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July 31, 2002
The overly smarmy meteorologist stopped
The overly smarmy meteorologist stopped me dead in my TV-watching tracks yesterday. Steamy? What exactly does this perfectly coifed bubblehead mean? Yes, yes, the temperatures for yesterday would surpass my sweatiest moments ever, but I've never encountered that adjective with weather. I've encountered some hot weather. In Phoenix, there was the flammability factor, where you would step outside of an air conditioned office, take two steps, and burst into flames. In Phoenix, you knew to always be polite in the summer to the cars with their windows down, as the people traveling in four wheeled convection ovens always have had their sanity baked out. It was always described as a dry heat, even though my instantly evaporating sweat contributed what it could to humidify the city. I lived in Uzbekistan, where it was ochen zharkaya, which means "really hot". We were told to always drink at least three liters of water a day, because you would sweat that much. During the day, I would kill for a cold orange fanta, totally willing to beat children with sticks if they blocked my way, even though the bottles were usually simply cooled down in a canal. The drinks were a few degrees cooler than me.
However, I have never lived in a place where the heat could be described as steamy. Does that mean I can leave out a pot of rice in the morning and come home to light and fluffy sustenance? Will my clothes mysteriously unwrinkled when I step outside? Do people step into a sauna to cool down? I've read books, Peace Corps diaries, and travel books about steamy jungles, but I have only been to jungles in Mexico and Cozumel, but I don't think they count. Is New York City really as hot and humid as a jungle?
So I stepped outside. It was hot. Damn hot. When I read how Daisy Buchanan flutters languidly at the beginning of The Great Gatsby, I never really believed that heat was an issue this far north. Now I realize that the summers here are why New Yorkers raise their noses at Californians and their clement weather. That distinctive garbage/dog pee/smog smell invigorates me every day on my way to work, making me stronger, more alive than I ever could have imagined. What could be better? Maybe some air conditioning.
Posted by G at 06:49 PM
July 29, 2002
Mister. Mister! MISTER! (ALL teenage
Mister. Mister! MISTER! (ALL teenage student commentary, being of the UTMOST vital existence-ending importance, ends in an exclamation point)
-What?
Mister! I need to use the internet! I have a social studies project!
-What is it on?
Moo crackers!
-What?
MOO CRACKERS! (apparently I'm deaf, shouting logically will help him get his point across)
-Can you tell me what are moo crackers? Are they things? A group? A movement? Food items?
NO!!!! Moo crackers! MOO CRACKERS! (He's practically doing the potty dance)
-Can you write it for me? Mr. Family Name is a little deaf, I guess...
M-u-c-k-r-a-k-e-r-s
Some days, I feel like one of the movie teachers, inspiring kids to grasp something that five years of teachers couldn't get across to them. I jump around the class, the kids laugh at my terrible jokes, they finally grasp what multiplying two negative numbers really means, my lesson plan is a well oiled machine. When this student is president of the US, he'll have me present at the swearing-in ceremony, proclaiming a Mr. B day. Some days, this really happens. Some days.
Then there are the other days. My co-teacher is absent, it's her turn for a lesson plan, I don't have any info, and I'm not even legally allowed to be alone in the class with them until September. Yet I'm still teaching them, as my slacker supervisor can't find anyone else to teach them. I tell him I'm forbidden to teach alone, I could get fired. He just shrugs, tells me there is no other option. I suggest that I combine my class with another co-teaching pair, he refuses because they can't legally crowd that many kids in one class. But it's okay for a non-licensed person to teach alone in a class! First group, I wing it pretty successfully. The kids are all really weak on fractions, and I'm able to show them how to combine them logically. Heads are nodding in agreement, eyes are showing the glimmer of comprehension. Next class, same lesson, absolute disaster. By the end of class, two kids are throwing chairs, one girl is pressing her chest up to the window, broken pretzels and skittles litter the floor. I am the worst teacher in the world.
I have no idea about tomorrow.
