anger management, xxl.

Forewarning: there are many angry swears in this - sorry mom. 

This scene is what the press junkets SHOULD have
focused on.

I saw Magic Mike XXL last night. I don't know if I should publicly admit this, because I almost feel like it's admitting I read 50 Shades of Grey cover to cover and had favorite sentences in it that I highlighted and return to whenever I need writing inspiration (I have never read 50 Shades of Grey). However, in my (and many other women's) defense, may I just say that I think there are all kinds of movies for all kinds of situations. Books, too. Just like taking a mindless/garbage-y/trashy romance to the beach to read and leaving War and Peace at home? Thus shall movies like Magic Mike  and Magic Mike XXL serve their purpose for (Wo)Man. It is a trashy beach read, on film.

I saw the first Magic Mike, yet preferred this Magic Mike to the first Magic Mike. (Which, just expressing that opinion out loud, I think officially makes me a connoisseur of trashy films). It makes fun of itself, and I like people/books/film/music/art that can make fun of themselves. Life's short, let's mock It. 

I loved Jada Pinkett Smith as the girl version of Matthew McConaughey--I'm sorry, Matthew McConaughey, I normally love you, but you were far too oily in the other one. But Jada! Jada was bad. ass. And she knows women and knew exactly what to do with this character (which totally makes sense, since she is one) - I want a Girls Night Out with Jada Pinkett Smith. And can we talk about Joe Manganiello for a couple of seconds? Oh my. Oh my! I know most women go for the Channing Tatum scenes, but Joe just looks like he has a secret obsession for Shakespeare sonnets. People are all talking about his gas station mini-market dance, but I am in love with the wedding/honeymoon dance scene. Minus the swing; let's not get crazy (because that was crazy).

What I most liked about this movie is it knew who'd be watching it (me...I'm saying I think Channing Tatum & Co. personally tailored it for me: "How can we make Amy in Georgia happy?" was a constant refrain heard at every table read). Best scene/stole-the-show character: Andie MacDowell. Oh, how I understood her - not her divorce situation; I am separating from a nice man. Just her anger. If you've seen or do see the movie, you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Because I'm pretty angry at the moment. A stew-y type of anger. A stew-y, soup-y, highly controlled kind of anger that's actually hard to explain unless you're inside of me. (Please don't make inappropriate jokes about how that came out because I started off rave-salivating over a male stripper movie. You'll just add to the swirling bog of turbulent vexation.)

Here are some examples of things that make me angry right now:

1. People, specifically men, telling me what to do/who I am/how I feel. Are you me? Do you have exclusive access to the thoughts in my brain? That's right, you don't, so. Fuck you.

2. People, specifically men, who make assumptions about what I need or what I want. Oh, why? Because I'm in a bad spot right now, and vulnerable, and so I don't really know what I need or want? Fuck you.

3. People, specifically men, who think because I'm separated now that I'm easier to take advantage of. Oh, you sense my vulnerability and think it'll make me less discerning? Fuck you. 

I continue processing where I'm at right now - this will take an enormously long time to wade through if I want to do it properly, and I want to do it properly. My summer is ending, I have to get back to work next week, and I have to engage and be present there. I've accepted that this is where I'm supposed to be right now, in terms of career, for whatever reason, and so it's really important to me now to stay engaged and focused. Yet I also know now that, particularly at work, I need to keep protective walls of immunity from the Crazy built around me. I need to tend to these walls, adding layers whenever necessary. 

And I'm still adjusting to my new home situation, and I am worried about me, about C, about Miss M. And so you know what? This IS all making me vulnerable, goddammit. And that's what's making me angry, I bet. Each interaction I have with a new human being right now, specifically the male of the species, leaves me generally suspicious: what do you really want from me? I am here for me and my family, full stop. If you are not in my family, I'm not here for you - I am not responsible for how you feel or what you think, and what you want is...sorry to be rude, but that's your problem not mine. You do you; I'll do me. And so I have nothing for you and I am a mess right now; please don't say or do anything to make it worse. 

Generally, I'm a ridiculously over the top nice person, an extreme people pleaser of the worst kind. I try very hard to keep my interactions with others - online and off - kind and pleasant. I prefer to spread love, not anger. But I'm finding I may have to start being a bit more assertive. Less nice. More Jada Pinkett Smith-y. If you will. 

Most of all, I need to be surrounded by healers and people who just want to laugh and have fun right now. Go see Magic Mike XXL, and you'll get a good idea of who I want to hang out with right now (and NO I am not saying I want to be surrounded by male entertainers...you seriously haven't even read a thing I just wrote, have you? Focus, or we can't be friends: I mean people who don't take themselves seriously, people who are interested in smiling and laughter and fun and goodness and kindness and authenticity. I want to be around people who know this planet is hard to live on and so let's not create any more messes than we absolutely positively have to. And I want to be with people - specifically men - who know sometimes women just want to be a queen, not a thing to be manipulated and used and taken advantage of). 

