Post Script to Gang Posting

I was chided by the security guards at my school today (well, two of them and the attendance secretary) for questioning why a Crip student would come to our school (and stay). It went down like this:

Everyone standing at the timeclock and reading the list of seven new students who are now in in-school suspension for a fight (this is the FIFTH day of school).

One security guard, who has been around a while, says, "Oh, (student name), she's a character."

Newer security guard, "Yeah, I have already heard of her."

Older security guard, "Yeah, she's Crip."

Me: "What's she doing at our school if she's a Crip?" (kinda joking, but not really because it's pretty public knowledge that we're a Blood school)

Attendance secretary: "Now Ms. (my name), you can't say that. We don't discriminate. FREE public education for ALL! We take everyone!" (her voice is serious, but she's also smiling and winking at me)

Me: "But seriously, why would (student name) stay here?"

Security guards laughing. We part ways.

I still don't get why a Crip student would stay in a predominately Blood school...Anyone else?

(Photo from hospital chair in hospital where Alexandra was born.)

Marital Disputes

Every marriage has its issues, and ours is not without an entire catalog of them ranging from the small to the "I'm divorcing you!" variety. Lately some small marital disputes have been making me giggle and reminding me to be thankful that I have such a great partner in crime. Probably a good thing to dwell on before baby #2 comes and our lives enter the perpetual spin cycle of insanity that children bring to a marriage. Here are a couple funny-haha marital disputes:

COMPOSTING--I hate composting. I am a bad person, I know this, and I really don't give a rip about the tons of organic waste I toss into the garbage for the NYC Dept of Sanitation to haul to the landfill to live happily ever after. I hate composting b/c the compost never gets taken out and turns into a stew-y, smell-y mess in the compost container which then inevitably gets the funk and smells up the kitchen. Adam adores composting. He feels so green and happy and takes baby girl out back to open the festering composter full of maggots and fruit flies and I can see the glee in his eyes. BUT, Adam does not really take out the compost with any regularity, so I have stopped composting. We are at war. He thinks I'm horrid. I don't care. Marital dispute.

BUG KILLING--Bugs. . .If they let me see them, they are dead. I am a serious bug terminator. I have been known to linger in the hallway of our apt with a fly swatter and kill no less than 30 mosquitos in one bloodbath. I get great zeal from this. Adam wants all bugs to go to heaven, and not by my murderous hand but by being "released" to the outside world where they will roam free and never enter our ground floor apartment again. Yeah, right. Those mother f***ers have got to die. I kill any/everything I see (except ladybugs--they're my one exception) and show no mercy. Baby girl is my baby terminator. This weekend we had an ant infestation and I taught her how to smack them with her bare hand. No punks here. The other morning Adam had her on the changing table and a spider was on the wall. He was about to educate her on how spiders are good bugs b/c they eat other bugs when she sat up, smacked it with her bare hand, and said with a beaming smile, "I killed it!" That's my girl.

The list goes on, but these two have been at the forefront lately. We literally argue over them, then look at each other and crack up. I just read somewhere that the key to a good marriage is to argue everyday. Check.

9th Grade Gangsters?

I am teaching 9th grade for the first time this year. Actually, it's not too bad. They came to school the first day more prepared than my 11th graders ever have (ex: notebooks and something to write with). They seem earnest, but they are definitely goofy, as in the kid who asked me if you pee on yourself when you give birth--to which I replied, "No, but you poop on yourself" and the whole class erupted in hysterics. Ha. Hope I provided some birth control with that one.

But on Friday I had them write a letter to their future graduating selves and I got one from a quiet kid in the back corner who has been hiding under a hoodie all week and is very reclusive. It reads (an edited version):

Dear (student name),
You idiot, you loved a girl but you let her go. Your dumbass self abandoned being with her just for a fracking gang. You idiot did being in that gang pay off? Your a low life, what's next? Your going to sell ola just for cash? You scum...

After high school you better get used to begging for money in Mexico because you'll never be any good...but damn...you really loved (girl name)...well to bad...you could never be with her even if she feels the same for you now because of the danger to her...that's what you get for getting with the Bloods....idiot.

(signed student name)

Shit. Already? Upperclassmen don't really tell you on the THIRD DAY OF SCHOOL that they're a Blood. You usually find out later from other students or from them if you become close to them--then you get their Blood family history. We are undeniably a Blood school, but I guess I never thought of these little 9th graders are already being inducted into these gangs...It really freaked me out. Why I am okay with a 16 year old being a Blood but not a 14 year old is beyond me.

