Today is one of the BEST days of the year for my school. But first…

Let’s talk about mob mentality.

People get so easily whipped into a frenzy.

It’s also easy to go after people with cheap shots. Michelle Obama once said, “a when they go low, we go high.”

But man, it’s hard to go high.

I took a big risk yesterday writing what I wrote. Writing about where you work as publicly as I did can backfire. But it came from love and truth. And the truth is, I LOOOOOVE where I work. I always have. Do I get frustrated? Definitely.

But man… I wouldn’t work anywhere else WITH anyone else or FOR anyone else.

Which is why I take attacks so personally, because it’s easy to attack people, but I see the daily workings. People have NO clue how hard teachers and administrators are working. We get to work early, stay late, work through lunch. We do it for the kids.

Board of Education members don’t get paid. They volunteer. And they get mercilessly attacked by locals who have no issue being rude and condescending and spew venom and make personal attacks… and the BOE members can’t defend themselves, which makes the venom spewers feel even more empowered.

Then there are those local people who are obsessed with attacking us. And yes, obsessed. There is one woman who used to bash me all over teacher and student advocacy boards. I’ve disengaged. Yesterday she was mad because I wouldnt engage and liked someone’s comment, but ignored her questions to me. She wrote how I wont engage with people who disagree or question me because I take attacks personally.

No, I just don’t engage with people who refuse to listen and stick to fake stories in their head and have gone so far to contact my family members about me.

I can forgive people.

But I dont forget.

I also called out a man who showed his true colors. For some reason, men are intimidated by women in power. So what do they do? They stoop to making comments about appearances. He made a comment on a public page about a woman who can speak eloquently while batting false eyelashes.

I… saw… red.

(Through my own false eyelashes.)

Listen, enough is enough. We need to call people out on this crap publicly. If you didn’t know me and met me in the street, you would never know I’m going through heavy chemo. (Thank you, YouTube tutorials by drag queens, on how to draw fleek eyebrows, put on false lashes, and cut lace front wigs. )

Making fun of a woman for doing something to make herself look better is a low blow. You don’t read about people making fun of men for how they part their hair, or which suit they wear. But women are fair game.

So I went after this man. Publicly. He tried to backtrack and even said to not make it about the cancer when I wrote about how I wear fake lashes. So I said it wasn’t about that. It’s simply he is a sexist.

I will defend any woman’s right to wear whatever she wants. Check yourselves, gentlemen. I plan on wearing my biggest wigs and lashes to every damn BOE meeting and bond vote meeting. Even if I’m sick from chemo, I’m showing up. I’ll bat my fake eyelashes in solidarity. And don’t think I wont peel them off and whip off my wig to make a point. I’ve done it before when a man didn’t take me seriously.

Come at me, bro.

Hold my lashes, sister. I’ve got a lesson to teach.

Parents, let’s do better and teach our young men to be gentlemen. Making public comments about a woman’s appearance is gross. Making private comments is gross. Teach respect.

Ironically, I was defending our rights as women while NASA was holding the first ever all female space walk. I showed the video to my kinders and took a picture of them all watching it and sent it home. I wanted the parents to have that momentous occasion documented so one day their kids can tell their kids where they were on that momentous day and show a picture.

We’ve come a long way, baby… but still have miles to go.

The mob mentality has reached a tipping point. The “us vs them” has become a powder keg. People are holding matches and gasoline and don’t realize how they are being perceived. Thats what happens. Becoming whipped into a frenzy turns even the best people into firestarters. Have you ever seen how people’s faces look different by the light of a bonfire? They look a little scarier, with the glowing embers lighting their eyes. The fire brings out something primal. Voices get louder under the cover of darkness as the flame grows and burns hotter.

It’s time to throw water on the fire.

Pass the bucket of water, and let’s make a bucket brigade.

The intentions may have been good at the beginning when the fire got lit, but fire attracts the crazed. They show up and the fire gets bigger and bigger and more people get burned.

Mob mentality.

Somehow we need to turn the mob mentality around from firestarters and into a water bucket brigade of people who turn away from the easy way of throwing sticks onto the fire, and instead finding ways to save everyone from getting burned.

