60 Years Are Too Many: 9/11 25

     13 September

        Every 11 Sept I take a moment at the beginning of every class. Just to see what they know. Just to remind them it happened. They weren't even born yet.

        I am glad to hear it's in their history curriculum, apparently it's part of the eighth grade curriculum, and they remember that they learned about the towers, a few remember the Pentagon and only one had learned of flight 93.

        I do not beleagure the myraid of conspiracy theories or legion of medical issues, especially now that the receipts have been revealed proving what Jon Stewart has been fighting for over two decades is true. They're all true, our government sucks. What else is there?

        I don't note the time stamps---I had to do that when I taught Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close---that's rough.

        I simply say "This is where hate leads".

        I don't care if the US government knew, or even helped orchestrate it. It wouldn't surprise me. I've never been a blind flag waver, I see our government for who they are.

        Somebody had enough hate to pilot those planes into buildings, knowing they would die in the process.

        And that hate spread to hate for an entire religion, and fear of brown people, and more hate of "the outsider" and  25 years later, ICE is shooting American citizens and throwing brown folx in concentration camps with no probable cause other than the color of their skin.

        So my thesis, with the photo of the second plane approaching the south tower, is simply "This is where hate leads".

        When you are fed only one side of an issue, and that side is hateful, it becomes almost impossible to see any other aspects.

        There is little discussion, which I should allow but honestly, when I have 100% of my students looking at me, wide eyed and nodding, they need not discuss. They know. They live it, and they're doing their level best to lead with love.

        And, additionally, I'm not feeding them any conspiracies or health issue updates. I have one blanket thesis which ends with "Lead with love in everything you do". 

        Telling theatre kids to lead with love is like telling jello it's jiggley. They aren't the ones who need to be reminded, but I hold out hope that their example impacts others who may need a reminder or example in their own life.

        Fear is how you control people.

        And you instill fear with hate.

        It's that simple.

        It's ridiculously simple.

        It's identifiable and preventable.

        Yet here were are, 25 years later, fueled by hatred of "the other", believing the fearmongering "They're criminals! They'll take your jobs and rape your daughter!" 

        Somehow, though,this is the moment the millionairs lose control of the country.

        It's too much all at once. We were OK when it was covert.

        We acquiesced to covert cover ups; we believed Ollie North worked alone, we bought that US corporations had  nothing to do with Rwanda and then said "Our government is not going to get involved to help". We accepted all of their lies as long as they didn't interrupt Friends.

        It is a long and exhausting list, do your own research---DO NOT USE AI, try The Guardian, AXIOS, The BBC, or University articles. Or try a great guy called Pissed Magistus. My point stands: we turned a blind eye to what they were doing as long as it didn't impact us directly.

        Reagan deregulated, dismantled and destroyed, handing perks to the millionaires, leaving hospitals without the ability to care for those suffering from mental illness and flooding the streets with disregulated human beings in need of care. 

        That didn't effect enough of us directly.

        Enter Trump.

        The mask came off. He clearly alinged with with billionaires while we scratched our heads and wondered "How the hell did we end up with so many billionaires?"

        He openly lies, threatens and dismantles the constitution and free speech. His base cheers him---even when they lose their own jobs, healthcare and farms.

        And we stand gobsmacked, frozen in terror, wondering what we can possibly do when he has not only lit a thousand fires, but fired everyone who was in place to prevent those fires. So many fires and no firehoses. And no water thanks to drought and data centers.

     Then he started rounding people up based on their color and shooting white people who protested.

        And still...we stand...flabberghasted and frozen, hoping blindly the midterms will make a difference. Because we cannot fathom that democracy has fallen, surely there is still hope. How could anyone in their right mind vote for this?

        It's too late for that, friends. We were lulled into a coma by consumerism and drive through cofee.

        The catch word "woke" has become a dirty word, just like "liberal". But it doesn't matter, because most of us were not asleep, we foolishly believed that going into healthcare or education was the best way to fight what was coming. We knew. We saw it. We tried.

        And we failed.

        And so as a "Woke Liberal"  I would like to say that I was never asleep. I saw it. I voted against it every time. I went into education. I raised kind, thoughtful and resourceful children who create community in their lives. I have friends and colleagues who did the same.

        So how...HOW is the majority running this country cruel?

        I read Heather Delaney Reese, I follow Meidas Touch and Aaron Parnas.

