She said with slouched back, from the edge of a mussed bed

Today it was like I had no muscles. I was tired. Exhausted. Depleted. Spent. At the library, I looked at the staircase to the second floor and wondered, "Can I do it?" I did do it, it turns out, but the library jaunt (which is not the right word, since it implies jauntiness) was followed by a long time in bed unable to do anything. The sky grew dark. I still hadn't gotten out my lesson plan book. The sky grew darker still. I hadn't written my 28 thank you notes to my students. The sky got really freakin' dark, and I hadn't gotten my school things ready for tomorrow. Finally I dragged my muscle-free bones out of bed and accomplished the three above things in amazingly good time. I'm going to get back into bed now, and hope that my muscles come back. It takes not only muscles, but energy, great bolts of energy, to get through the first day of school after the "holiday" break...

(I put "holiday" in quotes because it's a funny euphemism. Our school calendar totally revolves around one set of holidays only...).

Oh, and as I fall asleep, I'm going to listen to the first podcast from season 1 of the Ricky Gervais Show! I bought the first season from ITunes today and I'm excited. I haven't heard any of it, but I love him so.

ONE MORE THING: I feel like the tide is starting to change. People like me are finally getting some credit, some power in this society. We are the shameful neighbor, daughter, cousin, friend, sister no longer! Now we are somebody to look up to! What do I mean? Well, in the last few weeks I have acquired the following new pieces of information, based on Science:

1. Slouching is better for back health than sitting up straight.
2. Unmade beds are more sanitary than made beds.
3. Neatness in the workplace is actually a sign of wasted time and money, whereas messiness in the workplace is, paradoxically, a sign of productivity and the basis of many a EUREKA! moment.

I'm so happy! Who the hell needs muscles? I have the world!

year of clubs (not diamonds, hearts, or spades)

This time of year, I try to catch up on what I've missed, I read lots of magazines and short stories, and I look at cookbooks, imagining that I'm going to pickle more vegetables and try out neglected grains in the new year.

New Year's Resolution: PICKLE A DAMN VEGETABLE AND COOK THE MILLET IN THE PANTRY. Last year's was READ LESS. I failed terribly, although I have read less than normal in the last few months. Otherwise, I read too much, just like usual. I'm a failure at not reading too much.

My long-term life goal is PROCURE A SOFA, COUCH, OR DAVENPORT. It used to be PUBLISH SOMETHING.

Was 2006 good, or not good? It was good and not good. Duh. But I see crystal-clear-like that I need more socializing in my life. So I'm going to make a DINNER PARTY CLUB, WITH THEMES. Themes like "KAMPAI!! IT'S A JAPANESE AVANT-GARDE DINNER!" My fear is that I just don't have enough people to invite, and my friends will be like, "Um, do I really have to wear a Japanese avant-garde outfit?" and I'll say, "No, it's ok, just be comfortable," and then it will just be a regular dinner with my friends, but with screechy japanese music playing and inedible seaweed items.

Maybe I could advertise my dinner parties on Craig's List. But then I'm afraid that the whole thing will be misread as a belabored euphemism and will produce some kind of awkward sexual situation.

I have been reading top ten lists on Salon and in the NYT and Punk Planet to see what I missed this year, musicmoviebooks-wise. It seems like I saw hardly any movies! What's wrong with me??? I can't make up my own top ten movie list. Deborah and I are going to see either Volver or Babel on Monday. We agreed to see something with a one-word title.

I know! I'll start a Film Viewing, Discussion, and Making Club in 2007 to remedy this whole sitch. Watch Detroit Craigslist for more info on this great new club! And, no, it's not meant to be a euphemism for sex.

Mostly 2006 feels barely there to me. I need to work for a better 2007, with more adventure and fun. Did you know I'm the adventurous, fun type? I like to have stories. STORY CLUB!!!

Instead of being all kinds of fun, I'm ending the year feeling melancholy and restless and hard-hearted and nostalgic. Do I need to start clubs for those traits to help draw other MRH-HN's towards me?

