I think I'm falling for someone...and coming to terms with Brandi being gone forever...

I'm falling for the psychologist in our school, I think...

There's several women interested, I know...but there's just something kind of special about this counselor...

I want to just be friends, first...I want a shot at the kind of love that I've had before...

And the whole thing is making me come to terms with the fact that all the special memories that Brandi and I had...are in the past...

And I'm balling like a little fuckin' baby in the middle of my fuckin' classroom...

There's so many great memories that I have with Brandi...that I can't quite share with anyone else quite the same...

Stories that we used to tell...over and over again...especially the story of us getting together...

Brandi and I were both so social...and a little competitive at it, at that...I thought it was kind of cute, myself...

We'd tell stories over each other...she'd correct me...I'd correct her...

And I'll never have any of that, again...and I miss it...and her...

This psychologist is smart...and nice...and committed to these kids in a similar way as me...and she's real...

For all of my commitment to the civil rights movement...and its modern successor in efforts to alleviate poverty (did I mention that I once made a failed effort to start a poverty movement?...is it any wonder why Brandi left me?)...

I've never dated a black girl...

This girl is strong...smart...independent...she happens to be gorgeous, though that's not what I'm attracted to, primarily...

Every time I pass her office, I look for her...and when she's there, I want to find a reason to talk with her...

She went to a little school, like me...Emporia State University...

But she...and noone is Brandi...and knowing that that friendship...and that relationship...is behind me...is so sad to me...

I'm so sorry for all the mistakes I made with Brandi...and that led her to want to be away from me...

I've vowed never to do that to anyone...to just be away from someone I love...or someone who loves me...and cut off communication...

...without an open door for them to walk through when they're ready...

I'm so sorry, Brandi...

I miss you, hon...

I miss sharing memories...with one another...and with friends and family...

I miss your family...

And I miss the learning and growing to be the person that I could be with you...

This is a good sign, I think...

In no other relationship that I've had since Brandi and I broke up have I been able to put her behind me...

I just missed her, too badly...and not to insensitive to Melissa or Rachel or Jenny or Anne or Irma...but noone ever seemed to live up...

If you ever meet her, you'll understand...

She is the one who got away...

I've got to get to my 8th hour team meeting...

I've got a lot more still to deal with, I think...

Have a great day, everyone...

Love,
Ben

What we need...is more honesty...

We had teacher-parent conferences, today...

It was a great day, overall...some really great conversations with some folks...getting some kids focussed in much better directions (I had a parent who I think was kind of attracted to me...and I was kind of attracted back, frankly...though I don't know if anything would come of it:):)...

Another teacher and I had a confrontation, today...it was really infuriating, in the moment...I had to vent with three people about this particular confrontation and the general issues around it that I have been having with several teachers resisting my efforts and the efforts of other folks...to...at the core...to believe in students...all of them...and to stop giving up on them...to commit to them...even when they're not sure if they will succeed...I'm not sure if they'll succeed much of the time, either...but I damn well know that I'm committed to their success and will do everything in my power to guarantee that success...

I was really worried, afterwards...and beyond angry...I had listened to this same teacher making cynical comments about kids, generally, and the most difficult kids, in particular, since my very first day here at Eisenhower 3 months ago...

And I was fed up...

The thing that I think creates so much conflict between me and other teachers...and also me and other people...

Is that...

I do not give up on people...period...

And it infuriates the fuck out of people who do give up on kids or people, in one capacity or another...

And they are so used to people in my situation giving up...

They're so used to young people, in particular, like me, just rolling over and letting them spew their cynicism like it should be taken more seriously than it should...

And I just don't...and I won't...and if you haven't spent enough time with me the thing you will learn is that I am stubbornly hopeful...and if people don't like that then too fuckin' bad, whoopty-fuckin'-do for you and everyone else who would talk me and everyone like me down...

Now...this teacher clearly cares about kids...I mean, why else would she do this work...and she's a good woman...in a serious way...and I very much appreciate her presence here...and her commitment to teaching these kids...

Some of the kids are right...she does have something of an attitude...and everyone knows it...and noone talks with her about it...and this was probably the first time she'd been called on it in a long time...

I did not set out to call her out, at all...I was just tired of hearing her complaining and whining about kids for three months, now, and hearing her say, in essence, that my kids were going to jail and we were just a holding tank in the meantime, just was over the line for what my patience could manage in the moment...and so we had a confrontation about it...

We seem to be ok, now...and that seems to be the trend...which is good...

Because who needs a workplace where you have to tiptoe around speaking your mind, really...I mean, what a fuckin' load of shit is that?...and teachers have to do that shit quite enough as it is, thank you very much...so the least we can do is talk openly and honestly around one another (I don't cuss this much, as school, by the way...which is a burden because I'm having to be careful about my language all the time...our conflict was on the substance of whether we should bet for or against kids, no matter who they are, sans cussing)...

And the whole thing made me realize...

That the reason why there's so little trust in this world...in addition to us not being able to be ourselves with one another...our total selves...warts and all...

Is that we just aren't honest enough with each other, most of the time...

Much of the time we create that...by punishing the shit out of one another for being ourselves...warts and all...

Rush Limbaugh and ESPN is an excellent example of that, I think...

Rush makes what I think was probably a racist comment in good faith...he says that Donovan McNabb is a media darling because he's black and because the liberal media want a black quarterback to succeed even when Donovan is not...

Now...I don't follow football careful enough to settle this matter with authority...but I do know that Donovan McNabb is one of the more respected quarterbacks in the league...and that my friends who do watch football say that he puts up the numbers to back that up...

But...right or wrong...I didn't want Rush fired for that comment...Rush made a stupid comment...and as far as I'm concerned that's where it should end...he makes stupid, racist comment...people disagree...it gets criticized...and we all get on with our small little lives without trying to make people be something they're not just because we don't like they're warts...

And that's who we all should be able to be around one another, I think...

Ourselves...

For better and for worse...

I do think we sometimes need breaks...particularly when many among us are being recalcitrant and just can't take responsibility for themselves...

But that happens better, I think...when they've got adequate room to do it...

And when they have reality checks from enough sources...when they aren't always been enabled and reinforced for bad behavior by everyone around them...

But that should be the end of it...we fuck up...we get feedback and reality checks...and we move the fuck on...and we learn to take that feedback better and better over time...

We all have limits for what we can handle, emotionally...

And we all learn to enlarge those limits and our emotional capacity and our patience for one another and our perspective on what really matters in life...

By forgiving one another...and practicing it...again and again...over and over...as long as it's needed...

We don't ignore hurtful or bad behavior...we just give each other better and more honest feedback...so that we can learn to make better and better choices, over time...

And...patiently...

We will get better at being better human beings...

And we will also get better at having more patience for ourselve and others while we and they become better human beings...

You know what I think about my friendships where we aren't talking, right now (and have thought for some time, without an avenue to do anything about it, since communication has been shut down on the other ends of each friendship)...

That we need more openness...and honesty...and discussion...and open sharing of feelings as much and as well as thoughts...

After these conflicts at school...

I can see, now...

I can't stop believing...

I have to have hope...

I just do...

And you know what we need more of, in this world...

More honesty...

More being ourselves...for real...no bullshit...

We need more openness...we need more sharing of ourselves...warts and all...

And we need all the bullshit with people trying to punish and fight and fire and otherwise hurt one another for being ourselves to go away...for us to put it up...and to leave it alone...

And to learn to trust one another, better, as a consequence...

It would be better for us...all of us...

I know this has everything to do with all of the situations I'm troubled by...

And the truth is that I've tried, on my end...an awful lot, really...

And my friends have each lamed out, frankly...and shut me out...not vice versa, at all...my door has been wide open...

I'm sure...in all their own ways...

They've done exactly what this teacher was doing...

They gave up...

Which has everything to do with why we're having conflict...

Because I just refuse to give up...

I just won't do it...

My last therapist thought it was what causing all the trouble in my life...

And he right...

It's just that I was right, too...

Not giving up on humanity is the right thing to do...

Most people just don't want to do the work that's involved for keeping hope alive...

And so I'll do some of the work for them, is my thinking...

But...similar to my philosophy of teaching and people and life...

I can only do some of the work...

Ultimately...you...they...everyone has to pick up the ball with me...

And I won't play ball any other way...

Except at my best...

And others can follow along...

But we will all be playing at our best as long as I'm around...

And I'll keep raising the standard...for myself...and for others...

Till the day I die...

And one day...I hope...some kid...or kids...will come along...and kick my lilly fuckin' ass at this stuff...and I will follow them...because they'll have more than one or two things to show me:):):):):):)...

And that's the way the world should work...

But...too often...it doesn't work that way...

The way it works is that people wanting to change the way we do things to make them better...

Face all this resistance...from people who are pretending or defending or excusing how the fucked up parts about right now...

And a whole truckload of other people...often young people...but also often just all of us...against one another...

Are pushing each other too hard...when people aren't ready...and they do tend to push back...

And...like this historical moment...

They each push back and forth...back and forth...back and forth...not accomplishing a goddamn thing...and everyone digging in their heels even further...while people push...

Rather than think...

All this hurt I've been through...

It's got me all broken, inside...all kinds of hard edges...all kinds of distrust...

I've got a girl in the building that I really like, now...every time I see her, I can hardly concentrate on what she's saying...I just sit and admire how vulnerable she is...how sweet she is...how much she loves these kids...how confident and strong and independent she is...a lot of same qualities I found in Brandi when I met her...

