I taught my first class of the spring semester on Tuesday night.  It's my fourth semester teaching composition at a local community college, and the first semester I have gone into the first class really feeling confident about what I'm doing.  Not surprisingly, I was happier about doing it than I have ever been before.

I had 18 students on the roster and was excited about the prospect of a not-full class, but then of course two extras showed up.  However, there were about four no-shows, so my hope that I might end up with around 15 when it's all said and done may still be realized.  Twenty students at five essays (each with one revision), two tests and five in-class assignments each on top of my day job can be a wee bit tiring.

After I handed out the syllabus and geeky "ten tips for the successful college student" hand-outs, explained the grading rubric and tried to scare the shit out of them with my plagiarism speech, we played one of those "getting to know you" games.  I handed out one question to each of them, and they had to go around the room telling the class their name, their year in school (tricky with community college - can you be a fifth-year sophomore?), why they are in the class, a personal fact, and answer the question.  Every single one of them said they are in the class either a) because they have to be (community college as prison torture), b) because they had already used up all their electives and had to start taking core classes (if you ask me, same as "a") or c) one person said "because I want to be." When I pressed him on that, he did admit that he wanted to be different and everyone else had already said "a" or "b."  This is not as disappointing to me as you might think, because hell, it's Comp I, not Creative Writing or Advanced Bullshit For The Future Millionaire.  Who wants to take Comp I?  NO ONE. 

I do try to position the class as "win friends and influence people" as well as "don't look like a friggin' idiot when you type an e-mail" as opposed to "the glory of good grammar."  Sometimes they get the message, sometimes they don't.  I suppose those who are in college to go on to a career in police work or nursing may not, in fact, write a lot of memos in their professional lives.  I do so feel that the world is kinder to those who can string together a proper sentence.  Unless you're George Bush.  But I digress.

Two personal facts I enjoyed:  one guy said he was back in school after four years of "kickin' it."  I asked him if "kickin' it" had paid well, and he laughed and said no, that's why he was there.  The second guy said his hobbies included cage-fighting, which then launched a long class discussion of what the hell that was and why anyone in their right mind would want to do it. Apparently there is actually a cage involved. I'm not sure how much more I want to know about that, but he may very well turn in an essay on it, so I guess I should prepare myself.

After all that, I made them write for forty minutes about what they wanted to accomplish in the next ten years and why.  I decided to instill this weeder exercise this year because I do want them to understand what is involved with a writing class:  writing.  A lot of writing.  About half of them looked pained and spent a lot of time staring at blank paper, the clock, blank paper, their pencil, blank paper, then finally deteriorated into playing with their cell phones.  The other half, to my amazement, wrote for a solid forty minutes.  I did notice they tended to be the nontrads, the older students, those who had probably had a lot of time to think about what they did or didn't accomplish in the previous ten years of their lives.  One in particular thanked me afterward for the exercise.

It's a proven fact that if you write down your dreams, you're much more likely to accomplish them.  Have you written down yours?

On Sunday night, we had dinner and a playdate with friends.  The little angel and her friend A. were having a grand old time.  So were we.  We were drinking wine, trying to watch the children, trying to discuss normal adult things, and those two activities so do not go together.  I was standing at the kitchen counter looking through the diaper bag when I heard R. say "Oh, oh, oh!" 

I turned around and saw the little angel falling head over heels down the stairs. It was like stop-gap motion, and I, like Will Ferrell in Old School after he's taken an animal tranq to the main artery, fell over myself trying to reach her.

I've always been afraid of the little angel falling down stairs. Long after other friends abandoned their kid gates, we've kept ours up at the top AND the bottom of our lethal hardwood staircase.  Since we've had the gates up, I've actually fallen down the stairs twice in my socks. They are slippery. They are HARD.  I had a nasty bruise each time after I fell, and I sort of have this Million Dollar Baby nightmare that she'll fall down, hit her neck the wrong way, become a quadraplegic and bite through her tiny tongue in a hospital bed after I try to convince her to go to junior college instead of boxing ever again.

So anyway, she fell down a flight of carpeted stairs.  She didn't break her neck. She actually sort of landed on her feet.  There was an adult very close to where she landed.  I rushed over, trying to contain the roiling panic threatening to give me a heart attack, and scooped her up, covering her with lipstick kisses. 