        Before they arrived I was a BBC and Al Jazeera reader. I like straight news.  Politics Girl is in my heart, but she yells---and she should, nobody stop her---but I cannot take it right now. I need boring. I need facts without the volume at the moment.

        Where is Walter Cronkite?

        Remember when the news was boring?

        I was not raised by news-interested people. My family was entertainment oriented. I cannot speak to why this was. I can only patch together my experiences as a child,and it is likely they just accepted that the government was lying to them, but as long as they had jobs, why get wound up about the other side of the world?My mom bought People Magazine every week at the grocery store. I have no memory of the news being on. We watched Wonder Woman  and The Six Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman and Little House on the Prairie. And Roots.

        Wild, right? I was 10 or 11 (depending on which month it aired) and in elementary school but by god we watched Roots, and my mom was all up in it, disgusted by white southerners as only a person raised in Colorado can be. She had no real experience with that level of racism, even though she had lived through MLK marches and his assassination and school segregation. She just didn't associate that with her own lived experiences in DPS.

        As a kid in white suburban schools, I was hard pressed to say I had encountered any kids of color, ever. I did have a Mexican friend once. My choir teacher in elementry school was a woman of color. I loved her to the moon and back. I gave her lipstick for Christmas.

        I'm not off track, stay with me. My family was entertainment oriented but we did get the daily news. We were Rocky Mountain News subscribers because my mom said the Post was "too political". Which I now know was code for "Too Left" or "democratic". I now know, most Republicans were News readers in the 1970's and 80's. All I noted at the time was that if my friends' parents got the Post, their parents were college educated. This is a fact as observed by a child, don't even start with me. Data is data.

        My parents were not college educated.

        Facts are facts. Do with it what you will.

        If you track that data just casually, it equals republicans being unaware of or unwilling to engage in political discourse, or hear any ideas that are "left" of their own. If you track the data just casually, these same people prefer entertainment over news.

        Because Lynda Carter's boobs are more important than what really happened during the gas crisis. And rather than watch or listen to the boring news, my parents just joined the "Jimmy Carter is the worst president ever" club, only to switch gears later in life when it became clear what had actually occured, and Jimmy continued to live his life as a good and honest Christian, building houses and giving back. 

        And true to the mind set, my mom pretended she never disliked Jimmy. Apparently I made it up.

        This was a windy track, but a track. 

        I am educated. I lean left. I listen to other people, I do not shout them down. I am not my parents, who seemed largely dissinterested unless it was to belittle. My willingness to listen and learn created a person who can smell bullshit and has no patience with liars.

        I have always hated politicians. All of them. I thought I liked Ben Nighthorse Campbell back in the day, but then he switched sides.

        I have never voted for a winning presidential candidate. I voted against a candidate and the other guy won, but that was a vote against, not for.

        They all lie. Maybe they don't start out that way, but eventually they are corrupted.

        I hate that about myself, as it means even though I have voted in every election since 1984, I knew my vote didn't count. Yet I still voted and I see clearly who our representatives are.

        But I did it. And I didn't hate people who voted differently. Since 2016 I have a lot of concerns about how people vote, but I don't hate them for it. I honestly wish to know why, but when I ask, I get rhetoric and attacked for being a liberal. 

        Attacking is not an answer. It's hate.

        Yet they hate me. I had a relative call me a "communist" and tell me to move out of the US. Simply because I oppose the war in Iran. I wasn't even yelling, I was just stating my position as I am allowed to do as an American with free speech. You are allowed to state yours also,I did not come over to your wall and call you names.

        So I will keep going forward with love. I see you, I see why you make these choices and I believe you are harmful. But I don't hate you. I will not see how karma responds to your hate, but I believe it will do so.

        I accept that you hate me. 

        There is nothing I can do about it.

        But you aren't going to stop me from being positive and teaching others to love and listen and make up their own minds once they know the truth.

       Scene.

        

        

60 Years Are Too Many: Home HVAC

     13 Sept 2026

        At some point the "It's always me!" mantra becomes real.

       While I have no AC in 233 at work, my AC at home died on labor day.

       Just...turned itself off.

       Of course it did.

       The lovely company we use, Cooper, sent a tech on Thursday, between 11 and noon. So I had to take a sick day. Which, we've established previously, are few and precious. But somebody has to be here to let him in.

        Yes, the HVAC computer board has a fried element.

        He was able to reboot the system---I like to imagine he used jumper cables.

        But it's fried and we need a new one.

        We also have to buy a power surger to attach to it.

