Car wash therapy

No school again today! And being unable to have fun as I am, I'm freaking out about how behind we now are on this or that...

What are warm feet? I don't remember. Tonight I might try scattering some piping hot baked potatoes in my bed before getting in.

I went to the best car wash today. Well, maybe not the best. The best is either the combination car wash/soul food restaurant in Pontiac or the car wash in Detroit that doubles as rock show venue in the summer. But this one did offer a little free counseling, which was a nice bonus. See, I HATE going through the car wash. As a kid, I thought those long black rubber strips had something to do with witches, and that, of course, scared me - to be surrounded by witches and trapped in the car. Then as an adult, I once got kind of stuck inside a carwash and had to back out. Not good. So, the whole think makes me anxious, but I've been trying to do more of the kinds of things other adults do, like occasionally warsh the car, so I gathered my courage and did it. "Don't look so nervous," the guy at the front end said. "What's wrong?" "Well, I don't like this very much," I said. The guy stopped his bustling about. He put down his clipboard so as to give me his full attention, and he put his hands right on the bottom of my window. "What are you afraid of?" "Getting stuck." "What are you REALLY afraid of?"

So I broke down in tears and poured out everything, every twisted fear and worry I harbor in my soul, and he said, "It's going to be ok, I promise."

Except I didn't really break down in tears or bare my soul. Still, it was the most supportive and encouraging car wash experience I have ever, ever had. As I was being pushed through all the various components, I did feel a little fearful, I can't deny it. I felt assaulted and trapped. But the soothing voice of the guy who took my money? It helped, at least a little.

Dear Jim

Dear Jim Jarmusch;

On those nights spent lonesomely googling yourself, I thought you might enjoy stumbling upon this. This is a box my friend Mollie made me some years ago. Jim, I keep my most personal items bed-side in this box. Items like chapstick, dental floss, heart rate monitor, and Macbook remote nestle in its furred interior. By the grace of this box, I am reminded nightly of all we have in common. We are both from Ohio, after all; in fact, we are both Finns from Ohio. We are both artists. OK, maybe I don't make art, exactly, but still, we have tons in common.

Anyway, this is my Jim Jarmusch box. I hope this made you feel a little less lonesome.

Never look back, except just a little

I just wrote a big long post all about a) how there's no school today, due to low wind chill factor, and b) how I have a new car battery because you can only call AAA for a jump so many times before you have to face it, and c) how I watched the new Alexandra Pelosi documentary, "Friends of God" and it scared me, and d) how I am slowly re-learning how to have a couch, and my ratio of sitting on the floor to sitting on my couch is beginning to change.

I lost the post and can't go back there. If you knew the wit and style which with I described the above! But I have to keep moving forward.

bicycle safety camp

Oh my god, I can't believe this is on YouTube. I have to show it to my class every year, and every year I forget how amazing it is. Please watch it. Please watch the whole thing (of part 3, which is what i posted). The rap and dance moves are incredible, as is the clown and the cow and the main guy, Sam. The kids' hair and clothes are pretty awesome. Today after we watched it, we "discussed" it. The class was completely flabbergasted by how bad it was. Anarchy was the basic result. I was all like, "Yeah, it's really weird, I know, but it does have some important information about bike safety. What is something you learned?" A kid said, "I learned not to pay attention to a clown standing on the sidewalk," and all the kids started imitating the clown. I couldn't help it then. I started laughing the kind of laugh that can't be stilled. I was actually doubled over and crying. It was quite a moment. I was all weak from laughter and my face was bright red, and I didn't really care anymore. Some of them were laughing with me or rolling theatrically on the floor; some looked kind of alarmed. I don't know what to say, except - why pretend? That's my new teaching philosophy. They know. I know. So why pretend?

P.S. when i watched this just now, I had the gories playing. it made a pretty cool background addition. just an idea.

communication breakdowns (always the same)

- The scavenged wireless connection is surging in and out these days, dropping me in the middle of my daily stalking routine and other important business.

- My phone keeps cutting me off mid-call.

- My students keep talking over me like I'm not even there. Which is fine, since my head is badly gunked up and i don't really want to be. The 29 of us are trying to forge a new society inside a giant tissue box.

- And the dude upstairs (the apartment above me, that is; I'm not referring to god or anything) has been perfecting his bowling ball dropping technique at all sorts of wee hours lately.

I'm asking myself, why do I subscribe to podcasts that I never find time to listen to? it's depressing to see them build up. It's like that giant stack of back issue new yorkers in the home of everyone i know who subscribes to the new yorker. i have thought about subscribing but fear the pile. i pick it up now and then based on cover art and headlines or writers. even then they pile up to an extent.

