A Rock To Tie A String Around

I recently followed a colleague’s advice and gave my kids a ‘teacher evaluation’ survey.

It asked questions such as “Ms. Kaufman helps us to do our best and doesn’t allow us to turn in below average work” and “Ms. Kaufman expects we work to our full potential and instills a sense of confidence in ourselves” In short; it was a beautiful piece of mental-self-congratulatory-back-patting-academic self-confidence inducing bullshit. I took the quiz myself and was instructed to take it as though I were one of my students. I aced it. According to me, I am the best teacher EVER. I am thoughtful and kind to students in need. I have high standards but yet provide all sorts of varied resources and instructional strategies in order to make my students succeed.

So sensitive, yet such nice hair...

I am awesome.

How will I reach these kids?

Then I gave it to my students for real.

I sat at the front of the room, watching them fill out their anonymous surveys, anticipating how I would read the glowing reviews, a look of dewy-eyed surprise on my face, music would swell in the background, Hilary Swank would knock on the door to my classroom and ask if she could play me in the next inspirational teacher movie…..

The pearls give a sense of vulnerability, but underneath she's a teaching machine

I totally forgot about the day before when I had passed out their totally easy (to me) final exam and announced that if they asked me any questions about this final then they didn’t deserve to graduate from high school. I also forgot about last week when I told them I would hunt them down and extract the money for any lost copies of The Color Purple by force if needs be if they didn’t behave in a responsible way and just return it on their own. I also forgot about that day when I told them to stop asking clown questions and think…..

Yeah…I may have forgotten, but they most certainly did not.

Oddly, my scores on my survey were significantly lower than what I gave myself….. It was most evident on item #4: “Ms. Kaufman welcomes questions and offers a variety of explanations in order to best explain a concept.”
Uh yeah…. I guess ‘read the freakin’ book’ doesn’t qualify as a ‘good’ answer. Huh.

I am currently studying for the FYLSE. That’s the First Year Law Student Exam for you laymen and layladies out there. I go to an..ahem…somewhat untraditional law school and get the privilege of jumping through a few extra hoops in order to obtain my JD. Where isn’t important, suffice it to say, if you are ever in trouble online, I’m your girl…er…super girl attorney…in a few years…

I’ve been sitting through a three day study session for this major exam which is reputed to actually be harder than the actual bar exam, as its purpose is weeding out the unworthy. I have been sitting as a student in a conference room at the Marriot for three days listening to all variety of questions, most of them stupid. What has surprised me most, however, is how many times I have had to stifle my own stupid questions.

Yes, I know my professor just told me that malice is not a factor in an attempt crime. Why do I want so badly to raise my hand and ask him if I could have checked C on the multiple choice question #57 because I determined in my first year law student brain that the hypothetical guy had malice in his heart when he tried to scare the other hypothetical guy by shooting a gun through hypothetical window and scaring hypothetical guy #2 and hypothetical girl. Why do I want to ask this question? Professor just gave me the answer, yet I am calling upon every morsel of self-control not to raise my hand and ask.
Then I remember Dr. Phil.

The wise Dr. Phil said on one of his Emmy nominated talk shows that the teenage brain is not quite formed. The last part to form being the impulse zone that stops us from being a dodo and asking the question that was just answered…or car surfing on a boogie board precariously balanced on top of your friend’s parent’s Volvo while your girlfriend drives down the 405 at 3am…..

I realized that I, at age 35, barely have the necessary control over my lizard brain to stop asking redundant and stupid questions. Some of my classmates have not yet mastered that……

How can I possibly ask my students to do something that I have a tenuous at best grasp on?

What will I do in the future? I will try not to slam my head against the whiteboard every time a kid asks me what page we’re on. I will try to stop throwing erasers at the kid who asks me which character was named ‘protagonist.’ I will try to stifle the urge to staple a sticky note to the forehead of the kid who seriously had no idea that Siddhartha and Buddha are the same person.

I don't really think this happens....at least I hope not...

I will try. And I will pass out the evaluation next year, and I will learn something else from it….and so it goes.

It’s well known around my house that I tend to overanalyze movies. I find it difficult if not impossible to properly suspend my disbelief when faced with absurdity. For example, my son, Mr. Adorablepants, insists on watching Cars at least once a week. It raises a few questions for the astute viewer. For one, the cars in Radiator Springs are worried about going out of business because all the traffic has been diverted from Route 66. How exactly do cars handle financial transactions without opposable thumbs? If it were a barter economy, than they wouldn’t need worry about the big highway stealing their business, the needs of the community would be met by trading services. Right?

And where do baby cars come from?

When a mommy and a daddy love eachother very, very much....

Questions like this will keep you up at night.

Most recently though, I had a nasty bout of insomnia and stayed up too late watching HBO. I was pretty psyched when I found Indecent Proposal playing, mostly because I like me some Robert Redford. The Husband, however, was kept awake along with me, as I took to randomly yelling ‘Hooker!’ at the television. It’s not the only movie that drives me crazy, so starting with the most recent, here are a few that have failed to create sufficient movie magic to stop me from yelling ‘Hooker!’ at the television.

1. Indecent Proposal: In short, for those who haven’t seen it, Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson are having money problems. They go to Vegas to try to gamble enough to make their loan payment. Robert Redford is a fabulously handsome and wealthy billionaire who offers to pay the couple 1 million dollars if Demi Moore will spend one night with him.

Okay, so this is more of a Butch Cassidy Redford...but nice nonetheless....

I suppose it was supposed to bring up issues of whether you can buy people, and the lengths that people in desperate financial straits will go when pushed, the essence of true love….blah, blah blah. There are a few issues here. First, their financial straits weren’t so dire; they were just in danger of losing their big mansion on a hill, not the perfectly reasonable house they already lived in. I’m so sorry you don’t get a mansion, boo hoo. Then, they spend about four hours contemplating Robert Redford’s proposal before they make the heart wrenching decision to sell Demi off to him for the night. HOOKER! Granted….it is Robert Redford, but she’s still a hooker. And I might add, that there are plenty of actual hookers in Vegas, I fail to see how spotting Demi from across a crowded casino drove Robert Redford to such distraction that he went to such lengths. He’s Robert Freakin’ Redford, c’mon people, c’mon.

Okay...so this is Gatsby Redford...but still nice.

2. The Big Chill: The Husband, in our young and wooing days insisted that I see this movie. Now, if we’re just talking soundtrack, got it. If we’re talking movie…I’ve got to label this a HOOKER movie. This infuriated me beyond measure. So, in nutshell, group of college friends gather for a reunion after the funeral of one of their friends. Much drama ensues and Glenn Close ends up loaning her husband, Kevin Kline for the night to their very best friend Mary Kay Place, who desperately wants kids but has no one with which to have kids. And yes, purists, more than that happens, there are reconciliations, dramatic moments, looks of great longing, sigh…sigh…bleck.

I’m sorry Glenn Close, but what??!? First of all, even if it were a sure thing that Mary Kay Place would have become pregnant from her one night of borrowed love, there are other ways to do it. I would have maybe called a freakin’ doctor before I sent Kevin Kline in to do the deed. Hooker! As in Indecent Proposal, I just don’t feel like they sufficiently explore their options before jumping to the absolutely most dramatic option. They could have introduced her to a nice single guy, they could have bought her a male hooker, they could have all chipped in for a nice sperm donation. Options people, options, options that don’t involve Kevin Kline.

A good soundtrack nonetheless.

3. 2001: A Space Odyssey: I’m about to get tarred and feathered for this but….does anything happen in this movie? Really, please tell me. I have tried so very many times to appreciate it. And yes, Stanley Kubrick is a genius. I’m sure I don’t like this one because I’m too dumb to understand it. Thing is, I do understand what’s going on, I just don’t care. I feel like Simon Cowell sitting on a judging panel:

“I see your maniacal artificial intelligence, I just don’t care.”

And while this certainly doesn’t make me yell “Hooker!”, it does make me want to yell “Will something please for the love of grilled cheesus happen!! Anything! Order some food My Dinner With Andre-Style!” Even that snore-fest had an action scene when the food was delivered and Wallace Shawn commented on how small the cornish hens were…

But I digress. Every science fiction writer or reader worth their grain will at one point claim they were influenced by 2001, at least that’s what I’ve been told. That’s why I’ve started telling folks that I write romance novels, it’s stopped all the blank looks and questions about 2001.

three hours of this....over and over and over and over....

Okay so there’s three, I haven’t even started on the conundrum that is Ice Age Three: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. At one point the girl mammoth asks for a pineapple. Am I crazy but she would have no earthly idea what a pineapple was. They only grow on Hawaii.

