Friday, Jan. 31, 2003
Poetry night, posted at 12:53 a.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Tonight was a revelatory evening. The students' poetry performance at the planetarium was tonight, and the results exceeded even my high expectations. The kids' poems and performances were breathtaking, amazing, incredible. I felt so happy.My speech went okay. I forgot a lot of stuff I wanted to say, but remembered enough good stuff so people told me later that it was a good speech. I actually had the line, "The stars you will see tonight will not just be on the screen above, but they will be to my right and to my left. The students are the stars. I am so proud of them."
We went out afterwards to celebrate. Many of my colleagues and friends came. Boston Betty got hammered. I drove. She gets very philosophical when she drinks a lot, and on the way home she was saying what a selfless thing I had done tonight, that she got into teaching not to help them pass a fucking test, but because she loves kids and loves poetry and wants them to love it too. That I reminded her of that tonight. That what I did for the kids tonight is a gift that they will cherish forever. Basically, a bunch of stuff that made my heart swell.
I'm walking on cloud nine right now. And trying not to think about going into work in 7 hours.
When dropping Boston Betty off, her husband, London Lou, was unloading his car. It was 12:30am. He is the greatest person in the world. Turning around and in his thickest London accent, he said, "Out with your boytoy again, eh?" We burst out laughing. London Lou likes to joke that we're having an affair.
I need to get some sleep so I am with it tomorrow. No kids, it's a professional day, but still...