It's resolution time, y'all!

Last year I wrote down my resolutions on the back of a receipt in a bar in Astoria, Oregon. I also wrote them in Spanish, in case they were discovered by anyone. Unfortunately, I lost them, so they can't even be discovered by me. I'm sure someone else has discovered them and probably speaks enough Spanish to understand things like "tomar mas agua." I can only remember four:

1) The afore-mentioned "drink more water"
2) Eat less sugar
3) Tell him the truth (ooohhhh...I'm so cryptic and mysterious!)
4) Leave Eugene

I have done three of those things, with variable effect on my health and well-being. I'm sure the other things were either really vague ('get in shape') or totally unreasonable ('learn a new language').

Last year was not the best, and I am trying to think deeply about what I can do to be happier. A few months ago, a very wise friend of mine, Big Gay Dave, wrote on his Facebook wall, "I don't invest much time or energy into the emotion disappointment." I seem to invest an assload of time into that emotion, and I asked him for his secret. He responded: "this is the sister-thought of, I am responsible for my own happiness." So how do I this? Thoughts, Dear Readers?

One quarter down, eleven to go!

In addition to a wicked eyelid twitch brought on my finals week-related stress, the sleep deprivation also brought me such joy as shutting my own finger in a drawer and mistaking the alarm clock for a fire alarm. But don't worry, upon waking up to what I thought was a fire alarm, I did not move. I just laid there wondering where the fire alarm was located (not, "I wonder if there's a fire" or "maybe I should move"). Speaking of fire alarms, yesterday on campus there was some sort of alarm issued that emptied all of the buildings on campus into the main square. I have never seen so many people wearing black in one place at one time. No one knew why the alarm was sounding or why we couldn't be in buildings, but I don't think I was the only one that thought that in case of some sort of emergency or disaster, standing in a group with a thousand undergrads was NOT where I wanted to be. So I walked across the street and pretended like I was waiting for the bus.

Workout regimen update: I am only one day behind in my December challenge, and the push ups are still the hardest fucking thing in the world. But I guess they should be. Doing push ups feels like trying to jump everywhere instead of walk. Man, fuck gravity.

Today is Friday, and I'm headed to happy hour and this genius place with a group of lady friends:

My mission, should I choose to accept it (I do), is to see how many $5 margaritas I can drink between 5pm and 6pm. I'm sure only good things can come from this.

Over and out, good buddies.

Workout blog!

A friend of mine posted the following workout on her Facebook page, and declared it the December Challenge. You're supposed to do this every day this month:
50 crunches
25 leg lifts
50 bicycles
25 squats
15 sumo squats
50 calf raises
100 arm circles
15 push ups
50 jumping jacks
1 min plank

So far, I'm four for four, but I'm a little concerned what 50 calf raises a day is going to do to my delicate and lady-like calves. Mostly, anything that can make me do 15 push ups a day is a miracle. I like this work out because it takes about ten minutes, and I can do it in my underwear from the comfort of my living room while watching football/Weeds/the League/Walking Dead reruns.

Since I'm apparently posting about annoying healthy things, the following recipe is BOMB DOT COM:

http://haveyourcakeandeatittooblog.com/2011/11/10/black-bean-and-lentil-soup/

I store my red lentils in this jar so that if anyone burglarizes my home, they won't steal them:

Week 8: Not so great.

I shouldn't joke about laying on the couch all day. In a stunning display of karmic retribution, I got my comeuppance for making a flippant comment about it. Yesterday, I buried myself in my comforter and pillows and cried until I fell asleep. During the day. The downfall of being a graduate student is having enough time for such foolishness. Most of the time I am thrilled to be living in a cool new city, in my cool new neighborhood, doing cool new things, and then other times (like yesterday), I am absolutely debilitated by the realization that I am alone. It sucks. Remember when there was all this talk about the importance of having 12 meaningful touches during the day in order to be healthy? I'm not even close to 12. In fact, breaking single digits would mean that I had probably been involved in some sort of drug-induced orgy.

