Friday in June, days from the end.

During his morning piss, Lenny saw a fox standing in the middle of the road. It looked only slightly orange, mostly white and gray, black highlights around his face. Lenny took off, and I had to take off behind him. The fox stared for a second and then turned 90 degrees into the neighbor's yard, and his shaggy tail tucked between his legs.

Yesterday, my 10th graders did an assignment with PostSecret. They were to write PostSecret cards for the characters from Raisin in the Sun, but before they could do that, they had to know what PostSecret was. I said don't go to the website without your parent's permission, it can be kind of scandy and as I was saying this, Dan was at the desk behind me, pulling up the website. And this was the secret that came up.

And the entire class laughed, and he blanked the screen, and Dan said it said she really wants to put a cucumber in her salad, and George, the student, said yeah, to toss the salad and I was laughing and laughing and laughing. And then apologizing.

Later in that class, I read a PostSecret about a post-it a ten-year-old had written that said I hate my life and then a girl said Oh my God, I would kill myself if my kid wrote that.

A few minutes letter, a couple of girls came up to me and said Ms. P, there is something wrong with A. And I looked over at A, and she had crawled under her desk. She had crawled under her desk and was sitting with her legs crossed as though she was in a little desk-fort with a protective writing-surface roof, and she was crying. And I went and sat cross-legged next to her on the floor.

I said, A what's up? Is everything okay? What's going on? And a single tear slid down her cheek, a bag of freezer peas slowly thawing.

She wouldn't look at me, she said it's just that comment about somebody saying they'd kill themself.

This is not the first time A has cried because somebody brought up suicide in class. When we watched Othello stab himself in the stomach a couple of weeks ago and a kid in class said dude, not realistic, if you stab yourself in the stomach it takes a long time to die, and then kids said yeah, he would be like oh, hey guys, what's going on, after he killed himself, like he'd be bleeding out of his stomach and then he'd be all, so how about those Knicks while he's waiting to die.

A's response was to cry. I felt horrible. I'd laughed at their joke, and she said suicide is not a joke and I was a very bad person and a very bad teacher. I took her in the hall, and I apologized that I had laughed, too, and I said that people always deal with things that are uncomfortable by laughing and making jokes, and it was hard for the class to watch that scene. I think people are not always cognizant of what happens around them or who their comments might hurt.

I said the same thing to her yesterday, I said that the student's comment was just an over-dramatic teenager thing to say. I brought tissues into her little fort, I sat back on the floor and chatted with her some more. The bell rang, she left. I emailed her counselor.

On Tuesday, a girl cried in front of the whole class when we were talking about racism. Her father, from Mexico, had his car searched, and the dogs tore it up, and it was all without probable cause, and it was in Wayzata, and it was so racist. I brought her tissues. I hugged her in front of the class and thanked her for sharing. I chatted with her after everyone stopped staring at her in their sympathetic I-don't-know-what-to-do-I'm-fifteen way. I asked her more questions. Her nose started bleeding.

Yesterday, when we were talking about racism, a girl said, after I mentioned that sometimes dogs can appear racist because of what they are exposed to, so, but, can dogs be racist? No, no, I mean, not toward people, but like, toward other dogs.

My laughter made me bend at the middle to gain composure.

Yesterday, the turd-eater handed in his last essay. The purpose of the essay was an ad analysis, to discuss the cultural and sexual implications of an advertisement and how offensive images (constantly seen) can affect the way a culture or gender perceives itself. From his essay:

the white dress which is very inocent [sic] as though she's a virgin, makes her seem a little naughty and that she's already a little tipsy and feeling good.

...it looks like she wants it pretty bad. ...she wants it pretty bad. She's wearing some cowboy boots, showing she's not afraid to get down and dirty, in meaning more than one, and this wine puts a little cowgirl in everyone.

...some Cockatoo Ridge wine she'd like some of the actual COCKatoo. It portrays that some women are sluts when they've had that tasty wine they like so much. The bird on her arm is the replacement for what she really wants, a little bit of dick.

...the girl is really cute and is showing she likes to have fun, all girls do. ...she has naughty written all over her. ...this ad has a very sexy lady...she lives on a farm, which usually [sic] the best things are made by farmers. The advertisers using sex alone [sic] to sell their product. Nothing else. But it looks like a good advertisement because of how they put the girl with the bird looking all sexy.

Wednesday in May.