Actually, the unlistened to podcasts are more depressing. no cover art.

how do other people keep up? i can't give up actual reading, my commute is too short, and i don't have a proper ipod anyway for listening in the car. i fall asleep if i listen too late, or too early. i can't listen while i work. maybe that's the difference.

i feel like a grouchy, cold, technophobe spinster of winter who just wants to curl up in her giant tissue box already. enough with all the communication breakdowns.

Need a new goal

Waaah! I can't get over the sheer productivity of Dave Eggers. I was just on the McSweeney's website - and that dude has started a whole slew of non-profit kids' tutoring centers focused on writing! Maybe they've been around awhile, but this is the first I've heard of them. There's one in Ann Arbor! The website is amazing and the workshops look great. I wish the fourteen-year-old me could take one. Could I still pass for fourteen, do you think?

Yes, productivity. The one magic wish I want for myself is productivity. Although I did grade almost 250 pieces of student work Saturday, which is saying something. Maybe it's drive that I'm lacking. Dave Eggers must have a lot of drive, running a publishing house, writing long books, and now these tutoring centers. I finished What is the What today. I loved it (thanks, Jen!). My students are even referencing it, just because I told them about it. "That reminds me of What is the What," they have said a few times lately.

I have a writing date with Mollie for Thursday night. Perhaps that is the day I'm destined to discover my inner drive at last.

Last night was Mollie's b-day party. I loved everyone there. It was great fun. Kuntry Luv (our band of yore) had a 3-song reunion. We sang our biggest hit, the hymen song. I also co-created a new secret handshake of sorts, and talked lots to M's Arkansassy brother, Charlie.

All night long I had the urge to do a backbend, the splits, or to put my foot behind my head. All signs that I'm feeling pretty good about things. Oh, and I'm a sofa owner. It will be in my possession within a couple of weeks. My long-term goal has been realized sooner than I expected. Now I need to identify a new long-term goal. Any ideas?

Your Miss Montgomery

I really need some new clothes, especially for work. I don't know what happened, but I almost literally have nothing to wear. What the hell did I wear last winter? I don't want to know. Anyway, the same few pairs of pants keep reappearing in a rather predictable cycle, and I'm just waiting for one of my students to point it out. This is not an unfounded fear. Comments so far this year include, "Didn't you wear that shirt yesterday?" (I had worn nothing even remotely similar); "You wear those earrings a lot, don't you?" (So? They're just earrings. It's not like they have to be washed. Plus they're super cool earrings!); "You really like that outfit, don't you?" (No, not really); and "BLUE? You never wear blue! You wear black!"

I don't want to end up with a reputation like that of Miss Montgomery, of St. Andrew's College, the private school outside Dublin that my sister and I went to. She was the headmistress, and also taught some of our classes. And she wore the exact same outfit every day! I mean, we had uniforms, but the teachers didn't. Some were even almost stylish (I'm talking to you, Miss Kelly; your clothing choices almost make up for the cruel things you said to me during field hockey practice!). But Miss Montgomery wore the same head-to-toe-gray ensemble day in and day out. I don't remember other kids talking about it, but I sure as hell noticed. Or maybe my mom pointed it out. It still comes up in conversation to this day.

So, yeah, I'm trying to avoid that sad fate, a fate not quite as bad as the jumper, but comparable in tragic connotation. It's just overwhelming to need a whole bunch of clothes. Clothes are not cheap. There are about 5 things that I need in the $100-$150 range right now (including Windows for Mac; a haircut & highlights, already; a plane ticket that I'm not going to end up buying; some FLOR tiles for my home; and shoes, running and other). I've not managed to procure any of those, so a heap of clothes seems unlikely. Maybe I should just start with some damn pants.

Born into a goatless home

i had dinner at my mom-n-dad's tonight and looked at more old slides. I love our wallpaper in our living room and dining room in the house we lived in when I was small. Pretty cool, huh? Trees are my favorite motif today, possibly due to this wallpaper.

My lust for international travel was cooled down just a little after seeing Babel yesterday with Deborah. That Deborah really knows how to make a girl not want to travel. Or was it the movie? That could be it. Recovering from a gunshot wound in a little hut in Morocco, encounters with nasty guards at the U.S./Mexico border (not like they'd have a problem with me), annoying tourists (among whom I'd be numbered), dust in the eyes, and the goats and chickens. My god, the goats and chickens!

I am glad I wasn't born into a goat herding people. I don't think I'd do well.

listen to records day eve

No school tomorrow. Its "records day." I'm supposed to work on record-keeping, at the locale of my choice.

My choice is to stay home and listen to records.

