Glorious Fourth

When I was a small kid my parents and I would go down to the Presidio wall on the Fourth of July to watch the fireworks over the trees. Later on, we'd go to the lookout point in the park, up near the Legion of Honor. On a clear day, you can see straight out across the ocean in one direction, and the Golden Gate Bridge in the other.

On a foggy July night, you can see--nothing. Absolutely nothing. Most years it was so socked in with fog that you only knew the ocean was below because you could hear it.

We, and all the other people from the neighborhood who'd come out, would stand in our coats and hats and mufflers, and wait. After a while, we'd hear the booms coming across the bay that assured us that the fireworks display had indeed started. Occasionally, a high shot would make the clouds flash briefly green or red.

"OOOOOOOOOHHHHH!" everyone would gasp, giddy with irony and slightly numb from the cold. "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

And then after a while, the kids who'd climbed down into the brush around the rocks at the bottom of the cliff would start to set off cherry bombs down there.

Ah, the damp, chilly summer memories of a San Francisco childhood.

Twenty Years to the Day

So I went and heard Korach, and it was fun. (Many simchas, lots happening, and I got to hear those fateful words again..."Vayikach Korach...")

I'd have worn the dress I had for the original event, but it no longer fits. I did have the same tallis though.

Twenty years. WOW.

The Moving Van's On Its Way To Santa Barbara

We pretty much got Chaya out of her apartment. (Chaya is what I've decided to call my-friend-who-was-recently-widowed on the blog, it's not her name, and she's not Jewish, but it's a play on her real name, and easier than referring to her by long descriptors.)

Luckily, the apartment was teeny, and they did not have a whole lot of furniture. Not so luckily:

1. Chaya is an artist who makes jewelry and things out of found objects primarily. Her husband was a painter and did turntable work, and computer graphics. As a result, they have lots of materials, all of which needed to be relocated.

2. We had about a dozen canvases of various sizes done by Chaya's husband, which needed to be packed with utmost care. (The rest are being stored with his sister.)

3. Chaya had been unable to get any sleep the night before, and was running primarily on nervous energy.

4. Most of her friends couldn't make it until the afternoon, seeing as it was a work day. We began with just me and her mother, and another friend who didn't have to be at work. This young man was working hard, but when it came to moving the furniture, he had as a choice of helpers a woman in her sixties, a woman who is five-feet-two and hadn't had any sleep, or the Balabusta who is a klutz.

Luckily, Chaya began making desperate calls on her cell phone, and a couple of twentyish boys showed up for an hour and a half. One of them was an ex-coworker of hers, and the other was the friend he'd been hanging out with, who had volunteered to come along and help. They schlepped the furniture upstairs, dismantled the TV and stereo pieces and boxed them, and then schlepped those. I commented quietly that God really knew what she was doing when she created men, although we may sometimes doubt it.

After that, we made good progress, and I took off when people began to get off work and arrive to take care of the aftermath. Someone was recruited to take Chaya to Whole Foods and get some nutrition into her.

She's moving in with her sister, who is expecting a baby in October--she's going to take classes at the city college, and help with the baby, and see what she wants to do next. I think it's a good plan. Apparently there's all kinds of mishegoss with the hospital and etc., because her husband did not have insurance. She's hoping to get that cleared up in the next month, before she goes to Santa Barbara herself--she's staying with friends for a while.

It was nice to spend time with her, and to be able to do something to help, even if it wasn't very much. The wake some weeks ago was beautiful, but everyone was still very shaky. I spent a lot of time patting Chaya's sister's (let's call her Drora--another little joke there) bump and hearing about the pregnancy.

Chaya keeps talking about what a wreck she is, but she actually is dealing with everything with amazing strength and grace. Apparently some people have been implying to her that she should be over the breaking-down-crying phase--who these people are, I'm not sure, and I definately don't want to meet them. It hasn't been six weeks yet.

This is just such a stupid, terrible thing to happen.

409 Lavanda to the rescue!

Well, the ants are back. The ants have been back for a while, but this morning, while leaving a voicemail message for my friend (the friend who recently lost her husband is moving in with her sister, at least I think that's where she's moving, just got the call last night, so we're going to pack her up today) I ended the call with "...and I have a full-scale invasion of ants in this kitchen, but that's not your problem, talk later."

I flipped out and started spraying 409 Lavanda on everything that moved. Now I feel tired and guilty. We have fewer ants, although they're still coming in through the window frame in droves. I cannot get over feeling as though killing all these ants is a terrible thing to do, but it's not as though I can scoop them up on a paper towel and take them outside, the way you can do with spiders. There are gazillions of them. Their survival strategy, as my mother has pointed out, is that there are a gazillion of them, and no matter how many I kill, another gazillion will be on the way. Last year, I opened the bathroom at one point, and a quarter of the floor was COVERED in ants. What to do? (Reach for the Simple Green.) This is what we get for living on the ground floor in a flippin' suburban nature preserve. This would never happen to me in North Beach.

(There's a t-shirt on Cafepress that reads "Urban Jew". I want one.)

Anyway, I've been reading Andrew Greeley's latest Nuala Anne mystery (Irish Crystal), and I have to comment that this would never happen to Nuala Anne McGrail. The ants, I mean. But I'll have to dedicate an entire post to Nuala Anne to explain why. I may just do that. Have you ever been completely addicted to a series of books that just annoyed you, even as you munched them like popcorn? That's me and Father Greeley's Nuala.

Anyway, need to go and eat breakfast in my lavender-scented kitchen, and take a shower. Then I need to pick six fifty in change out of my change jar so I can make it to San Rafael and back. BOY am I glad I'm getting paid on Friday!

My Tallis Bag Makes Friends

After shul today, I went into the ladies' room, leaving my tallis bag on the table outside. When I came back, it was being examined by a lady who asked where I had gotten it. I told her that it had been a bat mitzvah present from my parents who had bought it at Bob and Bob, uhhhhh...twenty years ago.

It turns out that she has one like it, and bought one for her daughter's bat mitzvah--all from the same Yaffa weaver, apparently. I occasionally run into this lady's work around--some years ago I came face to face with an elderly man wearing a tallis that was obviously a close cousin to mine. "Nice tallis!" he beamed. But it hadn't hit me until that moment that, actually, that it really is, as of Shabbos Korach, going to be TWENTY YEARS. I'm turning thirty-three in a couple weeks.

Korach was, actually, sort of a mistake. My childhood temple calculated the parsha according to my birthday on the Gregorian calender, hence, Korach. If we'd done it according to my Hebrew-calender birthday we would have landed a week later, on Chukkat, which would have allowed me to read about Miriam's death. Much more fertile for a baby Jewish feminist, and honestly, I never did quite get the hang of Korach. All of these "they spoke out against Moses/Aaron/the Brooklyn Dodgers and were promptly struck down by plague/leprosy/mumps" stories have never appealed to me. I don't respect authority for authority's sake. Never have. Probably never will. I had quite the time getting anything out of poor old Korach, and Datan, and Aviram, and On, and all their friends.

My mother seems to feel that the parsha was a terrible mistake that she should somehow have prevented. I try to talk her out of this. Nu, there are worse things than Korach.

Anyway, coming up on twenty years since the bat mitzvah made me think about what I would like to do Jewishly in the COMING twenty years, and what keeps reoccuring to me is that I would like to learn to leyn. I didn't learn when I was a bat mitzvah, and I know there are a lot of people in my area who teach. I'm cautious about getting myself signed up for anything new, given how overwhelmed I feel these days but..maybe one toe at a time?

A Plumber of Valor

...Let's just say that his price is above rubies, at least the kind of rubies you can get on the Home Shopping Network. But I don't really care. He came, he dismantled the tangle of pipes under the sink, and he pried out the impacted vegetable matter. Both sinks now drain. I'm going to COOK tonight!

We called Roto-Rooter, at the end. It was a bit tricky, due to our duelling neuroses--I am afraid of landlords, and the fella is unwilling to talk to people. Finally, Monday, I forced the fella to call the landlord and leave a message on his machine, asking if he could recommend a plumber. By this morning we had heard nothing. So I called Roto-Rooter. I'm sure they're more expensive than a lot of local people, but I don't know who the local people are.

San Francisco was so easy--I just called my father, and he recommended someone.

Ave Maria, Gee It's Good To See Ya

So this morning, I'm interviewing at a Catholic elementary school, and I'm being told that each class starts with prayer, so, Sister explains, I might want to learn a few Catholic prayers--the Hail Mary, for example.

"Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus," I responded serenely. But truthfully, I think it might be a better idea for us to have an Ave Monitor of the week who will lead the class.

It's a nice school. Low budget, but spending money on the right things, and the classrooms seem very child-friendly. I'll let you guys know how it goes. Earlier, I did FOUR interviews with a nice Catholic high school who hired someone else. Bleah. This one, I should know by the end of the week.

The Daughter of the King

All right. Tell me this is not funny. I'll post the picture and links later, when I get to a computer that will let me.

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem has a gift shop that the Balabusta occasionally browses and drools over. Some of their stuff is either replicas of artifacts in the collection, or adaptations of them.

One collection object which appears in a number of forms in the shop, as necklace, earrings, bracelet, letter opener, etc. is a small seal from the period of the kings. It features a lyre, and is inscribed for "Ma'adana the king's daughter".

Think about it. "Ma'adana". Say it quickly. A lyre. A musical instrument, representing this woman, Ma'adana. The daughter of the king. Perhaps a secular title, but perhaps also a mystical one. Ma'adana, the musical mystic.

People, do you realize the spiritual importance of this? Madonna is not just an annoying celebrity kabbalist. She's a reincarnated Judean princess annoying celebrity kabbalist. And this is just the past life I've been able to track down. How many times have we been through this already, people? HOW MANY?

Isn't there some ceremony featuring black candles and a shofar that could put a stop to this? I'd chip in for the chickens.

In-Sink-Erator

Note: the self-applied title of 'Balabusta' is sometimes highly ironic.

This is the story of my sink:

When we moved in a year ago, I noted that we had one of those small two-basin kitchen sinks. I also noted that water did not appear to go down one of them, and in my usual goopy manner I wondered slightly over this before installing the draining rack over it.