Ending side note: This would be one of those roller coaster emotions a friend of mine told me about. This week's roller coaster was anger; last week's was sadness. I'm cycling through, so happiness is right around the corner; I just know it.

better.

The After I Woke Up and Re-Read My last entry post post: 

I am sorry. I am sorry if you are just now clicking onto this website and discovering me via the post that is below. It was late (or early, depending on your perspective). I was in a mood. 

Obviously, there are things going on in my offline world that are making me discombobulated and giving me the feeling of an intense need to check out. I am trying as hard as I can not to check out. Really, I just needed some sleep. Once I got some sleep (I do believe my body literally grabbed me and said, "That's it. Let's go." and put us to bed), I felt much better.

I am still very, very, very, very angry at sororities though. (Viva l'anger at exclusive clubs!) And sometimes the people who write literary articles in Poets & Writers do make me roll my eyes, I'm sorry fellow literary types but they do. This is Life, not a snotty cocktail party for Ego. And people who snub people because they can't do anything for them, or they only want to be surrounded by people who they deem to be VIP "somebodies." And those with poor bedside manners. And anyone who ostracizes other people. The only people we should be ostracizing right now are people who are members of ISIS or the North Korean government. Maybe some Utah desert religious crazies. And Rush Limbaugh. And Donald Trump. But that's it! Everybody else is just living, learning via mistakes along the way.

I have a happier, funner, 100% less angry entry for next time, I promise. Like, tomorrow. Maybe later tonight. 

Although, wait. I have to go call customer service about my laptop right now, so I may have to post the happier crap tomorrow, not later tonight--give myself another night of sleeping on it so I don't write a rambling entry of anger directed at customer service people (of which I was one, once upon a time, and so I should know better...but honestly, some call center people could seriously drive Ghandi to violence. Right?).

At any rate, here. Please enjoy this lovely, uplifting song by my sweet friend Patresa. It's called Amelia, and (I think) it's about channeling good energy, mirroring role models who teach us who and how we want to be, striving for more. Be safe if you're out celebrating 2014's demise tonight. I don't want to have to write an angry blog entry about drunk drivers.

social media & politics are ugly bedfellows.

If I felt more comfortable with you--okay, not necessarily YOU you because I'm sure YOU are totally fine and trustworthy and not a scary stalker at all, I mean the world wide web and other humans at large--I'd open up my very private, personal Facebook page just so you could peruse the messy human that is me. Not that I don't expose my mess a lot here...but on Facebook, you get a lot of personal pictures to go with the messy living out loud (which, by the way, is also the title of my all-time favorite movie for grown ups). (You can also get some of my personal pictures on Instagram, but I don't link up to that much here since it's usually just me trying to be very Artsy....or document my child's oddball behavior so I can use it against her when she's 15.)

So typically, I shy from controversial political topics on social media. I find internet arguments futile and counterproductive to the overall advancement of humanity. Plus also, one way to make me roll my eyes way to the back of my head is to constantly post controversial political topics on social media but specifically on Facebook (full disclosure: if you post controversial political topics on Facebook and I happen to agree with the opinion expressed on that topic, my eyes don't roll back at all...I will fist bump you for it, but only in my head and/or by clicking the like button). In this way, I maintain my dignity and can be passive aggressive, all at once. Win-win! 

Seriously, has anyone ever changed their opinion based on a Facebook post? And do arguments on the Internet ever resolve, with one side agreeing with the other?  I've never witnessed it happen. I think people really just needed an area to spout off their opinions(god knows I do, why do you think I have a blog?) and the Internet turned out to be a good tool for that. What's happened, though, is that it's turned us all into people who aren't really interested in the other side's talking points, because everybody's convinced THEIR talking points are The Infallible Truth, the end. In addition to social media, we also have polarizing media outlets and their online platforms that encourage that. Also, you can Google your point of view and find 100 websites that back you up, and if I disagree with you, I can Google and get 100 other websites that prove you wrong. The world is just nutty these days--lots of information, but then there's the questionable usage of it. Holy god, don't even get me started on the "facts" posted on Fox Nation and such. Those guys keep factchecker.org and snopes.com totally busy. 

Can I tell you a quick story about how people USED to bombard other people via social media, before there was the Internet? Here is my story:

My grandfather, my dad's dad, who everyone called Papa Joe because he was a stern man, a quiet man, but also a decent man, liked to drink and socialize at bars. All the time. As in, he had many talents, but the bar thing was sort of his obsessive hobby. So what Papa Joe would do is, after work, he'd go to his 1950s version of Facebook (aka a local bar) and slide onto a bar stool. If there happened to be a stranger sitting nearby, Papa Joe would strike up a casual conversation with that person. Then, Papa Joe would lead the conversation into a political debate, based on whatever topic was the hot button of the day. Papa Joe would figure out what side the stranger was on, and then immediately start arguing for the opposite side...even if Papa Joe agreed with that stranger. The argument would continue for however long, usually until the stranger got so mad he was about to punch my grandfather, and when it got to that point, Papa Joe would laugh, clap the fellow on the back, and say, "I'm just yankin' your chain. I agree with everything you said. Let me buy you a beer." 

In that way, my grandfather paved the way for the Internet. He sparked ideas, ran his own discussion forums, built content. He grew an audience. He got friended all the time. People retweeted his thoughts, and Liked what he shared, but they did it 1940s and 50s local bar style (meaning, they bought him beers, he bought them beers). Papa Joe was the original Mark Zuckerburg and the 4 creators of Twitter, all rolled into one person. Except he was 10,000 times less geeky and he could build his own house. And play the piano and the trumpet at the same time. And he knew a lot about electricity and hunting his own food. I suspect those guys don't know how to do any of that, which is why they just built social media platforms for people to argue hot topics of the day on.

Except, somewhere along the way, something went awry. (My suspicion is it happened when sociopaths, aka trolls, got online. Sociopaths and internet trolls: mucking it up for everybody else, since 1996.)

You know what else is really weird to me about social media? Tweeting in general...I've been researching the how and why of Twitter, because I want to understand. I'm up to over 200 followers, and we all sort of follow each other because she follows her and so I follow her too and then he follows me and I see that he follows her and her and her, too, so I follow him and...I think that's how it works? I still don't know. Generally, I follow back if something about the person connects for me--when someone follows me, I always visit their twitter page,and sometimes links they put up there about themselves. If I think: yeah, I could hang out with you for a bit in real life, I follow them. What makes me sad is when I get an auto Direct Message after following someone back...isn't that like buying someone a beer and them trying to sell you a watch in response? But my strict policy is to block people I can immediately see are spammers...or hookers. Businesses trying to build a base I'll let slide, but spammers and hookers? Gots to go. (I get a lot of hookers for some strange reason. Maybe Olaf photo bombing me in my current picture is too provocative.) 

Also (and mostly), I'm pretty sure I'm still doing it wrong because I think I'm not interacting enough--I've gotten more followers, but I'm still too shy to interact with them. I know how to, but about what? And if they're having a conversation with someone, I guess I'm just supposed to butt into it and give my thoughts on a conversation that didn't even involve me? In real life when that happens, I'm usually all: Hey, uh, this is an A-B conversation so C your way out of it, particularly if it's a sensitive topic. But nope, not on Twitter, it seems--nothing is sacred. Which is why I can see I'm doing it wrong. You just have conversations (about what?) in public with strangers. In front of billions of other strangers who are watching/listening in and sometime butt into your A-B conversation and suddenly make it a C-D-E-F-G-H-I-JKLMNOP conversation. And nobody's even buying anybody else a beer. Or anything! 

Lands, this is the same feeling I get when I've just met someone and now I have to find something to talk about, make small talk. Or I'm at a party and I'm nervous about interrupting a conversation that's already under way...I don't want to be rude. In real life, this is always so much easier to do if beer or wine is involved. Is there a Twitter bar people like me can pony up to? (Ironically, I don't have an issue replying to celebrities' tweets--I think because they never respond, so I still feel like I'm shouting into thin air and no one is paying attention to or hearing anything I'm saying. At first, I was all: Oh god, what if he sees this and thinks I'm a dweeb? Or: Oh god, what if she reads this and blocks me? But now I don't think they see anything I write to them, and so I just talk to them like we're bestest of friends. ....which is really weird, too, because we are not friends. We are strangers. They could be completely famous psycho twats for all I know, and I just tweet all my thoughts out loud to them, in front of other not-famous psycho twats. Twitter, you are the most bizarre social media tool ever, and if I didn't have such an addictive personality, we would no longer be speaking. But I can't quit you, and so here we are. You're like Christian Grey and I'm that girl Don Johnson and Melanie Griffiths' daughter plays in the movie, except I'm not sure if that's a good analogy or not since I refuse to read that book and not because of the content but solely because of the writing quality. Listen: don't tell anybody--we have to keep all this on the down low til I'm ready to come out of the closet about you...or someone stages an intervention.)

Wait! Where was I? I started this blog post with a planned route in mind, and now we're completely lost. This is why GPS is a better invention than social media. Let's see...Twitter weirdness, social media, Papa Joe antagonizing strangers, politics...oh, right! So anyway. There I was on Facebook, posting about politics and I got kapowed! And thus. I learned my lesson, lesson learned (until my next hormonal/PMS phase). I tried to educate people with some data/facts I Googled about Ferguson, in an effort to stop the racist pictures in my Facebook feed as well as the even more racist ensuing commentary beneath those posted pictures, which were of looters and such. Who knows where these pictures even came from? Many of the subjects in them sported hairstyles from 1995. (And don't white people ever steal? I'm certain they do. This reminds me of the time our house was robbed several years ago by Caucasian, middle class meth heads. And when I'd start to tell people about it, they'd almost immediately make a comment about illegal immigrants or blacks. Nope, I'd tell them--our looters were just little ol' coked up honkies, sorry to blow up all your prejudiced assumptions.)

