What I found:
One (1) tube of Blistex Regular Lip Balm Lip Protectant/Sunscreen SPF 15
One (1) tube of Natural Ice SPF 15 Medicataed Lipbalm Original Flavor
One (1) tube of Stila Sheer Lipstick (Ava)
One (1) tube of Almay One Coat Lip Color (Raisin)
One (1) tube of Lorac Matte Lipstick (Receive)
One (1) tube of Burt's Bees Wings of Love All-Natural Lipstick (Honesty).
I guess I'm going to have to stick to secret notes on the bathroom mirror.
Commentary by Students on the Nature of Love in Accordance with What They Would Like to Believe Regarding Their Drama Teacher
The 2nd Grade Version:
Last week Eli and I were teaching two different classes. Because we are a boy and a girl who can joke without cootie-worry, both sets of our students decided that we must be In Love and began plotting. While sitting in the theatre, the following exchange took place:
Ida's class is sitting one row directly behind Eli's class. Two girls in Eli's row are whispering and giggling. One of them turns to Ida.
C: Do you like Eli?
Ida: Of course.
C: How much do you like Eli?
Ida: I like Eli as much as I like lasagna.
C and J whisper fervently.
C: How much do you like lasagna?
Ida: I loooooooooooove lasagna.
C and J open their eyes and mouths as wide as little-girl possible. C and J whisper to each other. The whispers of C and J spread to the other students in their row. They are a whispering rainstorm.
C: Ida, everyone knows now.
And....scene.
The next day, while on a field trip, I stopped abruptly in front of Eli. Immediately, C ran up to us, put her hand on Eli's back and my stomach and demanded "Kiss! Kiss! Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssss!"
The 8th Grade Version
Eli is nowhere in sight. There are no eight-year-old matchmakers. The 8th grade boys speak for themselves.
S: I'll be her daddy.
Finis
My residency with these middle schoolers will now be a success. Not because they are Hot for Teacher (I mean, c'mon), but because I worked it into the curriculum. A few weeks ago it was burps; this week it's gettin' some. A few weeks ago it was monsters in folklore, this week it is the most famous of horn dogs, Romeo and Juliet.
It'd be way easier to write up these grade evaluations if I used phrases like "plays well with others" or "excellent penmanship" but nooooooooo, I had to have them write cryptic short plays based on found text and identify dramatic moments and potential production problems in children's literature and must come up with individual comments regarding such.
Fuck it. I'm going to read comics in the tub. And listen to Beat Happening. If I stay in the water long enough, maybe I can pretend I'm going to a show at the Hal Holm Center. Yeah, I'd get out and put on a white t-shirt, that brown and orange gingham wrap skirt, and a pair of brown shoes. I'd ride around Ellensburg in my mom's gold Buick with the rusted-out hole in the floor of the backseat and eat a Simple Plate at The Valley.
Wanna knock over apple carts with the pounding of our hearts?
Rosie the Ratter
or
Taking Jobs Away from Our Boys
or
Don't Fret, There's a Segue into a New Topic at the End
We've come full circle, kids. In the past months there have been rat sounds, rat sightings, rat nibblings, rat droppings, boxes of rat poison (full), and boxes of rat poison (empty). This morning the inevitable arrived: Dead Rat Body.
Turns out I'm girlier than I thought; I screamed when I saw it. It wasn't a housewife-on-a-stool shriek, but a breathy low gasp of a scream sturdy enough to hurt the joints of my toes. When I realized that I was the only one home, I panicked: Boys cannot do the Boys' Job if Boys are not at home. I was trapped. Alone. I would have to concoct a Dead Rat Plan. I started wandering around the house in bigger and bigger circles, each time stopping at Mr. Tumnus the First and wondering about body temperature and rigor mortis and how to avoid finding out about either with any part of my own body.
Five minutes, one old mop and one open door to the balcony later, the rat was gone and I was out the door to teach.
Less than an hour into teaching, one of my students banged his head against the corner of a block. Man, head wounds are bloody. I scooped him out of there before any of the other students really noticed, concocted a fabulous gauze bandage, and we returned to class. Because 1st and 2nd graders think my jokes are really funny, there are now twelve students off and on repeating that Andrew got a "head start" on his hat for this afternoon. (At least it stopped them from trying to stick their fingers into gooey mats of hair.)
