Quitter?

I was shooting the shit with another veteran educator yesterday, and we were discussing our exit strategies from the field when a student wandered back into my classroom to collect her bookbag-- she had left it there when she ran to the nurse-- and she overheard a bit of our conversation and said to me, "Mr. P. wait . . . you're quitting?" and I said, "Nancy, it's not called quitting, it's called retiring! I've been doing this job for 31 years!" and she processed that insanity for a moment and then said, "Well, I'll really miss you . . . oh actually, I'll be graduated, so I guess it doesn't matter" and I said, "I'll miss you too, it's kids like you that have kept me coming back . . . but enough is enough already!" and she agreed.

All the Pretty Good Horses

After we read James Wright's serene and transcendent poem "A Blessing," I like to have my Creative Writing students draw the scene-- at a minimum, they are required to sketch two graceful, docile "Indian ponies" that can "hardly contain their happiness" and if they're really cooking with gas, then they can also attempt to draw the narrator, who is so entranced by these kind and mysterious animals in the twilight that he says, epiphanically: "Suddenly I realize that if I stepped out of my body I would break into blossom" and, year after year, the results of asking kids to draw beautiful horses are extraordinary: .  

and I do NOT allow the students to use their computers or phones to look at horses before they draw, and the point of this exercise (besides my amusement) is that for most of us, it is much easier to use our words to convey tone than it is for us to visually represent tone, especially if the tone is enchanting . . .

and there is a bonus message to this lesson; noted writer Garrison Keillor once had James Wright as a teacher and Keillor describes Wright as lecturing through the haze of a hangover while smoking cigarettes and ashing in a tuna fish can-- so think on this irony: this unkempt figure wrote some of the most beautiful and evocative lines of poetry in the English language-- this should be inspirational to all of us, you don't have to be a beautiful person to write a beautiful poem . . . 

but you do need some real skill to DRAW a beautiful horse.

Dave's a Killer . . . Dave's a Mess

Dave is crushing it today; he's a killer . . . for the second morning in a row, he solved the Wordle in two guesses, and he also made a triumphant return to morning basketball, despite a tight lower back, and shot 5/7 from behind the arc . . . but Dave is also a mess; he's feeling the mounting pressure to solve the Wordle in two again tomorrow and there's just no way it's going to happen and his back also hurts when he sits in a chair-- but he's not allowed to complain about his back after he does athletic endeavors or his wife is going to kill him, because he doesn't let it rest enough and she doesn't want to hear that shit when Dave is bringing it upon himself-- so strike that complaint from the record, Dave's back feels great! . . . but he's still nervous about tomorrow's Wordle.

This Is What My Dog Says When She's Hungry

It's not quite English, but you get the gist.

 

Automobiles, Automobiles, Automobiles (and The Cult)

A very un-Dave weekend, but I survived and had a pretty damned good time, despite all the traffic: Saturday morning, I drove my Kia Sportage forty minutes through typical New Jersey traffic to Zman's house-- there's no good way to get there from Highland Park-- and then after listening to a few tales of Zwife's driving misadventures, we got into Zman's Alfa Romeo and headed up to Hopkinton-- home of Gormley and also the town where the Boston Marathon starts-- but we had to wade into epic traffic on the Hutchinson or the Cross Bronx or the Merritt-- who the fuck knows the difference between those roads?-- so we stopped for lunch at Zuppardi's Apizza in West Haven, which was delicious-- and then fought through a bunch more traffic on the way to Gormley's lovely abode, in the piney, fern gullied, rock-walled suburbs of Hopkinton-- and then we took a walk through the hood, where we did NOT encounter a beach ball (fucking AI is destroying reality) and then got ready to head to the show, which was in Boston city center, at the Orpheum-- and Gormley's wife drove us in, through even more traffic (thanks Liz!) and we hopped out at a traffic light and then I had to chase down the car because I left my phone charging in the backseat . . . I caught up to Liz as she was turning right, knocked on the window, jumped in and grabbed my phone, and then jumped out of the car before anyone could even beep at her-- a random middle-aged white dude was impressed by my alacrity and he said, "nice move!" and I held up my phone and told him "my ticket to the show is on here!" and he said, "Are you going to see The Cult?" and I said, "Yes I am!" and then we went to jm Curley's for drinks and food and then walked to the Orpheum for the show-- the opening act was a noisy duo called The Patriarchy-- but the lead singer was a lady . . . ironic!-- and then The Cult came out as The Death Cult, the goth-punk band that preceded The Cult-- and Ian Astbury was in some sort of Native American dress-robe and they played all the old stuff from Dreamtime and before (e.g. "Gods Zoo") and then the curtain went down, we restocked our beer, and then The Cult came out as The Cult and played all the old favorites, from "Wildflower" to "She Sells Sanctuary"-- I especially enjoyed a stripped-down double time version of "Fire Woman" . . . I guess they were like: we're required to play this but we're going to do it quickly . . . anyway, it was a great show, the band seemed especially energized and invigorated playing the old goth-punk stuff-- Billy Duffy had to actually pay attention to what he was doing instead of cranking out the power chords and the drummer, John Tempesta, is exceptional and really laid down those culturally appropriated tribal beats-- I did have to tell the guy in front of me to lower his phone-- he seemed to think he was filming a documentary-- but once I said something, he stopped holding it up without any conflict-- and in general, the crowd was very pleasant-- it was essentially a convention of burly middle-aged white males, a few still sporting long hair but most bald or balding-- and everyone looked like they were trouble thirty years ago but had since more-or-less assimilated into normal society-- it made me think of how long a history I have with this band-- I first saw them on the Electric tour in July of 1987 at the Felt Forum-- so 38 years ago-- it was an insane show-- they opened with "Bad Fun" and the moshing was actually violent and Ian got stuck on top of a amplifier at one point and roadies had to help him down . . . there's not many bands that I saw in high school that are still touring (The Who are probably the only other band that fits into this category, although I think they are done now) and then after the show we went back to jm Curley's for a nightcap and caught a ride back to Hopkinton (thanks for arranging that ride, Gormley!) where I finished the leftover pizza and hit the sack and then Zman and I got on the road early and hauled it back to Jersey-- that's more car-time than I prefer to do but I chewed some gum and enjoyed the good craik (as they say in Scotland) and Zman's flawless driving and now I'm home andd getting ready for school tomorrow . . . a whirlwind weekend.