Yesterday, I got seized with a sink-cleaning urge, and took the draining rack off. I began to try and clean the gunky 'drain'. Since my scrubby was not working very well, I went and got some Q-tips.

The Q-tips, I found, pushed straight through a solid layer of gunk in the drain, which had apparently been there for at least a little longer than a year. Much fascinated probing, a lot of baking soda, and two pots of hot water later, I had a draining sink. In celebration, I put the draining rack on the counter.

Then I tried to put a bunch of potato peels down the garbage disposal, and backed up the In-Sink-Erator. No one is perfect.

I have probed the In-Sink-Erator's depths with both salad tongs and my hand, and bought, at my mother's suggestion, an Allen wrench, and tried with that. No go. It just backs up more dirty water into the sink.

We may have to call a plumber tomorrow.

Leave No Child Behind (part 2)

One week to go. Two major sources of wrath on behalf of my students:

Source of wrath #2:

I have a student, even more worrisome than Kid X, who I fondly refer to as The Worst Kid Ever. WKE is a sixth grader, and operates at a second grade level. He cannot do the work in an early intermediate ESL class, although he was born and raised in the United States. He is belligerent, recalcitrent, and kinetic. He drives me berserk.

He's also being promoted to the seventh grade, despite having been unable to do any of the work in sixth. During a tense conversation with my principal last week, I pointed out that we his teachers have been trying to get help for him all year. "I know," she sighed. "And his parents don't come to any meetings."

His mom attended two student support meetings despite needing a translator and being rather scared of us, and his father has come out to the school at least once when the WKE was in trouble. He's spoken to me on the phone and in person, and been very pleasant. So basically, this is pure slander. These people want to help their kid. My principal I'm not so sure about.

Anyway, on Friday, I'm speaking to another teacher who's in charge of a program we may put the WKE in next year. He comments that it is unfortunate that the WKE's parents will not allow us to do special ed testing.

This is news to me, but I'm told that my colleague talked to our vice principal, and that's what he was told.

So I chug downstairs to Ms. S, the aforementioned 'teacher of the mentals', who helped me set up the student support conference, and ask her about this. She doesn't know about this.

I chug to the vice principal's office and ask.

During the last parent meeting, when we brought up special ed testing, the mom said that she wondered if that would help, because 'they''d tested her older boy (not the WKE) at one point, and 'they' said he didn't need a special ed program.

That had been interpreted as a parental prohibition. We never asked for permission point-blank.

"Should I follow up on that?" asks the VP.

You bet your behind you should, and I will be sending a Spanish speaker to make sure you do. Aaaaaaaaaaah!

Leave No Child Behind (part 1)

One week to go. Two major sources of wrath on behalf of my students:

Source of wrath #1:

One of my students, fondly known to me as Kid X, is still unclear on whether he is going to graduate from the eighth grade. Or what graduation means. Or what the meaning of 'is' is.

This kid has been the bane of my existence for two years. The family is from El Salvador, and there are Complications with them that I cannot fully sort out. The kid has ADHD, interrupted schooling, and a total lack of ability to grasp complex concepts. Also low impulse control. Also, he is a reflexive liar. Also, just total failure to get what the heck is going on at school. He cannot tell time. His math is at a second grade level. My principal, however, thinks he is bright as a new penny, and that I am an idiot, so getting him help has been, er, tricky. Other teachers of his have tried to help too. No dice.

Anyway, he's always been an enormous behavior problem, but as the end of the year has approached, it has gotten worse and worse. Talking out, talking back, sitting playing instead of trying to do the work, obscenities in Spanish and English. Everything is an argument. He never listens to directions, I don't think he can.

Finally, a week or two ago I demanded to know exactly what was going on with his potty-mouthed, sassing-me self. He averted his eyes, mumbled, and chewed on a book first, but finally explained to me that he was worried about passing eighth grade and going to high school.

Now, at this school, no one gets kept back. Our principal hates retentions. They're passing everyone on this year, including another student of mine who, at the age of eleven, cannot get past L when writing the alphabet. So Kid X is going on to the ninth grade. Even if the principal were more relaxed on retention, he's turning fifteen this month. They won't keep him in middle school. No matter what.

But there are requirements for graduating 'on stage', with pomp and circumstance. Students must do community service, and an eighth grade project. And they must end the eighth grade with at least a certain, not very high, GPA. Kid X's is way below that. Cannot be made up at this point.

So I say, as gently as I can, that he's passed all of the other requirements to walk on stage, but that the grades will be a big issue. He explains that he's trying to bring his grades up, and that he spoke to the vice principal, and the VP told him to bring up all his grades, because he 'only needs one'.

I asked what that meant, and he seized a piece of paper, and began to show me. Let's say that Kid X has a 0.X GPA. He needs a 1.X to graduate, so he just needs to "add one". That's the 1 before the decimal point, you see.

Yeah. The kid's ready for high school all right.

Ahhhh, crud.

So I asked our counselor to talk to him, and she did. And when the official list of 'nonpromotes' came out, the principal met with them all to explain their status. I figured we'd be OK enough.

Yesterday, I am telling all the eighth graders their sponsor teachers for the last day of school. (They gather in groups and get taught to march for graduation and the like.) I tell Kid X he will be in the group that meets with Ms. S in the library. (This is our special ed coordinator. She's taking care of the nonpromotes next week--yet another thankless task, but whatever.)

"Who's Ms. S?" he asks. "I want to be with Mrs. F."

"Everyone has a group they've been assigned to," I say. "Ms. S. is a teacher in the Academic Center. She's nice."

"She's the teacher for the mentals!" screams Achmed, next to Kid X.

Thank you, Achmed.

"I think I'm going to be with Mrs. F," says Kid X. "I'm going to go and ask her now."

"Not now," I say.

"Am I going to graduate?" he asks.

Ah, crud.

"Didn't you talk to Mrs. Principal about that?" I ask.

He kind of shrugs.

"I think you need to talk to her about this," I say.

"You find out," he says, imperiously, "and tell me on Monday."

If Ms. S is the 'teacher for the mentals', I suspect I will soon be joining her class roster.

Two Weeks to Go

This was a horrible week at work. Kids are completely, hideously, out of control. I suspended two from my classes on Friday. They won't do any work, they run in screaming for me to punish small wrongs they've done each other, and it lasts all day.

Wednesday I went to another interview for the job I really want. Will hear the middle of next week.

Thursday night was the memorial gathering for my friend's husband. She had put up his paintings, and hundreds of those origami cranes. It was beautiful. The fella and I got to see her sister, who is also a friend, and is expecting--she's looking lovely. It was all pretty, and very sad. And we got home quite late.

Yesterday I had, in an unfortunate moment of helium hand, offered to help break down the school museum. We had a ton of help, though, and the PTA bought me a slushy. Not too bad.

I'm going nuts right now. It's only two weeks to go, and a lot of the last week is half days and picnics and the like. But it seems like FOREVER. I'm sleeping a lot. I'm not sure if this is the effect of the Paxil, or if it's just that I'm depressed, and no amount of Paxil is going to drown out the effects of that. Pretty bad, though. Friday night I lay down at 9 PM. Got up at seven or so. Came home from the break-down, and lay down for a nap at 2, got up at EIGHT that evening. (The fella reports that he just came in from time to time, checked that I was still breathing, and let me be.) Got up, had dinner, watched some TV with the fella, and then decided around eleven thirty that I was tired and would go to bed. Got up this morning at seven-thirty.

I'm trying to take everything slow and easy. It's hot now--that's not helping--and I'm late with some paperwork--not helping--and I don't know if I'm actually going to be able to clear my credential--not helping. But I'm going to get through, and get my money for the summer, and then we'll see.

Maybe I should go to law school. You think? If I became a public defender, I'd probably run into a bunch of my current kids a few years down the road.

Nesting Instinct

Part of the Balabusta and fella's four day weekend was taken up with experimentally looking around for new housing.

Our lease is up at the end of June. The current house has a few basic flaws, ie, it is expensive, for where we are, very damp in winter, and occasionally overrun with ants. We worked ourselves into a frenzy in which this meant we HAD to get out. Because we are thirtysomething Bay Area types, I went to Craigslist.

We determined that we would pay no more rent than we currently are, and would like to pay less. We also decided to stay in El Cerrito, or the immediate El Cerrito area. This is both amusing and confusing the Balabusta's mother, who had until a year ago never heard of El Cerrito. She now suspects that we will stay here for years to come, that the fella will become the mayor, and that they will name a park after us. Not sure I'm that invested in El Cerrito, but now that we've had to move out of San Francisco, it's a place we both know, are all right with, and is easily accessible to most of the places we might like to work. Finding a whole new section of the East Bay seems exhausting and scary.

So we began to look around on Craigslist.

In order to fully appreciate the complications of the Balabusta and the fella moving anywhere, you need to understand that we are looking for totally different things in a house. Actually, we are looking for totally different houses, in totally different neighborhoods.

My fantasy: a big flat on second or third floor of a building in San Francisco's Richmond district. The sounds of conversation in Russian and Chinese fill the air, the smells of fifty cuisines float on the breeze. The bus lines run straight downtown or out to Stonestown, and who CARES what lies beyond the City? Everything I need is contained in one three-mile radius, or can be reached by bus in forty-five minutes. Little Odessa, Chinatown West, the Great Geary way--HOME!

His fantasy: a castle. You know, made out of stone, with a moat, drawbridge, towers, arrow slits...also lots of parking, and with easy access to big box stores.

Anyway, his key requirement was that it not be an apartment, because he says, he is done with apartments forever. This complicates things, or at least raises the price. But I tried.

First I found a really cute little cottage, and we applied, but they never called us back.

Then, this weekend I determined to show the fella a triplex, because I had a feeling that he might be more amenable to an apartment in a building with a limited number of units. When we got out he said "It's an apartment," but he agreed to look at it.