Dead rats, wounds-to-the-head, and bad jokes. How's bayou?
(PS: Dear Mr. President, if I say to a student "Do not hit others with blocks" it turns out that student can use your policies as a reason why hitting others with blocks is okay. I'm sending him to your house. Respectfully, Ida.)
Ida: Have you heard the rat today?
Sister: No, I have not heard the rat. Have you heard the rat?
Ida: I have not. I have not heard the rat.
Sister: It is good not to hear the rat.
Ida: Maybe it ate the poison.
Sister: There is poison?
Ida: Oh, yes. There is poison.
Sister: Where is the poison?
Ida: The poison is in the basement.
Sister: Oh, in the basement.
Ida: The poison is under the butler's perch.
Sister: Oh, the butler's perch.
Ida: The poison is behind the stove.
Sister: Oh, the stove.
Ida: Maybe the rat ate the poison.
Sister: Will the rat die from eating poison?
Ida: Yes, the rat will die. The rat will die from eating poison.
...
Okay, so I just looked behind the stove and not only did Mr. Tumnus eat poison, it ate an ENTIRE BOX of poison.
How come I feel really bad now? Like, if just a little poison were missing I'd be all hooray! hooray! the rat ate the poison! But since the entire box is gone I think maybe we are being cruel.
I wonder if I'll stop thinking that when the stench comes?
...
Sister: Where will the rat die?
Ida: It may die in the walls.
Sister: Oh, in the walls.
Ida: It may die in the basement.
Sister: Oh, in the basement.
Ida: It may die in the fishtank.
Sister: In the fishtank?
Ida: No, no, not in the fishtank. I am being paranoid.
Sister: You were being paranoid.
Ida: Yes.
Sister: You were being paranoid because you do not want to see a dead rat.
Ida: No, no, I do not want to see a dead rat.
Sister: Who will remove the dead rat?
Ida: Where is brother? Brother could remove the dead rat.
Sister: Brother does not live here.
Ida: Where is Father?
Sister: Father lives with his new family. He cannot remove the dead rat.
...
Okay, so I really don't want to find or touch or do anything with a dead rat. I want it to be the Boys' Job. I am okay with it being the Boys' Job. I don't like cockroaches either. We had cockroaches in Chicago and I just couldn't...
What was that noise? Was that? Dammit. Mr. Tumnus! Another box of poison for you, motherfucker.
...
Sister: What is this word you say, this "motherfucker?"
Ida: Oh. It is a bad word. It is a word you should not say.
Sister: I should not say motherfucker?
Ida: No, no you should not say motherfucker.
Sister: Is it okay to say "motherfucking rat?"
Ida: Yes. Yes, it is okay to say motherfucking rat.
Sister: Die, motherfucking rat!
Ida: Yes. That is a good thing to say.
Sister: Die motherfucking rat! Die! Die!
Ida: Yes, yes, the motherfucking rat should die.
Sister: Where will the motherfucking rat die?
Ida: Do not worry. We will make the boys pick up the motherfucking dead rat.
Sister: It is good that boys live here.
Ida: Yes, yes it is. But I do not think they will think so.
Yesteday, while giving somewhat complicated instructions regarding super heroes and acting choices, one of my students shifted closer to me and whispered "I'm wearing Batman underwear right now."
I dreamed last night that I had a meeting in the basement with the Queen Rat. She and I had a lovely chat and it was agreed that her 700 rats would stay out of our house but could have free reign of the backyard.
This dream was a relief. I thought my dreams were going to be all Indiana Jones because that's what I'd been thinking about earlier in the day and I saw Mr. Tumnus' ratbutt right before I went to bed. I thought I'd scared him away by listening to the Butthole Surfers really loudly, but apparently he is a fan.
If killing them doesn't work, our household has decided that maybe we can train Mr. Tumnus & Friends to wear little red hats and be messengers and bellhops throughout the house, just like the Muppets.
The rat lives behind the stove. I have named him Mr. Tumnus.
I think I might try to feed him some "Turkish Delight" tomorrow.
