others in whose path I follow

To claim that I have the greatest capacity for self-destruction would be folly.I have sat at the feet of many people be they fictional, historical or contemporary who either far outstrip my capacity for self-destruction or who have a bit more flair. I will try to arrange my list is somewhat chronological order over a few entries. Some of the connections I draw will be bollocks... but even if I get them wrong factually, it is my interpretation of these characters that have ultimately added the depth and breadth of my capacity that I know enjoy. I will start with some people from the theatre...after all its my bread and butter...later we may find some other folks...stay tuned.

Oedipus- no matter which way your pronounce it (ed-ih-pus or eed-i-pis)brother got himself one solid capacity. Some hallmarks that make this guy a real champ.
1. He KNEW he was in for it. In my life I constantly have warning signs...some may not be quite as solid as an oracle...but some good indication to stop now. And frankly a good 'do you want all those cheetoes?' is as good as any oracle any day.
2.Minor success breeds mind shattering (if misplaced) self-confidence. Sure I have never out thought the sphinx but you get 31 eighth graders to all do the same thing at the same time ain't too shabby. Then, like my predecessor, I think I can do no wrong...and though the fallout for my hubris doesn't go quite as far as our hero's I think it is all a matter of degree.
3. overeaction. I overeact, do does Oed. OK, so I never killed my father and married my mother but I do know that blinding yourself for the offence doesn't seem off the rails. For example by degrees eating a bag of potato chips (read:big damn bag) feeling bad about it so eating ice cream is pretty much the same thing...hell, either way you go blind.

Hamlet-Though I like to think myself a little more fun-loving than our Danish friend he does seem to think a lot about ways to make things better which pretty much always makes him land on his twins.
1. Mother love. Let's get this out of the way first. Despite my last two selections for the wall of fame, and my admitted love of my mother I don't have these guys troubles. But again to acknowledge by degrees Ham-bone's actions it seems the same thing to be upset with your mom's new boyfriend and going around and stabbing people in arrases. This is just like not liking to clean so one creates a great mound of dirty clothes next to ones bed (which one (in this case) refers to as the poop deck)and looks at it affectionately and without irony as the pile...It's the same thing.

2. Bitch, bitch, bitch. So, I am pretty sure that Hamlet didn't have DSL in his dorm room but if he did, he would have a blog. There we could read all sorts of entries about 'I miss my dad, he was so great, this one time he took me fishing and let me taste beer' and 'god my mom is a pain, I wish she and my uncle would just get a room already' or ' o, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew!, or that the Everlasting had not fix'd his canon 'gainst self-slaughter! Oh God! God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world!.' For one I freaking hate exclamation points so that is just overboard. But It sounds to me like hamlet would have a little blog maybe he would call it 'elsisnore' or some god-awful pun.

3. Can't find an ending. Ok, so this isn't Hamlet himself but rather the play. Shakespeare wrote about four hours worth of play and was just knackerd so he did what any guy with a big capacity for self-destruction would do and said 'screw it, just kill everybody' then when Anne Hathaway said 'honey, everybody's dead nobody will care about elsinore if nobody is there' he said 'fine, I will write a Norwegian in who will take everything' and thus Fortinbras, now there is a guy who can do a keg stand.

Helena- The first woman on my list, though my second Shakespeare creation. Helena may in fact have the largest capacity for self-destruction of any character that I am aware.

1. Pining. She is just so desperate for Demetrius that she can't stand it. She even says (of her nemesis Hermia who has beguiled the hapless Demetrius) 'Through Athens I am thought as fair as she, but what of that Demetrius thinks not so'. She is saying that I could have anybody I want...I just don't want anybody but Demetrius. This is just like my saying I want more than anything to be fit, but I am not, so lets eat!.

2. Disbelief at good fortune. Around the middle of the play Helena gets exactly what she wants...sure it is via a magic spell...but hey we all need a bit of fairy dust. Here is where you can see that her capacity for self destruction is beyond mortal ken. She doesn't believe him. He says 'O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, devine! To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?' which is EXACTLY what she wants but she replies 'O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent to set against me for your merriment' She thinks he is kidding. I recognize this, when she of the stolen bike and I were first together I asked her 75,000 times a day if she still liked me. Listen folks, if you got something good, don't provide it opportunity to reconsider.

