It's still raining and I ate too many cookies and the Jets game is as bad as the weather and I need to replace a dangerously wobbly ceiling fan, but at least I cleaned up some of my study/recording studio (until I gave up . . . it's that kind of day).
I'm trying to finish up the new episode of my podcast-- which is about Colin Dickey's book Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy and I mainly record early-- before school-- but lately, an orchestra of crickets has been ruining my audio (a bunch of fucking chirping crickets are actually called an "orchestra," I didn't make that up) and I'm wondering if this orchestra of crickets all got together and decided to fuck with me, especially because the theme of the book is conspiratorial thinking and it just seems weird that I've never had this problem before (but it IS a real problem-- there's a Reddit thread about it).
If you get picked up by this Galaxy ambulance-- which resembles my own dilapidated minivan but represents a company whose motto is "Medical transportation at its finest" -- what kind of hospital will you end up at?
I walked my dog down to the park this morning, in the pouring rain, and then I let her loose to do her business . . . we do this walk every morning and she's generally quite good off-leash-- she might chase a deer or a squirrel for a few yards, but then she comes right back when I call her-- but this morning it was very dark and hard for me to see what was going on and she noticed some creature moving by the trees, but when she trotted after this critter, it did NOT run away-- it ambled a few yards, and that's when I saw the white stripe and understood that Lola was face-to-ass with a skunk . . . and she didn't really know what to do, because generally when she chases an animal, the animal runs away, but this skunk was not fazed in the least-- so the skunk moseyed across the road and Lola moseyed behind her, and even though I yelled for her to come-- knowing that if she got sprayed I'd have to take the day off from work and wash her down with tomato juice (and it was pouring)-- Lola kept trailing the skunk . . . so I used the counter-intuitive technique that always works in these situations: I started walking home, up the hill, away from Lola and the skunk, and then I yelled, "Let's get a treat" and I turned my back to her and kept walking . . . and she high-tailed it over to me because she never wants to be left behind, especially when treats are involved, and I leashed her and we beat a hasty retreat-- and now I will be on the look-out for this skunk-- but I'm hoping it was just out in the open because so many earthworms had surfaced because of the downpour.
I played some singles pickleball today with a young man named Ryan Cheng-- who played Division I tennis for Yale-- and while I didn't score many points on him, I like to think that I had him on the run (but he kept running to the ball and getting it back . . . I could make him run, but I couldn't get it past him).
By Tuesday evening of this week, I was already totally overwhelmed-- I got up early both Monday and Tuesday morning to work on a new episode of the podcast; then I went and played early morning sports; my classroom A/C broke and I was invaded by wasps; Back-to-School-Night was looming and I knew my Thursday night was going to be long and annoying; Friday afternoon I was planning on driving to Muhlenberg and back, to pick up my son because my brother is getting married this weekend; I had to print out emergence sub-plans, figure out the dual enrollment college credit stuff for my classes, plan for four preps, figure out this new Rutgers assignment . . . but then I figured out the solution to my anxiety: I had a cold beer while I was cooking dinner (Catherine was working) and I went out on the porch and smoked a bit of the pre-rolled joint inside the little plastic container (which is labelled Jungle Boys . . . ZkittlezCake) that the gas station attendant handed me when I got some gas over the summer-- I was like: "What's this?" and the attendant said it was in the well next to the gas cap, under the lid-- which was odd-- but I solved the mystery when I talked to my son, who said it was his friend's joint and his friend didn't want it to smell up the van-- which was very considerate-- so he stashed it next to the gas cap (and then forgot about it, of course) and so I put on "Shadrach" and put it to good use.
