NOT "FUNNY HA-HA"

My first hour students were calmly debating the issue of oil exploration in ANWR this morning when a custodian came into the classroom and asked to see me in the hallway. He told me that a bomb threat had been made and I needed to get my students out of the building as soon as possible. Once outside, we were told that all classes were canceled for the day.

So it's a beautiful day and classes are canceled. I should be skipping with elation, right? Thing is, my keys, my phone, my wallet, my bicycle are all in my office and I'm not allowed to go in and retrieve them. Not until tomorrow, maybe. So I float around downtown with three collegues like vagabonds in search of a bar that's open. We find one and sit down only to be carded by some teeny bopper waitress in pancake make-up (you know that off color concealer that makes people's blemishes look even more flaky and crusty). I tell her, exasperated, about our crazy extenuating circumstances. She is completely unmoved.

What a pisser, eh?

WHAT EFFECTS LIGHT POLLUTION HAS?

Below is an excerpt from a student's paper.

Many people think lights don't have a bad effect except the waste of energy at times and over heating. It has a bad effect on women with increasing risk of breast cancer. In countries that are industrialized they haven greaten the risk of breast cancer for women. Cancer cells are out in the daytime during the hours of the sun they show up with light. Well the street lights and all the house lights keep the around and awake. The night time is when they to back to being dormant.

I have no idea what he's talking about.

I can't believe this person was allowed to graduate from high school.

BEES ON STRIKE

But seriously, have you heard? The honey bees are leaving us! Keepers say their bees leave the hive in search of flower, never to return. Isn’t that creepy? Experts call it Colony Collapse Disorder.

Fourteen billion dollars worth of seeds and crops depend on honeybees for pollination. Do you think they're pissed at us? I mean, they only work for nectar and pollen. Maybe they need more, you know, to keep up with inflation.

TEPID

There's an old Japanese proverb that warns, it's hard to escape a bath of lukewarm water. You know, it's not too cold yet. It's comfortable enough. Only juuuuuuuust enough. That's my life right now. I am making enough money to drop seven dollars on a pound of organic cherries and take vacations to Ecuador. But my job, my life. Holy shit.

What the fuck am I doing?

WORTHLESS: PART TWO

WORTHLESS: PART ONE

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO FOR FUN?

Today I met somebody new. We were in a car for more than an hour so we had nothing to do but engage in chit chat. I used to be really good at the chit chat. When I was in college I met new people all the time so I had quick responses to all the standard questions. But now I'm an old lady and I don't meet people quite so often. So when he asked me what I liked to do for fun, all I could do was look out the window, eyebrows raised, mute as a moth.

Gosh. What do I like to do for fun?

GOOD THOUGHTS

The Steady's in Kansas City. His father's having open heart surgery. I never met the man, but I'm doing my best to send good thoughts.

I hope the painkillers are divine.

YE GOT YER YOUR STANDARD BABY BLUE

Pit Pat!!! You and your Baby Mama better be careful. I just got off the phone w/ mom. She bought a load of infant clothes and she's bringing them to The 312 (Chi Town) tomorrow. I think she said they were from Kohl's - Oh!

*wince*

EIE EIE EIE!

Yesterday afternoon it was over eighty degrees. And you know what that means? Salsa season muthafuckers!






This is a jicama (go ahead shout it. Jicama! Jicama!) mango and orange thingy. I hate how my left pointer finger burns, just under my cuticle, right after I mince the jalapeno.

DREAM FOURTEEN

Last night, mom and I tip toed around a sleeping dragon. Think Smog, from The Hobbit. The stirring beast was something of a periodic disaster to the city, like spring flooding or a hurricane season. It was expected to take lives. In fact, as we slid by the burping mass of smoke and scales we had to also weave though a small group of people with haircuts like beetle wings. They were sacrificial. I'm pretty sure of it.

Just another dream that is so obvious it requires absolutely no interpretation. When did my unconscious mind get so lazy?

OH BOYS

Dishy, erudite boys that enjoy hiking and drinking beer are not too hard to find. Passionate boys that desire intimacy, now that's far more rare. Unfortunately, our culture prefers men who are emotional stones. In my experience, men only allow themselves to be passionate when they are either road-raging or fucking.

I find that dull.

PUT SOME PEPPER ON IT

That's what I said to The Steady today.

He gave me that pained confused look boys give when their girlfriends want to "have a talk." And when I recall the inchoate thoughts spewing from my mouth, I can't blame him. All of my ideas were organized and perfectly articulated when they were still baking in my brain. I mean, I could have toured the country with my short lecture series titled, This Is How I Feel and This Is What I Need From You. But when I was actually seated across from the boy it was all, "drurrr buah...naaaaaw."

Gah! I hate that.

But in the end, the important stuff was said. And even better, I think it was understood. I told him that I have a terrible track record with stoic males, the ones with hearts of clay. I told him that I tend to invest a lot of energy in relationships; thoughtfulness and care. A sweetheart, that's what my friend Prada calls it. And so I expect the same in return. I don't need love and intensity from him because I suffer from low self esteem. I want it because I give it. Because I deserve it.

