I had so many things to say here. I've been walking around the past couple days, thinking these thoughts and then thinking, I should blog about that. Only, now, when I have time to sit and write, I have no idea what any of those thoughts were.
In my class yesterday, I was knitting a dead fish hat for a friend's child. In reality, I'm knitting two dead fish hats -- one for a male and one for a female. The thing I want to say about the dead fish hat is that it's huge. It's one size fits ...no one. Not really. I have a pin head. Seriously. You wouldn't think so; I've got thick Jewish hair, but I've also got thicker hair because of chemotherapy. However, I can put on an infant's hat. I wear junior baseball caps. My head is sillily small. The dead fish hat is huge by any standard.
While we were in class, one of my colleagues looked down and found an ant colony on the floor around us. During one of our breaks, she reached for her phone and called maintenance. Someone made the joke that she is a true social worker, making a difference everywhere. Somehow, in this break, it came out that I farmed for three weeks -- something I should probably blog about at some point. Those farming stories are pretty fun. Also, I got to talking about my complete lack of sympathy for people's most visceral fears.
I told about my last year teaching, when I was getting the New York Times delivered to school for me. The Sunday magazine had a double spread photo one week of these ostriches. They filled the photo like tree trunks fill a forest. Some of their faces were close to the camera and printed almost life-size. I took the double spread, taped it together with clear tape and then taped it to my colleague's door. This colleague loathes birds. She thinks they are dinosaurs. She thinks they shouldn't exist and they completely wig her out. She got into school before I did, and by the time I entered the hall, her door was open, the ostriches facing the wall. Later in the day, one of our other colleagues went to Rachel's rescue and removed the ostriches from the door so that she could close her door and not have to face their intense beady eyes.
Another colleague loathes mice. On one of my last days of school, there was a mouse in my room eating the glaze off some mass-produced doughnut wrapper that some kid had left in the back of my room. When she came in the door to talk to me, I said, "Don't come in Lemen. There's a mouse over there eating a wrapper." We stood in silence and listened. I was weirded out; she was practically crying. One night when I was hanging out with Lemen and her daughters, we went to see the Muppet movie and hit the Dollar Tree beforehand. They had rubber rats at the Dollar Tree, and I bought one on the goading of Lemen's daughters. One day last year, when I was in grad school and not teaching, I drove down to my old high school, dropped the rubber rat in Lemen's mailbox and hung out with other teachers around the building, carefully avoiding Lemen. Around 3 o'clock, when Lemen was leaving the building, she sent me a text and said, "Beam. You beast." ... I never did find out what happened to that rat....
I then told about the time I hung a picture of Mike the Headless Chicken on Rachel's door. Some of my fellow students didn't believe me about Mike the Headless Chicken. But, it's true.
In my class yesterday, I was knitting a dead fish hat for a friend's child. In reality, I'm knitting two dead fish hats -- one for a male and one for a female. The thing I want to say about the dead fish hat is that it's huge. It's one size fits ...no one. Not really. I have a pin head. Seriously. You wouldn't think so; I've got thick Jewish hair, but I've also got thicker hair because of chemotherapy. However, I can put on an infant's hat. I wear junior baseball caps. My head is sillily small. The dead fish hat is huge by any standard.
While we were in class, one of my colleagues looked down and found an ant colony on the floor around us. During one of our breaks, she reached for her phone and called maintenance. Someone made the joke that she is a true social worker, making a difference everywhere. Somehow, in this break, it came out that I farmed for three weeks -- something I should probably blog about at some point. Those farming stories are pretty fun. Also, I got to talking about my complete lack of sympathy for people's most visceral fears.
I told about my last year teaching, when I was getting the New York Times delivered to school for me. The Sunday magazine had a double spread photo one week of these ostriches. They filled the photo like tree trunks fill a forest. Some of their faces were close to the camera and printed almost life-size. I took the double spread, taped it together with clear tape and then taped it to my colleague's door. This colleague loathes birds. She thinks they are dinosaurs. She thinks they shouldn't exist and they completely wig her out. She got into school before I did, and by the time I entered the hall, her door was open, the ostriches facing the wall. Later in the day, one of our other colleagues went to Rachel's rescue and removed the ostriches from the door so that she could close her door and not have to face their intense beady eyes.
Another colleague loathes mice. On one of my last days of school, there was a mouse in my room eating the glaze off some mass-produced doughnut wrapper that some kid had left in the back of my room. When she came in the door to talk to me, I said, "Don't come in Lemen. There's a mouse over there eating a wrapper." We stood in silence and listened. I was weirded out; she was practically crying. One night when I was hanging out with Lemen and her daughters, we went to see the Muppet movie and hit the Dollar Tree beforehand. They had rubber rats at the Dollar Tree, and I bought one on the goading of Lemen's daughters. One day last year, when I was in grad school and not teaching, I drove down to my old high school, dropped the rubber rat in Lemen's mailbox and hung out with other teachers around the building, carefully avoiding Lemen. Around 3 o'clock, when Lemen was leaving the building, she sent me a text and said, "Beam. You beast." ... I never did find out what happened to that rat....
I then told about the time I hung a picture of Mike the Headless Chicken on Rachel's door. Some of my fellow students didn't believe me about Mike the Headless Chicken. But, it's true.
After I explained about Mike as best I could, and that I put the photo of Mike on Rachel's door so that when she closed the door to teach, Mike was there in the window "looking" at her. (How can a chicken with no head look??)
Anyway, the one classmate who was asking me all of these questions about these things said, "You are going into the wrong field, Kim. You should be going into writing science fiction."
My response to her was, "There are great many things I should be doing."
Anyway, the one classmate who was asking me all of these questions about these things said, "You are going into the wrong field, Kim. You should be going into writing science fiction."
My response to her was, "There are great many things I should be doing."