A little part of me wishes we were at the parade today. The rest of me is screaming, “Are you effin nuts? It’s raining out and you HATE people!”
Seriously – being squished up against 4+ million people in the cold drizzle with no bathroom is not my idea of fun. Throw in that I’m 5′4″ on my tippie-toes, and you know there’s no way in hell I would see a damned thing anyway. And I am NOT a fun person to be around when I’m cold, wet, can’t see anything because mean tall people feel the need to step on us little ‘uns – and I have to pee, to boot!
So we’re fleeing the state to celebrate what we had planned for today all along – our friends’ little girl’s first birthday in a nice, warm house surrounded by friends we haven’t seen in way too long.
(Besides, I was lucky enough to touch Johnny and Jay got to say, “Hey!” to Manny. I think that makes up for standing for hours to see them from a crowd ten people deep and five miles long. )

Holy shit… Johnny Damon was here!
I left work to go to the bookstore to find something scary to read to the kids this afternoon. There was a whole crowd around the spa next to the store, so I asked what was going on. I knew that Johnny’s wife is friends with the owner, and lo and behold, he was in there, getting his hair cut!!! I ran into the bookstore and grabbed a paper and tried calling anyone and everyone at work. No dice. Finally, he started peeping out from behind the curtain and everyone went wild. The door opened and he pushed his way out. He ended up over where I was, and I managed to walk alongside him the fifty feet or so to his car. I’m sosososososo pissed that I wasn’t aggressive enough to get his autograph – I didn’t have a pen and I didn’t want to grab someone else’s from their hands – but I DID walk shoulder to shoulder with him.
I touched Johnny Damon. The morning after they won the World Series. Oh.my.god. Excuse me while I freak out like a fifteen-year-old girl.
(Added 10/29: The hubby ran into Manny today at work. What are the odds?)

Very surreal. Absolutely incredible. Feels like an April Fool’s joke in October… I keep waiting for the Haha! Gotcha! as though this is some elaborate scheme my dad rigged. At some point this morning, I’ll get a phone call with his voice simply saying, “1918! Better luck next year!”
It’ll take a while to sink in, I’m sure.
So incredibly tired. School today will be interesting – Sox win, full moon, Halloween party. Come talk to me tomorrow when it’s all over.

If I ever posted titles, the title for this post would be: “And they said the planets were aligned for a win tonight. Heh. Heh.”
Me: The Cardinals aren’t even like a real team.
Jay: Ok… so now would be a bad time to tell you how many series they’ve won?
Me: Nah. They’re just not like a real team that matters – like Boston or NY.
Jay: Here we go again – New York is the center of the universe, right?
Me: Yeah. And Boston’s like Mercury.
Jay: …
Me: And St. Louis is like Pluto – way far from anything that matters.
Jay: Pluto’s not even a real planet anymore!
Me: Ok, so St. Louis is like Saturn. No… a moon of Saturn. Nononono … it’s…
Jay: Oh no.
Me: URANUS!
(This is where I double over like a third grader. Hee hee, I said uranus!)
Go Sox!

I’m finding it really difficult to teach certain topics in my ethics class. Last week we talked about animal research, and I have family members who spent a good deal of my childhood speaking out against animal testing, eating vegan and protesting the March of Dimes. I’ve heard the stories, seen the pictures – it’s just something I have a hard time with. They did an incredible job, and it was a great way to talk about personal biases and how they seep into the way we present material (a key critical thinking skill, especially with the election coming up).
This week we started punishment and the death penalty – another issue I feel strongly about. It’s interesting to watch a class that comes from a fairly violent world talk about punishment – these are kids who are gang-involved, kids who know drug dealers, kids who are already a part of our justice system, kids who have seen friends and peers shot and killed. When I present the idea of lex talionis – an eye for an eye – in the context of gang violence, they’re all for it. However, out of a class of 12, not a single one believes in the death penalty. I can’t wait to push them beyond their emotional reaction and really having them analyze the breakdown in their logic.
Should be interesting.

Sometimes I’m surprised at the people who link to me. Clearly right-wing, anti-social programs, anti-abortion, anti-everything-I-stand-for people – linking. To me. Interesting.
Randomness: Making salmon for dinner? Try this: 1/3 cup FF sour cream, 1/3 cup FF plain yogurt, 2 tsp dill, 1/2 tsp mustard. Pour over cooked salmon. Yummy, yummy, yummy.
So, I’m this whole big label snob, right? I mean, my income dictates the sale rack at the Gap, so when I get wicked expensive stuff wicked cheap on ebay, I’m psyched. And it’s not even like anyone will see the label, but there’s something about wearing $129 BCBG pants that makes me strut my stuff. The pants I snagged were too big, so I took them to the tailor – WHO CUT THE TAG OUT! Blasphemy. And I imagine it’s too late to go back and ask him if he still has it?
I mean, really, how am I supposed to feel all sorts of snooty when I have no proof that they were ridiculously overpriced, look-at-the-labels-I-wear pants to begin with? Even if I did pay $15 for them, I want the label, dammit! I want the PROOF, dammit!
I have all sorts of issues, don’t I?

Ok, ok, so we weren’t actually at the game. We were sitting on the couch at the Reillys’ watching the game and I just worked some Photoshop magic. But still – watching the game with the Reillys and Miss Jess Bess is always the best!
So… what I’m going to say now might get me kicked out of Red Sox nation – but I’m not sure I’m ready for them to win the World Series. So much of what I love about being a fan is the faith this city has in their team. This is it! This year! And we hold out, through July and August and it’s awesome. And it all falls apart in September like we knew it would, and our hearts break and we tell ourselves, Next year. Next year will be the year. And Spring Training begins and we get all excited and the hope rushes through the city and everything is alive with the unwaivering belief that this will be the year that we reverse the Curse.
So what happens if we win this year? What will happen to the culture of the Curse? What happens to that faith – those NY taunts of 1918! – that keeps an entire city together every year?
But I’m still a fairly new fan. I’ve only been subjected to four years of heartbreak. I imagine the lifelong fans really just want it to be done and over with already, and I can’t blame them. It would be absolutely amazing to win. Still, I can’t help but wonder what will become of Red Sox nation when the very thing that’s brought everyone togther for 86 years finally happens.

Ah, the joy of a midsemester meltdown in front of two coworkers.
I hate being a first-year teacher. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I hate feeling like I’m learning how to teach at the expense of the kids’ education.
On a more positive note: We’re learning about metaphor and simile in my English 1 class. Here’s a sample of what they came up with:
Love is like going to a prom with the hottest girl and finding out it was a prank.
Her kisses were warm and safe like a pillow.
Her hair was as smelly as a wet mop.
Love is like having music every day.
His kisses were like a raindrop fell on my lips.

I actually had a student napping on the floor today. A full-grown teenage girl sleeping on my classroom floor.
In all fairness, they were supposed to be practicing their lines – they’re doing an activity with A Streetcar Named Desire – and half of the kids were MIA today.
Strangely, they prefer to work with the lights off. I do, too. It mellows them a bit – but napping?
I couldn’t argue with her – she really had been memorizing her lines; it was the end of the day; it had been a weird “full moon” day; she had been doing her work while I struggled to get others to focus. And besides, I have a student who falls asleep sitting straight up, every day, without fail. It’s become the class joke. Some of them take bets on how long into class he’ll make it. Others stock up on things to throw at him when he does fall asleep. Today, we had a lesson on “preventative measures.” Why does K. fall asleep? What could we do to prevent this? Think outside the box.
Spoken like a true teen-pregnancy-prevention advocate.
Yesterday, a couple of the other teachers and I were sitting in the office talking about how many girls are pregnant, and how little these kids seem to know about prevention. So we decided that next week we’re going to do a sex ed class with them. I devised a true-false quiz to test their knowledge, with a little help from the internet.
Did you know people actually believe that douching with coca-cola will keep you from getting pregnant? Or sneezing fifteen times in a row after sex?
Who knew? All those years wasted on the pill when I could have simply stolen little packets of black pepper from the local Burger King.
Bet you K. will stay awake for that class. *heh* Freaks – all of them. And for all the insanity and stress and walls they make me climb, I love them each more and more every day the semester wears on. I want to fail them and hug them at the same time, little pains-in-my-ass that they are.

Just in case you’re in a rush this morning to get to work and talk all about the game – a selection of the headlines from NY papers for your enjoyment. A sloppy arrangement, yes, but I’m tired and really, the “Ruthless” one is all you need. Bwahahahaha.
Gosh, this is just way too much fun.