Another one beyond Blogtimore, Hon

Besides Annecentral (discussed below), another great Baltimore blog not listed on Blogtimore, Hon is Mobtown Blues. He used to be listed, but then he switched over to Typepad. I've asked him to submit his site again, just so I can remember to check it, and he says he's going to, he just keeps forgetting. Anyhow, I hope he does, because you won't find a much better discussion of Mayland Politics than here. He's definitely liberal, but comes across as very even-handed and fair, unlike other local lefty political bloggers. He's also a fine writer, and talks a lot about music and local culture besides politics.

I was especially impressed with this recent post about Kweise Mfume. I'm a huge fan of Mfume, ever since I saw him speak at Michigan State on MLK Day back in 1998 or so. When I heard he was running for Senate, against another Democrat that I like (Ben Cardin), I knew I would have a tough choice, but I'm almost certain I'm going to go with Mfume, and am about ready to slap a bumper sticker on my car in support. I happened to hear an hourlong chat between Mark Steiner and Mfume on the radio last night as I got lost three times on the way from deep south Baltimore where my dodgeball game was all the way over to Fell's Point where the happy hour was. I didn't mind the detour because this guy seemed so genuine, hopeful, and insightful - exactly how I remembered him from his speech eight years ago. I'm going to try not to think about who is more likely to score a victory for the Dems - Steele vs. Mfume (both great orators, both black, will folks outside of the big cities be scared off by Mfume when up against a fairly centrist Republican?) or Steele vs. Cardin (Cardin is probably more centrist than Mfume, but not much of a speaker, whereas Steele can give a speech to put shivers down your spine) - and just, as Mobtown Blues suggests, go with my heart for the primary. That's Mfume, as of now.

I now officially hate flickr. I've now stored about 45 photos on there, and, as I stated earlier, it has filled up my account. Deleting the photos won't work, and I don't know what to do. This isn't a huge deal - I'm not fending off hundreds of e-mails from people dying to see my Sam Shaber photos from last Friday's show, yet - but I've recently realized that if your flickr account is full, you can't look at other people's flickr photos! So I go over to Talking Loud or other sites and there are just big open spaces where the photos should be. It's ridiculous. They're just baiting me into paying $24.95 for a year membership. I don't think I'm going to do it, though.

Anne, frank

If you don't read AnneCentral, you should start. Today, she posts about working on the set of a certain Baltimore-based show that apparently is moving its focus from the drug trade to the city's public schools for its fourth season. Not only is she a great writer, but her posts make me excited about the upcoming season of the show, even more excited than I would have naturally been. A perusal of her archives will reveal a lot of cool insight into the show, as well as just some damn fine blogging.

I was hoping that she'd pull in the BoB award this year for Best Blog. Actually, I was hoping they would buck trends and just give it to Blogtimore, Hon. The fact that they gave Baltimorecrime the honor shows quite simply that they look for things totally different from what I look for in a blog. I respect why Baltimorecrime is in existence and what it is trying to accomplish, but, best blog? It's a collection of links. But, again, people look for different things, I guess.

In their description, they deride blogs for being about the writer. That's exactly why I read blogs, frankly.

That award, as well as the entire BoB issue, was an anti-climactic, hipper-than-thou disappointment. Yes, I'm bitter about the fact that the restaurant I work at wasn't mentioned for anything. That sucks. Last year, we won Best Pierogi, but that category was unceremoniously yanked from the list this year. (In the past, we've also won awards like "Best Reuben," "Best Place for a First Date," and "Best Soup.") Plus, I cannot believe they gave Best Service to a freaking tourist trap inner harbor restaurant. I once waited on a couple from the City Paper and they were eating out of my hands. They just don't like us. AOL City Guide gives us Best Brunch, yet City Paper hasn't given it to us in the ten years we've been in existence. We're way better than Kooper's, which won last year, and while I've never been to Midtown, I can't imagine they'd be any better.

Cut from work right after I got there tonight. It's been great. I skipped out on a charity event that I was just too tired and broke to go to, and came home and watched Angels in America. I'm done with Disc 1. Great, great stuff, just taking a little break to catch the score of the depressing Tigers game and do a little blogging.

John and the friendly giant

I'm now able to characterize my classes pretty well. I've got two Honors courses, both pretty good, with a good mix of brains and politeness. I've got four college prep courses. Two are huge and a bit of a pain, one more than the other (mostly because of one or two loudmouth students). The two other classes are marked by gender. One of them has a grand total of one boy in it, the rest girls, while the other is a majority-male class - one of the only ones I've had in my years at a school that has about a 60/40 female/male ratio.

The latter class, the one with all the boys, is one of my favorites. It's a small class, and the kids are funny, both intentionally and unintentionally. They're also polite, and while they're giggly and chatty, they always quiet down immediately when I ask. They also all are really earnest, which is something I tend to get a lot from male students who want to please me. Research has shown that on average, teenage girls are more confident than teenage boys, and boys need approval more, and this class is a study in this. This is particularly true with African American females, who tend to be the most confident of adolescents (which makes sense, if you look at the prominent figures in their lives and the media that they can model themselves after).

Anyhow, my favorite thing to do in there lately is call on a couple of kids - they have alliterative names, let's call them John and Jeremiah - to go up to the board and write their sentence for parts-of-speech identification. This phenomena that makes me smile happened naturally the first time. When I called on them, they both gravitated the the same spot on the board. Seeing them next to each other made me laugh.

Why? Well, Jeremiah is one of the biggest kids I've ever taught. He's a football player, tall and muscular, and he towers over me. I'd guess he's 6'4". John, on the other hand, probably stands at about 4'10". Now, John is sort of a nerdy kid, and Jeremiah is the quiet jock type, but they've forged a friendship. When I call on them both, they go to this same area, then sort of consult each other on whether their sentences are correct. Somehow, John always ends up bending down to write something on the desk (he doesn't have to bend down much), and so then I see this huge, tall kid, and this kid next to him who could pass for ten years old. It makes me laugh and laugh. On the inside, of course.

Today, I intentionally called on the two of them again today, then I called over the teacher whose room I share. I nodded at them. She burst out laughing. I smiled and covered my mouth. It's one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.

That is a joy that I plan to keep for myself much of the school year.

The day after

Today went pretty well, considering I felt like Jack Black in that scene from School of Rock. You know, the one where he comes in, obviously hungover, and asks the kids, "Do you know what a hangover is?" and a boy raises his hand and says, "It means you're drunk." Black gets a look of wild indignation on his face, and says, "Uhhh, no, you're way off, it means I was drunk last night."

That's actually an exaggeration. I didn't overdo it last night. I don't drink all that often, though, and definitely don't spend a lot of time out on the town until nearly 1am on a school night. I was tired in the morning, but not hung over. And like I kept telling myself last night, I don't get weekends anymore - I've worked every day of every weekend since the middle of August, with no end in sight - so cutting loose on a Thursday night is perfectly appropriate. Especially when you have a bangup lesson going on Friday.

It makes me very happy to stroll into my classroom thirty seconds before the bell rings, and to see my kids in their seats, doing what they're supposed to be doing. The hallways were a little crazy this morning because the bells were malfunctioning, but my kids were angelic.

And the day went great. I'm spending about half my classes these days on grammar, doing parts of speech. This is not something I enjoy, and is something I've tended to slack off in during the last couple of years, but I'm hitting it up good this year. Perhaps this will be the year that I decide for myself whether it makes kids into better writers or not.

It's not that fun to teach, but I'm trying to make it fun by having the kids write lots of sentences on the board, and then some leading of activities on their own. It's a little frustrating because there are about ten kids in each class that know this shit down cold, about ten kids who halfway know it, and the other ten don't have a clue - and that's both in Honors and College Prep. Some middle schools tend to emphasize it and others don't at all. There is a lot of debate in English Education about the teaching of grammar, and how to do it, and I don't feel like going into it right now, but it's what I'm feeling I'm waging in my own head and classroom this year.

The other half of class is spent on literary analysis, and I've found something cool to do with this thing called DIDLS (Diction, Imagery, Details, Language, Structure). I've never liked this particular acronym before, but have found a way to connect it with meaning this year, and like it. I've been inspired by hearing about kids that I had last year, from their teacher this year. A lot of them are picking out diction exceptionally well, and they're doing it by comparing the word to an alternative word that could have been chosen, but wasn't. I taught them that skill, and now am impressed to hear that it's carried over. I'm using DIDLS to catalyze that diction analysis right now, starting with "If We Must Die."

In other news, I'm actually glad to be working tonight because I feel like I have a decent shot at earning back the massive amount of money I somehow spent last night. Oops.

Late night

I was the last Baltimore blogger to leave Happy Hour last night. I'm also quite certain I'm the only one who has to be in front of 25 Honors 9th grade English students in seven hours.

You see, the Polish Girl met me out there and insisted that I stay to watch her drink. It's probably for the best that I didn't drink for an hour or so before I left. But still, I'm tired.

Off to bed. Twas a Good night.

Now it's time to sing along

Thankfully, the kids are still making me laugh. That's one thing I had an epiphany about today. While I was listening to this one boy, all tight cornrows and a huge wide-mouthed tin grin, answer my questions in his hilarious manner, so I have to bite the insides of my cheeks not to laugh, I'm reminded that the kids are what this job is about. I had a great day in the classroom today, hitting up parts of speech and Claude McKay's poem "If We Must Die" in ways I never have before. It made them fresh, and the kids responded well.