She cried for about thirty seconds, then noticed A. was back to the toys and demanded "DOWN!"  I tried very hard to be cool. My fear had finally been realized.  And she did live through it.  After that, in fact, we spent several trips up and down the stairs teaching her to go down backwards (something that's been hard to teach on hard, pointy hardwood stairs), and she thought that was great fun.  I think it was Vickie Iovine who wrote in one of the Girlfriend's Guide books that God gives you a free one.  I think that was ours.

My hair actually looks a little more full in my bathroom mirror than it does in the photos.  This could be a trick of the way I hold my head, or it could be that the camera doesn't luv my hair and it's fortunate I did not persue a career in modeling.

I'm still sorta getting used to it, but it's a LOT faster in the morning! 

My hair actually looks a little more full in my bathroom mirror than it does in the photos.  This could be a trick of the way I hold my head, or it could be that the camera doesn't luv my hair and it's fortunate I did not persue a career in modeling.

I'm still sorta getting used to it, but it's a LOT faster in the morning! 

Well, it is indeed Friday the 13th, and only one day away from a full moon.  I wonder what my pirate teenage neighbor has cooked up for the 'hood this year?

I'm not terribly superstitious, though I do believe if I utter the words "my daughter never has temper tantrums" or "I've never received a speeding ticket" that I am damning myself to that very thing happening within five minutes of the utterance.  But I don't really abide by the "not opening umbrellas indoors" or the "not walking under ladders" thing.  I mean, if you need to dry your umbrella or walk around during a remodel, there really aren't that many choices, are there?

So, even so...there was a little shiver that went down my spine when I looked at the calendar this morning and realized the date.  I looked at my cat, closest kin of the moon, and hoped for the best today.  I don't really know what is up with the number 13, though this person ventured a guess. 

I think we love or hate Friday the 13th because it's possible anything could happen, as though that weren't true of every day.

The little angel is scared of loud noises. She has been for several months. Unfortunately for her, we live right in the middle of Kansas City, two blocks from two very busy, four-lane streets and one block from a fire station. I can see the firefighters playing basketball during the day from my home office.  They are called into action frequently.  I used to not really mind, because I thought HEY! if our house catches on fire, THEY WILL SMELL IT AND SAVE US.  But now...the noises.

We also live in Kansas City: Transportation Hub, home of lots of planes, trains and automobiles.  We are on the flight path for the downtown airport. We are close enough to the urban core to get a lot of searchlight visits from the Ghetto Bird.  Our teenage pirate neighbor just got his license.  The pot-smokers next door have pizza delivery at all hours of the day and night and listen to the Grateful Dead at top volume (this oxymoron I don't understand).  In other words, it's a really shitty place to live if you are twenty-one months old and afraid of loud,  unexplained sounds.

Last night we were eating our dinner when we heard a train whistle.  The little angel developed an intense love of Thomas the Tank Engine after a party with the crowd from Waddler B, so we thought maybe we'd use him as a bridge to the conversation about Unexplained Noises.

Little Angel:  "What?  WHAT?"

Me:  "That's just a train, honey.  You know?  Choo choo?"

Beloved:  "Toot TOOT!" (stuffs food in mouth, finished with the conversation)

Me:  "You know, THOMAS is a train. You love Thomas!"

LA: "Thomas?"  (looks warily around kitchen for Thomas)

Me:  "The train is outside, though. Far, far away. He's not Thomas, but he's like, you know, Thomas' roommate's cousin.  He knows Thomas sort of socially."

LA:  "Thomas - TOOT?"  (looks frightened)

I pause to think this maybe wasn't good. Is she going to be afraid of Thomas now?  DRAT.

Me:  "Sometimes everyone goes TOOT.  Eat your yogurt."

I'm reminded by my friend Jane and fun read (she'd probably be mad if I called her my friend, because, like, I totally stole her boyfriend in seventh grade) Amalah that it's DeLurking Week (I added my own capitalization just for fun).

