« August 2002 | Main | October 2002 »
September 30, 2002
Note to self: Roommate has
Note to self: Roommate has posted on his blog that we're having a party on Friday October 12th. Yay me! Of course, that means that I have to clean up big time, but we'll figure that out. Email me if you need directions, because of course you're invited.
Posted by G at 06:01 PM
September 29, 2002
The second fourth of my
The second fourth of my List of 100 Things About Me.
26. I was born in 1970, 5pm on the nose. I was never meant to have a normal day job.
27. I hate olives and pickles. Pickle juice will make me retch.
28. I am a procrastinator. I'll talk about that later.
29. I have a scar on my back from walking backwards into a glass shower door. I was turning around as my high school friend Breck was shaving off one of his eyebrows in my bathroom. I also have a scar on my thumb where my chainsaw cut down to the bone a few years ago.
30. No tattoos, but I want to get my family's cattle brand- a Triangle Lazy B.
31. My nose is broken, the disastrous result of Scott Svatos and me catching the ball at the same time in the fourth grade. It has been broken again a few times from either doors or fists.
32. I can't breathe through my nose when I'm asleep. I don't really snore, but I'm not exactly quiet either.
33. I sleep better with someone in the bed. I love spooning.
34. I'm not fearless. I'm clueless.
35. My first time drinking alcohol was after I graduated from high school. My best friend Breck and I went up to my family's cabin, rummaged through the cabinets. All we could find was peppermint schnapps and Diet Dr. Pepper. I threw it up, and now can't drink either beverage.
36. I can brew alcohols. My cider is the tastiest.
37. I own every a-ha album.
38. I AM THE CAR MECHANIC GOD. Seriously. I'm really good.
39. I can be in the middle of a great moment, and realize it is one of those 'great moments.'
40. I'm not ticklish.
41. I graduated from Clovis High School in 1989. I teach kids born in 1989.
42. Palindromes and just saying words backwards amuse me endlessly. Murmur/rumrum is my favorite.
43. Although I can resist it much better now, I'm pretty vulnerable to the 'triple dog dare.'
44. My favorite outfit always involves blue jeans. I am totally comfortable in a tux, but hate suits.
45. I am pretty certain I would make a truly terrifying drag queen. Shaving that much surface area would be painful.
46. Boxers. Tighty-whities look really silly on me.
47. I don't want to grow up, I'm a Toys'R'Us kid.
48. I was valedictorian of my high school. I skipped nearly a third of my senior year.
49. I've had dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, guinea pigs, ferrets, lizards, frogs, turtles, fish, and a snake as pets.
50. My ex Jason gave me crabs. I didn't like those as pets.
Posted by G at 09:10 PM
September 26, 2002
Another quick note before I
Another quick note before I go to bed. When teaching mathematics to hormonal teenagers, never draw some red circles and white circles on the board, then state "I've got three colored balls . . . "
Posted by G at 09:54 PM
September 25, 2002
When I was thirty and
When I was thirty and in Uzbekistan, I couldn't imagine making twenty thousand. When I was twenty, I couldn't imagine going to bed before ten. When I was ten, I couldn't imagine that I'd be alive past thirty. When I was zero, I was swimming around in amniotic fluid.
My birthday is looming, and the womb sounds mighty comfortable. I'm going to bed at 9:59.
Posted by G at 09:59 PM
September 24, 2002
Two things before I go
Two things before I go to work. 1) I love the new Life Cafe down the street from my loft. They have good coffee. 2) Researchers should come to my school, as I think my students could be the best form of birth control in the world.
Posted by G at 07:03 AM
September 21, 2002
I've caved in and made
I've caved in and made one of these lists about me. I'm breaking it into fourths, or 25%, or .25, or a ratio of 1:4.
1. I'm frightened of clowns, especially this one, courtesy of Michael. They had better be frightened of me.
2. I've been to every state but Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut. I've also been to Mexico, Canada, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Germany, Belgium, France, and England, but I've never been to me.
