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.
29 July 2005
23 July 2005
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.
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.
21 July 2005
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.
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.
19 July 2005
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.
New Mexicans make me giggle, sometimes.
14 July 2005
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.
... 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.
30 June 2005
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....
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....
27 June 2005
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!!")
03 June 2005
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.
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.
01 June 2005
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.
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.
10 April 2005
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.
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.
14 March 2005
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.
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.
06 March 2005
"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??
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??
24 February 2005
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.
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.
23 February 2005
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!
11 February 2005
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!
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!
25 January 2005
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!!
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!!
20 January 2005
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!
** 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!
12 January 2005
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....
(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....
15 December 2004
Stories and sundries from last week:
Wednesday:
7:15 am (driving to work) question: Why hasn't anyone made a modern adaptation of Lysistrata, a la such teen classics as 10 Things I Hate About You?
7:50 thought: I wish I had perfume that smelled like eggnog.
It's pretty clear, already, how this day will go.
Thursday:
Me: I'm totally the teacher that sits in her room and rocks out to Prince on her prep period.
Me: Wait, what teacher is that?
Friday:
So my roommate Lisa and I go to see a movie, but as usual she's running way late (for no real reason) and we arrive at the theater 20 minutes after the 5:30. We decide to go across the street first, for dinner, and catch the 7:00. She parks her little Rav4 in the movie theater parking lot (which is HUGE), and before we can go for dinner, she has to stop and put her jacket on, so she sets everything down on the hood of the car and I wait, patiently, distracted, amid the xeriscaping. We go have dinner, the waiter flirts with us and gushes about how much he loves Blue Moon beer (my favorite), whatever. After dinner, we walk across the street and through the parking lot to the theater, where we buy tickets, sit through about 17 previews, and then the movie (the incredibles, cute).
The movie ends around 9:15. Lisa and I are sitting at the end of the row, and I scoot out of my seat immediately so the other people can get out, but Lisa spends like five minutes digging in her purse. I finally coax her into the aisle, where she continues to block people and dig in her purse. "I can't find my keys." "Maybe you could look in the lighted hallway?" I suggest. Okay. We sit down on a bench and Lisa pretty much dumps all the contents of her purse out, but no keys. She leaves her purse with me as she goes back into the theater to crawl around on the floor looking for her keys. Ten minutes later, she comes out of the theater shaking her head. No luck. We go to the lost and found, and though it's full of keys and sunglasses (and someone's social security card!), Lisa's keys aren't among the found lost. "Back to the restaurant," I say. Suddenly, Lisa looks at me in panic. "I put them on the car. When I put my coat on." She bolts out the door and starts running through the parking lot. Confused, I follow. "I hope my car's there! I hope it's still there!" she yells.
The car is still there. Sitting on the hood of Lisa's car are her keys. Sitting on the hood of the car, in a crowded parking lot, for almost FOUR HOURS. We should all be so lucky.
Saturday:
I went out to feed the hawk tonight (mouse soup, because we keep all the frozen mice in our freezer and the best way to defrost them quickly is to boil a bowl of water & drop the mice in) and saw that the gate had blown open in the wind. I realized I hadn't seen the dog in maybe 20 minutes and a deep sense of dread filled my stomach, because he has this tendency to wander off and get really immersed in his own projects (sniffing grass and chasing rabbits, generally) and then get lost, like a little autistic kid who's kind of deaf.
I run through the house to see if he's maybe hiding in one of the bedrooms or putzing around the backyard, but he's not, he's not anywhere and the sun's setting quickly and he's nearly impossible to see in the dark. I put on a pair of sandals and go running into the front yard, up to the top of the driveway where I have a better view of the yard and the neighborhood, all the time whistling and calling for him. I don't see him anywhere, so I start wandering up and down the street, yelling and whistling and worrying about how all the neighbors are looking out their windows at me with a mixture of pity and disgust, like you'd look at the resident crazy homeless person who you try to feel bad for but really you wish they'd get off your front stoop, and I'm also worrying that someone's picked up my perfect dog and realized instantly that he'd be the greatest pet for their eight-year-old twins or maybe they'll sell him to some evil scientist to do experiments on him and I'll never see him again. The sun's setting, and I'm feeling increasingly crazy and desperate but trying to keep my cool, remembering the time last year when he wandered off and I screamed like a madwoman for a half-hour, only to have my neighbor come over and say that the dog had been happily sitting on his front porch the whole time.
