Where I am:

Today I was at school from about 10 until about 5 (I think? Maybe it was more like 5:30). I would have been there earlier this morning, but Zeke and I are having a problem with ants that has not been curtailed by multiple little Club Meds of Death I have carefully placed right in the middle of the ANT SUPERHIGHWAY that runs straight from a crack in my window frame to the end of my plant counter. When I got home from work yesterday, I went to get Zeke's food and the bag was totally covered with these little ants so naturally I freaked out and banged the bag on the counter several times to throw all the ants off it at which point they all started crawling up my arms and then for the rest of the night I couldn't shake the sensation of little ants on my skin (which, as I used to remind Ali, is a sure sign of psychosis). Plus, Zeke was hungry, and I was all anxious about feeding him, because what if ANTS get in his DOG DISH? But after stressing about this for several minutes, I remembered that he's been known to eat poop and dead rats, so surely some tiny ants in his dish will pose no real problem for him at all, right? Right?

So I fed him, I fed myself, I fielded several phone calls, checked my email, brushed more ants off my arms, refilled my water bottle, herded Zeke into the truck... all in the space of about 20 minutes. When I showed up at meditation class, I was harried, stressed, brushing ants off my face and arms, and trying to keep track of Zeke, who ran happily into the building, down the hallway, and instead of following me into Jennie's office, trotted calmly out the back door and into the little meadow. (Later, when I was Deeply Meditating, in a place of PEACE and LIGHT, Zeke came over to where I was sitting and went CHOMP on a flower I was using in my meditation, which made me giggle, and then I felt guilty for disrupting the meditation, but then it was like giggling in church, and I couldn't stop thinking about how Zeke just went CHOMP right over the pretty orange flower I was meditating with, and how non-Zen that was, only maybe it was totally zen, how should I know, and though I managed to stop giggling, I never quite got back to the hippie batik of golden peace I'd been in before Zeke CHOMPed my flower.)

But I was talking about school. And ants. When Zeke and I got home after class, laden with cheese and poison, most of the ants had disappeared, and cheerfully -- naiively -- I thought, oh they just went away! That was easy! Nevertheless, I dutifully put out the little poison hotels and went to bed.

This morning I woke up to Rushhour on the Ant Superhighway, including more ants on Zeke's food, even though I'd moved it -- the ants just moved with the food! What's up with that! -- and proceeded to scream in frustration, murder a LOT of ants, scream, and start all over with the ants-on-my-neck thing, all of which conspired to make me a half-hour later to school than I'd intended.

Clearly, the ant problem needs to be solved before school starts for real next week.

My day was busy and yet felt rather unproductive, mainly because I was more curriculum oriented than classroom-setting-up oriented, meaning that I downloaded and printed and hole-punched and binder-organized and labeled and sorted and organized and prioritized and reviewed, but at the end of the day the desks in my room were all still piled in a huge mountain in the far corner of the room, blocking my big supply cabinet which holds untold wonders (or at least, whatever I shoved in there before checking out last spring). My walls are still bare (except the postcard map, which I bullied my way into not taking down in May), my ugly silver pipe thing still exposed, my room still utterly unorganized and my entire life still in total and complete chaos. So... I'll be back tomorrow.


The drive home was just gorgeous. The sky was dark, dark blue to the east, all storm clouds and sweeping rain. The mountains were draped with varying degrees of cloud, but the little patch of sun above my truck illuminated the tawny corn and wheat fields, the bright yellow sunflowers, and the soft adobe houses against the deep blue of the sky and rich dark green of the mountains, and I was reminded of driving outside of Bratislava, with the same dark skies and bright sunflowers.

***

Today at school, I started panicking about remembering the names of the kids I had in my classes last year, 70 (ish) of whom I'll have again this year. I have the WORST memory for names, mainly because I psych myself out and question and second-guess and go through entire dramas in my head whenever I say someone's name. Much of this anxiety can be traced back to high school, when I called this girl Adelaid for like TWO YEARS before she snapped, "That's not my name! Stop calling me that!" (Senior year, mind you.) "WHAT?" I was truly horrified. "What's your name, then?" "Natalie!" the girl screamed, "it's NATALIE!!"

I'd been calling this girl by the wrong name since SOPHOMORE YEAR and she'd never said a word.

Do you see how a person could be permanently scarred from an experience like this?

So, Back-To-School Note To Self Number One: call everyone "hon" until early September, at least.

Also, today one of my former students (child of another teacher, doomed to hang out at school on days like this with nothing to do but hang around in Ms. Backes' room and randomly pick things up and touch them) came into my room. "Did you hear that Betty's* gone?"

[Backstory: Betty was the janitor who cleaned my classroom, and I honestly was a little scared of her. She reminded me of the house-elf in the House of Black who skivvered around and muttered to himself. "Oh, the pencil sharpener's broken? I'll make a note of it," she'd say to me, and then spend the rest of my prep period dragging around my classroom muttering, "..murblerm mellueish, show them all... askushl have the right mutterm murble." Creepy! Also I think she didn't like me, because she never washed my chalkboards. When I met the new janitor today, Kay said, "He'll wash your boards once a week!" and I got SO excited.]

"Yes, I just met the new janitor," I said. "How exciting!"

Former Student seemed shocked. "But Betty was so good!"

"Oh.... well, that's true....... but it's always exciting to have new faces around, right?"

Back-To-School Note To Self Number Two: no more expressions of your true feelings about anyone, until you're at least 20 miles out of town and/or on Christmas break.

I also learned today that I'm no longer responsible for writing IEPs. Hooray! AND the principal told me that I'm eligible to jump up to the 2nd tier of licensure after this year (not next, as we'd thought), which means that if I stay here for the 2006-2007 school year, I'll see a $10 K raise -- a year earlier than I'd thought!

Back-To-School Note To Self Number Three: Reconsider that plan to move back to the midwest just yet....

Of course, Camille and I agreed that since I come from a poverty culture, that 10K will disappear in a matter of days. "Right up your nose," Camille says, and I have to agree.

Oh, wait.

Back-To-School Note To Self Number Four: Stop joking about all the drugs you do........













*name changed to protect the weird and creepy

Moments from Augusts Past....

A little bit about everything except the whole going-back-to-school thing; you shall have nothing about that.

(yet)

The last glorious days of summer, and I'm already nostalgic for them. This is a quality in myself that irritates me. Overly nostalgic, fine, but could we at least wait until the very thing about which we are all nostalgic is finished happening? I always do it, too: I remember driving through the dark streets of Saint Louis Park with K a while back and thinking, "This is so nice... and in a few days, I won't be here and I won't be able to ride around with Kevin while he pretends to shift with his water bottle... how sad is that? I'm going to miss him, and I'll miss this moment... and I won't see him again for a while...."

See, and the whole time I'm thinking, oh sad, this will be over soon, I'm completely missing out on enjoying the moment for what it is. For pete's sake.


Recently I followed a link from one YA author's blog to another to another, where I found this hilarious "retro-blog," where the girl only posts journal entries from the distant past. So while other people are discussing The Sad Death Of Peter Jennings on their blogs, this girl is talking about The Tragic Death of River Phoenix, complete with Seventeen and YM collages. Hilarious.

Of course, my old journal entries are rarely funny; I've always been too thinky and weird for that. Nevertheless, for your Tuesday entertainment, I present:


Moments from Augusts Past...

August 9, 1993
I got my braces off today!!!!!!!! Definately a day to be celebrated!!

August 17, 1996
I'm writing with my brand new Fed Ex pen that I ganked from some poor customer at work today. School starts in a week and a half. Wooo. My Junior year. No, actually I'm really excited about it. I've got all these great things on my list or something. The OHS AIDS Walk team that I'm organizing (with the help of the fabulous Rebecca Fox-Blair); Pass The Green (Yaayy!!); The Chautauqua; new friends; a new and improved Panther Press; Once Upon A Mattress; my job. This Bobby McFerrin Gig!!!!; + I'm even sorta trying to write a book. Crazy. [...]

Um, what else? I have my driver's license, I cut my hair, I'm cute. I work at Ben Franklin. Aaaahh! It's actually pretty fun... sort of.


7 August 1997 -- 13:48 -- Charles DeGaule Airport
My God, it’s over. All second semester -- the anticipation, the “Oh, I’ll be in Europe for most of the summer,” the thinking -- it seemed so unreal all through the spring and June and now again, did it ever happen? Did I ever leave home? I swear, I can’t believe it’s been this long. We just left, maybe 4 days ago. I expect once I’m home, the feeling will be even stronger.
Still -- raining. From here I can see wet, black pavement under a tired and cloudy afternoon sky. Stark. Not too much like my other memories of Paris -- a colorful mélange under a strong blue sky and cheery sun.


6 August 2000 11:15 am MFA, Boston

Franz Kline
Probst I, 1960
oil on canvas

A huge canvas – bigger than my bed. White background with hints of orange and yellow, huge black and brown slashes across the canvas. The black gathers together in the bottom left corner, and swirls up across the page like a twister, a tornado. Two women behind me pause, and one says, “I could do that,” rather scornfully. I want to turn and say no, you couldn’t. To “do that” takes more passion than you’ve let yourself feel in years – maybe more than you’ve felt your whole life. To “do that” requires a confrontation of self, an awareness and acceptance of the darkness, the rage, the pain, and the truth we have within ourselves. It requires an acceptance of and a belief in the truth of one’s own voice, and the power of one’s own truth. It takes huge movement and giant feelings and trust in oneself. It takes love – the love you need to let yourself express your darkest, rawest, most primal feelings. I know I couldn’t do it – but at least I’m working on it.


3:20 am Thursday morning, 30 August 2001 White House Porch
There is no good reason for me to be awake right now. Other than: I’ve been at Bob’s, and I’m not tired, and the first day of my senior year in college is tomorrow – or today, rather, and I’ve been up for hours thinking about how everyone has changed, and all the ways we haven’t changed, too . . . I was reading my old plans and laughing and wincing and skipping over parts . . . .

Last year, Dave Bradley wrote about the duality of Molly, how on my plan I’m this rampaging mega-bitch, and then in person I’m a “Sweetie.” I embrace that duality. I’m feeling more and more confident about the Bob’s thing . . . tonight Charlie Marshall reminded me that the best managers are those who take care of themselves! Sounds like something I ought to know already. I feel nostalgic and sad for the parts of me I’ve lost along the way, for the moments I didn’t enjoy enough at the time . . . but what’s new? I always feel nostalgic and sad. Luckily, autumn is coming! My favorite! O season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!


