Carbs = Appreciation

In an effort to finally feel appreciated, I ate half a bagel in the office this morning-- apparently, the administration bought us a bagel breakfast for the final day of Teacher Appreciation Week-- and I definitely felt the appreciation, especially because it was a blueberry bagel (but, oddly, Stacey said she does NOT appreciate the blueberry bagels and instead chose a raisin bagel, which makes me question my friendship with her) but this was not my favorite part of Teacher Appreciation Week-- my favorite part happened yesterday when the vice-principal alerted the students that it was Teacher Appreciation Week and that though they might not fully appreciate their various teachers now, they would appreciate their teachers at some future date and they should anticipate these future feelings and thank a teacher at some point in the day-- because-- and this happens every year-- right after the announcement, there's always a student that possesses a bit of wit and this student invariably thanks me in the dryest, most sarcastic manner possible-- which is so perfect because that's how teenagers thank people when they've just been commanded to thank someone-- and I say "You're welcome, now get out your books, it's time to read some Shakespeare."

Dave's Lunchtime Planning Bites Him in the Ass

This year, I epically failed at Teacher Appreciation Week: Tuesday the administration bought us sandwiches but I never saw the sign-up email (and I had to take a half day to move Alex out from Rutgers) so I totally missed that and Wednesday Chick-fil-A delivered us a truckload of free chicken sandwiches, but my wife made me a delicious salad with blackened chicken-- so while I tasted a bite of Terry's chicken (first time I ever had Chick-Fil-A . . . pretty good) I didn't go to the cafeteria and procure an entire fried chicken sandwich because I was all full of healthy salad and today our boss bought us these delicious Italian sandwiches from this Italian Deli in Middlesex (Sapore) but I packed a bunch of super-tasty leftover Mexican food from La Casita (although I did manage to eat one little sandwich . . . on top of all the Mexican food, and then I could barely teach Hamlet the last period of the day) so next year I need to plan better (or plan worse!) and not bring lunch all week.

Every Clout Has a Silver Lining

Wild day at East Brunswick High School-- but though it was ugly, some good did come out of it-- so during homeroom, there were some serious fisticuffs between two students (apparently over a girl) just down the hall from my room-- I watched the security guards and vice-principal break it up while I ushering kids into my room-- and then apparently some subsidiary fights broke out in other parts of the building (and there were all kind of unsubstantiated rumors about possible weapons) and it got so chaotic that the police came (and an ambulance) and we were locked down in homeroom for quite a while (40 minutes or so?) and I had one student in my room that belonged in another homeroom, but when there's a lockdown, you stay put-- so I wanted to call her homeroom teacher and tell her that the student was safe and with me, but when I checked my phone directory sheet on my bulletin board, I noticed it was from 2014-- and the room numbers have all changed since then (I also noticed that two of the teachers on the list are deceased) and so after informing my students of this (some students found this humorous, others started to question all the authority figures in their life) I had a smart student help me find and print out a more recent phone directory, which I tacked to my bulletin board . . . and then I called the other homeroom teacher and told her the location of her student and then I called my friend Cunningham and told her the good news-- the silver lining of these fights-- that they had motivated me to update my phone directory sheet and now I could call all different rooms in the school and chat with my friends and she said, "Dave! They gave us one of those on the first day of school!" and I said, "You're missing the bigger theme here."

Nietzsche's Eternal Recleaning

You do the dishes-- load the dishwasher, run it, wash the cutting boards, scrub the pots and pans but then-- magically and moments later-- the sink is full of dishes again.

6 Servings Per Container? Bullshit . . .

My wife really needs to stop buying Pringles-- because once I remove that foil safety seal, there's no stopping the gluttony until the canister is empty of chips and I'm pouring the crumbs down the tube into my gaping maw.

Fun and Easy Prom Themes

This week, the juniors are voting on next year's prom theme and I'm going to buttonhole the junior class president and spitball some ideas . . . here's what I've come up with so far:

1) Reservoir Dogs warehouse vibe-- easy and cheap (aside from the gruesome clean-up)

2) Grosse Point Blank assassin high school reunion vibe-- ditto . . .

3) Flash Dance and Sweatpants;

4) Toga, toga toga!

Chores are a Bore

Too many chores for a Saturday: pool clean up day-- which involves raking leaves, sticks, and horse chestnuts; dumping all the debris in the woods; spreading a towering pile of mulch by the grills; sawing off branches and trimming all kinds of brush; carrying and scrubbing many picnic tables and benches, and a bunch of other awful chores-- but you do get a sandwich and some free guest passes; then at home, vacuuming the house, bathroom clean-up, laundry, moving Alex out of his disgusting unpacked and disorganized dorm room and storing his crap in our house until his apartment lease starts-- June 1-- and Ian is still in a cast, so all he could do was sit in the van while my wife and Alex carried stuff out of his room (but Ian did manage to get his girlfriend to clean his room) and then we've got family stuff tonight-- so I'm glad it's going to rain tomorrow, so that I can't use my new leaf blower to get rid of all the pollen and maple whirligigs so that my moss can grow without interruption.

Like Shawshank But Reverse

Over the years, I have pilfered a number of large stones from the park by my house to outline my wife's garden and our back fence and my friend Stacey fondly refers to this endeavor as The Reverse-Shawshank-- Andy Dufresne removes rocks from his cell wall tunnel to seek his redemption, while I surround myself with more and more rocks to feel freedom and absolution-- pretty weird and ironic-- but lately, I've been less concerned with rocks and instead I have been purloining MOSS from various secret locations, in an attempt to grow a carpet of moss in the shady areas of my backyard, where grass will not grow . . . and I guess, even though moss is not fungi (it's a non-vascular plant) we're still going to refer to this tactic as the Reverse-Last-of-Us.

Students and Cellphones, Together Forever?

For the first time in years, I had to confiscate a particular student's cellphone-- I've been trying to be diligent about getting the kids to put their phones in the caddy at the front of the room, but some of the kids smuggle them back to their seats, where they place them behind computers and book bags so that they can watch videos and do whatever teenagers do on their phones all-the-fucking-live-long-day-- or the screen addicted give popular rationales such as they need to charge the phone or text their mom or get a particular photo for a project that can only be accessed on their phone and then the next thing you know, they're on Snapchat or TikTok-- it's an exhausting battle and I wish our school would ban the damned things, especially since there is definitive research that phones are making kids dumber AND even if you don't use your phone in class, if someone near you is using their phone, it ruins your concentration as well-- I liken it to smoking-- not only is it bad for you, but it's also bad for the people around you breathing in second-hand-smoke-- and I certainly feel this secondhand effect teaching-- because even though I'm vigilant about not using my own phone in front of the kids-- I really try to set a good example-- but once I suspect a kid is illicitly screwing around with their phone (which shouldn't be on their person to begin with) then I lose concentration-- anyway, it usually doesn't come down to having to confiscate the phone-- that only happens every few years, but when it does, the student (who always seems to be female) inevitably flips out, cries, and curses at me . . . which is why this is such a hard policy to enforce because teens have so much emotional attachment to their phone-- once they freak out I tell them I'm not trained to handle this kind of emotional breakdown and addiction and they need to head to guidance for some guidance-- for example, and the student who had her phone confiscated once showed me that she does 16-18 hours of screen time a day on her phone-- which doesn't even seem possible and definitely requires some kind of professional guidance-- anyway, I get the fact that some teachers give up and don't enforce any kind of cellphone policy, because they're burned out and scared to face these kind of consequences-- but I'm trying to fight the good fight and maybe someday we'll get an administration that has done some reading on this subject and will just outright ban the things-- because they don't belong in school.

Dave Knows His Audience

Yesterday, several players and I were sitting on the bench watching the last tennis match of the afternoon, and one of the players was lamenting the fact that his friend had drawn a little penis on his white Crocs, so I said: "I guess you need to remove the 'r' when you talk about those things" and-- after a long pause-- they all started laughing.

