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.