Glennalicious

Derrick and I are listening to the occasional plunk of parts of the ceiling drop onto the floor in our wrecked bedroom. It's like rainfall, but with more masonry.

We're on the couch in the living room tonight, after staying at our friend J & P's house last night. The bedroom is a bit of a disaster, with about half the ceiling collapsed, mattress and clothes marinating in smoke-filled water, and the walls blistered and peeling.

Not exactly what I wanted to face after my first attempt at Bikram yoga in Harlem, but I guess that having such a relaxing and exhausting workout before the smoky panic of a fire probably balanced. I did the yoga for NINETY minutes, then had a wild craving for Taco Bell to offset all of the healthiness and goodness. I got home, dropped onto the couch, and realized Derrick was at a play.

While I sat on the couch, apparently some bubble headed child upstairs decided to play with candles at his family's shrine. No, I have no idea why the family had some shrine in their apartment, but maybe it was some form of prayer to NOT HAVE A PYRO for a child. Maybe they should have had more candles. One bad idea leads to another, and pretty quickly the entire 6th floor was burning. I'm on the 5th floor, and I hear the fire alarm on the floor BELOW me going off. I hear some screaming, open the door, and smoke flooded into the apartment. I yelled for the neighbors, ran back into the apartment, grabbed Bear's leash (and my new iPod!), and raced down the stairs. I contacted Derrick, then waited with the rest of my neighbors, hoping that everyone made it out, hoping our place wasn't going up in flames.

When we finally were allowed back into the building around 10:30, water was pouring down the stairs, people were crying, and the air grew more acrid the higher we trudged. Derrick showed up around 10:45 and helped me sift through what a few hours before had been an exceptionally clean apartment. Now everything in the bedroom, bathroom, and part of the living room was dripping with fouled water and smoke. We tried to move as much as possible that could be saved away from the damage, and went to our friends' house for sleep, as the fire alarms were still beeping, and the water was still dripping.

Not necessarily a good thing, but we are still so lucky. Things could be so much worse. The fire could have happened during the winter, it could have happened much later at night when everyone was asleep, and we could have been uninsured. None of our neighbors up on the 6th floor were insured, and they lost everything.

Today I called my insurance and they had their evaluator to my apartment by noon. Tomorrow a special company is picking up all of our clothing and linens to try to clean them, and another agency will be sending people to wipe down our walls and clean everything. Our landlords will probably take a lot longer, but we're alive and have a home. I spent the rest of the day cleaning the rest of the piles, but again, I am so lucky. Derrick is okay, Bear is okay, and I'm okay. Thanks for all the phone calls and well wishes.

Posted by G at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

And our apartment is trashed. The fire was on the 6th floor, we live on the 5th floor, and we have water and smoke damage everywhere. I'm fine, Derrick is fine, Bear is fine. We both have renters insurance.

When it smokes, it pours.

Fuck the planned blog post about my first yoga experience.

Posted by G at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Joe sent me a link to an education article that discusses what is known as 'the rubber room.' When a tenured teacher is suspended, they are sent to a holding office. The main focus of the article was that $65 million is wasted supporting these 700 teachers. These teachers aren't teaching because they are going to have a hearing to remain or be fired, with the average wait being 19 months.

As a teacher, I would say a few things. First off, the list does include every teacher with a problem- all the way from a teacher who participated in a war protest to the teacher accused of inappropriately touching a student. The DOE always errs on the side of caution, and I'm glad that they protect the rights of teachers by not suspending someone without pay. When compared to the total number of teachers, they represent 1/2 of one percent. I laughed about the room descriptions, as the hot, stuffy rooms sound identical to most classrooms in NYC.

$65 million is a lot of money, although you have to again realize that means it is also just 1/2 of one percent of salaries paid to NYC teachers. I do not know the process of the hearing personally, and I would hope that for most minor offenses that the wait time is minimal. What is important is that safe teachers be returned as quickly as possible to the classroom, while unsafe teachers are kept away from kids.

For a bureaucracy, the DOE is a relatively fair program. Granted, I have not been stuck in a rubber room (yet). Would the hiring of more people to speed the process work? Possibly, but it could also be the problem of both a defense and prosecution team requiring time to be ready. I also am not sure if I would want some of these rubber room people performing other responsibilities, so I would think that it is one of those 'least bad' options.

My two cents on 65 million.

