it's too inconvinient or too exhausting. But the thoughts come up and I have to crawl to the end of the bed where he sleeps and look into his amber eyes and see for myself that he is glad to be here and that the time has not yet come and that he trusts me with his life.
It's a beautiful thing really.
Even if he drools.
Not raining now
We've had 27 days of rain and there's no end in sight.
I've lived here in the Northwest all my life (just about) and rarely does the rain get to me. In fact, when there is too much warm weather and sun I miss for the rain.
No longer.
I'm ready for something warm. Something dry. Something like a sun to appear in the sky so I can turn my face to it and sigh.
But no sun. Just gray.
No rain, either, and for that I should be grateful, but it's hard when more rain is predicted for this afternoon and for tomorrow and a week of tomorrow's after that.
Being more grateful was one of my New Year's Resolutions. They say the average length a person sticks to a resolution is about 7 days. When those 7 days are part of 27 straight days of rain, I can see why it's hard stick to anything.
Exercise for one. I have no desire to walk, cycle, or run in weather like this. I just want to sit by the fire, read, and eat. I want to eat warm things. Hot things. Like good Mexican hot chocolate. Or soup. Or freshly baked bread. Or cinnamon rolls.
I want mashed potatoes all the time.
With butter. Melted in a pool.
Rain is death to resolutions.
And the dog looks at me like, "...it's not raining now...let's go out" with the wag, wag, wag he always does when we haven't risen from our Sunday slumber.
So, I'll go out and walk the dog through the park ...
...and hope it doesn't rain.
Fat chance.
I've lived here in the Northwest all my life (just about) and rarely does the rain get to me. In fact, when there is too much warm weather and sun I miss for the rain.
No longer.
I'm ready for something warm. Something dry. Something like a sun to appear in the sky so I can turn my face to it and sigh.
But no sun. Just gray.
No rain, either, and for that I should be grateful, but it's hard when more rain is predicted for this afternoon and for tomorrow and a week of tomorrow's after that.
Being more grateful was one of my New Year's Resolutions. They say the average length a person sticks to a resolution is about 7 days. When those 7 days are part of 27 straight days of rain, I can see why it's hard stick to anything.
Exercise for one. I have no desire to walk, cycle, or run in weather like this. I just want to sit by the fire, read, and eat. I want to eat warm things. Hot things. Like good Mexican hot chocolate. Or soup. Or freshly baked bread. Or cinnamon rolls.
I want mashed potatoes all the time.
With butter. Melted in a pool.
Rain is death to resolutions.
And the dog looks at me like, "...it's not raining now...let's go out" with the wag, wag, wag he always does when we haven't risen from our Sunday slumber.
So, I'll go out and walk the dog through the park ...
...and hope it doesn't rain.
Fat chance.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Work...
...said the man raking the leaves on the corner..."it sounds like a swear word."
We laughed. We were walking the dog. It was raining, or just starting to. Day 27 of rain. No end in sight. We all had on our raincoats, even the dog. The man was clearly "special" as he wasn't talking on a cell phone or one of those stupid cell phones that hangs from your ear. He was raking leaves with fury and talking loudly...to himself. "Work, it sounds like a swear word" and the rake just kept scraping across the sidewalk, fingernails on a chalkboard.
It's a three-day weekend and I'm glad. My work, teaching, is exhausting. Parent conferences were on Friday. All day. Straight through. 9-7. A half-hour for lunch. And me, trying desperately not to be "too direct" as my Dean of Faculty says I can be. Me, trying desperately to remember, "five positive comments to every negative one" while I talk with the parents of some kid in my class. (I'd mention names here, but I can't and even if I create fake names, they are most likely names of students I've taught in the past...so no names. Hell, it's even hard to name my pets...they can never be named after people because chances are I've had a student named that and there will always be some kind of connotation that just doesn't fit the dog or the cat or the hamster...though I'd never own a hamster...still, you get my point...no names).
"She's very kind," I'd say and then my brain would swim for more..."...and artistic and she really seems to enjoy math"...though I don't teach math, my teaching partner does, but I know I need to come up with five things before I say, "...and she can be a bully at times" though generally, I don't say it like that even if the kid really is. Instead, I try to get the kid to say or at least describe something she did or said that illustrates that she is a bully.