At 5:45 yesterday afternoon, all dressed for my 7:00 spinning class, I sat to read for a spell and I fell asleep, fast asleep. Asleep-er than I usually manage at that time of day. Anyway, I woke up at 7:58 and totally freaked out. I tore out of bed and stumbled around pulling on clothes, any clothes, cattywampus clothes, and yelling right out loud. "I still have to put in my contacts and brush my teeth! Oh my god, I'm so late! There's no way I'll be there by 8:10!" Be where? To school, for I thought it was 7:58 the next morning, twelve minutes before 28 children were due to file into my classroom, expecting to be taught and guided, or at least guarded, by an adult with a plan. It's not an easy job to show up late for.

I rushed to the bathroom, thinking I should call my coworker, not the mean secretary, and realized my contacts were already in. I was really disoriented. "What's going on? Did I sleep with my contacts in all night? Why didn't my alarm go off?" Slowly it crossed my mind that it could be evening instead of morning. How could I find out for sure? I looked out the window and it was dark - was it still dark at 8:00 in the morning? I realized I didn't really know. It seemed possible, this time of year. I'm always already at work then, or sleeping if it's the weekend. So I had to turn on the tv to base my decision on the programming that my rabbit-eared tv was receiving. That clinched it. Definitely evening.

I'm glad I realized it before I called my coworker and hysterically announced that there was no way I was going to make it on time.

I'm getting a head start on Records Day now, listening to Kristin Hersh. No way I'm getting up to find out about the state of the sun at 8:00 tomorrow!

greens and green

Couldn't get a good picture using just my computer as a camera, and with the wrong lighting, and clicking the "3-2-1-cheese!" button with my big toe, but I thought I'd show you anyway, because it's unbelievable. You see, I am a cooker of kale. Kale is a regular lunch item for me, and I steam it the night before, or sometimes I'll do something else with it. Usually just steamed in a bit of water, though, then sprinkled with plum vinegar. Today I thought about how variety is the spice of life, and I boldly bought PURPLE kale instead of regular kale. And the steaming water turned the craziest green I've ever seen. Not vegetable green at all. Not kale green. It turned spearmint green. Green like the emerald city. Green like jello and easter egg dye. A crazy and lovely green. And dude, I'm tired. I had to get up early and wait for my phone to ring with news of school being canceled due to ice. I had to lie in bed before my alarm and focus on my phone. Kids were already off but teachers had to work. I had to lead a training at my old jr. high school and was NOT enthused. "Ice, ice, baby," I said to my phone, but the call never came. The ice barely even came. It's coating all the trees and had encased my car, but hadn't made the roads bad enough for the phone to ring. So I had to go through with it, my long and belabored day, then lackluster spinning class, and yet despite being this tired I still managed to rouse the energy to take this picture. So that should tell you what a lovely, super-special kind of green this is.

Not kermit green; closer to glowing alien green when the lighting is a little dim.

once upon a pea-green booth

Things about Drake's, which you might find interesting or amusing even if you never went there:

1. There was a "chicken loaf" which would periodically have to be sliced and made sandwich-ready. Only employees 18 and older could use the chicken loaf slicer. One night when I was working, my co-worker S. had her inaugural chicken loaf slicing experience (I had removed myself from the task on grounds of vegetarianism - but did the loaf contain meat?) in the basement. Mr. Tibbals, grouchy old man with expressive cane/owner of Drake's, came in later that evening and saw that the chicken had been sliced. "Where are the scraps?" he demanded. "Scraps?" mused S. "The chicken scraps! For the chicken salad!" "I threw them away, sir. I didn't know." Pause. Tap of cane. "Well go get 'em!" Then he watched wheezily as S. dug bits of chicken out of the garbage. We warned customers against that batch of chicken salad, unless one of our sworn enemies came in. You know how many enemies I had back in the day.

2. Mr. Tibbals arrived by cab around 8:00 or 9:00 each night. He mostly sat in a little room in the basement, smoking and...we didn't know. I feared he was lost in the sad mists of "good-old-days" style nostalgia as his punk rock employees freely stole from the cash register (I didn't though! honest!). He'd usually still be there at opening time the next morning, then be taken away by cab shortly after. Whoever opened had to go make sure he was still alive.

3. Mr. T. believed that girls should wear skirts with our Drake's t-shirts. So we would wear our regular clothes and then frantically get changed into skirts just before his arrival time. Once Steve O., who had long hair, wore a skirt, and Mr. T. thought he was a girl. Mr. T. also thought S. was a boy because she had short hair. She went with it because then she didn't have to change into a skirt.

4. Mr. T. insisted that we put mayonnaise on everything (Note: I have a total repulsion towards mayonnaise and have since I was a kid), even peanut butter and jelly. He also had a one-scoop-per-shake rule. These rules made the food bad and so were followed only when he was sitting at the counter over his Campbell's clam chowder.