And remember how I was bitching about my neighbor's loud singing? Worse than the singing is listening to how goddamn happy she and her boyfriend are. Never yelling, never arguing, always laughing, always cooking, always listening to music together...I fear I'm becoming the auditory version of a voyeur: I strain to hear the sounds of their pedestrian happiness (no, RaRa, that is not a euphemism).

However, my malaise is well-timed: it's Thanksgiving, y'all! (Or, as someone keenly pointed out in one of my classes, her First Nation family calls it Thankstaking.) Regardless, I'm suiting up to eat through the pain. And when I'm done eating through the pain, I'm going to drink B- and watch football through the pain. And then eat through the pain some more.

Not sure where to start...

I apologize for the delay. I've been busy laying on my couch.

Last week I celebrated my 29th year on this planet, which was perfectly lovely. I got to Skype with some lovely ladies, I got the care package of a lifetime (TWO koozies, a hip flask, kleenex, USED chapstick, Safeway brand Oreos...AMAZING), I got to go to class (WOOOOHOOO!), Cellar Rat came to visit and we ate/drank our way through Pike's Place and Belltown...I partied with some Chileans, my parents sent me money, my lil brudr texted me at 12:01am exactly to wish me happy birfday. And all of my eleventy billion facebook friends hollered at me. In sum, I felt so loved. Which I think is what birthdays are for. I fully intend to celebrate for 29 days (one day for each year) which means I have some time left...

Then it was back to the grind...which is where I am now. Right now I'm reading something titled, "Feminist Standpoint versus Spontaneous Feminist Empiricist Epistemologies." It's a tough read cuz I don't know what any of those words mean.

Did any of you bet on the Alabama v. LSU game?

No? Really? Not the betting type? Too tough of a game to call? Shame on you for not having the internal fortitude required for gambling on a college football game!

Well, this weekend I met two people who were strong enough to bet on the game. So strong were they in their convictions that they had committed themselves to the ultimate wager: pissing themselves if the team they chose lost.

Saturday evening, after a grueling defensive battle, someone named Jay, who hails from southern Texas, pissed himself.

What week is this? 6? I dunno.

Good evening, you troglodytes! Salutations from the land of eight Thai restaurants on every city block and vitamin D deficiency. This morning at the bus stop I was greeted by what had to be a huge bummer:

Not only did someone start their day by getting pulled over by what I assume is the ONLY POLICE OFFICER WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT TRAFFIC VIOLATIONS, they had to get pulled over at a bus stop where there were a half dozen gloomy faced bus riders standing there and watching. Imagine getting a ticket and looking up and seeing a small crowd of people staring at you with a look on their face that says, "See, this is why you should ride the bus." Damn.

But my day was fine. As predicted, I kicked my stats midterm's rear! What was my reward? READING ALL DAY! Grad school is awesome, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

The 29th anniversary of my arrival into this bleak universe looms just one week away. I'm pretty stoked because a)it ain't 30 and b)IT'S A PRIME NUMBER!!!! GANGSTA!!!!

Ok, side note: has anyone seen the Ben Stiller and LT commercial for Sports Center? Here's why it sucks: LT sucks (sorry, honey!), and I have him on my fantasy team, so a commercial featuring him giving fantasy football advice is slightly ironic. Here's why it's awesome: LT tells Ben Stiller that he has Aaron Rodgers as QB on his fantasy team. Who has two thumbs and Aaron Rodgers on their fantasy team? THIS GIRL! It's especially significant given that Aaron Rodgers would also make my fantasy fantasy squad, if you know what I mean.

Hold. The. Phones.

Remember when I thought Pit Bull and Bud Light were twin angels miraculously conceived to make my life happier? I overlooked this: Giants pitcher, Brian Wilson and TACO BELL.



For the record, that particular image was saved on my computer with the file name, "My boyfriend." I'm not pathetic, I promise.

So what's new with all of you? I'm supposed to be reading right now, kind of like I was supposed to be reading all day, but it just didn't happen. Weird. And now that there are back to back episodes of 30 Rock on, I just don't see anything happening for the next 56 minutes. But after that....look out!

