Carrie Bradshaw goes to Chicago streetfest

That's how I felt, like Carrie Bradshaw. I am not glamorous and when thinking of the most fashion conscious person they know, I do not appear first in the minds of my friends. Tonight, though, I felt like my resale store shoes were Jimmy Choos amid the freaky wierd get ups I saw on the oddest group of people I'd been surrounded by since that Renaissance festival I went to in the 80's.

I'm house sitting for a friend, who lives in one of the hippest neighborhoods of our city, two more friends are keeping me company. We're treating it like a vacation in our own city. We began with a bottle of wine at the house last night and then out for a couple martinis on a sidewalk patio. We ended the night eating cheddar cheese fries and char broiled hotdogs at the legendary Weiner Circle. Today started with brunch at a hip corner restauarant, my shoulders carry the color of the time it takes to eat lemon ricotta pancakes with a mimosa. We shopped in a bargain driven frenzie for two hours at a shoe outlet store where 7 pairs of shoes and a few more accessories were purchased between the three of us. Margaritas on another sidewalk (Nicole tried to order a white zinfandel and a martini but was scolded by the server for not recognizing the personality of the taco bar as one that would never serve such poor excuses for beverages).

In our new shoes and still rosy cheeks from the taco bar margaritas we headed out to see a favorite band of Dora's play at a local streetfest. I was bored by the description of the band before I ever even heard them. "Fun" and "happy" were used a lot. They were the kind of happy you see in couples that makes you wonder how miserable they are behind the smiles. What is wrong with this band...NO ONE is that happy. This guy has got to be a manic depressive. He frockiled on stage in his baggy blouse and floppy cowboy hat like Peter Pan. The people surrounding us were really odd, most wore flip flops, t shirts and other street fest t shirts. When I asked Nicole if she agreed that the crowd wa odd she said, "oh yea, streetfests always attract freaks. I don't know where they all are before they get here. I don't see people like this on a regular basis."
A young man in front of us danced his awkward ass off and the people with him held their hands above him as if giving him thier version of a dancer's high five. I imagined somewhere at a suburban home were his friends playing Dungeons and Dragons when one asks, "hey, where's Ben tonight?" Another answers, he's at a street fest in the city for a Why Store concert, the lucky son of a bitch. He's probably dancing his ass off right now getting all kinds of hot women."
"Yea," adds another friend, "he's a really good dancer." They all nod in jealous agreement.
A drunken girl is carried off by her boyfriend through the crowd.
A young man removes his shirt in front of us then squats to the street and pukes. He looses the friend he just made ten minutes ago and we move to a new area.
Dora does not want to leave yet. She dances and an odd young man sidles up to her and entertains a fantasy that she is with him while he imitates dance next to her. Why Store keeps singing happy music, one song blending into the next. The best thirty seconds occur when the lead singer inserts a few lines of Jim Morrison into his own lame repetitive music. I text a friend who is obviously doing something so much more interesting because I never receive a return text. Ohhhhh the humanity.
Why did I wear sandals? Beer splashes from tipping cups onto my toes, discarded aluminum and plastic jump around at our feet and scents of pechuli and stale breath waft around us.
The band finally ends its charade of bliss, the crowd ignorantly begs and encore and we make our way out of the crowd. I tell myself what a great blog post this will make.
On our way back to the house the cab drives us through a movie setting of Johnny Depp's latest film and finally I am entertained.

Foundation Friends

A couple nights ago I met with three friends that I have known since grade school. We grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same high school, swam on the same swim teams and worked at the same swim and tennis club together. We've managed to maintain our friendship as adults and I treasure these women like no other friends. I'm writing this blog because one of them mentioned that she hadn't seen any recent posts from me. So Donna, this one's for you!

I love these women like sisters, having no sisters I can only imagine that this is true but I feel it must be. When we get together the four of us giggle like the girls we were when we first met. We remember every embarrassing moment of growth that we shared and forgive all adolescent mistakes. I love them for remembering things I have forgotten and for forgetting things I can't seem to forget myself.

When I see them I can't believe it was thirty years ago that we first flirted with boys. We played dunk in the pool with boys we had crushes on hoping that the cutest boy of all would pick us to lift and dunk mercilessly until chlorinated snot ran uncontrollably out of our noses. In high school we fought over which member of The Police would be our boyfriend, we all wanted Sting and no one wanted Andy Summers. "Ewwww! He looks so old!" In college we each attended a different school but, even without the Internet, managed to keep in touch through mail, phone and spring break visits. We talked each other through good and bad break ups, diets and final exams.

