I screwed something up by messing with shit in my sidebar, and I don’t know how to fix it, nor do I feel like trying right now. So, deal with this for now.
Oh, and Merry Christmas!
Here I am… November 3, 2006
feeling small and thinking big.
There’s been a lot going on in my life lately. So much going on, truly, that I’ve been kind of mucking my way through my days, trying to keep a smile on my face, trying to remember that every day is a moment of time that can be either gotten through or enjoyed for what if gives. Some days give crap, to be honest. But most days give, at the very least, one moment to be grateful for.
I have a class full of bilingual students (english-spanish, or should I say, spanish-english), 5th graders, and I am trying my little (hard, cold) heart out to teach them to write. Or, maybe, to give them the opportunity to write and to make that 2 hour opportunity the best goddamn 2 hour opportunity per week they’ve ever, or might ever, have. Had? How to properly write that sentence? I don’t know. I’m a writing teacher. But I’ve not got the fortitude to puzzle that sentence out right now. I trust you, dear readers, know what the hell I’m talking about.
Anyway, 23, 24, something like that, bilingual students. Two do not speak or write a word of English, but I know they’re getting some of what’s going on because they remain, after three weeks, enthusiastic and excited to be in my precious little semi-circle. They want to write, they want to learn. Right now? I’m having them write in spanish, participate in our word games and oral tellings in spanish, and the other kids translate for them and for me. I can’t even begin to take on the task of teaching them english. But I can set myself a goal to get them to the point where they can write a solid paragraph in english by the end of our 10 weeks together (with LOTS of help from their regular classroom teacher, bless her fantastic heart). Several are borderline. They can puzzle out reading aloud a story in English, but they have to be given permission to use spanish words in their writing if they don’t know the english. I don’t want the language barrier to block what they want to say. I’ll figure it all out in the end, if I have to beg my husband’s Mexican helper to help me translate their work. This is a challenge for me, because I can’t just go in and do my well-rehearsed thing with a bunch of states-born, english-speaking white kids and hope for the best, hope they’ve gotten their (or somebody else’s) money’s worth. I have to figure out ways to make what I do work for them. And every goddamn moment of it is sweetly gratifying.
Beginning next Wednesday, I will be doing this very same thing with a class of 13 special-ed kids. And this is the real special-ed. This is a class full of letter-designations. LD, ED, ADD, ADHD, ADD off meds, speech impediments (HUGE speech impediments), truly? There’s a bunch of letters assigned to these kids and I don’t know what the fuck they all mean. Two full-blown mentally retarded kids. They’re eighth-graders. I’ve not officially met them, but I’ve observed them while talking with their teacher, and I am so blown away by the opportunity I have been given to teach them, you have no idea. Their teacher ROCKS their world, and they don’t even know it. His last name’s Capone (we’re in Chicago, mind you), he’s got Soprano’s posters on the walls, he’s a big, portly Italian man with his SHIT in ORDER, and he takes no guff. He’s the man with the plan, and his plan is to teach these kids something before they leave his special room. I’m not sure I’ve got what it takes to do what he does. He has these kids every day, all day, all school-year, and when they leave him? They leave him. He has only the time he’s given to do what he can, and he loves every single one of them, that was apparent in the 45 minutes we sat in his room and talked, while he maintained control and somehow managed to continue to teach while we talked. I’m in fucking AWE of this man. I don’t know if I could handle the drain, honestly. I don’t know how I’ll handle the drain that will happen in the two hours I’ll have with these kids each week. But I take my cue from him, Mr. Capone, he of the pasta-red-wine-belly and the Soprano’s posters. Give them what you can, as much as you can, and pray for the best.
I think these kids will teach me a LOT more than I’ll end up teaching them. Bless every one of their labeled heads.
I never, in a million years, thought that this would be something I would WANT to do. If you’da told me that I’d HAVE to do this, I’da said, okay, sure, I’ll do that, if it means at the end I can make ONE MILLION DOLLARS teaching kids who were afforded a well-funded education to write better than they’ve already been taught to, so that it’s not too TAXING on my mental health, so that I can, at the end of the day, go home and write my own shit. But truthfully? I cannot fucking wait for next Wednesday.
I’ll be sure to let you know how that all flies, but I’ve got ideas coming out of my ears how to engage these kids, including giving them the chance to publish their work to the web (via a blog? Wouldn’t that be great?). I think that (and this may very well be my biggest strength, in this as well as in the rest of my life) my best bet is to be fucking honest with them. To lay it out there for them. This isn’t fair, that they’ve got these fucked-up disabilities and problems and issues and roadblocks-to-learning that “regular” kids don’t have. But that they can make the best of it. They can, at the very least, find a way to let the world know what’s in their heads every day. And maybe, they can make some kind of difference in the world. They might be able to knock somebody’s block off. They might find a way to express themselves in a way that their “regular” education doesn’t give them a chance to do.