It was a gorgeous day in the land of mildew and horrible NFL teams (no, not Miami), a gorgeous day for kicking the crap out of my stats midterm this morning. I fought the urge to yell "GANGSTA!" when I handed it in.

Heads up: an un-funny post

Not so much has changed after all. My dad scrambles stiffly down the thin path to the water; hunting for agates. My mom waits at a safe distance, worried not that she would fall, but that one of us would. I pull off my shoes and socks and scramble after him, never one to be left behind. My instep recoils on the rocky beach, my toes turn red in the cold water. We wave at mom, look at the sea, look at each other and back at the sea, neither of us sure how old we really are on this cool, autumn day.

Year 1, Week 5: It's raining. Shocker.

Good afternoon, you reprobates! I greet you from the rainy city of Nirvana and Doc Martens where I have discovered that just as there are those trying to bring back grunge, there are those trying to bring back ROLLER BLADING. (Stink, you may need to pack yours when you visit). And these folks are not roller blading ironically, they are doing it seriously, smoothly, effortlessly, and last but not least, FUCKING RIDICULOUSLY. Men and women alike, young and old. This abomination of wheeled locomotion extends to many demographics. But I digress...

I don't have any specific theme or announcement for today's post. But I do have this modern marvel of pop culture and advertising, the world's most beautiful twins separated at birth:


Pit Bull + Bud Light = My own version of heaven. I could not be happier. The two things in life that ostensibly give me more joy than anything else. Well, that's hyperbole, but you get what I'm saying.

Lately I have been seeing lots of nasty things going on with ladies' hair. Gross weaves (girl in stats class who smells like a hangover), gross bumpits (girl on the bus who pulled her sleeve over her hand to hold onto the handle...yeah, lady, cuz you're A LOT cleaner than the rest of us). The trick is to capture these on film without being a complete a**hole. Perhaps I need my own bumpit that I could hide a camera in.

And a moment of unabashed pride: I AM IN FIRST PLACE IN MY FANTASY FOOTBALL LEAGUE. I wouldn't be so absolutely thrilled about this, except for the number of male misogynists who are also in the league. There are at least four of them (no Big Easy, not you). And I am beating all of them. And everyone else for that matter! I fear my reign will come to an end with week 9, but whatever, I'm amazing and so is Fast Freddie Jackson.

Year 1, Week 4, Thursday: Not for the faint of heart

It's all fun and games until somebody stubs a toe! And this was on the way to stats class, where I stubbed my brain on the concept of n-1. I'm not sure which hurts more.

It is a gray, rainy Thursday here in the land of professional sports teams that suck but are just so darn cute (I'm talking to you, Ackley). My neighbors continue uninterrupted in their oblivion. I'm actually starting to wonder if they even know that they have a neighbor. Or, as a friend pointed out, they might just not be as quiet and considerate as I am. A well-honed skill developed after a decade of roommates. Several of you can attest to my less-considerate moments (you know who you are, and I am sorry), but I think I'm entering that phase of my life where I'm going to look up knitting patterns on the internet while you young'uns turn your music up really loud.

And in a brilliant "thanks, mom, for reminding me how old and unsuccessful at relationships I am" moment, my dear mother left a message about how she saw my ex at the pancake restaurant with a "beautiful woman and a shiny wedding band on his finger." Um, mom, he was an asshole, remember? But thanks for the reminder that assholes can get married and I cannot. Cheers.

So I'm off to do some reading. Thanks to the reader that chimed in with the costume suggestion of the Pioneer Mother. I think that depending on the weather, I will reprise my kentucky derby outfit and make Mary dress like Richard Gere, or I will wear my coveralls and ask people if they want me to look under their hood. Oh man, I just creeped myself out!

Year 1, Week 4, blah blah.

