the comparatively minor molasses fiasco of 2008

Once upon a time, there was an intrepid girl. She got up early on Sunday to check out one of several churches she'd earmarked in her Newcomer's Handbook for Boston. While waiting for the trolley, she bought a beverage at the convenience store.

Alas, alack, there was a five dollar minimum for using a debit card. So, visions of bran muffins dancing in her head, she bought a jar of molasses to raise her total. No, no, I don't need a bag, this would-be eco-friendly girl informs the clerk.

(You see where I'm going with this, don't you. Sadly, intrepid girl does not.)

She disembarks the trolley, follows the map from the church's website, and notes the site of a lovely coffee shop. I shall stop at this charming establishment on my way back, she thinks.

When she finds the church, she is pleasantly surprised by two or three youngish women who greet her enthusiastically. They chit-chat and shake hands, and then find their way to some seats. It's nice to have someone to sit with, the girl muses.

Then she happens to brush her dress with her hand. How odd! I could have sworn this was a clean dress, but it seems strangely sticky.

I know, dear reader that at this point you've ascertained the direction of our lamentable tale, but our heroine is yet unaware.

Sometime during the middle of the worship set, she reaches down into the yellow cloth bag she's comandeered from her roommate until her own purses arrive. Her hands come out covered with brown goo. She looks at the bottom of the bag. There is a pool of molasses. At least a cup's worth. She is in church, she remembers, so she contents herself with whispering Drat! under her breath.

During greeting time, she warns all prospective hand-shakers that her hands are covered in molasses. They look at her quizzically, but don't ask. Undaunted, they shake her hands anyway. Hopelessly embarrassed, she doesn't explain.

After church, she lifts her bag. A foot-wide circle adheres it to the floor. Despite being invited to stay for a church picnic, she wants out of that place. So she finds the bathroom and methodically removes every last item: cell phone, ipod, brand new greeting cards (ruined), camera lens (fortunately unharmed), book, wallet, various receipts and writing implements. The earbuds are shot, as are the greeting cards, but nearly everything else cleans up painlessly. Then the girl rinses and re-rinses the bag as women and children filed past, clearly wanting to inquire but opting instead to wash their hands silently.

Except for one lady who regales intrepid molasses girl with the alarmingly true story of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

She learns that in 1919, a tank containing more than two million gallons of molasses exploded in Boston's North End, flowing through the streets at roughly 35 mph. I wonder who stood there and clocked it, she wonders to herself. Twenty-one people died and 150 were injured. She cannot help but wonder how the obituaries were composed.

But in the end, as she treks back to the trolley station with her wet, earthy-scented bag, she feels connected to Boston in a whole new way.

first days

Day one was a bit rough. I was tired, emotionally overwrought, and dehydrated. But I took my mother's advice and slept it off, and days two and three have been infinitely better.

This is my school, the nexus of my universe after July 21. I believe it is roughly a twenty minute walk from my apartment. Yesterday I put on comfy shoes and hiked all up and down this road, checking out furniture stores and restaurants and supermarkets and bicycle shops.


Today I decided to broaden my exploration. I took the "T" (Boston's subway system) about thirty minutes to the public library. My geekiness paid off, though, when two sixty-year old Italian men stopped me inside to tell me first in Italian, and then in English "You're gah-geous!" And as I walked away, one said to his friend very loudly, "Now that was a woman! Did you see that woman?" Ha! Inappropriate, probably. Flattering, absolutely.

Anyway, I successfully got myself from the library to a stationer a few blocks away, and then popped in a few tantalizing but pricey stores (Anthropologie, Crate & Barrel) before the blisters on my feet became prohibitive. Here I am at the T station, waiting to return home. And yes, my eyes always have circles under them, even when I'm well-rested.

And later, I met Susan Bensen for dinner. We went to this tiny little sushi bar called Snappy Sushi. It had few but fabulous vegetarian options including portobello mushroom sushi with basil and red peppers. Yum! And all their sushi is made with brown rice - a first for me! I finished off the evening with the chocolatiest chocolate ice cream I've had in my life. On the whole, it's been a splendid day.

