« December 2004 | Main | February 2005 »
January 31, 2005
Portions
One of my favorite comfort foods from childhood is macaroni and cheese. Twelve minutes, pasta, a packet of strange powder, some boiling water, milk and butter combine into the tastiest bowl of ruddy artificial orange poison I can imagine. For some reason, it is linked to so many good memories. Cooking with my sisters, frozen weenies being embedded in walls, the usual stories.
As my cholesterol and heart disease waxed, the bowl of creamy noodles waned in my diet. Taken in moderation, it is merely bad for you. However, those boxes are supposedly four portions. I don't take it in four meals. I put it all in one bowl, grab a giant spoon, and eat.
And eat. And eat. The whole 100+ percent of the fat, all two million grams of salt, and the various scary preservatives distend my stomach, growling and grumbling in an attempt to digest such a massive meal.
Matt made some serious homemade macaroni and cheese. It was delicious in a different way, a quality way.
Tonight I cracked open an emergency box. Maybe I just miss my mom, maybe I just miss my family, maybe I just miss sketchy meals that tempt the fates and my cholesterol count.
It was delicious, and now I can't move.
Posted by G at 09:03 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
January 29, 2005
Heading for the hills
Nothing like a trip out of the city to regain perspective and energy. Patch must have known how badly I needed a break. Various bloggers and boyfriends made for the hills this weekend. Some went skiing, some worked on projects, and I worked on my kids’ report cards. Work seems so much easier when surrounded by a serene landscape.
Of course, a trip outside of civilization wouldn’t be the same without a stop at Denny’s. Enroute to Vermont, we went into one in some highway city of Connecticut. Just like that kid in the Sixth Sense, Michael leaned over to me and said, “I see gay people…” A couple of cute gay men were totally giving us the gaydar look. It must have been gay night at Denny’s with a discount for the early birds. We had lewd and lascivious conversation and jokes, discussed bad animal experiences from our childhoods, and I ingested a huge amount of cream gravy atop country fried steak. Apparently Derrick is rarely disgusted by my food choices, even though he is a vegetarian, but my licking the gravy off of the spoon made his gorge rise. Once we were all sufficiently bloated, we wobbled our way back to the caravan of cars.
It was so sweet! The little gay boys who had been making googly eyes at us had left us little handwritten notes inviting us to karaoke night at the bowl-o-rama. They must have spotted our cars because of the out-of-state tags. It was very sweet and we almost went, but we really wanted to get up to the cabin before midnight.
I’m sitting next to a toasty fire, sated from some homemade guacamole, sipping on a beer. I’m regaining a little perspective on work. I have to remember that for every really horrible moment, I also have kids who are progressively getting better, despite the really horrible problems of their environment. Pity party blogs don’t list kids like student K, who turns in her homework EVERY day, struggling to figure things out. I didn’t mention student M, who has absolutely no skill with the English language, but is a genius with math. I didn’t mention student S, who writes absolutely brilliant poetry, or Student I, the boy who was able to master the concept of scale because he tags buildings with graffiti. No kids vandalize my student work, because they know he’ll whup on their asses.
They’re worth mentioning also, because they’re why I’m actually teaching. Queue sentimental music, please.
Posted by G at 07:53 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 27, 2005
Some weeks at school
There is a very good reason why we get long vacations as school teachers.
Let's just summarize this week:
Monday, with half of the teachers absent, which meant I had to hold two classes in one room for the ENTIRE DAY.
The death threat from the gang member J, saying his gang is going to ice me. It's a valid threat. The police are involved. And me, the only bald guy at the school. Nothing like being an easy target.
Student A, the spoiled brat who begs the question of the chicken or the egg. After 11 ignored calls from parents and administrators, his mother is finally coming in, because we confiscated his cellphone. He had nude pics of a girl bent over, and was showing it during class. Is he so far behind in his education that he became a little bastard shithead, or is he a little bastard shithead because of his absolute lack of education?