5. Drake's was famous for the limeade and the lime ricky (limeade with fizzy water).

6. We paid ourselves out of the antique cash register each night, some more freely than others (see #2).

7. All the employees were heavy smokers. I was not. All the other employees were basically on a smoke break the whole time. I was not.

8. There were lots of kinds of teas and they were served in little orange plastic pots.

9. There were jars and jars and flat thingies of candy, some of which had clearly not been opened since the 30's or 40's (anything anise was dusty-looking), others which had to be refilled regularly (like the turtles and the malted milk balls).

10. Downstairs in the basement was the "chocolate room" where all the backstock of candy was kept. It was an exciting place to be, all quiet and sugar-scented.

11. Mr. Tibbals told a story about a time in the 50's or 60's when the bread was still homemade. It would be left to rise overnight. One morning, a lady (in a skirt, I'm sure) baked it and then sliced it, and blood started squirting out. Turns out a rat had climbed in and slept there as the dough rose, then had been baked into the loaf. Telling this story was the only time I saw Mr. T. laugh.

12. Customers wrote their orders on an order form and left it on the counter. When the slackers behind the counter had prepared their feasts, perhaps some olive salad on toast, cut on the diagonal into fourths, or a Princeton double-decker sandwich (I'll have to dig out my souvenir menu to remember what was on that one), the order was yelled out for the patron to come fetch.

13. You never really knew who was there, in the high-backed booths, but chances were Prince-of-Wales Tea guy or White Chocolate Covered Pretzels Guy or any other number of regulars were there.

14. The olive salad was a can of olives pressed through this metal grinder that looked like a pencil sharpener. Of course, it was then mixed with mayonnaise (I can't write "mayo." Sounds too collegial, like I'm using a pal's nickname). Sometimes I'd leave out the mayonnaise for my own personal delicacy.

15. Then there was The Drake's Five. Quite a dramatic sitch. Mr. T. could barely see the clam chowder in front of him, poor man, let alone tell genders or sexual orientations apart (#3, above). So when two very butch women were sharing a bowl of soup, Mr. T. flew off the handle and kicked them out (side note: he kicked some people out for singing once when I was there, too). Why did he kick them out? He had a strict rule against people sharing tea or whatever. You had to get your own order. But the two women insisted they'd been kicked out for being gay, and soon a sad little picket line formed outside of Drakes. Some former Drake's employees counter-protested. The whole thing is hilarious to think about.

16. Awesome old phone booth in back, plus the Walnut Room and Martian Room, both upstairs, the Martian Room all space-age 1950's, only open when the main floor booths were full (rare by the '90's). The Walnut Room was used for storage but was a swank ballroom dance venue in its day.

17. I could go on, but... is anyone still reading??? Now who's lost in the "sad mists of 'good-ol-days' nostalgia" (see #2)?

Not understanding how time works

Today I cooked a brown rice salad that has corn, avocadoes, toasted almonds, onions, and dill pickles in it! I also made a cucumber-fennel salad, and I did the first step in a six-week eggplant curing process. I also mopped the kitchen and bathroom floors and I did some other housewifery type things. I will have good things to eat this week, and could even eat them off the floor if I wanted to!

Last week was all about insomnia, which I associate with deserts. Each night was its own separate desert, stretching agonizingly flat and dry, with barely enough sleep to fit in the shadow of one cactus. It's hard not to approach breakdown territory when these two things are true: 1. You have barely slept for three nights in a row, and 2. Your students, after several weeks of learning about local, state, and national government, think that Washington, D.C. belongs in the "Local" category. Yes, hard not to approach breakdown territory then.

What's saving my bacon* right now is that I don't have a regular day tomorrow, so I probably won't have insomnia, because I won't be worried about having insomnia, because I can sleep a little later than usual, you know? And here's how my understanding of time goes: I don't have to be at the place I have to be until 8:25 - an hour and a half later than I usually get to work. So I believe that means that tonight I can stay up as late as I want, and can also plan to get a bit of exercise in the morning, stop at the bank so I have cash for lunch, and stop for coffee. In my mind, I don't actually have to be there until 1 p.m.

*When I had the translation company job, there was a British guy who did German translation from our office sometimes and if I did him a favor he'd say, "Thanks, you've saved my bacon this time!"

That just reminded me of going into the basement of Drake's in Ann Arbor, the amazing candy store/sandwich shop of 1929 vintage and of questionable health code status, and finding several containers labeled "Fish Grease."

And that made me go online for pictures, etc. of Drake's, which made me kind of blue and nostalgic. I could write a whole lot about crazy Drake's... too bad it's a Bruegger's Bagels now, and they ripped out all the pea-green booths and covered or removed the beautiful tin ceilings. Wouldn't want it to look different than the other Bruegger's Bagels, right?

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.