Whaling

I have had an unfortunately extensive experience with Whales. 

Weirdly, for 4 years, I worked in a Wyland Gallery.  Know who Wyland is?  No?  That’s because he’s a douchetastic crust hole.  For example:  that picture you just clicked on?  It’s by his buddy, Jim Warren (another douche nozzle, but considerably less so).  Jim Warren and Wyland (yes, that’s his whole name, like Madonna, except, again, it’s a total fucktard we’re talking about.  His real name is “Bob”, btw) would come into the gallery every once in a while, high as shit (no, they never offered to share, selfish pricks) and point out all their “inside jokes” in the paintings.  Now look closely again at that piece-of-shit picture — Jim Warren etched a giant fucking boner in Wyland’s jeans.  Just for kicks. 

See what I mean about being a douchtastic crust hole? 

Anyway, the guy’s gimmick was whales, namely saving them … by painting them.  As life-sized as possible.  He did “whaling walls” (Yeah, I know…  Jews everywhere are so pleased this idiot is tooling around the planet), which were buildings crusted with his shitty whale art.  How did this help save the poor mammal beasties?  I don’t really know.  Maybe it got people to focus so hard on craptacular art that they failed to pursue a career in whaling…?     

Perhaps because of this lengthy and freakish employment opportunity, I have always, always, always refused to read Moby Dick.  I fucking hate Herman Melville, who had his head blitheringly far up his own ass, and who tragically created some execrable, unreadable literature which usually only doddering old male professors will foist on the young.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I get it — Moby Dick in 6 seconds:  the whale is god, we don’t always get along god, harpoons are pointy, and the coffin is symbolic and ironic.  Oh, and ”Call me Ishmael.”   That’s really all you need to know.  Hey, Sorcia, want to read some Melville, maybe Bartleby the Scrivner?  I’d prefer not to, asshole.

As luck would have it, I’m supposed to be tutoring Moby Cocksucker this summer, but again, I’d prefer not to.  So I’ve been printing out the sparknotes version and telling the kids my theory on how much Melville sucks balls in hell.  Now they all just think I’m unbalanced and furious all the time.  Meanwhile, the professor can’t believe how much vitriol these kids are spewing in class.         

I called my mother last night to complain about this hateful position, and she told me that when she read Moby Dick for a master’s class at Stetson, on the day of the exam for the literary atrocity, she stopped by Burger King for lunch on the way and ordered a (wait for it…) “Whaler” sandwich.  I know.  She amazes me, too.   

Now that’s irony. 

Further irony:  That Wyland gallery where I earned iron ducats at a thankless job is now a sushi restaurant.  I wouldn’t even lie about it. 

Save the Whales?  Fuck, no.  Let’s eat the fuckers! 

(I call dibs on the big white bastard named Moby.  I got a packet of tartar sauce with his name on it.)

Since You Asked

Best pick-up line of the summer school session (so far)?

“Anybody ever tell you you got a black girl body?  Tha’s right.  I said it.  Iss fo real, too.”

THEN, when I’d moved on, the same dude TEXTED ME:

“You ever had a black man?  Is ok — you can tell me later.”

The Pedophile’s Reading List

I shouldn’t be making fun of this, but, well, I will. Because I’m a bad person. And because I like to judge others.

One of the professor’s whose class I’m tutoring this summer has opted NOT to teach traditional British literature. Fuck off, old dead white guys. Milton, you can just suck it, you Puritanical bat-wing face. Shakespeare? Pfft. No one really likes you anyway, with your homoerotic sonnets.

Rather, he is teaching a class dedicated to children’s literature of the Victorian and Edwardian period. Well, sure, I mean, it’s not like he can justify a summer filled with Dr. Seuss, not even with a doctoral thesis behind him. But from the Victorian period? REALLY?! This was the era of British history when they covered up piano stools that looked too much like real legs because they were worried that sexually repressed young men would take to humping the furniture. It’s the era of arranged marriages and women being told to “Lie back and just think of England.” For the love of cheddar, they even threw poor old Oscar Wilde in the slammer for diddling guys — the poor bastard got hard time! In other words, it’s just not an era I readily think of as being accessible to children.

