What’s going on here?

Looking after my neighbor’s apartment has HAD its perks — emphasis on “had.”  And there were things that I had come to expect, like availing myself of loose quarters.  This time around was ever so disappointing – and I’ve never seen so many roaches!

When I went to their apartment to bring the mail and water the plants, though I was attacked by roaches, I still looked for the many packages of cookies T has insanely hoarded for like — ever. But, as mentioned in my previous post – there weren’t any – I would still have eaten them with roaches there – he usually keeps them bagged and in jars and shit.  Okay so fine – I accepted that I’d be responsible for purchasing my own snacks.

Then one night, I steamed vegetables, opened the cabinet for olive oil and had the hideous remembrance that it was on my shopping list since I’d run out.  “Oh dang. But T prolly has some!”  I go downstairs and grab a bottle — I don’t know what the hell kind of oil was in there but, that, was no olive oil!

Okay so next, T has always kept quarters on the foyer table.  Other times when I watched his apartment when he was in Ireland, I would take them if I ran out of laundry quarters and replace them later.  This time the quarters looked like commemorative quarters – I was scared to touch them, so had to wait till next damn day to finish laundry.

Yesterday I came to terms with the fact that I was spoiled when it came to T’s apartment.  The only thing I could partake of in there was the liquor, but I’m not apposed ta drink it.

Back home after dropping their mail and flicking off roaches that leeched onto the black garments I’d worn the last four days, I realized that looking at liquor bottles did much to warm my mind and much to loosen my sphincter – I had to take a shit.

Oh so marvelous, but, alas, no toilet paper… Thank God we live in a century where we needn’t waddle down to the babbling brook to wash our asses when this happens – so I hopped in the tub and got under the spigot.  But what happens upon the ‘morrow, I mused, as it was too late to go the supermarket.  Then the light bulb came on in my noggin, and I dashed down to T’s.  He’d be good for at least one roll.  And.  He was.

Why’d it have to be weird?  It was some generic brand that had been perfumed.  And you know what can happen when you use tissues laced with industrial fragrance?  But, oh, I am happy to report that all is well in the nether regions!

I await now the return of my neighbors, and will disclose not the least of my disappointments.

The Vomitus of my Mind

Bloggers speak of writer’s block.  It happens, especially when you have spouses, children, mortgages, cats, dogs, ferrets, migraines, sex lives, warrants.  While I do have a job, hobbies and a social life, I don’t have that other stuff, just the occasional mouse running around my apartment that I like to feed.  Soon I anticipate more going on so who knows how often I’ll be in here.

But up ‘til now, of course the fuck I’ve been able to post regularly!  What else have I got going on…sigh…

So you are it, friends!  Until that next piece of –  I mean – until that next fine, fine person comes along – who’m I kiddn’, I’m pushing the envelope, I’m old as shit, my day is done, my coins are tossed, the jig is up, well is dried, cookies fried –

— Friends, I’ve seen it all, I’ve tasted wine, and not forgotten.  I’ve loved, I’ve lived I’ve laughed, I’ve danced the dance and tweaked my consciousness.  I’ve felt, I’ve licked, I’ve spat, I’ve chewed, I’ve ea-ten off, of every sur-face, but now, more o-d-ious, more hi-de-ous, is I just vo-mi-ted in Word Press. 

The Picture of My Behind

The picture of my behind that my sister took when I visited looked just fine.

Here she is with her husband:

I wanted her to take one so that I could see how fat it was after eating different kinds of cake.  I said maybe I’d post a picture of it.  But since my butt looked fine I ate more cake.  I only wanted to post it if it was huge, to shame myself, in front of everybody.  So now I don’t have to show it to you.

But the real reason I won’t show it to you is because my hair was stone busted!  I wear an afro these days and I give afros a bad name in that butt picture.   I don’t want the people who read this who want afros to think that they all come out like that.

Here’s a better picture with one of my fake sons and me during the visit where you can’t see how busted my hair was:

Wait a cotton pickin’ minute!  How’d that get in there?!

[Deleted the picture of Steve Harvey dressed as woman holding ‘Steve Harvey’ baby with mustache — didn’t want to get sued.  Too bad you didn’t catch it earlier.  It was hilarious.]

Here it is now — this is me and both of my fake sons:

There wasn’t any cake there but there were cookies, Cheetos, popcorn, Fritos and ice cream.  I ate them because my sister’s husband bought them special for my visit.  I ate them instead of dinner.  I don’t like food anyway.  Food’s a burden.   I had fun there.

SMD

I like boys and I like pink.  The song says, “I enjoy being a girl” — that’s me!  I like heels, though I haven’t worn them in a while – and I like to bake cookies.  This is a stereotype I know, and I don’t always inhabit this side of being a woman.  I also inhabit more of a complex description, but for the purpose of what I want to say, I’m telling you about my common feminine side, just so that you don’t get it twisted. Though I don’t have one and don’t want one, sometimes I just want to tell people to SUCK MY DICK!

Enjoy the day!