        Because it is highly likely all the rolling power outages are the cause of the board fritzing.

        It's not even a long story, not even worth telling.

        It'll cost about $1500 to get the whole thing fixed.

        So I got that going for me.

        

        

(FB)60 Years Are Too Many: Air Conditioners.

        13 Sept 2026

        Okay, Immma just drop you right in.

        Here were are in room 233, where all theatre is taught because the physical theatre is under renovation (Cue LSOH). 233 has no AC. There is a heating vent which I had to have disconnected last winter due to heat induced seizures among my MI/S students.

        The AP solution was to move my fourth period to different rooms, looking for one with AC---apparently, it's splotchy and there is no map alerting the building manager to which rooms actually have AC in the first place, let alone noting if it's connected. Not all classes have an AC register, which to me means central air, but I'm not a professional HVAC person, so, whatever. The building was finished in 1965 and I don't want to think about everything that has been "updated" and patched together over the years.

        After shuffling room numbers,I decided to stay in 233. With the blinds drawn, the ceiling fans and four other fans, it's not horrible. It's not great, but it's better than schlepping special needs kids to the third floor for their fourth period class, which is usually just down the hall.

        The MI/S center teacher across the hall from me has the exact same issue. No AC. However, she cannot move rooms because her room, like mine, is a double wide, and unlike mine she has the big private bathroom, kitchen, sink, fridge and washer/dryer.  These are things I dream of for stagecraft, but she needs. She can't move. So she and I have been blanket complaining to all admin since we entered the building in August. She got a massive rolling swamp cooler that stands in the hall because it won't go through the door, that helps as much as my fans.

        Last week, we each received rollling AC units with the words RENT ME helpfully stickered on the side. We were not told we were getting them. No email. No Meeting. District maintenence just showed up and plugged them in, regardless of our access to heavy duty extension cords (none). I had to cobble together two power strips, one of which may be a survivor of their first generation. The "reset" button doesn't even light up.

        We will return to this topic in a moment. First, I must address Where Did These Come From?

        Since Nobody Communicates At All among admin, my neighbor and I just accepted the units and figured out how to manage them. During my walk through eval on Wednesday, the very AP who has been schlepping me from room to room, sat near the AC unit looking surprised. 

        Friday morning, during my PLT meeting with my department chair who is also my evaluator (they're evaluating two by two now I guess), told me the AP thought I bought the AC unit for the class.

        Educator friends, you are smiling and rolling your eyes because YEP, of course she had no idea.

        My SLT also had no idea where the AC unit had come from. 

        Then the choir teacher piped up. She shares a wing with our new transitions program---which is 18-21 SpEd for those not In The Know. She told us that the new teachers in that room also have no AC and also have the same heat induced seizure issues among their students. To which I loudly grunted DUH becuase those kids were my kids last year, and some of them are the reason the heat was disconnected last winter.

        Communication would be awesome.

        ANYWAY,these new teachers were not having any nonsense, and when they did not get any action from admin or one side of the district, they contacted Special Ed--unsure if it was the district or the state---directly. They demanded AC in All Special Needs classrooms----which includes mine--or legal issues would follow.

        Wow.

        These people are awesome. I've only met them in passing, but now that I know who they truly are, I will walk down there with Dutch Bros gift cards to thank them. 

        The mohawk in me respects the mohawk in you. Namaste.

        Now...plugging it in.

        District maintenence insisted on the north end of the room with the vent going through the window. I have many glorious, heavy duty extension cords downstairs in the theatre. Which is closed. All I have in 233 are four power strips. 

        There is no way the AC unit power cord will even remotely reach the outlet on the north wall.They did not arrive with an extention cord, just a rolling AC unit. 

        So power strips it is.

        The first day, they AC flipped off one of the switches. It was definitely a first generation power strip, no light for the "reset" button. So I traded for a more recent strip that might hold on. I wish to point out that the only thing plugged into these strips is the AC unit. I have two outlets on the north wall: power strip daisy chain is plugged into one, my lamp in the other and the other outlet has a power strip with the TV, my computer and microwave.

        Friday all the power on the north end of my room blinked out.

        When all the power went out, it was clear it was not the strip. The whole north wall was dark. 

        Also the ceiling fans stopped. They're plugged into the east wall with a circulating fan, and they all flipped off.

        My flourescent lights and other outlets are on the south wall, those fans still worked.

        So my first move was to walk across the hall to see if my new AC twinsie colleague had power on her north wall. She did. 