1:50 am (mountain) Thursday night 21 August 2003 – Home – ABQ
I have this phrase running through my head: “What have I got to lose? Other than, you know, everything.” I guess it’s what I told Mark Bechtel back in March – though maybe I said, “There’s nothing riding on this” not what have I got to lose. In any case, the former is what’s running through my head just now....





So there you have it: 10 years of Augusts, and I didn't change a whit. Melissa Bailey and I were just talking about that the other night; about reading our report cards from kindergarten and finding that we're exactly the same at 25 as we were at 5. Which is both troubling (don't I **EVER** get to grow up?) and reassuring (that the core, the essence, of who we are only strengthens over time, and that the world has not been enough to erase the essential characteristics that make me ME).

Homeward Bound....

Today I flew home from Chicago, by way of Minneapolis. It was hot and sunny the whole way, until we flew up over the settling night back into the dusky sunset above Minnesota.

Lisa was kind enough to let me go pick up Zeke on my way home from the airport, so I wouldn't have to spend a night by myself. Thinking back over the last 8 days, not a single night passed without at least one animal sleeping on or with me. Even the nights I spent in Milwaukee (Gabby) and Chicago (Nick's weird cat Byron) found me couch-bound with critters. Byron actually slept directly on top of my chest for a time. One night I had THREE animals in my bed: Basil, Gabby, and the freaky cat who I took the liberty of renaming Pussy Galore The Spy Cat. Honestly, I was just tired of hearing my mother compare herself to King Lear. When does the madness end??

I had a looong layover in Minneapolis, and other than calling everyone I know in the cities just to say, "Hi, I'm HERE! But you can't see me, because I'm in the airport... but still, I'm HERE!" and then giggling happily --- uh, other than that, I spent several hours thinking about the spooky, elusive * * F * U * T * U * R * E * * (were this handwritten, the word would be written all up and down, with sparklies all around it, to show that I'm wiggling my hands and going oooooh when I say it). After this weekend, Chicago's on the list. I made a long list of pros and cons for Chicago and Minneapolis (or as Jennifer would say, plusses and deltas). Minneapolis won out, but only slightly. I believe that either city would be a good place for me right now. Particularly if one of my sisters starts having babies.

Honestly, Chicago. Or Minneapolis. I'll make a little home there and spend my summers in New Orleans or Prague, learning to write.

Just as soon as I learn to teach......

More notes from home....

Spent the afternoon with Ila last Friday, ambling around downtown Madison. Lunch at Ian's Pizza, where we met Ian and tried two different slices of Ian's wacky pizza concoctions: macaroni & cheese and spicy bean burrito. Surprisingly they were both very good. We wandered around the square, Ila pointed out her new apartment above Mangus, and ended up on the Monona Terrace Rooftop, stretching our legs in the sun and watching the sparkling lake before us. It was a perfect Madison day, all sun and breeze, not too hot. And of course, perfect company. Leaving the terrace, Ila suggested we cross back through the hotel walkway, and I agreed happily. "Great! I do love walkways!" Ila said, "That's what I love about hanging out with you: you take me back to my highschool self, when I did things just for the fun of it."

Indeed. Coming home always involves a lot of that, for me: driving favorite old roads, walking along favorite paths, visiting restaurants and listening to radio stations that all feel like old friends. So much of my delight, when I lived in Oregon, was rooted in means to freedom: driving through the lush back roads, walking up and down State Street, going to certain restaurants (most notably Perkins...) -- anything to get me out of the house and away from school, any excuse to be alone, or to spend time with just one other person.


Saturday afternoon I drove down to Chicago to visit some Grinnell friends, primarily Nick and Chris (with whom I stayed), and happily Vivek, Adam, Rachel Clark, Kumail, Laurelin, Aja, Jarrod, Marti, Julie, and Kate (did I miss anyone?).

Spending time with Nick and Chris was awesome for a lot of reasons, but one of the coolest things, for me, was getting to talk to them about improv theory. They're both on teams at IO (formerly ImprovOlympic), one of the two most famous improv theaters in Chicago. Saturday night, the three of us went out to dinner, and then Nick and I took a cab to IO (across the street from Wrigley Stadium),
where we saw two teams (Extra Billies and Baby Wants Candy) each do a longform show, with games in between. Baby Wants Candy did an improvised musical that made the gang at Gorilla Tango look like amateurs in comparison; whereas the GT group sings funny songs, they don't put too much stress on being particularly musical, while some of the BWC songs could have been on the soundtracks to shows like Rent or Pippen, except for the fact, you know, that the actors were singing about circus freaks with hairy chests and vaginas. Overall, I was really impressed, and I'm so glad that I got the chance to see "real" improv, that I may have a broader understanding and perspective on what it is, exactly, that we're trying to create and do at GT in Albuquerque. And then, because I was lucky enough to be staying with fellow improv geeks, I got to spend time talking about the structure of the shows with Nick, analyzing them from a theoretical/structural perspective. Awesome.

I've always really admired Chris and Nick and really enjoyed talking to them when I ran into them at parties or at Saints Rest in Grinnell, but it wasn't until this weekend that I got to spend any extended amount of time with either of them, just hanging out. I'm so glad that I did. They're both perfect examples of the kinds of people I loved most in college: hilarious, smart, interesting, creative and artistically driven, open-minded, and kind.

The only exception to the kind thing was when we needed to take a bus from IO to the bar where we were meeting up with the Grinnell group, when Nick, sensing my weakness like a predator around prey, played on my mass-transit anxieties and became the Bus Bully, terrorizing me onto and then off of the bus. Nick, in his evil bus riding tactics, pushed me off the bus into the gutter and then kicked me, laughing. Clearly, he's a diabolical mastermind.

Or maybe I'm exaggerating. I mean, just a little bit. Not much though. It was traumatic, honestly.

We met up with a large group of Grinnell kids at the Hopleaf, where we took over one entire side of the upstairs room. Throughout the evening, people moved around, switching places around the table in order to talk to a number of different friends, so I moved from Vivek's lap to between Rachel and Laurelin to next to Adam, between Adam and Laurelin then Adam and Rachel, and ended the evening at the other end of the table, between Nick and Jarrod. The funny thing about the night was that even though I hadn't seen any of these friends in at least two years (and more, in some cases), it was as if no time had passed at all. Adam and I picked up our usual fighty banter, laughing about clownpants and sandmouses; Vivek and I our usual flirty banter; Rachel and I our sisterly kinship. The generosity of the group was twofold: one, the assurance that you're already in, you're already accepted and loved, and don't have to impress anyone or prove anything, and two, that you exist not only as the person you are now, but also as the person you have been. I found myself more open, laughing harder and joking more, quicker and funnier and happier than I usually feel in my "real" life, where I'm far more reserved, more polite and far less outrageous than I ever was in college. How wonderful to travel back, if only for an evening, to step back into the role of a part of me that I loved. In some ways, I felt like the best version of myself in that crowd.

Sunday afternoon, I found myself (along with Chris and Nick) helping Miss Kate Herold move from Iowa into a third story apartment a few blocks down from Nick and Chris, primarily because I hadn't seen Kate in two years and this was the only way I could spend time with her. Also, because she fed us pizza and beer in payment. It was hard work, and the humidity was worse than I remembered (I was having flashbacks to moving into Norris 4th in August of 1999), but overall it was -- not fun, exactly, but agreeable -- not a bad way to spend the afternoon. At least I got to see Kate, is what I'm saying.

Chicago seems like a fun place to be in your twenties. In contrast, Albuquerque seems really stolid somehow. kind of suburban. Maybe it's just that there aren't many Grinnellians there, not many young Grinnellians. Just as I made my peace with Minneapolis -- and then grew to love it -- a few years ago, this weekend I made my peace with Chicago, and I am beginning to see why so many of my friends and family love it. I'm officially adding it to my list of possible places to go to grad school.

Happy Birthday, Megan!

Currently home in Madison (well, Fitchburg), enjoying the recently cool temperatures and loverly humidity. Tonight I was driving along one of the many winding country roads between Oregon and Fitchburg, trying to taste my place here as you'd taste a sore spot on your own tongue. Here? Here? Is this where I belong? Is this who I am? I drive along, windows wide open, my head hanging out in the rushing wet air, as if I could sniff the answers in the wind. (The midwest SMELLS so delicious!) The richness of sensory details overwhelms me: the lush greenness, the warm, wet earth, the smells of all things growing in the air, the sound of breezes playing with bristling grasses in fields... at the corner of Fish Hatch and CC, an entire field of wildflowers! What simple beauty. What luxuries we have taken for granted all these years.

And fountains! Water! Lake Michigan, sparkling warm topaz on a cool, sunny day in Milwaukee. Two rivers and a lake? Is it possible to have so much water in one city? Look at all these bridges, bridges and boats everywhere. We even had to wait in the car while a bridge lifted and sank to let a boat full of people pass underneath, bells dinging merrily all the while.

My sister, becoming something of an adult...

I spent about 26 hours with her in Milwaukee, going out for dinner, playing with the dog, driving through the twisted city streets, idly shopping and making fun of ugly shoes. Playing at the big, pretty ship of a museum, perched above the water like a ship skimming the waves. She made me breakfast and I searched through her apartment, marveling at all the evidence of a life lived in my absence: she has dishes, and shirts I've never seen, movies and books, plants that she waters, thoughts that she thinks when she's alone. A whole life, of her own.

And tonight, dinner at Red Robin with Cindy and Memo, who laughed when I stepped into the car wearing a clown nose, and obligingly let me take a picture of him wearing it a minute later. He's six.

Everyone here seems to wait patiently for me to come home, holding some breath until I say I think I'll stay in New Mexico another year or two, at least, and then with a quick, disappointed sigh they say, "I wish you weren't so far away," like I'm breaking their hearts every time.

It's hard.

But this trips says I'm as much of New Mexico as I am of Wisconsin, at least right now, at least right here. Though I miss the bobbing fireflies at dusk in the misty roadside weeds along the fields that I love. The lightning flashing through the saturated sky. The sweet, hazy smell of summer here, here in the green.

On Monday, I'm flying from Albuquerque to Chicago, where my mother will pick me up and drive me home to Madison. I'll be in Madison for a week, drive down to Chicago for a day to see some college friends, celebrate my sister's 23rd birthday with her, and fly back to Albuquerque on the following Tuesday.

