Shoe Personality of the Week: 9/06/2010

What looks more School Girl than this? “Back to School” has happened for most of us teachers & parents. It’s that time of year that offers newness & clean slates of a different kind. We only celebrate the 1st of each year as the actual new year but I’m beginning to marvel at the number of cycles of newness that come around annually. The return to school is yet another in the count.

Clean slatedness. Rebirth.

Professionally I have an opportunity to create myself yet again. I am thankful & excited!! This marks the beginning of the 3rd week of me starring in the role of 6th grade English teacher & it’s the best yet. I have the exhilarating task of working hard to figure out my new environment, strengthen my inner secretary for more paper work than I’ve ever been responsible for in my life, & learning these new “tools” I’ll be accountable to & for. I am energized by the challenge of figuring out how to bring my favorite subject in school to light & help my just over 100 students love it as well. I am dedicated to finding new ways to love these children that I got familiar with in an old light 4 years ago &, more importantly, finding ways to convince them it’s OK to love themselves right on into success. THAT, beyond standardized tests, is going to be the challenge & they’re working me hard already. 2 weeks down & I’ve got some successes to be proud of.

That’s the professional side. In true School Girl fashion, I’ve started the school year out with a crush. It’s not the kind that will end me up on the news, joining the list of insane women who find their students sexually attractive. None of that madness is poppin’ off. It’s just the silly kind where I think of him a lot & love to hear his voice on the phone…& love the way he talks…& love his hands…& I love his style….&… This crush has been in existence under the surface for at least a decade. Out of respect for the .5 degrees of separation in D.C. I never said anything about it, just quietly watched in appreciation on the rare occasions he was on the scene. A wish I had, totally unrelated to him, got back to him & caused him to reach out. Turns out, he had the same crush & was respecting the same .5 degrees. Since there were no actual dealings & we’re all much growner now, we figured the statute of limitations on that commitment to respecting essentially nothing has run out. Run wit’ it!!

Errrrrrrrrr…not quite. Some things weren’t adding up over the course of the last 7 days & a whole lotta “slow down, Toughie” was running through my mind. Through some seemingly innocent questioning I set in to investigate the subtext running under this headline. I was right. It seems he’s in a “situation.” His word, not mine. So, aside from being totally disgusted that I would even like a dude who refers to his relationship as a “situation,” I have to contend with the disappointment. I was excited about actually liking someone. It doesn’t happen often, & when I do, it makes me feel a lot more alive than I already am. I keep wondering whether my “LIKE” switch is broken because it’s rarely in the ON position these days, so I guess I can be thankful to have received confirmation that I’m still in working order. On the other hand, I’m SUPER ANNOYED at expending this energy for naught. My girlfriend, Starr, feels like I should revel in the fact that my spidey senses kicked in BEFORE being led astray, all deep in like, & wake up as the side-piece. She’s absolutely right. Know it & recognize it. Glad to have matured to this stage in my womanly existence. Good to know my “Cut The Bullshit” button is fully functional. Am I any less annoyed? Hell naw.

Now I gotta do what all my little brown baby girls at school should be doing:
1. sift through all the cute boys.
2. Weed ‘em out after they open their mouths & spew all that poisonous ignorance.

The step they’ll avoid is being 35 & sick that this process is still pretty much the same now as it was then. Sorry, babies, dealing with boys does not change. #giftsofthesameshitdifferentagegroup Do girls mature that fast or are boys really this goddamn slow? The latter...I know.

& to top it all off, as much as I love this shoe….it’s made of manmade upper. You know how I feel about that. No boy. No shoe.

Watch me move.