Hey! Thanks for coming back and for your continued and flattering interest in who I am, who I was and who I am attempting to purchase the rights to be in the near future. Who knew "cool" and "taller" cost so much both monetarily and existentially.
For those who either successfully ignored/had zero interest in/were too busy with their ant infestation either real or imagined this is the second installment in a series where I attempt to share who I am with the world for minimal royalties or for the off-chance some royal family is either looking for a court jester (which would mostly involve me reading my writing and then weeping uncontrollably afterwards regardless of how it is received) or an adopted uncle - I have always dreamed of being adopted into a royal family and then fairly quickly wearing out my welcome due to my distaste for wigs and crumpets.
Some of you may be asking why I want to share with others who I am so badly that I seem to be constantly shoving it down your throats? To which I answer I have neither seen your throats nor stuffed anything down them and that you need to adopt a hyper-vigilance regarding your body parts especially those that someone could stuff something down if your guard is dropped. I would also invest in a better set of guards - maybe ones trained specifically to watch throats? Just so you know, I am aiming mostly for your eyes when I write this and will be at least partially satisfied if I hit your cheeks as my calibration may be slightly off. But your throats? Just seems like a waste of my time and I am trying to cut back on all excessive time wasting due to its long term lack of financial viability plus I've just upgraded my collection of shirts.
As I've mentioned before - sometimes in writing, sometimes while running through the streets wearing a ballet outfit brandishing what looks like the remains of a ghost costume and sometimes via nose flute - I am first and foremost a man who is often misunderstood although that could have something to do with all of the cauliflower that I toss in olive oil, salt and pepper and then roast and occasionally consume. I am aiming to be a man who is understood a little bit more frequently - I'd love to add in Monday evenings.
I consider myself a husband although whenever I see that word it, for some unexplained reason (and I am on multiple waitlists to see a psychiatrist) it reminds me of a rubber band and I'm momentarily confused as to which one I am. It usually takes a series of PowerPoint presentations from my technologically-minded wife to convince me that I am not a rubber band, of which I am equal parts relieved, disappointed and less rubbery (I can't get rid of all of the rubber I've amassed over time, it is just too enjoyable to bounce on).
I take my duties as a husband very seriously. There will be no stepping out of line on my watch mostly because I have put lines everywhere - it is almost impossible to miss them! When we first got married and after the initial glow faded (we were thrilled as the bulbs were so blinding and we were constantly bumping into them due to our heavily reduced eyesight and then singeing ourselves on them) we decided that I needed to better understand my new life as a married man and that a series of rebus puzzles just wouldn't suffice this time. A comprehensive list (a charter of rights if you will) was created, including the frequency and duration of back massages, the precise accent to be used when serving egg dishes without coming across as overly pretentious and the need to be constantly boiling water even when there was no obvious use for the water once boiled.
I look back in time at my early days as a married man and I laugh really loudly which makes everyone very uncomfortable. I was so young, so adorable and so red, though that is probably a result of someone colouring my face red in all of our old photographs. It's true, I see being a husband as a chance to gain access to the private clubs and magazine subscriptions that would just seem shocking for a single guy. And it's true, I wanted to find someone to share my love of leafy green vegetables as well as my collection of leafy green-enwrapped action figures. I found her and either she wasn't trying to hide or she needed to purchase more camouflage clothes.
At some point, I became a father and, contrary what I had been told, it was not at all like a walk in the woods. In hindsight I'm not sure who told me it would be and why I believed them at all. You are probably thinking to yourself (or announcing to the world through some very modern, showy and well-positioned billboards) that not only are the two things so unalike, but that I'm probably making up my confusion for literary purposes. Well, let me tell you that I may just be doing that or maybe, just maybe I am the sort of person who is always falling into the trap that things are similar to walking in the woods because of my love for the peace and tranquility of the activity and at least partially due to the fact that I was forcibly made to walk in the woods from May through August in 2003.
I love fatherhood and wish I could be part of my more hoods that didn't put me on the radar of the police or, I should say, not any more on their radar than I already am (I've heard through the grapevine that bispectacled, freckled and overly attractive 44 year old Canadian man fit the narrow profile of something that they seem to be looking out for).
No matter how it looks, I am aiming to be as fatherly as possible all the time except on days when it is windy as it is just too challenging. All of my props get blown around and I just can't afford all of the paperweights! My kids depend on me and I love that. I would like all those related to me to be heavily dependent on me as it gives me both a sense of purpose and a drive to go on even when times get tough, but it also provides me a built in target audience for my new line of bath gels. Aside from how clean and well-scented it makes us all, it also makes my kids very slippery - hours of fun!