I won't see George, Dan, Ali, Nadia, Mary, or Cam, but I'll see a bunch of other people, many of whom I haven't seen since I graduated from Grinnell more than three years ago. I'm looking forward to it, absolutely. And I'm hoping to see some of my dear Oregon friends as well, including Ila, Heather James, Cindy and Memo, and perhaps some of my dear teacher friends. I'll see my family, some of whom I saw at Val's wedding in May, some of whom I haven't seen since Christmas. And I'll see the land, the green hills and cornfields, the sparkling lakes, the tall, leafy trees of Southern Wisconsin which are my family just as much as my people are. I'll sit on the end of the pier at the Memorial Union, splashing my feet in the lake if it's not too gross with algae. I'll walk the roads at night, following the railroad tracks under the dusty brilliance of the milky way. I'll drive old paths, so familiar it will seem I've been gone mere days instead of months.

I'll probably cry when I leave. I usually do. And as always, I'll re-examine my committment to New Mexico, wondering as always if the velvety peaks of the Sandias at sunset carry enough weight in my heart to balance the winding roads and sturdy red barns of the midwest.

The great thing about summer is I have lots of free time to think about stuff.

The bad thing about summer is I have lots of free time to think about stuff.

Ultimately, I believe it's a noble pursuit, but along the way my thinkyness tends to lead to days (sometimes weeks) of self-questioning, doubt, internal debate and drama, and of course, angst. (The internal drama's the best: "The real problem is that I can NEVER ESCAPE MY OWN HEAD! Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!") Tiresome, painful, and even frightning, these phases of thinkyness often help me to clarify, to shift, to let go. To grow.

Recently, I've been submerged in the re-evaluation of a particular friendship, and in the process have spent a great deal of time thinking about friendship in general, what it means, what it costs, and what it's worth. And more specifically, of course, I've been thinking about my friendships, what they cost and why. Too, I've thought about myself as a friend, at what cost my friendship comes, and at what worth.

I'm difficult, I think. I'm intense. I can be demanding and self-centered and controlling. I struggle with change and I suck at saying goodbye. I can be jealous, and I can be such a bitch.

(I see you laughing. "Tell us something we don't know!")

(Or my friend Doug last night: "You are a pain in the ass, but you're sweet, so it's okay.")

On the other hand, I'm loyal. I'm forgiving. I'm devoted and supportive and helpful. I'm honest, and I'm generous. I love my friends fiercely.

Ironically, I believe that my closest friends are those for whom my friendship is the most difficult. Certainly I have the highest expectations of my closest friends, and there's almost always trouble when I can't shift my expectations quickly enough to match the changing lives of my friends.

Maybe it's those confounded journals, or my long memory, but I seem to have an excess of nostalgia in my brain center. I'm forever saying Remember when....?

Remember last summer? Remember when you used to take the time to make me laugh? Remember how funny we used to be together? Remember when you were kinder, warmer, different?

Believe me, my friends, the nostalgia thing is far more obnoxious for me than for you, because you can walk away, close the email, hang up the phone.

But the good thing about my long memory is that I never forget a kindness, and I never stop giving credit for it. Do just one really nice thing for me, and I will love you for it forever, even if you then go on to join the army or become the asshole in the attic. I'll always be there to defend you: "I know he's difficult, but listen, this one time...."

As we more fully immerse ourselves in adulthood, many of my friends are turning to their jobs for self-identity, working impossible weeks, living at the office, relishing the clarity of self provided by work. "I don't have time for friends right now," they say. "You have it easy," they tell me. "School ends at 3:00 and you're finished, but me? Sometimes I'm here until midnight. I'm working 80 hour weeks!"

The thing is, I could be working 80 hour weeks; every teacher knows it. But I *choose* not to. The last two years for me have been an ongoing quest for greater balance, greater harmony in my life. Of course my job and my work are important to me, but they're not the sum total of the person that I am. I also have my writing, improv, meditation and pilates and walking, the mountains, the dog, reading, my family, and yes -- my friends -- to define and sustain me.

In the last few weeks, some friends and I have kept up an ongoing discussion about Harry Potter, first speculations for the sixth book and then predictions for the seventh. My friend Paul and I, in particular, have been arguing about which of the six is the best, and tonight I realized why I argue so passionately for Goblet of Fire -- its climax mirrors the way I see the world. Harry has to do battle with Voldemort, but he's not alone: the ghosts of Voldemort's most recent victims emerge to offer Harry strength and support, encouraging him to keep going, to stay strong, to believe in himself, and ultimately they help him to escape and survive.

And this is how I've always seen myself. I imagine my friends in circles around me, encouraging, supporting, cheering. Believing in me. Even in my darkest times, I trust that they are there. Distant, perhaps, but there.

This quotation, originally in an email from Gail Gregory, has sustained me for seven years: "Keep your balance, know that you are greatly loved no matter what, and that whether or not you see the light, it’s there."


I'm difficult. I'm demanding. I'm intense. But oh my heart, oh my friends, I do love you fiercely.

This morning I went to my friend Dawn's coffee shop and actually worked on the YA novel I started in May, finished chapter six and am feeling good. Then Lisa called and wanted to gossip about Harry Potter, so we got bagels at Einstein's and brought them back to my house, which she hadn't seen since she brought me saltines and gatorade when I was dying with the flu a month or so ago. She was very impressed with the cuteness of my place now (compared to a month ago, when it was nothing but boxes and STUFF everywhere), though she's concerned about an "entity" that is apparently trapped in the corner under the stairs. Ghosts make Lisa cough.

New Mexicans make me giggle, sometimes.

Today I have learned an important lesson: I have the power to end droughts! Or at least to make it get really windy and spooky and WINDY oh my god. It's like a desert hurricane.

... just had to run through the house and close all the windows....

So how, you ask, do I know that I have the unique power of summoning the rain? Well. Today I bought two wicker bookcases at the thrift store. They're just about perfect for the space I have, and I was *JUST* thinking this morning that if I didn't get another bookshelf soon I was going to go crazy from too many piles. One day, I will have a house with a whole room of just BOOKSHELVES, and then I will be the happiest girl ever. But for now, I make due with the... well, my recent acquisitions brings me up to a total of seven. SEVEN. Most of them are small, though, and/or formerly gunracks. So.

My new bookcases are kind of a half-hearted white color, like they were spray-painted white several years ago and then never cleaned and then enhanced with kool-aid stains. Immediately after loading them in the truck, I drove up the street to the hardware store for paint. (I love small-town hardware stores! I don't know why, but I always have. I loved the one in Grinnell, and the one in Oregon... and the one in Cedar Crest has its very own store-dog, a big foofy muppet dog.)

I came home and started painting immediately, with several problems. One, my back patio is a major ANT SUPERHIGHWAY and I soon had ants in my pants, quite literally. Two, the paint I bought is a latex blend (because I'm thinking of putting one of the shelves in the bathroom for towels and such) which makes it very very sticky. Sticky isn't too much of a problem until the DESERT HURRICANE starts and every miniscule speck of dust blowing through the backyard instantly adheres itself to my new shelves. Sigh. Also, I had to scrub my hands like crazy to get enough paint off to eat. That is, to eat without getting paint all over my food... not to eat paint.

I got all five shelves of one bookcase washed, stripped, and painted (tops only -- tomorrow will do bottoms and then a second coat on tops). Yay me. Until the wind started blowing, leaving my poor defenseless shelves at the mercy of the elements -- because they're too sticky to come into my pretty house with its newly refinished blond wood floors. The unpainted cases got to come inside, but there are still five shelves in the middle of the Ant Autobahn, collecting dust and bugs and leaves as I speak. Le sigh.

What does all this have to do with my power to summon the rain, you ask?

Well. Four years ago, when Ali and I lived in the house on High Street with Jamie and Nancy, I felt the need to paint a bookshelf I'd inherited from Quance, which was painted the most unfortunate combination of McDonald's Red and Yellow. Ali and I spent an afternoon out on our porch, using several coats of white paint before we could completely cover the red and yellow. On the back of the shelf, we painted "Molly & Ali, June 2001," which made me laugh a year later when we moved it out of White House and up to the Brand, where it lived with Ali.

We left the bookshelf out on the porch to dry in the Iowa summer sun, along with the paint tray and paint. That night, it rained (of course!) and the not-quite dry paint in the tray turned into white-paint-water.

Then the raccoons came. For weeks, I'd been telling my housemates that a family of raccoons came to our house and tapdanced on our porch all night. I should know, I said, my room's adjacent to their dancefloor. My roommates were skeptical. The night of the rainstorm, though, the raccoon family came to dance and dipped their little feets in the paint-water before dancing a pattern of little rodent feets across our porch like an old-fashioned dance instruction sheet.

And that's how I know that I have the power to end droughts: let me come and paint bookshelves under your hot summer sun, alongside your wilting crops. The rain will come, to ruin my bookshelves and reveal the nocturnal secrets of tapdancing raccoons.

I promised someone that I would post this very creepy but kind of funny
Talking Squirrel Flash Commercial from Big Time Attic. Yes, the very one that triggered my interest in squirrel fishing, though my mother claims that she sent me the squirrel fishing link when I lived in my little Dickensonian Langan garret.


Anyhow....

Taos this weekend was fabulous, but sadly not as photogenic as it should have been. Apparently it was rather dark all weekend. Maybe that's just a function of the constant mountain monsoons, one of which we got stuck in up near Taos Ski Valley, thus forcing us to take shelter under someone's second-story deck. It became clear, about 7:30 on Sunday night, that it had become personal: literally seconds after we got out of the car to walk the dogs, the sky opened up on us (and ONLY on us -- the rainstorm fell on a teeny patch of land maybe 2 or 3 acres wide, exactly where we happened to be). When we scorned the storm and continued our walk, it started HAILING. Obviously, someone was trying to tell us something. ("Are those dorks getting out of the car again? Okay, RAIN! And if that doesn't work, HAIL!!")

This exhibit, summer friends with new roses, takes its name from one of my poems, ici. I believe they're publishing ici in the letterpressed zine accompanying the exhibition as well.

The other day, I heard an interview with Pete Seeger about his song "If I Had a Hammer," which had been used (in a comic way, with different words) to support republican Tom DeLay. Seeger was asked if he was angry about his song being corrupted and used by the very groups he'd always fought, but instead of being upset, he said something about how songs take on a life of their own, and an artist can't control the ways that the culture adapts and adopts the song. I thought it quite an inspired answer, really.

