want.

I saw

... a male camel-toe. I know, how is that even possible?!?!? I saw it though. Ohhh, my eyes!!! I cannot unsee it! And now, neither can you.

Repost: Meditations on a Sunlit Window

Certain things are just routines, and by routines I of course mean obsessive-compulsive. For example, whenever I open the coffee beans, I always have to stick my nose in there and inhale. If I don’t do it, I feel cheated somehow. I know what coffee smells like! Yet I must stick my nose in the bean can and take a deep whiff. Maybe it’s not OCD, maybe it’s just the simple joys of life.

Other routines:

• Kicking my underwear into the air with the remaining foot and catching it, whenever I take my underwear off.
• Smelling every bottle of shampoo that I think about purchasing
• Smelling the first warm towel that comes out of the dryer or the first crisp sheet off the line.
• Am I obsessed with smells? Maybe.
• When I tear something up (like a document, since I don’t have a shredder at work) (I do at home), I tear it vertically, and inside my head (or aloud, if my friend who hates this is nearby) I say: Vertical tears destroy information!
  
  

25 years ago they spoke out and they broke out of recession and oppression and together they toked, and they folked out with guitars around the bonfire just singing and clapping – Man, what the hell happened?

Oh, and put away the crack, before the crack puts you away.

When I walk down the hall at school, I sometimes become aware of my ass. Have you ever become aware of your own ass? I just feel my cheeks doing this little semi-circular kneading motion as I walk briskly to my next class. Inside my head I am thinking, Donk! Gadonk! Gadonk! Gadonk! And I wonder whether everyone else thinks it too.

Have you ever become aware of your own tongue? Try it next time you are talking. It feels like a giant slimy slug, just flopping around in your mouth. It’s creepy.

Speaking of asses, the other day I had a huge wedgie as I was carrying things to my classroom, and I didn’t have the hands to pull it outta there, nor did I want to do that in front of a hallway full of 8th graders. So I just left it, hoping the black pants didn’t make it as obvious.

I never wear tan pants anymore. Ever since I learned about camel toes, and saw a colleague with tan pant camel toes, I never wanted to be that person. Not that it happens often, but it could! And I don’t want to be remembered as the teacher who had camel-colored camel toes.

When people don’t follow right-of-way protocol, it pisses me off. The other day the driver of an oncoming car stopped to let me make a left turn in front of him, even though he clearly had the right of way. There were no cars behind him; I could have waited. I didn’t take it as courtesy, I took it as idiocy. I didn’t quite flip him off, but I did make the exasperated what the hell? hand movement. You know the one; it looks like you are really quickly spreading your fingers to shove them into the fingers of a glove. Then I waved -- thank you, idiot!

When I saw that TV evangelist get punched in the face, I felt vindicated, somehow.

When I was little, I had a fantasy of having a giant male lion as a pet. I would walk him on the streets and everyone would be in awe. Years later I saw a tiger in the back of a pickup truck in Toronto, and realized that big cats weren’t meant to be kept as pets. I guess I would have to mesmerize people on my own.

I can’t believe all the pretentious assholes in line in front of me at Starbucks. With their talls and their half soys and their double shot skims and their no whips. I just want to get my venti vanilla extra chai extra hot chai latte and be on my way, dammit!

Last week at Starbucks I dropped my wallet and a guy just stood there and watched me pick up all my change. He didn’t even pretend to make a move to help me. I found it profoundly depressing.

But then, on my way out of the post office, a 9-year-old boy ran to open the door for me, and I decided there was hope after all.

If you enjoyed these meditations, you may go back for seconds or even thirds.

School of Life III: The Mortification

This series of posts, entitled School of Life, is intended to highlight some of the experiences I have had in my teaching career, for which my schooling did not prepare me. Many of the stories & events you will encounter in this series may seem too enormously strange to be true, but I assure you that they are all true, and I lived them all.