Here’s the reading list:

Lewis Caroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Look, kids! Writers like LSD, too!)
George MacDonald’s Fairy Tales (kids stabbing giant’s hearts, bitches who can’t stop laughing)
Kipling’s The Jungle Books (My students were all excited — they were just going to watch the Disney movie. No, no, I chuckled. That won’t help you AT ALL. There are no singing bears in this weighty tome!)
Selections from Wilde’s short stories (Yes, the same poor bastard tried and convicted of diddling)
J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan (maybe the creepiest depiction of idealized homo-socialism ever: Don’t grow up and get married — stay with your boys and play with swords forever.)

The girls in the class are charmed. They refer to everything as “pwecious.” The boys, however, are just fucking baffled. They didn’t get fairy tales the first go ’round — they were busy outdoors throwing smaller kids in garbage cans and stealing tire rims. You know, normal boy stuff.

One of them said, after throwing Alice down in exasperation: “Know what I think? I think this fucker [Lewis Caroll] wanted to get with little girls.”

From the mouths of babes.

I was also informed, sadly, during the course of this same conversation, that white people will never be able to speak “negro”… When I begged to differ, they promptly asked me, “Yeah? What does ’skeet skeet skeet’ mean?”

There was a pause as I considered the many definitions that popped into my head visually.

“Does it involve sports?” I ventured, going for another area where my expertise is limited, nay, nonexistent. I guess I was thinking of Skee Ball. They hooted for a few minutes, as I waited patiently. Then they said they didn’t want to tell me.

I got mad. “Listen, Chuckle-Faces. I spend an hour of my life every day explaining the hallucenigenic ravings of pedophiles to you, so the least you can do is tell me what one stupid term from ‘da hood’ means.” My use of ‘da hood’ got them going again so there was more waiting.

Finally they played me some horrible song where the term comes from — all I remember are the following lyrics:
“To the window/to the wall… til the sweat runs down my balls! (skeet skeet skeet)”

I stared at them blankly, all the more baffled because they showed me some wacked out version of the song utilizing the penguins from Happy Feet to sing this vulgar shit.

“So it means… something about your… balls?” I ventured timidly. They all exchanged glances and then one of them said, “Yeah, sort of.”

“Sort of means something about your balls? That’s a pretty broad topic, pal. That’s like being ’sort of’ pregnant or ’sort of’ retarded.”

“Oh, just tell her.” Turning to face me, “It’s cumming in a girl’s face.”

“That’s it?! I thought it meant some seriously crazy shit!” I exclaimed.

Now they’re staring at me.

“Man, we gotta hang out some night,” Finally one of them said, approvingly.

Now, in retropect, “Skee Ball” doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

Why is everyone fucking with me this week?!

Or maybe it’s just my whole life and now I suddenly have time to notice that people are fucking with me.

Because I haven’t worked at the University for a year, I haven’t (obviously) accessed my university email, time card, et al. I was busy teaching devil children (see: the longest year of my life). So naturally, when I started tutoring there this week, I needed this information all over again. You’d assume that this information would be a pleasant phone call away. You’d be wrong.