        My neighbor on the south also had all their power.

        OK, good to know. It's only me.

        Ask anyone, ANYONE who has ever had to deal with me and either technology or power, and they will tell you I Am The Worst. It's always me.

        I emailed the building manager. About thirty minutes later he entered the classroom with a heavy duty power strip and a drill. I repeated what I had emailed--which boiled down to "I'm not an expert but this is not a power cord issue, this is a breaker". He declared "Ya, it's a breaker" and good thing he knows me 'cause I threw up my hands and said "Thank God you are here!" and he exited to flip it. He did not leave the yellow power strip.

        Everything popped back on, and he returned, smiled, my kids all applauded and he made his exit. 

        At the end of the day, when I unplugged the strip from the wall, the plug from the wall was too hot for me to touch.

       I am looking forward to Monday's adventure!

       Next up: I had to take Thursday off because the HVAC in my house went belly up!

        Scene.

60 Years Are Too Many: The Dog And Pony Show

     9 Sept 2026

        I have blisteringly clamored against the teacher evaluation process so frequently that even Shakespeare's line "I trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries" does not communicate the level of frustration I feel.

        Their favorite thing is to give you the elements they are looking for ahead of time, so you know to change everything you have planned so you can perform a dog and pony show for them.

        They give you "Look For's"- that I bellow loudly are "Gotchas"- which are great if you're doing That Thing the day they do the walk through.

        Today's case was the gotchas are all on baseline rituals in class; Cell phones, CLO posted, kids engaging in "discourse".

        I refused to do CLO's last year, 'cause I was ON STAGE where would you like me to post it? But in the classroom I have AV capability to show slides, so no excuse other than "But I don't wanna do it."

        We're in week three, I do not give a cell phone performance every class period. They get it and they comply.

        The "discourse" thing is annoying because...it's week THREE and sometimes I have to say things so they know what's going on, and there is nothing for them to discourse about.

        So if they land on a lecture day, or a work day, I'm done for.

        Today was supposed to be a research work day.

        They came to stagecraft. I've taught this class a few times in different buildings and my most successful class was the one that focused on the shows we were doing. It's practical application---I had to teach math and geometry to get them to understand set design, which they then built.

        But today, the theatre is dark. It's closed for renovation--as you know from the many verses we have sung together. So not only am I teaching stagecraft without a show, I'm doing it without a stage.

        This isn't new, I taught stagecraft online during COVID and found myself joyfully making kids dig through parental craft closets, recycling and kitchen ingredents--blood packs were a Big Hit. It wasn't ideal, but they showed up. A few even enrolled in theatre when we reopened.

        So I leaned into design, which is a lot of me talking and watching videos of set changes, quick costume changes, light angles and vocab. I recommend watching Legally Blonde the musical for this approach. 

        Then we read She Kills Monsters  using highlighters to  track their chosen tech needs. From there, we revisited vocab and began design conversations once we chose a theme on which to focus. Which would be discourse, but that was Tuesday.

        Today is Wednesday and they were supposed to be working on their morgues, which is screen time on chromebooks doing research into photography, art, opera, D&D and other productions. 

        This is a bad idea when admin wants to see them engaged in discourse.

        So I split tasks between groups, and did a warmup that imagined they had ten minutes to curtain. Set and lights had to figure out the new air conditioner, mask it in the window and troubleshoot why it keeps turning off (the old extention boxes I have daisy chained into my one outlet keep flipping off). Costumes had to stitch five buttons individually back onto five different shirts, and props had to go find five props the "actors" removed from the prop table.

        I thought it went great.

        I had nary a single kid who could stitch a button, but they know how to do it now.

        The costume crew won---they finished in seven and half minutes--so I gave them bubbles. Two of them gushed "Miss, you're my favorite teacher", which had nothing to do with teaching stagecraft and everything to do with soapy water and a wand.

         I haven't received my feedback, but let's go ahead and call what it will be:

        My CLO of "Ten Minutes To Curtain" was not wordsmithed in such a way that the prescribed vocabulary was included. Deduction.

        My kids did not "engage" in discourse, they collaborated to work together to problem solve. Deduction.

        The only phone out was mine. I took a photo of the prop table to give them for their search, but it never made it to my email box for printing. So I had to show them the photo on my phone. Deduction.

    It was delivered to my email at 11.33, which was an hour after the evaluation. I put it in the slideshow, 'cause my STL was looking at it, with the note "Received at 11.33". The only reason to do this was to be annoying.

