dear immigration and naturalization services,

if you ever need to just clean up, cause you've got a quota or something like that and maybe you don't feel like getting up early enough to catch them at home depot in the morning, just wait around til lunchtime and show up at any 7-11 in DFW.

it's all the same to me if you do or you don't, just saying is all.

welcome,

riqui

i don't work this week.  not at school anyway.  and i'm absolutely terrified that this week is gonna get away from me before i realize it and i'm gonna have to wake up and be at work way before i want to be.

terrified.  for real.

my first job ever was working maintenance at the high school that i graduated from.  it was a summer gig, one that i did after my junior and senior years there.  i made five bucks an hour that first year and a whole five-fifty the year after that.  i was rolling, like for real. 

the guy i worked with the most was named jose, a guy from michoacan down in central mexico who still works there at st. mark's and who i see every once in a while.  his son is at SM now, playing ball and wrestling and in the wrestling room here lately,  he's been my workout partner.  he's a big kid, with about six inches and fifty pounds on me and like i said, he's a sophomore, so he's pretty green and most of the time i'm able to use my experience to get an edge on him.  

so anyways, i'm talking to jose today and saying that he's getting better, but i'm still beating him pretty good and he says to me "en los anos que vienen, you nogannadonathing."

it was genius.

we hired a new counselor at work, mostly on account of the old one moved to portland.  anyways, the guy we hired is a guy, which is different and means there's three of us on campus now, as opposed to just me which has been the case at least half the time i've been there.

so it's cool there's another guy around, what's less cool though is that his name, first and last, bears a remarkable resemblance to mine.  i got my first taste of confusion whenever i got asked by a parent if i was in charge of career day.  i'm thinking "wtf?  where would they get that idea? i've never had anything to do with career day in the historyof ever," and all of a sudden it dawned on me.  that guy, the counselor, sent out his letter to parents asking for volunteers and suggestions and stuff like that, and obviously, had signed his name on the bottom.  i realize what had happened, write her back and tell her no, it's not me, the new guy we hired to be counselor just has almost exactly the same name as me, and he's the one in charge of career day.

on the bright side, i don't have to give the fifth grade boys the puberty talk this year.

i'm not a countdown guy, but there's a week left before i don't have to go to work for a week.

i'm trying really hard not to lose focus on this here, but it's a bit difficult given the pace.

no complaints though, i love life.  for real.

soundtrack for now. . .

"hat in hand" --bill mallonee

"cut me off" --astronaut pushers

"ben zanotto" --rancid

"no cigar" --millencolin

"she's alright" --the choir

"ocean size love" --leigh nash

"don't take me for granted" --social distortion

"in the garden" --doug burr

"flowers" --bill mallonee

"hang on" --salim nourallah

yesterday was all kinds of sweet.  

*there was church in the morning which was just great.  

*brunch for my grandmother's birthday where i got to act like a smartass with her, my aunt and my mom.  

*a lil time to regroup and catch my breath at home.

*a riduculously fun date (?) with a way fun girl that started at the starbucks on fielder and randol mill and ended happily in an adjacent parking lot and included a trip to a nearby park to hit their swingset AND being sung the ABC's by a group of middle school students on a video scavenger hunt.

*entourage.  meh, whatever.

*phone convo with girl from bullet point before last.

*sleep.

i'd take seven out of seven a week like that.

ortega walks into the wrestling room wearing a shirt emblazoned with a gorilla's face.

me, to ortega: so where can *i* get a shirt with *my* picture on it??

ortega, to me: twenty thousand comedians out of work in this country and you're trying to be funny.

i love wrestling.

did you know that if you live a rotten life, you go to hell?

where you're forced to watch JV heavyweights wrestle for all eternity.

in class this morning i had a girl come and tell on another girl for making an inappropriate gesture at her.  i go to her and say "what'd you do to whatshername?"

"well, she said i have issues and..." (cut off at this point by me)

"i didn't ask about her, i asked what you did."

"nothing."

"try again."

"i (shows me inappropriate gesture)."

"you made me ask you three times before you decided to be honest?  go sign a ticket."

so anyways, since this kid said that the girl who ratted her out had said she had issues i have to go check that out, so i ask her "what'd you say to whatshername before she started making gestures to you?"

"nothing."

"you didn't say anything?  didn't tell her she had issues?"

"yes."

"so you didn't tell me the truth when i asked you the first time.  you go sign too then."

guh.

today was awesome because:

*i got through the gauntlet of teaching the same lesson on nutrition to K-5 twelve (12) times in the last two days.  plus i worked with a sub that wasn't completely useless.

*route 44 diet dr. pepper with cherry and vanilla.

*wrestling practice was fun and i have at least two extremely raw, but teachable freshmen that'll be my projects for this year.

*i found that awesome mama rosa's frozen pizza that's so terrible they only sell it at barrio mexican supermarkets.

*abc might be picking up king of the hill after fox said they'd cancel it.

today totally sucked because:

*not really at all, except that i've been watching c-span's election coverage for the last hour or so and am totally discouraged by the level of discourse shown in the phone calls they've taken.  if people calling c-span sound so irretrievably moronic, imagine what people watching fox news or cnn sound like.

i'm pretty sure our country will be in ok shape if either of the two principals running are elected, i'm not so sure about what might happen if what seems like the vast majority of people voting today are allowed to continue to vote.

it's whatever i guess, i just voted for the free krispy kreme and starbucks.

i knew it was coming.

not that it required any sort of special foreknowledge.  and there they are, totally getting rolled.  didn't make it any more fun to watch though.  good thing super troopers is on.  comedy central.

still, it's better than the that train wreck of a football game on fox.  even without the swears.

i've been fighting off allergies this week, bad enough to make me take the afternoon off yesterday as well as to elicit tons of sympathy from my co-workers (all female and nearly all mothers).  anyways, earlier this week, one of them was coming down with symptoms similar to mine and the following exchange occurred, which isn't really dissimilar from a lot of the exchanges involving me at work:

anonymous co-worker: (to me) i think you gave me your love bug.

me: (to anoymous co-worker)  nah, if i gave you my love bug you wouldn't just think, you'd KNOW.

it's a wonder i'm not on HR's radar.