I wore shorts today

On February 21, 2024February 21, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching1 Comment

It wasn’t nearly as hot in my room as it was yesterday, in accordance with prophecy, but it was still hot enough that I wasn’t annoyed at all by having decided to wear shorts. It was also sixty Goddamn degrees at the end of the day.

I don’t have a ton to say today, other than that for some reason everybody kept trying to get into fights around me– I managed to keep anything from developing into an actual fight but by the end of the day I was genuinely pissy about the number of kids I’d had to write up for instigating. Whatever; the day’s over and I survived it, on to the next one.

In closing, I was sent a research survey by someone at Berkeley who is researching teachers and teachers unions. This was the final question:

There was an “Anything else you’d like to tell us?” box after this question, and I wrote in that box that I was absolutely going to steal this question for use on a future test or assignment. Because this shit is brilliant.

I’m wearing shorts tomorrow

On February 20, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, TeachingLeave a comment

Forgive me for splattering my horrifying visage across your computer screen or whatever digital thingamabob you’re using to view this, but what I’m wearing is actually kind of important to this story. It was eighty-five degrees in my classroom when I got to work, again. I bought that pullover over the weekend, on clearance, for fourteen bucks. It is wonderfully soft and while it is warm it’s not quite as warm as it looks (that’s a good thing) and I like the pattern and the color. I spent the whole weekend planning to wear it today and looking forward to it.

As I was walking into the building this morning, I thought to myself that it was probably going to be hellishly hot in my classroom and I wasn’t going to get to wear my nice new pullover because it was going to be too hot. And I was exactly right. I didn’t last into second hour, especially since I insisted on drinking my Goddamned coffee, temperature in the room be damned.

We got an email that the Thingamawhosis had broken, and that there was already a guy in the building repairing it, and that classroom temperatures would start coming down soon. By lunchtime it was still 80 degrees, and I sent a cautiously worded follow-up email, which generated a second message to the whole staff that the Thingamawhosis had been fixed but then it promptly broke again. So, just sweat, I guess.

It’s supposed to be in the mid-sixties tomorrow, which is one of those painful things where it’s sort of been winter for a little while and warm weather is going to feel nice but it is also terrifying because it’s fucking February and it’s not supposed to be in the mid-sixties, and the nice weather is a sign of the fucking world ending. One way or another, I’m wearing shorts, because fuck it, that’s why. I strongly suspect that wearing shorts to work will result in the Thingamawhosis not only already being fixed when I arrive, but magically working at higher capacity than normal for the entire day, resulting in the exact same kids who told me it was hot when they walked into my classroom every single class period, as if I didn’t already fucking know, coming in and complaining about being cold.

At least cold 8th graders smell a lot better than hot ones.

On last year and next year

On January 2, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn life3 Comments

I went back and looked at the post I wrote at the end of 2022, and while I was willing to admit that 2022 had been a good year, I was clearly feeling pretty gun-shy about the idea. The notion that after the utter carnage that 2016 through 2021 had been, an actual good year had finally happened really seemed to beggar belief. I can’t justify any such hesitation about 2023; last year was a good year by nearly all personal metrics other than my own health, and even that wasn’t all that bad. In a lot of ways, I really don’t have anything to complain about, and I’m tantalizingly close to a major, major milestone in my life, one that ten years ago I didn’t think was ever going to happen: assuming no disasters occur (hah!), I am on track to be completely debt-free other than my house by the end of this school year. That’s entirely due to trends that started in 2022 and accelerated in 2023.

(I just took a few minutes to look, and I was officially diagnosed with sleep apnea in November of 2022, so that’s not 2023’s fault. I can’t even get mad at 2023 about that.)

Here’s the thing, though: 2024 fucking terrifies me. Like, bone-deep. Like, I don’t know how you diagnose someone with anxiety when the world is actually like this terrified. Why? Notice how I said “personal metric” up there? By that I mean, like, my life, my health, my family, my job, my finances. That sort of stuff. That’s all good right now, although I know how fast shit can change. Anything other than that? Fucked. Fucked. This was the hottest year in the history of humanity and nothing’s going to change. I have brought a child into this bullshit and he has to somehow survive for several decades after I’m gone while the world is busy being on fire. Israel is committing genocide in plain fucking sight of the entire world and no one is doing anything about it and there is literally nothing I can do to change anything about it. There’s a fucking presidential election this year. The state legislature is about to go back into session and who the fuck only knows what sort of bullshit they’re going to put on us this year.

(The pronoun bill? Sorta fizzled. Everybody just sort of mutually decided that we weren’t going to pay any attention to it, and nothing happened. I violate the pronoun law a hundred times a day and nothing is going to happen to me.).

I genuinely don’t know how I’m going to survive ten fucking months until the election. And the level of panic that sets in any time I try to seriously contemplate what I should do if things don’t go our way is indescribable.

So. Yeah. Last year was the last good year. Even if we win 400 electoral votes this fall I still have to make it to November before that happens. I just don’t see anything coming this year that I can look forward to, other than that whole “no debt” thing, which isn’t going to work out for me all that well when I have to sell everything and move to Canada on no notice. Or, y’know, not, since the fascists taking over could pretty much result in anything. Who the fuck knows.