It's getting pretty dark and I jump in the truck to drive up and down the streets looking for him, knowing that it won't do much good but I can't just settle down and wait for him to get hit by some teenager joyriding in his grandmother's caddy. I'm driving up and down the streets with my window wide open, going about 3 miles an hour and screaming and whistling through my window, and then stopping in embarassment when some nice old people on their nightly constitutional give me a panicky, frightened look like at any moment I'm going to jump the curb and come after them.
I drive all the way to the top of my street and all the way down, and by now it's almost too dark to see anything, but at the very bottom of my road I see some glowing eyes on the street and whistle at them. A very nice, very calm dog trots up to my truck and I apologize to it, telling it that I'm looking for a different dog and sorry to bother him. He wags his tail and trots up the street, and I continue driving, feeling increasingly crazy and increasingly desperate, but by the time I'm halfway around my very large block I've settled into a feeling of quiet resignation, planning in my head how to explain to Lisa when she gets home and later to my family how Zeke ran away and I'm a horrible person and he's probably in some lab as we speak, being shampooed with some horribly abrasive experimental new Pantene product. I cruise back down my own street so slowly that a truck gets frustrated and passes me just as I reach the driveway, so I have to wait until he gets around me to turn down it, but when I do I see three dark shapes waiting at the bottom near the house, and my heart leaps and catches. I creep all the way down the gravel driveway, thinking about how ironic it would be if I ran over my own dog just when I've found him, and I see in the glow of the headlights that one of the three dark shapes is, indeed, my dog. Another of the three runs off into the yard, quickly disappearing into the tumbleweed and yuccas, but the third shape stays.
It's the other dog, the one from before. It waits until I get all the way down to the bottom of the driveway, watching Zeke, watching me, and then wags its tail at me and starts trotting up the driveway. I know this will sound completely insane, like I've been living in New Mexico too long and really should get back to the midwest where no one talks matter-of-factly about "spirit guides" or "manifestions," but I truly got this strange sense that this other dog had found Zeke and led him home, and then waited to leave until it was sure Zeke was safe. I made Zeke jump in the truck with me and then called after the yellow dog, "Thank you! Thank you for bringing Zeke home!" The dog stopped in the driveway, looked back at me, wagged its tail like a wave, and disappeared into the night.
and the sequel:
-- one, that the third dog in the driveway managed to get locked into our backyard, only to be discovered cowering and shivering in the bushes around 11:00 that night with a terrible injury to his jaw (so sad! SUCH a sweet dog!) so Lisa and I managed to drag him out of the yard across this street to his own house, where his owner (blinking and groggy and none-too-happy to be awakened) didn't even thank us for bringing him home. It was a weird dog night.
-- two, apparently my roommate can communicate with animals, um, psychically, and she later "heard" my dog saying "What's the big deal? I was just hanging out with my friends."
seriously, you just have to laugh.
Sunday:
Lisa: Melanie was telling me about this movie we should see.
Me: Oh yeah? What's that?
Lisa: I don't know, something about this geek who's stuck in the 80s. Just like you!
Monday:
Five more days. Five more days.
-- Five more days to push against the wall of apathy (my own!) and get all the grading and cleaning done.....
-- Wait a minute, I have a full inservice day to "work on grades" on the 3rd! I don't have to get anything done!
-- No, but wouldn't you feel better if you had all your grading done before the holiday, so it wasn't hanging over your head those two weeks?
-- Maybe.....
-- Yes you would.
-- But I don't want to do any work this week! I want to kick it with some eggnog and claymation tales of reindeer and dentists!
-- It will be worse if you don't do it.
-- But....
-- Way worse.
-- Wait a minute.... Jimminy, is that you? I thought I squooshed you under my boot in college!
Wednesday:
7:15 am (driving to work) question: Why hasn't anyone made a modern adaptation of Lysistrata, a la such teen classics as 10 Things I Hate About You?
7:50 thought: I wish I had perfume that smelled like eggnog.
It's pretty clear, already, how this day will go.
Thursday:
Me: I'm totally the teacher that sits in her room and rocks out to Prince on her prep period.
Me: Wait, what teacher is that?
Friday:
So my roommate Lisa and I go to see a movie, but as usual she's running way late (for no real reason) and we arrive at the theater 20 minutes after the 5:30. We decide to go across the street first, for dinner, and catch the 7:00. She parks her little Rav4 in the movie theater parking lot (which is HUGE), and before we can go for dinner, she has to stop and put her jacket on, so she sets everything down on the hood of the car and I wait, patiently, distracted, amid the xeriscaping. We go have dinner, the waiter flirts with us and gushes about how much he loves Blue Moon beer (my favorite), whatever. After dinner, we walk across the street and through the parking lot to the theater, where we buy tickets, sit through about 17 previews, and then the movie (the incredibles, cute).
