Friday

The school where I teach has a "School Spirit Day" at least once a month. On school spirit day, we're all encouraged to wear the school colors...blue and white, as befits a school in Connecticut... and I always forget.

But once a year, we do a "mismatch day" rather than a plain ol' run-of-the-mill School Spirt Day. Last year it fell on Tuesday, so it was called Tacky Tuesday. This year, it fell on Friday so (despite the fears some of us had of waking up on the morning in question only to find that we had switched bodies with our mothers) it was called Freaky Friday.

Whatever you call it, I love mismatch day. Maybe it's the memory of outfits worn circa 1986. Maybe it's the leftover angst from never owning a Champion sweatshirt that I could wear inside out. Maybe it's something even deeper...but most likely, it's just my long-term love affair with playing dress-up. No matter...

So, this year I was a little bit warry of celebrating Freaky Friday with my accustomed zeal. Last year, there were two other fifth grade teachers who were brave enough to dress up special for mismatch day. This year, one has transferred to the nearby middle school, and the other has been out for the past two weeks...leaving me with some very conservative colleagues.

But, I soldiered on...and I have to say, once I got over my lingering self-doubt...I really enjoyed spending the day in tights, pants rolled up to the knee, and shirt (all with stripes of different colors and in different directions), a snappy hat, purple elbow-length gloves, moss-green sneakers, and assorted pieces of chunky jewelry. It was liberating.

And my kids, especially those who freaked out themselves, had fun. It was kind of nifty, as the day went on, the ones who hadn't dressed up slowly began channeling thier inner freakiness... each time we stopped at the bathroom, more of them came out with their clothes on inside out or backwards, the girls with their hair in sloppy, off-balance pony tails...until the whole lot of us was wacky lookin'...we were quite a crew.

Next year, I'm coming prepared with a bag full of argyle socks, plaid shirts, tie-dyed t-shirts, costume jewelry, and paisley print scarves. That way, when I walk past a fellow teacher who's wearing their standard professional looking gear I can slap a hat on thier head, drape a scarf around their neck, and pull a tacky t-shirt over their head.

10

I spend so much time with ten-year-olds. I find myself thinking a lot about what it was like to be ten. I remember moments of crushing uncertainty and awkwardness...Did the fact that the cute boy in the desk next to mine gave me all of his extra pencils when he cleaned out his desk mean that he liked me, or did I just come across as a person who would be grateful for someone else's discarded pencils? Someone, perhaps, who would remember those pencils for twenty years...And, oh, I bought the wrong shoes for picture day...
But, I also remember moments where I just felt good, and smart...funny, and grown up, and cool.

I must have been a little older when the new family moved in across the street. There were two boys in that family, both immediately fascinating to my seester my seester my seester and I (me). Our cousins were sleeping over the weekend that they moved in. We dressed up. I'd like to think it was just by coincidence. I don't remember any ulterior motives. Oh boy, what did I wear? Shiny, gray parachute pants and a pink sweatshirt with the neck cut out so it swooped over my shoulder...an armfull of jelly bracelets...and high-top sneakers. There may have been some long strands of pastel beads involved. And there was definitely a pony tail on the top of my head...well, slightly to one side, actually. Whoo boy. I thought I was such hot stuff. And my seester and my cousins were dressed in a similarly fashion-conscious way. We were all, collectively, hot stuff.

We were poking around the grounds of our elementary school...laughing and self-absorbed... and the boy was there, the new boy...sitting there, laughing at us from his perch on the forbidden fire-escape. We fought back...I, as the oldest, the closest to a teenager, even swore at him. I remember feeling like I was someone else, someone powerful, someone who could be one of the popular girls...and then a dad, playing in the tot-lot with his little girl, yelled at us...scolded us soundly for swearing where his little girl could hear us...

Suddenly I was me again. Horrified at my own scandalous behavior. I wanted so badly to go over and explain to the dad that we were nice kids...harmless little dorks, really...just playing at being bad-ass teens.

But I couldn't. I was trapped...by my own dorkiness of course, and by the crystal-clear image of us as I thought we must appear to this dad, to this little girl.

Mean girls with big hair who swore.

Junk...

So, why does one watch bad tv? (something to explore later...what's with the word 'one'?)

Hmmm...bad tv...I'm currently watching "Top Chef" on Bravo. The chefs are making sexy food for a...specialty shop...in San Fran. Many an edible unmentionable. Watching the culinary hopefuls try to interact casually with a striking collection of drag queens and people in leather is highly entertaining.

As bad tv goes, this is not nearly as rivetting as "Project Runway" was. Partly, I think, because I don't get to eat anything. On "Runway", at least, I could look at stuff, and looking was the point. I don't get to eat the questionably yummy stuff on this show. I can only pick my favorites based on how they look, and how neurotic the chefs are. This is not nearly as satisfying, food-wise, as picking based on how they taste.

And there's no Santino.

Hey...now when people google Santino, leather, drag queens, and yummy, they may just end up here.

Interesting.

Cheese, Grommit!

Let's hear it for Wallace and Grommit (and their human creators) who have snagged an Oscar for their vegetastic "Attack of the Were-Rabbit".

Yay!