I don’t know what will happen with this. I do know that I want to do my damnedest to give them SOMETHING. Like I said, I never in a million years, would have predicted that this would be something I wanted to do. I want to do this. Truthfully? For myself as much as for them.
I had a tutee (meaning, someone I tutored), who I couldn’t help. This broke my fucking heart. And really? That’s hard to fucking do. Most days, my heart is a million splinters puzzled together and held in place by a giant wad of duct tape. This girl managed to spread those splinters around on the ground again. Maybe I’m too easy. Maybe I’m really just a soft, unprotected wad of cotton balls. Maybe. Duct tape is fucking STRONG, people. That’s why we’re supposed to line our windows with it in case of some kind of terrorist attack. My heart is wrapped in so much fucking duct tape, it might as well be a fucking rock. But this? This was a razor blade. A super-sharp, just-sharpened razor blade. And now, I’m a bit raw. I keep telling myself not to be so damn raw, to let it roll off me like any other stupid thing. But it isn’t working.
Truthfully? I’m angry. I’m angry for many, many reasons. Some of them:
1. I’m angry that I don’t have the ability to help her. I wish I could. And this is why I chose to pursue a combined degree in Creative Writing and Teaching of Writing. Because my cold, hard, splintered, held-together-by-duct-tape heart can’t handle the once-thought-brilliant plan to be a psychologist-counselor-yadda-yadda. I can do it on an amateur basis, when I know the people I do my amateur-psychologist bit with aren’t going to go home and shower 12 times, wash their hands for 6 hours, and lay prostrate on the ground in prayer. They’ll just go out for a couple drinks. Or 10. Usually, with me.
2. I’m angry at the educational system of this country in general. I’m angry, yet heartened, by the open-admissions policy of Columbia College. I’m angry that not everybody can realize their dreams. I’m angry that I have the opportunity and intelligence and ability and talent to realize my own, but I might not, because I might have to do the laundry instead. I’m angry that I’m not, at this moment, fully grokking the lesson that was put in front of me with my interaction with this young woman.
3. I’m angry at myself for not taking advantage of the opportunities that have been laid (lain? lied? laid down?) at my feet. And there’s a lot of them. I should be grateful, and am, but there are a lot of people out there who would do anything to have what I’ve been given.
I can’t go on with all that right now.
I said I had a lot going on. My kitchen and basement are being remodeled (yet another thing I should be, and am, incredibly grateful for), and it has thrown my regular routine into utter chaos. Laundry? Sure! When I can get into the basement, and nobody is spraying trim-paint all over the fucking place, or sawing trim boards, or putting up drywall, whatever. Washing dishes? No problem! Just let me get into the basement. Cooking? Sure! What can I get you? I’ll just go outside and stand in sub-30 degrees in the morning and microwave you some fucking Aunt Jemima frozen pancakes!
I am, seriously, outside every morning at 6:30, grinding coffee beans for my husband’s morning coffee. I’m about done with this shit. I’m out there in my jammies, some shoes, and a fucking winter coat. This is ridiculous. But almost over. The granite guy is my new hero, and he’s installing early next week. The floor guys are back on Thursday and Friday, and we’re going to be gone all weekend at a wedding, and when we return? Counters installed, floors shiny, and then the remaining appliances get installed and we’re in fucking business.
And out of money.
I’m also teaching on Saturdays in a rather fantastic program called Teens Together that is funded, in part, by the Chicago Park District, in partnership with the Columbia College Fiction Writing Department and Music Theater Workshop (MTW), where we recruit awesome teens from all over the city to write, take part in theater games, and at the end, come up with a big-ole cohesive story from which we (they) will write a musical play, and spend next summer performing it, with help from still more teens. It’s an awesome thing. And on Sunday, I start a 5-week stint teaching SGI writing classes in Joliet. I’m pretty sure that Thursday is my only day during which I have nothing to do for other people, although I guess that’ll be the day I need to spend doing laundry and taking care of other people, namely my family. I hope my children forgive me for all of this one day. Because right now? I’m bordering on negligent.
Alright. Enough of the self-serving whining crap. How boring is this? Blah, blah, yadda yadda! For Christ’s sake, VikiBabbles! Make fun of somebody already! Talk about drinking vodka! Be funny!