At lunch, though, I heard myself say, "I don't think I've ever been lower." And it's true. I'm in a bad funk that I can't escape. I can't pin it down on one thing, just a large combination of things that are pulling at me. Floating is killing me because I never get away from anyone. The department head is killing me because she comes in at 8:30 and leaves at 2:30, yet acts like she's overworked. Today, I had to let the substitute teacher into a teacher's classroom, because she wasn't there yet. It kills me. One veteran told me I shouldn't have, that others should start to see that she's not pulling her weight. Part of the deal is I've worked with two excellent dept heads in a row and this one isn't up to par, at least in the work ethic category.

I'm also lonely, rarely getting to talk to people like I once did. I once relied on the lunch in the middle of the day to sit with colleagues and debrief. Now, my planning period is at the end of the day, and I see no one, except the dreaded department head, who I do my best to hide from. I have a cubicle, not a classroom, and somehow she can always figure out that I'm there. I wish I knew if she called out my name when I'm not there. That would make me happy.

I think October is naturally a time for a teacher to reach a funk - it's the time of year when the thoughts of never falling behind is finally vanquished, and there's no time off anywhere in sight. But it's happened on September 20 this year, and I've got to get out of it or I'm going to be miserable. I mean, today, I would have honked in traffic if I had a working horn. I'm usually the most laid back driver in the city.

I haven't had a good workout in a number of days, and that might be my problem right there. I also sort of wish I was into Lost, because everyone seems to be excited about that show right now. Just something else that passed me right on by.

Better

I decided to listen to "Everybody Hurts" three times on repeat on the way into the second job today, and it cheered me right up, as depressing music usually does - particularly depressing music from my adolescence. I ended up getting some real nice tables tonight at the restaurant - just nice people to talk to. One guy came in with an eye patch on, and we bonded over our mutual scleral buckles and detached retinas. A group of five med students from Hopkins sat in the corner for a couple hours, and were very nice. An old couple talked to me for a long time about teaching, and I decided not even to be upset about it when they only tipped me $4 on their $27.43 bill; they were old, after all. All in all, a good night, and I walked with $55.

Another great perk about working there tonight is that the cook who I am often paired with will cook me whatever I want. I was supposed to get a free dinner anyway because I was manager, but I usually just snack on a few things at night and have him make me something real good for lunch the next day. Tomorrow, if you walk by the English office at our school, you'll be smelling seared halibut encrusted in fresh garlic, served over a bed of smoked scallop quinoa, with a cucumber and yogurt salad on the side, garnished with currants. Mmmmm. I try to make my lunch the biggest meal of the day so a) I can burn it off; and b) I can stay past 5 or 6 if I need to without pangs of hunger driving me home. Tomorrow will be one of those days so I'm glad I have the big ass lunch.

About the no call-back from Sunday's date, I'm just beginning to think of all the positives of not dating someone in Tyson's Corner. I mean, gas prices alone tell me it's stupid.

I still need happy hour on Thursday, though. I mean, I still want to quit. I still have fantasies about what it would be like not to have student loans, about what it might feel like not to feel guilty about not working, about not having that Quaker always-working thing that my dad passed on to me. Maybe someday I can work just one job. At least I was cheered up tonight to learn that a new girl started yesterday and once she's trained, hopefully my desire to quit will be quelled by working less.

In other edge of your seat news, my back and feet are killing me. The other thing about floating is I never freaking sit down.

Second job woes

Long day, and I have to wait tables tonight. I've been hoping for a night on the floor during the week for a while now, but now that it's here, I'm dreading it. I'm tired and really wish I could have just stayed at school a couple more hours and finished the mountain of work I have to do. But I'm bringing a small mountain of that work into the restaurant tonight in the chance that we're not busy. But, really, I'm hoping that it's a nice steady night and that I make $100. I won't hold my breath, though.

I've been having some thoughts lately of quitting the second job. I'm just getting too old to be working so much, even if I am getting ahead on bills bit by bit. Today, I heard about an opportunity to teach twilight school - after school until 5pm - that would probably give me more money than waiting tables does. We'll see.

I'm really in a bad mood lately. I can't seem to get caught up with my work, rarely see my friends, and am frustrated by a lot of things going on at both my jobs. At school, I find that I have a real animosity for my supervisor. The reason? She's lazy. Not really a good reason for animosity, but it's there. I don't see anyone there, either. I hate having 7th period planning because I'm exhausted by the time 7th period comes. The second job is making me angry because there are only four waiters there and I'm one of them, so I never can get a weekend night off. There are apparently no qualified unemployed servers in the Baltimore area because he's not getting any applications from people with experience. This is frustrating even though I do need the money, but I also need the time off.

The date hasn't called me back yet, either. I thought it went well. Boo.

Damn, I'm having another case of the Mondays

I am having more conflicts with administration the farther in my career that I get. Today, I was on the way out of school at 4:30, with a stack of a few hundred papers in my hand to grade somewhere other than my desk. I decided to check my mailbox, and there was a bullshit memo that made me completely irate. I went up to my office, literally slammed down all the papers in my hand, and jotted off a quick response that I CC'd to the principal as well as the author of the original memo. Thank god I let someone read it before I put it in there because the original draft might have gotten me fired. But I did put the memo in there and it felt good.

I'm getting more and more tired of the bullshit I have to deal with on top of the classroom and grading time that is already significant. I'm really glad I took Friday off because from the sounds of it, things were pretty terrible at the all day professional development. The school system has decided it's excited about some new term in education that is just a new way of describing something old. In the English department, we're deciding if it's the alliteration of the phrase that has impressed them, or the metonymny. Either way, it sounds like it was horrible. I hate to be cynical but it's tough not to be.

I had a really good day today in the classroom. Every year I get tired at the thought of running off 170 copies of Stephen King's "The Last Rung on the Ladder," but I am consistently impressed by what a good teach it is - full of foreshadowing, imagery, and round characters. It led to some good discussions today.

Still, I'm feeling cynical about everything beyond those four walls with the future inside. I'm having a harder time separating that from everything else right now, though. It's that time of year, I guess. They usually do go away fairly quickly.

Tonight, I'm looking forward to a good workout, a raquetball date, and the opportunity to be sitting in front of my television by the time Prison Break comes on.

Not bad

It was a night of hanging out at a sports bar, then (almost) falling asleep on my chest after watching The Simpsons and The Family Guy together and muting the TV in between. At least, I think it was on mute. I didn't hear it, at least.

Not a bad first date. But, damn, Tyson's Corner is far. Especially with Red Sox game traffic is there to begin with. The drive back, though, took only about 40 minutes. But there's no traffic at 10pm.

It will be a long week. I will have to make amends for calling in sick on Friday. My workload will definitely be huge over the next several days.

I'm so pissed off at blogspot right now. I keep clicking the insert images button and absolutely nothing happens. Nothing. I have Sam Shaber, Ernest Gaines, and Melissa Ferrick that I'd love to insert somewhere. I wonder if I should just start another flickr account since the last one filled up and that apparently makes it crap out for an undetermined amount of time.

In other news, I celebrated my first payday since the first week of July by buying Kanye West's new album. On the first few listens, it seems more ambitious but a little less fun than his first. But there are some standout tracks that are blowing me away even if I don't have a full feeling of the album yet. I really wish, however, that he would not put those stupid skits on his albums. Talk about dragging down momentum. The song "Golddigger," however, has been perpetually stuck in my head since Friday. The album version is so much better than the radio edit.

I can't believe I just looked at the CNN headlines and Flightplan is #1 for the weekend. I didn't even know it had come out. I think I'd pay to watch Jodie Foster read a phonebook, even if I think she's doing a mother-in-a-confined-space movie a little bit too soon after her last movie. If the reviews are decent, I think I'll suggest that for our possible Wednesday followup.

Questions

Questions I thought some readers might be able to help me with...

1. For her 25th birthday (Oct. 31), my sister has asked to have her cat fixed. She's a strugging college student and adopted an abandoned cat and it needs shots and to be spayed. However, she lives in Michigan. Beyond just giving her cash (and I wouldn't even be sure how much it is), does anyone have any thoughts on how to do this? Are there any national veterinary services that I could buy a gift certificate for that I could purchase online or here, yet she could use in Grand Rapids? Does Petsmart do this?

2. On blogger, you can apparently now post photos without having to link to an outside server. There is a photo icon on the page when you're adding an entry, and instructions say to push it and a window will pop up and you can just do it easily. However, I've tried this over and over, and nothing pops up. I've turned off pop-up blockers, and this hasn't helped. Does anyone actually use this blogger feature? Does it work?

3. If I fill up my flickr account, deleting photos at will does not seem to help to make them show up again. Is the only thing I can do is buy the year long membership for $24.95 a day? I'd do this, but I worry I'd fill up that. It's not like I even take a lot of photos, and my monthly limit filled up right away.

4. I just discovered iTunes. I thought it was just a service to buy individual tracks off albums and put them on your iPod (which I don't have). Now I realize I can put all my CDs on iTunes and make mixed CDs from them. The one thing I'm lost about is how to get iTunes to recognize that a new CD has been put in. It doesn't work if I just put it in there, and I've got to jump through a whole bunch of hoops to get it to recognize new CDs. Any tips there?

5. I'm meeting some friends at the Book Festival in a few minutes. Where should we eat lunch? Where should we park?

Cool

I'm going on a date on Sunday, and, independent of that, my good friend Boston Betty sent me an attractive female to my house concert this evening. Things are looking up. And, damn, what a show.

I wish I could make it to the protest tomorrow. But I think the Book Festival will be even better.

Smattering

Last night, I had a dream that I finally got the tattoo I've been wanting for years. It was in a Meijer. The artist had to look up the design before he designed it. It didn't hurt at all.

I'm ready. Fool, I'm ready.