Posted by G at 08:57 PM
July 28, 2002
I hate when work and
I hate when work and school interfere with a perfectly good weekend. I really, really needed to do homework. Instead of doing the work like a responsible person, I giggled blankly through the days, imbibing alcohol, learning the definition of 'callipygian', and eating sinfully huge amounts of restaurant food. I had a wonderful time, and I am now doing the 10pm panic dance.
I had an interesting conversation with my friend Scott at the Gandhi restaurant. First, the Gandhi restaurant serves meat dishes, which I find highly amusing. Second, we each went for a combo plate of unidentifiable foods, as I love trying new stuff. I find olives and pickles gross, but I've even begun trying dishes containing them. I still find them icky on their own, but olives are okay as ingredients. Occasionally. Third, Scott told me that some study showed that people that are willing to stick anything into their mouths are usually experimental sexually. If so, that means I will try anything sexually, except for two things. No comment on the two things.
Posted by G at 10:26 PM
July 25, 2002
Nothing right now is more
Nothing right now is more enjoyable than walking out of James Hall at Brooklyn College around 6pm. Classes are finished for the day, the evening light drips down through the trees, the birds are floating on the slight breeze and the bell tower is cranking out some wild-ass tunes. Every day, some progressive bell tower aficionado puts on some new song that a person would never associate with bells. Today I strolled down the quad to the perky notes of 'That's Amore." It took me half the song to figure out what was playing. Other recent hits have been "Sunrise, Sunset" and Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl." You haven't heard Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" until it's been played by the massive bells of the Brooklyn College bell tower.
I'm finally down to my last week of teaching and being taught. Today one of my little eighth grade guys shows up with all the bold and decorative signs of ringworm. For people like me who have never encountered ringworm before, it's a highly infectious parasite that can be passed through contact with dirt or another infected person. Charming stuff that makes itchy red crop circles on your skin. My student had one about two inches across his forehead, and a few more on an arm. I had to send him to the nurse to have his parents take him home and treat him. Just thinking about it makes my skin itch. I just know that he was roughhousing with two of the other boys, so I'll be watching them pretty carefully for the mark of the beast.
Posted by G at 11:35 PM
July 23, 2002
I'm going to have to
I'm going to have to read one of those inane "Blah,blah for Dummies" books. Blogger wasn't accepting my posts, because I had pasted some html code incorrectly. How am I supposed to know this stuff, by learning?!?!? Anyway, here's some entries from the last little bit. I'll write some more on the train tomorrow. Now I have to write my lessons for my jumpy little eighth graders. What bundles of hormonal joy.
Posted by G at 10:43 PM
July 16, 2002
I forgot how addictive videos
I forgot how addictive videos are. I met Charlie at Stonewall for a drink after work. I've never been there before, it's actually a mellow bar at six pm, and they have soap and towels in the bathroom. I'm a big fan of knowing that the bartend can wash his hands after he's gone to the restroom. Charlie took off, and now I have to finish my happy hour Rolling Rock (actually, a total of four beers). What torture. On the video screen are some carefully selected videos, and I can't seem to carry on a conversation. I'm mesmerized by the fluid images, the kinetic entertainment, the A.D.D. fix. I'm transported back to my early teens, sneaking out once my parents were asleep to watch "Night Tracks" on TBS. My sister Bonnie and I felt so rebellious, because everyone knows that videos are a tool of the devil. The penalty was missing early morning cartoons, something I still continue to miss. I love videos, the strange barrage of images that assault the senses, provisioners of ten second gratification.
This bar is great, the music is pounding, but not distracting. It reminds me of my early college days, where I would do homework while some bad band was sweating onto my notebook. I was oblivious, as I thrive in chaos, worshipping some kind of pagan god who blesses confusion or convulsions. I hate to study in some library, I have always found silence oppressive. The people swarm about, searching the happy hour free food for something tasty, moving on to something tasty sitting at the bar. A ridiculous cowboy hat person swaggers about, my urge to castrate looms. I have this recurring issue with cowboy hats. People who have never seen a horse should not wear a cowboy hat. I don't want to pull a Dubya and do some form of capital murder, but I have to feel that one earns a cowboy hat. I've earned a cowboy hat, even though I don't wear one. I'm waiting for my step-mom to mail me my old one, or at least one of my dad's castoffs.
