Best place on the Internet for Slovenian cyber heroines, desert island enthusiasts, and perpetual day dreamers
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
A Long Yet Not Fully Comprehensive List of Places I've Slept
Saturday, January 27, 2024
Snow Day # 5
Outside it was the stark white of tables and chairs in a furniture catalog. It was like dipping a vanilla milkshake into a vat of bone white latex paint and then trying to drown lab mice in the mixture. By the time the remaining staff at March Meadow got the final student into the hands of their family (The same parent who wanted Alexis to make all of this into a teachable moment) the county sheriff flexed his muscles and declared a Level 3 Snow Emergency. The department even held a press conference pointing a single camera down a trio of microphones. The staff missed it but it had the sheriff standing at a podium at the Justice Center downtown saying that "no one should be on the roads unless it is an emergency. Exceptions can be made for work but you should call your employer and ask if you need to report in. People driving out there could be subject to arrest. This is very serious."
Alexis saw the news alert come on her phone and quickly cleared it. She felt police were mostly unhelpful, an opinion honed not just by her experience growing up but by years of life lost in tabletop active shooter exercises. "Just another thing about teaching in America. Just a tiny thing!" she said to allay teacher fears going into the mandatory seminar at the beginning of the year. "Don't worry. I worked out this summer so I got you if the shit gets real" She kept deeply buried for worry of antagonizing a specific March Meadow parent. Mr. Raymond, the only parent she called Mr/Ms/Mrs. in front of staff, students, and parents regardless of situation, who claimed to be former military and police but seemed to make his living being a meter reader. At least, he always wore his yellow safety jacket, when he came to get his boys and insist he needed to observer them in class "Oh, that is ok, Mr. Raymond. I think Mrs. Baltic has a test today," Alexis often used that to defuse the situation. She did not need someone to tell her it was bad out.
Dismissal had been only a minor shit show. Mr. Joshua had bolted and the buses were not coming back. The guys were leaving them parked in their driveways. Leo messaged her "Don't worry. My cousin owns the Vega Mia store and he said I can leave it there. Ill bring it back on Sunday once this clears. No worries" Eddie just said he was good. "Everyone is home. Took forever. You should stay at the school tbh." There were endless slips and tumbles but the snow caught everyone and saved her from the saber rattling of "I'm calling my lawyer!" from Ms. Schmidt who seemed magnetized towards black ice.
She did a quick census in her head of who was still here. John Johnson was in the basement supposedly nursing the boiler but she assumed he was streaming movies or reading paperback novels. He would be here all night. Zoey and Carlos who had helped dig the last idle students through the snow as their rides limped to the door. Jessica Rain, the receptionist, who had stayed there watching the screens on her camera monitors get whiter with each second. She was quick and savvy in spotting cars or parents from the footage. There was Sandy Calvert the 8th grade English teacher who suffered from a chronic case of "new teacher try hard" syndrome and was likely taking the time to arrange the each dystopian YA series in chronologically order. Alexis did not know the status of everyone else out in the wind. Her assistant principal, Rose Martino, had left her car in the lot saying she was just leaving it there. Her boyfriend lived about six blocks away and she said would just risk it
"The bodega is open!" said the last text she got from Rose followed by multiple wine glass emojis and a cheers one "In case you have to stay the night"
***
The car line made Zoey realize trying to drive out of March Meadow would end up with her on the side of the road. She would maybe pass the same cars she just shuffled out of her lot only to end up sidewindered into a dirty snowbank. The situation also made her anxiety reach weaponized so it felt like it was standing there in the room telling her how to survive when stuck in the snow in a car
1) Stay calm
2) Stay in the car
3) Keep engine running and blast the heat at full blast for ten minutes
4) Keep the tail pipe clear during all of this
5) Wait for help
Would she recall all the steps? Did the cars stuck on the side of the road know this? Should she check each window? Those cars likely had her students in them!
So, she stayed in her classroom, but not until after deciding to limp towards her car and search for a change of clothes. She saw the Level 3 Snow emergency alert and felt she would be here for a while. For sure until 7pm, when the lease said the building had to close, and then the legal force would meet the climatic immovable object and they would see what would happen. Opening her car door took everything she had to peel off the snow and the vacuum seal of ice and wind. She dug through the back for a gym bag through the powder snow the flew in and then slammed the door shut. That knocked more snow off the passenger side window and when she looked through, it was just a wall of white past the heather grey interior. The walk back to the door followed the same path of the car line dismissal but in the half hour everything had been reset to a neat plateau of unbroken snow. To get into the vestibule she kicked away more snow blocking the door just enough to squeeze in and feel the warped wood frame cut into her back. In the vestibule she felt the tropical levels of steam heat hit her face and make them water. This is why she wanted to change from her cable knit oversized sweater into something more practical
"I really don't have much control over the heat," is what John Johnson told her when she began working there and complained about her room being too cold and then other areas, like the vestibule and the second floor staff bathroom being too hot. He often said it during the one staff meeting he came to in October just as heating season began
"You literally do! You literally turn the heat on and off!" screamed Rose during the last meeting. It was with the cadence where, if written out, would be in all caps and separated by a period between each word. This made John shuffle his eyes down and shrug.