3. Refusal to admit she is wrong. She fights (physically) Hermia not for the love of Demetrius but because she is so convinced that they are making fun of her. All of them swear they are not but it doesn't matter. It requires a magic spell cast by sprite (not the soda) to fix it all. To her credit, when magically altered she does change her tune, but come on how often does that happen here in the mundane world. I for one am convinced of my failure until the bitter, bitter end and would just about kill for good robin goodfellow to raise his magic wand and make everything all better. (not that things are wrong in the first place...Its all in my head.

Sixth graders like it

In an attempt to post more I am using a strategy used by writers the world over. I am recycling crap that I already wrote for other reasons and putting it up as new work. This makes perfect sense because I could have gotten away with just posting the scene and not commenting on it and nobody would be the wiser. Alas, my capacity for self destruction demands I don't have a fuzzy relationship with the truth no matter how sad it may make my efforts seem.
This is not my favorite scene I have ever written...actually its not in the top ten. What it is is the first scene I ever wrote for students...or...anyone for that matter, so, I thought it warranted at least an historical spot on the blog. The scene does have one thing going for it. Sixth graders like it.
That sentence is rarely uttered. Sixth graders don't like many things if they are the idea of an authority figure. However, I have managed to stumble upon something that some girls in my class enjoy. It is a scene I wrote three years ago to get three girls to stop whining because every scene I gave them 'sucked'. So, The Glass Menagerie or Comedy of Errors it is not but for whatever reason 11 year old girls like this scene.

(2 students quietly working in their room, M (the loud one) enters…loudly)
M: Guess what, you are never going to believe this!
H+S: Mmmm?
M: I've found him.
(H and S continue working)
M: I've found him.
H: Found who?
M: Him!
S: Him, who?
M: You'll never believe it.
H: not at this rate.
M: I've found him.
S: again?
M: what?
H: (to S)now its what and who.
S: (laughs)
M: Don't you guys want to know who?
H: I was kind of interested in what.
M: What?
S: yeah, what?
M: I hate you, since you obviously don’t care I am leaving. Good bye.
(M leaves, comes back seconds later)
M: Guess what, you are never going to believe this!
(H+S look at each other and back at M)
H+S: (mock excitement) What?!
M: I've found him.
H: I'm going to kill you.
S: --Who?!
M: Brad,the man I am going to marry.
S: Oh Mollie.
H: Another imaginary boy?
M: No! This is him!
S: Him who?
H: (to S) don't you start.
S: Where did you meet him?
M: On the internet
S: What?
M (louder): ON THE INTERNET
H: OK, when did you first meet him in person?
M: Next Tuesday
S: Ok, and what did he look like?
H: Wait, next Tuesday?
S: NEXT Tuesday?
M: you guys going to break into song?
H: You haven't met him yet?
M: Yes online. He's very sweet, he sent me this ring (displays hideous ring)
(uncomfortable pause)
S: (to H) my turn?
H: yes.
S: Ok, Mollie honey. You know I love you.
M: Oh, I love you too.
S: Shut up. Here's the thing. This is crazy. This is running barefoot on broken glass crazy. This is eating fire crazy. Let me put it this way. If I bought a whole truckload of crazy and only this showed up. I'd be a satisfied customer. It's that kind of crazy.
M: We do crazy things for love.
isn't Mollie, this isn't love. This probably isn't even Brad. What's more likely is that this is some sixty year old, six hundred pound shut in named Reginald wearing a cub scout uniform who speaks fluent elvish. He sent you his dead grandmother's engagement ring so that you would spend the rest of your life filing corns off his feet and opening sardine cans. This person is not your true love.
M He's got friends who say they're interested in you guys.
S: really?
H: Shannon! No. This is not happening (blocking the door). You are not going to meet him. None of us are getting married until we all decide we're ready.
M: You're not the boss of me!
H: ooh, ouch (tdidn'tannon) at least she didn't call me liar, liar pants on fire.
S (on computer)
M: Listen you... shrew; (growing calm) you two are without question my best friends. (Totally seriously) My life is not going to be easy in the next few years. Think about it. My parents aren't going to be thrilled about my impending marriage. And can you imagine what its going to be like being the only married girl on the cheer team? I am going to lose friends, the love of my family, respect of my teachers and quite possibly the only chance I’ve ever had at having a normal life because I am sure, I am positive that I am in love. Love knows no age and has no wisdom of its own. But I've found it, and all I ask from the entire world is that you help me through it. If you can help me, I know my life will still be a good one.
H: (feigning sympathy) Molie, (truly harsh) that is the single stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life, if you do this.
S: ...guys
H: ...you will not only be the dumbest...
S: ...guys...
H: ...but, quite possibly the deadest...
S: guys! (they look at S) Mollie, come here (they both do) Is this Brad?
M: yes, why is he emailing you?
S: He just proposed to me.
M: You Tramp!
S: Stop. Listen. Brad is not a person. He's a reality T.V. show. He proposes to a group of young women online and whomever responds gets a ring. On the inside of the ring is a phone number, you cal that and you get an audition time. If you get cast, you will appear on the show every week and have to complete stupid tasks to finally earn "Brad's" love. Then, if you do, you're married on T.V.
H: (truly sympathetic) Oh Mollie, I'm so Sorry.
M: (nearly dumbstruck) How did you find this out?
S: (sorry) It's all on this web page
M: Is Brad real?
S: Sort of he's part of the show.
M: So this ring?
S: Just a marketing gimmick.
M: (soberly takes off the ring) Here's the number.
H: Mollie, I am sorry if I was harsh.
S: Yeah, I wish, I , uh.
M: I just can't believe it.
H+S: I know.
M: (joyfully) I'm going to be on T.V.!

