“I got no deeds to do no promises to keep; I’m dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep at the morningtime drop all its petals on me;

life I love you, all is

groovy!!!”

—Paul Simon

The Daily News

1   All this wind keeps messing up my hair.

2   Well.

3   Here we  are.

4   The last DN of the 2011-12  school year. We are on the precipice of summer.

5   I finished my stuff yesterday at about 2 p.m. I still have a few odds and ends left to do, but by two I was pretty much done.

6    I got to head out to Joe’s last night and feast with some YB folks: Tracy Wolcott, Beth and Jeff Love, Jim Holt, Debbie Rocha, and Kathleen Jackson, who is retiring this year. Oh, and some guy named Tom or something. He’s YB’s principal. I think. Looks good in a suit.

7    It was a little weird going in to Joe’s because of the recent passing of Randy Ritchie. They had a picture of him sitting behind the counter.

8    We had a nice night. Tracy had to go early, unfortunately, but we intend to go out and have some lunch someday so that we can talk smack about people.

9   I went in thinking I was going to have the classic scallopini sec, then looked at the price. Joomba Joomba. Holy Moly. Lookin’ high. Lookin’ low.

10   I was going to order it anyway, because it reminds me a lot of the good times we used to have at Joe’s, and of Randy.

11   I decided on the calamari steak, which is reminiscent of my Mom’s abalone, which was always to die for.

12   When the waiter came around, someone asked him what the best dish on the menu was. I pointed to the blonde at the table to our left. She was bug-eyed and looked like something right out of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

13   The waiter, a young gun from Sicily I’m quite sure, suggested the scallopini sec. The guy either knew good food, or knew that if he moved enough of those plates, he could retire on tips alone. I made a last-minute decision to go with the scallopini, and was rewarded with truly the best dish on the menu.

14   I lied about the blonde, by the way, just to get a cheap laugh.

15   M’bad.

16   I’m rambling here. Too bad, because I can do whatever I please. Plus I had around twelve other items all done and pushed a button. It all vanished, and now I’m completely out of sequence. It’s all good. I’ll just throw stuff up here as it occurs to me.

17   Who reads this crap?

18   Ah, the DN is known for rambling. And people still read it because every now and again I tack out something that makes oatmeal shoot through people’s noses. I swear to you that I don’t write this. It writes itself. I blame all of my grammar and spelling snafus on that. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

19   So let me tell you what I had for dinner. <yawn. snort>

20    Dude. No one cares. Nah, it does connect a little, because the scallopini reminds me of good ol’ Randy. I did my usual and ordered the house red with it. It came in this HUGE wine glass. I guess it had to breathe or something. I swirled it around and stuck my nose in the glass, like people do. I always heard wine had a nose, so I felt like an eskimo putting my own nose into the glass.

21  The house red is always a gamble, except that it comes from the Guglielmo Winery in Morgan Hill, the same vineyard that used to be served at Music-in-the Park in its heyday. Last night’s went wonderfully with the scallopini.

22   Conversation cruised to how we all got hired. Debbie Rocha said that she had majored in English, but that they knew she could dance. I thought that was funny, because that’s exactly how I got my first gig directing plays. I had listed drama under hobbies on my resume. I could just as easily have become a hiking teacher, a bicycling teacher, a guitar teacher, a baseball teacher, or an artsy magazine teacher.

23   We laughed, and enjoyed a nice night. I missed Randy coming by and dropping a huge piece of cheescake and several forks, and then serving up some coffee, all gratis. The guy knew his customers, and was a classic Original Joe’s wiseguy waiter. Walking out last night I thought of him, and raised a silent glass.

24    Joe’s. It was fun when we arrived, because I hadn’t seen these guys in ages. The joint was jumpin’ so they put us in the bar. Buncha teachers in a bar on the first day of vacation.

25    The stupidest question of the night was, “How ARE you???” A bunch of teachers who have just begun summer vacation. How ARE you??? We all laughed and clicked glasses. I had milk. Then bread. Then scallopini. Then wine. I think I finally have this straight.

26   So yup.

27   Moving on, Part the Foist: Sorry about all the out-of-sequence stuff. As I said, I had this thing ready to put to bed when I pushed some button or other and the entire thing vanished on me.

28   I’m still not quite ready to relax because I have a few odds and ends to go before I finally leave.

29   I’ll hit the Chill, grab all my stuff, and write on my whiteboard, “The Rest is Silence.”

30   There’s a double-meaning in that.

31   So I have to ride off. I had a lot of fun sharing all my nonsense with you this school year. We went in and out and up and down, and now it is done, at least for a while.

32   I want to wish you all the best, and especially to enjoy your summer vacations and your family and friends. Every now and again, count your blessings. We all have them.

33   And as always…

34   Live life.

35   Love life.

36   The Rest is Silence.

37    Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Daily News

1   This is not the last day of school.

2    This is a sham.

3    I went back through my old DN’s and it used to be around June 15.

4    No wonder I feel so little emotion.

5     I went to Raging Waters with the seniors yesterday, but felt somewhat removed. I felt I still had tons of work left to do.