And that's how I feel about my own work. It takes on a life of its own; it goes out into the world and suddenly this little thing that I wrote in the loggia when I was 19 has meaning for an artist in Pennsylvania. Very cool.

Reader, I edited this.



I promise you, I spent over an hour the other night, simply creating an update worthy of your time and attention -- namely, all the stories from middle school I neglected to post in the months of April and May. School's out for the summer, but I only have four days left before summer school begins. I make no promises about future updates, only that I will attempt to re-update the lost edits and get you your summer reading before summer ends.

Sunday evening in spring.... ah.....

The clouds over the western mountains reflect the setting sun in the most delicate layers of tangerine, orange, butterscotch, pale rose, violet, indigo, peach, as if someone has laid layer upon layer of the thinnest tissue paper to drape over the darker gray-blue of the rumpled mountains. A mourning dove whoo whoos in the front yard. There was snow on the ground when I woke up this morning, and yet the fruit trees are blossoming in the yard. In the back yard, the tiny pink blossoms of the peach tree hang against the snowy mountains like Japanese calligraphy.

Things haven't been easy lately, and yet I feel healthier and more whole than I can remember feeling in years. It's springtime, yes, but it's more than that. I feel closer to achieving some sort of balance than I've felt in a long time. Between meditation class and improv class and writing and teaching and friends and the dogs, no part of me feels unfulfilled right now.

Recently, beauty has become more important to me. I've been able to keep plants alive longer than a month for the first time in my life, and I want to continue to add to them. Tonight I bought a little potted lavender plant to add to my collection. Last week I had a vision of myself as a tower swept clean, with a winding stone staircase wrapped in ivy climbing through the open space.

New Mexico can feel like a very safe place, a very healthy place, a very clean place. A pure place, a place to return to clean essence and nothing more.

It’s snowing today, in a way I’ve only seen before in the midwest. The flakes are large and wet, persistently piling up on each branch and blade of grass until everything looks plumply skeletal. I woke up this morning praising a god I unevenly believe in: a crisis of faith solved by a snow day. The radio said no school and I said Hallelujah. I spent the morning curled up with the dogs, a steaming cup of coffee in my hand and the snow falling outside. I had to leave this afternoon, though, because we have no food in the house and I had a horror of being snowbound in the house and having to live on dogfood until rescued. Even driving to the grocery store one street over was harrowing. The streets are thick with slush and snow, the drivers overly- or underly-cautious, the snowplow fairly non-existent. The hills steep and slippery, treacherous mountain driving that’s extremely unusual for this far down the mountain.

Were it not for the hills, I could be driving around Iowa, or Wisconsin, or Minnesota this afternoon. The snow is that thick. I am tempted, in the parking lot of the grocery store, to make snowballs with the snow I’m sweeping off my windshield, but I have no gloves and no one I know to target. Lisa’s in California, and I call her to talk about the weather, to say, “Don’t come home yet! It’s cold and wet here!” On a sunny patio in San Diego, she cries, “Oh no!” Later, I think that if the snow keeps up, she might not be able to get home tomorrow.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a meditation which moved me through the day, and though I started here, in the Manzano Mountains, I ended in the midwest, moving from Madison to Rock Creek to a lake in Michigan where I lay on my back in a canoe and stared up at the endlessly starry night. When I told Lisa, she said it meant I would end up in Michigan, but I disagree. I think it merely indicative of the in-between place in which I’m living, where home is still the midwest but absolutely New Mexico, now, as well.

Often when I feel homesick, I find myself longing not for Madison, not for Oregon, and not for Grinnell, but for the long, graceful curves of Highway 151 stretching down through southwestern Wisconsin, crossing the Mississippi, meandering all the way through northeastern Iowa until it meets Highway 6 around Homestead. Most of all, I miss the road between, and I think it’s because whenever I drove it, I was on my way home. Even when I was feeling uncertain about what home was, even when the boundaries and borders between my lives lacked the definition I wanted them to keep, even when home became neither/both, traveling the road between the two places always felt like a promise of safety and belonging. In a way, I never felt so much like myself as I did when I drove that road.

Recently I crossed some milestone, and suddenly New Mexico became home in a way it had previously resisted. For the first time since I moved here, I’m planning to spend an entire vacation here rather than going home, and I’m looking forward to the chance not only to run errands and accomplish little tasks that never seem to fit into my everyday life, but also to explore some of the places around my home here I haven’t yet had a chance to see. For the first time since I moved here, I know without a doubt that this land has imprinted itself on me, and the New Mexico skies will never leave my cells. The dust, the pollen, the light and wind and rain of this desert exist in my DNA now, and will not leave, though one day I may try to leave them behind.

This March marks the ten-year anniversary of my first real trip to New Mexico (that I remember, at least): the Oregon Orchestra tour in the spring of 1995. It also marks my ten-year anniversary in journals, and perhaps the two are linked. Ten years ago, this land claimed me as its own, when I looked down from the window of the plane and saw a coyote running along the runway. Friday night, a coyote ran across the road in my headlights as I drove home, and it felt like the closing of a chapter in a way.

Rebecca Solnit says, “Every place exists in two versions, as an exotic and a local. The exotic is a casual acquaintance who must win hearts through charm and beauty and sites of historical interest, but the local is made up of the accretion of individual memory and sustenance, the maternal landscape of uneventful routine.” Ten years ago, I fell in love with the exotic, and only now am I beginning to know the local, as I see my way through a second winter into a second spring here.

This land is like my mother: unmistakably mine, unquestionably home; yet the longer I live here, the better I understand how I am a stranger. When I was 19, I realized how little my mother ever talked about herself, and saw, for the first time, just how little I knew about her. I began to wonder about all the things she had not said in the first two decades of my time with her. I began to wonder about all the things she'd said that I never heard, and wondered how much I would have understood if I did hear it. Had she always been so quiet? Had she always held such secrets?

New Mexico has secrets I cannot even imagine, mysteries I couldn't unravel in a hundred years. Ten years ago, I was overwhelmed with the feeling that I had come home at last, and for the first time in my rocky adolescence felt that I truly belonged. I heard the snowy mountains, the twisted junipers, the soft brown desert calling to me, and from then on, like Georgia O'Keeffe, "I was always on my way back." Seven years later, I returned, fearing I would find it so much changed it no longer matched the mountains that lived in my memory, those I drew in the margins of my notebooks all through high school and college.

They were still here; it was still here. Sitting by a stream on the slope of Mount Taylor, I wrote: It was not until I began to plan our senior year spring break trip that I began to doubt my memories and question my faith in this land. I realized the weight of the symbols I sought, and I worried that the mountains I had been drawing in the margins of my life were merely fabrications of my own desire. The fact that the mountains are just as I remember them, that the plaza is as sunstained and glowing as I remember, that the desert is busy with low bushes, the fact that I feel like an amnesiac waking from a dream life, reassures me that she was here. The fourteen-year-old Molly, about to fall in love – first with writing, then with the world. If New Mexico is still here, then I am still here.

In 2002, with Cynthia and Kevin, seven years after the warm brushy desert and cool green mountains first claimed me, I traveled the paths of my own memory in the constant shock of recognition. "It's still here," I would say, again and again. "It's as I remember it."

It was as I remembered, and yet, inevitably, it was different. I was seeing it through different eyes, with different people. Could anything be exactly the same at 14 as at 21? Of course not, but the 14-year-old I had been still lived inside the 21-year-old I was, and both reside now, inside the 24-year-old I have become.

At 21, I wrote: I suddenly understand something Mr. Root told me when I was in high school. I was telling him about the peace I felt and the connection to land I found in New Mexico, and he said, “The trick is to find that wherever you go.” At the time, I thought he meant I should find some special places in Wisconsin – and I did, of course. Or I recognized the places that had always been mine. But now I see that loving mountains like this is easy, and therefore somehow it feels – to me at least – one-dimensional. Can you truly love something just because it is pretty? I don’t know if you could truly love a land until you had seen it in every light, in every condition – in snowstorms, in drought, at dawn, at dusk, in heat and cold, when it’s pleasant and when it’s extremely unpleasant and even dangerous. But then, I never did believe in love at first sight. It’s too simplistic. And yet – I also believe that sometimes there are inexplicable connections – between two people, and also between people and land. Something deeper than aesthetic, something more instinctive and rare.

Reading this now, I laugh at how little I knew, how lightly I was brushing the surface of the place I sought. The longer I live here, the more mysterious this land becomes, though I've come to know it with far more intimacy than a week's visit could ever foster. Though now, when I wander through the arroyos and twisting pathways of the foothills, I know the names of many more plants and animals around me, I realize that my love for this place was, in fact, one dimensional. It was love at first sight. As such, it was -- as my father always says -- a "form of mental illness." Now I wonder, if I had understood the complexities and difficulties of this place then as I do now, would I still have come? Would I still have locked on to this land as an ideal? Today, with snow falling on the peach trees and tumbleweed in my backyard, I think I would.

"NO TEACHER LEFT SANE"



3.2.05

4th.

Sally: Shouldn't "grizzly bear" be capitalized?
Me: No. Not unless it's someone's name. Like... Grizzly Adams.
Tomas: Question. Wasn't he a United States president?
Me: GRIZZLY Adams?
Tomas: Yeah.
Me: (trying not to laugh) No.
Tomas: Yes he was. President Adams.....?
Me: You mean JOHN QUINCY Adams!
Tomas: Oh, well... close enough!


1st.

Mr. K: I don't see what the problem is with having the Ten Commandments posted in government buildings. After all, our constitution is based on them!
Me: WHAT!?!?

Also, apparently one of the five most common religions in the world is "Muslim." Um... yeah.


3.1.05

Joleen: Ms. Backes, do you want to know what I asked my mother this morning?
Me: No.
Joleen: Why not?
Me: Because the last question you asked me was shocking. What was it?
Joleen: I asked you what "Well Endowed" means.
Me: Right. Exactly.
Joleen: I asked her.... I asked her what a "nympho" is!



Today in seventh period we had the BEST discussion about etymology! How cool is that??

Adventures in Middle School

2.24.05

Today the guidance counselor informend me that the kids think I'm one of the two "most stylin'" teachers in the school. Yes!


Dale: I wrote about a red car with a big yellow S on it. I wrote about how I'll drive around and everyone will say, "Look at that S-car go!"