I'm Mister Snow Miser

My buddy Whitney responded to yesterday's sentence with an interesting question: "If you could get rid of either the wicked humid heat of summer or the fiercely bitter cold of winter, which would you pick?" and while I must admit that the older I get, the less I like the bitter cold, there is the fact that when it gets cold, you can always put on more clothes-- or buy a really nice jacket and pair of gloves-- but there is no escaping the humid heat . . . no matter how much back hair my wife removes, it doesn't matter, it's inescapably awful, claustrophobic and oppressive, demoralizing and debilitating, and it just sucks to be a sweaty mess . . . so while it's more of a decision victory than a knockout, I'm awarding the win to the bitter cold of winter.

Summer Is Coming

The jury is out about how much the human mind remembers pain, but I know for certain that every winter, I forget how much I hate the heat . . . until it rears its humid head again.

What Is It Like to Be a Dog?

On this very special episode of We Defy Augury, I interview my good friend and fledgling author Rob Russell . . .we discuss his new book "JoJo the Small Town Hound: Volume 1, Leesburg, Virginia and the Curious Case of the Dog Money" and although the book is for children aged 7-10, Rob and I get into some fairly deep topics: the subjectivity of consciousness; structural racism and systemic prejudice towards black Americans, human and canine; the principles of drama; and the fleeting nature of our mortality-- and by the end of the episode, we develop an idea for the greatest children’s book that will never be written . . . Special Guests: Rob Russell, Method Man, and George Costanza.

Slurry Time!

No time to waste writing sentences, because I've got to mix the moss I scraped off a concrete block at the park with some yogurt and beer to make a "slurry" and then paint it on our concrete planter-- apparently in six weeks, the moss will flourish . . . I promise to keep you posted (although this project might not be great for blogging material-- the only thing more boring than watching grass grow is watching moss propagate).

A Riddle Wrapped in an Enigma That is Broadcasting Tomorrow is "Tuesday" Vibes

This week was so long and busy that it has inverted itself into an endless loop, turning my Friday energy into overwhelming Monday Mobius strip bewilderment.

So Many Steps, So Many Racket Sports

Another successful GMC Tennis Tourney-- everyone advanced through the first round except Theo, who was exhausted from Passover fasting (that's what you get for properly worshipping the lord) and we also had some fun in between matches playing pickleball . . . and then when I got home I went down to the park and played some more pickleball and now-- 25,000 steps later-- I am very very tired.

The Pathetic Fallacy, Pregnancy Edition

Today at work the ladies organized a "sprinkle" for a teacher who is very pregnant with her second child (and leaving at the end of the week) and it took me a couple hours to comprehend the term for the party . . . you have a baby "shower" for the first kid and then for the next kid, it's not as big a deal, so you tone the weather down a bit . . . and I guess for a third kid, you just get a "mist" or a "fog."

Sometimes, You Need To Strap Them On

Sometimes, when you're a homeowner, you need to strap on the ol' aerating shoes and march around on your lawn to make tiny holes for clover seed-- because you're trying to transform your shitty crabgrass lawn into a beautiful dog-urine proof clover lawn . . . but then someone mentions "moss" and you're like: should I be thinking about moss? should I have a moss lawn? should I have moss-covered stones to prevent erosion in the corner of my yard by the bike shed? and then you go down to the park and grab some river stones so that you can start propagating moss, by mixing some of your existing moss in a blender with yogurt and then painting the rocks with this slurry . . . and then you're like: does any of this shit even matter? which is a pretty common homeowner question-- when you stare at decay in its ugly, futile, desiccated face and realize that the whole thing, your house, your roof, your lawn, your deck, your siding, your interior and exterior paint, your wood floors, your carpets, your cabinets, and your furniture . . . it's all falling apart and there's no way to maintain it-- and this isn't even considering the appliances and planned obsolescence-- but anyway, I'm trying to grow some clover in my yard.

 

Did Jesus Tell Off-Color Jokes With His Bros? Probably Not . . .

One of the primary and profound questions that the play Hamlet explores is the opening line: "Who's there?" and so in class today we were examining how Shakespeare illustrates Hamlet's behavior in Act I Scene ii in quick succession with his family, alone, and with his friends-- and in each situation, Hamlet exhibits different personality traits-- with his family, he is sarcastic, passive-aggressive, and resentful; alone he is depressed, world-weary, and disgusted by the corruption in the world and particularly in his mother; and when he sees his buddy Horatio he is cordial and warm and even makes a couple of jokes . . . so my students were describing their different personalities in different situations-- at work, as captain of the baseball team, in Calculus, etcetera-- and we agreed that it is often the situation that determines our behavior, not our personality-- we don't seize the moment, the moment seizes us . . . but I did acknowledge that there are a very select group of folks that behave the same in every situation-- but the only examples I could think of were Jesus, Buddha, and Godzilla.

Amazon . . . When You Need 5 Pounds of White Dutch Clover Seed NOW!

Like many environmentally conscious lawn owners, I am converting my lawn to clover . . . clover doesn't require much maintenance or water; clover doesn't need any chemicals to thrive; clover attracts pollinating insects; and clover is resistant to dog urine-- and I'm having success with the seeds that I planted last week, they are starting to sprout, but I need more seeds to spread on the rest of the lawn-- not just the parts Lola killed with her urine, so I ordered a five-pound bag yesterday from Amazon before I went to play pickleball and when I returned from pickleball, there was a five-pound bag of white clover sitting on my porch-- which strikes me as nuts . . . is there a guy driving around with bags of clover in his car, waiting for the call? and honestly, I actually didn't want the seeds that quickly-- if I wanted them NOW I would have gone to Home Depot, but I didn't really feel like seeding the lawn yesterday because my legs were tired and first before I spread the seeds, I was going to walk around with these special spiked shoe attachments I borrowed from Stacey and aerate the lawn-- I'll get a picture of these things once I strap them on and use them and I also bailed today-- we were out late last night (not drinking and not dancing . . . we were at a Pakistani wedding) and I realized that sometimes you don't want things shipped to you that quickly because then you've actually got to do the chore, like seeding the lawn or fixing the toilet, and you envisioned doing the chore in a few days, not RIGHT NOW . . . so be careful when you order from Amazon because you might not get the lag time you were looking for.

Strange Winds: A Meditation on Contamination

A long podcast episode deserves a long title-- and my newest episode of We Defy Augury is my longest episode yet-- so I have titled it "Strange Winds: A Meditation on Contamination" and it also has a long sub-title . . . "Examining Our Fears of Infection, Infiltration, and Impurity . . . Ideological and Otherwise" and this epic piece of audio is based on a strange coincidence-- I read four books in a row that deal-- directly and indirectly-- with our everchanging fears and anxieties about impurity and contamination . . . these are the books which my thoughts are (loosely) based on: Nelson DeMille's Cold War spy novel The Charm School; Dean R. Koontz's 90s tech thriller Dark Rivers of the Heart; Jonathan Blitzer's stellar book on the border situation-- Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis-- and Silvia Moreno-Garcia's horror novel Mexican Gothic . . . and there are also plenty of special guests: Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, Dave Chapelle, John Cougar, Phil Connors, Bob Dylan, The Scorpions, Kansas, Sting, Long Duk Dong, General Ripper, General Turgidson, President Merkin Muffley, John Mulaney, Donald Trump, Marco Guttierez, Ivan Drago, and Tommy DeVito . . . so if you have a long car ride or you're training for a marathon, then give it a shot-- despite the length, I think it's got a fairly coherent argument.

Minor Expectations (by Edmund Wells)

Lowering the bar makes you less likely to trip over it.

Pickleball Rule #1

If it's your wife, don't give any advice.

Dave Almost Gets to Be Smart

I recently learned (when reading The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World by Damon Krukowski) how noise-canceling headphones work . . . apparently they have microphones on the outside of the headphones that record the ambient noise around the headphone user-- then the headphones actively generate equal (but opposite) sound waves which reverse the polarity of the ambient noise . . . and I was excited to share this newfound knowledge with my Creative Writing class (after I told a girl to remove her giant noise-canceling headphones and enter reality) BUT I forgot something important-- so when I asked the class "Does anyone know how noise-canceling headphones actually work?" the majority of the class looked at me in bewilderment, aside from one girl, who raised her hand and reeled off the answer that I was so excited to tell the class . . . I had forgotten that the valedictorian is in my Creative Writing class-- she locked it up earlier in the year and so was slumming in an elective-- and becoming valedictorian of a giant high school like East Brunswick is no mean feat and it shows . . . she certainly took the wind out of my sails!

