Red Hot Mutha'

I broke down on the job this morning. Someone innocently asked me if I was cold and I just went off. I started crying like a baby. I'm just tired of not having what I need to do my job. I'm tired of not having heat. Right now, I can see my breath in my classroom/trailer. I'm tired of having to go all the way to the faculty room in another building, just to change one student's grade because I'm not allowed to have File Maker Pro on my computer because it would "cost $200.00" to put it on there (?) . I'm tired of having to steal paper towels from other places so my students can dry their hands. I'm tired of having to wring out the same dingy sponges in dirty paint water so students can use them to clean up because I don't have time between classes to go to the main building to refill my water buckets in the janitor's closet, which is now locked so I can't get any anyway. I'm tired of not having pencils, erasers and of not having enough chairs. I'm tired of having desks that are broken and flip over if someone puts too much pressure in the wrong spot. I'm tired of parents not wanting to take responsibility for their childrens' actions, saying that it's always someone else's fault that their child is a terror. And while I'm at it, I'm tired of cleaning up dog shit and piss from my good rug because my dog doesn't feel like waiting the two minutes it takes for me to get out of bed and down the steps to let her out in the morning. I'm tired of cleaning up strewn cat litter from the bathroom floor. I'm tired of cleaning sinks, bathtubs and toilets. Yes, I'm even tired of vacuuming.
So Everything Came Down at Once, and I finished sobbing in my classroom like a damn baby. And while on hall duty today, everyone walked by and smiled and was extra nice, because I guess news travels fast aroound here.

I'm driving to work this morning, listening to a mix cd I made of some oldies..y'know, stuff from the 80's and 90's. Specifically the Lost Highway soundtrack from way bcak in '97, when Steve and I first started dating and when I was very crazy and starting my first year of teaching. I look over to the car next to me, and I wave to a teacher that is still teaching at the same school where I started. I was totally unmedicated, back then, and I think of all the shit that happened over the years- good, bad, dangerous and just plain stupid-and I nod to myself in disbelief. There are a few things that I miss. I won't get into it here; I don't even know why I brought them up, only they know what they are, and that's that. "I am the proudest monkey you'd ever seen."
So now that I've got that outta my system, I was quite pissed when I woke up this morning. Seems I had a dream that I was an employee of the bunny ranch in Las Vegas, and I was thrilled! So when I got to work this morning, no heat (as usual) , no water, paint still splattered from yesterday and no Baby V to come home to today (he's at nona's), I wanted to go back to sleep. I mean, this is FUCKING crazy. What kind of professionals with master's degrees (and then some) have to go into a workplace that has no mothafucking heat? How many stupidass dopey looking guys have to come into my trailer and say"Yep, the heat's broke." before it gets fucking fixed? (oh, by the way, if you don't like to listen to me complain, don't fucking read this blog. Go to disneyworld.com or something.) I don't complain too much about not having water, because I taught art-on-a-cart during one of the most difficult years of my life, and that was way worse. But no heat?! My hands are freezing as I type this. The kids will come in here half-dressed due to no fault of there own, but I have to listen to it from over five hundred of them and it gets old. This is American Education Week, and I've dressed up every frickin day, lugging buckets of water back and forth in high heels and a dress and nobody's even bothered to come in and watch their child make art. I hope they come in today, and watch their poor little kid's hands turn red from the cold while they try to paint. (Although I'm sure some of these families have a lot more to worry about than their kids' art, and I'm not faulting them for that.)

whatever. I'm going to go hijack the custodial cart and get me some paper towels.