Except that I'm more rough around the edges, these days...

I'm stronger, too, to be sure...

But I don't like how scared I feel, these days, as well as strong...and I want to let it all go...

But I still feel it...

Like my body is full of broken glass, as Annie Lennox would say...

It's been bugging me in a major way, the last couple of days...

And I want to let it go, so bad...

I want to ask this girl to go hang out...nothing heavy...just friends...just get to know one another...a movie...working together...it doesn't matter to me...

I just want to chill a little with her...and get to know her...

And maybe have someone to talk with, honestly...about what I see during the day...about hopes and dreams and aspirations...about life...and about who were are, for real...on our own...and with one another...

I want someone who I just be myself...and not be all scared...and feel confident that they will be learning and growing with me, too...

And that they're tough enough...to stick out the hard stuff...and to not go running...when things aren't working out, as well...

I've done it...I've had it done to me...

Generally...I've kept the door open longer, in those situations...

Because I just work at it more...I forgive more...I love more...and I work harder at it...and a lot of people...most people...kind of lame out...when the going gets tough...I'm learning...

I just want a friend...

Someone I can be completely honest with...

And someone who will understand...

I've never met anyone completely like me...

And truth be told...I'm not looking for someone completely like me...

Just someone enough like me...that we can learn together...where the burden is shared, more...and not one that I'm constantly carrying on my own back...

The broken places are all those places inside me...where I still have to forgive...

Tom...Brandi (and Greg)...Jas...the guys at Amarr, still, some...Lyle...CLO and Andrea Devlin...my mom, still, some...and my dad, more recently...

And every place where someone else decides that they don't want to forgive...and want to put it on my plate, instead...

And all the places where people decide that being a dick is a better option than being thoughtful...

You know why young people are so much more idealistic than older people...

Because we haven't treated them enough like shit, yet, to backload their capacity for working to forgive us...

That could change if we can't get off of it...

Perhaps we do want a world where we aren't forgiven for how shitty we treat people...and where we don't forgive people for how shitty they treat us...

Places like Palestine...and North Korea...and Iraq...and China...and Syria...and all kinds of places where force is more the rule than the exception...because they've just given up on being decent to one another, altogether...and because they treat each other so terribly that they just can't tell the difference, any more...

The difference between being good...

And looking like you're being good...

Rather than creating more freedom...for us to be honest with ourselves, as much as with one another...about how good or bad we're being...

Freedom...and the democracy that makes that freedom possible...is the context for that kind of honesty...

A free world to be who we are...and to deal with the natural consequences of our behavior...and we learn the lesson...and move on with our lives...

That is more possible in a place like the United States...

Because there's more freedom, here...and, thus, more genuine moral responsibility...and, thus, more of the most important responsibility that, frankly, makes all of the other responsibilities possible...

More forgiveness...

And the love...and compassion...and decency...that flow from that forgiveness...

The Muslim world, at this very moment in history...with the insane reaction to these cartoons out of Denmark...

Is illustrating what the world looks like...when fragile, oversensitive, bullies have their hand at things...

And the stronger path...

Is more love and forgiveness and openness...to all of ourselves...our strengths and our flaws...the good with the bad...

We can forgive those Muslims killing and hurting others because of their inexperience with the norms of free and democratic peoples...

But there is no reason that we need to lower our standards of civilization...just because a few bullies want to pressure and threaten the world into cowing to their demands about free and democratic dialogue...

You know what I say about that whole mess?...

Fuck 'em...they need to grow up to our higher standards of freedom and thought...and not us bow down to their lower standards of fragility and narrow-mindedness and bullying to get their way...

And that's the same way I feel about the whole fuckin' world, frankly...

And if anyone thinks different...they better have a coherent argument for it...and not just another complaint about how it upsets their tummy...and certainly not just another creative excuse for why they're such an ass...

Because whining...just makes you a fragile little bitch, in my book...

And I won't take you too seriously, frankly...until you've given it it up...

All of the best literature and music and movies and theater and art of our civilization...has pointed us, always, in a more liberal (small "l" liberal...meaning, broad-minded and open-minded and thoughtful and freedom-loving and tolerant and inclusive) direction...it's taught us to be more loving and forgiving and accepting of others and their differences...it's encouraged more freedom to make more and better choices...it's enouraged education to make more thoughtful and smarter choices...it's encouraged us to always see one another in more universal and empathetic terms...to understand one another, better, as like ourselves...rather than different...

That is the greatest legacy that humanity has to offer us...

And the greatest part of that legacy...

Is the responsibility for us...to enlarge...constantly...forever...till the end of humanity...

There will never be a time when that is done...except when humanity doesn't exist any more...which I hope is a long way off if ever a possibility...

And that legacy has withstood the test of time...because it enlarges us...individually...and culturally...and as a society...it has us always getting bigger...and wiser...and more commitment to our humanity and the humanity of others...

It is hard goddamn work...that's for sure...

But it's work well worth it...

It is the most important work that we will do in our lives, frankly...

Most everything else is either minutia, by comparison...

Or counterproductive or destructive of this more central principal of life...

And our failure to make that commitment...

Makes us smaller people...

And hardly worth people giving too much mind to what we say and think...if it makes it more difficult for bigger people...to get the important work of life done...

My therapist was wrong...

My determination...my persistence...is my biggest strength...it's just frustrating...for people who don't want to face the broken places inside themselves...

That stand in the way...of their free and full commitment...to playing their part...in a larger humanity...

I do want to thank Desmond Tutu...and Pablo Freire...and Martin Luther King...and Mohatma Ghandi...and Henry David Thoreau...and the Buddha...and Jesus Christ...for pointing me in the direction of forgiveness, as the better direction for humanity...

To help me see, better, the patterns of retribution and ugliness, and, at times, oppression, and, at the extremes, aggressive militarism and genocide, that people engage in, far too much of the time, when they fail to make that kind of commitment to their humanity...no matter how much they cloak it in legal or political language that makes them and their intentions look better than they really are...

And the need, persistently, for a higher standard...

No matter how much too many people settle for a lower standard...

Just one higher standard, the example of Jesus of Nazareth taught me...can change the world...

And I believe that:):):)...

And Jesus never had to hurt me once to teach me that lesson...

And he suffered an awful lot...because people of his time could not...

I'm gonna head home and get some sleep:):):)...watch a movie, or something:):):)...

I hope everyone has a great night:):):)...

Love,
Ben

I need a sympathetic ear...

I had a great day, today...

But sometimes I have evenings like tonight...and I jsut need someone to talk with...and not try to steer me away from where my heart is in the moment...and just listen to me...

Here's the line of thinking that got me to where I'm at, right now...

My colleagues were so supportive of me while I had to finish an I.E.P., today, for a kid I work with...it was a great I.E.P. meeting...I bonded with the mom and with the kid...and I'll write all about that later, I promise...

My the special ed teacher who's been helping me with bureaucratic requirements of the I.E.P. process was driving me crazy...she's getting better...but she was still driving me crazy...

I had to leave early, today, I was getting so frustrated with the way that she was applying subtle pressure through the whole meeting to get what she wanted and to move the meeting at the pace she wanted...even though I had a great day...

And how she badly she made me feel through the whole process...so completely contrasted with how supportive everyone else was being...

That it totally reminded me of my grad school days with Tom...how he'd do the same, but much more overtly...and how it literally drove me crazy, for a time...and how it helped tear apart the only and most important thing that's ever mattered to me in my life...my relationship with Brandi...

I want to say, up front, that I am totally and one hundred percent responsible for everything in my life...for all of my mistakes...in grad school...with Brandi...with everyone...

Having said that...Tom was a terrible mentor, in retrospect...and he really made life miserable for me, and by proxy, for Brandi, through the whole process...

And it had everything to do with us breaking up, in retrospect, now knowing just how supportive good teachers can be of students and fellow teachers...

Tom was just kind of an asshole, much of the time...and he treated me like shit, much of the time...and I didn't know any damn difference, at the time, because I was so young...and it was a good program...and there were all kinds of reasons to invest the kind of trust that I invested in Tom and that program...much of which was overwrought, in retrospect...

Anyway...as I've thought about it, tonight...I've been so angry and hurt...thinking about how I took that relationship, the one with Brandi, for granted...and threw it all away for some stupid fuckin' Ph.D. program that I didn't even end up finishing...and that fuckin' son-of-a-bitch...who didn't care about a damn thing...except for his fuckin' grants...and his little fuckin' name in a little fuckin' field...and not even contributing much, substantially, to the field, to top it all off...

It was the dumbest and most serious mistake of my life...fucking up that relationship under the really pretty overwhelming pressures of grad school...

I was just young and stupid and I just didn't know any goddamn better...

And I miss her so goddamn much...

I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry...

I'm so sorry, Brandi...

I tried so hard...and I just fucked it up...

I just want one person to understand...and to not mock me...or want to get past it...or whatever stupid fuckin' advice that so many people give without really understanding, at all, I don't think...

I just want a friend...one...who will listen...who knows how to listen well...to just listen...

Someone I can be myself with, totally and completely...and never have to hold anything back...

I've not met her, is the truth...there are many women interested...there was awkward moment, today, I think, between two girls who I think are both interested and me, when we all bumped into each other in the office, today...

There's just noone who is my best friend, yet...

Do you know what that's like?...

To have a best friend...someone closer than you've ever been with anyone in your life...

And to just totally lose touch with them...with no possibility of getting in touch with them...

Do you know terrible that feels?...to have the one person who you shared the most of this huge and one of the most important chunks of your life with...

