You may have discerned that my trademark drunk and disorderly behavior around town and Twitter has been noticeably scarce. Dear friends, this is happening:
That little blob is a KBO/OllyOllyO mashup, due February 2012. This ought to be interesting.
Hello there.
It’s been a while. I’ve been busy and when I have had time to sit down and write, somehow I find my mind drifting to other things with nothing left to trickle from my fingertips. But Thursday was the first really gorgeous day of the year, and it was a day that made me feel like just about anything was possible, so here I am. → continue reading
People have been asking me what is going on with the charter school. Things are moving along. We will be awarded our charter at the DESE board meeting today, which means we are the real deal, legit, and authentic. This also means we are going to start enrolling. Spread the word if you know of a family with current fourth and fifth graders in St Louis City who want a rigorous, college-prep education for their child. South City Prep wants ‘em. We are in lease negotiations on a temporary home (two years) in a great location, so I’m excited to announce that when we can. You can read our first bit of press in the St Louis Business Journal. We’ve also hired our Head of School and hope to continuing hiring in the next 2-3 months. If you are one of those people who graciously offered to volunteer for the school back when I didn’t have anything for you to do, here’s a heads up: hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ wife. I’mma coming for you soon.
Last week, a team from SCP, including myself, visited three high-performing charter schools in the New Orleans area. Because of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has a huge charter school populations. More than half of their public schools are charters. We saw some downright awe-inspiring schools getting incredible results, and I left feeling really inspired and motivated about what’s to do to get ready to educate kids.
I have learned so much through this process, particularly during our visits to high-performing schools. I’ve seen, over and over in our visits, programming implemented the right way, with all stakeholders intensely-committed to educating kids. I’d seen bits and pieces tried elsewhere, never with the dramatic results these schools are getting. I’m completely rethinking how I think we educate teachers. Before, I knew that we were doing it wrong, but I didn’t know exactly how I would train teachers differently. This is something I could expound on at length but I’ll still stand by what I’ve said before, which is that it should absolutely be harder to become a teacher. I’ll also say these schools weren’t perfect, but there’s a lot we can learn and play with when designing programming for our school.
While in New Orleans, also got to scout some eatin’, and I would highly recommend Cochon if you are in New Orleans. We had an outstanding meal that surpassed my expectations, and I would undoubtedly visit again when I return to the city. You should go there if you get the chance. It’s a great place for people really into food to take their less-adventurous friends and have a meal that satisfies everyone. Totally approachable food that was still exciting.
Unrelated to anything serious, I’m a finalist for the RFT’s Web Awards in the category of Best Personal Blog. I’m going to lose to up against my friend and fellow Church of Burger Priestess Stef Pollack of fantastic The Cupcake Project. So many of my friends are up for awards, which makes me a member of the cool nerds, I guess.
Thank you so much to whomever nominated me, unless this is some weird elaborate prank to humiliate me, like on Carrie. Because if it is, me and my dirty pillows will have no problem sourcing heritage-breed pig blood that I can and will telepathically hurl at my would-be humiliators. I also still have a pig head. So, basically, JUST TRY ME.
Check back next week to see if I “win” or not. I hope, like all situations I find myself in, it involves a giant check.
I hate winter. It’s mocking me, what with its spread to New Orleans while I was there. But there are a few simple pleasures I take during winter that, while they may not completely make up for the suckitude of the season, make things at least tolerable. These things are:
While Chris watched the weatherman warn us of New Year’s Eve tornadoes, I created a calendar for the month of January. Then I wept. Actually, I wept before all that happened. Now I’m just trying to calm the impending panic attack.
I’m taking a J-Term class, the second-to-last elective I have in my program. It’s on Paulo Freire, possibly the most important critical pedagogue who ever lived. My professor is an expert on him, and he’s incredibly intelligent. This means his classes are quite heavy on reading and theory–well over 800 pages for the month-long course. This also means I’ll be traveling north for two weekends this month.
We also have a grant application due at the end of the month for desperately-needed pre-operation money for the charter school, which we’ll need to have done well before that in order to revise after receiving appropriate feedback. We’re going to New Orleans for three days to visit high-performing charter schools.
I’m also writing five paid blogs posts per week and working at Kitchen Conservatory.
In short: I’m stressed.
I write this because this is my way of telling everyone I know “no”. I won’t be going out except for a very few pre-scheduled activities. I can’t do lunch. I can’t do coffee. I can’t grab a drink. If it’s not on my calendar as of right this second, it’s not happening. I’m not saying this to act self-important or snobby. I’m doing this because I have to put my head down and get shit done, and I can’t apologize for it. I just have to do it.
So I’ll probably be even more scarce around here than usual. I’ll be scarce everywhere except my couch, the library, and whatever coffee shop in which I’m working. But I still love you. I still love this space. But IS BIDNESS TIMEZ NAO. And I literally don’t have time to have a Jessie Spano-esque breakdown.