TT: Ms. Backes, have you ever been to New Orleans?
Me: Yes.
Buddy: Have you been EVERYWHERE?
Me: No.
Dale: Have you been to.... Chicago?
Me: Yes.
Brad: Have you been to New York?
Me: Yes.
Dale: Have you been to Canada?
Me: Yes.
Dale: Did people sit in cottages and eat cheese and say "eh!"?
Me: What??


Girls: Ms. Backes, what socks are you wearing today?
Me: Oh, this is very exciting. You've never seen these before!
Girls: Oh, they're so cute!
Lizzil: Look at my socks!
Karen: Look at my socks!
Aylea: My socks are just white today.
Me: BO-ring!
Mr. K: Do you think you'll ever match up?
Me: No -- we should all get matching socks. That would be so great!
Lizzil: Ooh, we should!
Me: You guys have warped my brain. Now I think about you every morning when I'm getting dressed. What socks should I wear today?
Karen: Me too.
Lizzil: Me too!
Me: Next year will be so sad. No one will care about what socks I'm wearing.
Lizzil: We will! We'll come visit. We'll ditch class to come ask what socks you're wearing! We'll flunk 8th grade so we can stay with you and see your socks!


2.23.05


2nd period.

Me: Okay, we're about to run out of time, so are there any other questions about the sentences?
Andrew: Yes. Are they edible?
Me: No..... but they are editable!


2.21.05

In preparation for tomorrow's "Introduction to Meter & Scansion" lesson, I pulled out the (in)famous Almost But Not Quite Complete... poetry book, and was struck by how much time and energy went into writing a book about poetry for no real reason at all, just that I was 18, just that I loved poetry, just that I was meeting weekly with a bunch of sixth graders who thought I was pretty cool. Mostly: for the love of poetry, for the love of kids. A different person wrote this book, more innocent, less guarded. Someone who didn't know exactly how a sestina worked, someone who thought illustrating the word "paradox" with two kissing ducks (a pair...) was the funniest thing in the world.

On the back of one of the pages I found are pictures of New Horizons High School, the old place downtown. Pictures of the room we painted with poetry, my funny angsty students and I. The pictures struck me in the chest, thrummed me like a harp, and I sat, studying them, for a long time. Searching for clues of what we were, of who we were, as a class, at that time. We painted poetry on the walls! How beautiful and how bold! Looking back, I am half in love with the person I was, how brave and how determined, how sure.

What I remember is the excitement we all had in the project, how it came from the students complaining of how ugly the little room was, how everyone else at school was envious of my class then. Everyone wanted to paint poetry on those walls, but only my students got to, and somehow our project became bigger than just us; it was a community quilt, a whole far greater than the sum of any parts. I look at these pictures and I marvel at how carefully one student printed "The Raven" in such beautiful, gothic script, remember how excited Eric was to find the dirtiest poem he could for the wall (ee cummings' "may i feel") and how I laughed.

Did the class teach those kids anything that would show up on a standardized test? I doubt it. But that's not what was important to me at the time, and it's not what's important to me now. There is no question in my mind that those kids will always remember how they got to paint poetry on the walls, because it was so strange, and wonderful, and wild. I believe they gained a stronger belief in themselves, gained even just a tiny increase in the value they gave to their own ideas, their own beliefs, their own voices. I believe it helped them; I believe it changed them. I believe I made a difference, and I believe it was important.

That brave and determined and beautiful teacher is still a part of me. Even as I bow to increased pressure from the administration to teach to the test, even as I cave and give the fifth standardized test of the year, I believe I make a difference, tiny but sure, and I believe that's important.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SISTER MARY MARY!!



2.17.05

7th.

Jay: Ms. Backes, have you ever seen The Day After Tomorrow?
Me: Yes.
Jay: We're watching it in Mr. K's class!
Me: Oh, believe me, I know.
Jay: Do you think that could happen?
Me: An ice age in under a week? Um.... I really don't know.
Jay: Well, aren't you worried about it?
Me: No.
Jay: Why not?
Me: None of us ever really knows how much time we have on earth, so I think what's important is that we try to spend what time we do have well.
Jay: Well, do you believe in God?
Me: (vaguely) Well.... yes....
Jay: I do!
Me: That's good.
Jay: I believe that God is going to bring all his true believers to be with him in Heaven!
Me: Like, the rapture, you mean?
Jay: Yeah. And I'm pretty sure it's going to happen in the next three to five years, max.
Me: ...........hmm.


1st.

Dale: Can you swim underneath the continents?
Me: Add that one to your book.
TT: What book?
Me: Dale's going to write a book: "What if: Dale Treadwill's Many Questions."
TT: How long will it be?
Me: It will be like the Oxford English Dictionary, with tissue-thin paper.
Dale: And then Ms. Backes is going to write a book of answers. It will say, "No. No. No. No."
Quin: No, it will say, "Shut up, Dale!"
Me: Why don't we just combine our books, so in the bottom corner of every page of your book will be a picture of me, with a word bubble coming out of my mouth that says, "Shut up, Dale!"
Dale: Yeah! And when you flip through the pages, you'll be shaking your fist at me!


Dale: Where could I buy a camel?
Me: Um... the middle east? Or from a zoo.
Dale: How about Africa?
Me: I don't know, are there camels in Africa?
Jax: Yes. There are.
Me: Are you a camel expert?
Jax: No, but last year I did a report on Africa.
Dale: I was supposed to do a report on Romania. I thought it was Rome, so I did the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but as it turns out that's not in Romania.



2.16.05

7th period.

Carter: Oh, he's just mad because I accidentally called this girl he likes an android.


6th period.

Me: Sorry, I'm a little confused today. I didn't sleep much last night.
Kids: Why not?
Me: My friend Matt called from Antarctica and woke me up.
JC: Are you sure these aren't IMAGINARY friends? Because all your supposed "friends" live in weird places!
Phil: Yeah man, she has cool friends! She has an ex-boyfriend who's a rock star, some of her friends live in Africa...she even knows someone who was in a Pepsi commercial!
Kids: Oooooh!
Me: Yeah --
Phil: With a monkey!!


1st period.

Mr K: Brad, SIT DOWN!! I have to tell you to stop running around at least once a day!
Me: Maybe we should tie him to his chair.
Brad: (shrugging) I can get out of ropes.


2.15.05

6th period.

Aaron: Instead of reading us a poem today, can you sing to us?
Me: SING? You want me to SING to you?
Aaron: Yes.
Me: No you don't. Really.
Aaron: We do. We really want you to sing to us. We hear you have a great voice.
Me: What are you talking about? You've never even heard me sing before.
Aaron: You're a world-renowned singer!
Me: No I'm not!
Aaron: Well.... kind of. We know you!


2.14.05

2nd period.

Me: Does anyone else have questions about citations?
Dale: I do!
Me: Okay...
Dale: Do you have a boyfriend?
Me: ... ANYway...!
Andrew: He's a DUCK!

The story of my week is a rather long saga. I shall attempt to put it in chronological order for you, but make no promises. Right now, I am feeling very grateful for all the good friends who have talked to me and/or emailed me this week. Funny how teaching stories pull us all together.


Here it goes:

(first:)

We have four hours of TRAINING before we can even give the next round of standardized tests in March. Already the kids have spent 12 total hours taking the NWEAs (in August and January) and now in March we have six days of testing, two hours each. Which means we're running 20 minute classes for two weeks.... sigh. Stupid fucking NCLB. And then in May we'll give them another 6 or so hours of more NWEAs, bringing the total testing hours per child up to THIRTY HOURS of testing. If you do the math, it takes me more than seven weeks of school (almost a full quarter) to get thirty hours with a child. So what does that say about our priority of instruction versus testing?


This week we have THREE HOURS of training for how to give an upcoming standardized test. You know, the one that determines whether or not the government gets to sell us to Starbucks.

I HATE NCLB.



(1)

Sigh. I suppose it was only a matter of time....

This morning the principal informed me that my students aren't "making enough growth" in reading, so it's time to stop teaching all that violence prevention/anger management/media literacy stuff and start teaching just plain reading and writing so the students can "be grown adequately" by May.

Awesome.



(2)

Confessions:

1. I don't **WANT** to teach people how to read. How to read critically, sure, but phonemic awareness and decoding? Not interesting.

2. I don't like teaching special ed.

3. I do like teaching the gifted kids.

4. Sometimes I like my gifted class better than my other classes.

5. I don't **WANT** to teach people grammar.

6. Maybe I shouldn't be teaching at such an illiterate school.


Stupid one conversation that can ruin your entire day. Stupid mid-year crisis, stupid self-doubt and life questioning. Aaaaarrrrrrghhh.



(3)


At lunch, the nice catholic deacon science teacher caught me and asked if I was having a bad day (apparently it showed), so I told him that sometimes I feel like I'm in the wrong place, that I'm the wrong teacher for a school full of kids who can't read. I don't know how to teach reading, and I don't want to. I feel like these kids deserve to have a teacher who not only knows how to teach reading, but also who feels passionately about it. But then there's a part of me that is yelling at myself, because this is exactly the kind of school that deserves to have passionate, driven, excited young teachers -- and exactly the kind of school that almost never gets them. My own catholic martyr DNA tells me to stay, to improve myself, to teach myself how to teach reading, so I can help these kids. The other part of me says run away, go teach high school, go somewhere you can teach writing and critical thinking and media literacy. The nice catholic deacon science teacher said "You have to find a school where you're happy, one that fits who you are and what you want to be doing. This isn't it. If I wasn't retiring in 57 days, I'd be leaving, too."


(4)

Here's the thing. Here's a few things.

Grinnell taught me a lot, but mostly what it taught me was that school is a place to teach kids to be thoughtful, critical, inquisitive, kind people. That's what I learned at Grinnell. It's my job to be this radical teacher who helps kids look at literature and look at society and understand all the ways in which we construct ourselves according to what our society says we should be. I learned that it's important to help kids find their own voices, to empower them in the system, to enlighten and enrich their lives this way.

I feel I've actually been successful, to a degree, in doing all this. I think my kids are better critical thinkers, better at questioning things and looking at more than one side of every story. I think they're a little bit kinder and a little bit more tolerant and a little better at expressing themselves in a productive way. Much of this is even in accord with the NM State standards, believe it or not.

