Tuesday, March 27, 2007

She's Such A Card

I got home today to find an envelop waiting for me on the landing up to my third floor. It was from Judy. She got me a gift certificate as a reward for always being so good about paying my rent on time. The gift certificate is for Martha's Vineyard, which sells, among other things, tons and tons of wine and other fine liquors. So, there are two things about this situation that I love (in the wry, ironic way of course). First of all, I love how she obviously recognizes that I'm a good and responsible tenant, yet she will not trust me to make a single temporary change to her house and insists on terrorizing every one of my decorating endeavours, a choice which will ultimately drive me and my timely-rent-paying habits to seek other living arrangements. Second, it's great how the thing that got us off on the wrong foot in the first place last summer was me and some friends coming home a little too noisily due to our alcohol consumption earlier in the evening (no one was drunk...we were just saying "shh!" too loudly as we tiptoed up the stairs as gracefully as we could in the dark), yet now she's giving me free money to spend at the liquor store. HA!

Sunday, March 25, 2007

When faces called flowers float out of the ground

I might have seen a corpse today. Laying at the bus stop at the corner of Cherry and College there was a very pale and decidedly unconscious man completely prostrate and contorted in a not-just-sleeping sort of way. The body was gone when we drove by three hours later, so either someone called the police and they came and got the body or his bus came.

In other news, I wore flip-flops for the first time today, and as joyous as that made me, there are now three separate blisters on my poor, sensitive, winter-sock-softened feet, which are presently covered by two sesame street band-aids that Danny happened to have in her glove box.

And because we save the best and most important things for the grand finale: Happy Birthday to Zach, Viking Surfer King of California.
Things of Note:
1. The roller derby would have been more fun if we'd brought a flask
2. St. Patrick's Day probably couldn't have been more fun
3. I'm bad at remembering not to eat meat on Fridays (not that bad, but kind of bad)
4. The seasons changed and, like clockwork, I got a cold when my body freaked out about it
5. Planning for a substitute takes more work than just going into school and sneezing all over the children
6. I may or may not have inadvertently taught one of my students the joke about the cunning linguist
7. And still speaking of school, apparently I am the only staff member young enough (or hip enough to the youth scene? but when have I ever been hip to anything?) to know what "the shocker" is, and thus the only one to be duly appalled when the house band at the student variety show chose to call themselves The Shockers. Of course, when I asked them about it (half of the band is in one of my classes) they thought it was hilarious and told me I was the coolest.
8. I still want a roomba (Just to dispell that whole "cool" rumor, you know?)
9. Spring Break comes in four days
10. Apparently, Sunday mornings make me feel obliged to post, even when there's nothing of great significance or intrigue to report

Thursday, March 15, 2007

The girl with dark hair was coming towards him across the field. With what seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him; indeed, he barely looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant was admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside. With its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and The Party and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm. That too was a gesture belonging to the ancient time. Winston woke up with the word "Shakespeare" on his lips.

It's only page 36 and I'm already ready to stab myself in the eye with my pen. Apparently George Orwell took a lesson on how to treat subtly from Ayn Rand. Only rarely do I sympathize with my students' lack of enthusiasm for the books we read in class, but for this one, I get it.

In other news, Happy Ides of March. Watch your back.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Question of the moment: Are these disturbing and creepy, or just curious and off-beat? In the past two months I've lost two of my favorite earrings, so I'm in the market for new jewelery, but I'm not sure this wouldn't terrify the children to the point of distraction.

And that would be counterproductive.

Monday, March 12, 2007

So, I think my guardian angel only intervenes in my life in matters concerning parking spaces, which is all right by me I guess. I mean, who likes pushing a cart to the far end of a snowy, icy parking lot in the sleet or hiking through the tundra in front of the Y in lightweight sport gear? NOT ME. But that doesn't happen very often thanks to Clarence or whoever he is. Also, that first line is ironic because I've been grading Creative Writing papers for the past few days, and crossing out the word "so" almost every time my students try to use it to start a sentence. The upside to teaching a senior writing course is when it's creative writing and the kids are pretty much all funny and/or smart, so reading 200 pages feels less like work and more like not-work (my favorite!).

Tonight was the last night of conferences at school. I was looking at the old site and I noticed that my penultimate post was about conferences in the fall, and it was only five months ago, but it feels like years. That was a pretty cliche observation. I would delete this paragraph except that I don't know the next time I'll get to use the word penultimate, so this instance must be preserved.

And speaking of words, while doing Frankenstein vocab the other day, the word 'perambulate' came up in one of our sample sentences, and I took an egregious tangent to tell my class about my special crush on that word, or, rather, on the word perambulator. I think they were almost entertained. It's so hard to tell sometimes.

Is
this going to be good? (Jeezy Creezy, I think so.)

Friday, March 09, 2007

Because I Love Them

Tomorrow's To Do List:
Y for at least 600 calories (try the weird arm peddling machine?)
Lunch and Antique Fair with Danny (visit with smiley Cherry Deli boys)
Grade papers at that one book store/café (deliberately camp out at prime table during peak hours)
Find Emily's good sushi place (next to Dominos on the far end of 28th street)
Clean (dust bunnies are preparing to mount a hostile take-over)
More School Things (revise short story quiz, write Frankenstein quotes pretest, screen movies for Apply 11 and create study guides, &c)

Sunday's To Do List:
Waffles
Crossword puzzle
New Yorker

More Lists

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Take On Me

I shouldn't be allowed to browse the itunes music store after midnight. Sleepiness dulls my bad-choice sensors, 80's Gold gets the better of me, and I end up buying songs by Rick Springfield, a-ha, and Belinda Carlisle. (Plus eating too many pickles. But that's a mistake that we only make once). I guess it's been too long since I last listened to Jesse's Girl, because I'd completely forgotten the line that goes "I should tell her that I love her but the point is probably moot." I mean, when was the last time the word MOOT was used appropriately and completely in earnest in a rock and roll song? Personally, I think it's lame and uncool NOT to listen to that song on a semi-regular basis (in the car, while you sing along badly and dance in your seat like we all do, right?).

In other news, tonight I made zucchini muffins, but then I couldn't eat any because by the time they were done it was after 8 and it's Lent (which means no snacks allowed during my previous prime-time snacking window of 8 o'clock until bedtime). So tomorrow for breakfast I'm going to have three.

There will be some more-exciting-less-food-related news to report soon, I hope. Saturday night Danny, Nate, and I are going to the roller derby, so, I might have some thoughts and opinions demanding to be shared after that.