SANGUINE

In my early twenties, I was a good kid. I did everything my parents, my husband, my in-laws, society wanted. I filled all their expectations with a neat smile. Life was easy because I didn’t have to make any choices. I was blindly marching to the house with the white picket fence like some girl in a trance. I was sleepwalking. And then I stirred and kicked about and eventually, woke up.

When I did, I was 25 years old.

Call me Rip Van Winkle!

Or how about “Rip” for short.

And it’s a good thing too because I don’t believe in heaven or hell. When you die, you slip into an infinite nothing. The end. So now, officially in my late twenties, I do my best to get out of bed every morning and live. I'm trying to do it with purpose and heart.

I LOVE MY FRIENDS

However I got so lucky, I'll never know.

IT'S (GONNA BE) A BOY

Well. It looks like my brother's kid is going to be a boy. Me, I don't think I'd want to know the gender until the stork flew by. In any case, I came up with a list of names. It's completely worthless I'm sure.

Demitri
Dexter
Borris
Oscar
Arturo
George
August
Felix
Sebastian
Calvin
Solomon
Dakota
Henry
Walter

AFTER

BEFORE

FARMER'S MARKET

1 Mint Plant
1 Sweet Basil Plant
1 Bush Bean Plant
1 Zucchini Plant
1 Beefeater Tomato Plant
1 Stripy Tomato Plant

CAR CAMPING

The Steady and I went car camping this weekend. We hiked about seven miles, tossed the frisbee around, picked ticks off our bodies, and drank a twelve pack of PBR.

HEY JEALOUSY

I love my emotions like I love the members of the animal kingdom. You got the big scary ones with the gnashing teeth and you got the adorable whimsical ones with the pink wiggly noses. But of all the emotions that make us human, jealousy is the hardest one for me to embrace. It's like a parasite. It's like the tick. I understand why it exists and its importance in the whole system blah, blah blah. But really, I wish it would just go away.

INDULGING

I recently finished a capital book called Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. I ate it in less than a week, which was rather gluttonous. Burp! I would have been better off savoring it because I now miss those rascally characters, Ignatius Reilly and Myrna, The Minx. Currently I am consuming The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Chabon. Mm!

Delish.

OLIVE SPRING

It was so lovely and green as I biked to work this morning. It smelled so good, I actually had to circle the school a couple of times and talk myself into going inside.

A MAN'S WORLD

I remember chatting with some handsome dolt at a party once. He asked me where I worked and I told him. He had recongnized the school name. But later in the conversation when I mentioned something about teaching he was visibly befuddled. "Oh," he said without apology. "I just assumed you were a secretary."

Huh. That's funny. Cause I just assumed he wasn't a dumb-ass.

MAYBE I'M JUST PETTY

I have a hard time feeling sympathy or happiness for someone who is a blatant braggart.

EAT MY WORDS

Um, so. Things with The Steady have changed a bit. For a while it felt like we were just chums/buddies/pals. Just a couple of 'dudes' hanging out, drinking beer and having sex. But in the last month or so, we've grown more intimate. A little over a month ago I said something about not falling in love with him. But I think I am going to have to eat those words.

THE STEADY

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to The Steady. No foolin. My man really looks like Calvin's dad, especially when he is wearing his glasses. The image is spitting, as they say. I've never dated a cartoon before.

SALTATORY

You know what really freaks me out? Squirrels crawling. I don't know why. There is just something dodgy about it. They should hop, always.

CORRELATION

On Tuesday night my friend John confessed that whenever he walks into a library, he’ll start to fart a lot and eventually he will be struck with an irresistible urge to ‘drop a boo.’ As if pooping was a natural, physiological response to libraries.

Ha! Libraries indeed. That’s crazy.

For me it’s video stores.

A NEW CHAPTER IN THE BOOK OF CRAZY

So my mom is a nut.

Did I mention?

She was mercurial to say the least when I was growing up. One moment would be normal and the next moment she would be stirred into furious frenzy, hurling dishes at the wall or chasing my father with a butcher knife. Sometimes dad had to restrain her while she screamed. That had to be the worst sound ever, my mother screaming. As a child, I thought she was being eviscerated by invisible demons. Just the thought of it make me grind my teeth to powder. Once, she woke me up in the middle of the night and told me we were running away. She drove us around town, sobbing hysterically, while I offered suggestions in my pajamas. I was about six. Most often, she would just climb into my bed after a row with my dad and cry quietly. I recall the thick brown robe she used to wear. It was synthetic, like cheap teddy bear fur and it smelled like house dust. She would make my little bed shake with her sobbing. It was like a wooly mammoth came to my bed in the middle of the night to die.

TUESDAY NIGHT TRIVIA

Every Tuesday night I get together with some friends at a local pizza joint to swill beer and play trivia and swill more beer. The kids I play with (roughly 6 or 7 regulars) are super smart cookies. For example, during the picture round a few weeks back we were asked to identify eight North American mammals.

We gave the Latin names.

Now, let me introduce myself. I’m the team anchor. More often than not the question is about some obscure band I had never heard of, or a poet I hadn't read, or a war I never even knew about. Honestly, trivia is not my strong suit. I am an analyzer, a synthesizer, an interpretive dancer. Not really. What I mean to say is I’m not very good at retaining bytes of information over long periods of time. But today I was the only one who could say with confidence that the Haymarket Riots of 1886 occurred in Chicago.

Happy May Day everyone!