I wore jeans today, on Wednesday, because I'm tired of dressing up. The office is hot, the lunchroom on the 4th floor is pizzeria-kitchen hot. The sun beats in like it's the lightbulb and we're the oven. I need to move more. In May, I'm not a teacher, I'm a babysitter. But today we reviewed for tomorrow's Othello test, and I'm always excited when they nail the practice questions. I want to say: can you believe it! You're quoting Shakespeare, and three weeks ago you were groaning about it. Ha ha, I taught you. Ha ha, you learned. Suckers.

I just finished my big essay dump of the year, 90 essays. Tonight I don't have any, and tomorrow night I don't have any, and on Friday I collect 30 more. But I have 2 days of freedom. Well, I mean, I have some tests to grade and some homework to grade, but fuck that.

The turd-eater fell asleep in class today, yesterday, and the 20 days before that. When I called his mom two weeks ago, she cried into the phone, and she said all the teachers had called that week. We had to. It was the "probable senior failure" phone call. The turd-eater is called the turd-eater because on the first day of class he fell asleep with a chew in his mouth, and when he woke up, the chew dripped down his chin and into a pool of brown on the desk. It looked like he'd been chewing on a turd. Or, as I told my friends in an email, he was a robot and his mouth was leaking oil.

Lenny and I walk 2.5 miles a day, now, down to Wayzata beach and along the bookstore and coffee shop and ice cream shop and BMWs in the street and trees that flower white lilac-smelling flowers. Everytime we walk under the tree, I think of Hutchinson. It was around this time last year, when I was complaining of the vagina-smelling tree in my front yard, how every time I stepped outside, it stunk of vaginas.

Reflection in March.

Craig is having surgery this week to remove a syst from his spine, I think. The doctors dig it out from the root. Saturday, on the phone, this is what Rich told me. He told me, too, that he is getting disability, finally, from the Navy. It turns out his shitty hearing is not from the rigs he's been working on in the shop for the last 30 years--it's from the giant boat engines he serviced while in service. He's been deaf for a lot longer than I've thought, and now I wonder how many conversations I've had with him from the backseat of the car that have been one-sided. He told me that the first purchase with his deaf money is chrome rims for his new Chrysler 300. They're in the mail. On Sunday, my uncle Al died, and it's the second brother my dad has lost in a year. Saturday, on the phone, Rich said he was off dialysis, he was close to going. He's essentially starving to death, Rich said, and I remember that this is how Duane died when they found him, lost in the warehouse. When they found him, he was emaciated, he had starved. And I don't know what to do with this information, because it still doesn't seem real to me, that my uncles died because they starved, because they didn't get the food they needed to make their bodies move, breathe, live; these men of my childhood, of my father's whole life, who I mostly know through the giant plates of turkey and half-plates of mashed potatoes and over-buttered buns we've pulled from the same family-meal-buffet lines. And it feels unsympathetic to dig for meaning in this, to unearth a symbol or lesson or reflection in it all, but this image is so horrifying for me, I just close my eyes and see cheekbones, and I don't know what else to do with it.

Three months later.

Hello, old friend.

I have eight minutes until the bell rings, to update you on where I've been for three months. That's not enough time, but here are two anecdotes that will explain, if you read carefully. Of course you don't read carefully. You're a blog.

1) Yesterday, when I was grading papers with my thin, red Papermate correction marker, I noticed that I'd gotten sloppy and sleepy: my hand stopped doing what I wanted, and as I wrote comments I kept missing the paper and accidentally writing on my own fingers and hand. By the time I was done grading, the little red-pen dashes looked like self-inflicted bleeding cuts. In fact, I convinced myself that they were cuts enough that when I looked down I felt little slices of pain, just a little warm and fresh, not yet ready to heal.

2) I hate my graduate research right now. It's a load, and I keep having the instinct to tell my Composition students that they're my little mousy subjects, that I'm photocopying their papers in secret and their conversations in public, that I'm writing journals about them when they don't know what I'm doing up there at my desk. I imagine myself in a lab coat at the photocopier, that the green light from the machine is really some radioactive light, and I carry their papers around like Erlenmeyer flasks. They are white mice. I wonder how attached mice-testing scientists get to their mice before they inject cancer or whatever underneath their fur. I mean, I'm just observing their behavior, so I'm not that equivalent. But at the same time, I want to give them new names. I mean, I have Test Subject #1, but I feel like they should have mouse names like "whitey" or "bitey" or "Circle-face" for the one that won't stop running in circles and hitting his mouse muzzle on the side of the maze.

An Open Letter to People Who Hit "Reply All" So Their Stupid Emails Reach Everyone in the High School:

Dear People Who Hit Reply All so Their Stupid Emails Reach Everyone in the High School,

No.

