not here to help, only to observe and pass judgment

"Party like it's 1999," or "what fresh hell is this?"

The New Jersey State Bird

Am I just paranoid or do I just suck?

look at yourself in the mirror - or read about it at www.spritopias.com

spritopias.com has been updated

gay furniture porn - go read about it now at www.spritopias.com.

I bet that you look good on the dance floor, my latest blog post is up for your reading pleasure.

I bet that you look good on the dance floor, my latest blog post is up for your reading pleasure.

confection non grata, my latest blog post, is up for your amusement.

I can only hope it is the 'hot gay hell' Jeff so ardently pines for.

I have been battling an upset stomach for the past couple of days and because I am going to Los Angeles this weekend I would prefer to think that I am not sick. I have decided that I must be pregnant. This is the only reasonable explanation to my predicament. If I were ill or had some sort of stomach flue then I would have to defer to my manners and stay home: I cannot in good conscience expose other people to disease.

My pregnancy not only explains my upset stomach but also my recent weight gain. The world makes sense again.

The upset stomach is upsetting to me because I teach seventh grade. I hear, see and smell things daily that would make a lesser person toss their cookies. When I am not disgusted enough with what I run into on a normal day I go to my friend Kirsten’s classroom and look at her gum jar – where students from across the campus are sent to dispose of the chewing gum. This jar of gum is beautiful and vile, truly emblematic of students in junior high. The only thing I find upsetting about this jar is that I did not think of doing this myself. The best I can do is send students to her room to spit out their gum.

Mind you, I have no idea how I came to be pregnant. The other parent could be any number of people. As a single man teaching with a great deal of single women I have been romantically linked to each of them – even though they could all do better. Well, most of them anyway. Until I know whom the other parent is I will just extort things from all of them, greatest to the least.

My only promise is that I will not breastfeed. But, speaking of ‘feeding’ I am eating for two so I must close this and forage in the kitchen. The only thing more troubling than how this baby got in here is how it might find its way out.

New blog post at www.spritopias.com

Four Truths of the Old Navy Sale Rack

Read about my ambition in life - to become the First Rapscallion.

I have lost my little black book.

For most people losing their little black book would be a catastrophe but in my case my little black book isn’t a book with the names and numbers of potential paramours rather it is the book where I write down the musings that turn into essays and stories. I feel like I’ve lost a part of my brain and worse than that is the idea that someone has found a part of my brain and is reading it.

As I write this there is a great potential that I am being intellectually violated. Perhaps someone is just rummaging through my thoughts like a sock drawer hoping to find something extraordinary hidden beneath the everyday or worse yet I am having yet another Harriet the Spy moment where someone who never liked me in the first place has acquired my notebook and is reading it and disseminating the information to others who are not charter members of my fan club. Part of me feels exposed, which is absurd – the information in that book would be difficult to understand but I am sure it is probably easy to misrepresent.

But I can’t escape this feeling that someone else who writes is using my ideas. It has happened before and it will happen again but it is still a terrible thing to have happen to a person. If you stole my car, my iPod, or any other thing it would be a loss soon recovered from or overlooked but to take an idea and claim it as your own is something else entirely.

It feels like Graduate School has eaten my life again but it has really just been nibbling at the edges of my desire to write anything down for other people’s critical eyes.

Friday night Coco and I went to dinner with Vicki and her husband after Coco and Vicki got their toes done. All I can tell you about that is that Gloria Gaynor was not an attractive woman. They are conducting a survey about who has the better toes, this is a game they enjoy playing because they usually get something different after much discussion and then ask me what I like. I usually side with Vicki because I live with Coco and agreeing with her would be prudent. Last month they got the same color ostensibly to confuse me during our monthly ritual of who had the better toes. Being colorblind I was not supposed to notice but I in the end I caught on. Today, they are asking you to intervene and give your opinion.

After getting toes done we went to our favorite restaurant – Sauce. This is not MY favorite restaurant but it is OUR favorite restaurant – we all agree on it, enjoy most everything on the menu and the prices are reasonable.

Coco and I are obnoxious – you can tell us apart because Coco has social skills. Vicki exacerbates this problem and her husband is little help. We like to get loud on Fridays – as most people do – but for teachers it is a very special day in our week.

I was all set to loosen my belt and let my hair down when I noticed two kids from my class on a date with the boy’s mom and sister. They’re seventh graders; I am assured that was a bona fide date.

