My new digs...

You have a new Picture Mail, originally uploaded by mtaylor718.

Not really... my personal hell for the next three weeks

Mr. Mom

Due to my "big heart" (read no backbone) I have been thrust into the role of working mother. For the next three weeks I am taking care of my nephew. Doug is 15 and one of the strangest kids. I really think that if he were white, he would be one of those Goth kids, you know spiked hair black Eye-liner etc.
His strangeness manifests itself as a total introvert. Which would be fine except he is completely helpless, the kid would starve if someone wasn't there to take care of him. He usually has a live in maid and a mother at his beck and call but, for the next three weeks all bets are off.
His parents think that in all of their absences I will do that. Um no. Doug is embarking on a three week course on cooking cleaning and laundry. He is not happy about it. But I know that I was a pretty spoiled kid but I knew how to do my laundry and cook for myself even if it was just a hamburger or something. This kid knows nothing. Not how to make toast. Seriously.
So afterwork I go to my apartment for about a hour, chain smoke and look at porn on line, get on the subway then bus to my sisters house. Doug is at home on the computer there, I get him in the kitchen and he stands off to the side in the back as I cook dinner the deal is, if he doesn't want to learn that's fine, but he is going to watch me cook and he will clean up. He then goes to his room for the rest of the night. I sleep there and get up in the morning to make sure he goes to school. Then I come home, chain smoke and look at porn, shower and go to work. It seems like I have been doing this for weeks however its only been two days...

MY students

Today I gave my first batch of tests to my lovely students...basically all they had to do was go through and work on all the computer skills that we have gone over... they had to trouble shoot the computer (I unplugged various things like the mouse keyboard etc) log on to the system, check their e-mail, create a word document, using 3 fonts and 3 colors, attach it to the e-mail, build a spread sheet in excel that has a graph showing the distribution of colors in a bag skittles. Then they attached all of that to an email and send that to me. Most of them tried and got some of the things done but one girl sent me this...

Hello Mr.Taylor,my favorite



teacher in

the whole

world
.
she gets an A

Mayor

The building that I live in used to house the school that I work for. The empty classrooms are for rent and we were contacted by the Campaign to re-elect Mayor Bloomberg, they need the space for training and coordinating the election effort. So on Sunday after spending the day with my father, (85 y/o and pushy as ever) I had to run interference for my brother- in-law and the Mayors people. Since I have been working at the Kingdom, I have really come to understand how isolated both he and my sister are from the real world. I guess my sister gets it, that's why they asked me to be there for the meeting ('I'm American' although they have been in America longer than I've been alive) however I digress.

So Sunday morning the real estate broker shows up and we wait for the first person from the Bloomberg Campaign to show, we wait 2 hours, person 1 comes, loves the space, calls person 2, they take an additional 1 hour, they love the space, and finally the big wigs show up and really love the space.

I wish I had a tape recorder for the small talk that went on while we waited. The conversation went from bi racial children and their relationship to their grandparents, to the Atlantic Yards project and what they will do to the neighborhood.
There was a creepiness about the Bloomberg folks kind of like the Borg from Star Trek, they all look alike and talk alike, Atlantic yards "good"
crime "bad" etc.
Yesterday I met yet another person from the campaign, obviously the person that makes the final decision, nice very stylish woman in her early 30's tops. As we were chatting I told her the history of the school etc. and how I fit into the scheme of things. She said " I knew that you couldn't be a teacher, you have great fashion sense"
Bloomberg will stoop to anything to get a vote, but flattery will get you very close in my book.

P.S.

I could have skipped to the last paragraph, I just wanted to write that some stylish woman said that I had great fashion sense...I wonder if she has a brother?