MORE CLUBS IN 2007!!! (How many will my small but super cool gang of friends be willing to join?).

on christmas eve eve eve

Lately the thing to do at gatherings of ladies is to take silly pictures of ourselves. The ladies left just now and I still have the taste of smoked cheese and spanish wine in my mouth. how i love the ladies. so i got to think of how i say merry christmas, how i myself express that sentiment, and i thought i could do it verbally, like "merry christmas" or "joyeux noel" or "meri kurisumasu" or "god jul." or....OR i could let a picture do the talkin'. one of these images could show up in a mailbox near you, in the name of the birth of jesus or whatever:

super groovy

For Christmas, my sister and I bought my dad a thingie that lets you load old slides onto your computer (promise I'll pay you my portion soon, sis. Yep, reeeeeal soon). She's been loading some on ahead of time (promise I'll come help you with that one day reeeeeeeal soon). Most of our family photos are on slides, after all. Just because there aren't a lot of photos around doesn't mean my mom and dad didn't love me. It's just on slides, see? My parents did take pictures of me, even if it seems like they didn't. The loved me and they did take pictures. Tons of them. Just tons. Millions, probably. They weren't "too busy" tending to the needs of my overscheduled older sibling to point a camera at me. No sir. They were crazy about me and wanted to document every moment. And here is proof. Of course, in this captured moment, I'm putting something in my mouth. Most of the pictures are that way.



Mostly I like to look at our living room. My mom was super groovy then. I like the guitar propped in the corner, ready to be brought out on a moment's notice for a rousing chorus of Puff, the Magic Dragon, or Leaving On a Jetplane. I do really like that lamp, too. I'd put that lamp in my home.

lots to do at night

I'm scared to complain to people sometimes that I'm tired, because the conversation may end up going this way:

Tired? Well, what time did you go to bed?

Umm, around midnight, or maybe a little later.

And what time do you get up?

Oh, about 5:50 is when my alarm goes off, then I lie there for a little while thinking about how tired I still am.

I see...what pressing obligations prevent you from going to bed a little earlier? Kids? Work? Chores? Studies? A second job?

Oh, well, like, last night I had to look up pictures of famed designer Tapio Wirkkala, and there are other nights when there are other really important things like that I need to do, like look at the all the different cover art for the Moomin books through the years, or I have to look for an important piece of paper of some kind that I just then remembered about. Plus I can't go to bed without reading for at least twenty minutes.

Maybe you could start reading around 10:00 or 10:30.

(blank look)

***
Look how awesome looking Tapio Wirkkala was! He was a Laplander and the quintessential ruddy finn, by the looks of things.



I thought I had pinkeye, but I don't. So unless something else highly contagious enters my life before tomorrow morning, I guess I'll be going to school, and I guess I'll be trying to teach about government against a background of frenetic christmas anticipation.

Is there any way to GIVE myself pinkeye, do you think?

"Oh, yeah, I was going to start reading my book at 10:30, and be dead asleep by 11:00 with my clothes for tomorrow laid out and everything, but then I had to get up and, you know, do some research online about contaminating my own eye..."

Good night, then.

P.S. I like Cat Power, although somewhat against my better judgement. There is one song on "The Greatest" that centers around the line "I hate myself and I want to die." I like the song, not because I hate myself and I want to die, but because it's spooky and dark. Anyway, I read in an interview with her that she really was suicidal when she was making the record, and now she's feeling fine and adamantly doesn't hate herself or want to die, so now when she sings that song, she sings, "I don't hate myself, and I don't want to die." Why would anyone say, "I don't hate myself, and I don't want to die?" Doesn't just not singing it seem like a better idea?

Things I've Been Doing

Listening to Handsome Family, Kristin Hersh, Brendan Benson, Mazzy Star, and Hoaiho.
Wearing a lovely new blue wrist bauble from Chris.
Wishing for a new woodblock print like this one by Masao Ido.
Bidding on a Finnish mushroom bowl that my grandma g. had.
Hoping against any reasonable hope for a snow day tomorrow (forecast says that tomorrow will be partly cloudy with a balmy high of 45F).
Downloading "Fairy Tale of New York" (Pogues) for my drunken holiday enjoyment.
Looking for various pieces of paper that I misplaced but that must exist somewhere on the planet right now.
Singing, "I could've been someone - Well, so could anyone!"
Avoiding all the usual tasks.
Reading parts of The O. Henry Prize Stories 2006, from the library.
Starting to read Oh Pure and Radiant Heart, which Pam gave me last weekend.
Admiring the paper the aforementioned book was wrapped in.
Flipping through a bunch of magazines.
Oversleeping.
Forgetting my purse.
Eating salsa verde on potatoes.
Fantasizing about doing tricep dips in inappropriate locales.
Attending third grade musicals.
Standing on the desks of third graders to hang things from the ceilings.
Eating pretty cake with Chicago ladies.
Baking cookies with Chicagoans.
Not remembering my dreams at all.
Winning the bid on the finnish mushroom bowl that my grandma g. had.
finding one of the lost pieces of paper.
not going to bed like a good girl...

