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.

When it smokes, it pours.

Fuck the planned blog post about my first yoga experience.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I was sitting there on the subway heading home, trying to read some math lessons I'm planning, and I could not focus. I read through the text, realized I had read a whole page without any comprehension, then just gave up. When I got home, I didn't want to do any school work. I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to pay bills. I didn't want to to anything at all.

Here's the big idea that struck me. I realized that my level of tiredness is what so many of my students' parents deal with every day. Some work twelve hours a day, and I know their jobs are more exhausting than mine. I can't even imagine dealing with kids after 12 hours of work, plus laundry, groceries, cleaning, medical stuff, and checking homework. I can just imagine that hearing a terse message from their teenager's math teacher is probably the last thing they want to hear.

I'm lucky. I'm doing this for extra cash and building experience evaluating student work, not because I have to pay rent. Derrick walks the dog, makes me lunch, and cooks the meals. If he weren't here, I would be coming home to dog poop all over the house, and I'd be eating a bunch of PB&J.

I have to do my extra work for a few more weeks, then I'll have time to relax again. I'm not saying I'm giving up calling the parents. They still need to know that their child is the school's expert wedgie-giver, but I know that I'm going to take extra care to be as respectful as I possibly can of their lives.

I was just selected as one of the ten trainers for all the scoring of state math tests in Manhattan. Cool honor, plus I get 80 hours of after-school payment. For the next 3 weeks, I'll be first training, then supervising the scoring of approximately 70-80,000 tests. Every evening, plus Saturdays and Sundays. Crazy hours, but crazy money. Oh yeah, I'm also completing a 30 hour online course for a Geometry software training program, five hours a week.

So goodbye social life. Goodbye free time. Goodbye watching cartoons on Saturdays.

Today was classroom work at one of my favorite schools. It would be one of my top choices of schools to step back into the classroom. It has pretty serious gang problems, attendance problems, and the majority of the kids are from very low income families. They also have a dedicated, positive staff and a supportive administration.

By the way, this is where I love to be. There is no fun being in a school where all the kids are all working perfectly. There is no hope in a school where the administration is negative.

Today I got to work with a series of teachers with whom I have built a good relationship. They're willing to take chances, which is crucial. If a teacher is willing to take chances, they can usually get students to take a chance too. Today we turned the tables on a group of low-level students who were struggling through circle geometry, letting them be the teachers. They were in groups of four, and each student was given a geometric construction of circles, quadrilaterals, and triangles, somewhat like this:

They had to describe using only words their shape as the other three students had to draw it. They could measure it, use any examples or vocabulary they wanted, then the next student had to describe theirs, and so on. For a teacher accustomed to working only at the board, this is a powerful moment. When you have a rich task, kids cease to really have behavior issues, and your job as a teacher changes. Yes, the kids were talking, but they were talking about the math- laughing, comparing, clarifying, questioning. By the end, most of the kids were using correct vocabulary, as they realized that the more precise the language, the easier it was to do their work. The other great thing is that the teacher was really free to listen to the conversations, guide their questions, and really assess the students' knowledge more effectively than an exam.

This is how math should be learned. I'll be in the same school for a few days next week, again modeling lessons with other teachers, other classes. I am so excited to be doing this. I miss being a teacher. I miss working with the kids.

Every time I am back in the classroom, it is so tough to go back to the office. I'm good at the office stuff, and a lot of our good ideas are ones I think of, and I know that I'm helping other teachers. I have so many pushes from all directions to keep heading upwards, but the only way I could see that would be in an English model, where I still teach at least one class, or maybe a lab/fishbowl setting.

This is one of those weird education dilemmas.

Stay in a classroom, keep working on being the best teacher possible. Rewards: The situation that occurred last week, when one of my students from a few years ago spotted me on subway, came up, and thanked me for math, telling me that what I taught him he still used all the time. I get to personally involve myself in the lives of about 100-120 kids every year. Summers filled with sun and fun. Costs: Crappy income. Frustration about inability to change system. Grading homework. Stinky kids.

Move up. Train other teachers. Take my good ideas, spread them out. Become a policy maker. Rewards: Watch my ideas affect a small group of teachers, but thousands of students, but only in a diffuse manner. More money. Costs: Getting bogged down in management. No more class time. No connection to actual students. Wearing a suit. No summers.