I call our tech dept., and politely ask to access my account. Here is the actual conversation, as best I can recall it:

Me: Hi, I don’t know my username or password, but I work for the school, so I need to access my timecard now.
Tech Guy: Ok, just give me your university email address.
Me: Um, you can’t get your email without your username and password.
[During the pause, I'm forced to wonder, is he just figuring out the whole university tech system, like right now?! Or is he downloading plans to build a miniature Deathstar in his living room?]
Tech Guy: (huffily) You can’t remember your email?
Me: Dude, it’s been a year. I barely remember to put on a bra every morning [I laugh, trying the old Sorcia McNasty charm. FAIL]
TG: You work at the school?
Me: Uh, yes. Why else would I…?
TG: Fine, fine. What’s your employee ID number?
Me: Well, let’s see. I cannot apply for an employee ID card until I can access my account, and until I can access that homepage, I have no clue what my employee ID number might be. They forgot to tattoo it to my hand at orientation.
TG: What?
Me: Nope, don’t have it.
TG: [I swear to God, the following is exactly how he phrased this:] Do you know your last name?
Me: Really?
[a pause -- he's waiting, or maybe the download of his dick enlarging prescription is taking longer than he wished. Finally, I spell my last name for him. Carefully. Slowly.]
Me: [while he's slowly typing in my last name] Do I need to come down there?! Like with my regular ID?
TG: [completely ignores me] Oh, here you are. Here’s your employee number/username/password.
Me: All you had to get was my last name?!
TG: [really snotty, now -- clearly, this guy does not like being interrupted from his busy day of zit popping, Bejweled-playing and downloading excrement from teh interwebs] Well, not if you’d had your ID number!
Me: Would you have just given out all that personal information to ANY nutcase who called you up and spelled out my last name?!
TG: Oh.
Me: Yeah.
TG: Anything else you need?
Me: Yes. A hot spoon. In your eyeball.

Also, for reasons that I fail to fathom, I have been assigned to tutoring Japanese literature. Now, at first, I thought (probably like you are right now) that Japanese literature would be a breezy five-week foray into sushi, the finer points of Anime and maybe we’d read Memoirs of a Geisha. Instead, we’re reading the interminable The Makioka Sisters by some douche who didn’t even have the decency to commit hara kiri before the end. It’s 500 pages of three Japanese girls thinking about maybe talking to each other. Between endless attempted marriages for the poor middle sister (”Yukiko:” a name very cute for the first 50 pages), the unwanted ‘83 Chrysler LeBaron of the family. The last line sort of sums up the whole novel:

“Yukiko’s diarrhea persisted through the twenty-sixth, and was a problem on the train to Tokyo.”

Yeah, much like the author’s diarrhea of the mouth, which persisted for 520 pages and was a problem to teach to normal, male college football players.

Dear Asshats at the Movie Theater,

We don’t know each other, but I feel pretty comfortable in writing you since you felt comfortable enough to spend the full 25 minutes before the film/during the previews/throughout the opening credits howling maniacally into your cell phone over banter that might only be witty to a mentally challenged four-year-old.  He didn’t like your shoes on your last date?  It’s probably because they didn’t sufficiently draw attention away from your gopher face and Mickey Mouse-inspired hair balls, precariously and deviously perched on your head as to obstruct the viewers behind you in the theater. 

Also, I don’t feel it was entirely necessary, lady-to-the-right-of-us, for you to douse yourself in Emeraude perfume, last popular on old dowagers in 19-dickity-2.  Did you not notice that FOUR people consciously moved away from you, two of whom were forced to breathe through Kleenex and gasp out their breaths like dying fish?  For God’s sake, one Jessica-Tandy-look-a-like was on oxygen!  A child had to throw the popcorn away because each nibble apparently tasted like Grandma’s underboob, thanks to you.  Grow some fucking pride, lady, and don’t leave the house smelling like an outdated medicine cabinet.     

Fuck-nuts who come into the theater late:  It’s bad enough that you feel the need to spend 10 minutes staring blindly, mole-like up at the seats, blocking everyone’s view, worse still when the whole theater realizes that you and your hillbilly-sized in-bred clan are wearing either janky flip-flops or small ham radios on your feet, due to the noise generated when you tromp up the stairs, only to wedge yourselves as close to us as humanly possible, never mind that there are plenty of other seats.  Clearly, you were drawn, like moths to the bug zapper, to our vibes of hatred, emanating towards you in a dark cloud of silent, impotent fury.

