the first time i had a real bagel was in new orleans. i was 23 or so and my housemate at the time ordered them from h&h bagels in nyc because, well, bagels in new orleans in 1992 were sort of questionable and she was a bagel snob. i learned, over time, to be snobby about a few things myself. beer. chocolate. wool. bagels. there's no point in eating bagels that taste like paste or look like english muffins. so i am fortunate that right now here in brooklyn, in bensonhurst, under the rumbling elevated d train, there is a tiny bagel place barely large enough for a line of four people where the folks there not only make spectacular bagels, but also remember my sporadic visits well enough to know what i order. cinnamon raisin bagel with honey walnut cream cheese. and these folks do not have a light hand with the cream cheese. it is the sort of place where if you ask them to scoop out the inside of the bagel (people i work with do things like this. grow up!) you would be greeted with a snort and would take home a mangled bagel. what? i eat them once a month at most, so don't you worry about it. a good bagel is insulted if you don't put a fat slab of cream cheese on it. who am i to insult a good bagel?
it's one of those places where in the winter the windows are all steamed up because they actually make the bagels right there and when i go in my glasses fog up to match. it is lit with reds and has plenty of hand written signs promising things like "home made soup for lunch" and "yes, we have flagels" (they're flat bagels, if you'e wondering). but today, a friday in the middle of december, when i arrived at 7am to give myself this little gift i find for the first time in five years that i'm the only person in the store. the guy remembered my order and while he made my tea i looked at the counter in front of me. it's a small space, just barely wider than my own shoulders. when i face it, to my left is the cash register and to the right, the bakery case full of muffins and little tiny baby bagels. but today there was something new on the counter. a stainless steel bowl, just like the largest of a nested set i have at home, sat snuggled up next to the cash register. in it were eggs. hard boiled eggs, according to the sign. more than a dozen hard boiled eggs for sale. at 7am.
now generally that many hard boiled eggs go right to deviled eggs or egg salad. i've never seen a bowl of them, shells on and intact, sitting around. they seemed somehow magical. i wanted to buy one or two but the guy had already totaled my order and put the bagel on top of the tea in the little brown bag. i took the bag in my mittened hand and looked one more time at the eggs. there has to be a reason. some holiday secret like black eyed peas that someone neglected to tell me. i know there are hard boiled eggs all over hanukkah celebrations but they've always seemed to be part of something else, an ingredient. they're not candy bars sitting on a coutner for a last minute impulse buy. a bowl of plain, naked hard boiled eggs in a bagel shop doesn't seem like part of that. not like gelt. not like latkes. but they are beautiful sitting there and although i don't really care much for them, i find myself thinking about how one would taste right now.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
sleeping dogs and jim
sometimes the world gets ridiculous. knife wielding children, murderous garbage trucks, drug dealing maniacs, students without homework, blustery weather. dog candy won't fix any of that, but look at it anyway.
max stands guard while jim naps. max has a loose interpretation of "stand".
extreme napping after a long day asleep in the car
max dreams of flying.
max and guthrie fall asleep while watching tv.
plaid, stripes, more stripes, cat, dog. harmony.
max snores with his eyes open.
dogpile with cat
max stands guard while jim naps. max has a loose interpretation of "stand".
extreme napping after a long day asleep in the car
max dreams of flying.
max and guthrie fall asleep while watching tv.
plaid, stripes, more stripes, cat, dog. harmony.
max snores with his eyes open.
dogpile with cat
Friday, December 12, 2008
precious baby
during second period the classroom phone rang. the dean's office had one of my precious babies and planned to keep him for a two day suspension. could i send down some work the phone voice asks. now, earlier, yesterday, i saw kids peering out a window in the stairwell, muttering about an arrest and as i tried to get past them i yelled, "let that poor man get arrested in peace!" a few hours later a teacher pulled me aside to let me know the arrested man was actually one of my precious babies, a past one, one i dearly love, one who has been all but lost for a very, very long time. according to what i could decipher, my old precious baby was in the process of handing one of my new precious babies something. a sharp thing, pointy. not likely to be confused with any other things. not easily confused with gum or money or even a cheeseburger. so my old baby is, as far as i know, locked up somewhere and the new one stews in the dean's office.