It was a very cute unit, which was about to be vacated by two young men who had just graduated from UC Berkeley. You could tell. The couch was covered with a sheet. They had ramen stacked in the kitchen. One boy actually had a foam pad on a futon frame, but the other was apparently sleeping between a couple of quilts thrown on the carpet. There was hard alcohol everywhere. I mean, bottles of rum casually left by the bed. A sort of minibar set up on a milk crate. It was pretty funny, to the nearly thirty-three-year-old ex-college kid.

The unit was OK,also cheap. But they found another renter.

I made about six calls. No one called back.

Later that day, I proceeded into Berkeley to look at a duplex, but the neighborhood was just too...Berkeley. No go.

Late last night I found a desperate posting from a woman who's abandoning her lease, and trying to find new tenants. Three bedrooms, just down the street from us. But she wants someone to move in a week from now, and may be crazy. We passed.

Anyway, now we're considering staying, at least for a few months, and I am considering reorganizing the living room.

Maybe we need a couch. Or some bottles of rum.

America's Future, Aged 12

We have passed Fingers and Toes Day. Fingers and Toes day is a little-known international holiday celebrated by teachers--the twentieth day to summer vacation.

How am I doing? I'll tell you how I'm doing. In a vain attempt to get my students' attention today I turned off the fan. They did not stop talking. I stalked purposefully toward the open window.

Sweet Korean Kid #3 (all names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty) rose to his feet and shouted "Ms. Balabusta, no! DON'T JUMP!"

I CLOSED it. They didn't stop talking though, not even when I began to turn up the thermostat. They're not real bright.

Sweet Korean Kid #3 is actually very bright, and also funny. He plays tricks on me--normal pre-teen gags, like dabbing his finger with red ink and pretending to have stapled it, and the like. He has, for some reason, decided that the cutest, smallest girl in my class is the source of all evil, and regularly accuses her of all sorts of malfeasance.

"Ms. Balabusta, I know who pulled the fire alarm."

"Really?"

"YES! It was...ANGELIQUE!"

"Ms. Balabusta, do you know who beat up Jimmy yesterday?"

"No, hon, I don't."

"It was....ANGELIQUE!"

We now have a sort of comedy routine based on it.

Me: #3! Who knows where Jimmy Hoffa is?

#3: ANGELIQUE!

Me: Who took the Lindberg baby?

#3: ANGELIQUE!

Me: What was Jack the Ripper's REAL name?

#3: ANGELIQUE!

No, he has no idea who any of these people are. But he appreciates having a partner in his one-man comedy show.

Anyway, while we're having fun..."#3! Who killed the Princes in the Tower?"...the school is self-destructing. Our teacher staffing has been cut down to 25.5 teachers, due to student hemorrhage and district stupidity. In response, our administration has cancelled French, most Spanish classes, drama, journalism, and the noontime sports program. Math Intensive Care With Jojoba Extract and Rote Reading, New, Improved, Now With Hand Signals will continue as scheduled.

To quote the guy from "Man of La Mancha", "thank God I won't be there to see".

The school I am working at is in an unfortunate position. It's smack-dab in the middle of town, sandwiched between two other middle schools. One is in the affluent part of town and has highly involved parents. The other is in the projects part of town, and gets special federal funding, because their kids are in dire need. We just sort of sit and molder. There is no librarian. There is kind of a library in the sense that there is a room with many books, most of them older than my parents, on shelves on the wall.

Even if I'm answering phones in the fall, it will be better than this situation.

The Memory of Muffins

My friend's husband died. Around one A.M. or so this past Shabbos, the doctors sat everyone down and made it clear that they had lost the fight. They got her permission to shut down life support. An hour later he was gone.

I did not know him all that well, really, but this is the story about him I always remember, and tell people. If we have a wake, this is the story I will want to hear. So here it is:

Shortly after the wedding, my friend and her husband were young (she was twenty, he somewhere close to that), broke, and in need of work. They got a job together at the closing shift at Bakers of Paris.

At the end of their shift, one day, they were ready to close up, except that there was a pair of women eating muffins and drinking coffee by the window. When asked to go, they said they'd be ready soon.

So MF (my friend) and HH (her husband) loaded the dishwashers, and wiped the racks, and did all the other closing-up things they could do. Then they went back, and again, nicely asked the customers to leave, since it was now well past closing time.

One of the women laughed in their faces and said she would leave when she was ready.

MF bursts into tears.

Consider HH's emotional state. He's a very young man. His wife is crying. It's late. They want to go home. And this horrible woman is laughing at them.

He picked up a muffin and smooshed it in her face. Crumbs all over. The whole nine yards. The muffin equivalent of being pied, if you will.

Suddenly, she's not laughing, she's calling the cops, who arrived, and informed her that she could press charges for battery with a baked good if she wanted, however he expected that in that case the young people would press charges for trespassing.

Somehow, it never went to court. Unfortunately, in the process, the chassan's outstanding traffic tickets did come up...that was one heck of an expensive muffin.

Worth it, I've always felt...

Bitter and sweet

My friend's husband is not doing well. Despite his incredible resiliance, his liver is apparently very badly damaged, and the doctors are not optimistic.

When she married him, thirteen years ago--my mom corrected my math--I thought she was much too young to be getting married, and in any case had only known him a few months. (Way 231 you can tell the Balabusta is not haredi...) Now, all I can think is that she is much, much too young to be a widow. I keep expecting a miracle. This isn't quite sinking in yet.

All the way around on the other side of the wheel...

My paraprofessional-for-Monday's daughter had her baby, after a week of dilation, crankiness, and worry. The baby weighed nine pounds and fourteen ounces (WOW!), and is a girl. Mother and child are doing fine.

I should have the class make a poster for them, or something.

This is the part of 'illegal' I understand...

We are sitting in a public school classroom, the mother, the translator and I, at an empty desk, at seven-thirty in the morning. They are here because I requested a conference about the daughter, whose English is not progressing like that of her classmates.

The mother is worried. She tells her daughter all the time that she needs to study. It's hard. She has a job, taking care of a house for some people who live three hours away. She only has Sundays off. During the week, her daughter is being taken care of by her oldest child. The older girl is nineteen, a new mother, and works as a housecleaner too--she and her mother have a small business, complete with cards. The older girl, I am told, is not so shy, and she speaks very good English. She is enrolling in classes at the community college.

She will call every night, she tells me, to remind her daughter to study. They have a family friend who has been in the country for years, and speaks excellent English--he will come and tutor her daughter if she asks. I can write him notes in English, and I can call her older daughter any time. They will help, any way they can.

My student has been telling her classmates that she wants to go back to Mexico and attend high school there. Is that an option? I ask. Maybe it would be easier to learn English in a Spanish-language school, and try again when she is older. Are there relatives she could stay with?

I know I'm treading on delicate ground here, but the mother shakes her head and explains to my translator. No, there's no way. The daughter talked to her about this, too, but it's too dangerous. Where they came from, a young girl can't walk the street safely any more. The drug dealers rule the streets. Relatives don't want to take her daughter in, they want help to get out. She sends all the money she can spare to her own mother. She cries because it isn't more.

We shake hands. She tells me I am a good teacher. I thank her for coming in. She tells me to call her oldest daughter any time.

We don't talk about the fact that she doesn't have papers, but everyone working at the school knows. There's nothing to say, really.

This is a widow in her forties.

Nothing will happen to the people who hired her if this comes to the attention of INS, only to her.

Her daughter is taking care of a baby and a younger sister, working, and trying to go to school.

The younger child, my student, may have a learning disability, but they don't diagnose those at the emergency rooms that are choked with illegal immigrants getting their hangnails checked.

You cannot apply for refugee status to prevent your daughter from being kidnapped off the street and raped in a rough neighborhood.

Immigration issues are complicated. I don't think many of the people trying to make it simple by stereotyping illegal immigrants as freeloaders have sat across a table from people like my student's mother.

Six Weeks To Go

June 15 is the last day of school with kids.

Currently on my mind:

1. JOB! I'm doing interviewing, but have not been as scrupulous as I want to be about sending out apps or updating my online stuff--I'm so damn tired! And one of the Jewish schools I would love to work for has an opening, but only half time...so I'm thinking about that.

Last Tuesday, I spent six hours in transit, there and back, getting to a job interview. I want a car and a laptop. NOW.

2. MONEY! Have developed concern that I didn't understand the lady at payroll, and maybe will have less over the summer than I thought. Must call tomorrow.

3. WHIPPETS! OK, that's an odd one. The fella and I are dogsitting this weekend. Two whippets are involved. It's kind of nice, like babysitting in high school except you're allowed, nay encouraged, to bring your boyfriend over. The baby of the whippets is a total wiggleworm. I spent about an hour this morning, just lying around and being jumped on by dogs.

4. Paxil. Do I want to stay on it? Not having panic attacks is so nice. But it's WEIRD.

5. I hate job hunting. But love the idea of having a new job. Seems like a chance for a whole new life.

Scary news

Found out today that the husband of one of my high school friends is in the ICU, badly injured. He came off his motorcycle on Thursday, landed all right, and was struck by a hit-and-run driver. His helmet protected his head, the rest of him was not so lucky.

He wasn't expected to live the night when they brought him in, but he's holding strong. I truly don't know what the chances are right now. His sister-in-law asked me to pray. If you are in the habit of saying Tehillim, or are off to Mass in the morning, or just are putting in a good word to God--please make mention of the guy who's married to the Balabusta's friend.

I danced at his wedding twelve years ago last week. He's a good guy.

I want good news.

Starter Equine

Yesterday I (blissfully) took the morning off my horrible work to go to a job interview, and I had some extra time, so I bought a copy of the Ladies Home Journal and went and had brunch at Denny's by myself. It was lovely.

Anyway, I began reading this 'My Life As A Mom' sort of column, by a woman I assume is around my age, and I read along, entirely able to picture myself in her shoes in about five years. She has two daughters. They are adopted from China. One is called Anna, and the other Sasha. Sasha has a speech-process disability. I read, with perfect identification, about Anna's decision to become 'Princess Kitty Cat Butterfly', and Sasha's fourth birthday party at McDonalds.

And then they returned home, and the narrator gave Sasha her present, a miniature donkey. Which she described as a 'good starter equine'.

I cannot, I find, imagine myself living a life where I would ever think to give a four-year-old a ministure donkey. Where I would ever think to give ANYONE a miniature donkey. Or where the words 'starter equine' make any sense at all.

The Balabusta is strictly urban, folks. Even if she currently lives in the 'burbs.

It's Not Easy Being Green

My job hunt is in full swing now. I have done three interviews, am lined up for more, and have a number of people I'm talking to by phone and negotiating with for face time. I am back to the world of getting dressed up and then taking bus, BART, Caltrain, taxi, prop plane, rickshaw, camel, and riverboat to wherever I need to go, consulting my TransitInfo directions as I go.

I wish I could drive. I wish I had a car.

When I express this wish, people often tell me I'm better off, and discuss the expense of car insurance and the high price of gas. They have no idea. First, public transit ain't so cheap. Secondly, public transit, if you're in the East Bay, ain't so convenient.

I am sick of taking hours to get places. I am sick of standing in the rain and freezing cold at bus stops. I am sick of not being able to move stuff around in my car. I am sick of being a pedestrian. Note to self. Learn to drive!

Any suggestions? I am kind of nervous, but I can move a car around. I tried working with a very good firm of driving teachers, but they are EXPENSIVE. I just can't afford $150 for a two-hour lesson. Any one got a fairly cheap driving school in the Bay Area to recommend, one that has a good attitude about thirtyish ladies who are sure they're incapable of driving in traffic? Or other advice?

Faygeleh, Shmaygeleh

In which the Balabusta gets interested in etymology, and historical unpleasantness.

Yesterday I (oh, happy day!) attended the last of my awful Saturday seminars in Moraga. One of the workshops I attended was on dealing with homophobia in the classroom. It was a pretty good workshop. One of the articles in the packet, however, got me thinking...

The article repeated a fairly common story I've heard, beginning in high school, about the origins of the word 'faggot' as a derogatory term for homosexual men. The story goes that it's a reference to burning at the stake. Depending on which version you get, convicted homosexuals were required to gather a bundle of sticks (or faggot) for the fires that burned them, or else they were referred to as faggots simply because gay men were, like sticks, burned, or, in the most dramatic version, repeated in this article, gay men were used as kindling to burn witches with. This last is firmly asserted as fact by any number of pagan and gay writers. I have never seen a scrap of historical evidence of this idea. Doesn't mean it's not out there. But I have never seen anything, and it doesn't sound terribly realistic to me for a number of gruesome reasons.

So I checked in with the Shorter OED. Here's what I find:

First, 'faggot' seems to appear first as a term of abuse in the late 16th century, as a dialect term meaning an 'objectionable' old woman, child, or animal. The connection here seems to be that such a person or thing is a burden, like firewood you must drag around.

Slightly earlier, it also seems to mean a heretic, or a person pardoned of heresy (who had to wear a badge of a faggot in token of their escape from burning). This usage is rare, and limited to the mid 16th century. No direct connection seems to yet appear to homosexuality.

By the EARLY 20th CENTURY, well post the burning times, orginally in the United States, we get to 'faggot' meaning 'a male homosexual, especially of an effeminate type'.

OK. Here's MY take on this. The original dialect term of abuse crosses the pond with 16th and 17th century settlers, and eventually reemerges as a slightly different slang term of abuse. No connection with burning heretics or witches. End of story.

However, something else rings in the back of head while I look at this. 'ot' is a common diminutive ending in medieval English names. And while 'bird' is the common English for 'bird', it appears in Old English apparently without origin or cognates known. At one time, one wonders, did English dialects include another word, one closer related to the German 'vogel'? In other words, is 'faggot', 'little bird'? In other words, is 'faggot' 'faygeleh' in long-forgotten English dialect?

Since I know jack about the origins of the Yiddish term, I could be miles away here. But it's interesting, neyn?

Bat Mitzvah, 2021

OK. This is morbid. But funny.

This morning, the fella and I were hanging out, drinking our respective caffeine (Coke for him, coffee with milk for me), and talking, and I threatened, in my usual loving way, to kill him by head-butting him to death, and he said that in his future he'd always seen a major coronary instead.

So after I got done spitting, and kayne-hore-ing, and calling on Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and doing several other small rituals to avert catastrophe--it took a while, especially sacrificing the frozen chicken--he agreed to a small coronary instead...I'm spitting onto the deck as I type this...and we somehow got rolling on the idea that it would happen just in time for Jezebel's bat mitzvah.

(Note to new readers, I and the fella have no children yet. Jezebel and Bubba are the names I use on this blog to refer to the ones we wish to have in the future. We will not be naming the kids Jezebel and Bubba. Thank you.)

"I'd like to thank everyone for coming to hear my bat mitzvah drash. I always dreamed I would give this drash from the bimah at B'nei Savlanut, but since DADDY decided to have a coronary, we're having here at Mount Sinai on the third floor instead.

"In my Torah portion, Moshe wonders if he's the best person to lead the Children of Israel. I think that he shouldn't doubt himself so much. He's worked really hard, and besides, God chose him. Also, MOSHE has not had a CORONARY, LIKE MY DADDY, because HE'S eating a healthy diet of manna and lean quail. Back in Egypt, he ate vegetables. This shows that MOSHE is a responsible person who looks after his health..."

The fella liked the scenario so much that he began to promise to fake a second coronary in time for Bubba's bar mitzvah...

"Welcome back to the third floor of Mount Sinai! This feels just like being at home! I'd like to thank everyone for coming, and my friends for throwing soft caramels rather than Jolly Ranchers at my face at point-blank range.

"In my Torah portion we learn about getting animals ready for sacrifice. After you sacrifice the animals, you're supposed to trim off all the fat, and burn it. I think this portion is really relevent to my family, and I want to tell you about what I think it symbolizes..."

We agreed that the third child, Rahab Sue, will be his favorite, and that he will come through for her bat mitzvah.

"Thank you all so much for coming to my bat mitzvah! We finally made it B'nei Savlanut!

In today's Torah portion, Korach and all the people he knows get swallowed up by the earth. In honor of reading this portion, I'm contributing ten percent of my bat mitzvah money to the Earthquake Preparedness Fund of Northern California. Another ten percent is going to Mount Sinai's cardiac ward for making it possible for my Daddy to be here today, and I'd like everyone to say Shehecheyanu in honor of that..."

Honey, I love you. But you gotta start eating some green and leafies.

Chametz, Schmutz and Clutter

What did YOU end Pesach with? My parents and I ended it at Giorgio's on Clement Street, which features excellent eggplant parmesan, and also garlic bread, and non-garlic bread, and spaghetti, and drinks with corn syrup in them.

I was on vacation this week. (Thanks be to God. I was getting to a very bad place. Also, this has mostly freed me from packing Pesadich work lunches.)

Anyway, I've taken the opportunity to do some drastic spring cleaning and decluttering, because the house was starting to look scary. As a result, I have been thinking a lot about the categories of chametz, schmutz and clutter.

When I tried to explain the whole Pesach process to gentile college friends, one of the things they often got hung up on was the idea that chametz is somehow seen as sinful, or evil. Possibly in the context of Christian thought this makes some sense--Pesach comes in close proximity to Lent, when Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays, and many 'give up' things, often food items, for the forty days. The things you abstain from are luxury products, 'extras' that are given up in order to enter into the sorrow of Lent. Structurally, though, Lent is more like the three weeks, not particularly like Pesach at all. Chametz is not a 'luxury' per se, and you go on eating carbohydrates, just in a modified form. I have eaten some darn luscious Pesach cakes. You don't give up chametz to renounce something. You GET RID of chametz.

Which brings me to decluttering. Decluttering is the process of getting rid of those things in your life and your home which you no longer need or use or want. Flylady, one of the gurus of getting your home organized, is a big proponent of decluttering, on the principal that it is not possible to effectively organize clutter. In her opinion, clutter sucks the life out of you. This, I believe.

Getting rid of clutter takes energy and some cunning. I believe I've already written on this blog about one of the more amazing moments of my decluttering career--I was on my way downstairs with my arms full of my machatenim's abandoned collection of Christmas cookie tins, prepared to take them to Goodwill, when the mythological figure I like to call the 'yetzer of clutter' perched on my shoulder and suggested I could clean the tins up, paint them in Purim themes, and use them for shalach manos. In eight months. I almost gave in. Then I got a grip and hustled the tins out the door.

Clutters in my life also include my inability to get rid of pieces of paper (how many back phone bills does one human being need? On the other hand, what if suddenly I had to prove I'd paid my phone bill in November 2001? What if the FBI needed to know this?), clothing (I might lose fifty pounds and become a blond, and then this would both fit, and look good on me. Besides, I paid money for it), and anything anyone ever bought for me (how would it look if I got rid of a paperback book a friend I no longer speak to much gave me for my twenty-fourth birthday?) And so on. I have problems with the clutter demons.

Aside from insane fears about the FBI suddenly needing access to my personal paper copies of old electric bills, the yetzer of clutter preys on various, sometimes contradictory fears and fantasies I have about the world. She knows about my Martha Stewart fantasies, and this enables her to encourage me to keep incredible junk on the grounds that I might make wonderful things out of it. On the flip side, she knows I can be coaxed to keep almost any damn thing with dark inherited memories of worse times...in wartime I might not be able to get more Bugs Bunny mugs if the ones we kept were to break. Keep them against catastrophe. And she knows I can be guilted about my first-world, middle-class luxury. Children are dying in Africa, and you want to throw out a box of treyf stuffing mix left behind by your machatenim, which is at least a decade old and might actually have turned into a solid mass? Wasteful.

OK, I sound like a nutjob. I'm trying to be honest about the processes going on in the deep crevices of my psyche.

So what does any of this have to do with chametz? Symbolically, I think there's a connection. Pesach is the commemoration of making a decisive choice about essentials, of trading home, and anything you can't drag with you for life and freedom and faith that you can get where you're going. In both Jewish and American history this is a resonant and recurring theme. Things get brought--feather blankets, books, seeds (tumbleweeds are not indigenous to North America, they travelled from Russia on immigrant's clothing and took root on the Great Plains). Things get left behind--Boston rockers abandoned on the road west, some old-country customs, toys too heavy to pack. Decluttering, and freeing from chametz, reflects this process of giving up, of choosing, of moving on. You'll acquire more chametz, more things, being utterly free of them is not the point. The point is to be able to know what you need.

Another thing I keep in mind when decluttering is Flylady's repeated point that by donating things you no longer want or need, you are 'blessing another family' with them. Those damn Christmas tins might have actually been of use to someone. A skinny blond may be looking for a size twelve pale green sweater, and been pleased to find one. The breadmaker I never used and was never GOING to use was probably a nice find for someone out there who wanted one--and I was no longer hosting it and its accompanying guilt in my bedroom closet. If I don't want it, it should go to someone who wants it. If no one could want it, get rid of the thing already!

I don't think it is an accident that in both of my own ethnic cultures, at least, one of the characteristics most strongly associated with holy women is giving away, moving things out of their home. What do saintly rebbetzins do? They feed and shoe Eliyahu, and presumably some actual wandering beggars as well. Brigid, the fire/spring/craft goddess-turned-Irish supersaint, (also said to have been the midwife at the birth of Christ, because things like the time-space continuum do not bother Irish supersaint girls) became a Christian and expressed this, not by going off to a distant rock or cave like Columba or Kevin, but by giving the contents of her stepfather's home to every passing traveller in need. (The stepfather, a Druid, converted, apparently in part because he felt that if his house was going to be given as tzedake, piece by piece, he should at least get some spiritual benefit out of it.) Rather than huddling in my own home, hoarding stuff I don't need or want, I need to turn outward, and send the extra out the door to where it will be useful.

Anyway. That's where I am as the holiday ends. Today I declutter the computer room. Anyone want an elderly desk lamp?

OK, OK, I'm COMING, but I still think this Moshe guy should ask for directions

The  first night of Pesach was lovely. I went over after work to my mother’s, and we lit for yontiff and had dinner. She made a wonderful turkey recipe that involves apricots and onions and oranges (apples too?). Very good. We had gefilte fish and soup with kneidlach, and potato kugel and asparagus. (My mother has a custom not to eat asparagus before the seder. We always do asparagus at the seder.)
 
I was sent home with a package of macaroons and an avocado. BTW, my mother commented on how hard it must have been for all those generations who made Pesach without avocados. How did they manage? I had the avocado for lunch yesterday. Avocados are excellent.
 
So far so good, except that everyone at school has promptly started presenting me with food I can’t eat. One kid decided to give me a bunch of chocolate rabbits. Another offers me her Hot Cheetos. And the teacher downstairs suddenly sends a couple of kids up with CUPCAKES. Five of ‘em on a plate. Oh well.
 
Second night I was off to Netivot Shalom, which was very nice. Got to be part of a discussion group about the four sons, which I will post about later in the weekend, since I came up with something that rather pleased me, and would like to present it in this forum. The people at my table were very nice. I ate a lot of eggplant salad.

Question: are green beans kitniyot? There were green beans in my soup at Netivot Shalom. I have no real objection to green beans, but it seems to me that they might be kitniyot, and also, vegetables other than carrots in matzo ball soup seem sort of odd. (A quick Google of the matter seems to indicate that green beans are 'borderline', a controversial vegetable. This, I guess, is the kitchen garden equivalent of Alice Walker's revolutionary petunias.)
 
OK, here’s the question of the season: why is this so gruesome for women? I mean seriously, why does a holiday celebrating freedom amount to a sentence with hard time for most women?
 
(Please note: I am aware that many men also clean for Pesach, both independently, and as a full contributing partner in joint efforts with their spouses, both female and male. You have to admit, however, that this is statistically and emotionally a woman’s job, and a woman’s issue. If you are male and have similar problems, please feel free to feel included in the universal feminine.)

I suppose that most major holidays pose a stress for women. The fall chagim come with obligations to produce major holiday dinners. Heck, for some people, every Shabbos comes with an obligation to produce a major dinner. Thanksgiving and Christmas are so stressful that whole issues of women's magazines are devoted to how to survive these holidays with your sanity intact. We're talking about a lot of cooking, a lot of cleaning, and often family you don't see so often coming around, plus a demented desire for the holiday to be PERFECT.

But Pesach has demands that no other holiday imposes. Stresses no other holiday approaches. What are we doing here? And why?

Anyway, since I'm skipping out on most of that, I am doing fine so far. I'm not even sick of matzah yet, although my father apparently is. I have eaten a lot of artichokes, with butter, only time of year I eat them with butter. (If mayonnaise isn't Best Foods, it ain't worth it.) I made brisket, and California Lite tzimmes. And I'm cleaning. (I realize this was supposed to be done before the holiday. I'm slow.)

I am, however, ready for this to be over, mostly because I want to do some cooking, and all the recipes that sound good go over rice.

Which Way Out of Egypt?

No matter what I do, no matter what I eat, no matter how hard I avoid it, it's going to be Pesach in a matter of days. The stupid moon just keeps getting fuller. What's with that?

I once wrote a poem about the last days of Elul. Every year, I realize once again that I spend the days before Rosh Hashanah, not in serene, thoughtful self-examination, but in acting out, avoiding, and transgressing, and I've come to believe (maybe self-servingly), that this is part of an important process. Testing the limits before the chagim begin, and I find myself swept up in an affirmation of those limits, and of what (or Who) is not limited.

I'm somewhere similar right now. While before Rosh Hashanah I find myself having to assess where I am in relation to the world, I am having to sit back now and assess where I am in relation to Jews. Uh, could I have the world problem back please? (Sort of kidding. Anyway, we'll be back there in six months.)

After my last Pesach post, I had a long talk with my mom. She thinks that I idealize my family's observance during my childhood too much, and put too much pressure on myself to reach an imaginary ideal. (I think that's what she said.) This is probably true. I think that the core problem I have, Jewishly speaking, is that I still (at thirty-two), have not quite figured out how to be a Jewish grown-up. And this clearly bugs me. (I'm sitting here crying on my keyboard. Not entirely sure why. Need to go stir spaghetti sauce.)

OK. Sauce stirred. I've been hacking away at this post for a bit, trying to make sense of what I'm really thinking. I keep starting to type the entire history of me and stuff Jewish--childhood, college stuff, attempt at rabbinic school, attempt at working in Jewish community, developing intense allergic sensitivity to anti-Semitism after 9/11, all of it, but I actually don't think any of that is all that useful right now. It's stuff I've reviewed with myself, and my friends and my therapist a lot, but it's not what I'm actually thinking about now.

Now THAT was a useful paragraph to write. My whole personal history with the Jewish community has started to feel like Marley's manacles--to be dragged around clanking until Judgement Day. Enough of that. I doubt there's much left in there for me to mine. If there was ever a season for dropping the manacles and walking on without them, this is it. Where am I now, and what do I want?

Mostly where I am right now is obsessed with work. This is not a new problem. Since the demise of the rabbi plan (nearly ten years now...scary), I've been working feverishly to work out some way to find a job I like and am tolerably good at that pays the bills and fits into some sort of life I'm comfortable with. I'm closer now than I've ever been, in a lot of ways, but I'm not there, and in some ways I'm REALLY not there. My present job is awful. It's now time-limited--mid-June and we're done--but that means I have to find a job before the end of the summer. I'm working on that--I've been to two interviews, although neither panned out--and I have another on Tuesday. The other problem is that this current job is eating my head. It's really hard to be spending so much time and energy on something that so completely consumes me, and is so totally unrewarding. I leave the house at 6:30, and get home at 6:30, and really, there is not much outside of that. And I am afraid that I won't find another teaching job. The Paxil is wonderful, in that the anxiety is basically gone, but that does not make this pleasant, only tolerable. Granted, this is HUGE step forward, and will probably make all the difference, but still...eh. Not the best of times.

So I'm not doing much except for wrestling with work, finding new work, getting through the old work. Most of my time outside of work is spent refueling to go back, or feeling guilty I'm not doing more work/job hunt related things. As a result, I am not doing a lot of other things that might result in more happiness, spiritual growth, or peace on earth.

To be expected, you might say, at a time like this, but it feels like it's been a time like this FOREVER. I don't go to shul. I don't volunteer. I don't get out. I don't even clean much, although I did get a jump on Pesach this morning by sorting through huge piles of old bills and odd mail, filing and tossing. (Yes, I realize old bills are not chametz. But in a spiritual sense, aren't they? I think it says that somewhere in the Gemara. If it doesn't, it's only because Bruriah and Rachel and Imma Shalom were too busy scrubbing and putting down aluminum foil on the counters to make an official statement about it.)

As you may have noticed, and as this blog title hints, I think, I have a bundle of crossed wires in my head about home, family, community and yiddishkeit. (I think I have just identified the four most crucial concepts/stereotypes in my whole psychic makeup. I should make a plaque or something.) I do idealize the way I was raised, and the haphazardness of my current Jewish/community/activist life does bother me. And my kitchen is a leavened mess, and I may not make it to a seder this year. (My mother and I are planning to eat chicken together on the first night and talk about leaving Mitzrayim. Second night I'm thinking possibly Chabad.)

But I think this is my year for leaving Mitzrayim in my own particular way--through decluttering, and examining with a critical eye what I really want to, and can, bring with me on the cosmic communal road trip. Clearing out my spaces so I'm no longer trapped in a house that's narrowing in on me--OK, I'm a literalist about Mitzrayim here--and freeing my head from preconceived ideas about what I would find out in the desert if I were a better person, (or my mother, grandmother, Emma Goldman, the matriarchs, some woman living in Mea Shearim, or Blu Greenberg) so I can actually go out there and see what I was meant to find.

Gotta go eat some more chametz and throw out old envelopes. See ya baMidbar.

I'm a WOW

That does not stand for Woman of the Wall. (Although I support their efforts, and have some of their swag.)

It stands for Widow of Warcraft. That's World of Warcraft. For those of you who are blissfully ignorant of such, World of Warcraft is a mostly-medieval-fantasy online roleplaying game. Sort of like Dungeons and Dragons, but played online. The Balabusta bought it for the fella for Christmas so he could stop going over to our friends down the street and then vanishing for hours to play on their account. Now he spends basically all hours not spent working or sleeping happily moving his various characters around, dressing them, sending them on quests, and killing things with them.

The hilarious part, from the Balabusta's perspective, is both the problem of trying to communicate with a man whose brain is basically running through the streets of Stormwind, and not entirely absorbing her explanations about dinner, after work meetings, or the house being on fire. Also the weird comments over his headset to the friends he plays with. Oh yeah. The weird comments.

"No one wants to see gnome nipple." That was earlier today. (As I was typing this, he added, unaware that I was posting, "That's not something I want to see. Gnome love."

"One gold, three silver, two mithril bars. I said, one gold, three silver, two mithril bars..." Repeat for about five minutes. I think something was wrong with the headset.

"I just jumped off the elevator. Oh yeah. I'm gonna die."

"Come on, loot this guy. See if he has the whatever it is."

"When the goblin respawns, he drops a letter."

Helpfully, he often plays with the boyfriend of a friend of mine, and we sometimes can have a sort of phone conversation passing messages between our respective men. We've set up dinner dates like this.

"Go kill that guy over there and then join us. Balabusta says Italian is fine."

"It might take three shots to kill it. Do you want to meet us here or at the Plaza?"

"OK, eight o'clock. Yep. Yeah, you hit level ten. You're going to have to go back to Stormwind anyway."

"But there's a rabbit in the road."

Youth Culture For Our Times

Not only do my students listen to Matisyahu--oh, and per Time Magazine, Michelle Wie does too...but also...

1. They covet grills, those gaudy precious-metal tooth decorations worn by rappers with more money than sense, and subsequently by fans with, still apparently, more money than sense. Because they're in middle school, they can't actually afford solid-gold bridges with their names picked out in diamonds, so they improvise.

Improvise means that they take the silver foil wrapping from sticks of gum, and mold these over the upper or lower row of their teeth, smoothing them out so that each tooth shows through the foil. When I catch them at this, they have to throw the foil away. "But it's my grill," they plead.

Silvery grins all over the classroom. And chewing gum all the while.

2. They love Hot Cheetos, and will risk detention in order to eat these in class. They will sometimes eat Hot Cheetos in class with cheese dip. I have found cheese dip in the damndest places.

3. They have interesting ideas of revenge. A coworker has a student, quite a large young man for the seventh grade, who was being picked on by a measly little sixth-grader. Hassled beyond endurance, unwilling to seek adult help, and apparently not willing to just punch a child half his size, this boy seized his tormentor's backpack, threw it in a urinal, and urinated on it.

4. They have interesting ideas of entertainment. The same coworker had a student who was suspended while a sub had care of the class, for refusing to surrender a piece of paper handed to him. The piece of paper read 'The penis game. Pass it on.'

For those of you unfamiliar with the Penis Game, it is a form of group entertainment in which the kids in a class all chant the word 'penis' quietly, but with increasing volume, until they are caught or otherwise in trouble.

5. They want to smell good. Unfortunately, to them, this means spraying Axe, or Jovan's Sex Appeal (depending on gender), ALL OVER THEIR CLOTHES, in large quantities, IN CLASS. I have kids with allergies. The reek produced from this is amazing--one large part rubbing alcohol to one large part cheap cologne. I have had boys caught with the Axe tell me 'that's what a real man smells like'. I have had to tell them that no, whatever a real man smells like, that is not it. "How do you know?" one boy asked me.

I gotta get out of this place.

King Without a Crown

I actually first heard of Matisyahu through the Jewish blogs, (I'd already found the Hip-Hop Hoodios and Solomon and Socalled on my own.) I now own two of his CDs, and have to admit, I like them a great deal. I'm a nineties kid, I like this sort of music, and giving it Jewish content makes it even more appealing. There are some Matisyahu issues for me, the biggest being that I am no more a Chasid than he is a Jamaican, but I do like the music.

(I also staunchly hold that hip-hop, once described beautifully as 'the arts, urbanized, is an inherently Jewish forum. But nevermind...)

One of the gripes I hear against Reb M. is that people think it's a rip-off of black music (yes, like basically everything in American music that's not a rip-off of Irish music...), that he's cashing in because a Chasid is less threatening than a black artist (doubt it), or that the whole image of Matisyahu is an appealing gimmick because he looks so 'out' that he's therefore hiply 'in'. (Maybe. He doesn't look very exotic to me, so I can't tell.)

So I'm just adding this comment--listening to Matisyahu is giving me unexpected cool points with my students. I have the CD in my room, and several kids (none Jewish, probably none able to explain what a Jew is) have asked about it.

"You know about Matisyahu?"

"You listen to hip-hop?"

'You like Matisyahu?"

"I really like 'King Without a Crown'."

They also listen to 50 Cent and Ying-Yang Twins, but they love Matisyahu. Go figure.

The E-Mail

As I'm sitting peacefully at my computer grading papers this afternoon, comes a call from the vice principal of the school I will only be working at for a few more months.

It seems that he has received an e-mail. It's from me, or rather from my e-mail account. It contains some typographical errors. And it reads:

Dear Mr. (Vice Principal)

(New kid's name here) cant be in my p.m. core.can he be in my a.m core?

thanks

The new kid showed up Monday, and after some testing I decided he should go in my afternoon group.

Mr. VP knows I do not tend to drop apostrophes. He also knows that at 3:21 P.M. yesterday, the time the message was sent, I was sitting in the staff meeting, with my eyes glazing over.

There was a little girl, however, who asked if she could do some typing on my computer after class.

Her cute little learning-English tuchis is grass.

I wish I knew why she wants the new kid to be in her class. I can only assume she thinks he is cute.

Decluttering. Some more.

It seems pretty clear that the Balabusta and the fella are going to move out of their current domicile come the lease is up.

There are a few problems with our El Cerrito cottage which have come up since the summer. Most of them have to do with water. The base of the sliding shower doors fills up, and spills over onto the floor, necessitating mopping, and, I suspect, warping the floor covering. The dishwasher misses when it spits into the sink, and floods the counters. And sometimes the toilet bubbles and gurgles while we're washing clothes. No, I'm not sure either. It just does.

And the layout is a little weird. It's hard to have friends over. (Maybe we should reconsider a couch when we move again.)

Also, the landlord takes the most ungodly amount of time to cash checks. Sometimes as much as six weeks. That's just plain annoying.

But the key issue right now is not the house's fault, the key issue right now is that the place is a mess.

Neither the Balabusta nor the fella are natural housekeepers. We put this off on laziness, and busyness, and both of these have something to do with it, but the fact of the matter is just that neither of us really has a clear grasp on how to keep a household tidy. We put things down, and they stay there until we need them again, or sometimes until we FIND them again.

It's annoying. Because, you know, being a Balabusta is one of my major life goals.

Right now I am trying again. I'm working on the living room. I have already found my long-sleeved orange T-shirt. I'm not going to tell you where it was. But I have it again, and will wear it to work tomorrow to celebrate it's reappearance.

The Missionaries Came Back

Today, while I was out and about spending time with my family and my therapist, the fella was home alone at about ten A.M. when two people came by and knocked on the door to talk to him about religion. (Which religion is not totally clear, but we think it was probably some form of Christianity.)

The fella told them that this was a Jewish household, and they went away.

For some reason (perhaps only that my nonpracticing culturally Protestant sweetie said it), this strikes me as hilarious.

Take This Job And Shove It

Canibus Lyrics said it best:

You could take a new job offer for more chips
Stick it out a little longer or forfeit
But my advice to anybody that wants to quit
It'll feel much better if you say it like this:

Take this job and shove it
I ain't workin here no more
Take this job and shove it
I ain't workin here no more
Take this job and shove it
I ain't workin here no more
Take this job, take this job, take this job and shove it

The Balabusta sent in a resignation letter, effective the end of the year. Subsequent to this, her principal gave her the first genuine smile she's seen since the job interview.

Got an interview on Tuesday, for a place that theoretically should have a decent discipline plan in place. (Military school.)

Wish me luck.

Pesach is Coming. Send Help.

In a month and ten days, more or less, it's going to be Pesach. As God is my witness, I don't have the slightest idea what I should do.

At least she's panicking fairly early, you say. Great, I'm panicking early. I am, however, sort of panicking. We have a few different problems here. Let me address them in order:

1. The seder.

Ideally, I (or at least the Woman I Would Like To Be) would like to make the seder. I would lay a beautiful table full of color, zest, and glorious food. I would make my own haggadot (my parents did it, why not me?). I would invite all my friends and family. I would lead an engaging, traditional, egalitarian, fun, solemn seder, during which we would remember Jews in Iran, the people of Darfur, troops in Iraq, people with AIDS and the homeless and hungry of the world. The food would be a delicious blend of traditional Ashkenazi favorites, better-tasting but still kitniyot-free Sephardi recipes, and a little California cuisine for the healthy touch. There would be so much food that the table would have to be held up by an act of Congress. We would sing. The matzo balls would circle the table lazily, like something out of Harry Potter, diving into soup whenever anyone seemed low on matzo ball.

Unfortunately, my dining room table seats four. My house is tiny. I don't really have a lot of Jewish friends who can be coaxed over, and NO, I don't feel like doing a demo seder which will mostly be non-Jewish friends humoring me. My fella has never been to a seder, and has what I consider to be a morbid fear of unfamiliar religious observances. (Basically, all religious observances, in other words.) Most of my relatives live in Southern California, or back East, and we are not in close contact with them.

The smart thing to do might be to go back to Netivot Shalom and get some Jewish friends, but you know, probably not in the next five weeks.

The last several years, my parents and I have gone to assorted community seders, and we may do that again this year, but honestly, I am getting sort of sick of them, and we have, from time to time, ended up at tables where the conversation has been intensely unpleasant.

I have wonderful memories of going to my great-uncle's for the seder, and of seders my parents gave, or their friends did. I don't seem to have an adult replacement for myself quite worked out yet.

2. My kitchen

If anyone has easy tips for kashering for Pesach when you've got no Pesach dishes, a tiny kitchen, no time, no energy, and the microwave needs to be set aside for the fella so he can eat something chametzdik and not die over the holiday, let me know.

Normally, I do a lot of tinfoil and paper plates. Last couple of years I've basically eaten Pesach food off chametz dishes, and no one died, but it's not very spiritually satisfying.

My ultimate fantasy is someday to have a house with two kitchens. Not milchig and fleischig, but Me and Him. Honestly. A full kitchen with a granite island, and tons of shelf space, and four sets of dishes, plus nice ones for Shabbos, and then a comfortable kitchenette with a stove and microwave and a fridge, and all the happy nibbles and bacon and whatever that the fella could want. He wants ham and eggs, I can make him some right there. He wants a bacon cheeseburger in the middle of the night, he can knock himself out. When I switch dishes for Pesach, it won't affect him.

Thing is, I grew up in a home where we didn't keep kosher, but my mom was very thorough about Pesach. We changed dishes. We boiled and scrubbed. That feels like the norm to me. But I'm not there. I wish I was there.

3. Guilt

See above. See also, Story of My Life, What Else is New, and I'm Jewish, What Did You Expect.

I AM going to bake hamentaschen this year. That's all I can commit to right now.

Multicultural Teacher Moment of the Month

One of my colleagues keeps hearing music in his classroom. Just that slight, scratchy, edge that lets you know some kid in the room has earphones on.

He searches high and low. He checks everyone out. He hunts. The kids giggle.

Finally, he realizes what's going on. One of the Afghan girls has on earphones under her hijab.

We have a bunch of Afghan kids at the school. About half of the families are observant enough that the girls cover their hair. The style of choice is a cotton-knit pull-over hood thing that pulls over your head and shoulders, and your face pokes out the front...I think in Iran this is called a maghnaeh, or something like that. The little girls buy them in a variety of colors, the grown-up women I've met seem to prefer black.

The student in question had slipped in her earbuds, run the cord down under the scarf and her sweater, to the IPod in her jeans pocket. No sweat, and when she was done listening to the lecture, she turned up her tunes and began to groove out.

Middle schoolers are remarkably resourceful. We won't let kids wear hoods up in class for exactly this reason, but of course, the headscarves need to be allowed. I cracked up. Must be boring to teach in a monocultural town.

Oh, this is ridiculous

This morning, I am sitting in the ladies' room at work, peacefully minding my own business, when the door begins to unlock. "Just a minute," I yell.

I stagger out. One of my coworkers, who has been under a LOT of stress due to general administration hostility, is standing there crying.

There is a brief shuffle at the door. I attempt to put a hand on her shoulder and say something helpful, but she brushes past me, marches into the ladies' room, locks the door, and sobs that she's not coming out.

She repeats it a couple of times, just in case.

I am in a bind. A colleague is in the ladies' room, crying. She says she's not coming out. What to do? At a more normal school I might have gone to the principal for help, but in this case that would be sort of...counterproductive. "Excuse me, Mr. Javert? Mr. Valjean is in the bathroom, crying..." Not that I want to compare our principal to Inspector Javert. I have a soft spot for Javert.

So I got one of her colleagues from the horrible reading program that sparked the whole damn mess. He's a friend of hers, I think. He apparently got another (female) teacher on the hall to go in, and talk to her. We got through the rest of the day.

Then I went to the doctor, was prescribed Paxil, told to lose weight (but gently and in passing, because it's Kaiser), and reminded that my eggs will start to drop off in three years, and I should remember to reproduce soon.

Paxil. This should be interesting. I now have Paxil, Xanax, and beta-blockers, but must knock off alcohol. Too confusing!

A boyfriend of valor

Who can find, for his price is above rubies...

He observeth that the girlfriend is twitching and writhing from pain in her side, and encourageth her to call the advice nurse,

While she speaketh on the phone, yea, he riseth from his bed, and getteth on his clothes without discussion, and goeth to the computer to look up the directions to the emergency room in Richmond,

While she apologizeth tearfully for letting this happen on the erev of his thirtieth birthday, yea, he sayeth unto her, "Get in the van, sweetie, and if you say you're sorry again, I am going to turn around and drive you back home and let you suffer."

He parketh skillfully, and leadeth her to the ER check-in, and he watcheth MASH and Roseanne reruns without complaint until two in the morning.

He cheereth her up, and holdeth her hand whilst the urinalysis draggeth slow in the watches of the night, yea, he rejoiceth with her when the antibiotics are brought, and his paper cup is overflowing in ice water with, for some reason, a straw in it.

Plaid and denim are his clothing, and he shall get a mint chocolate cake in time to come...

(Note, it is just a UTI, and now that I have Cipro, (and three huge Tylenol in the ER), I am feeling quite a bit better. Apologies to the King James Bible translation team.)

I-I-Ikea!

Today the Balabusta and the fella went to Ikea.

I like the movie _Fight Club_ very much, but I find it largely ridiculous, and one of the things I find ridiculous about it is the contempt expressed for Ikea by the less civilized alter ego. My God, what's the problem with Ikea? The fella tries to explain. Ikea represents the mass-marketed world. OK, but these guys, when they try to get back to essentials don't start to craft old-world furniture with antique tools. They beat the hell out of each other bare-knuckled. So who cares where their furniture is from?

Anyway. I like Ikea. I like the many things that you can buy there. I like the ridiculously reasonable prices these things are offered at. I like the beautiful little mini-apartments they put in the showroom, where you see how you can have a fabulous and fashionable home in 200 square feet of livable space. I like the weird and often unpronounceable names given to each model item. I enjoy buying weird lingonberry-flavored things in the little food store.

And the Balabusta and the fella had a gift card from the Balabusta's parents, so off we went.

We wanted three things: a throw rug for the living room, curtains for the computer room, and a desk chair for the fella, whose chair, after meeting incredible abuse, died in transit between homes. The fella has been sitting in a kitchen chair at his computer desk ever since. This is not a good idea, particularly since on a day off, he can rack up to ten hours of sitting time in front of the computer.

We found, almost immediately, the "Bonney", a perfectly nice desk chair. It comes in blue and black, also red, but the fella was not going to pick red. He tried out a couple other chairs, while the Balabusta sat in the "Jules" and scooted herself around using her feet, but the "Bonney" it was. We proceded.

We then found an area rug. Well, not before a brief showdown, when the Balabusta mentioned in passing that the rug we had admired when we moved in the summer was $500.00. The fella declared that he would never pay that much for a rug. This led to a brief bout of snarling, when the Balabusta pointed out that

a. The fella had picked out the $500.00 rug last time
b. had suggested they save up for it and
c. had discouraged the buying of a temporary rug, since they should put the money toward the rug they wanted

No one was hurt in the resulting fracas, although a Sturvikk cushion was thrown. We found an area rug. It is blue and mustardy-gold, and quasi-Persian in design. The fella found it, then was offended when the Balabusta said she didn't like the border, and refused to shop anymore. The Balabusta hunted the area, and came back to the fella's pick. It is now in the living room, on the floor. Name of "Brattsby". It is made of 100% polypropelene. The fella has been warned that in the event of fire he is NOT to stand on or near the living room area rug. We're trying to get it to lie flat, using technology, namely several heavy textbooks placed on the corners. So far, it appears to be adapting to its new environment.

Meanwhile, the fella was looking for curtains. This is a kind of a tricky item, since the Balabusta feels that curtains are to cover windows (like the wall of glass leading out to the deck from the computer room), and to lend some color and grace to a room. The fella feels that curtains are meant to block out as much light as possible from entering a room. By the time the Balabusta caught up to him, toting the Brattsby, he had found the curtains of his dreams. Dark, indigo blue, plain and heavy.

OK, fair enough, except that they're out of them. I vaguely remember they were also out of them in the summer. These are some popular curtains. We considered indigo LINEN (more expensive, and I imagine, prone to wrinkle, but nice), but eventually find some heavy cotton ones in a shade of much-washed denim.

So we got out of there, and decided to spend the remainer of our gift card money on dainties from the food shop. Gravlax! Cloudberry jam! Weird torte stuff! Swedish meatballs! Get to counter! Learn that they won't accept gift card! Stand for five minutes while we wait for supervisor! Learn that supervisor is only coming to reset cash register! Go through line again! Pay for gravlax!

And so we came home. A good day's shop, and a lovely Christmas present from the Balabusta's family.

I Don't Like Butter Cookies

Just never have cared for them that much. So I'm unlikely to be doing as Michelle Malkin suggests, and buying lots of Danish products to balance out the fact that the Saudis are now boycotting Danish goods due to the Great Cartoon Schism.

Look, you know there's some Saudi woman out there who loves her butter cookies, and will get them through the blockade somehow, so can we consider that she's eating mine?

I briefly considered that the fact I'm planning to go to Ikea tomorrow to buy a throw rug might count toward supporting Danish industries, but then I remembered that they're Swedish. Do they maybe have a chair factory in Denmark?

What do they MAKE in Denmark, anyway? Besides butter cookies and blond furniture that's probably made in Sweden anyway. Lutefisk? Electronics?

Never mind. This cartoon thing...

I finally saw the cartoons in question just now. Michelle Malkin posted them all to her site. Not real impressive. Two are just classic cartoony sketches of a man who looks pretty much as Mohammed looks in all the medieval Persian drawings I've ever seen. (And at least one modern Persian cartoon I've seen--which has so far not incited anyone to do anything.)

A couple I would indeed call offensive. The infamous bomb-turban is one is trashy. The 'stop the suicide bombings, we're out of virgins' one is an old joke.

Several are self-referential--the one where the artist draws himself furtively drawing a man in a khaffiyeh is interesting, as is the one of the artist in a turban labelled 'PR stunt', holding up his sketch.

Now that I am a big qualified expert, allow me to pontificate:

1. I STILL do not understand the exact reason this silly and unpronounceable paper decided to do this damnfool thing. Westerners have been portraying Mohammed for a long time. (So have Easterners.) This strongly smacks of making a big fuss out of breaking a taboo that never actually inconvenienced you in the first place--something I became familiar with in college, but still think is stupid.

2. Supporting freedom of speech does not, thank heavens, actually involve having to support the specific speech itself, or tell the people whose rights you defend that you think they're clever.

3. None of these pictures was worth anyone dying over.

4. The pictures didn't start the fire, any more than Sharon strolling up the Temple Mount started the intifada. This was a publicizable flash point for something already in progress.

5. The Italian government dude who made a t-shirt out of the cartoons didn't start the fire either, but still deserves to have his tuchis kicked for being annoying and stupid. I would do it myself, but suggest a more neutral observer--perhaps a Shintoist--should do it instead.

6. Somehow, I'm not really in a mood to exalt Denmark for this particular blow for free speech. It's not that I strongly disapprove, I just don't feel this was such a clever thing to have done that I should go out of my way to put a Danish flag on my blog and eat lots of butter cookies. As mentioned above, not crazy about butter cookies. Why don't Danes make caramels with real butter and sea salt? Why do they leave that to the French? They have butter and sea salt too.

7. The Balabusta hereby condemns all the usual suspects for inciting violence, hypocrisy involving cartoons about Jews, blah, blah, blah. Folks, we knew these folks did not like us, so what's the point?

As you may be able to tell, I am in a state of general annoyance with almost everyone involved with this. I am not impressed.

All this has made me nostalgic for a favorite cartoon, which I should try to find some time. In it, Moshe makes his way down Sinai, clutching tablets. He addresses the people. (No speech bubbles yet.) One of the people raises a hand and apparently asks a question. (No speech bubbles yet.)

"Good question," says Moshe. "I'll ask."

He turns around, and takes the tablets back uphill with him. The people wait. He returns, slightly singed, hair standing on end. He addresses the people.

"Yes. You have to obey all of them, all the time. This concludes the &&*#&*#&*# question and answer session."

I'm on Drugs

Around Sunday I started to freak out completely with work-related stress. Mr. Balabusta Sr., who is a big believe in better living through chemistry, marched me to Kaiser and had me spill the whole wretched story to a nice doctor who gave me some anxiety meds and strongly recommended I talk to my general practitioner.

Who I have never actually met. Name of Fong? Something like that. Anyway.

I now have generic Xanax, and some beta-blockers. I have been taking them in small doses. I have really mixed feelings about this, but I have to admit the world has improved about a hundred and ten percent. I am calmer, and able to think of sensible solutions. I do not cry when I get to school. I do not have a panic attack when my principal walks by. I stay calm, and fairly stable. This allows me to go home and--well--act like a human being.

The fella is somewhat baffled. After months of weeping wailing snarling girlfriend, he has a happy, stable, rather playful woman wandering around the house.

I'm moderately disturbed by how unlike myself I feel, and by how nice that is. Appt. with therapist on Shabbos, will discuss.

Anyway. This isn't a permanent solution, but for the time being, it's allowed me to get through the week, which I would have bet against on Sunday.

Perfect Storm

Yesterday was more than a little surreal. I left the house at 6:25 AM, and returned 15 hours later, practically gibbering. In between--oh yeah--in between.

It was a 'minimum day', where we have no lunch and short classes, and the kids get out at 12:25. I taught. Then there was the language arts department meeting.

We're having some bad problems at our school site right now. Chief among them is that we have been ordered to teach 'strategic' cores next year. It was expected that we would vote on one of three methods of doing this.

It turned into a two-hour meeting. Two people cried. One of them was male. It was not fun.

After the meeting, I zipped off to my next meeting, the ELD meeting for the district. I like most of the people I see there. There is this one woman, though, who has my equivalent job at another middle school across town, who bugs me in certain ways.

She's extremely confident, and she lets people know, frequently, in no uncertain terms, just how good she is. She's one of those people who mistakes MY self-depreciation or non-confrontationality for timidity and general incompetance. She likes to help me, by telling me just what to do. She also tends to talk a lot of losh about people in the district. She's not intolerable, but she's someone I find it kind of hard to cope with.

Yesterday, I mentioned at the meeting that we have a new group of language arts classes, which are essentially sheltered or strategic classes, (long story), and that it's been stressful for the teachers working on it to create the curriculum and materials as fast as needed. I THINK that's all I said.

She comes up with a bright idea. We should use the most advanced level of the crummy program I teach in ELD as the strategic core text.

This is not a good idea, and it will not be taken kindly by the people who are teaching this class, but I vaguely murmur that I will mention it, that's an interesting idea, and I'll see if there's any interest.

This gal grabs my hand and says, assertively, "NO, Balabusta, you have to TELL them what they need to do!" I say, with a touch more acid, that I will ASK if they are interested.

So, we finish that meeting, and then go to a parent meeting, and then I get home and collapse.

Next morning I go to the teacher who's involved in the new core class, and ask if he's interested in my books. That would be a NO. OK, I say, and go away, mission accomplished.

Next thing I know, the daft woman who suggested it has e-mailed my principal and my VP, mentioned my name, and promoted the whole stupid idea to them again.

Eeeeeech. I e-mailed back, telling her I had floated the idea, and they AIN'T INTERESTED. She, by return e-mail, hopes I didn't mind, but thought I might want some support from my 'ELD colleagues'. Translation: I am too timid and stupid to transmit the idea and make it stick. She also implies that the teacher I approached can't be well-qualified to teach English learners. I shoot back another e-mail, defending him, and mentioning a little more aggressively that this kind of a touchy moment at our school, and my name should probably not be linked to attempts to push semi-scripted curriculum on other teachers.

Note to self: stay away from this woman. Combination of self-righteousness and chutzpah is not good news.

Cinnamon Dolce

Today I left school after an intensely weird staff meeting. (Coworker to principal: "This whole year was a joke! There has been no support! No respect! No organization." Principal: "Thank you. We have two minutes left. Does anyone want to add another question for the committee?" Coworker stuffs paperwork into shoulder back and leaves meeting two minutes early.)

I went into downtown (small East Bay community, name withheld) to pick up a prescription at Kaiser, and even though I felt like hell, it was warm, and breezy, and the whole world smelled like spring. And I stopped at Starbucks and got a cinnamon dolce latte, and it was marvelous, and the buses were running for me.

Down the street, a magnolia tree has started to bloom, and the cherry and almond trees are going berserk.

I wish I wasn't so stressed, and that I could open my classroom windows and let the spring breezes sweep in--but a little sweet goes a long way right now.

Is this what burnout feels like?

It's my second year of teaching, same school I started in. Right after finishing my credential, I bopped all over the Bay Area, interviewing everywhere.

From the start, I felt--I don't know--inadequate. As though I wouldn't be good enough and wouldn't get what I wanted. My credential program didn't really seem to have taught me what I needed to know--how to create a classroom system, how to enforce rules, how to manage paperwork. I loved my credential program, but it was very academic, and not real practical. Lots of political correctness. I'm good at that. Not so much 'what do you do when the kids won't ****ing sit down'?

Some of the people in my classes seemed really confident. They loved student teaching. They felt as though everything they were doing was right. They may have been delusional, but GOD I envied them. I related a lot more, though, to the redheaded guy from Boston who showed up to class drunk a lot, and was losing his marbles in student teaching because the high school kids couldn't understand mercantilism, no matter how loud he yelled. (We voted him 'most likely to become a college professor out of sheer frustration'.)

And I wanted to be like the woman who taught religion classes at a local Catholic high school, and was always correcting papers about symbolism in the Bible, and really seemed to love the girls she taught.

My lifetime goals are pretty simple. I want to raise a child, maybe two. I want to publish a novel, maybe several. And I'd like to buy a house (given the Bay Area, this may be the least realistic, but the fella and I have talked about it). But I'd also like a job that feels okay and pays the rent.

I don't have one. It pays the rent, it just doesn't feel remotely OK.

So, this is how I got here. I interviewed EVERYWHERE, and finally, just after Labor Day, got a half-time job teaching ELD at a middle school in an undisclosed community in the East Bay. I was told that I would have sixteen kids in my class, and that they were choosing me because I had a 'sweet manner' that they thought would be soothing to the poor, scared little immigrant kids.

Two weeks later, I had twenty-nine kids in my class, and they ranged from NO English to native speakers who'd been dumped on me because their grades were low. I struggled through the year, managed to wheedle myself a full-time job, and came back for more.

Big mistake.

I'm drowning.

Keeping order is pure hell. The administration sucks. The kids aren't afraid of getting in trouble. The kids are wild, many of them with undiagnosed LD and SPED problems. I'm the ELD coordinator this year and I'm drowning. The principal is hard to handle. The VP is affectless. The counselor quit at the beginning of December, so basically, all hell is breaking loose.

I assume I will not be hired back next year. Except for the cringing, horrible, ego blow, this is probably good, because otherwise some misplaced optimism might lure me back. I don't want to get up in the morning. I'm working constantly, and getting farther behind. I hate teaching.

I hate teaching.

I think I might like it if, say, I had just one or two behavior problems in a class, if I had more photocopies, if I had kids who didn't throw their silent reading books out the window. If I had a principal who just once said "What can we do to help?" rather than "You need to be able to control your class." If I spent an hour in transit every day instead of three. If I even had individual desks and chairs for the kids, instead of tables that make it impossible to group them or make sure everyone is facing forward.

I am tired of being the Wicked Witch of the West. I am tired of fighting with the kids every day. I am tired of everything.

I cry in the shower. I cry on BART coming home. If the fella weren't job hunting at the moment, I swear I would quit tomorrow. (Or would have quit last week.)

I think high school might work better for me. If I had the kids for fifty minutes, instead of two and a half hours. If I had students who understood my jokes, and parents who could talk to me.

I think this is burnout, and it makes me crazy. I went to so much trouble for this job, for teaching. I borrowed a lot of money to do this. I changed a lot of things. I can't stand the thought of losing it. I don't know what I'm going to do next. And I'm trying to stay calm, but I don't feel calm. I feel like hell.

Somewhere in my mind there's a picture of how this was supposed to be--me in a skirt and sweater set, teaching a bunch of kids who had mostly done the homework and could all read for a certain amount of comprehension. I drive a dinky little car, and help the kids try out for the drama club. I show the kids 'Throne of Blood' after we read "Macbeth".

I still want to be her.