Just disappear off the face of the earth?...

It's fucked up, is what it is...

When will this finally leave my heart?...

Surely there's got to be a statute of limitations on pining for an old flame/old friend...

I don't even care, truth be told...

I just want one friend who I can share it with...who won't give me all kinds of shitty advice...and just listen...just like Brandi did...when Jenny and I broke up...

I'm an atheist, as a technical matter...though faith and religion and spirituality and morality are central to my life...

But if there is one thing that would make me believe that I am being punished by God...it is that I had that friendship...and I don't have even a superficial one with her, anymore...

Do you know how rare some people are?...

Do you know how fucked up it is to find out how rare they are until they're gone?...

And there's not one goddamn thing that I can do about it...

I may be going on a Washington D.C. trip to the Holocaust Museum this summer on a district grant...

And the one person that would be most excited to hear about it...

I can't even talk with...

This is fucked up...

Goddamn it, Brandi...

Do you know how awesome it is...to talk with just one person...who understands you better than anyone else...and who understands the world more like you do than anyone else...and to just be able to talk with them...about anything...about politics...about friends...about family...about life...and know that they understand more like you than anyone you know?...

Do you know how great that is?...

And how fucked up it is to lose it...forever...

It's so cliche, isn't it?...it doesn't even seem special to a lot of folks, I'm sure...

But those people can fuck off...because it was damned special to me...

And now I don't have anyone to share it with, anymore...

Maybe God does punish us forever for our mistakes...

Or maybe just Brandi does...

I've been talking with people, lately, about Bill Bradley...and what a great guy he is...how he's the last greatest Presidential candidate that America has had...

And every time I do...I think about Brandi and I going up to Iowa during the 2000 Democratic primary...

And I think about talking about Bill Bradley...

With someone who cared...

And goddamn if I don't miss it...

Goddamit, Fisher...

Why'd you settle?...goddamn it...

God...if you exist...and I can have just one thing in this world...and I'll forego the rest...

It's just one person like Brandi...maybe someone who can stick it out a little better...but other than that...she'll do...

It was the last, deepest love I ever felt in my life...

And I'm just so sad that I can't replicate it...no matter how hard I've tried...

Goddamn you, Fisher...

How horrible is it...to be doomed...to a life where you're constantly saying to yourself...

The last time I really connected with a human being...

Will just never be replicated, again...

Because no one can fill those shoes...because they're too goddamn big...and I know anyone with smaller feet just won't do...

I would have, then...and I would now...

Give up everything for that feeling again...

Everything...

All I need is a genuinely sympathetic ear...

And the last one I knew...won't talk with me, anymore...because she wants to leave me behind...

I need to change and have one night to relax...

Have a great night, everyone...

Love,
Ben

Our fundamental natures (and the honest and scary fact of our humanity)...

I'm grading papers today...I think I'm going to have to skip the Superbowl party I was invited to in Wichita with a 3 hour drive putting me back in Lawrence around midnight and me having to go in early on Monday to finish an I.E.P. that I was unable to finish Friday night because of technical difficulties and and some other problems...

Melissa and I rented six great movies, this weekend...two -- Happy Endings and Forty Shades of Blue -- were terrible...

Nobody Knows...a Japanese movie by director Kore-eda Hirokazu and true story of four children abandoned by their mother with an eldest young teenage son trying to raise his brothers and sisters with no money and no real connections to the outside world (the mother discourages them from going to school and the only people who even seem to know they exist are a landlady and her husband and a girl who befriends the eldest son)...

Sexo por Compassion...written and directed by Mexican director Laura Mana...a story of a married woman in a small, rural Mexican town abandoned by her husband who makes love to the men of the town to bring color back into their bleak lives...a really terrific exploration of the virgin/whore dichotomies of more traditional, chauvinist Mexican culture...

And Saving Face...written and directed by Alice Wu...an exploration of contempory Chinese-American life embedded in the more traditional Chinese community of Flushing, New York...a gay love story of a girl finding her own way amidst the pressures of traditional Chinese society to find a way more to the liking of her elders...

The Beat My Heart Skipped is a French film starring Romain Duris that tells the story of a French real estate businessman and thug learning to play concert piano and falling in love with his partner's girlfriend, slowing discovering a better life for himself outside of the ugly and heartless world of big money thuggery that he inhabits...

Four really beautiful films about people whose lives don't conform to traditional scripts of how they should...in four different cultures which, like our own, put often overwhelming pressures on them to do so (to see how cold and uncaring those pressures can be, I would definitely check out Nobody Knows, a really beautiful movie about survival against incredible odds, on the one hand, and The Beat My Heart Skipped about the pressures on a thug to remain a thug, even as he searches for something better)...

I've been spending time, this weekend...coming to terms with just how self-centered most people are...how most pressures have nothing, at all, to do with being good or moral or doing the right thing...

And have everything to do with everyone trying to look good (or what they think will mean looking good) for everyone else...and to provide some cover...for just how self-centered they really are...

Everyone...

Politicians...parents...teachers...professors...
journalists...businesspeople...lawyers...soldiers...

Everyone...

It's so fucked up, too...

Because it's so obviously counterproductive and bullshit to actually being good people...

In order to have people conform to my idea of how they should be...

I'll just pretend that they aren't who they are...that they aren't in the circumstances they're in...that I Know -- with a capital K -- how others are supposed to be...and they're input is just not that important...

And I'll just apply enough pressure...socially...personally...financially...
politically...legally...

To get what I want...which is what my life is all about, anyway...

And all the while...my thinking about the matter can be just as stupid and self-centered as I want it to be...as long as I can apply means of pressure to get what I want...

And the irony is...

That noone respects me as long as I conduct myself like this...

Yeah...we are one big fucked-up family, aren't we?...

The human race, that is...

We're all far lesser human beings than we pretend or think ourselves to be...

And meanwhile...we make so few efforts to really be better...

Because there are just so many pressures...to be worse...

What is wrong with us?...that we can't learn to treat each other decently...with respect for one another's autonomy and freedom...that we constantly bullshit ourselves into thinking that we are better than we really are...that the freedom to be ourselves really is the same thing as being pressured and pressuring others to be who we want them to be...

All I know...is that I don't want to be around people who treat me like that...especially the recalicrant assholes who, like the Godfather or the Emperor in Return of the Jedi or Joseph Stalin or Adolph Hitler or Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong Il, are constantly driven to hurt others enough to get their way...

If you try to control me...pressure me...or otherwise force me to be something that I'm not...

I don't respect you...or like you...or think anything of you...except that you're a shithead...

And then I just want to be out of your presence...

I won't follow your example...and one day you'll die...and I'll thank goodness that I have one less
shithead in my life...

Until you can learn to be a decent human being...

The better a person you are, the more you respect others' freedom and autonomy...because, as a person of strong character and conscience, you understand that free will is critical to the development of a strong conscience...

And everyone else...which is most people...have weak consciences...and character structure...with little respect for conscience...which is why they pressure for what they want, so goddamn much...because they have so little interest in being really good people...

Lord Acton's aphorism is so true...but it's not just politics where power corrupts...

It's schools...and families...and communities...and businesses...and in the financial world, generally (especially the financial world, actually)...in the military...

And it means never having to say you're sorry...for fear that taking responsibility is the same as weakness...because taking responsibility is for pussies...real men...tough women...make things happen...by by putting their foot down...on whomever's neck needs to be stood on to get what they want...

It's kind of creative excuse for being a controlling prick, isn't it?...

And it happens everywhere...

And, right now...there's just a great big bandwagon of people eating it up as a means of making the world better, supposedly...

But really..it's about trying to feel better...about what controlling pricks we all can be...

I do wonder, sometimes...if we'll break the cycle...

If we'll ever learn to treat each other as we want to be treated...do unto others, and all that..

Or if we're forever condemned to this futile, fruitless, counterproductive, and disrespectful cycle of fantasizing that if we can just apply enough pressure, punish enough, hurt people enough, fuck them over enough, force their hand enough...

If we just make people do what we want them to do...

Then the world will finally be the kind of place where we want to live...

We are so fucked up...

Humanity, that is...

And the big question...is whether it's terminal or not...

Whether we can learn to stop being such dickheads, all of the time...

Or whether we're condemned to be such assholes...

And thus hardly worthy of our children's trust, each successive generation...

Because...realistically...those are our choices...

Learning our lesson...learning to be better human beings...and respecting our and one another's fundamental nature...our freedom of thought and conscience...

Or forever being unworthy of the trust of each successive generation...

And of the people in our lives...

The more I've learned about the worlds of money and power...the more I distrust both of them...to offer anyone anything...except for money and power...which can be used for ill as much as for good...and with little reason to value for their own sake outside of what good they can actually accomplish, and not just wish for...

And the more I learn about them...the more people's success at navigating them...impresses me less and less...

My father's strongest qualities...are what kind of human being he is outside of money...and the ways that his money can serve those ends...not the money, as an end in itself, as my dad is so fond of touting, these days...

Because the world of money and power just don't impress me, at all, anymore...

The only thing that impresses me...is the wise and fair and decent use of money and power...of the genuine service that money and power can be to our lives...rather than their abuse...which is probably more common, unfortunately...

Which so many...most...people in those worlds...lose track of...so lost are they in chasing money and power for its own sake...as my father seems to be doing, more, these days...

Here's a good question to illustrate the point...who would you rather be?...