Soon I'll give you pics of my roommates Eva and Nikkii (delightful women), and of my room (beautiful in essentials, but sorely lacking furniture),

Wish me luck! Tomorrow the great and terrible church hunt begins. I deplore this process.

in transit

My nail polish is a garish red, and it's chipped around the edges so that each little nail looks like the bloody inside of a shark's mouth. As the day wears on, the white teeth close tighter. This is what I'm thinking about as I sit at my gate in the Detroit Airport, waiting to fly to Boston.

A silly fixation, but today it seems sinister.

New Cities, take two

My mind has been a tumult for weeks. And now, finally, I feel prepared to address it.

The aforementioned cities to which I submitted my resume were: Chicago, D.C., and Boston. The aforementioned ennui emanated from the fact that none of the schools I contacted seemed in any way interested in me.

And then one contacted me-- MATCH Charter High School in Boston. It's a fantastic school, one that's employing some innovative strategies to close the achievement gap. The school boasts some impressive results, taking students who often arrive well below grade-level and moving them to a point where they can not merely enter, but succeed, in a four-year college. 

Frankly, I'm dumbfounded that such a school even pulled my resume from their probable stack, and more so that I slid through the interviews with the Executive Director and Principal. Last weekend I flew to Boston and taught a sample lesson to twenty students on a Saturday, and just yesterday they offered me the job.

I've agonized over this choice, not because I don't love this possibility; I do. I've struggled because I picture the faces of all the students I've loved this year, because I replay all the conversations I had this May in which kids told me how much they were looking forward to being in my class again or starting a film club or writing for the newspaper. So when I told my principal and English department today that I was not going to come back this fall, I barely held it together. And when they told me goodbye, I ached. I came home, plopped on the couch and sobbed for a good hour.

But I've decided, and though my heart grieves for all that I'm leaving behind, I'm resolute. Come this fall, I'll be teaching sophomore history at MATCH. 

deconstructing the headlines

Look at this headline. I just saw it on CNN's homepage moments ago. Answer, if you will, the following questions:

1. Who committed the crime? Based on the headline, do we know anything about this person's gender? Political affiliation? Motive? Age? Whether he/she represented a group or was simply a psychopathic individual?

2. Who is the victim here? Is the emphasis in the lead/headline placed on her nationality or her humanity? Is she treated as the representative of a group, or as an individual human?

3. If you were to make conclusions based on this headline, which would be the most "Iraqi": the perpetrator or the victim? Would we conclude that most Iraqis are more like the perpetrator or the victim, based exclusively on the rhetoric of this headline?

4. Do you see any connection with this type of labeling and the fact that I have students refer to all persons from the Middle East as "towel heads" and "terrorists"?

5. Why, of all the things going on in the world, is this the primary headline on CNN? Let it never be said that the news is ideologically neutral.

"like a fragile lover"

Yesterday, I heard an interview on NPR with Dan Gottlieb, a psychologist/author who also happens to be a quadriplegic. His health is failing him, and he clearly believes that the end is imminent. Regarding his body, he said:

"I treat my body like a fragile lover that I adore."

This wise man, though he has every reason to rage at his body, treats his body with compassion, as a "fragile lover."



I have a body that works, though it is not everything I wish it could be. I have none of his difficulty, and none of his wisdom. I cannot think what it would mean to be kind to my body in this way...

I would certainly not put it down for its stubby toenails or hundreds of moles.
I would kiss each imperfection gently, silently thanking God for each uniqueness.

I would not force it to eat too much chocolate or drink too much wine to quiet the tumult in my mind.
I would hug it fiercely around the ribs, being present with the fear or pain until it subsided.

I would not demand that it sit quietly in the room while I serve my job well into the evening.
I would listen to its shyly expressed wish for movement, and I would speak courage when it quailed at its lack of skill.



What patterns would you have to change if you were to treat your body as a "fragile lover"?

Re: new cities

All in due time, guys. I'll reveal all. For now, because there's always the outside chance someone from school could read this, I'll keep everything under wraps.