The Stuff of Legends

Do we walk in legends, or on the green earth in daylight?

The past few days have truly been of an epic nature. First, let me provide my dear reading audience with a disclaimer: despite my best intentions, and we all know how dangerous those can be, I have become slightly inebriated on a SUNDAY NIGHT due to some wonderfully fun people, Blue Moon Brewery, and a knavishly delicious zinfandel. Fair warning, all.

My weekend was jump started somewhat surreptitiously on Thursday evening, when I agreed to attend a performance of "Sir, Majesty" at Tobacco Road. My roommate's boyfriends' brother decided to postpone medical school in order to pursue his musical career. Thankfully, his band is good enough to warrant such a decison. We had such a good time hanging out and listening to great music that I stayed out way past my planned midnight bedtime.

Smiling and happy, we rolled up to the apartment at 1:00 am. I knew Friday was going to be horrific.

Despite my weekly breakfast treat at Starbucks, my Friday did not begin auspiciously. As soon as I passed through the chain-link gates of school, my assistant principal accosted me to tell me that three staff members would be absent, and once again I would be asked to sacrifice my planning time to cover their asses. Never mind the fact that I had a parent conference with a student who had blatantly called me a bitch in class. My job just wouldn't be my job if I weren't requested to perform six tasks at once, three of which aren't really my responsibility.

After the conference, things went downhill. I couldn't concentrate for the last thirty minutes of planning, and blew my time answering emails on the internet and napping across three desks. Pathetic, I know. Then, the children arrived. My 7th period, the class with a higher percentage of non-morons, was fine as usual, but then the idiots arrived. By idiots, I do not mean mentally deficient children incapable of coherent thought, but the kids who just want to piss each other off, and in doing so irritate the fuck out of me. I was almost okay with them, and even permitted them to play Scrabble, but after two rounds, the smart group had me on my last nerve. One particular child refused to stop talking about how he deserved a homework pass, a rare treat only bestowed up on those students who are able to beat me in a game of Scrabble. I refused to play with his group because he was pissing me off so much, and I knew that I shouldn't be involved in any competitive activity with them. Still, he persited in asserting "I need a homework pass" at the top of his voice. Finally, I turned around and said "D---, you are insane."

All of the children fell silent for about .785 seconds, then busted out laughing as D--- became very, very angry. Calmly and logically, I explained to the class, and to D--- that there was absolutely no possiblility for him to recieve a homework pass, because not only do you have to BEAT me to get one, I have to be a player in the fucking game!!! If I'm not even in the game, then there is no earthly way that he's going to win a homework pass for any number of reasons. This did not go over very well on my students, who tend not to follow logical thought patterns. The only saving grace here was that my psychotic student, who is a pathological liar and mentally disturbed, was not present to witness the episode and scream while running around "Ms. Williamson, you always gonna try me! You pickin' on me! That ain't fair!" While inflicting some sort of bodily harm on another student. I thank the powers that be for small favors.

The day continued in much the same vein, with the charming addition of a message from Gemma reminding me that I had promised to chaperone a soccer field trip to Aventura mall that evening. Fuck me.

I pulled up to the teachers' parking lot to find a gaggle of soccer players swarming the van. They looked happy to see me, and the high spirits were mildly infectious. Also, several girls were bursting to share the gossip of the day. Now I'm accustomed to hearing some pretty crazy shit about daily life at central: people having sex in the rafters, administrators tackling students, fights, riots, etc, but I wasn't quite prepared for this.

Apparently, in some unoccupied classroom, a girl gave a boy a blow job. Mr. Hot Stuff decides that he's going to record the sex act on his camera phone, in video format. Then, to prove his manliness he sends the picture to a friend. Now, if you were a 16-18 year old boy who just recieved a clip of pornography involving one of your friends, what would you do with this knowledge at school? Why, you'd send it to any phone you could reach during lunchtime. In the first lunch period, the news spread like wildfire, and the school began to murmur. Then, after the second round of children were released from class for lunch, someone ascertained the whereabouts of the girl in the video. A large group of male students then sought out the class, meanwhile the girl's friends have informed her that someone is looking for her. She aparently denies the incident, but the class is not convinced. Halfway through second lunch, the horde of hormonally charged boys surrounds the class chanting "Give me head! Give me head!" The bell rings for 5th period to begin, and bam! the girl is out like a Central Rocket, sprinting through the halls followed by several dozen teenage boys waving pictures of her on their phones, making obscene gestures, and still screaming "Give me head!" I think she might need to transfer.

Absolutely incredulous as to the new depths which our school could sink to, I enjoyed a hearty laugh with the ladies while shaking my head in disbelief. This had to be fiction; who could be so stupid?

Luckily, the soccer kids were cute, if loud, and a jocund good time was had by all at the cinema. I picked up my 15 copies of the Odyssey (oUCh! said my pocketbook.), had a great dinner, walked around and had an altogether relaxed evening with a friend I haven't seen much of lately.

Unluckily, some may say, I returned home to find that Virginia not only wanted to watch movies, but had good alcohol as well. Shit. Two English romantic comedies later, we were very happy people.

