Just so you know

I am going to work up a review of the year but that could take a minute so I’ll give you the play by of the past few weeks.


iwps was amazing!!! the blast I had was memorable. I was deemed the best wing-man ever by Cuban and did the poems I wanted to leave there. yeah!!!!


I opened for R.I.S.E. on Friday. awesomeness!! my good friend Meadow was finally able to road trip with me. we had a great time! we had dinner at her favorite vegetarian restaurant, the 9% beers a nice finisher. then we, the amazing navigators of the south, left the parking deck to drive to the venue only to park back in the same lot…I blame the beer, and the quirky Asheville streets that are closer to things than they appear. we opened for the band and Meadow was meadowfabulous as usual and now all of Asheville loves her…i'm sooo not surprised.

guess what?

we’re in the band!!!!!



so, i've decided that once a month i will offer up new info about me. you know, things you may not know. hidden fears, lustful longings, meandering memories, some shyt you could care less about, that sort of thing.


so, this thing happens to be three of my fears.


my bathroom fears…..



oh yes,it's about to go down (no pun intended..or was it?)



#1. my hair touching toilet water or even the seat.



as my hair is too long, considering a trim, I have to do a certain amount of preparation before going. if loose this is usually accomplished by twisting it in a knot on top of my head, which has a tendency to shift especially when navigating the port o potty...eeewh! when braided much easier. if you ever see a dread headed woman shrieking at the top of her lungs ripping locks out by the handful this is what happened. please stop me. i don't think ripped bald is a good look for me.

I remember once maybe two years ago my hair touched toilet water, thank the goddess after flushing, but still I felt it necessary to strip down and hop into the awaiting shower. ok, I was at a party, and I didn’t know where the towels were, and people were waiting to go. still it had to be done.no i haven't been invited to another party there......go figure



#2. dropping my cell phone in a toilet.



I think I am not the only one who has this fear. this is why I purchased a pouch for the phone as this almost happened and in my lunge to catch it and #1 almost happened…would have been disastrous.



#3. dropping my wallet in the toilet.



yes, this is why I stopped carrying a wallet. once while standing after a mission completed my wallet slipped from my back pocket and narrowly missed falling in the toilet. Two weeks ago my mom yelled at me for not carrying a purse. i stared at her uncomprehending and we settled on a wallet. so I put my stuff in a wallet. was working out ok until….



so my hair is still in tact, my phone moisture free…..but I’ve learned what money laundering means on a gross level..


so I’d like to leave you with this gross but true fact,

because I am sure I am not the only one to have done this…



DO NOT PUT MONEY IN YOUR MOUTH AND WASH YOUR HANDS AFTER HANDLING..YOU REALLY, REALLY, REALLY DON’T KNOW WHERE IT MAY HAVE BEEN!!!!



Happy Holidays!!!

tHIS weekend!!!

This weekend!!!!

a finny thing happened on the way to the strip club

I am sure people think I make this shit up. I really don't. I am finding it incredibly ironic that I am always in a place where something incredibly fucked up is happening, at least once a week. This blog while describing the event will also offer up some nuggets of knowledge. Common Sense for Dummies type shit. So on ward….



The first little nugget of thought wrapped in a lesson sort of. When you learn a language, and I could just be talking about me and some friends of mine, you leaned the inappropriate stuff first. How to say asshole, fuck you, hey baby you fine, bullshit... You know stuff like that then you continue eventually incorporating all the stuff, that stuff being knowledge, you have accumulated. Right?



Now here it is important to understand this is a multi-lingual thing, I am sure when folks learn English they also learn these words and phrases. Remember English is a foreign language to most of the people in the world, hell, for most of the people in the US.



So, on to the drama. I had a thing this morning. When I got done I thought,"There is no way in hell I am cooking tonight." My plan was to go home take a nap and finish my commitments. So blogging wasn't even in the mix and because I more peck than type this is taking longer than I expected and eating into my nap time.

I digress, back on task poet! Peck Poet Peck!



So I see it my tummy does a happy little flip and I enter the building hearing a very robust "WELCOME TO MOE'S"!



They always make me feel smiley when they do that. Then I hear the side talk, in Spanish, in very snarky tones. I glance around to see who they are talking about. They are talking about a black guy who is at the soda pump. A big black guy. I make out asshole, and stealing I think I hear something that sounds scarily like nigger. The man hears it as well and snaps.



He goes off with such a blast that the woman happily making my burrito jumps spilling beans on her shoes. The other customers (mostly white) are looking terrified as fuck. The man calls the staff out on the name calling, makes it known he isn't stealing shit and will have no problem going to get a few friends to explain this to the staff. Over the commotion I tell my server…chicken, I'd like chicken.



