Um, has there been anything particularly difficult this week? Yes. Yes, there has. I experienced a career first. I completely forgot about a meeting at school. Which doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world, uh, from afar. You know, there’s always business meetings and professional developments or whatever. If this were just a random staff meeting, I would facepalm, apologize to my principal, and move on. This meeting involved a student. And it completely slipped my mind. I had no idea I was even missing the meeting, and it’s entirely my fault that I did. And that’s partially why it’s so crushing that I did as well. I felt awful, awful.  I have this tendency to believe that kids should be able to know that the people in their lives at least somewhere will be there for them when they’re supposed to be. In fact, that’s kind of a cornerstone of why I am an educator, is to be that person, even if that student or child doesn’t have anyone else who can be that person, you know? And so then for me to not be that person, I know this is just a one-time incident in which this occurred, but it still, it stung me. It hit me deep. Felt super badly and also, it was just kind of a strange feeling because I didn’t know I was missing it. I was even talking about the prospect of meeting with a co-worker while I was supposed to be in the meeting. I don’t think I have ever dropped the ball like that before in my life.  What I ended up doing is I, uh, I felt it was appropriate to write the child with whom I was supposed to be meeting alongside another educator. I felt it was appropriate to write them an apology note. I met with them in person the following morning, and just kinda laid it out there and was straight up. Like basically like, “Yeah. I’m so sorry I messed up. There’s no excuse, and I just want you to know that I’m sorry, you know? And I’ll -- I’m going to do better next time.”  And in a way I guess, as my principal put it out there after the fact, and it did kind of come to me as I was struggling the night before with how badly I felt for leaving…

I think the biggest regret I had with [Name] is that when we were in college he said, “Look, every year West Point has this really big formal and I would love if you would come up and like, be my date for it.” And I said no. And I had a couple of reasons. One is that I was always really interested in [Name] as a friend, and I felt like sometimes he wanted us to be more than that. In fact, I know he, he came out and told me one time that that was kind of how he felt, but I don’t remember if we’d had that conversation yet when we were in college. But I definitely sensed it. So that was one thing.  The other thing is that I couldn’t figure out the logistics. Which, I could have. I mean, I could have taken Amtrak up there. I could have flown up there. We would have worked it out. And I was also worried about the cost, ‘cause I knew I couldn’t foot it on my own, I was a college student, and I was going to have to ask my parents for more money to do it, and I felt really guilty about that expense. So when I told my mom about it, I think like sometime after it would have taken place, she told me, “We absolutely would have given you money to do something that special.” Um, and that I shouldn’t have been so, you know, I shouldn’t have like, I don’t wanna say ‘self edited’ or whatever, but, you know, I should have -- shouldn’t have held back. I should have asked them about it if I’d really wanted to go. And now I look back and I’m like, that -- like a chance to go and see West Point, which I’ve never seen, which is, you know, this very amazing historic, you know, institution and to get to go to an event like that, which not very many people probably get to do, like I really missed out on a chance. I really blew it. I wish, I wish I had done it. But, you know, it’s how it is.

