I confuse....

Man I hate writing titles. Always with the trying to be witty; always failing. Today's title brought to you courtesy of Lil Juan. Lil Juan was in my class 3 years ago. We were teaching a new Reading program called Reading Mastery that involved a lot of snapping, clicking and basically kid training. At the end of my (so I thought) stellar clicking phonics lesson, all Juan could say was, "I confuse." Apparently he didn't understand that we were doing a reading lesson. And so it goes, into the teacher lexicon in our school for years to come. Whenever you're not feelin' sure about somethin', or someone's clicking or snapping in your face, just utter, "I confuse."

Oh, back to the subject of my confusion. I'm sure all of you have encountered this situation. You are going about your daily business and happen upon a person and ask youself," Self, is this a man or a woman?" It happens. Maybe you've seen a woman and thought, "Hmm, I bet that's a man." No biggie.

Well there's a person that lives in my hood. Across the street and down a ways. I have seen this person numerous times. I have spoken with this person numerous times. This person has a child that is not much older than my bean. We've shared stories, laughed, told anecdotes, as parents are wont to do. And still I have no idea if this is a man or a woman. Long hair & clothing would suggest a woman, but many things do not.

Frankly, I could care less. I think people should be whatever gender they feel they should be, no matter how they were born. I just feel that I want to know. I have to know. It would just make our interactions a lot more comfortable, if I didn't have to worry about using any gender specific pronouns and such.

Maybe I'm just being stupid. Figures.