Blog-Sothoth

Day #44

2009-11-09T15:31:00.003-05:00

The formal observation went well today. The Big Cheese watched me teach my tone and mood lesson, the kids were on task and engaged and nearly everyone participated. We used dry-erase boards and markers, I did art integration, I used technology, I used music. The kids answered their questions and achieved mastery and handed in their work for assessment.

And she reamed me out about my lesson plan book. I had a two-week gap in plans because I didn't have any toner and I didn't print them those weeks. I had to order toner and pay for it myself because none of the printers in the building work, and the copiers don't work, so I bought my own copier/scanner/printer for my classroom. I told her this and she said "you could hand write them" and I said "I could also chisel them in stone, but I prefer not to waste my time. If you need all my lessons I have them here" and I gave her a zip drive and she said "this is unacceptable. You need them in the book," and I said "I understand that. Most of them are there, and I told you why the rest were missing. I will print them when I can." So she's going to write me up. But I don't care, I care about my lesson, not the silly rules about binders full of paper we're supposed to maintain in an electronic age. These dinosaurs can retire and take their stupid rules with them.

Thanksgiving break cannot come quickly enough! This Wednesday I'm out the building for half a day taking the sixth graders who are relatively sane on a field trip to the Walters Art Museum. woot!

#42

2009-11-07T09:36:00.006-05:00

I really adored The Handmaid's Tale, and I thought Negotiating With the Dead was an excellent book about writers and writing. But I despised Cat's Eye, and was indifferent to Oryx and Crake. After slogging trough her latest, I might be done with Margaret Atwood.

After the Flood is, like its predecessor, just ok, and though it was often quite interesting I can barely gin up the enthusiasm to blurb about it here. I think the book works best when Atwood is being silly--a religious cult of Greenies who venerate Euell Gibbons as a saint?--and the only-slightly exaggerrated tendencies of crass consumerism in her book are its best points: fast-food chains which use roadkill and human murder victims in their burgers, third-world style oases of wealth surrounded by restless masses of cut-throat humanity, the privatization of everything for profit, including the military. But the structure of the book is too complex for its simple plot. Had she simply started at point A and gone to point Z, Atwood could have written a troubling book about an all-too-believable future pandemic. But by twisting the narrative up into multiperspective flash-backs and flash-forwards, Atwood attempts to make arty what needs a more straightforward treatment. Think of Cormac McCarthy's The Road as a more stream-lined and effective model.

If you're a devout fan of apocalyptic fiction, or if you're nuts for pandemics and Island of Dr. Moreau genetic manipulation tales, you might want to add After the Flood to your stack. Otherwise, save some time and rent Children of Men and watch the extras on the DVD instead.

netflixed

2009-11-06T17:30:00.002-05:00

I'm very pleased to finally see John Huston's The Dead. Nothing gave me greater pleasure when I was doing the college prof thing than to teach Joyce's story and cover the board in musings, to delve into that rich symbolic vein, to read aloud those last delicious pages to doe-eyed co-eds. And this short film does tremendous justice to a classic short story.

I'm not a huge fan of Anjelica Huston, but even she is up to snuff here. I love the epiphany scene when she is standing centered before a stained glass window, head up, listening to a tenor upstairs, an inscrutable sadness on her face. Gabriel at that moment realizes that his wife contains previously undreamt-of depths. After having his patriotism called into question, after some serious self-doubts before his speech, after his story about the glue man's mill-horse and its symbolic journey round a monument to King Billy, Gabriel experiences the richness of life and its frailty all at once. And we get to watch.

I'ma buy this one.

Day #43

2009-11-05T15:56:00.003-05:00

Some days I wish I'd a stood in bed.

2nd period I have the door locked and I'm teaching away when there's a loud crack and two of the biggest and burliest sixth graders storm in. One of them kicked my door so hard the bolt broke. I look up to see Gregorious and Henry VIII scowling and heading toward To The Point.

To The Point is the third biggest sixth grader. His fists are as big as my head. He's not the worst behaved student I've taught, but he's inching toward the top ten. He's mouthy, defiant, rude, perpetually rabble-rousing. I don't know what he said about Gregorious and Henry VIII's moms, but they were out for blood.