Road Trip with Zman!

On my way to Boston to see The Cult open for themselves . . . I will explain further once I fully understand this paradox.

Do the Right Thing (and Be Punished For It)

After school yesterday, the pickleball gang was meeting at the new pickleball courts in Buccleuch Park-- fourteen new courts!-- and Buccleuch Park is in New Brunswick, adjacent to the Rutgers College Ave campus-- so the perfect distance to bike ride from my house in Highland Park . . . this would be a great warm-up for my hamstrings and hips AND I wanted to do the right thing and not add more traffic and pollution to the general mayhem that is New Brunswick/Rutgers at the start of the semester so I took a look at Google Maps and noticed that the shortest route was one I had taken before-- you go across the Route 27 bridge from Highland Park to New Brunswick, and then you go past the homeless encampment and through a tunnel that goes under the bridge and then you take a narrow, overgrown, pavement path in between Route 18 and the south bank of the Raritan River-- and the path is definitely decrepit and ruinous and in disrepair, full of trash and overgrown with ragweed and poison ivy, but it's not closed-- so I rode this path, which I hadn't been on in many years-- since COVID?-- and I passed some sketchy looking holes in the fence and a homeless guy actually shooting heroin-- the needle was in his arm-- and I had to pass very close to him because the path was so narrow and I didn't want to fall down the cliff and into the river--

and I finally got to the stairs which lead to a bike path bridge over Route 18, and then this bridge connects to the Rutgers campus bike path-- but when I reached the top of the stairs, the gate to get out was chained and padlocked-- 

so after going through all the stages of grief and doing a lot of cursing-- I could SEE the Rutgers children and see the Rutgers buildings, but I could not escape the caged bridge and there was no way across Route 18 there-- it was a multi-lane freeway under and overpass with a high concrete divider in the middle-- so after much profanity, I texted the pickleball crew, told them I would be late-- and carried my back back down the stairs, rode the overgrown path, passed the homeless guy-- who had now set up a tarp and was shooting heroin again . . . I had to walk my bike past him so as not to run into him-- I said, "right behind you, man . . . the gate was locked!" but he didn't seem to feel my pain-- and then I biked all the way back to the bridge, crossed over into New Brunswick proper and biked through the College Avenue campus to the park, where I played some pickleball, and then I biked home in the ensuing darkness, using the New Brunswick bike lanes-- but there were some assholes parked in the bike lanes in places so I yelled at them-- and my next move is this: I'm going to write an irate letter to the city of New Brunswick-- they either need to indicate that this bike path is closed or they need to clean it up and open the gate-- but this anecdote is a microcosm of our bike paths in Middlesex County-- there are some decent ones but none of them connect particularly well and there are always dangerous unprotected sections and it's really not viable to bike places unless you're willing to risk your life . . . so that's one of the many reasons everyone is in their car creating traffic (some of the other reasons are that people are stupid and people are lazy).