I have had my ears pierced since about age 13. You'd think I'd have the whole enterprise fairly well in hand by now.

Oh my god. I was going to write about this earring incident, but I took some illustrating photos and they are just too disturbing to show. Truncated earlobes are frightening. At least, mine are.

Instead, I'll tell you that I stopped at my parents' house to put some of my ornaments on their tree. All my old favorites made it on, including the wheat thin that kelly j. and i decorated with sequins and fake pearls as pre-martha high school crafters/sarcastic wheat thin eaters; the yellow piece of play-dough i made a skeleton print in and hung with a red ribbon; and the single section of egg carton that i splashed with sassy red and green paint when i was, oh, quite little, hung with its white pipe cleaner. as i admired these treasures anew, i felt that i hit my artistic zenith long ago. i don't do any cool projects like those anymore. what? YOU want a decorated wheat thin for christmas? hmmm... i might just be feelin' it...

going to chicago tomorrow. my earlobes are going with me. i just re-read the above and realized it kind of sounded like the earring incident resulted in my earlobes becoming detached. that didn't happen at all. now i really can't tell you the story because it would be so dull in comparison.

but i'm going to chicago, and we are going to have ladies' club friday night and i can't wait. then we're having co-ed cookie decorating on saturday night. and i'm going to just let this whole week of busy, busy school days, third grade musical practices, a Bad Tempeh Experience, unsettled contract/unsettled teachers, rumblings of millionaire bahamas-vacationing families thinking i'm spoiled because i have good health benefits, messy apartment, etc. slide away. i'm going to be just like the slider. mark bolan. t. rex. except that when he's sad, he slides, and i'm not gonna be sad, i'm gonna be the ebullient birthday girl.

it's a botched science project, charlie brown

Rats. That sums it up at the moment. And saying "Rats" makes me feel like Charlie Brown. When I was younger my sister would torment me by saying that my head was perfectly round, like Charlie Brown's. But that's a different story.

Rats, I say, because my science project mock-up doesn't work. See, I had a plan for tonight. The plan was to stay in with some strippers. Wire strippers, that is, plus christmas tree lights, a tin cookie sheet, etc. And for what?

The light up quiz board does not work.

I keep re-checking my work: Metal touching metal here, metal touching metal there... it's a closed circuit if ever i did see one (which i guess i barely ever have).

But it figures. I am simply not handy. There is probably something glaringly wrong that anybody else would notice. Even if I wanted to, I could never be one of those people who could say, "Yeah, it's a fixer-upper, but I am so excited to remodel it myself." Hell, no. I'd rather read and/or admire my Iittala wine glasses (below - pretend not to notice my horribly maintained fingernails). Home Depot freaks me out.

Ideally, in this science project, you touch a metal pointer to the correct quiz answer and the christmas lights illuminate in a possibly toxic blaze of glory (possibly toxic because christmas lights now are labeled as a lead-containing health hazard; it's actually due to the PVC coating, which is basically everywhere anyway. why do i buy all that organic stuff to eat, again?). It was going to be the coolest third grade project ever. By extension, I'd be the coolest third grade teacher ever, and that's what really matters in all this.

I was so excited. I touched the metal pointer to the correct answers.

Nothing.

Rats.

At least there's the Iittala glasses.

Postcard Puzzle

I bought these postcards in Japan a number of years ago. I just stumbled upon them and wondered about them. They are pretty weird. I like them. The guy with the bling-y collar is saying "gochisou sama," which is what you say after a meal. He does look like he's just become stuffed from a good meal. The other guy is Shin-chan, and it says someting about him laughing - "Shin-chan, please don't laugh," I think it says? I am frustrated because I'm not sure about the verb ending and obviously need to practice Japanese more. Actually, whatever it is, I think the milk is saying it. It would make sense for the milk to ask him not to laugh right now, right? Or does it only make sense because I promised myself I'd go to bed at 10:30 and it's already 11:09?
Anyway, the name on the backs of the postcards is "Shinichi Hoshi." I looked up Shinichi Hoshi online and found that he was a Japanese science fiction writer famous for writing short short stories. I didn't find anything about an artist, which kind of surprised me because I feel like I remember seeing a lot of paintings like these while I was there. It made me wonder, did this scifi writer also make wacky paintings? Or is this a separate person? Anyone know? Anyone? Hello??