I had a dream that my grandfather died. This wasn't so bad, because he really died about ten years ago. The part that was strange was that my Aunt Renae had cured strips of his flesh to make photo albums. And not like photo albums that look like the kind you get at Bartell's, but like a big square with diagonal flaps, like we lived on the prairie. (Because that's what they do on the prairie, you see.)
It only seemed kinda creepy and weird until the photos were revealed. Then it seemed like maybe it was a good idea. After we looked at the pictures, we all went to his wake. There was a Japanese punk rock band and it was in a big warehouse-y kind of space with wooden pews and poor lighting, kinda like ConWorks.
My grandfather's actual funeral was nothing like that. During the family-only part my cousin Benjamin kept pinching at my dead grandfather's nose. He was only four, so he was used to playing games with my grandfather like that...my grandfather liked to play games that involved his grandchildren trying to poke or pinch him until he'd slap you. That and "kick my leg as hard as you can" because he only had one real leg. He used to keep his Sunday-go-to-Meeting leg in his closet with a good sock and dress shoe on it. His everyday leg featured an ordinary sock and a leather farm boot. So, anyway, Benjamin's there pinching Grandpa's nose and poking at his face and we're not sure what to do, but mostly because our Aunt Barbara is taking pictures of the whole thing. (Aunt Barbara being the mother of Benjamin.) Another cousin--brother to Benjamin--and I were trying to figure out which leg, if any, was in the coffin along with our grandfather. (It never occurred to me while growing up, not even a little, that maybe our family chock full of cousins was maybe sorta white trash. It didn't occur to me until Keira came over and we went to a different cousin's house to get a movie and hung out in their Astroturfed living room while the redheaded occular albino baby ran around in a diaper.)
But also at my grandfather's funeral my grandmother held my hand and told me, with tears in her eyes, that my grandfather had died so soon because he had a weak heart from when he had rheumatic fever.
My grandfather was 89-years-old. He had rheumatic fever when he was twenty-three.
I would like to be that in love when I am old, in love enough to believe that my sweetheart wasn't old enough to die.
Turns out that not buying the shirts worked out okay: most all of the kids found something in their closet. Which still means a few didn't and a few forgot their costume so I still had to get six shirts. My favorite excuse for why one student forgot?
"I was doing my homework."
I went to Target. Did I find the shirts? Yes. Did I find a girl's-large pink tank top with hula-hooping monkeys on it? Yes. Did I find two shirts with trucks on them in the boy's department? Yes. Did I find glassware because our has mysteriously disappeared? Yes. Did I hear two jock-lookin' teenage boys talk about lotion that "makes your hands hella soft?" Yes. Did I find over-the-counter Claratin that still costs as much as the prescription version if you don't have insurance? Yes. Did I nix bedroom curtains but decide on a comforter cover? Yes. Did I sometimes give the cart a little push, jump on, and ride along?
Yes. Fuck yes. That was the best part!
Things I was supposed to purchse yesterday:
12 t-shirts in varying colors, all in child sizes.
Things I actually purchased yesterday:
4 comic books
3 pairs of underpants in grown-up sizes
2 shirts in grown-up sizes
1 pizza
It's March 1998 all over again!
(See, 'cause that's when Keira and I went to every Fred Meyer, Target, Costco, and Ross Dress for Less to find twelve pairs of boys underpants for our students to wear on their heads and instead bought regular pants for ourselves. Eventually we met with underpants success. I have pictures.)
Beware. Molly and I are perfecting our villainy. In the past, our handiwork has been recognized in birthday cakes that featured bleeding ambulances, mercenary gingerbread men who catch fire, tits and ass, and fruit leather merry-go-rounds. Now, with an assist by John Galt, we have added sweetalking latenight security guards, latenight security guards with keys to historical buildings.
Breakin' the law! Breakin' the law! Breakin' the law!
(Well, maybe more like "breakin' the rules! breakin' the rules! breakin' the rules!")
(PS Another villain and I taught transitions for six little plays plus ran the show plus blocked curtain call plus did a costume check-in with 75 4-5th graders in an hour and fifteen minutes today. Suck those pants, yo.)