Dave's Calf Blooms Like a Spring Flower

This morning I made my triumphant return to 6:30 AM before school basketball-- we only had nine so we were playing full court four-on-four and my legs were NOT ready for this-- apparently PT and a bit of pickleball are not training for full court sprints with young people . . . but I survived, my calf felt good, and I even made a few shots (but missed far more than I made) and it was nice to get a work-out in before a long day of teaching Shakespeare and then riding in a van to Iselin to coach high school tennis.

The Gloves Will be Off

So exciting: my friend just published a children's book . . . even more exciting: in two days, I get to write a candid review of my friend's children's book!

Bring the Noise!

I just finished an excellent book on the financial, philosophical, and aesthetic implications of our collective move from analog audio to digital audio: The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World by Damon Krukowski-- the drummer of the spacey alt-rock band Galaxie 500-- but I found it quite ironic that I was reading the book on my new Kindle Scribe-- because the book begins like this . . .

THANK YOU FOR READING this analog book. It requires no additional hardware, uses no power, and is 100 percent recyclable. You will find that it is possible to read, or not read, any of this book’s pages in any sequence. While its pages have been numbered sequentially to assist in navigation, there is no reason to consult these numbers if you do not wish. Should you like to highlight a passage, you will find that you can mark the page with most any implement at hand— even a fingernail will do. The paper of this book is also soft enough to be folded, torn, or even shredded if that gives you satisfaction, without special tools. You are free to share this book, resell it, or donate it to charity.

Backpack Vacuum!

I love our new Hoover Shoulder Vac backpack vacuum so much that I made a little home for it in my study-- vacuuming is so much better when you're not pushing around a clunky machine and instead, the apparatus resides on your back, making you nimble and agile-- and has this thing got suction?-- fuck yes it does.

All the Kids With Three Letter Names are Out Today

Our match got canceled today due to some fortuitous wind and rain-- fortuitous because one of our players (Kai) is at Model UN and the other (Udi) is "out of commission" because when he was riding his electric scooter in the rain yesterday, on his way home from our match in Johnson Park, he skidded out and hit the pavement, scraping up his hands and knees (but he's not completely injured-- he's my neighbor and I saw him today and he looked to be in decent shape-- although he was walking home from school, not riding his scooter) so we'll reset on Monday and hope for better weather (and not so fortuitously, we all had to evacuate my high school today during the rain storm because of an elevator malfunction-- the fire trucks had to come-- if the weather was decent it would have been the best delay of class ever, but because of the cold spitting drizzle and gusty winds, students and teachers alike wanted to get back to class and do some learning).

Fuzzy Wet Balls

Rain and tennis are not a good combination-- the court gets slick, the balls get wet and skip instead of bouncing, and the ink runs in the little book where you write down all the match information-- but I was impressed with the tenacity of my third singles player today, who was in close but meaningless match-- we had already lost-- but kept at it in the steady drizzle until we made him stop because the concrete was so slippery . . . but he's a hockey player so the surface probably seemed totally normal to him.

Your Butt, A Pizza, Same Difference . . .

I don't know if everyone does this, nor do I know if it actually makes a difference-- but when I get take-out food such as pizza or burgers and I'm using my wife's car to pick up the food-- a Mazda CX-5-- I place the food on the passenger seat and I use the seat warmer to keep the food warm while I drive home.

Post-modern Medicine (YouTube It!)

I won't go into gory detail, so as not to disconcert the more squeamish readers (like myself) but my wife and my son successfully removed the AmbIT pain control pump catheters this morning from my son's leg-- and more difficult and painful than sliding the long black-tipped needle from under his skin was pulling and cutting off all the tape and dressing-- he definitely lost some leg hair on the way . . . I played the role of the first assistant, handing my wife scissors and alcohol swabs and such-- and we watched a YouTube video before we attempted this very post-modern procedure-- where our healthcare system entrusts a bunch of amateurs to do the work, offloading some of the insane insurance costs of a hospital stay or another doctor's visit-- and then, once you remove the catheters and the tubes, you pack up the pumps in postage-paid envelopes and send them back to the surgical clinic-- and while doing this seemed kind of sketchy, it did save us a difficult car ride-- it's hard for Ian to get in and out and certainly not good for his ankle.

Totally the Latter

Which is more fun-- looking at the eclipse or looking at the people wearing the silly glasses used to view the eclipse?

Tomorrow, Keep the Ball Low

Tennis practice tomorrow is during the eclipse's maximum solar obscuration . . . so we will not be practicing overheads.

Traction . . . So Classic

Yesterday, when Ian's ankle was really hurting him, he wanted me to hook up a rope to the ceiling to hold his leg up-- and I knew exactly what he meant: classic hospital traction-- but I didn't have the equipment for it . . . and the way health care is now, instead of keeping you in the hospital for a few days after surgery, in traction, which would be helpful and ensure that your limb healed properly-- instead-- because hospital stays are way too expensive and inefficient-- they send you home with a couple of ambIT electronic pain control system pumps connected to catheters in your leg (sorry Rob) which deliver numbing medicine on a regular schedule and then in three days, you remove the catheters yourself . . . which seems fucking crazy, but I'll tell you how it goes on Tuesday when we remove unfasten from Ian's left leg (which is especially skinny, and perhaps the reason why they were leaking yesterday).

Prediction? Pain

Long day for Ian-- he woke up in postoperative pain at 3 AM and it got so bad we had to go to the ER, where they drugged him up until he finally stopped writhing and spewing profanity, and thus slept through the rumbling earthquake that shook the hospital as well as the rest of New Jersey; then at noon we were able to take him from the ER to the surgical clinic where, the day before, they operated on his ankle and the head anesthesiologist came in and fixed his numbing catheter pumps and redid the nerve block and now he seems to be doing better (and anything is better than puking in a vomit bag in the waiting room of the surgical clinic because you had too many meds and car rides in succession).

Ankle Surgery Part II

Ian survived his rescheduled ankle surgery-- although apparently, he was in some serious pain right afterward . . . which was remedied by a couple doses of fentanyl-- and now his ligaments and tendons are repaired and his ankle contains a screw and wedge that will hold things in place . . . and hopefully he will heal quickly and be back on the basketball/tennis court soon.

Brian Selznick

Two days ago our acting principal (our actual principal just retired) came to me and asked if I wanted to take my English class to meet the author/illustrator Brian Selznick-- he was being inducted into the EBHS Hall of Fame and then he was going to speak to a small audience in the media center-- of course, I said "yes," because anything is better than teaching seniors the last period of the day-- especially when it's been training for four days straight-- and while I wasn't 100% certain who Brian Selznick was when the principal invited my class, I figured he was the guy who wrote and illustrated The Invention of Hugo Cabret because I knew that author was from East Brunswick and it turns out I was right-- and what a treat, Selznick is an excellent speaker, compelling, smart, and funny-- and he uses lots of gesticulations-- first he summarized his weird and wild career . . . illustrating books; writing books with illustrations; doing surreal puppetry that reminded me of Being John Malkovich; writing screenplays; seeing one of his creations turned into a Scorcese film; etcetera . . . but it was no fairy tale story-- he spent fifteen years illustrating small-time children's books before he took three years off from that gig to write and draw The Invention of Hugo Cabret-- which was a real favorite in my house . . . and we got the book before we knew the author graduated from East Brunswick-- Selznick also spoke on creativity, where good ideas come from, his constant desire to change things up artistically, what it was like to be gay in high school in the '80s (very different than now-- he was impressed by all the rainbow flag posters around the school promoting LGBTQ+ clubs-- back when he was in high school it was like The Replacements album . . . Don't Tell a Soul) and the fact that when you are in high school, you are focused on the present and it all seems normal, but when you look back at it, it's always kind of strange . . . and he mentioned the casual homophobic slurs and racial stereotypes in Sixteen Candles as an example-- anyway, it was a good time-- and the fact that one of my student's dad graduated with Selznick, and Selznick remembered hanging out with him back in the day sort of brought the whole shebang full circle.