i just now got home from the place i come from. let's give a shout out to warren, ohio, where both my parents grew up and where i lived on and off as a kid. it was not a happy visit, though. my grandma died earlier this week. i'd already been missing the real her for a long time, but i found out that i could miss her even more. someday i'll write about her cinderella story and her glittery beehive and her sparkly shoes. she had a hard beginning and a hard end, but a damn fine middle. that's the good thing.

i definitely associate her with food. she always had these mints around. actually, warren, oh is all about food to me.












i was the last one of my family to head back to detroit today, so before i left town i picked up six half-cooked pizzas from my dad's favorite pizza place, sunrise pizza, and delivered them around to our various homes in mi. the picture is of their classic "old world" pizza, with hot peppers added. my car smells pretty awesome right now.









i also brought home a hunk of cookie dough that my aunt made from my great-grandma's recipe (on the other side of the family). We cut out, baked, and decorated some cookies last night, which my aunt is using for her holiday stuff, and she sent two more hunks of dough with me and my sister so we can make some, too. Sure. I am pretty positive that i will end up slowly eating the raw dough instead.

this photo should be subtitled "me, after crying for three days, sleeping on a leaky air mattress, and driving for five hours with wet hair that dried badly, in a car that smelled like a pizzeria."

everthing is lousy, except this children of the corn jumper, and it's pretty lousy too.

It's Sunday, right?

What do you do when you're pretty sure it's Sunday, but all signs point to it not being Sunday?

For example, the mail. There isn't supposed to be mail on Sunday, right? So why was a mail truck stopping at each mailbox in my parents' neighborhood when I was there today?

And the busy hair salon I walked past. Are hair salons open on Sunday? I didn't think so.

The newspaper says "Sunday," though, so I'm going to go with it. Plus, I know I had a Saturday, I remember it, and if today was Monday, someone would have called me by now to find out why I'm not at work. I would have had to make something up, like "I had a jumper crisis," because no one would believe me if i said, "I thought it was Sunday."

TV seems like a good way to keep track of days. maybe i need to watch more tv. the office is the only thing i make that much of a point to watch. i used to like lost, but it's lived up to its name and lost my interest almost completely.

It's "spitting snow," as they say, and I'm enjoying it. It seems really sad for some reason. not because i think it should still be warm or something. it's just that kind of day. gray and gloomy and snow settling slightly on people's hair. It seems kind of sad, but fits my mood.

if i could be anywhere now, in the most escapist sense of the phrase, i'd be on the other side of the earth, at my old favorite, yuri jazz cafe, in nagoya, jp. i'd drink the ginger beer (actual beer with ginger flavoring) and write in a notebook and watch the two guys who work there select the next record from the rows and rows against the walls. they'd pick the next record without any fuss, put it on, display the cover, and go back to the tiny "kitchen." i'd sit at my scarred wooden table, one of six, and peek through the shutters now and then to the world outside. i could stay there all day. they didn't care. i could be by myself, writing in my notebook and staring into space, or i could be with someone. it didn't matter. that's where i'd escape to right now. not the beach or san francisco. those don't match my mood. just yuri jazz cafe.

jumper wearers of the world, unite and take over

I really need to go to bed, but I've settled on tomorrow's outfit and thought you'd want to know. How could I have overlooked my puffy white blouse and my Children of the World jumper?

What would a Children of the Corn jumper look like, I wonder?

No more workhorse.

(from biologyreference.com)

I'm trying to think of anything non-work related right now and i'm drawing a mean blank. Yes, a mean one. Work is an amoeba and I'm the thing it's engulfing (shown above). Do you remember drawing pictures of amoebas engulfing things? I do. In high school biology, I guess. Or maybe work is a mass of green jello and I'm the pineapple trapped inside. That's more of a grade school cafeteria memory. See, all my memories relate to various schools! Who am I? All I do is work or sleep so that I can work or make lunches to eat at work or put things in/take things out of bags carrying work materials. Conferences again tonight. "Your daughter lacks intellectual rigor." "Your son smells my shoes."

