A blog

One thing I miss the most about MKE is music. I know we were kind of a joke band, but I really miss playing with the Thrift!Store!Skanks? I've been considering buying a guitar, but I'm afraid I'll get bored in a week and it will just sit in the corner collecting dust like everything else in my life.

Just kidding with that hyperbole. But yeah.

I've been here almost a week.

I think I'm adjusting okay. Everything is so fast & busy here, but that's good. I think after a lifetime of being laid back, it might be a good change to be busy.

It's easy to be lonely here, and I think that's my biggest issue right now. I would rather have company be my default setting & then say, "I need alone time now." Right now, it's vice versa. It will get better.

Another thing I need to remember is how expensive everything is. Right now, I'm not living too much differently than in Milwaukee, but I don't have a position yet, and I only get a $2500 stipend.

If you guys could mail me cash, personal checks, or money orders, I will post a picture of me smiling.

In conclusion: I suck at blogging regularly.

I think it's been like 4 months.

So much has happened! I'm moving to New York in like 2 weeks. I will be a special ed. teacher by day, a grad student by night.

I have a ton of stuff to read & do by the 10th, but I will get it on.

Collie J. always makes it.

I hope to start this back up again during my summer training/ next school year, but life so often gets in the way of the Internet.

I have to say, before I sleep, that I will miss my high school (and I guess K5) kids at CMS.

Everyone else can suck it!

United States of America: Good news, guys, we took down Megaupload. Now everyone can rest easy!

Health Care System:

Hand-gun Violence:

Unemployment:

Public Education:

Gay Marriage:

Marijuana Legislation:

Middle East Conflict:

World Hunger:

Cancer Research:

I just had a drunken epiphany.

There is a huge disconnect between the high schoolers I teach and my fellow teachers.

I think I figured out what accounts for that disconnect.

Adults always say, "Teenagers think they know everything."

But what we ignore, I think, is our own teenage years.

Don't you remember? You didn't think you knew everything. You actually--legit--knew everything.

From your perspective, of course. But still. You were actually smarter than all the adults around you. 

I mean. That was your conception of reality, at least. But that doesn't make it any less real.

So we talk down to these kids, "Oh! You think you've got it all figured out!" But what we don't realize/remember is that from their isolated, inexperienced points of view, they actually do have it all figured out.

I think I've found my groove.

I still have a long way to go before I can say that I am a good teacher, but I'm making my way.

I need to get better at lesson planning. I usually just wing it. I think it's fine to wing it to an extent, but it's good to have a kind of support to your wings.

I need to get better at staying on top of grading. I have a pile the size of a small dog to grade, and it gets bigger every school day.

Write something every day

Figure out what I want to be when I grow up

Develop a fan base

Do some more work with the Thrift!Store!Skanks?

Balance everything perfectly

That's all. Doable, right?

My interview is tomorrow! Gah. I am nervous. Mostly because, as I told Topher, I don't really have plan B's.

Right now I need to: get this job, finish this school year, move in with Topher in NYC.

Right now I'm unsure of: whether or not I'm going to get this job, what I'm going to do if I don't, how I'm going to move here if I don't get a job, how I'm going to maintain my relationship if I don't move here, where I'm going to live if I don't move here & stay in Milwaukee, what I'm going to do for a job in Milwaukee if I don't move here.

Maybe I worry too much.

Chill the eff out & STFU!

I've evaporated & left behind

a briny husk &

a fashionable scarf.

Sometimes I walk alone

in cities you're not in

to places we've never been to. &

from here I can see

every speckle in your spotted

eyes & you can see disaster &

astigmatism in mine.

I've fermented so sweet

to the point of puking.

so sharp to draw

blood &

tears &

us napping nude

over the covers. I thought

I saw you yesterday. You were crawling

down 14th with a caravan

of bullshit. With a carapace

where your face is

or should be.

I swear that it was you,

but memory punched me in the back

of the head.

You're gone. You

left last week &

took my crazy creaking heart &

all my nice Tupperware with you.

Be careful. It was all Rubbermaid-expensive, &

won't keep that heart fresh

for long.

I want to find a lake &

name it after you, then swim

across it naked with your hands

on my back &

krill nibbling the dead

skin from my toes.

I'd drown without those hands,

or not. Maybe I'd shoot across the body

like a 4-day load &

find an egg &

thrive.

I don't think I want to

know because, yes:

those hands resting

on my back feel better than

all the masked men

in the past who broke

their diamond promises &

stole twenty dollar bills