***

Last night at the gym, I noticed a group of six sweaty men and one sweaty woman huddled around a TV set. They were entranced. I looked on the screen, and CNN was playing the live video of a plane about to make an emergency landing at LAX. We stared at the TV screen for fifteen minutes, reading the closed captioning and watching the drama unfold. Finally, I could tell that the plane was lowering because I started to see the tops of houses. The tension was indescribable. We all stared up at the television. Some of us stopped, while others continued to stride away to nothing on our elipticals and stationary bikes. As the plane landed, things looked smooth, until sparks starting flairing out of the front wheels. I let out a whelp, and eyes briefly turned to me. But the spark remained just a spark, even as I imagined it might blow the plane up. It didn't. Eventually, it became clear that the plane was alright. The landing was a safe one. And damned if there wasn't a group of twenty people around that silent television in the sweaty gym, offering a raucous round of applause at the safe landing. Talk about a sincere and human moment.

***

While the highs of meeting Ernest Gaines yesterday were great - I got a lot of congratulations at school today, plus even a gift from a parent - this week has still been a downer. I'm going to call in sick tomorrow. It will be a day of meetings and I don't think I could do it. And the house still needs to be finished. I'm so exhausted and stressed out that I just need this week to end. It should be a good weekend. I'm feeling a bit guilty about the sick day but it's the first one I've taken on the fake, so I'm just going to do it. Unless I chicken out.

Meeting Ernest Gaines

Taking kids on a field trip is a arduous, and somewhat frightening, task. There's getting permission, which is a set of hoops to begin with. There's booking the busses, which we literally do from the yellow pages. They usually only take money upfront, so teachers have to end up charging the busses on a credit card and hoping nothing goes wrong later with the money. There's letters home to parents, copies, and permission slips. There's handling of lots of cash, usually in small bills and quarters. It's just a lot of work.

Then there's the actual day - always harried, always full of things to do, announcements to make, bus companies to confirm, lists to hand out, chaperones to secure. And, of course, we've got to take all the kids and bring them back safely.

But I really wanted to bring kids to see Ernest Gaines. We ended up taking 44 kids this afternoon, and, wow, was it ever great. Well worth it.

The event was a question and answer session of Mr. Gaines. He's 72 years old now, and came in riding a wheelchair, and his voice is a hoarse phlegmy rasp that wasn't the easiest to hear. But our kids were incredible. The first person to ask a question was a college student, but after that, our kids asked the most. One brave little girl of mine, who I have taught all of seven class periods so far, tiptoed up to the microphone and said, "Hello, my name is 'Jasmine Smith' from 'Name of School,' and I wanted to know about Miss Emma's obsession with Jefferson learning to be a man before he goes to the electric chair. What is your definition of manhood that you wanted him to achieve?"

I got goosebumps.

After her, student after student asked questions of Mr. Gaines, in between college professors and graduate students. It was ninety minutes of exchange of ideas about literature between one of the greatest writers of our time, a bunch of figure in academia, and 14-year old Baltimore City public highschool students. It felt perfect.

Mr. Gaines was a fine speaker, telling the audience things like, "The first draft is not writing. The twelfth draft, then, well, that might be writing." My students certainly should hear that. He talked a lot about his books and some of the deeper meanings of his work, and I found myself wanting to read all of his books, beyond the A Lesson Before Dying, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Of Love and Dust that I've read.

Afterwards, a long line of students formed to get autographs. I didn't have a copy of the book with me, and remember lamenting a few nights before when I realized that I didn't have a non-teaching, unmarked copy of A Lesson Before Dying (easily one of my favorite books) on my shelves at home. So I ran downstairs to the student book store and saw the book on the shelves, and bought a copy to get signed for myself. I raced back up the stairs, got in back of the line, and waited. The student in from me, who is in my 2/3 class, said she only had a library copy of the book, so she was going to ask Mr. Gaines to autograph the notes she had taken during his discussion. Well, he refused to do so when she got up to him. Said he'd only sign books.

I thought, "Well, geez, what an old sourpuss," and watched the girl walk away with her head down. I was next in line, and told Mr. Gaines what an honor it was to meet him, how powerful teaching the book is, and why doesn't he just make it out to (name of girl walking away), so she could have a signed copy." So he did, and I gave it to the girl. She hugged me.

Some faculty members were so impressed with our kids that they invited us to a reception afterwards. Heck, I bet they could all make it into Towson right now if they wanted to. I was so proud of them; it was like I was brimming over.

When I got back to the bus with them, after taking attendance and making sure all the kids were there, I nodded my head, and as sternly as I could say, said, "Great job today, folks." Without so much as a grin. I didn't want to overpraise. When I say a kid does something well, I want them to know that I really mean it.

And that is all. A great day. The week is looking up. Now, if I could only get this house cleaned.

Holding watches

So I let a kid hold my watch today to be the timer for our discussion. I get it back, and now my watch says December 5 and the time is two hours before. At first, I'm a little mad, but on the inside I think it's sort of funny because it was a harmless prank. But I confront him nonetheless. And he looks confused, like he didn't mean to do it or didn't even know that he had. He apologizes. I let it slide.

But now I can't figure out how to reset the watch.

Just another shitty part of this week. In addition to my six-hour, $15 shift last night; in addition to the six-second power outage this morning that reset the computer and the clocks; in addition to the massive amount of housework I have to complete by Thursday night; in addition to the fact that I'm running a field trip right now and have no time to grade like I need to do.

(On the plus side, it was so slow at the restaurant yesterday that I did my laundry at the terrible laundromat down the block, so I can't say it was that bad of a night.)

I'm seeing Ernest Gaines speak at Towson tomorrow. I'm pumped about that.

19 Wheels

As if this week couldn't get any worse... I found out yesterday that 19 Wheels broke up. My favorite band in college, and great guys, they never achieved the stardom they deserved. In the mid to late nineties, and even today, I wonder how these guys have not gotten a record contract and other bands have. They've had smatterings of "almost"'s - songs featured on The Real World and ESPN, opening gigs for lost of great bands, a member of The Verve Pipe produced one of their albums. But now they're over.

There's a part of Detroit, or technically, a suburb of Detroit, called Ferndale. It's kind of like the Canton or Federal Hill of the Detroit area; lots of hip twentysomethings end up there on weekend nights. Chris, the lead singer of the band, owns a bar there whose name I forgot. I went there a couple years ago with friends and saw Aretha Franklin's son perform on acoustic guitar. Only the three of us were in the audience. The place is awesome and I always hope to end up there when I return to Michigan for visits, but it never seems to happen because I'm more excited about seeing Tigers games.

Anyhow, my hope is that he's quitting the band to concentrate more on the place, but that he'll eventually end up performing again. He's got a great voice and writes really good songs with tons of hooks. He's also a genuinely good person; I remember calling him up in college to ask him to play this gig that was a charity event for a student with leukemia, and he and his band were there with six seconds to burn.

Rest in peace, 19 Wheels. May the four CDs I have of yours in my collection never scratch.

Education and Mark Steiner

I was listening to the replay of today's Mark Steiner show. He was interviewing a superintendent of schools, formerly of Baltimore County, and a Harvard Education professor named Howard Gardner. He's the guy who discovered/studied multiple intelligences.

They were discussing Lt. Governor Steele's new proposal for improving schools in Maryland. I've only skimmed the report, so I can't really discuss it with any sort of depth yet. One thing I'll say is that if I ever work in a school system in which a Physics teacher makes more than me just because s/he is a Physics teacher, then I'll leave. That's one reason that my considerations of Detroit City Public Schools have never come any farther to fruition. My buddy was an English Major/Math minor, and he decided to get hired as a Math teacher because they get paid more. I just think this is so inherently wrong. Teaching isn't a job like a widget factory. There is no more value to a Physics teacher than an English teacher. And Physics teachers certainly don't do more work, especially at my school. I've got 170 students and have to grade all of them. Physics teachers have 70-75 students and get to grade on an objective basis. No way I'd tolerate not getting paid as much.

Anyhow, they were talking so intelligently about so many issues that I face everyday, but don't really get separated enough from my job to notice.

Among them:

1. Mentoring new teachers. I want desperately to help the new teacher, to sit down with her and plan units and lessons, but I just can't. She comes to me for help, and I do my best, but I'm drowning in work right now. I haven't turned back all the essays yet I got from my kids last week. Grading is a neverending struggle. My department head made me an official mentor of someone in my third year of teaching, but I never really felt like I was. There's just so much work. So much. I can't do things halfway.

2. Feeling like a professional. No, I don't feel like I make as much money as I deserve. But, you know what? I didn't go into teaching for the money. I'll gladly accept whatever raise is afforded to me, but I'd do the job for less than I make now. I do think that if being a teacher were as valued as, say, a doctor, we'd see a lot more great teachers. But I'm sure we'd see the same amount of mediocre ones, too. What would make me feel like a professional is more time. More time during my school day to step back, reflect, plan, and grade. More time during professional days to do the same. We have our first professional day as a city on Friday. In past years, we've been given some autonomy on this day. We've also done things that I've felt are useful, like vertical team planning and horizontal team planning. However, I've heard that I am to expect a day long of meetings conducted by our principal on Friday. I hate to go into this thing with a negative attitude, but it's already there. He's done a good job so far with the school for the most part, but he goes on and on and on when he talks. And I'm quite sure that little of value will come from the meetings. Having that time to do the work I need to do would be treating me like a professional. So would reimbursing me the $400 back that the school system owes me from June.

3. The idea of standardized curriculum across the nation. This thought puts immediate worry in my mind. I mean, we live in a nation where our President has said it is just fine to teach Intelligent Design - a theory with no scientific merit - in Science classes. If people can invent their own truths like this, who knows, maybe we'll have one school system decide that teaching that the Holocaust didn't exist is okay. Or that the world is flat.