"Oh, I mean the thermostats and calibration. Its all way too old. Just dress in layers."
So, the longer you worked at March Meadow, the more random clothes you had stashed in car trunks or closets. And you were pros at quick changes that rivaled a magic show or super hero comic.
Zoey walked into the main hall and felt a brief dip in the heat. The stairs were at the end of the hall and she saw Sandy come out of the office with a stack of copies. Sandy saw the gym bag and contrast between snow on Zoey's boots and sweat on her face. "Oh, are you like changing? Are you staying here?"
"Its pretty bad outside. I am just going to chill in my room and hope it clears up."
"If we end up staying the night we can all tell each other ghost stories to pass the time." Sandy then threw a quick wink which seemed the less zany thing coming together during this storm.
From the office, Zoey heard Carlos chime in "Ooo...like the Decameron. Or how they wrote Frankenstein!"
Sandy spun on her heels and just beamed. "Yes! Just like that. Were you and English major, Carlos!?" Sandy shuffled back into the office and Zoey let the conversation trail while the snow outside looped back onto itself.
Saturday, January 20, 2024
Snow Day #4
Alexis alternated between her professional "all things can be solved" voice and her candid "break room" voice seamlessly, in a way that, if this was a stage show, people would call erudite.
"Yes, Mrs. Allen. We will be here until you get the boys. And, can we make this a teachable moment? Like about the snow? You know, that is a good idea. Ill see if maybe I can get someone out there with a weather map or something, yes. Ok, stay safe. Thanks, bye!" And when she hung up the phone, the pitch changed to coalescing groaning.
"So extra. Just come get your kids!"
She popped out of her office buttoning up the top clasp of her oversized turquoise puffy winter jacket. March Meadow's main office used to be the nurse's clinic back way before anyone there was even born. Alexis's own office was the cot room and she sometimes joked, when days were particularly bad or zany, that it was the ghost of a student who died there. "The consumption or scarlet fever took them! Its the ghost fucking up our copiers," she mentioned last time she invoked the latent spirit. There was then a large 10' x 10' open area that must have been a lobby back then as it is now. This was just a square space marked by a behemoth faux cherry wood desk belonging to Ms. Rain, the receptionist, and then metal wire chairs. There was a single door in the far corner that lead to a restroom, one of three non-student/adult only bathroom in March Meadow. The other being off the gym next to defunct shower rooms now used for storage and the other in the basement by the custodian's office. That one, John Johnson, insisted was his and his alone and even pulled the door of its hinges to affirm it was only him using this space. Alexis got him to compromise and install a black curtain on a rod for some sense of decency.
In the main office no one was sitting but instead standing. Ms. Rains had the phone hooked to her shoulder and the cook (Food Service Specialist as the budget said), Bruce Thomas, stood by the door to the hallway jotting down names of parents sneaking kids in the hallway
"Everyone had the same idea, Alexis," he said and the shrugged. "Just trying to help Ms. Izzy until my ride gets here."
Instead of parents barn storming the office they were in the hallway grabbing kids as they came down the steps or the turn to from the annex.
"Is anyone actually in car line or getting kids at the door?" she asked no one in particular while she walked out and down the hallway to the front vestibule. She caught side hugs from some of the kids and awkward glances from others and dodged mumblings of "you should have closed today" from errant parents.
***
The front door and car line was controlled chaos. Keeping to March Meadow protocols the right kids were going to right places but it was in an organic process held by Carlos and Zoey.
Zoey insisted on shoveling clean paths for the kids. "I sit most of the day. I appreciate the chance to do something with my arms," she said when Carlos said he was OK to keep doing it. So she scraped and pushed only for, by the next student, the path already dusted anew with fresh snow. The driveway was slowly turning into a clogged toboggan chute of fresh snow mixed with the brown caked street snow.