I got there in time. I wrapped up Gregorious with a twisted arm and hooked Henry around the neck, and wrestled them to and out my door. I put one against the wall, dropped the other to the floor and stood on him. I couldn't get to my call box to ask for help because I was busy keeping them from tearing To The Point a new corn hole, so I tried waving at the hall camera to get somebody's attention. Meanwhile, To The Point was jawing and talking smack from the room while I'm trying to keep him from getting beat down. I was sorely tempted to let them loose to bang the shit out of him, but held my ground and got my cell phone out to call the office. It rang ten times and no one answered, and Henry got out from under my foot and Gregorious twisted out and suddenly I was in a fight myself standing in my own class room door fending off blows as kids were trying to get through me and at each other. At this point Ms. T next door got on her horn and called up the school police, who took their jolly time getting there. When they arrived I had once again wrapped up the assailants and half-carried, half-drug them out into the hall again.

All three boys ended up going to the office. I wrote them up for assault, inciting a disturbance, verbal threats, attacking a faculty member, fighting, profanity, using a preposition at the end of a sentence, and not 15 minutes later these boys were out of the office and outside my door again asking if they could borrow a pencil. WTF? How can they let them in the hallway again after such behavior? Did they not see what happened on the camera? Jesus.

At the end of the day I had to drive a girl down North Ave because a gang was waiting to stomp her at the bus stop.

Somewhere in between all this shit I taught direct and indirect objects. My job is a trip.

Day #41

2009-11-04T06:02:00.004-05:00

One of the skills heavily tested on standardized No Child Left Untested tests is making inferences based on information in a text. A lot of the kids don't get it. They either "guess" something already written in a text, or they make outlandish claims they can't back up. Some kids, when you explain that they have to "guess what the author isn't telling you by combining prior knowledge to information in the text," will tell you that's "the stupidest f@cking thing I ever done heard."

They got it yesterday. I made 5 new class room rules and posted them on the LCD projector:

1) No one can touch Mr. G's laptop any more
2) No students are allowed near Mr. G's desk
3) No student may write on the chalkboard at any time
4) Unless you have detention or tutoring, no students are allowed in Mr. G's classroom after 2:35
5) From now on, you only get 5 passes per month in Mr. G's class

I made the warm-up question "Make an inference for each new rule: why did Mr. G create it? What happened to cause him to make each rule?"

The kids were excellent, and came up with lists of reasons. Examples for rule #1: 'somebody gave you a virus," "somebody broke your laptop," "kids be playing too much and arguing over it," "kids look at stuff they ain't suppose to," etc. Not a bad job! The real reasons were: somebody dumped hand lotion on my keyboard, someone else changed my PowerPoint, somebody scratched my screen, and somebody broke my PC speakers by kicking them.

For #2 some kids didn't make inferences at all. They snitched! "Because Richie stole them stickers out your drawer," or "cuz T took yor stapler and hung up a dirty word," or "Billie Jean stoled your markers."

I think the kids knew I was upset yesterday that, one fourth of the way into the school year, we still have to work on behavior management about 1/3rd of the time instead of simply learning. They were thoughtful and dilligent and respectful yesterday. Excepting one girl who kept writing "I wish Mr. G would die die die die die die die die" all period. Last week she called me "the bestest teacher ever." WW3 is a bit whacky.

Day #40

2009-11-02T16:01:00.004-05:00

It's frustrating when you spend two months teaching skills and the students completely bomb the Unit Test because they don't get the material. But when they bomb the test because they don't give a shit, it's worse.

For the past two days I've given all 3 of my classes a test for which we prepared a great deal. It's worth 25% of their grade for the first report card. It's stressful. But most of the kids were on point last week, following detailed reviews and note-taking sessions. They simply weren't focused for the exam. I watched them not read the passages and just circle whatever answer. I listened to them complain that they didn't want to do it, that they didn't "feel like it," that they didn't care.

Less than 10% of my kids passed the test. Most of them failed badly, and not because of ability, but because they don't didn't care to be bothered.

It's my job to make them care, and now I'm beating myself up over what I need to do differently. Last year I started paying the kids who passed, and test scores went up dramatically. I might do that again. $5 to everyone with a sixty or higher? Or $2 for a 60, $3 for a 70, $4 for an 80, and $5 for a 90? I dunno. They just don't see the value of a test unless you attach money.

Several of my A+ kids finished what should have been a 2-hour, 2-day test in 5 minutes. After I gave it back to them insisting they double-check their answers, they said "no, I'm done." Today they were asking why their grades fell from 96% to 72% just before the report card. "Because you didn't care about this test," I told them. "I asked you to work on it seriously and you didn't bother to even read the texts, you just answered the questions." They're trying to say they didn't know how important it was, after a solid week of review and practice.