6    I realized quickly that it doesn’t really matter when you start school. It was pretty early this year.

7    You still feel somewhat ridiculous when you near June 15.

8    We are nowhere near June 15.

9     Honestly. You could go back and look all the way to 2003-4.

10   But today is the last day of school. I go in and teach one class in the morning, and then I have the rest of the day to finish my grading and to post grades.

11   I oddly don’t have that sensation of surrealism that usually accompanies the last day of school because it is MAY!

12   I’m not complaining, just pointing out what cutbacks have done. If I do the math correctly, we are three weeks earlier than the traditional last day of school.

13   Never mind that we started ridiculously early. At this point in the year, i don’t remember having started early.

14   I’m just realizing that traditional graduation was in mid-June, that the weather used to be idiotically hot, and that there was always a feeling of other-worldliness.

15   I also realized that much of my stuff was rushed this year; that I had to be less “rigorous” due to quick deadlines.

16   A group of teachers, administrators, former department chairs and even union guys had a talk about the amount of money we waste each year on testing, particularly on the STAR.

17   We agreed not to let a polite, non-confrontational discussion go public. It was just water-cooler talk, but the issue of how much money goes to testing is seldomly discussed.

18  The amount of interruption on our classes due to testing also was a Raging Waters discussion.

19   Nothing official, mind you. It was just interesting that a microcosm of the various factions in a school had a mini-discussion on that issue.

20   If that’s what’s going out into the grapevine, then it’s an issue I always thought about but never really brought up publicly. For some reason, that question is usually avoided.

21   But here it is May 24, and I feel I didn’t accomplish as much as I have in past years. The students were short-changed.

22   The shortening of the school year has a lot to do with it, but the testing during spring in particular was absurd. It seemed that we spend billions of hours training (we cut into students’ learning time in order to get training), setting our rooms up for testing, sharpening pencils, getting test booklets out to the kids, accounting for who didn’t take a test, and on and on.

23   Hmmmm.

24   And the deal with the STAR is that the students have utterly no buy-in. They always ask me if it will affect their grades, and I always lie and say, “Of COURSE it affects your grade!” with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

25   I just ask politely that they do the best they can so that we could walk proudly as a school.

26   So yeah.

27   Today is officially the last day of school.

28   I am officially done at 10:15 in the morning. I still have grades to get in, and my deadline is 4 p.m. although we technically have until tomorrow at 4 p.m. to post them. I’m probably going to go home and get that done. The school day will end, and I probably won’t even be on campus.

29   La-di-dah.

30   So I’ll probably throw one more DN out there for the school year.

31   It just doesn’t feel like the last day. If just doesn’t. I’m guessing if I ran the school bank it would feel like it, but as a teacher, I just feel that I have about two more weeks of teaching that needs to be done.

32   Ain’t gonna happen.

33   Last night I was awakened by a moaning wind. While grading some of my seniors’ poetry, I began to feel their angst. When I awakened this morning I thought of the looks on their faces when they sat and delivered their poems and farewells.

34   It still doesn’t feel like the last day. But as I read my third period’s poems, I just thought of how lucky I am to have had so many of them for a second go-round. All of them were great kids, and it was an honor to have had seniors this year.

35   A lot of soul and salutes to friends and families. Waking up after the moaning wind brought me a little more reality.  

36   So I think I’ll sign off, at least for today. I need to get all my ducks in a row by 4.

37   Have a great day.

38    All the best.

39    Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

 The Daily News

1  My job today is to report to Raging Waters at 9 a.m.

2  I gotta love it.

3  Hmmm.

4  I got an email last week saying, “On Wednesday you are to report to Raging Waters at 9 a.m.”

5   I’ve never had a job that has demanded that I go have fun.

6   I knew there was a reason I liked this profession.

7   So let’s see. Checklist: Sunscreen, shades, pirate towel, Hawaiian shirt, straw hat, shorts, bottle water. I think I’m good.

8   What a grueling job.

9   I haven’t been there in ages. I always loved its rustic charm.

10  I’m supervising seniors today. Hopefully all will go well. I am on fun duty from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. then I’m home.

11  Ridiculous pressure.

12  Ah vell. If you’re in the neighborhood, I’ll probably be floating around on a tube. I might do some speed rides, but relaxing in the sun sounds just fine to me. No pictures.

