Monday Potpourri

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Mrs Odie

I am watching “House Hunters.” Odie calls it my real estate porn. As a Southern Californian, I am stunned by what your housing dollar buys elsewhere.

I just finished reading Compendium 1 of “The Walking Dead” graphic novel. I clearly wasn’t depressed enough lately, but now I’m there. I love a good catharsis, but bleak drama that explores the darkest crevices of human nature hasn’t been the best medicine for my ongoing struggle with depression.

Nor has my worsening binge eating. If I had to run for my life from zombies, I’d die. Luckily, the science of that genre is so patently absurd, I don’t suffer haunting “what if” scenarios like I have with “Boardwalk Empire,” “Law and Order:SVU,” or “Dinosaur Train.”

I can’t get the song out of my head.

Watching AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” I’m struck by how much physicality zombies borrow from toddlers. Pringles lumbers after me with a decidedly zombie-like lurching. She grabs onto her sister’s hair, making gutteral sounds in her throat while Viva shrieks. When she decides she wants to nurse, she comes at me, stumbling over anything you kick into her path, relentlessly driven by id.

I’d love to tell you everything about work, but other teachers before me have paved the way, teaching us nothing if not how stupid it is to write about our students. I will say there is a lot of good there. Mostly good. And yet the challenges are daunting.

You probably want to know what I think about Kelle Hampton growing a tiny penis in her lady-cave. I knew she was pregnant and I knew it would be a boy. Her brand is like a novel with a predictable plot. But most people like those.

My kids are doing great in day care. I almost wish they missed me a bit more. Although, Pringles has started refusing kisses. I say “Kisses for Mommy?” and she used to give me those amazing open-mouthed baby kisses. Now, she shakes her head solemly and says “No, no, no.” There are no mouth kisses allowed at day care. It’s like she’s saying, “You put me in day care, you’ll live by day care rules, bitch.”

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I need some more comfortable shoes.

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Mrs Odie

At the end of the night, I feel empty. Last evening I didn’t have the energy to turn my piece of shit laptop on and wait 20 minutes for it to load. In my class, we had read a short story wherein the protagonist describes his father after a long day of work as so tired he cannot even take off his boots. He just sits in a chair for an hour, staring at the TV.

After the first day, I was so impatient to get to my daughters at day care, I had to keep reminding myself to drive carefully. I wanted to drive over the top of every car in front of me. The happiest parts of my day are the hour between 7:30 and 8:30 when I drink my coffee and chase my children around the house brushing hair, fastening zippers and snapping snaps, and squeezing feet into shoes. Odie wakes up first and packs lunches. My administration is exceptionally pro-family, so all of the moms and dads of little ones either have first period prep to get our kids to school, or sixth period prep to pick them up. I am working an 80% class schedule, so I have the first two periods off.

I was terrified of getting two small girls ready for day care and out the door by 7:00. It has made all the difference in the world that I don’t have to. It also means that after they fall asleep around nine, I have time to stare at the TV, too tired to take off my boots.

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