Posted by G at 06:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I couldn't put my name on it, but I was just creeped out. As I was walking down the street in Salt Lake City, it wasn't the eerily-friendly all-white people, the bumper crops of SUV's, or even the numbering system with the origin of (0,0) at the Temple. It was the total absence of those disgusting little black blobs of chewing gum. They have pedestrians, but they just don't have pedestrians that spit out gum.

I'll admit something now. I really, really admire the Mormons. I grew up in a lot of different types of churches, and none of them compare to the church based in Salt Lake City for the true definition of religious donations. When Katrina struck, the LDS church was there first. When the tsunami crashed a few years ago, the LDS church was there. We took a tour of their charity HQ, and I really wish that my time in the Peace Corps would have been organized by them. They have a whole 'hive' theme, and it is part of their whole creepy goodness. Everything is focused on their family, their church, and planning for disasters. They invest so much time into not just doing good works, but doing them well.

They also have good beer. I really liked their Porter, as it wasn't too malty.

Now that I've praised them for what I think they should be praised for, I'm going to point out that they are also deeply opposed to my basic existence as a gay man, they believe that an entire extra white people tribe lived in America thousands of years ago, and like any religion in the US, they have an entire scary right wing that they pretend they can't see, which also tends to find sanctuary in Texas.

SLC is actually this little liberal blue gem in a sea of red, beautiful mountains surrounding the city, good beer, and affordable housing. By the final day, I was desperate to get out of there, wearing my extremely non-magical underpants. I guess I just would rather have my boxer briefs.

Posted by G at 07:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Last night I traveled across vast distances of time and space from Harlem down to the Lower East Side for Dr. Jeff's birthday party. I saw a lot of friends that I see too rarely, ate Foxy's superdelicious bacon cake, and managed to get my iPod stolen.

It is always frustrating to lose something rather valuable, but even more frustrating to have to adapt to the lack of that technology. As it was 2 in the morning, it was easier to walk 8 avenues to get to the A/C than wait endlessly for the L train to arrive, and I was aurally assaulted by all the strange sounds that I'm normally insulated from by my own personal soundtrack to my life. Headphones and the new Madonna song block a lot of things, plus the right tempo makes me haul butt across the cityscape.

The traffic buzzed past, their tires sucking to the wet pavement, while the crazy man who I normally would have ignored managed to point out the swarms of at least 30 rats milling about the sewer drain at 6th and 14th. Oddly enough, I moved closer to him. The shrill drunken girl conversations, the loud vomiting of the man in the suit against a building around 7th Ave, and the reflexive honking of cabbies morse-coding their way down the street invaded what is normally one of my favorite strolls. I love NYC, but my walk showed me how much I'd built up a defense against the part of it that isn't so pleasant.

The bar was so packed before I left that I was unable to grab any reading material like the Onion to entertain me, and I could no longer play Solitaire on the iPod. The 30 minute wait for a train did nothing to improve my crankiness, making me at least wish I had drank more than two beers over four hours.

So now I guess I'm buying a new iPod, as I know my love affair with my city has certain limits. My 40 gig model was bursting at the seams, but it is honestly pretty rare that I listen to all of my songs. I will buy either a 60 gig iPod Classic, or an 8 gig Nano. Any recommendations from anyone? I really have no idea how I would pick ONLY 8 gigs of music, but I like the small size and solid state construction. Having 60 gigs of music wouldn't exactly help my really prioritize, but it is also an excellent backup of music.

I figure I'll be shopping for something on Monday or Tuesday, so any advice is appreciated. After that, I promise to write about the magical underpants quest.

Posted by G at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Click here, comment if it works for you.

Posted by G at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Ahhh, nothing like almost a month of no blogging. Just like my current spring break from school, sometimes it is just a good idea to recharge the batteries.

Funny thing about blogging. When I was younger, I never had a diary, as introspection wasn't exactly my strong suit. I did write letters to family and friends, and with the advent of word processing, I started sending out mass emails to keep everyone updated on where I was living in the world at that point.

Now, after almost 6 years of blogging, I was beginning to think that I might be running out of things to write about. After almost a month of not blogging, I know that's not even close to being true. It was necessary to take the break (completing a 30 hour online course, taking a trip to Salt Lake City for a math conference, and doing 80 hours of extra work after regular hours does that), but blog absence sure makes the blogheart fonder.

I'll start tomorrow or Friday, telling everyone of my narrow miss of converting to Mormonism.

Posted by G at 03:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)