But when you get beyond the initial scare, though, you realize that a set of national standards and skills seems to be appropriate. I'm talking big tracks of learning per grade level and subject area, and then local control over how those tracks are pursued.

Anyhow, all this makes me wish that I was in school right now. I sometimes wish I could relive my senior year of college with the info that I have now, because, damn, all this educational theory stuff would be way useful now that I'm out in the real world a bit.

Stacks of books

I've undertaken a huge job in my house - alphabetizing all of my books. I have a degree in English, and a specialization in secondary education, so both those carry with them a bunch of books. Plus, there are my occasional obsessions with The Book Thing. Thus, this is a monumental job. I'd become frustrated that I can never find anything, and even more frustrated that I find a second and third copies of novels. Part of it is because I teach them, but the other part of it is that I'm a horrible packrat.

Then, cleaning up the books sort of became a catalyst in my mind for the rest of my house - as in, if the books are all weeded out and straightened up, then the rest will follow. It's almost become a metaphor for my life. If the books become uncluttered, so will I.

So the job has meant taking all the books off the shelves, dusting the horribly dusty bookcases, and then sorting them out by author. I've had stacks and stacks of books around my floor for a few days now, getting only to work on the project for a few hours a day in the hours I'm not working (I'm now on Day 31 without a day off).

I'm happy to say I've made some progress. I'm on the letter "S." "S" is a daunting letter, to be sure, with all the books I have by Steinbeck, Sarton, Shakespeare, Smiley, and the other "S"'s. But I'll get through it. Last night, I went from "F" through "R" and did most of my non-fiction and teaching books. I've got a couple of laundry baskets full of books to bring to the Book Thing, another small stack on the roommate's stairs for her to peruse (including an extra copy I had of Myla Goldberg's Bee Season, probably my favorite book I've read as an adult), and still a gigantic mess in the house. But I'm making progress. Really, I am. With thirty people coming over on Friday night, I'd better be.

Can't work on it tonight, though. This is my hour break between the two jobs, and I just need to rest my legs. The gym trip this morning was particularly rough after the long weekend of waiting tables.

In other news, my colleague and friend came into the restaurant on Saturday night with her friend from North Carolina, though originally from Michigan. Not only Michigan, but southwest Michigan. She had spent her summers in my hometown during her youth. I enjoyed talking with her and comparing Michigan stories. My friend Zack, the bartender that night, told me that I'd better get her number, and I'm like, Dude, she lives in North Carolina and is returning tomorrow. So I didn't. But I did tell my colleague today that I thought she was hot. And the colleague told me that this girl had wanted my e-mail address if I had asked about her. I did, passing the test, and I now have her e-mail. This sort of thing never happens to me with women who live in Baltimore. I'm not really an e-mail person, and definitely not an e-mail small-talk person, and don't really know what to say to her via e-mail. But we'll see. She's a teacher in Durham, where I got offered a job before I moved to Baltimore but ended up here.

Either way, that news brightened up what was a thoroughly shitty Monday otherwise. It started with not being able to find my keys for fifteen minutes this morning, meaning I didn't get to the gym in time for a good workout (the 35 minutes of cardio were it). I was out of sorts all day in class, not having enough copies twice during the day. That rushed walk of shame back to the copy machine in the middle of class should never happen twice in the same day. Later, of course, I found the copies on my desk.

The impending dread of working tonight - and as barista, meaning I'll make shit money whether we're dead or busy - probably had to do with my foul mood as well. It seems like once or twice a year, nobody is working at the restaurant. I mean, there are literally four servers right now. Three full timers and I. It sucks. No flexibility, shitty shifts, added pressure not to request days off. I'm dead broke right now, though, and still awaiting the first paycheck of the year, so I'm optionless.

Playoffs

I went into a bout of baseball ennui once the Tigers started playing so poorly this month, but the pennant races are drawing me into it again.

Here are my favorite teams:

1. Tigers

2. Orioles

3. A's

4. Blue Jays

5. Twins

The Tigers and O's need no explanation, nor is any explanation required as to why baseball is depressing to me in September. But I like the A's because of Billy Beane; the stat dork in me loves that they win because of ballsy trades of veterans and by focusing on OBP, and that fact makes the fantasy GM in my think that I could do the real thing and have just as much success as Beane. As for Toronto, I'm just still happy that the Tigers beat them in 1987, and they've had a lot of my favorite players over the years - Ernie Whitt, Jack Morris, Lloyd Moseby, Rance Mullinicks, Garth Iago.

My most disliked teams:

1. Red Sox

2. White Sox

3. Yankees

4. Indians

5. Twins

I realize the disparity about the Twins. I have much dissonance about this team, dating back to their victory over the Tigers in the 1987 ALCS. I've hated them many times since that time, but bedgrudingly accept that they've done a damn good job for a lot of years without much budget. And they're fun to watch. I mean, Matt LeCroix? Jaques Jones? Johan Santana? Fun players.

I hate the Red Sox mostly because of their fans. And because of that "wacky" Johnny Damon, who never met a camera he didn't want to run to and then apply hairspray in front of. Or maybe it's Curt Schilling, that George Bush loving putz. Or the fact that the team stole Oakland's game plan in order to win.

I hate the White Sox because of Ozzy Guillen. The man is a complete moron. I hated him as a player and I hate him even more as a manager. Him, plus baseball's most irritating announcers - Hawk and Martinez. Terrible. Terrible.

The Yankees need no explanation. But I hate the Indians because when they opened their new park in the mid-1990s, they would sell out every game. Because tickets were so scarce, fans used to come up to Detroit during the Detroit/Cleveland series and take over the stadium. It brewed a healthy rivalry between the teams.

So, that long description should leave you with the conclusion that I'm rooting for the A's to pull this out this September. I hate the Red Sox and the White Sox, so I'd hate to see the ALCS come down to them. So I find myself in a strange position of rooting for the Indians, because, gosh, I'd love to see a White Sox choke so badly.

Already, it's happened

I am not sure what it is about me that allows for such a quick dissolvement of the teacher/student/discussion of clothes care barrier, but it happened Friday. Already. A girl looked at my somewhat wrinkled baseball jersey (it was our school color day for our first home football game) and asked, "Uh, Mr. EpiphanyinBaltimore, did you not have enough time to iron this morning?"

Then another chimed in, "I'm not sure if you can iron that material."

And then another: "Well, maybe he could have thrown it in the drier for a few minutes."

If only I had a drier, sweetie, if only I had a drier.

I didn't say that, though. As usual when confronted with such odd utterances from students, I just ignored it and said do your work. With maybe a little bit of a smirk.

Every year, there always seems to be discussions about my ironing or lack thereof. I try, I do, and even have taken to going to dry cleaners much of the time to make my shirts presentable, but sometimes they slip through the cracks.

Really great article in this week's City Paper, about Jonathan Kozol's new book on educational apartheid in school systems like Baltimore's. I'll be reading that one as soon as I can get my hands on it.

Cap to the week

This week was ridiculous. I never full recovered from the weekend, and lived each day in a state of plodding exhaustion. It wasn't a bad week, but still last night was a fitting cap to it - a terrible shift at the restaurant, made terrible not only because I made so little money ($24 for more than five hours), but because the restaurant was jam-packed with people. It was just that no one wanted to sit in my upstairs section. I even had good friends come, but they wanted to sit downstairs and listen to the music. I would have, too.

Only two tables did go upstairs, included my second table, which sat there right before I was to leave, then ate slower than thought to be humanly possible. I was miserable, and I remember saying to my British co-worker that I was placing my faith in humanity on whether the two of them gave me a good tip or not - they seemed like nice people, and they had to have known that they made me stay an extra two hours, right? - and was deliriously happy when they left me 20%. Because my faith in humanity was restored. But then I went home, sweating profusely and needing sleep more than I have in a while. I slept all the way in until 8:41 am today - unheard of for me during the school year - and now plan on going to they gym and working up a sweat in a way that I enjoy, not because I'm going up and down steep creaky steps in a restaurant over and over again for $24.

Letters from Poland

This is a correspondence I received recently in my inbox:

Hi,
Maybe my email will look for you a little bit crazy but anycase please read and reply.


I'm not sure that you are correct person who I'm writing.

I'm writing because I'd like to find my family members - don't worry I'd like only find, nothing more.

I'm writing from Poland and I'd like to find someone who knows Henryk (my last name). Henryk was a brother of my great grandma.

He moved to the US to Detroit, MI during 2nd World War and he was hairdresser. And I know that he have 3 sons.

If you know him please reply me, if not, also please reply me because I'd like to know that I'm on incorrect way of searching.

I'm waiting for your reply.

Best regards
(his name)


I was a bit confused by the message, thinking it might be a moneymaking scheme. But I decided to send a quick reply, since he did know my grandfather's name and all.

This was my reply:


Cezary:

Henryk was my grandfather. His middle son is my father. Grandpa (my last name) (Henryk) passed away in 1991. His wife, Ilse (my last name) (my grandmother), is still alive and still iving in Detroit.

Please let me know if you have any other questions, as I'd be happy to answer them.

- (EpiphanyinBaltimore)



This was what I got back from him:


Hi (EpiphanyinBaltimore),

Thank you for your prompt reply. It is very nice to hear you so immediatelly.

My father Arkadiusz (Polish last name) this is son of my grandmother Bozena (Polish last name) (ex long Polish last name)). She is a daughter of Honorata (long Polish last name) - sister of your grandpa - Henryk (my last name). We are living in Wolczkowo near Szczecin in Poland. It means Honorata is passed away in 1995.

Strictly at the moment I'm in Miami in Rennert School. From 10th July I was in New York and from 7th August in Miami. I am coming back to Poland this Saturday from Miami via New York. When I will be in Poland I send you some pictures by e-mail.

