The DN
1 I missed a DN deadline yesterday.
2 It's possibly the first time I ever did that in eighteen years.
3 Anybody lookin'?
4 It has a lot to do with the last day of the worst school year of my life coming to an end.
5 No details, but I had somewhat of a threat from a student AND an IEP meeting AFTER my last class of the year.
6 Who DOES that?
7 It involved lawyers, angry parents, tape recordings, and all sorts of other fancy things.
8 No stress.
9 fafdsfasffdf.
10 AnywayZ...
11 It just made the rest of the day a bazillion times better!
12 'Cuz it was STILL the last day of a harrowing, nightmarish year.
13 Yesterday afternoon I still thought I had a bazillion papers to grade.
14 I still ran like a runaway train.
15 At one point I talked with my good friends Gemma Landeza and Cris Kuch.
16 Gemma is sweet and always there, and Cris was in her room finishing up and blasting some U2 through her building.
17 New Year's Day.
18 We talked about music, and summer, and being bitchin'.
19 Anybody lookin'?
20 I decided to chill, get stuff done, and blast Fleetwood Mac's The Dance in my own room.
21 So thanks chicas, for getting me back on track.
22 I got in my room, rose from the dead, ALMOST ascended to heaven, when students came into my room to bitch about grades.
23 Oh ho what I want to know ho ho is are you kind?
24 Uncle John's Band. The Alpha and the Omega.
25 Here's one: Up at the Chill, students will come in with a 98.9% and push for 100%. One kid did that yesterday.
26 This kid was serious. He found a couple of things that I didn't catch, and it STILL came in under 100%. I decided on the spot that he did 5 points of extra credit for having the balls to come in and annoy me.
27 I put in the 5 points.
28 On a stack of bibles I'm here to tell you that the numbers rolled, and the jackpot said this: 100.00%.
29 I broke into one of the biggest smiles of my life. What are the odds of THAT?
30 Here's another one: three students stayed in after school to finish their finals. While they worked, I started cleaning up.
31 Some other student who had bitched about his grade left a folder on his desk. I opened it.
32 He had an A+ paper in his folder that belonged to one of the three girls finishing their finals. I accidentally had put her work into his folder.
33 Go figure.
34 I gave it to her and she lit up.
35 Those things happen, but back-to-back oddities?
36 I reaffirmed my belief in God, or Joe-the-Bear, or whomever.
37 Multi-tasking always ends in miracles.
38 Anybody lookin'?
39 So I missed a deadline yesterday, and life went on as usual.
40 Fancy that.
42 Ah, who cares?
43 Moving On, Part One: This may break your hearts, but this is the last DN of this school year.
44 Traditionally I sort of re-cap the entire year.
45 I don't re-cap absolute Hell.
46 It's unseemly.
47 I WILL say this: I've never been happier or more relaxed in my life.
48 My circulation returned to my legs.
49 I youthened.
50 I celebrated.
51 My old self returned to my torn body.
52 I felt like Popeye after a few spinach cocktails.
53 AND I look pretty spiffy.
54 Snappy dresser over here.
55 I'm on the Cloud wearing shorts from Savers and a brown pocket-tee from Walgreens.
56 Ya gotta love it.
57 Looking forward to my beautiful daughter Nicoley's wedding, Shasta, and Tahoe.
58 And living life.
59 So this is it.
60 I loved writing this for you all year. I'll probably throw something out there in the middle of summer.
61 And I'll be back when school returns, tanned, rested and ready.
62 Stay safe, my friends.
63 Have a wonderful summer.
64 See you again.
65 The Rest is Silence.
66 Peace.
~H~
The DN
1 I'm right in the thick of it.
2 <ducks from incoming missiles>
3 Anybody lookin'?
4 Last night the fuzzy radio didn't even work.
5 I lived in a garage foxhole.
6 Stacks of papers surrounded me like wet sandbags.
7 I worked into the night.
8 Crows took over my front yard. Crows like two things: school lunches, and shitting on things where inactivity reigns.
9 The crows knew I was busy and consequently had a huge cocktail party in and around my front lawn. The party was held courtly with bottles of whiskey and fine cigars.
10 Don't get old.
11 Moving On, Part One: What month is it?
12 My senior year of high school I got lunched by a this huge guy during a P.E. soccer game on the last day of school. I got knocked out. It was a bazillion degrees.