Back to the videos. Love 'em. Videos are perfect noise in the background. No cable at the Swanktuary, my home in Brooklyn, although we have some sort of strangely random collection of movies on the IFC channel for free. I love indie films that are chock-full of angst, unexpressed emotions, and no explosions. To contradict their normal program, they showed a Peter Jackson film from his early days called "Brain Dead", which is so full of violence and gore that I was hypnotized within two minutes. Anyone who can use a lawn mower to kill the undead should be allowed to direct a film. It's a new classic for me, alongside the Evil Dead series and maybe Buckaroo Banzai.
I love this bar! These people amaze me! I'm at one with the universe! I think I should stop drinking.
Posted by G at 10:36 PM
July 15, 2002
Why do I keep using
Why do I keep using the giant can of shaving cream that I don't like? I bought it at Walmart in Lubbock just before I left, one of those ultra-mega-huge econocans of foamy stuff. From the very first time I used it, I didn't like it. It's all farty and such. As I depressed the tab, it hissed, frothed, and produced this lousy foam. Maybe if you don't shave your head, you just wouldn't understand, but think of it as a shampoo that you don't really like. It's never consistent, sometimes a quarter size amount produces enough for my head, other days not enough, other days I have a giant foamy 'fro. The other day I looked like Mr. Softee.
So why can't I just throw this substandard stuff away? Was I born in the Depression or something? I will do the standard action and blame my parents. I'm not sure at which point that my parents imparted this lesson, but it haunts me to this day. I have such a hard time throwing things away. It's why I habitually poison myself with skanky food. I know that the old ham is bubbling with dangerous bacteria, but I'm such a botulism optimist that I always end up microwaving the bejeezus out of it, and then ingesting it. This isn't your rare event, but a regularly occurring habit. Plus I can't tell if the milk is gone off, unless it turns to cottage cheese.
I've corrected the mistake, buying some really good Aveeno oatmeal shaving cream at the Bedford stop. I'm down to the last bits of that nasty stuff, but I can't force myself to throw it away. I just wonder what other things in my life I've missed out on, just because I've stuck with something out of habit.
Posted by G at 09:30 PM
July 13, 2002
Nothing like being trapped in
Nothing like being trapped in a room with two thousand other people, four thousand #2 pencils, four thousand bubble test sheets, and eight hours of mindless questions. Plus the extraordinarily bilious feeling of leaving my house at 7am in order to arrive at the requested time of 7:45, then an interminable wait for nearly two hours for them to straighten out the scheduling snafus. Teaching Fellows programs can really try my patience, especially when I'm relatively decaf early on a Saturday morning. I should have been watching cartoons like Powerpuff Girls. Not to mock the intelligence of the average teacher, but the announcer had to tell everyone that the page that says "End of Test" means the test is done and you should turn in the test. Some people were still confused.
I am not a smoker, but I think I'm suffering the most from the new tax here. Mayor Bloomberg should have warned the rest of us that all of our chain-smoking friends were going to be forced to quit, ALL AT ONCE. The last cigarette has been smoked, the butt rubbed out, and the nightmare begins. Shaky hands, muttering, and random acts of violence seem to be the signs that I should run away, but their desperate nicotine need brings out the mother in me. "Try some coffee!" I suggest perkily, hoping it will stop their crankiness. They smack the cup away, ignoring me while they try futilely to light the end of a straw. Bloomberg should have set up nicoderm patch stations on the streets, or maybe some Hostess dingdongs supply system.
After a long week of classes, programmatic suicide, and watching one of my students breaking into a vehicle on my way to school, I just want a beer. Make that quite a few, actually. Sex would be really nice too.