I'm 20 years old, my father Arkadiusz Swiech and mother Dorota Swiech are 44. Grandmother Bozena Swiech (ex Szymanska) is 67. Grandfather Zbigniew Swiech unfortunately passed away 2 months ago this year. We are living in Wolczkowo 10 km from the downtown of Szczecin in 2 houses. I'm student. In October I'll start 2nd year in Warsaw University (L.Kozminski Academy of Entrepeneurship and Managment).

My parents have private bussiness and also are working in shipyards bussiness - you can see www.finomar.com.pl (this web site was personaly made by me 5 years ago). I have informed my father and mother about contact with you. They send you greetings and ask you how do you think about visit in Poland in Wolczkowo. It would be great to see you, your (our) family, etc. Your grandpa didn't have time to be in Poland since 2nd war. Please think over it, inform your grandmother Ilse and the rest of your family and ask about meeting.

In our house and garden is good space to make such meetings. Don't worry about it. Some pictures about us I send you next week, when I will be in Poland.

If would be possible pls send me and to my father private e-mail: (e-mail address) some info about you and your family.

Special regards for your grandmother Ilse from my grandmother Bozena (Polish last name)(ex Polish last name) - daughter of Honorata (long polish last name) (ex my last name).

Awaiting news from you about you and your family.

Cezary

I feel like I'm in the middle of international intrigue. No, really, I just think it's cool.

Finally

Today, at 4pm, I have my first dentist appointment in four and a half years. Wish me luck.

Vote of support via Liverpool

So the party kind of sucked. My "date" was that chick from Liverpool, so I was literally the only American at the place. I don't really care about that too much, but everyone was speaking Polish, except for the "date," who was speaking Liverfuckingpoolish. All I could do was eat pierogies. But even though it wasn't fun and I was tired, I was happy I went, because the honoree of the going away party seemed very happy that I was there. There were only two representatives from the restaurant there, and she'd worked there a year (of course, only about eight of us work there, and three were working and were coming later).

This girl I went with sounds just like a character from Trainspotting, only with a dirtier mouth. Especially when she drinks. She's a blast most of the time, even though I sometimes wish she came with subtitles. But I did ask her about Slainte's, the bar where September 29's Blogger Happy Hour / Hurricane Katrina fundraiser is. You see, this girl from Liverpool is a force on the Fell's Point bar scene, and I was sure she could tell me something about this place.

I was right. Apparently one of her good friends owns the place. Of course, I think one of her good friends owns every single bar in Fell's Point, so that's not saying a great deal. But she says it's nice, and was surprised that I hadn't been able to attend the first night out she had with fellow servers at the restaurant last fall - she had organized it there and everyone came. Except me, apparently. But she says the place is great. She says beers are a bit pricey... but it's all for a good cause, and the food definitely looks good.

So, yes, this is my little blog-mention of the Happy Hour that is next week. It's the first one that's for a cause, and that's cool. Find out more info here. Basically, it's Thursday, September 29, from 5pm-9pm, and a portion of the proceeds will go directly to Hurricane Katrina survivors. You will probably see me there, sporting my Sipowicz look, as I'll be heading straight from school to our department's Book Club meeting, then directly over to Slainte's. Thanks to Zenchick and Jennetic for organizing what should be a very cool event.

The Sipowicz Look

I'm totally rocking the Sipowicz look this year, wearing a short-sleeve dress shirt coupled with a tie every day except the first day of school and no-tie Fridays. Today, I wore a garishly colored purple tie and a green Polo short sleeve dress shirt with a purple horse logo on the breast, and the kids loved it. One girl was like, "Dag! Your tie matches your polo sign. That's tight." The word "dag" is my new favorite Baltimore teenager expression.

My least favorite of the moment? Using "on" before the words "yesterday," "tomorrow," and "today." That makes my ears hurt.

Anyway, I can get away with a purple tie in Baltimore a little bit more than I could in other cities, but I have to admit that the first time I was asked whether I was a Ravens fan while wearing the tie, I had to think a little bit about what color the team wears. I don't think I could name one Raven right now beyond Boller and Lewis. To make up for it, I'm pretty sure I could name at least twenty current Orioles right now if you asked me to. I'm not completely Baltimore sports deprived. But two years worth of working Sunday brunches don't leave much time for football game watching, even if I liked the NFL. Which, try as I might, I really don't, except until the playoffs. Maybe this year when the Lions are supposedly pretty good, I'll like football a little more. I don't know. Sometime I'd like to go to a Ravens game, though, before I move away. I've been to a pre-season game, and that was cool, but I want the real thing sometime. Some of my teacher friends get free tickets at their schools all the time. That's never happened where I work, but maybe it will eventually.

Today it was ridiculously hot in the building, and I was not surprised when I just heard it was 93 degrees at 6pm. The sun is not out, but it's so humid, and in the building it's much hotter than outside. I'm beginning to wonder how schools in Maryland get away with not being air-conditioned. Lead in the pipes make drinking water sometimes scarce, and the classrooms are unbelievably hot at times. I've taken to carrying a towel around to dry off sweat.

I didn't end up going to Brewer's Art today after school. Too many folks cancelled, and, in all honesty, I really have too many things on my list of things to do to go to the bar for an afternoon. So I got two of them out of the way and now I'm back home, getting ready to go to a surprise party that I don't want to go to. It will be my second party in a week that I'll be attending that I didn't want to go to, and the second one in a week that I'm attending because of reasons of guilt. I hope I'm building some guilt capital for my house concerts because sometimes I rely on guilt to fill them up. Not so for the next one, though, as I've got a ton of reservations already!

B There

One of the new traditions that I've decided to start this year at school is to organize happy hours to Brewer's Art on every "B" week Thursday. A "B" week is one that starts with a "B" day, meaning that you as a teacher have already planned for the "B" days. Because every other day is a "B" day, you've planned for the Friday, so you are set to go out on Thursday night.

I've dubbed them "Mandatory Meetings at the Art Place, downtown," which is understandable code for all that need to understand it. So I can just go into a colleague's room, and ask her if she's heard about the mandatory meeting at the art place taking place a 4pm downtown, and even if she has students there, she can still know the secret information.

A couple of Thursdays, we went to Brewer's Art for the first time in months. I was reminded again what a cool place it is. I love going out at 4pm and getting in by dark. Of course, I also love continuing to go on and on into the night, but that hasn't happened in a while, and my constant working schedule during weekend nights lately and in the foreseeable future will make it impossible anytime soon. But Brewer's Art - wow. Those rosemary garlic fries and $2 Resurrections. We've also seemed to carve a niche for ourselves in the van seats in the dungeon basement, where we ventured last time after there was some sort of radio shindig upstairs.

This has been a drab week and a happy hour will hit the spot. I think I've spent much of it recovering from the blistering schedule I lived from Thursday through Monday, during which time I had back-to-school night, mammoth 12 or 13-hour work days at the restaurant, and then the Melissa Ferrick show. I haven't been to the gym this week, something that makes me feel like shit, but I just haven't managed the energy. And of course it's a vicious cycle. I will make it tomorrow morning, though.

I have had a good week with the students, though. I'm finally to the point where I know most of my kids' names, and reading their essays has made me excited to get to know them better. It's amazing how revealing kids are to their English teacher, even in the first couple weeks of school. I also am noting more and more the things kids do for approval and reinforcement, and am trying to make it more of a point than usual of giving it. Instead of focusing on being mean early on ("Don't smile until Thanksgiving," as the old teacher adage goes), I'm just trying to be consistent and calmly firm. It fits my personality better.

Of course, one little boy today told me, "Dag! You just want me to fail, don't you?" after he didn't do his homework because he didn't know he had to complete what we had started in class. I had told him, "That doesn't surprise me. You are often talking to your classmates instead of listening to me. Did you write it down in your planner like I asked?" Then I told him that he couldn't turn it in late, but that he would get some partial credit for what he had done. Then he fed me that line and acted like a fool for much of the rest of class. The kid is smart so I'm thinking the line was some sort of test, and I later told him I had enjoyed his insightful comments about how Miss Emma was a round character in the story when others were calling her flat. We'll see how he works out. He owes me a detention that he could have served any day this week and of course he's put it off until either Thursday or Friday. That's my "bad class," so far. It's also the biggest class, and the one after lunch, and in the smallest classroom I'm in, so saying it's my "bad class" is not really a surprise. Just look at the numbers and you can tell that it's going to be the challenge. There are some neat kids in it, though. But it definitely needs a seating chart change, especially now that I'm getting to know the kids better and see how many wiggly chatterboxes I have.

Dang, sometimes I wish I could just quit my second job. But I just mapped out all my expenses through the end of the year, and no end appears to be in sight. To top off the other shitty ways that money seems to mess me up, I've been audited and it does look like I screwed up on my 2002 tax return (or maybe the tax program I used did...) and now owe $1113. Of course, I have no idea if I really did screw up or not, because it's all Greek to me, but the papers they sent make some sense to the layperson (me) and I don't have the time or know-how to pursue fighting it. So I'm going to just pay it off. I've already got $113 down; they cashed the check today which I assume means they've accepted my payment plan proposal.

I also have this crazy dream right now that I can be totally debt-free by the end of the school year, with everything paid off except for student loans, which will be much closer to being paid off than they are right now. This shitty tax thing, a summer credit card, and my car loan - expect to be in the rearview mirror soon.

So I asked the restaurant not to schedule me on Fridays, and they've scheduled me for three Fridays in a row since then. In those three Fridays, I've been cut twice without making anything and on the third night I've made $20. And on that $20 night I ended up giving a window-washer $50 so that sucked. Of course, I'm scheduled again for this Friday. He says he's working on getting people trained but that he needs his best on. And, truth be told, we do start getting busy after Labor Day.

