Crazy Week and Changing Life

 This week as I am writing, today I had to proctor an SAT test for about 16 of the juniors I teach.   The role was completely off-the-cuff, as the regular teacher for that class was out (convenient!) and our vice principal failed to tell me anything until the last possible minute when the kids were scheduled to start their test.  Stuff like that - disorganization and a lack of preparation - drives me personally insane.  But, I am not here to talk about that, but rather a few other things.

This week has been one roller-coaster ride in all honesty.  It just seems like any angle we can be hit from, we are.   Excessive demands at work, a nosy neighbor (a Karen) at home, a micromanaging landlord, and Barbara had her own fight with a corrupt state office (the MVA) that is trying to weaponize her health against her to prevent her from driving.   I want to spend time on that last one first, as there is a lot to say on it.

Both the state of Maryland in general and the city government of Baltimore in particular are two of the most corrupt institutions on the planet.   With Baltimore having the 3rd highest murder rate of any city in the US, and also with the way the city is managed, it seems like a breaking point may be coming soon.  I am shocked and horrified at the rows and rows of abandoned rowhouse properties around this city, and as mentioned before some houses are being used as makeshift dumpsters at their basement entrances.   These properties could easily be refurbished and even made available to relieve the homeless crisis, but a corrupt city government doesn't want to do that for some reason.  And then there are issues with porch piracy - you cannot leave something outside your house for a minute without some buzzard picking it off.  Yet, the state of Maryland seems to be more concerned about shutting down good drivers with health issues.   The morbidity of it is insane.

Then, even at the school, we have some things going on.  When 100% of our history faculty are citing Howard Zinn as their favorite author, that is problematic.  One of the teachers, a somewhat cocky but generally friendly younger guy who teaches sophomores, even called another faculty member he disagreed with a "fascist" just because the latter cited that ICE might be useful.  That term "fascist" gets bandied about a lot by people who don't really understand what it means, and who in reality may have more fascist traits themselves than those they accuse.  I have been re-thinking my career choices as a result - not as a teacher, but rather where I teach.  A more solidly orthodox Catholic school (or even an Evangelical school, if one will have me) would probably be a bit more feasible for me as I often feel like I am "drinking the deadly thing" with the political and religious views I hear a lot here.  It is kind of expected I suppose, as our school here is administered by Jesuits (who are not exactly one of the more conservative orders in the Church) and this city is perhaps the largest hotbed of leftist political influence on the East Coast.  Also, I am contemplating a new house, and already looked into a mortgage to possibly get one out in the suburban areas (either a place like Middle River or Catonsville would be ideal).  Summarily, I have a lot to ponder regarding which direction I am going, and between now and the end of this year I will be doing some focus on just that. 

Speaking of that, I am putting together the "Blog Book" for this year, and my goodness, it is huge! I am quite amazed at how prolific my writing has been, but also it has been a year of many changes too.  In a month or so, I will be writing the last blog of the year.  I am rethinking a couple of things with that which impact the future of this enterprise.   For one, I am thinking about another and more manageable site which would make the copy/paste process more efficient when assembling the yearly bound book.  Also, I am contemplating eventually bringing these posts to a close, as I am hitting 60 in a few short years and it is time I start working on a bigger project, namely my life story book that I have been putting together over the past 30 years.  At present, my handwritten script covers about 5 volumes of spiral-bound books, and by the time it is edited, refined, and typeset, it may be over 2000 pages which may require two volumes.  I am doing what is essentially a continuing legacy of my own family line, given that at this point I am the only surviving member of my immediate family, a fact that won't change unless I remarry in the near future.  That is something I wanted to talk a bit about now too. 

With the death of both my parents and my last grandparent in the past 5 years, the reality of my own mortality has been hitting me like a shovel in my face.  I often think, if something happens to me, what will become of all this work I have done researching our family story and preserving a lot of family memorabilia?  I am in dire need of a successor, and while there is something in the works for that I will disclose at another time, that need becomes more pronounced with every passing day of my life now.  And, I am realizing rather fast that I am not as young as I used to be, and that is sobering when you start to really think about it.  With each new obituary I come across of a person I once knew, I am realizing that many people in my own life are no longer here.  And as for cousins, on my dad's side they seem to be more decent than the ones on my mother's, because the latter live the closest to me but I never see them or hear from them unless they want something or they are starved for some sort of juicy gossip they can cook up.  I have also become too old for games like that, as gossip and backbiting frankly sicken me, and I have little to do with them.  That being said, I can safely say I don't trust a lot of my extended family all that much.  That is a tragedy in many ways, but given the type of people some of them really are, it is also a blessing of protection too.  Any rate, there is more to say on this for another time, but you get the gist of it. 

There is not much more I can say today on this topic, but it felt good to speak of it in many cases, which is the major reason I started these articles.  Thanks for allowing me to do that, and will see you next time.