Ugh.

Happy Halloween

2009-10-31T18:46:00.002-04:00

#41

2009-10-30T16:43:00.003-04:00

Hallucinogens, hallucinations of demonic cartoon cats, alcoholism, the early glory days and gradual cheapening of American animated cartoons and films, suicide (murder?), sexual improprieties, psychoanalysis--it's all here on The Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

I need a cheerful graphic novel. Anyone know a quality graphic novel which isn't so bleak? I mean, I'm a fan of bleak, and revel in bleakness, but is there a joyous one out there? Just for a change?

Day #40

2009-10-29T20:06:00.002-04:00

Aww, the school year isn't official until the first arson attempt, so now I feel fully engaged. Today three 7th graders lit a bathroom on the first floor. The alarm system malfunctioned, so a rather breathless announcement came over the speakers at 11:23: "YOU NEED TO EVACUATE THE BUILDING! GET OUT! TEACHERS GET YOUR KIDS OUT. Please proceed in an orderly and calm fashion."

Uh, yeah, right.

Outside the field was muddy from our recent series of deluges. Kids made a game of kicking muddy footprints onto each others' uniforms. I got slopped myself, but who cares? I had fun standing outside and watching the kids act like kids for a while.

Today I told them the old ghost stories from our old house and I had them analyze plot as we went. I even mixed in pictures I stole from Google images with real pictures of the house and had a scary slide show. The kids ate that shit up! I heard them telling each other the story all day, and telling kids who weren't in my class the story. Maybe every day should be Halloween?

Of course when we had time left over I let the kids tell their own scary stories. Men with knives, uncles getting shot and killed, junkies in the bushes, rapists on the block. Somehow my ghost story grew less and less scary.

netflixed

2009-10-28T06:18:00.003-04:00

Sam Raimi's return to horror is out on disc just in time for Halloween. I missed it in theaters and was not disappointed a bit by Drag Me To Hell when I watched it last night. It's classic Raimi, meaning it's like a 1940s Looney Tunes cartoon featuring Daffy Duck driving Elmer Fudd batty, except that in Raimi's take, Daffy Duck is a soul-devouring goat-shaped demon from hell, and Elmer Fudd is a willowy blond who works in a bank.

Said blond gets herself in trouble because of an even greater soul-destroyer: capitalism. She's desperate for a promotion at the bank, and she is running neck and neck with another staffer who's an unctuous bootlick. When an aged Gypsy in danger of losing her house requests a third extension on her loan, our heroine's instinct is to pity her and say yes, but the boss reminds her that tough decision-making is a requisite skill of assistant managers. So she gives the old one-eyed bat the heave-ho. In return, she receives a curse. For three days a demon will torment her, and after the third day it will take her to hell. She has limited time to alter her fate.

The film is more hilarious than scary, but many of the gags are gross. There is more goo than a Nickelodeon cruise, and Raimi has digitized goo at his command now: no more fire-hose jello aimed at Bruce Campbell. Oh, and the old Gypsy drives a certain yellow sedan which fans may recognize...

netflixed

2009-10-27T16:23:00.002-04:00

When I was an undergrad for the first time, way back when, I fell in love with the show Thirtysomething. I thought it was a breath of fresh air, well-acted, well-written, clever and occasionally challenging. It was nice to have a drama without cops, lawyers, doctors, or PIs, a show which featured angst and despair and self-doubt and gay characters and amoral characters and yucky divorces and hateful kids. And I was an English major, and most English majors were girls, and all the English major girls loved Thirtysomething, and if I could talk to them about Thirtysomething then I had an "in" beyond the late phase novels of Henry James and Shirley Jackson's novels.*

It used to be a challenge to watch Thirtysomething. I was commuting to college and living at my parents' place. They always had another show to watch when it was on, so for a while I taped it on the VCR while they watched whatever, but then they had two shows to watch while it was on, so I had to buy my own ghetto-ass hand-me-down VCR to record it in my room while they watched one show and recorded another. This was back in the days of expensive VCRs, too. But I saw most of the original run up to the fourth and final season, even though sometimes I watched bad, grainy reception on cheap ass long-play VCR tapes.

