SNOW DAY and other listworthy items.

1. SNOW DAY. Happy snow day, everyone. It's my first snow day since that weird day in Winona when classes were cancelled and then the sun came out and it was an amazing winter day. Also: Remember what a bitch the Sheehan parking lot was? God, the bitches in that dorm could not park.

Anyway, Mr. O called me this morning at 5:30 and said no school! Go back to bed! And so I did. (And I think it's the greatest thing that he calls me, so I don't have to wait 7 hours for my 'puter to get started in this freezing house to discover that I just get to crawl back under the covers. A phone call that says: go back to bed, no school and then pulling the covers tighter and shutting the alarm off? Possibly the greatest feeling in the entire world.) It's noon, I woke up at 10:30. I think I'll go back to bed, then wake up, shovel, build a short, fat snowman in the front yard to wave at the passersby on Wabasha County 25 and then pack for my Christmas break, starting early tomorrow morning, since I have to make it to Albertville in time for an early church rehearsal for the mass on Christmas morning. So far, so good.

2. I fucking hate my computer.

3. I am loved; I am so loved in fact, that I must break this down into a sublist.

• Messages, notes, words of love from friends. Comments on my last post that just made everything okay, even on an overly anxious day where I was so out of body that I didn't recognize myself.
• Phone calls from Jenny, the messages I got this morning: I'm here for you. I know you're not asking me for help, but I love you and I'm here.
• Emails from the X: Complete with research about Minnesota programs--research that she most certainly didn't have to do, but that I wouldn't have even known how to do on my own, research that, for me, takes away the anxiety of research and that feeling of high blood pressure, of giving up, or feeling helpless. Words of love, secrets as to how one can obtain anxiety meds, secret pacts about committing insurance fraud, but not really in case any police happen to read my blog (like when Lance wrote about his night in jail on his blog and then the Minneapolis downtown police found it and left comments).
• Sue, Kris, Laura, the program cohorts. Sue, on Tuesday, who I pulled from her plans to calm me down in the PALS room, her soothing demeanor, her advice.
• Sue, who, the next day left me a gift on my chair in my office--amazing cookies, pens!, and a beautiful lined journal that I'll use over break to organize my lesson plans for my first unit with the juniors.
• Kris, who left an amazing secret package in my box at Century with a mason jar of homemade soup and a recipe--one that I'll save for a perfect night at the end of January when homemade soup will cure all, especially when coupled with a french baugette and fresh mozz.
• Drinks with the above mentioned ladies, Laura who reads her email from RPS even less frequently than I do, our consensus of the gentle abuses we take at school, them, much, much more than me. Thank God for them.
• The "bottle" that Mr. O snuck into my office when I was teaching first hour, the clog-wearing santa card, the note on the inside that read Jean, we both need a little vacation and a lot of wine. The accompanying chocolate, much of which I ate in one sitting to confirm my ridiculous fatness, the "bottle" which I will likely consume in one sitting as well. And also without sharing.
• Mr. O., again, because who else would just lead the class because I'm so dizzy, who else would at hearing any cough come from my throat command you're sick, stay home. Either he really hates having me there, or he really is concerned I'm not taking enough time for myself (ironically, of course, that's all I take). Anyway, I was really dizzy yesterday morning and he took over the technology part of the lesson and he stood in front of the class where I couldn't, and he paused the 1968 R & J at a point in the balcony scene and reiterated how important it was to "come up for air" in the midst of passionate, young kisses. I pointed out that if any of you wear a dress like Juliet has on to school, please be aware that you'll be sent home in about 5 seconds.
• My mom sent me a text last night that said have fun shoveling today. Aw.

4. Yesterday at the pub a woman was carrying around a little black puppy, and illegal as it was, it was essentially the most darling puppyish puppy I'd ever scene. Also, I love how I spot puppies from across the room and scream puppy! in the middle of a conversation. This is a side effect of having lived with Liz. A glorious side effect.

5. I'm feeling better. I've noticed that my heart rate still goes nuts with one little sign of frustration, but I'm doing slightly better at keeping control. Of course, I don't have to be back at school until 2009. But still.