Hey, I know what it’s like having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the movie.  It sucks.  But you can alleviate this suckage from the lives around you by not prancing across our line of vision, stopping halfway, calling out and receiving drink orders from your assembled “friends” and then thudding down the stairs with the volume normally heard in a circus stampede. 

If I’m at an R-rated film on a Saturday night past 8 PM, there had better not be any infants or kids in that theater.  Not only is it against the rules (as it should be, frankly – there is just shit kids don’t need to see.  This blog is one of those things.  Another of those things?  Two-hour-long sessions of graphic violence, blood-letting and gore.  WTF, parents of America?!), but it will reasonably annoy the adult patrons around you when your kid is screaming, crying (both of these reasonable actions, since you’ve got them up past their bed time watching shit that should not even be on their peripheral until they’re smoking pot in high school or feeling up members of the opposite sex) and demanding to go outside the theater repeatedly.  I assume your kid isn’t taking smoke breaks, so I am willing to bet they are hanging out in the arcade.  Well, then why the fuck don’t you plan a nice evening around mini-golf or some other family activity you can ALL enjoy?!  One with an arcade for all?  I know this is turning into a country of complete self-absorption, but try to be a tad less assholish than usual, hm?  At least when you’re in public? 

Finally, idiot devil children who feel the persistent need to hang out in the parking lot/box office area/entire concrete dimension around movie theater hooting wildly, booty dancing, and otherwise doing nothing interesting nor constructive.  Don’t you have some party to go and drink illegally obtained booze at?!  My high-schoolers always did, by God.Hell, go make some poor decisions (ones that don’t involve me, my car or my ability to go to a movie), get yourself pregnant and then learn the fun of trying to have an abortion in the South.  Or, better yet, go home and play a video game where you PRETEND to dance/play the guitar/get laid, etc.  But get the fuck out of my way in your sad attempts at “club clothes” while I’m trying to buy a ticket/get to my car/get the hell away from you and your Paris Hilton t-shirt.         

With behavior like this, I’m always astonished that Columbine-type events only take place in schools.  Really, were I to own/know how to use a gun, the movie theater or the mall would be the first place I’d feel the itchy trigger finger syndrome. 

But hopefully you’ll all get the message, one way or another.  For instance, next time you’re on your cell phone?  I get to exercise my God-given American right to sing The Battle Hymn of the Republic at top volume, hopefully right behind your head.  Perfumania employees, I’ve already bought a small canister of insect repellent.  Next time you nearly kill three old-people, you’re going to be sniffing Deet, in your blue hair possibly, for days.  You want to go to the bathroom and bring back a food order?  That’s cool – take your time.  But when you come back, loaded with snacks, unable to see your feet?   I will trip you.  Deliberately.  And then laugh.  Imbecilic parents who bring inappropriately-aged kids to R-rated films, beware.  I have a really good handle on profanity, and I’m not afraid to bellow it with Tourette-like explosions, making sure you get to answer some really tough questions on the way home tonight:  “Mommy, what’s a ‘cum guzzling gutter whore’?”  And finally, sad little high school drop-out-wannabes, if you continue coming to a movie theater NOT to watch movies but to instead booty dance and wear very little clothing in the parking lot, I will be forced to call up my own, capable, repressed, lonely-mountain-men high schooler pals and tell them where to find some very easy poon on a Saturday night.  Once you’ve been tossed in the back of their Dixie-pride pick-up truck, honey, you better know how to squeal like a pig.  Because where they’re taking you, no one will hear you scream, not even if you’re in a halter top.  Especially then.       

Thanks!

Concerned Citizen, Sorcia McNasty 

WTF North Carolina?!

Most of you have already heard about the fiasco with NC license plates:  a whole batch (about 10,000) were made up with the first three letters, “WTF.” 

Nice.