Re-visiting Thirtysomething in my early 40s was a lot of fun. The episodes fall generally into two main categories: those involving Hope and her angst and insecurities, and those involving her husband Michael and his insecurities and doubts. Typically if Hope is having a rough time Michael will step up and point out how ridiculous she is being. When Michael is having a rough time Hope will reciprocate. Neither, apparently, is capable of healing his- or herself, despite the fact that their problems are almost precisely mirror images: doubts about decisions, competencies, direction, aspirations, etc. Hope and Michael are the anchor family of the series: he runs a blossoming ad agency with his partner Elliot, and she stays at home to take care of their infant. She is a pinched-face lapsed Protestant, he is a gregarious and creative Jew. They own a run-down but spectacular old house which they slowly repair. All the other cast-members are friends or family members or both. Hope and Michael are the center of the Thirtysomething universe.

The strength of the show remains the cast, which is remarkably good. Timothy Busfield, Michael Olin, Peter Horton, and Melanie Mayron are particularly inspired choices: Mel Harris, who plays Hope, is a bit too wooden, and in scenes calling for powerful emotion she tends to fall flat. I feel the same way about Patricia Wettig at times, but she steps up to the plate during Nancy and Elliot's divorce with some quality performances. But for the most part everyone is believable, the ensemble cast actually seems like a group of old friends, and I always had a big crush on Melissa.

Several episodes are excellent. Those dealing with Elliot and Nancy's divorce are powerful and hard to endure. A few are egregiously bad: dated, painfully un-funny, and insipid (and some moments in the good episodes are just WTF? bad). But all-in-all I enjoyed seeing the show again. I will borrow season 2 from Netflix, no doubt.

*How many dates did Henry James' late phase novels or Shirley Jackson's books get me? Zero--though a couple men tried to pick me up after we discussed The Wings of the Dove. How many dates did I get after talking about Thirtysomething? A few.

Day #38

2009-10-27T16:12:00.002-04:00

Typically a dreary, rainy, chilly fall day means many kids stay home, and those who do show to school are grumpy and sleepy and malleable.

Not today. Everybody came to school, and brought their dopplegangers to boot. I had kids coming out my ears, and driving me nuts with their energetic frenetic antics and whining. Couldn't get much teaching done, was constantly struggling with discipline. That's ok. Friday and Monday were really great days, a bad one brings me back down to earth and puts me en garde again.

Last period I had a little bit of a breather because a lot of those kids got suspended for fighting or went home sick before the end of the day. There is a lot of nasty flu going around, kids coming in fine in the morning and leaving with 100+ fevers, kids sitting in their chairs reading and keeling over out of the blue, kids sneezing and holding out handsfulls of milky snot. I love it when they sneeze or cough right on me! No H1N1 yet, to my knowledge, but gross and troubling nonetheless.

The faculty are battle-hardened, shell-shocked, and tired already. They are moaning because we have 5 full 5-day weeks concurrent between the last PD day and Thanksgiving break. Many are using their sick time. Not me. I'm saving that shit for the spring. I have like 6 weeks in the bank because I rarely dip into the till. Maybe next year I'll call out sick the last two months of my City obligation...psych naw!

Day #37

2009-10-26T15:39:00.002-04:00

Had to do some screeching and a bit of nails-on-the-blackboard, but for the most part today was rather chill. Several guardians and parents were in the building today. My persistant phone-calling has bled over to other faculty members and now the parents are just coming in the building, tired of us bugging them electronically. I spoke to no less than four parents today,and it made me very happy to see them.

Today Claws' grandfather paid him a surprise visit. Claws just happened to be stabbing a classmate with a pencil when Granddad walked in. Claws is a big sixth-grader, and I know now from whom he gets his size. Granddad is a big muthafucka, pushing 70 but still burly and fit and he crushed my medium-sized hand in his big paw and introduced himself with old school Charm city civility. I liked him immediately with his Cab Calloway complexion, mustache, and hairdo, not to mention his pleasant demeanor. As I informed him of Claws' various atrocities in second period, Granddad leaned over and put his face inches from his grandson's. "You know I don't play," he said.

And Claws--no lie--pissed himself. Right there in the hallway outside my room. I had to send him to the office to get a change of uniform. This is a young man I've worked with a lot, and whom I've watched go from diligent and respectful to clownish, asinine, and rude. A young man in danger of thugdom. His granddad scared him silly.