"I think I am going to need a push!" screamed a maroon Ford Taurus through a barely cracked slit in the driver side window. Carlos had already heard it and was leaning into the oblong trunk while the driver gunned the engine. The futile spinning eventually bit into a helpful piece of pavement and had enough momentum to inch out and become anything else but their problem.
At the far end of the line there were only two cars left. This should all be done soon. Zoey heard the kids in the vestibule chirp up and caught Alexis just as she stepped outside
"Be careful. I mean doing best I can but its non stop." Zoey pushed a bit of snow away and encourage Alexis to grab onto one of the still standing poles of the fence.
"Ok, this is actually insane. This has to be like six inches since this morning!"
A student came from the vestibule and whipped out a measuring tape. "I think its actually eight!" He waddled over to the exposed hedgerow and dipped the end of the tape into the untouched snow. The neon yellow band stopped at 7 and 1/4ths. "Ok, pretty close. See Ms. Collins and Ms. Koldrich?"
'Hey that is a great, Brody. Real meteorologist type estimating," said Zoey leaning into the handle of her shovel
"Brody, why do you have a tape measure randomly on you?" said Alexis adding tape measure to list of wacky things she had seen kids carry. The craziest being a the single blade of Crayola safety scissors banded to a chopstick
"I always have one. My dad and grandpa always carry one too." Brody tucked the tape back into the reel and his coat pocket. "My dad works in construction and grandpa was a carpenter. Like Jesus"
The snow kept coming , angry and hot white. Alexis imagined they would need something divine to get out of here. On her phone she had unread Slack messages from Mr. Joshua who had ignored "pedestrian door" and snuck out right at 305pm. "My wife's job downtown told everyone to go home and they only care about money. So I am leaving. Amanda will be fine by herself at the door"
Carlos came to get Brody affirming he was the last car. The second car was someone who guessed the buses wouldn't run and came to gather student. They spent five minutes screaming at Carlos about how she had taken off early from work and how "Y'all should have closed today!"
"Cmon, Brody. Last one lets go. I am going to have your mom drive back through the carline and come out the back entrance. She isn't leaving just getting ready." In the background the black SUV pivoted in a slow series of turns to zoom out through the back. That way, at least, there were some fashion of tire tracks to follow.
"Let me help you," said Zoey as she grabbed the shovel and walked with them. She held the shovel against her shoulder, its lime green blade bright against the winter, and followed in the foot paths cut by Carlos and only partially erased by the snow.
"You look really cool, Ms. Koldrich holding the shovel that way. Like out of an anime. You ever watch Hunter X Hunter or My Hero Academia or Attack on Titan?" Brody motioned with hands excitedly but also aimlessly.
"I liked Sailor Moon when I was young. That's about it," Zoey responded. When she first began teaching she tried to follow whatever was popular with the kids and it lead her to learn a lot about Minecraft only for it to be quickly rendered obsolete by the next update. Now, she just went with the flow
"I did too. She was pretty bad ass." said Carlos who brought his eyes up for a second to lock with Zoey's.
"That one is really old." said Brody "But, thats ok." He got into his car and the ended the car line dismissal for the day.
Saturday, January 13, 2024
Snow Day # 3
March Meadow had bells, like any other school. They ran a neat and sharp nine times a day, like any other school. The difference is that, at last bell, March Meadow did not empty out. Instead, the last bell was trigger to begin and 30 to 45 minute coordinated dismissal where every child was sent to the right person and/or pathway.
The rumor was that at some point a March Meadow student left at 3pm and was then found at 6:15pm murdered. The rumor varied from year to year and even morphed across the brief time a student spent there. Students began in the 6th grade saying it was when March Meadow was an elementary school and it was a kindergartener named Betty (or Johnny) who was taken by a hobo. By 8th grade it became that someone's angry cousin stole the child and sexually assaulted the child before dumping their body behind the RTA stop on 44th with the missing glass panels. Sometimes there was a dog in the story and how the kidnapper took the student behind the "scary house" and kicked the dog trapped in the backyard out and there murdered the child and drank their blood. In that version, the dog came across as just much a victim. It was exiled from its comfortable prison with the rainwater feed bowl and kiddie pool of kibble to wander the streets. None of this was helped when Christian Rorevy, then a 7th grader, but now someone in first year of law school at Cleveland State, tied a red helium balloon by the sewer grate on the road across from the gym door. He had smuggled the thing under his coat and then insisted he keep it on through all of homeroom. When they broke for first period, his class had gym, and he snuck out and tied it off then screaming "PENNYWISE!" while beating the gym door from the outside. It was the only time Alexis ever used the camera system herself insisting she find the culprit and how it happened. 'I am going to Columbo this until I nail both Christian and whoever let him sneak out!" she screamed when she realized she needed to updated her computer before viewing the footage. Zoey was there, in the office, making copies and was looped into to explain how to "clear a fucking browser cache!"
