Saturday, Jan. 11, 2003
Everyone will look at me with envy and with greed, and I'll revel in their attention, posted at 4:38 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Friday went well at school. I've been spending a lot of time helping my students practice taking tests, which I hate doing, but at least it's pretty easy. Next week will be stressful and disorganized because of the testing schedule, but I'll get through it.A number of developments have occurred:
1. I received my mid-year progress review and had four marks of "Proficient" and one mark of "Satisfactory." The latter is for my portfolio, which actually is not satisfactory right now. Not even close. I was definitely pleased with it, unbelievably so. Boston Betty said, "Why are you suprised? You're a good teacher." I think we were all used to our boss last year, aka Lady MacBeth.
2. A girl in my class said to me about her friend (who wasn't listening), "Mr. Epiphany, Venaisha wants to know if you're doing anything tonight and to let you know that the shirt you're wearing brings out your eyes." Oy. I didn't want to embarass the girl, so I just thanked her.
3. Our department head, Boston Betty, another young teacher, and I went out for Happy Hour yesterday, to Brewer's Art. I had a great time, except for this asshole sitting on a barstool. I went up to an empty barstool to order a drink, and leaned on the back of it. This jerk was, unbeknowst to me, resting his feet on a ledge underneath the stool. When I leaned on the stool, it tilted, and his foot slipped off its resting point. I said, "Oh, sorry about that, man," and he looked at me with this look of pure hatred and said, "Yeah, Jesus Christ man, damn it." I rarely if ever have an aggressive, violent instinct in my body, but I did then. It lasted about five seconds, when I chalked it up to his having a bad day and not wanting to add to it. I didn't say anything. He then continued with looks and groans all night to my group of friends and everyone else who came near. It was ridiculous. Baltimore is usually such a friendly town. Oh well, at least I didn't do anything dumb like get into a bar fight in front of my boss.
4. After Brewer's Art, I headed over to meet up with another group of friends at Midtown Yacht Club. I had a good time. Afterwards, Bill (guidance counselor) and I went to another bar, and we hung out the entire night with Sunny and this new friend Millie. Bill and I connected more than we ever had, talking about our similar Christmas break experiences and dishing about school. He said he got set up on this blind date thing in a group, and he wants me to be his "wing man."
5. Today has been okay. I went into Target for a cup of coffee, and ended up getting seduced by the post-Christmas sales and buying more than I should have. I bought a couple of sweaters for under $10 and the DVD of Signs, still my favorite movie of 2002. I also bought Finding Fish, the book upon which Antwone Fisher is based. That was a total spur-of-the-moment buy, but I needed something for my workout, and the description on the back ("The Color Purple, but male and set in the 1960s") got me. I figure this is a book that might be good to assign students as summer reading.
6. I had a great workout, but still feel like I gained 80 pounds over Christmas. I'm sure I didn't, because I'm guessing my clothes wouldn't fit, but I'm definetely feeling a bit puffy.
7. Not sure what's going on tonight. Last night folks were talking about organizing ice skating in the inner harbor, but that hasn't come to fruition yet.
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Kinetix was the first to sign in and let me know that "Outside another yellow moon has punched a hole in the nighttime" came from the song "Downtown Train." I love that line; as soon as I heard it on that Everything But the Girl CD, I knew it was the song. Tom Waits wrote it, from his CD Rain Dogs, and he's performed the best version of it that I know.