Disappearing

Just

a minute or a day or a week or something ago, right? Ago. What does "ago" mean? I'm sitting here, enfolded in the closing day. The dustiness of it, but without chalkiness - just the greyness, the quiet. Like "taking tea". My windows are spotty and it might be drizzling outside, but it's too humid to open them. Stray chirpings and a child's wild scream keep me from feeling completely cozy or quiet.

So many people have gone away. On vacation, into new habits, into different work schedules and into that thing that happens. The disappearing. It's not always permanent. The ritual between summer and fall when some of the friends you have made shed away the lives that brought them to you. For some, it is a very good thing. There is an arc of healing the person is beginning that you're simply not on yet, or they're moving to a new city or something. Or, you have nothing in common but some part of the part of the abysmal part of the experience of your job and that is all you talk about so you wont talk to each other until September or never if you will never work together again.

Or something happens like someone realizes something about you, you thought they either knew or hoped they would never know, or worse, hoped wasn't true anymore, or just plain didn't know about yourself. Like you caught yourself making a stupid choice, or worse, a horrific, mostrously costly choice after you'd already made it -- it was too late. Well, they caught it. They thought they could handle it, but then, and how could you blame them, they just...disappeared. What was there to say?

They didn't want to know how you were because you were horrifyingly wrong. You hadn't protected them from getting badly hurt, either. You were...vacant of everything previously interesting. The one thing about you -- your seeming intelligence -- had proved useless. You were hollow. So, what was there to know.

And so the person just doesn't answer your calls anymore. Doesn't read your emails or send you any. He or She just disappears. And if you see that person, he or she will just run away. There will be no explanation because "you know." And you do. You failed in the most basic way a friend can fail and so he or she just walks away. It's like a code. And it always seems to happen in the summer. At least, to me.

I'm so sorry. To all those who have waved or are walking away.
I know it's feeble to say that I didn't want any of it to happen, but I didn't. Your disappearing has made me much more aware of my own failings and now, as I write this, perhaps, of the fact that I should stop seeking so much comfort and joy when I have brought so little and I have made so much disappear.

Cassie-Licious

Cassie

Sweet, sweet, sweet cassie, catnip, cassie-licious, cassie, calligraphy

of clouds and cotton newly woven.

Cassie.

Right here. She is, she is.

Cassie, the miracle cat who leaped up from the snow and followed Michael home and whom Sharon snarfed away to be especially safe and warm with her and the Queequeg, of all people, whom she kind of adored from her haunts up above him on bookshelves, in closets and even right alongside his nose sometimes. One magical Christmas Mary came to visit and she and the Wigster went to Chicago for the holiday, but Cassie got to stay there after New Years where she and Mary can look out the window at the flowers and play and she can make her VERY OWN MESSES of the very special candy dishes and NOT sit on the couch and get brushed and pet and hog ALL the attention all these things that Cassie doesn't very much mind, those she is very broken about the not having the Wigster, as it turns out and she's all torn without Sharon, but she used to see both of them on holidays and she still sees Sharon. She still sees the Wigster, but she doesn't tell too many people. He always comes to visit her and they fight and talk about why they fight and how they secretly loved each other all along. She just wishes he were always there and not just in spirit -- but she'll never tell. Neither will he.

But, Cassie's a smiling girl, especially when the family is all together like today when Sharon is in Chicago. But she loves being Mary's cat and they are just right together. They always knew that. Two very particular and pretty women who know what they want before they even think it and followed their hearts and their minds which lead their feet and bodies to each other. They knew they were on the right path. They just had to believe in themselves and keep going. The right place wasn't far away. Love was everywhere, and it just kept getting better.

Oh--incidentally, I heard, that one time, Ms. Cassie was sitting up in her perch at Sharon's apartment and she was given some catnip and she was kind of rolling in it and she attained the knickname, "the catnip bird". That's a famous nickname of hers.

Down by the River

Read the lyrics. Then go on.

