Hickie of the Damned

As I was walking down the hallway today, I overheard a portion of a conversation between two 1st graders.  This is what I heard:


"My dad says there's no such thing as vampires."
"Uh huh, there is too such thing as vampires.  My mamma said one bit her neck in college."

Toby "Azrael" Reynolds
Voted Most Likely to Become
Your Child's Orthodontist

I just kept walking, because sometimes it's just best not to know some things.  Of course, I was thinking about it for the rest of the afternoon.  Was his mom a goth kid?  When did she hang up the black and white striped socks, the nose ring, and the white face paint for mom jeans, pastel polo shirts, and a minivan?  Was  this bite really a hickie from some gross guy in a bar wearing a Concrete Blonde t-shirt, a pewter pentagram necklace, and long greasy hair?  Alas, the world may never know.


I had a friend in college who dated a closeted, vintage clothing aficionado, "Wiccan priest."  I put the priest part in parenthesis, because he told a story of making a "safe journey" potion for a friend.  One of the ingredients was the blood of his friend's spirit animal.  When discovering that said spirit animal was in fact a bald eagle, and that obtaining it's blood would be nearly impossible and highly illegal, he substituted it for the next closest thing: cherry Kool-Aid.  Yeah, hope that turned out well for ya.  I'm sure the great Wiccan god of travel accepted it and all went well.

R.I.P. Good Design

We went to put flowers on Faye's grave for Mother's Day yesterday, and while I was there I saw two of the worst tombstones I have ever seen.  It is apparent that, for some, death is a free pass to get as tacky as you want with the one you love.  I have blurred out the names to protect the innocent (the innocent being the one who is dead and probably had nothing to do with this fiasco).

Grave #1:  "Until We Meet Again" or "Hope You Like Christmas for Eternity"  How ironic that the person who designed and planned this poor woman's grave had this inscription placed on it but hasn't been back since Christmas of 1998?  If you look closely, you'll see that the Christmas tree has lights that were once powered by a battery pack.  The casual, yet dramatic draping of the plastic beads suggest that the designers had once seen an episode on HGTV and attempted to "jazz up" Mama's grave.

Grave #2:  "Love Remains, but Design is Dead" or "Mickey and the Grave"  Yes, folks, that is a University of Tennessee "T" on one side and a Mickey Mouse silhouette on the other.  Since the woman who wants to take Mickey to her resting place is obviously not there yet, one can assume that she is also the one who picked out the Tennessee Vols logo for her hubby.  How much do these tombstones cost?  They aren't cheap.  Between the wedding bands interlocking, the T, the Mickey, the flowers, the crosses, the heart... it looks like someone went crazy with clipart on a homemade card in Publisher.  I will haunt anyone, ANYONE, who does this to me.

The Art Itch

No, it is not the same as athlete's foot.  It is that sometimes rare, out-of-the-blue, if-I-don't-make-some-art-soon-I'll-die moment that artists ache for.  Because I am swamped doing art, work, busy stuff for other people I don't always have a chance to step back, become motivated, and have the energy to draw.  Lucky me, the art itch has finally struck me, and it couldn't have happened at a better time.  I have 2 1/2 weeks of teaching left and then I'm free for the summer.  I have great plans to complete some show-worthy pieces.  How many I actually finish is another story.  I'm just going to enjoy the process.


I really want to focus on making some pieces that I've never given myself the opportunity to create.  They will be based on my thoughts and reactions to a personal battle with cancer.  After finishing up with a check-up with my Oncologist, I have now made it to the four-year mark of being "cancer free."  They say you're not really out of the woods until the five year mark, so I can't say I've quite made it yet.


I intend to post drawings, diagrams, plans, finished work on this blog as I create it.  In the near future, it may only be a "up-to-date" image, which I think may be interesting to see the development of a piece from start to finish.


So, off to do more sketching...

It smells like...

Yesterday, I had a group of students come into my classroom straight from the playground.  I about died, because there is nothing worse than smelling twenty sweaty children all sitting together.  I took them outside for art class, but afterwards my classroom still smelled like stinky children.


After they left, I sprayed the room with Fabreeze air freshener to kill the stink.  About five minutes later, the next group of students came in.  Of course, they all noticed that the room smelled like the air freshener and wanted to know what it was.  I heard comments like, "Mmmm that smells good!," "Did you clean in here?," and "What is that?"


The best comment of all came from a kindergartner who said, "It smells like when Dad poops and sprays that stuff to cover it up."  Too much information, my friend.  Too much information.

Run, Children, Run!

I am all for the safety of my students.  I really am.  I just think that state mandates and local school policies have gone overboard with all the "what if's" that could happen during a school day.

Of course we have fire drills.  We are required to have an average of one per month.  It makes sense to have everyone meet in a central location, which we now do.  However, this meeting spot is on the opposite side of the school grounds.  This means I have to take a group of twenty outside, across a parking lot to the street via the entrance of which the fire trucks will be racing into (naturally), down the street, across a second entrance onto school property, up a hill, and finally report on the opposite side of the school grounds to meet their teachers.  So imagine, if you will, twenty kindergartners trying to manage that long of a distance during an emergency.  Yeah, right.  It is a good 1/3 mile walk to reach safety.  


We are now required to have an emergency helicopter location, a mental health station, and a morgue... YES... a MORGUE.  And guess who gets to station these additional hot spots?  You guessed it, Related Arts (Art, Music, Library, Guidance, and PE).


Intruder alerts, lockdowns, toxic gas alerts (yes, we will be issued duct tape to seal the doors shut to our classrooms to keep out toxic gasses... apparently, the idea is to suffocate and go down with the ship as opposed to chancing it with Mystery Gas X).  This is another half-baked solution sent by the State.  Just in case this should EVER happen (I won't hold my breath... pun intended), apparently the powers that be assume that Mystery Gas X can seep through the cracks under the doors to our classrooms, but not smart enough to come through the A/C units.  Go figure!


I'm all for teaching our kids about "Stranger Danger."  And,  yes, there should be a plan in case a "bad guy" comes in the building, but how sad is it that my first graders are so used to the idea of a crazed gunman stalking the halls that locking classroom doors and hiding in dark corners become second nature?


Rumor has it this year is the year to practice an off-campus evacuation.  That requires us to take the entire student population and escort them over a half-mile away to a secure location.  Really!?  I'm trying my best to find out what day this will be.  I feel a sick day coming on!

Not your average art teacher

Yes, I teach elementary art. If I were in a police line-up, I doubt you would pick me as the first one you'd expect to teach your five-year-old proper painting procedures and why you shouldn't paint your teeth with tempera. Of course, you'd probably not want anyone to teach your child if you had to pick them out of a police line-up... but I digress.

Things you will never see in my classroom:

• Glitter- first and foremost. My hatred of glitter is almost equivalent to my hatred of Popsicle stick crafts
• Popsicle stick crafts
• Cotton ball "bunnies," "sheep," or "clouds"
• Anything that you would expect to see at a vacation bible school craft station. NO CRAFTS
• A whiney kid that hasn't felt my wrath

Surprisingly, the great majority of my students actually like me. Go figure.

(image: Demetri Martin)