Rain or Shine, the Mail Gets Delivered and the Dog Gets Walked

Long as I remember the rain been coming down-- clouds of mystery pouring confusion on the ground- good men through the ages trying to find the sun and I wonder, still, I wonder who'll stop the rain . . . and more importantly, who will walk the dog in this rain-- and the answer to that question is: me.

I Prefer Mary Anne

 I do not like (nor am I competent at) peeling ginger.

And after the Third Week of PT, Dave's Calf Rose Again

On this fine Easter morning, my wife and I played some pickleball to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus . . . and even more miraculously-- the resurrection of my strained right calf.

You Can't Piss (or Serve) Into the Wind

I am sorry to say, but nobody learned nothin' at yesterday's tennis practice-- aside from the fact that you can't really play tennis when there are 30 mph wind gusts . . . although we tried our best and one group even played an entire set of doubles-- but it was ugly, very ugly . . . the wind is a bitch.

The Secret? You Should Be Hitting Lots of Overheads . . .

Time to go teach my second singles player how to beat a "pusher"-- and not a drug pusher-- a tennis player who likes to mimic a wall-- because he had a frustrating loss against a kid who barely looked like he was interested in hitting the ball-- the kid just kept bopping it back, with very little pace, until my guy would get frustrated and blast it deep or hit the net-- it's frustrating to play a wall-- you have to adjust your game radically--Mitch Hedberg said it best: "The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I'll never be as good as a wall."

Can Someone Drive Me to the House I Need to Paint?

Apparently, in the US, depending on the state you live in, you might need a license to paint nails but not to paint houses.

Earworm Exorcism!

I have finally finished my most ambitious audio project ever, the top secret project that I erased earlier in the week-- it is a new episode of We Defy Augury titled "Earworm Exorcism" and it is an obsessive, comprehensive, and digressive deep dive into how these insidious auditory creatures worm their way into our brains, wrap around our cerebral cortex, and make us susceptible to suggestion of the catchiest kind-- a veritable shitload of the sounds that capture our consciousness-- and the theory and philosophy of why and how they do this-- but be warned: your brain might not survive unscathed . . . this many earworms have NEVER been assembled in one place before; three fantastic podcast episodes inspired this project:

"The Case of the Missing Hit" (Reply All)

"Whomst Amongst Us Let the Dogs out" (99% Invisible)

"Louie Louie: The Strange Journey of the Dirtiest Song Never Written" (Lost Notes)

but I don't think anyone has ever assembled this many earworms in one place-- here's a visual of all the clips . . .

and while I'm happy to be done, people keep reminding me of earworms that I forgot to include-- so I either need to edit them into this episode or start working on a sequel.

The Animals Are Wild

Another crisp wildlife photo from yours truly (and possible good news on the alleged raccoon in the attic front . . . yesterday, I climbed into the attic crawl space-- which is not a fun thing to do, as it's filled with loose insulation-- and I saw that the wire guard around the roof vent had been dislodged and pushed in, forming an entry hole-- so Ian and I pushed the wire mesh back in place and reinforced the wire guard around the roof vent with some staples and then last night, I heard some critter on the roof-- trying to get in, scratching at the wire guard-- but I didn't hear any mewling of babies or any critters inside the attic-- so maybe the creatures-- which I believe are raccoons-- will give up and move on to some other poor soul's house and make a nest in their attic).

 

Spring Break?

Ian and I woke up at 5:10 AM to go for his ankle surgery, but when we arrived at University Orthopedics, the building was surrounded by fire and police vehicles and enough flashing lights to give you a seizure-- after waiting a few minutes at the edge of the parking lot, we were informed that there was smoke in the building and a generator blew, so there would be no appointments today-- which really sucks because we scheduled this to coincide with my Spring Break and my wife's Spring Break-- which is next week-- so that we could take care of Ian while he's incapacitated-- and though I went to bed early, I did NOT get a good night's sleep because it seems that a raccoon has broken into our attic (which happened once before-- quite a tale) and it was making noise through the night-- probably pregnant female making a nest-- and on our early morning drive, Ian and I saw two raccoons strolling along the sidewalk across the street from our house . . . perhaps they are the culprits-- so it seems my Spring Break will consist of scheduling the animal removal guy and the roof guy; grading all the essay I received right before break-- the quarter ends right when we get back; going to PT for my torn calf; rescheduling Ian's surgery, and coaching tennis . . . no wet t-shirt contests for me.

Top Secret Project Update

I am now past where I was before I erased what I had . . . home stretch.

Top-Secret Project Update

It is taking longer than I thought to get to where I was (before I erased my top-secret project off my external drive). 

How to (Rarely) Tie a Tie

 For the rest of my life, I am only getting dressed up if someone I know gets married or dies.

Brief Period of Mourning Followed Renewed Motivation

 I am working on a very special episode of We Defy Augury-- top secret . . . but it involves scores and scores of clips-- and I was more than halfway done with it but then this morning, I somehow erased the entire project on Logic-- and it was stored on the external drive and the Time Machine does NOT back up the drive that the back up is stored on- if that makes sense?-- so it is truly gone . . . and so I'm starting over and I am looking at this as a good thing-- the episode was getting a bit ponderous so hopefully now I will tighten things up (and finish it by the end of Spring Break).

Funny is Funny and That's Funny

I passed by the new liquor store on First Avenue this morning, noticed the lovely new sign, and then my eyes focused on one particular portion of the sign and I knew I had to stop and take a picture.

 

Both Are Better Than Badminton

High school tennis season has begun and I hadn't hit any balls since my son Ian got injured last summer-- it's been all pickleball since then-- and I forgot how enjoyable it is to hit a tennis ball, especially three particular shots: a topspin forehand, a low driving slice backhand, and an overhead smash-- while I love the frenetic nature of pickleball, I also love the grace, style, and thwack of a good tennis stroke.

Just Desserts

After a dinner party on Saturday night, my wife informed me that "dense" was not an appropriate way to describe a dessert, specifically a lemon bar that our friend made-- and that the term "dense" is derogatory in dessert-describing-terms . . . I honestly meant it as a compliment-- the lemon bar was very delicious-- but I was just informing folks that you could not eat two of these lemon bars in one sitting because they had some serious substance to them-- but my wife informed me that the word I was looking for was "rich."

Is This How You Spell "Sisyphean"?

So you clean all the bathrooms in the house-- and it's brutal and gross and exhausting-- and then by the time you're done, you need to go to the bathroom-- which ruins all your hard work . . . or you need to shave or clip your toe-nails or floss (which often flings food particles onto the mirror) or brush your teeth-- it's truly Sisyphean. 

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once?