13  Every time I see a picture of myself I’m in transition from human being to horse.

14  A part of me wants to bring a computer and do grades.

15  The other part of me says, “Uh…no?”

16   My main thing is to travel light.

17   Yeah.

18    Just  like I do in Tahoe.

19

20   That reminds me.

21   Shopping list: two Malibu kayaks.

22    Okay, so I don’t travel light. Sue me.

23   I will try to though.

24   I don’t really need two kayaks today.

25    Maybe a fishin’ pole?

26    I fished at Cunningham one time.

27    I caught a line of duck poop.

28    Nah, no fishing pole. That place is nasty.

29    Dayum.

30    It’s in the fiva a.m. and I’m stressing about taking a mini vay-cay.

31    That’s Facebook slang for “vacation.” Nobody talks normal anymore.

32    It’s cray-cray. That means it’s nuts.

33   

34   Timmeh!

35   Stickin’ by you man.

36   Okay, so obviously I need my rest if I’m going to stress RW for five hours. 

37   So I gotta get me some serious shut-eye. I’ll keep this ‘un short.

38   Catch you on the reebz.

39   Have a great day. 

40    Peace.

~H

www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Daily News

1  Happy Birthday to my beautiful daughter Caitlin!!!!

2   That’s her in the middle.

3   Buncha thugettes.

4    Yippeeee!!!

5   Party blowers, confetti cannons, salvation-army bands, root-beer and whistles!

6  

7   Yes indeed, and what prizes! Confetti welcome, some random kid, and yes, that IS a young Simon and Garfunkel singing happy birthday to you, live from Central Park.

8    And that’s not all.

9    Have a little Marilyn Manson and Pink!

10  Happy Birthday from both Gideon Lincecum and Timmeh!

11  The Clintons would love to throw themselves into the mix.

12   And 3EB.

13 And the Huxtables wish you the best.

14 Season 7, Episode 21 sends their love.

15  And Snoop Dogg all the way from the Price is Right is feelin’ the love.

16   And it wouldn’t be a party without

Holla.

Love you K.T.

Cabal.

www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Daily News

1   So…Robin Gibbs walks into a bar…

2    Happens.

3    Always sad news when someone leaves us.

4    With all due respect to disco folks, I never liked the Bee-Gees or disco. I always thought they were a bit of a lounge act.

5    Still, it’s always a part of our own history when someone leaves.

6    So it goes.

7    Moving On, Part the First: I walk into a strange universe today. I have two classes that have completely disappeared. I look up at the solar eclipse and see nothing. I’m not going blind; I just see a mist.

8   They have dissipated. They are now particles, and memories.

9    This is the week of the walking wounded. On Friday, I saw a group of sophomores staying until six p.m. working on a film project for some class or other. I assume it was a Spanish class, because they were all speaking Spanish, even though they were all Asian. Ah, diversity! What a salute.

10  I was still cleaning up from a vastly emotional and sensational day of poetry. It was nearly everything I had hoped it would be. I put out tons of food all day long, allowed my students to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, changed the recipe for each period, brought in some Starbucks later in the day, and finished with my last class having pizza and Pepsi, cheese sticks and sauce.

11  My sophs enjoyed the day immensely, while my seniors LOVED it. Their poetry was sweet: some funny, some philosophical, but most all about friends and hope. Several of them wrote stuff that was wistful. It was like watching You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown’s Happiness Is scene, with friends holding together through an extremely emotional day, and enjoying each other, getting along.

12   It was as it should have been. I planned the last three weeks for the seniors, and I’m not sorry for it. Rather than challenging them with “rigor” I understood them and gave them lessons for the ages.

13   What’s nice is that I wasn’t doing it for myself; I instinctively did it for them. That’s the beauty of being a veteran of these wars. Using peace and understanding works. I’ve reached a point in my career where I don’t really care what anyone thinks about my teaching. I think it has gotten better, but there are those who would think otherwise.

14   Screw ‘em. We teach students, not subjects.

15   Good teachers know that.

16   Interestingly, I felt on Friday that the year was ending too soon, that I still want to keep creating new lessons, that I wanted to teach these guys well into the summer. Have I gone mad?

17   I’m usually counting the days. I can’t really believe that technically, I am done teaching at around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday. Having seniors really shortens the year, because two of my classes are completely disappeared, and all I have left is finals for sophomores.

18   It’s weird, because Friday actually seemed like the last day of school to me. I worked late getting all the food and stuff cleaned up, and walked out of the parking lot triumphant. I knew going in it was going to be a vastly emotional day, but a good one, and I was right.

19   It really was fun to see those kids still working late on projects. They seemed a bit clueless to the fact that school was ending. At least two of them were sensationally brilliant sophomores and juniors I taught this year and last.

20  I went into a wonderful weekend not really having the pressures of grading a bunch of papers and worrying about this week.

21   So this is going to be an interesting couple of days.

22   I already miss the seniors even though I report to Raging Waters on Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. for their fun day. What a strange duty. I’m pretty okay with it though. Should be fun. That’s probably why it’s called Senior Fun Day.

21  Moving on, Part the Second: I’m not going to mess with the Bay Bridge series except to say that as a Giants’ fan, I’m more than a little worried about Timmy Lincecum. He looked horrid yesterday, and he has looked horrid all year.

22  I’m not ready to say he is washed up, because history might prove me way wrong, but I really am worried about his head. His mistakes are clearly not physical. His mental state eerily resembles Barry Zito’s. Zito is suddenly well again, which is a minor miracle, and Lincecum looks almost like he needs to go to the minors for some therapy. It didn’t help any that he got taken out at the plate last night.

23   It was a bit fun listening to Brian Wilson in the booth yesterday, although Santiago Casilla seems to have filled his shoes pretty easily.