So, on day three I had to xerox this letter and give it to the guidance counselor because, as corny as it sounds, it seemed like your prototypical "cry for help" from an "at risk youth." The assignment read, "I WILL BE READING THE LETTER SO DON'T PUT ANYTHING IN IT THAT YOU DON'T WANT ME TO SEE" and I emphasized that in the directions. And I got this.

How's that for first week excitement?
Poor kid.

Loan Consolidation is Bulls**t

My dear husband got some notice from our loan providers that he qualified for consolidation b/c he's made x number of payments on time, blah blah blah. it reduces his payments per month because of a lower interest rate, and every penny helps as we are about to enter of the world of paying double daycare. So I decided to call the loan folks to see if I could consolidate. Ugh.

First, I read all the info online and printed out all my loans from my two lenders. I studied the info. I could make no sense of it. Seriously. I needed to talk to someone, and I have ELEVEN years of higher education behind me. Wth?

Then I called Direct Loans and got a lady, we'll name her Sherry, on the phone. She had quite the chip on her shoulder and didn't laugh at any of my jokes. She accused me of giving her false info quite strongly once, and after about an hour on the phone (during which I broke a sweat), she broke it down to me like this:

Consolidation would = monthly payments of approx $300 for the next 25 years.
Currently loans = monthly payments of approx $550 for the next 8 years.

Why does consolidation look like a worse off deal? Granted, making our loan payments the next few years might = me selling a kidney or becoming a surrogate for some rich celebrity (actually, I think I'm too old now...), but do I really want to lock myself into a 25 year payment plan when I only have 8 years left of my current sitution?

Hellz no.
I don't get it.

School Metal Detector Frustration

Welcome back to school. . .You criminals!

I went into work yesterday to check on the status of my classroom. Not too bad. I xeroxed some stuff, covered and bordered my bulletin board, dusted, and organized my cabinet which will remain locked and untouchable until I come back from maternity leave. Sorry to the folks who'll have to use my classroom with no cabinet space. Sucks to be you.

But upon entering the front doors, amid comments on my lumbering belly and my due date, a metal detector was being assembled. I was astonished. Granted, I was not at work last semester (on sabbatical), but I had heard no buzz of us becoming a daily scanning school. I know we have quite a few instances of violent fights in our school, and police incidents, but really? Daily scanning? It just seems to take our school to a whole new level of criminality.

I know it's not 100% for guns and knives. I understand that it's to deter the students from bringing cell phones, Sidekicks, and other electronics to school, but anyone who's everyone knows that's total crap. The students know how to sneak their stuff in. Even my Assistant Principal's sweet 13 year old daughter--who is a good girl!--started detailing step-by-step how to get your cell phone through the metal detector. So, what's the point? Deterrent? Really?

In my academic pursuits, I have heard lots of horror stories via documented ethnographic studies of the criminalization of students by school security guards, school metal detectors, etc. In my own research, it was the school security whom the students reported has lacking respect for the student body--especially the male students--not other students, teachers, or administrators (and we honestly have a pretty stellar school security staff). I am not happy with this new situation.

But the worst part is that the students are no longer allowed to enter through the front door of the school. In order to be scanned, the students now have to enter through the back door. What a symbolic gesture. Why? They don't want to masses of students waiting to be scanned lingering in the front of the building and looking like criminals in our nice, yuppie neighborhood. That gets me, too. What message does that send to the kids? It just rings of Jim Crow...Messed up.

Sigh. Welcome back to the NYC Dept of Education.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Many of you who read my blog and know me also know that I was adopted. I have known this my whole life. I was adopted when I was 5 months old, which is actually pretty late for a White baby--even back in 1974--but they thought I had cystic fibrosis and my bio dad wouldn't sign the papers to release me, hence my late adoption date. My younger sister was adopted at 5 weeks old.

My whole life I wanted to find my biological parents. For some reason, I wanted to find my mom a lot more than my dad (I'm sure there's some psychological reason for this, but I have yet to dig it up with a therapist), so when I was 29 years old I contacted Catholic Charities and paid the fee to have some social worker try to find her via the information leftover in my file from 1974. She was found and we started writing letters, emails, she came to visit in June 2008, and she came with my half sister in April of 2009.