when my second class shows up with the two other adults who attempt to wrangle them with me, i gather up a notebook, pen and all my snarling anger and head to the dean's office. it is just after 10 am on friday. one of the deans is standing in the doorway. a girl is sitting at a desk. my own precious baby looks tiny in his desk sitting centered at the back of the room. i am tired. i want to adopt him, take him home, feed him food that isn't primarily dorito-based. i want to yell at him until he cries and says he'll never do anything this stupid again, but i know i don't even know where to start. what i do know is he has a parole officer and that holding this sharp, shiny object for someone is stupid because it violates his parole. it is stupid because he knows this.
i ask why he is sitting in the dean's room and he tells his version of the story, a version that ends with the phrase "i didn't do nothing wrong." i surprise both of us by saying a very long string of words he's never heard me say, ending with "that is absolute bullshit!" he is mad. maybe he is hurt. but he knows i am right. "i don't want to talk about it!" he yells at me, pulling his hood over his head and slamming himself face down onto the desk. turtle in a shell. all pulled in. i want to shake him. i want to scream. what i do instead is reach up to the top of his head and pull his hood back as gently as i can. i tell him to quit being so ridiculous but i can feel my eyes getting liquid and i think he must be able to hear it in my voice because he looks up, wary but curious. he is a child who had done grown up things, cruel and stupid and selfish things. destructive things. but when he looks up he is trying to keep his angry face together and the fact that he's trying so hard makes him look even more like a small, small child.
i ask what he was thinking. he says he didn't know. i spend at least five minutes making fun of this because i don't know what else to do. i tell him i need to hear him say he knew what he was doing, knew that it was stupid. because if he didn't, i worry he'll do it again. he does not want to say that he knew what he was doing. "i'm retarded!" he says, instead, by way of explanation. he says it without all the letters- "retaaaaatad". i realize he's never read the word, only heard adults say it and this is why so many of the kids in my school can't spell. they're spelling words that only exist in their own homes. i insist that he's not retarded, try to explain retardation, but he persists. it's better to be stupid than guilty. i tell him i'll prove it. i go to the office and get his file. i read to him what teachers say. he's bright but angry. he's really good at math. he smiles. he knows he's good at math. this is why i am here. this child who had this sharp, pointy object that he brought right here into my school is really the little boy i know he is. he's proud of the fact that he's good at math. i keep reading because he asks me to. he wants to know. he's not retarded.
i make him get out two sheets of paper. at the top of one he writes "i am not retarded because..." we start making a list. he is good at math. he does all his work in my class. he has excellent social skills. and so on. the second sheet is where i ask him to write something for me. something that will help me not worry about this precious little baby of mine getting stabbed or shot or otherwise demolished. i do not know what he will write, but i will read it monday. i tell him as i get ready to leave that if this page is good it will make up for everything he'll miss the two days he's out. he nods. i tell him if he gets stabbed or shot, he gets no credit. he smiles. i mean it, i tell him. you think i will feel bad and will give you the credit if something happens to you and although it is true that i will feel bad and i will cry, i won't give you anything. he knows this is true just like i know this isn't the last fight we'll have over sharp things and criminal behavior.
when my second class shows up with the two other adults who attempt to wrangle them with me, i gather up a notebook, pen and all my snarling anger and head to the dean's office. it is just after 10 am on friday. one of the deans is standing in the doorway. a girl is sitting at a desk. my own precious baby looks tiny in his desk sitting centered at the back of the room. i am tired. i want to adopt him, take him home, feed him food that isn't primarily dorito-based. i want to yell at him until he cries and says he'll never do anything this stupid again, but i know i don't even know where to start. what i do know is he has a parole officer and that holding this sharp, shiny object for someone is stupid because it violates his parole. it is stupid because he knows this.
i ask why he is sitting in the dean's room and he tells his version of the story, a version that ends with the phrase "i didn't do nothing wrong." i surprise both of us by saying a very long string of words he's never heard me say, ending with "that is absolute bullshit!" he is mad. maybe he is hurt. but he knows i am right. "i don't want to talk about it!" he yells at me, pulling his hood over his head and slamming himself face down onto the desk. turtle in a shell. all pulled in. i want to shake him. i want to scream. what i do instead is reach up to the top of his head and pull his hood back as gently as i can. i tell him to quit being so ridiculous but i can feel my eyes getting liquid and i think he must be able to hear it in my voice because he looks up, wary but curious. he is a child who had done grown up things, cruel and stupid and selfish things. destructive things. but when he looks up he is trying to keep his angry face together and the fact that he's trying so hard makes him look even more like a small, small child.