24   Moving on, Part the Thoid:  I dunno. I spent most of yesterday walking around the house cleaning up the debris from our remodeled kitchen. Suddenly we are no longer washing dishes with a garden hose, and we actually could cook on a stove. It’s still far from done, but things are rapidly returning to normal, if there is such a thing.

25   Normal.

26   I once lived on a street called Normal. Normal Avenue, although a lot of people call it Normal Street.

27   Life is a poem, I swear.

28   All in all, Friday brought in a sensational weekend, and a wonderful summer staring right at us. Great weather, and good times.

29   Lovely days. Birds, gardens, wine, and solar eclipses.

30   Well, it’s Monday, and time for all of us to get back to whatever it is we do.

31   You all have a good one. Fly low.

32    See you soon.

33    Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington 

The Daily News

1  Wow. 

2   Last day for seniors.

3   This senior class is sort of special to me, because they are the first senior class I had at the Chill as an English 1A teacher. I had moved out of activities and into a brand new building that overlooked the hills, and given the brightest freshmen in the district.

4   Quite a change, and I rose to it. They were a dazzling bunch, full of hopes and dreams, and I got to ride that wave. All ears and braces.

5   This year, I got a whole bunch of them back as seniors, so this year’s seniors are a pretty special bunch.

6   I have two classes with seniors, and we’ve had a beautiful ride all year because of that connection. I lived through a lot of their experiences and anxieties, and yesterday brought some soul into all of it.

7   We spent the last part of the year splashing around in a metaphorical wading pool while the rest of the school stressed and stressed. My deal was, why stress? Go out with nothing but fun and laughs.

8   And we did. We studied Midsummer, Much Ado, and Shrew, full-screen stereo in the Theater.

9   Yesterday my room turned back into the Cafe Verona. I had Starbuck’s lamps, a microphone, and a poetic setting. I taught the tunes of Simon and Garfunkel, included their history, and even brought in the story of The Graduate and its eternal link to the duo.  I told them of my seeing them in Berkeley, a Paul Simon concert in which Garfunkel appeared at the end, and they sang America and Old Friends,  and I told them of my seeing them just a eight or nine years ago at the Pavilion, one of the most intensely awesome concerts I have ever seen.

10   I explained their history of having grown up in New York, of the coffee houses, and of their subsequent fame.

11   And I played their music, much of it written a billion years ago, but I let them listen to a recording of the Old Friends’ tour from 2004, which they finished in Rome before purportedly 600,000 people.

12  They listened to The Sound of Silence, Scarborough Fair (I sang the canticle, because it wasn’t done on the live recording), the 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy), and I pulled out my guitar and sang America, followed by the obscure but awesome Punky’s Dilemma. When I sang to my third period seniors, I sang beautifully. That’s something I haven’t done in a while.

13   I guess that’s what happens when you sing from the heart.

14   I also threw in I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You, just as a tribute to Elvis. No Beatles this time around. Honk once.

15   It was painfully beautiful, because I’m going to miss those guys. I had two lovely senior classes this year, and today I go in and we are having my annual Cafe Verona, where I sell Starbuck’s for five cents, and provide food, a coffee house atmosphere, and we have the students read their favorite original poem, all with Miles Davis music, a lava lamp, and delicate rhythms and rhymes.

16   It’s a wonderful send off to students who have done it all, and who have been tortured with two weeks of finals, AP exams, end-of-the year projects, sleepless nights and puffy eyes.

17   I chose to take the road not taken, and to give them rewards for all the hard work they have put in these four years. Sue me.

18   There will be tears, I’ll tell you that much. Fortunately, next Wednesday I was told I must go to Great America to supervise their senior day. I am to report to “work” at 9, and to spend the day with my seniors.

19   Or is it Raging Waters? I can’t remember. Either way. It will take the sadness away from today, and will be the day before the last day of school. Pretty nice entrance into summer, I should say.

20    Today will still be an emotional day, but a huge party for all my students, not just the seniors. Food, jazz, sunglasses, coffee, and poetry all day long. I’d better get a little sleep, because I have to run all this stuff up to the school early to get set up.

21    But what a lovely ending to one of the loveliest years I ever spent teaching.

22    I’m going to miss my seniors, something I haven’t had to do in my last few years teaching English 1. I always wanted English 2 and 4, and now that I have it, I see how tough it is to say good-byes to seniors. Sweet kids, honestly.

23   They’re really scared and disoriented. One student said that it was like waiting on the side of a pool for someone to tell you it’s okay to jump in. I agree.

24   What a year. Looking back, I really did have a lot of fun once I caught up with all the grading.

25   This is clearly the last day of school. Next week is finals, which is really just a weird ritual for the underclassmen. It’s like walking around lost in a Western.

26    That’s the way it has always been. So today is planned pefectly. I give a huge party, and in the end, I’ll be in my classroom cleaning up until almost 6 p.m. And then I’ll close my door, walk out to the empty parking lot, and drive home.

