Pros and Cons

Pro: The Tigers outscored the hated Minnesota Twins 33-1 over the last three games, and went 16-9 in April - their best start since 1984 (when they won the World Series). Looks like a pikced a good year to get that Tigers tattoo.
Con: The cynical Tiger fan in me knows they can never keep it up. Plus, they're in baseball's toughest division and need to overtake the Indians and White Sox.

Pro: My dad visited this weekend and it was good to see him and spend time with him.
Con: Entertaining him for 72 hours was exhausting. I again feel like I didn't have a weekend and am going into tomorrow feeling unrested.

Pro: I cleaned up so much last weekend that my house is nearly unrocgnizable.
Con: I had to work today and couldn't clean the post-house-concert mess, so the cleanliness didn't last long. (Really, it's only messy now, not unclean.)

Pro: The house concert was great, one of my favorites I've ever had.
Con: Small, small crowd, one of the smallest ever.

Pro: On the way to the airport, we went to Paper Moon Diner, where I had perhaps the best omelet I've ever had. I couldn't believe that eggs stuffed with portabella and swiss could taste like the food of the gods.
Con: The only tables available were the two by the bar, which apparently is the smoking section - the other part of the restaurant was being mopped. While dad and I were eating (we were the only people in the restaurant at 6:30am), a couple of servers there had the audacity to sit and smoke about three feet from us eating. Therefore, the entire second half of my omelet was consumed with nasty cigarette smoke around me. Boy, was I mad about that. Can't wait for that MD restaurant/bar smoking law to be passed...

Pro: I'm not teaching summer school, as I missed the deadline to apply. That's okay, I'm stressed out as all get out right now. Can teachers get senioritis? I'm feeling it.
Con: Unless I figure out some way to make some decent money this summer, I'll drain all of the savings I worked so hard to accrue this year. However, I'm also thinking this might be the summer that I finally make some good progress on my Master's Degree, and that will make it worth it because then it's like an investment.

Friday four

1. We won both ends of our doubleheader today, in scores so laughable that they looked like football scores in our team's favor. It really wasn't that fun to pound another team like that. But I'm sure my guys had some fun, as we hit five home runs in the two games.

2. Afterwards, we headed out to Joe Squared, where the owner freaked me out by telling me he knew I was coming because he had read about it on this blog. Woah. Then, he mentioned the name of the blog in front of my dad and the one person in Baltimore I really hope never sees it. Luckily, I don't think my dad really knows what a blog is, and the music was too loud for the other one to hear it. Phew.

3. I was too tired to keep going, but my dad is still out. He decided to take my car out and go to the Fraternal Order Of Police bar up Harford Road. I'm embarassed that my 54-year old father has more legs than I do tonight, but he didn't teach 14-year olds all day and then coach two games of a doubleheader. Talk about exhausted. And tomorrow's a big day, with sightseeing during the day and a house concert at night.

4. My dad informed me that a classmate from elementary school died in a car wreck this week. It's strange, because I was just thinking the other day - as I was going through my box of mementos during my spring cleaning day - that no one from my class or high school has died, at least any that I had heard of. I had a close classmate die when I was in the second grade, and then a guy I played baseball with - a tall lanky left-handed first baseman - got cancer when I was a freshmen in college and he was a senior in high school. He ended up dying right around the time he was supposed to graduate, and that really sucked. It also sucks that I can't remember his last name; his first name was Josh. But this is the first death I've heard of since then, and this one is significant because I went to school with him from kindergarten through third grade at the Catholic elementary school, and then I moved to the Detroit area, but then I hung out with him again when I returned to the southwest corner of Michigan in the 7th grade. I haven't seen him in ten years, but it's still really sad to me, another reminder of the precariousness of life, that something like this could happen to me or anyone else any time. Especially if you spend the day drinking* and decide to go racing in your 1996 pickup truck on a curvy country road without a seatbelt on. (toxicology reports pending, but it's rumored he was in bars all day.)

Cleaning memories

No matter how often dad comes to visit in Baltimore, he always says the exact same thing when walking in front of houses in our favorite part of the city, Fell's Point: "There's no way I could live that way, with people always walking right in front of my house."

And he always asks me for my remote control, when I haven't had a remote control for my television since college and it matters not to me.

But I love him. His flight was just fine, except, "They must have thought I was Jerry Bin Laden in the airport, because they searched me like crazy!" This was at the South Ben, IN airport that he flew out of. He got in at 7pm, and we headed over to Ze Mean Bean for hriby dip, holupki, and, for me, the best fish I've had in a long time (baked cod over a rstd. tomato risotto). Then, a quick walk around Fell's, ending up at Slainte (sp?) for a Guinness while watching the Orioles. All in all, a good evening.

It was a fine cap on a great day, a day full of accomplishment. Spring cleaning was a huge success. I did my best to follow the rule that if I haven't used something in a year, it was being thrown out or donated. This is a challenge for me and my pack rack tendencies. The biggest issue I have is the memories stuff. I have nearly every issue of the high school newspaper that I worked on; it was my big thing in high school, as the paper formed my 9th grade year and I worked on it all four years and eventually was editor in chief. Now, I haven't looked at these in years, but I just cannot throw them away. But I did, today - at least the excess copies. I kept one copy of every edition that I had, and tossed the others (they were just on regular copy paper, so if I want to make some more, it's easy enough). It seems to me that I'm probably the only person in the world who has kept every issue of the student newspaper for South Haven High School from 1992-1995, and for that reason alone, I couldn't toss them all. Not that I'd want to.

In that stack of student newspapers, I found one that featured my performer this weekend at my house concert on the front page, starring in a production of Damn Yankess. I'll be sure to dig that out for old time's sake on Saturday at the show (which, by the way, now has five reservation. Come on, Baltimore, don't you want something cool to do on Saturday?)

I also kept the dorky feature article about me in Baseball Weekly when I was a sophomore in high school. Dwight Gooden is on the cover. I forgot to check the date; I'm just guesstimating when I say I was a sophomore. I also found my grandpa's copy of the front page of the Detroit Free Press when the Tiges won the World Series in 1984. I should figure out a way to preserve that.

Anyhow, I preserved the "Mementos" stuff - photos, baseball cards, old high school newspapers, clippings, awards earned in high school and college, my teaching portfolio that helped get me my job, my high school diploma - into one big crate. As long as I can consildate it like that, it's no big deal keeping the stuff.

Anyhow, the basement is clean, there are seven bags of trash on the back curb, and four bags going to the Mission on Harford Road. Great day.

Subsitutes

We won again tonight, so now we're on a roll. After the game, a kid realized that another guy on the team had driven off with his car keys, so he was locked out of his car. The kid went to church way in West Baltimore, off of Reistertown Road, so I found myself driving the kid and another guy on the team all the way out there after the game. I don't know that part of the city at all - when I found out the kid went to church out there, I was confused, as I thought that was the Jewish part of Baltimore (the kid's black). However, I was just wrong on that, as the area seemed pretty mixed.

Once we picked up the keys, I realized it was 8 o'clock and these kids hadn't eaten - and neither had I - so I splurged and took them all to Fuddrucker's out there. Fuddrucker's, with its strange blending of McDonald's and Ruby Tuesday's (two places I'd never go to on their own), really hit the spot. I got a veggie burger and put tons of jalapenos on it. It was almost as good as what I make at home.

I had to drive all the way back to the school on the other side of the city to let the kid get back to his car, and I finally made it home at 9:30. That's alright, because all is good - I'm taking the day off tomorrow! I'm not one really to take random days off, but I need this one, and it's only my third day off of the year so far (one sick day, one personal day, and one "personal business" day). When I told my department head, she winked and said she was happy for me, and then freaked out because finding a sub for me - teacher of 170 9th graders, including a legendarily rambunctious 5/6 class, without a classroom - is a challenge and a half. I'm going to get the crazy little white lady that the kids think is scared of black people. "No," I tell them. "She's scared of all people." (I don't actually say it like that. That's what we say about her in the English lunch room.) She's crazy because she leaves ramblingly nonsensical notes for the teacher, and does things like erase everything off the board and then re-copy it word for word. But she's effective because she actually makes sure the kids stay in the room and takes attendance.