At school on Tuesday, I noticed that although my portable A/C unit was running and though it was kicking out some cool air, my room was still uncomfortably hot and humid and I was NOT happy about this-- I played 6:30 AM basketball that morning and even though I showered, I was starting to sweat again-- and what really bothered me was that this little A/C unit had managed to cool the room down during the REALLY hot days last week-- so what he fuck was going on?-- and then, to add insult to injury, the last period of the day, large wasps started invading my room-- I climbed up on the window ledge and killed one by swatting it with a folder and the kids applauded, as they always do, but then two more wasps showed up and I had to climb up on the ledge AGAIN and kill them-- one wasp perched on a window frame behind the blind and I just whacked the blind with my folder, which decapitated the wasp, and I was able to kill the other one when it landed on a light fixture, but this was getting old-- I had to teach some college essay stuff that the kids actually needed to know-- but after I killed the third wasp, from my unusual perspective above the A/C unit, I noticed the duct that kicked out the hot air that the unit produced (that's the 2nd law of thermodynamics, perhaps?) had disconnected from the window seal, so the hot air that was supposed to vent outside was instead being blown back into my room-- mystery solved!-- that's what was causing the room to be so hot-- despite the fact that the A/C was running an producing cold air . . . because it was producing a greater amount of hot air, but that air was supposed to be vented outthe window, where it could contribute to global warming; I was annoyed that I didn't notice this earlier-- but when you're simultaneously teaching and killing wasps, it's hard to focus on other things-- and to this point, earlier in the day, none of us noticed a giant pile of broken safety glass in the corner of the English Office, scattered on the floor and low shelf-- perhaps this was a glass from a refrigerator shelf, from one of the confiscated refrigerators? who knows?-- we told the main office and went on with the day; anyway, I brought in some duct tape and sealed the vents permanently so that this won't happen again and I'm hoping that the open vent hole was how the wasps entered my room (but I doubt it).
Counterweight is the first book by anonymous Korean author Djuma translated into English-- I won't bother trying to explain the plot, but there's a space elevator; a giant corporation run by AI that has depleted the resources on a once impoverished island in order to build the space-elevator; a number of characters that may or may not be who they claim-- and most of these characters are under various amounts of influence, subconscious and conscious, from their respective Worms-- the brain implants that broker and network AI and organic neural activity . . . anyway, wheels-within-wheels, abundant conspiracies, and a different feel than the most typical American sci-fi trope . . . the lone rebel fighting the dystopian oppression: Katniss Everdeen against the Capitol, Neo vs. the Matrix, Montag fighting the book-burning-firemen . . . this has a different feel-- everyone is in on the conspiracy, everyone works for the company, or some other company (Green Fairy) and no one is a lone wolf, they are all aware that they are fighting the system from within, not without.
I was walking with Stacey and she needed to stop at the vice-principal's office to turn in a packet of papers-- and it turned out I needed to hand in this packet of papers as well (rosters and emergency sub plans) but I didn't know this stuff was due and the venerable secretary, Paulette, who I've known forever-- said, "Dave it was in the email Andy sent" and I said, "Oh . . . I'm not on that email thing" and she nearly shit herself-- she was like: "DAVE! You've got to get email!" and then I told her I was kidding and reassured her that I had access to my school email account . . . but she was fully ready to believe that I had taught the last twenty-years without checking my email.
Today was the first full day of school-- we had half days last week because of the oppressive heat-- and it was the first day I had to navigate the microwave moratorium/good stewardship-of-public buildings initiative (they confiscated all our personal fridges, fans, and microwaves because of a toaster fire in the summer) so Stacey and I carried our food containers on plates, down to the faculty room, and used the school-approved microwaves to heat our food; then I had to walk briskly down to the cafeteria-- while carrying a hot glass container of Asian noodles on a plate-- to grab a plastic fork and also fill my water bottle (because none of the fountains are running upstairs) and then I walked back up the stairs so I could eat with my people-- but it seemed fairly convivial in the faculty room, so maybe I'll occasionally branch out and eat there (although that means I'm going to have to review names of staff) but mainly I'll just consider this roaming around extra exercise-- we played pickleball this morning before school and I hit 10,000 steps before noon, which means I can take a nap after school instead of going to the gym.