Granddad gave me his cell number. "Instead of calling his Mom or Dad like you been doing, call ME. He lives with ME. They don't give a shit about him. I do. I don't play. Claws knows I'ma turn him inside out if I hear from you."

#40

2009-10-24T11:09:00.003-04:00

Again Jack Vance writes an imaginative tale worthy of Calvino's Cosmicomics. Rhialto the Marvelous is another rip-roaring flexion of imaginative muscle, and the intergalactic and interdimensional adventures of its eponymous hero are a hoot. We follow him on a quest through time, the courts, and out to the boundaries of Nothing and Nowhere, but Rhialto is no Cugel, and I found this last installment of the Dying Earth books the least of them. Of course the least of a fine batch of wines is also a fine wine, and therefore the book is a worthy entertainment.

Day #36

2009-10-23T16:19:00.002-04:00

A pretty damn good day today, I must say...

Bastards

2009-10-22T17:26:00.003-04:00

IC Systems: phone number 1-651-204-1347

They've been calling my house for over a year asking for George Chase. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a George Chase at my address. Any dimwit with Google or a phone book could find that out in 20 seconds, but the shitheads at IC Systems can't get anything right, apparently.

Several times now I have told these schmucks "there is no George Chase at this address-stop calling this number" and yet they continue to call here multiple times a day. They leave robo-call messages, they call with live humans, they harrass and annoy.

And they always say "Your number has been listed as bad. It will come out of our cycler tonight and you will get no more calls" when you call back to complain about the continued harrassment.

Tonight they said it AGAIN and then I received a further two calls tonight. "Are you George Chase? Do you know George Chase?" NO, I DO NOT KNOW GEORGE CHASE.

I am documenting every call I get from them online from here on out.

Day #35

2009-10-22T16:00:00.002-04:00

2nd period, with three of the prime evil machinators out for suspension, was still off the chain today. 5 more of them got suspended today for the following atrocities: fighting (two girls), taking rocks out of the science teacher's fish tank and throwing them in a girl's eye, and stabbing each other with pencils. There are 19 students enrolled in that class, 8 of them were suspended the last two days.

They needed to be suspended weeks ago. The Big Cheese has been moratoriumizing suspensions to keep her numbers clean, but now she has no choice. Some of these 6th graders are a mess, and their parents don't care about their behavior in school, so they need to understand that their kids' behavior will not be tolerated. Suspension might wake some of them up, but likely not. The kids will get suspended a few times and then they'll let them stay in class anyway to avoid infringing their Constitutional right to prevent any teaching or learning from happening.

Last period I blew my top so bad that the AP and the Language Arts chair came running. I was reaming out those kids so gloriously that my two bosses stood at the door smiling broadly. "The Beast out the cage now," they said. "We knew you had it in you."

The kids were grumbly. "Godfrey all strict now," they complained. "You made me what I am," I retorted.

Of course it's all an act. I don't "lose" my temper anymore--it's too scary. I pretend to lose my temper when I need to, however.

Meanwhile, the kids' vernacular and directness is wearing off on me. I keep getting phone calls from collection agencies for a George Chase. There is no George Chase at my address, and I keep calling these people and telling them to take my number off their lists. Today there was another robo-call message. I called him and politely said "I keep getting robo-calls from you about George Chase. I've called you before and told you there is no George Chase at this address. Take my number out of your system."

"How I know you ain't George Chase?" The man asked me.

"How I know you ain't George Chase, bitch?" I said. "How about when my attorney calls your ass next time I hear a goddam robo-message from your piece of shit company on my machine? Then you'll know who ain't George Chase" and I hung up.

SuperFly TNT. I don't have an attorney. Never have!

Day #34

2009-10-21T15:57:00.002-04:00

Today was in many ways an exact replica of Monday and Tuesday--horrible, wretched, stressful, painful, miserable, taxing, trying, exhausting...

And yet today was a good day because I dealt with it and went along for the ride and did my best and stopped moaning about the crap which happens all the time that I just need to accept.

And during lunch today my 2nd period class got in so much trouble that the Big Cheese has decided to split them up. Woo-hoo! We're having a meeting to decide who goes where, and some of the kids are likely to be moved to other schools for continual unacceptable behavior beyond the pale. I can teach a class with Cthulu, but you throw in Nyarlathotep, Azag-Thoth, and Pazuzu? Nobody can teach that class.

Day #33

2009-10-20T16:45:00.003-04:00

Sometimes the bad economy prevents me from doing something rash, like resigning immediately.

