Vanity Update: Braces Free

Before

After

Woo hoo! My braces were removed this week. The top picture is enlarged from a snapshot; it isn't the best example of how much my one eyetooth was overlaping the other, but it's the most recent pre-braces photo where I'm actually smiling. The photo also doesn't reflect how much the rest of my front teeth flared out. As you can see in the "after" photo, I'm far from having a movie star smile (the years take their toll), but at least now my teeth are all going in the correct direction. Thanks Dr. G!

Mostly, I wanted you all to appreciate my stubble.

Sometimes Fools

During the years I was teaching at Coronado High School in El Paso, Texas, one of the first classes handed to me was creative writing. I had no textbook, but I was younger. I was energetic. I was idealistic. I really thought facial hair made me look older. So I cobbled together a lot of resources and tried to share my enthusiasm for the written word and create some meaningful assignments. I was new to the English department in 1993, and didn’t know at the time that the class was a dumping ground for kids who needed an English credit to graduate. Most of the students were. . .let us say. . .motivated by things that were not being offered in school. No, I take that back. These things were being offered in school. They just weren’t being grown there.

However, there were always a few that did not need the “No, Really, Writing is Cool” song-n-dance to cajol them into jotting down a few lines of poetry and prose. I didn't have to make a case that, really, it's not unreasonable to ask you to write a little in. . .what's the course title. . .oh yes, Creative Writing. These students wanted real critical feedback, and they managed to actually write stories that explored territory other than:

1. pregnant girls who (shocking revelation on last page) have been impregnated by a) their own fathers b) vampires or c) their own fathers who, it turns out, are vampires.
2. young gangsters/government agents committing a series of violent acts to protect their loved ones from a) vampires b) the crime boss who raped his daughter, and who, as it turns out, is the gangster/agent’s girlfriend or c) other gangsters/government agents who’ve secretly infiltrated the crime family/government , and who, as it turns out, are really vampires.

They also managed to avoid:

1. poems about being the first person EVER to have experienced a) love b) a broken heart or c) broken heart because they can’t tell the person they love that they love them because it could unbalance their clique, andthey can’t risk being any less popular than they already are.
2. poems about how NO one understands how hard it is to be adolescent (but themselves of course) especially a) parents b) teachers c) other adolescents.
3. Poems where they wished they could be a) more popular b) vampires c) gangster vampires

One of those marvelous students that managed to avoid the pitfalls of bad writing was Lee Simmons. Lee had a great love for truth, beauty, language, and music. He still loves these things, and has continued grow as a writer and musician. He’s currently living in the Austin, TX area where he’s been self-producing poetry, prose, music, and babies (um, he might have had some help with the baby). However, his most recent album, Sometimes Fools has received a good deal of positive press, and it is currently being considered as part of the “fan your band to fame” contest. Lee writes very accessible and very smart songs. But don’t take my word for it; go listen to some free samples of his music here. Then go vote for him here. You can vote once a day. You can even order the album here (and you can go around humming “This is Only a Test” like I do).

Do these things. Help a young artist, get some good music, and make some good karma. You’ll be saving the world from incestuous vampires who hate freedom.

Let's Move!

The clock is ticking. . . movers loom. . .our crap is out of drawers and off shelves and strewn everywhere. Spent a few hours trying to teach all of it to roll itself in paper and jump into boxes, but it’s looking like we’re actually going to have to pick the junk up and pack it ourselves. It’s hard out here for a muggle. In our breaks we’re eating fast food and trying to send out change of address to all the people who like to send us bills and checks (always more of the former), oh, yeah, and our friends and family too. If you haven’t received an email with our new information, well. . .take a hint. Or, we’ve lost your address. :)

We’ll be off the grid for a few days or more – no landline, no internet, no cable. I’ll see you on the other side and send word from the new place. Ciao!

