Filed under: idiocy (other people's)
…or, I’m just not that funny.
Me: I’m going to Beijing. Maybe I’ll become a communist.
Co-worker: Really?
Me: Yeah. Alternatively, I might stand up in Tiannannmen Square and start sounding off about what a dick Mao is.
Co-worker: Oh, see, that’s not a good idea. In China, that can get you arrested.
Me: ….
Co-worker: No really, it can. You didn’t know that?
Me: Hi, welcome to the point, please enjoy your stay.
Co-worker: I don’t get it.
Me: Allright, I’ll feed you baby bird. I’m not going to tell you that I’m going to go to Tiannannmen square to take a few pictures, maybe drink a cup of coffee. That’s not FUNNY.
Co-worker: So you’d rather be arrested?
Me: facedesk.
My students, in their infinite brilliance, play this game where they make all the blood drain out of their hands. When they’ve got their hands sufficiently yellow and lifeless (and I’m sufficiently grossed out), they release the hand clenched around their wrist and squirm as all the blood goes rushing back into their fingers.
I’ve had this done to me by giggling girls. It’s quite painful and the rushing blood is, well, pretty disgusting.
Today, Frank was performing this on Martin, the biggest boy in the class. He’s also the loudest, and with every slap that Frank administered, Martin shrieked. Frank slapped harder, Martin shrieked louder, and I almost asked them if they needed handcuffs, or maybe some leather whips.
As I’m their teacher, however, that may have bordered on the vaguely inappropriate.
But then Frank, while stroking Martin’s arm with both hands to remove the blood, looked at me and said, “Teacher! Martin is very big, so I am hard!”
….
“Uh, (choke), class, could you please (wiping tears away madly in an effort not to laugh) pull out (turn around to the board in a ‘coughing fit’) pull out your grammar books?”
Filed under: idiocy (my own)
hey you know what sucks?
being interrupted in the middle of a wank by a phonecall from your father.
“Did I wake you up sweetie?”
“Nope.”
“Oh, you took a long time to get to the phone.”
“Yep”
“What are you up to?”
“I had to decide not to ignore the phone, turn off the vibrator, pull my pants up, and dash up the stairs I was in the shower.”
“Ah.”
This is similar to explaining why you missedyour nightly transcontinental phone call because you were too busy getting rug burn on your knees…….
Filed under: idiocy (my own)
It’s time, I think, to resign myself to a solitary life.
When I’m thirty, I’ll be one of those bitches in therapy blaming my mother for my emotional constipation. When that doesn’t work (or when I fuck my therapist, thinking that maybe he’ll call and he doesn’t and I have to leave therapy) I’ll end up with twelve cats, drinking wine and yelling at the tv. Eventually, I’ll start expecting Letterman to answer me when I yell, and from there it’s a short trip to the perma-robe and hairnet and the constant smell of dirty laundry. One day I’ll throw a bottle of wine at the tv and smash it, and instead of yelling at the tv, I’ll just be talking loudly and with erratic hand gestures to mysef.
You know, in case you thought I didn’t take things seriously enough.
bastards.
Well, I bit the bullet. I e-mailed the boy and asked him out. I said, in very clear language, that I had a really good time and that I’d like to see him again.
Some backstory: last week, against my better judgement, I went to the bar. Then, I met a boy, had sex, stayed up until five am, and didn’t get enough sleep before work.
At 4am, I was in his apartment. I came downstairs to see that he was wearing clothes (a massive shift in the balance of power, that) and checking his e-mail.
“Well, I guess I’ll go home,” I said.
He turned around. “Ok.”
What do you mean, ok? I thought. Can’t you tell that I want to stay? What’s wrong with you?
Boy: still taking me at face value.
Me: So I guess I’m being kicked out. Fine.
What have we learned? I have a university education. I’m a grown-up. I’m financially independent. I’m living quite successfully in a foreign country where I don’t know the language. I still can’t communicate in a functional manner.
Fast forward: I e-mailed him. It’s been six days since I didn’t sleep over.
I can hear you saying, “But, you’re a theatre major! Aren’t you trained to be passive aggressive? To make things more complicated than they need to be? To create drama where there was none before?!”
Yes. Yes I am. I am very, very good at all of the above (but, surprisingly, not the top of my class). I AM BREAKING FREE.
But if this bites me in the ass……I’m reverting.
Filed under: cultural differences, idiocy (other people's), moral outrage, students
One of my students just came back from two months in Canada. The first two things he came out with upon his return?
“This sucks!” and “You’re gay!”
siiiigggghhhh.
“Jackson, I’d really like it if you didn’t call people gay in my classroom.”
“Why?” (really? we’re going to have this lesson? really?)
“Do you know what it means?”
“Yeah. Guys who are boyfriends.” (from the front of the classroom: “ew!”)
“What do you think about that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t care.”
“Me neither. That’s why I don’t think you should use it to insult people.”
“What?”
“Well, lots of my friends are gay. There’s nothing wrong with it. So it’s mean to use it when you mean ’stupid’, and I don’t want you to anymore.”
“k.”
The thing is, he doesn’t really know what it means. Yes yes, he can get out his dictionary and he knows that gay means two men who are boyfriends. But he doesn’t have the cultural background that makes that an insult. He’s just parrotting what he heard on a playground in Welland.
I don’t know what’s worse: people who say these things with intention, or the fact that it’s become so much a part of our language that it transfers so easily, even without the intention. It transfered into a culture where they don’t even really acknowledge the existence of gays, where the gay community is invisible. Chances are, this kid probably hasn’t ever had any contact with a gay man, and he doesn’t give a shit about either his use of the word or my distaste when he does. And yet, there it is: hatred transfered.
“Wait!” he shouted as I left the bar. I turned around. He was running out the door after me.
I drank slightly more that night than I usually do. I definitely indulged myself.
“You’re going to leave without saying goodbye?”
Yeah, I was leaving without saying goodbye. We danced before going back to our friends. I didn’t even know the guys’ name (not that I hadn’t asked – but the music was loud and I only said ‘pardon’ three times before nodding).
“Hey! Give me your number!”
I turned around. “Give me your number, PLEASE!” I said.
My friends, holding the elevator open for me, lost it.
I don’t remember how it started, or what the context was. I was being silly with my kids, and we had progressed (degressed?) to the point of meaningless noises and grunts.
Which, really, isn’t that different from the conversation, sometimes.
I was shouting, hitting my hand over my mouth – the “ah-ah-ah!” you heard so often as a child.
One of my students looked at me, and suddenly, his face lit up. He reached below his desk, pulled out his imaginary gun, and took aim.
“Bang! Bang! Now you’re dead, you Indian!”