No, our district doesn't do a great job hiring substitutes. At sixty or seventy bucks a day, though, of course they don't. You get what you pay for.

Last year, we had a guy we unaffectionately call the "Pee Sub," because apparently he was previously removed from a substituting job for urinating on himself at a different school in the city. He was an unkempt, socially retarded man who said a lot of inappropriate things, and eventually we had to have him removed from the facility by the security guard. He's a ticket checker at Orioles Park now; I see him from time to time when going to a ballgame.

After him, all the other subs we have seem a little bit better. We have Mrs. Brown, an old (pushing 80) confused black grandmotherly type who the kids take care of more than vice-versa. We have Mr. Smith, an old white guy who talks on and on and on all about the MTA and about his letters to the editor and the mayor (his idea for a city motto, which he claims is much, much better than "The Greatest City in America" or "The City That Reads," and he's let O'Malley know, is "Baltimore: The City That Thinks First, Then Acts"). We have Mr. Turkeyneck, who used to teach middle school art and now is still working in school despite the fact that it seems like he hates children. And, of course, the one I'll be having tomorrow, who somehow has taken the position of "Least Incompetent."

Tomorrow is spring cleaning day and pick-dad-up=from-the-airport day. I need it. We have a doubleheader Friday at home and we need to get primed up for it.

The current dilemmas in my life

1. Whether to apply to teach summer school or not.

2. Whether to bench a kid for leaving practice early, despite the fact that we talked afterwards and he apologized.

3. Whether to get up to go to the gym in the morning when it's now 10:56pm and I'm still awake (damn those west coast games).

4. Whether to take a day off on Thursday to clean the house in preparation for my dad's visit on Thursday night and the house concert on Saturday. (I have taken one sick day - when I wasn't sick, on a professional development day - and one personal day this year. I think I get a "personal business" day that doesn't count as a sick day, which is cool because we get to convert some of our sick days the year after in a system I don't quite understand but I'll certainly take that $400 again next December for not using them.)

5. Whether to cancel practice on Thursday, on the eve before a doubleheader. I'll almost certainly have to cancel practice if I indeed take the day off on Thursday.

Another lazy enumerated post

1. When we got to the ballfield today, there was a lake around second base and another around home plate. I just said, "screw it," and we practiced around the massive rain puddles. Just a quick 90-minute practice that I came close to cancelling because of the field conditions, but I'm glad we didn't because it was fun.

2. Today was an exceptional day in the classroom. Even my 5/6 period class, the one with all the kids on IEPs, was really on task. We're at the point now with Romeo and Juliet has gotten hella exciting and even the whiners who say, "I don't understand one word they're saying!" gasp and tsk, tsk when the scenes get dramatic. Today was Act 3, Scene 5, the scene in which Juliet's father threatens to put her out on the streets if she refuses to marry Paris. "Hang, Beg, Die in the streets!," he screams at her (and I had a good actor playing him in all three classes) and the kids got so into it.

3. I'm reading a book right now called I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. The book description is as follows: "My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole. I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead. But, I do contribute to humanity in one very important way: I share my adventures with the world," and it's written by this guy, who is apparently an internet celebrity of sorts. The book is pretty funny, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it, as it reminds me of the Howard Stern show, which I miss.

4. I used to track my maturity and aging by how I responded to The Catcher in the Rye. Not so anymore. I now track it by how happy pooping makes me.

5. Sunday was Shakespeare's 442nd birthday. Tomorrow is my mom's 52nd birthday. Friday is Harper Lee's 80th birthday.

6. My alarm clock went off today at 4:48am, and I vaguely remember thinking that there was no way in hell I was getting up to go the gym, that it would be one of the most ridiculous activities I'd ever engaged in if I did. I went right back to sleep for exactly two more hours and did not make it to the gym in the morning as I had promised myself. I went this afternoon, but I hope I don't get lazy again tomorrow morning. I know now what I'm going to think when it goes off, though, so maybe I'll be able to combat it. I'll do my damdest.

7. I smelled a whiff of turmoil at Trader Joe's today from one of the cashiers. A customer behind me asked about the lack of free samples at the checkout lanes, and the cashier mentioned the new manager. He was diplomatic, but all three of us talked aobut how great the old one was, and how this new change was certainly not an improvement in any way. I feel like a revolt against the lack of free samples is in order.

8. I commented to one of the workers there how happy I was that the lime popsicles had returned, and mentioned that the last five times I'd been at Trader Joe's, they were all gone. She told me that it's because they know my car and have been trained to hide all the lime popsicles when I come in, but that someone had been on his break and had missed the cue today so there the lime popsicles are. I stood there dumbfounded for a minute, and laughed. She did too. Maybe I'm going to Trader Joe's too much. I'm certainly not doing a very good job of protesting the lack of free samples in the checkout lines, that's for sure.

9. I only have five reservations for my house concert on Saturday. I'm trying not to be worried about it.

10. I watched another couple episodes of Entourage tonight. I really enjoy that show.

Lovin' It

Despite my recent post, I'm in a rather good mood. I worked a lot this weekend, but it was still an alright one, the highlight of course being the funding of the Outward Bound trip through this site (thanks again everybody!).

In adition, I just had the best workout I've had in several weeks, and I'm all primed to get up at 4:45 am tomorrow to do it all over again. My gym trips have been infrequent in 2006. In January and February I was just inconsistent, but since baseball season began on March 1, I've only gone maybe a couple times a week. I have no idea why I forget, but it sometimes doesn't dawn on me that most often the reason I feel shitty and stressed out is because I'm unhealthy. I need to be exercising every day to remain focused and energized, and it really only works when I'm exercising - both weightlifting and cardio - every morning before school.

This is also making me happy:

This is the 154th time I've written this exact same post

I am so, so tired of never having a weekend. I really could have used these two days to do a lot of things I need to do - put away my laundry from Monday, cleaned the house and basement for the upcoming house concert and father visit this weekend, planned out the rest of the Romeo and Juliet unit - but I had to work. Work, work, work. I wonder if the 6th year of teaching is the one in which I won't have to have a second job. I sure as hell hope so.

I like waiting tables, I really do. I like paying down my student loans without breaking my bank. I like that I've almost paid off my stupid car. I like having savings. But I can't do this much longer.

(I reserve the right to change my mind on this next week when I only work Sunday night at the restaurant.)

Wow

The money has been raised for the trip. Thanks so much, everyone. Much appreciated by all involved, and know that you're doing a really great thing.

The Cisneros Pastiche

I assigned two of my classes to write a Santra Cisneros pastiche - five vignettes written in a minimalist, yet poetic, style akin to Cisneros. There are a few other requirements, as well:

* Child or adolescent narrator
* Use of ten metaphors, similes, or personifications
* Use of at least two symbols
* Direct emulation of at least one of Cisneros' vignettes (such as "My Name")
* Address at least one social problem in one of the vignettes
* Use of humor
* Imagery to all five senses

I read through the first draft of many of the students' on Friday. Some are so good that I got goosebumps, and I swear that some are even publishable. They really are amazing. I can't believe it's taken me five years of teaching to figure out that House on Mango Street is the book that will produce the best student writing imaginable.

The project has gotten me so excited that I want to get all the vignettes together from all the students, and run them off in bound versions for all the kids at Kinko's. I would not imagine that this would set me back too much, and I think the memento that the kids would get would be something that they would keep for a long time.

One of my classes is pressuring me to write my own vignettes, because I let slip that I'd never written one. I wrote my first one this afternoon. They're hard! I mean, they're sort of easy to write, but it's hard as hell to make them good. I might post a couple here sometime soon for feedback before I "publish" the class sets at Kinko's.

Five on a Saturday

1. I'm amazed by the contributions made for the Outward Bound trip so far. I never would have imagined that people would do something like this, and it really is touching and gratifying. In about 36 hours, 80% of the trip has been paid for. Thanks so much. Outward Bound is really a great program and is so worthwhile for these kids. (Contribute here.)

2. We won our ballgame yesterday against a team that has been a thorn in our side for the last few years. Last time we played them, we squandered a 9-1 lead with errors and walks. This time, we jumped off to a big lead and didn't let go, and ended up mercy-ruling them after five innings. We're now 3-5. I expect we will be over .500 next week, and hopefully our tough, tough season and schedule will make the overall record at the end decent enough. We've still only lost the same amount of games we lost last year, when we were 11-5.