However, none of this is easily quantifiable, and it doesn't show up on the NWEAs, and it doesn't show up on the CRTs, and it doesn't show up on the STAR reading tests. And so it's as if everything I've taught my students exists on another plane, in another dimension, because as far as the administration and the district and the state are concerned, I literally have taught my students nothing. Sure, they may be better thinkers and better at expressing themselves and even better writers, but if they still don't know what an antecedent is (and believe me, I've tried to teach that too) and they still can't code switch or whatever, for all intents and purposes they've learned nothing. I've taught them nothing. Which means I'm not a teacher -- at least in the eyes of the administration, the district, and the state.

Another thing Grinnell taught me was that tracking is pure evil, and we make gifted kids because we treat them like gifted kids and if we treated everyone like gifted kids they'd all act like gifted kids.

I have learned that this is actually not true at all. Even if I treat Braydon like a gifted kid, he still has a mother who's in prison for drug/prostitution and an alcoholic father who beats him. In a perfect world, if he had all of the lower levels of Maslow's darling little hierarchy taken care of, maybe he would be gifted when I treat him like he's gifted. But he doesn't, and he won't.

But I do have a class of gifted kids, gifted and enriched. Not surprisingly, these kids have great supportive families and good parents, for the most part. And they're doing really well, because I am an awesome teacher of the gifted kids, I honestly am. I am doing such a great job with this class, it makes me happy just thinking about it. I'm challenging them and pushing them and they're growing a lot and learning a lot and they're doing things they didn't think they could do and they are becoming really good writers and good thinkers.

However, because our school's and our society's perception of the gifted kids and the smart kids is that "they'll be fine no matter what," the work I'm doing with these kids is unseen, unrecognized, unvalued, because there's this perception that the smart kids will learn no matter who's teaching them, and they don't really need teachers who push them and challenge them at their own level. So again, in the eyes of my administration/district/state, I'm not a teacher.

And then, because my school/society/government puts the most emphasis on helping the lowest kids, I feel like I should be doing that as well. But I don't want to. I've always been told and I've always believed that they need the most help, but I don't want to help them. I don't want to teach reading. I don't want to teach kids whose parents smoked crack while they were in the womb and now they can't fucking sit still and cannot focus on anything for more than a few seconds at a time. I don't want to teach special ed, or BD kids, much less an entire class of them who can't read.

I have a surprisingly large guilt-complex about this.


(5)

Yesterday afternoon, as I was getting ready to leave school, I walked through the school from my room to the teacher's lounge. On my way, I kept seeing kids sweeping and mopping the floors. Finally, I stopped one of the 8th grade girls from my humanities block and asked her what was going on. "National Junior Honor Society is cleaning the school today, so the custodians could have a day off," she said.

I almost cried. That's the kind of thing that makes teaching worth it. These kids are just so great.



(6)

Mom: Well, maybe you should ask the administration for help.
Me: I asked for help a bunch of times and today the principal told me he'd train me to do the STAR reading test. What will that do? That will give me "more data" about their "grade level reading score" -- in other words, will tell me what I already know. My kids can't read.
Mom: Didn't you have a friend who was a reading specialist?
Me: No.
Mom: Yes you did.
Me: I had two friends. One is the librarian, the other was special ed.
Mom: Talk to her!
Me: She moved. She couldn't deal at this school anymore.
Mom: Well..... I guess you're just going to have to teach yourself how to teach reading, then. You owe it to the kids.
Me: I can't believe how hard this year has been for me.
Mom: Just think, though, how much you're learning, how much you've learned that you wouldn't have learned if you'd gone to an easy, comfortable school in Iowa.
Me: Why do I feel like every decision I make is another way to punish myself? When do I get to make the easy choice? When do I get to be in a place where I get to do what I'm good at doing and be successful? When do I get to stop punishing myself??
Mom: Those kids don't need you. These kids need you.
Me: Please stop telling me that. I tell myself that enough to keep me stuck in a miserable job for the rest of my life.


(7)


First period today, instead of sitting in the back of the classroom listening to my crazy team teacher's weekly take on current events, I went to the library and hung out with some of my students in NJHS, who were doing an assembly line production of Valentine's Day bouquets (they're making flowers out of hershey's kisses and cellophane; very cute). They worked and I sat with them, declaring myself the "Queen of the Discards," as I was sitting near the pile of roses that got messed up. The kids even gave me a sceptre. I figure, if nothing else, my students will leave 7th grade knowing that there's at least one grownup in their lives that thinks they're funny and cool.


(8)

Today after grading stupid vocab quizzes in class, I led my students through an excercise in how it feels when you're feeling dangerously impulsive, and whether or not it's good to follow those feelings. Then I had them all lie down on the floor of the classroom, turned off the lights, and led them through a guided visualization/meditation that I learned when I was 12, a relaxation exercise in which you are given a key word that will help trigger the feelings of relaxation, peace, and okayness you feel at the height of the meditation. It's almost like hypnosis. The word I got when I was 12 still works for me, though it has lost some of its power in the last 13 years.

At the end of each class, about half my students thanked me. Many of them asked if we could do this again.


During the meditation, I was so clear about how most of my kids almost never get time like this, time just to be relaxed and safe and okay. As I led them through the meditation, I kept saying, "You are perfectly safe and perfectly peaceful right now. You are perfectly okay right now." I thought about how many of them may never have gotten a message like this, ever, and about how this was a gift and possibly a tool for the future, about how maybe one day when they're facing yet another friend who wants to fight them or a parent who wants to yell, they might be able to tap into this moment and feel slightly safer, slightly more okay. I thought about how maybe this one quiet, dark moment on a Friday afternoon in seventh grade will stay long past the memories of their daily worries and dramas. Maybe this moment, the moment of a grownup telling them that they're okay, that they're doing okay and that they have permission to relax and be alone and be quiet for a while, maybe it will stay.


So much for my newfound (administration driven) resolution to teach to the test. Whoops!



Adventures in Middle School....

2.11.05

Rafa: If it's not perfect, why bother?
Andrew: He's going to be dictator.
Curtis: He's going to be dictator of Iraq!
Patty: They don't even have a dictator!
Me: It's never too late to start!
Curtis: Yeah, they can always go back.
Me: You should be the dictator of somewhere more obscure... like Idaho.
Bill: The dictator of Idaho! Ha ha!
Andrew: Yeah, and you would be called "The Potatanator."

Me: I'm the Queen of the Discards. Here's my sceptre.
Andrew: You don't need a sceptre, you have a seating chart!

Lizzil: You need a crown. A garbage can! We'll get you a garbage can and cut holes in it for your eyes.
Me: Okay. And tapshoes.
Patty: What?
Me: You can't be the queen if you don't have tapshoes.
Patty: That doesn't really make sense.
Me: Sure it does. What if I had to tapdance for my loyal subjects?
Lizzil: You're so weird!

Lizzil: Ms. Backes, will you buy these 10 raffle tickets from me for $10?
Me: No. Aylea already made me buy raffle tickets.
Lizzil: Fine! You're not my favorite teacher anymore!
Me: Oh no.
Andrew: A fate worse than death.
Me: Well... I mean, to be honest? The competition's not that stiff.
Lizzil: That's true. You're still my favorite teacher!

2.10.05

4th period.

Me: Are there any other questions about the quiz?
Kara: Yes.
Me: What?
Kara: You look just like the nanny from Supernanny 911!
Me: That's not a question.
Kara: Oh yeah.....
Me: Do you have a question?
Kara: Yeah!
Me: Okay.....?
Kara: Will you please say, "you've been very naughty!" in a British accent?

2nd period.

Marsha: We're getting a divorce!
Me: Who, you and Andrew?
Marsha: No! Our whole group of friends is divorcing Andrew! He's out!
Andrew: (pretending to look sad) They get custody of my notebook!

2.9.05

(GEOGRAPHY class)

Team teacher: Here are the main landforms you need to know: mountain, canyon, peninsula, island.
Me: What about isthmuses? You NEED to know what an isthmus is!
Class: ?
Me: Well, I'm biased, because the town I come from is on an isthmus.
Dale: What is it?
Me: (drawing on the board) It's like a land bridge. In Madison, where I'm from, the state capitol is in the very center. See, here's Lake Monona and here's Lake Mendota. You can walk across the isthmus in maybe 10 minutes. It's only like 6 blocks.
Dale: Do you ever fall off?
Me: What?
Dale: The bridge. Do you ever fall off it?
Me: It's a LAND bridge.
Dale: Um.... so do you ever fall off?
Me: No. Unless you trip and fall into the lake.
Jerrod: Of if someone pushes you!
Me: Exactly.

Jax: Question. What's a FA-JO-ERD?
Team Teacher: I don't know.
Me: (gasping audibly) What?
TT: Okay, Ms. Backes knows. What is it?
Me: It's pronounced "Fyord."
TT: Well, I've never heard of a Fa-Jord.
Jax: So what is a Fa-Jord?
Me: Fyord.
Jax: Whatever.
TT: Honestly, I've never heard of them. I have no idea!


It occurs to me that if people thought fjords were built by aliens, Mr. King would know all about them!



2.8.05

2nd period.

Lizzil: Ms. Backes, I did you the honor of including you in my picture!
Me: That's nice....
Lizzil: You're the devil!
Cole: You can't say that!
Lizzil: (patiently) No, see? She's the devil in my picture. Right there.
Me: Hmm... that does look like me.
Kiley: It's not an insult.
Me: No, I'm not insulted. Believe me, this is nothing new for me.
Lizzil: What?
Me: People have been telling me I'm the devil for years, really.
Kiley: You just have to decide whether you'll use your powers for good or evil.
Me: Evil.
Cole: Ms. Backes!
Me: What? I'm the devil. I can't use my powers for good!


Karma: What's another word for area?
Me: You mean aria? Like a song?
Karma: No, area. Like place. Location.
Me: There you go.
Karma: What? No! A different word!
Me: Thesaurus.
Karma: (writing) T-h-e-s.... hey! That doesn't mean area!
Me: No, look it up in the thesaurus!
Karma: No, just tell me!
Me: No.
Karma: Pleeeeeeeease?
Me: No, just look it up.
Dale: Ms. Backes, you're our thesaurus. Like there's Webster's... and you're Backes-sters!

Tuesday:

Finding a black-free outfit was almost embarassingly difficult. And now I look like I should be in an old navy catalogue, not at the front of the room sharpening my claws. In my mind, it's not an improvement.


