This Would Only Be Better If It Were My Birthday

This has been an exhausting but equally awesome week.  I don't know how to reconcile the extreme tiredness and stress of it all with the number of smiles that have graced my face, but it doesn't really matter.  Joy is welcome at every turn.

This week, I got to do some of my favorite things:

1. Hang out with kids

2. Make out by my car

3. Play kickball

4. Eat roasted marshmallows

5. Read a Malcolm Gladwell book

6. Invest in Mid City

7. Celebrate someone's birthday


Last weekend, I spent four days and four nights in the woods on the north shore with 25 fifth graders and six parents.  We took part in a science education program called Sunship Earth.  The kids absolutely loved it.  They came nervous (at least one cried), and at the end, those same kids asked if we could miss the bus and stay longer.  They laughed, they learned, they sat around a campfire, and I got to make really bad puns with them over dinner.  Of course, I also missed a weekend off, which technically means that I worked twelve days in a row.  So despite sneaking off into the woods to read at certain points, and sneaking off into the bunkhouse to get an extra nap at other points, I returned home Tuesday completely obliterated.  I went to bed around 7:45pm and slept until 6am Wednesday morning, when my alarm went off.

At school a couple of hours later, you could see it in the faces of the students in my homeroom: they were exhausted, too.  Before they went to their first class, I gave them the option to spend ten minutes talking quietly at their table or reading silently.  Not a single child talked.  Some read.  Some stared at the wall.  This is a class of children who never stop talking, not even when there are other people talking to them at the same time.  But not one of us could sustain the energy to have a conversation that first morning back.  It's the quietest my classroom has ever been with students in it.

I've spent the last couple of days feverishly grading, writing progress reports, and creating lesson plans to get myself back on track.   Between Wednesday morning and this afternoon, I graded 120+ assessments and wrote 150 progress reports.  That doesn't count regular teaching or paperwork.  I'm not sure how I made it in time to hand out the reports today at conferences, but I'm just really, really glad to have it be the weekend already.  It also helps knowing that Thanksgiving break is only a week away.  I think I can I think I can.



I closed on my house today.  After two weeks of uncertainty and hundreds of emails/texts/phone calls, I finally got to sign a ton of papers and, along with the keys to a fixer-upper double shotgun in my favorite neighborhood (mid city, duh), I also received a massive amount of debt and responsibility.  Yay adulthood!

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I did it.  In addition to these daunting adult burdens, I also now get to invest in a real way in an area that I love.  I get to to avoid dealing with terrible-to-mediocre landlords and their penny-pinching.  And I get to be able to fix things in my house that I don't like.  That's right.  If I don't like the cabinets or the wall color, I can change them.  Well, maybe not afford to change them.  But I'm legally allowed to.



The remainder of my energy this past week has been focused on Tinder.  For all of you wondering what Tinder is like now that I've been on it for a week, the answer is that it is a hilarious, highly addictive game of Hot-or-Not coupled with text-like chatting with strangers.  I recognize that may not sound appealing to some people, but in my mind, it combines two beloved pastimes: looking at attractive people, and talking to attractive strangers.  It's also a ridiculously great way to waste time.   Can't sleep?  Tinder.  Nothing good on TV?  Tinder.  Having a boring conversation?  Tinder.  (Okay, maybe not that.)  I have spent an embarrassing amount of time on the app in the last ten days, and I'm only now starting to slow down on the whole swipe-left/swipe-right thing.  I've been a little too busy recently with house and work stuff to swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe damn, where's the unswipe? swipe swipe.

Tinder poses an interesting ethical dilemma for me, though, as a female that considers herself strictly monogamous.  Not in the sense of serial monogamy; if anything, I'm a consistently single person.  Instead, I consider myself monogamous in the sense that when I'm involved with someone, even if we're just talking or it's a first date, I tend to devote all or most of my romantic energy in that one direction.  Tinder doesn't work that way.  At any given moment, you could be chatting with three, four, ten different guys.  Sometimes I forget their names.  Sometimes I mix up who really likes dogs, who works in the film industry, and who's from Texas.  It can be kind of overwhelming, to be honest.

Last night, I went on a sort-of-date with a guy that I'd talked to on Tinder the week before.  We'll call him Jack.  During our online conversation, Jack and I figured out that we grew up in the same part of the city, went to school down the street from each other, and had multiple friends in common.  He invited me to play kickball with his team, and benefiting from the very low expectations men have of women in kickball, I earned an invitation to play on the team in the future.  I also earned a make out in the parking lot at the bar we went to afterwards.  I have not yet earned an invitation to see him again, but he did text me later to say he had a great time and was glad I came.  I'm kind of dumb when it comes to men, though.  I have no idea if his text is a face value statement (I like you) or a blow off (It was nice kissing you but no thanks).  I guess we'll see.

At the same time, I've been texting another guy--also from the metropolitan New Orleans area, also from Tinder.  We'll call him Sean.  From our text conversations, Sean seems to be honest and charitable and funny with a healthy dose of nerdy.  We also have friends in common.  I'm having drinks with him tomorrow evening, and I'm interested to see how the date turns out.  I had absolutely no expectations of "Jack" last night, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed myself.  I have pretty low expectations for tomorrow night, but this time, I'm a little nervous.

What worries me most about tomorrow is not the date itself.  It's my emotional reaction to going out with two separate guys over the course of three days.  Can I juggle more than one man?  I feel like I'm cheating on someone, even though they're first dates and at worst lead to some innocent PDA.  On the other hand, it's kind of empowering.  I get now why some men hop from girl to girl.  It's kind of thrilling being wanted by more than one person.  Egotistical, maybe, or pathetic, but thrilling all the same.

This man-juggling also includes multiple other guys that I haven't set up dates with yet.  One of whom wants to get drinks on Monday or Tuesday.  Another who asked me to dinner next weekend.   Another still who wants to know what kind of music I like.  As I communicate with all of these men, Tinder poses a judgment challenge for me as well: which of these guys is actually interested in getting a drink and seeing where things go, and which of them is interested in, you know, more.  Some of the men on Tinder are very upfront about their expectations.  I have made a point to message all of the people I match with (because otherwise, what's the point?).  In one particular case, grasping for something to say about his pictures, I messaged one man: "You seem feisty.  Is that a fair assumption?"  He responded that he was a feisty f***er.  As you can imagine, my face turned bright red, and I immediately unmatched him.  I have been called many things in my lifetime, but comfortable with overtly sexual talk is not one of them.  Looking back, I realize that I set myself up for this sort of response; I'm still uncomfortable with it.

The judgment challenge comes into play during the swiping part of the Tinder game, too.  As I look at a man's pictures and blurb, I routinely ask myself: Am I attracted to him?  And then, Does he seem like a douchebag?  Douchebags generally get left-swiped (rejected), while non-douches pass on to the next round of inspection.  Does he have interesting things to say?  Do we have things in common?  Can he keep the conversation going?  Some guys stop responding, disqualifying themselves from the running, and I stop responding to others who seem to have nothing to say.

While Tinder could very well be a viable dating site, my favorite thing about it is that it does not take itself seriously.  It literally calls itself a game.  This takes some of the pressure off.  I don't feel the need to get disappointed or scour someone's background to see if he could be my soul mate.  If he can sustain an hour or two of interesting conversation, then it's worth it to me.  Sometimes, you gotta do things in life for the stories you'll get to tell later.  I think this is one of those times.

I'm a homeowner. It's kind of terrifying.