But, there were no murders. Just changing sensibilities and the fear of litigation. If you left March Meadow you either did pedestrian door with Mr. Joshua and Ms. Amanda (Mr. Joshua insisted on calling it pedestrian door to the point he corrected anyone that called it the "walker door." He snarled that walkers sounded like zombies) where they knew each parent who came and gingerly hustled kids into the right hands. Or you left on the bus going through the shared exit and service doors where they kept all the salt to line up into the "Southie" or "Upper" bus. Here, the bus drivers made sure everyone got on right one, each of them having a fresh print out of attendance for the day. Or, you left with you parents via the pick up line. The pickup line pulled up to March Meadow's front door where teachers ran kinds in sets of three through the broken slats in a wrought iron fence and then directed the cars back onto traffic. "Its like an aircraft carrier," said the receptionist, whenever a parent came a bit too late to get their kid early and ended up needing to wait in office or in their parking spot while the flight deck cleared.
Even during the snow, this whole process did not change.
Carlos opened the door onto the pick up line and it was urban tundra. The air hurt your face and the surface had a mottled black and white pattern where the wind exposed pavement but then quickly blanketed it back with snow. There were cars, but instead of in a line up of a fifteen or so, it was jagged pattern of five. Attendance had been horrible that day and Carlos let in four sets of parents in the 20 minutes he spent before 3pm, volunteering to help shovel the pathway for car line.
"Oh, I would help you, brother," said John Johnson, the custodian as he snuck past Carlos to get into the sidedoor in the welcome lobby that ran to the basement. "But, I want to save my back. I had this hernia, when I was in the Navy, years ago, but it still hurts. And, I think I am going to be here all night." Carlos politely waved him off "No problem. No worries." John worked hard at what he felt he should work hard on and key to getting any help was to leverage that. It was harder for Carlos as he floated between classes as building sub and general unofficial building "go-fer" so there was no space he could say was his. And, John also was a sucker for teachers young and pretty. "Only reason he hasn't quit to work for his brother at the glass panel factory is that I let people wear yoga pants," is what Alexis often chided when people came to complain he had not done something somewhere sometime.
Carlos also appreciated that part of dress code policy. However, today, everyone looked like they were about to storm Echo Base on Hoth. The storm had been a disaster already announced in the news for a full day. Carlos covered for Mrs. Bacderd's homeroom that day ("It takes me 40 minutes to get to work on a good day and today it would take like 2 hours to get back if I can. I'm sorry. We should close anyway. Sorry!" said the text she sent announcing her absence) and the kids showed up in the stark dichotomy of winter. Some kids bundled up top to bottom and other coming in just hoodies and sneakers. Sometimes it was a choice and sometimes it was an obligation.
The path he shoveled already started to fade under the snow. He could run down the hall and take two turns to get to the bus door and some salt but he already had students lined up behind him
"You look like an Eskimo, Mr. Carlos," said Jerriah Thomas, a sixth grader he had covered earlier in the day.
He did have two hoodies on, nested into one another, and then an orange windbreaker liner from an old Columbia jacket to which he had lost the inner fleece. Under his jeans he had a pair of red plaid pajama fasts and he felt immediately self conscious that somehow they had peeked out. Either during class or right now. He looked at his leg and it seemed normal and then at Jerriah. "The situation demands it." He gestured at the increasing white and grey outside. "I also think it is better to say Inuit instead of Eskimo."
"Why?"
"Its what they actually call themselves. Eskimo is something people made up. When people from outside those parts of the world, Canada and Alaska and Siberia, came and saw people living there. Oh, Greenland too"
Jerriah steeped to the side on her left foot to peer down the ersatz car line and could see her aunt's car second in line. "So, its something white people made up?"
"Maybe not so blunt but, yes, people from outside. Colonizers, is what I would say. All kinds of people say Eskimo and now we just need to change it." Carlos also confirmed her car and picked up the beaten wooden door wedge made smooth by years of use. "I think we can sneak out. I see your ride."
They side shuffled the few feet to her ride in a rhythmless walk to her car. Carlos hovered a hand over he shoulder to catch her if she slipped "This is how the Inuit must walk," she said once her hand was on the car door and she slide into its overheated cabin.