6. I have about 4 poems in the queue, and I can't fucking wait to write them. I've been waiting so long to write them.

7. James is moving to France next summer. This isn't good news, but this is a "stuff" list, not a good news list. It's just odd! How one moves to France, I don't know. It's odd that someone else will be in this house come the start of next fall, someone else will be tending to that garden I started. Of course, I cannot buy this house--as I have come to loathe Elgin in the winter as much as I love it in the summer, and I have no credit or money, and I could never take care of such a place, and if I stay in Rochester I'll have to live in town--but now I think of what I'll think of it in five years, that year I lived with James in that farm town, that summer I started my first flower garden, came home with a car full of green and fertilizer and dirt, the dirt roads, the neighbor's horses. It feels, somehow, like I've lived here for so long. Jenny and I drove by the Chicago Ave. house last weekend; also odd to think of it, mostly that cold, cold winter, the buses, the planes, the lake. The Lake Nokomis, the walks with Liz around that lake, talking about high school and work and the men on the bus who offer to massage Liz's feet. The Chinese food across the street, the night, about a year ago, that I came home from that disastrous date. Christmas always makes me so sad.

8. A great day at school yesterday. I joined the knitting club and learned how to suck at knitting. Sue was so kind in teaching me, explaining the slip knot and the casting on over and again. I'm going to buy a pair of size 10 needles today, and use the gift they gave me the first day--a cute little roll of brightly colored "tape" fabric. In the future, all of you can expect oddly knitted sqaures, which you will be required, on principal, to love. Also, we had a good time laughing with the freshman, Mr. O brought them candy cane treats. And I had my last day of tutoring with the ELL girls, which ended wonderfully and also sadly, as I won't be with them for awhile, if again at all. But they were the best students. They called me Miss because they couldn't say my last name, and they loved Laffy Taffy jokes even after I poorly explained them, and they scared me for understanding, after only a year and a half in this country, the phrase friends with benefits. She started out explaining to me--they are..beneficial--I no know how you say it--friends beneficial? And I fell out of my chair and said friends with benefits?! How do you know what that means!

Also, the juniors watched the last of Hamlet that dang scene with all the poison, and after Mr. O handed out the candy canes and the juniors shoved them in their faces, I said hey, Mr. O remember when we poisoned the candy canes? Heh heh.

9. Jenny came last weekend, for one of the most amazing weekends of all time, she came to school with me on Friday and I introduced her to my freshman, and she sat in the back of the room and listened to me talk about Romeo, and we went to Tony Sims and we went to Holidazzle, and she left me on Sunday morning only to go home with the stomach flu. It was the next morning that I was so dizzy I went home early, and I am fairly certain that it was just withdrawal from each other that made us so sick. But I'll see her again, soon. And, again, we'll come up with German alias names to former colleagues of the MFA program, again we'll (probably) watch Home Alone, again, we'll turn on Christmas music and find that most of the songs on the Sirius channel are performed by the "Wind Machine" and have a good laugh at all of that, again we'll long for the X, again we'll personify the pictures that Mark took of his video game machine--one from the front, one from the side, one from the other side, one with the lights off--as though they're inappropriate sex photos and the video game machine was crying while Mark was saying, from the back end of the camera, Oh yeah, baby, give me some more, oh yeah, glow blue, baby.

I have pictures, of course--pictures of the fake mustaches I bought because I'm amazing, pictures of us on a drunken Friday with too much food and whipped cream fights. And of course, my computer is officially the douche master 2000, so I'll post 'em later.

Just know that there is nothing better than a good fucking mustache. Worn by sexy ladies, in public, amongst strangers in the line to see the Macy's A Day in the Life of an Elf Christmas display.

And I have just chain eaten FIVE COOKIES. Fuck off, Christmas.