The movie ends around 9:15. Lisa and I are sitting at the end of the row, and I scoot out of my seat immediately so the other people can get out, but Lisa spends like five minutes digging in her purse. I finally coax her into the aisle, where she continues to block people and dig in her purse. "I can't find my keys." "Maybe you could look in the lighted hallway?" I suggest. Okay. We sit down on a bench and Lisa pretty much dumps all the contents of her purse out, but no keys. She leaves her purse with me as she goes back into the theater to crawl around on the floor looking for her keys. Ten minutes later, she comes out of the theater shaking her head. No luck. We go to the lost and found, and though it's full of keys and sunglasses (and someone's social security card!), Lisa's keys aren't among the found lost. "Back to the restaurant," I say. Suddenly, Lisa looks at me in panic. "I put them on the car. When I put my coat on." She bolts out the door and starts running through the parking lot. Confused, I follow. "I hope my car's there! I hope it's still there!" she yells.
The car is still there. Sitting on the hood of Lisa's car are her keys. Sitting on the hood of the car, in a crowded parking lot, for almost FOUR HOURS. We should all be so lucky.
Saturday:
I went out to feed the hawk tonight (mouse soup, because we keep all the frozen mice in our freezer and the best way to defrost them quickly is to boil a bowl of water & drop the mice in) and saw that the gate had blown open in the wind. I realized I hadn't seen the dog in maybe 20 minutes and a deep sense of dread filled my stomach, because he has this tendency to wander off and get really immersed in his own projects (sniffing grass and chasing rabbits, generally) and then get lost, like a little autistic kid who's kind of deaf.
I run through the house to see if he's maybe hiding in one of the bedrooms or putzing around the backyard, but he's not, he's not anywhere and the sun's setting quickly and he's nearly impossible to see in the dark. I put on a pair of sandals and go running into the front yard, up to the top of the driveway where I have a better view of the yard and the neighborhood, all the time whistling and calling for him. I don't see him anywhere, so I start wandering up and down the street, yelling and whistling and worrying about how all the neighbors are looking out their windows at me with a mixture of pity and disgust, like you'd look at the resident crazy homeless person who you try to feel bad for but really you wish they'd get off your front stoop, and I'm also worrying that someone's picked up my perfect dog and realized instantly that he'd be the greatest pet for their eight-year-old twins or maybe they'll sell him to some evil scientist to do experiments on him and I'll never see him again. The sun's setting, and I'm feeling increasingly crazy and desperate but trying to keep my cool, remembering the time last year when he wandered off and I screamed like a madwoman for a half-hour, only to have my neighbor come over and say that the dog had been happily sitting on his front porch the whole time.
It's getting pretty dark and I jump in the truck to drive up and down the streets looking for him, knowing that it won't do much good but I can't just settle down and wait for him to get hit by some teenager joyriding in his grandmother's caddy. I'm driving up and down the streets with my window wide open, going about 3 miles an hour and screaming and whistling through my window, and then stopping in embarassment when some nice old people on their nightly constitutional give me a panicky, frightened look like at any moment I'm going to jump the curb and come after them.
I drive all the way to the top of my street and all the way down, and by now it's almost too dark to see anything, but at the very bottom of my road I see some glowing eyes on the street and whistle at them. A very nice, very calm dog trots up to my truck and I apologize to it, telling it that I'm looking for a different dog and sorry to bother him. He wags his tail and trots up the street, and I continue driving, feeling increasingly crazy and increasingly desperate, but by the time I'm halfway around my very large block I've settled into a feeling of quiet resignation, planning in my head how to explain to Lisa when she gets home and later to my family how Zeke ran away and I'm a horrible person and he's probably in some lab as we speak, being shampooed with some horribly abrasive experimental new Pantene product. I cruise back down my own street so slowly that a truck gets frustrated and passes me just as I reach the driveway, so I have to wait until he gets around me to turn down it, but when I do I see three dark shapes waiting at the bottom near the house, and my heart leaps and catches. I creep all the way down the gravel driveway, thinking about how ironic it would be if I ran over my own dog just when I've found him, and I see in the glow of the headlights that one of the three dark shapes is, indeed, my dog. Another of the three runs off into the yard, quickly disappearing into the tumbleweed and yuccas, but the third shape stays.