I frowned. I cursed under breath. I smiled and waved (enthusiastically) when they noticed me and I even went over and politely introduced myself. I was wicked disappointed. The mother said, “I don’t mean to be rude…[ and we all know how I feel about sentences that start like that]…but you look like you’re twelve…how can you be the teacher?” I laughed, you know that fake laugh, and said, “I’m thirteen.” But, tonight I won’t get to act like it.

There went my wild and crazy night of making an ass of myself in public. There went the witty repartee of Coco and Christopias, with special guest star Vicki, at an incredible volume with laughter to match. I wanted my money back. I would hate to make a scene in front of one of my students because I am a much different person in the classroom than I am outside of it.

Acting like an adult went well until I had to refill our drinks and I broke the soda fountain and tripped getting back into our table. It was well in hand until an elderly person came in wearing Ode de Ben Gay, which caused Coco to ask, “Are you eating a mint?” and I replied, “Are you wearing Ben Gay?” Seriously, it was on so think you could taste it five yards away. From there the conversation devolved and you would have to be there to get what was said but you know that the story culminates with us laughing so loud that all the other residents of Phoenix who did not have tickets or babysitters for the PBR staring at us as we were laughing so hard that I hit my head on something and Coco snorted. Seriously, everyone was looking at us. It looked like we were overcome with religious fervor or were having a seizure. Either, or.

I would have been ashamed but my student was ashamed for me.

The Hasty Principle

You know when you hear some phrases start a sentence that it won’t, and can’t, end well. Many of these are fine coming out of the mouths of seventh graders but a really bad idea for a fully developed human to be spewing.

I noticed this the other day when one of my seventh graders said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but…” and he really did not mean to be rude but later that day at the grocery someone said another patron in line, “I don’t mean to be rude, but…” I told them that it is amazing that the same behaviors are endearing to seventh graders and annoying in everyone else. Saying something like that is one such example.

Seventh graders are special people. I have named all of my white hair after them. When Yao Ming (one of my seventh graders) pointed out that I had white hair I did not mind. When Coco (my roommate) pointed it out I thought it was really rude.

These are example of what we at the Soviet Socialist Republic of Spritopias (informal: Spritopias or SSRS) call The Hasty Principle developed by Anna Hasty while she was studying art (ostensibly) in Italy in the twenty-first year of the SSRS. The Principle is simple: there are behaviors that are either endured or endearing when displayed by a garden variety middle school student but not in adult males. This has since been has been expanded to adult women as well, who before the advent of Starbucks were less apt to behave like a seventh grade boy but now with the Starbucks you also have Starbucks Deprivation, a very ugly problem well documented at Suburban Island – a problem which is too terrible for me to even describe.

Other phrases that people begin sentences with that fall under the jurisdiction of the Hasty Principle include (but are not limited to):

“I hate to speak ill of someone…”
“I’m not one to gossip, but…” I can never get that one out without a pause for laughter
“I hate to complain but…”
“I know it isn’t my place to say this, but…”
“I know I shouldn’t say this, but…”
“Just so you know…[insert obvious fact no one should articulate]”
and my personal favorite:
“You may not want to know this but…”

Essentially, if it starts with “I know…” and ends in “…but…” the phrase and adjoining comment should stay behind your teeth. There are other examples of the Hasty Principle in your daily life. Phone in with your own examples for the rest of us.

In other news:

Student: How do you spell enormous?
Me: F-A-T

Student: (to no one in particular) I am going to Guam you in the face.

I often wonder, during my teaching day, what my students are thinking and try to discern the motives behind their actions. There was no good way to construct that sentence. There are times I would like to just come right out and ask them and other times I just blurt out, “What are you thinking?” Sometimes I would rather not know; my morbid curiosity about such things only goes so far.

A few weeks ago one of our students wrote his name on the bathroom wall in his own feces.

Yes, his own name

Yes, in his feces.

When Casey told me this I did not believe her. When my students told me I told them not to gossip. When he told me about it I wanted to ask him but did not. I have an active imagination and prefer what I concoct on my own to the truth.


He decided to tell me.

This was difficult for me because I pride myself on listening to the kids and if I cannot care giving them every impression that I do. I wanted to cover my ears and scream, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU.”

Yes, I threw up in my mouth a little.

Maybe, I threw up a lot.

I realize this was a cry for help so I had to listen. It took all of my professionalism not to reach behind me and call Casey so she could hear it, too.

The next day I am relaying this story to Casey because we both have this student and it is important that we all have this information. It transcends my predilection to be a vicious gossip: she has a responsibility to know the children and what is going on in their lives. We have to work together on this because we have too many students to do this alone.