27    That’s what will happen beginning in about an hour and a half.

28    So to sleep, at least for a bit.

29   And then I get to live in a wildly fun cartoon today.

30   Happy Friday, everybody.

31   I hope yours becomes a wildly fun cartoon as well.

32   You can make it that, even if it’s in your own head.

33   Have a great one, and as always, fly low.

34    Live life.

35    Love life.

36    Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Daily News

1   I keep walking into rooms and forgetting why.

2   I realize most people would say, “That’s because you’re old!”

3   My answer to that is I’ve been doing it since I was around twelve.

4   Nobody listens to that one except twelve-year olds.

5   Well, nobody’s perfect. I just dislike how I have perfected imperfection.

6   I went to a meeting union meeting last night and tried to take minutes.

7   Midway through I realized I couldn’t keep up. These people are excellent at moving a meeting along at a rapid pace.

8   This was a meeting where some union legends came in to honor one another.

9    I knew and have worked with all of these wonderful people.

10   That much I understood. Standing ovations for people who fought huge battles to ensure that students were the top priority of the schools.

11  I don’t wish to name names, because a) I’m sure to leave somebody out, b) a lot of my readers wouldn’t know these people, and c) I can’t remember all their names.

12   But one lady who deserves mention is Cathy Giamonna, a legend both as teacher, mentor, teacher of teachers, and union goddess.

13   What she said was something everyone should know about our school and district: she said that the word “contract” should be removed from the lexicon if our students and parents are our focus, and that we should substitute the word “covenant.”

14   Both sides need to realize that for everything to stay afloat, that they need to compromise, rather than argue.

15    Unions are no longer the tough-guy Longshoremen of yesteryear. My good friend John Arnolfo taught me that years ago with Local 468. He was president of that union, and he managed to save that union and help it grow. It is now under the umbrella of the Teamsters, giving them much more clout, and protecting many workers’ jobs.

16   The public has a rather twisted view of unions, and of management in many cases. Public education in particular is filled with enormously important issues, and since all of it is funded with public funds, the issues must be negotiated carefully in order to benefit the public, the parents, the schools, and the students.

17   So Cathy’s declaration of a contract as a “covenant” simply means that we are all in this together, and we have a really important and delicate relationship with the people who handle the dwindling funds. Nobody wins when war is declared, just like real wars. Disagreements can happen, but there has to be a sense of trust.

18   It is scary times. We still have to fight hard not to give things up. The District has to fight hard to be sure we are not exaggerating our needs. Both play the game. Both know the silliness sometimes of negotiations, and keeping things from each other.

19   And both sides never want a strike.

20   While trying to take minutes, I got lost, which in a way is a good thing, because these guys know so well how to get things done that they don’t waste time on debates and stalling out issues.

21   They go by Robert’s Rules of Order, and it works.

22    Not everybody is happy at the end of the meeting, because people are passionate and have their opinions often outvoted.

23   But the fact that we all are passionate about things, and that we all believe that what’s good for the students and parents should come first makes it all pretty genuine.

24   Changes will have to be made, especially with the issue of furlough days. A shortened school year makes everything in the Spring move faster, and it is especially difficult on seniors, because school events start crashing in on each other. AP testing runs into finals, for example. Prom comes in earlier of later. Traditional school events like FANTASTICS and BATTLE begin crashing into sports finals, musicals, and other activities.

25  My seniors look like they want to cry or die every single day this week. It is really tough on them. I see it in their eyes, and in their puffy, exhausted faces. This is their future everyone is playing with.

26   Schools are in great pain these days, because we have tried to accommodate no raising of taxes for years. We haven’t had a raise since 2002.

27   Governor Brown has drawn a line in the sand. He is bold enough to see the state of education, and he has told the taxpayers that it is time to raise taxes for education.

28   Here’s an example of why: our school has over 2600 students. We have TWO counselors, where we used to have five. That’s a ridiculous student/counselor ratio.

29   Nobody knows what is going to happen to the librarians next year.

30    Support staff is getting dumped on at an alarming rate.

31   Young teachers don’t know from one year to the next what might happen.

32    Old teachers are frightened of trying to retire, yet sit watching as their retirement  benefits might be ripped away from them.

33    Sports are constantly targeted, and expectd somehow to adapt to shorter and shorter school years.

34     And Brown has now stood up and said, “Look, California. We either fix this, or say good-bye to education in California. It is THAT critical.”

35    A gamble? Special education is in severe trouble. So is this a gamble?

37    Yes, and a really scary one.

38    Because if we don’t get a tax hike, it is going to be earth shaking.

39    I have a lot of hope that the taxpayers see this. We aren’t exaggerating. We have reached critical mass.

40   And we do have pretty competent people holding it all together on both sides of the table.

41   I also think that at some point, we have to support younger teachers who could only be the best because they are passionate enough to still want to teach despite all of this. We have a wonderful batch of younger teachers with stars in their eyes and  tremendous heart and hope for where they can take students. They are much better trained and ready than we ever were.

42   That’s where education in California is as of this day.

43   You should all give it some thought.

44    I’m not exaggerating.

45    Give it some hard thought. That boushit about “We give them all this money and they just waste it!” is a myth, and only an idiot would believe that.

