Three Billy bookcases from Ikea showed up on my front porch today.(*) I’m not sure at the moment where the third is going. My wife said she had “bookshelf fatigue” a bit ago when I called her into the bedroom to ask for opinions. I don’t blame her; I have Me Fatigue, which is a close variant. I have Entirely Too Much Shit, and I keep acquiring more shit, and I looked at those filled bookshelves (which won’t look like that forever, as they’re going to be organized better sooner or later) and started musing about how my house burning down might solve some of my problems.
Not all of the books in the picture are mine, for the record. But enough of them are, and when you widen the scope to the whole house, I’m not exactly a hoarder, because I’m too organized for that, but Jesus, I have a damn problem.
Also, I need a second Spring Break where all I do is read. Like, 24/7, without breaking for food, bathroom, or sleep. Either that or I need All the Writers to take, like, a year off. I understand that writing is how they feed themselves but if everybody could just take a little hit on behalf of my mental health and the success of my marriage I’d appreciate it.
(*) Initial review is that at their price point they are excellent bookcases, which is basically what everyone I’ve ever heard mention them has said. We’ll see how well they hold up; that shelf on the far left is effectively made of cardboard and probably ought to go as soon as possible, so what might happen is I get rid of it, slide the other tall one down and stick the third Billy in between it and the two that are already on the wall. We’ll see.
Was gonna use the spiffy new laptop to write a post.
New post wasn’t going to be about the spiffy new laptop, it was going to be about getting sick twice in two different ways at work today.
Spiffy new laptop won’t load the WordPress new post screen. Everything else works fine!
Guess why I bought the spiffy new laptop?
Anyway, I’m writing this on my phone and it is possible that there will be a ragesplosion soon, so y’all can look forward to that, because this makes no sense at all.
My son will be attending the same high school that both my wife and I graduated from, and he had an appointment with his counselor tonight to get his freshman schedule set up. I wasn’t really sure if all three of us needed to go, but we all went anyway, and we spent a little bit of time after the meeting wandering around the building.
My head is still kind of swimming. There has been an immense amount of renovation in the — God — thirty-two years since I graduated, which means that fully half of what I remember literally isn’t there anymore and if it’s still there everything around it is different. There were occasional flashes of “Yes, I remember this hallway” or “Yes, I remember this stairwell,” but nothing seemed to connect to anything else the way I remember any more. I’m not even completely sure I went there any longer.
Also, my son is about to be in high school and I graduated from high school thirty-two years ago, and I’ll be over here, in the corner, crumbling into dust for the rest of the night.
It hasn’t started yet, but apparently the thunderstorms currently headed my way are going to bring flash floods, hail measured in inches, and several dozen tornadoes. So, great! We were all surprised by the two fog delays we got last week; apparently I get to look forward to flood delays tomorrow morning, because if 2026 has shown me anything at all, it’s that when it is possible for there to be fuckery, it is an absolute certainty that fuckery there will be.
The trend of rough-as-fuck days continues; I had to do an office referral today for a kid who wouldn’t stop using the word “jigaboo” in class, and amended the referral a bit later when I discovered he’d also written “KKK” on his desk. It was also one of those days where everyone is having the same comprehension issue and I absolutely cannot figure out what is causing it. We are working on simple volume and surface area formulas; today, specifically, volume and surface area of spheres. The relevant formulas:
I generally will teach them how to calculate both formulas (not especially tricky) and then point out that since 4π and 4/3 π are always going to be the same number, you can actually shortcut the formula and use 12.56r2 for surface area and 4.19r3 for volume. The volume formula is a little bit of an estimate, but they’re both perfectly cromulent for what we’re doing.
For the first time since I’ve been doing this, this year’s kids showed a marked preference for the fuller version of the formula, and a lot of them simply could not wrap their heads around the shortcut formula. I was getting a ton of them who were multiplying 4.19 by the radius cubed and then insisting that they needed to divide by 3 afterwards. I would point at the formula they were using and ask them where that formula told them to divide and it wasn’t helping.