You know how things happen sometimes? Things of the body? Oh, what am I talking about ... fluids, gases, impulses, injuries? Stuff like that. Things you don't really want to happen in front of people. In my opinion, these types of things are especially bad when you are surrounded by hundreds of adolescents. The possibilities for bathroom-wall folded-note lockerside gossip are endless in middle school. I just don't want to be one of those teachers that there's a story about in future years, like my high school teacher who had an epileptic seizure in front of her class, or the teacher who meant to squeeze out a toot and ended up shitting his pants. True stories, according to stall 3 of the 2nd floor girls' room.

Some things I have tried to avoid, like the way I refuse to wear tan pants because I never want to accidentally have camel-colored camel toes. (Don't ever search that term at work, OK?) I wear a tank top under my blouse in case I lose a button. But some things have happened.

I have lived to tell. And now, you will know.

When I was teaching high school chemistry, a female student and I had to pass each other across a narrow space. As we passed chest-to-chest, the peaks of our breasts touched. There was no way to pretend it didn't happen. So I just said "ewwwwww" and did a full body shudder, and she laughed, and we never mentioned it again. At least, not to each other. ooh! I almost forgot the boy who did a face-plant into my left tit, running down the hall. He rounded a corner, and there was a soft cushion right at eye level. Oh. My. G.

Once, I completely shredded a pair of panty hose so badly that I had to remove them. Under my long flowing skirt, I was completely commando from 9 AM on. As exciting as this may sound, I was pretty paranoid all day and stayed away from drafty places.

There have been times I have had to use the toilet so badly that I have feared having some sort of accident. You can't just leave a room full of 13-year-olds unattended.

Ever use a public restroom with students in stalls on either side? Not fun. How about the teacher using the bathroom on the Boston Trip tour bus? Not cool.

I've told this one before, but ... 10 years ago, I was teaching high school and sharing a room with a woman who was in charge of the Senior Homecoming Float. Hence I thought nothing of it when I saw a scrap of fabric lying in the middle of the floor. After the students had gone, I picked it up and discovered, Holy Crap, this is underwear. Holy Crap, this is my underwear. I had had a pair of undies stuck inside my pants leg from a previous wearing, that had worked their way out onto the floor of my classroom of sophomores. To this day I wonder at what point they were hanging, hermit-crab-like, half in/half out of my pants leg.

The list goes on and on, more so when I start adding everyone else's stories I know. The teacher whose thong was hanging out the back of her pants when she sat at her computer. The PE teacher who broke his fly and wore a pair of girls' sweats from the locker room until he could go home and change. The foreign language teacher who called his whole department because he dreamed he had a snow day. Not a bodily thing, per se, but still mortifying! And I'm not even touching the stuff we hear on the news.

What's the most mortifying thing that ever happened to you at work?

No Rest for the Vigilant

I have received many examples of Teddy Bears Dressed as Other Animals and related TBDOA-like phenomena in the past months. Thank you to all of the Watchers out there. Your vigilance will not go unpunished! Or unrewarded! Whatever! This is my first experience as a collector-of-signs-of-the-apocalypse, so I don't really know what I am doing. I do know that my inbox is getting rather crowded, so as I purge it, I will lay out the following for your perusal. Do you see why there is no rest for us? What is happening to humanity?!?!?!?

Not sure if this is a bear or what.

It's like a bear, but with beaver teeth and camel toes.

Whatever it is, it is a sign that

things are not right in the world.

Hello kitty dressed as panda,

holding panda-head purse

= unparalleled horror

Bears as heroic figures?!?

Bear as Cyrano de Bergerac.

Bear as Charlie Chaplin

Bears as assorted uniformed peoples

Bears as Monkees

Bears dressed to the nines

Bear is duck's clothing;

I think we've covered this one.

Sad bears looking frivolous.

Child being consumed by a bear in a suit and tie,

and trying to force its way out through the trachea.

Bears going postal.

Bears exploiting our sense of patriotism.

For shame!

A dog in a bee costume, atop baby clothes.

Where should I begin with the list of all that is wrong here?!?

No.

Bears lost in Oz.

Black bear disguised as a fashionable holiday hat.

This bear isn't disguised as anything,

he is just sad to be included.

Bear in giraffe suit, with giraffe-snout muzzle.

I had to include this one again,

in case you missed it the first time.