Still A Beautiful Life

Art teacher?

I am cleaning and sorting and painting and trying not to lose my mind in the SEA of trash and plaster that is my classroom and a contractor pokes his head through my door shouting," Art Teacher?" I look up all blown out and say "yes??"
"yea, How do you make black?"


I smile.
" It's all colors"

He shakes his head." oh i thought it was purple and green."

So then i explain that that IS mixing all colors and he grins and runs out shouting like a ten year old, " I KNEW IT!"

Beautiful Life

Now...

My morning and day is this: cereal and coffee and endless lesson planning. I forgot all the BS that is involved in a lesson plan, you must justify everything you are doing in minutia. You must plan out your every minute of a class period and explain why you are using it that way. This is good for the students, it's just a total P.I.T.A. for me.

oh well, I wont' lie, i love it. I get a thrill out of imagining the kids doing these lessons.

AND, i reconnected with a dear friend from college and serendipitously she passed a neat website my way. This.It's a connection between two women who have never met and they post an image a day and the image blend together into this awesome record of their twin paths. I am SOO teaching that to my 7th graders. oh yea.

WOOOOO

An ARTICLE on me!!

Sunday Morning

It's sunday, we are laying about in a state of total lethargy, feeling as though this is our right after weeks of travel, work and other busy time away from each other. Yes, it may be one in the afternoon but damnit, if we want to be laying around naked reading Cat Fancy and Twilight....so be it.

Suddenly at the door comes knocking and doorbell ringing. Insistent doorbell ringing. I am scrambling around trying to find clothing as the bell rings and rings and rings, in my panic I start to run downstairs in a t shirt and underwear, to which ( over her laughter) HH hollers "NO! Keziah! you're still half naked!"

When I finally get to the door dressed, sweaty and fully blown out, who do I find but Mary. Now, Mary lives next door. She is an elderly lady and apparently the sister of the man next door, the mentally challenged with a very confusing lisp sister. I kid you not with the lisp, I thought her name was Millie. There she stands, in her house dress with her traditional vacant smile and earnest expression.
" HI!"

I am bedumbed, " Hi Mary....."

She has stopped by to inform me that there are deer in my back yard and I should go look at them BUT to be VERY VERY quiet. VEWY VEWY QUIET!

She repeats this at least 5 times.

The upside to it being Mary at the door is that she seems to have not noticed my bedraggled appearance, anyone else and they surely would have wondered why, at 1 pm, I am still looking this sad.


The deer were very cute. and I was vewy quiet.

Daily Commute

It's not very green of me, I know, I burn easily a tank a week, if not more. It's only for two more weeks and then I'll be into a MUCH more reasonable 1/2 a tank a week or less but really it's just gratuitous. Not to mention the actual horror of commuting an hour each way through D.C. rushhour traffic, I can feel my blood pressure rising. I actually let loose a curse this morning of such virility that i somewhat shocked myself. I also think I must be upping my odds of potential car wreck, spending this much time on the road. That's how it works, right? I do know that i very nearly killed a pedestrian yesterday as he bolted across a four lane highway, highly unadvised behavior on his part. I also watched a truck sideswipe the car behind me this morning, good times on the beltway.

The upside to all this is that I'm thoroughly enjoying my book on CD, The Witches of Chiswick. It's bizarre and satirical and hilarious sometimes, narrated by the author it is full of dry humor and a truly ridiculous plotline. I find myself looking forward to my drive and bummed when i arrive home because i am hoping for the next chapter.