I was looking for these plates yesterday, trolling through my neighborhood grocery store.  I had my camera phone and wanted to put a picture of one on this blog.  Tragically this was not to be.  Also, I was in a rush.  I’d left my dog in the car.  Now, before you all go nuts and scream at me for leaving her in the car, I did go out of my way to park under the biggest, shadiest tree in the whole lot, albeit the one at the very furthest point of the store.  I also cracked the windows.  AND I was only in there for 7.5 minutes.  I checked.   

I didn’t find the plate.  Disappointed, I trudged into the store to buy birthday candles, a sack of onions and mozzarella cheese.  Unbelievably, I will need all these things for my husband’s birthday feast tomorrow night.  I was super sylin’ in my cut off jean shorts, a stained tank top, and make-up-less face framed by a sweaty ponytail.  Hey, it was Housewife Day.  I still had errands to run.

I’m hoofin’ it out to my ridiculously far-away car when I realize that I’m being followed.  Surreptitiously, I move my keys into my fist so that one is facing outwards like a weapon.  This way (as I was informed in a rather bizarre kick-boxing session AND once by the manager of my jewelry store) I can stab an attacker with the entire strength of my fist.  Preferably in the jugular.  Or the side of the skull.  Or the balls.  Whatever it easiest.  I briefly consider the bag of onions as a weapon, but realize tiredly that I don’t so much want to have to go back and buy another bag, having to hoof it all the way out again…  See?  I would be raped and killed because I’m LAZY. 

“Miss?  Oh, miss!”  Captain Crazy flags me down and I turn suspiciously, gripping the key even tighter.  I better have dropped a coupon or something, I think darkly as a nice-looking middle-aged man (think Dexter!!) approaches me. 

“Yes?”  I offer, planting my feet to better balance myself for the killing blow. 

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I saw you inside and I just thought you were so beautiful.  You’re a really beautiful… woman.”  [Note:  he did NOT say "young woman" which irrationally pissed me off]. 

“I’m also REALLY married.”  I don’t mean to snap, but really, I was all ready for a scene from Street Fighter and he gets all Hallmark on me.  I sort of want to stab him with my keys anyway.  Also, since I feel like I look like hell, I’m pretty sure this could all still be a lure to get me to go look at some kittens in his van or something.  I mean, who the hell says shit like that to women in parking lots?! 

He looks forlorn, and then maybe he catches sight of my white-knuckled keys and the ever-threatening bag of onions, because he takes a step back.

“I’m really sorry to have bothered you!”  He calls over his shoulder.

“Thank… you?!”  I call back freakishly.  I shrug, toss the groceries in the car where my dog is very glad to see me, and then glance back, just out of curiosity.

Not only is he driving a Mercedes, but his license plate?  Of course.  It starts with, “WTF”…     

Triumphant (?) Return

I am finally back!  After Vegas, I spent a week in Rehoboth Beach, DE with my brother.  So in order to go over my asinine behavior in order, we’ll start with Vegas…

I tried desperately to win a shirt from a place called O’Sheas — if you got a suited blackjack, you won a fabulous shirt with a creepy leprechaun on it emblazoned with the phrase, “I Got a BJ at O’Sheas!”  I thought it would make a good nightshirt.   

I ate enough sodium to choke a hamster.  For real.  There was not a single day that I didn’t eat 1 — 3 meals involving high-fat, high-sodium food.  But it was all delicious.  We ate at a place called the Golden Steer, where Frank Sinatra killed a man or some such, and it was honestly the best food I’ve ever had in my life.  This was assisted by the awesome martini I had before-hand, no doubt. 

My man rented us a cherry-red 2007 ‘vette to tool around in for the first couple of days.  I have to tell you, this kind of changed my life.  I’ve been belting out all the words in perfect time to Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” for years.  But I have to say, it made the Camry we got for the remainder of the trip kind of a downer. 