There are amazingly few good pictures online of pineapple trapped in jello. This one will have to do. The jello sites make me queasy. They usually also involve a lot of mayonnaisey and cream-of-something soup recipes. I am grossed out by those things.

So, I do have an identity beyond school! Awesome. It's about food.

By the way, do you think I should wear my Apples-n-Alphabet outfit tomorrow, or my sassy "READ" overalls with accompanying turtleneck? It's so hard to make these decisions each day! Also, all jokes aside, you will, won't you, sit me down if this ever really happens to me?

Ouch, and then some

1. I hate Emily Dickinson. And I hate that I suddenly can't remember if it's spelled Dickenson or Dickinson. I hate all those dashes she uses, and her prim outfits, and how she was all morbid and housebound. And I really hate that we have the same birthday.

2. Today I have numb and tingly legs. Scary things come up when you google "Numb and tingly legs," by the way. But I think it has to do with my lower back, and some pinched nerves, perhaps? I wonder if it's all the fault of those blasted standing sprints in spinning class?

3. Had a feast from LaShish at Deborah's for her birthday yesterday. Me, Deborah, and Tim ate and cracked up about stuff while Isidora dozed in a hugely oversized sweater, which was super cute. I wondered why she seemed to be struggling to keep her eyes open at times. I do that when I want to finish a chapter or a movie or something, or when I'm teaching a boring lesson or sometimes while driving, but what reason does a newborn baby have? Succumb to the sleep while you can, Izzy!

4. Sheesh, LaShish is so damn good. I wouldn't say no to a bed of hummous with pine nuts, with some of that awesome soft bread for pillows. What do you think of this for their new motto: "SHEESH, LaShish is good!" Would it make you want to go there? I want to go there right now. But I'll bet that uptight Emily Dickinson would have never wanted to eat there. Loser!

5. Like I am even capable of ever teaching a boring lesson!

moomins, y'all

I have a bad memory for books in general, but I think of all the Moomin books I had as a kid this was my favorite. I mean, shouldn't it have been? LOOK! Look at them on their stilts! Stilts and comets! That's a winning combination if ever there was one. I was trying to remember how I started reading these books, thinking it was my Finnish grandma, but no - I think I happened upon them in the bookstore in Dublin as a kid. I still remember the bookstore we'd go to during the two years we lived there. I remember how it smelled, and I remember that the book selection was totally different and that was exciting. So I read Moomins, and I read two boarding school series by Enid Blyton, Malory Towers and St. Clare's.



In these books there were lots of sensible English girls and one or two headstrong ones, and usually a spoiled, glam American nuisance with a lazy drawl and maybe a hot-blooded Spanish girl. At least one of the group would be horsey, one would be strong and athletic, one would be dumb as a stick, and one, whipsmart. They'd get into scrapes and arguments. At least once a term they'd have midnight feasts by flashlight, tucking into tins of pineapple, lovely cakes, and orange fizz sent in parcels from mummy and daddy. Sometimes they'd be careless with the crumbs and would get caught the next day and the headmistress would have to give them a frightful scolding. Sometimes they'd sneak out at night and fall off cliffs, or get dragged by a wild stallion, or stubbornly try to prove themselves by swimming in a dreadful current. They never seemed to meet any lads, though. Pity.

Yeah, I thought it all sounded pretty exciting, that English boarding school life. Looking back, though, Moominland would definitely have been the better place for me. I found some Moomin song clips at http://www.moominvoices.com/listen.html . Some are pretty wild, consisting of multiple layers of moomin voices.

I'm glad that when I can't sleep I can get online and look up things like "moomins." There's over a million sites. A whole lot of obsessed souls out there, which works out great for me. But these two? These two give me the creeps! I knew a few people in Japan who had gotten married at Disneyworld, though, so I guess between the two, a Moomin style wedding is way cooler. I would have included stilts, of course, in case of a comet.

Ha ha!

Someone made me feel really crappy about myself earlier today, and hence I'm enjoying a bit more wine than I normally would on a Tuesday. Plus, I am not with my students tomorrow, but at a workshop all day. So: a second post just to say....

HA! I laugh in the face of typos. As I was self-obsessedly re-reading the cleverly titled post "Flinging things around," I noticed a typo, in whose face I laughed. I mistakenly wrote, "All week I want to send time there," instead of "SPEND time there." It got me thinking: How great would it be if I could send time to my apartment? Like, if I was at the dentist, or the gym, or school for a certain number of hours, it would earn me a certain number of minutes or hours which would be sent with free shipping to my apartment to use there? That would be awesome.

