Some Days (You Just Feel Like a Sex Offender)

I had been growing a fierce beard for the past month, as can be roughly discerned in the image you see to the left. (The profile one.)

This was because my facial hair is an indomitable force that I thought I had best represent in my photograph sent to Meanwhile, lest a clean-shaven or Miami Vice-stubble version of myself render me to too obviously pretentious when viewed in relation to my accompanying piece of short fiction.

Burly Wild Men are never pretentious.

Today I went in to teach and was immediately stopped upon entering the school. The principal, who I'd yet to meet in the month and half working there, asked if I needed assistance. I replied with a simple "no". The question was rhetorical. Who was I? I filled him in on the pertinent details of my non-paedophile existence, referencing the various faculty that I'm familiar with, including the Vice-Principal who I had met.

I was told that I needed to check in and get my badge.

My badge?

Yeah, my badge. My "Blatantly-Suspicious-Can't-Be-Trusted-Pervert" Visitor Badge.

Technically, this isn't a problem, as I fully understand the fears that run rampant in modern society. I'm also secure in my not being being one of these things that parents should be afraid of. But I'm also not really a visitor, am I? I'm a consistently-appearing educator of kids with special needs.

Alas, I am now sans-beard.

I miss you beard.

See you next month.

This Man is Not Dead

Next week my birthday arrives. I've always enjoyed my birthday, not so much for the obvious reasons (presents, parties, cake), though they certainly factored into the equation back when I was, you know, a cake-fiend — but because of the actual day: November 1^st. Putting aside its status as All Saint's Day/Dia de los Muertos^1/2 (both being neat things that I take no part in), the day has always felt mystical, and that's a good thing in my book.

I think it's all those ones. In elementary school I imagined how cool it would be in 2011 when I would finally get a chance to write 11/1/11 on an essay. (Apparently I had been convinced of undiagnosed mental retardation by my older brothers and assumed I'd still be writing lame essays about why eating the entirety of my candy-cache in a week was bad for my teeth.) I'm not sure if I took it any further than imagining the act of writing my extraordinarily homogeneous birth date, but four years from now I fully anticipate something awesome to happen when I pay my cable bill on my birthday.

Anyway, being that it's my birthday, I get to add a single digit to my age. Seemed to me that by 23 I would've been feeling like an "adult" — meaning I've got a week to take my maturity game to the next level. Yet, knowing what I know about myself and all the world around me, I secretly suspect there's no higher rank to attain. (Sorry, superego, can't guilt-trip anymore. Asshole.)

Except Good Parent, the absolute greatest achievement of mankind; Good Parents, be proud. Every Good Parent in existence deserves a Nobel prize, MacArthur grant, and Sainthood. My parents are some damn Good Parents, and when I get to hang out with my nephew I get the distinct impression that my oldest brother is a Good Parent-in-training, excusing his past as a Shitty Older Brother.

I don't intend on being a Good Parent any time soon (thank you, Biomedical God of Contraception), but some day. And when I die, I hope that my Good Parenting inspires a Good Paragraph (or two) about how I was the most awesomest Good Parent that ever did read a bedtime story.

All the ladies say I read well.