why can't...

all the people i love live within a five-block radius of my apartment? it would make things much easier. for me, at least.

oh my.

so, traditionally the angel sits on your right shoulder, the devil on your left. amanda, sitting on my left with a neglected glass of port, just accused me of not posting recently. so, dear devil girl, here's a posting.

and ryan, don't judge. phones don't do these girls justice.

define "scary"

on halloween i volunteered to go read to a class of first graders. i'm kind on intimidated.

hmmm.

i haven't had an interesting thought in several days. i'm trying not to panic.

i have noticed that i am a very slow walker. it struck me while moving about to watch the marathon and was reaffirmed last night as people whizzed by me on the sidewalk. wish i could say it was because i was thinking such interesting thoughts.

sweetest day

have you heard of it?

i was seeing all these mentions of it and just got tripped up on the lack of an article: "the sweetest day" maybe. seriously, try saying just "sweetest day" out loud or incorporating it into a sentence. i find it a tad difficult.

turns out it's a real holiday (if any can be real) created in cleveland in the 1920s. the idea was to give gifts to orphans, shut ins, etc. yes, shock, it was started by a candy company and according to them the proper gift to bestow on sweetest day is candy.

now, it seems like a prelude to valentine's day and you know how much i just love valentine's day.

happy sweetest day to all. sorry i didn't send a card.

define "indie"

cnn currently has an online quiz "how indie are you?"

i have several flippant comments, but i will keep them to myself since i can't say, ahem, i didn't take the quiz.

a note to mark ronson

dear mark,

i know you are v. busy jetting between LA and NYC. you know what's in between the two? yup, my apartment. i think it's a capital idea that you come hang out. you were very nice yesterday and your eyes twinkle.

bessos,
julie

ps. you'll have to smoke on the stoop. sorry.

shouldn't we be getting it right?

i went through an old worksheet of the person who used to teach 7th grade. the kids were making ofrenda (altars to the departed) for a famous person who died in honor of dios de los muertos. cool activity.

but part of the worksheet was about good things to research. it included birthdate, hobbies, and "interesting antidotes" about the person's life.

ugh.

half the equation

i went to buy pants yesteday and bought four, no five, shirts. i am always buying shirts and never buying pants.

today i am going to a pig roast. a 60 pound pig roast. i don't really have much to say about it now, but i think i am a bit freaked out.

parting is such sweet sorrow.

i just got an email from a student i taught in LA. she wanted to let me know they started a "i miss ms. schu" group on facebook. you know what, i miss them. it was kind of nice having a good reputation and having kids be excited about being in your class and feeling like you didn't have anything to prove.

here, it's all new. i'm new.

too bad i am too old to have a facebook account.
i'm tempted to call it "new fangled" but that wouldn't really do me any good now, would it?

sweet baby jesus!

there were snow flurries today. real live snow flurries.

so now i am worried about good windows. i don't know what a good window is, but i know i want them. otherwise i'll be paying a billion dollars in heat.

i've been slamming my windows for the last hour and wondering how i can tell if they are good. i can feel cold. but it is cold. is that bad? oh man.

this is...

right behind trader joe's.

this is...

me, apparently chewing on my coat.

accepting applications, apply inside.

i'm ready to have a crush.

there is still too much new all around me for me to want to focus all my attention and neurosis on one person for real. i still have to make friends and figure out which way is east and what the diagonal streets are (i can now say for sure what a soft versus a hard turn is) and whether i am supposed to like the cubs or the sox or if it is really ok for me to not give a shit about either. so, no time or real desire to find the love of my life. i think it would short-change me in the long run and i'd wind up with half-formed friendships and a half-formed mental map of the city and a certain level of half-assedness about baseball (oh, wait, i already have that).

but a crush! how lovely are crushes? the agony of not wanting to see them and the anticipation of wanting to bump into them comingling! the joy of blowing trivial interactions grandly out of proportion! the fun of talking about them with your girlfriends! really, a wee bit of a crush is like...well, it's just great. so, if you know anyone who needs to be crushed, do let me know.

alley life.

chicago has alleys. i am kind of enamored with the alley culture and am pleased that my little coach house is on the alley and not on the street. there are lots of telephone wires and i like telephone wires. i've made peace with the guy who runs the guerrilla garage out of the alley because he also chases off the hypes. oh, what's a hype? well, if you remember my lovely landlord (said with sincerity, he's genuinely lovely) is a cop. he likes cop terminology. so i've learned that a hype is someone who has scored some drugs and is looking for a quiet place to enjoy their contraband in peace. i learned all this with my father standing next to me and dad was none too pleased to hear about the hypes. he would like me to live in a convent far up on a mountain with good cell reception so he can know i am safe and occasionally check in to confirm it.

anyway, alley life is grand. but last night was very, very windy. the garage across the alley has a motion sensor light that is about equal with my head when i am in bed. so every minute or so the wind would shake the ivy, the ivy would trigger the light, the light would startle me awake, and then go out. repeat. i'd think, this is going to happen again, i will not be surprised. and then, boom, my eyes would pop open. i felt like pavlov's little pooch.

what happened to going postal?

in the last week there have been three fatal school shootings in three states. in two, older men took female students hostage before shooting. in a third, a student angry after receiving a reprimand shot his principal. in vegas today an armed teen was seen roaming about so two schools were put on lockdown.

i know violence in schools is not new. i also know that this most recent spate of post-columbine violence (although there were 10 major school incidents between 1996 and columbine) is receiving far wider media attention because most of the victims have been, as far as i know, white. it's accepted that violence in predominantly black or latino schools goes unreported or chalked up to "gang violence" while the shootings in places like the amish school today feeds into white america's jon-benet-hey-whitey-it-can-happen-to-you paranoia. lacey and natalee holloway and jon benet show that america, or at least america's news, focuses on the tragedy of the prom queen or the adorable baton twirler rather than the plight of the under-resourced. i will save that, though, for another day.

i'm not going to say schools should be safer than other places. no. wait. yes i am. if kids (and their teachers) don't feel safe at school, a place that for many kids provides the main source of stability and continuity in their lives, where are they supposed to feel safe? i have often talked about wanting to blow the whole system up and start over. but that's the system, not the schools. leave the schools alone people. if you are suicidal, get help. if you are not going to get help, must you take a bunch of teenagers with you?

i'm starting to feel like the only news about schools is a female teacher boffing one of her 8th grade students (which i will also save for another day) or some disgruntled pervert going onto myspace and picking his targets. pardon my french, but this whole new paradigm of shoot up or sex up your local school is bullshit.

10/01

since this summer i have been saying that i couldn't wait till october 1. it would mean i had survived my first month teaching, had settled in to my new city, etc.

here it is.

ever been so happy that you worry you are going to get hit by a bus? that you are just not supposed to be that content and therefore the universe must somehow rebalance or recalibrate by fucking your shit up?

what price art?

i just picked up three things i had framed.

when i dropped them off i asked frame guy how much it would cost. he smiled and answered that it could all be done for under a thousand. i thought he was joking. turns out, i just scooted in under a grand. for a 10 euro poster i got in spain, a couple hundred dollars for a frame smacks of insanity...for amanda's blueprint it seemed sensible. so i winced, handed over my credit card and had a panic attack on the way home.

i was concerned that i wasn't going to love them. i worried that matting would take away from the pieces and that i would have to ask them to redo it. i've been anxious all week, i hate returning things or asking for things to be fixed.

alas, i was feeling future pain.

they look gorgeous. i love them. i may never leave my apartment again.

i have places to go and things to do.

poor fiji. you can barely see it.


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