Mary Wolstencraft?...or the overwhelming number of less intelligent and thoughtful men of her day who would keep her from voting, nevertheless having more substantial impact on the policies of her day?...

Frederick Douglas?...or his would-be wealthy slave-owners or the many very powerful politicians who fought so hard to maintain a world where men like Douglas were treated with so little real dignity?...

Henry David Thoreau?...or the millions of less independent-minded people who lived lives of quiet desperation that Thoreau so pitied?...

Adam Smith?...or one of the many wealthy, politically-connected, mercantilist class of his day and even more independent businessmen whose avarice Smith was so suspicious of, even as he believed that its free exercise was better accomodated to the needs of people than the self-righteous legal declarations of governing classes of his day?

John Stuart Mill?...or the thousands of emerging greed and power-driven capitalists and slave-owners and members of parliament regularly infringing on the very freedoms that Mill celebrated, rightly, as central to human nature and human progress?...

John Dewey?...or the emerging monopolists or the less thoughtful or profound democratic leaders of his day, with, generally, far less concern for the lives of average people and the poor and the pragmatic aspirations of a growing and diverse modern society?...

Abraham Maslow?...or the millions of men and women of more petty and small-minded values Maslow contrasted with the purposeful and meaning-driven values of higher-minded leaders of public thought and action?...

Would you rather help to more thoughtfully enlighten the world?...or more mindlessly follow its less enlightened ways?...

Ideally...by my lights...we would do both...enlightening the world...and accepting and embracing its less enlightened ways...

What all these people have in common...is that while the world operated under whatever the conventional logic of their days were...right or wrong...good or bad...more or less decent and humane...

These people were critiquing that logic...to help us rethink how we might live better lives...shaping the deepest currents of history...with that rethinking...

What I think is the strongest rethinking for this generation of new ideas and living...is the need to both become better, more thoughtful, and more enlightened people...by embracing our baser and more smaller-minded selves...

To integrate our B-values -- as Maslow describes them...our higher, more enlightened, more confident values -- with our D-values -- or our lower, more base, more insecure values...

To become better people...by openly acknowledging and embracing our baser selves...

We can all aspire for the better examples of our past and our present...and we are all better for aspiring more thoughtfully...rather than giving in to our baser reactions to the world...even as we thoughtfully accept and embrace those reactions...

The scary part about humanity...is that...ultimately...our fundamental nature...our progress...lies, as John Stuart Mill powerfully argued...in our freedom...

And our improvement...our betterment...must be freely chosen...whether we like it or not...

All of the most consequential areas where the baser elements of our humanity stand in the way of our higher purposes...

They must be embraced...and we must choose higher callings...for our highest purposes to be realized...

For us to be worthy of our ideals...we need to work, fundamentally, at actualizing those ideals...a respect for a free conscience being the most fundamental of those ideals...rather giving into the lower instict of bullying one another, self-righteously, into submission to our more reactive, less thoughtful whims...

The law and policies can enlighten our consciences...but only by their ideals...and not (and certainly not primarily) by their use of force...

And the law and force can also undermine our consciences...Dred Scott undermined the higher calling of freeing slaves with the lower calling of enforcing slave contracts and recapture laws...Nazi Germany passed laws that required Germans to turn in Jews not reporting to the ghettos and engaging in Jewish Resistance movements...

The law, like science, is the ax in the hands of the ax murderer, Albert Einstein said...

The law...policy...rules...can be used to inspire more enlightened thinking about difficult issues of our time...anti-slavery laws within the British Empire long before the outlawing of slavery in democratic America, for instance...

But they can also be used to enforce our uglier and more self-centered whims...the legal segregation of blacks and whites in the South and elsewhere, for instance...or rules prohibiting women and African Americans from voting...or rules against the Irish from being employed with certain businesses...or policies forcing Native Americans to live separately from other Americans on reservations...

Einstein's point about science...was that it was easy to romanticize science...to see it as more than a tool to be used by the better or worse judgments of human beings...

The ax is a form of technology used by the ax murderer to kill his/her victims...or to chop wood and other needs it might fulfill...not good, in and of itself...but good based on its purposes...

And the law and policies and rules work similarly...they are tools...that can be used to enlighten and inspire the world in better directions...

Or they can be clubs...to beat people into submission...to Imperialism...Nazism...Communism...
Facism...Socialism...mercantilism...and even more protected and subsidized capitalism...

Or liberalism...or conservativism...

Those laws and policies and rules are being romanticized, right now...with fantasies of them being synonymous with justice and fairness...which they are most clearly not, to anyone with any kind of serious, thoughtful study of law and policy...

The romanticism of laws and rules and policies...is far more dangerous than the romanticism of science...

Because the romanticism of law and rules and policies...is the romanticism of tools to infringe on freedom...which naturally leads to serious and important encroachments on freedom...

Democratic and republican power arrangements can only, at best, check power...

But the only way for power not to be abused...is for free individuals to develop a commitment to using it, only, for high-minded purposes...to not abuse it...

And that is the honest and scary fact of human nature...

That unless people with power...or money...or the use of force, military or otherwise...or any similar tool...which is all people, at some level...choose, freely, not to abuse power...and to only use it for high-minded purposes...it can and will, perpetually, be abused by those who have it...

And the hope of humanity...is found in our free will...and our capacity...and our more fundamental natures more suited to...a world where we choose not to abuse our power...to use all forms of power...hard and soft...for the most high-minded purposes...for the benefit of humanity, ourselves and others, equitably...for each person's benefit...and not for the benefit of some at the expense of others...

The hope for humanity is found, only, in our highest ideals...our aspiring...and our actualizing them in our lives...

Our cynicism is not an alternative...it is a baser instinct to be embraced...and transcended...

I've got to get some sleep...I have a long day, tomorrow:):)...

I should probably check to see how the Steelers and Seahawks are doing...

Have a good day, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

The letter of the law...and the spirit of the law...

I have a teacher I'm working with, right now, who, more clearly than anyone I've ever met, reflects the important distinction between someone who lives by the spirit of the law...and someone who -- tediously -- lives by the letter of the law...

The teacher I'm referring to is the special education teacher who is mentoring me, currently, around matters of paperwork and school bureaucracy...

She's getting better...a lot better, some days, when I think about it...

But the major difference between our outlooks...on life, nevertheless on teaching...

Is that this teacher lives her life, often, by the letter of the law...no matter how ridiculous and horribly out of touch with the lives of the kids she teaches...

And I live my life...and I do serve my kids...by the spirit of the law...knowing that the law is far too crude an instrument to understand or serve the interests of anyone, nevertheless of a learning, growing, and developing child...

This teacher is convinced that if she just has the right IEP/legal leverage...if she just gives the right command...if she just finds the right punishment...if she just asserts control in the just the right way...that she will, somehow, shape up kids that have never been shaped up by this approach, even though it is, by far, the dominant approach to dealing with kids, their educations, and in their interactions with adults in a school building...

The irony is that she is kind of a push-over, really...and she has had some of the lowest expectations for kids in the building...she's gotten better...but, for a while...the entire time while I was first teaching at Eisenhower...there was no worry...no fear...no insecurity...no boogey man lurking around the corner...that she did not warn everyone was following her and her efforts every day I worked with her...

This teacher operates the way she does (and she's recently changed from a policy of wimpy low expectations to a policy of tough low expectations:):):)...out of fear, primarily, I think...

And...other than my advisor...who I swear is this teacher's mentor-in-waiting...so alike are these two...

Her whole orientation is survival in the educational bureaucracy...with fear and insecurity driving much of that survival...very much, in fact, like her university counterpart in my graduate advisor...

This teacher is getting better...and I feel much better, today, than I did in grad school, leading people with more age and experience than me...who just have all the wrong priorities operating in their lives and in the lives of the students they serve...

But she has been the best evidence, for me, of why I am not someone who lives my life by the letter of the law...afraid of some ax swinging my way...rather than with purpose...and by the letter of the law...caring more about kids than about laws...

Every chance that she gets to use an IEP (which is a legal document) as a billy club, she uses it...and I think it's been a long time before Linda has really thought about whether it really serves the kids or not...

She's getting better...I think we've persuaded her, for instance, to just ignore an IEP requirement of "negotiation" with one kid we have who manipulates kids and adults as a regular course of life...with whom negotiation would not only not serve him, but would feed every impulse that brings him our direction in the first place...

It took some doing...but she is developing a sense of humor about the whole thing...

Which is good...because the last thing I wanted to do as a teacher...was relive my experiences as a student with my graduate advisor...

Seeing this teacher...what I can now see...is that my advisor was, really, for all his huff and puff...kind of spineless, much of the time...he was kind of a weasel, often...just trying to keep his tenured full professorship at a prestigious university and graduate program...

So incredibly sad, I think...not just what a distortion that kind of thing is of everything that universities should stand for...

But so incredibly sad for the people who live that life...

For my graduate advisor...and for this teacher...

My Ph.D. advisor, especially...who worked 7 days a week at that job...

All just to keep a shitty and not-terribly well-paying job...

So sad, to me...

Anyway...

When I meet people like this...no matter how much I want to help someone like my graduate advisor and this teacher to learn to have some backbone...and have some sense of self-respect...

I realize just how much I appreciate being me...no matter happens in my life...

And the more I encounter people...who I don't always understand...nor need or want to earn respect from, necessarily...

The more I'm proud to live a life that I'm proud of...regardless of what others think...

