Argh.

Take
your baby
outside.

I get it.
You paid for the movie
too.

However,
I did not pay
to listen to the movie
with your baby
as a soundtrack.

Take
your baby
outside.

I get it.
You like to eat out
too.

However,
I can't hear my friends
even if I sit on their laps
and I did not order screaming
as an appetizer.

Take
your baby
outside.

I get it.
You need to get your shopping done
too.

However,
perhaps you could come back
when your baby's face is less fuschia
and it doesn't feel like you're buying torture
as an item in your cart.

Take
your baby
outside.

I get it.
Babies cry.

But adults punch.

My Top 10 Favorite Foods that are Bad for You (aka, Why I Have to Run)

10.  M&M's pretzels.  I thought these were weird when they first came out.  I have now committed the (awesome) sin of eating an entire Target-sized bag by myself every time I buy it.  They are addictively delicious.

9.  Kettle corn.  Mrs. Silva and I bought a large bag at the EU game and demolished it.  Heaven.

8.  Chili's chicken enchilada soup.  I nicknamed it "crack."  'Nuff said.

7.  Grilled cheese sandwiches.  These might not be too bad, but they're just so much better with 18 slices of cheese and 4 pounds of butter.  I eat one every Saturday.  I have a salad on the side, so, you know, it's healthy.

6.  French fries with ranch dressing.  I mean, really, I could scarf down moldy butt with ranch dressing and it'd be delightful.  Ranch dressing makes the magic happen.

5.  Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  Especially when it's been chilled in the refrigerator.  The key is, eat right off the cake, then you can tell yourself you never had a slice.

4.  Chips and bean dip.  I ask for extra cheese.  And I eat a whole basket of chips by myself.  It's so weird that I'm never hungry by the time my real meal arrives...

3.  Sausage and olive pizza from Round Table.  They say you can stop at 2 pieces and be fine.  "They" are idiots.  I like to eat enough pizza to make myself throw up.  *Bonus* More room for more pizza!

2.  Carmelized apples with marshmallows.  This is a side dish at Thanksgiving, when, let's be honest, it should be a dessert.  However, I eat just this, maybe some turkey.  Apples are a fruit, so, sure, it's good for you.

1.  Chubby Hubby.  Come on.  Vanilla ice cream with a hot fudge and peanut butter swirl, dotted with chocolate-covered, peanut-butter-filled pretzels.  It's, like, everything thing on this list combined with angel dust and fairies.  Sprinkled with a rainbow.  And topped with Jake Gyllenhaal.

Coming clean

Yes.
It happened.

Lucky you,
to steal a piece of
who I was
when I was seven.

The girl in daddy's pigtails
who would skip
over to your house
and leave
with sagging shoulders
and unseen scratch marks
from your claws.

That little innocence
melted
with the burning flame
of your adult lust.

But I am the wick.

And though parts of me
drip away or
float wispy tentacles toward the sky--

I remain.


Yes,
it happened.
But I win.

So, let's get
This straight.  Thursday, vacation.  Friday, back to work?
Unbelievable.
People (aka, you, Miss-Calendar-Lady) need to get your
Idiotic head out of your
Douchy rear end and realize that your
Choice is severely affecting people (aka, me, Miss-Bitter) who really want to stay
Home, in my bed, curled up with kitties, until noon.
Obviously, logic
Is missing from this equation.
Come on, now.  Everyone has to see the stupidity in this.
Even you.

More from my book

They carried love letters, threatening letters, pencils, pens.  They carried bagged lunches, money for lunches, cards for free lunches, gum even though it was technically illegal at school, pictures of girlfriends, naked girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, journals, schoolbooks, steroids, drugs, numbers of drug dealers, numbers of colleges, a slip with an appointment for the career counselor, pamphlets for parties or scholarships or STD awareness.  They carried water bottles filled with water, some with vodka.  They carried Gatorade or Powerade.  They could only carry soda if they bought it off campus, since it had been determined too unhealthy to sell.  Joey Graziano carried Wu-Tang CDs.  Louisa Alvarez carried the results of her HIV test, which she hadn’t opened yet.  Alyshia LaFlamme carried around the wedding ring she’d bought herself on-line, which her boyfriend would give her at the end of May.   