46   When Cathy Giamonna called a contract a “covenant” I felt a spiritual connection with all of the hard-working people in education. So many good people, from the  classified staff  to the teachers on the front lines, and to the people at the very top, we all work hard to keep this good ship afloat, and we are now all standing together in hopes that people will finally listen.

47   This old brown shoe is exhausted, and needs a bit more sleep, but before he goes off, he wants you to think about today’s DN.

48   I’m bringing Simon and Garfunkel to my students today. I will sing “America” to them, live. Tomorrow we are having a student poetry reading, complete with coffee- house flow, food, sunglasses, bongos, and a lot of love for our seniors.

49   That’s who wrote this today. That’s what thousands educators do, despite all. They work hard and put their hearts and souls into helping young people grow and mature. It is a very difficult job, and we all do it with smiles and laughs. It’s what gets us by.

50    Give us all some thought today. It is scary times. That is no lie.

51    Thanks for listening.

52     Peace.

www.xanga.com/bharrington

~H~

The Daily News

1  What day is today?

2  Do you do that?

3  You get so mixed up with everything you have to say and do that you have no idea what day it is?

4  The only day of the week where that is a nice thing is Saturday.

5    I always love that moment where you think you have to get up and do something, and then realize, “Ah, it’s Saturday!”

6   And then you plop your head back down and smile and rest.

7   That didn’t just happen.

8   What day IS today?

9    Wednesday. Oh thaz right. <trying to pry left eye open>

10  Wednesday is called inappropriately “Hump Day.”

11   It is the largest hurdle of the week, and we are to get over the hump. Oh. I get it. Lol.

12   Some guy invented that probably because he was too frustrated to campaign for the elimination of Tuesday as a day of the week, a campaign I have fought for years.

13   Nobody ever listens. I coo into the night. Nobody listens.

14   It’s like trying to campaign for free pizza. Or Ron Paul.

15   Ah, vell.

16   No matter what they call today, I usually feel like a stale piece of white bread by Wednesday.

17   Half a minute.

18   I just jumped over to AOL to check the major news stories, always a lark.

19   These are legit headlines. Here is what constitutes news these days:

Queen May Not Like Camel’s Name. What’s his name? Elizabeth? Betty? Joe?

Man Protests All-You-Can-Eat Fish Fry For Cutting Him Off. Dude.

Chaperones Accused of Spraying Lysol On Dancers at Prom. Seriously? Who made that call?

Robbing Internet Cafe? Check Out of Facebook First. There’s a reason I have a job.

Truck Crash Unleashes 18 Tons of Yogurt on Highway. Sign of the times. It used to be booze and ciggies.

20  So there you have it.

21  No news.

22  As I have often said, good news.

23  Journalism is in the toilet, folks.

24  We make up news on a daily basis.

25   Oh, once again, some celeb was wearing some sexy dress at some celeb benefit, which happens every other day. Too funny. Lol.

26   Tom Cruise is getting reamed for being a Scientology nut. When hasn’t that happened?

27    I’m guessing Maury Povich found once again who the husband was, in his usual macabre fashion. That guy is a walking freak show. I imagine him in Hell standing next to Rupert Murdoch.  Rupert, not aware of Maury’s fame: “So, how’d you make YOUR money?”

28   Going South Way too Fast Dept. Here’s another headline: Alleged Weapons Dealer Ordered to Write Book Reports. I probably ordered the guy to do book reports ten years ago. Probably my fault. What an exquisite punishment.

29   I remember when news was news, and when all this sensationalism had a name in the journalistic circles. It was called yellow journalism, and was frowned upon by anybody with any sort of common sense.

30  All news is pretty much invented nowadays, until something worse comes along.

31  Welp, I’m not going to go into a rant about it. I’m of an age where I simply shrug my shoulders at the mountains of stupidity that surround us on a daily basis.

32   If mountains of stupidity grew like wildflowers, today would be be the Spring of idiocy.

33   I love mixed metaphors. People think you’re ingenious.

34   It sort of is the Spring of idiocy when you take a look at the news.

35   Stupidity has reached pandemic proportions.

36   Moving on, Part the First: What day IS today?

37   Oh yeah. Wednesday. Stupid day.

38   What the hell do we do with Wednesday except call it something banal like Hump Day?

39   Some boring fellow on Facebook is sure to write, “Happy Hump Day Everyone!”

40   <yeesh>

41   Is it possible just to pull the blankets over my eyes and sleep through this stuff ’til Saturday?

42   Probably not.

43   It’s already into the 4 a.m. and pretty soon I’m going to have to put shoes on.

44   There’s always a chore, right?

45   Well, I just got up, went out front, and then out back, saw that all was actually pretty peaceful despite Facebook, and am ready to get back to sleep, despite having miles more to go.

46   Robert Frost would have had about two hits on a blog. People would have ignored him on his name alone. The Facebook fam-bam would have sent the guy to Farmville.