Neil Young - Down by The River Lyrics
Be on my side,
I'll be on your side, baby
There is no reason for you to hide
It's so hard for me staying here all alone
When you could be taking me for a ride.
Yeah, she could drag me over the rainbow, send me away
Down by the river I shot my baby
Down by the river,Dead, oh, shot her dead.
You take my hand, I'll take your hand
Together we may get away
This much madness is too much sorrow
It's impossible to make it today.
Yeah, she could drag me over the rainbow, send me away
Down by the river I shot my baby
Down by the river,Dead, oh, shot her dead.
Be on my side, I'll be on your side, baby
There is no reason for you to hide
It's so hard for me staying here all alone
When you could be taking me for a ride.
Yeah, she could drag me over the rainbow, send me away
Down by the river I shot my baby
Down by the river,Dead, oh, shot her dead.

Now, this was playing in Starbucks. I have heard the song lots of times, but I've never listened to it closely -- I just knew something agonizing happened by a river. My best friend loves Neil Young. I heard the song a lot in my early 20's. I knew -- Neil Young, sincere, ex-addict (Needle and damage done...) Later, Reaganite, god knows why. Didn't know exactly where he stood now. Son has autism.

I SHOT MY BABY?

Over and over again over my Vanilla Soy Latte. Now, I have written elsewhere about the collisions of the homeless people and the lattes and how the sensibility is more than steel-toe ironic.

Maybe it's heroine.

Maybe it's the voice of a young criminal he's imagining.

HOW THE FRIG DO WE KEEP TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING WHEN THERE'S JUST BEEN A SONG WITH SO MUCH BLOOD IN IT, EITHER WAY. Even if the next song is HAPPY TALK! You know? From "South Pacific"? Sounds like Dr. Norman Vincent Peale on Heroine:

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk
Talk about things you like to do
You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?
Talk about the moon floating in the sky
Looking at a lily on the lake
Talk about a bird learning how to fly
Making all the music he can make!
etc......

I WANT TO GET ON THE TABLE. "People, the gentleman on the SOUND SYSTEM has declared that either he has killed a lover, his innocence or that he used to use heroine and is in such a dynamic state of fear that HE IS RIGHT IN THAT MOMENT AGAIN. I THINK WE SHOULD JUST STOP. I REALLY THINK WE SHOULD:
Cut the b.s.
Put the coffee down.
Stop talking about jobs and parents.
And just look at each other.
And then someone should go get some washcloths and we should just.
Wash our faces.
And start talking about
Do we have what we NEED?
Do our friends?
Does everyone we talk to -- everyone -- the neighbor, the guy at the next carrell at work, the people in our family. What could we do so that they had what they NEED.
What about other people we know of -- the people we read about -- google Naomi Klein and Jeffrey Sachs when we get home and send them ten dollars toward what they do, if we can REALLY afford that. Some can, some can't. Don't do more than that. Pick a number you can do often. Without thinking. So that it's like breathing or washing your face.

I'm sorry, you can't play "Down by the River" in a Starbucks and not declare an emergency. Maybe you should. And the day that about 150 people hear "I shot my baby" and just sip their coffee is a day that we are
1) just a few months from voting for two candidates for president, neither of whom should be trusted with a litterbox
2) we are walking into an election year with no plan to save the planet or the world
3) we have grown to hate our children so much that all we think about in terms of education is cutting spending and designing tests

oops.

I shall be taking my latte in the park.