So someone I genuinely like, who makes me laugh and laugh when I'm around him, but has politics far right of where I exist came and commented under my reality facts article. And of course I was overly hormonal and tightly wound that day. Could not do it; simply could not engage on any level. This person and I once had a lively, spirited debate on gun control that, while infuriating on a certain level, was respectful and humor-filled and ended on a positive note. 

Wednesday was not that day.

First off, I'd been at the mall surrounded by a lot of women wearing designer jeans with sequins on the back pockets; these people are always passive aggressive and massive triggers for me. (I think I've written about what interactions with people like this do to me.) And a handful of these people were rude and passive aggressive to my child and my niece and nephew simply because they were being children, and I was all: HEY! Only I get to be rude and passive aggressive to those kids! Not you--LEARN THE RULES. And secondly, I was recovering from some serious PMS hormones. And thirdly, I have a shitload of stuff happening in my personal life right now that has me on edge most days. So he said some stuff, then I called him a name, and he poked at me some more and when that happened, you guys! I could literally feel my tightly wound rage starting to unravel. So I begged for mercy. Fortunately, despite being a gun-worshipping ultra ultra right wing freak, he views me as a big sister and has a sense of humor. And I've doted on him for  years, and I have a sense of humor and so now we are okay. And thus I learned not to venture forth into those shark-infested waters ever again. Until I see more racism in my news feed on a super hormonal day when I'm really feeling out of sorts...which, I suppose, are precisely the days I should take an Internet break. sigh. One day I'll get it.

Really, that whole experience reminded me why I decided to stop following CNN and other news outlets on social media; my brain knows I need to know about what's happening on the planet, but my heart is begging it not to. For now, I'm listening to my heart because my blood pressure can only take so much.

You know what else the internet and Twitter and Facebook don't help people with at all? Good eye contact. I think if you're going to argue with someone, you should have to look them in the eyeballs the whole time. This always sends me into fits of giggles, which means no one--not even me--ends up taking my argument seriously, and we all end up dancing to the Bee Gees on the dance floor (there should be a dance floor, everywhere you go). Which is how it SHOULD be on the Internet: after an online argument, everyone has to upload YouTube videos of themselves dancing to the Bee Gees on the Internet dance floor.

Here, I'll start us. This is my favorite Bee Gees song, of all time. I want it played at my funeral, actually...after Barry Manilow's stuff, of course. Nobody can stay mad at anyone as soon as this song starts to play:

hug your velveteen rabbit.

I will not be downer in this post. I will NOT be a downer in this post. I will not be a downer in THIS post. I will not be a DOWNER in this post. I will. Not be. A downer. In this post. I WILL NOT BE A DOWNER IN THIS POST.

But first! Can I tell you that I had some frustrating work news today and it clarified and cemented a decision I've been waffling on, all wishy-washy like, for well over a year? (Remember? I don't do change well.) I can't go into more details, but it was frustrating. And so I finally made a firm decision on what to do for next school year. Because combine the news with the fact I am finding, increasingly, that children who come from generational poverty in schools that are located in overwhelmingly economically depressed areas are being given a raw deal. And I am not magic. And I have my own child to raise. And sometimes Love doesn't save anybody. But mostly, I'm finding low income kids are being given a raw deal. In that they are not being met where they're at, to be given the real basic tools they need to succeed. That their parents are not being dealt with realistically, or firmly, or in ways that help them succeed as parents. I think it's one thing to be sensitive to a person's situation, and another thing entirely to not do the necessary thing because you're terrified someone's going to call News Channel 1 or get a lawyer and sue. And thus. We are becoming a land of entitled wusses who can't bear to have our feelings hurt and when those feelings are hurt we lash out like wounded animals. This is going to come back and bite us on our Collective Bum at some point. It may already have.

But I'm also finding this is not any particular school's fault, or any particular school system's fault. It is the fault of ALL of us; a failure on us, those that have. And it is a failure on the part of our government, those that could fix it but won't and either find ways to make it worse or actively block ways that could make it better. And it is a failure on the part of society, those that could gang up on those that could fix it and won't but instead choose to slink off like Quasimodo with Esmeralda, receding into the dark recesses of their hoarder-like mentalities. 

(Wait! Wait! Where are you going? Oh, don't go! If you stay with me, I PROMISE there is blinding, happy light at the end of this tunnel.)