I've listened to several interesting podcasts lately-- and I also can't help connecting them to the non-fiction texts we read in my College Writing synthesis class . . . I suppose this is because we're constantly teaching the kids to make connections between the texts and to everything else in the world, to support some kind of argument-- eventually, you start to see connections between everything, like the conspiracy theorist with all the diagrams, pictures, symbols, pins, and strings on his study wall . . . anyway, the podcasts are good even if you haven't read this year's College Writing texts, here they are:

1) The Billionaires’ Secret Plan to Solve California’s Housing Crisis (The Daily) is a fascinating conundrum that connects to Stephen Johnson's writing about organized complexity and emergence--the question is: can a bunch of tech billionaires build a model city in California that feels like a European city? a city that feels like it emerged from a culture that values public transportation, locality, walking, biking, and mixed housing-- and does NOT value traffic and automobiles-- usually these kinds of places are built from the bottom up- they emerge from millions of tiny individual decisions of the city dwellers, over time-- and reflect the evolving core values of the city . . . but these dudes want to do it from the top down-- and they are meeting some resistance . . . an interesting investigative journalistic foray into an ongoing story;

2) Lean In (If Books Could Kill) tells the story of Sheryl Sandberg-- who was an upper-level manager at Facebook-- and wrote a book explaining how to move up in a man's world-- but her version of feminism doesn't address systemic issues, it's just very specific (and often lousy or useless) advice for upper-middle-class women trying to make it in a hyper-accelerated capitalist culture . . . and this really connects to Anand Girdharadas's description of Amy Cuddy's journey from academic to thought leader and Jia Tolentino's chapter "Always Be Optimizing," which discusses how she grapples with the unending expectations of modern feminism;

3) How Do We Survive the Media Apocalypse (Search Engine) is Ezra Klein's generally depressing take on the direction journalism, the internet, and the media are heading-- this episode gets into the costs of market-based competition, the unbundling of advertisements and your local newspaper, the benefits of inefficiency and local media monopolies and the idea that news worked much better when car ads and movie ads were paying for war reporting-- these ideas really complement Anand Giridhaardas's book "Winners Takes All" and Steven Johnson's ideas in "Emergence"-- we've collectively created a system that is incredibly and perfectly competitive-- the online world-- where Netflix competes with the best journalism and Pitchfork and Buzzfeed and YouTube videos about losing your belly fat--  and the result is that a bunch of social media companies make money; AI might cannibalize journalistic sources and therefore destroy the ecosystem that it relies on for information; ideas that are bite-sized, palatable, and digestible win out over the truth; and whatever you direct your attention to on the internet-- and in media in general-- is going to survive and what you neglect will die . . . so read some real books, magazines, and local news-- get off those social media sites, support longform investigative journalism, and recognize that the only reason that many of the fun sites that are now going extinct-- Gawker, Pitchfork, Vox, Buzzfeed-- were often supported by venture capitalists and had no real model to make money in this awful media environment . . . what is slowly emerging on the internet is exactly what we asked for and deserve, a bunch of bullshit.

Your Child (yawn) Is Failing . . .

I am amping myself up (with some coffee and candy) to survive the second half of my second long-ass day of this long-ass week-- in a few minutes I will leave for tennis practice and teach the youth how to behave like gentlemen while eviscerating their opponent (or maybe not . . . our team is not very strong this year-- so I'll teach them to behave like gentlemen while being eviscerated by their opponents) and then I will fight through rush hour traffic to get back to school for the 5 PM - 8 PM session of parent-teacher conferences . . . and while I legally can't go into details, I've got some doozies tonight and I'm sure there will be some interesting parent/teacher interactions-- when I'm not yawning in the parents' faces.

The Road to Recovery: Don't Stop in the Middle of It

I attended the first Physical Therapy session of my life today and it was very productive-- once I completed, by hand, that damned paperwork that I've filled out a thousand times before . . . isn't the fact that I'm allergic to penicillin in some database-- and if the Russians know this, am I in danger?-- anyway, once I got done scribbling, I learned some stretches and some strengthening exercises, had some heat applied to my calf, and a nice lady massaged the muscle until it loosened up a bit (while we chatted about East Brunswick schools-- she lives where I teach) but I do have some advice for the woman driving the Honda in the parking lot-- and this advice applies to many more drivers than this particular woman: if you need to do something in your car that requires you to stop driving-- find some paperwork; text your daughter; count the change in your ashtray-- please, please pull over to the side of the road or into a parking spot, don't just stop in the middle of the road until someone beeps at you . . . is this a new thing or have people always done this?

Dave Fights Through His Day Like Mike Tyson Will Fight Jake Paul

I am home and I have survived the longest day of the school year: I got up early, despite Daylight Sucking Time, to work on my podcast; went to school and taught; drove back to Highland Park and coached tennis (first day of practice!) and then drove back to East Brunswick, fighting the rush hour traffic, for 5 PM to 8 PM parent/teacher conferences . . . and now I am home once again-- counting down the days until Spring Break (and retirement . . . this shit is for young people).

Daylight Sucking Time

Everything always feels topsy-turvy the first Monday after Daylight Fucking Saving Time (otherwise known as I Had a Vivid Nightmare Saturday Night That the Government Stole Time From Me and Sunday Morning It Turned Out It Wasn't a Nightmare Day) and so while I was at school and then the gym, I watched the latest political polarized shitshow in reverse chronological order and I think it made more sense that way: first-- in the English Office-- I watched Scarlett Johanssen's SNL send-up of Senator Katie Britt's absurdly melodramatic SOTU response; next, while riding the bike at the gym I actually watched Katie Britt's entire seventeen-minute oddly unhinged, trad-wife, transitionless, tone-deaf kitchen-centric monologue; and then I watched President Biden's fairly energetic and topical SOTU address . . . and I've decided to cryogenically freeze myself until next December so I don't have to live through this stupid rematch.

Dave Loves a 6 PM Comedy Show

My wife and I took a one night vacation to Manhattan yesterday, and despite the weather we had a great time: we took the train to Penn Station; dropped our backpack at the Ace Hotel-- we got a good deal on Hotwire and I heartily recommend this place, it's funky and weird and has an enormous and dark bar and lounge on the ground floor reminiscent of the speakeasy in Sleep No More-- and then we walked up to the MoMA, where we saw a number of new and wacky modern art exhibit (Shana Moulton's strange surreal film Meta/Physical Therapy was awesome, as was Montien Boonma's "The Shape of Hope" and the Michael Smoth's "Government Approved  Home Fallout Shelter Snack Bar-- plus the usual "classic' modern art that lives there permanently) and we met Stacey at the museum . . . she was whiling away some time while her husband got an elaborate tattoo-- then we had some lunch and a few drinks at the Judge Roy Bean Public House, great little dive bar with good food-- and then we walked back down to the Ace Hotel-- it was starting to rain at the point, but not the weather hadn't turned awful-- though that would occur soon enough; we got soaked on our walk over to the 6 PM show at the Gotham Comedy Club-- which was raucous, filthy, and very funny-- going to comedy clubs is my favorite thing to do in the city . . . it's relatively cheap, the drinks are generally good, and the 6 PM "let's get this shit over with and go to dinner and then get to bed by ten" show is right up my alley . . . after the show it was really coming down in sheets, cold sideways sheets of water-- but the silver lining is all the rain erased the pungent smells of the city streets-- and we ate some incredible Mexican food at Casa Carmen-- the empanadas made of plantains and filled with black beans with the rich, chocolate black dipping sauce were astounding, as was the rest of the meal-- and then we trudged back through the rain and flood to the Ace Hotel, warmed up and went to bed . . . the next morning we decided to brave the line at Best Bagel & Coffee-- and it was worth the wait, my jalapeno/everything bagel was indeed the best bagel I've ever eaten (but the coffee was nothing special . . . I guess the "best" only modifies the word "bagel" in the title of the place . . . the next time I'm in Manhattan, I'd like to find a place named "Best Bagel and Best Coffee").

Anxieties of the '90s

If you're looking for an ambitious thriller that brings you back to the anxieties of the 1990s: hackers, secret government agencies, X Files-type conspiracies, the beginnings of web-based technology, Hannibal Lecter-esque "civilized" serial killers, and a time when the government seemed more powerful than corporations, a time when you could still disappear into the ether, and time when it still seemed possible to resist Big State Surveillance-- then check out the 1994 novel Dark Rivers of the Heart by Dean Koontz.

Professor G. Truck and Doctor C. Morton

I'm proud to say that I stopped reading random articles on the web and I went to see an actual doctor today-- Kinshasa C. Morton MD, to be precise: he's an excellent sports medicine specialist (I've seen him before for my shoulder and my knee) and he was much more authoritative and knowledgeable than the internet . . . he lubed up my leg and used an ultrasound machine to locate a tear in my right gastrocnemius-- which I believe is my upper calf muscle-- and while he said I'm going to need some physical therapy to help heal, he was also very positive and said I could continue to walk and cycle and row-- I should just avoid all the fun stuff: soccer, basketball, tennis, and pickleball-- until after a few weeks of PT . . . so it will be a weird start to tennis season next week-- I can't really hit with the kids-- but hopefully I'll be on the mend soon enough.