New comment on an old post November 3, 2006
I checked my email this morning and found that someone had left a comment on a brief post I wrote last year: Man in Diaper? Huh?
Uh, don_dipe? Thanks for sharing. Really.
Bunco Queen October 26, 2006
I went to bunco last night. I wasn’t feeling all that great, and truthfully would have rather lolled around in bed reading a good book in sweatpants. But I went, because it’s always fun and always great to see my girlfriends. Plus I haven’t been for a while.
I’m sure glad I did, because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have won the big money! Somehow, the stars aligned and I won both big bunco and little bunco and sorry if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, but I don’t really feel like explaining the game of bunco, plus each group usually has their own set of rules, but let’s just say that out of 30 rounds, I rolled a set of 3 identical numbers of the number we were rolling for 6 times. It’s unheard of, at least in our group. I don’t know shit about statistics, but it seems highly improbable. Everyone was flabbergasted. Plus, I got the most number of little buncos. Which means, I came home with an extra $200!
So, what do you think I did? I went shopping! Duh. Now, usually when a nice chunk of free change comes my way, I go on the hunt for shoes. But today, I decided I wanted a new bag. At first, I was really looking for a nice black leather purse, big enough for me to stuff my journal, perhaps a large 8×11 notebook for school notes, maybe a folder full of student work in it, perhaps a book or two. First, I went to Nordstrom (of course, I looked at shoes first, just in case something really grabbed me, but nothing did). I found nothing. I nearly got in a catfight with some bitch who snatched a bag I was looking at on the sale table right out from under my hands. I said, “Excuse me, I’m still looking at that.” She said, “You set it down, I thought you were done,” and walked away. She’s dead now, and I’ve buried her body, stuffed into that purse, in the garbage can in the Ladies’ Lounge.
I didn’t find anything else I liked there, so I decided to go over to Field’s, which is now Macy’s, but I’ll be calling it Field’s well beyond the time when my daughter gets embarrassed by the fact that I still call it Field’s and starts yelling at me when she takes me on a nice day out from the home, hollering things like, “For Christ’s sake, Mother. It hasn’t been Field’s for fifty years! Get over it!”
ANYWAY, apparently the bitches in the nice handbag department at Field’s work on some kind of insane commission. I imagine if they don’t sell a certain number of or $$ worth of handbags per day, they must get electric shock treatments or have parts of their anatomy removed without anesthesia, because the woman who was “helping” me nearly earned herself a spot in the morgue. She would not leave me alone. She kept bringing me things that had nothing to do with what I wanted, which was to be left alone to look at fucking purses! For Christ’s sake! I finally said to her, “You know what? This hard sell thing is getting annoying, and I am NOT going to buy a bag from you specifically because you’ve been annoying me so much. Now, excuse me while I go over to the Coach department.”
In the Coach department, I wandered around with no clear idea of what I wanted, yet knowing full well that there wouldn’t be a black bag large enough for what I wanted that I could get for $200 in the Coach department. So, I broadened my horizons and thought, you know? I’ll just see what catches my eye.
What caught my eye was this:
Isn’t she pretty? She was the only one there, and, she was on the sale rack. I’ve been considering a tweedy bag for a while, and looking for the right one. This one has a lovely color pallette and it’s a nice size and has some nice, easily accessible pockets and fits perfectly under my arm. I was giving it a good once over, and then decided to take a look at the price tag. It was on the sale shelf, mind you.
The tag said $98. $98.97 to be exact. I thought for sure it must be some kind of mistake, and looked up to see the saleswoman (a different one than the previous) smiling at me. “Ahh, that’s a beautiful bag, no?” she said in an Asian accent. I nodded. “It’s pretty,” I said. “But I wasn’t really in the market for a bag like this.” So she says, “Who’s not in the market for a bag that is on sale for $100?” I shrugged. Really. Who isn’t? Then she said, “A bag that was originally $398.”
I pretty much handed her the money right then. Because if anything gets me, it’s the thought that I just saved $300. Granted, I would never in a million years even consider buying a purse for $400. No fucking way. That’s just ridiculous. $200? Maybe. Okay, maybe even a little more. But $400? That’s crossing the line into ostentatious and just plain stupid. Anyway, I got myself a $400 purse that is probably really only worth $50 for $100. I saved $300!
And, I have $100 left over for a pair of shoes. Or two. We’ll see.