I am having a shitty, shitty week, one that is full of anxiety and fear and vertigo; one that can only lead me to the conclusion that when I am a pregnant lady I am going to be the worst pregnant lady who ever lived. Not worst in that I say "we're" pregnant when I'm talking about the father and me, or worst in that I lay in bed all day and command people bring me things after only four months of pregancy (I'll save all of that for the third trimester)--but worst in that I will have no emotional control. My road rage will magnify to the point that I just drive around town with my palm to the horn the entire time, laying out that sound to warn assholes not to be assholes while I'm near. I'll be irritable to the point that television commercials make me threaten to punch babies or that when I hear certain Journey songs that I will proclaim that they are the greatest songs ever written and that anyone who cares to argue can just fucking fuck off and die because they know nothing about great music anyway.

That's how it's been this week. I fucking love Journey.

I realize that there are lines can be crossed when it comes to blogs--how personal do I want to get? How much do I care to disclose here in this little white box that let's me change the color of my font if I want to.

Just know I've thought of that before writing. I'm off of a certain medication I've been taking for the last 9 months, and as a result, my body has gone into brain shock. This medication--this evil medication that on Web MD threatens will destroy me [my words] if I don't consult a doctor before going off of it is causing the worst side effects to anything I've ever been on. And I've been on medications that thin blood and kill my white blood cells if I'm not careful. I've been on Lithium. But this generic version of Celexa, this Citalopram is chewing my brain from the inside out. And I have three more weeks of this. Three more weeks until this brain crack is out of my system. I regret any and every decision that led to me agreeing to these drugs in the first place. Ah, yes, Jeano I say to myself now. This is why you agreed to never take SSRIs again.

Plus, for a fundraiser, they're playing "bad" music in the halls in between class--if they raise enough money, they'll stop playing it. "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." I want to fucking punch a baby.

I probably shouldn't be off it, but I've found myself out of options. As I've mentioned on this blog about 700 times, I don't have health insurance. So when I need to see a doctor, problems arise. Problems arise because mental health is treated like a scratch like a treatment that can be prolonged, like those stitches that were put in a week ago but that you can just take out yourself, hand over the sink, sanitized scissors in hand, one by one until you see the pink glossy scar underneath.

I'm stressed out. I mean, I'm fine, but with the depression I've had for ten years couples a bitchy little wife of anxiety, and the holidays and the lack of cash and the students and the class and the shit I have to mail to people and the tests I have to register for and the emergency loans I have to take out and the papers I have to grade--not boding well. The meds were good for that, because it kept the anxious wife at bay. She sat at home and did some knitting for awhile, baked a loaf of pumpkin bread, recorded all of her favorite Law & Order episodes and watched them in a row, without commercials. But now the meds are gone.

I have a bottle at home--but I've gone without them--because it's now, or it's a month from now, when I'm teaching nearly full time, when Christmas is over, when I have 120 papers to grade instead of 60, when I have two preps instead of one. I can't go to the doctor and say: give me more! And in truth, I shouldn't be just begging doctors for such strong prescriptions without a nice check in and "hi, still feel like driving your car off a cliff?" every now and again. So, I'm going off.

I live in Wabasha County. There is a free doctor in Olmsted County, but I don't live in Olmsted County, and when I called and said yes, but I can see the county line from my house, I just please need to come they said well, you live in Wabasha County so you'd have to pay. And then I called Wabasha County and they said that they don't have a sliding scale, plus they don't have any openings until March because they're short on doctors and I said fuck this. I'm sick of this game. I'm sick of starting over every time I move somewhere, I'm sick of calling around to find a doctor who's willing to have me and I'm sick of waiting lists and I'm sick of having to explain this shit over and over again. I'm sick of waiting lists to see mental health doctors, and I'm sick of people not understanding that if I were--I don't know--missing a couple of fucking toes and needed them sewn back on no nurse would be like yes, but are you on the waiting list? Because then I'd have to take my toes and shove them in her nose.