Good afternoon, diligent blog followers. Today I have only a report on my neighbor's singing. She appears to be TOTALLY oblivious to the fact that her front door is two inches from my front door and that our apartments share a wall. I can hear very mundane, ordinary things like talking, sneezing, coffee grinding, and I assume that they can hear the same. Which is why (for decency's sake)I close my living room door when watching CSI: Miami. Anyway, apparently Tuesday at noon is singing time, and today was Fleetwood Mac "Dreams" Day. It was an inspired rendition, and I can only hope that my dear neighbor stumbles upon this blog when she googles something like "Ballard" and "balloon" and discovers that anyone with the Internet can read about her singing. Which is not bad, per se, it is just loud, and if you're going to sing that loudly, you may as well just ask if you can come and sing in my apartment. That is all.

Two more things: one, I need help with a costume idea for an MBA costume/mixer/dance party that I will be attending on Friday. Two, a picture of my stately, plastic crown:

This post speaks for itself.

Year 1, Week 3, Day 2: Hey Y'all!

Today's post is a special shout out to anyone that I know who hails from the south. As I'm walking across campus this morning in my oh-so-trendy little faux-leather jacket, skinny jeans, v-neck and flats, I reach into the pocket of said jacket which I haven't worn for a couple of years to discover.....A PAULA DEEN KOOZIE!!! Nothing says "I'm a PhD student on my way to stats class" like pulling a bright green koozie out of your pocket at 9:30am. Also, the above detail surrounding my wardrobe is only important because approximately two hours after the koozie discovery I'm headed back to the bus stop in a torrential downpour. My cute outfit was not water-resistant and the weather here is decidedly indecisive. Enough about my wardrobe, I'm going to puke.

What else do I got for you today...let's see. A lot of my adventures occur on the bus. The other day I made the mistake of talking to a woman, Barbara, at the bus stop. Barbara then wanted to sit next to me (and sort of on me) for the rest of the bus ride. She then proceeded to rant about her bout with pancreatic cancer, how spicy food causes high blood pressure, how immigrants are stealing our jobs, how doctors are evil...She smelled like beer and urine. But I picked up what is now my favorite phrase EVER: "Bullshit that shit." This is apparently what she tells her doctor when he gives her advice (which is no doubt related to the whole urine/beer situation).

School is good. Seattle is good. The Seahawks are not good, but they did defy odds and win over the NY Giants last weekend which somehow justified a full 4.5 pages in the sports section. If the Seahawks are to the NFL what the Beavers are to the Pac-12, then here's an analogy for all of you gearing up for the SATs...

Losing to the Beavers: Firing Stoops as Losing to the Seahawks: Firing Coughlin. Just a thought.

Here's the offending koozie and the view from my window:

Year 1, Week 2, Day 2: Bear Snatch

Good afternoon, my dear readers. I have an odd assortment of thoughts and observations to enlighten you with today.

1) You may have noticed that there was not posting for Year 1, Week 2, Day 1. That is because I'm a grad student and I don't give a sh**.

2) My favorite reader, Ndamukong, asked about my World Series predictions. Many people seem inclined towards the Phillies. That's a safe bet. But what would be more rad would be the Detroit Tigers, so that Doug Fister in all of his pitching glory could be in the national spotlight. For obvious reasons.

3) Urban observation du jour (aka, crazy shit I see on the bus): Every time I take the bus from my neighborhood to downtown there are either people that are visible drunk or visibly drinking. Every time. Giving new meaning to the term "party bus."

4) Undergrad observation du hour (aka, crazy shit I observe the undergrads doing): Dear scantily clad women- We are in Seattle. You are dressed like you are in Barbados. This leads me to wonder what you wear when it is ACTUALLY WARM outside. Jesus, ladies.

5) Today whilst attempting to send an email to someone instead of typing "theirname@blah.com" I typed "their name at blah dot com" without realizing it. WEIRD.

6) I was dismayed to find that my stats class may just be the Navy Seals training of my program. Take every concept I've learned previously in statistics, and now call it something else. Take data for example. We don't call that data, we call it the 'score.' Which is especially rad when your 'score' involves scores. SHOOT ME. And I bet you thought that the population was the set of individuals of interest in a particular study. WRONG. KILL YOURSELF. The population is the 'score' (data) that you would like to generalize from a group of subjects. You know how some things make more sense when you're drunk? Like driving? This might be one of those things.