As young adults Heather was the only person brave enough to tell me I was making a mistake by marrying my first boyfriend. Donna was the only person I felt comfortable enough admitting that I didn't actually want to marry him. Jen may have been the first to high - five me when the engagement was over. (Donna was definitely the first to high - five me when she met the basketball player that helped distract me from the engagement!)

Heather was there to help me shop for the wedding dress that I wore when I eloped. All were there for me even when, most especially when, my parents would not approve of my marrying outside my race. I cried to them when I couldn't conceive and they were most sensitive to it when they became pregnant. Heather shares her little boy with me like I am another aunt and last year when I held him as he slapped the water in her parents' back yard pool I laughed with delight and said, "Oh Heather! Thank you so much for having this baby for me!" She laughed right back. She knew just what I meant.

All have been there for me through every step of my divorce, never judging, never preaching, always listening and offering laughter and a glass of wine when I need it most.

Donna and I argued at breakfast the other day. In high school the bad feelings may have lasted for days, in present day they lasted only moments.

I once was trying to describe to Heather's boyfriend how I felt about these three women and he put it so appropriately, "of course, they are your foundation friends!"

Donna, Heather and Jen: you are my dearest friends. I love you so much, I hope you know it and feel it the same way I do. I cannot wait until the next time we polish off 3...4? bottles of wine together!

Peeing Can Be Green

I took a small group of students, six girls and one boy, on a field trip to a nearby college to hang a student exhibit. I thought they would benefit from the experience of hangng a show while visiting a college campus. It turns out that they learned a couple other things as well.
I thought the students would want to eat in the campus cafeteria but the girls were not impressed with the boys there and the boy was not impressed with the food selection. They opted, instead, for Burger King. Luckily there was a sushi restaurant right next to the Burger King, I went there and brought sushi back to the Burger King where my students waited for me in their new cardboard crowns.
As I sat down with my chopsticks and Jessica asks me, "Miss, can you be any whiter? I mean really, sushi?"
I mix a little wasabi with the soy sauce and say, "do you want to try some?"
Cherie, Linda and Jess reply in unison, "ewwwwwww!"
Cherie asks, "Is that even healthy? Isn't sushi raw fish?"
"Some sushi is raw," I say, "but nothing that I have here is raw, except for the vegetables."
The girls all agree to try some ginger. They hated it. The only thing funnier than the faces they made while eating it was the conversation that followed.
Bridget returns from the restroom declaring, "I love that when you go to the bathroom in a ladies' room you never have to worry about the the seat being down."
Cherie agrees, "Oh, I KNOW! I hate when my boyfriend leaves the seat up! It's always up when I come outta the shower and sometimes I've fallen through. There's something about being in the shower that makes me have to pee."
I ask, "Why don't you just pee in the shower?"
Cherie answers, "So many people have asked me that! I don't get it though, isn't the whole point of taking a shower to get clean? I'd just get myself dirty by peeing in there."
I've just put a piece of sushi in my mouth and am unable to speak so I use hand gestures. I look up at my hands raised over my head and slowly bring them toward my face while curling my fingers in one at a time. I repeat the motion to imitate the flow of water from a shower head. The girls laugh then Cherie says, "still, I think the feeling of pee running down my legs would gross me out."
Sushi continues to make speech impossible for me so I hold one hand up with index and pointer fingers creating a "v." Then, I turn the "v" upside down.
More laughter and I am able to clear my mouth of sushi and speak, "besides, peeing in the shower is healthy for the environment."
Linda asks, "How do you figure?"
"Because," I say, "you won't waste an extra gallon of water flushing and you also don't need to use toilet paper. So it saves water and trees!"
Jessica says, "huh, and I always thought pee was yellow."

The New Botox

For Spring Break, this year, I went economical and visited a cousin I hadn't seen in years. She lives in Texas, which is sooooo much warmer than Chicago that I invited myself for a five day stay with her and her 2 1/2 year old daughter.
We had coffee each morning outside and wine each evening, also outside. We went for walks and and drove to the beach and shopped resale for new clothes. I was able to pick up a bit of a tan to bring back to Chicago with me.
Any slight change in appearance is noticed by students who do nothing to hold back their shock in the change. It began first hour, "Miss, did you lighten your hair?" \
"No, my skin is darker."
"No, really, did you dye your hair?"
"No, I'm telling you, my skin is darker. I have a tan."
"oooooh. For real?"
Second hour it started all over, "Hey Miss! Is your hair blonder?" asks Sam.
"No, I have a tan so my hair looks lighter."
"You look younger," adds Hansel, always interested in a little extra credit via compliments.
"I think she got Botox," says Jorge.
"Did you get Botox?" asks Michael as he walks in.
"No, I'm just tan."
"No, she got Botox. Why'd you get Botox, Miss?" adds Jorge.
"You got Botox?" asks Diana when she walks in.
"I did not...you know what? Just....I'm just tan."
"Did you wear sunglasses, Miss?" Asks Hansel.
"Of course I wore sunglasses."
"Oh," says Jorge, "that's why you look like you have Botox. You shoulda left your glasses off and just got Botox."
"You got Botox?" aks Mari as she walks in.