3. I love Shiner Bock beer from Shiner, Texas. It is the perfect blend of good beer, cheap price, and non-barfability.
4. I can only raise my right eyebrow independently.
5. When I dream I'm flying, I usually have to flap my arms.
6. My sister pushed me out of a big rig truck when I was about six, knocking out my front teeth and cracking my skull. I screamed for some time and looked like a vampire for about five more years.
7. I damaged her left eye by throwing a broom stick from our tree house. I basically knocked out her eye. She screamed for a huge amount of time and had to wear a patch for some time.
8. I can't stand touching foam, like the egg crate stuff on some beds. I tore off a fingernail when I was younger, and the exposed part stuck to some foam.
9. Every day I look more like my mother's father, a man with perfect pitch.
10. I don't have perfect pitch.
11. I sing in the shower as if I had perfect pitch. I am the Pavarotti of washing.
12. I have never smoked a cigarette. I know I would be addicted the first time.
13. I own 25 Pop Swatches, 15 currently work. I am wanting more.
14. I bought a lottery ticket while living in England. I didn't win, so I've never bought another.
15. Halloween is my Christmas.
16. I laugh at the death of Bambi's mom, yet I cry wildly at the end of "Accidental Tourist".
17. I had a perm. Once. Curly hair should only be on certain areas of my body.
18. I always eat spoiled food. I can't help it.
19. I could eat burritos for every meal, preferably smothered in queso.
20. Reading T.S. Eliot poetry is like eating a rich dark chocolate.
21. I wish my name was something sexy like Antonio Banderas. It sounds so bold and exotic, unlike Glenn, which sounds like the anaerobic bacteria in a pond.
22. My nose was broken in the fourth grade, with a few more slight arrangements from walking into doors, fights, etc.
23. Now that I'm out of the closet, I love describing a guy as 'dreamy.'
24. I am the funky monkey of the body odor world. Wearing watches on my sleeve gives me the opportunity to see if I am getting too funky.
25. I am not a size queen, as I have a tremendous overpowering gag reflex.
Posted by G at 02:38 PM
September 20, 2002
I miss the adrenaline-rush danger
I miss the adrenaline-rush danger of an Uzbek shower. While I lived in Uzbekistan, I went through a progression of deadly shower experiences. Showering, like crapping, varies according to the local customs. My roommate here in New York makes do with the nasty cheap toilet paper, I'm a Charmin Ultra guy. Nothing is too good for my ass.
With my first psycho family from hell, they had a small room with a 5' ceiling. I would slouch my way towards bathing Bethlehem, which consisted of two rusting drums filled with water. I had to fill both with water from the canal below the house, the same canal that was filled with leeches. One had an open flame underneath one drum, the other was rippled with condensed moisture. I would take a pan, mix it from both barrels, splash it across my body. Lather, rinse, no repeat. Shaving was an incredibly painful experience, and splashing too much risked the collapse of the mud walls around me.
After I was taken away from the scary first criminal devil family (Peace Corps gave me the standard "We're sorry we stuck you in a criminal family that actually tried to kill you" speech), I was placed with a wonderful family that had a more modernized system. It also had the two barrel system, but they were both overhead, and they both poured into one spray hose. This family was a good family, and so was the shower. It had no pressure to speak of, and the pressure from each tank was dependent on elevation. Head: Freezing. Testicles: Boiling.
That finished training near the capitol. From there I moved to the historical city of Samarkand and the enclosed home of Kurbon-aka. Kurbon and his wife were nice enough, except that they had the predatorial instinct of James Bond villains. Honestly, every time I heard Kurbon-aka speak, I expected him to say he was taking over the world with something he just digested. He simply had this really great villainous voice, especially as he was layering my soup with more dill. They had a western style toilet, but they had filled up either side level with concrete so one still had to treat it like a Turkish toilet, just more of a stretch. Their shower was like a fiendish 007 plot with this insanely modified faucet. If you turned it too much, it would break off and shoot scalding water across your whole body. Traditional Muslim families don't appreciate your scalded red body streaking out of the bathroom into the kitchen. It's just not done, even if their hot water tank just sloughed off your hide.
