my life is a former soviet republic

all bureaucracy, all the time.

in the last five days i have pretended to be my mother and my mother has pretended to be me in two unrelated situations spread over three states and dealing with stuff from up to two years ago.

i wish i could say it was kafkaesque, but i don't know much about kafka and whether he or his shtick is applicable here. since it was all justified means to an end, maybe i can go with machiavellian? i'd like it to have some kind of profound literary implication. maybe i should reread "the gulag archipelago."

basic maintenance

i have the day off to write comments. i have 70 students and should write about a page for each of them. unfortunately, the life-long plague of basic maintenance is slowing my roll.

i have accepted, grudgingly, that i will be flossing and brushing and shaving and the like for the rest of my life. there have been nights were the idea of washing my face fills me with rage. i've washed it a million times. why can't the damn thing stay clean?

but today the grocery store, the DMV, the UPS store, traffic, dusting, all that has exhausted me. no writing has happened, minus forging my mom's signature on a document.

but (i know, stop being a contrarian to your own opinion) i also find odd satisfaction in checking things off lists. dry cleaner? done! got gas? done and done! put that letter in the mailbox? ain't no stopping me now!

my dad's dream is to have a machine like the one on the jetson's. you step on to the treadmill and it performs your basic maintenance for you. you just kind of stick your arms out for the shirt to go over your head. how sweet would that be? it would leave sooo much more time for errands!

my new school

rules and structure are kind of loosely defined here.

yesterday a student wore a plastic elvis wig through most of the day while another donned the soldering mask worn in Flashdance in the halls. today i walked out to get water and a group of high school students with soapbox cars were using our hallway as a drag strip. only after they crashed into the wall and took out a massive chunk of drywall did the TEACHER with them tell them to wrap it up.

that's when i noticed the skid marks all over the carpet.

Tag of Four

Four jobs I've had (notice a trend much?):
1. Teacher
2. Camp Counselor
3. SAT Coach
4. Day Care Center Worker

Four places I've lived:
1. Lilburn, Georgia
2. Providence, RI
3. Los Angeles, CA
4. Berwyn, PA

Four favourite foods:
1. Black Beans & Rice
2. PB&J on white bread (I don't really eat this much anymore)
4. Nutella
5. Channa Masala

Four movies I could watch over and over:
1. Bottle Rocket
2. Christmas Story
3. Harry Potter
4. Waiting for Guffman
....and Bridget Jones's Diary but don't tell anyone

Four TV shows I enjoy:
1. Law & Order SVU and original L&O, not Criminal Intent
2. Project Runway
3. Grey's Anatomy
4. Footballers Wives

Four places I've traveled (we have to put the impressive ones, huh.):
1. La Paz, Bolivia
2. Nadakuni, Fiji
3. Boca Paila, Mexico
4. Caernarfon, Wales

Four places I'd like to visit:
1. Japan, Japan, Japan
2. Yazoo City, Mississippi (my mom's family is from there)
3. Istanbul
4. Mongolia

Four websites I go to daily (not counting blogs/social network sites):
1. Gofugyourself but it's kind of a blog
2. Chicagoist. wait, that's a blog too
3. Plan your Trip with CTA (the El/bus schedule)
4. Bank of America

Done and Done. I don't have anyone to tag. Boo.

all for me?

it would appear my two most recent cities are at war, at least in the blogosphere (i've never used that term before and am not sure i will again).

i am pretending it is over me.

LA strikes first

Chicago strikes back

curse you amanda!

so when i saw the "five things few people know" appear on ryan's blog my heart fluttered. not with anticipation, but with the terror you get when you are playing tag and you get tagged. or maybe that's just my terror. so i knew amanda would tag me. damn it. the main problem is i talk too much so there is really not all that much hidden in the depths of my soul.

1. fears seems to be a category people tackle. mine? walking up/down stairs in the dark. hate it. am convinced i will plummet to my death.
2. my new year's resolution every year is to not regret things. this means taking advantage of opportunities so that i won't regret not doing something and accepting the calamities i bring upon myself. at the same time, 90% of what i do is so that i can tell people i did it. savoring the experience is often eclipsed with telling a story about it afterward.
3. i purchase many, many books i never really read. and i have a strange ownership issue with books. don't like to borrow them, don't like to lend them (cheesy girl fiction aside).
4. i like all my cold beverages served at room temperature with no ice. i don't like cold on my teeth unless it is ice cream. this includes biting into popsicles which is akin to death for me.
5. the only thing i ever stole was a small blue ceramic shoe with a yellow lace that really tied. i stole it from a family i babysat for only a couple times. i have no idea why i did it but i think the shoe is still in my bedroom in philly.

i also hate trying to come up with shit like this because i sound a)boring and b)like a giant tool. why are you people friends with me?

totally pointless

my cousin is darfur.
beav's about to give birth.
my friend says she expects to make 300K a year by the time we are 30.
i just read about a 14 year old boy who died saving his aunt from a fire.

i'm sitting here surfing the net and can't even muster the enthusiasm necessary to go the gym.

i totally suck!

busted!

so, there has been something about someone that has been troubling me and i couldn't quite put my finger on it. this person is great, we get along, i enjoy spending time with them. still, there is something maddening about them.

i cracked their code this morning. i do this as well, so i am no one to fault them, but it's like they suddenly make a ton more sense. i have my secret decoder ring for them and i kind of feel compelled to tell them what i've figured out. but i can't, because no matter how well i put it, it sounds like an insult.

so, here it is. chances are if you are reading this, you are not that person (but maybe you are...)

you, dear friend, attempt to make things relevant and applicable to you that were most certainly NOT relevant or applicable to you. i can explain. everyone does this (oh, that song speaks to me, casablanca is timeless, diamonds are forever). but you, dear friend, you have the amazing ability to act as if time and space don't exist. that things that happened when you were 10 and were specifically culturally relevant to people 10 years older somehow meant the same thing to you AND had the same impact on you at that moment. but they can't have. i believe you apply things post facto. the relevance of a teen angst movie that was geared towards teens at the exact time of its release doesn't seem cute and a bit outdated but totally watchable. you claim that when you saw it at 7 it had the same meaning/message/relevance as it did for 17 year olds. and i'm sorry, but no one is that savvy. i can say i see movies now that were out when i was a kid and i get the message and enjoy it. but you'd argue that anything released/produced/created/whatever since your birth was totally digestible to you the moment it appeared. the only reason i find it maddening is that there is a generational ownership over certain pop culture icons. you can share, but you can't own. argh!

so there. i don't fault you for it. but you are so busted.