    My kids talked to each other to determine what their biggest obstacle was and how they overcame it. Point.

     Then they dove into their research----which is surprisingly exciting for them, they are loving it---but that kills discourse. Deduction.

      One kid at a time used the restroom, but K disappeared for 20 minutes so I had to call culture team to ferret her out and send a second kid who was going to explode with a second pass. Only one kid can go at a time. Deduction.

       I praised them for being methodical and focused, as it's imperative that techies keep a level head at all times. Do not yell at the actor who took their prop to the bathroom and left it in the sink. Just go find it and dry it off. Point.

        I told a story of a kid in the room who stage managed both shows last year---a task we all refer to as "Building the plane while flying it". The second night of Odd Couple he kept a level head when the actors lost their way in the script and could not bread crumb their way out of it, so he made the quiet executve decision to just ring the doorbell so the next actor could enter. He was on headset, and told the ASM in the wing to place the actor behind the door and help her breathe and not panic, as it was pretty bad and most of the exposition explaining why she was at the door, was lost in the scrabble.

        And it was not made worse by J. He did not cry and run away from the board. He did not panic and turn off the lights, which would have triggered the actors and alerted the audience that something much bigger was wrong. He didn't hit the ringing telephone cue, as the actor who would answer was the one who was confused, and she would have said lines from a previous scene or worse, started a scene in the next act. Point.

        At this juncture I wish to again vociferate: performing arts do not fit your round holes. We are Proud Square Pegs. 

        It was not a masters class in anything new. All theatre teachers do this.

        It just felt nice to show the process to admin, because seeing two shows on the stage for the first time in years clearly was not enough to give this 24 year veteran a "pass" and say "Clearly, you are teaching The Things, the kids are on task and they must engage in discourse or how else would this get done?"

        UGH.

        I tried to attach said photo, alas it does not want to post here, either.

        Scene.

        

60 Years Are Too Many: Week Three

 

    5 Sept 2026

    I think it's either week three -two with kids-or week 73 of school.

    I had to take a sick day to take my mom to the doc. My district's sick days are ridiculous, they calculate how many you earned by the hours you've worked. It's not like previoius districts where they just hand you 12  sick days at the beginning of each year, and you spend them or they roll over. It's crappy.

    There is also no bereavement time, so when my dad died after I'd been in the building only two months and I had one day of sick time, that was just too bad for me.

    When this country finally burns down--I'll be dead, hopefully killed fighting on the right side of history--there needs to be tiers of sick time, or All The Sick Time and No Punishment. Just take as many paid sick days as you need for your sickness, your mom's Dr appointments, your childrens' illnesses and Dr appointments, your dad's death. Go. We aren't going to punish you for being human.

    Our Puritan ancestors were punitive Fuck Twats. Punishment only. No support. So Old Testament.   

    Allrighty. This Week In High School Theatre.

    Reminding all that I am still rebuilding a dark department. I managed a fall play and musical last year, but this fall we're closed for renovation---there's that LSOH song again. So. I'm teaching stagecraft without a stage, and Theatre 1 without...students. Scheduling 650 kids with every option is rough on performing arts. There's a choir with seven kids enrolled. I have five in second period and three in sixth period Theatre 1. If you combine them into one period, I'm no longer full time ---those of you who don't teach can hush up. I'm scraping by because I put up the first musical in several years. I can ride on that until the end of this year.

                     The Increasingly Annoying Tale Of No Air Conditioning.

    I have no theatre (see previous paragraph "renovation", then pause again to sing the song from LSOH), just a classroom on the second floor with no air conditioning. Not just "The district didn't turn on the AC" but literally, the heat register is heat only. It's been 95 almost every day for the last three weeks. My car said 102 when I left the building yesterday. I have ceiling fans, a box fan from home and two oscillating fans I liberated from choir and the dressing room. It's manageable with the windows open in the morning, but I have special needs kids fourth period with heat induced seizures.

    It's not manageable for them.

    In a building with 650 kids and- I'd be underestimating- at least ten empty classrooms, I cannot explain why it's so difficult to find another classroom for my kids with AC. But it is. 

    Last week I was in a room half the size of my theatre classroom, that had been untouched since Mr. Kotter quit teaching. They had to repair the AC. But there is no AV, no projector or way to screencast slides, which is what my kids were working on for their "What I Love" presentations. Bonus, I learned through the grapevine from a retired teacher that this room was not used due to aesbestos. Neat. This was the room they landed on after rolling 5 other room number possibilities, apparently none have AC.