Can I tell you about what's happening in education these days? American public education, specifically, but I read The Guardian and sometimes The Telegraph if I can stomach the Boris Johnson editorials from time to time and so I know England is struggling with this too and here it is:

Children are not products. 

There. I said it. Children are not parts and bolts and bits of flavoring to be tweaked, molded, or processed into whatever and whichever form you think will be most marketable. Children are breathing, living beings, with hearts and minds and fears and really really really bad taste in junk food. To treat them as anything less than small, soon-to-be-adults is abusive. I once read a quote where someone asked, "Why do people abuse children so much?" and the answer was, "Because they can." (Because children don't vote, therefore have no voice, therefore no power over what happens to them. And then they grow up into adults who feel powerless and when THAT happens, they start organizations like ISIS or The Crips or serial rapists and we all sit back and go: Woah! What happened there?)

And I am not your assembly line factory worker here to mindlessly do your bidding. Children are not products and education is not an "industry." It is not a "business." Stop talking about being in the "business" of educating people; education is a science but mostly an art. There is nothing business-y about it, other than the dweebs at the state and federal Congressional levels who are in some business person's pockets giving them kickbacks off the backs of children and calling that "reform" so they can guilt trip people into silence. 

On Thursday, C and I had an intense discussion in which I became very passionate about education and what's happening to it. We mostly got into a big discussion about Common Core and technology in education. 

Let's talk about Common Core first: I see the allure of it; I get what they're trying to do. "Go deeper." Sounds catchy in a slightly creepy way. My concern is the One Size Fits All mentality of it. Not all children are one size fits all--did you know? Some children are autistic, high and low spectrum. Lots of children have attention span issues (good god, lots of adults do too these days, thanks Internet and smart phones!). Some kids don't test well, ever. Some kids are good to go on Monday, some aren't quite all there 'til Tuesday afternoon. Some kids only pay attention when you start talking about dinosaurs because they're the Dinosaur Learning Style. 

And the reality of many, many, MANY children's daily lives is that some children don't have anyone talking to them at home, or reading to them. Some children go to bed hungry. Some children wake up hungry and there's nothing to eat so thank god for school breakfast. Some children watch their moms get screamed at by their dads. Some children watch their dads get drunk every night. Some children watch their moms do meth every night. Some children are completely, utterly, totally ignored, their only friend the iPad or the television. Some children are being raised by wolves. Yes, you heard me: some children are being raised by wolves, and Common Core simply isn't going to fix that. Ever. 

(You know what will fix it? Addressing poverty and requiring Parenting Skills and Sex Education (NOT abstinence; exist in Reality, friends) classes at puberty and making sure politicians can't defund education accounts in order to give obscene tax breaks to their business cronies. But if I can't have all that, I'll take: addressing poverty.)

Some times, children need to be met where they're at, and given the basics. Not everybody's a future rocket scientist. Do I want everyone to go to college? Yes. You know what else I want? Five hundred trillion dollars and permission to rule the planet. I think it's okay not to go to college--college isn't for everyone. I'm not a horticulturist because I kill plants; I suck at DIY projects so I don't fix my own plumbing. Which is why I'm so thankful no one ever got in my face and pushed Horticulture School onto me. And that time I had to take Wood Shop class in junior high school? Thank god for getting a teacher who was humble enough to recognize I didn't need to even be near the jigsaw cutter-of-death machine and just gave me industrial sandpaper and a C at the end so my GPA wasn't trashed. God bless you, Mr. Wood Shop teacher, wherever you are.

Last week, we all agreed Kim Kardashian's sizable ass was worth commenting on for 24 hours. It was stunning, watching Humanity come together on one topic. If we can do that, I bet we can all come together and agree that Reality is often a better place to exist. As soon as we're done talking about people's buttocks? Maybe? Because what I've noticed is that the people who are touting the "Everybody should be able to go to college! Everybody should be ready for, and desire, a higher degree!" are the types of people who came from homes where a college education was the norm. Or they weren't, but they had some intrinsic need, some inner understanding, that college mattered and they wanted to go. And they defied their odds and went--good for them. (My college roommate was one of them, by the way: she knew, at age 7, if she didn't get herself up, dressed, and to school, her life was going to turn out very bad. And so she did that, her whole school career and then she put herself through college. She was a unique human being, and she would tell me this: "Not everyone was like me--I knew kids who could have done that too, but they just didn't want to or care to. I don't know why I did. I just....knew.")

I understand the passion for wanting everyone to be okay, thank god for this kind of passion because god bless them: they want to save the world. Magical Thinking: I own millions of shares in that company. But it's still OKAY NOT TO GO TO COLLEGE. For some people. For me, it would not have been okay not to go to college; my father would have disowned me. It will not be okay for Miss M because her father will disown her. But for some other kid? Going to be just fine making an honest living answering phones or installing cable lines. Because some people are fine without it. Some people are perfectly happy fixing plumbing, building houses, wiring electricity, laying tile, flipping hamburgers, and making hotel beds for a living, and THAT'S OKAY TOO. Is there something wrong with jobs that don't require degrees?  