47   And that’s life. <plays soothing Sinatra tune.>

48   I’m out yo.

49    Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

Have a little Francis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqhYchnDNfA

The Daily News

1   Congratulations, Miss Harrington!

2    My daughter Nicoley was told yesterday that she was moved to teaching first grade. She has wanted this forever. She is an excellent teacher who uses professional research to motivate and engage her students. She knows more than I will ever know about how to be a good teacher, so her school made the absolute right choice putting her in that important position.

3   I can’t wait for this school year to finally close down so that she and I could talk shop. Our plan is to both work out and figure out how to become better teachers in an economy that is trying to make that impossible.

4   So congrats, Nicoley Boley!!! Daddy’s proud and looking forward to spending a lot of the summer with you!

5   Moving On, Part the First: Yesterday we got word that the District and the Union came to an agreement that to me looks REALLY good, given the times. I’m a union assembly rep, and I’m almost more than happy that we are maintaining our status quo, and that our benefits were protected.

6   I’m sure there are people who will be upset, but in this economy, I think we got a good deal.

7   The trend not only in education, but in all businesses these days is to get rid of good workers and to dump on everyone who is left.

8   Anyone out there feel that?

9   So if you get a contract that is going to make it so that won’t happen, even if for a year, you feel a sigh of relief, however short.

10  That’s America in 2012.

11  I really expected WAY worse, to be honest.

12  We’re still ridiculously understaffed, especially in the area of support staff, but it looks like the cutbacks are on hold. I never in my life thought I would be happy about that, but I am.

13  Somebody will read this and want to kick me in the seat of the pants, but I’m happy, because I can afford new pants. All of this is, as the great John Miller put it, “Imho.” That’s “in my humble opinion.” I can’t tell people how to think or how to vote.

14  Over here, a sigh of relief. School employees work really hard for your children and deserve to be treated fairly. That hasn’t always been the case, and this entire negotiation could have really turned horrid.

15  For now, it looks as though we can all breathe, and plan a bit for our students next year. Imho. John Miller’s Facebook humor.

16   It’s sort of sad when you have to say, “Thank God. It could have been worse.”

17   But that’s the way it is in education.

18    And yes. Thank God. It could have been worse. Imho. Lol. LMFAO. Fml. LOFLMFAO. How’d we get here? More on that.

19    Moving on, Part the Second:  I had another dream where the DN wrote itself. Woke up in the 2 a.m. and realized that I hadn’t typed out a word.

20    Fortunately, my early-to-bed mentality bought me the time. It also helps that I am a Giants’ fan, because we tend to sleep between the second inning and the eighth.

21   If you’re a true Giants’ fan, you probably do the same thing.

22   Moving on, Part the Thoid: I’m about ready never to check my emails again. Yesterday morning I was going in on a Monday minding my own business when I looked at my emails.

23   Forgive me. Sunday I decided to put school on the shelf and enjoy Mother’s Day with my Dad. You would think I had shot up the village. I had two pages of emails with people planning my week for me.

24   I have been ridiculously busy lately and was already flying by the seat of my pants on planning alone. I’m actually pretty good at staying ahead of the school when it comes to watching the ever-changing calendar. I learned that from running school activities. I plan WAY ahead for lots of things, but the rest of the world waits until the last minute to throw roadblocks in front of those of us who actually plan.

25   I kept waiting for certain dates to be decided, but still had to plan these last two weeks knowing that other people’s last-minute decisions were going to come crashing in on my plans.

26   So yesterday morning I must have had twelve different people tell me I had to be certain places at certain times in the next two weeks. I was having enough trouble timing the transition from Taming of the Shrew to my rather intense poetry reading on Friday, as well as readying the students for finals.

27   I was completely shaken by the time my second class hit yesterday, but I kept fouling off a thousand pitches.

28   It all paid off, because things have now lined up pretty nicely for the rest of the week. I got my pitch.

29   Still, everybody else’s scrambling was driving me crazy. I had my own stuff to worry about, and last-minute ideas of others don’t always take a precedent.

30   AnywayZ…

31    Sorry.

32    I have one shot to get this thing written, and today it is just reflecting on personal stuff.

33   I was moving along here realizing that nobody is interested in listening to some guy rant about how much work he has to do.

34   They get enough self-indulgence flying through Facebook posts.

35   Here’s my quick observance of Facebook posts:

36   Just cut my toenails.

37   Got a new haircut that I hate! Please tell me it looks cute, or I’ll unfriend you.

38   <video of a cat falling into a toilet> LMFAO!

39   If you know someone who has a cold and is mean but you still like them, put this on your status. I know most of you won’t, but do it anyway.

40   Going to VEGAS, BABY!

41   Legs hurt from working out for three hours.

42   <picture of four girls with fake moustaches>

43   <picture of everyone jumping in the air at once>

44    Going on interview for Mama’s Pies. Wish me luck!

45    GO ANY TEAM THAT’S NOT LOCAL!!!

46    Go Spurs.

47    Giant suck.

48    Done even talk, beotch who you tink what bitch you be trippin’ ho fu@# that bitch just sayin’.

49    Just checked in at Walgreens.

50    I have the best hubby in the world. Mmmmmm, lobster soaked in butter with a side of garlic pasta and a salad! Nom. Nom. Nom.

