This is Halloween

"Whoa!  Step back a minute!  Don't get in people face!"  I read the reflection on bad behavior from a fourth grader.  He was deciding how to make better decisions.  I think he was totally on to something and wanted to make a copy, but all of the copiers are always all jacked up at school.  I could elaborate on that but need to keep making a semi-living. 

Halloween sucked.  It is my favorite holiday of the year and I didn't even put on a costume.  I spent the evening with the back gate bungee cord-shut and lights out on the front porch.  Alec, Lola and I quarantined ourselves near the back of the house with all of the doors shut so no one could see that we were home.  Much of this has to do with family strife and I would just like to raise one giant middle finger to that and for getting the blame for it. 

I did carve two pumpkins.  They are marvelous, but are now covered in black mold due to the eighty degree, late October temperatures that climate change HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH.

I spent Saturday morning looking at plane tickets to Chernobyl, to Kathmandu, to Lesvos, to Hanoi, to basically anywhere, whether I have been there before or not.

I am in my eleventh year of public teaching.  I have taught through several elections and the students always ask who I am going to vote for.  I demure, imploring them to make their own decisions.  I am an unabashed Liberal, though I endured growing up in the suburbs of Atlanta.  I remember a mock election when I was the only vote for Dukakis in my whole homeroom.  I already hated them, but felt even more like the odd one out when the results came out and I was openly ridiculed, they knew it was me.  I don't want to do that to some kid.  They should believe what they want, or I guess what their parents parrot to them. 

This election has been different.  My Somali kids have asked me if I think Donald Trump will win and they will be deported, though the were born in the United States.  My African-American kids tell me that he will re-segregate the United States and make them slaves.  They ask me what I think of him.  I can't have them think I support those ideas.  I just can't. 

I feel angry at the little white girl that asks me why we can't just say "all lives matter" instead of "black lives matter".   I want to smack the girl that said that her dad said that "either candidate would be impeached within 100 days".  Why, I wanted to ask her, why?  Who would want that?  Hasn't this election been enough?  Can't people pull their heads out of their asses and follow the rule of law, the standards that have been established?  Why does this rich ass grumpy fucking dad want more instability?

I actually am not mad at the kids. Mantra:  not mad at the kids.  But it does disgust me to watch them parrot their parents and eventually, I will probably be living under the influence of the rich white kids I teach. 

My phone buzzed.  It was Emma. 
"Hey... what's up?"  I asked.
"I'm on your porch, are you guys home?"

I went to the front and opened the door.  Emma was dressed as Bobby Hill and her friend Caleb, who I taught when he was in 5th grade, was dressed as Hank.

"I just wanted to say hi, I mean, IT IS Halloween!"