I love my new purse! And, I love Bunco and all my girls who seem to enjoy giving me their money. Okay, so they don’t enjoy it. Okay, so they want to rip my head off. Okay, so they want to change the rules so that if you win Big Bunco, you can’t win Little Bunco too, even though I think that’s just pathetic. If you win, you win, right? This isn’t some stupid soccer team for 5 year olds where no one supposedly keeps score and there’s an emphasis on the positive. It’s Bunco, for Christ’s sake.
Okay, well, that’s enough for now. I’m going to go to the store, just so I can walk around with this purse under my arm.
And, of course, when I got home I had to look up on the internet to see if the bitch was lying about the $398. She wasn’t, but you can get this bag on eBay and other assorted sites for $279. So, I still saved nearly $200. Yeah me!
Oh, by the way, the Bears won October 3, 2006
And it was a great game and really fun and a beautiful night for football and all kinds of wacky things happened, and you’ll just have to wait for the story, if I ever get around to telling it. I’m swamped with homework. Sorry!
In Memory of Jill A. Metzler September 13, 2006
I don’t know this woman. And, even though the likelihood that I would ever have met her is very small, I most certainly won’t. Because she is no longer living. She died on September 11th, 2001. She was, at least until the planes hit, working for AON Corp. on the 92nd floor of Tower 2.
A cursory google search for her name revealed list after list after list of the victims. It also revealed very little information about her other than who she worked for, what tower she was in, and that she lived in Franklin Square, NY. She was 32 when she died.
THIS SITE features a chance for people who knew the victims to post their memories of their loved ones who died. The following was posted about Jill:
Jill was an amazing person. At first sight, she was beautiful, but on top of that, she was so nice to everyone she met, fun loving, happy, smart, and full of life. She and I worked side-by-side for three years, and she became one of my best friends – truly a friend you can tell anything to. I miss her every single day. Jill, always looked her best, always smiled, always laughed, and lived more than most people do in a full life time.
*** Posted by Danielle Vaykovich on 2006-09-11 ***
Danielle makes Jill sound like someone I would really have liked. In fact, she and I are the same age. If she hadn’t gone to work that day, or if (wouldn’t it be nice) that diabolical plot had never been fully realized, she would be 37 years old. I don’t know if she was married or had children, or even wanted to. I don’t know anything about her other than what Danielle up there has said, and where she worked and how old she was and where she lived.
There were many people who died that day 5 years ago. And it is very difficult for me to memorialize someone I never knew. And I will resist veering off into some political tirade.
Rest in peace, Jill A. Metzler. And may those who loved you be comforted by their memories of a beautiful, intelligent woman.
FYI, I would have posted this two days ago, but I didn’t know I was supposed to! I signed up for 2,996 a while back, but never heard anything, so I figured my request had gotten lost in the shuffle or something. I checked in there today to read some of the tributes, and saw my name on the list of contributors. DOH! Sorry about that, Jill.
2nd Story Tonight! August 27, 2006
Next 2nd Story: Sunday, August 27
Webster’s Wine Bar / 1480 W. Webster / $10 at the door
(doors open at 7:00)
On the last Sunday of every month, Serendipity Theatre Company presents a selection of completely original stories told by local artists and musicians. Jumping off from our popular Storytelling Festival, these monthly events give Serendipity’s storytellers a chance to once again present their stories as well as experiment with new material for next year’s festival.
This month features stories by Matt Miller, Jonathan Messinger, Megan Stielstra, and Lauren Pesca.
For more information on this and other Serendipity Theatre Company projects, please visit us at www.serendipitytheatre.org.
This is one of my favorite things to do EVER, so if you’re in the Chicago area and you’re free tonight, you should come. I’ll be the lady in the corner laughing my ass off and having a great time, having completely forgotten about her vow not to drink.
I miss Jerry August 27, 2006
And I’m probably too drunk, at 3:58 a.m., to elaborate on that.
I miss the existence of Jerry Garcia.
He has been gone for eleven years and some days. I’m not sober enough to figure out just exactly how many more days than eleven years he has been gone. Rest assured he’s been gone for longer than I care to acknowledge.
I never actually knew the man, so it is preposterous and presumptuous that I would say something like, “I miss him.”
What I miss is what he gave me, and that is actually not gone. Surprisingly. I spent a part of this night at a party full of people I didn’t know and a part of it losing myself, blissfully, in what Jerry gave me, maybe without even knowing it.
The ability to let go of myself. My SELF. And just be. Just let everything go. Every worry, every fear, every everything. Just to let it all go and to just be. To let music enter me not through my mind but through my body. And to be fully aware of the ways different parts of my body can drive other parts. Maybe you understand.
Maybe you don’t.