Also, so far it’s been 2024 for two days, and I was woozy and sickish all day yesterday– I have never been hung over even once in my entire life, but based on how people have described it to me, I may as well have been– and last night I managed to throw out my back in my sleep because I’m 47 and that shit can happen now. So, yeah, fuck this year.

Anybody have the number for a good therapist? Maybe that’s where all my money can go.

Let’s see if this works

On June 14, 2022 By Luther M. SilerIn life1 Comment

My internet has melted, and has been at best intermittent throughout the day, so lemme just throw up a quick proof-of-life before it goes down again: it was brutally hot outdoors today; I think the heat index reached somewhere in the 105-110 range, with tomorrow expected to be just as bad. Amazingly, though, it wasn’t nearly as humid as I was expecting, meaning that outside was unpleasant but not the immediate death I was planning for. We spent the evening in the pool. Not a bad gig, if you can get it.

In which you’ve got to be kidding me

On August 10, 2021 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

We have had, despite global climate change and all that, a pretty damn mild summer here in Northern Indiana. So naturally now that we’re going back to school and I have to spend all my time around smelly-assed unwashed 8th graders the heat index has shot up to 105. I wish I could find someone specific to blame this on so I could have them shot. Genuinely. And that’s before they give everybody Covid. It’ll be a great first day.

That said, I’m as ready as I’m going to be; tomorrow’s session is going to be only partially improvised, which is about as good as I can hope for given that I spent most of the day only barely able to remember how teaching actually works. And I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to sleep tonight, too. I think. Maybe.

Expect me to be quietish the next couple of days, as most of my life activities are going to involve coming home from work and dying. For now, I’m going to stay in the air conditioning and curl up with Jade Legacy and see if I can finish it before bed. If Fonda Lee hits the dismount as effectively as I’m expecting her to, this series instantly becomes one of the greatest triumphs of fantasy literature I’ve ever encountered. I have high hopes.

Ha ha ha ha ha never mind

On July 20, 2019 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy2 Comments

So, yesterday was a day, and it is a hundred forty degrees outside and I have already spent about half my waking hours in the pool, and you may disregard the entirety of yesterday’s post because why would things like saying I would like to offer you this job mean that you get a job, and I’m just keeping my mouth shut from here on out until I have signatures on shit.

I am tired and overheated and spent most of yesterday in an exceptionally bad mood and all I want to do today is play video games and not catch on fire.

Man do I wish I had been born in any generation other than the one that literally ended the world.

We’re all gonna die

On October 3, 2018October 3, 2018 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy1 Comment

Earth_on_Fire_Animated_global_warming October 3rd.

5 PM.

Eighty-eight fucking degrees outside.

And they turned off the fucking coolers in all the buildings because “it’s Fall.”

It is a miracle no one died in my building today, for a variety of reasons.

In which I forget that posts need titles until after I’ve hit Publish

On July 22, 2016July 22, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Parenting4 Comments

It is not as hot outside as I was expecting it to be today– which is to say, when I look outside nothing is obviously on fire. That said, I have at least one customer out on the golf course at OtherJob right now who I am not entirely certain is going to survive the experience. I’m comfortably ensconced in an air conditioned gameroom that hasn’t had many people breathing in it, so I’m doing fine– but I need to figure out how to get to my car at the end of the day without leaving the game room, which might be a bit tricky.

In other news, despite above-average caffeine consumption for the morning, I’ve been yawning for six solid hours and have formally taken next week off from OtherJob, meaning that my string of five straight six-day, 53-hour weeks is about to finally be snapped. My day off yesterday featured taking my son to day care, grabbing breakfast, doing a competitive shop at a furniture store that I don’t work at (after waiting in the parking lot for 45 minutes because I couldn’t think of anything else to do to kill the time before the place opened) and then coming home and staring at a computer screen for two more hours before taking a three-hour nap. Despite that, everyone in my house was still in bed before nine last night. Needless to say, no fiction was written. Once I leave here I have to go back to the other furniture store for a moment– I was informed that I had managed to miss a critical piece that we need to know the pricing of– and then off to my mom and dad’s for pizza with my brother and new sister-in-law, who I haven’t seen since their wedding. I’m excited about it, but I also kind of wish I could find a way to have pizza and see family from my bed.

And then it will be Saturday, which is my Monday now, and everything will start over again.

In other, entirely unrelated news: did anyone reading this post have a dad like this? One of those “I’ll kill you if you touch my daughter” types? I don’t know why, but I caught myself thinking about this type of guy (note: I do not have a daughter) earlier today, and it occurred to me that the way you treat your daughter’s boyfriends has got to be a reflection of the way you, yourself, treat and/or treated women. I feel like it’s got to say something fucked up about you that you feel the need to go all alpha gorilla and shotgunny when some dipshit teenager comes near your daughter.

(The picture is probably a joke. Almost certainly. But we all know these guys exist. Or maybe they don’t; I dunno, maybe it’s a stereotype that isn’t really real– the father of the only girl I ever really dated in high school was literally on another continent and I met very few dads in between her and the woman I ended up marrying. Needless to say, by that point we were both grown and her dad very clearly understood that he no longer had any say in the matter one way or another.)

Any thoughts on that, anybody?