Teachers Drink

We do, we drink. Special Ed teachers drink most heavily, their doctors write prescriptions for it. But all teachers drink and this surprises a lot of people. People who have never taught, anyway. I didn't know this until I student-taught and felt somewhat perverse as I headed out with the teachers to the bar across the street for this lesson. The men spoke of girls who's shirts were too low and skirts too high. The women wanted to know the teacher related gossip from where I attended high school. I thought to myself back then, "I cannot wait to get to the clubs this weekend so I can drink and dance away the memory of these teachers drinking their week away."

We drink most, I've found, after parent teacher - conferences and the last day before Winter Break. At my first job I drank most frequently with the young teachers, like myself, and out of assorted glasses we took from the cupboards of our funky low-rent apartments. We gathered together two or three times a week to impress each other with the way we imitated our students and with how much we could drink and still look perky the next day.

At my next job, where I still teach, I met another group of young teachers to go out and drink with. We didn't get together as often, only on Fridays, and it was usually at the same smoke-filled, narrow and dark neighborhood bar. We payed the jukebox to play the same songs and eventually a few of us would be drunk enough to leave the pool table and dance. A lot of those teachers smoked, so to fit in, I began smoking also. I dated a guy that smoked and one day after hacking up some really thick uncomfortable phlegm I asked him, "do you think I'm coughing so much because I'm smoking now?" He wrinkled his brow and looked at me like I was the idiot art teacher I am and shook his head, "no." The question didn't even deserve an audible reply. I chose to believe him for a little while; he was an English teacher and had a really impressive vocabulary so he had to be smart. This new group of teachers were fun but not as much fun as the group from my first job. These teachers liked to impress each other with stories of how wonderful they all were at teaching.

After marrying and quitting smoking I'd attend only the Winter Break party and if I wanted to drink with teachers, I'd invite a couple to my house. I thought I'd outgrown attending bars and drinking with fellow teachers until last week when a couple invited me to join them on St. Patty's Day. It was a Monday, I thought, "if anything can bring me back to my first years of teaching, drinking on a Monday night will." So I went.

I was NOT disappointed. We weren't there to stroke each other and tell one another what great educators we were. Instead, there were funny stories of students finding dried slices of ham hidden between the pages of Science textbooks, falling down the steps to get parents to give you a Popsicle, dogs peeing in the bed, and the principal turning on his pocket flashlight in the darkroom so that he could see. Ah, new stories from a fresh new group of young teachers. These kids were funny! I became the "wise experienced one." I tried to explain divorce in a marriage that had not lost it's love to a kid who'd been recently dumped. I remember being in his shoes at just about the same age, seeking answers from the older teachers whose opinion I valued. I hope I had something wise to tell him, but I don't think he'd remember it. He had three beers for every one that I had.

Before paying for a coffee this morning, I opened my wallet to find the little paper model of Matt that Juan made to recreate the act of falling down the stairs for a Popsicle.

Wake Up Call...or Hit

I left for work without my cell phone, I knew I had left it in its charger when I pulled out of my garage but didn't feel like going back in the house to get it. It was 5:30 and I was still wearing my pajamas because it is Wednesday. On Wednesdays my morning workout is a swim so I just grab my suit and a bag packed with work clothes and go. I throw a long coat over my PJ's in case I run into a maintenance man on my way to the locker room.

It was 5:45 and still dark, I had just crossed Roosevelt Road on Central Avenue, going South, when a very small man walked into the street, without looking before he crossed, and I hit him. "What do you mean, 'hit him'?" Asked Alex, my student. "I mean, I was in my car while it was moving and he stepped in front of my car before I could stop it from moving."
"I can't tell if she's kidding" says Sam.
"She's not kidding." says Cheryl.

I swerved but still hit him with my front passenger side bumper/fender/door. I pulled over right away and saw that he lay in clump in the street. "Oh MY GOD!" I thought, "Oh my God, please let him be okay." I turned on my hazard lights, jumped out of the car and ran to where he lay, unmoving. I yelled at cars, "Please someone call 911!" Cars kept driving by, one didn't even slow down as it passed me hunched over the man in the street. I don't think they saw us,it was still dark, did i say that?
On that corner is a diner, I ran into the diner and asked them to call 911. One of the waitresses followed me out, "We called the police they're on their way," she told me.
I said, "he just walked out in the street, he just walked right out."
The little man sat up and looked at me. "Oh no, please stay still. An ambulance is coming to check you out. Stay here." He said nothing, just got up and tried to walk away. "No, no, no, you have to wait here."

He was about 60 years old, very wrinkled weathered face, wore a Carhart jacket, jeans and a white baseball cap, which was still in the street. He bent over to pick up his lunch box. "Voy trabajar," he said. The waitress and I made him stay...on the sidewalk, out of the street. She told me to grab his baseball cap so I did and handed it to him. He still was trying to leave and I was having a hard time remembering any Spanish at all. "Esperate," I told him.

Very soon a cop car pulled up, then another and another and then an ambulance. There were two officers, who spoke Spanish, talking to the man. He refused to go to the hospital. One officer told me to calm down, I was crying a little, the man was fine he wasn't hurt. Another officer took my license and insurance information and wrote a report. Soon the waitress left and all but two officers left, one spoke with the little man and the other was finishing the report. My Spanish is bad, all I could figure out from the conversation taking place between the little man and the officer was that he had no identification and no phone. He did not know how old he was but he was born in 1945. He denied that he was even hit by a car, he said he was walking and he fell. Maybe he really believes that. He had his hood up over his head and was not looking to see if a car was coming, he probably doesn't even know how he wound up on the ground. He asked the officer for directions to Minuteman where he was going to work. The Spanish speaking officer leaned inside the report taking officer's car and asked if he knew where there was a Minuteman. It was only me and the little man on the sidewalk. He looked at me and asked me something, but he spoke so quietly and with a very heavy accent. I had to say, "lo siento, no hablo Espanol." He fingered the torn strap on his lunch box with laborer's hands; very large for his frame, grand knuckles and dark nails.

He walked toward the the Spanish speaking officer and again said, "voy trabajar." The Spanish speaking officer gave him directions and helped him cross the street, because he wasn't looking again...just crossing with his head down watching his feet.

I cannot believe I actually hit a man today. My side mirror hangs by wires and there are dents in front passenger side bumper/fender/door to remind me that it really did happen.

Critique a Balls Still Life

Each year I fall in love with a different group of students. I grow close to them by learning about them and why they create the art they make. I meet their family members and friends and watch them endure the drama of teenage life. This year I have three boys that check in with me each morning and again before they leave. They stand in front of my desk cracking jokes and giving me updates on the progression of their portfolios, social life, and school work. They are Hamsel, Michael and Alex.
They are all three very handsome and very funny and very creative in very different ways. Hamsel is animated when he tells a story and is usually the loudest voice in the room, but that's not why he always has the most attention. The kid has a really creative sense of humor and busts on people constantly but with a sensitivity that is in no way mean. Michael laughs along with him mostly, adding an occasional quiet comment that strengthens the jokes Hamsel creates. Alex is the articulate and intelligent jokester, you have to think about what he says before you laugh. They are constantly reciting lines from movies together as though they were the actors in the film. Without going to a theater I have seen trailers for "Superbad," "Knocked Up," and most recently "Semi Pro."
Hamsel and Michael are both in my AP Studio Art Class, they are with the best of the best. We hold bi-weekly critiques to help each other build strong portfolios to submit to College Board for college credit. At this time of the year we are working on our Concentration section; the students create twelve pieces that develop from one theme. During critique Hamsel and Michael are incredibly helpful to their peers as they offer up insightful suggestions and creative solutions that the others take seriously to heart.
A boy I call Vargas decided to do his Concentration on Sports related still life drawings.
This past week Vargas hung his very simple drawing of a football, a basketball and a baseball on the wall and fell victim to the creative humor of Hamsel and Michael. I began the comments by saying, "It's well drawn but is missing the contrast and value changes that make your work impressive. The balls themselves have no value changes in them yet there are very strong cast shadows under them."
Hamsel added, "Yea man, yea. The balls all have the same value." Just a snicker now but that's all he needed to fuel the fire.
"So what about dark balls vs. white balls? What if the balls are touching? And texture, you can't tell if the balls are rough or smooth. Maybe draw some balls bouncing." The laughter is loud and then settles so someone can add a real helpful hint, "hey, like...why don't you draw what a soccer ball looks like when it's being kicked. Like, it turns into an elliptical shape and foreshorten it so it looks like it's exploding off the page!"
Hamsel adds, "yea, EXPLODING BALLS!"
Michael chimes in, "Raining balls man, jus' all kindsa balls fallin' from the sky." Laughter is good, we need laughter so I do little to stop it but I do try, "you can make your Concentration turn toward something more like impact in sports. Make it more about Impact than, you know..."
Michael says quietly, "softballs."