More, though, I'm sick of anxiety attacks. I had one on the way to school on Monday--in the fucking car--and if you know how miserable anxiety attacks are, you know this is not good. It's been a least a year since I've had one--and again. It's not just the stress of the attack, but the stress of knowing I haven't beat this, that I never will, and that as much as I want to quit playing this game that nobody is going to let me. I went home, Monday, after trying to teach and nearly passing out in front of the freshman from the crazy vertigo that this medication has caused--it defeats me, bitterly, and I don't even know what else to say about it--and then I lay in bed for hours and hours until I went to town to write a five hour lesson plan that I barely used and that bombed miserably but that I managed to save today.

And, what is worse, is that I am so out of it--I am so not me, that on my way home from school on Monday, James sent me a text that said when I woke up this morning, the door was wide open and the house was 17 degrees. : ( I apparently had not shut the door tightly. I apparently had left it open, so the inside--the inside--of the house was a balmy seventeen degrees. And then, I put on layers and climbed into bed, and James left for work, and I sat there, shivering, for the next hours, dreaming of hell to get rid of such icicles.

And I woke up, dizzy and sick, trying to overcome all of this weird illness while at the same time trying not to just be pissed about it in general. I've spent the last days literally freaking out. I sit in my office and rock back and forth in my chair. My alarm goes off late and I get to school minutes before the bell rings, and I have to make copies and I run into the room with papers flying behind me, as though a bomb has gone off and everything is just settling. I called Mr. O one day this week, and he ended up saying: you realize that nothing you've said to me in the last minute forms a complete sentence, right? He was joking, but he was right. My conversation with him in those minutes had been like Homer in that one episode of The Simpsons where he just goes muh! buh! ssssuh!

I'm going nuts. Some minutes I'm fine, and the next, my heartrate shoots through the roof and the vertigo gets so bad that my eyes can't see a foot in front of me. Yesterday I sat in the office with the shivers, waiting to cry, but nothing came. Mr. O keeps saying relax, relax, relax but he could record his voice on a tape and I could listen to it on repeat over and again without feeling any more sane.

Today I had to lay some smack down. Yesterday I wrote a list that could teach me to be mean, because right now I'm way too nice.

How to be Mean to Students OR Ways I Can Finally Earn the Uncle-Given Nickname “Mean Jean”

Stop waiting for them to be quiet, patiently. If there are more issues with the talkative class—even if they’re talking about Englishy (shut up, that’s a word) things. During stern conversations about being serious, don’t mention that they are puppies who pee on the floor. Don’t make jokes. Don’t blame myself for their misbehavior, even as a joke.

Practice mean faces in the mirror, particularly the one raised eyebrow and looking over my glasses.

Remember: Students may think I’m fun, but they’ll only take me seriously if I take the time to act serious in class.

I care about English, so it makes sense that I expect them to take it seriously.

Don’t rush through the important things to make a joke. Even if I have a really good one.

When they’re not listening to the serious parts, when they’re not taking notes, when they’re yawning during discussion, take the time to remedy that behavior immediately. Call them out on it.

Use a calm, steady tone when reminding them about misbehavior. Make eye contact with them. Stop trying to soften everything with my wit and impeccable timing. There is time for that later.

Imagine every student is my sister. Smell the evil and sloth steaming out of their pores. I am mean to her, vile, even. A classroom of Amanda’s will bring out the aggressive side of me.

Or, channel my mother in a moment where she finds that I have left my clothes on the bathroom floor again or left makeup powder all over the sink or put my glass “right next to” the dishwasher instead of “in.”

Serious moments will make the funny moments even more hilarious. In the sense that couples fight for the make-up sex.

Stop thinking students will be “hurt” if I am mean to them. They feel about me how they do, that relationship is there.

Space out the meanness. Don’t yell at them for 20 minutes one day and then the next pretend like nothing happened.

Remember the mantra of a friend: So what if I’m a bitch? Sometimes women have to do the teaching thing differently. Take pride in this. Stop wishing I’m a male, sometimes for the “aggressive” reasons. Do the womanly thing and manipulate students into giving me what I want. Then accuse them of calling me fat.

Stop whining in front of the class. Don’t make “deals” with them for good behavior, expect it.

For the love of God, stop taking time to argue with them. It’s what they want, and there is no time.

Talk more with my eyes.

