I Have A Note

       Over the years, many have come to know that I, kryssi martin, struggle with racist thoughts when it comes to Hispanic females. I've worked through it over the years, and I believe I am no longer racist. Everyone knows why: I was bullied by gansta girls at O'Connell Jr. High, blah blah blah. Riding on that is the fact that I like to tell stories about my Uncle Bob, who is in fact, Mexican, proudly Mexican from Mexico. He used to call me a honky. I think he's hilarious. I tell stories of him threatening to cut off my ears and make tacos, and pulling knives out of the kitchen drawer and declaring them "Mexican credit cards". I was seven. I had no idea what he meant. The stories I tell about him are received with quiet trepidation from the white kids, and braying laughter followed by "I have an Uncle Bob, but his name is Jose! He's just like that!" from the Latinx kiddos. Both groups receive my stories looking across the room at the other group, afraid to react without a social cue first.
       Now that I'm in a school with a low white population, and I even have a class with Not One White Kid,I thought I'd test it out. One day, I said "So I have this Mexican Uncle Bob who's hilarious, but my children think I'm racist when I tell stories about him." The kids, all Latinx, said they'd like to hear the stories. I regaled them with them, and two of the boys immediately asked if I was sure I wasn't talking about their uncles, and we all laughed. Then I said, "Seriously, am I racist to repeat these stories? I don't want to offend anyone." One kid, we'll call him "A", shot his arm straight in the air and said "No way, Miss, you want a note? I'll write you a note saying you aren't racist."
      And so, the Uncle Bob stories will resume.
      I have a note.

26 Letters, 26 Days

A Announcement over the school intercom on 12 March 2020, telling everyone to take everything home with them over spring break, and then the email at 4 pm announcing "extended spring break" and our realization that we weren't coming back.
 Also Animal Crossing,which is keeping my daughter connected to her friends as they meet up and steal fruit from one another's islands.
B The Bouncing Ball movie watching game that my husband and I made up. We started at Birdcage and are still going. You have to choose an actor from the movie, then watch another movie they are in, selecting your next actor, and so on. And you can't double up actors unless you're stuck. For Instance Little Miss Sunshine got us Steve Carell, but Despicable Me was a dead end, so we had to watch Despicable Me 2 to get Benjamen Bratt and move to Miss Congeniality. TV shows don't count and he won't let internet stuff count. Also, we seem to land on movies he likes the majority of the time. It's like "Six Degrees To Kevin Bacon" I suppose, but we aren't using Kevin Bacon.
C  Cats. None are mine, yet four live with me. They were glad I was home for about ten minutes, when they realized I was not giving them tuna 24/7, they returned to sleeping on my bed. "Covid" is too easy a word choice.
D  Dogs. Also not mine, but three of them are here, hopeful that my continued presence in the house is going to translate to many walks a day and treats. Not as smart as the cats, they haven't figured out the truth yet, and still hold on to hope
E Elephant at the Denver Zoo. The first online learning opportunity I saw for kids out of school was two staff members of the zoo with the elephants. The elephants do not care about learning opportunities, or know how important they are to our collective sanity. They just are.
F Furlough if you're lucky fired if you are not.
G Gigs. Gigs are gone. Buh bye, gigs.
H Howl. 8 pm. Yes.
I Icky.
J John Krasinski "Some Good News".
K King, Stephen. Prophet. We're living one of his novels.
L Lost. Loafing. Languishing. That's it, that's the one.
M Masks. Costumers, teachers with sewing machines, it's maskapalloosa.
N Neighbors out walking and riding bikes. It's more than in the summer, it's actual traffic.
O Online teaching.
P Pay cut, for those fortunate enough to still be employed.
Q My friend the drag queen, who lost all of her gigs and started wishing people Happy Birthday online like Samuel L. Jackson. Quarantine was too easy a word choice.
R Relief, refund. Our car insurance Liberty Bibberty is refunding 15 % of our payment for two months because we are clearly not driving as much.
S School's out for summer....school may be out forever. Alice Cooper is another prophet. Also for Stimulus checks, small business. Shelter in place is too easy a phrase.
T Take out only, aka "curbside pickup", teddy bears in windows, toilet paper not on shelves.
U Umbrella. The pink umbrella sheltering our "window" teddy bear. He could not be seen from the window, in fact he looked very Emily Dickinson up there, so we moved him to he front yard in a lawn chair. As it has decided to snow and rain, I gave him an umbrella to hide under. Our neighbors now identify us as the house with the umbrella bear. Also USPS, buy stamps, sign the petition.
V Vail got hit first, possibly worst? That Florida Lt. Governor was grouchy that Polis shut down the ski areas and ruined his family vacation. Which starts with "v", and are over, too.
W Weight. Gain. Ugh.
X The look of a shuttered pub, lights off, parking lot empty. They aren't physically shuttered...yet...
Y  You Tube. The old new sensation for the over achieving generation of lip syncing and dance off families that I watch from my chair.
Z The Denver Zoo was the first I saw to go live online for student learning. They're listed twice because they're cool.

