"Thank you very much, I'll be here all week. Please, tip your waitresses." These were the words I left my colleagues with this afternoon as I left Ballroom Number One at the Airport Hilton. I've spent the past few days in the cozy confines of the Reading First Seminar hosted by the Governor's Reading Initiative. There are twenty-some of us teachers sitting patiently at round tables beneath questionable lighting and plenty of air-conditioning. And I'm doing my very best at behaving.
I wouldn't have thought that distinction necessary, but interestingly enough, it was pointed out first by a friend of mine the day before the training began. After listening to me complain briefly about being held hostage for five days, he suggested that I was secretly looking forward to it. It would be a chance to interact with my fellow teachers and maybe even entertain a bit. "Yeah, sure," I shrugged.
Then, on the first morning, I ran into one of my instructors from a previous year who asked me point blank: "Are you going to behave this week?" Apparently my reputation precedes me. I was the kid who was asked to leave my Elementary Functions class in high school because, in the words of my teacher back then, "You're an instigator."
I've never considered myself to be "class clown." I am happy to leave that distinction to other more manic personalities. It is true that I enjoy sharing my sense of humor with most any willing or captive audience, and I find that classrooms afford me just that.
I have gone to some great pains to make sure that I don't ignore or offend my instructor. On the contrary. I have been a very enthusiastic and involved participant. I sit at the front table and I am on task and ready to go. The challenge comes when things don't go. That's where I fill in with my witty bon mot. I have been careful not to overdo it, and I am grateful to have a set of fresh faces to apply my charm. I use the following statement as my measure: "I wish there was somebody like you on our staff."
Am I just there to amuse? No. I have learned a few things, and I have, as predicted, enjoyed the company of my fellow teachers. I have one more day to make an impression. I just hope they don't remember me as "an instigator."
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
I Was Told There Would Be No Math
Peabody here: Kids, let's set the Way-Back Machine for minus ten years and head back just one decade shall we? Ready, Sherman?
The president said lawmakers must resist the temptation to "squander" that money. "In this election year, some now want to raid the surplus for initiatives instead of preserving every penny of the surplus until we strengthen Social Security. Let me clear: I will oppose any budget that fails to set aside the surpluses until we have strengthened Social Security for the 21st century." New White House budget figures that project a surplus of thirty nine billion dollars for fiscal year 1998, and a one hundred fifty billion dollar surplus over the next five years.
For those of you who are a little hazy about life before Pinhead, the president way back then was the husband of that cute little gal who was running for the office this year, remember? His name was Clinton, too.
And so now, because we have yet to convert the Way-Back Machine to a hybrid, we have to come back to the present, where falling government revenues amid a slowing economy, coupled with increased federal spending, will result in a U.S. budget deficit this year of around four hundred billion dollars. Just a reminder, that "billion" is the one with nine zeros. Maybe we haven't all gone out and spent our economic stimulus checks yet. Maybe the housing bubble is about to burst. Maybe the cost of fertilizer for all our flowering democracies in the Middle East is turning out to be more expensive than we had anticipated.
Before you get all excited and decide to pack your bags and head back to the past for good, remember that any fluctuation in the time-space continuum could result in disastrous effects. Sure, you might be able to go back to a time when gas was a dollar-something a gallon, and the president lied about sex, but the slightest fluctuation could change history forever. What if the fabric of time was ripped, and there was no "King of Queens?" Is that really worth four hundred billion dollars?
I thought so.
The president said lawmakers must resist the temptation to "squander" that money. "In this election year, some now want to raid the surplus for initiatives instead of preserving every penny of the surplus until we strengthen Social Security. Let me clear: I will oppose any budget that fails to set aside the surpluses until we have strengthened Social Security for the 21st century." New White House budget figures that project a surplus of thirty nine billion dollars for fiscal year 1998, and a one hundred fifty billion dollar surplus over the next five years.
For those of you who are a little hazy about life before Pinhead, the president way back then was the husband of that cute little gal who was running for the office this year, remember? His name was Clinton, too.