Student R, who keeps yelling "5 DILDOES!" to every math question, plus the paper pistols that he keeps aiming at me and other teachers.
Student K, who concocted a sexual allegation that could have ruined my career, just because I told her she was failing. She coerced one girl into writing a witness statement. I had to waste my time getting other students in the class to write that nothing happened, and that she is just a 'terrorizing bitch', as one of the other girls wrote up.
The five coverages of other classes I've had this week, which eliminates all of my prep time. During the day, I barely have time to gulp my lunch down while writing my lesson plans on the board before the next class, if I have that.
I'm down, I'm tired, I'm depressed. Tonight I had a box of chocolate biscuits, some butter pecan ice cream, and I made bacon burritos. Not exactly healthy, huh?
Sometimes it gets so depressing at my work that I don't want to go face the students. Nothing says love like death or sex threats. Sometimes I sit for hours trying to figure out a way to show algebra to kids who still count on their fingers. Sometimes I think February's vacation can't come soon enough.
Posted by G at 10:53 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
January 25, 2005
Winter activities
The snow this weekend forced me to stay in the house. I was practically a homo homemaker, as I did all sorts of baking, cleaning, and domestic items like cuddling with the boyfriend. I particularly love the panicked look in his eyes as I put my icy feet against his legs in bed, accompanied by a shrill keening inhalation of air. For some reason, he never really gets cold, which is beneficial to an icicle like me.
I also made rum balls from a recipe that I used to do every holiday with my mom. Most holiday memories of my mom can be troublesome, but when we made these together we had so much fun. We would laugh and talk and sample. Sampling rum balls is the best, especially when the decision to add more rum is reached by all concerned. My own addition to the family recipe is a final injection of rum via hypodermic needle after a few days.
They are the perfect way to make it through the winter blahs. If anyone wants to sample my saucy balls, just email me.
Posted by G at 06:45 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
January 24, 2005
Who are the people in your neighborhood?
I’ve discovered the only really nice thing about the weather. I feel totally safe walking around in my neighborhood at night while it’s so cold. I hate everything else about winter, basically. However, right now, I could run around my neighborhood wearing only dollar bills taped to my body and thugs wouldn’t attack. Why? IT’S TOO COLD.
School was fun today. Of the 42 teachers on staff, only 22 showed up. I had to teach three class groups all day.
Posted by G at 11:04 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 23, 2005
The foodening
I float along in my strange little insulated bubble. My own voice is strangely resonant. External sounds attempt to penetrate, but slowly muffle off. Sensations are dull and drowned. My new coat and fur hat and gloves and scarf all conspire to make me into a shapeless blob oompa-loompa’ing towards destinations. I can’t hear, I can’t be heard, I can’t grip things, and I have no peripheral vision. I take up two seats on the subway. If an SUV were to strike me right now, I would just absorb the impact and keep walking. Welcome to winter in NYC.
This is also known as the safe feeding time. I could balloon to dangerous proportions and no one would have a clue. I could be emaciated, I could be pregnant, I could be concealing a rabid monkey. Rabid monkey concealment is rampant during the winter in NY. Normally I would have months to get into decent shirtless shape, after lazy cold months filled with pasta, cookies, and chocolate.
I made a great/awful decision last month to purchase tickets to Hawaii for my midwinter break in February. They were so cheap that I couldn’t pass them up. I will really enjoy warming up, soaking in the sun, and lounging on the beach. Unfortunately, no one on the beach is going to relish seeing this flabby white body. Time to stop the stuffing, start the buffing process.
Posted by G at 02:18 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 17, 2005
Excuse me while I go blind in the other room
I worked on lesson plans, test crap, and scheduling from about 2:30-10:00 today. I was not in the mood to do any more work. Time for porn.
I chanced upon SpikeTV's new hot gay porn show. Take sixteen young men, make sure that testosterone is the focus, and watch them start wrestling around in their underwear. Apparently, they're going to train together for the UFC.
I'm just waiting for the first fight in the showers.