    So Tuesday I will get the key to yet another third floor room, bigger with a projector, next to the art room. Allegedly with working AC. Unsure of aesbestos status.

    We are going into week three with kids and they're still shuffling rooms because apparently, once the AC was turned back on, there is no map of which rooms actually have it.

    I've only had one spike with the no cell phone policy, and she fell in line when I pulled the guilt card and told her I was in trouble for her trying to sneak her phone under the table. Guilt still works. Who knew?

           No More Folders Or Platforms OR Repeat Copy And Paste BS Please

    Ok. 

    I have LEAP, which is my evaluation platform. I have to create an SLO--which is data tracking---for one class based on the SLO. The class I track must have 10 students regularly attending to count. The SLO is a wordsmithed Student Learning Objective I must create for the year. I am judged on whether I accomplish the SLO. The class must have 10 regularly attending kids to qualify for data tracking. Yes, I said that twice.

    I had to track my MI/S (special needs) class last year because they were the only consistent 18 to show up. This year, I don't want to track them, because they are MI/S and do not fit any of the district bandmarks or state theatre standards. They're largely non verbal---I can't track projection growth. I fudged it last year by writing two plays for them to perform in the fall but...the theatre is closed this fall so...the only other possiblity -stagecraft--has 12 in it. They seem to be showing up, but nothing in that class really matches the theatre appendix I was given by the district. So I have to dig up my state standards and copy and paste whatever it says for stagecraft into the SLO document that I have to then attach to the LEAP platform. But first, I cannot figure out how to download my class list of names into the SLO document from IC. There is not a button. I think my STL (evaluator) did it for me last year.

    I have to post my emergency sub plans in a schoology page for the building.

    I have to take 15 district training modules.

    I have to post my assessment dates along with all my arts colleagues, in a document I can never find, buried in a folder I also cannot find. The assements are in my lesson plan slides and documents attached to my slides that I shared with my evaluators. The assessments have already changed three times, as my small class sizes eviscerated my summer planning for the classes, but there are words in the boxes. If they do a walk through and my kids are not doing the assessment they see written in the box, I guess I get...in trouble? Do I get to go home? Can I volunteer as tribute? I will let you know what happens, because I'm drowning in triple check "gotchas", and I will forget to change that specific box to match the altered lesson plan because I've already forgotten where it is.

    I have to write my daily classroom procuedures using the language from the appendix in yet another document, also located somewhere. I just copied and pasted from the appendix, which was attached, and could have easily been read by my AP. But I had to take the step to put it in the box because clicking on the attachment was too much for her?

    Even though we use "process" and "product" grade vernacular, I have to separate them out as "formative" and "summative" and repost them in other boxes in another document, even though in schoology it's "process" and "product".

    ALSO, schoology is where my grades are housed, but I have to push a button for them to passback to IC every night. I get in trouble if I don't do that, and I get in trouble when I ask why the stupid ass district isn't just using IC for everything, like every other district is.

    My gradebook is being checked weekly. If I don't have one process grade a week, I get a note. This is Not A Big Deal in theatre, as we perfrom in some capacity every Friday. But dude. You're gonna babysit my gradebook? I've been teaching 24 years, you've been teaching eight years and are the same age as my kid.

    I have to write a CLO on the board daily. This was a HUGE mohawk moment last year when I refused. I am IN THE THEATRE, where EXACTLY would you like me to post this bullshit? In protest I pasted a big piece of sticky butcher paper on the proskene wall with a generic CLO, which I was graded down for at every walk through. But now I'm in a classroom ---well, four periods anyway---with an AV cart TV and I can just put up the slide. I still refuse to wordsmith it to their liking, becuase it's stupid, and no CLO is going to change the fact that a kid was placed in class involuntarily and thinks theatre is gay, or didn't eat breakfast, or is going through social media withdrawl.

    I have to "internalize" my lesson plans on a document with columns that demand to know if I Did The Thing The Way They Wanted And How It Went. Fuck that. I'm already not doing it.

    I have to get on the slide show from the PD day that I missed to take my mom to the doctor and get the document with the three different New Exciting Innovative Approaches To Teaching and choose one to try in class, then fill in the box with what day I'm doing it so they can come watch. Nope.

    I promise that is not all of it, that's what I remember.

