When I'm 64...

Rolling around in my brain lately have been thoughts of turning forty and growing into one of those old people who are charmingly cantankerous and hilarious in that they don't give a fuck.  I want to be one of those people.  But now.  Like right now.  Carpe fucking Diem.  Why wait another forty years to be my best self? My truest self; the one who makes decisions based on what I want, in a moment, and says what I think at all times.  While all this thinking has been going on, I've been spending a lot of time with a three year old. And based on casual observations, I've come to the conclusion that three year olds give less of a fuck than any other group of mammals on the planet.  Nay, in the universe.  That's right, I said universe.  (I'm bold, whatevs)  It's as if they have, as a group, come up with a motto: 'Stay calm and don't give a fuck' but  haven't quite come up with the articulation skills to communicate it just yet.  Once I noticed how little three year olds depend on social mores and the opinions of others to make their moment to moment decisions, I studied more closely the behaviors that embodied this enviable spirit.

Following are some of the things I've learned; I'm certain if I follow these unwritten edicts, I will be one step closer to my goal of not giving one fuck:

1. Be transparent:  By transparent, I mean nude.  If you are three, you don't wait until it turns dark and you've eaten dinner to take off your bra or dress socks.  You strip completely when you walk in the door and throw on your snow boots for good measure.  Once you are comfortably relaxed and nude, stand by the front door for chunks of time throughout the day making the mailman and passing neighbors feel flinchy.

2. Don't negotiate:  There is no compromise in the life of this group of humans.  There is 'what I want, now' and well honed manipulation skills to get it.  These include but are not limited to: thrashing around on flooring bound to concuss, screaming, using the cutest voice in the history of ever, and giving random hugs and Eskimo kisses to disarm those who stand in your way.

3. Buck the trends and set your own style: Wearing spider-man snow boots in 95 degree weather?  Why not?  A knitted baptismal shawl combined with a bathing suit and shin guards?  Yes and yesser.  Plaid and stripes topped off with chevron.  Sure!  Throw that shit together - sit with it awhile, see how you feel.  When you don't give a fuck, anything goes.

4. Be brutally honest: Nothing is sacred or secret.  Everything is out there for everyone to know.  Your brother got a baseball mitt for his birthday that your mom is hiding in the garage -  bring it up on the way to school.  Just pooped - describe it as t-Rex sized at the dinner table.  Your grandmother is wearing an unflattering shirt -tell her she's fat.  Don't like your friends mom- cry when you see her at the park.  Use the phrases: 'I don't like that', 'You're not a friend', and 'Yucky' often.

5. Let your multiple personalities fly free:  Hugs abound and so do declarations of love and hate.  Nothing sweeter than a three year old snuggle and kiss session.  Nothing more vicious than a three years old hatred.  Speak in rhymes only.  Use a Darth Vader voice and refuse to cut your nails because you are Wolverine.  Love macaroni today, act like it's poison tomorrow.  You can be anyone at anytime without warning or fore-notice to those in your sphere.

6. Go big or go home:  Everything you engage in should be balls out.  Learning  gymnastics, belly flop on the mats.  Gonna swim, throw yourself in the deep end.  Gonna draw, do it on paper, walls and floors.  Learning music, play the kazoo for six hours straight.  No fence sitting or trepidation allowed.

7. Get comfortable with your body: Got yourself some balls?  Fondle them.  Saw someone getting out of the shower?  Talk about their nipples while pulling on your own. At the library.  Rub your Buddha belly all the live long day, easily accomplished as you are rarely clothed.

8. Set time limits on activities to get more accomplished in a day:  Anything worth doing, is worth doing for only 3.5 minutes tops.  After you've dumped all the blocks on the floor, move on to the silly putty.  Once that's stuck that in the carpet, visit with an old friend like Dora until her theme music is over and your parents are weeping; insist the channel doesn't get changed while you discover permanent markers.

9. Emote often: Laugh manically.  Ugly cry.  All within a five minute span.  Sing made up songs about your dog's anus.  Growl.  Cleanse thy soul.

10. Be spontaneous:  People expecting a list of ten things?  Give em nine because you just learned how not to give a fuck.

Open House - There will be no snacks

It's been about eleventy hundred years (or maybe four months) since I last wrote.  I can't begin to know what I've been up to -mostly twerking,  pricing mannequin parts, and trying really hard not to suck any dicks on the way to the parking lot.  Most recently, starting up another school year - my sixteenth as a teacher, and my fifth as a parent of school aged children.

