My Life Updated

Here’s a post for folks who actually want to know how I am doing (one of the two of you must!). So why don’t you pull up a seat, grab a mug of something warm, and let me fill you in on the latest.

Ready? Here’s what’s going on…

… not much.

I mean, stuff happens, the day to day continues, I certainly find stuff to say on Twitter and Facebook everyday, but as to details, well… *shrug*.

Work-wise, the year is slowly grinding down. My 6th grade classes are almost entirely in open rebellion at this point, and once December gets here I expect to be guillotined in the playground, along with the rest of the faculty, by a mob of 12-year-olds. Some crazy stuff happened where one of the kids “disappeared” for four days after stealing some money from his dad. When he came back to school his teacher sat him down and the kid poured out a heart-wrenching tale involving the suicide of both his mom and his older sister. Sad shit–and it made the running away part sound like the best thing that ever happened to him. (He spent all the cash eating junk food, playing video games, and buying hoodies with skulls on them while camping out on the roof of his apartment building.)

Despite this (well, the fact that I teach at a “bad” school in a “poor” neighborhood) I’ve decided to renew my contract with my current school. It’s been an improvement over my previous school, and I’m looking forward to teaching some of the same kids next year. Maybe consistency will have a benefit, if only in the fact that I already know the troublemakers and can crush them on Day 1.

Other less harrowing stuff…

Yesterday was Pepero Day, a corporate manufactured holiday that succeeded in transforming my workplace into Wonka Land.

Last Monday Jin and I celebrated our 9th anniversary. Craziness. I’m still surprised when I wake up in the morning and find out she hasn’t murdered me in my sleep. Naw. I’m kidding. Besides she told me she’d likely murder me while I’m awake so she could see the look in my eyes.

Writing-wise, I sold a story to Beneath Ceaseless Skies. I’m quite happy about that, since it’s a magazine I love, and the story, “Shadows Under Hexmouth Street”, is one I’m really pleased with. It’s my Joe Mitchell in “Lankhmar” story. Work also continues on Clusterfuck: The Novel, but that’s all I’ll say about that.

Reading-wise, same old same old. I’ve got my nose in five different books at once and can’t help but download/order more when I hear about them. Two of the books are writing books, David Morrell’s The Successful Novelist and Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, one book is 19th century police blotter junk, Felix Feneon’s Novels in Three Lines, one book is short fiction, Maureen McHugh’s After the Apocalypse, and the last is Jane Austen’s Persuasion, since I never read Austen and I feel like I’ve been going through life without having done my homework. What I’m really saying is it’s certainly a chore deciding what to read when I go to the can most mornings.

Sheesh, hasn’t this been the most boring blog-post ever?