Musings

the other day i showed the movie the outsiders to two classes of eighth grade students. let me stop here just to say that as a teacher, i will never write about any specific experience i have had in the classroom nor any particular student.

before i stated the movie each time, i prefaced the showing with a little tidbit of personal information. and yes, in these cases, the kids more often than not couldn’t care less. kind of like you, dear readers. but not the point.

that tidbit was that i read the outsiders when i was in junior high school and as a reward when we were done, our teachers took us to see the movie. in the theater. that’s how long ago i was in junior high school.

back then, the stars of this movie were total hearthrobs. and yes, we did use that word back then. these boys (c. thomas howell, ralph macchio, rob lowe, emilio estevez, matt dillion, patrick swayze, and tom cruise, and at that time, i didn’t realize leif garrett and tom waits (tom waits!) ) were on the cover and pages of all the tiger beat and teen beat magazes, that is until i cut them out and put them all over what i called “my outsider door.” yes, i admit it. the back of my bedroom door was covered with any photo of these hearthrobs that i could find. give me a break, i was in love.

my two favorites were ponyboy and johnny, played by c. thomas howell and ralph macchio respectively. i think even back at age 12 i had that fatal girl trait where i wanted to fix the sad, mopey bad boys. a trait that followed me well into my 30s and never did me well.

before the movie began, i told the students that these boys were the “justin biebers” of my day. now stop cringing and think about it for a minute. and let me tell you that over the last couple of weeks, i have been in quite a few conversations with seventh and eighth grade girls who have told me that justin bieber is “just sooo cute” and have tried to explain why he is so great. and from their eyes, i can see it. mine, not so much, but not the point. also off point, but kind of on the same subject, i also stood in for an adult education class in which i witnessed a fist fight almost erupt based on the question of whether or not justin bieber is the new michael jackson. that question, dear readers, i will let you contemplate on your own.

i wasn’t sure if these boys, so many years later, would appeal to the young girls watching them. but you know what? they did. i mean really did. i mean so much that i had to stop the inappropriate conversation about just how hot ponyboy and johnny were. for me on the other hand, not so much. maybe my need to save (and kiss) the broken bad boy has finally been replaced with my need for a confident and strong man like my husband, but for most of the first hour of the movie, i just wanted to slap the dirty, whiny pony and johnny silly.

now of course, as an adult, part of me does still feel sorry for the characters and and understands why johnny winced every time someone looked at him sideways. thank god he redeemed himself in his later years when he kicked some karate butt as the karate kid.

now, a young shirtless matt dillon, or rob lowe stepping out of a shower with barely a towell wrapped around him? let’s just say i wasn’t just talking to the girls in the class when i told them to stop drooling (at least so loudly). that said, i remember when i first saw the movie, i wasn’t a huge fan of either character, including the tom cruise or patrick swayze ones. at the time, they were too old for me.

sigh.

so i’ve told you a lot of things that i have specifically said are not the point of this post. so what is the point? well, i thought i had one, but the more i write, i realize that i guess there isn’t one after all. maybe it’s how things change. maybe it’s how things stay the same. maybe it is just a literary post about the timelessness of the book the outsiders. maybe it’s the sadness i felt when in order to get kids to pay attention to emilio estevez’s character, i had to introduce the actor as charlie sheen’s brother (to which someone yelled, “winning!). or maybe it’s just that i wanted to talk about a shirtless matt dillon.

almost twenty years ago, i lost my friend mike. i should really say “we lost” because it is incredible the amount of people this man, boy really, not even old enough to be called a man, had such a profound effect on. to this day, people still think about him every day and i know this because there is a facebook group dedicated to his memory. the page has not only helped him live on, but has brought all these people together for support and love and a whole lot of laughing.

today is a hard day for me, but much harder on other members of of my family whom i love and care about dearly. but instead of continuing to be a drama queen on facebook, i thought i’d bring it over here in more of a creative non fiction way. as that is one of the reasons why i created this blog in the first place–for me writing is a release (thank you for the much needed reminder, geo).

an aunt i am very close to is lying in a hospital right now and things do not look good at all. by that, i mean i am really just waiting for the final word. not that i don’t have hope that the call will come and say that there’s been a change and things will be fine. maybe that call will come. i have to believe it will for everyone’s sake, mostly  my mom’s.

but whenever someone i love is at this stage of their life, i always think about mike. and i ask him to greet the person and help them get where they need to be. so today i have been talking to mike a lot and it reminded me of a poem, i guess you could call it, that i wrote for him years ago.

i am not sure it was all coincidence that he visited me in a dream the other night. he was bouncing around smiling like always. in my dream i knew he wasn’t really there, partly because he kept fading out and fading in with different outfits, one of which was this plastic st. patty’s day hat, another of which a purple derby helmet. but for whatever reason he was there and in whatever outfit, it all felt very comforting.

so in another attempt to bring all my work from associated content over here in a way that doesn’t seem totally random, i wanted to share this piece of writing. it seems very appropriate for today and whatever comes next.

To Mike.

I’ve been thinking about you.