If this doesn't creep you out, I don't know what will....

I know…suspend the disbelief, suspend. Rinse and repeat…suspend.

Recently, a good friend told me that he had learned a valuable lesson from Tina Fey.   In short, he learned that you never, ever ask a woman about their reproductive prospects.   Meaning, you see a woman with one kid and you ask ‘So, when are you having another?’    Or you ask the married woman with no kids ‘So, why don’t you have kids?’

It’s no secret that I think Tina Fey is a comedic god.   And the fact that she has imparted this knowledge onto the public makes me love her even more.   She’s right.  This might be one of the most annoying questions in the history of annoying questions.

Personally, as the mother of one child, I get asked this fairly often, and I never understand people’s investment in me having more than one child.   Strangers and distant acquaintances will ask me this and argue with me:  “No…you want more than one, of course you do, why wouldn’t you?”  Subtext:  What are you?  Some kind of monster to deprive your child of a sibling?

I find myself wondering what exactly is the questioner’s investment in my answer.   Are they midwives trying to drum up business?  Do they run a school and they need more future students?   Are they terrified that my child will grow up without the benefit of a sibling to torment them?    Why exactly do you care?

It’s not the only annoying question that women get asked though.   In no particular order:

1. “Where is your son during the day?”

I get asked this fairly often by probably well-meaning co-workers.    It really depends on how the question is asked as to what the level of annoying is.  A truly innocent ‘I’m looking for options for my own kid’ type of query is one thing.  The raised eyebrow, slightly suspicious query is entirely different.   I’m not sure what the asker expects me to say.  “Huh, not sure really…I guess he could be anywhere by now.   I’m pretty sure I locked the front door, but wouldn’t bet on it….”  Or “Closet.  I leave water and goldfish crackers, it’s fine.”   

He’s at daycare genius.  And it really is fine.

1. “Have you ever thought of getting a nanny?”

Yes.  And until that bag of cash appears on my door on a monthly basis, it’s not happening.   Oddly, I get asked this question fairly often by co-workers as well.   What I really want to say is ‘We’re teachers, we make the same amount of money, we’re both wearing last season’s Old Navy Clearance clothes and I would bet neither of our cars have had more than a quarter tank of gas in the last six months.   A nanny?   Why don’t you ask me if I’ve ever thought about hiring a butler?    It’s just as likely to happen.

1. “Bet your husband was glad it was a boy!”

If I had a dollar for every time someone said this to me when I was pregnant and immediately following Mr. Adorablepants’ arrival, I really could hire a nanny.   While I tended to nod politely and smile, what I was thinking was:  “Why yes, we needed a male heir to pass on the family bloodline and inherit the kingdom.   Those good for nothing girls are nothing but dowry suckers and breeding chattel for the neighboring fiefdoms.”   Seriously people, it’s 2011.   Does it matter if you have a girl or a boy now?  Really?      My husband and I were happy Mr. Adorablepants was healthy, as long as he was healthy he could have been a little of both and I would have been thrilled.

1. “Why isn’t he potty trained yet?  My daughter was potty trained at 18 months!”

Well you get the cookie.   You have a girl… parents of girls are eternally dumbfounded that I haven’t succeeded in completely potty training Mr. Adorablepants yet.   He’s working on it, and I’m pretty sure he won’t go to college in diapers….but even if he does…they make really big diapers and presumably he will be able to change them himself by then.   So, I think we’ll be fine.   Don’t worry about it.

1. “So, how was your labor?”

I got asked this little gem quite a bit by total strangers right after Mr. Adorablepants was born and I was pushing him around in his stroller.   I’m not sure what I was expected to say to these strangers:  “It was so awesome, you should have seen the size of my cervix!  Here, I have a pic on my phone, wanna see?”   Really people, how do you think it was?  It’s LABOR.   It sucked.  It probably sucked more than anything has ever sucked before.  It felt at times like my belly was going to explode Aliens style and keep in mind; I was under heavy use of painkillers. I don’t even want to know what it would have felt like otherwise.

I'm not sure what's going on here, but I'm pretty sure that deer needs an epidural.

In short people, unless you’re a close relative, a close friend or a doctor – most women just don’t want to talk about their reproductive cycles, fertility patterns or childcare decisions with you.   Most of us are responsible, mature grown-ups.  We got this.  Don’t worry.