Of ketchup and mortgages

My friends in Canada emailed today: "You started your blog again and then stopped, we wanted to check in."

I dunno what to write,everyone else is writing it.

Not everyone else is fortunate enough to be able to write because they have a job and shelter and stupid dogs and old, needy cats. All of whom I am convinced speak perfect English and are deliberately ignoring me.

Everyone else is grateful for whatever their situation is and I can't be bothered to walk the stupid dogs.

I wake up smelling like dog every day, regardless of the daily laundry, Fbreezing, Airwick  plug ins and open windows until it snowed. And then the windows were open when it snowed, and at least it smelled cold and not like dog in my house.

And how hard is it to put the lighter back where you found it?

Everyone else is going to get a divorce over ketchup. I've nothing new to contribute.

Twice this month this small publisher has contacted me wanting to know if my manuscript is finished. It will never be finished, because to finish I have to relive the last four worst years of my freaking life, so never mind, I'm no longer interested in publishing it. Anybody who cares read it already, and the consequences have already been suffered, so where the fun in doing it now?

So if I'm not going to do that, I have nothing to write about.

Everyone has Blursday and Muesfreday and mine are tracked by whether or not the meeting is at 8 am or 12: 30, are my students in google hangout on video chat or via text and at least you can't smell the dog permeating my clothes through the computer.

Except that there is no ketchup, and since I'm home all day every day, but am not the one who used the last of the ketchup, maybe someone coulda told me before I made hamburgers for dinner.

Everyone is unemployed or underemployed and there are stories of bill collectors being kind, but none of them are my bill collectors. Or my mortgage company, who not only isn't allowing anyone to skip a month, but shut down our personal home refi as it was being underwritten because "since this happened", Jim's job is now suspicious, suspect...what word do I want? His company supplies hotels and condos with lotion and shampoos, so they're now susceptible to the virus, which is how I see it. Sure he took a pay cut, but they are now bottling hand sanitizer, got themselves declared necessary and received the government subsidy money, but no, fuck you guys, your job is too risky to refi your house.

Way to be, mortgage company.

The cat won't stop stomping on my lap.

Harper's car payment was deferred back in March until April, which isn't great, but hey, at least they made an attempt. So there's one.

Every teacher misses their kids, is mumbling about technology.

Every student lost a grade, an internship, a show, prom, graduation, understanding in a content area (Immma call it and say mostly math). They've lost housing, ritual and personal connections.

Everyone has a story. Everyone has unemployment, gigs lost, careers halted, and break downs playing Mario Super Smash Bros,yet I refuse to walk the dogs because they aren't mine.

Harp just pointed out that I left the oven on with nothing in it. I said "It's making ketchup."

Nobody wants to read my personal account of the same universal story we are all living. So I'm not going to write it.