3. It's pretty fun to be a Tigers fan right now. They're 10-7 and are playing good baseball. A come-from-behind victory against the tough A's, featuring an epic 9-minute, 15-pitch at-bat by Brandon Inge, was the highlight of the week, but then they went and beat the Mariners last night in a well-pitched 2-1 victory. Chris Shelton, Joel Zumaya, Justin Verlander, Jeremey Bonderman, Curtis Granderson... it feels great to have talented young players leading the way. In fact, it's the veteran names of the Tigers - Magglio Ordonez, Pudge Rodriguez - who really have been the only ones playing crummily.

4. On the way to Brewer's Art - the usual haunt for us teachers on Happy Hour Friday - I went by Joe Squared and realized that it's been months since I've been there. Next Friday, hopefully, we'll make it there instead. I like Brewer's Art, a lot, but it has to be specific. I like it upstairs, in the middle non-smoking room, and I like it before it gets too late and crowded. Downstairs is just too smoky, and often the front upstairs room is as well (especially when I'm eating, which is often at Brewer's Art, especially those romsmary garlic fries). So Joe Squared it is, next Friday. We'll see if Dad wants to get some thin crust pizza. He's up next weekend for a home doubleheader on Friday and a house concert on Saturday.

5. By the way, plenty of reservations for the house concert are left - click here for more info.

Donate to help some kids go on an Outward Bound Course

My Amazon.com donation page

Thanks for everyone for encouraging me to make a donation possible.

The trip to send 18 great Baltimore city kids on a peer-leadership course through Outward Bound costs $1300. The kids have kicked in $650 - half of it - and I said I'd work on funding the other half. I thought I had it secured, but it has fallen through, and now I'm left with this last desperate attempt. If the money is not raised, then I will end up paying for the trip myself, or, at the very least, begging Outward Bound to hold over the bill for a year to see if there's any money in the budget to do it next year. Neither option is desirable.

If you don't know what Outward Bound is, it's a great organization that sends kids out in the wilderness to hike and camp. It's all about hands-on education, and they stress self-reliance, compassion, responsibility, and teamwork. At our school, I try to target at-risk kids who could really use a change of perspective in their lives, and I have seen amazing results. "Bobby" is one of the prime examples of a success story, but the last kid who won the University of Maryland full ride scholarship was also an Outward Bound kid in the 9th grade.

Thanks so much.

Six years later...

Holy Shit! I missed my anniversary!

Six years ago on April 18, I started this blog. I called it a journal then, and still consider it as such, but "blog" has entered my lexicon as well as the culture's.

Here is my first entry. It's not very impressive.

So I started writing this thing when I was a 310-lb fifth year senior at Michigan State University. I was pretty depressed at that point in my life, still a bit unsure about what direction my life was heading, and pretty unhealthy. I was working in a residence life job that I was done with, and in general just ready for a change in my life. Luckily, though, the change had started by then. The fall of 1999 was one of the worst on record for me, but the spring of 2000 – when this blog was born – saw a renaissance in the world of me. I think journaling had a little something to do with that, as well as working out, and excitement over my upcoming graduation.

No, I’m not crediting blogging with bringing me out of my slump. But it’s kind of cool that now, six years later, I can look back and trace my outlook on the world, and see it waveringly get better and better.

That next year, I student taught. It was a fairly rough school – Lansing Eastern High School, which boasts a high dropout rate and tough kids. And I loved it. It made me love urban education and set up my life’s work.

So after I graduated, I moved to Baltimore. I didn’t know anyone; I just up and moved with my college roommate down here. I got a job at a decent school in the city, but the first year was rough. I stunk. But I worked hard and worked smarter and had a great second year. I then had a pretty shitty third year (especially the lying garbageman lawsuit and the eye surgeries), a pretty decent fourth year, and, so far, a mildly shitty fifth year. The jury's still out, though I know that floating sucks beyond any comprehension.

Because I wait tables to pay off student loans and my car loan, I often go weeks without a day off. I work my ass off. Sometimes I'm lonely. Other times I'm amazed at all the good friends I have both here and in Michigan.

I was once (in probably error) included in a Washington Post article about weight loss blogs. This really isn't a weight loss blog, and never has been, but as a guy who lost 120 lbs, I've written tips and write a lot about fitness. Or, I used to. I've gained a quarter of that weight back. I'm trying to get rid of it again. Trying, trying.

(Over spring break, as sad as this is, I started writing this entry in preparation of the big anniversary. In my head, it was going to be another introduction page to replace the autobiography link on the right. However, my heart's just not in it right now. Maybe another time. I needed to get it up, though, since I had already missed the six year anniversary.)

The review hits the stands

The review appeared today. Over the weekend, I had planned on staying up extra late to see when it was posted, but it turns out I plum forgot until just now.

A positive review, for the most part. We needed it. We've been putting a lot of stock in it the last few days. In fact, even the usual stoic Zack, in a remark of uncharacteristic optimism, said, "You know, if this review turns out good, we might actually be pretty busy this summer." Heh, who knows? I don't really think a review makes people come.

The sentence I most want to highlight from the linked review (which compromises my anonymity, so I might not keep it on very long. Like my students, I don't really tell my blogreaders where I wait tables) are the following: The service is better now then I remember, when it was relaxed to the point of catatonia. Our waiter obligingly kept our meal at a leisurely pace, and smoothly helped us arrange what could have been a complicated meal.

Yup, that's me. Maybe if the politics of teaching drives me from my school, I could wait t ables full time. Yeah, right. Talk about stress; my hat is off to anyone who can make it work for them full time. One day you make $120, the next day you make $17 (at least where I am). Never could do it. Student loans and a car loan force me to keep that second job, but I could never do it more than I do now.

How on earth that I got so jaded

Today is the first day I've been happy enough this week to blog. That seems incongruous to me, too, as I definitely know that I often whine on this here slab of internet. But it was getting kind of old writing the same post over and over again, so I decided just not to write it. In fact, I didn't do much on the Internet at all the last few days, unless you count watching baseball games on MLBTV (and I don't, since I'm not even at the computer for them). It's nice to get away sometimes. E-mails are backed up and blogs unvisited for a few days.

Today, I feel good. At this moment, I do, at least. We played a good game tonight against a great team. We still lost, unfortunately, but playing well made me feel good. The rest of this snap-back-to-reality week has been woeful though. All I could think about the last two days was leaving this city and getting a fresh start somewhere. I've thought about leaving Baltimore before, but it seems palpable right now. Or, at least it did until tonight, and now tonight Baltimore feels right again. I'm feeling a lot of dissonance about the place right now. I went through a stage like this in October, and then I started having a great year, but now April has reared its ugly head. Maybe two bad months in a year are a sign. I dunno.

It's stress. After I sent the kids on the Outward Bound trip, which it looks like I'll be paying for out of pocket unless the kids can come up with another $30 each because the funding I thought I had secured has fallen through, I was asked how I was feeling. "I'm not feeling stressed. Right now." I didn't mean to emphasize the right now, but I did, and she picked up on it. Stress keeps finding me this months and not letting go.

See, I'm not someone who usually feels stress. I mean, sure, I feel it, but I consider myself as cool and calm as a cucumber. I let stuff roll off my back and just soldier through. That's one of the characteristics about myself that I like, that I can get sued for ten grand and just go into court representing myself with the faith that the truth will win. That I can get a rare eye condition (well, rare for 26-year olds) that require back-to-back emergency surgeries on them and suffer some permanent vision loss, but only miss three days of school. I just freaking throw on some shades and come in and teach.

But whatever it is I'm going through right now, I'm having a hard time shaking it off. I'm trying to put a finger on it, and I think I'm coming up with a picture:

1. The conflict I had at school with administration, despite being pretty much over, has left me weary and upset. I have never handled conflict that well and tend to avoid it whenever possible. This has served me well on occasion, and this experience reminded me that avoiding conflict is sometimes the best option to take. Conflict sucks. Particularly conflict with people who are your bosses, and particularly when I have done nothing wrong and am being made into a scapegoat. I say they can't really do anything to me, and they can't, say, outright fire me. But they can do other stuff. There's nothing in my contract that guarantees a classroom, for example. There's nothing in my contract that guarantees a minimal amount of preps. There's nothing that guarantees, heck, a parking spot. They could really fuck me over if they want to.