i ask what he was thinking. he says he didn't know. i spend at least five minutes making fun of this because i don't know what else to do. i tell him i need to hear him say he knew what he was doing, knew that it was stupid. because if he didn't, i worry he'll do it again. he does not want to say that he knew what he was doing. "i'm retarded!" he says, instead, by way of explanation. he says it without all the letters- "retaaaaatad". i realize he's never read the word, only heard adults say it and this is why so many of the kids in my school can't spell. they're spelling words that only exist in their own homes. i insist that he's not retarded, try to explain retardation, but he persists. it's better to be stupid than guilty. i tell him i'll prove it. i go to the office and get his file. i read to him what teachers say. he's bright but angry. he's really good at math. he smiles. he knows he's good at math. this is why i am here. this child who had this sharp, pointy object that he brought right here into my school is really the little boy i know he is. he's proud of the fact that he's good at math. i keep reading because he asks me to. he wants to know. he's not retarded.
i make him get out two sheets of paper. at the top of one he writes "i am not retarded because..." we start making a list. he is good at math. he does all his work in my class. he has excellent social skills. and so on. the second sheet is where i ask him to write something for me. something that will help me not worry about this precious little baby of mine getting stabbed or shot or otherwise demolished. i do not know what he will write, but i will read it monday. i tell him as i get ready to leave that if this page is good it will make up for everything he'll miss the two days he's out. he nods. i tell him if he gets stabbed or shot, he gets no credit. he smiles. i mean it, i tell him. you think i will feel bad and will give you the credit if something happens to you and although it is true that i will feel bad and i will cry, i won't give you anything. he knows this is true just like i know this isn't the last fight we'll have over sharp things and criminal behavior.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
travel
yesterday i was walking down bay parkway the way i usually go, along the cemetery toward the f train. you have heard about this walk before, how this stretch along the cemetery is lined with impounded vehicles and resting long-haul trucks, how i see the truck drivers too often using the sidewalk as a toilet, how there are old buses sitting there too long to be impounds. one of these buses is an old charter, the kind with seats that look like the carpet in cheap atlantic city casinos, a blue that exists only in polyester and is flecked with reds and yellows and purples. a pattern probably listed as "skyburst" in a catalog in 1983. i have walked past it plenty of times, just like i've walked past an odd truck offering palm readings sitting in front of it.
but i wasn't paying any special sort of attention to the bus as i walked home. i was far more focused on the sky, storm-colored and low and the air, warm and rain smelling the way spring sometimes lets the air smell. not winter at all. not even fall. i was taking off my hat, unwrapping my scarf. 51 degrees. i noticed it without really registering it. there are things we take into our heads all the time without stopping to hold them up and look at them and only when something irritates our brain like sand in an oyster do we actually use our whole selves to look. and something was sand in my brain. sharp. jagged. one, two, three, four roundish holes in the windshield denting in the glass and the spiderwebs spreading around each hole ran into one another, overlapping rings, sharp ripples. gunshots. i do not know enough about gunshots to say for sure what sort of bullets were here earlier in the day, but i do know enough about glass to think that a bb gun or something only slightly more angry had been involved. the sort of guns my students insist they could use today are not as plentiful as they think and certainly weren't used to mutilate this poor bus. or put it out of its misery.
as i came abreast of the bus, i could see the passenger entry door had been shot up, too. the windows along the side were in various stages of destruction. the glass, clear every other day i've walked by it, was the color of a robin's egg. this color change happens to the sort of glass that crumbles when broken only, not to the kind that makes angry shards. two windows had been shot up and then, maybe, kicked in. the rubber seals around the windows were hanging partly off the metal and sticking to clumps of glass which had cracked like ice and scattered that pretty blue and concentrated it all at the same time. soft blue.
some days are like that, full of quiet all day and then a pile of bulletholes just sneaks right up on you. this morning, not much past 6:30 i walked to the train station and there was the guy who sells papers. this station is not my regular one so maybe he's the regular guy and maybe he isn't. what's important is that he had this huge case. like a suitcase sort of but rounded and squarish, a yellow that promised it came from 1972. you could put something larger than a french horn in there if you needed to but he had the thing filled with candy bars. the little bite size ones. it was sitting on a rack of some sort or maybe a chair, like luggage on one of those stands in hotel rooms. he raked his hands over the candy bars, smoothing out the shiny surface, like moving is hands through rubies or sapphires.