I got ridiculously drunk one day at the pool and managed to burn the backs of my legs on a huge, defunct mechanical bull they had set up in the pool area.  Yeah, just review that sentence really quick.  They have bikini bull riding on like Thursday nights or something, and I felt it was necessary to sit on the bull in the 115 degree heat for a picture.  Because I am retarded. 

We flew there and back first-class.  Which has officially ruined me for Coach.  Never again.

So we get home from Vegas and the dog is just ecstatic.  For one day.  One day when, incidentally, we have to wait around for the airport to deliever my husband’s luggage that they lost.  Didn’t get there until 1 AM.  Un-fucking-acceptable.  Then I washed my travel clothes, threw them BACK in the suitcase, and toodled off to Rehoboth.  The dog, apparently, was heart-broken.  I got back yesterday and she came outside, saw me unload the car, broke into a full gallop, cleared a bush and flew into my arms even though I was fully standing and she’s a 20 lb. rat terrier.  I think she actually cried.  Can dogs do that?  She couldn’t have had it too bad, though.  My husband even took her to his weekly poker night with him.  She was no doubt fed all kinds of pizza, wings and beer.  Which might explain why she vomitted copiously this morning.   

Anyway, Rehoboth was totally different after Vegas, and totally relaxing.  It’s amazing how relaxing the beach can be just after a week where each daily activitiy revolves around losing money and drinking.  My brother and I did just exactly as we pleased and spent lots of quality time on both beach and boardwalk, to say nothing of the cute actual town of Rehoboth.  You could stay there for months and not hit all the charming bistros, pubs and restaurants.

We did have one elderly long-time visitor of fair Rehboth warn us about being stuck in a bar with “all guys” (she accompanied this dire warning with the classic gay-limp-wrist flip… Wildly inappropriate!!).  We should have eagerly asked her where we could find such a bar. 

Within less than an hour of being in town, we noticed a rather inordinate number of the mentally handicapped — there must have been a Special Olympics or similar in the area.  However, I still felt put-out when, while on my cell phone to my husband, a surly retard took it upon himself to mock every work I was saying.  Where was his wrangler?!  Wrangle that tard, lady! 

(I know, I know…  But in my defense, who wants to be made fun of BY a retarded person?!)

One night we managed to shut a bar down and were then invited to an impromptu poker game by the owner of the largest, most successful restaurant in the area.  I’m sure he thought we were just a couple of rubes (note: my brother is, in fact, a poker rube), but it was only a $20 buy-in, so we trotted off to some woman’s apartment at 1 AM to play some Texas Hold ‘em.  The woman was very nice, and had the poker table all set up with chips, et al, and so we started playing.  The wealthy restaurant owner and his pal were out in an hour or two.  My brother and I ended up outlasting everyone except the female hostess.  After rounds and rounds, we finally agreed to split the pot.  HAH.  So we effortlessly won some cash and got free drinks in the process.  We still don’t know how we staggered home, though, at 4 AM, not even knowing where we were, really.  A secret skill found only in heavy alcohol comspumption, I suppose.  When I asked my brother how he played so well (he never even could get the chips straight; what color was worth what), he replied, “I dunno. I was just looking for pairs.”     

We had our own beach umbrella the first day, but a hearty wind picked it up and, torpedo-like, slammed it into a sleeping girl’s boobs.  She woke up, unharmed, and laughed it off.  Still.  It hit her hard enough to break one of the support rods (metal).  After that, we just paid to have the nice cabana boy set us up an umbrella each day.

Finally we dedicated one important day to eating boardwalk food and playing at the midway games.  We tried something terrible…  Bacon ice-cream.  Just take our word for it:  it’s like Bacos, mixed with vanilla and liquid smoke.  But the popcorn, lemonade and corn-dogs amply made up for our folly.  Our favorite game was called “Muffin Pan Alley” which we kept calling “Muffin Tin Junction” (or similar).  Also?  Skee-Ball?  Is FUCKING HARD.  Don’t laugh.  It is HARD.  And physically draining.

