#this post will most definitely implode

[hithertokt]

When you have to wake him up from a dead sleep and your boyfriend picks you up from the bars at three a.m. because you and your friends missed the last bus home and he says okay I'll be there and gives you zero shit.

[hithertokt]

He was a good kid. Last Thursday night, whatever he was doing, whatever happened, however it went down, he was a damn good kid.

When I was in grad school and he was in high school, he lived only a few metro stops away; he needed a safe space away from home sometimes. My younger brother and I, roommates at the time, gave him that space. We grew up together. It was a no-brainer.

I found a video in my computer's recycling bin after I'd dropped him off back home once -- like the good cousin I am, I snooped. It was him, rapping -- I guess he wrote and performed it while I was at school and I was gleeful about it. I couldn't wait to tease him. It was really cute.

This is my favorite part:

This is my statement, see what I’m about, life is a highway and I’m taking the wrong route. Maybe it’s the right one and I just don’t see. If I could be a better man, shit I would be. Not to mention, good intentions, I try to make lemonade but life ain’t give me lemons. Yeah it’s the truth, but what am I supposed to do thanks to my youth?

The irony here is that life gave him plenty of lemons. It wasn't the best hand ever dealt; I just wish he had had time to figure out how to turn it into something good. Or that the universe had given him time to realize how much agency he really had.

Thanks to his youth, indeed. Who decided the prefrontal cortex doesn't fully develop until you're well past twenty anyway? Damnit.

[Shoulda, coulda, woulda..]

[hithertokt]

benotprouddeath replied to your post: A switch (of sorts).

Same co-teacher you struggled with last year or different?

And honestly: who tells kids that they better be sure to get higher than a 64.5 because a 64.4 isn't passing? I mean, hello, high expectations? But whatever. It was her lead, I guess, and I had things to do.

But always the positive: for all that I genuinely believe she's got more to improve as an educator than not (NTS: that was a terrible way to start a positive note), she is absolutely there for the kids, which isn't a bad place to start. And regardless of flow: by the end of class, kiddos had access to grades and struggling writers had completed work with me. Win-win.

[Inner (terrible) glee though: she's co-teaching with three other English teachers this year and 2/3 have already come up to me with 'How the heck did you deal with this all year' diatribes. Ha!]

[hithertokt]

[hithertokt]

So, I thought it was awkward for teachers to run into students outside of school.

But then I saw my gynecologist today at a gas station. Think about that one for a minute.

[hithertokt]

I have so much anger and hatred for the people that don't pick up their dog's shit.

Because my dog freakin' eats it, you asshats.

[hithertokt]

I think a Shakespeare Mad-Lib would be fun, but then I will constantly be thinking about that one time in college when we spent a whole evening drinking and filling out a Mad-Libs book with the word 'shit' and dying laughing and I couldn't feel my abs for days or rather I could but it was very painful.

[hithertokt]

whisper post to say that after twitter stalking my soccer girls, all who have acknowledged this morning's email are positively thrilled