Massage the Kale! Fold in the Cheese!

Today in Creative Writing class, we were investigating the power of carefully selected adjectives (this episode of We Defy Augury describes the lesson) and our free-writing prompt at the start of class was to use several sentences to describe a scene, object, or person-- but you could only use one or two adjectives, which you had to underline-- and I had never done this prompt before so I was quite proud of what I produced; I described helping my wife cook our meal last night and how she trimmed and pounded the chicken and sliced and baked the carrots, while I was tasked with putting the kale in a bowl with some salt and olive oil and then "massaging" the kale . . . and I explained that I did not like massaging the kale because this activity made my hands moist and greasy-- two visceral adjectives I am not particularly fond of.

The Home Stretch is Uphill

I'm almost finished grading the third College Writing essay-- but then we have to collect one more and grade it before the end of March so we can submit the grades to Rutgers; I'm about to collect the synthesis essays in English 12 class; several teachers have come down with some crippling stuff-is-coming-out-both-ends norovirus (which shut down an elementary school in town two weeks ago, apparently the nurse was traumatized from all the shitting and puking) and tennis season starts next week-- so it is full-on survival mode until Spring Break.  

This Episode is More Fun Than It Sounds

While the title of the new episode of We Defy Augury sounds a bit bleak-- "Looming Existential Dread: Robotic and Real"-- there is fun to be had with these thoughts (loosely) based on Kate Christensen's novel Welcome Home, Stranger, the first two installments of The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, and Hamlet . . . and there are a plethora of Special Guests, including but not limited to: Billy Joel, Ween, David Tennant, Kenneth Branagh, Greta Thunberg, Marvin the Paranoid Android, Brother Maynard, William Shatner, Woody Allen, Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Queen, and The Prodigy.

Post-Birthday-Blues

Yesterday's birthday-get-together at Jersey Cyclone was very fun-- a perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon: the brewery is located in an industrial park and it's spacious inside, plus you can bring your own food-- Catherine made some of her incredible special sandwiches; we had a good crowd, and the beer was delicious, and we pretty much had the place to ourselves . . . and the bartender was an EBHS alumni, so Chantal and I had fun remembered folks from high school in the mid-aughts . . . and while all the varieties of beer were very delicious, and so were the sandwiches and the desserts-- my body can no longer handle that kind of stuff in large quantities-- luckily we stopped drinking around 6:30 PM so I suffered through my hangover around four hours later and then slept soundly . . . but today I re-tweaked my calf muscle playing pickleball-- I think I really need to let it heal for a couple weeks and it is HOT outside, which is kind of fun, but also reminds me just how much I hate the heat . . . Donaldson Park is still swamped and muddy, but today it is packed with people, all kinds of yahoos, and most of them drove int and are parked all over the place, in the mud, etcetera . . . and I have turned into a very aggressive walker-- if I see a car coming, I get myself and the dog into the croswalk, don't make eye-contact with whoever is driving and then I amble across the street-- hoping the car will stop-- and I know this isn't mentally healthy or physically safe but I'm sick of people in enromous cars ignoring stop signs near my house and in my park, so the least I can do is fuck with them . . . and if I get hit, I'll miss a few days of work and maybe some idiot will feel guilty about their shitty driving and realize cars are destroying this once great nation.

What Do Theodore Geisel, Dave, and Daniel Craig Have in Common?

It's here once again,

it comes without fail--

for rich and for poor,

the next coffin nail . . .

for Bryce Dallas Howard,

for the Wu's Method Man,

for me and Bon Jovi--

the occasional is grand:

We are still alive!

our lifetime rolls on!

and one year from now

we may well be gone . . .

But perhaps these trite rhymes

will outlive my frame--

The Good Doctor is dead

yet you still know his name . . .

and the folks he invented,

that lived in his books:

Yertle the Turtle, 

Thing One and Thing Two,

The Grinch and the Lorax

and, of course, Cindy Lou Who--

you know all those souls,

though they never lived--

you might know them much better

than your very own kids!

So here's to creation--

to birthdays and rhymes--

to writing it down,

before there's no time.

Local Recs to Treat Yo Self

Yesterday, in honor of my upcoming birthday, I took the day off from teaching the youth and I got a massage at Lucid in Metuchen-- they have an incredible deal going: five hour-long massages for 200 dollars -- my calf is still sketchy and I strained it a bit playing pickleball on Tuesday and the massage really helped . . . plus, my acupuncturist broke her arm and so she's been on the IR and now I realize how much those needles keep me loose-- and then Ian and I met Alex for lunch in New Brunswick-- he turned twenty today (and I turn 54 tomorrow) and so it was his choice of food for a birthday lunch-- he wanted Mexican food so we perused the plethora of Mexican places in New Brunswick-- oh yes, there are a plethora of authentic Mexican places in New Brunswick, some filled with pinatas-- and since La Catrina was closed until four PM and Taqueria Maria's transformed into a bakery (without informing us) we ended up at a place called La Placita-- which does NOT translate into The Place . . . placita is a little square-- and we loved it . . . I had chorizo enchiladas with mole sauce and the kids had al pastor tacos and everything was superb-- so if you're looking for a cheap "treat yo self day" there you go.

Irony Noted

I was stuck at the crowded intersection of Plainfield Ave and Route 27, by the Tastee Sub and amidst the plethora of bumper stickers on the Subaru in front of me, I noticed one that read "Abuse an animal, go to jail" and then the light changed and I drove past the Burger King and the irony was not lost on me that we live in a country where many people profess progressive attitudes about animal rights/animal consciousness, yet fast food franchises dot the landscape (though it may have been lost on all the factory-farmed beef patties and ground-up nugget sized chunks of battery-caged, debeaked chickens inside the Burger King deep freeze).

Awkward (and Impulsive) Dave Amuses His Students

Today during first period, while I was showing a movie clip-- so it was dark-- a young lady in a denim jacket entered my room, but just barely entered-- and she asked if she could talk to one of my students-- and my student got up and the two of them talked in the hall-- I figured it was something about homework or a computer charger or something-- and then the student came back into the room, but the young lady continued to lurk and then said something else, so I shushed her . . . Thomas Haden Church was explaining The Scarlet Letter to his class in Easy A-- crucial for our assignment about the evolution of mate choice and gender norms and the ever-changing aesthetics of attraction-- and then the young lady in the denim jacket said, "I just need Tanvi to go to room 1618 . . . I'm a school aide . . . I work here" and I was like: "I'm so sorry I shushed you-- you look so young, you look just like a student!" and she said, "I'll take that as a compliment" and then she left and my class laughed at my rudeness and embarrassment and I said to them: "Notice how I used gender norms and aesthetics to get out of that awful situation-- you can't go wrong telling a woman she looks young" and we all learned some valuable lessons.

Creepy Parking Lot Zombie Humans

I like to do the "pull through" in the school parking lot so that my car is facing out and I can make a quick escape at the end of the day-- I get to school early enough to do this (because I never want to "back in" when there's traffic in the lot-- I hate when people stop fucking parking lot traffic because they are determined to back-in to their spot) but the one thing that spooks me about the pull through is when I wedge my car between two other parked cars and look over and one of the cars still contains a human-- they're usually just sitting there, deadfaced, fucking with their phone and it's weird-- I start wondering: did I park too close and trap them in their car? are they going to get out at the same time as me? should I wave to them? are they breathing?-- so I'd appreciate it if people, after they park, immediately get out of their car . . . or if not, at least open the window and hang your arm out, so that someone pulling in then recognizes that there's a human inside the car you are about to cozy up to.

Got To Be the Calf Sleeves

I played indoor soccer for 90 minutes yesterday and then I played pickleball for two hours this evening-- and while I think I looked fairly athletic playing both sports, if you could see the awkward and ugly effort required for me to pry off my shoes, socks, calf-sleeves, and knee sleeve/braces after I finished playing, you'd wonder if I was capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time, let alone actually doing something athletic, graceful, and coordinated.