Closing Time. . .la. . la. . .la-la-la

We closed on the condo and the new place on the same day. . .it went something like this:

Closing the first --

1. The settlement office has a Hotel California parking lot (you can get in, but you can’t get out). No hyperbole here. After you enter the parking lot, you realize you can’t turn around. Just what you want in a business; after negotiating the lot, everyone walks into your building with an attitude.
2. Platters of chocolate, and bar of caffeinated drinks in the office to point of overkill. . . .thank goodness the building was non-smoking, or I’m sure they’d have had a crystal meth bar set up too.
3. At the meeting was our realtor (white hat) and their realtor (black hat and a real need to mark her territory) and long stares (cue spaghetti western music and Sergio Leone extreme close ups) and we sat down to a "this town ain't big enough for both of us" vibe. It didn't take long into things before both women had their guns drawn.
4. Then there was the lawyer who was like this:
5. 
6. And where to put that enormous conference table? I know, let’s pick a very small room. Metaphors made real: nothing like signing pages of documents with your back literally against a wall. Need to get up? Everyone has to get up and walk out so you can step out.
7. The poor folks (no pun intended) buying our place must had to go somewhere like the DiMeo Finance Corporation for their loan at about 10% and very complicated paperwork, and I’m sure they may have to do someone a "favor" in the old neighborhood too. God bless America. . .if you want to get up, you got to get down.
8. Oh, and they don’t speak English. So all the paperwork had to be translated. All 500,000 pages.
9. Oh, and they brought their two kids the toddler and pre-schooler.
10. Oh, and one got sick and threw up. And then cried. Really loud screaming-eagle baby sobs. In the little room.
11. And did I mention the size of the room? And the crying? And the vomit?
12. So our realtor took her gun off the other realtor and pointed it at the lawyer.
13. Who pulled back his coat, exposing his pearl handled fountain pen and squinted his eyes. And said, “you can’t get your check until all the i’s have been dotted and all the t’s crossed and all my paper has been stacked back into very neat little piles just as they were when you entered.”
14. And our realtor said, “Gary, your boss, always gets me out early.”
15. And the lawyer said, “that’s absurd. We always follow the rules here. The rules! The rules! The rules! And we keep our paperwork in very neat stacks. I won’t have anyone messing up my precise piles of 8 and ½ x 14 paper placed exactly one inch apart in two columns. I like it that way. And so. . . does. . . .Gary."
16. So they took it out into the hall. And all the people ran for cover. . secretaries hid under their desks, interns dived into supply rooms, agents hid behind copy machines. And they interrupted Gary in his meeting.
17. And when Burt came back in, he said to us meekly, his hand covering a little red ink stain right over his heart and ruining his French cut Brooks Bros shirt, “while we wait to have them cut your check, you’ll need to sign these documents. I will now explain them to you as if you were ten years old.”
18. And the other realtor looked at the lawyer, and then at our realtor, and then she pissed her pants, and mysteriously was transformed into the model of courtesy and humility.
    
19. And we signed our papers and said adios and took our money and went to the next closing, our female realtor behind us, her brass balls clanging as we walked out.

Second closing –

1. Nothing like being late for a legal appointment, stuck on the beltway, and then
2. caught in a blinding rainstorm. Unable to hear each other even talk for the sound of the rain on the car roof, I keep thinking of that Ray Bradbury story about the soldiers in the rain who all went crazy.
3. Arrive late, dripping wet, tired but still wired from all the sugar and caffeine we've been served.
   
4. So of course, we're offered more caffeine and taken to waiting room that looked something like this.
5. Much less claustrophobic conference room. And, besides more candy, had free swag – keychains, bottle openers, coasters, pens, and the like. We fill our pockets like greedy children.
6. Rain stops as soon as we get inside. Sun comes out.
7. The lawyer for the second closing was like this:
8. 
9. We sign pages of documents, but not as many as the people who bought our place. Those folks may still be signing papers at this very moment.
10. Lawyer tells legal document and lawyer foreclosure jokes while we sign our docs. . .they were funny jokes. We laugh. Tosses documents into casual stacks.
    
11. His staff, not so amused, though. I’m guessing they’ve heard these jokes before. I’m guessing they’ve heard these jokes so often they now have a support group to cope with the repetitive stress disorder caused by having to hear the bosses’ lawyer jokes everyday. The clerk grows a year older in the 45 minutes that we are there. I long to tell her to look at the bright side, that this guy doesn’t make her use a ruler to stack and sort the documents.
12. We look at our check from the other settlement. We take a moment of zen and imagine the check in our bank account. Oh, that’s what it’s like to have money. Ohhhhhhhhh!
13. Then we endorse the check over to Ernie.
14. We now own a real house with a yard and a lot more responsibilites. What the hell were we thinking? Oh yeah, the neighbors. Damn.
15. On way out to car it starts to rain again.

Epilogue –

We drive out to our new house. The previous owners have left us a houseplant and a nice card. Awwww. We sit on our wood floor, eat chicken salad sandwiches and have a little picnic in our new house.

I'll keep you posted. And in the meantime. . .let's keep things organized, shall we?