Remember that I am smarter than them. It is my job to impart this wisdom. It is my job to make them listen. If they learn anything, it should probably be discipline.

Stop thinking about it. Stop them. Seriously stop them, and stop them seriously.

There can be learning in shame.

Take students aside before class, and in conversations with them, make eye contact and ask what they need. If students are often late, make a note to them to stay after class to have a conversation with me. Talking to them is the easy part, really. Much easier than getting frustrated with inattention or behavior issues on a daily basis. Stop thinking about it so much, especially now that this list is complete.

***

Now you tell me how to be mean.

FUCK THIS SHIZ.

I didn't get a snow day. Mr. O called at 5:30 because I asked him to, and he said: 2 Hour delay. All of the other schools in our county got a snow day. But not us. We have good plows that pave the way for buses. We have school on our agenda. What a load of shit.

Anyway. I called my mom on the way to work today and asked her to send me a pair of snowpants. In this case, I'll be prepared for when we do finally get our snow day. And I won't have to wear 7 pair of pants just to shovel the driveway for two hours, since our snow blower has officially taken a giant, snowy shit. But I like shoveling the driveway, when the wind isn't blowing in my face, when the sky is cloudy and snow falls all soft and snowy like how it's supposed to. I liked on Saturday when we shoveled, too--James and me singing Christmas songs, me sneaking up from behind and dumping snow on him only to claim it was an accident. We'd been inside all day until then, and when we finally gone out the top layer of snow had hardened so we had to crack our shovels into the top layer of snow to get to the plush underneath. Like a Creme Brulee.

And it broke off, that top layer, in magnificent chunks. Very specific shapes. I said: look James! A perfect pentagon! And then I thought of the story that Lil' P had once told me about her math teacher finding geometry wherever he looked. Kids! Geometry is everywhere! He'd said. Shapes here, shapes everywhere you look! He wasn't even my teacher and he inspired me in a story through Jenny. He wasn't even my teacher and I know that he wore disgusting, somewhat translucent white pants to school everyday.

I also decided that the stiff Creme Brulee chunks of top-snow could most definitely be different countries. Like that time that Jenny and I debated whether a cloud looked more like Cuba or Austria while in the wave pool at Wisconsin Dells. The East side of it was wider; clearly it was Austria. Jenny just said Cuba because she's a Communist, like Lillian Hellman. (Who is not like the mayonnaise.)

Anyway. I wrote a poem this morning as an joke/anti-Ode to this two-hour delay teasing bull-honky. I read it to the students. I wrote this in 10 minutes, I said to them. So be nice. First hour clapped. Second hour looked at me like I'm lame for having written a poem about an almost-snow day.

Two Hour Delay, Thou Art a Villain, Thou Art
BY MS. P

An unsigned yellow cast
on an awkward child,

leaving the flesh of the forearm
in a stinking vacuum,

dehydrating like prune fingers
in a cool bath. You are flat

soda, but decievingly cold, wet
on tongue, but no bubbles. Brown water.

It is as though my neighbor's house started
on fire and from the street we crossed

our arms, blew clouds of breath,
and watched it burn--but the smoke,

like a dark spirit crawled
into my windows and weaved into

the fibers of my clothing, hid
beneath rugs, plated itself like fresh food

onto my dishes. Two hour delay,
I have eaten the loaf of you and found

your last piece to be moldy, the green fuzz
like the dried, soft hair of a newborn. I am thirsty,

two hour delay. But you say: go to class--
and instead of giving me water,

you spit yellow snot into
the bottom of my glass.

Are you there, snow God? It's me, Jeano.

I know it's been a long time since I've gone to church, and I know I wasted almost a whole day this weekend eating too much and getting drunk on Sunday before 1:00 on Bailey's in my coffee, but tomorrow seems like a pretty sweet day for a snow day. Let's be honest. When I was deciding: teach college, or high school? That "snow day" was one of the things that pushed me over to the high school side. Snow days.