Though...if my academic peers don't take up my scholarly ideas (my teaching colleagues are taking up many of my ideas...but they aren't terribly intellectually astute or honest about the whole thing...which is kind of tedious, sometimes...though, at least it serves the kids better, I think)...I think I'll just give them up...give up the jig...and do something else...

A life lived by the letter of the law...rather than the spirit of the law...

Is a life of cowardice...and fear...and a loss of a sense of purpose, I think...

It's been a long time since this teacher did this job for the kids, first and foremost, I'm afraid...which is sad...for this teacher, most of all (though, as I said, she's getting better)...

I'm proud not to live a life by the letter of the law...which seems like a pretty bleak and purposeless life, really...

I'll be and am inspired if and when either I:

1) discover or come across ideas that persuade me or inspire me as much as the ones I work on, including least possible neccessary aggression, or...

2) my ideas are thought useful by practioners and/or scholars in the fields that they touch...

If not...I'll wait for someone else to develop ideas or otherwise inspire me in a direction that either persuades me that I'm wrong...or builds on my ideas...or others' ideas in ways that are as compelling to me as these are ideas are to me, right now...

Sometimes I wonder if I would have become a teacher... or even a policy thinker...if I had known just how little people really care about the work...how little teachers care about their work and kids, sometimes, as surprising at it sounds...at least by my standards...and how little policy and political folks care about taking responsibility for good policy, rather than getting access to power, exercising it, and deflecting responsibility for anything that goes wrong...and that goes for politicians, journalists, activists, and even too many policy thinkers, unfortunately...

But I also don't know what I would do where people would care more about doing a good job...

All I know...is that if this job is all that this particular teacher and too many teachers in this building have been acting like it means...and too many teachers and folks that I've encountered in the last 3 years or so...

It wouldn't mean much, at all, frankly...

In fact, it would mean so little...that I can hardly imagine staying in the job...unless I was just too afraid to go get new one that might be something to take seriously...

I've got an IEP to finish before I make it home, tonight:):)...

I hope everyone's having a great Friday night:):)...

Love,
Ben

You ever inherit a piece of wisdom that totally changes your perspective?:):)...

I had a great day, today, again...despite some issues with some kids...

And the best thing about today...was having reinforced for me the same bit of wisdom that Katherine had to share the other day...

We had a meeting about our behavior system...it's called B.I.S.T. (Behavior Intervention Support Team)...

B.I.S.T. -- Behavior Intervention Support Team

And Marty...our B.I.S.T. coordinator...reinforced the same lesson that Katherine had to share...

We want kids to grow up...because they're so fuckin' annoying, frankly, often, as long as they're not grown up...as long as they're acting childish...as long as they're acting like kids...and some kids acting far worse than others...

And I feel this frustration all the time...with kids...with adults...with everyone...

But Marty's wisdom about kids is the same as Katherine's...

We have such high expectations for kids...that it is heartbreaking...and disappointing...and often they can be hurtful with us...as long as they are not meeting our higher/highest expectations...

We want them to grow up today...

But they can't...

And sometimes...that's really disappointing...

And some of us hold onto that disappointment...

And some of us let it go...

And letting it go definitely is better for us...and is a more realistic way to deal with children...and with life...

Sometimes we want people...kids and adults...to grow up...to deal with life more responsibly...to be more constructive...to deal with the tough stuff...without whining...or making excuses...

And sometimes they don't...and sometimes that's frustrating...and sometimes that's destructive and hurtful to us and others around them...

And that is most people...not the minority...

I want that from some old friends...Tom...Brandi...Jas...

But the peace I've made with it...is that people do grow up...they often just don't do it as fast as we might like...

Me too...

I realized, today, talking with another teacher...that if I met a woman like me...which I haven't...but if I did...I would tell her to give up the idea of trying to make people happy all the time...I'd be really impressed with her, frankly...and if I met a girl like me, I'd think I'd fall in love very quickly...and I want someone who can support me in the same way...

I don't want to whine, any more, about my life or things that aren't totally fair...or things that are less than ideal...

And really appreciate the life I have...being critical is not only fine, it's the only responsible thing to do...but whining wastes precious life...that I want to appreciate and enjoy...

I want a girl as strong as me...and Brandi -- at least the girl I knew the last time I heard from her, and as great as she was and hopefully is -- is not that girl...it's not that she couldn't be that girl...it's that I definitely want someone stronger, smarter, more open-minded, more genuinely and unconditionally loving and loyal...I want someone I can count on...and I'm sure she's out there, somewhere...

And I want to enjoy more of my life...as I am now...and be wrapped up in what I don't like or want much less...

And the wisdom of the past two days had opened up my horizons on that note in a serious way:):)...thanks to Katherine and Marty for reinforcing that for me:):)...

I've got to get something to eat so I can finish some school work:):):)...

Have a great weekend, everyone...

Go Seahawks...

Love,
Ben

Thinking about what the future might look like...

I'm still finishing up an I.E.P. (Individualized Education Plan), tonight:):)...

And I had a thought about the future...about what progress might look like for my children's generation...

I've thought about it, a lot...wondering what's over the horizon...as some of the issues of my generation start getting some resolution...

And one of them...that has impact on me...

Is the idea of more inclusive wealth...

Meaning...perhaps...as I become an old man...

Perhaps wealth will begin to wither as an exclusive concept of humanity...and be something that is more genuinely shared...

And that people like me...can freely choose to give up wealth...because they just realize that there's such a thing as too much...or enough...

I'm sure I'll face that day in my own lifetime, I suppose...

But I also wonder if maybe young people won't have to go through the awful legacy of young poverty that we impose on young people getting started in the world...if maybe we will begin, by the time my children are coming up, have a world where debt is a matter easily resolved, rather than prolonged, unecessarily, by efforts to punish and otherwise take advantage of people's difficult financial situations...

I have to think that we can learn the lesson...and create a more genuinely dynamic economy...where financial failure or difficulties can be more easily resolved so that people are active participants in the economy in more substantial ways -- investing and saving and making better choices because of their active engagement in such activities -- rather than the pretty fruitless and pointless hardship that we put people through in such situations...

For that to happen, there would need to be a much more proactive commitment to wealth inequity...which is why I want wealth inequities to get resolved within the market, since free and active efforts have much more potential to not only resolve matters of health care and wellness, child care, vacation and rest, wages and benefits, and other matters of need associated with poverty...

But also to much more substantially address issues of investment, saving, and other efforts that would create a much more active investment in a dynamic economy that would lead more and more people to identify with a dynamic economy and to avoid undermining it out of their outrage with greed and decisions made around profit-margins that impact other areas like the environment and social issues that they care about...

It's a pretty obvious virtuous circle to me, if people would pick up on and support its possibility...including poor, middle class, and rich people, many of whom don't always show the strongest inclinations towards wiser investment and savings...

Better education is key to and underlines all such efforts...since better and more substantial commitments to education help create bigger and longer worldviews that encourage more long-range thinking associated with both taking education and all of the opportunities -- like investment -- more seroiusly...and with making wiser investments and engaging in more forward-looking savings, in the first place...

But what a great world that would be...

If we could get kids and adults in schools on the same page, better, around matters of education...so that they are more likely to support such virtuous circles:):):)...and deserve the trust involved with such an effort...

Just thinking:):):)...while I finish this I.E.P.:):):)...

Have a great night, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

One of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard in my life...

If you haven't heard Dar Williams' February...

It is one of the songs in your life that you should listen to, at least once...

To get an idea of what beauty sounds like...

There are very few songs that touch me like this song does...

The Crash Test Dummies' Superman Song...U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (the Rattle and Hum album's live version)...The Indigo Girls' Closer to Fine...Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World (the 1970 live version)...Sinead O'Connor's You Do Something To Me off of Red, Hot, and Blue...and Annie Lennox's Every Time We Say Goodbye, off the same album...Clint Black's Something That We Do...The Dixie Chicks' Top of the World...Rascal Flats' These Days...Diamond Rio's Beautiful Mess...Darryl Worley's I Miss My Friend...

...and a million others...

But Dar Williams' February lives in a special part of my heart...

It captures, better than any song I've ever heard, the tragedy of true love lost...

It takes me back to Kansas City, 2001, when Brandi and I were living together...and falling apart...

"And February lasted into March...and found us walking a path...alone together...

You stopped and pointed...and you said, 'That's a crocus'...and I said, 'What's a crocus'...and you said 'It's a flower'...I tried to remember, but I said, 'What's a flower?'...

You said, 'I still love you'..."

It's one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard in my entire life...

And I thank Dar Williams from the bottom of my heart...for creating and singing such an gorgeous piece of music...

I'm going to be listening to it all night...

Have a good night, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

An amazing day:):)...

These kids love me...

And I love them...

And today went great...

And thanks to Katherine for giving me the perspective to have a day like today:):)...

Love,
Ben

Being too hard on the kids...

I'm working the after school program, tonight...we're listening to some U2 (they're choice:):)...and doing some classwork...I have an I.E.P. to work on...but I wanted to take some time to write about an important idea I took in over the last day or so...

I had this really great discussion with our technology coordinator about the kind of practice assessments to do with my first and second hour special education resource room math class...

I was wanting them to be able to do both a modified assessment that is geared more towards their level of performance, currently...and do a regular assessment...so they get a sense of how they match up with their peers...

It was a great discussion...about remembering that while we want to have high standards for kids...

That these are still kids...

And there are plenty of places in my life where life is too hard for me as a pretty confident adult...