Send coffee. And cheese. See you in February.
Saturday night, my friends and I had our annual Friendsgiving feast. We do the whole turkey dinner and sides, but with more beer and less passive-aggressive familial behavior. It was a great time, until the next day, when apparently half our friends got a 24 hour stomach virus. I didn’t even make out with anyone there, so this thing must have had some potency.
I am not a good sick person, because I am rarely sick. Twice a year, I get a cold. That’s it. I can’t remember the last time I was actually sick other than that. Consequently, I fall hard when I actually do pick something up, like this demon plague. I felt fine until I woke up Sunday night, sweating and nauseated. I spend the rest of the night vomiting and barely slept. I also discovered that there is a stain in our toilet bowl that looks like Jimmy Hoffa reading a newspaper, so if anyone wants to make me an offer on that, I’m open to your bids.
I spent most of Monday sleeping on the couch when I wasn’t dashing to the toilet to shit dookie water. This virus was brutal. My whole body ached and I was actively nauseated the entire time. I couldn’t even read or surf the ‘net. Even worse, Nico ate our DVR remote, so I couldn’t even spend my day on the couch zoning to My Dog Ate What? or I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. I was either freezing cold or sweating the entire time. The dogs were surprisingly good; they were quiet and well-behaved, and both snuggled on the couch with me. Chris brought me apple juice and Gatorade and generic Pepto, which were the only things I ate all day.
Luckily, the carrier monkey, our friend Paul, let me know that this nasty bitch would be gone in a day. Sure enough, I woke up feeling much better today, save for a slightly-undulating sphincter and a weak stomach. Not 100%, but at least I showered and left the house, and I’ll be able to attend my meeting tonight and the Lucero show at Off Broadway.
I’m so grateful for…
1. The garlicky smell of roasting pork in the oven.
2. A new sweater enveloping me from the persistent cold outside.
3. Seeing a seven-year-old’s eyes light up as she decorates a gingerbread house, making me, for the first time this year, happy for the holiday season.
4. T-shirt sheets. Holy shit, what have I been doing for the last ten winters? These are amazing. They’re stretchy like my favorite blend t-shirts and are perfect for creating a cozy cocoon. Every time I get into bed I get a twinge of delight.
5. Echostar, for inventing DVR technology which has enabled my addictions.
Chris and I went to Iowa for Thanksgiving. Despite the fact that our car had transmission problems that we’re going to have to rectify soon, we had a great time with my family. We drove up Thursday and had a chili and soup dinner, then did the whole turkey and fixin’ on Friday. We avoided the whole Black Friday nonsense and were able to run to the store and get last minute supplies if we needed them. We woke up late; my mom and grandma and I drank coffee in our robes and read the paper and gossiped. It was awesome. During the day, my mom, grandma, and sister-in-law and I played Scrabble and drank spiked cranberry slushies, which will probably end up being our new tradition. My sister-in-law is aces at Scrabble. My dad also got to go hunting; he got a deer, and we got part of the loin, which we ate last night. So good, by the way. The only bummer was that none of my friends were home for Thanksgiving, but I hope we’ll be able to meet up at Christmas. From now until the holidays, I’ll be crafting up a storm, trying to furiously finish my long-neglected classwork, working at Kitchen Conservatory, blogging, and reading in preparation for charter school programming.
How was your holiday? What are you looking forward to during the season?
I’ve been so scarce here as of late, and I apologize to my grandma and the seven of you who still care about this little blog. It’s not that I’ve nothing to write about; far from it. I’ve just little time or motivation because I’ve got about ten irons in the fire. God, how sick are my friends of hearing that? Everyone’s fucking busy, duh. I’m lucky as hell to be this busy doing things I really love: writing, working at a kitchen shop, and starting a school. I might be broke, but I’m lucky, lucky, lucky. Except for that dog that keeps eating my bras and glasses.
South City Prep is coming along, but not without some stumbles along the way. I’ll not get into details, only say that we’ve had two pretty substantial catastrophes in the past month that have forced us to rethink our plans. Opening next year isn’t a question, actually, we’ve just had some timelines altered and plans rearranged largely due to circumstances beyond our control. Yes, that’s cryptic, it’s just that things are still up in the air in a few key areas and I want to keep the details under wraps until those areas are 100% done deals, otherwise it’s just a big jinx and my soul can’t handle any more “surprises”, thank you very much, unless said surprise is winning the lottery.