So there it is. It doesn't hold pride of place for me or anything (especially since I so obviously cribbed other plays and movies) but it represents from where I come. I probably write 3-5 scenes a month for students and one out of ten is usually not crotch twingingly bad. So take it for what it is and let that little eleven year old girl in your soul giggle...just don't let your teacher catch you enjoying it.

Has't come to this?

I suppose if you have a blog called My Capacity for Self-destruction and you don't write in it very often things are going OK.
Things are going OK, pretty great in fact, but I have just been slammed with end of the school year business as of late and haven't had a chance to sit down and write my little missives.
So, what am I going to do about it? What would somebody with such a highly developed capacity for self destruction do? I am going to cheat. Yep, I am going to cop right out and recycle old material. (Now you know I am a middle school teacher, right?).
What follows are a few very short scenes from the eighth grade play that I wrote with my students.
My capacity is evident in the process of this piece so I guess it isn't entirely specious.
The way I write the eighth grade play with kids is a four step process that takes about 6 months.
Here is how it starts. In October (October for Christ's sake) I have the students create a character out of nothing. I ask them to approach the opportunity in a you get to play whatever you want...so make it good.
It will come as no surprise to those of you who either work with 13-14 year olds or remember being one that the majority of these characters are tragic. The body count in the back stories for the characters most of the young women chose is staggering. The boys all have secret addictions. The third group of kids are the ones who create characters exactly like another person in class in order to punish them.
Anyway they create these characters.
I then put them in groups and they have to make scenes as their characters without much guidance at all. This takes about three weeks.
Next we have to find some reason for all these characters to be in the same place at the same time or find some way to put them all together.
This years group was so disparate and wide reaching that we did the only thing possible. Stuck them all on a cruise ship so nobody could get away. I also had to use the hackneyed 'play within a play' device.
sad, I know.
I should have just stuck in a pair of cross-dressing twins, a suicide or two and we'd have Shakespeare.
Anyway, I then take the character sketches and the scenelets they wrote home and make it into a play with a beginning, middle and end.
This year the play topped in at 115 pages, it ran 90 minutes long and I was really proud of the performance.
That's the other thing about kids, they make the schlock and drudgery I come up with on long December nights and make it worthwhile. Damn them.
Anyway I will be sharing a few sections that make me giggle from time to time. Here is one.
This little scene takes place before the auditions for the play within the play. Susie is a character who is enthusiastic but not too bright.
Sydney is a character who is edgy and a little needy.
Shannon is a character who everybody likes and who thinks she is very, very funny.
Sally is an ambitious gossip queen.

(preparing for an audition)
SHANNON (to herself)
What a to do to die today at a minute or two to two. A thing distinctly hard to say but harder still to do...

SYDNEY(to herself)
You talking to me? You talking to me? You look like you're talking to me?

SUSIE (to SYDNEY)
That's really good.

SYDNEY (to SUSIE)
What's really good?

SUSIE
Your little Pacino thing you’re doing.

SYDNEY
De Niro.

SUembarrassedrased)
Oh, sorry. Gracias.

SALLY (to SUSIE and SYDNEY)
Will you guys quiet down, I got to go in there next.

SYDNEY (ignoring SALLY)
Gracias?

SUSIE
De nada

SALLY
What are you guys doing?

SUSIE
Speaking Spanish.

SHANNON
I speak Spanish.

SYDNEY: we weren't speaking Spanish. I was doing my De Niro monologue.

SUSIE (correcting)
No, no. De Nada.