Finances constantly overwhelm me, being in debt...and depress me, since the expectations of creditors constantly outpace my abilities to do what they want me to do...they want me to pay money that I just don't have...I'm in totally good faith...and want to pay off all of my debt...but I can't do it...and they're constantly trying to pressure me to make commitments that I know I can't keep...and that will just end up being interpreted as a lie or as rebellion or whatever by cynical credit folks, later on...

The financial world is so fucked up, I swear:):)...

Anyway...this conversation was about remembering that these kids are all 11, 12, 13, 14 years old...they're kids...thinking that I take for granted at 32...they've never likely even imagined, nevertheless considered seriously...

And it really isn't fair to hold them accountable for thoughts that are difficult enough for me, a pretty thoroughly educated and ambitious 32-year-old...nevertheless a 11 or 12-year-old...

It's hard to balance that with a recognition that I'm the adult and the one to be trusted, more often than not, to know what is best for a kid...

Especially when...many times...I have no clue...

I wish I did...I try my best...I know a lot...I get to know kids...I have a fair amount of experience, at this point...I listen to others with more experience all of the time...I read a lot...I talk with adults and kids, a lot, about what kids might be thinking...I keep up with pop culture circles...I enjoy a lot of the same music and movies and just normal stuff of life that many kids enjoy...I know more about that stuff than your average 6th grader, nevertheless your average 32-year-old...and I keep my ears to the ground...

I'm far from naive about the average 6th grader's life, though I'm in the dark about a lot of things, too, as most adults are...which constantly concerns me...and which, at some level, is why I have to trust kids that they will aspire big and be responsible for their own lives...because I know that no matter how informed I am, there will always things that I will be left out of the loop on...

Most 32-year-olds, nevertheless most kids, don't keep as open or honest or public a journal as I do...so there is so much of everyone's life, nevertheless young people, that we don't get to see...and every little bit we get to know is more information to be of some help for a young person or young people, generally...

So I will never really know how much a kid fears me...or is afraid of adults or teacher or whatever, generally...how much they are angry with me or at the world...how much they like me or admire me or anyone in their lives...or are afraid or angry or hate other kids or adults in their lives...

There's so much that I will never know...unless they trust me enough to be share their lives with me...and even then...if they're anything like me...or anyone...there's still things that they will hold back...

Today I was realizing...again...that perhaps I am too hard on kids...and adult friends and colleagues in my life, as well...even as I want them to get better...

I know I was too hard on Brandi when we were together...it's one of my biggest regrets...she was hard on me, too...and probably harder on me, in the big picture...but I was really hard on her, too, when we were together...something that I've spent a lot of time taking responsibility for with her since we've been apart...

And I know I was hard on Jas...though Jas was far harder on me...so I feel far less guilty about that situation...I suspect, sometimes, that he doesn't know why he pissed me off so bad...and he's just too afraid to ask...and other times, I think he knows...but he's just playing the games of a bullshitter...trying to weasel his way out...it's hard to know, sometimes...all I know is that I couldn't have him keep treating me the way that he was...and that he works/worked hardly at all at that friendship, relative to me...and I was getting fed up with the whole situation...

And I know for damned sure that Tom was far harder on me than I was on him...and he was a teacher...and in a position of more responsibility...I understand why Tom was hard on me...I just also know that he was wrong on so many of the bigger issues, it's hard to count them all...and that his being hard was so incredibly counterproductive, much of the time...and had much to do with Brandi and I succumbing to the pressures of grad school, many of which came from Tom's direction...and that I had already recovered from some pretty serious burnout that Brandi watched unravel...which basically involved me unraveling...and that no matter how much I told Tom it was too much, he could never let up...his ego and his intellectual conceit had him convinced that he was responsible for all of my accomplishments...though he was more than happy to let me be responsible for all the problems I faced...

And, in the end...I think he convinced himself and others that I just couldn't hack it...

A misjudgment that he will regret, at some point, I think...if he lives long enough to see my career bloom...though I've promised myself to make that as easy a process for Tom to go through as is absolutely possible, on my part...

Tom did a lot of good for me...he basically paid for my grad school, with grant monies...he taught me a lot...and he gave me some though not enough of a free hand, as a student...he shared his passion for the field with me...though I doubt he's ever known passion like mine...nor as deep or as meaningful of thought...and he was loyal in many ways that I appreciate...

But he was also wrong...about a lot...and he just had the damndest time admitting that...which was/is his Achilles heel as a scholar...

The last thing anyone wants in their life...as a scholar...or as a human being...

Is the stupid, ugly, terrible conceit...that they've already got it all figured out:):):)...

It's just damned foolish is what it is...

And it doesn't allow or create the opportunities for life that genuine humility allows for or creates...

And it is all too human and all too common among academics as well as far too many average folks:):)...

And it was/is an Achilles heel for Tom...that I was not going to repeat...

With the same results...of being a scholar noted in my field...but not the strongest scholar, in the biggest picture...and one who really misses the boat in even my own field...lost in too much ivory tower conceit...and lacking in enough courage to work at resolving problems that remain unresolved...rather than trying to find new and creative ways to avoid responsibility for them...

Which is essentially what post-modernism (as well as much conservativism and liberalism) is...one long excuse for why the post-modernist hasn't done anything to make the world better around those things that they endlessly critique...

I've got an I.E.P. to work on...I hope everyone is having a good night:):):)...

Have I mentioned how much I love the Crash Test Dummies?...The Ghosts that Haunt Me is their best album, I think, if you ever get a chance...it also happens to be my Jenny Burrington break-up album (along with Tracy Chapman's Smoke and Ashes:):):)...

Check it out, when you get a chance:):):)...

Love,
Ben

A bit of wisdom about a sense of idealism...

Some really terrific wisdom from Katherine Shelly (is that right?), today...

SBPBJ at http://katherineshelly.blogspot.com/

She writes...

"My boyfriend is a first-year special ed teacher in an inner city school. I can really relate to what you're saying from his stories. Yes, society does screw us three ways from Sunday and expect us to fix everything they're too lazy or scared to deal with.

Still... teaching isn't just a job. You and I and everyone else who's ever been in a classroom know that. Teaching is love in action. There's a little secret that we need to share with all first year teachers, though. I'm in my ninth year teaching, and I still sometimes have trouble remembering this.

See... thing about teaching is our enthusiasm is cyclical. We start the year with hopes and dreams in the sky, ready to take on every challenge. "Give me the tough, the abandoned, the disenfranchised, angry and mean, and I will not only love them, I will educate them, by God, for I am a Teacher!" By the end of January, we've had our share of pain and disappointment. We have a long time to wait for the next break, and we need to recharge our batteries.

My recommendation: spend a minute or two every day until Spring Break reading an inspirational teaching book, teaching quotes, or just remembering why you're in this godforsaken profession. ;)

Don't leave us... the world needs more brilliant and caring teachers. *hugs* It -does- get better.:):):)"

As she wrote that...

It suddenly occurred to me why this disappointment has been cyclical, as she says, for me, as much as the cycle she's talking about that I'm totally relating to of coming back post-holiday with high expectations only to have them come head-on with the realities and disappointments of kids and other folks having their sights set far too low...

Because...as Katherine says...

"We start the year with hopes and dreams in the sky, ready to take on every challenge. "Give me the tough, the abandoned, the disenfranchised, angry and mean, and I will not only love them, I will educate them, by God, for I am a Teacher!" By the end of January, we've had our share of pain and disappointment."

The larger issue, for me...is that our disappointment and heartache are so strong...because our hopes and dreams are so high-minded...

Meaning...we see where we and our kids...and in my case, at least...though I hope in all of our cases...people, generally...not just in schools...

We see where we could all be aspiring much higher...

How much better life would be for all of us, if we aspired higher...

And what a terrible disappointment we settle for when our aspirations are so low...

That's true of individuals...of individual kids...and even individual teachers...

And it's true of all of us...of humanity...

That when we aspire low...we only get as low as our aspirations take us...

When we aspire higher...

We get more...

But it's so damned disappointing and heartbreaking, in the meantime, while we fall short of higher aspirations...even if they are new expectations whole-cloth...to resolve seemlingly intractable problems...as many of the best ideas aspire to do...

And just as with kids...

We have to learn to ride out the disappointment and heartbreak...as people choose low aspirations...even when higher aspirations would improve life...for all of us...

It's a brilliant insight...

That I've been needing for quite some time, now...

I'm sure some of my friends, Katherine, would say that I've been needing that insight for years...

I'm sure they've gotten tired of me sounding like the sky is falling...

When the truth is...

That the horizon is expanding...

If only we could only see its breadth:):):)...

Thanks so much, Katherine:):):)...

It's a very insightful piece of wisdom:):):)...

And it made a lot of difference for my outlook, today...and, I hope, for some time after today:):)...

Thank you, Katherine...I think you just helped me see why, maybe, so many people lost track of their idealism...because, like me, they get lost in their heartache about the disappointment that the world seems to be compared to their loftier dreams...rather than, as you've help do for me, just get some perspective on those dreams and the world that still needs to live into them...

Hope everyone else appreciates just how important that little piece of wisdom is, too:):)...

I've got to get home, work on an I.E.P. (Individualized Education Plan), and get some sleep:):):)...

Have a great week, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

Why do I feel like such ass, lately?...

I've felt like some serious shit, lately...

I just feel so taken for granted...

I do difficult work...for no money...I can't even pay all my bills...I have a student loan bill that I can't pay, still, at this point...I and every other teacher are expected to take care of every problem in the culture that everyone else is too chicken-shit to deal with, themselves...

And only the smallest percentage of people I've talked with about this seems to take seriously as a problem...

