“School’s out for summer
School’s out forever
School’s been blown to pieces
No more pencils
No more books
No more teacher’s dirty looks
Well we got no class
And we got no principles
And we got no innocence
We can’t even think of a word that rhymes”
-Alice Cooper
Once again it is that day that every kid prays for… The last day of school.
My daughter doesn’t really get it, though. She doesn’t really understand the sentiment of the poor misguided school girl named Alice Cooper. Kids are supposed to hate school. Their teachers are supposed to be witches and warlocks who live for creating misery in the lives of their students. My daughter should know that already, since her mother and I are both teachers. (I am retired now, actually… and I do miss making kids’ lives total misery.) She is actually going to miss her middle school and all her middle school teachers.
She was up late last night using air-dried clay to make dragon sculptures to give to each of her teachers. Her art teacher was recently telling me about how wonderful she is at art and how wonderful she is as a student during a recent scholastic awards dinner. In fact, most of her teachers only have good things to say about her work in middle school. And teachers are supposed to hate kids and hate teaching, right? They are supposed to only be in teaching for the paycheck, marking time until they retire, living lives full of bitterness and revengeful interactions with children.
O, I am guessing that I am actually the problem here. I never felt the way teachers are supposed to feel about kids. In fact, I… like kids. Oh, no! The secret is out. I miss being a teacher. I miss the kind of devotion you get from the kind of students who stay up late making clay dragons for you as a goodbye gift.
While I was a teacher, we were not allowed to be Facebook friends with students. Society frowns on teachers getting too close to students. But now that I will never teach again, or be in the same room with any of them again, I have been saying yes to students’ friend requests. So, I am now going to share with you pictures of former students that they have shared with me. Of course, I won’t tell you their names. I don’t want to embarrass them by revealing that they don’t hate all of their teachers the way they should.
So, there’s photographic proof that once I actually was a teacher. And I know that it probably also proves I didn’t do a very good job of making their lives miserable and making them hate me the way I should have done. But I miss it terribly. And I would work harder at being bitter and crabby if only I could go back and do it some more.
Catch a Falling Star 
Aunty Entropy Moves In
Mother Nature’s sister is one of those rich relatives you don’t really like, but have to endure. She tends to take charge of everything and ruin all your plans. Yes, we do not throw a party when Aunt Entropy comes to visit. Well, at least not the happy kind of party where everybody has fun. Aunt Entropy has come to stay for a while and take things apart.
One thing Aunt Entropy likes about Texas is its utter dedication to fracking and oil money. High profit motives have continued to force oil companies to pump toxic liquids into the underground to break apart shale and push out the oil. We have fracking to thank for lower gas prices and Fox News talking points about no longer being dependent on evil ookie-icky foreign oil. We also have it to thank for the current condition of the foundation of my little house. Alternating years of flooding and drought have expanded and contracted the small hill the house sits on so much that the front end of the house has all but cracked off. The frequent Dallas area earthquakes have no doubt helped this process. Auntie Entropy clucks her tongue at it. “Insurance doesn’t have to pay for this because you should have invested in foundation repair long ago. It isn’t earthquake damage, it is neglect!” Of course, my healthcare costs over the last decade have completely prevented any notion of paying out for foundation repair. No one would loan a deadbeat former teacher money for household repairs just because he is old and broke and decrepit. Lovely caring woman, that Aunt Entropy.
The fracking related sinkhole under Wink, Texas… those lines around it are roads and highways.
The Grandbury, Texas parking lot sinkhole which formed after heavy rain and a long history of fracking.
Aunt Entropy is, after all the personification of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics in the science of physics. To put it simply, Entropy is a process by which matter and energy progress from a beginning state all the way to a final state. In the case of our universe, the process goes from the Big Bang of creation to the final star winking out at the end of the universe as we now know it. Entropy means the progress we are making towards the ultimate ends of death and decay. Every action we take leads to a consequence and a further action until we are dead. Not just me. Not even just you and me. But all of us, everywhere in the universe. This is why the little things where our lives break down make Auntie Entropy smile when nothing else will.
Here are some things that make Auntie Entropy smile;
The Orange King with golden crown and tiny hands may be our next president.
The hatred and self-aggrandizement that he campaigns on have taken root in the fertile soil of fear and hatred that Fox News and conservative leaders have tilled and toiled over for so long. They are beginning to bud with flowers… if you can call weeds flowers. And they are bound to produce poisonous fruits.
Mickey’s car is breaking down again because of heat. After paying over a thousand dollars to get pot-hole damage to the front tire and rim repaired, the coolant pump gave out and had to be replaced. Now the overheating warning light comes on daily and we are forecast to have dangerous levels of heat in Texas weather for the next few days. I am going to have to decide whether to spring for more car repair, or go see the doctor about the pain in my extremities. I won’t be able to afford both. Oh, my aching bank account!
My wife is overseas in the Philippines spending a month with her family after the death of her father. But she left her green card here. I had to express mail it to her for a large amount of postage cost and risk losing it along the way in the mail. She might never be able to return to this country. Well, I do see that as a bad thing, after all.
So while Aunt Entropy is visiting… or rather living here permanently, and feeding us her bad-luck salad made with equal parts misery, misfortune, and mayonnaise, we must learn to endure her wicked sense of humor and micro-managing ways.
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Tagged as complaints, Entropy, humor, naked and nude, paffooney, physics, rants, science, thermodynamics