Posted by G at 09:21 PM
July 07, 2002
My fab friend Jen has
My fab friend Jen has certain skills. She can give blood without getting woozy, her hair is worthy of poetry, and she always makes me cheer up when I talk to her. As far as I can tell, she is also my muse of vaguely disgusting ideas. I'm not sure where, when, or why, but she brought the vocabulary word 'sebum' to my attention. Considering my head is shaved, I should certainly have already learned this word. Sebum is an oily substance secreted by the sebaceous glands that lubricates the hair and skin and gives some protection against bacteria. In other words, it's what makes my shiny head shiny. This would have been a momentary distraction of adding new vocabulary to my lexicon of strange words, except this word has other great features, at least in my opinion. Onomatopoeia. Just say it, it sounds almost primal, like om. Sebum. When I say it, I can almost imagine that my scalp produces extra sebum in some kind of autonomic response. Maybe there is some Tibetan shaman who can not only control his body temperature, but also produce lots of extra sebum. I bet the locals call him the shiny shaman and provide him with gifts of moist towelettes. I also love to look at words backwards, and sebum is up at the top of the pile along with words like murmur, oops, Evian, and Naomi.
I also like etymology. Until this weekend, I had no idea that the root for vaccination is vacca, which means cow. This is because smallpox, the first disease effectively treated with immunization, was treated with cowpox, a similar virus transmitted by cows to dairy maids. It's a bit sad that I can remember bits of information like this, but keep forgetting where I left my coffee.
Posted by G at 03:44 PM
July 06, 2002
I really can't tell. Either
I really can't tell. Either my dog Bear is becoming a male dog, or she has a yeast infection. Like clockwork, Bear has continued a long tradition of consistent peeing. Today, she absolutely yanks the concrete out from under me by peeing in three different places. Maybe she's been jealous of the guy dogs, hiking their hind legs. Maybe she has been watching Madonna videos, and now realizes that girls can do anything they want. Maybe she just needed a change of pace. Sometimes we all need that.
So what did I do for the evening of July 4th? Absolutely nothing. I had numerous invites for social and visual celebrations, but those cool starbursts behind the eyelids were infinitely more alluring. I fell asleep just as the fireworks were starting, and sweated through the rest of the night. At some point, a friend of Dan's called in the evening, and I was so completely out of it. I know his friend thinks I'm a babbling idiot. The worst kind, actually, the kind of idiot who just woke up. They answer the phone with this strange, dislocated voice, and then try to convince you that you didn't wake them up. Why is it that the only coherent thought at that point is to prevaricate wildly, trying pathetically to sound conscious? "Nomm, NO, no, I wasn't sleeping.... I was ... eating ..brmm.broccoli... yeah...Who is this again?"
I have to say that I love the Space Odyssey karaoke pods at the New Museum. Sleek, futuristic, organic, perfect for my future living room. The last time I went there was with my friend Deanna, and it revealed something I had never really known. I'm a really tuneless singer. I've always thought of myself as a shower Pavarotti, but hearing my own voice in headphones quavering to Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams song was quite humbling. Thank god the pods are soundproof. My dream of some rock music agent hearing my singing emanating from the bathroom has been replaced by the certainty that it might be best to keep the windows closed. Today I stepped into the pod with diminished expectations, but then I chose something wonderful. Radiohead's "Creep". I will never be an Annie Lennox, but I can definitely be a Radiohead frontman.
Posted by G at 12:08 AM
July 03, 2002
Good lord! I keep trying
Good lord! I keep trying to tell myself that it was hotter in Uzbekistan, but I just can't recall it being this hot. That first summer in Tashkent, it was regularly in the 110's to 130's. That was hot, but it wasn't this humid. They had these great adobe houses that would stay semi-cool during the day. You would get home, rip your clothes off, and just sweat in your room, rather than burst into flame outside.
A great friend of mine from my medical evacuation time in DC was in town, and I wanted to meet her this evening. After a long sweaty day, I was a bit funky (actually, musk oxen have nothing on me), so I took a shower before meeting her. I clean up, I step out the door... and I'm sweaty again. Isn't there some sort of jet stream that should make New York cooler than, say, an oven?