Sometimes someone has to send a mass email. That email sometimes has meaning. But most times, I don't give a shit or it's not relevant to me. That's fine. A small delete will suffice.

(Note: Um, I take part of that back, sometimes they are emails like HEY EVERYBODY JIMMY JOHNS HAS SUBS FOR $1 TODAY and that is an email that has no meaning but informs me on the proximity of cheap sub sandwiches. Those emails are fine.)

Today someone sent out an email that said: hello, sorry for the mass email, but I just wanted to let you know that my email has been awkwardly sending out old messages to new people, so please ignore any emails from my name that don't make any sense. Thanks, Amy.

Sounds good. Thanks for the info, Amy. I'll delete this email because I haven't gotten any weird spam from you, but the information is noted. (Also, do you have any coupons for Jimmy Johns.)

But then, People Who Hit Reply All, one of you said, Oh yeah, well how do I know this is you, ha ha, and you sent that reply to the 300+ entire staff.

And then, People Who Hit Reply All, another of you said I have not heard of this problem happing on the PC side, Go Macs ; )

And then, same person above of the People Who Hit Reply All, you sent another email to the 300+ teachers in this district that said oops, I meant "happening"... brain fart.

Which, incidentally, is not a brain fart at all. It just means you can't fucking spell.

In conclusion, People Who Hit Reply All, I guess how much you make dumbasses of yourselves is punishment enough.

But seriously. Nothing you say is humorous.

Regards,
JP

The most obvious fart in the history of time.

This is the story of the most obvious fart in the history of time. Sit back, friends, and grab yourselves a bowl of broccoli.

My sophomores have just finished watching the movie The Princess Bride to wrap up our short archetypes unit. It's been quiet in the class the entire hour, the students are enthralled with Buttercup and Wesley and Andre the Giant, I've been watching their faces reflect the glow of the screen.

The movie is over. I turn off the DVD, students look at me waiting for instruction, so I give it: take your pink worksheets and finish your questions with a couple of----

PFFT.

There it is. A student in the front of the room, who was lying on the floor. In the process of getting up, he--or she--just let it slip out, an obvious slip. It was one of three kids. It was just this loud, quick fart that obviously wanted to stay in, but pressure and a movement allowed a 'lax of the sphinctor muscles and the brief, horn-like PFFT.

Laughter from up front, the kid on the ground. Was he laughing at himself or the girl next to him who pooped?

The whole class heard it. The whole class. Heard it.

And the thing about being the teacher, the thing is, I'm not allowed to laugh at that. My job is to keep composure when a kid rips ass, to lead by the example that farts aren't funny.

But farts are hilarious. They come from your ass. That's fucking funny.

Anyway, the kid who I think was the fart culprit started laughing, and then the whole class almost gasped at the fact that this was the most obvious fart in the history of time, and I put my hand on the table in front of me to pull it together, and I put my other hand on my hip in a stern-like way, and then I just started laughing. And it was one of those laughs where I was mid-sentence in the sentence I was giving to move on, like:

take your pink worksheets and finish your questions with a couple of---

[PFFT] [solo laughter, gasp from class]

with a couple of partners and [smile grows across face, tries to hide it behind hand] review your ans-- [starts laughing out loud, class joins in]

[4 seconds pass, pulls it together]

A good story to share with other teachers, but then Mr. B trumped it with the kid who, during his 4th block, peed his pants.

But then a couple other teachers and I shared some fart stories, as in I mean, isn't it the worst when you're checking homework and then you just walk into this wall of fart? And you're the teacher, so you can't be like OH MY GOD WHO RIPPED ASS YOU BETTER JUST GO TO THE BATHROOM. You just have to pretend it's not there, and that isn't really fair.

The end.

An Open Letter to the Next Student Who Asks "Do You Bump Up Grades".

Dear Next Student Who Asks "Do You Bump Up Grades,"

It is the ninth week of school, and in two days the quarter will end. Remember back on the first day of school, when I said there is no extra credit in this class because I like regular credit? Remember how I put that on the syllabus and then I pointed it out to you a couple of times because I knew that I would be asked this ridiculous question when the last couple of days of the quarter drew near?

No? Well, then accept my apologies. I guess I should've made that more clear.

You come up to me in the middle of class while you are working on a group project. You ditch your group and say Ms. Prokott can I see my grade. I show you that your grade is 89.52%. You say oh, man that's so close. Can you just bump it up to an A-? How many percentage points, exactly, does a grade have to be before you bump it up?