Tonight, we're supposed to get 10 inches of snow. It's been snowing for five hours, and it started just 15 minutes after me, 3 chaperones, and 200 students got back from St. Paul. My first field trip. Only three kids died and only about 20 got left behind, so I consider that a success. And, as Mr. O said, it was the icky kids that got left behind, anyway.

So, I'm thinking that with a snow day, I'll get a couple of poems written. Like, it will be a free poem day! I'll start that essay, I'll write my Hunter plans for the week, I'll sleep in. I'll go for a 6 mile run in the snow. After having slept in. Sleeping in. My alarm will go off, I'll check the internet, and it will say school closed, Tuesday, 9 December. Then I'll crawl right back into bed, wrap the blankets around my neck, curl into a fetal position and dream of a roaring fire. I'll wake up, have some oatmeal. I'll say snow day! Snow day! Snow day! Snow day! It's been so long since a real snow day. Snow days! The true "free lunch."

Snow day! Snow day! Snow day!

Have I jinxed it? I still just have to say it. SNOW DAY!

dingleberry.

On Saturday morning, my dad yelled from downstairs: goddammit! Sonofabitch you've gotta be fucking kidding me!

Craig has moved out, and he left his former bedroom (previously my former bedroom) a mess: dark, crusted stains on the carpet, dusty blinds bent and crooked as though someone's been "peeping" too much, plastic cups with the brown sticky of Pepsi gobbed in the corners, old plates that held entire pizzas next to the bed, holes in the wall the shape of a large fist, the knuckles distinguishable, dings and holes in the door. My dad is fixing up the room to turn into a guest room. The carpet is gone, leaving cool concrete. The holes in the walls have been patched and the walls are covered in another layer of white paint. The holes and dents in the door have been fixed, and my dad has sanded down the door ready for a re-varnish. His plan on Saturday morning was to keep working on that door.

But what he found on the newly sanded door was a new hole. Through the wood and to the other side of the door--a rectangular-shaped hole, looking at him with a snarl of splintered wood teeth. Someone had thrown a heavy object at the door. And we all knew that that someone was Dingleberry.

Dingleberry is Travis, or Edward. Not my Travis. Not the eleven-year-old who should rightfully-so be living at my parents' house, whose voice has changed into a baritone, who gets decent marks on his report card except in Language, where he has a C because his English teacher hates him and always makes him draw. Not the pre-teen who looked over my shoulder while I was grading papers over Thanksgiving break and suggested I fail everyone. I love that Travis. I do not love the Dingleberry Travis, or Edward. I, in fact, hate that one.

In fact, I've decided that even though I'm not the kind of person who could ever stab another person, that Dingleberry is someone that I could see myself stabbing. Not to kill, of course. But to poke. And to scare.

This started last May. My dad and Travis and Amanda came to Minneapolis to help me move to Elgin. Amanda's boyfriend is coming too, said my dad, and I thought that it was ridiculous, but oh well. I'd expected that neither of them were going to do any work, but were only coming because they knew we'd go out to lunch, and that's exactly what happened. Free sandwiches. Who's this boyfriend, anyway, I'd asked.

I learned that this boyfriend was from Florida. He and Amanda had met online, and now he was coming to "visit her" for an extended period. Except "visit her" has turned into "live with her and her parents for 7 months." Whether my parents knew this would happen, I don't know. But I do know that the fact that this stranger has been living in my house is fucking ridiclous. Of course, I don't even think Amanda should be living there. But that's just my opinion, and who am I (except the most sane person in this entire fucking family, which is saying a lot).

His name is Travis, but we can't call him Travis because there is another Travis living in the house who was there first--and we don't want to make things confusing. So he goes by his middle name, which is Edward. His last name is Berry; to my dad, he goes by Dingleberry. In fact, my dad will refer to him as nothing but Dingleberry, to his face or just in-reference-to. To me, in-refernce-to, he goes by Amanda's boyfriend needs to get the fuck out of this house or why the fuck haven't you kicked them out yet or useless or asshole or stranger or fucking fuck face.