13 When I came to I found myself surrounded by all sorts of people wondering if I was okay.
14 Some medical guy asked me my name, and I told him.
15 He then asked me what month it was.
16 I had no idea. I thought it was October.
17 Ever since then I have equated the last few weeks of school with the other-worldly.
18 Wow.
19 I'm already late.
20 This will be a lovingly short DN today.
21 They all used to be this short.
22 Hmmm.
23 More poetic?
24 I'll tell myself that.
25 AnywayZ...
26 I gottago.
27 Things are nutso.
28 I need to go in and enjoy them.
29 I think I just heard a crow caw, "Nevermore!"
30 Guy's a poet.
31 Anybody lookin'?
32 Have a GREAT day.
33 See you again.
~H~
The DN
1 DAYum!
2 Anybody know what day it is?
3 I'm sayin' inane stuff like this: "I'm plural!"
4 It SEEMS relevant.
5 Like a elephant.
6 So 2014 intel.
7 <yawn>
8 The Yawn Factor.
9 I suppose one needs to calculate the yawn in this the dawn of the New Balance age, or whatever they're calling normal living nowadays.
10 Anyone else lost, or holding on for dear life?
11 My laptop knows that I have burned all other laptops out for my constant hunger for knowledge.
12 I hope I spelled all of that out for you.
13 I'm more than yawning.
12 I realized quite late last that I was done thinking.
13 Thank God, or the aaaaaaaaaaaaaakomalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
14 <thud>
15 nvm.
The DN
1 Long time, no see.
2 Not altogether a bad thing.
3 You have fun?
4 Hope you did.
5 I found myself last night huddled in my garage grading papers and preparing for finals.
6 Guess what I wound up doing?
7 I graded papers and prepared for my finals.
8 O, the humanity!
9 Anybody lookin'?
10 Now what to do.
11 Let me see...
12 Take all eight bazillion essays I now have with me and light them so they dazzle the night sky.
13 Uh...
14 What I meant was...
15 Ah nvm.
16 In pretentious modernese, that translates to "nevermind".
17 It's more than I could stand.
18 But you know?
19 Modern education.
20 I'm tellin' ya.
21 <looking around>
22 Dang.
23 Moving On, Part One: Did you have a fun Memorial Day?
24
25 Thought so. Sounded WAY fun out there, barbecues, kids, dogs, baseball and laughter.
26 I did manage a to get in a few long walks, just to keep things moving.
27 But wagonloads of papers. It always begs the question, "Why do you give them projects and papers?"
28 That's what we do.
29 I wanted to have a barbecue, and to think of all those we have enjoyed, and have now lost.
30 I WAY thought of our soldiers, and of their bravery no matter what the cause.
31 I wanted to watch baseball.
32 I sort of did all of that. I listened to baseball. I had to turn my radio upside down in order to get a fuzzy signal. Giants fans, listen: the Giants stand alone at the top of major league baseball this morning. Ah, even listening to a loss on a fuzzy radio is still baseball.
33 This is the week I always wish I weren't a teacher.
34 Like crazy I wish that. ONLY this week. Schools become other-worldly. And it is not only other-worldly to teachers, but it is other-worldly to staff, students and admin as well. It's WAY not normal.
35 Because finals and the closing dominate anything remotely related to normal life. Everyone still standing is psycho.
36 ffdfdfafdafaf.
37 It's what we do.
38 So.
39 Ya have a good three-day?
40 My beautiful daughter Nicole posted on Facebook that EVERY weekend should be a three-day. It saved me from jumping off the hood of a Buick.
41 Anybody lookin'?
42 I actually saw a Buick the other day.
43 I don't see them around anymore. It's a good thing, because if I DID see one, I was going to jump off the hood.
44 I DID clean up the T0000000NDRA. If I could manage to climb on its hood I would have jumped off it. But I got it all spiffy and running.
45 It is better than ever for flying through the hills, or making a surprise visit to our recently burnt-down dumps.
46 Lordy.
47 Anybody lookin'?
48 <stares into emptiness>
48 Yee-uh.
49 Last week.
50 Finals and perpetual nonsense. I must walk through Hades in order to reach Ithaca. Poor little fellow.
51 <cringing> I gottago. We could DO this.
52 See you again. Wish us all luck dudes. We goin' in! You have a worldly day. I'm off in search of Buick.
53 Peace.
~H~
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