2. I don't like people not liking me. Without sounding too much like Willy Loman, I like to be liked. I'm a nose-to-the-grindstone kind of guy, and usually people appreciate that. It's not being appreciated now. Not only has my job been threatened, but I'm being openly criticized by siblings and parents at baseball games. It sucks. For some reason, a friend sitting in the stands felt the need to tell me what they have been saying about me, and it's still wearing on my mind. Now some things make sense.

3. I'm not being that great of a coach this year. For some reason, something with the team isn't clicking. It's not just the losses - we're now 3-5 - because we've actually played the game very well the last two matchups against the best teams in the city. Today, we just lost to an undefeated team - but we had them up all game and only lost on a bloop single in the last inning. That happens. It sucks, but it happens. But things seem askew with the team. I've let some behavior get away from me, things like tardiness and carrying equipment. I'm trying to get my reins on these things, but the season seems to have started on a bad note on the day of the incident, and it hasn't quite come back yet. And because we're not winning (we just lost our 5th game, and we lost only 5 games all of last year), I think my coaching job might be on the line.

Teaching is still going fine. I go into the classroom and just coach the kids along with Romeo and Juliet. They love it, I love it. We read it, we discuss it, we write about it, we complete grammar activities using sentences from it. Today, we went outside and acted out Act III, Scene 1 on the grass in the beautiful weather. I'm thinking to myself, "Wow, I just got to spend a half hour in the sun on some fresh cut grass, acting out Shakespeare with a group of bright, excited 14-year old kids in the middle of Baltimore City." It made me want to pinch myself. So I still have some great moments. It's all the other shit that I'm tiring of, and that other shit's stench seems to be hanging on me wherever I go lately.

Tonight, I have to write five vignettes in the style of Sandra Cisneros because I decided it would be noble of me to complete the assignment that I gave my kids. A pastiche of House on Mango Street. I've already got writer's block.

Easter blues

It wasn't that bad of a day. The Tigers won a brilliant 1-0 victory agains the hated Indians, in a game that felt like a pennant race despite being in the middle of April. I watched the whole thing and was definitely on the edge of my seat for much of it, and, in the 8th inning, when 20-year old Joel Zumaya struck out the 3rd out on a 99mph fastball, and both he and Pudge Rodriguez pumped their fists, well, it just hasn't gotten that good in Tiger fandom for a long time. In addition, tonight I watched an excellent episode of The West Wing, during which I was amazed that Mary Louise Parker can still make my jaw drop to the floor. Earlier, I had a good dinner of a black bean burger with mushrooms and swiss cheese at Chili's that cost me $9, including drink, and much of the day was spent reading Abbi Bardy's The Book of Fred, our all-school book. The author is coming on Thursday to discuss it with our school, and I'm happy to say that I now - with less than 100 pages left - almost feel prepared for it.

So today was not a total loss.

However, those were the pendulum upswings. I also plunged into a great deal of melancholy, almost depression, today. Easter provides a good opportunity to relax, phone family, and think about things. I don't do any of those well. I already feel lazy this week so relaxing more is no good - it just puts me in the clutches of my worst vices of overeating, slothfulness, and procrastination. Phoning family on this holiday just made me homesick. I spoke with my dad, my mom, my sister, and my grandmothers, all in rapid succession, as they passed the phone to each other as if they were either in a rush or felt like they didn't want to take too much of my time - neither of which is comforting. And, thinking about things? I do it way too much to begin with and, today, thinking about things made me realize that I was having Easter dinner at a Chili's in White Marsh totally alone, a fact that made me feel sorry for myself in a big way. I called a couple of friends from there - friends that I knew also didn't have family in the area - but they didn't pick up, so I just sat and ate and read and felt pretty down. But I did have one invite today, but just wasn't feeling up to going to a big Catholic feast with a bunch of people who just went to church. I feel a little bad about it now, but I really didn't feel like it. It also hit me today that school starts again in 36 hours and my spring break is nearly over without much accomplished in the way of making my life feel a little bit more livable. To top it all off, I woke up today with a stiff lower back that prevented any meaningful workout today, and I really needed it.

This, too, shall pass, but I'm hoping that tomorrow is a better day. One that's a little less solitary and a lot more accomplished. I'm setting the alarm for 6am despite it being my last day of vacation, and will start with a gym trip before heading to the laundromat and then back home to lesson plan and figure stats for the baseball team so I might be able to have tomorrow evening free for something actually fun.

Easter records

What?!? The world record for eating Cadbury Eggs in five minutes is only eight? I could do that in my sleep. Maybe that's how I'll spend Easter.

I lost track of how many I ate this Easter. I had set a limit of 25 for the season, but think I far exceeded that. This season has been an abnormally tough one, complete with work stress, overall busy-ness, and lack of trips to the gym, all of which contribute to my eating more. Plus, every time I go to the grocery store, they're there, and on sale, two for a dollar. None of that is very good for the ol' waistline.

However, I've actually been a pretty steady gym-goer over the break. Still, my workouts have been weak because I just haven't felt that good - tired or achy or stomach upset. I think I came down with a little cold of some sort this week. Today, I feel good, though, and I'm heading there right now. That's what Easter will be about for me this year - rejuvenation.

I miss my family. They're going to Applebee's today for their Easter dinner, where my sister - just the workaholic that I am - is waiting tables and hoping to get a ten-minute break during their visit to sit down with them. If I were home in Michigan right now, I'd be on my way to Comerica Park to see the Tigers play. I hear the Birds are in town, but I can't muster up the excitement to go to the Yard just yet this year.

Until 1am

Seven waiters work at the restaurant. Of those seven, one is on a cruise, one is in Texas for the weekend, and a third had her appendix burst and spent five days in the hospital this week. That leaves four, so we're all working a whole bunch this weekend.

Until 1am last night, and today the shift is 4pm until 1am. I've got it easy; there are two who are working doubles today. Still, I'm way too old to be on my feet until one o'clock in the morning. The light at the end of the tunnel is visible, and I still will quit this job once my car is paid off, but that's still a few months away. I'm actually pretty happy with the amount I've worked this school year, but it still becomes burdensome when it bunches up like this.

We're so short-staffed, both in the kitchen and on the floor, that we're closing on Easter Sunday. That's beautiful. No Sunday brunch. I'll have Sunday and Monday to get myself situated before going back to school on Tuesday. Ugh.

The Tattoo

Detroit is the city in which I spent my most formative years. It's the city my grandfather, escaping Nazi persecution and imprisonment during World War II, fled to with his young widowed wife in 1948. It's the city that's host to my beloved Detroit Tigers. It's a part of me, and always will be.

Thus, on February 22 of this year, I got my first tattoo. Here it is:



Update: There's something wrong with my Flickr account, and none of my images are showing up. It was here, and perhaps you can still see it, but I'll have to figure out Flickr when I get home. (I have no idea what it could be; I uploaded about 12 photos today, and I'm nowhere near capacity - my premium membership is good through October - yet none of my images are showing up. Any ideas what it might be? I've been checking on their help page to no avail, and now I have to go to work...)

Things I used to be really into but I'm not right now

1. Trader Joe's: The new manager has brought with her some crappy changes to the store, and it just doesn't feel that special anymore. The lack of lane checkout food is the most egregious loss, but I also just think the place is slumping lately - lines are slower, and they're slower to get cashiers to the front when there is a backup. They seem to be out of things more often. In fact, if it weren't for salmon jerky and lime popsicles, I don't think there's be any difference between going to Trader Joe's and Safeway anymore. And that's sad.

2. Teaching: This week off has gone so quickly, and I dread going back on Tuesday. This sounds terrible, and it is, but the demoralizing effect of the last two weeks' conflicts is taking its toll. I'm hoping I can go the next few months without even talking to the man. Heck, I didn't have a conversation with him until February this year, so that's not that far-fetched. The stress has disippated this week, but I still do not look forward to going in there again yet.