7) I was joking about the plug for drunk driving.


8) Here is a picture of my favorite flavor of granny soda: Pamplemousse. That's French for "I'm better than you."

Year 1, Day 2: Destitution and the Playoffs

Hello! It is I, Yours Truly, back for another installment. Turns out that being a grad student is conducive to things like blogging every day and sleeping more than is actually required.

Today's adventures have been tame thus far, although this afternoon I shall venture to Tacoma to meet my brother and maybe get shot (not by my brother).

I had a great class this morning, but at some point in the two and a half hours of educational inquiry my attention span gave out and I resorted to one of my favorite past times: making up palindromes. Anyway, on my first attempt I got really close with:

set tall lattes

My next attempt was better:

a mall llama

Some of you tax payers out there may be a little upset that your tax dollars (i.e., my student loans) are paying for me to sit around and think of palindromes. Fear not! I also sit around and speculate about who is going to win the World Series!

But to reassure you of the necessity that I further my education, I managed to squish my own hand in the drivers side window of my car yesterday. A stunning intellect, I know.

Year 1, Day 1

Please do not confuse this blog with a mommy blog (with all due respect to mommy bloggers) given the title. This is not a posting about the first day of my child's first year. Rather, it is a brief account of my first day of my first year in a PhD program. You can also expect rather regular updates about what it is like to live in Ballard, Seattle, where the hipsters and the old-school Scandinavians compete for who can have the most bars/tattoos.

So far I have yet to walk from my apartment to the bus stop or from the bus stop to my apartment without being told by someone drunk on the street that they love me. I'm not joking. I shall try and photograph this the next time it happens.

I don't know any of my neighbors except this woman, Georgia, and her cat, Cosette. I speak French with Cosette and with Georgia I speak a Creole blend of "oh dear God please stop talking to me" and "I don't want to piss you off in the event that sometime in the future I lock myself out of the building."

To my loyal readers, thank you for your patience. For those who thought this was a blog about babies, barf or balloons, you will be disappointed in my coverage of two out of three of those topics.

Stay tuned for Year 1, Day 2, where I will cover my favorite subject: how many cans of black beans can I eat before my student loans come through.

The Chronicles of Rental Carnia

I was reduced to writing on paper. With a pen. What you're reading here was first written BY HAND. OMG. I was in Seattle for a few days visiting the University of Washington and here are some of my musings/observations/mishaps.

Thursday

I rented a Chrysler Sebring for the journey which aged me about 30 years, but I'm still hot, don't worry. Like Glenn Close or Meryl Streep maybe.

I found my friend's kick-ass house that looks like an IKEA ad and kind of creepily reminds me of one of those new-age homes that rich housewives get murdered in.

I took the bus to campus and in an attempt to look confident I got off the bus and started walking even though I had no idea where I was going. Evidently I was following my heart because I actually headed away from campus and to the cool street every campus has that is lined with shops, cafes, pubs, etc. I righted my course and headed to the building I was supposed to be in. My fear of being either over or under-dressed was assuaged when the woman to my right looked like an un-showered REI ad and some guy across the table was wearing cuff links.

I talked to my future advisor who likened a PhD program to an endurance event, which is great, except hopefully without the crapping/peeing myself part.

Friday

I am now in what I assume is a very typical Seattle coffee shop where the baristas are prolly the coolest people on earth which I know because they mumble and play songs like "Put your Ass into it" which is only an acceptable song when it is NOT played for irony's sake . Like when you actually want someone to put their ass into it.

Also, it wouldn't be a trip to Seattle without drenching rain. The rain doesn't seem to slow folks down and the main affect on fashion seems to be that the undergrads wear their RIDICULOUS leggings with rain boots instead of Ugh boots.

Also, for those that compare Portland and Seattle: a glimpse into your meaningfully yet casually tattooed future: the weekly paper in Seattle advertises shops that REMOVE and LIGHTEN tattoos, featuring a photo of a delightfully dismayed looking hipster. Ha.