This coincides nicely with my need to discuss my hair.  And see if anyone but my five friends really reads this blog and the rest of my ever-growing numbers are really, truly brought on by confused people using Yahoo and Google to try to find out about the new movie called Surrender, Dorothy. (It is doing wonders for my stats, which make my little writerly ego feel better, if nothing else.)  Unfortunately for posterity, this is not a movie about me or my life, though if it was, I'm sure I would be played by either the aging Jennie Garth or the suddenly-single-and-perhaps-soon-to-be-replaced-on-Broadway-by-ugh-Britney Christina Applegate.

This is what my  hair looks like now, although it is not always so windblown.  (Silly, that's only because we were riding behind a tractor).

I have this silly fantasy that I could chop about half of it off and my baby-fine, lifeless hair would suddenly do the Sienna without any addition of time or effort on my part in the morning. Not that I want to be attracting Jude Law or any of the other nanny-banging unattached. I just want something different. I'm not telling my beloved I'm thinking about it.  He's still mad about the time I dyed my hair three different colors in one year. 

So...if I want my hair to go all Sienna Miller on me, what do you want your hair to do for you?  Is there really anyone out there beyond the Lost On Yahoo crowd?   

I'm reminded by my friend Jane and fun read (she'd probably be mad if I called her my friend, because, like, I totally stole her boyfriend in seventh grade) Amalah that it's DeLurking Week (I added my own capitalization just for fun).

This coincides nicely with my need to discuss my hair.  And see if anyone but my five friends really reads this blog and the rest of my ever-growing numbers are really, truly brought on by confused people using Yahoo and Google to try to find out about the new movie called Surrender, Dorothy. (It is doing wonders for my stats, which make my little writerly ego feel better, if nothing else.)  Unfortunately for posterity, this is not a movie about me or my life, though if it was, I'm sure I would be played by either the aging Jennie Garth or the suddenly-single-and-perhaps-soon-to-be-replaced-on-Broadway-by-ugh-Britney Christina Applegate.

This is what my  hair looks like now, although it is not always so windblown.  (Silly, that's only because we were riding behind a tractor).

I have this silly fantasy that I could chop about half of it off and my baby-fine, lifeless hair would suddenly do the Sienna without any addition of time or effort on my part in the morning. Not that I want to be attracting Jude Law or any of the other nanny-banging unattached. I just want something different. I'm not telling my beloved I'm thinking about it.  He's still mad about the time I dyed my hair three different colors in one year. 

So...if I want my hair to go all Sienna Miller on me, what do you want your hair to do for you?  Is there really anyone out there beyond the Lost On Yahoo crowd?   

Well, the plumber came and ripped a hole the size of Montana in our bathroom wall this afternoon.  For my birthday when I was pregnant with the little angel, my beloved installed a tub surround in the bathroom. He laid it over the old, icky, black, mildewed, sixty-year-old tile that used to haunt my dreams like the boiler room in a Freddy Krueger film.  I was certain the tile might somehow find its way off the wall, scratch its way across the peeling lineoleum in the bathroom and scale the snags in the upstairs Berber to scrape my face while I slept. 

One, two, the tile is gonna get you...

Three, four, better lock your door...

Five, six, grab the strong Tilex...

Seven, eight, better scrub till late...

Nine, ten, oh, screw it - just slap a piece of tile-molded plastic over the whole thing and pretend like it never happened.

So anyway, the plumber had to jackhammer through not only ancient tile, but also this big sheet of plastic.  Oh, and a wooden wall.  He did a pretty complete job, which unfortunately happened while my beloved was on the phone with one of his brokerage prospects.

Prospect:  "What's that noise?"

Beloved:  "Oh, that?  That's nothing."

BLAM! POW! SPLAT!  RIIIIIIIIP!

Prospect:  "Really?  Nothing?"

Beloved:  "Well, there is a strange man in my bathroom with a blowtorch. Don't let it worry your pretty little head.  How's your money market doing this quarter?"

I haven't taken a shower in there yet.  We had to shut off the heat and open the bathroom window (this is accomplished by removing the entire lower window frame, since the pieces of rope that raise the window have been gone since we moved into the house - perhaps gone since the Reagan administration - I really don't know).  We left the window open during our outing to Costco after work. My beloved thought he'd solve the smell problem by lighting a leftover Thanksgiving Target pumpkin-scented candle.  Now it smells like burning rubber dog shit infused with cinnamon.

I think I'll go take a shower.  Yummy.