It was really hard to leave.  And this morning I got up, for the first time in two weeks and had no casino, no beach and no brother.  Ugh.  What the hell will I do with myself now?!  I guess I’ll go grocery shopping, since my husband bought exactly enough food to survive this week, consumed it, and now we’re living on mustard and icing. 

Thanks for missing me — it’s nice to be back if only for your bloggy adoration.               

Vegas, baby

Here’s the deal:  If we win millions of dollars next week in Vegas, I may never blog again.  I will be busy eating peeled grapes prepared for me by a handsome Swahili pool boy.  In the unlikely scenario that we do not win, I’ll be back to blogging at the end of June.  Now, the good news about my absence is that, knowing me as you do, I’m likely to get into lots of trouble on vacation.  This is always great for my blog traffic.  Soaring humiliations = terrific blog stats!!

For example, the last time I travelled to Vegas, I nearly set my bathing suit on fire with an apple matrini and a cigarette.*  The last time I was in Manhattan, I managed to get drunk and lay down in the card aisle of a drug store.  You can ask my brother: I actually calculate hangovers into my travel time.  It’s not that I’m an alcoholic (alcoholics go to meetings), more of just a clumsy, awkward drunk person who doesn’t get out of her small town very often. 

See you soon …  OR NOT…       

*  And by “apple martini” I mean, apple vodka, club soda and a slice of apple.  In a plastic sippy cup.  I’m not a fancy drunk. 

Misconceptions, indeed

I was at a used bookstore this weekend (tra la!  First time there in over a year that I wasn’t trying to buy a cheap class set of Merchant of Venice or similar) and they have a discount shelf and a free shelf.  These shelves often yield the best finds, and since the books are only a dollar, you can’t help but buy terrible tomes of non-literature. 

I picked up a book on this shelf called “Misconceptions:  Truth, Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood.”  I’m not trying to get knocked up (not any times soon), but I felt compelled to open the cover of this rather stridently titled work.  Inside was the following inscription:

“To Susan, to feed your mind while your body is avoiding ‘reason’! Love, Robbie”

What a fucker, man.  Ladies, would you be thrilled to get a book about pregnancy from ANY male in your life with that jaunty inscription? 

Yeesh. 

Love the used bookstore!!

Graduation

Naturally, we managed to host graduation on the hottest day, so far, of the entire year.  It was 105 on the track yesterday evening, when the kids stood around awkwardly sweating through the heavy graduation caps and gowns.  Because the bleachers face the sun, there was no shade for anyone in the audience.  Six people passed out or suffered heat stroke and had to be carried out by EMTs.  In fact, I feel that it was due to high temperatures that tempers flared and a fist-fight broke out between two men in the audience — one a father of a senior girl, one the new boyfriend of that same senior girl’s mom.  They had to be physically seperated and were arrested.  The poor girl was in tears, saying, “They always do this!  They ruin everything!”  The fight broke out in the midst of the kids getting their diplomas.

Otherwise, though, graduation managed to proceed.  I was seated next to the history teacher who grows his beard out to portray a soldier in Civil War re-enactments.  He still refers to the Civil War as ”The War of Northern Agression.”  He was wearing a striped seer-sucker suit and a hat usually seen on affluent southern gentlemen watching the Kentucky Derby.  Oh, but I would have KILLED for a mint julep yesterday!!  

Anyway, as promised, here is my graduation speech.  I was the only faculty member/speaker who got a standing ovation.      

 

“Well, I must say that it’s a bit scary seeing all my Devil Children all here in one place…  Luckily, I think those graduation caps hide your horns pretty well…

I know what you all want from me.  Oh, yes.  I know – I’ve had 90% of you in class with me, so I’m used to reading your minds:  You want this to be short.  Well, don’t worry.  This speech is just 53 sentences long, and I’ve just gotten through 6 of those sentences. 

