Man. Nope. Woman. What a day. May the honorable RBG rest in peace. May my ever-patriotic-my-ass government behave appropriately and stop trying to write off 70% of the fucking population. You want riots? Nominate another knee-jerk white guy who thinks rape is all in a woman’s head to the Supreme Court of my land. Or a guy (because you know it’s a guy) who thinks that LGBTQIA is something we can teach out of someone. Or who thinks that BIPOC aren’t human. No, that’s not a threat…it’s reality. Y’all don’t fucking listen unless people are burning your Whole Foods down and then it’s like, oh STAHP. Why are you so violent? You get nothing! So many people ALREADY GET NOTHING. Sigh. I know RBG wanted so badly to survive long enough to see a new president. We all wanted that for her (and us).
This is where I sit every day to teach immigrants, kids, survivors, and she had their back. Don’t tell me the law is the law…if the person looking at the law doesn’t think women have rights to their bodies, in fact, doesn’t think anyone but White Men have rights to their bodies, then the law will not work for anyone but them.
Y’all, I’m sad. I’m overwhelmed. I’m scared of what dumbassery McConnell and his cronies are going to do next, because instead of being responsible for their constituencies, they’re gonna do what the rich white guys want. So I’ve got some emails to write to Republican senators. How about you? I’m hoping this link works. If not, go to my Insta @knida and find the RBG post with all their email/contact info. This is wrong. Don’t let them fuck us over again.
I’m lucky to have a job right now, I am. It’s hellacious at the moment. It’s going to get even harder for a while, and then maybe I’ll find a routine that works. Yesterday, I started working at 7:15 AM. I ate lunch standing at the light table while sending emails to parents and kids. I sent 138 emails yesterday, at least. And that doesn’t count the back-and-forths that happened when parents or kids had additional questions. I had a meeting after school and then went back to work. I finished the emails and grading one assignment at about 8 minutes to midnight. And then I looked at my class lists for the week after this upcoming week, and I counted the kids, 40 more than I have now, huge classes, less time to teach them, way less time to help them, I looked at my emails with all the stuff I needed to manage before grades are due sometime next week (I think they caved and gave us next weekend, but not all of it), and I went to bed and cried. And that is where we’re at right now. And I have a job. I can pay my bills. I’m lucky.
I taught yesterday morning with the noise from about 15 guys and loud rancheria music while they finally fucking plastered this pool.
Please may they be done. My students are like, what’s all that yelling? And I’m like if those assholes down there let out a puta or pendejo that my kids can hear, Imma gonna go down there and light them up. If they did, I didn’t hear it. But my patience with the neighbor’s construction is down to negatory right now.
Here’s a typical moment in my teaching life right now.
Guess which kid is paying attention? I’m laughing. The “hold on im eating” kid? He won’t be mine after this week. I’m good with that. I know he’ll be replaced with an equivalent kid who’s trying to get out of the work and being a jerk about it, and I might start meditating during class, but…well…this is what it is.
Sigh. I’m having a hard time with the new curriculum. It all needs to be rewritten. I feel like every year, we start over, and then shit happens, and we can’t make it better, because next year will be different, and then the following year will be different again, and I can’t listen to you people who just call this a bad flu. I think about my teacher friends going back and the kids going back to their families with whatever they got at school and I know we are just waiting until someone gets sick, and hopefully nobody gets really sick. Hopefully no one dies. That said, this kid is gonna survive on cucumbers and tomatoes he found on Mars. So I can laugh.
I ironed on Thursday, because I had stitching Zoom.
Everyone wants me to talk and socialize at the end of the day, but I’m too damn tired to do that and I don’t really want to talk about school over and over again.
I did for a little bit, because I wanted to make really really sure that my 80-year-old-plus friend wasn’t going to go sub at a school.
She says she’s not.
This is almost done being ironed together…there’s the fire above and the dirt below. Then iron it onto the background. Straight up, I don’t think I’ll get to work on it this weekend. I have ten tons of schoolwork and two other things I need to get started. As soon as I’m done with this, that’s what I’m doing.
This is for realz right now. This one and another one who was running across the carpet with two cats after it…
The man caught that one in his hands. But I didn’t find the one who kamikazed off the fireplace hearth. I hope this isn’t one who’s coming back, for god’s sake, save yourself!
All my screens and windows need washing too.
OK, gotta work myself out of overwhelmed and depressed into something better. Some outdoor time today, plus some artmaking I committed to. Tomorrow, I’m going to Visions Art Museum to see the current exhibits, before everything closes back down next week. Hopefully the museums will stay open, because I have a ticket for the Contemporary Quilt Show at the Oceanside Museum of Art NEXT weekend. Sigh.
At some point, this poor lime tree is gonna grow limes beyond this stage. It’s still recovering from being replanted. Poor thing. It keeps trying. There’s an inspiration for you. This lime tree that keeps making baby limes and one day one of them will grow up to be my margarita.
OK. Doing something. Doing is better than not.
Kathy Nida 