“Literally just multiply 4.19 by the radius three times. So if the radius is 7, you’ll calculate 4.19x7x7x7.”
“Okay. So when do I divide?”
“You don’t have to divide. Dividing by three is already worked into the 4.19.” And then I’d demonstrate how I got that number, for, like, the fourteenth time. And then they’d do a sample problem and still divide by three.
I had one of them write the volume formula as (1πr3)/3– so the whole thing as a big fraction, but replacing the four with a one for some reason. I pointed out that they had that wrong and told them that they needed to use four and not one, and then walked them through a problem.
“Okay. So when do you multiply by one?”
<head explodes>
“You don’t. First, it’s not in the formula. Second, multiplying by one would give you the same answer anyway, remember? So there would be no reason to put that in there.”
“Oh, okay.” <Does a problem.> “So, now I multiply by one?”
I change tactics. “Point to the one in the formula.”
They point at the one in the formula that they wrote down and still haven’t fixed.
“Have you noticed that you’re pointing at the one that only exists in your formula, the one I told you was wrong? Look at the formula at the board. Is there a 1 in there anywhere?”
“No. So where does it go?”
…
For six straight hours. I’m going back to selling furniture, God damn it.
I have made this observation in three different places so far, which is almost certainly more than it deserves: the most impressive thing about the Big Arch I had for lunch today is that it looks exactly like every picture of the Big Arch that McDonald’s has been using to advertise it. If you eat at restaurants at all you know how ridiculously uncommon that is. The review: pretty damn tasty, almost too big, although I could still taste it three hours later and I suspect my breath may still slightly smell of onions.
This week was utter madness.
Two different two-hour fog delays, which led to me talking for five hours straight on Thursday, as everything I had planned for that day had to be compressed into two hours less class time, meaning I did nothing but lecture the entire day. This is not a thing I do. I was so tired when I got home I forgot to take my Mounjaro shot, which has been a regular Thursday thing for at least a year now. Today they took the test I was doing the guided notes for yesterday; I still have two classes to grade, but early indications are that the bed appears to not have been shit in. Monday and Tuesday were it’s getting warm and there’s a full moon behaviors and Wednesday was an e-learning day and tons of meetings.
Y’all, I am exhausted. And all of this is before we get to the bit where the fucking world set itself on fire more than once in the last couple of weeks– have I even used the word “Iran” on this blog yet? How long ago was the first attack? It could have been anything from yesterday to a month ago at this point; I’m so fried I can’t even tell. The second-dumbest guy in the Senate is apparently getting promoted? Gas prices have shot up by a dollar a gallon since I filled the tank on Monday.
Oh, and while I’ve generally tried not to talk too much about some of the medical issues my son has been having, for probably-obvious reasons, I cannot pass up mentioning that he was prescribed a nasal spray this week for migraines that are somehow in his abdomen, and no part of me is capable of dealing with the fact that that sentence represents something real and is not word salad.
So naturally tomorrow we’re going to tear down a wall in the bedroom. Wish me luck.
Second hour, my Algebra class. Supposedly the smart ones. I overhear one of my boys listing off ingredients.
“Stop looking up the Big Arch and do your math.”
The boys at the table exchange glances.
“How did you know that was the ingredients for the Big Arch?”
“I’m fat. Do your work.”
During sixth hour, I have to explain to a student that we have a “turn off the lights and hide” policy during lockdown drills because it is, in fact, a better idea for 800+ kids to be quiet and hiding during an emergency than jumping out the windows and running away, which is what he suggests the right idea would be.
He points out that most school shooters are students of the school (a fact I’m not completely sure of, but whatever) and that they would surely know which classes had students in them and would not be fooled by darkness and silence.
I ask him “Does Mrs. So-and-so have a fourth hour class?”
“Why would I know that?”