All the employees are wearing that face. You know the one. The one you wear when you say something about someone in hushed tones and they hear you. It a combination "you heard that", "oh shit" "fukitty fuck, fuck" face. You know you know it. One of the employees finding his manhood decides to move in front of the man and laugh at the man while he is in mid tirade.



Note to reader: This is not a good idea for many reasons. Especially when you have already been threatened by the bringing of the peeps. The bringing of the peeps is never a good thing. This is that split second moment between ass whipping and police lock up. Avoid this at all costs. Walk the fuck away.



The man moves closer to the stupidly brave one. The woman fucking up my burrito is yelling call the police in Spanish. Another one of those phrases you learn first. The entire staff has been turned mute and stupid except for frantic cries of call the police. I look at the man. a combination of, "damn, let's just pull out all the stereotypes" and "there are two black folks in here and one of us has lost our minds if this continues we will have arrived together in the police report", look on my face.


I clear my throat loudly and say to shrieking girl, "YES, I WOULD LIKE CHICKEN, BLACK BEANS, RICE, PICO, GUAC, SOUR CREAM, RAW ONIONS, IS THAT SALSA HOT, YEAH NO I DON'T WANT THAT, AND I D LIKE TO ORDER THE MOO MOO FOR MY SON!



The man's stops mid stream and looks around. I say without looking back at him, "No he's not here thank God, it is Sunday right?" I say finally looking his way. He looks around at the startled people food held half way to their mouth in a stuck stupid kind of way. He threatens the staff one more time and stomps out the building. The son thing doesn't always work, but I saw he was dressed like he had been to church this morning, and clearly he was having one of those out of body experiences when your pissed levels supersedes rational thought. I don't think he wanted to hurt anybody, but if it had escalated I think he would have.



I pay for my food. The staff is a mess. All eyes fixed on the door. One of the guys start talking to the other guy, I hear the word "comprender" it means understand. When the guy answers he was too stupid to understand. I say but I understand you, why wouldn't he. Your language stopped being exclusive a long time ago.I put the top on my drink and left.



I'm sure when I left they had some choice things to say about me. Probably in Spanish. But they waited till I left see, they learned……..


And that my friends is Common Sense for Dummies Lesson one of many I'm sure!!

Holding my tongue

not an easy thing for me to do. i've conditioned myself not to do it but i do understand that if by letting my words fly i'm not helping a situation best to keep quiet and watch. unfortunately, i was not born with a poker face accessory pack. my face tells on me constantly and because i can't see my face unless glancing in a mirror i am not sure what expression displays that look of "what the fuck" that many have told me they see. oh well, at least i hold my tongue right. well that is until some one asks me based on what ever expression i'm donning if i have a problem with what ever is being said or done, then no more tongue holding.

rough

there are some questions no one wants to hear the answers to, better recognize!

so, i had to pull over today to take a call and while talking i watched this guy attempt to paddle his bike up a hill. there were several things working against him the tires were low, the hill was steepish, he had dangly chains hanging off his britches which kept wrapping themselves around his knee. the thing working most against him was the fact that his pants were sagging so bad that the belt he was wearing was cradling his thighs so that the chains were dangling lower and lower, catching his knees more often, the profanity was entertaining, nice combinations, and the hill was winning. GO HILL!!!



so caught up was i, in watching the spectacle that my conversation was limited to me saying, "uh huh, and ok and uh huh and nodding", which i'm pretty sure can't be heard. i sat for at least five minutes and his progress had not improved by much. by the time i ended the call i forgot who i was talking to or what i had agreed to do. gotta love caller id.



as i passed i asked if he needed a lift or if he thought that if he lifted his pants he could get better traction. shit, forgot to hold my tongue, dammit! he swore at me, gave me the finger (two in fact) and then some new gesture that i'm pretty sure meant fuck you as well. so redundant, but i didn't say that. i held my tongue.


see i can do it, sometimes.


i did notice in my rear view mirror him pulling up his trousers, tightening his belt and place the dangling chain in a pocket. grinning, i told him to have a nice day and he flipped me off again, but he kinda smiled.

southern hospitality, ain't it GRAND!

slam tonight @ spelman's cosby auditorium at 5:30 come out if you can!

train wreck (repost from myspace)

before i get in to the saga, can i just say that meeting Teresa Edwards yesterday was so incredible and her speech was inspiring and did what it was suppose to do INSPIRE, MOTIVATE, and a couple other things i'm sure were just happening to me.



back to the saga..... not back to..

here goes the saga may be better..how can i go back to something not yet started...over explaining mode..i'll try to turn it off..yeah there's a switch, somewhere.?