What a day! My second period class was completely off the chain again. Kids were jumping on desks and chairs, running around the room, punching each other--It took 23 minutes to get them seated. I wrote on the board "23 minutes of detention." Then, because it's a split class, I had to line them up and take them to lunch for a half-hour. An Assistant Principal and I had to line them up and walk them back and forth three times until they got quiet enough to enter the cafeteria. Then, once we got back to my class, they were bananas again, throwing things, knocking over furniture, pulling out drawers and dumping them. It took 28 minutes to get them situated. I wrote "51 minutes detention" on the board and then they blew up again for another 12 minutes. I said "ok, now you get a test worth 1000 points" and I gave them a pop quiz. They freaked out and got all serious and did their quiz and then I told them I would see them after school. They would pay, I said, for wasting my time.

Last period there was a major commotion in the hall and an AP was screaming for me. I had to rush out of my room and go assist the AP who was struggling with two boys who were fighting. Then I went back to my room and the last period class was tearing things up so I blew my top and reined them back in. Then when I was standing in the doorway preparing for dismissal some wise-asses thought they'd bum rush me out the door and I found myself heaving against five boys and I lost my cool and I flung them back so hard a couple ended up on the ground. Then a girl in the hallway started accusing Ear Ache of going through her locker--a rumor I thought we'd dispelled earlier in the day--and next thing I knew she was punching him in the eye. By the time I got there he was bloody and crying. Poor kid is one of the few sixth grade boys who refuses to hit girls, and he ended up getting stitches for his nobility. He didn't touch anyone's things, either. But other kids were trying to get him beat up and found an easy means to their ends by spreading false rumors.

So I went to Mr.E's room after dismissal to get my 2nd period class for their detention and the AP told me to hold them there instead of in my room because she wanted to talk to them, and Mr. E wanted some of them for detention too. Then Mr. E and the AP left for a meeting and I had to hold those goofballs alone and they started throwing chairs and spraying hand sanitizing foam everywhere. What a mess. And then a parent of a boy who was fighting came up in the school and she's cussing him out and he's saying "I don't care what your crack whore ass say. Get away from me," and she's cussing and barely coherent, and then the police had to intervene because the boy is threatening to beat his own mother up, and then the Language Arts chair gets on the horn and yells at me because I'm late for our after-school team meeting and I'm like "I'm holding detention" and she's like "let the children go and get to your meeting."

And during the meeting I'm reading the papers I made the detainees write and one says "my step father tried to sleep in my bed and when I wouldn't let him he beat me" and it never stops.

Day #32

2009-10-19T16:25:00.002-04:00

Because of professional development days, the students were out Thursday and Friday last week, giving them a four-day weekend. A four-day weekend during which they were cooped up inside because of a nor'easter which pelted Baltimore with miserable continuous rain and bitter-cold chilly winds from Wednesday until Sunday afternoon.

When the kids got to school today they vented their frustrations. What a fucking zoo! Sometimes you just have to strap in and enjoy the ride...

#39

2009-10-18T11:16:00.002-04:00

I felt a powerful connection to this graphic memoir. The artwork--with its dense imagery borrowing from alchemical texts, medieval battle scenes, Eastern manuscripts, and Incan and Mayan symbology--was right up my alley. The story of a brother who is present but also absent because of illness I found moving too. And David B.'s painful realizations about his own inner struggle with his brother's illness and how this struggle affected his relationships into adulthood is quite profound. Perhaps the best work of its kind I've encountered, though I admit to being a novice in the genre. I liked it better than Persepolis, and even more than Jimmy Corrigan.

Thanks to Faulty Landscape and Houman for the recommendation.

#38

2009-10-17T09:45:00.003-04:00

Flash back 14 years. I'm the Mystery/Thriller bookseller at Borders in Towson. A big guy walks in, sporting a faded Hawaiian shirt and shorts. Has a cheesy mustache, a beer gut, and a shaved head. Seems intense, makes instant eye contact. Introduces himself as "James Ellroy." Asks if he can sign his books.

I pull them. His new one is selling, I say. I ask him about American Tabloid. We fall into a lengthy banter about JFK conspiracy theories. We talk up DeLillo's Libra. I decide to read American Tabloid, and get a first edition inscribed: "This book rages!" with a doodle of a dog saying "woof!" The signature is two curved lines not connected.