Accursing

The English is Italic, The Hebrew transliteration is bold, and the translation of the Hebrew is in plain text. I wanted to know how something becomes accursed -- from the way the Hebrew word defines it, the objects are accursed because of what happened to them -- they were used by a culture that did not obey the Old Testament god. And in taking them, the Israelites would become accursed. The objects, however, did not do anything. They were part of a culture which did. The actions of that culture made them accursed. Those actions were deemed accursed by the culture -- Joshua's -- which was victorious. No one will ever know what the People of Ai had to say for themselves about it. We have to take Joshua's word and the way it was transcribed in the most popular version of the Old Testament story. I've always found him fair, but that may purely be because he came after the ever-popular Moses, and after two grades of a man I ridiculously imagined in the shape of a Protestant from Northfield, Illinois who now runs the NRA, I was ready for someone I could picture as a conventional teenager with an open mind and new ideas. I mean, young "let my people go" Charleton was ok for fourth grade me. By sixth grade, I was ready for someone who could write Supreme Court amendments, especially as we were reading Brown v. Board of Ed in Secular Studies. Sadly, I don't remember much about him beyond occasional stories, but this was a very important one. The accursed things were certainly accursed, but by what was done, not by birth.

Something becomes accursed when it is badly used. Someone becomes accursed, if people do, in a similar fashion. In an age when we no longer have the benefits of splitting oceans and must rely on science and negotiations and poetry, perhaps we can un-accurse things by re-using them well. We don't have endless supplies of things the way we used to -- no children of gods come down and multiply fishes. We've run out of favors from all manner of gods and goddesses, or they've decided it's time for us to grow up. Isn't that why we were given the abilities to write poetry, music, theater, do science, negotiate, create minor energies, etc.? So that they could go on and travel and do other things and not expend their energies, much needed to sustain us, so we could sustain ourselves?

So let us stop accursing -- and start re-claiming. The trick is how to cleanse someone who has been so badly used, or something, etc. But, certainly there are enough of us to solve this. My cats would say, by golly, just start washing!

Translation:
http://scripturetext.com/joshua/6-18.htm

Joshua 6:18


And ye in any wise raq (rak)leanness, i.e. (figuratively) limitation; only adverbial, merely, or conjunctional, although
keep yourselves from shamar (shaw-mar')to hedge about (as with thorns), i.e. guard; generally, to protect, attend to, etc. yourselves from
the accursed thing cherem (khay'-rem)physical (as shutting in) a net (either literally or figuratively); usually a doomed object; abstr. Extermination

lest ye make yourselves accursed charam (khaw-ram')to seclude; specifically (by a ban) to devote to religious uses (especially destruction); physical and reflexive, to be blunt as to the nose
when ye take laqach (law-kakh')to take (in the widest variety of applications)

of the accursed thing cherem (khay'-rem)physical (as shutting in) a net (either literally or figuratively); usually a doomed object; abstr. Extermination

and make suwm (soom)to put (used in a great variety of applications, literal, figurative, inferentially, and elliptically)wholly, work.

the camp machaneh (makh-an-eh')an encampment (of travellers or troops); hence, an army, whether literal (of soldiers) or figurative (of dancers, angels, cattle, locusts, stars; or even the sacred courts)
of Israel

Henry

leaning on larry, leaning on henry, leaning on larry, leaning on henry, etc. henry in white...

An amazing story

Roll back seven years ago. My first bonding experience with Henry came when the radiator cap came off our heater and, being a nice Jewish girl and not knowing how to put it back on, I called the fire department as the steam filled my bedroom, then my apartment. I shut the door on the bedroom and had to chase Henry out of there. The fire dept came and left, not at all surprised by my call (my neighborhood is right next door to Hasidic Jewish Boro Park) and I saw Larry, but no Henry. Frantic, I raced around the apt and I thought he left. Finally, I noticed Larry's nose had been pointed toward the bottom of the refrigerator the entire time. I looked down to find Henry's little white butt stuck at the bottom. He got under, but couldn't get out. I reached down and gently pulled him out and from that moment and onward had a purring Henry in my arms.

Flash forward to this morning. I wake up and I see Larry, but no Bernie. I ask Larry, where's Bernie and he won't move. I'm like, "You know, Bernie? BERRRRRRNIE?" I race around the house, calling and calling and no Bernie. A little sooner than seven years ago, I realize Larry has been pointing his nose toward under the bed the entire time. I look under and there is my 19 month old tub of fur, stuck, it seems. So, I pull off the futon, and grab him by the scruff of his neck through the one part of the frame wide enough to pull him through, and with a lift, I have a cooing, purring little 14 pounder in my arms. I run him to the actual bedroom (the futon couch lives in the living room), close the door and see if his back legs work by throwing the catnip carrot and they do. As usual, Larry is already behind the door and Bernie is sniffing for him ("It's going to be okay, little buddy.") So, I let Larry in to feed them both a celebratory extra breakfast and Bernie races out the door, runs under the futon and then right out. He was perfectly capable of getting out.

