Hands-On Learning

This week I went to the SFMOMA with one of my favorite students. She's a third grader and the definition of precocious. It was her first time going to any museum EVER even though she had seen them on TV and stuff. For the sake of confidentiality- let's call her Ziona- her self-proclaimed alter ego.
I am going to break down our adventure into top 5 incidents:

Incident #1: On the way to the moma is a park called Yerba Buena gardens. It's really beautiful and has all sorts of water features. Ziona is in pure heaven. She's a total water baby, and is pulling out all her change to make wishes for Martin Luther King and I am going to assume, her father, who passed away 4 years ago. In defiance of all logic and celebration of all possibility- every wish she makes is about the resurrection of her father. I watch her tenderly and make a similar wish of my own.

Incident #2: We are still at Yerba Buena and Ziona is obsessed with the water. Sitting there serenely she sweeps the water with the tips of her fingers:
Z: This feels like Barack Obama's Handshake.
M: What do you mean?
Z: Cold.
M: How do you know Barack Obama's handshake is cold?
Z: No answer.

Incident #3: We get into the museum and it's like shooting a gun to commence a race. Ziona is OFF! and I am forced to walk way more briskly than my usual museum stroll. I catch up to her just in time to see that the first thing she does at the sight of art is go right up to that sucker and put her whole hand on it. Smack.
M: Oh uh, don't do that.
Z: Why not?
M: Um, cuz you're not supposed to, and.....(she's off again)
By the time I catch up with her she's getting yelled at by a docent because there's a pool table sculpture with very meticulously placed balls atop it and Ziona is reaching over to grab one. My need to explain the rules has passed and Ziona sulks for a mere two seconds, "I don't like that lady," and is Peuwh...off yet again.

Incident #4: There is a video featuring a man dressed in drag slowly moving about a white room and fondling a pearl between two white gloved fingers. After running in and out of the room roughly 13 times Ziona keeps returning to the video, making little comments like, "What is she DOING?" "That's a man." "OHHH a pearl!"
Me: You seem to really like this video.
Z: I just wanna keep watching it because it doesn't make sense.
M: Do you think it has meaning?
Z: No
M: What if it did have meaning? What would it be?
Z: Slow-motion
M: Like being patient?
Z: Yes.

Incident #5: Ziona wants a subway sandwich so we decide to leave. On our way to the car we encounter another water feature, different from the one in Yerba Buena. Within seconds she's got her hands in it.
M: Does this one feel like Barack Obama's handshake?
Z: No.
M: Why not?
Z: Too cold.
M: Oh.

Needless to say we had an excellent time. I don't think I saw any art that day, except of course, the art of being, which Ziona has flawlessly mastered. In the car ride back she asked me if diamonds really do come from Africa and we had a wonderful conversation about questioning leadership. "I love this," I thought and turned up some Justin Timberlake real loud for drive back home.

Friends Tell Friends...

...When they have something in their teeth, or on their face or hanging off their shoe. For years, I have had an overwhelming urge to tell strangers with babies slung all over them that they have something on their shirt, head, back, ankle... Like a piece of schmutz ketchup. I never actually say it. But I always think it. And damn if it doesn't crack me up. EVERY-SINGLE-TIME.

Dinner

Mama brought ducks
With their little heads cut off
Kept em in a separate Tupperware
From the carrots
She dumped em in the
Frying pan
Sparks of broken water
Shot out at her
Face and hands
Burning her skin.

She barely jumped back
Let her skin burn
Watching those dead ducks
Fry. Fry. Fry.
Burn. Burn. Burn.

Nobody said nothing
When we ate the
Carrots
And the duck.
Mama’s hands all
Bleeding onto the plate.

Excessive Mischief

Recently a student of mine was written up by her bus driver for spitting on another kid. I am hoping this was her attempt to experiment with what she has been learning about hedgehogs- that they spit on each other for over 20 minutes at a time (Nobody knows why!)- and not her determination to be bus bully of the month. In any case, when I received the written notice there was a section of boxes catagorizing the offense. There was, of course, the violence box, swearing, moving around, yelling, disregard for authority boxes: Typical stuff. But to my sort-of delight, my student's deviance had been marked EXCESSIVE MISCHIEF.

