Crossroads

Spuds has returned to L.A. and Number One Son is thinking of moving to Portland.  My own future is as big a question mark.  There are lots of things I like to do but unfortunately, “nothing” is at the top of the list.

The 2018 agita is split between Individual #1 and a legal battle with a problem tenant.  My fervent hope is that enough dirt comes out that Republicans will have no choice but to question the efficacy of their fealty.  The best thing would be if it’s revealed that Mike Pence is just as dirty as his boss and that both are removed from office.  President Nancy Pelosi.  This, and the time-honored winning of the lottery are my top daydreams these days. 

I’ve thought this before, but I am told that is likely that our eviction battle will be resolved within the next few weeks.  We are approaching the one-year anniversary and I wonder if suddenly not being fretful about this will be like a phantom limb.  

There is a new projector in my classroom.  I told the tech guy that it is so bitchen,’ that I’d marry it. My new next textbook is a snooze and an aesthetic offense, but it does have good supplementary materials.  And there are barcodes in the book that can be scanned for audio and videos.  Unfortunately, the bookstore was out of the book for a week and now that there are copies, a number of the students are struggling, particularly at this time of year, to come up with $34 for a text and workbook.  I am able to project just about everything from the text but can’t assign from the workbook which makes me feel bad that the students, who were able to spring for it, aren’t able to get a full return on their investment. 

My equipment up-grade, and a better supplemented textbook streamlines my lesson planning and teaching but, I am in a lather about winning the classroom holiday door decoration contest. We are assigned an interior door that is bisected by a horizontal metal opener which will pose a challenge.  Nevertheless, I have a vision.  I cockily assure the students that we will nab the victor’s pizza party. They ask each night when we’ll start to work.  I’d planned to begin the assembly on Thursday but there is a power outage and class is cancelled.

I’ve done some color copying, Amazon shopping and have forayed to Dollar Tree more than once.  Monday we’ll have to go into overdrive to ready our door for judgement Tuesday.  Margarita is a repeater.  She speaks pretty well but can’t read and write.  The other ESL 1B teacher and I bounce her back and forth. She’s in her sixties.  The students call her “Tia Margarita.”  She arrives with a giant trash bag filled with Christmas decorations, including an enormous mylar wreath.  I thank her profusely but am crestfallen.  Maybe we don’t have to use everything, but it is absolutely necessary to incorporate some of Margarita’s big, bright, shiny stuff.  I hope that I’m up to the challenge.

I eschew making political predictions but perhaps the funeral of George Bush will get some Republicans thinking about their legacies.  I imagine that Mueller has evidence that Individual #1 is guilty of as list of felonies that will hit double digits.  Are we at the point where the rats will panic and desert the sinking shit?  And like our legal problems, it is weird that there will likely come a day when I don’t have to think about this.  Maybe I’ll read a book.

The prospect of the kids’ semi-blank canvasses is thrilling. Surely there will be ups and downs, but they start the voyage with many assets and it seems that inevitably they’ll land on their feet.  I recount my own litany of failures to them and sometimes they even pay attention to these cautionary notes.  After a rough 2018, I am less sanguine about my own waning years.  I resent myself, and the circumstances, that have clouded a year with legal problems and a the frightening burgeoning kakistocracy.  I’m not sure if my nearly crippling lack of ambition is a product of crappy circumstances or simply a natural reaction to the commencement of one’s seventh decade.  In my lifetime I imagine that we’ll have a sane U.S. President and that, sooner or later, my only visits to the courtroom will be for jury duty.  I wonder if my current malaise is just a product of an inevitable winding down or if when our legal travails are resolved and Individual #1 gets his just desserts, I’ll be more inclined to get off of the couch.