On the mornings when I play sports before school, I often wear sandals while I teach; it's faster and easier for me to put on sandals when I'm soaking wet-- just out of the shower-- trying to dry off and change into school clothes in the crowded coach's room and rush to first period . . . so yesterday after basketball, I wore my gray Chaco sandals with a pair of gray cargo pants and a black UnderArmour golf shirt-- pretty sharp, I thought-- and I apologized to my first-period class about my exposed toes and explained the situation-- very little time to shower, the difficulty of putting socks on when it's humid, time constraints, the desire to shed heat through my feet-- but to their credit, the students were oddly unfazed: usually the first time I wear sandals in class the kids give me some flak, but this time a girl simply said, "You English teachers always have your toes out," which struck me as peculiar, so I did some further investigation-- both around the school and on the internet-- and it turns out that high school kids think it's weird to reveal their toes in school-- they don't wear strappy sandals or heels or athletic slides or Jesus sandals or flip-flops-- in fact, they're so self-conscious about their feet and toes that they even wear socks even when they are sporting Crocs-- which I find nuts-- and at this point the student body seems to be used to the English department baring it all (below the ankle) as a matter of course (and I think they categorize us as "a bunch of hippies").
Tuesday morning I couldn't miss, but this morning I had a terrible day shooting from outside the arc at 6:30 AM basketball, but I redeemed myself with some rockstar teaching-- or perhaps alt-country star teaching-- as I played a rousing rendition of Lyle Lovett's song "Church" to my brand new senior special topics English class, "Music and the Arts"-- and then sent them on their way, as we had another half-day because of the heat, a wonderful way to start the week.
The day before the students come, we always have a three-hour staff meeting that is a rollercoaster of topics, tones, and emotions: without transition, we move from teachers who have gotten married; to introductions of new teachers; to teachers who have had babies; to how important classroom climate is; to bloodborne pathogens; to the budget for building a new high school; and then, just when we were getting sleepy the SSO (Special Security Officer) did a presentation about school-shootings and the utilitarian calculus you have to do once a lockdown is implemented: if you have a classroom full of students hidden in the appropriate place and some slow-moving student knocks on your locked door, they are shit-out-of-luck (and if the intruder does get into your classroom, his final advice was: throw shit at him) and you have to endure this three-hour rollercoaster ride while sitting on immobile backless plastic cafeteria seats . . . people leave on the brink of madness.
My wife and I are now "empty-nesters"-- we moved Ian to Muhlenberg a couple of weeks ago and I moved Alex into his Rutgers College Avenue dorm (Clothier) in New Brunswick last Friday-- and the two move-in experiences were quite different, which makes sense, as one school is a small college on a self-contained campus and the other is a large state university intertwined within a midsized city and several surrounding residential areas; here's a quick description of each move-in;
1) when we pulled up to Muhlenberg College, there was plenty of signage; a number of helpful campus employees to direct us; and when we arrived in front of Ian's dorm, a throng of upperclassmen surrounded our car, asked for Ian's room number, and started carrying all his belongs to his room; once the car was emptied, I was directed to a nearby parking lot (free) and then we set up Ian's room and ate (free) lunch in the dining hall . . . lovely;
2) when we pulled up near Alex's dorm, a police officer told me to put my hazards on and then we were instructed to quickly unload all of Alex's stuff onto the sparse lawn in front of the dorm; I was then instructed to park in some deck (not free) quite far from the dorm-- but instead I found metered parking near HoneyGrow-- and then I walked back and helped Alex carry all his stuff up the stairs (pro tip: he has a lot of plants-- which have survived from freshman to sophomore year-- because they filter bad odors from his room) and while we were setting things up, a cop walked through the dorm, yelling: "The U-Haul and the white Ford Sierra are going to be towed-- if they are not moved immediately, they are going to be towed!"