I decided not to complain about this Friday, though, because Caleb Stineand his band are playing and I probably will make some good money, because he usually brings in a big friendly crowd. And he's great. I'd pay to see him, so working on a night that he is playing is like getting paid to go to a good concert.

Surprises

I love the kids that surprise. Like the skinny, big-eared, brown-skinned boy in the front row who didn't do his summer reading and thus has gotten off to a bad start. Every day in class, he's a friendly distraction - asking way too many silly questions, desperate for approval, carrying around a basketball because the kids haven't been issued lockers yet and practice is right after school, talking a bit too much for my tastes. I wouldn't have thought he would be the one to write a personal essay that nearly blew me away today. One with an actual voice, a rarity for a 9th grader. It was funny and detailed with imagery throughout.

Or the Little Miss Perfect, hands raised all the time like in the Reese Witherspoon scenes in Election, who wrote about her brother's death at age ten. How the person who guided her through it was only herself, because her parents had sunk into a pit of depression and ignored her, and how her drive to succeed is feuled by desire for her parents' affection. Or "Mary," who wrote an essay worthy of college freshmen, about being the only white girl in her school in middle school, and how someone named Jasmine made her stop feeling sorry for herself.

I skim way too much student writing. I have to with my student load. But these essays, I'm reading with a fine toothed comb. And a lot of them are good. And a few of them, well, I'm wondering how they got out of middle school, and it's amazing to me that they're in the same course. But that's what varied instruction is for.

TC in DC for XM

I got this e-mail at 10:39 last night, but apparently was in bed by then. I wish I could have replied sooner, because this is something I'd totally call in sick for (especially since tomorrow is just a library orientation day for my kids, and since I've taken something like 5 days off in 4 years, most for my eye surgeries.)

I sent an e-mail this morning. We'll see. I do have my fingers crossed, but I'm pretty sure it's probably filled up by now.

I haven't seen her live since 1996, my first ever real concert.



See Tracy Live this Thursday at XM...FREE!

Attention DC-area residents, XM Satellite Radio, America's no. 1 satellite
radio service, is pleased to invite friends and fans of Tracy Chapman to be
a part of an audience for a special taping with Tracy on the afternoon of
Thursday, September 15, 12 noon, at XM's Washington, DC broadcast
studios. We are very excited to have Tracy participate in this recording
session as part of XM's Artist Confidential Series, which are intimate
programs of talk and music with legendary recording artists, like Don Henley,
Brian Wilson, PhilCollins, Tori Amos and Bonnie Raitt.

The seating for this very special program is extremely limited and
approximately 30 people will be chosen on a "first-come, first-served"
basis determined by when their email is received at XM. So if you are
100% confident that you can join Tracy in Washington, DC on Thursday
afternoon, please send an email to live@xmradio.com and be sure to
include in the body of the email your full name, contact information (in
case the session is cancelled or is postponed) and the name of a single
guest -- if you wish to bring someone. Your subject line must read
"Tracy Chapman" or it will not be considered for this offer.

Everyone will get an auto-response to let you know that XM received your
email. If you are selected to attend, you will receive a second email
with the exact time and further instructions.

How to scare off a guy on the Internet dating scene

You post an ad on Craig's List. An intriguing one. It's my first time replying to one, but I figure, what the heck, I'll do it.

Now, how you totally scare me off:

1. Reply in a matter of 5 minutes. Late on a Friday night. (At that point, after seeing her photo, I realized that it was someone who had e-mailed on the dormant Match.com account, that I wasn't that interested in, but I think about getting back to her in a couple days, after the 30 hour working weekend. Couldn't hurt, I figure.)

2. Send another e-mail on Saturday, asking if you're interested. Tone is insistent.

3. Send another one on Sunday, repeating your question, but even more insistent this time. I get both these e-mails at the same time and this makes it worse.

4. Send another one on Tuesday, but this time, a little scarily, from your myspace.com account, where you have somehow tracked down your account. The tone of this e-mail is a little bitter and disappointed. It has been three days since the original contact and I've worked 40 hours in those three days and seen a concert, and now I'm pissed. And totally scared off. I was going to reply, but certainly not going to now.

Eleven things you can tell just by reading his blog

Late, late night last night. The concert was great, though. But with the hour I got in, I can't believe the morning went so well. I felt terrible for the first half hour, but after a while things felt fine and the lessons rocked today.

A few things:

1. I think I like John Roberts. And not just because of the baseball metaphor. I'm still a little concerned he could be a closet crazy conservative, but I think more likely that he's a moderate akin to O'Connor.

2. Strange, strange staff meeting today, complete with fireworks over what seems to be a forced minimum grade of 60 that we can give students. That is one order that there is no chance in hell I will follow.

3. I'm home tonight by 5:30, and have from now until bedtime to myself. This is the first time that I've had four or five consecutive hours to myself since last Wednesday, and I'm not exaggerating. There's a mountain of laundry to lug to the laundromat and wash, but more likely I'll have a nice evening at the gym (last workout was Friday), the grocery store for some badly needed groceries, the oil change place, and perhaps a little time behind the lawnmower. I've got tomorrow and the next day off at night, too.

4. Tomorrow my classes spend the day down in the library, getting instruction about the library resources. Not only is this the first time the library has been open with any sort of functionality in my five years of teaching, this is the first time a librarian has invited my classes and I in for a tutorial. I hope it means a day of me quietly sitting in the back, grading the already massive amounts of papers that I have to grade.

5. I'm now up to 161 students. Today, I heard a glimmer of sympathy from administration about it. That's the first glimmer I've heard from anyone in administration in my three years of having mammoth student loads that are double the student loads in other departments. I'm cautiously optimistic that something so dramatically unfair and against sound educational practices is finally being called out as being both those things.

6. Ernest Gaines, the author of A Lesson Before Dying (which my students read for summer reading and is one of my favorite books to teach), The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, and A Gathering of Old Men, is coming to Towson University this month. I just found out yesterday - it's been poorly publicized, and I can't even get good info on the Towson website. But I'm determined to bring as many kids there as I can. I'm working on the busses as we speak (I'm on hold). I hope the kids get into it. I think I've got to make it a first come, first serve thing, where anyone who brings in the $6 for the busses will get to go. I hope they get into it. I'm personally very excited about seeing Gaines, who I think is one of our greatest living writers and will be someone whose work will be read in 200 years as one of the foremost American voices of the 20th century. I hope he's working on another novel because it's been fourteen years since A Lesson Before Dying.

7. If someone were to ask me the most important American writers of the 20th century, I'd say it's something like Gaines, Hemingway, Baldwin, Morrison, Steinbeck, Faulkner, and Vonnegut. I'm embarassed to say that I don't see more women on the list. Although I think women have written some of the greatest American novels of the 20th century (Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Louise Erdrich's Love Medicinei, Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Carson McCuller's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, even Jumpha Lahiri's The Namesake [that one's early 21st century]), but many of those do not have as impressive bodies of work as those books suggest. I think this is interesting stuff, so if you have additions/contentions, let me know.

8. Speaking of great American writers of the 20th century, I was saddened to learn that August Wilson is dying of liver cancer. He announced just a couple weeks ago that doctors are giving him less than six months to live. I've taught his plays in each of the six years I've been in front of students - The Piano Lesson in Lansing, and Fences and Joe Turner's Come and Gone here - and once met him after a speech he gave at Michigan State. I saw his play Gem of the Ocean, starring Phylicia Rashad, last year on Broadway. He's a contentious old guy, but an incredible speaker, and his plays showcase his impressively poetic dialogue and well-drawn characters. The character of Troy Maxson, a former Negro league baseball star embittered about the prejudice that held him back from making a living playing the sport, so embittered that he refuses to allow his own teenage son to pursue a football scholarship because sports are a "white man's game," is one of my favorite characters in all of drama. The kids love August Wilson plays, as well. I'll be seeing his most recent play, Radio Golf, at Centre Stage this year, and he very well might have passed by then. Sad, and too young to die (60, and working on his first novel last I heard), but he's certainly been appreciated and honored in his lifetime and will be read and performed for years and years after his death.

9. My current instinct is that I don't see myself at this school next year. I think five years is a nice even number to go with. I like a lot of things that are happening there right now in terms of hallways being clear and strictness being applied, so it's not that. Rather, it's like I want to add a little chaos to my life that is my own doing, not the doing of someone else. Take control. I've been through four principals and three department heads in two years. My student load is very high. I'm definitely feeling overworked. All these things are not new but there gets a point where I need to bend a bit. Anyhow, I'm still not sure, at all, but that's my current instinct. Not to worry, I'm not going to be teaching anywhere but in an inner city somewhere, if I do decide to leave. And maybe we'll see how baseball season goes. Heh.

10. I've made 13 calls home this week. Kids are failing already, after having not done summer reading. Ugh. This is the year when I first start to hate summer reading. I think I have 75% of my kids' names down by now. Not bad after having only seen them five times each group.

11. In my continuing attempting to relate to my students, I decided to sprout a big red zit on the end of my nose this week. It no longer has a heartbeat of its own, but it still makes me feel a little like Rudolph the rednosed reindeer. Or like I'm 14. I decided to combat it by not shaving for five days.

What a long, ridiculous post.

What a long ass weekend. I worked half a week in two days, and am definitely feeling it. Every part of my body hurts right now.