                                                     Legally Blonde

    I have to teach stagecraft without a stage, so I leaned into design. Which means watching Broadway productions to attach vocab to The Thing since I can't walk them backstage and point at a flat. So I used Legally Blonde the musical, because these kids have never seen any show, ever, and it's big and splashy and has all the vocab words.

    Then, my Theatre 1 classes turned out to be too small to play improv games, and I had to switch plans to a more History and Lit approach. While I did that, I made them watch Legally Blonde and choose a character to track. 

    Long story short -TOO LATE- I've watched Legally Blonde for two weeks.

    I can track every character's journey and relate it to the theme "Overcoming a stereotype". Even Warner, who overcomes nothing and remains a stereotype as the control in this experiment. 

    I watched it so many times, I started equating Elle's journey with AOC, hearing lines like "They laughed at me like they're laughing at you" and believing for a moment that NOBODY has ever thought of that before.  

    That moment extends, and I'm looking at the privilaged men attacking women who just want to be lawyers and the show's universal theme is actually a UNIVERSAL THEME and I wave my arms at the kids and ask questions to push them to connections. They're making them, they're just quiet because everything sucks and they're not white so the whole idea of a blonde women being the underdog takes them time to process.

    OH, which reminds me, my hispanic male colleague told me his students talk shit about what they're going to do if they see ICE and he said something really powerful that I wish to pass on. He told them "You have to be careful, white people are getting shot protecting you. ICE doesn't care." Friday there was a Colorado school ICE walkout, but I have no idea if any of my kids attended. I think one did, he wasn't in sixth period. I didn't even know about it. Yet teachers are 100% indoctrinating Anti ICE feelings according to many right wing social media trolls. 

    UGH.

    I have said for years it will be the bullshit that makes me quit teaching.

    Platforms, more paperwork and forced reflections, forcing me to try your new exciting innovation that DOES NOT FIT IN PERFORMING ARTS but I have to sacrifice a class to try it in front of you, only for you to realize it doesn't work and for you to say you have no ideas about how to make it work, so I just lost a day of instruction for you to not even admit that you have No Idea How To Teach Theatre.

    So Leave Me Alone.

    Scene.

    

    

    

60 Years Are Too Many: Mom's Dr. Appt

     3 Sept 2026

    Gloria Steinem died. 

    I still am not getting my "Title One Incentive" pay or my  stipend, so my checks are not just short because my insurance is more than my COL raise and gas and grocery prices have shot upward, but short because I'm not being paid what I'm supposed to be getting paid.

    Just filling you in so you don't think I've turned the corner and am now Dolly Pardon level positive.

    My Mom's Appointment Story:

    I arrived at 10.35. She wanted me at her house for pick up by 10.45 for an 11 am check in, the appointment was for 11.20.

    She knew I was there to take her to the Doc. She said she was "worse than usual" and couldn't remember anything and felt dizzy.

    Five minutes later, she said she didn't know why we were going to the Dr. I said "I'm not sure, either, I think it's a follow up to your Psych and memory appointments." 

    She pulled out a yellow sticky note from her purse that said MEMORY.

    She laughed.

    She then pulled out two more notes on St. Jude Stationary with lists of words: "pancreas", "prednesone", "back pain", and "weight loss".

    I found a receipt for Great Cuts on her counter. "Mom, you have a grandchild who is a hairdresser, they've offered to cut your hair repeatedly."

    "What?"

    "Why'd you pay for a haircut, Noa will do it. They're a hairdresser."

    "Who?"

    "Genoa. You have a grandchild who is a hairdresser."

    "I do?"

     Ok.

    As we waited in the lobby, mom shared with me that she had "researched" her symptoms and concluded she has some random wasting disease. I said "Please do not tell the doctor you self diagnosed on the internet." 

     When we were escorted to the room, the nurse asked why she was there. She pulled out the blue St. Jude's notes and started reading. I interrupted "Mom, I think this is your memory follow up". The nurse smiled and listened to her list, everything but "pancreas". Mom then dropped the wasting disease diagnoses and I just slapped my hand to my head. The nurse smiled and took her blood pressure.

    I was recording for my sister so we have the info, but I don't know how to use voice recordings on my phone, I just use video. This is a problem in a doctor's office, so the kind nurse helped the geriatric child of the geriatric patient by downloading voice memos onto my phone.

