blastoff.

School started yesterday, and my kids are amazing and sweet and well-behaved, as kids are wont to be for the first few days of school, but today was so hard. I was okay, I was all right, I was tired and nervous about the planning that I need to do for tomorrow, that still hasn't gotten done, but I was okay. I stayed in my room for a few hours after school then drove just down the road to taco bell for a pick-me-up before (hopefully) visiting matt (who's in clinton for a few more days before going back to oxford for school). A family of 6 came in, mom, dad and four kids, and oh dear you know you're in the SOUTH when, in the biggest city in the state, you're rejected from an available apartment because they don't permit co-habitation and the fast-food places can't put up "no shirt, no shoes, no service" signs for fear of losing business. So I'm at this taco bell, eating alone, and the family walks in, and the whole time the two parents are yelling at the four children, and the parents don't seem to care for one another at all, and you hear all the time, children in working class families only hear x many words a day, and of those words, well ... most of them are negative. I've seen the numbers on this ... recently ... and suddenly I couldn't get it off my mind. This is who I'm teaching, and this is how they have lived their lives and every teaching rule that I've learned is being broken here and it never lets up. This is the mother saying "now i know i'm going to get a discount or something, i was in that drive-through line for twenty minutes" (what else is there to get, if not a discount?), this is the father with gold-capped teeth in front telling her to let it go, this is the 6-year old boy with three little sisters saying "I'm gonna hit you. Hey let's all hit her. Let's beat her down" and then playing ever-so-gently that he's "beating down" his little sister ... next sister's turn. This is the child who has been told all her life to sit still, never been made to do it, and heard 15 times a day "if you don't stop that I'll ..." fill in the blank. Knock your head off your shoulders. Likely story. This is the little girl who cries when her daddy makes her sit still then wants to sit in his lap to make her feel better. these are the children who, when their parents turn around, don't sit still anyway and get away with it. empty threats. and these are my children.

at the end of this meal, a man who's been sitting near the entrance asks me for two quarters. I don't have any cash, I tell him so, I get in my car and wonder what they all think of me, the preppy white girl with plenty of money who doesn't know what their lives are like and doesn't care and see the change in my cupholder. I walk back in and give the man two quarters and want to cry. because this is somebody's life.

Mind numb, I drive around and stop at stores and gas stations, can't go back to the school, can't get anything done, till grappling class at seven.

back at the apartment, I smell like five guys' sweat and haven't typed a word of lesson plans. when the mind has reached its limits, punish the body.

These are my children.