Saturday went by in a blissful blur of reading and sleeping in, a long sunset run along the Venetian followed by a wonderful Icebox dinner with Virginia to load up on carbs for her half marathon. She woke up at 4:30 to run 13.1 miles, while Mary and I "slept in" until 7:00, grabbed coffee, and met the other insane race participants at the finish line near Bayside park. Yet another Icebox meal followed: a congratulatory brunch with all 6 runners. Idyllic soccer in the park rounded out a fitness-themed day, and then we sat down for a nice dinner together in our apartment to prepare for the coming week. Unfortunately, Virginia and Carlos decied NOT to attend school that Monday, neatly allowing them to goof off and be generally irresponsible during a delicious pasta dinner expertly prepared by yours truly, accompanied by the aforementioned Blue Moon. Whew.

Truly a fabulous weekend, in every sense of the word. Some parts were worth of fable, other moments better served as friendly morality reminders, and yet others outlandish events useful in the "what-not-to-to" genre of fables. Life is nothing if not interesting.

New Year

I have long since stopped making New Year's resolutions, but since I'm talking to the kiddies about them, making changes has been on my mind. One of my downfalls is a deep-seated need to procrastinate on administrative tasks. For three months now, the following items have been on a to-do list posted next to my calendar

1. Get a dentist's appointment
2. Haircut
3. Helmet for Vespa
4. Insurance for Vespa
5. Reimburse self for medical spending by sending in receipts (most likely to be lost, like last year) to assholes at isurance company, and waste time talking to irritaing idiots on the phone in Tallahassee.
6. Take Astra to vet.

For some reason, the business of living seems to be taking up extraordinary amounts of time, and I haven't found the space in my schedule to actually get things done. During soccer season, just like last year, I tend to slip off the radar until things return to normal in the spring. Now that our last game is over, I can really start to get shit done.

Last night, I had an amazing evening in the kitchen, spending a full three hours preparing a layered potato souffle that all of the 266 TFA-ers ate as a "family" in our living room. It's nice to have a little core of close friends around here; it keeps things sane in an often insane existence. Cooking is one of those things that gets squeezed out of my schedule when it gets hectic. Now that it's a new year, it's time to get back to basics.

Basics includes doing errands such as the ones on my list. I took MLK day as a mental health day, returning early from a trip to D.C. Lately, I feel like I've spent all of my alotted travel time and most of my travel money making beelines back and forth from South Florida to Washington. I felt a little bad leaving early, especially since things were so fun on Saturday in the Spy Museum, but I was about to go crazy if I didn't start accomplishing random tasks. There's something very calming and satisfying about crossing things off a list.

Monday morning, after an hour + scouring and bleaching our bathroom, I called USAA, purchased insurance, and then set off on a 4-hour odyssey to Ft. Lauderdale in search of a motorcycle helmet. Somewhere off of Old Griffin Rd. past the trailer parks and the irrigation canals, there lies a warehouse full of bike supplies. I can't even begin to describe how out of place I was: no tattoos, no leather goods, no black clothing, no y chromasome. Thankfully, the people there actually knew what they were talking about, unlike the Vespa salesman, and I left with a reasonably priced helmet that will keep my noggin from going splat on the pavement. I feel much better. So much so, in fact, that my baby blue beauty is now my means of transport to work =). Since I don't have to lug around water coolers and 30 soccer balls, I'm free as a bird, and zip like one to school in the morning. On Tuesday, the kiddies nearly flipped when they saw me wheel in at 7:05. "Ms Dub! Give me a ride!" I heard as I scooted on by to the teachers' parking lot.

I haven't written in a while, so I keep forgetting about all of the stuff that's happened since the beginning of December. I started working for Miami Teaching fellows doing selection for the coming school year; that went well, despite sitting in a 42 degree classroom for 7 hours doing interviews. Didn't feel so hot that weekend, especially having been doused with icy-cold water after the soccer team beat "The West" that Friday.

We also have a new resident in the apartment, as of December 10. Astra came to us after a series of lucky coincidences on December afternoon. We were late for a soccer game, and I had to pick up some kids for Central while the rest of the team WAKLKED TWO MILES IN THE HEAT with Gemma due to supreme idiocy in the Central Athletic Department: the bus dropped the team off at the wrong field. I pulled up by the side of the school, right next to the big trash dumpsters on 19th Ave. to find three soccer players crouched on the ground next to a chain link fence. One of the girls was waving a Slim Jim through the bottom of the fence, into an abandoned lot full of cinderblocks and dissintegrating house fragments. Confused, I told the kids to stop messing around and get in the car. "Ms. Williamson, there's a kitten!" Uh oh, that's a surefire way to get me out of the vehicle. This kitten, not more than a few months old, was cowering in the overgrown "lawn" of the lot, shaking with fear. Her sibling, as the girls pointed out, had just been squished by a car tired all over the road. It was a grisly sight.

We picked up the kitten and christened Astra both for her luckiness and for Central's stirring motto: Ad astra per aspera; to the stars through adversity. She has been living with us for the past few months, tormenting Cervantes and being gnenerally adorable when she's not playing in the toilet.

I'm trying to get a fresh start on things, get more done in the day, and begin to organize my crazy life, but there's too many new responsibilities and issues cropping up that it's hard to keep track of things. Oh well, at least the weather is beautiful =)