baby names

The two dumbest ever:
Boy: Blaine
Girl: Sloane

family portraits

When I was growing up (poor) we never had family portraits taken, in fact there are few family photos of all of us at all. Ergo, my brother and I thought it was important that we had one of us together.

peddywreck

I do not pamper myself. I like to, but it is way low on the to-do list. I decide to run in for a quick pedicure on way home for work the other day. To my surprise, the place I usually go to, has installed flat-screened tv's all around. Showing a Jackie Chan movie, no english subtitles, but I was enjoying it. I slowly notice that every single employee is looking at the tv's and not so hard at my feet.



As a result, my feet look like this...






but if you have the need to feel just a little unsettled, go here

mike

my uncle mike is a very large alcoholic man. He is a very right-wing-ed-opinionated-man. I don't hate him, but if we did not share dna, i doubt we'd have much in common.

he lived next door to us for a spell while i was growing up. i would regularly hear the screen door slamming around 8-8:30 each night ( i was in bed, but never sleeping, and it was still light out). I would run to my parents bedroom window and watch him chuck his keys into the woods. I didn't really know (until I'd eavesdropped) what he was throwing, just that there was some fanfare about it. Regularly, about an hour or two later, I'd be awakened by the door slam again. I would run again to the window and see him lumbering around with a flashlight, looking for his keys in the woods. Kind of like a really more fucked up blair witch vid. Few minutes later the trans-am was on the road.

Holidays with mike: Some holidays were at home, some were claimed. My moms parents owned Christmas Eve. Mike would always arrive earlier than everyone, and would bring his "laundry". As the night rolled on, mike would get more and more intensively republican, and increasingly louder and slurrier. Meanwhilst, my strongly democratic parents would try to pronounce that "it's christmas for fux sake". WE all tried to drop the subject, but every single trip to the laundry room made shit worse. End of sacred night? Mike, passed out in basement with bottle of jack, or whatever in hand. Nobody ever tried to carry him up, not once.

back to the future

This is when I (lived/will live) with andtheend

skip straight to time 6:10. Or just enjoy being voyeurs of our lives.

a small breeze

Summer school has begun. The super-high stress level preceding it, significantly down. Number of vacation days I have ahead of me, 17 officially ( but # upped by as many as go unnoticed by loser payroll secretary). Fuckin' white bitch is officially outta the bighouse as often as she can get away with it. Hello, son. Hello, sun. Hot sweet summer is a sad short spurt around these parts, but it's all i got. And I savor every second of smell of it.

fourtha

Attended quite a number of bbq's/parties et al this weekend. Most memorable statement from someone I did not know, " I've lived in NY for almost 4 years and have never gotten a mosquito bite in that whole time". He was getting bitten as we spoke and he was as astounded as I might be if I actually saw a lion on a safari. Needless to say, he lives in manhattan.

sleepness nights

i have always been a lousy sleeper. as a kid, i would frequently wake up in strange places in the morning, i'd find myself in the bathtub, behind the water heater in the basement, and sometimes even in the yard.

now, i just cannot get to sleep. i lie there, and lie there and every worry passes through, preventing comfort.

sometimes, it's not even worry, it's memories of things i want to remember, and fear i'll forget. sometimes it's weird little things i am inventing (but i usually do forget those)

sometimes it's re-living current events, and feeling that my life is so full that i really should be exempt from the sleep clause.

on the rare occasion that i can, my dreams are so scary, that they wake me up, and i usually opt for tired over fear.

if i drink, i fall asleep easily, aka, pass out, but i wake still tired.

If i take an ambien, or any kind of sleep inducer, i fall hard, and then i am up, like clockwork between 3:30-4:30 and can never fall back asleep.

I have lost the ability to lie down and naturally fall and stay.

This is beginning to scare me. I have no handle on it, and I am always so tired, and look and feel like shit.

Last fall, I took a trip with my mother and Gilly up to NH. I was driving on all these mountain roads and starting falling asleep at the wheel. Drove into the other lane. My mothers answer? "You should smoke or have some diet cokes, that was scary". Me, "why can't you drive and let me sleep?" Her: "Oh no, I could never drive here, I don't know the area, you'll be fine"

i have so many exhaustion contributors in my life.

ode to an onion

so far....

GIHYB and lil Gil are in VA for the weekend. I am alone. Had envisioned all sorts of projects that I would complete and meaningful introspective journeys. This is what I have accomplished thus far:


+











And I am considering going back to bed. What a loser.

The Housatonic River

I just googled "Housatonic River", the name of the river I grew up on, and lo and behold, a picture of the exact area where I played (in all sorts of ways)for 2 decades pops up. This is the boat ramp down the hill from my elementary school, Sunnyside Elementary. There is a long, very steep road about 300 yards to the left that we used to ride our bikes down and ride straight into the river, rust be damned! I once rode in a shopping cart with two fat girls down that hill and it didn't end well. At all. Still got scars.