That being said, I think we’re close to signing paperwork on a building, a building I love in a neighborhood I love, a building that could be our permanent home. We should know in the next two weeks or so if all the pieces will fall into place, so please keep our team in your thoughts and prayers. Finding a facility is our biggest challenge next to student enrollment, and we’ve got two backup options if this deal falls through. So many things can’t happen until our facility is finalized, and the time frame for completing any renovation is tight, so we really need good karma pushing our project forward. Once that happens, we can begin the process of actually getting down to the nitty-gritty of programming and recruitment, which is what I can’t wait to dive into. We’ve been so caught up in finding a building, securing financing, working with developers and architects and realtors and loan officers, running numbers over and over again, and trying to get our charter from the state that the actual work we get to do with kids has been on the backburner. I can’t wait until we get to focus on efforts on programming that will provide kids with a high-quality education. I can’t articulate how much I’ve learned, and continue to learn, through this process, both about education in general, but also education in the context of Missouri and how politics and regionalism impacts kids. The political climate in Missouri is not good for urban schools, period. I’ll save that for another day when all our deals are already done and my mouth won’t get others in trouble.
Because the work on the school is taking a lot of my time, probably more than I thought it would, and that time will only increase, so I’ve been considering where I have to scale back my efforts. Unfortunately, many of the things I love are things that don’t earn me a ton of money, so it ends up being hard decisions. I’m on indefinite hiatus from Draft Day Suit, which Sarah and Laurie were oh-so-understanding about. I love those women fiercely, incidentally, so you should continue to support the site and read their writing.
I was also quite frazzled because I was co-chair of a trivia night fundraiser for the Safe Connections Young Professionals Board, of which I am a member. It’s a little harder to plan a “real” trivia night, and by “real”, I mean, not in your backyard with your friend’s karaoke machine and your friends’ band in the garage rocking a smoke machine. Fortunately, the evening was a pretty big success in that we hit our target in terms of profits, and there were few major issues save running out of diet soda and running over on our allotted time at the rental facility because everyone was having a damn good time. But I’m glad it’s over.
Because we need money and I love food, I picked up a new gig at The Stir, writing for their food and party section thrice weekly. My first post is up, and it’s on how to cook perfect bacon because I am a whore for endearing myself to new audiences and pork usually does the trick. This all came about from a random business card exchange at a breakfast table at BlogHer in New York, which means I have actually successfully networked, although I can’t say it was intentional or skillful by any means. ANYWAY, yes, another blog I’m contributing to, but it’s well-paid and will help me stretch my writing and learn not to curse in every post I write. Huzzah!
Finally, my brother and sister-in-law came and visited for the very first time this weekend, and it was so awesome. It was the first time we’d done something just the four of us, and, outside of Iowa’s loss in football, we had so much fun that Andrew and Chris couldn’t take it and fell asleep at 11 PM Saturday night while Liz and I watched The Office and ate snickerdoodles. Most of my friends have moved away from Des Moines, so I feel like my brothers are my last little tether to my hometown, and whenever they give me a glimpse into adult life there, I get to feel home for a little bit. Sometimes, my life there feels like a dream. My sister-in-law and brother were at some social media networking event (Liz works in social media) and ran into my high school boyfriend. She didn’t know who he was, and when they met and that fact became known, I guess it was a little weird. He’s married now to another girl from our high school and has two kids and that just kinda blows my mind. Liz running into him just made me curious as to who he is now. I know I’m a radically different person than I was twelve years ago–is he? I just wonder if you change as much if you stay in town. Maybe you change more? I don’t know. I just wonder where everyone else from this different life of mine ended up on their meandering (or not-so-meandering) paths and if there’s anything left to say to some of these people who shared this common formative experience with me once a drunken buzz wears off. I guess it’s just interesting, and melancholy, to think about people with whom you share so much being strangers. Maybe I’d rather not know.
Tomorrow: this week’s Grace in Small Things, plus links to my interwebs writings this week.
It’s still Monday, right?
1. The St Louis food community. Great people, man.
2. The squeaky, salty, toothsome nuggets that are cheese curds. God bless Wisconsin.
3. A king-sized bed, with a fluffy comforter and pillows, in a hotel room. Cable TV. No pants. Oh, yeah.
4. Conviviality with friends.
5. Busting out the Happy Feet slippers.
A good chunk of my friends and I participated in the annual Tour de Moose bicycle pub crawl around St Louis on Saturday. The Moose in question is actually my friend Kevin, and the Tour celebrates his birthday, this year the big 4-0. Almost 80 people met up at Lemmon’s Saturday morning to drink beers and tune up before meandering around South City to Downtown and back. We finished the 19-mile ride at Lemmon’s, then ended our night at Double D’s, singing karaoke. My Grace In Small Things this week comes from that day.
1. Coasting down a slight decline on my bike.
2. With a slight buzz.
3. While eating a Gus’s pretzel.
4. Surrounded by friends.
5. On a cool, gorgeous, autumn day in October, leaves falling around us.
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