This is my original blog. I haven’t updated for years. I keep it as a reminder of the journey.
Please see Broke Teacher for education and Poser Homestead for chickens, recipes, and dead zucchini.
Planning for This Year’s Death Toll
Daylight savings time. An antiquated system that keeps kids from going to bed at night--it's still light out--and gives every single Yankee farmer more time to plant potatoes. Apparently no one can plant potatoes earlier in the day. Daylight savings time is the...
Dreams and Mirages
I wake. Something's not right. I'm annoyed with the world. I always wake happy. My glass replenishes. It should be at least half-full. It was the kind of dream where the world doesn't work--not a nightmare, the type where nothing is as it should be. People don't act...
Snuggly Boys Take All the Room
He's in my bed again, that cuddly, snuggly boy. Cuddly, snuggly boys take up all the room. They grab the blankets, they kick, and they sometimes laugh in the middle of the night--great big cackly laughs like they've found perfect happiness. I'd find perfect happiness,...
He Forgot to Go South
It's cold outside. The kind of cold I'd bottle and save for July. I'm outside with no coat and untied shoes, starting my car so I can peel out of the driveway in five minutes. The engine protests. I jog back to the house. My hand sticks to the metal on the door just a...
Tooth Fairy Helps First Grader in Common Core Math
Declan had a wiggly tooth. "You don't have to pull it out if it hurts," I said. "The Tooth Fairy can come any night. No rush." He knew, though, that the Tooth Fairy brings money. He likes money. With the force of and courage of a superhero, he reached in. Plink. One...
Is School Useless? (Nobody Does Geometry at Cocktail Parties)
I was helping a kid with his geometry. I didn't do too bad. I said "shit" once. It slipped out. I apologized. A lifetime of math anxiety rolled up into four letters--coulda been worse. I stepped back and stared at the cleverly infused algebra problem stuffed into one...
Only Bullies Give Wedgies
Declan is fighting me. I'm supposed to be the bad guy from a show he loves. He has it choreographed to the last detail. "Side kick me, Mommy." That's something you don't hear a six-year old say often. I aim for the stomach. "Woosh," he says. He angles. Pretty...
I Don’t Do Lines
I’ve come to the conclusion that life is about lines. There are so many lines in this world. Grocery lines, bank lines, lines of cocaine. Even virtual lines—printer cues, website holds, and “You’re next in line for customer service” on chat. “Next” always seems the...
Drugs Are Illegal. Reform’s Scary. Coffee Fixes the World.
I want to have coffee with a friend. We struggle to squeeze it in. "How about two Fridays from now?" Why can't we get our calendars to stop fighting so we can drink coffee? Eventually, one calendar wins. Coffee arrives. What starts as coffee with a good friend ends as...
The Dissed Dead Guys: Respect Them on President’s Day, Too
Happy President's Day. It's one of those holidays I don't complain about because I'm sitting here drinking coffee knowing in a half hour I'll still drinking coffee instead of going to work. I love work, mind you--teaching obscure things to teens is a cool job. They...
Buy Donuts: Kids Hate Flaxseed Muffins
As it happens, I was too lazy to make flaxseed muffins. Our advisory has breakfast on Fridays. We take turns bringing in "food," a.k.a donuts. I make jokes that there's no police academy nearby, eat healthy food. I promise vats of scotch-oats or flaxseed muffins when...
Skip the Cards and Bards on Valentine’s Day
Valentine's Day's insane. The American Consumer Greed Association adopted it as the official holiday to support Hallmark writers through the doldrums between Christmas and Easter, and that season where it's just a tad early to start stocking for Halloween. "I know!...