Bracket Bitch!

This is my 60th (worthless) blog post! I guess I haven't been writing as much lately, which you can blame on my new career as.....wait for it....NCAA March Madness Bracket Manager! Turns out anyone can manage a bracket. All you has to do is email your friends and then harass them until they each cough up $5.

Actually, mostly I don't blog because I'm sad and nobody likes to read about someone being sad. But if you are sad, you should listen to this:



Anyway, back to the basketball business. I know nothing about basketball, but it has been fun reinventing myself as a sports enthusiast. The kind that picks teams like Morehead because, well, it should be obvious. If it's not, I'll tell you when you're older.

Motorcycles

The proximity of my bedroom to the bathroom shared with my roommate is, well, close. One might even use the word 'adjacent.' So close that he recently left the bathroom and stopped at my door to ask if I had "heard the Harley." Shudder.

Easy choice.

Ah, I notice that on your Facebook status update you are defending a congressional candidate who openly criticized public school teachers and called for the abolishing of public education. I shall now un-friend you. That was easy.

Diagnosis

I can't speak. Which means I either have laryngitis OR one of you is exceptionally skilled with the voodoo doll. These are the only explanations I can think of. I have already ruled out heavy smoking and free-basing as I usually save those activities for the summer months. Also, many of you may not know this, but one of the lesser-known (and incredibly embarrassing) symptoms of laryngitis is crying like a baby during a community college jazz choir's a capella rendition of Billy Joel's "So it goes." Another symptom is making others uncomfortable with my silence. "Are you mad at me?" Silence. "Are we fighting?" Silence. "Paper or plastic?" Silence. Stay tuned for tomorrow's series of whiny posts as I plan to stay home and record my misery in a special stream of consciousness blog.

How to eat all of your calories in one meal

The Crunch Wrap Supreme is on sale for 88 cents this week at Taco Bell. There is a limit of two per person. Which at 580 calories a pop, two of those bad boys will take care of your caloric intake for the day. Yippee!

Break out the Ugg boots.

It's snowing here in beautiful New Hampshire! Or northern Utah! Or Montana! I mean, Michigan! That's right, you don't know where I live, which means you can't fire me for my blog that upon review if FULL of things that can get me fired. Woops. Anyway, suffice it to say that I'm home and really, really, really bored. So I'm blogging. And thinking about doing all sorts of fun things like cleaning the bathroom, doing laundry, fucking with my roommate's stuff while he's at work, and training the dog to do a special kind of bark any time a hot guy walks past.

Last night I inadvertently came up with a new life motto that applies to just about everything except sexual harassment: I'm accepted until I'm rejected. Which is how I'm approaching the whole waiting to get into grad school thing. So according to my new motto, I've been accepted at two great institutions of higher learning. Until of course, I'm rejected. At which point I will make a new blog will be about the funny things that happen while making porn instead of the funny things that happen while teaching. Don't be jealous.

Serious, then not serious, then serious again.

Serious: I am really going to need the mothers of my female teenage students to stop doing things like inculcating them with the idea that at 15 YEARS OF AGE they should drink water when they're hungry so they won't want to eat.

Not serious: I got a Valentine from a student that said "Dear Ms. __________, Best Wishes." Uhhhh...thank you?

Serious: The only thing better than pouring down rain at 9pm? Being locked out of your car in said pouring down rain at 9pm. It was like a Valentine to myself: "Roses are red, violets are blue, this weather f**king sucks and so do you."

An afternoon at the ballet.

I went today to the ballet with my mom and my 5-year old niece. The ballet had just begun and several dancers in their special skin-colored leotards were dancing around, as usually happens at the ballet, and my GENIUS niece waited until an appropriately quiet point in the music to declare, "THEY'RE NAKED, RIGHT?" "No, they just look like they're naked." "NO, THEY'RE NAKED." Ok, fine. They're naked. Think about how much more interesting the ballet would be if everyone was naked. I think a number of things would make the ballet more interesting: booze, fireworks, clowns, rock music...which is to say, everything that isn't the ballet is infinitely more interesting than ballet itself.

