Yeah. Way Different Now.

Sunday April 28 Lake Perris sunny & damp; windy No fish!

Friday morning I met Julia and Judy at Julia's apartment up off Los Feliz. They followed me to my mom's where I left my truck, and I drove us in Judy's Honda from there down I-15 to the National Teacher's Conference on Math. We took a shuttle from out hotel to the convention center. There were some 25,000 teachers wandering around from all ever the country. The size was a distraction because of the thought of chatting with other teachers from New Orleans and Albuquerque, like those I spoke with on the bus. The first conference we attended was on using children's literature in math. The lit selections were good, but it was pretty old hat, obvious stuff. Then we went to a conference on organizing a math olympics at school. I got a good idea for a "hands-on" activity to present to the faculty like I have to on Thursday. After that we strolled around San Diego. I led the girls to Dick's Last Resort for a bucket of fries and shrimp and catfish and chicken, and I had two thirty-two oz. beers. I talked about what a wild ass I was in college and what a change it was for me to be taken seriously professionally.
There are many gold flakes in the water here at Lake Perris. Fool's gold, I guess.
This is something new for me, this coming to terms with the extreme behavior of my past.
More on that later.
After lunch we caught the shuttle back to the hotel and met Mario and Agar. Mario and I walked over to Kelly's Pub, and I had some margaritas and again I was questioned about my past. Drinking and Drugs and Jail, etc. I really am a different person now, if not entirely happy about it. Then we drove out to Old Town San Diego for some more margaritas. I got an Albert Camus journal and a book of archetypal story structures from myth, based on the teachings of Joseph Campbell. I'm excited that the book will be useful in organizing my story. Back at the hotel Mario produced a bag, and I rolled one and we got high by the pool, and again I told of being arrested at UCI. Back at the room the ladies talked and giggled until security came and asked us to keep it down.

Out in the Pasture Juggling

4-25 Th

Out in the cow pasture juggling...The principal and the vice principal commended me for my potential. I was thinking they didn't know a flake when they saw one. They said I had good leadership abilities. I smiled and said lamely that I liked it there.
I've got a lot to do in the next few days. Tomorrow morning I've got to head down to San Diego for a teacher's convention through Saturday. On the way back, I stop at my mom's for her birthday dinner. Then I'm supposed to drive back to LA to go out with the Thing, and Shirelle, and Jody. Sunday I'm supposed to go out to Hemet to see my grandparents. Sunday evening, I'll want to rest, but I need to make final preparations for my portfolio. Monday, I gotta work, and then I have Monday night for the portfolio. Tuesday I've got to present a "hands-on" math lesson to the faculty, and I've got tickets to the Dodger game on Tuesday night. Wednesday, I have to attend a Partners in Education conference at Northridge, and I have a softball game in Northridge that night. Thursday I have to run that Psycho-Motor program at school in Pacoima before going down to El Segundo to make my preliminary portfolio presentation at the district intern headquarters. Friday I have to teach as usual, then I'm supposed to drive up to Yosemite to hang out with my mom and stepfather and sister.
Whew! I think I'll call in sick on Monday or something's going to break. Naw--I'll find spaces in time. Lunch hours. Maybe I'll sell my Dodger tix. Maybe I'll wait to celebrate my mom's birthday with her until we get to Yosemite. Aaah, maybe I should just grit my teeth and do it all.
I'm watching game one of the Laker/Rocket round one playoff game and listening to the Dodger/Astro game on the radio: nice little LA vs. Houston thing going on tonight. Dodgers are winning 5-4 but need six more outs. My AOL connection is not working again. The Rockets have just taken the lead in the fourth quarter. I bailed on the second half of my art class and instead read the paper in my car in the parking lot of Campari's restaurant on Sepulveda.
Howrad sent a card.

Blame the Pen

4-24 Wed

I don't think this pen has anything good in it. It spells well enough but it lacks profundity. It's a PAPER[two little Valentine hearts, one atop the other]MATE FLEXGRIP - MED, and it seems a bit frivolous, like a teenage girl who puts hearts in her biology and dreams of a high school bad boy and drinks wine coolers while said bad boy spraypaints his tag on freeway overpasses

On the other hand, this pencil seems poised for some serious academics, full of effort and curiosity. BONDED U.S.A General's SEMI -HEX 498 /2/. That's what this baby is, and it's freshly sharpened and on the prowl for something to figure out, and it doesn't want anything so trivial as a crossword puzzle. It wants to know how to balance persistence and quality in a workable equation. It's not enough to just write and write if it's just crap for the sake of writing, but then if too much time is wasted in perfectionism, nothing will ever be completed.

I really must start moving Jim along, get him up off the couch after waxing about Crack's severity of gravity and remembering how weed used to lift him and send him off like a dog escaped from the backyard, trotting away from his owner, pretending not to hear, flagrantly ignoring--but he was stuck, like a quadriplegic, he tried to raise, but the pattern in the couch was jamming his neurotransitters, his feet were on the floor, but his weight was on his ass, and it was physically, scientifically impossible for his ass to lift his body. He thought about his predicament. If he leaned forward he could put his weight over his feet instead of his lap and push up from there. He put his hands on the couch and tried to push himself up with his arms, but they only sank into the cushions.

Now here's this PAPER[the little hearts again]MATE USA felt-tipped green ink model, extravagantly gauche, screaming for attention. "I'm green! I'm green !" It wants to go into advertising, but it's worried about it's popularity; it feels like the ugly stepsister to red and blue, and knows it can never approach the stately formality of black. Guess what color are the eyes of the monster that raises it's head? You know the monster's name: envy.
It is, however, spring, and even if red and blue and black are smugly wrapped in the insulation of their popularity, green knows of it's vitality and importance and takes comfort--
even if it is the greedy color of money.