My sister continues to attend what I call Couch College, which is probably the one thing she's been absolutely dedicated to for her entire life, other than NCIS or books about Vampires. She hasn't stolen anything that I know of lately, but her appetite has unfortunately gotten out of control for someone who, most days, doesn't leave the house--let alone her "classes" at "Couch College" taught by "Professor Lazy." She's fat. She eats a lot of food, and everytime she has money, she buys a lot of food. I pity her. This probably isn't a good thing, but is sad and selfish and wrong, but I do. She has mental problems, and nobody is helping her to fix them. She has been unemployed for months, since Dingleberry moved in. She and Dingleberry eat all of the food my parents buy and then use to fill the upstairs and downstairs freezer. My mom called me a couple of weeks ago to let me know that my sister had made 50 frozen chicken nuggets for her and Dingleberry to eat for dinner. They threw half of them away, wasting an entire meal of food. Who wouldn't be irrate? My mom has kicked them out a couple of times, changed the locks. Dad is too nice. He changes the locks back. He gives her gas money.

I wake up early now, as though I'm 60 years old. I wake up at 7:30, and I go into the living room to read the paper and eat some Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I turn on the light in the living room.

Turn that fucking light off, Jesus Christ! Says Amanda.

I look at her. All I can, again, is THE LIVING ROOM IS NOT YOUR BEDROOM SO GO SLEEP IN YOUR BED.

She has turned the couch into her haven. Her blankets are always there. The cushions are squished together, and the couch bows to accompany her weight. She has pulled the ottoman from the chair up next to her head, and she uses it as a nightstand. She keeps her vampire library books there, she keeps bowls of food there. She even brings the garbage can out from the bathroom and sets it next to her on the couch; this will allow her to get up even less to throw those food wrappers away. She holds onto the remote control as though it's a hot cup of coffee and the winter wind is blowing hard, she has set up her fan at the head of the couch to blow cool air on her head when she gets hot, and when it cools her off enough she turns it to the side instead of turning it off. I suppose the hum soothes her.

And when I come into the living room to start my morning, when I turn on the lights to read my paper--she bends her arm out of position on the couch to turn the light back off. She shields her eyes and starts screaming, her long black hair frazzled and getting caught in her mouth.

I can't sleep in my bed! Edward's in there! She screams.

Don't care. Go sleep in Travis' bed, where I was. I'm not there anymore. Go kick Edward out. Not my problem. The living room is not your room, and I am going to turn this light on, and I don't fucking care if you're sleeping--especially since you've been "sleeping" on this couch since yesterday.


She turns the lights off. I have to call dad for reinforcements. I win. Amanda covers her head with blankets. I crunch my cereal extra loud and sluuuuuuuuurrrrp the milk from the bowl when I'm done. I can see a little light from under the blanket. Amanda is texting people from under her blanket-fort. I wonder who pays for her phone bill and then I have to stop thinking about it so I don't get irrate.

Dingleberry sleeps in until 10, or noon, or two, depending on what time my sister has to drive him to work at Sam's Club, in Maple Grove, twenty miles away. Dingleberry doesn't have a car. My sister shouldn't have a car, but she does. I suppose my parents gave it to her so she's not home all day. Her car used to have a "Support Bitching" purple ribbon magnet on the back, but it's not there anymore. Now there's a black ribbon magnet that says "Some asshole stole my support magnet" in white writing. Clever.

Dingleberry used to work at the Burger King, not far from our house. He didn't make enough money there. He doesn't pay rent, he doesn't pay for food. But he does pay for all of his cigarettes that he smokes in our garage, and he does pay $100 for concert tickets for him and Amanda to go see a comedian on New Year's Eve. I'm assuming he pays Amanda for gas to drive him to and from work, but I don't know how Amanda pays for gas because she doesn't have a job or Disability or self-respect.

