a row of human dominoes

January 25: The main speaker spent half an hour telling us how the day’s theme of “A Seat at the Table” is a metaphor. 
“What kind of table?” She asked. “The kitchen table? The periodic table? The table of contents?”

January 26: Her favorite thing in the world was people’s obsessions. The more time and money they spent on it, the more she was intrigued by what drew them to it. That’s why she loved Bigfoot believers so much. People who believe in Bigfoot never half-ass their faith. All the ones she had met in her life spent their weekends making petitions to section off parts of the woods as a Bigfoot preservation or opened museums they couldn’t afford to tell random motorists about the latest hair sample found deep in the forests of Nepal. 

She felt the same way about Sabrina’s belief in astrology. While Olivia couldn’t see how star placements could mold a person’s personality, she loved the way Sabrina looked when she talked about is. The way her eyes lit up and the curve of her smile could make her believe just enough to never voice her criticisms out loud.

January 27: Whenever I had a sore throat as a kid, I pictured it was a giant teeter totter of stone sitting where my collar bones joined together. It was made of the same red sandstone I saw in pictures of Arizona. One end dug into my vocal cords while the other side scraped the back of my throat. When I swallowed any food, the ends would tilt and grind against the soft cartilage of my Trachea. Then when the food went down, it would slam back to equilibrium.

January 28: Mr. Patel moved around everything in his classroom again. I’ve been in his room for two weeks and this is my third time making a new seating chart.

January 29: I set a time at the beginning of every Girl Power lesson to talk about issues that are on their minds. Milo brought up how much she dislikes being seen as bratty and uncapable because she is a girl. Celeste brought up how annoying it was that she saved up a ton of virtual money to buy a car in a video game, but it turns out she can only afford a bicycle.

January 30: In the year when I lived in San Diego and couldn’t get out of bed before three in the afternoon, Nick bought me a book about quarter-life crises. It was full of short essays of people describing their bouts with depression. I never read the entire book. Most of the people were terrible writers and their quick paragraphs all read the same way: things sucked for a while, but now they are better. But the book did help a lot. There were so many of these stories, sometimes even five of them were crammed onto one page. So many people went through this too and they are all still here to tell their stories.

January 31: We did trust falls in Girl Power today. It took about ten minutes for them to trust each other enough that the person falling didn’t take a tentative step backwards in case they were not caught. I turned around for a minute to get the supplies for our trust walk obstacle course when they decided to try a trust fall line. Seven girls lined up and all fell onto the person behind them. It did not work out they way they thought it would. They were just a row of human dominoes.



much love,
hedgie

start a podcast together about labor unions

January 18: She remembered the candy store most of all. Right by the door was a pile of blue-striped plastic bags to hold the pounds of candy her parents scooped for her from the barrels that were larger than she was. She would excitedly run from barrel to barrel, pointing at saltwater taffy, Warheads, and gum. She watched as the colorful drop spilled into the bag. She couldn’t imagine anything better than a place practically bursting with treats. She went back years later with him. She grabbed the plastic bag and was so excited to show him the ridiculous quantities of candy they had. She dipped the metal scoop into a barrel of strawberry bonbons. She was surprised to feel it stop suddenly just a few inches deep. The layer of candy was shallow and did not run the length of the barrel. She supposed that this made sense. The candy at the bottom would never get bought and just deteriorate, but she still couldn’t help but feel strangely hollow.

January 19: I just realized that I am teaching Girl Power during February. I can hold a celebration for Galentine’s Day!

January 20: The waiter put a sweating bottle of water on the table that had “ultimate hydrogen water” etched onto it. 
“Wow. This water has the ultimate amount of hydrogen.”
“There’s so much hydrogen, I bet there’s twice as much as there is oxygen in there.”

January 21: Nick ran into Ron while he was taking out the recycling. He has suddenly decided that he and Nick should start a podcast together about labor unions. Nick is guessing he may have been a little high during that conversation.

January 22: We switched to our new classrooms today. It was difficult to set anything up because room 311 is a mess. It’s a new teacher and he apparently has about as little control over the furniture as he does over the students.

January 23: Watching VOLTA almost made me want to work out. The way they glided in the air looked so serene, like they were suspended in water, floating beautifully and aimlessly. They made it look so effortless that it wasn’t until hours later that I pictured actually trying to copy them and just straining every muscle in my body and falling off multiple times.