This week wraps up the 257 thousandth back to school night I've attended in my lifetime.  First as a student, then as an educator and now as a parent.  I can't help but notice the rhythm and rhyme has changed very little since I was a kid.  Introductions, expectations, face-numbing smiles and lots of flop sweat.  Inevitably, it will be the hottest day of the year and everyone will be forced to co-mingle in cramped, damp spaces shvitzing like wildebeests. This year I couldn't help but think about what might happen if teachers just shot straight with the group of parents crowded into their rooms and didn't stick to the administration recommended spiel.  Below are some thoughts I've kept to myself while welcoming parents at back to school night.  

1. I find your lack of teeth distracting.

2. I will spend a cringe-worthy amount of time thinking about your child, his/her needs, and how to address them.  I will also spend a flinchy amount of time giving consideration to filing their masterpieces into a round bin also known as the garbage.

3. I will be the adult your child will spend most of his/her waking time with - sadly sometimes much more time than you.  Be nice.

4. My feet hurt and I haven't eaten dinner so please don't ask me specific information about your child in a large group setting, taking up large chunks of everybody's time.  We can set up a time to talk later about you and your child.

5. Sometimes your kid is an asshole.  Now I see where they get it from.

6. Even if your kid is an asshole, I will do my level best by them each day they are in my care.  True story.

7. I will be your child's fiercest advocate in making sure they are getting what they need.  BE NICE.

8. I will do my best to press my mental reset button each and every day, giving everyone a fresh start.  But also I'm human, and sometimes I just can't.

9. I am not the only one responsible for your child's education and welfare.  YOU ARE TOO.

10. I will try really hard to balance communication with you - the good, the bad, the banal.  Please try to do the same.

11. Sometimes kids lie when they want to get out of something/everything (what a unique trait!).  Consider that I maybe had positive intentions when doling out work/assignments/punishments before going ape-shit on me.

12. I can tell when your child hasn't taken their meds.

13. I hate homework too.

14. I get why you might be less than pleased to be here on a summer night after working all day.  Truly, I do.  But, if you don't show, I will judge you for it.

15. Children learn by example - get here on time and put your fucking phone away.

16. I am about to know more about you than you would be comfortable with thanks to kids' tendency to over share.  BE FUCKING NICE.

There's a patch of snow on the ground...

I made this Haiku for You
February hurts

Souls sucked to the marrow, dry
Winter, you bitch; sigh

So I talked to a couple of people the past few days and everyone agrees: February sucks sweaty balls. While there was no shortage of speculation,  no one could quite put their finger on exactly what it was that made February so painful.  Following are some guesses my cousin Binney and I came up as to why no one is sad when March 1st rolls around:

1. We are being mindfucked.  There are only 28 days.  Wait, I mean 29.  Nope, this year 28.  In that little song about the number of days in the month, everyone sort of mumbles the part about February:  30 days has September, April, June and November.  All the rest have 31, except for February mumble, mumble, niner. 

2. It's full of shitty holidays: Groundhog's Day, Valentine's, President's Day.  Three holidays that all amount to much ado about nothing. Groundhog's day celebrates a rodent checking out his shadow to determine whether or not we will have more winter.  Guess what asshats?  Winter doesn't end until the end of March regardless of what that little pissant Phil sees. 

Presiden'ts day at least gets most of us a day off from work, but truth told, I want the day of my own birthday off instead of some long dead, old white guy.  And,  I know, I know...Valentine's day is supposed to celebrate love and romanticism.  Yes, because that's what millions of people deep in the throes of seasonal affective disorder need - pressure to perform.

3. We are well into, and quite over Winter by the time February rolls around.  At the beginning of the season, which for some parts of the country starts in like October, everyone is all ooh, snow and ooh, I get to wear my cute boots. February finds us all kicking at black snow and mentally stabbing our spouses with car window scrapers.

4. The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition comes out mid-February.  As if you hadn't already been overeating since November, there is now this highly anticipated representation of idealized women up in your grill.  If you thought your pants were starting to hurt before February, wait until you try to butter yourself into your swimsuit.  Go ahead, have another bite of your hidden Russell Stovers fatass.

5.  Everything is dirty and dingy.  Cars, windows, floors, my kids.  And who could be bothered washing the layers of grime off when they're just going to be back tomorrow?  If you were looking for a reason to not do a specific chore...I just provided it.  You're welcome.

6. Everyone has spent a little too much time indoors.  The T.V. has been running for 48 days straight, the dogs have a funny smell and flat hair, and no matter how many times you straighten the living room, it still looks like the apocalypse occurred three minutes ago.  We all feel like this:

7. If they still fit, we hate our clothes.  If I have to wear that sweater dress that I got at the beginning of the Winter season, one more time, I am going to strangle someone with the pair of fashion tights I wear with it.  Fuck you fashion tights.  Fuck you.  And winter coat?  Could you bunch up a little more and inhibit my driving? Awesome, because nothing makes me happier than feeling like I have t-rex arms when I go to make a left turn.