just a bit later i was waiting for the q train. the promise of rain was keeping the sky dark, still night, keeping platform lights on. the train rolled up and the doors opened. everything inside bright and orangy and warm and dry. orange seats. metal poles. bright, bright. and there in one of the short corner seats sat a tiny person. i'm going to say she was a woman because of her size and because of the sheet. a cream colored sheet, soft flannel with clusters of roses scattered over it. rosebuds mostly, but a few open blooms. the sheet was draped over her, over all of her. it was a sheet like one i remember from childhood. it was tucked in all around her, at her sides, under her feet, behind her head. like a gift, a package with a surprise in it, human, live. the assumption here is that this tiny woman was alive, asleep, had covered her own self up. nobody would cover the dead like that, tucked in tightly all around.
a kid on the train yelled, "who is learning chinese in a spanish class?" people got on the train. people got off. there were conversations and phone calls. people read books. i took out my knitting. yarn the color of rosebuds.
but i wasn't paying any special sort of attention to the bus as i walked home. i was far more focused on the sky, storm-colored and low and the air, warm and rain smelling the way spring sometimes lets the air smell. not winter at all. not even fall. i was taking off my hat, unwrapping my scarf. 51 degrees. i noticed it without really registering it. there are things we take into our heads all the time without stopping to hold them up and look at them and only when something irritates our brain like sand in an oyster do we actually use our whole selves to look. and something was sand in my brain. sharp. jagged. one, two, three, four roundish holes in the windshield denting in the glass and the spiderwebs spreading around each hole ran into one another, overlapping rings, sharp ripples. gunshots. i do not know enough about gunshots to say for sure what sort of bullets were here earlier in the day, but i do know enough about glass to think that a bb gun or something only slightly more angry had been involved. the sort of guns my students insist they could use today are not as plentiful as they think and certainly weren't used to mutilate this poor bus. or put it out of its misery.
as i came abreast of the bus, i could see the passenger entry door had been shot up, too. the windows along the side were in various stages of destruction. the glass, clear every other day i've walked by it, was the color of a robin's egg. this color change happens to the sort of glass that crumbles when broken only, not to the kind that makes angry shards. two windows had been shot up and then, maybe, kicked in. the rubber seals around the windows were hanging partly off the metal and sticking to clumps of glass which had cracked like ice and scattered that pretty blue and concentrated it all at the same time. soft blue.
some days are like that, full of quiet all day and then a pile of bulletholes just sneaks right up on you. this morning, not much past 6:30 i walked to the train station and there was the guy who sells papers. this station is not my regular one so maybe he's the regular guy and maybe he isn't. what's important is that he had this huge case. like a suitcase sort of but rounded and squarish, a yellow that promised it came from 1972. you could put something larger than a french horn in there if you needed to but he had the thing filled with candy bars. the little bite size ones. it was sitting on a rack of some sort or maybe a chair, like luggage on one of those stands in hotel rooms. he raked his hands over the candy bars, smoothing out the shiny surface, like moving is hands through rubies or sapphires.
just a bit later i was waiting for the q train. the promise of rain was keeping the sky dark, still night, keeping platform lights on. the train rolled up and the doors opened. everything inside bright and orangy and warm and dry. orange seats. metal poles. bright, bright. and there in one of the short corner seats sat a tiny person. i'm going to say she was a woman because of her size and because of the sheet. a cream colored sheet, soft flannel with clusters of roses scattered over it. rosebuds mostly, but a few open blooms. the sheet was draped over her, over all of her. it was a sheet like one i remember from childhood. it was tucked in all around her, at her sides, under her feet, behind her head. like a gift, a package with a surprise in it, human, live. the assumption here is that this tiny woman was alive, asleep, had covered her own self up. nobody would cover the dead like that, tucked in tightly all around.
a kid on the train yelled, "who is learning chinese in a spanish class?" people got on the train. people got off. there were conversations and phone calls. people read books. i took out my knitting. yarn the color of rosebuds.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
pork chop
union square park is a small but active park in the middle of the lower part of manhattan. it sits on top of a collection of most of the trains in the city and is surrounded by tall buildings from a variety of eras and architectural passions. within the park, abraham lincoln stands near the northern end near a restaurant of confusing hours and focus. gandhi with his walking stick strides through the southern end of the park, often draped with flowers. the southern end of this park, near gandhi, facing whole foods market and filene's basement and dsw is where demonstrations and protests of all kinds flower. in warm weather folks sit along wide steps and drum circles appear out of nowhere. union square park is the home, north of lincoln and the restaurant, of a vast (for manhattan) paved expanse where the farm market lives. under the feet of market patrons someone has painted two huge vines, separate from one another, curling in large snailing circles. they are for running around, according to the instructions. i don't really know.
but right now the vines are ruptured and the farm market scooted toward the side of the park while construction is going on. nobody seems to know what on earth might be happening on a stretch of flat, paved ground the size of a small parking lot, but the fences are up and large machines are living inside. it will probably take all winter to find out. the farm market doesn't seem to mind being squeezed over. the strawberry vendors and flower vendors and tomato folks are all gone back to their farms anyway leaving only honey people and wine people and cheese people and the guys selling fir trees and wreaths.
the sweetie and i were in the park last week, wandering aimlessly through the holiday market, a seasonal open air market made up of aisles of red and white striped tents full of arts and crafts and other mysterious necessities. you can find handmade soaps, candles and bags. there are stalls where any item in the world can be plastered with the empire state building or the brooklyn bridge. lots of folks sell handmade jewelry and there are hats and scarves of every imaginable shape and kind. unusual toys are sprinkled in there- chirping frogs. marionettes. boxing nuns. it is a bit like going to a mall for hippies. hippies with trust funds. but the things are pretty and unusual so we try to stop by once a year and smile at the vendors and ask questions about items made entirely from recycled soda bottles or bamboo.
the sweetie and i finally staggered from the brightly lit circus into the dingy streetlight at evening grayness of the rest of the park. out of the shadows stepped a man in a hooded jacket with one outstretched hand waving toward passers-by. he was not begging or mugging or any of the other things folks leaping out of the darkness with waving arms are generally planning. he was offering samples. he stood near a sign promising some mighty fine bacon and his bare hand was draped with a white paper towel. sitting on top of the paper towel were small squares completely indecipherable in the dark. "pork chop?" he said as he held out his hand. nobody took any. my own belly was feeling a little off so i declined as well. later, though, i regretted it. because it is a good idea to collect stories like that. when else will i get the chance to say "some stranger in a park gave me a piece of pork chop he was carrying around in his hand and i ate it. it was good"? that sort of thing only comes along every so often. i will have to go back this week and see if i can find him. a good pork chop in new york city is a rare sort of gift.
but right now the vines are ruptured and the farm market scooted toward the side of the park while construction is going on. nobody seems to know what on earth might be happening on a stretch of flat, paved ground the size of a small parking lot, but the fences are up and large machines are living inside. it will probably take all winter to find out. the farm market doesn't seem to mind being squeezed over. the strawberry vendors and flower vendors and tomato folks are all gone back to their farms anyway leaving only honey people and wine people and cheese people and the guys selling fir trees and wreaths.
the sweetie and i were in the park last week, wandering aimlessly through the holiday market, a seasonal open air market made up of aisles of red and white striped tents full of arts and crafts and other mysterious necessities. you can find handmade soaps, candles and bags. there are stalls where any item in the world can be plastered with the empire state building or the brooklyn bridge. lots of folks sell handmade jewelry and there are hats and scarves of every imaginable shape and kind. unusual toys are sprinkled in there- chirping frogs. marionettes. boxing nuns. it is a bit like going to a mall for hippies. hippies with trust funds. but the things are pretty and unusual so we try to stop by once a year and smile at the vendors and ask questions about items made entirely from recycled soda bottles or bamboo.
the sweetie and i finally staggered from the brightly lit circus into the dingy streetlight at evening grayness of the rest of the park. out of the shadows stepped a man in a hooded jacket with one outstretched hand waving toward passers-by. he was not begging or mugging or any of the other things folks leaping out of the darkness with waving arms are generally planning. he was offering samples. he stood near a sign promising some mighty fine bacon and his bare hand was draped with a white paper towel. sitting on top of the paper towel were small squares completely indecipherable in the dark. "pork chop?" he said as he held out his hand. nobody took any. my own belly was feeling a little off so i declined as well. later, though, i regretted it. because it is a good idea to collect stories like that. when else will i get the chance to say "some stranger in a park gave me a piece of pork chop he was carrying around in his hand and i ate it. it was good"? that sort of thing only comes along every so often. i will have to go back this week and see if i can find him. a good pork chop in new york city is a rare sort of gift.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
shelley
today is my sister shelley's birthday. much of her life has been a blur to me. in fact, much of my own life has been a blur. there are things i don't remember about my childhood, about her childhood, that i probably should just as there are things about last week my brain has already confused with other things. but i remember the first time i held her. she was tiny and i wasn't all that much bigger, just two and a half more years on the planet. when our parents brought her home they said she was mine. my very own. i had been hoping for a dog but she was easier to carry so i sat in a big chair and held her. mine mine mine. later, when i still wanted a dog, i convinced her to crawl around after me and bark. i was the princess. it was a very good life.
i remember our mom dressing us in matching garanimals outfits. i have no idea why but it lasted an entire summer- striped tank tops with solid shorts, the kind with vertical seams down the front. we certainly weren't twins but had matching blue dresses and matching raggedy ann jumpers. we shared a room for a while and had bunk beds. i know we listened to a 45 of chantilly lace on a portable turntable over and over while arguing about lite brite pegs. for reasons i can't explain, i'm sure the back side of the 45 was purple people eater. this was when i tried to convince her that the devil lived in our closet. i learned later he lives in a pine barren in jersey but at the time our closet seemed more likely.
we played with lincoln logs, ring-a-ma-jigs, toads, shovels, caterpillars, poker chips, turtles, animal bones, magnifying glasses. we rode bikes everywhere and participated in a variety of shoddy clubhouse building ventures. we spent a good deal of time on a construction site in our neighborhood one year, a house with a floorplan identical to ours but without bothersome things like doors and windows to keep us out. we spent summers at the pool alternately baking and pruning ourselves and trudged home with red-rimmed eyes and chlorine-scented hair when we had to, when we remembered we had a family and there might be dinner for us.
but my sister had a love that made all those other things seem pale and ugly. she loved hot wheels. because we lived on a dead end street, our parents let her play in the gravel road in front of our house where she could spend hours paving roads for her beloved cars. only three houses existed past our own and when dinnertime would roll around, shelley would start to get wary. she'd look for dads coming home and more than once she'd fling herself down in the road, spread little child arms and legs as far to every edge as she could make her small self go, and bellow, "GO AROUND!" to the few grown men coming home who needed to pass. like some sort of bridge troll gone mad, she's stay there staring them down and they'd do what she said. they'd drive off the road a little, into the grass on the side, and maneuver around her oblivious cars on their own important adventures.
i do not know where she learned her fierceness, although spending the first few years of her life as a dog might have contributed. i do know that i learned very early on to do what the men in our neighborhood did. i do as i'm told when shelley is the teller. after that early and brief reign as the princess, i have settled into my life as the dog. it is a very good life, one i would not trade for any other.
i remember our mom dressing us in matching garanimals outfits. i have no idea why but it lasted an entire summer- striped tank tops with solid shorts, the kind with vertical seams down the front. we certainly weren't twins but had matching blue dresses and matching raggedy ann jumpers. we shared a room for a while and had bunk beds. i know we listened to a 45 of chantilly lace on a portable turntable over and over while arguing about lite brite pegs. for reasons i can't explain, i'm sure the back side of the 45 was purple people eater. this was when i tried to convince her that the devil lived in our closet. i learned later he lives in a pine barren in jersey but at the time our closet seemed more likely.
we played with lincoln logs, ring-a-ma-jigs, toads, shovels, caterpillars, poker chips, turtles, animal bones, magnifying glasses. we rode bikes everywhere and participated in a variety of shoddy clubhouse building ventures. we spent a good deal of time on a construction site in our neighborhood one year, a house with a floorplan identical to ours but without bothersome things like doors and windows to keep us out. we spent summers at the pool alternately baking and pruning ourselves and trudged home with red-rimmed eyes and chlorine-scented hair when we had to, when we remembered we had a family and there might be dinner for us.
but my sister had a love that made all those other things seem pale and ugly. she loved hot wheels. because we lived on a dead end street, our parents let her play in the gravel road in front of our house where she could spend hours paving roads for her beloved cars. only three houses existed past our own and when dinnertime would roll around, shelley would start to get wary. she'd look for dads coming home and more than once she'd fling herself down in the road, spread little child arms and legs as far to every edge as she could make her small self go, and bellow, "GO AROUND!" to the few grown men coming home who needed to pass. like some sort of bridge troll gone mad, she's stay there staring them down and they'd do what she said. they'd drive off the road a little, into the grass on the side, and maneuver around her oblivious cars on their own important adventures.
i do not know where she learned her fierceness, although spending the first few years of her life as a dog might have contributed. i do know that i learned very early on to do what the men in our neighborhood did. i do as i'm told when shelley is the teller. after that early and brief reign as the princess, i have settled into my life as the dog. it is a very good life, one i would not trade for any other.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
stink bomb
it all started yesterday when my metrocard expired and i tried to get the machine to renew it. after six or seven tries i finally gave up and asked the attendant in the train station to make me a new card. she did, tossing it out, letting me know it's not generally her job to do things. then some guy on the bus was freaking out so i got out and walked a while. i walked under the f train and thought about what i always thought about. one of these days something will fly off that stupid train and crack open my skull. and to my surprise, something actually did fly off the stupid train and it slapped me right on the face, leaving a faint scratch on my cheek. certainly not a cracked skull, but as unexpected as something can be when you're expecting it to happen.
when i finally got to school the day went pretty well, but on the way home i realized the metro card i'd spent $25 on early in the morning had somehow escaped. no metrocard. perhaps the trains are conspiring to get me. stupid trains.
but then this morning i was feeling good. my first class was mellow and focused. good kids. my second class appears to have been possessed by a clump of incredibly lazy demons lacking in creativity. two hours of one child sleeping, one child hooting (no, really, i mean actual hooting like an owl would do if an owl wanted to fail my class), one child interrupting (every sentence. every single sentence), thirty two children talking when they should have been listening so that they had to ask a million questions when they should have been working. one child had to be removed by the dean. another had to leave and come back twice. and then there was the stink bomb. some goofball sent a sulfurous smell into the hallway outside our classroom. vile. toxic. eggy. the children whined. i considered reminding them they've all created stinks far worse than what we were suffering, but i know memory isn't reliable. they would never believe me. finally, i went back to my desk, grabbed a bag of yarn (what? you don't have a random bag of yarn at your desk?) and began to shove skeins into the crack under the door to block the stink. it was about this time our principal opened the door, stepping over the scattered yarn with a curious look on his face as one of the precious angels was being escorted toward the door. "what's going on?" he asked. i have no idea. none at all. madness, probably.
but that's not the best part. i was standing in the doorway on the second floor, waiting for those diabolical tenth graders to show up. one came running up yelling, "ms. white, there's a stink bomb!" and a cluster of kids parted to show a tiny, brightly colored pillow of mylar swirling about on the floor. now, there are things i know and things i don't. i know that when i was in high school, several boys stuffed a dead opossum behind a radiator over the winter holiday and the school took quite some time to recover. but i don't know stink bombs. so i asked a child nearby to hand it to me. he picked it up with a look on his face i can't even begin to explain but i'll try anyway. he looked like he knew he was going to get to see someone die. hmmmm. one of my own kids yelled, "no!" and i took it into the classroom, explaining (wrongly, i might add) that the little puff was clearly pressure sensitive, something that would explode when stepped on. the kids were freaking out. screaming. howling. "throw it out the window! please!!!!! it's gonna explode!!!!" i walked toward the window, starting to think i should take them seriously. their faces were more serious than anything i'd ever seen. i held my hand out the window and just before i was able to let go, i felt the concussion from the explosion. it was incredible. no, i mean that. it was fascinating to have something explode in my hand without removing the hand right off my body. i pulled my hand in as the stink began to waft back in. someone closed the window. this was the third or fourth stink bomb today. most days don't have any.
on my way back up to the fourth floor for my last class, i could smell the stink of yet another bomb suffocating the stairwell so when i finally got to four, i walked to the window at the end of the hall. these hallway and stairwell windows have grates over them, steel lattice to keep the kids in i guess or keep them from throwing things or maybe each other out. this particular window works just like storm windows in my house with little sliding levers a person can operate with a thumb. or two. so i slipped my thumbs under the grate and slid the levers to the side. and it turns out this window is somehow springloaded because without any force at all of my own the window flew up behind the grate and my thumbs went up with it. unfortunately, they were still attached to me and i was on the other side of the immovable steel grate. it took what seemed like a very long time for my brain to realize it would have to tell my body to pull both hands down and drag my trapped thumbs out from between the window and the grate, from a space much smaller than the fatness of my thumbs. finally, though, my brain did this and my body did as it was told and my thumbs scraped themselves down the grate and out into freedom. as i type they are bruised and throbbing. two mangled thumbs is rare and awful.
and then i began to hear the stories. they were magnificent. there were versions of my stink bomb explosion that had me mangled, deformed, a veritable phantom of the opera (or school). i am thinking about getting a cape. wearing a mask. sporting a cane. and possibly thumb casts or slings. but really, truly, what i want is to learn to make stink bombs. because i know i could do a better job than a high school kid. and wouldn't that sort of knowledge come in handy next time someone is asleep in my class?
when i finally got to school the day went pretty well, but on the way home i realized the metro card i'd spent $25 on early in the morning had somehow escaped. no metrocard. perhaps the trains are conspiring to get me. stupid trains.
but then this morning i was feeling good. my first class was mellow and focused. good kids. my second class appears to have been possessed by a clump of incredibly lazy demons lacking in creativity. two hours of one child sleeping, one child hooting (no, really, i mean actual hooting like an owl would do if an owl wanted to fail my class), one child interrupting (every sentence. every single sentence), thirty two children talking when they should have been listening so that they had to ask a million questions when they should have been working. one child had to be removed by the dean. another had to leave and come back twice. and then there was the stink bomb. some goofball sent a sulfurous smell into the hallway outside our classroom. vile. toxic. eggy. the children whined. i considered reminding them they've all created stinks far worse than what we were suffering, but i know memory isn't reliable. they would never believe me. finally, i went back to my desk, grabbed a bag of yarn (what? you don't have a random bag of yarn at your desk?) and began to shove skeins into the crack under the door to block the stink. it was about this time our principal opened the door, stepping over the scattered yarn with a curious look on his face as one of the precious angels was being escorted toward the door. "what's going on?" he asked. i have no idea. none at all. madness, probably.
but that's not the best part. i was standing in the doorway on the second floor, waiting for those diabolical tenth graders to show up. one came running up yelling, "ms. white, there's a stink bomb!" and a cluster of kids parted to show a tiny, brightly colored pillow of mylar swirling about on the floor. now, there are things i know and things i don't. i know that when i was in high school, several boys stuffed a dead opossum behind a radiator over the winter holiday and the school took quite some time to recover. but i don't know stink bombs. so i asked a child nearby to hand it to me. he picked it up with a look on his face i can't even begin to explain but i'll try anyway. he looked like he knew he was going to get to see someone die. hmmmm. one of my own kids yelled, "no!" and i took it into the classroom, explaining (wrongly, i might add) that the little puff was clearly pressure sensitive, something that would explode when stepped on. the kids were freaking out. screaming. howling. "throw it out the window! please!!!!! it's gonna explode!!!!" i walked toward the window, starting to think i should take them seriously. their faces were more serious than anything i'd ever seen. i held my hand out the window and just before i was able to let go, i felt the concussion from the explosion. it was incredible. no, i mean that. it was fascinating to have something explode in my hand without removing the hand right off my body. i pulled my hand in as the stink began to waft back in. someone closed the window. this was the third or fourth stink bomb today. most days don't have any.
on my way back up to the fourth floor for my last class, i could smell the stink of yet another bomb suffocating the stairwell so when i finally got to four, i walked to the window at the end of the hall. these hallway and stairwell windows have grates over them, steel lattice to keep the kids in i guess or keep them from throwing things or maybe each other out. this particular window works just like storm windows in my house with little sliding levers a person can operate with a thumb. or two. so i slipped my thumbs under the grate and slid the levers to the side. and it turns out this window is somehow springloaded because without any force at all of my own the window flew up behind the grate and my thumbs went up with it. unfortunately, they were still attached to me and i was on the other side of the immovable steel grate. it took what seemed like a very long time for my brain to realize it would have to tell my body to pull both hands down and drag my trapped thumbs out from between the window and the grate, from a space much smaller than the fatness of my thumbs. finally, though, my brain did this and my body did as it was told and my thumbs scraped themselves down the grate and out into freedom. as i type they are bruised and throbbing. two mangled thumbs is rare and awful.
and then i began to hear the stories. they were magnificent. there were versions of my stink bomb explosion that had me mangled, deformed, a veritable phantom of the opera (or school). i am thinking about getting a cape. wearing a mask. sporting a cane. and possibly thumb casts or slings. but really, truly, what i want is to learn to make stink bombs. because i know i could do a better job than a high school kid. and wouldn't that sort of knowledge come in handy next time someone is asleep in my class?
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