It's the other dog, the one from before. It waits until I get all the way down to the bottom of the driveway, watching Zeke, watching me, and then wags its tail at me and starts trotting up the driveway. I know this will sound completely insane, like I've been living in New Mexico too long and really should get back to the midwest where no one talks matter-of-factly about "spirit guides" or "manifestions," but I truly got this strange sense that this other dog had found Zeke and led him home, and then waited to leave until it was sure Zeke was safe. I made Zeke jump in the truck with me and then called after the yellow dog, "Thank you! Thank you for bringing Zeke home!" The dog stopped in the driveway, looked back at me, wagged its tail like a wave, and disappeared into the night.
and the sequel:
-- one, that the third dog in the driveway managed to get locked into our backyard, only to be discovered cowering and shivering in the bushes around 11:00 that night with a terrible injury to his jaw (so sad! SUCH a sweet dog!) so Lisa and I managed to drag him out of the yard across this street to his own house, where his owner (blinking and groggy and none-too-happy to be awakened) didn't even thank us for bringing him home. It was a weird dog night.
-- two, apparently my roommate can communicate with animals, um, psychically, and she later "heard" my dog saying "What's the big deal? I was just hanging out with my friends."
seriously, you just have to laugh.
Sunday:
Lisa: Melanie was telling me about this movie we should see.
Me: Oh yeah? What's that?
Lisa: I don't know, something about this geek who's stuck in the 80s. Just like you!
Monday:
Five more days. Five more days.
-- Five more days to push against the wall of apathy (my own!) and get all the grading and cleaning done.....
-- Wait a minute, I have a full inservice day to "work on grades" on the 3rd! I don't have to get anything done!
-- No, but wouldn't you feel better if you had all your grading done before the holiday, so it wasn't hanging over your head those two weeks?
-- Maybe.....
-- Yes you would.
-- But I don't want to do any work this week! I want to kick it with some eggnog and claymation tales of reindeer and dentists!
-- It will be worse if you don't do it.
-- But....
-- Way worse.
-- Wait a minute.... Jimminy, is that you? I thought I squooshed you under my boot in college!
09 December 2004
12.9.04
Advisory (aka homeroom).
Andrew: (sounding like a grizzled old man) Ach, maybe I'll go buy myself a drink, after school.
Me: What? I hope you mean orange juice.
Andrew: (muttering to himself) ...mumble...otch mumble rocks.....
Bill: He has $24 to spend.
Andrew: $24.25, please. And it's burning a hole in my pocket.
Me: So you're going to buy SCOTCH?
Andrew: (thoughtfully) It's a possibility....
Me: But you're fourteen.
Bill: Moriarty drives children to desperate acts. It's very sad, isn't it?
Me: You kids are weird. (pause) But seriously, SCOTCH?
1st period.
Karma: One thing I liked about your presentation was that you were funny without going off topic. Unlike ANDREW.
Andrew: That was yesterday!
Lizzil: And it's still funny!
Andrew: Ms. Backes, they're so mean to me.
Me: You'll be a better person, stronger, in the end.
Andrew: No. I'll just be sad.
Dale: As Ms. Backes said yesterday, PULL IT TOGETHER, MAN!
Kid: Z is for Zuni. Zuni people are well known for their artwork. Zuni pueblo is one of the oldest in New Mexico. Back then it was visited by very little Spanish.
Me: What, like midgets?
Kid: (extremely confused) What?
Class: ...
Me: I think you mean, "visited by very few Spanish."
Class: ...
Other Kid: Oh, **I** get it!!
12.08.04
Me: So I'm thinking, why hasn't anyone made Lysistrata into a modern movie?
Dale: Because it's a bad idea!
"I would prefer this book to any kid."
12.07.04
Kitty: Nuh uh! Ms. Backes, candles don't explode when you light them, do they?
Me: No....
Buddy: Yes they do! Yes they do! If they're made of gasoline!!
12.6.04
Patty: My nutcracker looks like Michael Jackson now!
Lizzil: Why?
Patty: We scraped his nose off. Now when you light him on fire, his nose glows!
12.3.04
7th period. Best class ever. I could not stop giggling, and eventually gave up on trying to keep the peace in the room.
Ivy: Ms. Backes, can I [mumble mumble] Kyle?
Me: WHAT??
Ivy: What?
Me: Did you just ask if you can EAT Kyle??
Kyle: Aaaaaahh!
Ivy: No! Can I BEAT Kyle?
Me: Ohhhh!
Kyle: Aaaaaaaahh!!