January 24: The school changed our response shifts again. They are now an hour and a half long and take place two hours before we even come into work.




much love,
hedgie       

a raccoon carcass in McDonald’s

January 9: Abel tried to ditch me today by saying he had a very important meeting with his new speech therapy teacher and he had to leave immediately. I told him that he wasn’t going anywhere without a teacher. He later convinced the librarian to take him to the library so that he could borrow an origami book. Then he very happily confessed to me that the whole speech therapy thing was a lie so he could borrow the book.

January 10: Jen showed us a video of a man who brought in a raccoon carcass into a McDonald’s and put it on the table. The man filming the scene narrated what was happening, screaming ‘fuck’ repeatedly until the man got up and walked away, leaving the dead raccoon where it was. The filmer’s profanity paused only to declare that this could only happen in San Francisco.

January 11: I received my 23andMe results today. They have a section that puts me into weirdly specific categories based on my genetics. I am likely to be able smell asparagus odor in my urine, I am likely to have cilantro taste aversion, and I am less likely to hate the sound of people chewing.

January 12: We overlapped all four sleds together and manage to get all nine of us onto it. Brandon called it the human sled-ipede, but Emily was not a fan of that. It was slippery and difficult to stay together while creeping toward the summit of the hill. A few dads at the top of the hill helped push us down the hill while everyone wrapped their legs around the waist of the person seated in front of them. We didn’t go far, but we managed to stay attached.

January 13: Aaron regretted that we didn’t make the whole weekend Donner Party themed. We could have eaten ribs and made gingerbread people, all decorated to look like us. Brandon was already suggesting that we eat Phil first. 
Emily squinted her eyes as she thought about it. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve already had my Phil.”
“Besides,” I said. “He wouldn’t give much variety. He’s all dark meat.”

January 14: The walkie talkie crackled into life. “Code five!” Ms. Amy screamed. “We have a code five in the cafeteria.” The fear in her voice and the screams in the background made her sound like she was in the middle of a war zone.

January 15: We talked about gateway behaviors, actions that usually incite fights or frustrations, like talking out of turn and name-calling. Their activity was to make a wanted poster about those behaviors and list what they look like and when they tend to show up. My example was Show-off Sally, who tells people she’s better than them and she shows up during kickball games. Milo came up with Gossiping Gorgon, complete with fangs and snake hair.

January 16: The training gave a list of ways to help us get children prepared for taking leadership roles. One of them was positive encouragement. I almost laughed at the fact that they felt the need to specifically label the encouragement as positive. I tried to imagine someone giving negative encouragement. A teacher screaming that a student is doing fucking amazing before drop kicking them out the second story window.

January 17: Miss Connie told me about being woken up by an earthquake around six in the morning. This was the second night in a row that this has happened. It was a little rumble and she compared it to a pig scratching its butt on a post. “You know what I’m talking about,” she asked. I really had no idea.




much love,
hedgie 

400 miles behind me

January 1: During the White Elephant gift exchange, people were hungover from the previous night and getting tired of watching my mom talk conspiratorially between me, Dylan, and Dad. “We know you’re working out ways to freeze the gifts you want. You don’t need to keep whispering to everyone.”

January 2: I looked away for about a minute and Wiggins was suddenly racing around the living room, dripping wet. I walked to the backyard and saw a pool of water at the lip of the pond with a trail of tiny paw prints leading out of it.

January 3: On every drive home, dad requests that I update him on our progress throughout the day. I usually text him around Buttonwillow, and without fail, he responds that we are in UFO territory.

January 4: I cry almost every time we unload the car. As we park, I am relieved to finally be able to walk around and have my bed again. But then it dawns on me how much this place just isn’t home and I have left my real one over 400 miles behind me.

January 5: We met with Daisy, but her test with Addie did not go well. She lunged at her and got so worked up that she snapped at one of the handlers. We were her last hope for finding a safe place to live. Her story will end unhappily and all too soon.

January 6: Sometimes I feel like a secondary character in my own life. I don’t get my own overarching plot, just bit parts whenever the real hero happens to be nearby.

January 7: Valerye gifted me a fuse bead cat she made over winter break. It has a alternating neon pink, blue and purple along its legs, its tail, and in a thin line across its forehead. It looks like a cartoon kitten that got interrupted halfway through a jazzercise video.

January 8: The school changed their schedule, so now our response shifts are an hour and a half long. I had mine today and spent the entire time running up and down the stairs.
“Why are all the problems on the third floor?” I asked. I collapsed in my chair and breathed heavily.
Miss Jen looked across the table at me and shrugged. “Must be the high altitude.”




much love,
hedgie