Monday, January 08, 2024
Espresso
Snow Day #2
Tuesday, January 02, 2024
Snow Day #1
Zoey didn't feel the weight of years of teaching in her knees or back but instead in the layer of dust and cob webs on her classroom windows. This was true even though the building had four floors and no elevator. Built in 1925 and rehabbed last in 1961 the entire hulk of March Meadow Middle School was exempt from ADA and, in more modern times, has always been "just a swing site" until some rehab elsewhere finished. Or a levy passed. March Meadow was now on a full ten years of being a temporary solution. The school previously had a music teacher, Yanira DeLeon, who always said climbing to the top of the room was like climbing the hills of Yauco, a small town in Puerto Rico, that made it seem like it was cut into the side of a mountain. "It has amazing coffee and will make your thighs into pure steel!" she would say quite loudly in the teacher's lounge and the slap her knees. Zoe never learned if that was Yanira's hometown but she preferred that instead of thinking of it as schlepping or "mountain goating" it to the fourth floor. "I'm going to Yauco!" she said over the din of a class transition when she had to cover a homeroom for three months during someone's maternity leave. People only got this if they had spent more than five years at March Meadow and the pool of people who sincerely smiled about it kept getting smaller.
Zoey was only 34 but, beyond student teaching out of state, she had never known anything but March Meadow. She felt old when she looked out the windows and saw the spindle of cob webs and dust bunnies behind her framed photos and mementos. Her room was lucky enough to have a small window mounted AC and here is where she dropped a picture of her graduating from OU surrounded by friends which she really didn't talk to anymore but who she did know most left teaching. It also had a snow globe and hand molded clay coffee mug and a tangle of Chromebook chargers that still worked but were seemingly impossible to unwind. This is when she thought to herself "I really should clean that" which was something that came to mind anytime the weather turned bad. The thought they flittered away which is why she felt old whenever she peered into that liminal space avoided by both her and the cleaners.
Outside it poured snow. In big gauzy flakes that lumped themselves together as soon as they hit anything. Earlier, the weather report said a lake effect clipper could materialize by end of day but by 12noon it spun into a chilling purple blue band on the radar that just engulfed all of Cuyahoga County from west to east. "This is a serious one," the voice on the radio said as she walked into the office to make some copies. The receptionist turned it down when she heard footfalls but then returned it to normal when she say it was just a teacher.
She heard a knock on her door and looked up to see her neighbor motioning through the narrow built in window to come over. She could hear her mouthing "ZO! Come here!"
Zoey checked on the trio of student in front of her and asked "Is everyone ok? How are we doing with the chapter books?" Each student said they were OK and she doubted Aidan was actually taking in much of "I Survived the Titanic" but she would check later. "I am going to go check on something Mrs. Baltic wants. I will be right hear just in door way so lets keep the SSR going for another five and I will check after that."
At the door she creaked it open and saw Natalie Baltic flipping through her phone and then poking her eyes up and showing Zoey the weather app on her phone. "Zo, its going to be a snow day. Early release."
Zoey's eyes widen and she couldn't hold back the sort of goofy semi smug smile that happens when you hear something just out of pocket. "Like now?" She inched closer to Natalie and collared up the edge of her hoodie to cover her lips slightly. "That is going to be a shit show."
March Meadow was not a large school. It had 154 kids across 6th to 8th grades only about half of those took the bus. There were walkers and then the usual parents that zoomed through car line. Being a reading intervention teacher Zoey did not have a homeroom so she had all the crap jobs assigned to people who were "free" in the morning. This include car line which was sweet saying "Good morning!" to every come out their cars but also meant standing in all sorts of weather, including today's cold.
"Are there even going to get buses here in time? There will be so many parents who just don't come." Zoey looked back at her students and then up and down the hall. "I don't want to get stuck here. Did Alexis say anything about this?"
Natalie shrugged and threw a glance at her class who were all bent over tables working on poster boards for class presentations on different kingdoms of life. "She is likely waiting on word from the district. Just as helpless as us. I think she should just go rogue and make the call. I've already had three parents text me and the kids will not stop about it."
Outside it kept pouring and already ankles would be swallowed by the drifts.
Monday, January 01, 2024
Resolutions 2024
Sunday Morning
My father was not a man of faith That is something I stole from him, that phrase I use to politely defuse the handsome couple at my door on...
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Readers of my new-old blog will have probably noticed it is is down. It is down for good so this is the final time you will hear about the B...
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"My final day at the magic shop, I stood behind the counter where I had pitched Svengali decks and the Incredible Shrinking Die, and I ...
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It's official! After six years, Amanda and I are leaving the Ithaca area! By April 21st, any posts (or lack of posts) will originate fro...