cheepcheepcheepcheepcheepcheepcheep

The Biology students got to bring baby ducklings home for the weekend. Most of my freshman are in Biology.

Last week, I heard nothing but giddy conversations about what to name the duck. I'm naming mine Finny! I'm naming mine Mr. O! I'm naming mine George Tunces Hofflemeyer the fourth, Jr.!

The ducklings were cute. They sat in the indoor greenhouse all week under heat lamps, and students squished their greasy faces to the glass doors to point at the ones they wanted. The ducklings were fuzzy and yellow-gray, tiny, tiny beaks. They smelled like diapers.

The ducks smell like diapers, I said last week. The students protested that it didn't matter, and then they exploded into their own conversational cheeps at the mention of the ducks. It's like dropping a tear of blood into a pool of sharks. Like baking soda and vinegar.

I said, You know, this week you're going to have your ducks, and then next week they're going to be serving Orange Duck with duck sauce in the cafeteria and you'll wonder where the ducks went. Protests and gasps, and then: I'm naming mine Piggy! I'm naming mine Ugly! I don't know what to name mine!

I'm certain that all of the ducks have an identity crisis, now, having gone through about 16 name changes over the three day weekend.

They picked up the ducks on Friday. Mr. O said they used to get them for the whole day, used to carry them through the halls in their little containers and set them in the back of the classroom while they were learning. I can think of about 3000 things wrong with that sitation. Ducks in the hallways, ducks in the lockers, ducks outside during lunch, ducks in pockets, ducks using their cell phones when they're not supposed to, texting other ducks. There was no duck day care. Mr. O said, instead, there was cheepcheepcheepcheepcheepcheep! the entire hour.

This year, they got them after school. My 8th hour freshman had their giant plastic tubs with them during class, and they begged me to let them go early--minutes before the bell rang, so they could rush down to the greenhouse and get the best duck. The plastic tubs were covered in carefully organized newspaper--very homey. Instead of letting my students go before the bell, I stole a particularly spastic girl's duck house and ran with it, pretending not to give it back so she'd get the worst duck. Then she screamed at me, and I gave it back and let them go two minutes early to retrieve their ducks. They ran down the hallway, practically choo-chooing like trains: duck-duck-duck-duck-duck-duck-duck.

After school, Mr. O's daughter and her partner brought their ducks to his office while he and I were talking. A giant purple bin, lined, and two tiny ducks inside looked scared out of their ducking minds. Look! She told me. When they're together, they don't cheep at all, but when you take them apart, they cheep. It's sooo cute!

Show me, I said. She took one duck in her hand and her friend took the other. Cheepcheepcheepcheepcheepcheepcheepcheep! they bleated, their beaks open wide in horror. Then they plopped them back in their bin, and they sat on their legs, huddled close, and stopped cheeping. Later, when we were in the classroom and the bin was closed, you could hear them cheeping through the plastic. She'd open one corner of the lid, put her lips to the container and scream shut up, ducks! at them. Then she'd close it, and they'd cheep again.

Today, the kids are still talking about ducks. Two girls whipped out a digital camera and said our babies! as they scrolled through the photos. They were an old married couple with an empty nest. I overheard one student ask another--hey, did your duck really die this weekend! And the student turned red and nodded. Oh man, no way! And the student told the story about how someone stepped on his poor duck. I didn't hear who or what killed the poor thing. Mr. O pretended to cry. I said, well, I guess you could change his name to Squishy.

brain surgery barbeque.

I can't decide if I should be grateful or frustrated that I don't understand anything about my family. Especially Barb's side.

At first, this Memorial Day weekend, I was going to go home--I was going to pack my shit in boxes today and then throw it in my car and then drive it to Albertville and toss it in the storage shed with everything else. But then I decided to take the weekend to myself, nice and slow, grading a paper every now and then, running in the heavy, wet air after a warm rain, after having slept until 1:00 in the afternoon. (I can't decide if I should take pride in my maturity or hate myself in that I'm getting really good at being alone.)

What are you guys doing this weekend? I asked my mom when I called her on Wednesday. If she didn't have to work, if they were doing yard stuff or whatever--maybe I'd go home. Instead, she said that on Saturday, during the day, that they were going to a barbeque up north that my cousin Nikki was throwing for my aunt Nancy, since you know she's having brain surgery and all.