3. Dating: Yeah, just not into it right now. I'm fundamentally not that happy of a person at this moment. I've had the roughest professional month of my career, I haven't been to the gym in eons, I'm feeling unhealthy and am heavier than I've been in a few years, and, yeah, just not that into it right now. I went through a spell in the winter in which I was dating quite a bit, but that's not happening now. And I'm okay with that. Two weeks with a regular schedule and gym visits should vault me out of this slump.

4. Buying a house: I have a couple thousand dollars in savings right now, an amount that could be a downpayment to a house if I wanted it to be. Several people still tell me that it would be a great idea. But I just don't want the pressure or the financial stress right now. The railing on the porch of this place rusted through and busted, sending me to the ER earlier this week. If I was the homeowner, I'd have to get that fixed. As a renter, it's nice not to even care about that. My rent is still low enough where I don't feel like I'm pissing money away. A fair number of my friends who have bought home now regret it. So, I'm just not that into it right now.

5. Gardening: I just can't muster up any enthusiasm for that this year. Every year, I get really excited about gardening in April, and then take care of it well for a few weeks, until I start ignoring it and letting the weeds take over. This year, I'm skipping that first step and moving right on to the weeds taking over part.

First National League game

Yesterday was a good vacation day. After a nice brunch with friends, I jetted down to RFK Stadium to watch the Washington Nationals play the New York Mets. In all my years of following baseball, this was the first time I'd ever attended a National League game, a fact that surprised my friends considering what a big baseball fan I am. But, despite my baseball fandom, I'd only ever been to Tiger Stadium, Comerica Park, New Cominskey Park, Yankee Stadium, and Camden Yards - all AL parks. So this was a first.

Eh. It was alright. RFK Stadium is clearly not a baseball park, but I understand they're building one down there as we speak. It's boxy and has the feel of somethign temporary. We bought $11 seats and sat in a much better section that we were assigned, and it was a good day. The Nationals lost 13-4, so we saw a lot of offense, and I guess that's a good thing.

Afterwards, we headed to a bar. I somehow didn't eat between 10am and 9pm, though, and the beers went straight to my head. I was pretty drunk, and ended up talking about way more stuff than I had expected to, and drunk dialing people that I probably shouldn't have. But that's okay. I don't ride the tilt-a-whirl that often anymore in my old age, but it's good to know that I haven't lost my reputation as a funny drunk.

D and J took me to a Mexican restaurant afterwards, and the food was good, but when I awoke this morning, I had salsa on both my sweatshirt and my pants. I crashed on their couch, and now I'm back in Baltimore, ready to go to the gym and sweat this hangover off.

I work tonight. Caleb Stein performs. Good stuff.

Easter candy

My obsession with Cadbury cream eggs has reached the point where I have found myself resentful of other Easter candy. No, not just resentful of knockoffs of Cadbury Eggs; it would make sense that I would look down my nose upon those nasty Snicker's Eggs or Dove Eggs that attempt to knock off the Cadbury design. No, I'm resentful of totally unrelated Easter candy.

Last night, my roommate offered me something called a Robin Egg. I've never had one before, but politely refused. However, in my head, I'm thinking, "Get that shit away from me. Why isn't it a Cadbury egg? What's wrong with you, buying that shit when you probably passed over a Cadbury Egg minipack to get to them?"

Now, today, the roommate was away, and I was making my lunch upstairs, when, lo and behold, the bag of robin eggs lay near the microwave. It was open. I decided to try one. And another. And another. And, you know what? They're not half bad. They taste sort of like Whoppers, but they're better somehow, and I like how they're differently sized.

This has been my only non-Cadbury candy all season, and I was surprised that I liked it. No, it's not a Cadbury Cream egg - nothing is - but it was definitely tasty. Maybe I shouldn't resent other Easter candy.

Those stale marshmallowy Peeps are still some nasty shit, though.

Nationals and brunch

Tomorrow, I'm having brunch with an old friend visiting from St. Paul, MN. His wife and baby will be there, and we're having it at the house of someone with a wife and baby, and one of the few guests is pregnant. I'm hopeful I'm not that only unattached, unkidded person there, but few of my single friends are here for spring break right now, so I'm not sure. I'm excited about seeing my friend either way, though. We'll talk baseball and teaching, my two favorite subjects.

Afterwards, I'm hoping to drive on down to the Nationals game. I've never been to the stadium down there yet, and this seems the perfect opportunity. The brunch starts at ten am, and I figure that I can make it down to the game (which starts at 1:35) unless I get out of there much past noon. I'm meeting up with some old friends for dinner afterwards, and I might even be able to find someone to take the trip down there with me if I'm lucky.

So far, it's been an excellent spring break. Relaxing, productive, and fun. I did my taxes, got my car fixed, and mowed the lawn. The house is still a pigsty, but not after tonight. The Tigers play today at one o'clock, so I'll be back to watch the game while I get my laundry ready for the epic journey to the laundromat that takes place tonight.

I went to the doctor...

... and it's just a rib contusion, or, as the cute doctor said, just a fancy way of saying I have a bruise on the inside.

This was not before going through HMO hell, however.

First, I called my Primary Care Physician, who is some guy I've seen just a couple times at a facility with a number of doctors. I'm sent through a string of "press this number for a referral" and an answering machine, so I decide to head on in there. I head on in there, gasping for air because I'm still not breathing right at that point, and the woman says, "Sorry, we take no walk-ins. You must make an appointment in the morning tomorrow."

I tell her I don't need an appointment, I just need a referral.

"Well," she said. "The doctor won't give you a referral without seeing you."

"And you won't let me see him until tomorrow?"

"No. You must make an appointment tomorrow morning."

"So, if my rip is broken and is poking into my lung right now, filling my lung with blood, you're okay with me just leaving without seeing anyone?"

"No, if you have an emergency, you can go to the emergency room."

"But I need a referral, right?"

"You don't need a referral if it's a life-threatening emergency."

"I don't know if it's a life-threatening emergency or not."

"Well, I can't diagnose that. You have decide that on your own, then decide if you want to go. But you'll be responsible for all costs if it's deemed not an emergency."

I leave without saying thank you.

I then call my insurance company. They tell me that I should not take that exchange as a referral, and that I need a referral. Otherwise, as the bitchy lady said, if I got to the ER, if it's not an emergency, I will be billed the hundreds of dollars for an ER visit. I call the place back, and leave a message about referrals as I'm instructed to do. Hopefully that takes because, either way, I wasn't going to risk dying because of HMO bullshit.

After that, everything goes pretty smoothly. Union Memorial boasts some of the nicest people working in medicine in the Baltimore area, I have to say - a welcome change from the Bel Air Medical Center that my primary care physician works at. However, they took a long time - first I waited to see the admitting desk, then to see the registration desk, then to see the Physician's Assistant student, then to see the Doctor, then to see the X-ray guy, then to see the releasing nurse, then to see the releasing Doctor. I was there for four hours.

However, my room at the ER had cable, so I watched CNN for the first time in months. Then a rerun of The Simpsons. Then of Seinfeld. Then of Friends. Then of Everybody Loves Raymond. (I found I'm not missing much by not having cable.) And I'm glad I went in, because even though my fall was nothing serious, they told me to expect some pain tomorrow, and I'm sure I would have been freaked out by it had I not gone in. Now, I know it's just tender, not broken.

There's a cute doctor at Union Memorial who wrote "Get Well Soon" with a heart and her name Jamie on her diagnosis sheet. She had the funky glasses that I like and talked to me about teaching and loving The Tempest. This all after she saw me with my shirt off. I wonder if she writes a heart on all of her diagnoses...

This is what I get for cutting the cat's nails on the porch

I just took a nasty spill off the porch while reaching for my cat over a rusted-through railings. We're talking a fall of 6 feet across and three feet down, a fall that caused me to vomit all contents from my stomach and to breathe funny for nearly an hour. I think I'm okay, although I'm sure the ribs and the shoulder are bruised a bit. Good thing I don't have to pitch batting practice until Tuesday. OUch.

Flightplan

I know it got mixed reviews, but I definitely enjoyed Flightplan. Sometimes, you've just got to let a movie take you for a ride without thinking too much. This is especially true if Jodie Foster is driving. That woman can hold the screen like nobody else. And the film was exactly what I expected: a short, tense, well-acted little thriller without any fluff. It didn't get much beyond its premise, but that's okay. Expectations met.