Ha. I thought, Excessive mischief. How poetic: Implying that a certain amount of mischief is acceptable, if not encouraged. That mischief is an inevitable and essential part of being. Heck, I remember throwing pop cans out of the bus when I was in grade school, bagels out of cars in high school, doing donuts on the quad in college. Mischief is a one of the thickest fibers of life, and I'd like to think that this write-up document whole-heartedly acknowledges this tried and true fact.

There is a line, however, between mischief and Excessive Mischief. Being mean, dangerous, and gross is exactly where that line exists and my student definitely crossed it. So I tied her up and stuck her in a cupboard for about twenty minutes, while blasting Sheri Lewis's Song That Never Ends through a set of headphones I taped to her head and am pretty sure she'll never do it again. Conditioning folks, it's all about conditioning.

She will be back on plain old type 1 mischief in no time, I trust, and hope that her endeavors are as full of the wonderous joys of youthful mischieviocity as hiding toxic fish sauce in the back seat of your friend Maya's car in order to get back at her from when she sprinkled your lawn with instant mash potatoes. But the second that shit gets excessive, it's all lamb-chop baby, and there's no turning back.

Party B = Movie Me

Ever drank copious amounts of whisky on a school bus adorned in latin regalia, with 30+ beautiful strangers, making you think you are in a diesal ad for jeans.

If the answer is yes then you have clearly been on a Mexican Party Bus.

No?

Life is short. Why are you reading this blog?

This past Saturday I attended my friend April's 30th b-day Party B. I now know what it is like to live in a movie. To be surper saturated, have my own personal sound track- "Apple Bottom Jeans, Boots with da Furrrr," and smile with my teeth.

The whole night was a rain soaked blur of Santa Clauses (SF's annual SantaCon), full moons, excessive chanting, BOOZE, juking, drunken intimations, r and b music and the obligatory karaoke throwdown, all dolled up in the magic of holiday lights and cheer. AKA a movie about being young. In essence it was this:


I don't know what it is about hipsters but they always have someone taking incredible pictures of themselves while drinking heavily and wearing red lipstick. When I saw the above picture, I was like- WHAT?! That's my life? A Christmas rom com in the city? Indie flick? Seasonal Sprint commercial? I love it.

Needless to say, beyond the glitz and glamour of Party B = Movie Me there is always the cold hard reality. Indeed it was me eating a Whopper at the bar, shortly before devouring a deepfried brautworst that, I eventually found out, had fallen on the floor. It was delicious. And Yes, I was smiling, down to the very last bite, teeth and all.

A Tale of Two Californias

It has been a marvelous week of VAY Freakin CATION. And without realizing it I had planned a tour de force of the sweet state of CALI Freakin FORNIA. Last Friday, after sprinting the hell out of school, I promptly hopped on a plane to LA.

LOW BROW

Yep, LA. It's the spot. I stayed with my friend Andrew, with whom I had once had a torrid international affair. It's always funny when people as us how we met- "One night stand in Vietnam." End of story. Except it really wasn't the end of the story because now we are bros.

Andrew lives in some town called Manhattan Beach. It's really hard for me to describe Manhattan beach because for the most part, I was either throwing up in the sand, getting an in-home massage by a small Asian woman, looking at the bottom of my martini glass, or vaguely watching college football. Bros.

Let's see, my summative assessment of LA- it's sunny as hell, classic low brow, vibrating with sexual energy, and is not too concerned with aesthetics. I liked it. Sort of. I'd have to not be so drunk and see a little bit more than the inside of my friends den of bro-ism to really give it a fair shake.