You know, the first time I drove up here, I was like, “These kids live in a John Denver song!”  Of course, at that point, I’d never seen a canister of Dip, nor had any clue the differences (and yes, now I know there are MANY differences) between tractors, lawn-mowers, and ATVs.  I had no idea that I’d have to ask ya’ll to take things like fish hooks off your hats.  Or that most of my senior boys would be capable of welding my car doors shut, if they were so inclined.  Oh yes – I’ve seen many wild and wonderful new things since teaching here at this high school (Though I stand by my story that I NEVER saw ANY child of mine high-jack a lawn-mower from right outside my classroom window).  Hey, I’ve even kissed a pig.   

I gotta say, you all are a fun-loving bunch.  Watching you all just the past few weeks, when people keep asking you, “What are your plans for after graduation” – I know what you’re thinking: “I’m planning on the graduation party at the beach.”  I feel that this way of thinking only makes you all perfectly normal, if somewhat overly honest, teenagers.  Do you really think that Shakespeare was miserably grinding away in ye olde London computer lab, trying to get MacBeth written?  Of course not – he was having fun.  That’s why he includes a drunken porter and witches.  Don’t think that your ability to love life is a downfall.  You should be having fun – in fact, you should be figuring out how you’re going to have fun for the rest of your life.  Don’t worry if you haven’t figured out exactly what you want to do for the rest of your life; just be ready to be open to new opportunities and ideas.     

So I’m sure you are all tragically sad about graduating from high school – go ahead, let Mrs. McNasty hear how sad you are [pause for cheering].  I’m sure that there are a ton of things you’ll really miss once you’re out there in the “real world”: like, having to ask for a pass to use the bathroom.  Or the fabulous lunches.  And I know that none of MY devil children will ever again get in trouble for public displays of affection – I hope not, you know there are laws against that sort of thing.  But I hope that there are a few things you will actually miss.  I hope you’ll miss the good times, the good-humored mischief, the sense of accomplishment of this very moment.  And, selfishly, I hope you miss some of the stories from my English class.  I promise you, no one in the “real world” will ever volunteer to let you stop everything just to listen to a story.   

Now, all my kids know how dearly I love the stories of King Arthur – they know this because I’ve forced them, kicking and screaming, usually, to read so many of them.  I have always especially loved Merlin’s role in Arhtur’s life; teacher, friend and sage.  ‘The best thing for being sad,’ says Merlin in The Once and Future King, ‘is to learn something.  That is the only thing that never fails.  You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds.  There is only one thing for it then – to learn.  Learn why the world wags and what wags it.  That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.  Learning is the thing for you.’ 

Class of 2008, I would be lying to you if I said that you’d never face any sadness, nor any hurt in your adult lives to come.  But each and every one of you has been gifted with a fine education, some excellent experience in life’s lessons, and a community and school filled with people who love and cherish you all, who will be willing to help and support you for your whole adult life.  I once had a professor, the venerable Dr. Maya Angelou, tell us that:  “Because I’ve taught you, I now belong to you, for always.”  Myself and all of your teachers here may all now say the same:  We belong to you.  We are yours, for as long as we live.  For as long as we may be of use to you, we are here for you. 

But the truth is, I think we’ve prepared you to do pretty well on your own.  Just keep faith.  Believe in what lessons you’ve learned about yourselves these past four years.  Be kind to each other.  Try to always be prepared and on time (you never know when there might be a Reading Quiz).  Most of all, trust yourself to always take a step back and learn what the world has to offer you.  Learning doesn’t stop here, at this moment.  This moment is just the beginning – take a deep breath because you’ve got a whole lifetime of joy and sadness and life lessons ahead of you. 

On behalf of the entire faculty and staff of this high school, I wish you all the luck in the world, Class of ‘o8.  Congratulations.”