I get home, strip down, turn my little oscillating fan on, and think about mint juleps. Maybe one of those a/c units isn't such a bad idea, although our place isn't bad. Another one of these days, and I'm simply staying on the subway train, just for the cold air.
Posted by G at 12:21 AM
July 01, 2002
What a great weekend. Joined
What a great weekend. Joined up with Andy, Scott, and Dan at a grotty bar called Dicks in the East Village on Friday night, hosted by the masters of blog. When I think of some of the insanely inane conversations I've had in gay bars over the last few months, I now have experienced the polar opposite. Not that the blogger people were all intellectual and esoteric, simply that I could say something odd and not have all the normal strange looks. The Love Boat IS a good topic, as are urinal strainers. For those of you who don't really know your superior urinal design, the strainer is a mesh that keeps cigarettes and other lovely objects from blocking up the drain lines. The ones at Dicks Bar are produced by none other than the "Swisher" company, and have even made the whole pissing process a morality tale by also printing "Don't use drugs." Up until the point that I was taking a piss, I was going to try heroin that night. Thank god for urinal marketing.
Went to the Pride parade today. What with the day of a million zillion rainbow flags, I felt a certain pressure to look my best. I even did laundry on Saturday so I could have clean underwear (it's been one of those busy months). What with the month of donuts and gravy, I am extremely insecure about how I look, and my eternally patient roommate deals daily with my need for clothing approval. I'm not colorblind, but I feel out of my element in anything but jeans and a teeshirt. I totally missed the gene for good fashion sense, and feel extremely lucky that I have Dan as a roommate.
I made him get up and help me pick out a shirt. He asked me what was my wildest shirt, and I used the radioactive material tongs to pull out this one orange cowboy shirt I had bought years ago at a thrift shop in Texas. I've never worn it, as it is definitely not my style to be agressive, at least for clothing. Dan was enthusiastic about the shirt. Emboldened by my loftmate's encouragement, I strode out of the apartment, heading towards the flaming on the horizon. During the festivities, I got so many compliments on my shirt. People NEVER compliment me on my clothing, so I was practically skipping home afterwards. Andy helped me replace the old Gilligan hat with a newer, sturdier Gilligan hat after lunch. He almost persuaded me to buy a cowboy hat, because he said I looked really good in it. I was sorely tempted, but I also realized that I felt uncomfortable thinking of wearing a cowboy hat.
I have so many conflicted emotions about that. I was raised around cowboys and ranch work, and I associate the cowboy clothing, the music, the attitudes with that part of my life. For a very long time, I had a negative association with anything smacking of West Texas and being a cowboy. I can still think of how my dad must have sometimes despaired of ever making me into the typical Family Name man. I despaired of ever reaching his terms, that's for sure. When I was just a kid, having to work all the summers on the ranch, learning welding, cattle doctoring, plain and simple menial labor, I hated him. All I wanted to do was read books. I hated cows, I hated the people who worked for him, I hated working, I hated being the son of the boss, I hated myself. I would beg not to have to learn the trade, he would make it even harder for me to achieve it.
It was so hard for both of us, but I guess he knew me well enough. With the distance of time, I know how much of my basic value system is from him. I'm a brilliant car mechanic because of him. Hell, now I'm a better mechanic than him. When he forced me to work on rebuilding my engines, I would get so mad that I would throw the tools at the walls, cursing, yelling, kicking my own junk car. I used to dread the trips to the cabin, all the carpentry work, the hunting. At the end of my teenage years, these were the activities where we learned to be father and son. We couldn't ever talk about the really important things, but we communicated through handing tools across a Volkswagen engine, or just sitting outside of our cabin's new extension, watching the stars wheel across the sky. Now that I'm a man, I love working with my hands. I love building things, tuning an engine, working a shovel into the earth. I love grime under my fingernails, callouses forming, sore muscles after doing real work. Handshakes can seal deals, promises are more than just words, and biscuits need gravy.
Some people say I'm a Texan. I've seen some mightily stupid Texans, prime example being Dubya. I'd prefer to say that I'm like my dad.
Posted by G at 12:05 AM