(Spoiler: Though I have to admit that I called the guy from Jarhead as the bad guy from his opening line.)

Today's Netflix agenda:

Entourage, season one.

I had thoughts about catching a matinee of Inside Man, but have decided to stick around home so I can clean up a little bit and get a little workout in while I watch. I'll be at the Happy Hour tonight, especially now that I know what a grotto bar is.

Reliving

Reading the testimonies from family members and phone calls from victims of 9/11 in this Moussoui trial is absolutely gut-wrenching. It brings me right back to that day, one week into my teaching career, when everything changed. I actually found myself spending some time on this website last night, just reading about lives that were ended.

As for the trial, I'm not sure why all the victim testimony is needed. Is it healthy for the family members to relive these moments? Does it do anyone any good? If a person thinks the government should kill people who do bad things, and if he or she believes the Moussoui was involved, then clearly it applies. Intense long and short term suffering was a result of the 9/11 attacks, and that cannot be disputed. I still believe the death penalty is wrong not just because I don't want the government playing God, but because it's such an easy way out and so clearly is exactly what Moussoui wants. But I'm certainly relieved that hearing all those testimonies and 911 recordings is the job of someone else, and not me. I'm not sure I would be able to listen to people say, "Oh my god, I'm going to die, aren't I? Aren't I?" just before the line cuts out.

Spring break plans

This spring break, I'm handicapped a bit by my lost ATM Visa card, which I never realized I used so much. I called and reported it missing three weeks ago, but they never sent a replacement. Someone screwed up, and they're now fed-exing it to me, but not until Tuesday. So I can't really do any traveling until then. Then, I have a friend coming from out of town on Thursday who I would really like to see, and am required to work at the restaurant both Friday night and Saturday night because of a server in the hospital. Thus, I can't really get home to Michigan, as much as I want to. My hands are tied. Therefore, I'm going to be spending my break at home.

Last night I had a blowout, which gives me my first task for today - get a new tire. I'm going to head and do that next.

Monday and Tuesday tasks:
1. Get new tires.
2. Get new breaks. ($261 for both.)
3. Buy a tax program and do my taxes.
4. Buy a printer cable.
5. Mow the lawn.
6. Clean out the car.
7. Get laundry together.
8. Read at least 100 pages of The Book of Fred; the author is visiting the school next week.
9. Pay BGE bills.
10. Go to DMV. (did it all online. I've got to hand it to them, it was very convenient.)
11. Go to school and clean out the locker room. Add some shelves.
12. Get Outward Bound stuff together. I'm considering putting a donation button on this blog to help offset the cost for the kids.

If I do all these things, I'll have plenty of time to do things I want to do to relax, namely the following:

1. Watch the Tigers home opener today at 1 o'clock.
2. Go see my first Nationals game on Thursday. Hang out with John and Danielle afterwards.
3. Find some sort of live music to go to. I'm considering Bruce in the USA on Sunday night.
4. Read a couple of novels.
5. Watch some movies. Flight Plan is on my dresser and Inside Man is in the theaters, so maybe it could be a Jodie Foster week - something I'm definitely not opposed to.
6. Do some gardening.
7. Hang out with friends.

And, all of this is designed to do the following:
1. Gain perspective on and figure out how in the hell I'm going to handle the bullshit political situation I'm mired in at school.

Spring break rocks.

Fell's Point just became a little less interesting...

Just received word that Mike, the tall graying fellow in Fell's Point who walked around shouting strings of obscenities at people, cars, and the sidewalk, but was harmless, has died. They found him curled up behind Broadway Liquors on Tuesday, reportedly the victim of a chronic lung disease. There were always rumors that he was a Viet Nam vet, but I never talked with the guy so I don't know for sure. In fact, he did sort of scare me the first time I walked past him and he screamed, "Fucking shit god damn it!" Then, I got used to him. Hope he found some peace.

Hearing about Mike made me think of a couple of other Fell's Point Folks I've gotten to know in the three years I've worked and inhabited down there. For example, I haven't seen Leroy, "The Mayor of Fell's Point," in months. I'm worried about him.

Crazy old Dmytrov is still around, though. He came in the restaurant today, and because he had a friend with him who paid, I received my first ever tip for waiting on him. Over the last three years, I've served him hundreds of dollars worth of scrambled eggs, sour cream, and mashed potatoes. Because he eats on credit and we bill the senior citizens' home every couple of months, I've never received a tip from him. It's alright, as he's a little crazy and we figure that us servers and the restaurant are pretty much all he's got - his kids are estranged and, until today, I didn't think he had any friends. The friend tipped me $2.35, and that was pretty cool.

Fell's Point is the part of Baltimore that most feels like Baltimore to me. Not the Green Turtles or the Max's on Broadways, but the places on streets that jut off of the main strip and lead to such establishments as Lulu's Off Broadway (spent an hour and a half there this afternoon, and I could have spent five more hours), John Stevens Ltd., and Ale Mary's. I'm reminded of this on lazy Sunday afternoons after a long shift at the restaurant, when the only thing that feels right is drinking a dark beer while eating mussels at Bertha's or white bean guacomole at Lulu's. These crazy people have helped make Fell's Point what it is for me.

Dark and stormy afternoon

The phone rang today at 8:45 am. The restaurant. I didn't have to be to work until 10am, so I thought it was strange. I answered it, half asleep, and was told that the server on at 9am was in the hospital, and that the restaurant needed me right away. I showered and headed in.

When I got there, who should be sitting in my section but the food critic from the aforementioned alternative weekly. Yup, he was back again. We're definitely being written up in this Wednesday's or next Wednesday's edition. He's not only checking up on dinner, but he's checking up on our brunch (which, by the way, won the AOL Cityguide's Best of 2005 award.)

So I served him again. He asked if I was tired, and we chatted a bit. I told him about the server in the hospital. After I told him that she was in the hospital, he said, "Oh, she's lying." (That's what we figured, anyway. She's either on a road trip or mixed some muscle relaxers with booze, knowing her.) The guy seemed real happy with everything. He said, "I'll see you later, my friend" when he left. I hope we get a good review because, if we don't, there's no blaming someone's else's shitty service for a poor review. It was all me.

Afterwards, Zack and I headed out for some dark and stormies. I had three in a little over an hour - enough to get a good Sunday buzz on, and wish I had someone to continue the drinking with. Zack had to go, and my five calls to possible friends came up fruitless, and now I'm home, half buzzed up, and blogging. Talk about a letdown.

That, and the Tigers lost their first game today.

Waiting on a food critic

After I heard who he was, it all made sense. The fact that he wanted his main course to come slowly, after the appetizers had a chance to settle. The fact that he asked me to leave a couple of menus at the table, so he could compare his dishes with what he got. The fact that he walked upstairs to use the restroom when the bathroom downstairs was empty and he could have used that one.

Yes, tonight I waited on the food critic for a certain prominent Baltimore alternative weekly.

I've worked at the restaurant now for three years, so I feel protective of it. I like the people who work there, and like the owners. I really feel like it's a good restaurant. And reviews for a restaurant as small and quirky as the one I work at are important; the owners almost never buy advertising, so we rely on word of mouth to spread the word. The last time the restaurant was reviewed by City Paper, it was four or five years ago. If you searched for our restaurant on their website, the review that would come up is that old one - three chefs ago, and umpteen menus ago. They even highlight things that aren't at all on the menu. The paragraph summary that the paper reruns every few weeks in the "Omnivore" section is always the same five-year old one, as well.

Knowing that this might be something that is in the public record for five years made me nervous. By the time I found out who the guy was, they had already ordered dessert. I backtracked in my mind the entire night's proceedings. I was friendly, but I flubbed on the question about our cheese board (I had to check the name of Roquefort, which has just replaced Stilton), and clumsily dropped my waiter book at the feet of the food critic. I also never introduced myself, and didn't do my trademark introductory spiel because it just didn't feel right. Oops, I should have.

But there were some good moments. He specifically mentioned that the timing of the food was note-perfect. That was all me. A woman at the table loved that I replaced their silverware with every course. I was friendly and explained the food well.

