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:


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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

so strange....

Was examining a bottle just now and wiki'd him.....

update. please read the really brief history section. kills me.

weight watchers

When I was pregnant, (yes, almost 2 yrs ago), I made the tragic mistake of thinking I could eat whatever I wanted. I ate like an animal. I grew, my feet and face grew, everything ballooned. I have suffered from it. My feet got something called Plantar Fasciitis , which still makes running (and even long-time walking), nearly prohibitive. So a few months ago, I decided to do weight-watchers online. I could not commit to meetings, time is too scarce. I gotta say, the shit reallllly works, if you stick to it. I do part-time ww, as I cannot omit beer and general tso's completely from my world. If I sticked to it, I'd be skinny. Half-time, I'm getting there. but got a long way to go.

All's wall that ends wall

Today was the last day of the massacre at maujer street. The guys are finally done. All told, I didn't really lose as many plants as I had thought I would. Had to amend soil, and plants are puny due to my having to cut them all back, but with time they will flourish again. Really I guess it was mostly time that was lost.

But the icing on the cake? The neighbor came over today with an envelope for me. He said, " a little something for your troubles". I came inside figuring it would be a token gift certificate or something. $300 and a note saying, happy plant shopping! Plus we also got some firewood from the tree he cut down in back of his place.

Sometimes people can be really good neighbors. I wish this guy could rub off on the bastard on the other side of us.

.

update: on my way to work today, i noticed that inside his building, in a corner to the right is an altar with a small buddha and some christmas lights around him. also, lit candles at his feet. I love that.

Dream # 2

Got an unexpected nap from 5 to 6-30 today. Had weird dream that this fat hispanic woman was taking care of Gilly who was laughing his brains out. She kept trying to keep him away from me, but he still kept laughing. His laughs started turning into bubbles, and she and I started to compete to swallow them. She hated me, and was trying lie on top of him to keep him away from me. We were both determined to eat all the laugh bubbles, but i was more determined, and i ate more of the laugh bubbles, and had the laughter just running out of me, it was like i was tripping on some hallucinatory drug that i have never tried before. And so beautiful, and perfect.

Got wood?

This is my new gift to myself. Cannot wait to christen it with friends soon. Now, where to get ample supplies of firewood in Brooklyn? Will already told me that my plan of loading the car with firewood from VA won't work, with car already full of dog, us, boy and stuff. Already checked craigslist without much luck. As nutty as I am, I don't envision myself splitting logs for hours, but duraflames, won't cut it for the blazing this crazy-pyro plans on doing.

salt on wounds

I grew up with animals, in the garden/yard/fields/woods in dirt and filth and every allergen imaginable. Now, when I'm already dealing with getting fat and ugly, I now have to contend with pollen? How strong do I have to be? I really would have preferred my physical challenges to have come at an earlier date, when i was way stronger. I don't remember losing this bet.

dream interpretation #1

I have always been a really vivid dreamer. And I have kind of, pretty semi-regularly written them down. So, I will start new thread, so that you can truly 100% conclude that I am bananas and you should not be keeping company with me.

Two nights ago, I dreamed that I lived in a house adjacent to a lake, or some kind of body of water. It was a darkish woodland-set house, with lots of trees overhanging and very shady. It starts with me driving down the sandy road to the house and I see a huge SUV, like a hummer at the end. A swarthy man is at the wheel. I ask him if he needs help, assuming his car was broken down. He glares at me, curses and pulls out.

Cut to the house. It had many, many entrances, and seemed older. like maybe built in the 50's or 60's or something. I was sitting at a type writer in a room off of the garage. (Think the woman in clockwork orange for setting). Suddenly a tow-headed boy pops his head through the door and asks if I want to buy some candy to support his school. i say, "No, you don't belong here, but good luck" and swoosh him out the door. Another boy, and then another, pops heads through. They swell in. I am trying to scoot them all out. They seem harmless at first. They start grabbing at things around me, like pens, paper pads, chair cushions, ipod, etc.

I run upstairs and see that there are tons of kids trying to get in every entrance. It becomes like "the birds" except with boys. And some of the people in the house are friends....Kate G was there, Julia was there. And Will was there, as were about 5 people I work with. We started hammering wood up on doors and lighting fires in the fireplaces, hitting the kids in the head with frying pans, just straight out clobbering them.

I start to make the connection that the guy in the driveway was related, and this was his band of gypsy-boys he was sending to rob us. We seem to successfully have them all at bey. Until one of my teachers assistants comes to me holding one of her socks. In the sock was a little webby coccoon, and in the middle of the cocoon was something that looked like a centipede/half boy like thing.

you won't believe this one....aka PETA be damned

Going to bed last night. As usual, Loretta and I head up to "the big girl bed" and I set to brushing my teeth and, and, and...i guess that's the extent of my beauty regime. Walk around corner and instead of her usual red-eyed, hang dawg glance in my direction, Loretta is actually scampering back and forth across the room. "Shit, effing cat must have gotten up here", I think. So I stick my face under the rocker where she is sniffing, about to grab what I think is my grey cat and send her back downstairs, when WHATTHEFUCK?????!!!!!!!! A fucking rat bares it's teeth and makes a slight lunge toward my nose. I mean my nose, (which is not huge or long) is one fucking inch from this disgusting, angry beast. I almost have a stroke, shit my pants and I'm coming elizabeth all at once. I fall back on the bed, like an overweight scarlett, and call gihyb on the celly to make this go away. ( I then sleep on couch with blankets formed into tents resembling Tompkins square circa '89)

Now, bear in mind, I am not a girly-girl who is inherently afraid of bugs or vermin. I handle worms and bugs regularly, and as a science teacher had rodents in cages (where they belong if they do actually belong anywhere) and as new york city resident for almost 20 years, rodents have been an on/off (albeit mostly off) part of my living experience. However, there are rules to be followed, just like all ghosts and the devil and dolls who come alive at night, must follow. (evil things rule: you cannot harm me if a light, even a tiny light somewhere in the house is on.)

Gross living things rule: Rodents can ONLY live in the basement (until i kill them). They may TRy to attempt the kitchen, (but then I will kill you even more quickly). Under NO circumstances are you allowed above the first floor. THOSE ARE THE RULES! This is the first time you broke the rule. Ergo, you are now dead. I wanted to post the picture but thought some of you might actually feel sorry for the rule-breaking-almost-nose-biting-bastard. Greg extracted the dead beast for me today, thanks. Manny's wear so many hats.

Anyway, for mothers day this weekend, I want gihyb to buy me 100 traps so I can set them everywhere so I can squeal in ecstasy at every snap, and every dead thing I can find. (yes, it's akin to the rosebud bath).

BTW, To be fair to the dead bastard, I don't think he knew the rules. They just knocked down another shitty building on our shitty block and the dead guy and his friends and family were homeless. Sorry, fucker. Snap, snap, snappity snap to all your friends and family. HAppy Mothers day!