A Noteworthy Parking Offense?

A few weeks ago, I noticed an egregiously parked car in our school note and left a mildly censorious Post-it note on it-- and while this might have been mildly obnoxious behavior, there was no question that this car was poorly parked. . . ANYONE would agree that the parking job was awful and that this car encroached on BOTH parking spots on either side of the vehicle-- the car was OBJECTIVELY poorly parked; yesterday morning, my wife and I went to pick up the Mazda, which we left on Adelaide Avenue overnight after we took the train to Princeton to meet my brother-- we were several drinks over the limit so we did not drive it home and instead walked from the train station back home on Friday night-- and when we got the car on Saturday morning, we noticed a note tucked into the driver side door handle-- the note said: 

2 Vehicles can fit here. Next time, pull closer to the driveway in front or behind you. 

and while I understand the sentiment-- Catherine parked the car in the middle of a small strip of curb between two driveways-- and obviously the note-writer wanted to park right in front of their house-- but I don't think this parking event was noteworthy for several reasons:

1) Adelaide is a long street with plenty of parking;

2) if my wife had pulled the Mazda all the way up to the next driveway, there might have been enough room to squeeze another car behind it-- but why do this? why encroach on someone's driveway when there is plenty of parking on this street?

3) this is not an objectively poor parking job-- it's a subjective desire by someone lazy and inconvenienced by the fact that they could not park exactly where they wanted;

4) this note is boring and didactic-- 

if the offended party would have written something funny or clever . . . "Pull up or pull out, dick" would have sufficed-- then I might have empathized more with the put-out parker who had to walk eleven yards farther than normal . . . but because of the moralistic tone, I will seek that spot out the next time we drive to the edge of Highland Park and foray into New Brunswick and I will park exactly in the middle of that strip between the two driveways and perhaps I will keep this note and adorn it with dicks and place it on my windshield.

Meta-Magical Mystery Tour

The new episode of We Defy Augury is (loosely) based on the meta-mystery novel Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz . . . get ready to deconstruct the mystery genre and murder in particular; special guests include The Smile, Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Tom Hanks, and Meg Ryan.

Schools Out! For the Weekend . . .

These five-day weeks are brutal, but I just have to remember: summer is coming, summer is coming . . . and while I'm IN school I'm learning valuable things from my students, such as: anime fans talk with their hands (and apparently, make very specific hand motions) and, according to one of my students today: "I danced so hard in PE class my hijab fell off"-- which we decided could be the basis of an amazing song lyric.

Dave's Head is So Money

Some folks might find the buzz of the Remington Balder Pro annoying-- but to me, the high-pitched hum of the Five Dual Track heads is the sound of money in the bank . . . I shelled out any cash for a haircut in twenty years.

Ahh Dickens . . .

I forgot to bring my Kindle to school today-- so I'm not going to be able to delve deeper into the mud and fog of Bleak House during cafeteria duty . . . unless I deign to read on my laptop-- but I will provide two excerpts from the opening chapter of the Dickens' novel for your amusement and consideration . . . here is a sentence about the mud:

As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill . . .

and here is a section focusing on fog:

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little ’prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds.

Catherine's Foot = Step On It

My wife went to the orthopedist today so he could assess how she is healing from her foot surgery and her foot has received "the green light for all activities"-- hiking, pedicures, pickleball, Zumba-- but I assume the orthopedist meant only "foot-related" activities-- as her foot will not be attending cooking school nor will it be caulking the bathtub . . . but still, while feet aren't as dextrous as hands, they are the key to being ambulatory-- and you can't go on a bar crawl unless you are ambulatory.

Upstream, downstream . . . Minnesota 81/Rutgers 70

What a strange and perverse mental illness-- to look forward all day to a time when you will watch a remote event on television that will probably drive you to the brink of madness-- but believe that if you get emotionally involved enough, you will have some influence over the event-- and believe this enough so that you enjoy joyous high and suffer precipitous lows, project streams of profanity, enter existential futility, entertain possible resurrection, and finally go to bed, sweaty, frustrated, and fatigued, though you've only sat on your couch-- and you'll do it again Thursday night because the Rutgers men's basketball team is playing Purdue.

Dave Will Survive

Another boring evening last night-- I really felt like shit, congested and glassy-eyed and all that fun stuff that happens when you have a cold-- so we watched some college basketball and the first episode of Resident Alien-- which I found more amusing than my wife-- but this morning, despite sleeping poorly, I came back from outer space and managed to record some of my new podcast and play 90 minutes of indoor soccer, and all the trotting around helped drain the mucous . . . so I think I'm going to recover just in time to go to work tomorrow . . . blech (and my wife has off because her district budgeted enough snow days, while my district did not-- so at East Brunswick High School there will be learnin' on President's Day).

Lame Weekend (But It Could Be Worse)

All systems: clogged and stuffy-- I've got a cold and it sucks-- I worked all week while fighting off this virus-- and my reward is a lame weekend-- no alcohol, no gym, no indoor soccer, no going out to dinner or sitting in a bar . . . but I'm enjoying Martha Well's Murderbot Diaries, I got genius level on the NYT Spelling Bee last night, we finished watching Mythic Quest-- highly recommended, sweet and very funny . . . in the vein of Parks & Rec-- and we started the new version of Mr and Mrs. Smith with Donald Glover, which seems worth watching-- and I'm still powering through Robert Caro's The Power Broker . . . and reading about how hard Robert Mose's New Deal hires worked during the very cold and snowy winter of 1934 made me happy to have a warm house and sick days to use, if need be.

Too Much Phlegm to Create a Coherent Metaphor

Teaching with a stuffy nose is like competing in a dance recital with a piece of toilet paper stuck to your ballet slipper.

Earworm Obsession (Dave Does Some "Work")

Yesterday, I worked harder than I have ever worked before (and probably after) because I got obsessed with an idea-- today, I will see if it was worth it; in my Music and the Arts class we're going to listen to the excellent 99% Invisible episode "Whomst Amongst Us Let the Dogs Out"-- an episode which investigates the nebulous and foggy history of the Baha Men's earworm "Who Let the Dogs Out"-- and so yesterday morning I started going down the rabbit hole of songs that are earworms, especially songs that just seem to exist in the ether-- you can't imagine the world without them . . . they just sort of show up; so I talked to students and teahcers and consulted the internet and I came up with a list of 50 earworm songs and then I wanted to make this into a quiz for the students-- to see if they could identify the song and perhaps-- although it's often very difficult-- the original artist . . . the only way to do this properly was to download the songs from YouTube and convert them to mp3s and then use Logic to clip the relevant earworm-- as little as possible and usually without vocals-- and then a piece of the chorus-- the "answer" to the earworm-- it took me four hours and as soon as I can figure out a way to share the file, I will-- but I'll certainly turn it into a podcast or something-- I think for people my age (53) that are native-born Americans, it will be fairly easy to identify most of the songs-- although the artists are often difficult-- and I did put some contemporary stuff in there for the kids, so they don't get frustrated-- I'm going to try it out on them today so I'll report how it goes tomorrow.

Welcome Home, Stranger

Every few years I end up reading a book like this one . . . a book where someone in a family that is scattered geographically dies and the family returns to the ol' homestead to mourn and revisit past conflicts and grievances-- Kate Christensen's novel Welcome Home, Stranger fits this archetype, so don't read it if you're looking for a lighthearted comedy, but it's an excellent book: the writing is strong and precise, the narrator-- an eco-journalist named Rachel-- tackles the futility of our decaying environment and her own existential crises with a sordid and mordant wit, and the state of Maine is just as much a character as any of the people in the book . . . nine lobster pots out of ten.

There's No "I" in AI

 

My newest episode of We Defy Augury, "There's No "I" AI: Good Writing, Intentionality, and a Plethora of Other Shit" collects some of my thoughts and lessons that are (loosely) based on William Zinsser's classic primer On Writing Well (and impacted by the current AI writing revolution) . . . Special Guests include George Carlin, Spirograph, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Simple Minds, El Guapo, Hefe, and Donald Trump.