They re-enacted the Henry story for me. (And found a way to get a second breakfast.) Bernie could never fit under the refrigerator, not even at eight months, so this was the closest they could come.

Larry's been sitting in Henry's chair for week's now and he hadn't for months. Bernie, too.
After they ate, the two of them curled up in the sun for a few hours.
They did well and they did me a lot of good. They really did. I'm very lucky.

We celebrate Henry this week and always

Henry Aloisius Snoopy Fergus Kay

February 4 (observed birthday) 2001 - July 16 - 2007

Larry, Bernie and me and everyone who loved him which is everyone know he's still here.

Larry still keeps looking for you. He's been reminding me every minute about this week and about Wednesday. He's always watching for you and he knows you're here and so does Bernie.

Enter

I went on an interview on Tuesday to which I was eight minutes late because my subway line was unexpectedly re-routed over a local line. It didn't occur to me that the local line was THAT much slower until I realized that I should've been in Manhattan at a time I had not yet reached the express stop two stops from my stop.

Eight minutes is not a long time. At a previous interview, the principal made me wait 45 minutes.

Still, I knew the job was gone. I felt as though I'd put myself on the breadline in one fell swoop.

Should I continue walking toward the school?

I called 411 to get the school's number -- to tell them I was walking on the way -- the number was dialed directly. No one picked up. When I got there, I learned the principal was on a long interview by phone with someone else.

I didn't stop to see what I looked like. I signed in and ran to the door. I don't know if the front bangs on my hair were fallen onto my forehead or eyebrows. I think not. I think I would've felt them, but I don't know. I ran right through traffic to make it by eight minutes.

I got out of the train, see, at the time of my interview.

Do I continue walking? This principal is known for her efficiency.

Shouldn't I just go home? Why waste everyone's time? Why give her a reason to remember my name?

I chatted with the guard as she flipped back my ID. She said the principal was nice but strict and as I went through the door, I said that I knew and eight minutes meant I was in deep trouble. I walked in and the lady on the phone waved at me and asked me to go wait in the room with the Gestetner machine where all the noise was and the people came through and when they saw me they went "Oh." This must be where she puts the dunce caps, I thought.

Then we met and I apologized and I meant it. There was nothing I could do. She seemed like it didn't matter. She also seemed like she didn't know who I was. This has happened before, but I won't know why it happened here because I was late. Anyway, she didn't know anything about me and mostly there wasn't a lot to say and I disintegrated, as I often do when people don't know me and I've already made a bad impression, into "Um" and "Oh" and "Well" and, as always, I tell the absolute truth. So, when, angrily, she asked me how long I had been working at my school (trying I could see to figure out my years of experience/age) I said, "8 years, and before that 4 years at the other school and then before that..." "I'm older than I look." She kind of nodded sort of, and the conversation just floated on our mutual loss of what to say to each other because neither of us really knew why we were there.

She tried to end encouragingly, so much so that it didn't hit me until I left how absurd what she had said was and anyway her body language was basically the equivalent of throwing me out.

Next time I can see that I'm going to be late, as I did back at that express stop, I get out of the train and re-schedule. I don't know if it would've gone that way either way, but those eight minutes mean I'll never know.

Amnesiac Interviews?