I can't leave teaching...I signed two scholarship deals that require that I remain a special education teacher for 8 years...

So my hand is forced, all around...

And I'm thinking...

If it wasn't forced, I'd want to do a much better job...

But everyone who knows me, personally, can only talk about it in the harshest and most insensitive of terms...

Because they want to retain the right to force my hand or anyone else's hand they want to force...

Because...

No matter how much harder or smarter or whatever I work than most of these same folks...to deal with the same problems...

So now...

My growing attitude...is...

I'm just going to stop working on the same issues so hard...including at my job...the more people force my hand...

I'm going to stop working so hard at being a good son...and a good friend...and a good teacher...and a good policy writer...and a good little activist...

And whatever...

As long as people force my hand...

And I'll only give people the kind of effort and better that I gave them before...

When they get out of my fuckin' face and stop forcing my hand...

And every time someone tries to force my hand...

I'll pull back and do less work...

Every time...

Because I'm tired of working my ass off...

And having people act like they really are working as hard as me...or that they're thinking as hard as me...or that they've earned it as much...

I have a lot of friends and colleagues, right now, who are damned lucky to have my unconditional love and forgiveness...

Because most of the time...

They're not worthy of it...

Except totally as a gift my probably far too generous heart...

At this point...I'm looking to finish my Ph.D. in policy and thinking very seriously about getting out of teaching as soon as possible...I know it's my first year...but I had no clue just how badly my friends and neighbors fucked their public school teachers...

And I have no interest in being fucked any longer than I have to be fucked...

So I'm thinking very seriously about leaving the profession as soon as possible...until the situation can turn around...

And until then...I only do as much work as my hand is not forced to do...

And the more it's forced...the more you get my absolute most minimal effort...

And the more you take me for granted...

The less I'll work on your behalf...

And if I can find a way out of it...

I'll stop working for you, altogether...

Bullies are not friends...they're manipulative shitheads...

And they deserve to dropped like steaming pile of shit that they've become...

I don't know why I've cared as much as I have about my more manipulative friends...

It's pretty fucked up to find out that these are who your friends are supposed to be...

Not any more...

You bully me...

I'll get away from you as quickly as possible, from here on out...

And fuck you in the meantime...

Ben

If life were easy...

...we wouldn't call it strength...we'd call it easy...

It takes strength to be good...

Because...truth be told...it's a hard thing to do...

But we all get better at it...

With the freedom to be better...

So we can develop the strength...to make it so...

Love,
Ben

Belonging...

I'm working late on this I.E.P...on a night where I finally feel like I belong at this school...and on my team...

This feeling...of belonging...it's one of feelings that most of us want to feel, most, I think...so coveted...that people can and do use it to manipulate one another, all the time...when they're able...it's not good for us to do this with one another...but there we go and do it anyway...if we think it will get us what we think we want...which we often do...until the fantasy of that kind of life wears off...and the reality sinks in...

I was thinking, today...after reflecting on that meeting about the student resisting all the people trying to control him, right now...

That losing Brandi...as terribly painful as it was for me...

Was probably good for me...

To have to face my own control issues...

Issues that I will inevitably face with my own children...especially as they grow up...and move beyond my influence...

I handled Brandi's and my breaking up terribly...I was jealous and mean (inadvertantly...I wasn't trying to be mean) and angry and in so much pain I could barely stand it...I was making Brandi feel bad to avoid having her leave me altogether...more out of my pain, than out of any conscious strategy...

And it just pushed her farther away, every time...

And now she's barely even friends, really...more in name, than in reality...

She's not a friend I could call up...or email...or ever really get together with...or hang out with...sometime...when I'm thinking about it...

We're just people who used to be best friends...and who've just had this falling out...that just seems irreconcilable to one of them, right now...for whatever reasons...

I've apologized a million times...about things that she totally deserves apologies for...and I've apologized about things that, in retrospect, I think were foolish to apologize for...things that I think my instincts were right on, the first time...but apologies that I thought would make the peace...

I miss her...

But I think the whole experience has been a necessary learning experience...

Because God knows no book or no lesson preparing for such a situation would or could have ever really prepared me, I don't think...not totally...

It was just this really sad experience that I had to live through...to learn the lesson, I suppose...

But it probably was the hardest lesson I've ever had to learn in my entire life...

And I have no intentions of letting it go to waste...

When I have kids...and they begin to grow up...they're going to need space...and they're going to leave the nest...and I'm going to miss them...

But I need to give them the room to spread their wings...

As Brandi told me, right after we broke up...

She's a caterpillar...growing into a butterfly...and she needs the freedom to spread her wings and fly...

And I wish I would have given her that freedom, better than I did...I did my best...and I went to three therapists at a time, at one point, and read every psychology and relationship book I could get my hands on, to do as good a job as I could to let her go as well as I could...

It does bring you some satisfaction, I think, that when you fuck something up royal...to at least think to myself, "I know I did everything in my power to do that thing better...and there's just not much more that I think that I could have done better in that moment"...

I hope she knows that I did my best...that I did really want what was best for her...even as I was blinded by my own fears and pain and control issues...

Most of us are like this, I think, at some level...we fuck shit up all the time...and we just can't see it, sometimes...but we really do want what is best for one another...generally...

But Brandi did particularly well by me...and I wanted best for her, most of all...

And now, I think...maybe it was good...having to deal with all of that...

So that maybe it will be easier...when my kids leave my nest...

This feeling I have, right now...this feeling of belonging...with my team...and my school...

This was the feeling I had with Brandi...that we could fight...and disagree...and work together...and hurt together...and be all the stronger for it...

I wish I knew why Brandi...and Tom...and Jas...and all my friends feel like they can't reconcile in this kind of way, right now...in a way that makes us all stronger...individually...and together...

But...for whatever reasons...they don't...

When I feel these feelings...these feelings of belongingness...and listen to this music...I'll probably be listening to this Dar Williams live album all night, until I get this stupid I.E.P. done...

I think of Brandi...of especially that summer in 1998...when we were most in love...and the last time that this feeling was strongest...this feeling of belongingness...

I wish she could share it with me, right now...

I've got like 3 serious dating prospects...and several other women in the building interested in dating...

All of them are special in their own way...one of them, in particular, reminds me of Brandi...

She's a math teacher...who brought me calculators, today:):)...

But...truth be told...as pathetic as it is for my life...

None of them are Brandi...

I hope one day I can stop saying that...

I miss you, Fisher...

Love,
Ben

How adults get crazy about children...

We have this crazy situation with a student, right now...

We have this kid who isn't doing work, right now, in class...he's convinced that his teachers hate him...his parents are convinced that the school lacks enough consistent structure with home...the teachers are convinced that the parents are looking for excuses for this kid's behavior...

Am I'm convinced that this is a crazy situation...

Here's my take...

We've got a kid who's not doing work, right now, for whatever reasons...he thinks his teachers hate him...and I do have to say that they tend to ride him without much promise of letting up...though I do think that if they saw him performing better in class they would let up...

The teachers interpret what is going on as defiance...which it is...but it's also a healthy reaction, I think, on the kid's part, to being controlled too much by everyone...parents...teachers...administrators...
everyone...though clearly not healthy enough to get him out of the mess, which would involve taking responsibility for doing the work, doing it, and getting everyone off his back...a pretty tall load for an adult, nevertheless a 6th grader...

But that is the challenge...

I've been working with both the parents and grandparent and the teachers to get off one another's back...and to let this kid succeed or fail on his own...meaning...let him be...give him space to fail...and then him take responsibility for his success...which is the only thing that is going to work, ultimately, no matter how much we work around the margins...

The parents and grandparent are befuddled by the fact that this very educated family has this embarrassing situation of a kid who is not performing, even though the family values education...and they are making tons of excuses...it's a disability...it's the teachers...it's inconsisent structure between the home and the school (which is the oldest excuse in the world for why a parent is failing and looking for everyone else to repeat their mistakes so they don't ever have to look squarely at their failure)...

And this kid...is just kind of blowing everyone off...including me...though we're making some inroads on that route, as well...

The tragedy of the whole thing is that this thing could get very ugly...we have a family with a history of making such things ugly...a due process hearing could get really nuts, if that's where this thing were to go (which it doesn't look like where it is headed, at this point)...and the saving grace, at this point, is that I have a faculty that I'm working with to lead this thing in a better direction...and I'm working with the family to let go of the finger-pointing, some...and to get focussed on Matthew doing amazing with or without the ideal school support...and the most ideal choices on his part...

Here's the bottom-line on this thing, though...

It is not possible to make a kid perform, succeed, and definitely not excell...you can communicate with your conversations with them and with your behavior that you don't trust a kid to work on their own...and that they need to choose to be trustworthy...and they have to have space to fail to make that work...

But so many parents and teachers and others are so afraid of kids failing (which happens all the time, as is) that they'll try to find any excuse around their failure that they think will either avoid the issue...or...they try to find ways, fruitlessly, to force the kid to perform...which is a control issue on the parents' and teachers' parts...only frustrates the issue, since it limits the independence that the kid needs to their functioning in school and life...and which clearly does not work, to anyone with their eyes open around the matter...and, ironically, limits a teacher's ability to allow kids to fail...and to facilitate their taking full and free responsibility for their performance and for their life that, in the long run, is what allows really strong students and really responsible kids to really take off in their academic performance and in their lives...

It's a sad situation...and the great thing about the teachers, in this situation, is that they're not afraid of the kid failing, nearly as much as the parents, that is...

