Catch up time/ josh hancock/ me vs. my mom in wii-land

i am trying to think of where i should begin with this one...

i mean for real, this was one rollercoaster of a weekend. i guess the most logical thing to do would be to start from the beginning...

so we played a show in davenport, iowa. this was a five and a half hour drive that followed my day of parent teacher conferences. so exhausted and slightly under the influence we make it to the Red Stone Room. this was an upscale bar that was pretty new and littered with a mix of people. it seemed weird to have live music, especially the kind we play, but we did it anyway. you really thought waiters would be coming out to serve dinner. it had nice wood everything three huge video screens and a fancy club-like bar. you know the kind where the surface is so shiny you can see your drunk mug lookin' back at ya'?

so we play the show, some people seem into it, others hear it as background to their conversations. after we get done we are approached by a guy who was really complimentary of the set, but critical of my friend becky's movement as a bass player. "your bass parts were great, but you didn't move." of course this didn't sit well with me, because i bought this asshole a shot. so i told becky he should kick him in the nuts. she held back, and i proceeded to get weird on him. this was a tactic i used to get out the way of the bully. this guy was much taller than me and i was provoking him so i left him with this very strange reply, after he mentioned something about Burger King:

"Burger King? Burger King? Where I am from we don't have Burger King, we have Princess Land! What you call a Whopper, we call BEDTIME!" boo yah!

so yeah i couldn't believe was still able to stand. i had one and half hours of sleep, seven and half hours of work (two dedicated to parent/teacher conferences) and the limit of alcohol my body could take. so yeah mission accomplished, billy! seriously "BEDTIME!" ugh i'm an idiot. luckily nothing happened, and we proceeded to hit the towns of Davenport and Rock Island.

The next day I was TIRED!

somehow still made it in time to clean up the bar at Eastside... after bartending i caught up with some friends at a party, and then i got magically called away to a late night wiffleball game where i pitched up a homerun to my pal benjamin, he knocked the hell out of it, later i wandered the streets with a pleasant transient soul...

Sunday i am awoken to my friend jarrett telling me the cardinals and cubs game we were to attend was cancelled after the sudden death of relief pitcher Josh Hancock. Josh had pitched against the Cubs the night he was killed in a car accident. His car was heading down Highway 40 when smashed into the back of a tow truck that had been in the left hand lane helping another motorist. he was 29.

So with the game being appropriately cancelled i decided at the very last minute that i was going to go visit my family for dinner. good idea on my part. we had a nice dinner, watched some episodes of entourage, and then discovered the greatest piece of technology since the toaster. simply put, Wii.

holy shit! this is the most amazing piece of hardware. it is wireless and deals with all directional movement. if you are playing a golf game, you swing the controller like a golf club. if you are playing a baseball game you swing the controller like a bat. so my mom and i played a bowling game. it was like the real deal, complete with sweeping gutterballs and shattering strikes, my mom was responsible for the latter. she beat me three times in a row. i kept having to say i had to go, but Wii just pulls you back in for three or four more games. it is as addicting as my need for diet coke...

all in all a good weekend, but this week leaves me with a lot of work to do... what am i doing to myself?

I am playing the Mean Girl

Often I think my friends get tired of stories about my students. but man kids say the darnedest things... okay that was bad... but here is an exchange with one of my students today (names have been changed for the sake of privacy). I find Lisa digging in the sand by herself away from her friends. Keep in mind Lisa is 3 years old:

Billy: (okay this name isn't changed) Hey Lisa what are you doing?

Lisa: I am the mean girl.

Billy: Why are you the mean girl?

Lisa: Well... I am playing the mean girl.

Billy: Why can't you play the nice girl?

Lisa: Because I have to be the mean girl until I die in green. And then after that I will be born the nice girl.

Billy: Okay...

Some kids say cute, funny things like "calapitter" instead of catepillar. others blurt out things their parents say when they get angry like "god damn it!" (with perfect intonation). while a few, like Lisa, create fantastical worlds where they are one character then die, only to be reborn as another characther. their minds are complex and they see things we don't, like ghosts...

i have had students have full conversations with bathroom stalls, corners of rooms, and hallways... this phenomena is similar to a dog barking at nothing, or a cat staring for hours at nothing... so kids in general are cute, imaginative and creepy...

another recent development with my students, is that they are slowly catching on to the fact that my last name is schuh (shoe) and indeed that is funny, but they have decided to change my name to funnier, sometimes rhyming, words. here is a brief list:

Billy:
- Boo
- Poo
- Poop
- Silly
- Silly head (this one actually hurts my feelings)
- Pencilface
- School
- (fart sound)
- Goo Goo Gaa Gaa (my favorite)

Now granted these names haven't stuck, but i have been going through this my whole life, and i have yet to hear any original material... this might be a challenge for somebody...

a mix-mesh of the undercurrent

so there are floods of doubt and confusion coursing through my life right now, so the next few lines won't be coherent chronologically, but to me it will be a linear line of thought...

sometimes no matter how arresting the person next to you on a carved surface is, you must maintain your position...

maybe these dizzy spells and body aches are the sign of the end to be. which would be very disappointing, because i think i'm just starting to get my life in order...

sober conversations may alter perceptions, but atleast they are worth looking forward to...

even as the walls close in i know this is the right path, one step at a time, one step at a time...

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