Are the polls still open? I'm voting for whoever is going to make THAT happen!

Sigh. Sometimes the badly typing fingers really know what they are doing!

my closet and other crazy shit

I think I may have a bona fide crazy lady as a neighbor. She is always dressed to the nines in flashy, fluffy, fur-trimmed, brocade clothing, no matter what the hour, and constantly recieves packages in the mail from clothing stores. Her car seems to be filled to the roof with bags and boxes - of clothing, it seems, and some children's toys in their regular packaging. Plus, I always think she is talking to me when we meet in the parking lot, and she is, at first, but then she's mumbling into her trunk full of bags and boxes, and seems to have forgotten I'm there. Unless I'm on my cell phone, when she tries to have full and complex conversations with me. Did I mention that the door to her place is almost obscured by boxes? It is. I worry.

She locked herself out on Sunday and knocked on my door to use my phone. Her hands were full of bags and clothes and, for some reason, a rug.

Why does the crazy lady scare me? There was a crazy lady who shopped at the food co-op in ann arbor. she would buy tiny litle dollops of things from the salad bar and make funny noises in her throat like she was choking, but she was well dressed, too. she scared me worse. i guess i thought, why are the crazy lady and i always here at the same time? am i following the same itinerary as the crazy lady? shouldn't our paths cross only very rarely? ok, and let's face it - am i someone else's crazy lady?

This one also makes me think about my closet. I do have a lot of clothes. The funny thing is, despite my generally chaotic approach to life and organization, my closet is a rainbow of color-coded harmony (well, a rainbow with more black and gray in it than most rainbows). I delight in it, I must admit. It's like a piece of art. I want to leave the closet door open when guests come. My cd's are also arranged by spine color. Here's what's organized in my life: My clothes, my music, and my books. My fridge is semi-organized. My paperwork and financial stuff is NOT ORGANIZED. So if you wondered what I care about in life, I guess that pretty much says it all. Here's what it looks like, at least a small slice of the side with shirts, a bit crooked because of course I took it with my computer (and I just drank some wine). Not shown: The other side, with dresses, skirts, and pants.

flinging things around

My pirated (aaargh, Pam) wireless is weakish today, so I just drove silly far to drink coffee and write and do work at a coffeehouse far from my home. I like it here, and there's nowhere comparable near my home. So I drove. Now I'm here, bathed in sunshine, as you can see.

I have a strange relationship with my new apartment. All week long I feel like I'm there just long enough to fling things around and I wish I could send more time there. Then the weekend comes and I know I should get stuff done at home, but I just want to be out among people. Real adult people. With skin and everything else that real people have.

It's like I only want to be there when I'm supposed to be at work. When I'm not supposed to be at work, I want a total change of scenery, maybe another identity altogether.

I had a headache near that one lumpy spot on my cranium this morning. It was a caffeine withdrawal headache! Yea. My favorite kind!

I hesitate to mention it, but there is a student who sits near my feet every day when we're at the carpet and sniffs my shoes. An actual quote from this boy: "Ms. G_____, your shoes today smell just like the boots you were wearing yesterday."

Well, I guess what can I expect when I wear these boots to school?

Halloween

I lived through another Halloween.

I used to like Halloween, but things have changed. It used to be that Halloween was an excuse to dress sluttier than I normally would. Now it seems to have become an excuse to wear pajamas to work. It was my colleagues' idea. I was all set to be a leopard, which would have consisted of clothes I already have plus a leopard thing on my head. But they wanted us to have a theme, and that theme is too embarrassing to plainly write; however here's a hint: it involved a pacifier. Ugh. So terrible. I am not a person who has a stockpile of adorable pajamas at the ready, and even if I did, I don't want to wear them in public under any circumstance. Somehow my coworkers all own one-piece zip-up fleece pajamas! I ended up wearing "sweats," which is another word I can't stand.

Some would say I don't know how to have fun. I do know how to have fun, but it's not your everyday kind of fun. It's very specialized. I can send you a brochure.

*
Added a few minutes later:

I think that because of how public school teachers are viewed in our country, and how I constantly strive to present myself as an educated, intellectual professional, and how we are currently working without a contract, dressing like a b*&$ just seemed like the wrong message.

A leopard would have totally gotten the right point across.