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Words to Live By

"Dazzle them with your brilliance or baffle them with your bullshit."

Words to Live By

"Dazzle them with your brilliance or baffle them with your bullshit."

Photo Essay

Work like this just makes me feel inferior.

Photo Essay

Simply brilliant. Summarizes my feelings about babies. Exactly.

Fake-Up Education

Fifth grade was a difficult year. It would have been okay, maybe, if not for Mrs. Johnson and her evil ways. I never had a Catholic Nun hovering over me, slapping my hands with a ruler, bombarding me with the weight of the world to carry as my burden. However, I did have Mrs. Johnson, a former Catholic Nun who ran off with a priest, and by the time she got to us, was working on husband number 4. I’m not sure why she wanted to be a teacher. She didn’t like children. And she didn’t like the way children were. I remember sitting there in my chair and knowing she was different that first week of school. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew that she was not like all the other teachers.

By the end of the first week of school, I knew. She had five students who didn’t finish their spelling homework, and she called them up to the front of the classroom. Cindy, Greg, Brenda, Kathy and Dustin—all the fat, poor kids who lived in either trailer parks or on gravel streets. All five of them stood up there, crying as they took the marker one-by-one and put a big, red ‘F’ across their homework. Everyone except Dustin, that is. Dustin, a renegade since second grade found the entire exercise rather amusing and just stood there giggling. His self-indulgent protest always amused the entire classroom. As Ms. Johnson yelled at the five of them, lecturing them on the kindness of the community and school board to buy us new spelling text books (we’d never had spelling text books before), I wondered if she didn’t leave the Catholic church on her own fruition, rather was forced to leave because the church came to realize she was none other than Satan behind her layers of Oil of Olay and thick mascara. It was her dark roots that sprouted out of the center of her feathered head that really had me wondering, though.

Simply failing the poor kids would have been satisfactory, but she always had to tie that into public humiliation. It happened daily. It’s no wonder that all of us in the classroom turned and did the same to our fellow classmates. Sure kids could be mean to each other, but we were given permission. We followed Mrs. Johnson’s example.

It was during our health lesson when we would put out chairs in a giant circle and sit facing each other like one giant dysfunctional family with the booze-swilling matriarch at the head of the table. This particular day, Brenda was crying. We had been mean to her on the playground. All of us were mean to her, even those of us who knew better. Mrs. Johnson had spotted Brenda crying, and began the inquisition of concern. She administered compassion like it was a grapefruit needing the pulp beat out of it. Brenda didn’t want to talk about it. Not in front of all her classmates. But Mrs. Johnson, with her own verbal assault managed to drag the story out of Brenda, which burst out between the sobs and tears. She pushed for the facts, and turned to others for their side of the story. And soon, the entire class was guilty, even those who weren’t mean to Brenda. They were guilty for not turning others in. For not standing up for Brenda. For not rushing to her aid.

But how could they, when we were learning through Mrs. Johnson’s example all about public humiliation. The way she treated us as a class was so embarrassing, and belittling, and now we were being chastised collectively for not stepping in when others were behaving like she herself might. The conversation was horrific, and in the end, people apologized simply to end the discussion. They didn’t mean it, Brenda knew they didn’t mean it, but she accepted their fake-up make-up just so we could move on to geography. I couldn’t help but wonder, who was going to turn Mrs. Johnson in?

Maybe watching her humiliate everyone built a silent rage inside me as the year drug on. It culminated in an explosion during a year-end all-school skate party at the BayShore Rollerdome. Feeling bold and in an environment where she could not scold me or fail me, I got right up in her face and said, “I can tell you use Oil of Olay because your face looks fake!” She growled at me and made a fist in my face as I turned to skate away yelling, “You use too much fake up!” It was just one jab, but it was a jab on behalf of all my classmates. A jab on behalf of all those who had stood in front of the class, and received their often-unjust punishment and public humiliation. A jab culminating from a year of learning from a teacher.

Sweet Inspiration

This is the most amazing, inspiring story. And the best part is that DogPoet is accomplishing the very thing that he is learning about. Brilliant.

The Relationships of Cold War

There are times in the Cold War of relationships that misunderstandings spiral out of control. What was a simple communication blip becomes a major violation. Before you know it, you’ve reached DEFCON 4, and you’re hurtling missiles at each other inflicting damage in a war that no one will win and no one will step forward and be big enough stop.

Like wallowing in nuclear fallout, there is no pain at first, just anger. But as the anger subsides, the pain begins to emerge, and that’s when you go through the house on a rampage, stuffing photos of good times threw the paper shredder, convinced you’ll never be foolish enough to trust anyone enough to allow anyone to make you this vulnerable again. Ever. You pledge your allegiance to your self, and for what you stand, one person, almighty God, forever and ever, alrighty.

And then you construct the Berlin Wall, dig your heals in and vow you’re here to stay. That’s the lonely part of the relationship Cold War, sitting there, waiting and wishing Jimmy Carter would come along and negotiate a peace accord.

That’s Dan and I. Too much alike to admit it. Too much alike to know how do deal with our own selves. Too much alike to avoid stepping on each other’s toes. Too much alike to hate each other. Too much alike to love each other. And yet different enough to have separate histories influencing decisions and actions. Different enough to speak completely different languages. Different enough to not understand each other, yet at the same time, know each other completely.

How can you tolerate him, you ask yourself, when you can barely tolerate yourself? If I were myself, I’d be pissy, too.

And then you see him in those jeans. You really admire him in those jeans. Those low-rider jeans that reveal just the hint of tuft. Just a hint of crack. If only you could have those jeans on this side of the Berlin Wall. You hate it that you love it, because you shouldn’t encourage it. You shouldn’t encourage such immoral tactics. It’s not fare that he can toss weapons of mass destruction around and then make world peace with the swish of his ass. But you are skeptical. You know he has biological weapons, gas weapons hidden in that ass of his, like those canisters found in a carnival ride in Iraq.

But that still doesn’t scare you of this tyrant. What scares you is how you so quickly forget about his destructive force. What scares you is you’re so willing to use your own destructive force to fight back. So willingly, and so freely. And that’s what I’m ashamed of. Not only am I ashamed of what I am willing to do, I’m ashamed that I care so much about another that I’m willing to do anything to protect myself from this person. To protect myself from ever getting too close.

But it’s too late for that. We’re in the middle of a Cold War and we’re already at Deafcon 4.