    When the doctor arrived, she asked how mom was doing. Mom began to read her St. Jude notes. The young doctor -who is clearly a very kind human and who is used to answering the same questions ad nauseum from mom, let her finish before saying "We're here for your memory follow up." Mom looked at her, then back at her notes.  She read "Weight loss" and the Doc laughed. "We talk about this every time you're here. You've gained three pounds since your last visit. You're losing weight because you are forgetting to eat."

    The next one was her back pain, which the Doc pointed out was an issue three weeks ago and was likely a pulled muscle, as mom still works in her garden. Mom asked about renewing the prescription for prednesone and was shut down.  Nope. They don't do that with that med. "Would you like to schedule a physical therapy appointment? Would you like them to come to the house?"

    "Yes."

   "Great, we're here for your memory follow up."

    Mom looked at her notes. The Doc prompted her to look up. "Do you understand?" 

    Silence.

    "Mom, you're here for your memory appointment. You gained weight because you're remembering to eat. The back pain is from the gardening." She looked up and nodded.

    This is where the bomb got dropped and mom wouldn't look up from her notes unless I forced her to.

    She now has a working Alzheimers diagnoses. 

    For a woman who has been complaining that she cannot remember anything, she was improbably shocked.

    I sat there listening to the litany of tests they've run, trying to figure out how she has Kaiser at the age of 81---shouldn't it be Medicare? Is Kaiser part of Medicare? CT scans, MRI's, psych appoinment, upcoming referral to neurology, a cacophany of follow ups and other appointments for her additional physical ailments--I tuned out to wonder about insurance.

    She can still drive as long as one of us is with her and it's a known location.  She needs to remember to eat. She needs to go outside more than just gardening and try to walk, she's unsteady but she needs to do it. She loves word searches which is a great thing for her brain. Nothing, really, is changing. A care team will reach out to us to talk about strategies and she has to see the neurologist to make sure Parkinsons isn't riding shotgun with Alzheimers.

    Nothing, really, is changing. 

    Except what the diagnoses is doing to her mental health.

    She was really committed to the Cachexia self diagnoses.

    My mom is a control freak. I will pause while you loudly roll your eyes because kryssi is a control freak and there are no surprises here.

    So when mom decides she has A Thing, she has A Thing and nobody's changing her mind.

    She asked again about prednasone.

    She again said her back hurts.

    She again brought up the weight loss. She was hyper focused on her St. Jude notes.

    The Doc asked again if there were any questions. Mom was buried in her notes, where she had written "pancreas". She was convinced her back pain was her pancreas, but of all the words on her blue note, this was the only one she did not say outloud.

    Mom didn't take physiology, and I'm not saying jack about jack, because she'll forget, anyway.

    So I decided the Doc needed a good parting shot and said "Mom, you wanted to know where your pancreas is." The Doc looked at me and I explained that my grandmother died of pancreatic cancer at 63. So that's where mom's head is.

    She explained where the pancreas is located, and walked mom through what the symptoms would be. 

    Since your pancreas is on the front of your body, there would be no back pain.

    The Doc left and the nurse re- entered to give mom a flu shot and set a three month check in appointment.

     All done, we went to the Wendy's drivethrough to get her a vanilla frosty and burger. I struggled with the robot voice enough that a human finally took over. Mom didn't want a combo and the robot wouldn't let us out of it. The human understood. Once back at her house, she sat with her head in her hands. "I can't hear and I can't see and I can't think I can't live!"

    I'm no good at bedside stuff, especially right now. I congratulated her on remembering where to return her handicap placard when we got in the house, and she said "Whoooopeeee!" and I shrugged. I thought it was funny, and that's all I have.

    Because this sucks. She didn't have to go through this with her parents. Grandma died at 63 and I am unsure if grandpa made it to 70. Neither really had memory issues---they were both raging alcoholics so even if there were any, it's unlikely anyone noticed, as they frequently spewed word salad. So there is nothing on which to anchor her experience, either for good or bad.

    This sucks.

    Nobody wants to lose their mind.

    So I listened to her, and answered a few repeat questions while she slowly spooned her frosty. She asked me five times why I didn't buy myself a burger. There is no way I'm telling my mom the real reason --- I fear poison meat---so I told her I stopped eating fast food.

     I told her five times.

     She seemed to relax a bit and at least stopped looking shell shocked. So I asked about her friends, and church. She asked about the kids and Jim--who she now remembered, so the frosty must be magical medicine--and then decided she was tired and needed a nap.

     Which is where I left her. Feeling a bit more positive and ready for a nap.

     Until she wakes up and remembers the diagnoses...

     This Sucks.