Finding my mom has been probably one of the best experiences in my life. It was grounding beyond explanation. I remember walking to the subway the day after she left in June 2008 and I just felt so.....settled. I can't really put words to my feelings, and unless you've been in my situation I don't think it's possible to fully explain the power that comes with having a biological connection with a person when your entire life the good and the bad of you had been explained by the statement, "She's adopted." She and I are very much alike, we resemble each other physically, and we effortlessly connected. It was incredible. I honestly love her, not as a mom, but as a person who had the courage to have me at 18, give me up, and reconnect with me 30 years later.

Well, I guess things with her were going so well I decided to tempt fate and find my bio dad. I had googled him when bio mom had given me his name, but nothing came up. One rainy February afternoon in 2008, as I watched Adam play with Alexandra on the floor of our apt, I thought I should try again. I got an address. I sent a very plain note. And Pandora's fucking box was opened.

From day one of our communication I sensed this was going to be a total shitstorm, and I honestly tried to be open-minded and see things from his perspective. But for over two years now, he has been nagging me, emailing me, calling me 12 times in one day, demanding more than I can give. When he gets mad at me, he sends me emails that say, "I am your dad" which, quite honestly, piss me off. My dad passed away 13 years ago, and the audacity of him to insist that he's my dad is just plain disrespectful to the memory of my father. We met--once--and I seriously had my oldest girlfriends come and check out the place to make sure he wouldn't throw Alexandra and I in the back of a van and try to "make up for the last 32 years" as he kept saying. I made them eat at the diner in a booth next to us and we had a code emergency word in case he started to get really weird and I felt I needed to escape. Evidence that he pretty much terrified me with his demands since email #1.

I have tried to set limits, he has agreed to follow them, and then he just can't. He is single. He is 55, just moved out of his mom's house 4 years ago, and is currently unemployed and has not much else to do but obsess over me and my family. He has no other kids. Can you see where this is going?

To conclude this whack-ass story, he wrote me another "get in touch with me" demanding email followed by another "i am YOUR dad" email to which I had to, AGAIN, ask him to please stop saying that and that I will get in touch when there's something to say (I had just emailed him LAST WEEK). To which he responded,

"how;s bout this lil bitch you got in touch with me,,,,,, i didnn't get with you,"

Well, that's what I needed to end this fucking charade. I wrote him, told him he had crossed a line and that we couldn't/shouldn't be in touch. Then I had to switch all my cyber identities (which were all registered under my real name, a name I like because it is so unique and transparent) so that he can't follow me and my life. I blocked his number from my cell phone and email. Unfortunately, he has my address, and quite honestly, I am scared. He has this 10 year gap in his history that Adam and I are pretty sure he served time for, but even when asked directly about it he never answered. Not that I think he'll come kill me, but I wouldn't put it past him to come up here and stalk me in person. I am jumpy, nervous, didn't sleep last night, and peering out my window. Right about now I'm about to call for some gang back up from my old students. No lie.

So, that's the long of the short, ladies and gentlemen. Be careful what you wish for. Sorry I had to redirect you all this this blog. Thankfully I was able to save all my content from old blog (only after hours of reading blogger directions!). I hope this can dissuade him and he can just let go. What a huge ass mistake I made.

I need a new therapist, ASAP.

(too) random

I was listening to a NPR show the other day about making your blog into a best-selling book, making your millions, and then living happily ever after. Seems the key is you must have a consistent theme in your blog--one big topic upon which you pontificate regularly (for example, Julie & Julia)--and then, voila! You've got a book deal. You've got a brownstone. You can afford to stay in New York, have babies, and pay off your college debt. Hallelujah!

But I can't do that. I have tried with my anonymous adoption blog that I have shared with some of you, but, as you can see, I just don't update it with the frequency that I do this blog. My life, mind, and existence is just too random. Call it ADD, call it multiple identities, call me a straight-up neurotic lady (all of which are true), but I just can't reduce myself down to one consistent strain of thought.

My many identities are constantly at battle: mama, breeder, teacher, doctoral candidate, activist(ish), wife, friend, adoptee, daughter, sister, New Yorker, etc etc etc, and not in that order....ever. The list just goes on and repeats itself like a spiral staircase. Some days I'm one more than another, and that's usually the topic of my post.

So, eff the book deal. I'm destined to be destitute (and hyperbolic) b/c I'm too random.

(the need to switch up my blog identity, etc, will be discussed in a further post once i can process it all a bit better...mama mia...)