Actually, I didn't know and all. I know that Nancy had a stroke sometime earlier this year, and that I'd gotten the news casually, as I get all news from my family: your mom's cheating on me, Gene is dead, your brother had to get something removed from his spine. I didn't know about the surgery. I just said: Oh, okay, a barbeque. Okay.

Mom went on: Well, Nikki's just throwing it for her, just in case--just in case something happens you know, so we all have some time together, in case something happens.

A brain surgery barbeque. In case something happens.

And I'm confused. I'm confused that my mom asks me if I want to come, and I'm confused as to how to respond without making it seem like I don't care if it's the last time I'd see aunt Nancy, her sister, how to respond without confirming what my mother thinks about me since my thesis reading and probably before then--that I think her family is fucking weird, and that I don't understand them at all. Plus, I think it's impossible to get the image of brain surgery barbeque out of my head, even though it's a term I've assigned to it myself. I imagine either everyone walking around with the top halves of their heads cut off like giant chocolate whoppers that have had the top half of the chocolate chewed off leaving only the naked malt to show. Or, for some reason, I imagine pink brains on the grill, browning as the afternoon turns to dusk, getting flipped with giant tongs by missing-the-top-half-of-his-head Uncle Loren who closes the black cover over the grill to keep the smoke inside for flavor.

No, I can't come, I say. My mom is not surprised, and this makes me hate myself.

And then I imagine cousin Nikki still living up North, I imagine her husband, who drove his truck into the front of someone's house while the both of them were drunk and heading home from the bar, I imagine the fight they were having before the crash, what the next morning would be waking up remembering you drove a car into a front window. Then, what the morning of waking up to your mother's possibly-last barbeque, then waking up the morning where she either does or doesn't make it to the "waking-up" part. I imagine Nikki's kids. But I can't imagine their relationships with each other, can't imagine how they call Aunt Nancy grandma. I've never seen that.

I wonder what it's like to plan a brain surgery barbeque, what's on the menu, who mans the meat, what sides you serve, whether it's pot luck. I wonder if you talk about brain surgery at a brain surgery barbeque, or if you pretend it's just a barbeque without the "brain surgery" part at all. Did my mother assign the in case something happens or is this what you put on the invitation. Come to Nancy's Brain Surgery Barbeque! ...in case something happens.

I can't imagine any sort of in case something happens party. But I suppose these are what all parties are that send soldiers off to war, that confirm why my dad's side of the family is so adamant about celebrating every single one of my grandmother's birthdays into her 90s and everyone better show up and everyone better be in a picture with her. I suppose, really, every party is a in case something happens party. We better have fun while we can. You better see everyone related to you before you go in. And you better eat a hamburger in the process. And you better sit in a woven lawn chair.

But, let's be honest. This is more for us than it is for Aunt Nancy, isn't it?

My family has taught me to not talk about the big things--affairs, death, illness, despair, unemployment, money, abuse. I found out my sister was raped in the back room of a gas station by reading her MySpace page, and I don't even know how to ask anyone if it's true or if she's turned her life into fiction because she's watched so much law and emergency room shows and found family in the characters who always save victims.

And when I imagine the brain surgery barbeque, I imagine not Aunt Nancy, but how I see my mother in her. They have the exact same mouth that quivers the exact same way in anger. They yell at their kids with the same loud scream, they search for angry-words in the same way--when you can see the blank expression in the eyes, waiting for the brain to find the perfect punishment. They have the same cheek bones. All of her sisters do.

When Nancy had gastric bypass surgery a couple of years ago, she turned into my grandmother. She cut her hair short, she started drinking again because she couldn't eat her bad marriage away any longer, and her face sunk in as though she was making a fish face without even trying. She aged 20 years in 2 years. She lost 200 pounds, and the rest of the sisters put on weight. My mom continued to fluctuate, as always, but Cindy, the one who was as thin as a cigarette, found herself a size 16. Becky, the one with the curves and the long, dark hair that gave her the persona of a Native American, put on weight in her face, arms, thighs, and knees, which especially showed in her cut-off denim shorts. Patty grew wider.