After I found out, I was nervous, but I still did my job. I'm especially nervous because for a long time, my co-workers have made fun of me, saying that I'm the "sweaty server" mentioned in the 2/03/04 review here. I don't think it really is me - I'm good about never leaving tables without their full drinks, and there was another male waiter at the time that was pretty crummy - but I am known to sweat when I'm working hard. Tonight, Zack grabbed a cocktail napkin and dabbed my forehead before I went to present the check.

Hopefully, when you read the review for my restaurant in the City Paper in the next few weeks, it won't mention that I had spots on my tie and was unshaven. Hopefully, instead, it will just mention that I was acceptable and move on to the food (which I'm pretty certain they liked; all plates were clean).

My mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars...

Today is the first day of spring break. I'm a little hungover, but not much - I had plans to spend the night on a friend's couch, but my tolerance of Federal Hill beyond the cozy confines of Thirsty Dog or the steamed shrimp of Porter's is awfully thin, so I went home earlier and soberer than anticipated. The Hill was terrible last night, as I kept finding myself in terrible places like Crazy Lil's. These type of bars all looked the same - a long narrow rowhouse bar, where you walk through a packed crowd of people to what you hope is a clearing in the back, and you finally get there, and realize that there actually is no clearing there. There is just more people, all white fratguy or sorority girl types, usually with fucking Red Sox hats (yeah, yeah, I know they were in town last night) and all yelling over an obnoxious din of bad pop music (I kid you not, I actually heard "I Want To Sex You Up" last night). Unless I'm going out to dance, which happens once every five years, I want to be able to talk to my friends over the music. I couldn't last night. The only good song I heard last night at the horrible trio of bars I went to after Porter's? "Golddigger." Thank god for Kanye West.

Still, last night made me feel very old.

On the plus side, I reconnected with an attractive friend I haven't seen in seven months. She says she lost my number, and asked me to program it into her phone. I will call her this week and make plans.

In addition, it was good to catch up with some old friends, though my mood was sullen for the first part of the evening. (Since I'm deeply entrenched in Romeo and Juliet at school, I kept thinking of myself as Romeo on the way to the party in I.4, hence the title of this entry.) We lost the big game on Friday, and, unlike every other loss to this archrival over the last five years, it was a close game. A nailbiter, in fact. This makes it a heartbreaker, and I couldn't get it out my head for a couple of hours. This kid I threw had the best pitching performance I've seen in two years, but a couple errors by the team - and a severe lack of clutch hitting, for the second game in a row - did in his performance. And a couple of people in the stands were critical of me, which is stinging only because I know I've been a bit of a shitty coach - or, at least, the team has been in a state of discombobulation - since the big incident a week and a half ago. I/We need this break, badly.

Spring break won't really hit me until Monday, when I actually don't have to work. Of course, I'm at the restaurant tonight and tomorrow. Still, even sleeping in today a little bit (8:30) and then relaxing around the house felt good. I'm now off to the gym.

Almost Friday

1. The Yankees had the Bronx Bombers. Detroit has the Motown Mashers. They're now up 8-0, and six players have hit home runs tonight against the Rangers. They're leading the majors in home runs and hitting and well on their way to winning their first three games this season. Picking up Chris Shelton on all three of my fantasy teams was a damn good idea. So was that tattoo.

2. I'm drowning in work and stress right now. I need this spring break more than I've ever needed a break.

3. My plans for the break? Do my taxes, go to the DMV, wash my laundry, read, clean my house, mow my grass, go to the gym for a couple hours a day, and hopefully see Inside Man. Basically, all the stuff I can't do this time of year because I get home at 8 o'clock every night and am too tired to do any of that. My parents will be disappointed I won't be coming home, but I lost my ATM/ Visa debit card and it won't be fed-exed to me until Tuesday, so my hands are a bit tied. I reported it missing two weeks ago and the replacement never arrived, so I finally called today, and apparently it hadn't been mailed. Oops. In trying to make it up to me, they're fed-exing it to me so I don't have to wait the 7-10 days.

4. Tomorrow, we play our arch rivals. They're susceptible this year, as they've lost to three teams in the city. But we've also lost to all those three teams. All the games were close, though, so I'm confident that we can play with all the teams in the city. The season's still young, even though it's making me feel pretty old right now. We need a break, badly. But after tomorrow night. It'll be a big game. We have beat our arch rival school in football, basketball, swimming, wrestling, badminton, and soccer this year, so there is a little bit of pressure to win. However, I heard on the way out of school today that the softball team was beat by embarassing amounts in a doubleheader today, so we won't be the first major sport to lose this year, if we do. Not that I'm planning on losing, though. I'm throwing my best pitcher and our lineup is solid as hell.

5. After the game, we have plans to head to Thirsty Dog Pub in Federal Hill, where I haven't been in months. I have a hankering for blueberry beer and hearts of palm salad. If we win the game tomorrow, I might just go a little nuts.

This means we get into the convention for free, too

Congratulations! Your proposal on Beyond Dead White Men: How and Why You Should Diversify Your Literature has been accepted for the 2006 NCTE Convention program in Nashville this November.

Invitations will be sent by email the last week of this month.

***

Awesome!

My day (or worst post ever)

7:30 - 2:00: School/teaching

2:00 - 2:30: Locker room/getting ready for game

2:30 - 3:30: Travel to field, warmups

3:45 - 6:45: Ballgame. We lost. Not a bad game, but still a loss.

6:45 - 7:15: Get all the kids out of the locker room

7:15 - 7:30: Drive three kids out to Mondawmin Mall for the bus exchange, take all of them out for dinner at Subway. Spend $25.

7:30 - 7:45: I motor through the city, attempting to get to Center Stage for the 8 o'clock show of Radio Golf.

The show runs from 8:00 until 10:40, and I get home at around 11. What a long, long day. I need spring break to happen. Right now.

Center Stage's Radio Golf

Two years ago, I paid sixty bucks and got myself a season's pass to Center Stage. Six shows for $60 - that's about the price of going to the movies. The shows were excellent - Permanent Collection, Elmira's Kitchen and Two Gentlemen of Verona were all outstanding, and the rest were pretty good as well. I said at the time that it was one of the best $60 I've ever spent.

This season, I bought the same Center Stage six-show pass for the same price, but the results have been disappointing. October's Hay Season was funny, but King Lear was a bore and Once on this Island was so insipid that I walked out. I was so tired on the night of The Murder of Isaac that I went to dinner but gave my ticket for the show to someone else (and, from talking to my friends later, this was the right move.) While I never regretted buying the season pass, I began to think that maybe next year I should spring for the the extra twenty bucks and do Everyman Theater (where I've still never been).

However, that ticket paid for itself tonight, with the performance of Radio Golf.

I love August Wilson's plays. I know a few of them very well, most notably Fences, but the only one I've seen live is Gem of the Ocean. It was certainly good, but I was way up on the second level and Phylicia Rashad was a tiny figure on the Broadway stage below. So seeing Radio Golf was my first real experience with a Wilson stage (it's odd that I'm calling the Baltimore stage real and the Broadway stage artificial, but I just feel like theater should be experienced viscerally, not way up in the rafters).

The play was awesome. I recognized the things that make me like his plays so much - the long funny narratives, the poetic dialogue, the morally ambiguous characters - and just came away from it feeling that there are few things better than live theater when it's done well. I've also now made it a goal to find a production of Fences somewhere on the east coast and go see it sometime before I teach the play again next fall.

Rocky times

So I just got an e-mail from my supervisor last year, who is now in St. Paul, MN. He told me that I should write up the entire situation from Wednesday until today, discussing everything that I did, said and heard. I decided to right at that moment, and writing it up made me so angry that I was shivering and shaking. Letting sleeping dogs lie is not working, apparently.

Don't these people know I'm too busy to have my job threatened for doing the right thing? That there is nothing in the contract about being bullied? That good guys are supposed to win?