As servers at my restaurant, we're allowed to charge an automatic gratuity if the party is more than six. We don't have to. We can assume that the people will treat us right, and just go ahead and not charge gratuity. However, I often charge the 18% gratuity, after having been burned too many times. Today, though, I had a good feeling about a table. A couple lesbians, a couple gay guys, lots of bloody mary and mimosa flowing, lots of good vibes. I decided not to charge gratuity. It's a definite gamble, I realize this. If you charge gratuity, people rarely if ever leave more, and it sort of says to them, "I don't trust you to tip me right, so I'm charging." If you don't charge gratuity, they could go up over 20%, and often do.

Well, I got burned on this one, my one big table of the day. They left me 14%, a ridiculous amount for the amount of work I did. It was an upstairs table, and I worked my ass off, and did a damn good job. I couldn't believe they screwed me like that. Sometimes, when people get in a big group, there's this mob mentality where people don't take responsibility for what is happening. No one did here, and their server was screwed. The lesson here for me is not to trust people's good tipping instincts and charge the gratuity. The lesson to you is to make sure this doesn't happen to your server. In addition, that the difference between $19 and $25 means just a few cents for each of you, but a whole world to a server. Shitheads.

The festival was pretty fun today, absent of the occasionally intense eye pain. I would go a few hours and think everything was okay, and then be doubled over in pain. I think I need to go a few days without contacts and go from there. I probably haven't been as good as I need to be about eye drops now that I'm teaching again in my hot, hot school.

I'm too tired to give much else, other than I can't believe it's the 4th year anniverseary of September 11 already. I was in my first couple weeks of my teaching career at that point. I remember who told me that we had been bombed, and how nonchalant her attitude - and, thus, my attitude - was about it at first. Then, we heard that it might be serious, and we started trying to tune our TV sets to the events, and the next thing we knew we were dismissed. All the kids I had that year are graduated, and the only ones to share memories with of that day are the handful of teachers still at the school who were there four years ago.

Two years ago on this night, I was at a Melissa Ferrick concert at Recher. I remember her stopping during one of her songs at the line about New York City and saying that she especially remembers it tonight, and it was a perfect tribute.

I had went alone and made out with a random apparent non-lesbian in the crowd. I don't do that stuff anymore. I don't know why. Not since the eye surgeries, the moment I first felt my mortality. I'm not as foolhardy as I once was. I'm not as confident, either.

Tomorrow night, I'll be at yet another Melissa Ferrick show, trying to feel feelings I don't feel often enough, feeling the tide swell within myself and attempt to burst. Her shows - and all great live music - help me be less inside myself, or at least they seem like they do that in my own head. Ironically, I guess.

By the way, I'm on the guestlist. This was the e-mail in my box when I returned tonight:

hey (Epiph)
you're all set for youself on the guest list
have fun at the show
best,
bryna



melissa ferrick's
manager


That was the reply to this e-mail I sent earlier this weekend:

Dear Melissa: You may not remember me, but I booked you twice at The Common Grounds at Michigan State University. (http://www.statenews.com/editions/032900/ms_ferrek.html)

I've since moved to Baltimore, and I teach high school English here in the city. I was able to talk to you a little bit after you played your outside show at Mt. Vernon Park last summer. At that time, you hugged me, congratulated me on the move and my 100-pound weight loss, and told me to e-mail you when you're coming back into town and that you'd put me on the guest list.

I tried last time you were playing at the Funk Box, but at that point the guest list was full. I thought I'd try again. I'm actually bringing a few friends to the show, including first-timers, and am treating them to tickets so I thought I'd see if the offer was still open for myself just to lower my overall cost.

If it's too late, that's alright too. We'll still have a great time. I do have an odd request, though. I've probably seen you ten times live, and I've never heard you play live the *first* song I ever heard of yours (on East Lansing's Impact station, WDBM). That's "Juliana Hatfield (Girls with Guitars)." I don't even know if you even play it live anymore, but it would be a thrill. I just saw Hatfield a couple of weeks ago here in Baltimore and that show was a thrill, too.

I hope you're well and am really excited about the show on Monday. It's been the light at the end of the tunnel for quite a while.

I'll take the guestlist pass over hearing "The Juliana Hatfield Song," that's for sure.

I'm such a name dropper.

Speaking of which, hanging out with the Polish Girl is so much fun. We worked all day and all night today, a night topped off with her telling this guy hitting on her that I was her husband and that we'd been married for two years. They were speaking Polish, so I couldn't understand, but she broke into English, held my hand, kissed me, and said, "Honey, my husband, we're about to celebrate our two-year anniversary, right?" and I'm like, "Yeah, that's right" and the two of them went back to speaking Polish until I called her away.

She also put a bumper sticker on my shirt that says, "I had a BLAST at the Ukrainian Festival in Baltimore" and I ended up getting my picture taken and they say it'll be on the website. I don't even think they have a website.

I'm going to take pictures at the Ferrick show tomorrow. So far, there's six of us, I think, including Textureslut and Fool's Fate and a few others. If anyone else feels like going to an amazing live show, you should be at the Funk Box tomorrow.

Slave to slavic food

I'm going to have nightmares about pierogi tonight.

13 hours today, and a repeat tomorrow.

But I'm making $5/hr tax-free while I'm over, so, uh, you can't beat that.

Rarely do I remember being this tired. My eyelids are fluttering. It's the weekend. My grass needs to be mowed, Melissa Ferrick tickets need to be bought, clothes need to be washed, and the house needs to be cleaned. But I'm schilling pierogie, holupki, and holushki for hours on end. This is the sort of weekend that really makes me re-think the second job thing.

Luckily it was fun for the first ten hours, bad eyes and all. It was those last three that were killer. But a table at the restaurant insisted I have a glass of wine with them, and since no one was around, I partook in it and talked books. Not a bad way to cap the evening.

Eye hate wearing glasses

When I woke up today, I thought the eye problems had ceased, but by the time 5th period hit, it was feeling like I was teaching with a butter knife shoved through my pupil. I was in a really good mood before that, but the pain hit almost immediately once I walked into the bright classroom on the sunny side of the building. Kids kept asking me if I had allergies, because I had tears dripping down my face and the eyes were scary red. Not impressive.

I ducked out early after that class to go home and lay down. I put heat compreses on my eyes and slept a bit, then had to go into the restaurant to work. I had no tables and was there for three hours, when the manager cut me out of guilt. Not only was I obviously uncomfortable, and had told him I wasn't feeling well as I drove in, but I'm working two doubles this weekend - 25 hours across two days. Just thinking about that makes me tired.

But luckily much of it's outside at Baltimore's Ukrainian Festival, something I look forward to every year. I'll be schilling pierogi, holushki, holupki, Polish beer, and kielbasa, and hopefully my eye will feel better tomorrow. So, attention stalkers, I'll be there all morning and afternoon tomorrow and then all afternoon and evening on Sunday.

I just went to the drugstore to get some sort of medicine for my eyes, but I left my wallet all the way back at work at Fell's Point and couldn't see myself driving back there. So it's baby shampooo, hot presses, cold presses, and artificial tears, and hopefully something works. It does feel better - now it just feels like something is stuck in there, not something painful - and I think a full night of sleep will help a lot.

None of this happened over the summer, and I think this means it has something to do with school. Since the eye surgeries, my eyes don't produce tears very well, and what is produced is often clogged up with something my opthamologist called eye dandruff. But I was able to keep everything under control since May or whenever it was since I saw him last. Maybe the building is too dry for my eyes. Maybe I need to drink more water, which is sometimes tough because water is not always available to us (lead in all the sink water, as you probably know, so they have water bottles). Maybe I'm allergic to something in the air at school. Or, maybe it's a combination of these things meshed with the fact that I'm exhausted right now, that I've run myself absolutely ragged in the last week while working 12+ hour days each day this week.

I don't know. I'm just frustrated as hell because everything else is going real well right now.

At least I get to eat unlimited pierogies this weekend. And the Polish girl and I are working together selling Polish food Sunday night, and earlier this week she called me and said, "So, are we getting fucked up together at the festival again this year?" and I'm like, "Yeah." Last year, I remember we had a couple of drinks in between our doubles and then the boss (also hot, by the way) kept giving us Okocim and shots of random Polish liquors all night. Fun times. All I can say is I hope I'm healthy enough to do unhealthy things to my body this weekend.

back to school night

Today I woke up with a stinging pain in my eye. This pisses me off so much, because I've been doing exactly what the doctor said to do - using artificial tears, cleaning out the eyes with baby shampoo every night, cleaning the contacts well. It's just like I had a flare up, the first since last May or so. I skipped the morning gym trip and figured it had happened because I was tired, and that I'd be able to put in my contacts eventually. That never happened; the eye was sore all day, and now I'm having a hard time discerning whether it's because my eye is irritated, or if it's because I have a cold. And I cannot express how much I hate wearing glasses.

I'm working too hard right now, I know that. I've been at school each night this week until later than I'd like, in the 6pm and 7pm range, and today I just got home at 9pm. That's 13 hours straight at school. And, of course, my job does not end when I leave; I come home and plan for the next day.

Anyhow, today I taught, I showed A Lesson Before Dying after school (and cried during it, although I think it was more because I had tears running down my face all day anyway because of the eye pain and the sad movie just exacerbated it), and then had to move my car, then had Back to School Night.

Back to School Night isn't fun. We have to stay at school until 9pm, and I don't know any of my students yet (have seen each group just three times so far), so all I do is give my spiel about the class and then the parents are gone. Put me in front of a group of 30 fourteen-year olds, and I'm fine. But put me in front of ten adults, and I'm nervous. I feel like they're staring at me much moreso than I feel like young people are. I don't know why. It makes me nervous.