And so now, because we have yet to convert the Way-Back Machine to a hybrid, we have to come back to the present, where falling government revenues amid a slowing economy, coupled with increased federal spending, will result in a U.S. budget deficit this year of around four hundred billion dollars. Just a reminder, that "billion" is the one with nine zeros. Maybe we haven't all gone out and spent our economic stimulus checks yet. Maybe the housing bubble is about to burst. Maybe the cost of fertilizer for all our flowering democracies in the Middle East is turning out to be more expensive than we had anticipated.
Before you get all excited and decide to pack your bags and head back to the past for good, remember that any fluctuation in the time-space continuum could result in disastrous effects. Sure, you might be able to go back to a time when gas was a dollar-something a gallon, and the president lied about sex, but the slightest fluctuation could change history forever. What if the fabric of time was ripped, and there was no "King of Queens?" Is that really worth four hundred billion dollars?
I thought so.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
A Piece Of Work
I got this great phone call last night from my wife. She was calling from the other side of the country to share with me the news of the stage debut of her musical, "The Souls Of Her Feet." This wasn't a full-on production, but rather a staged reading, in which the actors had a chance to say the lines and sing the songs that have been in her head for so many years now. It was her coming out party. After weeks of preparation, there was a day of rehearsal and then two shows. All of that potential show business became a reality right there in New York City.
I shouldn't have been surprised that she called me so late, since she's hanging out in the City That Never Sleeps. Of course, for the past few weeks that's pretty much been our house as well as she fussed and fretted over the final details and created a cast from one coast to appear on the other. My wish for her was one night of most excellent rest.
Because I know what happens now: rewrites. This is the thing that crushed my own dreams of becoming a screenwriter. I run out of patience with a story or an idea much too quickly to hold something like that together. Once I've told a story, I have a hard time going back and picking at it. I admire anyone with the patience and tenacity to dig in and make a good idea great. There is a great tendency to put something in a drawer and be satisfied that it got that far. The challenge is to keep it out of the drawer and on the desk where it can breathe. Now that it is alive, it's her job to keep it that way. It won't be easy, but I have faith in her. So let's let her have a little rest and a victory lap around the country, then back to work.
I shouldn't have been surprised that she called me so late, since she's hanging out in the City That Never Sleeps. Of course, for the past few weeks that's pretty much been our house as well as she fussed and fretted over the final details and created a cast from one coast to appear on the other. My wish for her was one night of most excellent rest.
Because I know what happens now: rewrites. This is the thing that crushed my own dreams of becoming a screenwriter. I run out of patience with a story or an idea much too quickly to hold something like that together. Once I've told a story, I have a hard time going back and picking at it. I admire anyone with the patience and tenacity to dig in and make a good idea great. There is a great tendency to put something in a drawer and be satisfied that it got that far. The challenge is to keep it out of the drawer and on the desk where it can breathe. Now that it is alive, it's her job to keep it that way. It won't be easy, but I have faith in her. So let's let her have a little rest and a victory lap around the country, then back to work.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Learning From The Past
Today in my Reading Institute, I just happened to find myself sitting across the table from the sister of one of my former students. He's getting ready to attend the eighth grade, and his sister is starting her first year back teaching after a year off for maternity leave, so there's quite a big gap between them, but there I was, spending the day with Nestor's big sister.
"You remember Nestor, right?" she asked.
I tried to get a face from the past, but came up with a jumble of possibilities.
"He used to cry a lot."
Bingo. Now I knew exactly who her little brother was. This was a kid who spent half of the fourth grade in the hallway, too shy to come in the door. And the tears. Nestor would cry if you looked at him sideways, and there was a lot of that at my school. Somehow we made it through the year, and I remember that he even walked into class on his own for the last few months without his mother.
"You know, he wanted you to move up to fifth grade and be his teacher the next year too," his sister told me later in the day.
I didn't know that. Now that I'm getting ready to turn my teaching clock back a few years and return to the computer lab, that kind of information is a pleasant reminder of how things used to be. And maybe they will be again. Only without quite so much crying.
"You remember Nestor, right?" she asked.
I tried to get a face from the past, but came up with a jumble of possibilities.
"He used to cry a lot."
Bingo. Now I knew exactly who her little brother was. This was a kid who spent half of the fourth grade in the hallway, too shy to come in the door. And the tears. Nestor would cry if you looked at him sideways, and there was a lot of that at my school. Somehow we made it through the year, and I remember that he even walked into class on his own for the last few months without his mother.
"You know, he wanted you to move up to fifth grade and be his teacher the next year too," his sister told me later in the day.
I didn't know that. Now that I'm getting ready to turn my teaching clock back a few years and return to the computer lab, that kind of information is a pleasant reminder of how things used to be. And maybe they will be again. Only without quite so much crying.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
I'm A Loner, A Rebel
"I'm a ramblin' guy - got a lot of important things to do. Are you kidding? What time's the TV go off?" - Steve Martin
I hear you, Steve. I've just rambled through the first twelve hours of my week of bachelorhood, and I'm already starting to bump into things. Where I once considered myself quite the lone wolf, I now find that the silence in here is deafening. I plan on getting familiar with each and every one of the hundreds of cable channels at my fingertips.
Then later this afternoon I will be back to looking for something else to do. In the meantime, I'll be trying to pretend that I feel comfortable in my own house. But that's not the worst part. My dog misses my wife and son more than I do. She's wandering around the house, looking out the windows and staring at closed doors, waiting for them to come home. I don't know how to break it to her that I'm it until the rest of the family returns from the East.
It reminds me of another time that my wife and son went off visiting, and I was stuck here at home. For some unfathomable reason, I chose that weekend to go see "The Blair Witch Project" and then came home by myself. My dog was waiting for me then, too. She did the same thing then that she did last night, only back then I was pretty sure that she was peering out into the darkness at some approaching evil. I didn't sleep at all that night.
It's going to be a long week.
I hear you, Steve. I've just rambled through the first twelve hours of my week of bachelorhood, and I'm already starting to bump into things. Where I once considered myself quite the lone wolf, I now find that the silence in here is deafening. I plan on getting familiar with each and every one of the hundreds of cable channels at my fingertips.
Then later this afternoon I will be back to looking for something else to do. In the meantime, I'll be trying to pretend that I feel comfortable in my own house. But that's not the worst part. My dog misses my wife and son more than I do. She's wandering around the house, looking out the windows and staring at closed doors, waiting for them to come home. I don't know how to break it to her that I'm it until the rest of the family returns from the East.
It reminds me of another time that my wife and son went off visiting, and I was stuck here at home. For some unfathomable reason, I chose that weekend to go see "The Blair Witch Project" and then came home by myself. My dog was waiting for me then, too. She did the same thing then that she did last night, only back then I was pretty sure that she was peering out into the darkness at some approaching evil. I didn't sleep at all that night.
It's going to be a long week.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
My Son, The Rocker
I have always taken a great interest in what goes into my son's ears. I am the one who took him to hear Bruce Springsteen, DEVO, and The Police before he was in middle school. I feel as though I have a limited time frame in which to affect his music tastes, and the clock is ticking.
I found this out on our trip to southern California. On the way down, I rode shotgun and programmed the music we listened to via my iPod. I remembered all the road trips I took with my parents as a kid, and the lengthy negotiations we endured to listen to rock and roll as we drove through vast regions of the southwest United States. We listened to a lot of John Denver as a result, and I still have a deep and abiding affection for many of his songs. There are others that still cause a type of allergic reaction. "Rocky Mountain High" gives me hives.
Thus, I was determined not to create a similar reaction in my son. I hate to think of him merely enduring "Cadillac Ranch" or suffering through "Beautiful World". So, when he asked me if he could play a few songs off his iPod, I happily switched the cable and soon we were listening to the world through his ears.
At first I confess I felt a surge of pride as I noticed that many of his favorite songs were the ones to which I had introduced him. Then there were a few I didn't recognize. Happily I did not immediately reach for the volume control, but I was surprised to hear just how hard my son rocks. Bands like Linkin Park and Disturbed came out right next to many of the cute little ditties that I had recorded for him on birthday CDs from the past.
Last night it was time to fill up his iPod for his late-night flight back east with his mother. I worked hard to include as many rock classics as new favorites. I wanted to include Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" without skipping Powerman 500's "When Worlds Collide". It was a painstaking process, but when I had finished assembling his playlist it was seven hours long, and only filled half his disk space.
Oh well. He's eleven. I know that he probably wouldn't mind having a little "Winnie the Pooh" at the end there, just to help him get some sleep.
I found this out on our trip to southern California. On the way down, I rode shotgun and programmed the music we listened to via my iPod. I remembered all the road trips I took with my parents as a kid, and the lengthy negotiations we endured to listen to rock and roll as we drove through vast regions of the southwest United States. We listened to a lot of John Denver as a result, and I still have a deep and abiding affection for many of his songs. There are others that still cause a type of allergic reaction. "Rocky Mountain High" gives me hives.
Thus, I was determined not to create a similar reaction in my son. I hate to think of him merely enduring "Cadillac Ranch" or suffering through "Beautiful World". So, when he asked me if he could play a few songs off his iPod, I happily switched the cable and soon we were listening to the world through his ears.
At first I confess I felt a surge of pride as I noticed that many of his favorite songs were the ones to which I had introduced him. Then there were a few I didn't recognize. Happily I did not immediately reach for the volume control, but I was surprised to hear just how hard my son rocks. Bands like Linkin Park and Disturbed came out right next to many of the cute little ditties that I had recorded for him on birthday CDs from the past.
Last night it was time to fill up his iPod for his late-night flight back east with his mother. I worked hard to include as many rock classics as new favorites. I wanted to include Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" without skipping Powerman 500's "When Worlds Collide". It was a painstaking process, but when I had finished assembling his playlist it was seven hours long, and only filled half his disk space.
Oh well. He's eleven. I know that he probably wouldn't mind having a little "Winnie the Pooh" at the end there, just to help him get some sleep.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Revision
Once upon many years ago, while I was courting my wife-to-be, I wrote her a poem. The refrain of which read, "You can come and go in my life." At the time I was doing everything I could to appear as a witty, clever, and patient potential mate. I was going to play this one very cool. It was important to establish just how much freedom I was willing to install directly into this burgeoning relationship.
Over the years, fifteen of them as married folk, my words have come back in interesting and at times painful ways. The truth is I didn't fully explain myself back then. What I meant to say was, "You can come and go in my life, but I hope you choose to stay." That last bit didn't make the final edit. It wasn't very poetic, and it sounds just a tad desperate.
But that's where I was in the 1990s. I had gone 0-for-the Reagan/Bush administration when it came to girlfriends, and I was becoming very tired of sharing my one bedroom apartment with an ill-tempered budgie named Buttercup. I suspect that Buttercup's temperament was only a mirror of my own, and that made it all the more important for both bird and man to find a resolution.
Then, just shy of my thirtieth birthday, everything changed. I fell in love and moved to California and started a new life. Buttercup got a fresh start as well. She went to live with my niece. And I believe that I owe this upheaval, in no small part, to those words I wrote in my spiral notebook and mailed away in a romantic flurry. Did I know what I was getting into? Would I have had my lawyers look the document over before sending it? Should I have taken time for a rewrite?
Nope. Those were magic words. They changed two people's lives, and by extension dozens more. Since then, I've written a poem or two to express the love I feel for my wife. Many of them have been quite clever, but none of them has gotten me into the trouble that first one did. And you know what? I love trouble.
Over the years, fifteen of them as married folk, my words have come back in interesting and at times painful ways. The truth is I didn't fully explain myself back then. What I meant to say was, "You can come and go in my life, but I hope you choose to stay." That last bit didn't make the final edit. It wasn't very poetic, and it sounds just a tad desperate.
But that's where I was in the 1990s. I had gone 0-for-the Reagan/Bush administration when it came to girlfriends, and I was becoming very tired of sharing my one bedroom apartment with an ill-tempered budgie named Buttercup. I suspect that Buttercup's temperament was only a mirror of my own, and that made it all the more important for both bird and man to find a resolution.
Then, just shy of my thirtieth birthday, everything changed. I fell in love and moved to California and started a new life. Buttercup got a fresh start as well. She went to live with my niece. And I believe that I owe this upheaval, in no small part, to those words I wrote in my spiral notebook and mailed away in a romantic flurry. Did I know what I was getting into? Would I have had my lawyers look the document over before sending it? Should I have taken time for a rewrite?
Nope. Those were magic words. They changed two people's lives, and by extension dozens more. Since then, I've written a poem or two to express the love I feel for my wife. Many of them have been quite clever, but none of them has gotten me into the trouble that first one did. And you know what? I love trouble.
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