In a world where all people are either cat or dog lovers, we are on the cat side. We have always owned cats probably because we are easily mesmerized by the purring. As I sit on the couch, partially covered by this large, heavy purring animal I sometimes wonder if I feel like a cup of chamomile tea. I'm not totally sure why. The rough tongue licks my hand either as a way to demonstrate love or in the hope that once it licks through the outer layer, something more flavourful may be underneath. I sit there and mindlessly pet my cat, unknowingly sending hair and microscopic dander in the air, of which I am quite allergic for reasons that are not only beyond me, but also in front of me as that is where the allergins are mostly concentrated.
Life as a pet owner is tough. I clean their litter throwing dust in the air that makes me wheeze and cough, I feed them with zero signs of gratitude or joy, I get them expensive boosters and medicine out of guilt and love and all the while I know that at some point they will no longer be around. I've often wondered why I go through with this all when someday I will be so sad and then I eat some decadent chocolate cake as it is someone's birthday or something. Where did this cake come from anyways?
I am a passionate educator and I love working with students especially the ones who wear all white and look like angelic goat herders, or the ones who look like they are walking to the beat of the music sung by Tibetan monks, or the ones who wear glasses so that they can see - they are so wise. Some students are always going on and on about their eyebrows and wishing they were either longer, curlier and more marketable and others are always going on and on about putting balls through hoops even when the balls are so small that they are either nonexistent or imaginary and the hoops are the custodians earrings and others are "doing their homework", or "reading their notes" or "studying for tests" which are most likely current slang expressions for drug use or witchcraft.
Students want to learn and I want to help them get ready for a future of more school, smog, and pushing a single button repeatedly until the boss says you can go home where you are just pushing a different button until the beep tells you to go to sleep. My goal is to inspire the youth of today to become the leaders of tomorrow and to skip as many steps in between as possible which is usually accomplished by skipping rope as little as possible. I often look into the eyes of these impressionable students and see melodramatic hope and dreams for the future set to elevator music and other times I look into their eyes and see fire and brimstone and other times I look and see an exciting, nail-biting football game and then I realise that I've been watching TV the whole time.
Students are impressionable and it is tempted to push different substances on them to make impressions - you must fight that temptation I was told by an older teacher right before he did cartwheels down the hallway which definitely was quite impressive considering he had sworn that he wouldn't. I want to teach them to make good choices (always choose the larger one or failing that, the smaller one!), think for themselves (and after mastering that, consider branching out and thinking for others as well), and learn how to work hard (without appearing to work hard - no one likes an overly sweaty worker no matter how successful).
One sunny morning, I decided to walk to school and when I got there it dawned on me how furry all of the students looked. I had to think - are they usually this furry or furry at all? I settled on "no" and after walking around for about 30 minutes realised I was on a farm. I guess I took a few wrong turns on my way to work and I was suspicious that something was up when I trudged through that corn field as I am pretty sure there isn't usually a corn field near the school. I contemplated leaving, but the other farmers were so welcoming and the animals enjoyed my presence so I stayed for a while. Those 6 months on the farm is easily the greatest teaching experience of my career.
The toughest part of working in a school is having to say goodbye and no matter how many times I go through this at the end of a school year or during a freak alien abduction or a science experiment gone horribly wrong (she was told numerous times not to eat the cow eye), it never gets easier to say goodbye. I once thought I could learn to get better at it by saying an emotional goodbye to each student every day for a month but all that happened was a much higher rate of skipping and an exponential growth in my need for handkerchiefs. The only good things about having a hard time with farewells is that it means that I did a good job which warms my heart (this is more and more important each year as I grow older and colder) and it grants me a forum to perform my one-man Broadway-inspired show where I play a Southern belle with loose morals and surprisingly and confusingly high ethical standards who sings of love lost and just getting lost (the entire second act is her being lost at work - all of the cubicles look the same) and then finding love while lost at work. This show has no connection to the leaving students aside from picking up my spirits - it is hard to crossdress, sing and make a commentary on the relationship (or lack there of) between morals, ethics and love.
Nothing feels better than a thank you note from a student, showing their appreciation for all of your time and hard work - especially when it was intended for me - aside from a pat on the head followed closely by a grilled cheese and a game of backgammon. It's been so long since my last pat on the head. I love those actual thank you notes as they are so real or at least less imaginary then all of the imaginary notes I am constantly receiving.
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