You have?

Yeah, I do a lot. Not always, but sometimes.

So why now?

Well, I just got in touch with Jon. Can you believe it? After 12 years, I’m chatting with Jon. Well, e-mailing at least. Well, he hasn’t written since his first note, but I’m sure he’ll turn up. It’s been 12 years.

I know it. He’s done well for himself, no? I’ve been watching him.

Yeah, apparently so. But I always knew he would. But I thought he was going to be a doctor.

Nah – he just couldn’t give up the music biz.

Yeah. And still around Pat too. I thought for sure Pat was with you. You know, when I have had to take care of my pets, I always tell them that you’ll take care of them. I imagine you being chased around by my dog Astra.

Is that the shepherd who keeps running after me and biting my butt?

Is she? I knew she’d make me proud! You know, Mike, I must have been there. I must have been at NYU studying or something and didn’t even know.

No, why would you?

I mean, it was a day like any other for me.

And it started out as such for me.

You know, I only remember some things about you.

Yeah – what?

Um – you screwed me out of my Jr. prom. Your hair. Some sweater. Not the color or anything, more the texture. Your house. The day you carried me to my car cause I was too drunk to walk myself. Oh my god. I drove home that night. I work with a girl now who went to school with you. She said you were nice.

I was nice.

Yeah, but you were a jackass too. I was so mad at you. I think I even said that I wished you were dead…

Those were just words.

Mike, I tried to hurt you the second time around.

I know.

I wished bad things for you.

Not really, you were just hurt.

I have never wished bad things for anyone since.

I know, I’ve kept an eye on you.

Have you? Have you heard me talking to you?

Yeah, especially in your car. Why do you always talk to me in your car? I don’t think I ever even drove with you. By the way, let’s talk about your singing…

I don’t know. I think a lot in my car. I should probably pay more attention to the road.

Yes – that wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Sometimes when I’m scared, I talk to you.

I know.

I feel closer to you than I think we really were.

I’m glad you think of me.

Know what I remember?

Tell me.

My graduation night. Todd’s apartment. You came in just as “It’s the end of the world as we know it” came on. You bounced all over the room, singing every single word. Then you left.

I remember that. I love that song.

I can’t hear it without thinking of you.

It’s a good song to be associated with. That Michael Stipe is a-okay. Must be the name.

Oh, Mike, I’m so so sorry.

About what? You have nothing to be sorry for.

About everything. What I did. What I thought…what happened.

Don’t be sorry, G-, it’s all good. But I have to go now.

Okay. So this time I’m going to say goodbye, Mike.

No-this time it’s not goodbye. Just keep thinking of me and talking to me. I’ll be watching over.

okay, let’s try this again. to totally requote my own lis take two:

this is the reincarnation of life is surreal. this time around, it’s just me chatting, rambling, ranting, typing whatever i feel like.

this blog is about life as i see it.

i hope you’ll join me in any discussion, no matter how irreverent. and i do promise a whole lot of my blogs will be completely irreverent. but it’s fun. or at least i have fun. and really it’s my blog so that’s what matters. 

so come along now and jump right in because remember,

life is surreal…life is art

and always a work in progress

there is a little bit of a disclaimer, or maybe it’s an epilogue that i want to include here. that’s that in the time that i haven’t been writing, i’ve been working on getting a teaching certificate, which i finally have. woot! yay me! anyhow, the way that has any effect on you (unless you are a school that wants to hire me) is that my writing here may be a bit more tame than what you may have seen from my previous alter-ego akasha13131. while akasha lives on deep inside of me and often comes out, just not so publicly on the internet, mrs. b is now a big part of me as well. so somewhere in between neurotic opinionated goth girl and neurotic opinionated english teacher is me and the revamped life is surreal. (see what i did there? i used the word vamp? you know, like vampire? how goth! told ya akasha isn’t dead–that joke writes itself so i’ll just leave it at that.)

although who knows. maybe some day i’ll lock this up and have the reading availability subscription only. and then i’ll know all of the three people who actually read it. okay, maybe six, but three of them will be coerced (sorry, mom, dad, and hubby). i don’t know. i’m pretty much an open book anyway and have become somehow pg13 so i don’t have too many worries about this being public. and it’s not like my outspokeness has caused me any problems in the past…

yeah, well, anyhow, if  i don’t drive you totally crazy (like i care, it’s my blog, see above quote), please continue to read my examiner articles. i’ve even put the link right on this page so you don’t have to even make any real effort to check it out–in case like me, motivation is not always your strong suit.

so there you have it. um…welcome.

woot.

another oldie from the first site. a conversation between me and a friend regarding my obsession with playing the sims, which was short-lived as i have the attention span of a 2 year old.

me: i’m going home to play the sims and make my own people.

friend: have fun playing god!

me: i made a goth girl with the hair i want. and a flat stomach. but i still don’t understand the game.

friend: playing god…that’s the game.

me: well you know how you said god hates you? i’m thinking maybe he doesn’t hate you at all—he’s just confused about which buttons he should be pushing on the controller.