Plus, even though this year's Back to School Night seemed to be more organized than usual, it was still disorganized. I think anytime you make parents follow their kid's schedule - complete with complicated A day and B day courses, and quarter 1 and quarter 2 courses - with ten minute class periods, well, you're going to have some disorganization. So I just went through my spiel, and hopefully got just about every parent to sign up on my e-mail list so I can start that up next week sometime.

My advice to all the parents - read over kids' work, look at their planner, read the novels along with the kids if you can - sounded redundant as I went, but I was happily surprised to see some parents taking notes. Others just seemed to stare at me, expressionless. I guess it was a long day for them, too.

It was really great to see some of last year's kids' parents. I had a group of parents who were phenomenally active last year, and they were so nice and thankful all the time. Here they were, again, tonight, making a special trip to thank me and say hi. Good people.

I gave "Bobby" a ride home afterwards. The principal asked him to valay park for parents for the event, which meant for most just to direct them where to go. I asked him how he was chosen, and the pricipal apparently just came to his class and asked him. I'm glad that someone else has figured out how special this kid is. Only a few kids were chosen.

His computer broke and his phone is cut off at home. Of course, all I could think about was when I could afford to get him a Dell computer for $300 like I got myself last January for school. We'll see.

It's good to be home, but I'm so tired right now. Exhausted. My eye is still in pain, and I've got a lesson to plan for tomorrow. My printer at home does not work, so I have to e-mail the document to myself in the morning, for the chance that I can find a working printer in the school somewhere.

In positive news, my first pay day in ten weeks occurs in approximately 2.5 hours. It's for eight days instead of ten, and of course they're doing full deducations and will not reflect the new raise, but I'm still happy that my parched bank account will have its thirst quenched.

Writing my hits, taking my hits

So my hits on this blog tripled yesterday before falling to mostly normal levels today.

The article in which I was featured is here. The writer of the article linked to my old diaryland site, but some of the traffic that went there came back over here. Still, I would say that only about 20% of the traffic that went to the diaryland site decided to come over here. I mean, this isn't much of a weight loss blog, so interested parties probably were quickly turned away by that fact.

As this guy notes, there are plenty of blogs that probably would have been better weight loss blogs than this one. However, I have never, as he claimed, purported to be a weight loss blog. It's just one small aspect of my bloglife. If I had to classify my blog as any sort of type of blog, it would be a teacher blog. But obviously I vacillate from that topic often as well.

I thought that guy over at livinlavidalocarb was sort of a jerk in his description of this blog. He writes, "While those stories are all well and good, a successful weight loss blog is going to primarily provide insight and commentary about WEIGHT LOSS. If your blog is about what is going on in your life, then that's one thing. But if you are going to purport to be a resource for people desiring weight loss, then that should be your focus in your blog." I mean, the word choice of "purport" and caps-locking "WEIGHT LOSS" were a little much. Again, this is not something I purport to be. (I think he was a little mad he wasn't interviewed for the article for his blog, to be honest.) (And, by the way, low carb diets are a fad and only make you lose weight because you're actually just eating less food overall.)

I also think it's because I don't like seeing someone else summarize my life like he did. When I see the phrase "legal battles," I think of someone who got arrested for not paying child support and has to go to court, or someone with a DUI or something like that. Not a story of a completely innocent guy whose dog ran after a crackhouse owner mailman who thought he could get a quick buck and pay back the $20,000 he owes to the city in back taxes and fine by lying and saying the dog bit him. But neither here nor there, I guess.

Anyhow, on the subject of blogs, we have a new principal this year, and I've been a little worried about getting discovered. The Washington Post article sort of made the worry stick more. Today, we got a memo telling us not to ever speak with the press. Weird, as I don't know why the press would ever want to speak to us, and I didn't see any sort of reason why it was told to us. Immediately I thought of this blog.

I then spoke with the union leader, though, and he says I'd be totally safe if I was ever "found out." I haven't used school computers or internet access to update, and that's a good thing. I've never used real names of students, colleagues, or the school. Although I'm sure some astute readers know where I work, perhaps from meeting me at blogger happy hours, I try to stay as anonymous as I can. Plus, there is no contractual language about blogs. Someone told me that no one who is part of a union has ever been Dooced, and no teacher or public employee ever has. But you never know.

So, I worry. On occasion. Never enough to quit this thing or anything like that just yet. I mean, I enjoy this. But enough for me to think about renaming this thing "Epiphany in Large Unnamed City." Not yet, though, and it's probably just mild paranoia. I hope anyone who ever stumbles across this thing can see that I work my butt off for the kids and the school and just looks the other way. It helps that blogspot is blocked at school so no one could access it from school computers.

Washington Post and Weight Loss

Changing subjects, my blog was featured in the Washington Post over the weekend in an article about weight loss and weight loss blogs. It's been a long time since this blog was a weight loss blog, but it certainly was at one point, at least partially. If you have come here for that (and I know a shocking amount of you have), my weight loss tips is a good place to start. It's probably not a bad idea for me to dust them off every now and check them out as I try to put a number "1" in front of my weight instead of a "2." Even though I wrote it years ago (Oct. 12, 2002, to be exact), I still think there are some good tips there, although a lot of it is common knowledge to those who read fitness magazines. But they worked for me when I went from 310 to 190. And they still do, although I sure as heck wish I could get back to my pre-retinal-detachment surgery weight of 190 rather than the current 210.

Back to lesson planning.

Mama said there'd be days like this

Today is one of those days when I stayed at school until 7pm grading and then planning tomorrow's lesson and things still don't feel right. I feel like things I've done for years did not work as well as I remember and will not work well this year. I'm rethinking and retooling old assignments, and am on the verge of blowing up my entire unit in favor of things that might work better and starting from scratch. But I'm still married a bit to past ideas and ideals. So instead of blowing it up, I'm sort of treading water, plugging in holes, going day by day while I think about it some more, turning it over in my head until things feel right. I feel like I have hours of planning to go before I can go in there tomorrow, but I've got to get to Staples before it closes. And I didn't work out this morning because I got home so late last night, so I really want to head to Bally's tonight. It would probably be a good thing to clear my head, anyway.

Meanwhile, I stay at school until 7pm, and the thanks I get in my mailbox is a notice from administration listing all the teachers who gave $5 to the PTSA during the faculty meeting the other day. They hope to have all of us donate by Thursday. It was very clearly a public humiliation tactic against those of us who did give the $5. The thing is, I haven't been paid since June. Sorry, man, but until I know I can make my car payment on the 15th, I'm not going to be giving money away. I have school supplies to buy still, and that's much more important for my students' success than $5 to the PTA so they can buy meat subs for all the teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week and have no lunch at all for the fifteen vegetarian teachers. I haven't even made my Red Cross donation yet, and won't until I do get paid - this Friday. I almost wrote them back a note stating that this sort of public denouncement of not donating sucks, especially when teachers haven't been paid since June. Not to mention the $405 that the district still owes me for the plane tickets and training I went to this summer, that I was told I'd be reimbursed for in July. I was told that it was a Southern Baptist thing to publicly list amounts that people donate, which in my school sort of translates to "it's a black thing." Because everything connects back to To Kill a Mockingbird, I thought of the Reverend Sykes scene in the church, when he locks in the parishoners until they raise $10 for Helen Robinson and her kids. And the mockingbird reference made me feel better about it all. But the public humiliation for not donating still sort of sucks.

Tale of the racist stoopsitter

Busy night at the restaurant. I did well, making more tonight than I had combined to make the previous three nights. Ah, the fickleness of the restaurant industry. It feels good to leave that place after a nice busy shift with over $100 in my pocket. I spent $60 today ($40 on gas, and it didn't even fill up my car, and $19.80 on groceries for the week's lunches), and it's good to come out on the positive for a day.

The weirdest part of the night was when a familiar area stoopsitter came and knocked on the door excitedly, saying there was a car burglary in progress down the block. We ran down there, and indeed there was a guy rifling through some lady's (according to the stoopsitter) car. However, we weren't sure if he was breaking in or not. Regardless, the guy asked us to call the police and I believe we called the area officer.

Anyhow, the stoopsitter came back later to use the bathroom. He told us that he thought it was a black guy breaking into the car. But he went up to the car, and noticed the guy was Asian. As soon as he found that out, he said, he worried if the guy was alright. The way he said it was such a racist stereotype that my jaw dropped. If he was black, he was breaking in, but if he was Asian, he was in need of help.

It turned out it's the guy's girlfriend's car, and he was cleaning it out for her and checking the map for directions for a trip tomorrow.

Sometimes people suck. I'll add the $19-tip-on-$134-bill to that list tonight, as well. But my boss was awesome as was all of my other tables. Nice, nice people.

Back to the grind tomorrow. I didn't grade over the weekend, which sucks. I want one more day. Please? I've worked at one job and/or the other now for thirteen days in a row.

Rodricks' column

Dan Rodricks' essay over the weekend - "It's time we own up to lack of leadership" - really moved me. It's about the dearth of leadership on both the right and left, summing up my feelings nicely.

It's here, and worth a read.

New house concert website

I couldn't ever figure out how to ftp files over to my holdenslair.com site, and the frustration was killing me, so I decided to work within the parameters of what I do now about websites - blogging.

So I created a website for my house concerts on blogspot. I'm going to try to google protect it a bit, but it's called "(My dog's name, and he's named after the main character of The Catcher in the Rye)'s (another word for cave or home) House Concerts" and the site is up here. If you've never heard about this strange part of my life, I've been doing it now for three years or so. We've had about 25 shows in that time, each bringing in about 25 people or so. Artists include Patti Rothberg, Wally Pleasant, Doria Roberts, Teddy Goldstein, and many more. They're cool, laid back, fun, and anyone can come.

You should think about coming to see Sam Shaber perform on Friday, September 23! Good stuff. Head on over to the site and let me know what you think.