Which I have to coax out of the kid slowly...hard to do as I only have 30 minutes per conference (though they never fit into that time frame...more like 45 minutes and then the next one walks through the door before I have a chance to get to the bathroom and pee).
And most of the time the kid doesn't want to be coaxed so I have to "help" them remember, which sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.
But I make it all sound awful. It's not. It's just exhausting because parents either think their kid can do no wrong or they think their kid is all wrong and there is no happy medium and that's what I want to talk about...that happy medium...how to get their kid there in the classroom, in life...how to help them find that happiness so when they leave 5th grade and go into 6th and then 7th and then into the lost continent of high school they have something to hold onto that helps them survive.
But parents just want to know if I'm 1) challenging their kid or 2) if I'm aware of how special they are or any other number of "worries" they might have...
...and the whole time I'm thinking how odd it is that I get to see their kid separate from them for about 7 or 8 hours a day in a large group situation and they, the parents, never get to see that. And I'm thinking how different this kid is in the classroom than they are at home, most likely, because they aren't comparing or competing or worried about their social status at home like they are in the classroom so they do and say things that the parents would never expect and then I have to bring it up at the conference and the parents, well, you can imagine, they can't believe their child would do such a thing or say such a thing and then it all comes back to ME...perhaps I'm really not understanding their child or I don't have the "big" picture...and they're right...I don't, but neither do they since they don't see their kid in large group situations and I rarely see their kid any other way.
Which is to say...
...it's all work...
...and it sounds...
...like a swear word to me, too.
We laughed. We were walking the dog. It was raining, or just starting to. Day 27 of rain. No end in sight. We all had on our raincoats, even the dog. The man was clearly "special" as he wasn't talking on a cell phone or one of those stupid cell phones that hangs from your ear. He was raking leaves with fury and talking loudly...to himself. "Work, it sounds like a swear word" and the rake just kept scraping across the sidewalk, fingernails on a chalkboard.
It's a three-day weekend and I'm glad. My work, teaching, is exhausting. Parent conferences were on Friday. All day. Straight through. 9-7. A half-hour for lunch. And me, trying desperately not to be "too direct" as my Dean of Faculty says I can be. Me, trying desperately to remember, "five positive comments to every negative one" while I talk with the parents of some kid in my class. (I'd mention names here, but I can't and even if I create fake names, they are most likely names of students I've taught in the past...so no names. Hell, it's even hard to name my pets...they can never be named after people because chances are I've had a student named that and there will always be some kind of connotation that just doesn't fit the dog or the cat or the hamster...though I'd never own a hamster...still, you get my point...no names).
"She's very kind," I'd say and then my brain would swim for more..."...and artistic and she really seems to enjoy math"...though I don't teach math, my teaching partner does, but I know I need to come up with five things before I say, "...and she can be a bully at times" though generally, I don't say it like that even if the kid really is. Instead, I try to get the kid to say or at least describe something she did or said that illustrates that she is a bully.
Which I have to coax out of the kid slowly...hard to do as I only have 30 minutes per conference (though they never fit into that time frame...more like 45 minutes and then the next one walks through the door before I have a chance to get to the bathroom and pee).
And most of the time the kid doesn't want to be coaxed so I have to "help" them remember, which sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.
But I make it all sound awful. It's not. It's just exhausting because parents either think their kid can do no wrong or they think their kid is all wrong and there is no happy medium and that's what I want to talk about...that happy medium...how to get their kid there in the classroom, in life...how to help them find that happiness so when they leave 5th grade and go into 6th and then 7th and then into the lost continent of high school they have something to hold onto that helps them survive.
But parents just want to know if I'm 1) challenging their kid or 2) if I'm aware of how special they are or any other number of "worries" they might have...
...and the whole time I'm thinking how odd it is that I get to see their kid separate from them for about 7 or 8 hours a day in a large group situation and they, the parents, never get to see that. And I'm thinking how different this kid is in the classroom than they are at home, most likely, because they aren't comparing or competing or worried about their social status at home like they are in the classroom so they do and say things that the parents would never expect and then I have to bring it up at the conference and the parents, well, you can imagine, they can't believe their child would do such a thing or say such a thing and then it all comes back to ME...perhaps I'm really not understanding their child or I don't have the "big" picture...and they're right...I don't, but neither do they since they don't see their kid in large group situations and I rarely see their kid any other way.
Which is to say...
...it's all work...
...and it sounds...
...like a swear word to me, too.
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