But the fact remains. I miss Jerry. He was taken too soon. Selfish of me, I know. But I wasn’t done with him yet.
I have a few body parts I would consider unnecessary spares if you would consider coming back. Meaning, I don’t REALLY need my left arm all that much. If someone wants it, it’s all yours. As long as you give Jerry back.
I spent some time tonight crying while laughing and dancing, mourning while feeling alive with music. Can you mourn someone you’ve never met? Can you mourn him 11 years after he died?
I think, perhaps, that it would be good for me to go to bed.
But, so you you know?
I miss Jerry. Terribly.
Live Blogging from a Pimp and Ho party August 27, 2006
Okay, so it isn’t really a pimp and ho party. It was supposed to be a combo pimp and ho party. A bachelor/bachelorette party (maybe I spelled bachelorette wrong, don’t care). A combo party, where we were all supposed to dress up like either a pimp or a ho, but a bunch of spoil sports wouldn’t jump on the bandwagon, so now we’re all dressed up like regular people, and we’re all drunk.
Surprise, surprise, right? You people know me, I know you do.
Where I’m at is a party at which we are supposedly celebrating the impending marriage of a couple of people my husband went to high school with. This is an impossible thing, really, because my husband and I are a marriage of two people from two opposing high schools. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a big fucking deal to you, but if I stood up on my stool, Ketel One and tonic in hand, and announced “I am a graduate of Hinsdale Central, and I am proud of it,” I would probably be taken out back and a bunch of drunken idiots would try to kick my ass.
However, they would be unable to do so. Why? you ask? Why would you ask? Don’t you know me? Because I am FROM Hinsdale Central and they are not. They are from the other side of 294. The only thing, I mean the ONLY thing we, in high school, would cross over the highway for was the Highland Queen. We’d sneak out of the parking lot and promise the security guard an order of fries if he would let us out, and we’d either go to the Hinsdale McDonald’s, or we’d take a VERY DEEP BREATH and we’d head east on 55th and we’d go to the Queen.
The Queen is still there. Occasionally, my husband will have the guts to ask me to go up to the Queen and get him a Double Brute with cheese. And fries. And maybe a chocolate shake.
I’ve forgotten what I started out to say. One of the things I started out to say is that Phil, who is throwing this party (and who is having a fantastic conversation with my husband’s best friend’s girlfriend right now), has a completely wired house. I WANT A COMPLETELY WIRED HOUSE. I know it sounds weird. Sure, I can go anywhere in my house and connect to the internet. I can sit on the toilet tomorrow morning with diarreah (I know I spelled that wrong, don’t care) with my laptop on my lap and connect to the internet. I want the little room off Phil’s kitchen that has 3 computer screens.
Phil is my idol and I adore him. Really.
And Holly told me to stop what I’m doing and join the party. Here’s the deal. This was supposed to be a party at which we were supposed to arrive dressed as either a pimp or a ho. I had dreams, people. I heard about this party, and I thought, GODDAMN IT!!!! I get to dress up with my boobs hangin out and no one is supposed to be allowed to care!!! It’s like a dream fucking come true.
Holly wants to know what I’m writing. Someone told her, “She’s writing on her blog.” She said, “You have a blog?” I didn’t answer. No one here knows anything about me, really, which is hilarious. Because they know more about my husband than I want to know.
Phil is getting mad and I don’t know who to stick up for here. Poor Shannon. She’s trying.
Me to Shannon: “Do you have something to say?”
Shannon to me: “Oh, I don’t want to say what I want to say. No comment. It’s not worth my comment.”
Phil is not embarrassed about what he does. Why should he be? I’ve met him maybe three times in my life, and I’ve liked him every time.
I will be back. People are giving me shit for writing, which pisses me off. What the fuck is wrong with me writing? I’m still listening to you, you idiot. I’m just typing every fucking word you say, that’s all.
No, I’m really not. I can’t type that fast. I can type REALLY FUCKING FAST, but I can’t type that fast. Because while people are talking, I have all these thoughts, and I also have a censor that steps in. Right now, I want to take everybody into a big, gigantic bear hug and tell them to shut the fuck up.
I am hoping, PHIL, ARE YOU LISTENING?, that Phil guides me towards a beautifully designed website.
Now, suddenly it’s gotten all QUIET. There’s nothing worse at a party than when it gets all QUIET.
I love you, my people. I’m sorry I’ve been in and out for so long now. The writing is coming back, but I’m hiding it from you. I’m sorry about that. I’m trying to come back. I haven’t abandoned this altogether, and I don’t think I ever will.
Bye bye for now.
