Teachers' Lounge

From negative to positive

When your road turns negative create a fork in the path.

"There's a million ways - to get things done. There's a million ways - to make things work out." - Talking Heads

More EFT.

More meth madness

Strawberry Quick targeted at children.

This may lead to this. 

More meth mouth.

Previous madness.

An online limerictionary

Why bother with words like accumber?
I've said it now times without number:
Why accumber your brain
With such words – quite in vain,
Since it means just the same as encumber?

Interested? Check in at The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form.

Dances With Ghosts

(A couple, in conversation, while leaving Saturday's farmers market in the old downtwn mall in Las Cruces, New Mexico.)

Woman - "Did you see her?"
Man - "I wouldn't even look at her."

I'd been looking at her for the previous two Saturdays. The first time I spotted her, she was camped on the ground on the north side of the planter outside COAS Books. She sat on the concrete, a blanket spread before her. On the blanket lay various wrist wraps and necklaces. In the center of the blanket were several primitive looking dolls made of various earth-toned fabrics. The faces were, well, they didn't have faces. They reminded me of voodoo.

She's not going to sell much, I thought. She looks like a bag lady. Toothless, from what I can see. I wonder how in hell she can pony up the farmers market seller's fee? Or maybe she hasn't been hit on yet by a market official. I felt bad for her.

I bought a purple wrist wrap, spending my last dollar. (Purple is my color, for, somewhere in time, I am Phoenician.) I sat down on a bench and tied it around my wrist. Lovely, I thought. I got up and began walking to the car, while, at the same time, reaching into my right hand trousers pocket in search of a tissue. My fingers felt, not a tissue, but... something.

I pulled out a dollar bill. And so began the magic.

The next Saturday I again watched from a discreet distance. This time she was accompanied by a younger companion, a bearded man, dressed in black (I think). And there was a dog, black with white markings, lying at his feet in the shade. They sat in the same spot as before. I approached and again admired the wrist wraps. I bought two. I said I was interested in seeing more. She said come back next week and there will be more to choose from.

As I walked to the car, I checked my pockets.

Empty.

Yesterday I continued my observation. Gray hair, tied in a short pony tail. Clothing ragged but clean. She and her companion sat rolling smokes as I approached. The dog lay at his feet. Something was different. She had constructed a little stand, thus raising her display off the ground by about three feet. The new setup allowed her to sit on the bench. I started thinking in symbols, and I felt glad for them.

I bought three wrist wraps. A deep purple, a lighter purple with some floral designs, and a white one with tiny colorful flowers. (When I got home I learned that she'd cut them a bit short, making them almost impossible to tie. Next week I will ask her to cut them a bit longer.)

The ink in my blood rises to the surface. I sit down next to her. I introduce myself. I tell her about Teachers' Lounge. I ask her permission to write a little something.

"My name is Little Coches," she said.
"Co ch es, that's how the Comanches spell it."

She is not full-blooded Comanche. Old Pueblo and Charauhwa (Ch ar a uh wa) Apachee are part of her ancestry.

Little Coches is albino. "I am of the Buffalo children." She invites me to look deeply into her eyes. There is no color there, only gray iris and black pupil.

"I grew up in old Tombstone," she said, still attempting to roll a cigarette. Loose tobacco falls on my trousers and on to the ground as she reaches over to help me with my spelling. "My playmates were the ghosts of Tombstone," she laughs.

Well, I bet we could swap some tales, I said. She mistook my statement.

"Oh, these aren't tales, this is all true. I'd walk down the streets at night, and everybody'd be locked away in their houses, and it was just me and the ghosts."

They live in Las Cruces, for now. "I inherited the Tombstone ghost towns," she tells me. "But I'm not claiming them because of the inheritence taxes."

The bearded man with the dog is Thomas Goss. He works maintenance at the Pan Am Center at New Mexico State University. (Oh, the stories he could tell... ghosts of a different kind) The dog is Miss Tombstone, a sixteen-week Australian Shepherd/Blue Heeler/lot-a-lab/Chow-Chow. Her face reminds me of my best friend, Sark, a black lab who died at 16 years.

I took my leave, as I felt a strong desire to sit and smoke with her.

I walked around the market, dressed in white pants and shirt, sunglasses and green Kona ball cap. I'd picked the wrong shoes. They were brown and wobbly and made walking difficult. Wobbly man attired in white. He who wobbles. Perhaps I should paint them, the shoes, a la Howard Rheingold, and then let them graze contendedly in a dark closet.