Everything She Knows I Taught Her...

So I've been seeing these '20 things to tell your son" and "5 trillion conversations to have with your daughter" things on the interwebs and mostly they're real straight forward advice for kids of either gender that tackle how kids should act and how to treat others.  I haven't seen the "15 things your transgender child should know" article yet, but I sure do hope it's on it's way. I applaud these parent-writers who want their kids to know some stuff, because wow, how very pragmatic and all plan ahead-y are they?  Also?  I'd like to thank those folks for doing part of my job for me; someday in the future I can copy and paste that shit into a word document and print it out on meanigful looking scrapbook paper and my children will be none the wiser.  I'll come off wise and all knowing, which, honestly, is as it should be.

The other day was my daughter's 6th birthday and I spent some time thinking about the kind of advice I could offer her, things that maybe weren't covered in the articles I mentioned above.  Below you'll find that I've made a serious crack at some sage advice that I think will serve her well as she battles her way through the world.

1. There are good butt days and bad butt days.  Plan accordingly.  This means having at least two pair of jeans...one for good days, and one for bad days.  If no jeans fulfill your bad butt day needs, then you should have some yoga or sweat pants to tool around in. 

2. Speaking of jeans, the ultra low rise kind can cause a phenomenon called muffin top, unless you are a size zero.  If you are not a size zero, do not get this type of jeans as they will make you look trashy.  If you are a size zero, please eat a fucking sandwich post haste.

3. Once you start dyeing your hair, you can't really go back to your original color.  Sure you could get close, perhaps, but more likely your original color will allude you forevermore and there will come a day where you will feel nostalgic for that hair color you had as a wee lass, the color that came with the natural built in highlights.

4. Find a friend that has not only similar taste to yours, but make sure she wears the same approximate size.  This will allow you trade clothes and veritably double your wardrobe if you play your cards right.  If all of your friends are either much thinner or heavier than you - find new friends. 

5. Do not buy the following items used, regardless of how gently used they claim to be:  mattresses, underwear, socks, hairpieces.

6. When you are wearing a bathing suit as underwear, it is time to do your laundry.

7. If you can see your facial hair, so can everyone else.  Wax, tweeze, whatever.  Just take care of that shit.

8. Shaving your legs is a time-suck and completely unnecessary in the winter. 

9. Because you are not part of a tribe, are not Asian and presumably will not become a tramp, steer clear of Chinese character, tribal and lower back tattoos.

10. Naming your daughter any of the following will limit her career choices: Barbi, Misty, Candy.

11. Pink mascara looks good on no one.

12. If you are lighting anything off of a stove top, beware of your bangs and eyebrows.

13. Your loudness late at night, when attempting to sneak back into the house, will increase proportionally to your level of intoxication.

14. Your brothers will crack under pressure from your mother.  Be careful what you tell them.

15. Being the first to laugh at yourself shows courage; laughing at others is just a plain old good time.

Would you see right through me...

Probably people who aren't me realized that in order to obtain employment anymore, you must first complete a psychometric personality quiz.  I didn't know this was a trend until last spring when I was furiously searching for a new job, and found myself attempting to psych out the questions.  I was all "hmmm, well today, in a desperate search for employment, I see myself as someone who is sweaty and likely to swing a bat at someone's cranium, but that's not everyday, so do I strongly agree or answer not applicable?  Or, "woah, I don't know if I'm someone who is skittish and wild-eyed as I am currently out of Xanex, I'll go with strongly sometimes agree.

The quizzes I took had a sadistic clever combination of both spectrum questions (agree/disagree) and constructed responses.  My favorite all time questions were "What enthuses you?" and "What excites you?"  Please limit responses to 250 characters.  What the fuck?  I could spend a month and every word in the dictionary explaining the things that enthuse or excite me.  And, my answers probably wouldn't help me obtain anything but a seventy-two hour hold.  A friend of mine recently had to take one of these when a new supervisor joined her department and hers were all open-ended, which made for a really fun afternoon for the two of us, and reminded me of a quiz I was given by a group of gals that I used to work with some years ago.  I thought the quiz was a joke, and my answers included that I was looking for an effective hair removal system since my sex change operation and that it was the shape, not the taste, of mushrooms that made them delicious to me.  Invitations to after work get togethers at the Cheesecake Factory promptly ceased.