i have long passed concluded that not everyone should talk to children. well, in a professional way. you should speak to the children in your life that's not what i mean, sure you know that, i appear to be in over explaining mode. it kicked in about four hours ago as i talked the middle schooler's down from a mini mutiny. they were very pirate and i dug the way it came about but my pirate and my teacher went head to head and the teacher won. as she should have the pirate wanted to jump in there and tell the speaker what he was doing wrong but his defenses were way to high and i find in my old age i have a hell of lot less patience with adults these days.

the discussion was about drug awareness. it should have been called use scary statistics, nasty pictures, watery facts and package it to try to scare the hell out of kids awareness. i could see how it works on a certain group. but what i know about working with kids is you have to mix it up. you have to listen to gauge the maturity of the audience and which voice will work, kinda like slam , except they don't throw tens when you get it right but the can sling some venomous attitude if you get it wrong.

they were broken down into two groups. and the talk went over better with the younger kids. most of them disengaged early and he made the mistake of answering questions that were way to irrelevant to his point. the older kids not so much. they have a tendency to listen. now mind you it's mostly to catch you in a mistake or to dispute what you're saying, but they listen.

while i was listening i caught several skewed facts. he was harping on smoking pot, a lot. underestimating their knowledge of this particular drug.

what was done wrong.....

1. he started off ok, then made a blanket statement.

my definition of a blanket statement is one that is vague and covers too much to make your point stronger.

he was talking about inhalants and how dangerous they are. the kids were with him until he said that anything you inhale through your nose besides air is probably bad for you. now knowing the middle school mind i knew immediately what would happen and before i could say anything it started. "i inhale the smell of coffee every morning when my mom makes it. i smell my food. i guess i should tell my dad not to smell the flowers i bought him for father's day. omg, i can smell your perfume, it's damaging me, go away." the giggles started. the point was lost. his body language changed and said he was irritated. then his tone changed saying that he IS irritated.

2. he then made a statement about how damaging pot is and that people will say that they got a prescription for it but they are lying because that is just what people who like to smoke pot say. another blanket statement with loop holes this time. one kid says they prescribe marijuana for aids patients who suffer from side effects of their medication. he said they do not. now maybe what he meant to say was the prescription is not called marijuana. maybe what he meant was you can't get a prescription for marijuana plants in this state playing technical with the wording and leaving out that marinol (legal thc) is prescribed. but telling them only part of the information contaminates the information. at this point most are not listening, because they don't believe him and he's using his slightly ticked voice so now they are responding to it by becoming defensive.

3. then because they are talking amongst themselves disputing the information he just gave them he decides to shame them.. fyi, middle schoolers can be shamed into doing the right thing but not usually in large groups. he tells them that he gave the same talk to a group of white students and asked them to guess how many times he had to ask them to be quiet. NONE, he blares and the are now mutinous. shaming not highly recommended there are better ways to get their attention. comparing a group of black urban youth to white children in an effort to make them conform has never worked by anyone i've ever seen trying to execute it. just saying.

4. then because they are really not listening he switches to incarcerated youth and pulls up stats highlighting the statistics referring to black youth and acting like they can't see the stats for whites. then he says "Georgia gave a test called the crct. over 53% of the students who took it failed it asked them if they knew why." hands were raised. he ignored them and went on to say it was because they were either on drugs or in jail.

oh, snap!

did you hear that?

it was the straw that broke the camels back.

hands flew into the air. he looked at them ignored them turned his back ignored them then announced he wasn't taking any questions. pandefuckingmonium.

one girl insists says "the reason those kids failed had a lot more to do with the curriculum than anything else and why didn't he mention the number of white kids in jail or on meth? and not only black children go to school in the state of Georgia and how many of that 53% was white? (he should have never brought race into the conversation, and the fact that he was black did not help)

here i have to admit, my pirate was like you tell him girl, get the answer to your questions. but when he got in her face and started trying to shout her down with "we are not discussing this, and you don't know what your talking about" her body language matching his it was clear the discussion was over.

i pulled her aside and told her there are better ways to get your point across. just being right can't be your bottom line. if you know you're right sometimes that will have to do, because there will be lots of times when you are right and arguing that with some adults will not be to your advantage.

crazy...it was.. i guess i get it when some people cringe when i proudly say..i teach middle school, they can be a handful, especially when you DON'T know how to speak their language..i am fluent in mad middle schoolese;-)

MARCH 6TH!!!

SATURDAY NIGHT!!!

Cliterati has a new venue!!!

