april 18, 2001. Today was not a good day. For one thing, I was scheduled to teach 3 full 80-minute classes. For another, I had to compensate for a teacher who was away for the day by minding her class during one half-period of my planning time and assuming cafeteria period duty for the rest of the period. It was during cafeteria duty that I made my day extremely shitty. I chose a table as far away from the students as possible, but soon a table full of grade 11 basketball jocks came & sat down at the next table. I've taught or am teaching all of them, so I know their names & general attitudes. I was doing some marking and trying my best to ignore everything, but their conversation was just a bit too loud. They were swearing away merrily and I had just about decided to say something when one of the kids remarked (twice!) that his favourite song was something called 'Shake that ass, bitch.' I freaked. There's no other way to put it. I told him to shut up, I called his statement misogynist (which he didn't understand, by the way), I got into an extremely unprofessional and heated argument. After about 30 seconds I just wanted to go home & never return. I react rather badly to dislike, especially when I've earned it by shooting off my big fat mouth (see the 'sneaky Mexican bastard' incident of 1997 for foreshadowing). Walking through the halls, I was lost in a happy reverie of my own days of a high school student when I happened to pass by this boy's locker. And as I did, I could hear somebody approaching him, asking what happened with me. Great, I thought. Now all the Grade 11's are going to be talking about what a big bitch I am.I knew that I would be teaching some of the students in that group later in the day. I thought about apologizing, but I felt like it would only make things worse. The whole thing just seemed like too much to handle. At least I didn't cry. That's my only consolation: at least I didn't cry. Third period. A kid walks right up to me with a grin, "I heard you had a run-in with Mr. T____." I smiled weakly. "Yeah, I spazzed out on him." "You called him something too..." "Misogynist. I didn't call him misogynist, I said that what he said was misogynist." "What's misogynist?" "Systematic hatred of women and putting them down." "Oh. Actually, that sounds like him..." He walks to his seat and starts talking to his neighbor. Fourth period. A kid walks right up to me with a bigger grin, "I hear you & J____ got in a fight." Thin smile: "Yeah, I spazzed out on him." "He was telling me about it. (pause) I laughed at him." End of discussion. I don't know how this will blow over, or how it will change shape over the coming days. All I know it that everything seems okay. And at least I didn't curse him out or smack him on the arm. I could very well be in real legal trouble right about now, instead of just wondering why I don't save myself a lot of trouble and take a vow of silence before it's too late. I have nothing profound to say about the death of Joey Ramone. It seems unbelievable and ridiculous and sad that he should be dead now: if his musical generation hadn't OD'd by now, they were supposed to live a lot longer than this. It makes me feel old. And I truly regret not seeing the farewell show with Alexi, as we had idly planned. We thought, we'll go a little later. We'll go a little later. Now he's dead and there is no later. But at least I was sober when I heard the news. I heard about the death of DeForest Kelly at a party; consequently it has never been real to me. The following is from an interview I did with the [Talking] Heads in 1996: Me: I was thinking about the New York scene in the 70's, how you we're all working together as a community, and being very inspired by each other, and then The Sex Pistols blow over from England, make one album, and totally defines the sound for 25 years. Tina Weymouth: And breaks up after 10 days. Chris Frantz: You're right, we were kind of pissed off at the Sex Pistols. Because we were working, working, working, and then this band came over...I loved "God Save the Queen," and "Pretty Vacant," I mean, they were really fun songs...but here these guys got so much attention, they couldn't even like handle, one tour...we were busting our ass, all across the US and Canada and Europe... Jerry Harrison: It bothered the Ramones. Tina: It bothered the Ramones, because the Ramones... Jerry: The Ramones never got the due that was...due them. Tina: They didn't. Jerry: Whereas we didn't feel that we were doing anything remotely like the Ramones or the Sex Pistols. Chris: But we were both under the Warner Bros. umbrella. Tina: And they were stealing our ads. Do you remember that billboard ad, where they totally ripped off Talking Heads? That husband & wife team, and they said, 'we don't think your ad is good enough, so we have a better idea.' And then the billboard comes out, and it's our ad being used for the Sex Pistols. It snowed today, gigantic heavy snowflakes big as a baby's fist. I am NOT exaggerating one bit; this is a country that spends a long friggin' time buried in the ice and it takes something extremely unusual for me to take note of snow. Our backyard is once again a solid expanse of white and Josie is worrying about putting the snow tires back on the carpool car. I don't know what normal weather is in this area, but even so this seems a little excessive. I'm beginning to thing that the phrase 'Nova Scotia spring' is an oxymoron.