I read American Tabloid 14 years ago and really dug on it, but only now got around to The Cold Six Thousand, its sequel. The sequel runs from Dallas in '63 up to the Ambassador in '68. We meet the conspirators behind the assassinations, the contractors who work for the Agency, for Howard Hughes, for the mafia. We meet the right-wing hate activists, the FBI agent provacateurs, the lawyers, the dope fiends. Some characters are real, some are fictional. The story is as correct a portrayal as how things really work as I've read, even if the details aren't true, they are "true."

I must admit that Ellroy's prose irks me sometimes. The clipped three-word sentences annoy, particularly when he strings them together with a common subject: "Pete watched Ward. Pete braced Wayne. Pete geezed geeks," etc. But often the prose clicks and sizzles, and the immense cast of characters moving behind and between the major timeline events of the sixties is a great deal of fun. Everyone connives, everyone betrays, everyone skims. Ellroy rules.

Day #31

2009-10-14T21:22:00.002-04:00

Told the kids today: don't get on my nerves. I'm not giving out any verbal warnings. You bug me, you break the rules and procedures, I am pulling my phone out and calling your house.

I didn't have to call anyone first period. Second period I made three calls in the first 20 minutes. Mommy #3 answered. Mommy #3 said "Can I speak to her?" Mommy #3 did lots of audible screaming over my phone. Chastened child facing a four-day weekend inside with no TV or video games helped get the message across. No more problems that period. Last period, two calls in ten minutes, then absolute calm.

The problem with this kind of schtick is you have to use it sparingly. You use it too much, and parents block your number. But it is effective sometimes when you are trying to create a persona, which is what new teachers spend much of their time doing, if my experience is any indication. I watch long-timers transform every day from cheery, bubbly, gleefully silly people into scowling pumped up ram-rod straight goons and banshees. Then, immediately following detention, their faces, postures, and moods completely revert. Everyone with any cred has a "game face." I've been wearing one all week, with some success. My biggest problem is the kids are keen and they know I'm really a big push-over at heart.

Tomorrow and Friday: PD days. Thursday is full of meetings, and if you look at Dore's etchings for the Divine Comedy, you'll find several terrifyingly exact representations of Baltimore City Schools professional development meetings. Friday, however, is unmarred by scheduled events. I'm counting on some room time to get my filing done, some planning done, and the re-situating of my expanded classroom library needs to be finished ASAP.

Day #30

2009-10-13T16:25:00.002-04:00

It's not all misery and pain. I get a lot of joy out of my job. The joy just gets subsumed by other stuff.

Today T was bugging me in class by talking during instruction, so I "packed" his sneakers. I drew one on the board, very precisely with the logo and stripes appropriately rendered and easily recognizable. Then I drew a trash can under it, with fish bones and chicken bones and flies and stink lines. Then I drew a rat's head poking out of his sneaker. I labelled it: Where T found his shoes.

All the kids were rolling on the floor. "Yo, he packed you up!" they said. T is a very good artist, and I let him "pack" me back. He drew me walking out of Goodwill holding ridiculous banana-shaped shoes with a .25 price tag. Then we had a vote about whose drawing was funnier, and I won.

One more day with the students this week, then Professional Development on Thursday and Friday. Typically I'd call out those days, but I really need to get some work done in my class room. Thursday is filled up with crap meetings, but Friday is wide open.

Day #29

2009-10-12T16:06:00.002-04:00

Surprise audit today by the Special Ed office. I took my 2nd period class to lunch; after a half-hour in the cafeteria they come back to me for an additional hour of language arts. When I went to fetch them I found out that the administrator who usually supervises their lunch had been called away to teach a class for a sick faculty member.

The 6th graders were unattended for 30 minutes in the cafeteria. People had milk in their hair, on their clothes, and there were semi-thawed green peas everywhere.

When I got my class back to the room they were jazzed and smelly. It took 22 minutes to get them situated. The entire time the poor special ed lady was watching and taking detailed notes.

I was very pleased when I finally got to speak to her. She noted that I had too many special needs kids to be alone in the room, and she wrote very complimentary things even though the time she was in the room was a disaster. She made interesting and helpful suggestions, many of which I'd already tried, but she wasn't condescending or antagonistic. She was there to help, not to judge. A breath of fresh air!

A large chunk of my new class room library arrived today. Time to start organizing them and putting them out for use. Another top priority to add to the other 2 dozen...