I'm a teacher. I live in a bubble. Teachers and parents see things very differently from people who aren't around kids very much.
I've been sharing this video with everyone I know. It's two kids lip-syncing to some "crazy frog" song that I was unfamiliar with until I saw the video.
To me, it's hilarious. Here's two kids, not destroying anything, not being mean, and not sitting in front of the TV or computer. They're having fun.
The clip is all over the internet now. And just today I started reading comments left by people.
They've been calling them "retarded," "gay," "uncreative." They've been criticizing their dance moves, choice of music and style. Someone said, "I hope they get bullied and beat up at school."
What the hell is wrong with people?
If you don't think this is one of the funniest things you've ever seen, I don't want to know you.
That's right. If you think any of those nasty things people have been saying, I'm calling you a bad human being that doesn't deserve to be around decent people.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Monday, February 5, 2007
variety
As you may know, I'm a creature of habit and routine.
I can change my routine pretty easily, but that rarely happens. But it did change a couple weeks ago when I started going back to the gym
This means that I have to pack my bag the night before with everything I'll need the next day (which is a lot harder than you think. It's like packing for a one day trip every day.), packing my lunch, setting up the coffee maker and making sure everything is laid out for the next morning. See, my brain doesn't start functioning until well after 7:00 a.m. And if I want to get a swim in before work, I have to be up at 5:00 a.m. That means that I have two hours of no brain activity in which I also have to get up, get to the gym and then get ready for work from there. If I didn't pre-plan the night before, I would be living the nightmare of going to school in only my underwear. If even that.
But the morning swim fits nicely in my routine. The same people go there every morning. Everyone has their own little lane. Everyone has a predictable amount of time they'll be in the pool. And the same old ladies are in the wading side of the pool doing their "waterobics."
Every once in a while, a hapless first timer comes in after 6:00 a.m. and doesn't know what to do because all the lanes are taken. I was fortunate that, even though it'd been over a year since I'd been to the pool, the same people were still swimming and it was like my lane had been waiting for me the whole time.
And then this morning.
The routine was blissfully broken. I was in the locker room with one of the other regulars waiting for the pool door to be unlocked. And in walked... No... traipsed an old-school Barbara-Judy-Liza-Bett-your-sweet-ass-it's-cocktail-time queen. Imagine the gayest voice possible. Then double it. That was him. He still had the holes in his ears and nipples from piercings he probably got in the eighties. He looked about 50ish but could have been 40 but aged because of all the partying he did back in the day.
He asked about the 6:00 waterobics class. I bit my tongue and said that there was a class but he had to wait for the pool to open. He casually... No... flamingly went on about the shape his body was in (which wasn't that bad, in fact) and how he had to get back to working out. The whole time I was picturing him with the ladies in their pool moo-moos. You know the kind of swimsuit that larger women wear that has the fake skirt?
Then he strips down his pants to reveal a pair of onion skins. OLD-SCHOOL onion skins. Little was left to the imagination. It was worse than a speedo.
No one in the morning wears speedos anyway. It's a pretty modest, older crowd. Which I like because it makes me feel fast when I swim.
So I'm looking at the aging homo in onionskins (hereafter known as AHIO) and thinking, "well bless your little gay heart."
But what really made AHIO old-school was the way he was BLATENLY checking out every man in that locker room. We're not talking glances. We're talking staring, up and down with a little "mmm" added for good measure.
I was biting my tongue so hard. For a moment it felt like the YMCA of 1974.
I did my laps. AHIO had fun in the waterobics class.
My stretching afterward was timed so AHIO and myself would be back in the locker room at the same time. Watching AHIO was like watching every stereotype played out. But this time it wasn't a movie. This guy really was like this.
AHIO didn't walk, he pranced. His towel was not utilitarian, it was an accessory. And when he talked, the purse didn't just fall out, it slammed to the floor.
Back in the locker room, I asked how the class was. He was nearly giddy with his answer: "this is REALLY going to help my conducting."
Then is suddenly dawned on me where I had seen AHIO before.
He was the choir director at my step-daughters Middle School. And I remember gawking at him at the concert (and also having NO respect for him because his song selection was putrid.) because at the concert I had remembered where I had seen AHIO before that.