Sixth period, the kids actually noticed and got all excited that I was only wearing browns, blues, and whites -- no black. Until one of them pointed out that the Talking Talons lanyard I keep my keys on has black on it. I ripped it off my belt and flung it across the room, which sent the entire class into hysterics. It was a good moment.

*

I don't know if I can handle team-teaching world geography, when even my team-teacher is almost offensively misinformed about so many things. For example: "You can't do ANYTHING in China! Even chewing gum is illegal there -- and you're guilty until proven innocent! Almost everything about China is backward." (While I'm speechless and clutching my heart in the back of the room, shocked. Speechless.)

And the kids are WAY worse. Am I going to feel like I'm having a heart attack every single morning for the rest of the year? Or will I eventually get over being personally injured by their staggering levels of cheerful ignorance and racism?


Luckily, I heard from another Grinnell alum who's dating one of TT's former students. She said, " I read my boyfriend the part of your plan about team-teaching geography and he started laughing so hard he almost cried, saying 'Yep, that sounds EXACTLY like Mr. K!'"

The boyfriend is okay, which gives me hope that TT's month-long unit entitled (and I may be paraphrasing slightly here) "I've been OBSESSED with aliens, specifically at Roswell, since I was a little kid, and now I'm going to do my damndest to convince you kids that ALIENS DID LAND IN ROSWELL IN 1947 before the month is over!" won't permanently scar too many of my students.


*


Monday:

Me: I'm excited because the crazy-old-teacher-next-door and I are switching classes tomorrow!
Cam: Hmm.
Me: I hope he breaks their spirits!
Cam: You are a great teacher. There should be more teachers like you.
Me: Why is it that whenever I talk to you, I end up sounding so terrible? Like, oh I hope he crushes them, I hope they suffer!
Cam: I just bring out the best in you.
Me: Good thing I didn't stay in Iowa!
Cam: You would have been burning down schools by now.
Me: (laughing helplessly)
Cam: That's a nice cackle!


Me: My 6th period class has challenged me to not wear any black tomorrow. They say I wear black too much.
Cam: Maybe you should stop answering directly to Satan.
Me: Whoa! Baby steps, Cam, baby steps!

*

Sunday:

Lisa: (coming up behind me in the binders aisle of an office-supply store) Molly? ... Molly? ... Hey, Molly!
Me: What? Oh! I didn't see you!
Lisa: What movie is your head playing now?
Me: I feel like a bride planning her wedding!
Lisa: WHAT?
Me: Seriously. For me, thinking about binders is like thinking about marriage for other women. I dream of a magical future where all my problems are solved, and I have a whole bookshelf of binders, all neatly labeled, and in each one is the rough draft of a book **I've** written.
Lisa: That's weird.
Me: (dreamily) One day I'll have an office, just for me. And it will have bookshelves full of binders.....
Lisa: Well, when you get married, I'll give you a wedding binder, so you can have the best of both worlds.
Me: Who needs to get married when there's binders!


*


7th period.

Andy: His story is that he went to this laser tag place but this kid kept chasing him and so he hit him on the head with his gun!
Me: (teasing) You HIT a LITTLE KID? Jack!
Jack: (reasonably, with a shrug) It wasn't my fault. He kept kicking me repeatedly in the 'nads.


6th period.

New Girl: Ms. Backes, do you want a cookie?
Me: Um.... is it poisoned?
New Girl: No.
Me: Okay, thanks.
Angelique: She's only known you, like, a week! Why would she posion you?
Me: (knowingly) Oh.... what you're saying is that she'll want to poison me when she's known me a while.
Angelique: Right! I mean, no!


5th period.

Phillip: One embarassing story is that Brian pantsed me!
Brian: I went blind for ten seconds!!
Phillip: You looked at my butt!
Brian: It blinded me!


2nd period.

Me: ...so your assignment for the weekend is to come up with a thesis, based on the research you've already done, the quotes you've found, the aspects of this topic that interest you, and the arguments you think you can support with the evidence you have.
Dale: How long does it have to be?
Me: It's a thesis, just a thesis statement.
Class: ...
Dale: So.... uh....?
Me: Like a sentence or two.
Dale: Great! I'll do it in advisory on Monday!
Me: Hold up. Let me make something perfectly clear: this is the organizing element of a paper you'll be working on for a while. You need to put some thought into it.
Lizzil: Yeah... but still, it's only a sentence.
Me: Let me restate -- if it sucks, I'll make you re-do it.
Class: (whisper whisper)
Jax: Can you SAY that?
Me: I just did. Thus, I can say it.
Jax: I mean -- you just said sucks!!

Okay, stop. Just for a moment. Ponder this question:

** When you're writing a paper, how do you know which parts of a source to quote and which parts to paraphrase? **


I'm trying to teach my gifted class to write a paper. Today was our last day in the library, at the end of which I collected their notes (2 pgs), their quotations (1 pg), and their references (3, at least one non-internet).

The most common thing I heard today was:
"Ms. Backes, I can't find any quotes."

Um, what?

Or, "Ms. Backes, can I quote this?" (pointing to a passage that says something like, "So-and-so was born in New York on May 6, 1890.")


I tried several times to explain how you pick good quotations, but it felt a lot like trying to teach someone how to drive stick-shift. I mean, you just know when to shift, right?


...luckily the world of Plans with all its wonderful friends and alumns was there for me, and helped me to clarify my thoughts. I'd share the brilliant handout I finally prepared for my class, but my email's down, so you'll just have to imagine its greatness.

*

I learned yesterday that this is the last year of gifted blocks, which means that IF I get to teach any gifted classes next year (not a sure thing, apparently), they'll be seventh grade only, and not tied to any history classes. This has its benefits and drawbacks, of course, but the balance in my head is sad. I had this dream of putting together my fantasy enriched class -- a scholastic dream team, if you will -- comprised of some of my sharpest seventh graders. Next year I won't have any 8th graders, apparently, and that makes me sad. Sometimes I feel that my 8th graders are the only ones keeping me sane.

...maybe I should ask to bump up to 8th grade. Then I could fail all the kids I don't want to deal with next year and take all the fun kids from this year. Why yes.... (insert evil Mr. Burns noise here)


*



In an email from my mother today:

"If the temperature doesn't start climbing above zero and if the sun doesn't make an appearance soon, Sylvia Plath will be reenacted in our kitchen..."


Mm hmm. At least I come by it honestly.




Adventures in Middle School

1.20.05

(variations on a theme)

Jules: (playing with a yo-yo) ....and I can walk the dog.... around the world....
Others: Ooooooooh!
Me: Wow, Jules, that's impressive.
Mr. King: That used to be really popular, yo-yoing.
Me: Yeah, back in the old days.
Jules: Yeah, like fourth grade!
Me: Oh! I was thinking the old days like the sixties!


Dale: Do you like my graph?
Me: Does it have a title?
Dale: Um.....
Me: Otherwise I have no frame of reference for what you're graphing.
Dale: Well, each bar is a subject...
Me: Yes, I see that. Subject 1, subject 2.... but what were you testing?
Dale: Um.... Here's hot, and here's cold.
Me: What. Were. You. Testing.
Dale: I forgot. I had a title, but I couldn't get it on the graph.
Me: Why don't you print one out and cut & paste it onto your graph.
Dale: (utterly perplexed) What?
Me: What.
Dale: How can I cut & paste AFTER I printed the title out?
Me: Okay. First you take a scissors. You CUT around the title that you printed out. Then you get some rubber cement or tape, and PASTE the title onto the paper.
Dale: (astonished) WOW, that's a great idea!
Me: See, cut and paste. That's where the phrase comes from. In the old days we actually had to use scissors and glue.
Dale: That was a long time ago, huh.
Me: NO!


Me: Okay, Feather, I brought you some of Natalie Goldberg's books, but you have to be careful because they're my own books, not the library's.
Feather: (opening the copy of Writing Down the Bones and reading) Molly Backes. Madison. Fall 1995. Is that you?
Me: Yes.
Feather: Why does it say "Fall 1995"?
Me: That's when I bought it.
Feather: You bought this book in 1995? That's like, SO LONG AGO! I was only.... three years old then!

*

Why it's never okay to listen to old KDIC tapes in my classroom (when students are around, at least):


(End Phil Ochs, "Pleasures of the Harbor")

Me: Yeah....
Kevin: Yeah, you probably should have had a six-pack....
Me: I'm going to have to have, like, a retroactive pitcher. Like.... tonight.
Kevin: Well, that's what the pub is for.
Me: Actually, right now. You know, do you just want to take over for the next forty-five minutes?
Kevin: Yeah --
Me: Maybe I'll just go --
Kevin: Yeah, you know, Bunny's is open...
Me: Rabbitt's....
Kevin: Rabbitt's.....
Me: (laughing)

(Cue Elliott Smith, "Between the Bars")


1.19.05

7th period.

Me: Did I tell you guys the parable of Point-of-View yesterday?
Class: No! Tell us!
Me: Okay. Well, when I was a freshman in college, I lived in a room maybe one third this size.
Ivy: Like, the bedroom was?
Me: Oh, no. It wasn't a fancy dorm like you see on TV. It was one room for our beds, dressers, desks, bookshelves....
Class: Oh my god! That's so small!
Me: Anyway... I lived in this tiny room with a roommate, who is now my best friend. But back then we didn't know one another. We were put together alphabetically. Her last name is Brown.
Jay: What's your last name?
Me: Backes.
Class: OBVIOUSLY!
Jay: Oh yeah! I, uh... forgot for a moment.



2nd period.

Jax: Ms. Backes, this is hard and I don't want to do this and does it really have to be due tomorrow?
Me: Jax? Shut up. You're smart and you can do it. Get to work.
Kristine: How come the word "Jax" is always followed by "shut up"?

1.18.05

7th period.

Me: Can we start complete sentences with the word 'because'?
Class: NO!
Me: Until when?
Class: College!
Me: Good. Get to work.
Jay: Can we start complete sentences with 'Well, because'?
Me: No.
Jay: I'm looking for loopholes here.
Me: That's not one.
Jay: Can we start a sentence with, 'I think so-and-so BECAUSE....'
Me: Yes.
Jay: Is that a loophole?
Me: Um... yes.
Jay: Awesome! I LOVE loopholes!!

5th period.