Dave Gets It Wrong (Again!)

For a good portion of last night's game, I thought it would be the first time a kicker received the Super Bowl MVP-- two record-setting field goals were kicked, the first (55 yards) by Jake Moody and the second (57 yards) by Harrison Butker . . . and Butker was perfect on the night, booting four field goals-- I think if Butker kicked a long one for a dramatic win/tie in overtime, he would have made place-kicking history . . . but luckily I'm not a betting man because Patrick Mahomes won MVP again-- and that makes three times . . . boring.

In Thirty Years, I Should Run For President?

Last week, I made a triumphant return to indoor soccer and I was able to play for 50 minutes before I felt a twinge in my calf--but I must confess, I also felt fat and out of shape on the soccer pitch, I've been going to the gym and playing pickleball and while pickleball may require some burst of speed and plenty of shuffling in a squat stance, it's not really stop-and-go aerobic exercise; this week, I was able to play for a little over an hour-- I got my 10,000 steps and then stopped before I hurt anything-- and wow, was I winded-- and I still felt fat and slow and without good touch, but I did score a nice left-footed goal on the volley, off a looping cross . . . so I am cautiously optimistic about athletics in 2024-- and my wife and I are trying to eat fewer carbs and more protein, so maybe we'll lose some weight this week, which I am assuming will really help my fitness in sports like soccer and basketball (I was annoyed last week, I didn't drink all week-- until Friday and Saturday, or eat dessert after dinner, and I still don't think I lost a pound . . . as I approach age 54 my metabolism has really slowed down-- when I was in my forties if I quit beer and dessert for a week, I'd lose five pounds).

I Love a (fictional) Dead Body

Magpie Murders, a meta-mystery by British author Anthony Horowitz, deconstructs the genre so cunningly that it very well might be the last whodunnit you ever need to read . . . it won't be, of course, because murder-- mystery novel murder, that is-- is just so damned fun.

Two Pickleball Firsts

This afternoon was unseasonably warm, so eight of us got together at Castleton Park for some excellent pickleball and I experienced two new things-- or new to me:

1) I wore calf-compression sleeves-- and my strained calf muscle felt wonderful, safe, secure, and warm inside the tight polyester/nylon tube and I did not re-pull the muscle;

2) when I tried to block a drive at the net, the ball hit the bottom edge of my paddle, caromed, and clipped my testicle-- and though my testicle was safe and secure and warm inside my spandex tights, it did not matter-- and I felt that queasy sickly distinctive sensation that only those people possessing testicles ever have the privilege to feel-- but it dissipated fairly quickly and then I got back to enjoying the warm and sunny February afternoon.

Mystery Solved!

My English 12: Music and the Arts class agrees with me that the Reply All episode "The Case of the Missing Hit" is one of the most satisfying narrative arcs in the history of storytelling-- right up there with The Sixth Sense and Murder on the Orient Express-- except that this story is true, not made up bullshit.

Dave's Body is Haunted by Shit From 2020

My shoulder hurts-- which hasn't been the case since 2019/2020 . . . I aggravated my shoulder trying to hit a topspin one-handed backhand in 2019 and when I finally got an MRI in early 2020, I learned that my right shoulder has some arthritis, some bone cysts, and some swelling . . . not the worst case scenario-- but these elements have gotten organized once again and are making a team effort to make my shoulder sore and swollen and so it's hard to make a right-handed lay-up or hit an overhead smash in tennis and pickleball-- and throwing a football a good distance is out of the question-- but I'm taking naproxen, like the doctor said, and it's starting to work-- and I'm also recovering from a calf strain-- and this is another injury resurfacing from 2020 . . . I hurt it playing indoor soccer and though I played indoor soccer this weekend, I could still feel it a bit, so I stopped after an hour . . . and I guess this is just how it's going to be-- the same injuries are going to resurface when I push my body too much and they will always be there, lingering in the background, and I'll also accumulate new injuries . . . and then I'll get some kind of illness or disease and croak (and hopefully, I will eloquently document it all for your reading displeasure).

The Bell Tolls for Show and Tell

I'm doing something new in Creative Writing class-- I used to begin class with "Show and Tell" . . . one or two kids would read a passage from their favorite book or they would play a little bit of a favorite song and explain why they liked it-- but many of these newfangled digital kids have trouble presenting things in a compelling fashion and because of the fragmented state of art and media, they also don't share much common culture, so there's not much statistical likelihood that what they present will resonate with the crowd-- so I ditched this routine and instead of this, we are beginning each class with a free-writing prompt; today's prompt was "describe yourself in the third person as if you were a character in a novel" and I always tackle the prompt too . . . moments after we began writing, I asked the class if they knew some synonyms for "really really good looking," which made a few students chuckle (of course, I'm sure there were a few who did not detect the irony and thought I was just a vain narcissist).

Note to (Flatulent) Self

You should not consume "egg roll in a bowl" before you play pickleball because . . . cabbage.

Why Is That Lizard Wearing a Fur Coat?

My wife assisted me in some body hair removal today, transforming my back and shoulders from a hairy pelt to lovely smooth skin and changing one of my tattoos from a proto-mammal back into a reptile.

Let There be Light (and Screws)

The sun finally came out today-- which made nearly everything better: dog-walking; dog-bathing; dog-drying; pickleball; and head-shaving . . . the only thing task that was still annoying was my wife's project: switching out all the cabinet handles in the kitchen . . . some are five inches wide, some are five and a sixteenth inches wide, some of the screws are stripped, and -- according to some guy with a very nice woodshop on YouTube-- we might be dealing with some low-quality screws.

Temperature Temperance

I did a roaming coverage today during first period-- so that various teachers could attend IEP meetings-- and I also stopped in a couple of other classrooms along my journey, to visit friends, and I noticed that, from classroom to classroom, there are fairly large temperature swings-- the first class I was in was hot enough to make me dazed . . . so I convinced this teacher to open a window so that I would not pass out-- though she said she felt cold-- which I attributed to some horrible illness and I think I actually convinced her she was coming down with something-- and I wanted to open more windows but there were guys on the roof making a shitload of noise with leafblowers, so I couldn't-- but what do you do when two people have such a different perception of the same temperature?-- there's only so much clothing you can remove or put on-- especially in the workplace-- and the other classrooms I visited were also fairly warm, so then when I got back to my classroom, enraged, I opened all the windows and made it very very cold-- cold enough that the students complained-- so I closed a couple windows, but then a teacher stopped in my room, to give a student a pass, and she said, "this room is nice and cold-- the rest of the building is so hot!" and I agreed with her and felt a great kinship with this lady . . . meanwhile, I felt great disdain for the teachers that were keeping their windows shut, not only were their rooms stifling hot, but they also smelled kind of funky . . . I guess I'm going to have to start carrying around a thermometer so I can point out to people when their perception of hot and cold is ludicrous (and I think people will really enjoy this information, just as they love it when I correct their grammar in real-time).

You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Transgression

Yesterday was the first day of the second semester, and so I met my new class of Creative Writing students and we did all the first day of school stuff-- cell phones in the cell phone holder; some first-day activities; name mnemonics on index cards . . . you know the drill-- and after I memorized all the names and recited them several times, I started collecting index cards-- and there were about five minutes left in class but I was obviously done so some kids got up to get their phones and then they started milling around by the door-- these were sophomores and I forget how sophomores behave because I mainly teach seniors-- so I was like: "stop milling around by the door and get back in the general vicinity of your desk because I don't like kids milling around near the door or anywhere near my person or my desk" and they were like: "okay, but someone escaped" and I was like: "wtf?" and I had everyone sit back down and-- lo and behold! one of the desks that was previously occupied was now empty-- one of the sophomores had slithered out the door, probably to go to lunch early-- and because I had just memorized their names I knew the name of the missing girl and I was like: "wow . . . I've been teaching for nearly thirty years and that's a new one for the first day of class . . . some first impression" and I wrote the girl up and sent an email to the girl's parents (no reply yet) and I can't wait to see what kind of second impression this girl makes when I chastise her in person tomorrow.