So today, I've come up with questions that might be found on a psychometric quiz of my making.  I'm not certain my questions would get anyone a job, or really rate anything, but it sure would be fun for me to see people's answers.

1. What color is my aura?
2. If you believe in telekinesis, can you raise my hand?
3. Would you rather something kill you or make you stronger?
4. What comes to mind when you hear the word probe?
5. Can scissors beat paper?
6. What is your porn name?
7. Pork?  Is it just the other white meat, or is beef what's for dinner?  Please provide concrete details and appropriate commentary to support your argument.
8. Explain your stance on bacon in approximately 1,000 words.
9. If you are a gluten free vegan, who runs marathons, can you keep it to yourself for more than 10 minutes?
10. List as many palindromes as you can in one minute.  Example: taco cat; GO
11. In the event of a zombie apocalypse, what are the top three things you will carry on your person?
12. Elvis or Beatles? Why?

She blinded me with science...

Yesterday and today this item popped up in my newsfeed -  "California porn actress turned teacher loses appeal".  What initially piqued my interest was the phrase 'loses appeal'.  I wondered the following: did she lose appeal as a teacher or as a porn star, is she teaching porn, is she getting implants, is she opposed to following newly instated Californian law about wearing condoms while practicing pornography?  After having read the article, I was saddened to learn that it was about her losing a court appeal which left me contemplating her boobs and her safe (or not) sex practices.  What, oh you need a minute? Go ahead, I'll let you fantasize a moment about one woman spending serious think time about another woman's breasteses.

So, the teacher was a porn star.  WOW, last year I considered a career as an exotic dancer during my job search; I soon realized that would require me to be both awake and naked.  According to the article, the teacher was a porn actress prior to becoming a middle school teacher.  Students found her movies available on the inter webs and now she is considered unfit for teaching.

This made me feel sad because I thought people were supposed to be allowed to start over, you know get a second chance?  It also made me feel sad because, COME ON PEOPLE! A PORN STAR WHO KNOWS SCIENCE?!?!  A fucking scientist?!?!  (see how I did that?).  I can't believe she lost her job over this - I could see maybe not keeping her in middle school anymore, because those kids are just a bunch of hormone driven douches anyway.  But since we all know she's flexible, how about a job in an elementary school where kids don't know what porn is (yet) and use the internet to find pictures of SpongeBob?  Or perhaps she could be an exhibit in a MUSEUM FOR PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN SPECIES???  Think outside the box people (see, I did it again).

Nothing Changes on New Year's Day...

So today was my first day back at work after a two week hiatus.  Due to it being Sunday night and small howler monkeys climbing into my bed, my sleep was less than restful.  Thankfully, I had a completely restorative and contemplative break to look back upon and put me in a good state of mind as I left the house before daybreak - that's bullshit because I hate leaving the house before daybreak regardless of good state of mind.  That aside, my break was amazeballs because I spent it hanging with the howler monkeys and catching up on very informative and groundbreaking television.

The shows I watched nonstop, until my eyes were dried up raisins in my face, were: Walking Dead, Breaking Bad and Weeds.  Due to my commitment to these shows, I am now prepared for whatever life may throw my way in the coming year.  These shows also helped me to realize my potential and make some solid new year's resolutions.  If you would...

1. Get a machete - the reasons for this are twofold.  A. Zombie's come a creeping if they hear the poppoppop of a gunshot, however, machetes are all quiet like and badass.  B. If Zombie's are not imminent, I will have a threatening weapon available to frighten those who would come between me and my diet coke in a drive through line.  Nothing says back the fuck up like a machete.

2. Kill Dora the Explorer with my new machete.  I'm cool with her sidekick Boots, but that bitch has got to go, quickly and quietly.  I don't need any bulbous headed, unsupervised Latinas yelling at me in two languages - I get that shit at work.  Oh, and the questions - that bitch is relentless.

3. Get an RV.  RVs have always been a kind of wish list item for me, who doesn't want a gas guzzling house on wheels to tool around the country in?  But now?  Oh em gee - I never realized the necessity for having one!  Not only could I could live in it, like full time when my house is overrun by zombies but I could also make illegal drugs in it or use it as a front for dead body storage. Plus, I could take a nap in it.

4. Find supplemental income.  This may or may not involve the distribution of recreational substances that are now legal in Colorado.  I may just name my RV The Roach Coach - think about it.

5. Get a badass soundtrack for my adventures.  No good machete wielding, zombie killing, pot selling adventure is without good music.

(BTwubs - still working on what the next 40 days have in store for me for reals - you know, in case the above plans don't work out)