And Nancy, when she was fat, was so very, very fat. And I can only see her in the summer in her fat, wearing it like a costume, tucking one fat leg under her body as she sits on the couch. Her selection of terry cloth tube tops, pink, yellow, baby blue--and the tiny little shorts over her wide shelf-ass, the way the cheeks hit the thighs and the lines of her fat formed a giant smile as only a fat woman's ass can do. Making us macaroni and cheese with hot dogs on square burgandy-colored plates. Sweating in the up-north humidity, the windows open, the dust from the baseball fields across the road blowing in. She keeps pulling her just-shampooed dark, curly hair back in her hands, forming fake ponytails that she has no tie for, letting it fall back to her shoulders.

And I only want to imagine my mother's sisters how they were. Not aged, not grandmothers, not at in case something happens brain surgery barbeques, not where they've stopped caring enough to eat poorly instead of work the chicken barn with no lunch break or walk the lake in the hot weather. I want to imagine the barbeque from the summer of what must've been '90, the large fire pit in the backyard. The fish fry of Sunnies the men had caught that day while we at in dirty swimsuits and dug our feet into the wet sand of Leech Lake, the cool pavement of the garage, the beer cans piling up, the men and their short shorts, the women and their tan shoulders, the thick dad moustaches, the poker on the card table outside, the swearing, the beeps on the local weather channel warning us that a tornado was coming, the kids running outside and the parents pushing them back in, the clouds twisting like the cigar smoke in the garage, shutting the garage door to keep the rain out and the games going and the drinking going. Then, the drive after the storm in someone's loud truck, out to Aunt Patty's trailer to see if the storm had harmed her, taken anything down. Then the assurance of everyone's safety.

the weeks of lasts.

The school year is now turning into lasts. Tomorrow is the last vocabulary test, probably. Last week was the last seminar. I introduced poetry on Tuesday, the last time I'll have introduced a new unit to the freshman.

Life comes in firsts and lasts, or I suppose it seems like it does because I've never written a blog post called "the weeks of middles." Soon, I'll pack the boxes in my room, but I won't know where I'm moving them to. Soon, I'll have to lug all of the books out of this office, because I set up shop here as though I was planning on staying for a long time. The last day of Advisement, the last day the cafeteria is serving chicken patties, the last day an English class feels like a real class before the "lasts" officially take over and leave my entire classroom in chaos. The last time I'll be known as Ms. P in these halls, the last time I'll tease the two students in my class who are dating (the ones who only hold hands at school because their parents say they are "too young to date") and accuse them of pass-time rendevous, the last time I'll collect a big chunk of papers, the last time I turn on the overhead, the last time I create an assignment sheet. The last time I'll come to school in the morning and tell Mr. O I don't really have anything good planned for the day when I sort of do, the last times at Century.

And, of course, then the firsts will start, but along with the firsts will come the "oh great, agains," like: Oh, great, again I don't have a summer job, place to live, decent relationship with my family that should lead them to kick out Dingleberry before I move home. Oh great, again, I'll have to skirt around credit card payments and student loans because I can't afford to give other people my money. The first day of the summer job, then, whatever that will be, the first day of a new class, the first day I leave Rochester for good, in a couple of weeks, only a couple weeks out from the anniversary I moved down here. 1 year and two weeks.

Everything tastes a bit sweeter. Everything will soon just be nostalgia and I'll miss it like fucking crazy. Goddammit.

Meanwhile, my freshman don't hate poetry, which is enough for me right now. Meanwhile, I think I'll be participating in a study at Mayo, donating my body to science for money. The only requirement for the study is that I be fat, that I "carry my weight in my hips and thighs." They inject things into me to see where the fat goes where it goes, and by the time I'm done, I'll finally know why my thighs and arms hoard my fat like the ignorant in the South hoard canned food before a two-inch snowstorm forecast three weeks early. They'll pay me $800, if they find my fat adequate. Although, I worry. If my fat gets rejected, then I won't know what to think of myself. I was traumatized after the Mankato blood people didn't want my plasma four weeks. I gave up trying to sell it to them.

Yesterday a man dressed in his army uniform was outside my classroom windows for the entire day. They'd set up a rock-climbing wall for people to use during gym and lunch. The girls in my class flocked toward the window. They're wearing short-shorts now, tank tops that require strapless polka-dot bras underneath. They have to worry about falling out all the time, falling out of everything. I would turn my back for a second, and then the skinny little things would be by the window, staring at him. Ms. P! He's so hot, they'd say. You should date him so he can be a guest speaker in class!

No, he's married, said another girl. He has a ring.