Today’s assignment has sixteen “real” questions and, just so that the points end up as a multiple of 10, which I care about for no reason, I include four questions taken from preschool standards, just to give the grades a little bump for the hell of it. Four students miss at least one of these questions and I have to explain to one of them, a native English speaker, what “fewer” means.
A teacher is absent and I am covering her homeroom, which means that both classes will be in my room at the same time. My prep period is fourth hour which is right before Advisory. A student knocks on my door at the beginning of fourth hour.
“I’m in Mrs. Such-and-so’s class.”
“I’m covering her advisory, not her fourth hour.”
“But <other adult> told me to come here.”
“There is a literal sign on her door saying that her Advisory class should come to me. Not her fourth hour. I’m not covering her fourth.”
“What should I do?”
“Mrs. Whatshername is covering her fourth. So if they aren’t in Mrs. So-and-so’s room they’re probably in her class. Go look and see if there’s a sign on the door.”
She repeats that the other adult told her to come to me.
I step out of the way and grandly reveal the empty classroom.
“There are no other students in here. I’m not sure what else I can tell you.”
She stares at me.
I close the door.
A student tells me she wants a rat and a snake as pets. I ask if she plans to put them in the same cage. She says she might have to since “there’s not enough room.” I ask what she means.
There are four humans, four cats, and three dogs living in her home. The dogs are a pit bull mix, some sort of dog with the word “mountain” in the name, and a St. Bernard. She lives in a trailer.
I had at least one more when I was prewriting this. If I remember what it was I’ll add it in. This was a ridiculous day.
Fuck, and I mean this with all imaginable disrespect, the BAFTAs.
I wasn’t going to put my two cents in on this one. As a white guy with no particular disabilities it’s probably safe for me to sit it out, and I don’t really need to have an opinion on every single thing that happens. But I learned a couple of things today about the BAFTA’s setup for this event and their reaction to John Davidson yelling the N-word at Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan, and … man, seriously, fuck these guys.
In case you’ve been off-planet: John Davidson is a British disability activist who suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome, specifically the version known as coprolalia, which is the unwanted uttering of obscenities and slurs. There was a movie made about him, called I Swear, and that film was up for some awards at the BAFTAs, so Davidson was invited. Lindo and Jordan were on stage to present an award unrelated to Davidson, and he shouted the N-word, and all hell broke loose.
Now, to be clear: people with disabilities have the right to exist in public. Black people also have the right to exist in public without having the worst slur in the history of the English language shouted at them. How one chooses to sort out those two rights when they come in conflict with one another is something that I’m going to allow people with better qualifications to address, and if you want there are any number of posts and videos out there of people talking about that.
I was already aware that the program was aired in the US on a lengthy (two hours, I believe) delay, and I believe it was broadcast on a short delay even in Britain. And apparently the BAFTAs did see fit to edit it out when an award winner said “Free Palestine!” at the end of his acceptance speech. Two things I was not aware of, however, were that:
Davidson also yelled “Pedophile!” at host Alan Cumming, who is gay … and they edited that out too.
The amazing thing is it’s Davidson himself who is calling them out in this article. You would think “Hey, the Black guys weren’t the only people I yelled horrible slurs at” would not be much of a defense, but it’s really starting to look like the guy yelled a whole bunch of offensive shit that got edited out and the only thing they left in was the N-word. “Pedophile” gets edited out. “Free Palestine!” (not from Davidson, but still) gets edited out. Half-a-dozen uses of the F-word get edited out. The N-word? Nah, that’s fine. It can stay.
That’s a huge fucking problem, and it’s racist as fuck, but it’s a problem that can be laid directly at the feet of the BAFTAs, and not John Davidson. On top of everything else, apparently nobody from BAFTA said anything to Lindo and Jordan afterwards, which is just insane.