Some people are going to read that and accuse me of the soft bigotry of low expectations. If you are one of those people, with all due respect: Fuck you. Come walk for a month in my shoes, come see what I see day in and day out. At the end, let's go have drinks and you tell me why your belief that every single kid from every single home in this country should go to college still makes sense. Because I think you're a snob who looks down on hard-working people with trade jobs and I hope you're around when a good handful of this country's citizens are self-medicating to deal with the stress and disillusionment of being sold a dream they never asked for, never really wanted in the first place. There is no shame in burger flipping, if it pays your bills and that's the life you want. I think it's better to meet people where they're at, and give them one level up to aspire to rather than take someone who can barely add 2+2 and insist to them if they just work harder they'll be mathematical enough to build rocket ships. For instance, in my classroom, if a kid says he wants to be a Ninja, I say: Cool! You could get really good at Ninja-ing and then go open your own Ninja school. That's THAT kid's dream; I'm not going to pee all over it and go: "Oh, sweetie, that's nice. But what about COLLEGE?" Please.

........(breathe)........I'm sorry. I've totally off-tracked myself. Let me backtrack.

So the district I work for is rolling out an online system, and it wants families and students to do more academics online. Which I'm down with--I wouldn't call myself a techno geek or anything, but I can find my way around the 'net (fervently avoiding eye contact with troll-ish types), create a website (as long as I don't have to do the HTML), and I'm all about social media (though angsty at the same time). But here's the thing: Just 'cause it LOOKS cool doesn't necessarily mean it IS cool. Let me explain.

There are a lot of teachers out there who do an awful lot of stuff on smart boards, laptops, smart phones, etc. And that's good. I mean, how cool to Skype with a class on the other side of the world. We are a technologically driven planet now. And I'm very aware I'm teaching kids who may be doing jobs that haven't even been invented yet. Technology matters--it's here, it does help us in many many ways, and everybody still agrees: ATM machines are frickin' awesome, especially on Saturday at 3 AM. Technology took us to the moon, lets people work from home, and helps us make friends in countries we've never set foot in. That's amaze-balls. But there's a dark side to technology and--just like addressing poverty and what's going on/not going on in many children's homes today--we are not talking about it. (Okay, some of us are. And then iPhone 7 will get released and everyone will lose their collective shit once more.)

Several weeks ago, I was teaching 2nd graders about all the different reference materials (and this is a Common Core component by the way) like thesauruses (thesauri?), dictionaries, atlases, and encyclope---wait, what? I stopped and looked at their little slack-jawed faces and went, "Boys and girls, listen. You guys don't have a clue what an encyclopedia is, do you?" (They nodded, drool dripping slightly.) "I don't know why you even need to know about all this. I'm teaching this to you because the quiz I have to give you at the end of the week is going to make you choose the correct reference material to find the answer to what you're looking for. But guess what? You know where I go when I need to find a map? Google maps. You know where I go when I need to find a synonym to a word? Merriam-Webster thesaurus dot com. Same for the dictionary--Oxford dot com. If I want to find information about penguins? I go to an encyclopedia...ON THE INTERNET. It's all free. On the Internet." (Here, I held up my smartphone.) "This is your reference tool, boys and girls. Also: iPads, Kindle Fires, and computers. So, we're going to learn this because I have to teach it to you, but just know--the internet pretty much has everything on it."

And then I thought: if the Common Core is so groundbreaking, so cutting edge, why didn't its creators know they need to teach Internet Smarts & Safety instead of antiquated reference materials? I'm shocked I'm not teaching the card catalog system, too (that's probably taught in 5th grade). 

At any rate. I'm telling you all of this because I want you to know: I heart technology. Seriously, I'd be wandering around Midtown Atlanta lost right now and mingling with homeless rapists were it not for Google Maps and the invention of the smart phone. Technology, good. Getting lost, bad. 

But I'm worried about how fast we're replacing the tried and true, our Old World sensibilities, with all this new, shiny, fancy crap. You know what this reminds me of? The Velveteen Rabbit. Remember him? And the old Skin Horse. Surrounded in that nursery by all those toys made of wind-up metal gadgetry, all snotty and stuff, so sure they were the best. But their parts rusted if left out in the rain. And eventually, they broke and were thrown away. They had a short shelf life. 

And also (and mostly), the boy couldn't hug them. He couldn't make tunnels in his bed late at night with them, or take them on picnics, or whisper his secrets in their ears. When their parts broke, they were thrown away and replaced. But when the rabbit's whiskers wore off and his fur became shabby, he was still loved. And being loved so hard hurt but it was worth it because, in the end, it meant he was real. Because love is real. And those of us who've truly loved know it hurts, it isn't easy, but it's worth it. Real things always are.