LONG time ago I was invited to a BBQ with friends out in the country. It turned out that "casual" meant "clothing-optional." (and no, I didn't get neked.)
But I won't ever forget getting stuck talking to AHIO, in all his glory, at that party. He rambled on and on about his Junior High choir... all while standing naked, with a cocktail in hand, in the middle of other naked men, in a pasture.
The poor man doesn't belong in Topeka. His faggotry can't be appreciated here. His faggotry is the stuff of legends. You don't see gay men like him anymore. Unafraid, uninhibited.
Seriously though, the checking out needs to stop. Right now. That kind of thing can get you killed in Topeka.
I can change my routine pretty easily, but that rarely happens. But it did change a couple weeks ago when I started going back to the gym
This means that I have to pack my bag the night before with everything I'll need the next day (which is a lot harder than you think. It's like packing for a one day trip every day.), packing my lunch, setting up the coffee maker and making sure everything is laid out for the next morning. See, my brain doesn't start functioning until well after 7:00 a.m. And if I want to get a swim in before work, I have to be up at 5:00 a.m. That means that I have two hours of no brain activity in which I also have to get up, get to the gym and then get ready for work from there. If I didn't pre-plan the night before, I would be living the nightmare of going to school in only my underwear. If even that.
But the morning swim fits nicely in my routine. The same people go there every morning. Everyone has their own little lane. Everyone has a predictable amount of time they'll be in the pool. And the same old ladies are in the wading side of the pool doing their "waterobics."
Every once in a while, a hapless first timer comes in after 6:00 a.m. and doesn't know what to do because all the lanes are taken. I was fortunate that, even though it'd been over a year since I'd been to the pool, the same people were still swimming and it was like my lane had been waiting for me the whole time.
And then this morning.
The routine was blissfully broken. I was in the locker room with one of the other regulars waiting for the pool door to be unlocked. And in walked... No... traipsed an old-school Barbara-Judy-Liza-Bett-your-sweet-ass-it's-cocktail-time queen. Imagine the gayest voice possible. Then double it. That was him. He still had the holes in his ears and nipples from piercings he probably got in the eighties. He looked about 50ish but could have been 40 but aged because of all the partying he did back in the day.
He asked about the 6:00 waterobics class. I bit my tongue and said that there was a class but he had to wait for the pool to open. He casually... No... flamingly went on about the shape his body was in (which wasn't that bad, in fact) and how he had to get back to working out. The whole time I was picturing him with the ladies in their pool moo-moos. You know the kind of swimsuit that larger women wear that has the fake skirt?
Then he strips down his pants to reveal a pair of onion skins. OLD-SCHOOL onion skins. Little was left to the imagination. It was worse than a speedo.
No one in the morning wears speedos anyway. It's a pretty modest, older crowd. Which I like because it makes me feel fast when I swim.
So I'm looking at the aging homo in onionskins (hereafter known as AHIO) and thinking, "well bless your little gay heart."
But what really made AHIO old-school was the way he was BLATENLY checking out every man in that locker room. We're not talking glances. We're talking staring, up and down with a little "mmm" added for good measure.
I was biting my tongue so hard. For a moment it felt like the YMCA of 1974.
I did my laps. AHIO had fun in the waterobics class.
My stretching afterward was timed so AHIO and myself would be back in the locker room at the same time. Watching AHIO was like watching every stereotype played out. But this time it wasn't a movie. This guy really was like this.
AHIO didn't walk, he pranced. His towel was not utilitarian, it was an accessory. And when he talked, the purse didn't just fall out, it slammed to the floor.
Back in the locker room, I asked how the class was. He was nearly giddy with his answer: "this is REALLY going to help my conducting."
Then is suddenly dawned on me where I had seen AHIO before.
He was the choir director at my step-daughters Middle School. And I remember gawking at him at the concert (and also having NO respect for him because his song selection was putrid.) because at the concert I had remembered where I had seen AHIO before that.
LONG time ago I was invited to a BBQ with friends out in the country. It turned out that "casual" meant "clothing-optional." (and no, I didn't get neked.)
But I won't ever forget getting stuck talking to AHIO, in all his glory, at that party. He rambled on and on about his Junior High choir... all while standing naked, with a cocktail in hand, in the middle of other naked men, in a pasture.