In Education 1.0, this would have been different. I wouldn't have started teaching in my mid-30s. I would have entered teaching WAY back when I still had hair on the top of my head, and by 40-45, gone into an administrative position. In Education 2.0, a huge swath of experienced educators and administrators are retiring, and education recruits people like me in the middle of their lives. Of my 2001 Teaching Fellows Cohort of about 30 teachers, I know about half are already in some form of administration, not necessarily from desire, but because of need. We entered the world of education because we saw a dire need, and now that we are becoming decent teachers, we also see a dire need for more effective administrators.

Since that point, let's compare the two men. Al Gore won a Nobel prize for his efforts on behalf of the environment and pulled the environment into the discussion, becoming a nationally admired hero. And what has the former Green Party candidate (not endorsed by the Green Party in 2004) done since 2000?

I began by searching numerous websites, almost all of which are incredibly critical. Wikipedia has quite a few links that are better referenced. To be fair, Nader campaigned for Jason West, the Green mayor of New Paltz, NY back in 2007. He lost, but that doesn't mean that Nader also cost that election. Nader doesn't sit on his laurels, but almost everyone who will still listen to him does so because of his greatness in the 60's and 70's.

My friend James is an adamant supporter of Ralph Nader. James is right, by the way, that Nader more accurately reflects my political beliefs than either Hillary or Obama, although Kucinich got my vote. If Manhattan were its own country, then Nader would possibly be a terrific president, although I do have serious concerns over his autocratic and secretive personal style. There are numerous, valid criticisms. His own finances and stocks include Halliburton and Exxon. He smashed the of unionization of his own magazine, and his own preference for lawyers rather than grass-roots change leaves me cold.

James is wrong, though, because if Ralph had really wanted to be a real candidate, he would have had the courage of Dennis Kucinich and recognized that this is a two party system, period (and yes, we should all move to Canada). Kucinich is as liberal, as progressive, and he had the courage to attempt to sway the party that basically includes everyone who is liberal and progressive. James can criticize the two party system all he wants, but even if this were a parliamentary system, the religious right, the bigots, and the homophobes outnumber him and would have their own parties. We would always still have a centrist coalition, and in the US those are called the Democratic and Republican parties.

If Ralph actually wanted the Presidency, then he should have joined as a candidate of the Democratic Party. I would have loved to see him debate Hillary, Obama, and Edwards; swaying enough people through logic and positions to get him the nomination. Like McCain, he could have gone with public financing, thereby avoiding the corporations he advocates against.

However, just like the Ford Corporations that he sued in earlier decades, he refuses to accept that his politically spiked steering wheel has endangered thousands, if not millions. And just like the courts decided that Ford was dangerous years ago, the last two elections have told him that they don't want him, as they find him unsafe at any speed. He is just ignoring our voices, and all of us are unwilling passengers.

In a random aside, I should also mention that on March 8th, I will be gay one hour later. Brunch will feel like 11, but will really be noon.

Also, if I were to be on the equator, I am pretty sure that I would be consistently gay.

Andy and I went to what was advertised as the largest natural sea cave, and it was FILLED with sea lions. The sound and smell were overpowering.

It is really hard to really understand how big those redwoods are until you have a frame of reference. No comments about how weird the back of my head looks. I know. It freaks me out, especially the flat spot.

Oregon and Northern California were amazing. It was pretty much a fantastic trip, with a good mix of friends interspersed with long solitary drives. This is an example of why you don't want to be with me in a car:

It was a funky trip, with cool coffee shops, plus I got to hang with Andy, my wonderful blogger friend who now lives in Portland. He has much more detailed missives about our trip than I do here, here, here, and here. And doesn't he just look like some kind of romance novel cover?

Praise Zod that he is much more detailed than I am, as he definitely tells a better story than I do. However, I am much better about making people take numerous silly pictures. It's a gift.

Funky bathroom signs.

Dangerous deeps.

NotDark houses.

Cross dressing in the lighthouses

Classic park shots.

Playful otters.

Hapless international men.

And of course, 26 inches of outrageous Orca Fun!

There are a bunch more photos on Andy's site, plus click here to look at more pics on my Flickr Page.