SUGGESTION BOX

I just gave an exam to my 1:30 math class. Let's call them the piss and moans, shall we? Yes let's! So I'm passing out the exams and they're chatting and complaining and attempting to bargain with me about using notes for the test and working in groups, etc. I tell you. Always with the testing of the limits with this class. So I says to them, "Hey, let's play a game! It's called When I Get the Test I Shut My Mouth. It's ever so fun!" And then, feeling rather clever I say, if you have suggestions, I invite you to write them down and drop them in my suggestion box. (Holding the garbage can).

Hmmm, the Piss and Moans. That would make such a great band name.

HERE FISHY, FISHY, FISHY

For the past two weeks I have been having some crazy elusive dreams that scatter like a shoal of minnows as soon as I wake up.

I'M SO SOIREE

I went to a little soiree last night. It was a pot lucky thing with a single rule. You couldn't bring anything to eat that has/had legs. I think that is suppose to be some silly arbitrary vegetarian guideline: I don't eat anything with legs! I don't eat anything with eyes! I don't eat anything that had a mother! Whatever.

I brought a cold bean salad and realized on my way over that my salad did have legs: LEGumes! God help me, I'm a dork. Anyway, fru-fru-ness aside, it was an interesting time. I would rather not bother with the setting, characters, and plots. But I will leave you with a list of phrases and let them collect at your feet like a swarm of dandilion seeds:

1. Khaki Pants
2. Pet Dogs
3. Good Music
4. Mmm, boys
5. Express Shots
6. And Kahlua
7. Cigarettes
8. REI catalog
9. Old friends, that go way back
10. None of them mine.

FIRST DAY OF CLASS

Well. This is me. Smack in the middle of my first day of classes. My goal today was to show up, go over the class syllabus and make a decent impression. I think I have accomplished those three things. They're a pretty aloof bunch, but I got some reactions when I used the words drool and dork. So that's a plus.

MONKEYS AND CHEESE

I got a new gig teaching math at, a college. I start tomorrow. To be honest with you, I’m scared out of my fucking mind, but never mind that. Look, how cool this math problem is:

Say you want to tie a piece of string tight around the earth. So you want to know how much string you’re going to need. What dimension will you need? The circumference. Right. Okay, does anyone know the circumference of the earth? Yeah, I don’t either. Let’s just call it 2PiR. R being the radius of the earth. Now, let’s say you change your mind. Now you want the string to be big enough to fit around the earth, but hover six inches over the true surface. How much more string will you need? So 2(PiR + 6) is the new length. If you apply the Distribute Law you get 2PiR + 12Pi. Then you subtract 2PiR because you want the difference between the original length and the new length. This leaves you with 12Pi inches, which ends up being a little under three feet.

I know.
Whoa.

The crazy thing is if you apply this equation to a golf ball, you will get the exact same answer. 12Pi, or approximately three feet. Isn’t that insanely cool? I stayed up until four a.m. last night thinking about this. And today at The Diner, I felt like a total space alien due to lack in sleep.

SWITCHING OFF BY ELBOW

God, this music goes straight through me.

IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A PLANE! IT'S SUPER MOM'S!

It’s about 12:30 midnight. There are two women at the Super America, basking in the warm neon glow of the Super Mom’s donut display, like a couple of moths. They are waiting for the bathroom.

Woman 1: Oh! That banana muffin looks soooooo good right now!
Woman 2: Which muffin? What?
Woman 1: The one with the walnuts.
Woman 2: I could totally eat a glazed donut.
Woman 2: Too bad they don’t have Krispie Kreme.
Woman 1: Six hundred calories in one Krispie Kreme donut.
Woman 2: Is that right?
Woman 1: Yep.
Woman 2: …
Woman 2: Wow.
(Now entering the just vacated bathroom)
Woman 2: Grab one of them glazed donuts for me, Hon, thanks.

DOES A BODY GOOD

This is what I found printed in pink font on the side of my Schroeder’s Skim Milk bottle: For dreamers, optimists and the inspired.

Really people. Is this necessary? We're talking about a pint skim milk.

THE WINO IS A PERSON IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

I moved into my new place August 1st, a shoebox on the south side of the capital city at the tip of a park. This marks the first time in twenty-six years that I have ever lived alone, and yet I don't really feel alone at all. I am surrounded by people. I hear their shower running upstairs. I hear them singing to themselves next door. I hear them driving their cars outside my window. Sometimes, I sit on my bed and just watch them pass by. It is so much better than Television. They are talking on their cell phones, smoking cigarettes, smooching their boyfriends, scratching their asses and lost in their heads. But my favorite is watching them parallel park.

Anyway. When I first moved in, I had precious little to work with. Seriously. I had a coffee mug and ten pairs of chopsticks. And that's it. One night I 'tossed' a salad in a plastic bag. Another time I sifted tealeaves through a vegetable strainer. Not too easy, that. But last weekend I bought a sixteen piece set of real-grown-up-got-her-big-girl-pants-on-dishes. Now you are all invited to dinner chez Winter Wren.

A MELANCHOLY BABY

I accidentally slipped and fell into a puddle of melancholy today. It's warm and dark and smells like a used book store and old bed sheets. Now my skin feels thinner than rice paper. If you put me on your tongue, I would melt into oblivion. I've been feeding my sadness with expensive organic cookies, skim milk and foreign films. Who am I to complain?

IS THAT WEIRD?

If you see someone you haven't seen in five years and when you ask them what's new and they tell you excitedly that they are getting married and then you tell them you are getting divorced with matched enthusiasm...

Is that weird?

BISCUITS AND GRAVY

I worked at The Diner today. Now I have the IQ of a dog biscuit. A brussel Sprout. A clump of pocket lint. My shifts are only five to six hours long, but whenever I'm done I find my body at war with my mind. The former keeps wanting to smile and scowl and greet and seat and quip and bitch while the latter has successfully turned from solid to liquid, something with the viscosity of a hearty New England Clam Chowder.

So. There were serious negative energies pulsing through The Diner today, and nobody was immune. The customers, waitresses, cooks and Tess (the boz) were all infected. Even Buddha would have spat in someone's eggs. For the first time ever, I felt the true brunt of Tess' rancor as she flipped her shit, methodically sought out six exhausted, overwhelmed waitresses in order to personally scream at them about ice. Yup. Ice. The stuff that floats in soft drinks. But then she had the audacity to turn and spew invented accusations at petit moi. I called her on it and when I did, she was silent because she knew her bullshit had nothing on me. Later, I'm thinking about the three hundred plus people that died in Beslan yesterday and I'm wondering: How can these two worlds exist on the same planet?

Then, there was the cranky skater punk who was THROWING A TEMPER TANTRUM because we couldn't seat him fast enough. He was alone and all we had were tables for four or more. And when he started snarling and howling injustice, I calmly turned my heal and walked away. It's just a little trick I picked up during my work with young children.

Tonight I'm chillin'. Singing the dulcet tunes of Belle and Sebastian.

DID YOU MISS ME?

Ach! My nipples hurt. I hate that. I wish I could pluck them off and store them in a mason jar inside the medicine cabinet for a few days until I'm ready to wear them again.

Many things have happened since I posted two months ago. Of those all those happenings, these are the most significant:

1. I have moved back to the capital city
2. I'm living by myself for the first time
3. I'm working at a greasyspoon diner