My final family, my family by which all others are judged, was an amazing family. My real family has always put the fun in dysfunctional, and this Uzbek family showed me this entirely different perspective. The parents didn't fight, the two sons (and myself as the adopted son) were always sure of love, and I cherished every meal with them. Every morning and every evening was spent with them, preparing food, cleaning house, huddled together for warmth. My host parents chopped and burned their fence during the heatless winter in order to make sure we had hot food, and even in the coldest times of that winter, our conversations were always warm. I still miss them.
And yet the showers were even more dangerous. This was a famous Krushchev era apartment building, which meant each shower had the infamous kalonka. A kalonka is this amazing little Soviet water heater mounted on the wall next to you. I would turn this broken valve with my pliers, light the roaring gas burner, and jump in the shower. This was not an adjustable system, it was either wildly on, or off. As I took the shower, I had to frequently increase the cold water, as the hot water continued to heat until it vaporized. At that point, if I wasn't finished, scalding jets of steam would erupt from the shower head, blistering my skin. I had a friend named Brian whose kalonka exploded, burning his ass. He had a hairy ass, or he did until the flames smoothed it.
Yet I miss it. As I was showering today, I was reminding myself that nothing in life is certain, even a shower. It's exhilirating, it could be good, it could be disastrous, it could really toast my ass. I'm still going to do it every day.
Posted by G at 06:52 PM
September 19, 2002
Roommate Dan's ultrachill friend Jessie
Roommate Dan's ultrachill friend Jessie visited us a few weeks ago. Very charming guy who let me watch his Krispy Kreme tattoo get drawn on his arm. I've never seen a tattoo be drawn on, so I was fascinated. Plus my friend Jen had a FASCINATING story about cats. Jessie just put up pictures of our Swanktuary, so go to his site and take a look. His photography is some of the best I've seen in a long time.
Posted by G at 04:46 PM
I'm teetering on the fulcrum
I'm teetering on the fulcrum of a decision. On one side, life is too short to not be happy. I've seen people slave away at something in the sad hopes of being happy later. On the other side, the rewards from brobdingnagian levels of effort have always been more satisfying to me. I know that my life is richer because I've had to dig deep inside to find the resources. There are other options besides teaching that are available to me, they could make me equally happy, and would probably produce more money.
I vividly remember how terrifying junior high was to me. My hormone fueled adolescent angst overwhelmed my brain completely, and I was terrified of gym class. I was most definitely not the jock; that was my sister's job. I was smaller than a lot of the kids, and I didn't realize that having a brain was a bad thing. Within the first week, I had incurred the wrath of the local gang when my brilliant English teacher told the class I had wiped out the 40 point curve because I was the only person who made a perfect score on a test. I became a very good runner at that point in life.
It is also one of the most important chunks of my life. It is where I first began to conquer my fears, stand my ground, and define my own beliefs. Junior high is where I began to have real friends, where I had my first kiss, and where the chest hair started to show. It is where I learned that I could be a geek, yet also have friends that weren't geeks. I also made it through physical ed and dodgeball.
I can name quite a lot of bad teachers, and a few amazing teachers who showed me the wonders of blood types, Lord of the Flies, and playing Dr. Von Hapsburg in some horrible play. My voracious appetite for information today results from that period in my life. I am going to stick with the teaching for now, because I know that many of my favorite teachers probably also had problems when they started. However, I also will periodically step back up on that edge, see if I'm happy (or if I will soon be happier), and if I am helping these kids. Now I'm off to get some more coffee and grade a pile of papers.
Posted by G at 04:35 PM
September 18, 2002
Poking, poking, poking. It is
Poking, poking, poking. It is one of those things that makes me absolutely crazy, and it is entirely my fault. I am responsible for my goatee. If I don't trim my upper goatee back occasionally, the hairs begin to poke at my upper lip. This makes every SINGLE movement of my lips irritating, from the slightest smile to every word uttered.