The poor man doesn't belong in Topeka. His faggotry can't be appreciated here. His faggotry is the stuff of legends. You don't see gay men like him anymore. Unafraid, uninhibited.
Seriously though, the checking out needs to stop. Right now. That kind of thing can get you killed in Topeka.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
gruntin' and groanin'
Let me start by informing you that I've gotten fat.
My fat pants are tight.
So I'm back at the gym.
I was a skinny kid growing up. Then discovered Tombstone pizza in junior high and it was a downhill slide to fattiness after that.
In college, I took the required P.E. class, and unlike a lot of folks, (and unlike myself in H.S.) I actually got something from it. I'll never forget the second class when we had to run for 12 minutes. I had NEVER run. I hated it. Never saw the need. And I was shocked as hell to discover that I could run (read jog) a mile in that 12 minutes. So I went back the next day just to see if I could do it again. And then I started seeing if I could run farther.
In the class, we learned nutrition stuff I'd never heard of before about fat and calories. So I started actually paying attention to what I was eating in the caf.
Lo and behold, weight started dropping off like a bad prom date.
By that summer I'd gone from over 230 down to something like 165 and I was running 10 miles a day.
A year later I ran a marathon.
SIDENOTE: I'll never understand folks who say that it's hard to loose weight in college. For christ's sake, you have a huge cafeteria with all the healthy food you could want already prepared (of course it's right next to the pizza, but...), a free gym (that you can walk to), and tons of people (in the same building) constantly around you supporting and helping you. In the real world you have to MAKE your own food, pay for the gym which you have to make an effort to drive to and, crap, you're lucky if you find one person who will work out with you.
My weight stayed off for a few years. I still ran, worked out, ate right. And then I started teaching. I was tired, lazy and had a teacher's lounge constantly stocked with chocolate.
All the weight came back.
I lost a lot of it a couple years ago, but got lazy again.
So now I'm back at the gym. I swim in the mornings and workout after school. But now I have a paid friend: a trainer. She rocks.
Something I've noticed, though, that I never noticed before: people make a lot of noise in the gym.
I'm used to hearing people overdo the grunts while lifting weights. But what's with the guys who are still grunting while drying off in the locker room? Or grunting while putting on clothes?
I hate them as much as I hate the people who talk to me while I'm dripping wet and naked.
My fat pants are tight.
So I'm back at the gym.
I was a skinny kid growing up. Then discovered Tombstone pizza in junior high and it was a downhill slide to fattiness after that.
In college, I took the required P.E. class, and unlike a lot of folks, (and unlike myself in H.S.) I actually got something from it. I'll never forget the second class when we had to run for 12 minutes. I had NEVER run. I hated it. Never saw the need. And I was shocked as hell to discover that I could run (read jog) a mile in that 12 minutes. So I went back the next day just to see if I could do it again. And then I started seeing if I could run farther.
In the class, we learned nutrition stuff I'd never heard of before about fat and calories. So I started actually paying attention to what I was eating in the caf.
Lo and behold, weight started dropping off like a bad prom date.
By that summer I'd gone from over 230 down to something like 165 and I was running 10 miles a day.
A year later I ran a marathon.
SIDENOTE: I'll never understand folks who say that it's hard to loose weight in college. For christ's sake, you have a huge cafeteria with all the healthy food you could want already prepared (of course it's right next to the pizza, but...), a free gym (that you can walk to), and tons of people (in the same building) constantly around you supporting and helping you. In the real world you have to MAKE your own food, pay for the gym which you have to make an effort to drive to and, crap, you're lucky if you find one person who will work out with you.
My weight stayed off for a few years. I still ran, worked out, ate right. And then I started teaching. I was tired, lazy and had a teacher's lounge constantly stocked with chocolate.
All the weight came back.
I lost a lot of it a couple years ago, but got lazy again.
So now I'm back at the gym. I swim in the mornings and workout after school. But now I have a paid friend: a trainer. She rocks.
Something I've noticed, though, that I never noticed before: people make a lot of noise in the gym.
I'm used to hearing people overdo the grunts while lifting weights. But what's with the guys who are still grunting while drying off in the locker room? Or grunting while putting on clothes?
I hate them as much as I hate the people who talk to me while I'm dripping wet and naked.
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