But apparently she has sex. Because I saw a Trojan sticking out of the back packet of her giant jeans this weekend. Who keeps a condom in their back pocket when they're at home? Who doesn't know it's all sticking out? I almost poked out my eyes. You think that's hyperbole, but it's fucking not. I became physically sick at the thought of my sister and Dingleberry, in her twin bed. My 300 pound mess of a sister. Dingleberry. He probably weighs 100 pounds soaking wet, or 100.5 pounds soaking wet and with all of that cigarette smoke in his lungs when he inhales, and 110.5 pounds when he's soaking wet and has a puff of air in his lungs and is also wearing his giant black boots and black trench coat. He looks exactly like my ex-uncle Greenie, the one my mom's sister Patty married. Yes, his name was Greenie. Yes, he was disgusting. Yes, he smoked and his teeth--the ones remaining--were brown and yellow like rotting banana peels. Yes, his own kids grew up to be child abusers.

Dingleberry has grown a pubic-hair-like mess of a beard that sits on his face in clumps. It forms mutton chops on the side. Dingleberry has a drawer in the bathroom at our house, and in that drawer he keeps at least 4 bottles of Axe cologne (the mist spray kind) and Axe after shave and men's deodorant that I think he shares with my sister. Dingleberry keeps a red mesh clothes hamper in our basement, and he keeps cigarettes in our freezer. He has a box of PS2 games in the corner, next to his dragon statues--one is a crystal dragon with white frost glass, and the other is black. These dragons sit on the little shelf in the basement, next to my mother's family pictures and wolf statues. It makes me want to die.

Dingleberry crosses his chicken legs whenever he sits down, and his heavy boots weigh them down like the little gray weight on fishing line. He talks as though he knows things, although he does not. I look at him, always, with a scowl on my face and from the right side of my eye--the evil side. I don't respond to his questions or comments, but Travis, my brother, does. Travis thinks the things that he says are smart, because Dingleberry has a laptop and because he knows how to get free internet and how to download games off the internet. Travis listens. I get pissed. Dingleberry gets home from work, and he wears his big gross boots outside and he turns on the computer and he sits on it until 2:00 in the morning. Then he goes to bed in my sister's room, and my sister falls asleep on the couch upstairs, and Travis falls asleep downstairs, because he thinks it's important to stay awake as long as Dingleberry does.

Dingleberry. He talks slow, like a stoner, his fingernails are long and witch-like, and I've seen him without his shirt on and his spine curves in a weird way and sticks out of the skin on his back like an underdeveloped Stegasaurus. His hair is grease. His ears are elfin. He smokes like Ponyboy. He wears a blue vest at work that says "HOW MAY I HELP YOU" in big white, dumb font. He makes excuses for why Travis doesn't do his homework, when I'm just trying to talk to Travis. He is sometimes watching TV when I want to be watching TV, and he is sometimes in rooms of the house that I would like to be in alone. He is attracted to my sister. They shop at Hot Topic together. They see a White Bear Lake restaurant on the show Diners & Drives and they go there, with Travis, to order a pizza called the "Heartstopper." They wear chains. Dingleberry wears black slacks all of the time, faded, like mechanic's workpants.

And he has a temper problem. The last thing that my house needs is another person with a temper problem--all of us are a bunch of angry Pollocks--but Dingleberry can't control himself. His laptop is from the early 90s. It must weigh at good 15 pounds. My sister has decorated the top of it with Winnie the Pooh stickers. I don't know what the use it for. Other than the fact that Dingleberry used it to put a big fucking hole in the newly sanded door downstairs, because he got mad and threw it.

Travis covered for him. My mom took the keyboard away from the computer until Travis would tell her what happened, and he refused, even though he knew. Did Dingleberry ask for a cover up? How do you stay at someone's house as a guest and have the fucking audacity to destory their property in such a decisive manner? So many fucking questions I have for you, Useless Dingleberry.

Dingleberry whipped that smile into the door, Travis covered for him, my dad got pissed, my mom took the keyboard away and grounded everyone from the internet until an unknown date. Dingleberry has to pay for the door, but he still doesn't pay rent, and he still eats all of our food, and I'm certain he is still not saving up for an apartment so he can move himself and my sister out of Freeloading-land into Adultville.

February my mom told my sister. By February 1st, both of you are fucking out of here.

We'll see. Fucking tools.

I just want to go pull an Ethan Frome and sled my ass really fast into a fucking tree.