You don't give a shit about anyone but yourself.

Well, I'm a piece of garbage at updating this blog, but I've shared some gems with the AP students on the AP blog.

Here are three:

Friday, 14 October 2011.
The Pompous Writer

If you guys are anything like me, you have an ego when it comes to your writing. Your ego is fat. He sits on the couch and eats Lays, and he wipes his greasy hands across his gray sweatshirt and brushes chip flakes out of his lap and says more more more I’m huge feed me. I met my fat ego face to face yesterday after sending the beginnings of an article to a couple of colleagues. (My ego needs to shave. He needs to bathe. He needs to get a grip.)

When I sent the article to Mrs. C, she said who are you? The Queen of rhetoric, that’s who! Because she is a writer and she understands the grease-stained ego. Why do I write? Because sometimes, I need people to tell me I’m the Queen of Something.

When I sent it to Mr. B, he said it’s okay, but. But. Then he said the angle was wrong, and maybe we should re-focus. He gave fair, honest criticism. My response, naturally, was to grow into my green Hulk body, blow fire out of my ears, and scream I HATE YOUR SOUL AND I AM GOING TO MURDER YOUR FACE.

Because isn’t this the life of the writer? Isn’t this our nature—in the National Geographic observe the writer in her natural habitat way? Don’t our nostrils flare and our faces grow hot and red? Don’t we fume and steam like tea kettles and expand like marshmallows in the microwave?

Mr. B tried to kill my baby. I pushed this piece of writing out of my brain-uterus, and held it up, bloody and crying, still connected by the purple cord, and showed it to Mr. B, and Mr. B said it’s ugly, it’s not done, you need to start over and I thought how dare you say that, I created this, I tried so hard, what do you know about birthing this writing and then I wanted to take the purple umbilical cord and tie it around his neck until he said uncle! Uncle! You’re brilliant! You’re right!

Not really, of course. But, okay, sort of. Isn’t it the same as when parents have a child and they think it’s the most beautiful child of all time, more beautiful than all the other children? Sometimes people have ugly babies. There’s that episode of Seinfeld about it. Sometimes things are ugly and ugly is the only word for them.

Whenever I post a poem for my monthly poetry pool, I become obsessed with it until another of the poets validates its existence. I toss it up on the blog like it’s a ball in the street and wait for cars to drive by and swerve around it. I check every hour. Has someone commented on my poem, yet? Do they know how brilliant it is? When is someone going to see how amazing and metaphorical that image is in the last line? I suppose they’ve all read it, but want to sit back from it for a while until they think of the perfect, nice thing to say. They’ll probably suggest it get published. Because it should.

When I’m not reading the poem for the 800^th time (don’t you read the creative, poignant pieces 800 times? Don’t you become obsessed with them? I read our assignment sheets at least 20 times before and after I hand them out to you, and those aren’t even “real” writing), I’m thinking about the poem. I’ll go for a run and rewrite some of the lines. I’ll recite the images and imagine them on the page and imagine the white spaces between them. I imagine what people will say when they tell me they love it, oh they just love it.

Sometimes, the poem will get a vote for the month, and I’ll think yes! You get me! I am brilliant! And sometimes, someone will comment and say it looks good, but I think you should cut the last line, I don’t love the last line. And then, I’ll sulk. That person is a Grade A Moron, I’ll think. His poem was awful, so of course he doesn’t get mine. Cut the last line? Are you kidding? That’s the best part! Grade. A. Moron.

Then, I'll hate myself for no good reason, because writers do that, too.

Look. Just know that this is supposed to be how it feels. Ugly babies make us stronger. I have multiple degrees in writing, I’ve been writing for a long time, and I still act this way. I still wish Mr. Hoffman, my 11^th grade English teacher, would put my essays on an overhead and read them aloud to the class, and then push-pin them to the writing board and the class would say wow, Jean, I wish I’d written that.

*
Tuesday, 11 October 2011.
Dear Vending Machine,

You know what's great? Surprises. I love when I pay my last dollar for a Coke--that delicious, dark carbonation, like liquid syrup that's been struck by lightening--push the lit-up square on your vending machine chest, and get: a Mello Yello Zero.
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I haven't had Mello Yello since I was 12-years-old, because only 12-year-olds drink Mello Yello and it's no longer 1995. (But I guess it's better than the Vault Zero sodas I consistently got last year and promptly dropped into the trash.) I remember Mello Yello being okay. I mean, it's no Mountain Dew. I also remember a rumor from my middle school years that the "yellow additives" in Mello Yello shrunk testicles. This obviously wasn't a problem for me, so I drank up! Who cares if you weigh 600 pounds and your teeth fall out? Caffeine! Neon soda! Radioactive carbonation! Secret of the Ooze in a bottle! (Look out, Master Shredder, Ninja, Ninja Rap!)
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But, I have to tell you, Mello Yello Zero tastes like butt. Like a giant, yellow butt. It tastes stale and sour and boring and sick and like over-sugared Kool-Aid made by a four-year-old. Moreover, I cannot get the 1966 Donovan hit "Mellow Yellow" out of my head. So, I take a sip, and then my brain whispers they call me mellow yellow! right-right-left. This is annoying; that song is stupid.
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What's great about the accidental Mello Yello, though, is the half-bag of Doritos in my room to complete the meal. Doritos! Sometimes, such a clean bite, the sandy texture of the cheese. Doritos and Mello Yello: all I need is a mouth guard for my overbite, a secret love for Disney movies that I won't admit to my friends, a crush on my best friend's 16-year-old brother, a stack of Teen Beat, a gallon of acne cream, and an ever-increasing fear of my first period, and I've turned conferences into a middle school sleepover.
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Please don't freeze my bra when I fall asleep. Now, let's summon the spirits of the boys we like with our Ouiji boards.

*

Thursday, 6 October 2011.

This is What it's Like to be a Teacher, Everbody

In my classroom on the third floor, I have an old-school pencil sharpener--the silver kind that looks like a mini-meat-grinder, with the various pencil-sized holes on the side like the dials of a rotary phone. And, it turns out it's a pretty crappy pencil sharpener and it destroys pencils. Instead of sharpening them to a fine graphite tip, it gnaws on the wood and makes it dull and the chunk of lead falls out, and kids are taking a Scantron test, and it goes grumble grumble grumble grumble in the silence, and then the kid sniffles his way up to my desk and loud-whispers can I borrow a pencil Ms. Prokott, and everyone is now looking at him, and I slide open the squeaky desk drawer and hand him a pencil.

Naturally, I put a yellow, square Post-it above the pencil sharpener that said Beware! I eat pencils!
I believe it took about 4 minutes for a random student to make the revision in his sloppy correction-pen handwriting: Beware! I eat pen ~~cils~~ is!

Friday, August 10, 2012

Summer-cise!

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Exercise Update

Monday, July 23, 2012

Exercisin' still

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

More exercise 2012 deets.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Running update.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Because I feel I have to keep track.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Gems from the other blog.