Anyway, here is my funniest story about this picture. It was January or February circa '76. I rode my bike full speed down the descent and veered to the left at right speed to avoid a wipeout. This was a skill that took some perfecting, because if you did it too slowly you wound up in a ditch, too fast and you wound up splayed and bloodied on the concrete just before the ramp. I had mastered this long ago and made the turn. I saw my 'boyfriend', staring toward the water. I approached and asked what he was doing. He told me that a few big kids had thrown his bike into the river and was trying to figure out how to get it, as he was kind of 'dressed up' and couldn't get dirty. Being the kind of boy that I was, I stripped off shoes, socks and pants and walked straight into the frigid water. Grabbed at the bike and pulled it out. WT...(back then, not as many F's)? It was a busted up piece of crap. As I turn around, he is doubled over laughing, riding away on his bike and screaming....."sucker!" I still have a valentine from him with a picture of a blonde tarzan and a brunette jane swinging from a vine. Ah, love in the 4th grade.

This river used to freeze over very frequently back then, but it becomes an estuary just a few miles from where I lived, which resulted in tides in the river. If the river froze at high tide, there would be gaps between the ice and the water, which made weak points in the ice. We were all forbidden to go onto the ice, but as we were thoroughly unsupervised, we didn't pay the warnings much mind. You couldn't truly ice skate, as the top was too bumpy, but you could walk across to the other side or shoe skate all over the joint. As a result, I fell through the ice into the water many times. The scariest time was when I fell through the ice and was carried by the current, under the ice roof for what seemed like forever, but was probably only 1/8th of a mile. My head popped up just directly to the left of the boat ramp in the picture. Scared, bruised and cold, but fine. My friends running along the bank to keep up with me. Naturally I was not going to go home with my clothes frozen stiff to my skin, so we go to my friends house. Her parents were never there, and we had full reign. Lit a fire in the wood burning stove, with my clothes ON the stove and started a fire. My clothes burned up, but we managed to keep the fire from burning the house down. I went home in her baggy clothes, got a few looks, but dodged a bullet. Looking back upon it, I dodged quite a few that day, and it's hilarious that the only bullet I was worried about was my parents being pissed. I hope Gilly is never as retotted as me.

thoroughly amused/back on the horse

Haven't spent a lot of time on roller coasters in last few years. Got my fill today. Used to be absolute daredevil, nothing scared me. Today? Scared as the most scaredy-scaredy-pants could be. Instead of hands-up, eyes-open, I was eyes scwintched, hands palsyied. Even on the easy ones, I started off SCARED. A totally new me.

Most memorable: Kingda Ka. This shit is absolutely sick. I can't believe i am still alive. WOW. This footage does not really depict it's fright factor. Throughout the one minute ride I just kept screaming, "NO, NO, NO..........................................!" And my whole body continued to shake for about 20 minutes after. Awesomely terrifying.

http://www.sixflags.com/greatAdventure/rides/Kingdaka.aspx

on needles

My dad is from a messed-up, low-rent, irish-catholic family of nine kids and a hefty handful of parents and extendeds. Every single one of them is more of a character than the next. Most tragic, some just colorful. Some so stupid that I should be embarrassed to even mention any of them, and some so witty but 'esprit d'escalier'* , that I should post every-crazy-thing they've ever said more regularly. My Uncle Mickey was the youngest boy, 8th ( i think) in the long litter.

I cannot say how it was that Mickey got fucked up specifically, but I'd bet that his recipe was everything I've said above.

One summer day we were having a backyard bbq. I really don't know how old I was. Somewhere between 6-11. I went upstairs to my bedroom and Mickey was on my bed lying down. I went in and saw he was struggling to take his sock off. I helped him take it off. He then took out a hypodermic needle and stuck it into his ankle/foot. I asked him what he was doing. He said he was sick and taking his medicine. He said to me, with a crying face, " I hope you never get this sick". I sat next to him for a little while, upset that he was sad, and then went back out into the sun. I never saw him the rest of the day.

My mom was crying the next day because he supposedly had stolen her wedding ring. (I heard all of this by picking up the receiver upstairs, which I always did). Mickeys mother, my grandmother was defending/arguing on his behalf. My grandmother was wrong. I'm certain now.

Mickey continued to be a drug addict and cruised the parking lots of fast food restaurants on the CT portion of I-95. I moved to Ny in '91 and was on my way to CT and ran into my Uncle Mickey at a McDonalds rest stop. Right now, I don't remember who recognized the other. But I do remember that our bond was just as strong as it was with his crying face on my bed many years before. He died shortly thereafter of AIDS.

*(this is a new term that i am in love with, brought to me through a long series of events, more on that later)

another needle

The principal of my school really hates "ghetto" school trips. By definition, this includes trips to amusement parks. But, another AP and I managed to persuade her to allow a trip to six flags on thursday for the kids who have earned it. She agreed (the way a cult inductee in a small room for 12 hours, 'agrees') provided that both of us attend. KG has agreed to meet me there and ride the rails all day. Stoked for all the gulliness that an amusement park has to offer, and so happy to ride the rides with kg like i haven't a care in the world.

trying to find the needle in the haystack

After a deluge of all kinds of shit running downhill, I decided to re-entertain the ww thing for real again. I hit the scale and realize that since January of 2007, I have lost 30 lbs. I had lost 30 between sept '06 and jan '07. I now have 10-15 more to go. So this is something. Not much, but something.