SHANNON (To SUSIE)
What?

SALLY (to SHANNON)
What?

SUSIE (To nobody)
What?

SYDNEY (To SUSIE)
What?

SUSIE
Sorry, got carried away.

SYDNEY
OK, could we all shut up please?

SALLY
I am going in next and by heaven if I don’t come out of that room as sleeping freaking beauty there will be hell to pay.

SYDNEY
Well, you are half way there.

SALLY
I am not above violence.

SUSIE
It's pronounced de nada.


So that is what I do. That is in fact my day job. A little window into my capacity.
well. I am on my way to teach, and I am sure we will all be better for the experience.

Don't break your face

A hallmark of my capacity for self-destruction is that I find myself charming (hell, somebody has to).
One particular eccentricity that I use in order to sound particularly eccentric and interesting to my students...co-workers...friends...family...alright dammit, everybody is to minimize everything and masquerade as 'dry'or 'apathetic' or 'dispassionate'. I like to think that kids find it funny.
On the first day of class for my students regardless of age I say the following thing almost verbatim (I only appear to say things off the cuff...that's a whole other entry (then why don't you write it?(that is another level entirely of my capacity for self-destruction (that and my excessive use of parentheses (I mean, really, what is that...five open parentheses(I mean really (that makes six (seven))))))). I say: the number one rule I have is do not break your face or the faces of others.
you would think I would have no problem keeping within the parameters of my own rules.
Nope.
It all started in November when I decided it would be OK for me to be associated with a production of Grease (trust me, it was politically necessary). To me Grease is the genital wart of the musical theatre world. Its freaking terrible but when you get down to it, if you are desperate enough you will get in bed with it. Hate is a strong word, but it doesn't come close to the harshness with which I would attribute my feelings for Grease.
I will try to be succinct (for a change). In a nutshell Grease is a musical filled with hackneyed musical chum tying together a plot whose culminating event is the heroine 'Sandy' compromising her morals and sense of self in order to be cool. That to me sounds like a good show to do in high school.
I knew I was going to pay for it.
I should have seen it coming.
During the performance of Grease I was working (I swear I was only a technical supervisor) carried a profound karmic weight. If I were Hindu, I would be turned into...well...a genital wart. But no, the cycle that is samsara took my slight on the cosmic balance of the universe out on my sainted wife.
You see somewhere between the 'songs' greased lightning and mooning my beloved wife began her inning as catcher for our softball team 'phallic reference'.
As the high school students were struggling (in vain) to find their pitch, my wife tried to catch a pitch from the ace of our staff 'the one man blue state'.
Sadly, instead of catching the pitch, the batter took a hearty swing and tipped the ball off the bat.
For those of you who have played ball sports know that a 'foul tip' translates as to 'oh my god, hide your children' or something to that effect.
To her credit, She of the stolen bike did catch the foul tip. She just neglected to use her glove.
Lets skip to the phone message I received from our friend 'ferret boy' during the intermission of 'Ishtar on ice would be better' oh, I'm sorry...I mean Grease.
'hey Mycapacity its Ferret boy. Hey we're out here playing some softball. Hey listen, just wanted to let you know...'
this is where all of the blood leaves my face
'she of the stolen bike got hit by a pitch'
oh, thank god. Its slow pitch, who cares?
'she had a bloody nose so we sent her to the emergency room'
by this point I had my head between my knees because I started to see floaties
'I don't think its a big deal, we are just being safe'
I start now to realize that I am the only person in the middle school parking lot in his car with his head between his legs. I start to feel awkward. I also cannot leave.
To boil this whole experience down to five essential words I would choose:
Wife, emergency room, my fault.
My capacity for self destruction added the last two words. Ferret boy knows better than to say it...also, he knows that I would rather take a foul tip in the face than listen to 'we go together'.
Long story short (too late). She of the stolen bike is fine. She is wearing an awfully sexy nose cast (seriously, I am surprised that their is not a magazine in a back room somewhere called Nose Cast Grrls).
I am left with a quandry however, did she of the stolen bike break my rule, or, did I?
I couldn't tell you.
I am just glad that she is fine.
I still feel responsible, but I always have the forward thinking and socially responsible Grease to console me. I will leave you with its life affirming message.
We go together like
rama lama lama
ke ding a de dinga a dong
remembered for ever like
shoo bop shoo wadda wadda yipitty boom de boom
Chang chang chang-it-ty chang
shoo-bop
That's the way it should be
Wha oooh yeah!

Honest to god, if given the choice? Batter up.