I think about that when I think about some of my veteran teacher friends, the ones who were teaching when I was still in high school floundering about, the ones who've watched the educational fads pendulum swing back and forth many times. They're usually the ones who are only on email because this is how people communicate in 2014 but if you ask them to create a simple web page by plugging in some data points here and there, they look at you as if you have toes growing from your eyeballs. Those ones. I think about them.

I think about how awesome they are with kids. How, magically, they know how to get a child with very little impulse control to sit still for 10 minutes when the four other teachers that kid had before went home exhausted after working with him every day. I think about how they understand how children's brains work, and so they know that children need exposure to certain things and frequent repetition and hugs and high fives and lots of fresh air. They know kids need a sense that, if they just keep trying, next time they play Around the World, they're going to make it. THEY'RE GOING TO MAKE IT. All the way around the world. Or at least past that little twerp Bobby who laughed real mean when they blurted "SIX!" as the answer to 3+2 last time. 

Some of those people know exactly how to make school exciting and cool, even the Parts of Sentences lessons. I teach next door to someone who makes it sound like The Price is Right is being filmed in there every day, and those kids rock the end of year tests. Every time. And they learn good manners while they're at it--and I'm finding good manners are increasingly scarce, too, these days.

Computers don't give any of this to you. They don't give you a sense that you're going to MAKE it next time. They don't teach you manners. They don't hug you or listen to your secrets or lay quietly with you when you're sad or sick. They don't high five you. When they break down after 5 years you go get a new one because after 2 years they're ancient anyway. They teach you to be impatient, and they keep you feeling just connected enough to keep you disconnected. They give you a false sense of security. They can lead you to believe you're smarter than you actually are, or make you feel dumber than you actually are. 

And I know all of this because I'm on them. A lot. You know what else technology does? It helps you veg out. It helps distract you from the problems in your life. You can mindlessly pin things to a hundred different boards on Pinterest. You can endlessly scroll through your friends' Facebook feeds. You can scroll through strangers' Twitter feeds. You can create blogs that nobody ever comments on. You can google insane things, and spend hours giggling at college humor YouTube videos. 

And you will never learn a goddamn thing. ....Okay, fine. You may learn a lot from Russell Brand's brilliant The Trews YouTube videos, but honestly, that's it. I was re-organizing my Pinterest boards last night--I have well over 10,000 pinned images and not a single thing to show for them. ....Okay, fine. I did learn how to make ceiling lanterns out of tissue paper, but honestly, that's it. 

What I'm attempting to say is: technology is here, it's occasionally helpful, and we all need to embrace it. But aren't you worried it's making us distant from each other? It's making the world smaller, and yet we're becoming so disconnected. Aren't we? Because we're playing with the tin wind-up toys, and forgetting to hug our Velveteen Rabbits. Don't throw away the Velveteen Rabbit! He's REAL. Love is real.

At work, I can't get my Mimio (a device that turns a white board into a touch screen computer board) pen to work. So I don't use the Mimio--I simply don't have time to play with it to figure it out. I teach from paper and books and stories and talking with my students. But I've noticed they're much more attentive when I turn on a video, and it concerns me. I feel like I'm balancing on a tight rope--I want technology to help them learn, but I also want them to know how to connect to others. For instance, I show YouTube videos to enhance what I'm teaching, because it's like virtual field trips. And I take my students on virtual field trips because 55% of their parents won't pay for the real ones and/or return the permission slips. (40% of the parents won't even read the monthly newsletter I send home or practice the reading books.) Technology enhances what I do, but it's not all that I do. It's an enhancer. As it should be. In all jobs, unless you work at Apple, Inc. or Microsoft.

C thinks we're moving into a Khan Academy-style age, in which children will eventually sit at computers all day and learn while monitors walk around making sure they're on task, answering questions, etc and so forth. Jesus God is that not depressing?! The thought of children being mined at computers all day long depresses me, and I'm a person who LIKES sitting in front of a computer all day; some days sitting in front of a computer is all I can handle. But I'm also a grown up who thinks quiet, peaceful rooms are best. I can't imagine being a wiggly little kid, desperate for sunshine and laughter, having to sit in front of a screen all day. If that happens, if we go to school in big warehouses where we sit at computers all day, Humanity's going to become one big ol' attention deficit obese disconnected blob with carpal tunnel syndrome by age 10, mark my words. Don't even get me started on what Vitamin D deficiency can do to a person.

So C and I  had this intense discussion about all of that--because I said: "Some of the older teachers are a tad freaked out by all the new, sudden emphasis on technology," to which he said: "And those teachers won't be teaching M." To which I said: pretty much everything I just said here in this blog post. 