As I am relating this to her, we are on our way to lunch and the kid comes running out of the boy’s room. I am about to say something to her when she points out that his hair is wet. He had given himself a “swirl.” Explain that to yourself. We are opening the phones for suggestions.

Coco does not so much watch television shows as much as she watches television shows about television shows. One of the things that keep popping up on these shows is an altercation that happened on Grey’s Anatomy. Coco and I watched this once when we were watching actual television shows.

Apparently on the set of this show during filming an African American actor called a homosexual actor a faggot. An event witnessed by many of the cast and crew members although the African American actor alternately acknowledges and denies this fact.

My first reaction is: no one should be called hateful names. Sure, no one cares when Robert Byrd uses the “N” word on the floor of the United States Senate but television sets are sacred places in America. Such hallowed ground is no place for Senatorial foul language. Sure, if the white (gay) man had said what Senator Byrd did about the African American actor there would be no end to the condemnation and the offending actor would be out of a job.

My second reaction is: butch up, people are going to call you hateful names. Every group has a hateful name they would prefer not to be called, so as Coco would admonish you, “put on your big girl panties and deal with it.” Actors are not a special breed of humans immune for saying stupid things or having them said about them: in fact in consideration of their egos I would expect them to say more things of this ilk than they do. If you react like a baby every time someone calls you an inappropriate name they will never, ever stop doing it.

Some people argue that actors should be held accountable for their actions but I think, I know, we should stop looking up to celebrities. It’s a really bad idea. They are people just like we are and it’s foolhardy to assume that they are people we should be aspire to be like or to lead us toward moral clarity even if those morals are just civil ones.

On Friday I was listening to the talk radio and this woman asks the host if she is ready to be a parent. She explains that she is not sure that she is emotionally or financially ready to be a parent. The host responded that she was ready to do it if she was mature enough to ask that question. I thought that good advice until I remembered that I was listening to Adam Carolla – formerly of Love Line – because he is a crass retard (not unlike myself) and not because knows what he is talking about. Danny Bonaduci corroborated his sage wisdom.

You can tell that I am an immigrant because I put “the” in funny places.

Chaos Bean and I have two uncles who are young enough to be our brothers. If we need advice we ask Drew and Danny. We do what Drew suggests and do the exact opposite of what Danny tells us to do. Why? Danny is retarded. It may be the name. It may a coincidence. It may be completely random but I am going to stick by our long-standing “Danny is retarded” policy. I am sure there is something to be said for Mr. Bonaduci; he has turned his life around and drives a German car and I respect that. My uncle, however, volunteers at the Special Olympics he is hoping something positive will rub off on him.

I have decided that I should stop with the Internet journals and writing. I should be on the radio. Chaos Bean and I should have a show – we would be on in the afternoon or early evening because the only times we are up and alert at four in the morning is when we have not yet been to bed. Chaos Bean thinks we should be on the television because we are just as fun to watch but then I would have to worry about combing my hair and not picking my nose. Also, people can listen to the radio anywhere. People do that while driving but have no business watching TV while driving. Also, being on television robs us of the chance to piss off the blind. I could care about the deaf and you can tell them I said that.

Chaos Bean and I have all the qualifications to be radio hosts: we have unqualified opinions, sketchy pasts and we are very funny. We also drink too much, can shout someone down O’Reilly Factor style and the Bean knows where to throw down if you want to have fun.

This idea is one of my better ones. I should get the Alex Vance on this right away. This will be genius. If any of you have a radio station you want to be really popular really quickly then you should contact the Alex Vance expeditiously.

I went to lunch today with the cool teachers. During this lunch I had a terrible fear confirmed for me: I do teach the weird kids. It is enough that I am a freak but for them to have the same problem only multiplies the attendant issues of their personalities – and Casey is no better. She might read this so I feel safe in saying that about her. My advisor in college admonished me to use my powers for good now I fear that I have used them to twist these poor children into something strange and horrible.

I would wrap by brain around this more and more but I concurrently feel that it is impossible, really, to claim that a seventh grader is ‘weird’ because in order for you to do that you need a basis for comparison that is ‘normal.’ Since there is no normative standard by which to gauge the students it is impossible to say that one is weird! Perhaps, in fairness, we could say that there is no standard definition for a normal seventh grader but one would be like pornography – not easily definable but you know it when you see it. That Casey, however, is just not right.