I think it will move in a better direction, generally...I notice my own control of kids all the time out of this fear of watching them fail...but I'm getting better at recognizing it...and just trusting them more...and letting them choose success and failure, more, on their own...and to make choices that often end up being better than I expected...and facing, more honestly, choices that I think will be better than end up being more of a problem...

And our team is getting better at navigating these issues on their merits...and letting go of the need to control kids, as much...though I must say that many of our teachers (like most adults I know, these days) still fruitlessly believe that they can control kids more than they really can...and their efforts to do so often lead to consequences that they say they don't want for kids...but which they get and will continue to get, anyway, until they take responsibility for their own behavior...nevertheless for the behavior of kids...

The situation is a little scary in the sense that it has potential that I don't think and I'm hoping won't be realized...to turn ugly...in a way that would be good for noone...

Especially for this kid...

Who just needs to space to fail and succeed on his own, frankly...and to have noone make any excuses for him...and to support him and let go of the desire to control him, as much as possible, while he makes his way to success...

I'm sure I'm screwing a million things up, right now, with my kids...there's always things we don't see...and our kids will help us see better our flaws, I'm sure, as they can make them clearer to us, as well...as I'm trying to do for and with the teachers and friends and other adults that I work with...as they try to improve their relationships with the children in their lives...

The best thing my parents and my dad, in particular, did for me...

Was give me space to grow...

To let me have a life that they did not have to be intimately involved with every aspect of every moment of the day...

And I would take that childhood...and that life, generally, over anything else in life...any money...any power...any prestige...anything...

That's why my primary goal, in life, is be an outstanding father...and is far more important than being a great teacher or writer or scholar or whatever in my life...

And great dads aren't remembered as great for controlling children...

They are remembered as great...by giving kids the most optimal freedom and engagement...to be the best people they can be...totally independent of a parent's own vision of what a kid's life should be like...

The best parents...are people who have children who are better than they are...not children under the thumb of their parents' own low expectations of themselves and their own potential...

And the best parents know they're screwing up...

Because the last thing they want to do...is foreclose on the opportunity...

For their children to be better parents than they were:):):)...

I've got an I.E.P. to work on:):):)...

Have a great day, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

More important to be a good man...

I wanted to write about Hamas winning in the Palestinian elections, today...the danger it poses...and the responsibility it involves by Israelis and the world to maintain a commitment to peace...with President Abbas still in his post...even with a partner in Hammas that there is very little reason to believe is in good faith, right now...

I still need to...

But before I go to bed...

I wanted to write about how deeply satisfying it is...to prioritize being a good man...above all other concerns in my life...

I can only hope...that my son...if I were to have one...will outdo me...and humble his old man...while he lifts him up...

I only hope...that I'll be that open...to that kind of humbling...

Like most things in my life...I don't know how to do that...

But I hope that I can be open to learning...

I understand, now, why that is so hard to do...

But I hope that I can be open to learning anyway...

Have a good night, everyone...

Love,
Ben

Life works out...

I had a much better day, today...

The teachers I was upset with and I did some making up...and we seem to be getting along...and getting over much of the bullshit of pecking order and hierarchies and seniority, etc...we seem to have come to an understanding that what I do in my room is what I do...and what they do in their room is what they do...and we are on the same team and supporting one another...but supporting one another doesn't mean that we always have to agree about how we deal with kids...

We also...much more importantly...all seem to be getting on the same page...that academic achievement matters...that it is a our central focus...and that we all take it more seriously than our issues with individual kids...

Which gives me what I want...

Which is hope...that at least some of one generation of kids will have enough support, freedom, supervision, and the least aggressive, most loving way of doing that, possible, that they can have a much better better opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives and their own choices...

The most important problem for us to deal with in early 21st century America is not that there are not enough children who take responsibility for themselves, their lives, and their choices, including and especially how those choices affect others, as well...though we definitely need children and young people to do a much better job of taking that kind of responsibility, for sure...

The most important problem for us to deal with in early 21st century America is that not enough adults take that kind of responsibility...which makes raising a generation of kids to do so doubly hard, as you can imagine...as kids watch the adults in their lives lame out and yet lecture and punish kids with examples that are lacking that kids should take that kind of responsibility seriously...it gets us nowhere...and it doesn't get the very serious problems associated with adults failing to take that kind of responsibility seriously resolved...

And when I say adults lack responsibility...I don't mean that they aren't following the rules or following regulations well enough...

I mean that everyone -- including and often especially the rules-makers and regulators -- don't take nearly enough responsibility for whether or not the goals we are trying to and need to achieve...are actually being achieved by our efforts...rather than our self-righteous whining and regulatory efforts used as a place-holder for doing the hard, human work of facilitating that kind of collaborative responsibility...

We have a better shot at generating that kind of responsibility among adults in this school than any other school I've ever been a part of, in my judgment...

And it is modeling that kind of responsibility that will better inspire it among young people, by far, than trying to lecture or, God forbid, punish our way there, foolishly and fruitlessly...

That doesn't mean we don't intervene when peoples' behavior is too problematic or ugly to accept...it means that we intervene with the least aggressive means, possible (because they are the means most likely to work) with the purpose of containing a problem and improving behavior and developing a sense of conscience for the impact that a person's behavior has on others...

And I'm suggesting that the cynics about this kind of approach...are just kind of lazy, frankly, about constructive efforts to improve the human condition...and just shouldn't be taken that seriously, frankly, about this particular issue, at least...

And I've had plenty of good experience with those principles at work to know that they are far more effective than conventional approaches, even the many good ones that my ideas compliment and build on...and, in this case, along with the efforts of many fine teachers and paraprofessionals and parents and students and staff and social workers and others to make that kind of progress possible...

The other great thing about the last couple of days was that I finally got over my fear of being fired...

Fire me, is my attitude...I'd rather be fired...than spend my whole life worrying about it...I'll be accomodating to people's concerns...but I'm not going to spend my life worrying about whether I'll have a paycheck or not...the people I know who live their lives like that live pretty unhappy lives...and I'm just not interested...and the truth is that I, generally, work far harder than most of my colleagues most of the time...so I'm not scared that I'm somehow slacking...I'm not...and if you think you can find someone to do a better job than I am...I say, go find 'em...

And in the meantime...life is frustrating...and often overwhelming...and definitely discouraging at times...sometimes very discouraging...as the last two days have been for me...

And we work through it...and we find someone who will listen...and we rant...and we get support...and then we start the next day, again, bright and shining...

I was commenting to another teacher, today, that maybe it has something to do with kids...I know it has to do with the way that I think about my own childhood...

But I just don't have this fruitlessly perpetually tragic outlook on life...life does often suck...but it often sucked for us all as kids, as well...and somehow...we found the energy and the inner peace to wake up the next day...and still be happy...or happier...and, generally, for things to get better, over time...

A lot of adults lose track of this, I think, because they get lost in the romantic fantasy...that Melissa and I have talked about a million times...that one day...they were going to grow up...and there weren't going to be hard times like the ones we had when we were kids, again...that we would be adults...and everything would be better...in addition to the fact that we often treat adults far worse, with far less effect, than we do children...

Or they just ignore all those bad feelings...in hopes, foolishly, that they will go away...if they just try to pretend like they don't hurt like they really do...it's called denial...and it's not just another rive in Egypt, as the old saying goes:):):)...

Well...the truth is...often despite our own pessimism around the issue...generally, our lives do get better as we grow older (for those of us committed to our learning and growth, that is)...

It just never gets perfect...or worry or frustration free...

In fact...I find that the deeper I experience my connection to life and to others...the worse the bad feelings get...as much as the better the good feelings get...

But it also means that our life is more fulfilled and more genuinely happy, more of the time...and I'll take that as a trade-off for a life where I'm just always wishing for some other life...because this one hurts so bad or is filled with so much fear...

And the people I trust the most...

Are the ones who feel life like that too...with all its hills and valleys...and the ones I really trust...are the ones who feel safe enough to feel those feelings in my presence...without taking them out on me, necessarily...

And that is not a matter of politics...it is a matter of openness...and trust...and commitment...and character...and love...and compassion...and decency...

I can't tell you the strength...that comes with staring down those kinds of fears...of facing them, head one, painful as they might prove to be, if they come to pass...

And saying that you're conscience...you're integrity...is more important than any punishment that might be inflicted on you...

Powerful stuff...and it makes me a lot harder to intimidate than most people, I think...which makes us all stronger...the more people who take that on...

I realize, now, that one thing that I totally took for granted in my relationship with Brandi...was that a major difference between us was that I took life much more seriously than did, Ms. Fisher...ironically...it gave me a much bigger sense of humor about the things that really don't matter, as much...because taking life seriously...means recognizing what really matters most...

And working with kids reminds you...that it is the people...for all their flaws and tediousness...that matter most...

Makes my life...and my work...and my thinking about things...much more worthwhile...

That outlook on my relationship with Brandi helps me to romanticize her and our relationship less...to recognize all the great things that Brandi had to offer my life and the world...

But to recognize that I'm quite sure that there are people, out there, who take life as seriously as I do...and who bring wisdom as well as love and support and intelligence and courage and all kinds of virtues...to a relationship...that the Brandi I knew...just didn't have to offer, at that point in her life...as much as that disappointed/s me:):)...

I've got to get something to eat...to call a parent...to get out some letters to parents...and to work on an I.E.P. (and Individualized Education Plan)...

I hope everyone is having a great day:):):)...

Love,
Ben