Philosophical reflections

Sometimes the Road Less Travelled seems too far off the beaten path. Sometimes the Road That Leads Straight Into A Pile Of Shit just feels like the right choice for me.

My life as a TV show...

I'm watching a re-run of 'Will and Grace' and I'm so struck by how similar my life is to Grace's. I love that show.


Of course, I'm really fat, have two kids, unsuccessful, broke, old, on my way to Crazy Cat Lady status, and all my gay BFFs are either dead or in longterm committed relationships and living in homes they own... but apart from that the resemblance is absolutely amazing.

Another day at the office...

So my day went like this.

I was practicing job interviews with one of my students;

" Why do you want to work here S?"

"Homer Simpson ate a doughnut"

" How much is a cd?"

"$19,000"

"How much do you want to make a week S?"

"$2"- he seemed pretty ready for the workforce. In the meantime, out of the blue, T ran over to our p.e equipment, grabbed two hard plastic baseball bats and then sprinted over to another student and started beating him windmill-style, before we even had a chance to cross the room and drag him off. Simultaneously, D started ripping the clothes off his body (he eventually went home to the group home wearing only the collar of his tee shirt and pants with one of the pockets torn off).

Actually I saw J tear up his jacket with his teeth on the yard today; he has strong teeth. J's not one of my students but if he is also being groomed for work I think they should train him to pull semi trucks with his teeth and put him up for The Guinness Book of World Records. I think that's just as realistic as having S work in a music store.

So back in the classroom T2 had a tantrum and tried to bite two staff who were trying to make him sit down in his seat.

M was sitting at his desk eating play doh and boogers, he dug in his nose until it was bleeding pretty badly, then he wiped his nose and face with his hand, smearing blood over his whole face and making it look like he had just been in a car wreck.

At this point I can't even remember what our other students were doing, then I was in the bathroom washing M so I missed a chunk of drama while I was out of the classroom.

Luckily for me, I need to work somewhere where there is a high insanity quotient, and obviously this school fits the bill pretty well. If only it paid the bills pretty well.

Cat Lady

When women are single and reach a certain age, and feel lonely and unsatisfied with their lives, they get cats.

This is a universal law known to everyone in the Industrialized West, so in keeping with my new and improved law-abiding persona I recently acquired two kittens from the Crazy Cat Lady on my block.  

When I was in her house/litter box, overwhelmed by the five adult cats, random small dog and the five to ten kittens she has at any given time, I enthusiastically told her " This is great; this is what my life is going to be like when my children leave home!" -because I'm trying to embrace my destiny.

 I was not allowed to choose the kittens, she assigned them to me saying " I guess I could let you have these two.." so in spite of the fact that I only wanted one cat, I came away with two which is OK because I'm obviously heading down that road anyway, so I may as well start as I mean to go on.

As substitutes for other humans in your life I have to say kittens don't contribute to rent or bills and they can't drive or pick up your kids from anywhere, they can't even take a message for you or empty the dishwasher, but this could be because they are babies, I don't know what adult cats are capable of.

As for affection, they jump out of the litter box, run and jump onto my bed, walk accross my forehead leaving grey paw prints and then try to lick the snot out of my nose-at 6am, because they are hungry. From what I can gather, this seems to be exactly like marriage.

My teenage son loves our kittens because, like him, they sleep all day and then party all night. My daughter loves them because they are 'so cute'. 

The kittens work for me because now that I have four jobs and I'm gone all the time and my life sucks just as much as when I had NO job, I feel slightly less guilty about leaving my kids on their own, and on the rare day when I don't have to be somewhere at 8am and I don't want to get out of bed at all, ever again, that snot licking actually gets me moving.

Miss Popularity

Thanks to the miracle that is Facebook, I've been tracking down some of my fabulous friends from Before. I don't know why, I'm no longer a player in that league, having embraced whole-heartedly the Obese White Trash lifestyle of my adopted country, but I guess I still yearn for the old days in Paris, London and New York.

So I found an old friend of mine, an aspiring writer when I knew him sixteen years ago. He lives in New York now, he's on facebook; a glamorous black and white photo of him looking not a day older than the last time I saw him, first name and last, it was definitely him. I send a 'friend request' and...much to my surprise, I do not hear back from him. There are many reasons why this might be, I tell myself. Maybe he's on assignment somewhere where there is no internet ( where is that exactly?) Maybe he doesn't check his facebook very often/ever ( ok but facebook sends you an email every time someone sends you a message and who doesn't check their emails?) Maybe the dog ate his homework and the check is in the mail. Maybe he's married now and his wife is insanely jealous because he's secretly in love with me, or maybe, ( and this one seems by far the most likely) he's just too intimidated by my phenomenal success to get in touch with me.

New Job

Now that I'm working at the extra-special school with the extra-special kids who have extra-special needs, I end up being extra-specially damn tired at the end of the day. Working with the developmentally disabled kids is hard, but not as hard as working with the 'emotionaly disturbed' kids who have nothing technically wrong with them except their whole lives so they are all one step away from Juvie, in fact most of them are in and out of the legal system and the school, sporting their ankle bracelets like badges of honor, and their parole officers make surprise visits to the school frequently.

Life is full of choices; the girl who poops in her hand or the boy who tazered an eighty year old woman in order to steal her purse?

I love my family

Do you have relatives who come and stay with you who are super-sensitive and very easily offended and who constantly make jokes at your expense?

Me neither.