Excremental Learning

They say an old dog cannot learn new tricks and that might be true, but an old man learned a new trick this morning-- my lower back has been hurting, and so I've been having some difficulty picking up and bagging my dog's stool . . . especially on our morning walk, when my body is not warmed up-- but this morning, I took a very wide stance-- that is the key, widening the stance-- and then I did a semi-lunge to pick up the yucky stuff and it was much easier: an old man learns a new trick!

The Old Man Takes a Day

Twenty years ago, when I took a "mental health day," I would go extreme mountain biking, or hiking, or fly-fishing at the Ken Lockwood Gorge for a run on the beach or something epic, but I am obviously getting old-- today I took the day off because I couldn't sleep last night because of my lower back and hip, so I went and got a massage; then to Costco where I spent an inordinate amount of money on mundane items; and then took an epic nap . . . but now my back and hip feel better and I think I'll be able to carry on tomorrow.

Methought the Kids Knew This Word

Woe is me . . . or perhaps I should say: "sad is me" or maybe "methinks I am sad" because yesternight,  methought that high school seniors knew the meaning of the word "woe" but today, while teaching Hamlet, I learned that the majority of students do NOT know the meaning of the word woe-- or as my fellow Language Arts teacher Denise said: "the distance between the students and the English language keeps growing larger."

Hypothetical Hyperbolic HW Nearly Foments Real Revolution

Last Friday, my senior College Writing class read the first scene of Hamlet, and we learned that the nation of Denmark is worried about an unsanctioned Norwegian invasion, led by a vengeful Young Fortinbras-- who wants to recover the lands that his father lost in a battle with Old King Hamlet (who appears in the play as a ghost) but Young Fortinbras did not get permission from his bedrid uncle to spearhead this invasion so Young Fortinbras has gathered a wild band of desperadoes and organized a rogue mercenary army to do his bidding . . . but the Shakespearean description of this is rather dense and difficult reading, so I always preface it by saying, "Ok, this is your homework over the weekend"-- which piques their interest-- and then the kids are confused but, slowly but surely, we figure out the passage:

Now, sir, young Fortinbras,

Of unimprovèd mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
Sharked up a list of lawless resolutes
For food and diet to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in it, which is no other
(As it doth well appear unto our state)
But to recover of us, by strong hand
And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
So by his father lost.

and the students finally recognize that I am telling them to collect-- or "shark up"-- their most "lawless" friends and acquaintances and go out and do some vengeance upon their enemies and perform some deeds that "hath a stomach in it" and we chuckle about this absurd suggestion and move on . . . but I now realize that my sarcastic hypothetical hyperbole might have been lost on a few students because a kid from my class passed me by today in the hall and he asked, sincerely, "What was that homework we had to do again? It was confusing," and I was like, "Yikes . . . I was just kidding . . . please don't shark up a bunch of lawless resolutes and form a rogue army and recover any lands by strong hands and then say I had anything to do with it."

How to Prevent Munchausen by Proxy and Stockholm Syndrome

My "robust immune response" to the flu and COVID vaccines has finally dissipated-- and while my symptoms were real, I'm not sure my wife and my friends actually believed me-- and my wife was certainly not controlling me using the Munchausen by proxy method . . . I'm too intolerable when I'm sick, so no one in their right mind would try that bullshit on me-- I also think I'm too annoying to be involved in Stockholm Syndrome (in either direction) and the way to prevent that from happening is also to be really annoying . . . I will keep y'all posted on how to prevent other weird syndromes (e.g. Jerusalem syndrome, Paris syndrome, Capgras syndrome, Stendhal syndrome, the Cotard delusion, and the Fregoli delusion) in the future.

Hypothetical Schadenfreude Alleviates Dave's Misery

Yesterday at school-- for the good of the children, the old people, the country in general, science, and my immune system-- I got both the new COVID booster and the flu shot (COVID booster on my left shoulder, which is still very fucking sore, and flu shot on my right shoulder, which is less sore) and I am unhappy to report that I couldn't sleep last night-- I had the chills and everything I've ever injured in my entire life aches (including my fucking back) and I feel like absolute garbage today and the only thing that will make me happy is if the people at work who neglected to get the vaccines get really sick and have a bad case of vomiting and diarrhea (at school . . . in front of all their students).

Battling Two Vaccine Shots While Writing A Review For One Battle After Another

My wife and I saw One Battle After Another, and all I can say is that I'm proud of Paul Thomas Anderson (and all the excellent actors and actresses in the film) for making such a spot-on, brave, funny, compelling, satirical, dystopian, and incredibly topical film . . . the film seems to be set in a parallel universe that reminds us that we are now living in a Trumpian parallel universe-- how things might have been if they actually got the vote count right in Florida!-- and in this universe, late 60s Black Panther/BLA and early 70s style Weather Underground liberal violent resistance is still happening and is now directed toward undocumented detainment camps . . . and this sort of violent resitance-- freeing detainees, robbing banks, housing undocumented immigrants-- would be difficult because of the amount of digital surveillance (but the film attempts to address this) and the government is portrayed as a parody of our current regime-- everyone sounds like Stephen Miller and Trump-- there is fear and paranoia of the enemy within and the aliens trying to invade . . . but the film also portrays the futility of violent revolution, how it usually ends in imprisonment, betrayals, informants, ratting, snitching, hiding, drug abuse, loss of purpose, difficulty rejoining society and all the rest . . . Leonardo DiCaprio really lenas into his role as Bob Ferguson-- and the film is often laugh-out-loud funny . . . anyway, I'm fading fast, I got both my flu shot and my COVID shot today (fuck you, RFK) so I'll end this review in incoherence, as I think I have a low-grade fever, but remember-- time is a human created construct that doesn't actually exist . . . but it controls our lives.

The Call Is Coming From Inside the Hat!

After I play pickleball, I hang my sweaty baseball caps on the clothesline across our back deck so that they can air out and dry-- yesterday, just before I went down to the park to play, I grabbed a hat off the clothesline, put it on my head, and then I went inside my house to fill a water bottle . . . and while i was filling the bottle, I felt a lump on my head and I felt the top of the hat and there was a bump-- but the bump was inside the hat . . . weird . . . so I took off the hat and felt my head . . . no bump-- very weird-- but then I looked inside the hat and there was a large spider in there, which had been sitting on my head, causing this lump in the hat . . . and, perhaps because I was all alone, I was surprisingly calm, despite my intense dislike of spiders, and I shook the spider into the sink and squashed it (and then checked my head for other spiders, but I was in the clear).

Get Out of Your Car and Regain Ambulatory Autonomy!

When I get to school early, I like to "pull through" and get a spot with my car facing out, and to get one of these coveted spots, I often have to park between two other cars, and I am finding more and more that when I pull between these two cars, there are still people inside the cars and these people continue to sit there while I hop out and grab my stuff and start my day . . . so I asked in the English Office and apparently lots of people like to sit in their cars once they arrive at work-- which seems totally fucked up to me, I can't wait to get out of the car . . . I hate sitting, and I hate being trapped in a little box, and I want to regain ambulatory autonomy-- but evidently these people want to sit in a little metal box and talk on the phone or listen to one more song or listen to some inspirational self-help guru-- I heard that shit emanating from one parked car-- or they're just avoiding going into the building because they hate work or they are introverts or they get anxious-- but my advice to these people is:

1) stop idling and polluting the air;

2) get out of your car and live your life!

Just Give Me Some Time, Dammit!

On the basketball court, I need a fair bit of time to set up for a three-point shot . . . and in the kitchen, I need a fair bit of time to set up to cook a meal.

My Back, Unlike World Liberty Financial, Is In the Red

My back is no longer back in the black-- it's in the red, deep in the red . . . so I should NOT have played three hours of pickleball yesterday, nor should I have read the news-- as far as I understand it, Trump pushed out US attorney Erik Siebert because he refused to pursue "trumped up" charges on James Comey and replaced him with an inexperienced beauty queen named Lindsey Halligan AND Trump also essentially received a quid pro quo bribe from an Abu Dhabi investment fund, to the tune of a 2 billion dollar investment in World Liberty Financial, and then the Trump White House reversed restrictions on the export of Nvidia AI computer chips to the U.A.E.-- though I guess this deal hasn't gone through yet becuase of security concerns, but still WTF?-- and, worst of all, my classroom is especially dank and smelling of mold because it was so unseasonably hot and humid over the weekend . . . such a Monday.

My Back is Back in the Black

I was out of commission for a day, but now my back is back in the black so forget the hearse because I never die-- I played three hours of pickleball today, stiff back and all-- basically, I've got nine lives and I'm abusing every one of them, so look at me now: dinking and slamming and winning hand battles . . . I'm just making my play and I'm hitting a wicked backhand flick as a speed-up as well, so don't try to push your luck, just get out of my way-- perhaps my back is back in the black because I hit the sack early last night-- but even one day of rest is too long for me, it's been too long and I'm glad to be back, with my gang, going out with a bang, looking at the sky and realizing it's time for lunch.

Back to School: Not Great For My F$#king Back

For the first time in a long, long time, my lower back has seized up-- probably from playing basketball yesterday morning and then teaching three 83-minute periods and then going to happy hour at B2 Bistro and sitting on a barstool for several hours . . . who knows? . . . but I am unable to put socks on and will be lying on the couch all day (not the worst sentence for Dave) and I need to start going to acupuncture again.