Sword-chinned bitch

Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies

Kindergarten, 1967. Mrs. Simon was my first teacher. Back then, the baby classes had pianos so the teachers could play in accompaniment to Ring Around the Rosies and the Mexican Hat Dance. I was four years old and the only black kid in the class but most of us didn’t know the full extent of race yet. Well, I didn’t know. Later I found out what it was to be black and I was happy about it. It was the sixties. James Brown sang, “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.”My parents were pretty happy about being black too, even though my mother is light. We had a lot of white friends. My dad was an artist.  There aren’t many black people doing that kind of work. The people I met at my dad’s studio and the ones we visited were interesting and cool people that he smoked refer with.

I liked my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Simon. I remember her like yesterday – short, slightly jowly with cropped blonde hair. She was kind and played a mean Mexican Hat Dance. I also learned this song in her class:

Once there was an apple tree,

standing still as still can be.

Me me me me me me me.

Do you like my song?

The classroom was bright with all of our artwork hanging up, and with pictures of the alphabet and numbers. We took naps and had milk and cookies. During the breaks, Mrs. Simon would go in the hall and talk to Mrs. Rebison, the teacher of the other kindergarten class. I wish we had breaks like that as adults at work, only thing you wouldn’t drink milk, it would be vodka, gin, or you could pop Ativan. We could drink and drug until we passed out for our ‘naps’. Or we could have sex breaks to relieve work tension. We’d email our requests for sex partners to personnel a week in advance.  I know who I’d choose… Oh, but this isn’t a perfect world.

And who better to illustrate that than my 2^nd grade teacher, poor, weird Mrs. Flynn.  Who let that crazy bitch into the school!?   Yes, the bitch was a mental case.  If you touched her, she’d yell, “Don’t touch me!  Don’t ever touch me!”  She was a dumpy woman with a big square head, red hair, and very pale skin.  She kept always on her desk a tin of Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies, which she never offered to us kids.  I loved Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies, and would eye them covetously, fantasizing about a day when she would change her non-sharing ways.  She ate them anytime she wanted, right in front of us – the buttery pretzel shaped ones, with chunky sugar granules on them.  Her piggish face reminds me of the Nazi female prison commander from the movie “Seven Beauties”.

One day she told us that we weren’t going to practice spelling, or numbers or any of that shit.  Instead she commanded us to run around in circles in the classroom – that’s right, just run around.  Some of the boys took to it immediately and ran around like maniacs, banging into tables, chairs, and into each other, falling down all over the place.  By the end they were all red-faced, sweaty, and ripped up.  And Mrs. Flynn from behind her desk screamed, “Don’t stop, run, run – keep running, yeah!”  She then went back to reading the paper and eating butter cookies.  A few girls ran with abandon as well, their little skirts hiked up in friction around their tights, but I remember the circle of us who just sat there, scared — Martin, Michelle and maybe a couple of others.  A couple of those kids were crying because they knew that this was not normal and that Mrs. Flynn had lost her marbles, and that she was an adult and what were we supposed to do now.  I didn’t cry but sat there staring, freaked.  What a crazy scene!

I think about those stupid kids today, the ones who just ran around enjoying it.  Are these the ones who grew up to take advantage of the moment, to live life to the fullest?  The bungee jumpers, parachuters, and Polar Bear Club members?  Or maybe they’re in prison.  I think I heard that Mrs. Flynn found out that she had a brain tumor.  I think she had just found out and had a nervous breakdown the day she told us to run around.  But still I mean come on! Why take it out on little kids?  But the poor thing probably had a weird time of it with life in general, what with her aversion to being touched and to sharing her Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies.

There was Miss Gruenwald in the 3^rd grade.  I imagine her being one of the first to change from Miss to Ms.  She was the quintessential early-seventies, modern woman.  The feel I get is that she was around twenty-four years old.  She had long, brown, nineteen seventies hair parted down the middle.  She wore mini skirts and spoke the same foreign language with the teacher across the hall while they smoked cigarettes.  I think it was an Eastern European language.  The other teacher wasn’t as attractive as she was but she had the same kind of hair and dressed similarly.

After elementary school I had Miss Dick in junior high.  What a place to have a name like that?  Miss Dick was my cooking teacher.  The class had stove and sink units and smelled absolutely lovely, like something was always baking.  I looked forward to this class.  Miss Dick made us examine our plates for cracks.  Cracks caught bacteria, Miss Dick had told us, and we should throw any plates with them away.  I always remember that when I look at a cracked plate today but I still eat on it.  A few of the kids would yell her name out emphatically, trying to start shit, but it didn’t work because she was a cupcake of a woman.  She had good manners and a sweet way with children.  Plus, she was pretty and explained how to make oatmeal cookies in a very nice voice.  I felt sorry for her with that name.  Being a junior high school teacher with that name could be a hazard.  These classes harbor fledgling sophomoric humorists.  She should have changed her name to Miss Richard.

There was Miss Di Pierro with the bad breath, and Miss Carboni who stood real straight with her arms stiff at her sides while she sniffed up through her nose for a long time before teaching Greek mythology.  Miss Carboni wore pants mostly.  And Mr. Levy had Tourette’s Syndrome, but the children didn’t know what it was back then.

There are a couple of others that I could add to the list of ones who stick out more to me.  But these are the main ones.  I can’t say any of them gave me anything that I carry with me now except for some fond and kooky memories.

Who are some of your favorite teachers? What strange classroom memories do you have?