I did make it to Venice for a few hours. Loved it. So entertaining. A vibrant array of human tragedy and triumph: exactly how it looked on Baywatch and that basketball scene in American History X. So even though I didn't see any celebrities in the fleshy flesh, at least I knew they had once been there. Good enough for me.

HIGH TIDE

SO THEN, after a day back home in Oakland eating Chinese food in bed all day, I took off again for Humboldt County, a good 7 hour drive north up the coast.

The drive was thrilling including a few adrenaline pumped seconds when I accidentally turned off my headlights into the black abyss of the Redwood forests at 70 mph. Pitch. I'm pretty sure I died and am living an alternate thread of existence right now, which would explain why I can't find my hot pink sock.

My friend Stefanie and I arrived late into the night but just early enough to see a giant jar of the ganja innocently chillen on the table. You could really have done a circle dance around the thing. Naturally, all the housemates of Stefanie's friend Hoon, who so graciously hosted us, were getting ready to go to dancehall night in town square. What town am I in? At this point, I'm not sure. 24 hours later- I find out- It's Arcata. Sweet. We pile in a cab, which is driven by a teenage pirate, who told us we smelled like flour tortillas.

Arcata is on fire, and we go to some club banging out all the latest Ja Man, ganja tune bust-a-move-age, and I go buck on the dancefloor like it's prom night 2000.

Surveying the room, you would really think you were in Canada, which I really thought, and still kind of do think, is what's going on. Lots of white dreadlocks, semi-attractive people with an air of passive-aggression, and miles and miles of beard. I somehow got involved in a crazy couple's break up, got humped by the town gay, and drank red stripe. Yep, we were def the last to leave the bar. Lights on and everything.

Good ol thanksgiving. I am in physical pain, and there's a whole lot of lying around. I end up at the best T-Giving ever, which was at this reception hall place on the beach with 60 or so people of all ages, colors, and sizes. There's roughly one million dogs and apparently the majority of the attendants were from "The Farm," some hippie commune in Tennessee. I don't really know but I ate the shit out some Tofurkey. jk. That would never happen.

Today I saw the biggest trees of my life and a baby squirrel to boot. It was gorgeousness galoregeousness in the majestic Avenue of Giants, and I hitched for the first time ever. Now I'm getting reading to sit in a hot tub.

Nor Cal wins. LA- your vodka is free flowing.

California is not so much a state as it is a wonderful conflict of identity and I love it. God Bless this tale of two Calis.

Halloweenie

My little one's had a B-LAST at school on Friday for our Halloween festivities. I dressed up as Snow White, to which many wide eyed children looked at me with glossy-sugar induced amazement, "You are Snow White!" It was pretty cool, although I did want to strangle all of them by the end of the day. My little munchkin below also wanted to strangle me for making her take a picture.


I am still feeling the ramifications of Halloween, as the above pictured lil lady, is still terrified of the ghost that I may or may not have mentioned lives in our classroom. Yes, the ghost of a disobedient child. A disobedient child who was punished....TO DEATH!!!!!!BUAHH HA HA! Okay, fine, I may have gone a little over"kill!" on the ghost stories, but we had SO MUCH FUN and they just kept asking me to tell more!

Yesterday, the little girl was so terrified of "the ghost" that she refused to go out to recess. I stayed with her in the classroom, although I couldn't quite understand the logic of staying in there, since it was according to me, a "hotbed of paranormal activity." Anyways, after we played an unsuccessful game of set I told her all sorts of Happy Stories which she quite enjoyed. We were having a fabulous time attacking each others puppets when- SNAP! the lights turn off. You see there's a motion detector in my room that turns off the lights when motion is limited. Bad Timing- motion detector, Bad timing.

My poor student, of course, took this sudden light outage as evidence of the "hotbed of paranormal activity" and immediately burst into hysterical tears. I have never felt so guilty. SHeesh. Next year no ghost stories, flash light on face, scary looks or be good or die anecdotes- just good 'ol pumpkin seed necklaces and "Thriller" dance offs. But also- I mean, come on, she was a serious Halloweenie.