Posted by G at 11:31 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
January 16, 2005
How much I hated Sideways
It is from the writer of some of my fave films.
Here's what I think. The movie is about two guys going through their midlife crises. EVERY MAJOR MALE FILM CRITIC MUST BE GOING THROUGH HIS MIDLIFE CRISIS.
This film is such crap. It was devoid of the subtlety and humor of Election. The pathos/half redemption of About Schmidt was laid on with a shovel. The scene about wines as a reflection of the human soul was so middle-aged patriarchal Republican phallocentric pap that I almost gagged up. They fall into the same rut of romanticizing nature and agriculture as the old Western novels romanticized the cowboy. Rhapsodizing about working with your hands, nurturing a wine, and all the other tripe doesn't actually redeem them at all, nor is it analogous to their own pathetic lives.
Any straight women who read this blog (all three of you), I need an explanation. Is this mysterious media construct of the beautiful, fit, intelligent woman who unbelievably falls in love with the saddest, most pathetic loser male in the world in the realm of possibility? I see this on TV and in the movies, and I really hope it isn't true. We homosexuals need you to make the next generation of homos, and breeding with giant losers isn't going to cut it.
Posted by G at 01:06 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack
January 12, 2005
I love head
The texture, the smell, the rush. Nothing like feeling it tickling my lips. Yummy, yummy, yummy. I haven't felt this excited about something down my throat since, well, Texas.
Don't worry, my Texan love.
My new Brooklyn partner is dark, has an enormous thick head, and ages really well. A man can have two loves.
Posted by G at 10:05 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
January 10, 2005
Cyber-squatting
Nope, it's not an internet poop festival.
Republicans have bought the rights to several web addresses that could be used by Tom Reilly, a potential candidate for the governorship in Massachusetts. Evil, evil, evil.
Of course, I found out about this because my friend David in Hawaii read it and decided to do his own purchasing of websites. He bought out jebbush.com, jebbush2008.com, and two others that involve mixes of the bastard's name. I hope he turns them into mockery sites if it ever comes to that horrible prospect.
I'm not sure if I can make it through the next four years with the one idiot, so I'm really glad David's doing his own work to make sure the surname doesn't continue in the office.
As I said when I came out of the closet- No More Goddamned Bush!
Posted by G at 08:56 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
January 09, 2005
It sucks to be you
Over Friday evening beers, teachers from my school love to get together and bitch. Bitching, beers, and teaching go together like Texas, the death penalty, and tornadoes.
For last Friday and many Fridays before that, I have very little to bitch about. School is far from perfect, with a mix of inept management, funding problems, and dangerous situations making every day interesting. I'm okay with my job. Some days I even like it.
On Friday we all talked about the kids. It is incredibly tough to be a kid in my school. Even though they have the greatest need for effective teachers, they have limited access. More than half of our staff has less than three years experience in teaching.
Their classes are horrible also. When I was a teenager, I had tons of electives. I took shop, typing, journalism, and gym every day. So much secondary learning occurs in the other classes. Most math lessons on fractions are lost, but drafting, music, and home economics gave real life lessons.
Because math and English tests define whether a school stays open or closed, everything else falls off to the side. My kids spend half of every day in just math and English. Science and social studies fill up the remainder of the day, with gym only twice a week. They have four periods a week for electives, but the funding isn't there. Our art teacher has no supplies. Our computer lab doesn't have a full complement of computers that work. Our music teachers are short staffed, overworked, and have a dearth of instruments.
I think that many times the theft and destruction of supplies/equipment in my school comes from a deep well of adolescent frustration with no outlets. It kills me that I lost two-thirds of my calculators to theft when I was absent for two days in December. It's an endlessly frustrating cycle, and I often can't find a way to break it.
Maybe year four will provide some ideas. I know we'll be discussing it all over beers.
Posted by G at 08:49 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 05, 2005
Three generations
The sister of my mom.
The daughter of my sister.
The dinosaur is no relation, at least that I know. Also, that is the new generation of beard for me.
Posted by G at 05:10 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack