Oh I Admit It

I kinda like the Ball & Chain today. He was all himself and everything and we discussed an argument that had me a wee bit steamed and he was like all but I have been supportive and I realized well, yeah, you made one mistake. One mistake. That's not so bad really. Also, his hair looks excellent today, and with B&C, he's actually good-looking, but if the hair is off, it's all off. Oops am I not supposeta give a shit about how my partner looks? Oh well, too late for that. What am I, a saint? Oh, right, I am, except I missed that category in relation to shallow topics. Although, certainly, maybe, I could qualify as a Semi-Saint of Shallow? But I dunno if I could really live up to some of those wicked rich California Barbie people with dumb names and no talent.

On a related note - me - I took the Official English Teacher Test today, and it was fun. I guess I'm a word nerd. I remembered taking tests years ago and feeling like I was learning as I was taking the test, and that's what it was like today. I remembered so much. James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, the Old Testament even. I gotta admit, being me has been a rather literary experience, despite my choice to switch out of English-majoring (very conservative department). And the two essay questions were on gender (which I did study, intensely), and a poem. I write poetry. I read poetry. It was good. Maybe I'll pass the test.

And because I am embracing all realm of emotion these days, in particular loathing, there is a final note. I hate people who proctor exams and then whisper to one another while I am trying to be a fucking English teacher, for godsake. Actually, being a fucking English teacher might involve teaching people how to fuck in English, or to go to the UK to fuck?

Where's The Love? Not Over Here.

I am Not Better. I took one of my emergency PRN (when ya need it) medicines and I was sedated for maybe an hour. It's supposeta fucking last. And now I feel crappy and my hair is up and I've never worn it up at work and I feel self-conscious oh and by the way, I hate everybody, except for certain women I know. Like any blog pal, Chrystal and Becca, other formidable friends, a coupla people at work, and my neighbor women. Everyone else, I hate. I hate the lady at work who talks like she knows everything. I hate the castrated assistant to my boss. I hate all the fucking la-di-da parents who are going to a breakfast for Rugelah's class at a time when a working mom cannot. I hate their fruit salad, their bagels, and their fucking horses. I hate policies about no personal time at a time that is most certainly Passover. I hate the goddamn idiots I have to speak with directly every day because they lack the backbone.

The only male people I like are the best male people in the world and they are not married to me but they are my son and my brothers and my students. I like men who wink at me but I hate men who are intimidated by me. I swear I could shrink a probably-already tiny dick into a thumb-size nothing with justa coupla jokes about something completely unrelated. Pardon me for being tall. Ha! Pardon me for being confident. Ha! I kicked my boyfriend's ass when I was nine years old - am I daunted now?

And when I get to work today if that goddamn fragile Princess complains to me, I am going to reassure her in the most condescending of ways because I hate her. She is a whiner, and a passive-aggressive 'mealy-mouthed' spinster-before-her-time. The brilliant Mary Daly deconstructed the word spinster to detail that it really means someone powerful. In this instance, it means someone who darns socks, only dates good boys, and never broke a fucking rule in her life.

Here are the other people I hate:

All politicians except for the ones I like. I do not like Mitt Romney or Hilary Clinton.
Bureaucrats
Preppy suburban moms
The lawyers who keep stringing my family along
People who drive under the speed limit (hello)?
Hairdressers who pretend they know how to cut curly hair
People who rag on beggars for being a hassle
All the teachers who hassled The Big Kid because they were too stupid to figure him out
The little people in my computer who fuck it up
And a lot of other assholes about whom I cannot write because I hate them so much that I have repressed it.

List of people I love: I'll write it posthumously.

This Is A Fucking Rant

Lou changed his mind, temporarily. I do not start teaching my new doobers this week. I teach some other doobers for a coupla weeks so that their regular teacher can teach about MCAS (impending standardized test). Lou is quixotic? Impulsive? The teacher for whom I am covering, Princess Priscilla, is all freaked out and I'm like this is my fourth job here since November-fuck off! And remove the argyle sweater before I puke. It is all a flashback to Freako (former co-teacher who got mad at me and then complained to Lou). Why oh why? My schedule, my lunch break, it's all changed. But only temporarily until the next big idea.

Fortunately, Ball & Chain has been very supportive. Until last night. Last night he told me to forget about it, drop it. Then he told me that things with Freako were intense, and then they "just flipped." Dontcha hate it when people cannot say what they wanna say so instead they say something so meaningless and stupid you're like 'shove off' and you fall asleep and wake up 7 times?

I called my therapist. How cliche. She said it is normal for me to continue to be upset about Freako, despite Ball & Chain's advice - "forget it" - such classic repressive bullshit. Pearls of wisdom he gives me. Freako jeopardizes my job and I should forget it? Princess Priscilla told Freako that she does not like working with other people. Ha!

Why should work matter to me? Because it does, for fuck's sake. Half the time I am doing great stuff with students and the other half the time my head's shoved so far up my ass I could suck my navel in like a pacifier. Tuesday I have a new class; Wednesday I'm covering someone else's class for two weeks. Would this not make an otherwise fucked-up person even more fucked up?

Oh I know. It must be hard on the students too. God I'm sicka that - I put kids first all day every day. Kids are resilient. Let's focus on the real problem. I'm middle-fucking-aged, a cheese with just the hints of mold, and wherever I work I seem to cause a disturbance because I am either dysfunctional somehow or else I have a big fucking mouth. Not literally a fucking mouth, but I suppose at some moments it has been. You get the gyst.

The absolute worst part is that I have no fucking goddamn crumb of an idea whether Freako regrets being an extreme ass, realizes how much I did, or even notices any of this crap. After being "friends " for a coupla months, I suspect he's all flippy about it - a very sensitive and bizarre-ish type - but why the fuck do I care? It's half juicy gossip and half I-thought-it-was- all-good but it was all bad, and working in the same vicinity when two people have discomfort is discomfortable.

I am a fucked up emotional angry needy bitch. I need a cigarette a vodka some very loud music and someone to yell at. I should probably be saying something like he tried to take my dignity, but my ovaries are intact. Instead I'm more he fucked with my job and now I'm a paranoid doormat. In more practical terms, I'm I gotta go cook dinner because my people require food three times a day.

Something Excellent Happened & I Will Say Something Positive About My Self

Something quite excellent happened, at work. And I was due. I have been soldiering forth, my head up, my mind finally calming down. Today I must have given twenty reading assessments. Holy shit it gets boring. But I teach a lotta kids who are way below 'grade level,' so it has been a righteous, if not thrilling task. That combined with recovering from my co-worker's true craziness (the really crazy people are rarely the ones who know they have mental health issues).

So, so, so, my boss, aka Lou Grant, who is such a bossy pain in the ass and also a good person, told me, finally, today, what the plan is. I will be teaching reading and writing to the kids at risk - about 1/3 of the kids - at the same times I taught them before. Lou had thought previously that I would teach reading only, and that had been a painful idea. Hence the soldier metaphor.

I will have lovely little groups of personable hilarious and adorable students (I know them), and the students who really drove me to wanna valium will stick with Opie, or Opie's evil twin, as it were. Mean girls, farewell! Attitude boys, seeya! Okay, it's true that some of the stronger students are okay, but the ones I am truly attached to come visit me anyway. And not all of the weaker students are hilarious, but a lot of them are. It's a combination of defense-mechanism and their smarts leaking out in other places apart from literacy. I am a very very very happy lady.

My vindictive little tidbit, too, is that Opie/Satan is also extra-fond of the students who will now be my charges. Not his. For all the mishegas (nuttiness) about my being bothersome, the fact is that I am experienced, and he is not. So in the end, or what is the end at this particular time, I am doing what I like to do best.

You know it may seem weird, but I do love teaching. Today in one of my classes, I joked about being "reluctant" to come in to the classroom - we were studying vocabulary - and Georgia said "Miss, that's not true! You are always smiling when you come in here!" I guess even when I was flipping out I managed to do my job. Actually, yes: even when I was flipping out, I managed to do my job.