not here to help, only to observe and pass judgment

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.