I wish

I wish that i was such a great writer that i could describe how hollow and sad i feel in a few beautifully written sentences. i just don't know the words, or do not know how to string them together in the perfect way that accurately portrays my inner me. Sad and trapped in a clamshell. Envious of happiness.

being a teenage girl

Getting 'ready' to go out in jr high/high school. We'd gather at one friends house. Sharing secrets, showing self. Trying on fifty outfits, clothes flying through the air, in piles all around us. Putting on/washing off make up, doing each others hair, giggling like girls for hours. The music on the tape player, seemed to be coming from within. Enjoying one another and our shared grown-up-ed-ness. The anticipation that this was going to be the best party/roller-skating/driving around/movie/party of our lives. Sharing a love of our newly found night. Safe and daring and new. I wish I could have one tiny stem cell of myself then, imbedded into myself now. The level of hope and hunger I had in one day, I could propel into another hundred years.

update on beatdown

Thanks for all your kind comments and messages......

ME: So, I went to work the next day, mainly to send a message to staff and students. Left a little early because I needed to lie down. Feel like I was been beaten with a bag of oranges and my neck feels tight and tough as a pot roast. One of my ribs hurts pretty bad, but I don't think it's broken because I heard its hard to breathe if it is. I kept up appearances and tried to not let the pain show too much, but still emotionally unsettled and feeling pretty antisocial. Just in a semi-deep funk. No. Honestly, I'm freaked out to the bone. I've been working with these kids for 16+ years. I've been accidentally hurt many times before, and I've had parents attack me, but this is my first out and out intentional attack from a kid. I have solid relationships with the majority of my kids (not all, but most). I'm pretty fucked up from it.

TEACHER: Kid made an allegation of corporal punishment against the teacher, who I had to remove from teaching duties until an investigation is completed. Gets spit at and then punished on top of it. No good deed goes unpunished.

KID: Gets 10 days suspension. The kicker...he'll still be in school. In-school suspension. Because they are emotionally/behaviorally disturbed, it is against the law to suspend them at home. "It's punishing them for their disability"

ICING ON CAKE: After I left early, two kids went into an empty room and had sex (with two student onlookers) Girl then claimed rape, and had to be sent to hospital for exam and morning after pill. I'm potentially on the chopping block for "allowing for insufficient supervision of students". Someone oughtta write this shit down.......

shaken and stirred

After he spit into a teachers face today, I suspended a 16 year old man-boy, who I have a pretty solid relationship with. We sit quietly, I explain why and what. He nods head in understanding and I ask him to go to a specific room to write up his version of story. Instead he runs back into the class, bonks a kid in the head and begins to try to conjure up fellow demons. I follow, ask him to leave, and physically begin to guide him out. He postures, pretending to throw fist in my face and left with another student trying to talk him down. I walk out into the hall and immediately see a fist flying down at my face at full force. I somehow manage to duck and avoid contact and even guide arm to his side, trapping it. Other fist flies toward my face. I grab him in a full bear hug with every single ounce of my strength to keep his arms tight to his body so he can't make contact with my face/body/me, while he thrusts and fights and tries to hurt me like a crazed male adolescent. I feel my eyes bulging, holding on like a boa constrictor. He lunges toward me and i split-secondly decide that we/I would be safer on the ground and I take the fall onto my back and head, with him still on top of me and me still holding him, arms locked as tightly as they've ever been. Only kids above us, screaming at him to get off of me, them not knowing that i actually have him trapped. Two adults appear, far too weak and elderly for me to entrust that I won't get punched if I let go. We are face-to-face and he is screaming that if he gets loose he is going to kill me. He begins to head-butt me, hitting my lip and face. I wrench my neck numerous times to try to maintain hold, grip, yet trying to keep my head away from his head that is slamming at mine. from around the corner run two male staff that I know I can trust. They grab him off of me, and I get up, shaking harder than I have in a long time. I was panting, barely able to breathe and every muscle in my body was twitching. By now, everyone has come arunning and is concerned and are-you-okaying. I just stood, still shaking it off and okay-ing them back except for the shaking and twitching and not being able to breathe that well. I do an unusual act of going into my office and actually shutting the door. I stand and continue to shake and shake. I still can't breathe right for the shaking and I can no longer speak for several minutes. I get it together enough to tell an immediate that I am going to sneak out without attention and go home to shake it off. On way out, i am pulled aside by another immediate who shows me the 2-4 minute track of the surveillance video of the attack. I watch and feel out-of-body it was so vicious. I could not believe that i was watching myself. Get in car and begin to sob uncontrollably. almost immediately almost rear-end a car. i pull over. make two phone calls, drive again. almost rear-end someone else. get home. gilly wakes up. i am sobbing like a crazy person. i was scaring him so i splash water on my face, try to calm down. he is nervous so is walking around playing the harmonica, which makes me cry more. i finally get it together. except, hours later, i am still not together.

in the blink of an eye