Except the Velveteen Rabbit stuff only just occurred to me as I was typing. Don't you hate that? When the perfect example to defend your argument pops into your brain 32 hours after the argument ended? I hate that.

Anyway. Back to where I was at when I started this: I WILL NOT BE A DOWNER. I will NOT be a downer.  So here's this. This LINK is your antidote to downer-ism for the rest of the weekend:

hormones and words.

I have started....a story. I think it's just a short story, and I really have no idea what it's about or where it's going. I put what I've written so far (rough rough ROUGH draft with zero editing, please be kind) in my ::snippets:: section. I just felt like writing a story about an older lady named Emmaline who no longer cares what people think of her. I bet this is because lately I feel the need to find my inner Emmaline, bring her out, and parade her around shamelessly and with abandon.

I am hormonal, have been since about Tuesday, and each day has been progressively worse. Some activities have lightened it: swimming at my sister in law's neighborhood pool with my little girl (I felt practically whole-bodied again!), going out for dinner with former work team members/people who are precious pieces of my heart. I think it's important to note here that every activity that has lightened my hormonal festering has involved me getting out of the house. (With one exception: I took Melissa to the library on Tuesday, where we were shushed 3 times and I almost broke my other foot trying to carry the bag of books we'd put on hold...I feel this may have begun the hormonal rage.)

The problem with leaving the house is this: I have to be on my good foot, which means my broken foot swells to elephantine proportions, and this is not good, according to my orthopedist and "sports doc" on ehealthboards.com. Which gets me worrying. And then I get pessimistic and annoyed and begin having thoughts that go something like: Really. I'm going to be walking on July 3? I don't think so orthopedist. What the heck do YOU know? Sports doc and all the other experts on the fractured metatarsal board at ehealthboards.com seem to think otherwise. (Please ignore me when I get like this: I'm just wallowing.)

I am tired of the Paula Deen controversy. It's been chewed up and spit out at this point, much like her, and I'm not sure what else good, non-prejudiced people not harboring resentments in their hearts are supposed to say or feel about it now. I liked it a few weeks ago when we all linked arms and stood strong against prejudice and racism and started buying Cheerios like the dickens. Even the people who are now all angry and mad about how Paula's getting treated were in agreement--leave that interracial family alone, they aren't bothering you! In America, we can kind of shine like that; we're good people when we see people getting beat down for no real reason other than them trying to live a life.

Which is why I think so many are rushing to Paula's defense. I just wish they were doing it in ways that didn't sound like excuses for what she said. If Paula Deen jumps off a bridge, how many will jump with her? Quite a few, if the internet is to be believed.

Please know: I do feel for Paula; I hate to see people get fired for speech, especially in a country that promotes free speech and all. But dammit, I abhor what she said (and, quite frankly, think her brother Bubba needs intensive talk therapy, possibly medication) and it should be addressed. So yes. Got a little hormonal/cabin fever/stir crazy, started reading commentary under news articles posted in my facebook news feed (tip: NEVER a smart idea when suffering from hormones and cabin fever), and then started seeing people I know and love talking about it, qualifying and excusing what she said. So I spoke up, in sort of hormonal way. One, because I have made a pact with myself to ALWAYS speak up when I see or hear prejudice, and two, because I was pretty frickin' hormonal and had had enough.

Needless to say, it did not go well.

Anywho. I have not written any freelance blog articles. I've been over at blogmutt looking for some, but what these people requesting articles written for them actually seem to need makes me want to get a bunch of push pins and stick them repeatedly in my brain. I would rather write about angry Southern older ladies, painted up for Dia de los Muertos, taking naked pictures of themselves flipping the bird at nosy, busybody townsfolk. This will not earn me a single penny (sorry friend Becky, if you're reading--I think I promised you a fancy Subway lunch with my first article's earnings). Writing short stories that lack direction is much funner (I know that's not a word; I just like it better than "more fun").

I feel like I need to end this article in a sort of pithy, witty, really wrapped up kind of way. But my kid is demanding access to abcmouse.com, and so I'm going to abruptly end this without a single ounce of closure for you.

...Except to say: please don't make excuses for the n-word, or get angry about black people getting to use it. Sometimes, people just get to do things you can't, and there's nothing you can do about that. And please don't get worked up about people calling you cracker or honky and nothing bad happening to them. Because first of all, cracker and honky both have the hard "c" sound in them, and I once read an article somewhere about writing comedy that said words with the hard "c" sound always get laughs. And second, because the words cracker and honky, if put in a boxing ring in a world championship fight against the n-word and all its ugly and hateful history, would be TKO in half a second flat. And if you don't believe me about that, gather some of your friends, black and white, to stand on a street corner and scream these words at each other. Every single one of you will look absolutely ridiculous, but I'd bet half a million dollars I don't have the people getting the n-word screamed at them will be the winners (nobody wants to repeat that kind of history, unless they wear hooded sheets to cross burning rallies).