The most embarassing part is that I just bought a new beard trimmer last month, as the old one was so worn that it was simply depilating my face. The battery just died as I realized that the little hairs were poking, poking, poking. Now I can't find the charger for the dratted beast, the hairs are poking, poking, poking, and I can't believe I've done this again. I will find the charger some place totally random - the freezer, inside a shoe, or maybe in the little shrine I have to Krispy Kreme donuts. Logic has no place in my filing system of life, although my whiskers tell me I should work on that system.
Posted by G at 10:48 PM
September 17, 2002
I guess my day could
I guess my day could have been worse. I could have been kicked in the nards by an elderly woman in a very public scene, the loft could have burned down to the ground with the smoking charred remains of my dog settling amidst the ashes, or Suechinda the psycho girl stalker from the early 90's could have tracked me down again.
While writing up my lesson plans for one hundred kids over the weekend, I really felt good about some of the lessons. I had materials, real world examples, good ideas to make them THINK. It all failed miserably, as if I had simply thrown papers into the air, randomly hoping the kids would pick them up. I know I need to just relax, but I so desperately want to help these kids. We just got the scores in for our school, and less than six percent of last year's kids passed the minimum standards for the state. Every lesson that they don't understand, don't listen to, or don't care about is another nail in their future, and I'm feeling responsible.
When is Friday? Soon?
Posted by G at 09:45 PM
September 16, 2002
One other thing, then I'm
One other thing, then I'm off to bed. For Christmas, I am doing something I've wanted to do for years. I'm going some place tropical with friends, as I've never been fond of winters. You wouldn't know this from the places I've lived, but I hate hot summers and cold winters. I really should move somewhere like California, but I also like the conversations better in miserable locales. At the moment, it is Scott and Michael in the group, but we're open for a few other people. The more, the merrier. Any suggestions for something cheap and tropical?
Posted by G at 10:32 PM
It's 8:15 pm and I'm
It's 8:15 pm and I'm pretty certain it doesn't bode well for the week that I have only finished three lesson plans. I had all these grandiose plans to crank out a week's worth of brilliant lessons over this long weekend. I should be doing them right now, instead I'm blogging. I did do laundry, buy groceries, and consume vast quantities of alcohol. I'm not dreading four days of teaching, but I'm also not looking forward to it. I just feel resigned to the whole thing, which shows me that I'm still not back up to 100 percent. My sense of humor is still a bit down, if not absent.
Things I am looking forward to this week: season premiers of Buffy, Enterprise, and a party at Nick and David's house on Friday. Plus the resumption of coffee drinking.
Posted by G at 08:31 PM
September 15, 2002
My friend Frank's blog lured
My friend Frank's blog lured me to this quiz.
i am extremely intelligent and very wise. i think logically and rhetorically in order to get problems solved. if i'm not mad now, i'm getting very close.
target="new" title="we're all mad here">how mad are you?
this quiz was made by href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/piksy" title="cracked but sweet" target="new">piksy
Posted by G at 12:06 AM
September 14, 2002
The Galapagos Islands have nothing
The Galapagos Islands have nothing on New York City as far as Darwinian evolution. They have kimodo dragons, we have drag queens. They have incredibly specialized species, we have fashion consultants. We have one major trump card: toilets at the bottom of stairwells.
Tonight I went out with my good bud Andy to a free artsy-fartsy thing with free vodka drinks. The event was at this huge converted warehouse with some brilliant design ideas which I'm going to integrate into my next major loft renovation. They had these multi-level track wall systems that were cheap, elegant, and light weight. I'm still amazed because I'm still buzzed. We had a few drinks and staggered off to the Cowgirls Hall of Fame for gravy. I've been a healthy, vegan'ish person for nearly a month, and I craved fat so much I would have gnawed on a hoof.