Ah shit. Now I'm going to be sooo tired when I see Radio Golf tomorrow night at Center Stage. This is the show I'm most excited about this season - August Wilson's last play. It also stars Rocky Carroll of Chicago Hope and Roc fame. Heck, he was also in this great little sitcom called Welcome to New York which also starred Holland Taylor and Sara Gilbert. Yes, I've been watching the guy on TV my whole life, and tomorrow I'll see him live doing an August Wilson play. That $60/6show deal at Center Stage is one of the best in all of Baltimore.

He a freak

Any teacher of Romeo and Juliet knows that Act 2, Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet is a really really dirty one. Mercutio puns throughout the scene about body parts, both male and female. I attempt to lead the class towards these realizations on their own, using the notes in the margin (oh, so demesnes means regions, so he's talking about the "regions" next to "Rosalyn's quivering thigh," oh yeah, I get it!). Today, though, I had a bit of a slow class, so I found myself explaining way more than I wanted to. Later, when Mercutio says "If she is an open-arse, thou a pop'rin pear," I found myself using "phallic" in the classroom for the first time ever. And, you know what? They don't know what that means. I guess that's nice. The teacher behind with whom I share the room isn't shy at all, and she piped in with, "Like the Washington Monument" after I explained the definition. The next class, I just explained that a "pop'rin pear" is shaped like a sausage. Luckily, our book has a picture of an open-arse tree, so I didn't need to connect the dots too much there.

Just doing whatever I can to make this stuff fun for them. At least they laughed a lot today. And learned a lot, I would say - learned at least that Shakespeare isn't just some stodgy dead white dude; he's actually pretty raunchy and funny. Or, as the kids would say, he a freak.

Actually, Romeo and Juliet is a big hit with these kids. They clamor for parts, and the "You Be the Director" activity worked like a charm today.

And, my favorite joke, ever?

Random kid who wants a part (at least once a day):
I want to be somebody!
Me: Aw, Duquetta.
You are somebody.

I never get tired of it. Today, the kids got me on it because one said, "Hey, Mr. E, what's that word we learned earlier this year about someone who is trying to be funny but really isn't?"

"Are you trying to say that I'm unsuccessfully trying to be facetious?"

"Yup, that's it!"

"What are you talking about? That's the greatest joke ever."

The other joke I never, ever get tired of is whenever I see a kid wearing camouflage. I say, "Oh my gosh! I almost didn't see you! The camouflage threw me off for a minute."

Yes, I'm a giant dork.

Another

Another reason why I love Daylight Savings Time: I don't hear about how long we're staying at practice until someone happens to notice that it's 6:45.

Practice was so fun today. I guess it had better be, if we're out there for nearly four hours. (To be fair, a bunch of kids had tests to take today after school, and we didn't actually start practice until 4 or so.)

Big game tomorrow. Huge. At the crappy Herring Run Park, which takes rain terribly and certainly will be damp. If we hit like we did today in practice, we will crush them, but of course that's a big if. This team has already beat the best team in the city - the first time this certain other team has lost to another city team in the five years I've been coaching. That's a big deal. I know we can beat them, as we beat them last year, but they're definitely a formidable opponent.

I've decided to take a chance and throw my #3 starter, a diminutive white kid with a great curveball, and bring in my #1 starter as a reliever for the last few innings. His 77mph fastball will look really fast after the 65mph junk (a little fastball, a big curve ball, a changeup, and even a knuckleball) that the first kid throws.

Four square

1. It's Opening Day, one of the greatest days of the year. My baseball game with the kids was cancelled because of rain (or the threat of it, since it didn't actually rain much), so I hightailed it out of school and went home to watch both the O's game against Tampa Bay and the Tigers' game against KC. Both of "my teams" won, meaning they're both currently in first place. The Tigers game was especially satisfying, as 21-year old Joel Zumaya came in to pitch the 7th and 8th innings in his major league debut and was dominant.

2. I love daylight savings time - the days lasting longer, with darkness not cutting off baseball practice. I also really enjoyed it this morning that it was a little bit dark when I first woke up; it made me feel like I hadn't missed anything yet today. It kind of sucks for a man like me who doesn't get days off - and thus unable to adjust to the time change over a weekend - but a brief nap this afternoon has put me back on schedule. And it's still light out. It makes me think the evening is still young; I'm off to the gym for a stunning return to the facility that I haven't visited in far too long.

3. During my free time today, my Athletic Director was not available, and since I'm not meeting with the guy until I have him by my side, I decided to let sleeping dogs lie. I told the union rep my story, and he spoke to me about what the guy has done is illegal and unethical. Colleagues told me that the entire department will strike if something happens. It all made me feel good, and less bad about the situation then I did over the weekend. Plus, it's Opening Day - so who could be made?

4. Today, my grades went in on time for the first time in two years. Since my student load is bigger than most, I'm usually tacitly given an additional day to complete them. This time, I didn't need it.

Advice

Advice #1: Be humble. Go in there alone, explain yourself, and leave. No big whoop. He's not the kind of guy you want on your bad side.

Advice #2: Make sure you bring a union rep.

Advice #3: If it's not a union rep, make sure it's at least somebody else.

Advice #4: The reason why people like him stay in power so long is because no one stands up to them. He's being a bully. Don't let him. Go on the offense.

Advice #5: Ask for the job threat in writing.

Hmmm. Still not sure how I'm going to approach things tomorrow. Considering that I teach all day and am leaving at the start of 7th period planning for a game across town, there exists the strong possibility that I won't be able to see the guy at all.

The key in my mind is that I've done nothing wrong. That's what I will repeat during the meeting and that's what I hope brings some semblence of control to the situation.

What I know in my mind is the following:

1. I love my job and don't want to leave it.

2. I'm good at my job and people know it. Even this year, a rough year because I'm floating, I was one of only (I think) two other teachers in my department to get 100/100 score on my midyear evaluation. The other two are National Board certified teachers. I've never had a flair-up with administration and never have been seen as a problem-maker or rabble-rouser. Plus, I work my ass off for these kids and this school.

3. Even though he has no grounds for firing me, the school system - or at least my school - has a way of dealing with teachers who piss them off. I've seen it done to others in my five years at the school. For example, I don't think that the contract protects coaches, and therefore that job could be yanked from me simply because they want to get my goat. I would probably quit if they did that, because it would make me irate, but I don't want to be placed in that position.

4. I'm not going to be bullied, and will make as big a fuss as necessary if I do indeed leave. but I have no problem being reasonable with someone who is reasonable back with me. Maybe things last week are overblown. I don't know.

Slow

Last night, I worked from 5 until 9. I had one table, and they tipped me $4 (on a $19.53 bill - they only got drinks and dessert).

Today, I worked from 9am until about 1. I made about $40 before tipout, and that will be about $30 after tipout. That's only because people were ridiculously good tippers; my total sales were only $170.

Eight hours of work, walking away with $33.80. That sucks. Yup, it's the time of year when the restaurant slows down.

Today was the chef's last day. He's a great guy, and I'll miss him. He was tired of the 90-hour workweeks, and I don't blame him for leaving. Being the chef of a small restaurant has to be one of the more stressful jobs around. The man worked harder than anyone I know, except perhaps me.

Back to grading...

Goat scaped

The baseball team won big on Friday, and it was a much needed comeback from a very tough week for the team (and for me). The week has been one of the worst of my professional career, and the shit - which seemed to be dying down on Thursday - is defiantly back in the fan as of Friday afternoon. I'm dreading Monday in some ways, but also am hopeful that it will be an end to the limbo that I'm feeling now. I'm feeling let down and fucked over, but am hopeful that talking to the source on Monday will ease my mind and make things better. I'm not sure what the source of that hope is, other than optimism that what is true and good will win out in the end. However, I'd be lying if I said I didn't spend a considerable amount of time today on the Chicago City Public Schools website, looking at requirements for hiring and thinking about filling out an online application. The thing is, I don't want to leave, and will not be leaving quietly, if that's what occurs. I've done nothing wrong, which is what I said to one supervisor on Friday and will reiterate over and over again on Monday. Being scapegoated sucks, if indeed that's what's happening. And it seems like it.

Grades are due at 9am on Monday. I've got some grading done today - not enough - and have to go to work at 5pm tonight and again at 9am tomorrow. Someone is on vacation at the restaurant so my normal schedule of one day a weekend is two this weekend. To top it all off, I've had diarrhea all day, and that surely won't help the tips tonight.