Pass the water please.

Some people run away from the fire to other places because it’s easier. The fire is too big already in their minds, so they want to just leave.

Not me.

I was taught that when you see people in trouble, you do what you can to help. My poppa was a police officer in NYC. My dad was a police officer in Nassau county. My brothers both worked in NYC and one transferred to Southampton and one works in riverhead. My sister works in riverhead and has risen to the rank of SGT. (and yes, when the local paper wrote an article celebrating her achievement, sexist comments were made… and I may have become an attack dog again. No one messes with my family. Period.)

My whole family will run in when there is trouble.

Put their lives on the line for others.

For strangers.

Every damn day.

So I guess it’s in my blood.

Make it part of YOUR life to find ways to make lives better.

You can start today.

My school is hosting the biggest fundraiser of the year today. It’s our annual craft fair, and man… you have to see it to believe it.

Each class is tasked with making a craft fair basket to raffle, based on a theme. One class mother puts it all together for each class. And let’s give a huge shout out to the class moms. They put more money than they admit into these baskets . We also have items donated by the community for Chinese auction. There will be activities for the whole family. This is the day the school becomes a community. Families show up and kids find their friends from class. Parents meet and friendships are formed. Our PTO pays for every single child’s one field trip per year, puts on dances, winter wonderland where kids can buy presents at Christmas that are already wrapped and learn how it feels good to give. This one day pays for it all.

Lucharitos will also have a food truck. I’ve become friends with the owner, and have seen him change from a man who was tormented by those who were firestarters and left comments on review sites, to a man who walks in his own truth. Man, he has leveled up, big time. He holds big buckets of water now, and has decided to have all his profits from today be funneled to my oncologist.

So today, let’s eat ALL THE TACOS!!

My oncologist is overwhelmed. We emailed last night and she used the word “tremendous”. She has a hard job, and deals with patients who she comes to love dying. So my family and friends aren’t just a bucket brigade to her by passing buckets of water to her to put out cancer fires… we are opening the dam.

God, I love good people.

There are more of them than you think. And even those stoking the fire need water sometimes. I’m hoping yesterday became the day the fire started to lessen and the true compassion and kindness that some wanted to show but got lost in delivery shines through.

So today, come to my schools craft fair. I’ll be there at ten visiting with my friend Jennifer Williamson. Yes, she is a psychic medium and I am a Christian. But she is so much more to me. God can give people gifts of the spirit. She is the real deal. I can’t wait to hug her. She does energy work as well. Science is catching up on energy work and it’s real benefits. This next decade will bring breakthroughs.

I also called yesterday and have an appointment with Odile tomorrow , my “Madame Swoosh”. I spoke to her daughter marynne, and we love each other so much.

Last night I went to Spa Belezza. I’ve gotten gift certificates from my brother Scott’s police squad when I was first diagnosed and some past students. I’ve never used them. The owner was kind enough to let me use them and they didn’t expire.

I was nervous going to someone new, as Daniele from the peaceful scorpion is the only one I’ve had work on me. I was also nervous about taking off my wig and laying on a table with a total bald head in front of a stranger.

So God sent me my sorority sister Trish. She had spent the weekend with Master Ou, a Qi Gong master who has done distance sessions with me. Turns out Trish stoped my house an hour before my massage appointment and knows the owner of the spa. She said I was in good hands.

And man, I sure was.

She did cranial sacral therapy and I felt the energy actually shift and flow in my body. I knew she was doing reiki on me at times and I asked her when we finished if she was. She said yes, and I had been able to tell the exact moments she did the energy work.

It’s not woo woo, people.

It’s science.

Trish was right, and I needed it.

So thank you, RPD Squad 2 and Anna and Jamie. I finally used the gift certificates and it was heavenly.

I’m hoping to be able to go back to sleep for a bit, then gear up for a day of hugs, tacos, volunteering, energy work and messages from my loved ones, and finding more people willing to hold buckets of water and put out fires.

And I’ll do it all with my fake eyelashes.

In Jesus’s name, amen.

Xoxo

Keri