My Poor Angry Spoon

So, I can’t beat the children. For many reasons like, they are not mine and we live in the land of litigation. So, I have a few tools to deal with things like the ever existing time out. I am also creative and the idea that I may exact one of my monstrous creations keeps folks in check on big things. The fact that I’m the teacher that on a whim will call a field trip and if someone has been in trouble they know they won’t go and like my hot flashes they never know when the mood may strike me to just up and go. I also have the angry spoon. The angry spoon is a wooden spoon with angry eyes. Much like the angry eyes I wore that Halloween when I was a Mad Cow and harassed the good people at Mc Donald’s and Wendy’s..whew that was a funny Halloween…I digress. So the angry spoon is that thing I can grab and wave when they are talking too much or too loud and I can bang it on the desk to get their attention. My daughter was helping in my class one day and she thought the angry spoon could be angrier. She added a mouth. Now my angry spoon creation merely looks irritated, confused or slightly disgruntled. The other angry spoons would laugh at it and he has lost his effectiveness in assisting in matters of behavior. The kids’ sort of snicker now when I wave it around. Any suggestions on how we can restore the awesome fierceness of the angry spoon please help…remember angry spoons need love too!

funny

fuzzy and the fuzz

i am in a better mood but a strange place. letting things go is liberating but then the pangs of regret start. i gots pangs, ya'll... but if i can stay away for two weeks i'll be over the hurdle. with other vices i can't quit cold turkey proven by the fact that i'm still smoking and other things but with the three letter word.... cold turkey is best, well not best but necessary. one week down...whew... i think it'll be easier this time to extricate myself from the past. if i'm truly seeking the future attempting to see her face then i think i might need to focus...until it gets boring.... part of the problem i think is i don't act all older...that's fucking boring. i don't like to be bored..in case that wasn't clear.. and i don't mean i have to be entertained constantly, a movie, a play, strip scrabble, creating art....a drive to the mountains, .. so there are a lot of non-boring activities that don't include the three letter word;-) i would like to do something fun this weekend i want a passionate discussion about every fucking thing like worked up passion then mindless laughing hysterical even...

and i gotta stop reading my horror scope..not that i follow them so much i just think it's ironic when they sum up my week. i was practicing on my porch last night in the rain.a police car went by. then another, or maybe it was the same one? then it went by again. slowly. then it stopped and he flashed a light at me and said
do you live here?

i look at my clothes i'm sporting the Judy Jetson flannel pajamas set that is bright as hell pink and fuzzy slippers.

Yes, officer i live here.

what are you doing?

i'm practicing my poetry for a slam on Saturday night.

for a what?

a poetry slam.

what the hell is that?

i explain. he laughs. and drives away.

fucking philistine. dude i am cursing so much today. I slipped in class twice and made fuck, fudge and shit shyite which Will said was still the same word but like in medieval times. Which made me think of Heath Ledger………

who wants to go out tonight!! call me cause well....i'm bored... i swear i am not high maintenance i just require stimulation and you can wrap that one around your head any way you like because that's probably what i mean.....just sayin!


come to the slam this weekend and judge me....you know you wanna!

Sesame Street

so my class wants to do a parody of the sesame street shows of the past the shows that were deemed pg-13 and not suitable for today's preschooler. we've talked about it at length and they have some good ideas. now, make no mistake about it their production will actually be pg-13. i bought the set so they could research what issues they want to address and see if they think the pg-13 rating or the disclaimer before the episode is accurate. i can already see the reason, i still think it's a bit ridiculous but i can tell we are going to have some interesting conversations.

stranger still, i remember this episode brought to you by the numbers 2 and 3 and the letters e, w and s. i was four and remember thinking i wanted to go outside and play. watching the intro which shows the kids playing on jungle gyms, skating, hide and seek and other outdoor activities might be more confusing to today preschoolers or those children who may see this as a radical thing i mean playing outside? where's the plug for the ps2 or game cube.

the anything people are the puppets who chose their identity. whether they want to be a girl or boy. man or woman, blond or brunette... scandalous. we learned that milk comes from cow? what? ernie starts by taking a bath and asking bert to bring him a bar of soap. he instructs bert to drop it (the soap) in his rosey? claims its the name of his tub? bert hangs out while he bathes... then later ernie is drying himself in the company of bert? he doesn't even turn away??...screams domestic partnership or THE GAY..

z is painting and counting to ten with enthusiasm. he's asked for a glass of milk. he's being hypnotised clearly this is an evil tool. i mean i grew up drinking milk and riding my bike without a helmet and never broke a bone? i had a kid fall over last year off of a picnic bench she might have fallen a foot or two, broke her collarbone..milk does an old school body good?

i often hung out with the neighbors to have snacks... gordon has a little girl with him and he explains that she is new to the neighborhood and is introducing her to all the people in the neighborhood. she's not lost or abducted. she meets big bird (who looks a little scary. his eyes to close and he seems a little off), oscar the grouch is orange in the early episodes. then she's alone in a room with two men and a frog...disturbing. cookie monster is eating the letter w and if i'm not mistaken he tries to eat kermit... eating frogs is bad, unless you're french. but now kermit is fighting with the letter w....weird.

i'm going to go guess which thing is not like the other. this blog brought to you by the letters e, s and w and by the numbers 2, 3!

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January