Wow, I have no idea where this hatred for ballet came from.

You like to dress how?

Somehow today the topic of clothing came up with my second graders. We are doing a highly technical experiment about water evaporation that involves setting cups of water in the window and checking how much water evaporates every day. It is thrilling. Today we decided to write down what day we thought the water would be completely evaporated on. One little girl asked what the prize was if her day was right, and I said I didn't know so she suggested "nice clothes." A little boy in the class didn't like that response and said that "some boys don't like nice clothes." Ah, yes, the familiar face of gender norms. Anyway...after addressing that issue, another child pipes in with, "I like to wear n***** clothes!" I'm not quite sure what face I made...but I told him that we couldn't say that word and that he needed to use a different word: "Uhhh...I like hip-hop clothes?" Sure.

To do list:

1) Stop listening to this on repeat.
2) Go running.
3) Go to Goodwill to buy hard hat.
4) Watch Superbowl wearing aforementioned hard hat.
5) Rue the end of the weekend.

Speaking of YouTube, I think that I've made my internet video debut in the form a cellphone-recorded fight in the high school cafeteria that I broke up on Thursday. That was not pleasant. I then proceeded to be at work until 8pm, come home and overflow the toilet while a livingroom full of guests laughed and said things like, "way to go." I'm kidding about the unhelpful guests, one guest in particular stepped up to the plate and waded through my poop water to help plunge. It was a spectacular day. Things improved greatly with an episode of Jersey Shore and a Blizzard from Dairy Queen.

Yep.

I was dazzled by the following drunkenly delivered pickup line last night:

Me: "Hi, I'm ______________."
Drunk dude: Long pause with lingering clammy handshake and stupid smile: "Have you met Miss Amazing?"
Me: "Uhhhh....no."
Drunk dude: 'Cuz I just did.

Wow. There are not enough words to express how UNimpressed I was.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

What was I thinking? Repeat after me: Never, ever, ever, even if you think it is a really good idea should you check the Facebook pages of your high school students. Such an act will result in nothing good. All it will result in is realizing that your really wonderful students are actually teenage douchebags and while they might not call things 'gay' and 'retarded' and refer to women as 'bitches' in front of you in your classroom, they most certainly do so on the internet. Disappointment might be a good word for what I'm feeling right now. Also, how can a generation so supposedly tech-savvy be so stupid as to not set their shit to private? GAHHHH. I should seriously consider lowering my expectations.

Seriously.

I traveled by train yesterday and began the two hour sojourn overhearing the woman to my left talking on the phone describing to a friend how she almost wasn't able to come and visit her this weekend. It turns out that a friend of hers, we'll call him Tony, was in the ICU after being found floating in a hot tub. What's more, he had apparently lost control of his bowels/bladder and in addition to having hot tub water pumped from his lungs, he had his own waste pumped from his lungs, which must be a real treat. If that ever happens to me, I don't want to know about it. She went on to say that he was fine, but that the doctors say that he might not ever be the same. Shocker. He was able to name his cats and knew where he was and who his children were....WAIT A SECOND! This man has children? Probably not for long. Anyway, that was how the train ride began. I mostly just kept to myself and breathed through my mouth so as not not smell the chewing tobacco/armpits of the gentleman in front of me. Grooooossss.

Six degrees of hilarity.

Some of you may have noticed that on Thursday in honor of the 50th anniversary of the swearing in of JFK, Jr. that Google.com changed their logo to include an image of JFK, Jr. created from various words associated with his legacy. For myself and everyone else who saw it, it was clear who it was. EXCEPT....one of my sixth grade students who saw it and said, "Hey, I know who that is! That's that one guy...um, you know...that famous guy....IT'S KEVIN BACON!"

In less hilarious news (my blog has now become my therapist's couch), my 38-year old classroom assistant was castigating me the other day for not being settled down with children. She pointed out that at when she was my age (28 tender years), she already had a child in the middle school. WOW, REALLY? Shoot, I knew I forgot to do something.

Fill in the blank.