I go over and turn the radio on.
Jerry, watching me: Ms. Backes, do I hear music??
Me: (stunned) I can't even grace that with an answer!
Summer: It's just the wind blowing through the spaces in your head.
Jerry: Oh, okay!
Summer: Ms. Backes doesn't mind if we swear, do you?
Me: Um.... let's say I'd rather not have to deal with it at all.
Jenny: Yeah, but you swear all the time!
Me: (gasping) I most certainly do NOT!
Jenny: Sure you do.
Me: No I don't!
Jenny: Yeah, like when you said your car was a piece of shit!
Me: I did not say that!
Summer: Yes you did.
Me: I said it was a piece of CRAP, which is a much different thing!
Jenny: No it's not. Shit, crap, it's all the same thing.
Me: Maybe, but I did NOT say shit!
Jenny: Except just then.
Me: Oh, shi-- shucks! See, I never swear!
Jenny: Ms. Backes, why are you drinking coffee at 2:30 in the afternoon?
Me: Um.... let's just say it's because crack is illegal.
Summer: Ha ha! I'm totally going to steal that!
Me: D'oh!
Ivy: Ms. Backes?
Me: Yes?
Ivy: Kyle's scared.
Me: Of what?
Summer: He thinks you're going crazy!!
Me: Ha! I am! If I'm not here on Monday it's because the nice men in white jackets came for me!
2nd period.
Kristine: That's a nice fence you're drawing. You have a lot of barbed wire, though. It's expensive!
Marsha: Yeah... no one will get into this field.
Kristine: Where do you buy all this barbed wire?
Andrew: At the Hitler Warehouse!!
Me: What does that look like to you?
Kristine: A cow?
Me: Ha! I totally can draw a cow!
Everyone: ...?
Me: My 6th period class and I got into a big fight about whether or not I could draw a good cow.
Beth: My sister's in your 6th period class.
Me: I know. She was one of the people fighting with me!
Beth: (nodding wisely) We're good at fighting.
Eddy: Ms. Backes is doing the crossword!
Kristine: Oh, really?
Me: Yes..... badly.
Eddy: She does it every morning!
Me: No I don't!
Eddy: Yes you do! Every morning you sit in the back and do the crossword!
Me: Eddy, that is patently false. In fact, this is the first time all year that I've done the crossword!
Eddy: Well, you read the paper every morning!
Me: Well, that's true.
Eddy: So what do you do with the paper if you're not doing the crossword?
Me: I **READ** it. I take the information into my brain.
Eddy: But..... but that's BORING!!!
12.2.04
Ellery: Ms. Backes, do you know where we turn these in?
Me: Do I know? Let's see, it's an assignment **I** gave you, and ***I'm*** going to be grading it, so yes, I suppose I know where you turn it in.
Ellery: So.....where?
Me: To me! You turn it in to me!!
Ivy: Ms. Backes, how old are you?
Walt: 24! She's 24!
Me: That's right.
Summer: I always think you're 22!
Xander: I thought you were 21!
Me: It's easy to remember, because it's the same as the year. 24, 2004. In 2005 I'll be 25.
Elliot: So... were you born in 1980?
Me: Yup.
Elliot: Me too!
Me: YOU were born in 1980??
Elliot: Oh. Um. No. I mean 1990.
Me: Oh, well that's very different, isn't it?
Advisory (aka homeroom).
Andrew: (sounding like a grizzled old man) Ach, maybe I'll go buy myself a drink, after school.
Me: What? I hope you mean orange juice.
Andrew: (muttering to himself) ...mumble...otch mumble rocks.....
Bill: He has $24 to spend.
Andrew: $24.25, please. And it's burning a hole in my pocket.
Me: So you're going to buy SCOTCH?
Andrew: (thoughtfully) It's a possibility....
Me: But you're fourteen.
Bill: Moriarty drives children to desperate acts. It's very sad, isn't it?
Me: You kids are weird. (pause) But seriously, SCOTCH?
1st period.
Karma: One thing I liked about your presentation was that you were funny without going off topic. Unlike ANDREW.
Andrew: That was yesterday!
Lizzil: And it's still funny!
Andrew: Ms. Backes, they're so mean to me.
Me: You'll be a better person, stronger, in the end.
Andrew: No. I'll just be sad.
Dale: As Ms. Backes said yesterday, PULL IT TOGETHER, MAN!
Kid: Z is for Zuni. Zuni people are well known for their artwork. Zuni pueblo is one of the oldest in New Mexico. Back then it was visited by very little Spanish.