I feel as if I've been dropped into a twillight zone. I arrive dressed very well, having read as much as possible about the school whose doors I enter, having read as much as I can in the days that have elapsed between the email and the day of the interview about sometimes entirely new subjects for me, files on computer of material to reference, and notebook when I don't need the machine, packet of student essays and, as of this week, corporate haircut. I'm as polite as Garrison Keillor. Patient as his audience and, for that matter, a grandparent with a child who is learning to say "Grandpa". You don't force it, you wait, and you hope and you never more than pray for it. I sit in offices as long as asked, no matter how many noises roll past or above me. Even when no one seems to know I'm there. None of that bothers me. I'm just confused by the latest strategy of some of the principals and I am wondering if anyone has experienced it and how they handle it.

I've been called for several interviews now at which:

1) The interviewer has not seemed to know why he/she called me.

2) The interviewer has taken notes on the answers to a prescribed list of questions dispassionately, occasionally nodding to my answers and then almost physically stopping himself.

3) I've been asked almost no questions while the person thumbs through my CV trying to remember why she called me. This is before having enough time to be bored with me.

4) I've been talked with in the lobby, while the interviewer describes the position to me as if it were neurosurgery, hoping I'll walk away. When I greet it with pleasure, the person seems dumbfounded, so I suggest we proceed to the office.

My only guess is that I was originally called because I seemed interesting in some way and then someone dropped a ball. I often wonder if the "some way" was that I just turned 40 -- I'm class of 1990 so it's a good chance I'm 40 if you can do math, or if you add my years of the DOE to 22 or 23 the years people usually start teaching. Anyway, if you're looking to round out your search with a few veterans so that you make sure you don't seem to be unbalanced, I fit a certain niche. Or, if you like people with interesting and long CV's I also fit that niche. If you like people with interesting degrees, I fit that niche. But, I digress.

For whatever quick reason the person put me in a pile, they stopped there. The person did NO MORE homework. OR SEEMS not to have.

What is this about and am I the only one going through it?

If you've been to one of these amnesiac interviews, can you let me know?

Where do closed schools go?

So, it's official. Brooklyn Comprehensive is no more.

The last graduation ceremony was a little over a week ago, at which a graduate from over ten years ago praised one of our finest teachers for making him the lawyer he is today.

In kitchens, bedrooms, cars, on couches and maybe even in someone's dreams this early afternoon, someone is mentioning, "oh yeah, I heard about that," that their high school closed. I can guarantee to a student he/she isn't happy. But, they feel, as they felt before they walked through our doors, powerless and completely accustomed to disappointment. It took a long time to break them of that feeling and I'm sure not very long for it to be re-instilled by a government agency, a disturbing and unfeeling neighbor, boss, relative, spouse or side of themselves. It's inevitable. The trick was for us to teach them how to re-instill in themselves the flame of hope. I know several of my colleagues were excellent at this.

As I don't know how they feel about appearing on the great white way of the blogosphere, I'll just describe the ways they did --
--a vivacious, youthful history teacher, with the eternal sex appeal of a knowing Jewish mother
pushed the kids to say what they meant and to realize that they could understand history because it just meant paying attention to what was happening around them and why it happened and TAKING NOTES in class.
--a furiously bright and stone cold vixen of an English Teacher told them she would not believe one stereotype or let them stereotype her and that they worked from a clean hard-nosed slate together to make themselves better -- both of them. Not a question in the world she couldn't make as clear as a tree branch and she taught them to carve their essays upward from sentence to paragraph to connected paragraphs to completed essay. Kids came back after school to make their work better and better.
--a handsome musician with words asked the kinds of questions anyone could take hours answering and then taught the students to listen to language as is if it were music. They learned to read hard books by listening to them read. And they liked them

There were more, and yes, those were my friends, but I could sit here and type for days.

There were endless frustrations. Kids came to school one day and disappeared for weeks. The brighter the kid, the less consistent and the more problems. The weaker, the more consistent, but the more in need of services that we often didn't have -- but, at least, you could work with th student and improvise. You could work with memory. I have to admit that there were certain kids I longed to see more than the kids I did see, but I was lucky because I worked in a place where it was rare that I really didn't want to see someone, though sure there were a few. More people didn't want to see me, I think.

The school will only really be closed to those people -- the ones who never want to see or think of any of us anymore.