Tauscha: (running in) Ms. Backes Ms. Backes!
Me: Hey, Tash, what's up?
Tauscha: We took those tests today, you know? The reading ones?
Me: The NWEAs? Okay.
Tauscha: I scored on the EIGHTH GRADE LEVEL!
Me: Wow, Tash, that's great!
Tauscha: Guess why! Because I thought of you, the whole time! I tried to remember every single thing you told us all year, and that's how I got so good!
Me: Well.... I'm speechless, Tauscha! I'm so proud of you.
Tauscha: It's all thanks to you, Ms. Backes!

*

My gifted students are having a hard time distinguishing between "notes" and "quotations" for a paper they're writing about artists and writers in New Mexico.

So today I made samples of a page of notes, a page of quotes, and a page of references. To do so, I made up a bunch of imaginary research on Alison Brown, quoting references like "Influential Intersections," by Holly Peterson in the October 2004 issue of The Langan Leader, ed. Sally Conforti; and "Somewhere Between New York and Heaven: The Early Influences of Alison Brown," by Lucy Furr, in The Journal of Awesome People, Vol. 27, Issue 3, Feb 04, pgs 42-48......

With quotations like, "Taken from [Robert] Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, her answer to questions too small in scope was, inevitably, mu." (Peterson, 86)


Nothing like a bunch of weird inside jokes to make my day happy.

*

1.14.05

1st period.

TT: Mad cow disease has been spreading through Canada. Let's just hope it doesn't make it down to the US.
Dale: Why not?
TT: It would be terrible for the beef industry, not to mention the fact that people can get it.
Dale: (horrified) WHAT?
Karma: DUH, Dale.
TT: Does anyone remember what it's called when people catch it?
Jerrod: Mad people disease!
Me: I had that once......
Dale: Really? What happened?
Me: Grrrrr!
Dale: Aaaaaahh! Ms. Backes is a mad people!


1.12.05

7th period.

Darlene: Ms. Backes, may I ask the class a question?
Me: No.
Darlene: Please? It doesn't have any cuss words.
Me: No.
Darlene: Please? It's not bad.
Me: No.
Darlene: Okay. Who is the most considerate person you know?
Entire Class: NOT YOU!

6th period.

Ron: Ms. Backes, did you know that police officers have, like, the highest suicide rate?
Ray: Yeah, and then doctors!
Angelique: Yeah, because the pressure's so high.
Me: Well, I wouldn't be surprised. They're stressful jobs.
Cass: (slyly) Yeah... and third is dentists!


2nd period.

Emmy: Ms. Backes, who painted the Mona Lisa?
Me: Da Vinci. Why.
Emmy: See! I told you! Karma thought it was Edison.
Karma: Because he was gay.
Me: What? He wasn't gay. He invented the telephone.
Jill: I thought he invented the lightbulb.
Me: Whatever. He definitely didn't paint the Mona Lisa.
Karma: I thought Benjamin Franklin invented the telephone.
Me: No, Alexander Graham Bell did.
Jill: You just said Edison did.
Me: (patiently) No, Edison invented the lightbulb.
Jill: WHAT. You're contradicting yourself!
Me: All I'm saying is that Edison wasn't gay.
Karma: Yes he was!
Emmy: No, Da Vinci was.
Jill: Aaagh! This conversation makes no sense!



3rd period. Mr. Laney & I are walking down the hallway together.

Mr. Laney: ...and I have to bribe kids to learn grammar.
Me: Bribe, hmm? That's smart....
Mr. Laney: (to kid in hallway) Where's your pass?
Kid in hallway: Uh... in my pocket.
Mr. Laney: Let me see it.
Kid: (slowly backing away) Uh.....
Mr. Laney: Where are you supposed to be right now?
Kid: I don't know.
Me: Are you lost?
Kid: No, I have to go to the bathroom.
Mr. Laney: You need a pass.
Kid: It's in my pocket.
Mr. Laney: Really?
Kid: Uh.....
Mr. Laney: I'm gonna kick your ass, little brown kid!

A little something for Katie's kids:

(ca. 1999, driving back to Grinnell with my father)

Him: ...blah blah blah blah meth meth blah.......
Me: BO-ring!
Him: I'm serious.
Me: You're on crack is what you are.
Him: Crack? You mean like crack cocaine? Do you know about the dangers of crack cocaine?
Me: (snort) What?
Him: You know, crack cocaine, a form of cocaine that you can smoke... crack cocaine is very dangerous.
Me: (suppressing giggles, wiggling my fingers in the air) Crack cocaine....
Him: Crack cocaine kills. You only have to smoke crack cocaine once to get addicted, and you could die.
Me: (giggling harder) Please stop.
Him: Crack cocaine is not a joke.
Me: (starting to lose it) Ha ha ha ha! Crack cocaine!
Him: I don't understand what's so funny about crack cocaine!
Me: (tears of laughter) Dad, please, you have to stop saying "crack cocaine!" I'm dying here!
Him: You would be dying, if you were smoking crack cocaine!



Adventures in Middle School

1.11.05

2nd period.

Brad: Why are you making us pick numbers? What is this for? Why do we have to pick numbers?
Me: Brad, chill.
Brad: I can't. I can't. I need to know why we're picking numbers.
Me: Just take a deep breath and relax.
Brad: No, no. You're going to trap us. How are you going to trap us. You're going to trick us into doing something awful.
Me: Am I the kind of person who would trick you into doing something awful?
Entire Class: YES!!
Me: (thinking) Oh, I guess that's true, actually. Sorry about that.
Dale: No you're not!
Me: You're right. I'm really not.


1.07.05

7th period.

Jack: (whispering) Ms. Backes wants to be in the If-You-Talk-I'll-Kill-You-Gang!
Me: Oh, I love that gang!
Jack: Aaaaaahh!


1.06.05

7th period.

Jay: Ms. Backes, I have to tell this story!
Me: Go for it.
Jay: Okay. When I was little, I was really scared of the gremlins, because I was watching a tape of my parents wedding, and I fell asleep, and when I woke up Gremlins was on TV and I thought they were at my parents wedding! I thought they were real!

1st period.

(The kids are mad at me because I put them in a seating chart. How dare I! The gifted kids! What nerve!)

Me: Here's a hint: "You" is ALWAYS second person. "I" is always first person....
Andrew: Or is it?
Me: What?
Andrew: (melodramatically sad) I don't even know who I am, without my friends to tell me about myself.
Me: Ask them at lunch.


1.05.05

7th period.

PA: Staff, this is just a reminder that there will be a staff meeting after school.
Me: BO-ring!
Jay: Are staff meetings totally awesome? Are they like a party?
Me: Um, no. They're lame. But sometimes we get food.
Jay: Do they give you shrimp?
Me: No.
Jay: Do they give you WINE?


1.04.05

6th period.

Tanner: How do you spell surfing?
Angelique: How do you spell DUH!

7th period.

Xander: Ms. Backes, did you know that only one in a billion people is as smart as I am?
Jay: Did you know that that's not true?

Me: In the next few weeks we're going to be talking about violence in the media and our society, and about community building.....
Darleen: Violence? I'm good at that!!


12.16.04

After school.

Me: (walking up to kids working in the hallway) What are you gangsters doing out here?
Andrew: (gasp!) That's not nice! We're going to give you ISS for that!
Me: Great!
Andrew: You'll just sit there in a room all day and grade papers.
Me: Awesome. I could use a day like that.
Andrew: Okay, you'll have to sit in a room all by yourself grading MEANINGLESS papers!
Me: Sounds like my life!
Andrew: (gasp!) My papers aren't meaningless!
Patty: Well....
Andrew: My papers are important! I'm the future! ......at least, that's what the commercial said....


1st period.

Me: (pointing to a poster about adverbs featuring a stick man running away from three long lines) He's running away from the lines.
Andrew: They show that he's going fast. Quickly. Running quickly, because it's an adverb, you know?
Me: He's running from the lines because he's scared. They go, RAWR!
Andrew: Lines don't go rawr, they go wooosh.
Me: They do if they have teeth.
Andrew: Ms. Backes, do you want me to draw teeth?
Me: (happily) Yes.

(later)

Andrew: (presenting the poster) The man is running quickly. Or maybe he's running... fearfully.
Stan: Question. Why do those lines have teeth on them?
Andrew: I don't know. I actually have no idea. No one does.
Lizzil: Why are they there, then?
Andrew: Ms. Backes told me to draw them.
Class: ...?
Me: The man is running away from them. They're chasing him. They go, rawr!
Jerrod: I like adverbs!


12.15.04

5th period, a couple of kids (punks-ass kids who I JUST got on my side!) fixed my pencil sharpener for me. It had been ripped off the wall when I was gone, probably by my 4th period class.

Funny thing, though, they put it on upside-down, so now it's a lefty-sharpener.

Watching kids try to deal with this was like a psychology experiment. Can the little monkeys still manipulate the tool if it's slightly changed?

6th period this girl completely freaked about it.

Rae: Your pencil sharpener is RACIST!
Me: What? No it isn't.
Rae: Yes it is!
Me: Why, because now it favors left-handers? That's not racism.
Rae: It's racist racist racist!!
Me: Really, it's not.

(10 minutes later)

Rae: Your pencil sharpener is RACIST!
Me: Rae. The only way it would be racist is if it only allowed people of a certain color to sharpen their pencils.
Rae: What-EVER!


*

1.11.05

It's one thing to ask the kids to take pity on you because you're sick. It's quite another to ask them to be nice to you because you can't stop slamming your fingers in the door and biting your cheek (three times, hard!) It's not just thoughtful concern. It's sheer unfiltered pity.


Accordingly, sometimes my students look at me with such kind looks, much like you'd look at your increasingly senile grandmother, while internally debating whether or not you should ask her if she still remembers how to take a shower by herself, or maybe she needs help holding a fork now. It kills me.


I get these pitying looks when I can't find something and am wandering around the room going "Where's my pen? Where's that paper? I JUST had that paper!" or when they patiently ask me the same question for the fourth or fifth time and I say, "Right! THAT question! I was going to answer that question for you!"

Or, like today, when I was reading Margaret Atwood's poem The Puppet of the Wolf and acting it out, primarily for my own amusement. ("And then the wolf -- her right hand -- eats the piglets on her left hand! Rawrr rawr mmm gobblrahh!")


*

The janitor who cleans my room reminds me of the house-elf who lives at Sirius Black's house: she wanders around, muttering weird things about people just loud enough so we can hear. To be honest, I'm a little afraid of her.

*


Ali: The midwest has tainted me.
Me: You mean enhanced.


*


You know, I kind of like it here. I kind of like these monsters. Maybe I'll stay awhile....