Me: What, like midgets?
Kid: (extremely confused) What?
Class: ...
Me: I think you mean, "visited by very few Spanish."
Class: ...
Other Kid: Oh, **I** get it!!
12.08.04
Me: So I'm thinking, why hasn't anyone made Lysistrata into a modern movie?
Dale: Because it's a bad idea!
"I would prefer this book to any kid."
12.07.04
Kitty: Nuh uh! Ms. Backes, candles don't explode when you light them, do they?
Me: No....
Buddy: Yes they do! Yes they do! If they're made of gasoline!!
12.6.04
Patty: My nutcracker looks like Michael Jackson now!
Lizzil: Why?
Patty: We scraped his nose off. Now when you light him on fire, his nose glows!
12.3.04
7th period. Best class ever. I could not stop giggling, and eventually gave up on trying to keep the peace in the room.
Ivy: Ms. Backes, can I [mumble mumble] Kyle?
Me: WHAT??
Ivy: What?
Me: Did you just ask if you can EAT Kyle??
Kyle: Aaaaaahh!
Ivy: No! Can I BEAT Kyle?
Me: Ohhhh!
Kyle: Aaaaaaaahh!!
I go over and turn the radio on.
Jerry, watching me: Ms. Backes, do I hear music??
Me: (stunned) I can't even grace that with an answer!
Summer: It's just the wind blowing through the spaces in your head.
Jerry: Oh, okay!
Summer: Ms. Backes doesn't mind if we swear, do you?
Me: Um.... let's say I'd rather not have to deal with it at all.
Jenny: Yeah, but you swear all the time!
Me: (gasping) I most certainly do NOT!
Jenny: Sure you do.
Me: No I don't!
Jenny: Yeah, like when you said your car was a piece of shit!
Me: I did not say that!
Summer: Yes you did.
Me: I said it was a piece of CRAP, which is a much different thing!
Jenny: No it's not. Shit, crap, it's all the same thing.
Me: Maybe, but I did NOT say shit!
Jenny: Except just then.
Me: Oh, shi-- shucks! See, I never swear!
Jenny: Ms. Backes, why are you drinking coffee at 2:30 in the afternoon?
Me: Um.... let's just say it's because crack is illegal.
Summer: Ha ha! I'm totally going to steal that!
Me: D'oh!
Ivy: Ms. Backes?
Me: Yes?
Ivy: Kyle's scared.
Me: Of what?
Summer: He thinks you're going crazy!!
Me: Ha! I am! If I'm not here on Monday it's because the nice men in white jackets came for me!
2nd period.
Kristine: That's a nice fence you're drawing. You have a lot of barbed wire, though. It's expensive!
Marsha: Yeah... no one will get into this field.
Kristine: Where do you buy all this barbed wire?
Andrew: At the Hitler Warehouse!!
Me: What does that look like to you?
Kristine: A cow?
Me: Ha! I totally can draw a cow!
Everyone: ...?
Me: My 6th period class and I got into a big fight about whether or not I could draw a good cow.
Beth: My sister's in your 6th period class.
Me: I know. She was one of the people fighting with me!
Beth: (nodding wisely) We're good at fighting.
Eddy: Ms. Backes is doing the crossword!
Kristine: Oh, really?
Me: Yes..... badly.
Eddy: She does it every morning!
Me: No I don't!
Eddy: Yes you do! Every morning you sit in the back and do the crossword!
Me: Eddy, that is patently false. In fact, this is the first time all year that I've done the crossword!
Eddy: Well, you read the paper every morning!
Me: Well, that's true.
Eddy: So what do you do with the paper if you're not doing the crossword?
Me: I **READ** it. I take the information into my brain.
Eddy: But..... but that's BORING!!!
12.2.04
Ellery: Ms. Backes, do you know where we turn these in?
Me: Do I know? Let's see, it's an assignment **I** gave you, and ***I'm*** going to be grading it, so yes, I suppose I know where you turn it in.
Ellery: So.....where?
Me: To me! You turn it in to me!!
Ivy: Ms. Backes, how old are you?
Walt: 24! She's 24!
Me: That's right.
Summer: I always think you're 22!
Xander: I thought you were 21!
Me: It's easy to remember, because it's the same as the year. 24, 2004. In 2005 I'll be 25.
Elliot: So... were you born in 1980?
Me: Yup.
Elliot: Me too!
Me: YOU were born in 1980??
Elliot: Oh. Um. No. I mean 1990.
Me: Oh, well that's very different, isn't it?
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