what are these

crescent rolls

I get dressed listening to Lil Wayne and go out to see art. At first I don't know where to park, but it's Lawrence so after I few minutes I find a parking lot and a crowd of other people looking at the art already. One of them turns out to be my five year old student. Her Mom smiles, "It's Hailey, right?" and introduces me to her latin boyfriend. With my hands in my pockets I walk around. Most of the paintings on the wall are of hay or in Chinese, which I can't read. There is a camera on a shelf on the ceiling. I think it's funny. An artist asks me if I am an artist and we watch someone hit a silver tea pot with a hammer. "I was afraid he was going to hit a finger," the artist said. "I didn't want to see blood." This week the teachers told me I was going to teach shapes for math groups. I don't know if that was an insult or a compliment.

I don't even know what the difference between a poem or a newspaper article is anymore. A window is a photo and mine is closed. A joke is a tomato. The top most searched word after define: is love.

It's hard to understand people.

Do you understand anyone?

No.

Not even me?

Of course not.

The sun was out all day and I thought about the Beatles. A stranger was nice to me. Savannah leaned her head on me and called me little bird. She also spied on me when I was singing in the shower and repeats lines from my made up song. She thinks I didn't know she was home :)

What did Martin Luther King want to be when he grew up?

A Doctor.

I guess he wanted to be lots of things. This page says he wanted to be a Lawyer.

So he's like me. I change every year.

Oh yeah? What did you used to want to be?

In first grade I wanted to be a zoo keeper. And before that, when I was five, I mean four. When I was three. It's hard to remember.

Everyone, what do you all want to be when you grow up?

I want to be a policeman or a race car driver.

With both of those you'd get to drive fast cars. What is the Emancipation Proclamation?

Uh...........

In the morning I'll write a whole paragraph about Emily's red and black barette and the dirt in her fingernails I tried not to notice when she wouldn't let me teach her how to tell time. "When my Mom gets her tax return she's going to get me that barette from family dollar," she said.

Driving to the dentist in the rain I used my horn so I wouldn't get rear ended. After I parked and walked up the stairs to the door I passed a man watching the demolition of a building across the street.

My dad is still sniffling and he can't eat too much cayenne pepper because it's too strong. I revert to a child and hit myself between the eyes with the end of a pencil while I file my taxes. "You're getting money for this you have to do it. Stop acting like that," Mom says.

Coming home and organizing the porch with that cigarette

putting up pictures

the year of the dragon is my year