I say, I don't bump grades. I wouldn't lower a grade if it was .5% higher than I think it should be, and I'm not just going to throw extra points at you because you are close to an A-. And you say, an A- and a B+ are sooooooo different and that makes a difference on your GPA. Do you know what a big difference that is, Ms. Prokott?

I will tell you student, that your grade reflects how well you've done in class. I tell you that I don't bump grades, and on the rare chance that I do bump grades, it is because the student whose grade is bumped has shown remarkable, above-expectations effort in my class. That student whose grade gets bumped raises her hand during class discussions, she is respectful toward me, she comes in to talk about her work, she doesn't leave her garbage on the floor, she doesn't ask me for a pencil every day, and most importantly she was concerned about her grade the entire quarter rather than two days before I was to submit grades.

That student, Next Student Who Asks "Do You Bump Grades," is not you. You don't raise your hand in class. When you talk, it is to tell the person next to you that you didn't read the assignment or to mention something about that slut in the hall who gave you a dirty look. When you work in groups, you think you're tricking me by swapping "numbers" with the person next to you so you can be in your friend's group. Then, you don't participate in your group's assignment, and you flip open your phone like an expecting father, and you text when you think I can't see you. Then, student, you write essays about how teachers give too much homework and students are overwhelmed. Then, when you get a C on the essay, you whisper to the kid across the row this is SO UNFAIR.

When you forget your book on independent reading day and borrow one of my books, you neglect to put it back on the shelf even though I told you to four times, and instead you leave it on the floor near your desk where it is obvious you've been sitting. In fact, once I found a pop can that you hid on my bookshelf, behind my books, because you were too lazy to walk three feet to put it in the recycling bin. When you aren't so disrespectful you leave a pop can hidden behind my books, you whip empty green Mountain Dew bottles toward the front of the room--sometimes when I'm in the middle of a lecture!--and then when they thunk off the lip of the blue recycling bin and clatter to the floor, you leave them there. Once, I heard you say in the hall who cares if we don't clean up our stuff. It's the custodians jobs to clean up after us.

Then, student, when I tell you that I rarely bump up grades except for the kids who are A+ on effort and participation, you plead and plead and beg. You say but it's SOOOOO CLOSE. Can I just please do extra credit? I'll clean your room. I'll do anything you want me to.

And then, student I am literally, no, so seriously, literally disgusted by you. You are disgusting. Your pleading and begging and desperation makes me sick to my stomach, and I am sad for the kind of person you are, and I am so, so angry that you think this will work--to care only when it's days before the grade is due, when you had nine whole weeks to give a shit earlier, when you got a quiz back--and instead of holding onto it and using it to study for the final test like I told you to--rolled it into a ball as soon as possible and then threw it at the blue recycling bin and didn't pick it up when it bounced off the lip.

And then, student, you say:

Well, what if it was 89.99%. huh? What would you do then?

Fuck you, student. Fuck. You.

Right now, I am supposed to be grading papers, student, but I just had to write you this letter first--I just had to let you know what was up before I tried to do my after-hours paper-grading job. Because this is little to you, but it's eating me inside. You entitlement-generation asshole.

Oh, by the way. Let's recall a conversation we had last week. I was introducing the play Raisin in the Sun. I asked you the question--Can anyone achieve the American Dream? you said, yes, anyone can achieve it if they try hard enough.

But I gave you a chance. I gave you a discussion question the next day that said really? Can they? Really? Please think about it.

And you, student, you raised your hand and said yes--anyone who is not entirely lazy can achieve the American Dream. And then, student, we argued back and forth, and I brought up race and gender and unfortunate circumstances, and the hand you're dealt not being fair no matter how much you want to win the round, and I said what if I wanted to play professional baseball even though I'm a woman and you said if you were really, really, really, really, really good, then you could, they would let you on the team. You said it doesn't matter if you're poor, you just need to try really hard in school and you will get scholarships to go to college, as though there were trillions of dollars in scholarships floating around, waiting for underprivileged kids (with drug addict parents) to snap them up by caring about school when they don't know where their next meal is coming from.

Do you remember that conversation? Because I do. It nearly gave me an aneurysm.

I guess all I can say here, student is: was it your dream to get an A- in this class? Well, I guess you just didn't TRY HARD ENOUGH. I guess it is just because you're lazy. It had nothing to do with those outside circumstances. I guess you just didn't want it badly enough.

To borrow the words and timing of the amazing Professor Ronsman:

I QUIT.

Enjoy your B+, student. It's nothing to be ashamed of, but so many other things you've done in class are.

I'm embarrassed for you and your Justin Bieber haircut,

Ms. Prokott