FML

If you could merge a print of "The Scream" with a still of the Death Star exploding, that's pretty much what I probably looked like at about 7:30 this morning.  Everyone has "one of those days" occasionally but the Universe must have been saving up in its stock of "pissy, annoying little things" for a few weeks just to dump them today.  Here's a chronological review of the day, and keep in mind that it's only now 9:03.

• Hit snooze alarm once too many times.  Proceed to wake up at 6:10 instead of 5:45, therefore lose much-needed breakfast/coffee time.
• Drop bar of soap on foot in shower. Ow.
• Slosh cats' drinking water on floor. Spill some into cat food dish. [Proves to actually be good thing as cats are inexplicably excited about this.  Mental note: still does not merit buying wet food which stinks.]
• Get halfway down stairs; realize classroom key is still in apartment. 
• Start car; cannot find lighter.
• Stop on Meadow street for gas/coffee. Pull up at the one gas pump that is out of order.
• Move to functioning gas pump.  Go inside to obtain coffee.
• Realize at this point that do not have change for Downtown Expressway.  Figure this is OK and will get cash back from coffee purchase.
• This gas station does not have a cash-back option when paying with debit.
• Need to use gas station ATM which rapes you for two bucks because do not have time to go to real ATM.
• Get on downtown expressway.  Somehow the $20 bill has escaped into thin air.  Have to get IOU from very pleasant toll booth attendant.
• Still can't find goddamn lighter. 
• Lighter is in crotch.  Discover this when shifting around and lighter pokes sensitive dude-parts.
• Make it to school just in time for first bell.
• Receive email from colleague saying there's a $20 bill next to my car. 
• Have complete meltdown. Implode. Compose blog entry from a different dimension.

Welcome to my world.

Mini-post because once again the marking period is over and grades are due and mine are totally not ready and therefore I am losing my  mind BUT because I love my tiny little reader base very much, I thought I'd let you have a little glimpse through a porthole into my world.

People who don't work in education, or teach in schools that serve a more well-to-do population, really don't understand how completely out of touch our kids are.  Actually, I'm willing to bet that even kids at well-heeled suburban schools are pretty out of it, reality-wise.

When I say that my kids don't know shit from shinola, I'm not referring to their academic knowledge.  My students in Baltimore really, really didn't know anything about the world outside their dismal little four-block radius in West Baltimore.  My kids here never actually go into Richmond because they're either afraid of it or it just plain doesn't compute.  They think dinner at Ruby Tuesday's is super high class and Olive Garden is beyond the pale.

But here's a little tidbit from my 9th graders that will help you understand just how disconnected they are:

J: "I hate the First Lady."  [apparently because of her healthy-eating campaign]
T: "Who the fuck is that?"
J: "You know, the White House wife."

Just....wow. 

Hooray, hooray, the first of May...

...outdoor fucking begins today!

Come on now. How could I not acknowledge my favorite dirty little line?  It's an old English thing too so it's allright.  A very pleasant aspect of teaching and studying the English language is that, until the famously prudish Victoria ascended, it was a very bawdy language and culture.  I love teaching Shakespeare because it allows me to be fairly dirty in class.  Real English literature isn't happy without the occasional reference to pissing or farting.

On that note, does anyone have good dirty limericks? I'm quite partial to them, so here are a couple of mine:

There once was a fellow named Sweeney
Who spilled some gin on his weenie
Without lacking couth
He added vermouth
And slipped his girl a martini.

There once was a plumber named Lee
Who was plumbing his girl next the sea
She said, "Stop your plumbing!
I hear someone coming!"
Said Lee, "No one's coming but me!"

And some notes from the trenches...

While Mencken said one could never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, he clearly never taught in high school.  It was probably bad enough in his day, but WOW modern kids really don't know their asses from page eight.  One of today's hypothetical questions was "Why are manhole covers round?"  Not a single HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR knew what a manhole was.  Naturally they all think they know everything about sex so they thought the question referred to mens' assholes.  When, in fact, manholes are, you know, those things in streets.  I realize that this is Chesterfield County and there isn't a whole lot of pavement, but..really?  And there was a kid yesterday who didn't know what a chimney is. I mean, come on--these are not exactly esoterica.

I really need to start using the word "esoterica" in class more often, because kids will think I'm saying "erotica" and get all excited about English class.

Jesus, the Customer Service Representative

Really, everyone, I'm not being especially prolific today.  I wrote this over Spring Break when I didn't have wifi and also when I was too busy doing nothing to go find wifi so I could post.

Just south of Richmond is a long, crappy stretch of I-95.  It is crappy for many reasons.  Primarily, it is always busy and not fun to drive upon, but also it passes through most of Richmond's heavily industrialized areas so whatever scenic value the land had was destroyed long before 95 existed.  Add the belching smoke from the factories and the horrendous smell of the huge paper mills and you end up with one really annoying whole.

For whatever reason--proximity to the Capital? Sheer amount of traffic volume? the local Bible bangers have elected this stretch above all others in Virginia to plaster with various Jesus-y billboards.  I find these endlessly amusing.  Most of them are the really admonitory type that say things like "The fool has said in his heart, there is no God."  Anyone who already agrees with that doesn't need the billboard; anyone who doesn't won't put any stock in it anyway--especially not after the billboard has just called him a fool. Whether I believe in God or not I don't cotton to being insulted by billboards.  Also, who the hell gets converted by a billboard anyway?  Unless it's a billboard advertising Krispy Kremes which would totally convert me to Krispy Kremes if I didn't worship them already.

One of the billboards offers a hotline phone number. While the others are just sort of amusing, this one weirds me out.

See, I've always wanted to call a hotline for something, just to see what they actually say.  Unfortunately there are really no hotlines that cater to my specific brands of freakazoid, so I've never had a valid option.  I mean, I'm pretty sure that it would be unethical to call the suicide hotline or the cancer hotline and be all "My favorite department store closed in 1990 and I'm out of mixers and also the cat just puked on the rug, WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO NOW????"

I'm not sure what one is supposed to accomplish with the Jesus hotline.  One assumes that it's there in case people feel the need to turn to God.  Once again, though, if one already believes in God, does one need a hotline to convince oneself even further?  Those who don't believe in God would be highly unlikely, I think, to be zipping up 95 and think, "Hey, I've never believed in God before but that billboard totes has a hotline. Maybe I should check that shit out."

Furthermore, what actually happens when you call?  If I didn't believe in God, and I called, the only way I could be reasonably expected to start believing in God is if God actually answered. And if He did this is how the conversation would probably go:

"God here. So you're having some trouble believing in me?"
"Actually, I already do, but I was driving up 95 and I wanted to see happened if I called the hotline."
"You really shouldn't be on the cell phone while you're driving, you know."
"Well, but I'm talking to You. I mean, you would totally keep me from dying, right?"
"That's your guardian angel's job, technically, but I suppose so."
"You're a pretty major deity. What are you doing working in a call center? That's like, what, $10.10 an hour? Assuming you're in the continental US?"
"I'm omnipotent, bro. I can do this AND cause floods.", 
"So how do I know you're actually God and not some dude in Lahore? Can you turn the Philip Morris smokestack into a giant jujube, or something?"
"I could, but would that really make you believe?"
"I told you I already do. I just think it would be really cool if that smokestack turned into a jujube."
"And then you'd wreck the car and we'd be right back to you not talking on the phone while you drive."
"What are you, dude? My mom? Oh, wait--that showed that you're omniscient, right? Cool. But the jujube would still be awesome."
"No jujube, brah. But I'll tell you what--Broad street is seriously backed up. You might wanna take the Mayo Bridge today."
"Sweet! Thanks, God! Hey, could you turn the Mayo Bridge into..."
"NO."

Also y'all should totally scope my buddy/former colleague, Derrick's, blog.  He's a lot less snarky than I am.

reflectionsconnectionnonesense.blogspot.com/

Down in the City of Sighs and Tears

The past century has done some really weird things to our culture.  Since American culture in 1914 was already steaming full ahead to weird, this means that we're now a bunch of damned strange people.  I should probably forewarn you that this is a rant against the suburban ethos, so if you're one of those people who believes that your life only has quality because you live in a cul-de-sac, you should probably stop reading now.  Go eat at TGI Friday's (TM) and have a few mangochocosugartinis before you come back.

A century ago the vast majority of America's population lived in the sticks.  By "sticks," I do not mean places like Frederick County, Maryland--where I have lived, and which is mostly rural.  Frederick County had things like electricity and pavement, even in 1914.  It had one small city and several towns with main streets and brick houses and stuff.  I am talking about places that were a long, long way--like seventy miles--from anything resembling pavement.  Places where the only buildings at all for miles were your own house and barns.  Places where the only living things within thirty miles were either quadrupeds or your relatives. (In some cases, both.)

People in the sticks inherently mistrusted cities.  Popular music did not help; in the 1890s every other piece of sheet music was about some chick from the sticks (see what I did there?) who went to The Big City in search of adventure.  Though of course propriety wouldn't allow direct statements it allowed an awful lot of innuendo.  If you believed sheet music, every girl who ever left the country got knocked up within minutes of seeing Detroit/Philadelphia/Baltimore/New Orleans.  If I had that kind of luck I'd be visiting a new Big City every damn weekend, but these girls of course didn't know what to do and couldn't go home so they became hookers, or showed up at the Society Wedding of the guy who ruined them, or chastised other men.  There was a lot of chastising of men, too--reminding them of their sisters, mothers, sweethearts in Indiana, etc. While women were apparently getting it all over the place, it's a wonder any man ever got laid, with all those fallen women reminding him of his mom.

So it probably comes naturally that when people started to move into the cities, they still mistrusted them, which is probably part of the reason that for the last sixty years people have been trying to get out of cities again.  They still need the city--that whole job thing that made them move there in the first place--but they don't want to actually live in it, so the no-man's-land of suburbia came to pass.  And pass it did; it ran Reebok-shod over the countryside and sucked life out of the cities.

Invariably, suburbs think of their cities as scary, dangerous places.  In some cases this is true; there are plenty of city neighborhoods across the country that are very good places to get killed.  On the other hand, in the city someone will hear you scream (even if, a la poor Kitty Genovese, no one does anything about it).  In the country only the deer will hear you and they don't care that someone's going all Leatherface on you.  In the suburbs someone will hear you scream, but they will assume that you're a recent transplant from the city and that you're the one at fault, not the person murdering you.  The only thing a suburbanite will do is file a complaint with the neighborhood association.

Interestingly, suburbanites automatically fear any and all parts of every city.  I have been told, and quite authoritatively, that the Guilford section of Baltimore is a really bad neighborhood.  This is the area with zillion-dollar neo-Georgian houses; the land of croquet and gin-and-tonics.  But, you see, it's In The City so it has to be a bad neighborhood.  The same people think nothing of Lochearn, which is a pretty good place to get killed--but isn't inside city limits.

So, today, some of my students are en route to the Virginia Museum.  They are terrified because the Virginia Museum is in Richmond. It is, in fact, half a block from where I live.  As everyone knows, if it's inside city limits, it's in a bad neighborhood.

Clearly a bad neighborhood.

The really laughable aspect of this is that most of these kids are from really godawful neighborhoods in Chesterfield County.  One of them actually lives in the crumbling ruins of a 30s motel on Jeff Davis Highway.  But they're terrorized by the idea of going to The Boulevard.  

Weird things, people.  Weird things. 

A happy blind haze

I've never been particularly opposed to the use of weed.  I just don't really care that much because it doesn't affect my life, for the most part. Like every self-respecting college student I tried it a few times and the effect wasn't so thrilling that I wanted to keep smoking the stuff.  A lot of folks claim that it "didn't do anything for them" or they "just got a headache," which implies to me that they're like the people who light a cigarette but don't really inhale the smoke.  They just want to look cool.  I'd rather have a Manhattan, which is legal and doesn't smell like the rotting anus of a week-dead skunk.

This week has done a few things to change my mind.  I've been playing host to an old college friend who cannot get through the day without a few bowls.  Since he's ensconced in my spare bedroom it doesn't affect me that much--the stink stays in there with him--but I've come to realize the long term effects of pot. I figure I'm also safe from retribution because the person in question isn't the type who follows blogs and so will, in all likelihood, never read this.

I'll give some credit to weed: it doesn't make you mean, and those who've been around me after a few too many drinks know that booze can turn you really nasty. Weed doesn't do this but its cumulative effect over the course of twenty-odd years can make you damned stupid.

Not to say that our case subject is stupid.  People who have degrees from William and Mary are not stupid.  Academically, the guy is brilliant--but his common sense is so utterly fried that I'm not sure how he finds his way around life.

Actually, he doesn't.  This is his first visit to Richmond in many years, but he's spent time here before.  It is not a difficult city to navigate, but his helplessness started off on Monday as comic and  has degenerated to a big pain in the ass.

Example 1: I get a call as he's driving in.  He takes the Boulevard exit as instructed, but then wants to stay on the phone so he can get step-by-step instructions. OK, that sort of makes sense.
Me: "Drive past the baseball field. You'll cross Broad street and then you'll see Monument Avenue.  Keep going until you see the Virginia Museum, and then take the very next left."
Dude: "There's a statue..."
Me: "That's Monument Avenue. You're good. Keep going."
Dude: "Is that a college?"
Me: "?"
Dude: "Some big brick thing. It has a sign."
Me: (to self) he can only mean the Museum...wtf?
Dude: "I don't see the street. Oh, wait, that's Ellwood."
Me: "You drove past it. Circle around and come back."
Dude: "How?"
At this point I was ready to send out the Marines, but I was able to talk him back around.

Example 2: After a day touring on his own he was driving back to my place. Once again, he got lost trying to find it despite having been there for two days, but found it on his own.  Another call:
"I'm on your street. Where should I park?"
"Um...wherever you see a parking place."
"But I don't see any."
"Dude. This works like any other city. Find a damn parking place and walk back."
"But where???"
"How the hell do I know? I don't have some magic parking spot finder."

He did eventually park--a block away--which led to Example 3, in which he was so confused by the parking signs which are exactly the same as those in every other city that he took a picture of them to show me so I could decipher them for him. Let me point out that Richmond's parking signs are identical to those I've seen in every other city.

Example 4 was when one of the cats puked in the hallway.  This became a matter of great concern for visiting dude.  Let me point out, here, that he also has a cat.   Cats vomit. It's just something they do.  He not only felt the need to report it, but made it a topic of conversation for five minutes. It's cat barf, man. It happens.

None of these particular examples is anything egregious, but it demonstrates to me that weed will ultimately rot your brain.  So will booze, I suppose, but most alkies I know can still pretty much function as long as they're sober at the time.  This guy is hopelessly lost even when he hasn't had a hit for hours.  Do I know for certain it's the weed's fault? No, but I do know that the man wasn't like this twenty years ago and I don't know what else might have caused it.

So does this mean I think marijuana should remain illegal? No.  It just means I think it's a bad idea to make heavy use of it.  Why shouldn't it be illegal?  I think there are quite a few logical reasons that it shouldn't be.  To me, the biggest problem with illegalized pot is that it consumes far too much time in the legal system, and gets far too many otherwise good people in trouble.  As much as my friend's brain has been addled by pot, he's a good guy and a productive (if often lost) member of society.  However, if his employer did test--he's in the same line of work that I am--he'd lose his job.  If he gets pulled over on his way home from Richmond, he'll probably be in trouble if anyone takes a good look at his car. Not only does this waste police effort, it gums up the court system with things that just aren't that big of a deal.  We have bigger problems.  Marijuana simply does not cause the problems that "bigger" drugs cause.  No drug warfare erupts over pot--it just doesn't generate enough revenue.

What about legalizing other things?  Well--did we learn nothing from Prohibition? You just can't legislate morality.  If people want to do something, they're going to find a way to do it.  And, just like booze in the '20s, making coke and its relatives illegal just means that people will still use them, but that a thriving underworld will blossom.  It has, and it's ruined almost all of our major cities. Even small cities--e.g., Hagerstown--have a gangrenous underbelly because not only do they have their own drug world, they have become distribution centers for the larger cities.

Let's go ahead and legalize all the stuff.  We can regulate it and tax hell out of it, just like we do with booze.  Think of the jobs created: all the stores: "Just Mary Jane!" "Heroin To Go".  And the bureaucracy: by the time the US, in its post-Roosevelt fashion, gets done opening up regulatory agencies in every city, states following suit, and of course Treatment Options for those with Problems, there will be millions of new jobs. Which will mean that the down-and-out who are currently drug users will be able to have productive lives.

Also, we'll be able to play "I Get a Kick Out Of You" on the radio without censoring its lyrics.

A few of the reasons why I'm going to hell.

Let me preface this with the statement that yes, I do believe in Hell.  I'm not entirely clear on the concept  though, because the idea is that you go to Hell if you're a really bad person.  Since Satan is already bad, it seems to follow that he would want the bad people there, so why would he torture the people he actually wants to have around? It seems kind of like peeing in your friends' beer.  I guess the bad people are down with it because maybe they play nasty tricks on each other and, one presumes, Satan.  I mean, once at Homecoming my friends put salt in my beer while I was peeing, and I drank it anyway because that's what friends do and also it would have taken forever to get another pitcher right in the middle of Homecoming.

So, yes, I believe in Hell.  I'm never sure about those people who are all smarmy and oh-so-enlightened who say (usually after I say "You are evil and you are going to burn in Hell") "Well, I don't believe in Hell so I can't go there."  Let me tell you, smartass, I never believed in Newark either because it just didn't seem like a very good idea, but I finally ended up having to actually be in Newark. No matter how much you hate the idea of a place doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and that it doesn't suck.  I wonder if one also gets indecent propositions in the main train station in Hell.

I am probably going to Hell because I do have a filter, but I don't always remember to turn it on and without it I can be pretty nasty, though usually in response to something I find nasty in the first place--or just really stupid.  In recent memory:

Student J: "Yo. You look like a fuckin cholo."
Me: (one inch from student's face) "How do you know I'm not? And if I am, do you really want to piss me off?"

Student V: (busting the I'm-a-sexy-ghetto-ho eye-roll and tude) "I don't need no library card cuz I doan read."
Me: "Oh, OK. You made the active decision to be stupid and uninformed. I totally see your point.  Have fun on the pole!"

Whiny, very loud lady berating a stockboy at the store for not having something:  "I'm going to call the manager!"
Me, almost sotto voce: "I'm going to call the SS."

Pseudo-intellectual chick at bar: "Writing a blog is so narcissistic."
Me: "So narcissistic...what? Use the language correctly.  Besides, if I lived your life, I'd want to read about mine."

Damnit, I've got to stop sitting in handcars by mistake.  Oh, shit, wait...

The Steadfast Refrigerator and the Stinky Nothing

So this morning I had a lengthy discussion with my refrigerator.  Not really; because "discussion" implies that the fridge was contributing something to conversation, which it wasn't.  It was, however, contributing a pretty nasty smell to the kitchen. This was why it needed a good talking-to.

You'd think this was actually my fault, that I'd left something in there just a little too long. I'm pretty well known for Refrigerator Science Experiments.  Hell, I once left a thing of leftover Chinese in the fridge so long that it developed representative government. When I got around to throwing it out it formed an allegiance with the mustard and tried to revolt against my totalitarian regime.

Not this time.  I have been pretty good about keeping a clean fridge lately so I don't know what's gone south in there.  I decided that the fridge itself must be responsible so I started grilling it. This was extremely confusing for the cats, who usually and correctly assume that I am talking to them.  The fridge steadfastly refused to acknowledge responsibility; in fact refused to say anything whatsoever.  It hummed insolently and continued to stink.

I have always had a habit of talking to inanimate objects, and occasionally yelling at them (particularly cars and computers, which do not seem to enjoy doing what I need them to do) but I think this was the first time I have caught myself actually expecting to get an answer from something which is not actually alive.

This is how I know it's about damn time for spring break. 

Mini-Post!

Sorry. Grades due in an hour. Can't post.

Sort of.   You know how people talk about comfort food all the time now?  That's what we used to just call "food."  People don't want to do that anymore; it has to be in a category that expresses how New York and up to date you are because of course you don't really eat that stuff every day. You usually eat fusion cuisine, with an amuse-bouche of some shit that normal people wouldn't consider actually a food, and sushi for breakfast (when you're slumming, because sushi is SOOO 90s).  So when you admit that you actually eat stuff like tomato soup and grilled cheese, you call it comfort food.

I am eating tomato soup and grilled cheese because it's one of my favorite things ever.  It came from the school cafeteria, so the cheese should probably really be spelled cheez because it probably really isn't cheese. The bread is anything but artisanal and I'm pretty sure the soup came out of a five gallon bucket that says "Fred's Soup for Schools--Chase City, Virginia."

This is the best goddamn meal I've had all week. 

When I was in high school Special Ed, which we are now supposed to call Exceptional Ed, hadn't become the burgeoning industry that it is today.  Every grade had those couple of kids who were politely called "slow."  You didn't really see them because they existed in their own classes and maybe turned up for gym and lunch.  If a kid happened to be really slow, he ended up at a different school with his fellow brakes-applied learners.

But of course we can't do that anymore because someone, somewhere, might have his feelings hurt and sue the bejesus out of the school system (which doesn't really give a damn about whether people are learning or not, but does care about being sued).

So, in order to keep as many SpEd teachers, counselors and coordinators employed as possible, we keep coming up with changes in diagnoses so that people will have to spend hours filling out reams of new paperwork.

I just learned that Asperger's Syndrome doesn't exist anymore. (It's now properly called High Functioning Autism.)  This didn't really surprise me as I didn't really believe in it in the first place.  The first time I'd ever heard of it was the one miserable year I spent teaching at Parkville High School, which is in a suburb of Baltimore.  I was at a meeting in the beginning of the year when I heard somebody talking about a kid who had what I heard as "ass burgers."  I was shocked because I thought the teacher was talking about the kid's ass, which is of course totally inappropriate, until I gleaned enough from context to realize that she was talking about some supposed disorder.
Of which I'd never heard.
Despite being well-educated and well-read.
And having been in classrooms for three years already.
I soon learned that Parkville had over thirty students diagnosed with Asperger's.  Now, I realize that the air and water in Parkville are not that great; it's a crappy suburb of a crappy city, but still it defies logic that thirty  kids all born within three years of each other in one suburban area are going to have this disorder.
Well, they didn't, because now we've decided that it doesn't really exist.

Eventually, we're going to realize that as a culture we're painting ourselves into a small corner, educationally.  At least, we would if we could find kids who wouldn't whine to their parents about having to paint.  By the time the Karing n Koncerned SpEd folks are done, there will be fewer than ten percent of the population who doesn't have some sort of ostensible learning disability.  And parents will eat it up, because a "disability" absolves them from any parental responsibility.

Has no one figured out that employers do not have Accomodations and Modfications? You show up on time and do your job, or you stop having a job. We have got to stop coddling children who, for the most part, have nothing wrong with them except laziness and indulgent parents.  If they're really that "exceptional," they need to be in an exceptional school where they can draw exceptional bunnies and make exceptional macrame until they're seventy, by which time we will have gone through forty new terms for "exceptional" because that will have become passe and offensive.

I'd say "Will the last person to finish reading this blog please turn off the lights," but I don't have all of your Individualized Educational Plans, so I don't know who has to have a calculator or extra time to flip a goddamn light switch. 

Cause of death: poor grammar

So last night's cocktail hour conversation was on the morbid side.  I don't remember how we got to this point in the first place, but we were talking about causes of death when someone said "what if you die in some really gruesome accident, or murder, or something and they don't know exactly which injury killed you?"

I can answer that because in one of my former lives when I worked at the Bank of Baltimore, I handled credit accounts that belonged to dead people. That is, people who'd been alive once and had a credit account and then died; it's not like we were establishing lines of credit in Green Mount Cemetery.  As part of the job I needed to review death certificates.  It was really pretty interesting; people who work in  credit and collections always refer to deadbeat customers.  In my case they really were deadbeats.

The strange part is that no matter what happens to you, almost every death certificate lists cause of death as "heart failure." Then, it'll give the "secondary" cause, which usually is what happened to you that made your heart stop.  As far as the coroner is concerned, you died because your heart stopped.  The fact that your heart stopped because you got hit by the Crescent Limited is apparently of minor significance.  I suppose this is a bit of a kindness in some cases, if your death is either unbearably tragic or really stupid. I had one case where a college kid blew his brains out; at least his family was spared seeing that every time they had to show the certificate since it still said "Heart failure."  And if I died because I did something really idiotic, I'd rather not have my last public record say "Got drunk and tried to surf on subway rails."

Actually, I have already planned my demise.  It's been done before, but it's just so apt.  Years ago some dude died in his seat in the balcony at the Byrd.  He sat there for about three shows before someone figured out that either he wasn't doing too well or he really liked that movie.  This sounds like a fine plan to me.

So, if I am found dead anyplace but a movie theatre balcony, know that I was probably murdered.  And since the primary cause of death will invariably be "Heart Failure,"  I expect the secondary cause will be "conversation with person who believes 'alot' is a word."

Irradiated Utz. It's what's for lunch. Also people are retarded.

So, I completely forgot to pack lunch today (read: "I overslept and barely had time to poop and shower") so I went to the school cafeteria.  Unfortunately I also forgot to have any money and teachers have to pony up three bucks for the "food," so I busted out my one remaining dollar and got a bag of potato chips.  I am inordinately fond of snack food, so this wasn't really a bad thing, but then I saw the writing on the wall.  And by wall I mean the bag of chips.

Quick aside--what the hell are potato chip bags made of these days? I remember when they were wax paper; this crap is maybe foil and maybe plastic and possibly both, but is definitely going to give us all cancer.

I was happily nomming away on my salt 'n vinegar chips when I noticed the warning on the bag: "Do Not Microwave This Pouch."

What. the. hell.

I'll admit, for a party snack I have sprinkled cayenne pepper on Grandma Utz Kettle Chips and baked them for a few minutes, but who in creation microwaves potato chips?  Ever?  Why would you? What... Oh, I don't know, this is just too weird for words.

Oh, fine, I'm sure there are stranger things one might do with potato chips--say, pulverizing them and inserting into one's urethra--but why not caution against that, too?

Some time ago I mentioned the "Caution: Hot Contents" warning on fast food coffee cups.  While this, to me, comes under the heading of "No shit!" I understand that some idiot sued McDonalds--successfully--because she scalded her thighs with coffee from the drive-thru, and claimed that she wasn't warned about the heat.  Look, you stupid bitch, you would have complained if your coffee had been cold, and now because you're too goddamn dumb to hold on to it, you sue McDonalds because coffee is hot?

So I don't quite understand the warning, because who the hell would microwave potato chips, but I do understand it, because some jackass would microwave the package and burn himself and then sue Utz because he wasn't specifically told not to microwave it.  Frankly, if you microwave a bag of potato chips, you deserve what's coming to you.

The beautiful grand staircase at the Hotel Jefferson has been marred for years now by an ungainly railing that goes down the middle.  Why?  Safety code insists.  Never mind that there are railings on either side; the twenty-foot-wide stair must have a railing down the middle.  I am not clear on this, either.  If you need a damn handrail, then walk on the side of the staircase where there's a rail.  I don't give a rat's ass how many people fall to their deaths on the staircase--if they're that stupid they need to die, anyway--but do not screw with good Richmond architecture.

Salute to 1921!

Today, a salute to two great movie palaces that opened this week in 1921:  the Allen and Hanna in Cleveland,   Because it's one of my favorite theatres, here's a link to some pictures of the Allen:

http://www.cinematour.com/tour/us/9963.html

Since the pictures allow the Allen to speak for itself I won't babble on about it too much.  The Hanna is pretty swell too, but I couldn't find any pictures of it, and I doubt that anyone really wants to read lengthy descriptions of its interior. 

It seems odd that two fairly major theatres would open in the same week in one city, and even more odd that they would have opened in April.  Most big palace theatres opened in the fall, because they were trying to present themselves as a high-class form of entertainment.  They mimicked the "legitimate" theatres and opera houses. Since those venues typically started their season in the fall, the movie theatres followed suit. (Eventually people realized that stage shows are deadly dull and opera is all in Italian and who wanted to smell all that garlic anyway? and so the fall opening became less of a big deal.)

But open in April they did, and thankfully Clevelanders have had the good sense to keep both of them functioning for nearly a century.  Speaking of centuries... the Century in Baltimore opened in 1921 as well.  As did my very favorite theatre, Richmond's one and only Colonial (see picture on the right sidebar).  And the Stanley in Philadelphia, the State in Minneapolis, the Chicago in (surprise) Chicago, the Tivoli in Chattanooga...the list is pretty long.  1921 was a very good year for moviegoers.

It's common, among movie palace weirdos, to think of the late '20s as the real pinnacle of the idea.  Without a doubt the late 20s theatres were bigger and more grandiose, certainly more exotic--but I'll vote for 1921 every time.  The fad was for Adamesque decor, one of the most pissily formal, but also stunningly elegant, styles ever to leave a decorator's drafting table.  And an awful lot of those theatres were Adamesque.  (Richmonders clearly fell in love with the idea, because when the National opened two years later, it borrowed the Adam style from its older sister.)

Theatres seemed to come in waves.  1921 was probably the first real boom year for big picture palaces, though quite a few sprang up in 1917 and 1918.  That seems weird, given that we were at war, but maybe it was a pleasant diversion from the idea of war.  No such thing happened in the next war, though.  I suspect that we took World War II much more seriously than we took World War I -- which for most people on the home front was more of an opportunity to show off their patriotism, rather than the later war, which people understood was a pretty serious threat.  

1926 and 1928 were also big theatre building years.  I don't really know the historic economy well enough to say whether that was part of the cycle or not, though certainly after 1930 not too many things got built at all unless they were already under construction.  

It must have been an exciting time.  The war was over, prosperity was here to stay, skirts were going up and new buildings were popping up all over the place.  

Here's the Colonial's interior, just to give you one last glimpse of 1921.

Happiness is sticky and has a hole in the middle

Oh, get your mind out of the gutter.  I almost said "happiness is covered in white sticky stuff" but I knew you little pervs would really go nuts with that one.  Heheh, nuts.

I meant donuts, damnit.  Specifically Krispy Kreme donuts, which I am convinced are God's way of letting nice Southern people know that he loves us and wants us to be happy.  Fat, but happy. You know you're in a good place when one of your assistant principals walks around the building giving KK's to teachers.

There was a quiz floating around teh Facebooks a while back where you got to find out what kind of breakfast pastry you were.  Since there was no option for a pastry that farts first thing in the morning and then rolls over and goes back to sleep, I ended up being some kind of weirdass muffin.  I am not really into muffins in the first place; they're never sweet enough for my taste and they have a nasty habit of containing things that are supposed to be good for you like blueberries and cranberries.  Come on, people, if you're going to have a fruit-based pastry make it worth my while.  Or bran, which just makes you poop a lot.  Who needs a breakfast food that makes you poop?  I mean, I have a first period class; I can't exactly go hightailing it off to the "lavatory" just because I ate baked Metamucil.  The truly disturbing thing about the breakfast pastry quiz was that there was nothing normal on it.  No donuts, no Danish, and the only c roissant was also something weird.

I blame Panera for this.  I have to admit that I really like Panera for the most part, but they're kind of the Starbucks of the carbohydrate world.  They have managed to convince everyone that they're the only high-end bread out there.  Their stuff is supposedly "artisanal."  I know what an artisan is (that's the beauty of English-majordom) but really it should apply to things like porcelain and sculpture,  not broccoli-cheese bagels.  I think that where food is concerned, "artisanal" means "we threw some weird crap into the dough and are now charging six dollars for one roll."

Fortunately here in Dreamy Dixie we are still firm believers in the Donut Gospel.  Krispy Kreme is nothing short of heaven right there.  I am personally capable of eating nineteen of those suckers in one sitting and, diabetic coma notwithstanding, it's a sugar high you want to try.  Dixie Donuts on Cary street, right by the Byrd movie, is also pretty awesome and while they also have a tendency to do weird things with donuts, they are sugary versions of weird so it's OK.   I have just learned that the famed Duck Donuts, of Duck, North Carolina, is opening a Richmond store.  I have to keep reminding myself that the Easter Parade is coming up and I need to fit into my seersucker suit, and that bathing-suit weather isn't far behind, because otherwise with all these options I would be surfing a wave of lemon filling onto a Hot Donuts Now beach.

There is now a Krispy Kreme app for your iPhone that lets you know where the nearest KK is and if their Hot Donuts sign is lit.  Is it wrong that I decided to drive around just to test it out?

I am a good typist and therefore I am better than you are.

Until I walked into a classroom for the first time (as a teacher, that is) in 2003, the only class I'd ever taken that was worth a flying shit was Mrs. Gibson's typing class at Walkersville High School (pronounced Wockersveeyul Hah Skoo) in 1985.  Why, you ask?  Because despite my lofty education, the only job you can get as an English major is a teaching job--or utter crap.  Since I was convinced for several years that I didn't want to teach, my jobs tended to the utter crap.  Which meant that the only skill I needed was my ability to type.

This is becoming a rare skill indeed.  No one learns to touch type anymore.  Like cursive writing, it's "old-fashioned" and "unnecessary" because the computer fucking does everything except for how it doesn't.  See what a computer has? Oh, I don't know, could it be A KEYBOARD?  WITH LITTLE BUTTON-Y THINGS THAT YOU HAVE TO PRESS TO MAKE A LETTER HAPPEN?  IN OTHER WORDS--TYPING????

As I've mentioned, my students can't type.  They have Chromebooks, but they try to use their thumbs to type, because that's how they text. Also my students may be retarded.  (Call off the PC police, I don't really give a damn today.) I'm surprised by the number of adults who can't type, or at least hunt-and-peck somewhat functionally.

This morning, while my little darlings were ostensibly reading silently (hah!) I caught up with The Bloggess (who may or may not be a minor deity).  Apparently someone criticized her for putting two spaces after a period.

All six of you who follow this damn thing know that I am a grammar Nazi and I will, in fact, persecute and possibly torture/kill people who misuse English unless done in a way that I have personally sanctioned.  So listen up, you little bastards: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH PUTTING TWO SPACES AT THE END OF A SENTENCE (i.e., after a period).

Here's why:  the convention of a "space" was really created by typewriting in the first place.  Before the existence of typewriters, a "space" existed only in the mind of its creator.  Written material was either created by hand or a printing press.  If you are actually writing, the amount of space you leave between letters or words or sentences is entirely up to you, alt h ou  gh  i              f    yo u  wr  it      e   like this it looks really weird and people will think you're a sped.  Printing presses, too, were left to the whim of the typesetter, who hand-set the slugs.  If he left one space, or       ten between words, it was at his own discretion.

Typewriters didn't allow for such things and so demanded a uniformity that had never previously existed.  The convention of leaving two spaces after a period was born because it just plain looked better and helped to set sentences apart.  There was never a rule regarding this before typewriters.  There are those who claim that "this rule was invented for typewriting and so it's irrelevant now."  Of course it was invented for typewriting.  Why does that make it irrelevant? Guess what I'm doing right now--I'm typewriting, just not on the Underwood that still sits on my desk.  Why does the rule still apply?  BECAUSE IT STILL LOOKS BETTER, which was why it happened in the first place.

I double-space after every period.  So does The Bloggess.  She's really cool and I'm really easily pissed off, so either double-space yourself or a)incur my wrath or b)don't be a jerk and keep your single-spaced assholery to yourself.

Today's rant over.  Here, listen and watch as Wally Cat enjoys hearing one of his favorite dance numbers ("Wishing," played by Isham Jones and his Rain-Bo Orchestra).

Fun with Technology in the Classroom

No one will ever accuse me of being an up-to-date teacher.  Far too many teachers rely on technological doodads to cover up their complete ignorance of their subject material.  They will then huffily tell anyis is critic that they are keeping up with the times and that "kids don't need to know _________  because it's all available online."  This is the mental equivalent of a toupee.  Case in point: the young teacher with whom I worked a few years ago who honestly did not believe that there was such a thing as the second person, but who had a daily Power Point presentation for anything imaginable.  I still wonder what her presentations were actually about, since she clearly didn't know jack shit about her subject (which was, supposedly, English).

So it will not shock you that I cast a dim view at the myriad Google apps and smart boards and power points and other educational magic beans.  I'm sure they can be helpful, but they're not necessary and they get on my nerves.  I have enough to do without having to learn how to use all this crap.  You know what I can use? Chalk. And a blackboard.  My current school is old enough that the boards are indeed black.

There is one issue.  The erasers we have don't work.  Apparently if one MUST be so antediluvian as to use your hands to write something, for the love of all that is holy, one should do so on a white board. (This is a cultural flip--these days, people will do anything to deride white things in favor of black things, unless it's a writing surface...) So I have a white board which I loathe because chalk dust is easier to clean off the ass of my trousers than dry-erase marker, and also because dry erase markers have a life of approximately fourteen minutes.  I use the damn blackboard.  Except for how the erasers don't work.  Let me demonstrate:

I want one of those old felt jobs that you had to beat outside for hours, making everything in your vicinity white and yellow and unable to breathe. 

Or maybe I'm just really jazzed that I figured out how to post pictures on here. 

I live with retarded cats.

Fine, fine, I know it's not politically correct to call anyone or anything retarded, but you tell me how to refer to an animal that rips apart an entire trash can to get to a greasy paper towel.  I am aware that cats tend to go for fatty things; they're sort of pre-programmed like that.  But seriously, cats? A paper towel.  Admittedly, t" his was the paper towel that I had used to drain sausage after I'd fried it, but it was not actual sausage.  Further, one would imagine that having discovered no sausage and only a paper towel, one might be dissuaded from ingesting said towel.  This would be a rash assumption.  Because what I found when I got home was not simply a trash-strewn kitchen, but horked-up blobs of greasy paper towel ALL OVER THE GODDAMN APARTMENT because apparently Bounty, Now Available In Tasty Breakfast Sausage Flavor, is every bit as tasty as actual breakfast sausage except not quite as readily digestible.  (On that note, I've been perplexed for years with the cheery statement on the thing of Crisco that "It's Digestible!" Well, I bloody well hope it is, since I'm eating the stuff.)

The sausage-towel incident was just the latest in a string of what I sincerely hope is just Kitty Spring Fever and not actual mental degeneration on the parts of my fuzzy little best friends.  It's tough to tell, because they have differing levels of thought processing and physical finesse anyway.  Wally and Pickle are both pretty bright but also insane, and Pickle tends to the evil side of insane.  Daisy is dumber than a box of hair and also isn't particularly coordinated. Elmira is just sort of there and doesn't do much except hiss at Pickle and meow a lot.  So, I'm not really sure who is responsible for these things.  I'd  blame the dumber ones but the smarter ones are more likely to figure out how to invade trash, etc.

Other interesting cat related events of the past few days:
--Hear series of popping noises from bathroom. Go to investigate; discover Pickle still hanging from the shower curtain, which she has successfully pulled off its hooks.
--Discover Christmas light bulb in litter box. Mystery: did it actually pass through a cat?
--Trail of wet footprints leads to a completely soaked Wally, who has evidently taken a dip at La Piscine du Toilette.
--Desperate yowling from kitchen proves to be Daisy, who has somehow gotten inside a cabinet and has become trapped. With the bag of cat food, which she has now broken into and gorged on and promptly yakked up.

As a Profeshunul Edumacator, I know that we're not even supposed to say "Special Ed" anymore.  It's now "Exceptional Education," because it's no longer enough to be afraid that we're going to hurt someone's feelings. Now we have to go out of our way to make the kids who can't read at 18 feel as though they are in fact better--more exceptional--than everyone else.

But I'm pretty sure my cats are just plain retarded.

Purple tainted eclipses

I'm not sure what the night school folks were studying last night, but when I got to my classroom this morning the words "Music of the 80s" were on my blackboard.

I wonder what it is about the cycle of musical fashion that makes people fascinated with tunes that came out two decades previously.  I was born in 1969 so I didn't really see much of the 60s.  I do remember though that the big craze of the 70s and early 80s was the Fabulous Fifties.  This was probably in large part thanks to Happy Days and Grease. Teenagers waxed nostalgic over a time period they'd never seen and parents, who did remember it, sighed for their youth.  It kind of carried into the mid 80s but then we all discovered the 60s and hippie music.

By the time the 90s were in full swing I had checked out of the popular music scene (at least, of my own era) and was so mired in 10s and 20s dance music that I had very little idea of what most people my own age were listening to.  I do remember that there was some rediscovery of the 70s and let me tell you, I just don't get that one.  The 70s were possibly the tackiest decade in the history of the world.  Don't bother telling me about the musicianship of Jefferson Airplane and Cream and all that crap.  All I have to do is take one look at doubleknit polyester and my mind is made up.

The 80s rediscovery has been going on for some time now.  While I don't mind it--I can relive my misspent youth, though without the hair mousse this time--it's strange to see people half my age rockin' out to Purple Rain. I was sort of excited about going dancing at a place just off Boulevard for "Eighties Night" and found that I was  one of maybe three people in the room who could actually remember the 80s.

Even more interesting than the phenomenon itself is the choice of actual songs.  I observed some years ago that no one ever quite gets it right.  People think about the '20s and they think of "Baby Face" and "Ain't She Sweet."  Both were somewhat, but not overwhelmingly, popular. "Valencia" was the number one selling record of 1926 and no one except me remembers it.  Now the kids all think we went around in 1984 singing the aforementioned "Purple Rain," "Tainted Love" and "Total Eclipse of the Heart."  Huh? Sure, I remember them but they weren't all that.  "Purple Rain" actually was a big hit though I never got why Prince was supposed to be a big sex symbol. The dude is shorter than I was in 9th grade, weighs 90 pounds not counting the Jheri-Curl, and is swishier than a palmetto in a hurricane. "Tainted Love" is really nothing but five minutes of a synthesizer going "BOOP BOOP"  and "Total Eclipse..." is not a bad song but was way too depressing for real 80s kids.  We were all too busy wearing Jams and neon crap and getting our ears pierced.

There are a couple of things I think I'm going to bring back: Jams and OP shorts.  OP shorts are actually short and when the rest of you has pretty much gone south but you still have good legs, well, that's an advantage.  Jams were just cool.

Unfortunately the last time I attempted to wear my surviving pair of Jams (which were supposed to be baggy, if you recall) I forgot that they had been bought by 135-pound me and not 200-pound me. They looked like a Hawaiian sausage casing and left absolutely nobody asking "Where's the Beef?" because it was pretty obvious.  Note to self: when bringing styles back, buy new.

Y'all have a good day. I'm going to go melt with somebody.

Two nice movie palaces and a small rant about my crappy computer

I am getting a little better at managing the fancier new (to me) features of blogger, so I can add groovy things like pictures and links without sending myself into a tailspin of confusion.

I need to point out that this is no thanks to my--er, Chesterfield County's--computer, which despite being a laptop was manufactured in approximately 1903.  Its touch pad is possessed by an extremely retarded demon and ifxcept for how (see what happened there?) I breathe on it the cursor zooms somewhere weird buttcrack wallaby which is how I end up with sentences, such as this one, with nonsensical text stuck in them somewhere.  Except for  how when you want the touch pad to work it doesn't and sometimes the cursor goes the wrong way.  In trying to highlight "want" to italicize it, I had to bribe the thing because no matter how many times I swiped the touch pad it just kept hovering in one place.  Asshole computer.

Now I've ranted about people and their lack of theatre etiquette and stupid barely-functional computers, so I'm going to stop and use my powers for good.  Here are some pictures! Yay!

This is the Venus, the Showplace of South Richmond.  If any theatre was ever set up by its builder to eventually become a p0rno theatre, this is the one. I mean, "Venus?"  but no one thought like that in 1924 and Richmond loves neoclassical things, so "Venus" just made everyone think "Roman Goddess" and not "naked."  It's still standing on Hull Street, but after a couple of decades as a furniture store, there's not much left of its interior.

Since I am not particularly concerned with being politically correct or a corporate stooge I refuse to use any of the new names for this stupendous building at Main and Laurel.  Note that I say "Building" and not "Theatre."  In addition to nearly four thousand seats--making it the second largest movie palace in the world on opening day in 1926--it houses a ballroom with enough space for five hundred couples to dance at once, five lobby levels, four smaller ballrooms or banquet halls, forty hotel rooms, a bowling alley, a pool, and a miniature golf course (on the roof).  Here is the Mosque:

Someone who was reading over my shoulder pointed out that I didn't say anything about the organs in these two places.  Fine.  The Venus had a 2/4 Robert Morton and the Mosque still has its 3/16 Wurlitzer.