Excellent

On June 8, 2026 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

At least, I hope so, although we may be in a good-news-and-bad-news situation. I had six kids today, and they were all nice kids, and they were willing to participate, although a couple of them have insanely quiet voices, and my two Hispanic girls who are good friends and look enough alike that they could be sisters have names that are only different by a few letters, which in a class of six is not fair. I should not be having to worry about mixing up names in a class of six.

Hopefully we’ll get more kids tomorrow, and (this is the maybe bad news part) hopefully they won’t decide that my attendance is so low that they need to combine my section with someone else’s. I’m a little worried about getting booted out of my cushy high-paying job early, now that I’m done worrying about it being horrible.

Anyway, I have reading to do, so I’m going to go do that. Hopefully the booing from Madison Square Garden will be loud enough that I can hear it in Indiana. We’ll see.

In which I am trained

On June 2, 2026June 2, 2026 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

Because bitching about teacher training never gets old, and because I have three full days of online training and have to maintain my sanity somehow, I live-blogged my six hour summer school training today. Some of you do not yet follow me on Bluesky! Enjoy:

This isn’t fair

On May 5, 2026 By Luther M. SilerIn Reading1 Comment

These three books were waiting for me when I got home. That’s Sisters of the Lizard, the sequel to my ninth-favorite book of 2025, She Knows All the Names, the sequel to my twelfth-favorite book of 2025, and The Last Contract of Isako, the first book in a new trilogy by Fonda Lee, whose last trilogy was my favorite book of the year three fucking books in a row. And next week I get a new Dungeon Crawler Carl book, the latest book in a series that was first in my list of favorite books of 2025.

Come on, God damn it. Slow down. I read faster than 95% of the entire human race and that may be an understatement, and I can’t keep up with this shit. I need all the writers to get together and put themselves on a schedule. This is crazy.

I suppose it was inevitable

On February 11, 2026 By Luther M. SilerIn life1 Comment

The boy wasn’t feeling well today, so we both got to stay home since my wife is out of town until Friday morning(*), and … blech. I tend to spend all day gaslighting myself when I’m home because I’m sick, and when I am absolutely not sick at all and home anyway the feeling is powerful indeed. Like, I’m union; I get family sick days and frankly no one gets to challenge me on my sick days one way or another anyway. But I’ve spent all day being twitchy and nervous for no goddamn reason at all.

I, uh, don’t really have anything other than that. Today didn’t suck nearly as hard as the rest of the week has but that’s not exactly a difficult bar to clear. Hopefully I can get through tomorrow without any illnesses, car accidents or people getting shot. We’ll see.

(*) Because my schedule means I leave before he gets out of bed, and because my wife has a job where she can work from home effectively any time she wants at the drop of a hat, she is nearly always the one who stays home. Not because hurr durr sick kid is Mom’s job.

I hate to do this two nights in a row

On February 4, 2026 By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

… but guess what I had to buy four of on no notice tonight?

The good news: turns out I can afford a sudden low-four-figure emergency! Which doesn’t mean that I want to spend that kind of money, or that it doesn’t toss me into a shitty mood for the rest of the night, especially when it takes just over an hour to get the new tires installed. And especially especially when I can feel my stomach lining eating itself while I’m waiting, which leads to a 3500-calorie Burger King dinner, and I think I’ve already eaten enough in January and February to last me until March.

And it’s going to end up being three nights in a row, too, because tomorrow after school I have my weird little gay kids club and then after that I have TRIVIA NIGHT for probably longer than I think. I haven’t done TRIVIA NIGHT in a while but feel free to read this and this to find out how the last one went.

I don’t get it

On January 6, 2026 By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

Went to bed last night feeling fine, slept through the night without issue, and realized I wasn’t going to work within ten seconds of waking up this morning. I slept all day and right now I still kind of feel like hell but I’m going to try to go in tomorrow because writing lesson plans for the 3rd day of the semester is kind of a nightmare. But God forbid I forget to put up some kind of blog post, right?

Expect a book review tomorrow.

Keep on trying me

On December 22, 2025 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocyLeave a comment

I am bored and kvetchy and it’s making my anxiety act up something fierce. I actually got quite a lot done today– no big projects, but a ton of little jobs around the house and I got the oil changed on the car– but since the sun went down I’ve turned into a mess, and I can’t concentrate well enough to read.

That part’s the alarming part, honestly. It’s rare that I can’t focus enough to read. I’m watching someone else play a video game while I’m writing this, and I’m starting to think I need to dive back into Skyrim or something like that; I simultaneously need something new to do and am kind of aching for something familiar and comfortable I can just fall into.

I’m also, for the first time in several years, pretty excited (or at least not actively dreading) Christmas, mostly because I feel like I definitely won Christmas this year. I don’t know if other families do this thing, where they’re competitive about who gets each other the best gifts– hell, I don’t know if my family does this thing or if it’s just me– but one way or another it’s me, hi, I won Christmas, it’s me.

Anyway, I’m going to go take down the wallpaper in the library or something.