Irony

I tried to teach my students about irony and some of them still didn't get it. Here's an example that I didn't tell them that may have been the clearest of all:

I was doing this podcast with a friend of mine, and on it I used my real name and said some mildly controversial stuff. My mother, also a teacher, had a conniption fit and told me "If I didn't remove it from the world wide web, I'd never get a teaching job, or else they'd (the students) find out later and crucify me over it." She's a little dramatic.

After days of contacting the archiving website and looking at programming text baffled, and trying to remember logins and usernames and passwords, my podcast buddy and I finally managed to remove ourselves from the internet. It took emailing a girl named Amber at the website and pleading with her to remove my racy podcast so my teenage students wouldn't find it. She sympathized.

Fast forward to a month into the school year, and a colleague of mine corners me in the hallway:

HIM: Hey, I got a proposition for you.
ME: Um...sure, OK.
HIM: You ever heard of a podcast?

Long story short, he wanted me to be the official "writer" for the show, meaning I would "make fliers to put on windshields." What is this? Electioneering in Idaho circa 1943? I told him the best way to spread the word would be to use the same medium as the podcast - the internet, moron! Email the shit out of your friends, coworkers, college buddies, family! I don't think it sank in. He still wanted those car windshield fliers.

So now I'm trying to come up with an excuse as to why I can't make it to the inaugural podcast recording this Saturday at his house. I'm just not into it anymore. He's gonna be kvetching about teaching, when I just started a few months ago. I'm not that bitter yet. I'd rather talk about male screaming and Jewish rappers.

And this concludes your lesson in irony. (You're probably still confused, just like my students.)

If They Mated...

One of my kids told me today that I look like a combination of Ritchie Cunningham from "Happy Days" and Jennifer Garner. If you know me, i.e. one or two people out there, it's even funnier than it sounds. Fuck. I'm trying to get my techie roommate to work out some kind of photoshop technology that would show the result of that mating, like on Conan O'Brien. What makes it precious, though, is that the girl who said it really wasn't trying to point out that I'm like Opie (a.k.a. Superwhitey). She was absolutely serious, and complimentary. She followed it with, "You know, he's a big director these days," as if that would make me feel better.

Killing Time

I feel good. The hair's growing out, and I'm shedding unwanted pounds. My vocabulary is more diverse and correct when I use it in public, not just on these posts. For the first time in years, I've felt proud about my job. I'm a public servant. The other day, a kid offered me a stick of Juicy Fruit. It could have been that I had post-schoolday teacher breath, but I'd like to think that he was offering it as a peace pipe. I'm beginning to win them over. My girlfriend is happy with me. The 'rents are happy with me. Perhaps one thing I'm neglecting is my exercise, but I'm not pounding junk food or couch potatoing up the joint. I don't get to see some friends as much as I'd like to, but that's life sometimes. My drum could use some beating on, maybe. My TV's getting dusty, thank God. I've been sneezing to beat the band, but I was given a gang of hankerchiefs just in time. I now rock the fabric tissues just like my old man. People say I'm jumpy, and that's a fact. That will never go away. I gots the nerves, that's all. I'm like a live wire fritzing on the street, waiting for an innocent bystander. I keep those around me guessing. I ask tough questions and stew in awkwardness. I'm a pot roast of awkwardness. I'm the mash potatoes of uncomfortable silences. I'll joke with you in the line at Trader Joe's, but secretly, if I think you're missing a couple screws, I'll make that suspicion evident by giving you the corner of my eye. I dominate the eye corner. It's my laser beam. You need a shield for it, or else you get zapped. ZEER!

I Almost Lost It in Church

I was reminded this afternoon that I'm only eight years older than my kids, as far as maturity goes. We had an assembly in the gym for a religious celebration, and there was singing involved. One of my students, a rather boisterous girl, started belting out the words to the song in horribly false tones. A student (not mine) next to me started covering his mouth and chuckling. That was it for me. I started to bite my lip harder than ever before. I think the kid next to me saw me laughing, because he started to laugh even harder, and then people in front of us (my students) started turning around and looking at the girl who was still belting out this god-awful singing. Finally I decided to get up and walk away from the situation and just pray for thoughts of calm and serenity to quiet my giggles. It worked, but everybody was looking at me funny. I'm sure the kid next to me figured out what I was doing. The downside is that we're gonna have plenty more of these assemblies.