Note: There is language that is excluded in the transcript but not excluded in the audio.  My grandma was like, the only female on the debate team in the 1940s when she was in high school. She was a pretty cool chick. And anyways, when she'd graduated from high school, you know, she was 17, and she desperately wanted to get away from her stepfather. And so that’s why she joined the Marines. And I guess to join the Marines, you had to be 18. But, um, she lied. She lied on her thing and said she was 18, but she was 17. And they didn’t check. She just -- they just were like, “Alright.” So she joined the Marine and then, uh, when she joined into the Marines, she got put in, um, what was it, Communications? She ended up learning Morse code and got to do stuff like that and she was -- she had a typewriter. I still have her typewriter that she used in the war, World War Two. And, um, there was a moment where they had, they asked, they were -- okay, so they were gonna be deployed overseas. She didn’t want to do that. She wanted to stay here. And the other place they were going was, I believe it was Hawaiʻi. I could be wrong, but I believe it was Hawaiʻi or some, somewhere, some island in the Pacific. I think it was Hawaiʻi. And she said, “Oh, that, that sounds better.”  And so they, they asked -- basically, the only thing that they needed from her was whether or not she could drive a jeep or, um, some vehicle that they had. Like a, an army vehicle. And if she could drive it then she didn’t have to get shipped out. She -- or she didn’t have to do whatever she didn’t want to do. Gosh, you know what, I wish I knew the exact details of this. But basically there was something she didn’t want to do. And the place that she wanted to go was Hawaiʻi. And so she lied again, and said “Yeah, yeah, I can drive, I can drive that. I know how to drive that.” And so they were like “Alright.” And so she like got into the car or the vehicle and just like totally bullsh***ed her way into, like, figuring out how to do…

I remember one time -- w- we would sell these things called course packs, which were basically just photocopies of, like, articles and stuff that the professor, like, hand-picked and put them in a big pack. Excuse me. And then the student -- and then they’d -- you know, they’d print them out and pay copyright on them and royalties to the authors of all the articles or whatever. And then you’d get charged accordingly, and it’d be, you know, a packet of a hundred papers or something. And that’s what all the course packs were.  And I remember somebody came in once, and they’re like, “I need the course pack.” I’m like, “What class is it for?” And she’s like, “For my writing course pack -- it’s my writing course pack.” I’m like, “Well, which course -- which one is it? Like, which class is it?” and stuff, and she didn’t know. And I’m like, “Well, I guess I ju- -- I just need to know, like, which course pack it is,” like, I was trying to, like, get this information out of her. And I remember she said, like, “Well, it’s, it’s the course pack that’s paper.” And I was like, “Well, they’re all paper.”  And she’s like, “Oh. I, I don’t know.” And she, like, left.  I was like, “That was the least helpful answer ever, telling me that the course pay- pack was made out of paper.” Like, yeah, that’s what they all are. There’s -- they’re all made out of paper. So yeah, I get a lot of dumb quest- -- lot of dumb questions.

But anyway, where I was going, there was a more regional competition, you know, especially on the East Coast, called ECW, Extreme Championship Wrestling. And the lore is that ECW got bought out by one of the major circuits or went bankrupt because they overextended trying to compete with the major circuits. And according to lore, as I say, the championship belt was put up for sale.  Now, again, not gonna let the -- not going to spoil the story, but I, I think, again, having a fan with connections might have meant that maybe there was a replica version of this, as these things go. But, one way or another, the promotion belt got into the hands of one of the organizers of TRASH and it did actually become the championship trophy that was awarded each year. And the belt was actually something that we competed for and would be awarded to the champion each year, and you would get automatically invited back to defend the belt each time. And, in 2002, I was on a team that won the belt. 

I am going to tell you a grim situation. Could be grim could be not I'll let you decide that. And it has to do with a coffin, but from a way different perspective. Years ago, my aunt with no children was getting -- was in a nursing home and she wanted me to go through her things so she could have this that and the other thing and she needed some specific things from her bedroom dressers. And I am the kind of person that does not like digging through other people's stuff. So when I came back to see my Aunt, I said to her, “I can't find what you're looking for, but I did find this”.  What was this? Well, years ago, maybe, you know this from listening to this maybe you don't know this item, but instead of using CDs, this was in the cassette tape era, and I found a empty cassette -- well wasn't really empty -- but I did find a cassette box. So, when I told her I found this, I showed it to her, I opened it up, and there was a picture of a man laying in a casket. That actually was a picture of her husband that had passed sometime earlier but in a very young version of him. So I said to my Aunt I said, “So, tell me this.” I said, “What is this?” She said, “Oh, your crazy Uncle. When I was dating him, I asked him to give me a picture of him. At the time, he was studying to be a mortician and that was what he did. He decided because he was a jokester, that he was going to have a friend take a picture while he was laying in the coffin.” Air quotes “sleeping.” And he had the picture printed, and gave it to her so that she would have his picture. He never finished being a mortician or maybe she might have said she wasn't going to marry him if he continued that career path.