A middle school student was working on a preposition worksheet today and had a list of prepositional phrases with which to complete sentences such as:

"The man ________________________ gave me an ice cream bar."

There were several choices, such as: down the hill, across the street, behind the counter, and under the bridge.

I bet you see where I'm going with this.

Spanglish

I assigned my high school students the task of writing a short skit using a few phrases we had been working on. The only other two requirements was that it be appropriate and at least 50% English. Here's an excerpt:

Narrator: Una nina rica y rebelde, that with the bad influence of her best friend, hace que su papa termine en la ruina. Candy y Estrellita are best friends, y un dia, la mala influencia de Estrellita quizo dominar a su amiga Candy.

Estrellita: Amiga, vamonos de reventon a otra house.
Candy: No, its too late already, lets go home.
Estrellita: No seas partypooper, OH I have a medicine, so your parents can go to sleep easily and they wont get mad at you for leaving with me to a party.

Somehow drugging your parents so you can to a party made the cut for "appropriate." However, it appears that the Spanish to English ratio is a little more like 70:30.

Happy MLK Jr. Day

Did I wear my Ugg boots to Taco Bell at 10:30am and break a $100 bill to buy breakfast for my roommates? Yes, yes I did. Did I proceed to eat said Taco Bell treats while watching Jersey Shore re-runs? Affirmative.

Don't be jealous.

I see jail time in your future.

The cosmos have been surrounding me with police officers and arrests (not my own) these days. On Wednesday while at ________'s (a favorite watering hole), the man to my right was arrested for having a pound of marijuana in his car which apparently was more than his medical card provided for. Another man to my left was also arrested for what I assume was general degeneracy. He thought it was prudent to loudly declare things like "Man, I hate bitch cops" while man #1 was being handcuffed by said bitch cop. I think the two women fighting in the parking lot were also arrested. Big night at ________'s.

Then, on Friday I was running to the top of a local butte and saw a police officer speaking with the occupants of a vehicle who had apparently decided that their half-finished bottles of booze/beer should be left on the hood of their car. I assume that the police officer disagreed and I can't imagine that went well.

Holiday

The high school secretary listed Monday as "Martin Luther Day," much to the delight of Protestants everywhere and possibly also my high school history teacher.

I am currently lying in bed marveling in the fact that I don't actually have to get out of it. I am sure that at any moment one of my delightful roommates will knock gently on the door and bring in a cup of coffee, two eggs over medium, potatoes, sourdough toast with strawberry jam and a cup of pineapple juice. Make it happen, a-holes, Mama's hungry.

Cereal

Work is hard. My students (while terrific) do things like get pregnant, drop out, and get arrested. I understand why/how these things happen, but at the end of the day it makes me do things like cry in my car and eat lots of bowls of cereal when I get home from work.

Another reason work is hard is that there is a secretary who is extremely difficult to deal with, witness the following exchange:

Me (seconds before bell rings to start class, madly running to get some necessary forms out of my box and finding my box empty): "The necessary forms aren't in my box."

Maddening secretary: "Well, I put them there."

Me: Silence

FIN.

It appears we have reached an impasse. That's French for "I am thinking very detailed thoughts about how I'm going to vandalize your car."

Infinite cool

I got me one of them smart phones. I don't know how to use it.

You can Semper Fi my fist

In perhaps my most brazen move ever, I have decided to kill the Marine Corps. You may be thinking, "Girl, you're crazy. You can't kill a branch of the armed forces!" This is where you're wrong. I formerly had no beef with the Marines that I didn't have with any group of similarly dressed people marching in unison carrying weapons, but today the Marines went too far. A member of the Marines who happens to have nothing better to do when he is not defending my freedom than to lead high schoolers in jumping jacks during PE class in RuralTown, USA where I work told one of my students that he didn't need to finish high school, that he could join the Marines after finishing his junior year. Oh, I get it, you want to lure students who have otherwise limited post-high school opportunities to their deaths sooner rather than later.

And now a special note to whatever flunky has been assigned the task of monitoring my blog because I threatened the Marine Corps: you should get a new job.