51   Mandatory meeting of the Notorious Society Dance group. Let’s do this!

52   <picture of empty beer bottles and hard booze> Yeeeeuh! getin my praty one.

53    A vote for Ron Paul is not a wasted vote.

54    Six essays due by morning. Wish me luck.

55    <Picture of Time magazine with four-year old on mom’s boob.> Let’s have a debate. 

56    The Daily News: Taming of the Shrew and Grease! 

57    See what I’m up against?

58    Peace, and VEGAS BABY!!!

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Daily News

1  Incident in Safeway on Mothers’ Day: I get in line at a Safeway in order to buy flowers for Mom and the clerk is SO on it that he chucks a plastic customer divider perfectly in front of me without taking his eyes off his register. I didn’t have to play that customer/divider thing where some guys feel they don’t have to bother separating their items from mine. Already the clerk has won me over.

2   The customer two guys in front of me moves off, and the guy being helped notices that the other guy forgot his change.

3   He runs after the guy with the change and says, “Sir, you forgot your change!”

4   Good man.

5   The other customer thanks him and leaves sheepishly, as though he were the only person ever to be that stupid.

6   Clerk chimes in, “I had to chase a lady for her change once. I yelled, “Uh, Miss? Change! She walked back to me angrily and said, ‘I ain’t changing for you or any other man!’ “

7  

8    Guy made my day.

9   Sometimes I love going back home. That store was in South San Francisco, where wiseguys are a dime a dozen.

10   I was born in San Francisco and lived in South City for the first ten glamorous years of my life.

11   My memories are of a place that was black and white, like a 50′s sit-com.

12   Even when I re-visit, it almost turns black and white once again, like a doctored photograph.

13   I have nice memories of all of that.

14   I particularly enjoy that the wiseguy thing still exists.

15   As much as I love San Jose, we don’t have wiseguy clerks around here.

16   Maybe it’s the town, or maybe it’s the economy, but most clerks are polite and robotic, quite what I call concrete-operational. They are there to do their jobs, and they have smiley managers breathing down their throats.

17   If there’s anything that gets on my nerves, it’s when some district manager is visiting a store and is like Joe Happy, asking, “Finding everything okay sir?”

18   In typical hypocritical fashion, I am annoyed by stores that don’t help you when you obviously could use some help. I sat in a restaurant the other day with an empty coffee cup, empty water glass, and clean plate for around ten minutes before the waiter came over to give me my check. I couldn’t really even get her attention.

19   I won’t go there ever again. Overpriced, lousy food, lousy service, toe-up rest rooms, etc.

20  This is why we get those happy-faced general managers going into stores to make all their employees nervous. But that somehow annoys me. It’s sort of like when teachers suddenly get passionate about teaching right before the WPC walks into their classrooms.

21   The WPC, for non- DN regulars, stands for “White People With Clipboards.”

22   AnywayZ…

23   It was refreshing seeing a clerk chuck a divider perfectly where I wanted one, and then pick up on a cue perfectly. Big wiseguy tone too.

24   Blue collar madness. Raised with it, love the intelligence and humor.

25   I miss old times.

26   Moving on, Part the First: Biggest mistake I have made all year was not keeping up with the DN. After fifteen years of getting this thing out no matter what, circumstances finally made it impossible.

27   It was a series of things, but mostly lack of easy internet access, what with a kitchen remodel, a wrong pushed button, a Theater with no internet access, and weekends at Dad’s, who still uses typewriters. I found it physically impossible to get this out each day.

28   Unfortunately, in these times of blogs and Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Twooter and all, nobody wants to hear any extended nonsense anymore.

29   Okay, so it wasn’t the biggest mistake I ever made.

30   But things change so swiftly in life that coming back to writing the DN has been a bit of a challenge.

31   For one thing, I noticed a vast drop in readers. Understandable.

32  Second, it’s the end of the school year.

33  Third, people just want to scroll down Facebook Lane and read the headlines, occasionally stopping to comment on something that might rank a like or a comment.

34   Quite often they like and comment on the latest trend fashion.

35   That’s why there is a picture of The Avengers at the top of this page.

36   I should have put the Time magazine up there with the mom who has a four-year old boy dangling off her boob. Because THAT’S news.

37   It’s come to that.

38   Welp, it’s Monday. No point in worrying about any of this. I’ll just keep tacking away and tossing this nonsense out there until I can’t.

39   It’s back into the 4 a.m. I had a lovely Mother’s Day with Dad. I had internet access but preferred boushitting with him, and then doing a little yard work.

40   We visited Mom, and it was a nice moment. Flowers look pretty. Mom rests under the American flag at Holy Cross in Colma. I took a picture of the flowers and the American flag, but I’m too lazy to get up and put it here.

41   Nothing will catch the moment anyway. Mom passed away three years ago this Thursday, so yesterday was pretty special with Dad.

42   Hope you all had a nice one.

43   I love you all, everything.

44   Time to go back to sleep. It’s into the 4 a.m. and I need a few more hours.

45   Have a lovely Monday.

46    Fly low.

47    Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington