The Whitest Kids You Know.

I know where they won't be this weekend (here).

Now that I know my students were disqualified this year because too many of them don't meet the minimum GPA requirement and our choreographer told us to fuck off, I'll just keep watching this Alice in Wonderland montage from another school in the county.



I picked that one hoping to see pregnant catwalkers, because Bladensburg has a day care facility on site. For students' kids.

What would Miss J say? Is that elegant? I can't tell anymore.



Still, it's nice to see school spirit -- if only in YouTube comments:

dat white gurl did her shytt!!!

we shouldve got 1st an yall no it its iight doe my mova went to surratsville an i do now

oh korsi dey faken lyke shyt but whole tyme everytyme we do catwalk we place and for da dumb bytch we placed sec and everyone knows we shouldve came in 1st sucky ass oxon but we got them next year

Prince George's County is an oxymoron.

I heard sirens all day today, so it was no surprise to get stopped at a red light behind an EMS truck -- until I actually looked at it.

I don't want to live (here) anymore.

Keepin' it safe. My mind reeled. So many thoughts. So many questions.

1. This is why your schools are failing.
2. This blatantly faux-casual colloquialism offends me.
3. What is it? Is it the same it we talk about when we keep it real? Because it can't be Prince George's County (Gorgeous Prince George’s has accounted for 45.1% of murders in the state of Maryland since 1985).
4. I propose an edit: Mostly keepin' it safe for everyone but Cheye Calvo, Cheye Calvo's wife, Cheye Calvo's mother-in-law, and Cheye Calvo's two dogs.
5. I wonder how many people have been pried out of danger with the jaws of life, only to reach the EMS truck and say, "Put me back in."

And, finally: How did this come from this?

Safely oblivious.

Sometimes (like when I fantasize about working in Montgomery County) I have to remind myself that, on paper, we're all the same.

Charm City Shower.

Amenities.

.

Every woman's collective nightmare came true for me in your shower, KS.

.

Your bathtub is much taller than mine, and I immediately hit my shin trying to get into it.

.

You have one bottle of two-in-one shampoo/ conditioner, one bottle of shower gel, and no loofahs or washcloths. I know you don't have hair like I have hair, so you don't really "get" conditioner; I'm sorry to tell you that it's just not in there. I knew that once I washed my hair, it would immediately cling to itself, forming some sort of steel wool nest on top of my head. It did.

.

The fun really began once I turned the water on, which is why you heard me laughing, alone, in your bathroom. There was no shortage of hot water, but I had to take a cold shower to dull the pain. Your shower head spews about six individual jets of water, each with the force of a BB gun. It actually feels a little like getting a tattoo. I couldn't face forward because I thought my nipples were going to come off, so I had to extend my leg behind me and blindly turn the water off.

.

You have no bathmat, and I thought about how humiliating it would be to knock myself unconscious while goose stepping out of your tall bathtub. You would find me on the floor with bloody nipples and assume the worst of me. I would have ruined your new towel. Your mind would be made up by the time I was lucid enough to explain.

.

Or, I would just bleed to death, thinking about how I wish I could buy you a mildew-free shower curtain, wishing I'd had the foresight to bring my own conditioner and loofah because now the mortician is going to give me split ends, and the last time my family sees me, I'm going to smell like Axe.

And so will I.

Perhaps because he remembered my extemporaneous lecture about why it was probably a bad idea to go to the tattoo parlor down the road that advertises half-price tattoos on an old, spray-painted plank of wood, when I passed 12th grade Nick in the hallway before class today, he was really excited to tell me, with a newly acquired lisp, that he got his tongue pierced over spring break.

So, then I had him lead the discussion on Tolstoy's "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" because it was funny to me to hear him say 'much,' 'does,' and 'Tolstoy' over and over again.

12th grade Shantal and I continued arguing the merit of the Twilight series.

"Shantal," I said, "I'm on page 465 in the second book, and nothing has happened yet. Only one thing has happened so far in the entire series. What's the basis of its appeal?"

"Well," she said, "I know some people who read the whole series just to get to the sex scene in book four."

"It can't be that good. The author is a Mormon."

"A what?"

"I know, right? ... Mormons are a particular type of Christian. They're really into not having premarital sex."

"Oh..."

"Ok -- I never want to hear that The Iliad is boring again. Who would read 1,900 pages just to get to a sex scene that ends in conception?"

"I know some people."

"You did, didn't you, Shantal?"

"Yeah. I did."

A Game of Chess

I don't like seeing my own blood and, consequently, I don't much care for the fact that the veins in my wrists stick out like knotted tree roots. If not for this unfortunate reminder of my own mortality, I would get a wrist tattoo. And it would say: HURRY UP PLEASE, IT'S TIME.

Stuff Sir Mix-a-Lot Likes:

1. Big butts

2. Square butts

3. 'em on the glass (I just figured out that Sir Mix-a-Lot did not rhyme 'vulva' with 'soldier' as I originally thought. And now I'm disappointed. I should be a rapper. )

4. His hooptie

Asshole of the sea.

I went to the Baltimore aquarium yesterday, and I can't believe I forgot to do the shark laugh.

Dudes: What the hell?

I really don’t know what got into you today, but I think we need to talk.

1. Stooges on Route 50: There were three of you, in the front seat of a pickup truck. Even before you left me with no choice but to roll down my window and command “Stop. Staring. At. Me.” I think it was pretty safe to assume none of you were going to get laid today.

2. Carpe Diem in L’Enfant Plaza: You were excited by Ovechkin and pitched backward in imitation of something that happened at the Caps game for the amusement of your travelling companion. You brought the full weight of your body down on my left foot, which was nowhere near you. Did you really think I would give you my phone number so we could ‘meet up’ later? Perhaps you rationalized the decision to act on this impulse with a rhetorical device such as, What's the worst that could happen?

Well. Now you know.

3. ‘Bag at upscale dining establishment: “Will you excuse me? I broke my foot earlier, and my shoe is filling up with blood.”

Attention: Grown-Ass Women

Please stop peeing on the toilet seat in the teacher's lounge.

That's hot.

I found this in my classroom today.