BUT HE TOUCHED GABBI ON THE ARM! Oh my God, he's so hot Ms. P.

Remember that Diet Coke commercial from the 80s? The women drink some Diet Coke up in their office building and then look at the construction workers below? Yeah, it was just like that.

And if you'd have walked in at just the right time, you'd have seen the 5 seconds I joined them, open-mouthed and staring, splitting the blinds with my fingers and peeking through, looking like their leader.

teachin' stories, 4 weeks out

Today I marked a student tardy--I like to scream tardy! as loud as possible while I mark them with the yellow TDY box on the computer. Then, he said if I marked him TDY that I was fat, and I thought it was the funniest thing ever, that I was fat if I marked him TDY. I marked him TDY. You can even call me tardy lardy, if you want, tardy lardy two by four, can't fit through her classroom door. Students gasped. They said, you're not fat at all! And I just kept laughing.

A student handed in his ode today: "Ode to the pencil in Ms. P's hair."

Another student wrote about "fingering" his cello "in her hole." Mr. O and I decided to have a conversation about that poem with him. Eighth grade called, Mr. O essentially said. I said, gross.

I dared a student to put a whole square rice krispie bar in his mouth so his cheeks would be square. He did, and then it got sort of stuck and then he spit the whole thing out at once, as though he'd birthed an entire rice krispie bar, all slimy and newly born.

Today in the library we played "EVERYBODY HELP MS. P FIND HER GRADEBOOK!" It was really fun.

Today in the library students read aloud their personal research about Bram Stoker, it says he like necrophilia. That means sex with dead bodies!

I agreed to be in a movie for some students after school. Nobody, fortunately, got the joke when I said, you know when people said "wanna be in a movie" to me when I was in a college I wound up in a loootta trouble!" I played a Chemistry teacher in the movie. I had to pretend to hand out a test. The movie is about a kid who has to pee during the test. I had to film a scene where I enjoyed a cool drink of water from a water bottle--the squirty kind--all sexy and refreshing like. I poured water--cold water--down the front of my blouse in front of my fake-student classroom of 20 kids. I'll let you know when the movie comes out, unless I look fat in it. Then you'll never know.

No thread. ... or is there?

Yesterday at school I overheard a student say that I was his favorite teacher. I wasn't meant to hear it, he pointed at me in Mr. O's office and said HI MS. P! and as he was walking away said, she's my favorite to one of his friends. This is the same student who told me that I ruined Lord of the Flies for him: before I liked the book and the movie, but then you start talkin' about these allegories and stuff and now it's so confusing. In response, I said: you know that's the worst thing you could ever say to your English teacher, right? and then I pretended to sob, and we had a class-downtime laugh. I thought nothing of his comment on Friday. I was stuffing my face with yellow cake and chocolate frosting for a co-workers birthday celebration, I was licking the tines of a plastic fork, but I woke up last night with that thought on my mind, this May, the near-end of this year, and I felt too empty to even cry.

I've eaten more vegetarian hot dogs this week than anyone should eat in a lifetime. Heartburn.

Next week, the juniors are studying contemporary literature, namely Neruda, namely "Ode to My Socks," the only Neruda in the 1300 pages of our World Literature textbook. I read an interview of his with Bly, 1966, The Lamb and the Pinecone. Through a hole in a fence, a small hand passed through a toy lamb, in return Neruda passed back the thing he loved most--a pinecone.

The students will write odes next week, and they will be horrible, but after reading through the odes of Neruda, and the new odes of Dean Young, I want to pay homage to everything. And I can't get the line out of Neruda's "Gentlemen Without Company" out of my head: the young wives who have been pregnant for thirty hours. That's such a great line. Who knows when they've been pregnant for thirty hours. I love shifts in time. Or measuring time. How do you know the exact moment when you fall out of love with someone? Is it like flicking a light switch, or that non-existance of time when a stoplight changes from red to green? When is one sober to when one is drunk? And what about when life changes. When you get a new job, when someone dies, when you say only 20 seconds ago, things were as they always were.

Last night I came home to take a nap, after school, I lie in bed at 3:30, and I didn't wake up until 10:00. I saw the clock and wondered: how am I so awake at 10 at night, and then realized I was still in my shirt-dress and cardigan from the school day. What else to do but wake up and make an entire pizza, what else to do but watch horrible TV, pop sleeping pills, and forget crawling back into bed.