I wobbled north along the west side of the mall. I stopped. At first, I thought they were miniature crystal balls. A closer look revealed Escher-like worlds entombed in glass. I immediately fell in love. But love has a price. In this case, $25 each. I asked the young man, Josh Brown - glassblower - what he'd take for two. Forty dollars, he said. Sold.

Josh has a piercing in his lip. He is dressed in black.

Sharing the same display table with Josh is Nadia Payne, also dressed in black. She makes and sells ummm, what do you call these thingies? Fabric thingies? Things made of fabric? About the size of your hand. I could see hanging a few on the white walls of my house. Some very interesting designs. See for yourself when you visit the market. They're set up a few steps north of the Las Cruces Museum of Art. (Hat tip to Josh for pointing me to the pottery exhibit now on display there. Really, you must go. My favorite is "The Reality of Numbers," an earthenware, slab-built abacus.)

You can catch more of Josh's work at Phat Glass on the corner of Solano and Idaho. E-mail him at piratezombies@gmail.com

Upon leaving the art museum, I returned to Josh and Nadia for another eyeballing. (Well, truth is, I was so enchanted by my purchase that I forgot to look at the rest of the items on Josh's table.) This time an Escher-like pendant captured my attention, drawing my eyes into the center of the cyclone. $10. I opened my wallet and found two widows. Take six? I asked. Sold.

I sat down in the sun, making mental notes of the people and their animals. A man approached. He asked if I would consent to take a survey. I misunderstood him. I thought he said he was a student from the community college. He turned out to be a (senior?) at Mesilla Valley Christian School on Stern Drive. I told him I live right behind Tortugas Cemetery. We're almost neighbors, I said.

His name is Isaac Armistead and he was conducting a survey for a sociology course at school. At first I thought this would be a quickie. And, I thought it would be oral. Wrong and wrong. He handed me a clipboard with 10 questions. After circling 50+ (age) I read the first question.

1. What is the most important thing in your life?

Whoa! I sat there in the sun like a stunned mullet. I searched my soul for an answer. Eventually I scribbled a reply. Here are the remaining questions:

2. How do you determine right and wrong?

3. Are you a good/bad person? How do you know?

4. What is your goal in life?

5. Are all people's beliefs equally true?

6. Do you think mankind is getting better?

7. What is the purpose of mankind?

8. How did the world come into existence?

9. What happens to people after they die?

10. Why do bad things happen to good people?

My answers to several of these questions, #5 for example, was a pointer to Lilly's law from John C. Lilly.

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limits.

The questions forced me to take stock of myself, requiring deep thought and rumination. I squirmed on the bench as I scribbled my answers, barely able to read what I was writing (I kept my sunglasses on due to the sun's glare). I complimented Isaac on his survey. A thoughtful, mature young man, I thought, as I headed north towards my car. I saw a homeless man laying next to a building (was it the meat market?). I walked a few more steps as I reached for my wallet and, at the same instant, I remembered that I didn't have any money. I kept walking until I was out of sight of the man, trying to think what I should do. Write him a check? Give him one of my little glass treasures? No, I simply couldn't bring myself to part with those!

I looked at the three wrist wraps. I walked up to the man.

Hello, I said.

He looked up at me. Bloodshot eyes. Reddish brown beard. Unkempt. Dirty. Drunk, maybe.

I've spent all my money, but I want you to have this, I said.

He took the deep purple wrap from my hand.

It's the color of royalty, I said. I bought it from Little Coches. She's set up outside COAS Books.

As I spoke I thought to myself, how placid he is, lying there on the ground like some windblown debris. White flesh peeped through his partially unbuttoned shirt. I thought of my hero, Saint Francis. I thought of his tremendous courage. Courage which I aspire to, but do not have. To kiss the leper's lips.

"Thank you," he said. There was a softness in his eyes, a hint of a smile.

I quickly retreated.

I walked to my car and drove home.

I placed everything on the kitchen table, to be explored and marveled at later. I looked at the white bag on which I'd jotted notes while walking around the market. As I read one of the poorly written scribbles, I recalled the original - a sign at one of the farmers market booths had read, Using Our Skills to Serve the Community. I had written, Using Our Skills to Serve the Communists.

Or something.

Part 2 is a bit harder. Little Coches Redux