So we're at the Hall of Fame, which is almost as good as the Chinese food restaurant's take on Christmas. Chicken fried steak should not cost 16 bucks. While waiting for our table, we have another drink, which presents me with the NYC evolutionary question. All New York restaurants have their toilets in the basement, usually down an incredibly rickety, steep, narrow stairwell. Who could have designed this system, except for Darwin? The people who have full bladders are inevitably those who have had the most alcohol. So the inebriated individual is presented with the challenge of negotiating a life threatening, neck snapping passage of death in order to simply pee. Whenever I've had a few drinks, I always expect some nature show announcer to be at the bottom narrating that "this human male has run the dangerous urinal gamut of survival, thus ensuring adequate liver size in the future of the species. " It's a shame I'm not going to reproduce.
Posted by G at 11:51 PM
September 13, 2002
Mmmm, paychecks. I'm going to
Mmmm, paychecks. I'm going to build a shrine to our payroll secretary, as I received my first real paycheck on time. It feels so good to have a steady income again, with the credit cards already dwindling to zero. Soon I'm going to have something I haven't had in forever: a savings account. Or a new laptop. Or a trip somewhere tropical for Christmas. Whatever.
Posted by G at 07:23 PM
The chalk dust has settled,
The chalk dust has settled, the janitors have cleaned up all incredible amounts of garbage, the tiny windows have been shut, all the books have been closed, and I've locked the door for a three day weekend. With a two wine glass perspective, I think the end of the week was much better. I even had about fifteen minutes of my students all listening and participating, out of 225 minutes. This is an improvement.
No more barfing, no more major stress. I have such a great support system of friends, colleagues, and professors. I was whistling tunes tunelessly in class today while cleaning up, laughing at lunch, and made the students laugh a few times. I am so glad I didn't follow my first impulse of shrieking into the night. For the first few mornings of hell, I would walk past this sheet metal company. I would look into their shop, see all the men working the punch presses and formers, thinking that those jobs were probably the same salary and a lot less stress.
Now I'm off to dinner with Van, and if I'm still awake, a nightcap with Scott. Since I'm running on very little sleep, we'll see if I can make it past 9 pm. I must say that being a responsible adult has KILLED my social life. This weekend will be a very healthy dose of friends, coffee, and very little school. I'm also looking to be educated into the wonders of Yom Kippur, which sounds very tasty.
Posted by G at 07:15 PM
September 11, 2002
Two things, actually three. 1.
Two things, actually three.
1. Just like the first few days of 7th grade, it gets better. My amazingly good administration saw there was a problem and moved me to a new classroom. So many of my problems were from the incredibly small dimensions of my class. A special ed teacher with 8 students has been moved to my old classroom. My principal and assistant principal are really fantastic. It is still far from perfect, but the end of the tunnel is apparent in the distance.
2. Thanks to everyone who called or emailed their support during my freaky barfy stage. I think today is the perfect day to realize how important my friends are to me. Sometimes you just have to close your eyes, trust your friends' perceptions of yourself, and use their faith in you to keep you going. Does that make sense?
3. Back to my normal whingeing. I found my first gray hair, dammit! I was in a deep discussion about my lesson plans with one of the other teachers, and this strange white spot was on my arm. I look down, try to brush the annoying white lint off, and realize that it is ATTACHED. After that, all I could do was try to focus on the conversation, because all I wanted was to find some tweezers. I will not go gracefully into that good night.
Posted by G at 09:59 PM
September 09, 2002
My stomach feels exactly like
My stomach feels exactly like it did every day for the first few weeks of seventh grade. My mother would try to force food into my system, I would get close to the school, I would picasso the streets with breakfast. I don't even recall the first day of seventh grade because I overdosed on antacids after barfing in the morning. One should not take an entire pack of Rolaids in the space of an hour, as it strangely affects hearing, balance, and thought processes. The only thing I recall from the first day of that day is a weird slow motion trek down a hallway as my ears transmitted the emergency broadcast signal.
I feel the same disorientation right now. Since it is the teaching of seventh graders that is producing this effect, I'm slightly amused. I've survived three days of teaching, and I'm absolutely, positively terrified that I'm not going to make it. The fear that I'm going to fail, that I'm not the right person for this job, that these kids will not learn the math keeps running through my head on some endless loop, making me wake up with knots in my stomach, adrenaline pumping in my system, feelings of absolute panic welling up.
I've received encouragement from others, but I can't seem to remember any of that when I'm alone. I've never been a particularly organized person, and I feel this constant pressure outside of class to complete things, but I'm at a loss as to where to start.
Will I make it through this? Part of me firmly believes I will, part of me isn't sure if I'll be happy as a teacher in this system. I'm going to set a deadline of two weeks for the barfing, one month for organization, see what happens.
Posted by G at 09:15 PM
September 05, 2002
My god, my god, my
My god, my god, my god. Nothing really prepares you for the first day of school. My school is amazing, the administration is totally committed to us, I've had Uzbekistan training and NY training. Yet I am so exhausted that I'm making noises like my dad as I sit down. My brain is only handling lower functions, my voice is sore, and I now know why old ladies get those varicose thingies. Hell, I know why a lot of teachers smoke.
It will get better, I know this. I'll learn my 100 kids' names, we'll establish a routine, we'll have books. The temperatures will drop, I will stop looking red, I will not develop the rank sweat of a fear-filled herbivore after being chased days by wolves. I will be able to turn a bold roguish child into a quivering heap of juvenile goo with one stare. I just have to make it through tomorrow, and then all the teachers from my school will descend on some happy hour.
Posted by G at 06:38 PM
September 02, 2002
It is now obvious to
It is now obvious to me that most problems in life can be solved by riding around on a scooter. Frank, the master of all cool things in DC, owns two of them. Sunday afternoon and evening were spent breathlessly flying about DC suburbia. I just felt so cool! I wanted to copy Eddie Izzard discussing the Italians, looking swank and saying 'ciao' to everyone. My father would probably criticize the automatic transmission, the underpowered and noisy engine, and the flimsiness of construction. I just had a blast.
It's the urban version of riding my motorcycles in the mountains of New Mexico. I miss those times, the forest trees blurring past the boundaries of my vision, huge meadows swooping into view, the little stomach lurches of jumping rapidly over the cattle guards. Being exposed like that, relying on my unreliable sense of balance, it gives me a rush. I have so many fond memories of going with friends into insanely stupid locations, feeling immortal and crazy.
Frank and I were running around the urban forests, intrepid adventurers with shiny helmets and shrill beeping horns. All I needed was some scarf or something flying out behind me. We showed up to a great barbeque party thrown by some of his friends, listened to amazing music, jumped back on the scooters as the sun set, drank more alcohol, relieved ourselves on the grounds of the Masonic temple. My sense of motorcycle balance improves with alcohol, as does my dancing. I'm less conscious of my body, which dramatically improves my ease of movement. For all the kidsters out there, I don't recommend drinking and driving, but some wine definitely improves a 2am scooter ride.
Jim and I went to go see 24 Hour Party People, the new film about some amazing people that had the peculiar privilege of being in Manchester when punk erupted on the scene. The narrator shows how these 42 people watching the Sex Pistols for the first time ended up changing everything around them. I feel the same way whenever I'm with my friends, wondering how I'll look back on some casual lunch and think "THAT was when it all started."
I'm writing this on the bus just as I'm approaching NYC. Tomorrow I start teaching at my school, my life changes yet again. That movie made me wonder about how circumstances and events connect. I see the skyline that everyone knows changed nearly a year ago. Even the bad things in life start new things. When I destroyed my knee in Uzbekistan, I had no idea that it would start a chain of events leading me to this bus, this view of an improbably magical skyline appearing out of the mist, my teaching kids, connections and coincidences and conundrums. Am I going to succeed? Am I going to fail in such a spectacular manner that I'll be the prime example of disastrous teaching to scores of future teachers? Who knows? I'll have fun one way or the other.
Posted by G at 11:05 PM