I also read another opinion piece, which I can’t find now, that included the words “John Davidson can’t spend his whole life apologizing,” which … I feel like he kind of can? And maybe should. People apologize for things that happened inadvertently all the Goddamn time. You apologize when you hurt someone’s feelings and you feel bad about it. Davidson, by all accounts, seems to be a lovely person, and I cannot imagine that he enjoys yelling racial slurs at people. I don’t feel like apologizing when you do yell racial slurs at people is that big of an ask. This is not a perfect analogy, but I’m a big motherfucker. I try my best to keep all of my body parts to myself in public, particularly when I’m in the midst of a crowd, but the very nature of being large and surrounded by people means that occasionally I bump into them, and anybody that isn’t paying attention and runs into me is very likely to end up on the ground. And do you know what happens when that happens? I apologize. Every time. Whether it was my fault or not. I apologize and I check to see if the person is okay. It’s not an imposition, it’s kind of a required part of trying to be a good person. And it’s not especially complicated, either.
Again, I don’t feel qualified to comment on how to handle the intersection of guy-who-inadvertently-shouts-racial-slurs and people-who-get-racial-slurred-at as a matter of policy. It feels unfair to tell Davidson he can’t be in public and it’s deeply fucked up to keep Black presenters off the stage in case Davidson yells something. But what I do feel comfortable with is the idea that, however you do handle this, you definitely don’t handle it by doing what the BAFTAs did. I can identify fucked-upedness without having to solve society’s problems. And what they actually did is completely fucked up, and some heads need to roll because of it.
I have spent far too much of today arguing with deeply stupid people on social media, and my God, y’all, the literacy crisis is real. The literacy crisis is real and I am not very bright, but I am stupid in a different way from, for example, someone willing to argue that there are only white people in the town I live in, or someone who wants to argue about what a legal disclaimer means but clearly hasn’t actually read the Goddamned thing. I am stupid because I am unable to simply block these fools and move on with my life, or better yet, avoid activities that cause me to be exposed to them in the first place.
In my defense, at least one of them started it.
Like, there weren’t even any opinions involved today. Text can be interpreted, sure, but phrases like “in perpetuity,” “throughout the world,” and “for any reason” have a fairly plain meaning, and demographic data exists. I sometimes like to pretend I still live in a world where at least semi-objective reality exists, and I’m too old to adapt to a post-truth existence.
The internet was a colossal mistake, is what I’m saying here, along with virtually every single other thing that has happened to society since, oh, Ronald Reagan. I use the words “everything is going to get worse all the time forever” fairly frequently, but I don’t really believe it, because the depth of dumb out there keeps managing to surprise me.
I am not watching the Super Bowl, in accordance with my standard practice, and I am not watching the halftime show either. I watched Kendrick’s show live last year, after spending far too long fucking with streaming platforms, and I just don’t care about Bad Bunny enough to fuck around with it this year. I admit that I’m curious whether anyone at NBC or whoever the hell is broadcasting the thing is smart enough to know to bleep “chinga la migra,” but I assume anything interesting that happens is going to be all over TikTok tomorrow so I’m not going to worry about it.
My wife is going to be out of town all week, so I’m on solo Dad duty, which isn’t much of a problem except for the number of tasks it adds to my mornings. My son’s schedule and mine differ enough that he’s generally not even out of bed when I leave for work, and while we have someone picking him up to take him to school my wife generally handles the three hours of reminders and gradually-sterner pokes in the ribs it takes to drag his eighth-grade ass out of bed, not to mention things like lunch-packing and such. He’s going to have to get up earlier so that I can make sure he’s conscious and vertical before his ride shows up, and I’m going to have to get up earlier to make sure everything is ready on time.
I also have to remember to pick him up on the way home from school, also not normally my job. Luckily we live close enough that the one day I slip into autopilot and drive home, I can turn around and go to pick him up and just pretend that I got tied up at work and couldn’t leave right away. Nobody has to know, right?
Anyway, my wife’s train— yes, train— leaves at midnight, so I’ve got some time to kill before I drop her off at the station. What’s that, Nioh 3? Yes, Daddy will be there soon.