Many things they had in common.  They carried the desire to fit in, to gain friends, to be well-liked, to be somebody.  They shared the stress of success, forced onto them by parents, peers, teachers.  Often they carried each other, the wounded, the weak, the beaten and bruised, the mentally-exhausted.  They carried Spanish-English dictionaries, guitars, yearbooks.  They carried diseases, herpes and Chlamydia.  They carried athlete’s foot, crabs, mono, staph infections.  They carried the school itself—Manteca High, the cement, the brick buildings—the red façade that had been erected nearly one hundred years earlier, when the town had been small and the school equipped to hold 1/10 the amount of students it now housed.  They carried the future.  The whole atmosphere was designed to send them off into the great blue abyss, and they carried the hopes and dreams and gravitas of those who would depend on them soon enough. 

They moved like sheep.  They would move from class to class, herding themselves down the long, skinny hallways, into stale classrooms, into seats that did not fit their bodies.  They moved like zombies.  In the morning, they would sit at their desks, dead, their achy, tired attitudes seeping out through the slits of their eyes.  After school, they would eat a second lunch, go drink with their friends, play football or baseball or soccer, start six hours of homework, baby-sit their younger siblings, work a six- or eight-hour shift.  Each day seemed the same—they got up, some at 5 a.m., some at 7:15 a.m., and rolled into school.  They went through the same seven periods.  They listened to the same jokes, the same lectures.  They saw the same people.  They wore the same clothes.  They drove the same cars.  They went to the same houses after school, hung out with the same friends.  It was a cycle, and they just plodded along, unthinking, watching their lives go by and waiting for them to finally get started.  They had no sense of accomplishment or purpose.  They sat in their desks, not knowing what to listen for, not knowing what to write down.  They read words they didn’t understand, and nodded mutely, dumbly at the teacher when asked if they understood.  They took tests on material they hadn’t learned, they filled in bubbles to determine their future.  The world was a big rush and a huge letdown, and the pressures were enormous and sometimes made it hard to breathe, made it hard to live, made it hard to be a teenager and find the time to enjoy the life they were waiting to start.  The teachers handed out worksheets and packets, the school received workbooks and pamphlets, and it just seemed like so much learning was happening and should happen, and they would look at the blank white pages and then turn around and throw them in the trash—for they certainly didn’t need anything extra to carry.

From my book

ENEMIES

            Jon Anaya and Miguel Salazar were born to hate each other.  Jon was a Sureno.  Miguel was a Norteno.  Their homeboys hated each other.  Their families dogged one another in the supermarket.  There had been vicious fights in local parks and empty streets.  Each of their friends had suffered a bruise or broken bone or stab wound or death.  I’d sat Jon and Miguel together in a group activity once and they had started angrily screaming at each other, letting everyone in the classroom, especially me, know that they couldn’t stand to be near the other, that they would never, ever, under any condition at all, share space.  I’d moved them apart quickly.  It was my first year of teaching and my heart would leap out of my chest whenever voices were raised.  All I  cared about was having a quiet classroom, an environment that appeared orderly, safe, where it appeared real learning could and would take place.  I thought learning could only take place in silence. 

            In any other classroom this eruption might have ended there.  But this was my classroom, and I discovered that I wasn’t comfortable with the idea that there could be two individuals who thought they hated each other so fiercely without knowing absolutely anything about the other.  Their hate was all in their heads, not in their veins.  They grew up accepting a certain reality that was grounded nowhere in my reality.   They couldn’t learn anything in my class if they thought they hated each other.  Instead of focusing on my work, their days were composed of glaring threateningly over at one another, throwing pen caps and wads of paper when they got a chance behind my back, tripping the other on his way to the pencil sharpener, knocking into each other as they left the class.  All that was on their minds was how to make the life of the other worse, which ironically was the most powerful thing they had in common.  No one else in my class could learn anything either while Jon and Miguel hated each other.  Instead of focusing on my work, their days were made up of shrinking in their desks as Jon made threats to bring a knife to school, or watching papers fly across the classroom behind my back, or laughing as one person got tripped.  And I couldn’t teach, because I couldn’t bring myself to believe that plot and characterization could help develop the future of a Norteno who was determined to be dead or in jail before he even left the 10^th grade. 

            I had to teach them that you had to learn to work with people you didn’t like.  I had to teach them that their hatred was grounded in the false beliefs of a group that would ruin them.  And I had to teach myself that I could.

            So I sat them together in another group activity.  They demanded separation.  I said their grade depended on them working together.  They both took the F.

            Days later, I sat them together again, warning that they would fail if they didn’t learn to work together.  They both took the F.

            I tried several more times with the same result, watching their grades tumble to the point where it would be almost impossible for them to have a chance at passing.  Frustrated at them and angry with myself, something must have snapped.  The next time I grouped them, and awaited the anticipated sounds of derision.  When it came, I shrugged and said, “Whatever.  You do the same as each other anyway, it’s surprising you don’t get along.”  They stopped short for a second and eyed me oddly before eyeing each other and finally sitting down on opposite sides of the group silently, arms crossed.  

            But they hadn’t moved.   

            The reading that day was about how prejudices were instilled through families, and the students needed to make a list of the beliefs that were handed down to them through their parents.  The other students came up with a considerable list as Jon and Miguel sat and stared at the clock. 

I sauntered up, touching Jon’s shoulder lightly, saying, “You haven’t added anything.” 

He swallowed and shook my hand off, simmering in his silence as I stood behind him for a few seconds before going off to check on another group.  When I came back, the word “Hatred” had been added.  I asked who had added it and Crystal nodded at Jon, whose eyes were carefully avoiding mine.  “Nice,” I concluded, and then looked at Miguel.  “What about you?” 

He sighed and shook his head, his knee bouncing up and down underneath the desk. 

“Come on, Miguel,” I prodded, “get yourself on that paper.  What can you add?” 

A moment of silence.  Another sigh.  Then, “He took mine.”

“What?”

“He took what I was gonna say,” Miguel scoffed, leaning back in his seat and jerking his head in Jon’s direction. 

I nodded.  “Interesting.”

They stared at me, arms crossed, as I slowly wandered away.

FRIENDS

            Jon and Miguel never became buddies or friends in my class.  But they learned to tolerate one another.  They learned how to listen to the other’s ideas and comments.  They learned how to share space.  There developed an agreement between them that they would never argue again in my class, and that soon developed into an understanding that they wouldn’t ever fight each other at school or on the streets.  It’s not like they smiled at each other in the hallways, but they didn’t mug each other either, saving their pissy frowns and ugly taunts for others who they didn’t know.  Then Jon’s cousin shot one of Miguel’s brothers, and the pressure was on for retaliation.  Not only did Norteno blood have to shed Sureno blood, but Salazar blood needed to shed Anaya blood.  Miguel felt the heat.  

            A fight broke out between the Nortenos and Surenos on a Saturday night in October, and Miguel and Jon spotted each other across the street.  Miguel felt one of his brothers handing him the gun, and he grasped the cold steel in his sweaty palm, feeling the weight of the gun, the weight of expectation resting on his back.  Jon stared back at him calmly, the fight seeming to occur around him, not involving him, allowing Miguel time to raise the gun, to take aim, to pull the trigger, to hear an empty click, to glance down at the gun, to fumble with the safety, to hear a resounding boom reverberate against the cars on the street, to look up and see Jon’s unmoving body on the bloody asphalt, to tuck the gun into his pants, to run and run and to ignore the lifting of a weight off his back as he joined his family in a victoriously empty yell. 

If

If I were in charge of you
I'd cancel the monthly crying sessions,
your painful feelings of inadequacy,
the lurking insomnia,
and your snarling frustration.

If I were in charge of you
there would be small blue plus signs
nine months of exciting anticipation
and soft hands to grasp your finger.

If I were in charge of you
you wouldn't have to suffer through this cycle
you wouldn't be forced to make decisions you shouldn't have to
you wouldn't have to pray that your dreams would come true
Because this wouldn't be a dream--it'd be reality

If I were in charge of you
a shoulder would be squeezed with congratulations
all frustration would float away like dandelion puffs
and a person who wanted nothing more
than to finally be a mother
would get all she desired.

First Response

I wish
you'd trust me and

see that
this too shall pass.

Your life
will not be useless

even if
you don't get what

you think
it is you want.

Happiness is
not a single destination--

if you
miss your exit ramp

the trip
is not completely ruined.

Stay inside
the car, buckle up,

breathe deeply,
and enjoy the scenery.

A Life? What's that?

For the first time this year, I sit down to this blog and don't know what to write.  Usually I feel very passionate about a certain issue, but for the last few days I've mostly just felt...well...stressed.  My mind is elsewhere, thinking about what I need to be doing.  As the people around me are talking, I'm making a mental checklist of all the things I need to do.  I wake up panicked, remembering something important I'd forgot to do the previous day.  I scribble down hundreds of post-it notes.  I try to be as organized as possible, as on top of life as possible, but the ladder keeps extending no matter how high I climb.  This is a feeling I'm sure many of you recognize, but perhaps don't realize haunts the lives of teachers as well.

Even though I leave school around 3:30 or 4, I still take home about 2-3 hours of work to read and grade every night.  With the end of the quarter fast approaching, the work piles up, and my teacher bag begins to resemble the belly of a pregnant woman having quadruplets.  Instead of having to watch my Tivo'd shows while simultaneously grading vocabulary tests, I wish I could just enjoy my life at home, be with Joey, nap with my kitties, be lame, be boring, but at least breathe.  I haven't played Guitar Hero in 3 months.  I haven't watched a movie, gone out of town, or just chillaxed since school started.  And it's starting to take a toll.

The kind of teacher I am, well, school creeps into my personal life, and definitely vice versa.  And mostly of the time, I love it that way, couldn't imagine having a different job.  But sometimes, during weeks like these, I fantasize about jobs where it's left at the door once you lock it behind you. 

It's tough being a teacher.  I know it's hard being a student, I know.  But it's tough being a teacher.  At least a super sickfresh, kick-butt, hard-core, gangsta teacher like myself.  Keep that in mind the next time you ask your teacher for something.  True, they may actually be douchy, or they may just be trying to remember what having a life felt like.

Pineapple Expressway to Lame-ville

It's not a rare occasion for someone to mention weed or smoking in our class.  Many laugh.  I, often, feel lost.  I have never smoked, nor will I ever, so I don't understand the references, I don't get the jokes.  Although I caved to drinking before 21 (oh, man, was I cool for doing it too--so cool the popular people only ignored me, instead of teasing me), I've never succumbed to weed.  I don't get it.  I'm one-fourth afraid of it, and three-fourths disgusted with it.

The rule-follower in me doesn't understand the desire to try any drugs--because that part of me feels it's either (a) a useless escape, because your life remains the same when you come back, (b) a desperate attempt to fit into a group of people who are just as desperate to be liked, or (c) a lame attempt at trying to fill boredom.  99% of me thinks smoking weed is wrong, and not just because it's illegal.  Alcohol is legal, and I think drinking to get wasted is wrong.  It's mostly that, damn, don't you guys want to use your brains?  And I'm not even referencing the "losing your brain cells" argument, but the "aren't you creative enough to find different ways to spend your time" argument. 

Going home and smoking every day is as lame and boring as the nerd (*cough, me*) who went home and played Zoo Tycoon or studied every day.  Planning on smoking every weekend is as monotonous as playing WOW every weekend.  Use your brain for something else.

Perhaps what I am most upset by is the dependence drugs engenders--not as in addiction, although that scares me, yes--but dependence in terms of using it to solve problems, using it to have fun, using it to pass the time.  There are better, greater, more wise ways to do all of those things, but you'll never find them if you spend all your time smoking.  Smoking is not the answer to all of life's questions.  The saddest part to me is that it's becoming the most common answer.  And what should make our society great is the variety of answers.  We are losing our variety. 

When you're high, when you're drunk, you're ignoring something--whether it be homework, a relationship, life itself as a whole.  Don't escape so much that you have nothing to come back to.

From your drug-free partner--Haskalicious.

I believe in running

I believe in the power of running.  In the power of getting up at 4:30 a.m., even though you don't want to, to pound out 9 miles of pure sweat.  I believe it builds character, dedication, because everyone should be forced to do something they don't want to in order to get positive results--it shows us that most things worth having do not come easy.  I believe in wearing out a pair of running shoes every three months, of getting holes in the top and needing new insoles, because you scraped it thin.  I believe this teaches us the power of objects, of how helpful and useful our "things" are--and how you should maximize every ounce of worth.

Running has dramatically changed my life.  It brings me contentment, pleasure, and, even though it brings pain at times, it is worth it in the end.  Running has made me a better person, fitter, healthier, more dedicated, more passionate.  I would not be who I am today without it.

So I miss it this week.  Having torn my oblique muscle is killing me, not just because it hurts to do everything (like, uh, breathe), but because I can't run.  And I realize now how addicted I have become to running, how much my mood depends on it.  I find myself gazing at students' sports bags longingly, because I miss packing my own gym bag.  I notice people jogging on the street, and I want to stab them out of jealousy.

This rib better heal.  And I believe that.

Simple Gestures

I'm a sucker for simple gestures, I've realized.  Holding open doors, allowing someone to use your book when (s)he doesn't have one, jumping up to get tissues for someone struggling through a reading (good job, Izzy & Jesse), makes me realize there is hope for the human race.  It's not a chivalry thing, it's not a gender thing.  It's a human thing.  We should treat each other nicely, because we are all in this together. 

Every year, I see or do something that makes me recognize more and more how much of an effect our actions have on other people.  The things we do (and don't do) can really make or break someone's mood, their attitude, their perspective.  It won't hurt you to listen to someone you never listened to before instead of choosing to talk through their reading; it won't hurt you to hold off on making the easy joke at someone's expense; it won't hurt you to hold the door open two seconds longer so that the person behind you can make it through. 

We always complain about life being so unfair, but don't WE make it unfair?  I mean, aren't we in charge?  So, therefore, can't we make it fair?  Can't we make it better?  Can't we start by treating each other better, just a little bit better, just a little bit more human...to truly realize the meaning behind the words, "treat others the way you want to be treated."  Well, look, no one wants to be treated like shit.  So we better stop treating others that way.  Or if we do, if we laugh at someone else's pain, if we gossip, if we judge, if we assume--well, y'all better expect it to come right back at ya.  And don't you dare complain about it, because you earned it. 

We don't have to go out and change the world by raising billions of dollars for cancer research, or by buying a whole new car to reduce the use of gas.  We can just smile at someone.  Start small.  Start simple.

Too much trust?

Zach's comment on my "Disappointment" blog made me ponder...do I place too much faith in this class, trusting that we will act like civilized human beings?  It's true--what we share in here could definitely be used against us, could come back to haunt us.  But I believe in this class.  I believe in our ability to listen to each other and, underneath everything, see that the person sharing those words wants the same thing that we all want--for someone to listen to us.  Not the "us" that we show the world outside room 33, but the "us" that writing helps us actually reveal.  I fully believe that writing allows you to lift weights off your shoulders; sharing your story helps others see that they are not alone.  Both of these take great courage.  This is not a class for wimps. 

I know several people have already faced judgment, have already had their hearts torn at a bit by missteps made by classmates (sharing stories outside class, getting judgmental looks, etc.).  But no one in this class is perfect, so should anyone have the right to judge?  I've never taken drugs, but I know that I've made plenty of other mistakes--so if a person shares about regretting drug use, I can't sit back and think, "oh, what an idiot," because I've been there.  Not in the exact same situation, but sitting on my own throne of mistakes.  We've all sat on it, we've all been the king/queen of idiocy.  Someone else's story may not match yours exactly, but we all travel the same plot line.

Perhaps that's what connects us.  This idea that, even though we've made our share of mistakes, we can overcome them and rise to be something better.  And I believe that we'll help each other do that through this class.  I believe that we'll help each other become something better by listening.  By changing our judgments into encouragement.  By questioning if our first reaction to someone's piece is the right reaction.  By never assuming and, instead, listening open-mindedly. 

Yes, I do have a lot of trust in you guys, in us.  But I have to.  It is the only way this class, as it's designed to be, will flourish.  Every day we walk the tightrope, every day could be the day someone gossips or judges, every day the class could tumble over the edge.  But I'm right up there with you.  Because that's the only place to be, as a teacher, as a writer, as a person.  We're all in this together. 

Thanks, but I'm done with high school

I've been out of high school for 10 years. And my life has become infinitely, I mean INFINITELY better since my graduation. I don't know which genius said high school would be the best years of life, but whoever that person is obviously didn't suffer from a lack of self-awareness and esteem. I hated high school, only becoming comfortable with it senior year, when I finally became comfortable with who I really was.

Now, every time I see this one particular friend of mine, she finds a way to make me feel guilty about the life I lead. She says I go to bed too early. I grade too much. I'm too focused on school. I don't want to go dancing or partying or dress up and wear costumes (she and her friends most recently dressed up as the cast of Jersey Shore...just to go out to dinner. Picture eating next to Snooki at Chili's). She concludes that I am lame. She makes it seem like I'm missing out on a part of life, that I'm not living, that I'm already old and dead inside.

I felt this way in high school--when I was studying for tests, having slumber parties and eating milk n' cookies--I felt like I was missing out on the "real life" of partying and drinking and doing the stupid stuff everyone gossiped about the next day. So, I decided I would try that. And realized very quickly that I wasn't missing out on much. I learned that partying was just an attempt to try to have a life, instead of being content with the one you had already.

And now I'm done with high school. The time of doubting myself and who I am is over. This is who I am: I care about my job. I don't want to dress up and wear three bump-its and fake tanner in public and call it a good time. I go to bed early. I don't think I'm missing out on your stupid costume parties, and I certainly don't think there's anything more "real" about that kind of life.

Disappointment...so soon

The first week in, and I'm already hearing about students sharing information they hear about in this class outside of this class. Frustration sets in. Five days in, a discussion behind us about how we can't share what we hear in class, and apparently it's been ignored. Hopefully "five days in" just means this was a careless slip, a "oh, I didn't realize THAT'S what you were talking about"-kind of mistake.

If someone wasn't here on a day something interesting is read, the absent person misses out. That's the point of being here--you don't miss out on what goes on in class. But unless YOU specifically wrote whatever was interesting/personal, you don't get to tell people what happened. You aren't the messengers for other people in this class. You don't get to take someone else's story and share it with anyone else. You don't get to say, "so-and-so said this" to anyone else. That's gossip. That's drama. That's how this class will fall apart. That's how this class will ruin itself.

I'm serious. First of all, if no names are said in a writing, don't assume you know who someone is talking about. Assumptions are ridiculous and most often wrong. That's the best way to spread bad blood and chaos. Secondly, these are other people's stories, not yours. You aren't in charge of others' stories, you don't own the right to spread their story. It's THEIR story. If they want it shared, they'll share it. But people in this class share for THIS class only, and, even then, for the people who were there on that day.

This incident is hopefully just a hurdle, a mis-step. But I'm disappointed to hear already that someone assumed a journal was written about someone (it wasn't), then told that person, who then wrote about being written about, which came back to the original writer, and everyone was hurt when no one needed to be.

Sound confusing? It is. Gossip is a vicious circle, and rumors are twisting trenches of disgusting warfare. We're better than this.

Listen in class, but leave it at the door. Next time I hear about this happening, I will ask the person who talked about it to leave the class. And I always know.