The English teacher in the eighth grade held a, kind of a championship tea and the tea that she did was something that was an honors thing. And so the kids had -- they got dressed up, and they read poetry, and they had tea, and they had treats, and they had all kinds of food and everything else. But you had to be invited, and you had to have certain grades. And I taught -- she taught mostly honors kids, but she did have some that weren't. And I taught all the kids. And some of those kids, when they passed out the Tea invitations, would be so crushed. And so finally, I realized that this was -- some of these kids were never going to, they were never going to achieve the A and the A+ gradings they needed to go to this tea and every year we had this, you know, kids got all dressed up and everything else.   And so, after the first year, when I got all these very crestfallen and angry kids in my class being mad because they had to go to class and these other kids got to do all this other stuff, and go get dressed up and have their pastries and all this. I decided, after talking to the principal, that I was going to just quietly do what was referred to as the ‘Untea.’ And I took the name of course, from the ‘Unbirthday’ from Alice in Wonderland. And the kids would be called out of one of the classes and they'd all go to the Tea and then after they left and the other kids would kind of look and I never told the, the kids I said, “This is the one thing you have to do. This is a secret. You cannot let anybody know that this happens. But it's okay. It will be all right.” And so, then I'd pull out the cookies and the -- some kind of drink, punch of some sort. And we would have not tea, not a fancy tea, but we would just have the ‘Untea’ and I would let the kids sit any place they wanted and I would let them sit any way they wanted and I would let them -- and then we would do, we would talk about other things and do different things and it was always kind of -- it was always kind of fun. And I felt like…

Um, yesterday, actually, a co-worker of mine was really upset about something and -- something in the news -- and was asking if I knew about it, and I was like, "Yeah, I have heard, it's freaking atrocious." Specifically about Blue Cross Blue Shield and what they are -- and Michigan Health not accepting it anymore, because Michigan Health is a big provider up here. And, of course, Blue Cross Blue Shield is the main provider for most insurance plans, including mine, and everything that our university offers. So like, everybody that works where I work has a form. They either have a Mesa plan which is Blue Cross Blue Shield, or they have ours.   And so she's like, "Yeah, like this is just absolutely terrible." And she's like, "I just, I feel like people had no clue this was happening." And I said, "Yeah, I think a lot of people were stunned." And I was like, "And they did this two years ago to the dentists." Because Blue Cross Blue Shield already did this type of crap to the dentists two years ago. It's why I have a whole new dentist 'cause my dentist stopped taking insurance because they won't negotiate.   And she got mad and was like, "This is not even the same." And I was like, "No- what?" Like, totally taken aback. And she's like, "We're talking about like cancer treatments, not like a cavity." And I was like, "No, I know that. I'm not saying those are apples to apples. I'm saying what they're doing to the medical providers is the same thing they did to the dentists." And then I realized she doesn't actually understand what's happening because she carried on with, I needed to get my facts straight, and I needed to really go talk to HR because, clearly, I'm unaware. And I'm like, "HR has nothing to do with this. You don't understand what's happening. Got it."   And, she's not at work today, she stormed off after that. And my one co-worker who was standing there was like, "What the hell just happened?" and I couldn't explain it either. So I look forward to whenever I see her next ‘cause she's one of those co-workers that like, she'll say something again, and I really hope she does it when we're in our normal space so that I can look at her and be like, "Girl, you misunderstood me completely, like I can't help you understand any better. I'm not saying that, that the whole situation with the dentist -- I'm not talking about the intricacies. I'm just talking about how Blue Cross Blue Shield has been doing this to providers of all kinds, for years now. I was…