My favorite pre-party New Year's Eve moment ever? The time I was shopping at the downtown Rite Aid and the guy in front of me was purchasing the triple-threat combination of razors, a toothbrush, and condoms.
My personal favorite condom-buying moment? The time I had to get up in the middle of sex in the middle of the night and go to Safeway. I bought condoms and a bridal magazine.
It's true. It explodes. Has for years. But the Lunchable truth I just found out today is even weirder.
See, gogurt explodes because small hands aren't very good at opening the packaging. It's merely a side effect. This Lunchables truth is a feature of its design:
Stamp your ham.
That's right kids.
Stamp your ham!
So, it's like a sweet-tart that has a raised pattern on it and you lick it and raise it over the little meat circles and...
Stamp your ham!
One of my students gave one of hers to me with the words "It tastes good!" I started eating it until I realized that I didn't have to and stealthily threw it in the trash. Why?
I prefer to shake my ham. (Honey-baked, natch.)
After watching Act I of a certain play one of the break camp sixth graders remarked "Why the hell did they turn it into a musical?"
Why indeed.
But it also reminded me of a little story:
I was working with 1st and 2nd graders on Little Red Riding Hood from Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes. When I read the line "And uttered one disgusting word/Which I'm sure you've never heard" the seven-year-old in my lap looked up and said, "Was it fuck you?"
Since this boy was a homeschooled child and unaware of the other students' public school ways, I responded, "Y'know, they're not allowed to say that in school."
He scowled. "Why the hell not?"
Okay, he didn't swear again, but it's still a good question. Being able to swear well is a really handy skill. Currently we have students experimenting with cussin' on public transportation, students who merely string random curse words together. Such random strings may amuse we riders of Metro—"Oh, out of the mouths of babes!"—but the experimenters have deprived each syllable of its succulence. Experimentation is for drugs and sex, my friends.
Coincidentally, I learned to swear during sex. And tech week. Truly two wonderful sources for the skilled curser for a variety of hard-syllabled phrases, but for the novice, to add swearing is to learn too many new skills at once: what goes where, friction, hang and focus. If I'd already had the basics down, acquired in a supportive and neutral environment, I would have been able to attend more fully to the tasks at hand. (So to speak.)
Fuckshitdamn 101. We can do it! No child left behind! Standardize that test, mofo!
If you're going to make a movie with political overtones shouldn't it be, well, political?
(And that goes double for you, Jeepy McFraterson. Yes, double. Double for you and your pointy, pointy finger.)
I finally canceled the gym memberships we never use. Because my account had already been charged, we get to "use" the gym for two more months. The likelihood that we will do this is as high as it was when I had not canceled the membership.
The woman behind the desk said "Come...I'll give you caaaaaaaannnnnndy."
My mother brought us over several dozen this morning. Why? Tree decoration. We don't have any ornaments (see House Fire 2000) and thought we'd revert to the decor of our youth. Our mother sensed this all on her own and soon there will be cookies everywhere.
Or empty Saran Wrap that used to contain cookies. That'd be even more like the decor of our youth, all those Christmases when Erin and I would sneak behind the couch, reach around the tree, eat cookies in the corner, and leave the wrappers on the floor.
Cake.
Cake!
CAKE!!
CAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKEEEEEE!!!
(It just won't come when I call. Stupid cake. Doesn't even know it's own name.)
I get asked for directions at least once a day. "Do you know where Terry is?" "Did you see the number 7 go by?" "Is there a record store near here?" "Do you know what time it is?" It doesn't even matter if I'm in my hometown: I flew into Chicago, road the el from the airport, got off at Belmont, started walking to my friend's apartment and was asked if I knew how to get to Ann Sathers.
Under most circumstances I think this is just fine. I enjoy being helpful and I like knowing stuff. Let's hear it for public school!
But sometimes it makes me nervous. I'm okay if the asker is a fellow pedestrian or if we're both in our cars, but if I'm the pedestrian and someone in a truckasaurus pulls up and rolls down their window, before Mr. Wheeler even opens his mouth I know that I have become The Mark. I just know it. I just know that while Mr. Wheeler is busy distracting me with direction-asking, his compadre is kneeling behind me and waiting for Number 3 to shove me over. (Number 3 is a mad jogger, always on the run and at the ready in case The Mark has been set-up.)
And that's when I remember that Mr. Wheeler is Mr. Doesn't Know.
But wouldn't a Mad Jogger running around the streets, always ready to knock over marks be really funny? And don't try to tell me they already exist; those are rollerbladers. Bedsides, a Mad Jogger would be painted periwinkle blue and have a little capey.
You know how sometimes just doing one part of something makes you think that you've completed the endeavor? Like when you are certain you've "returned" something and then figure out that really you'd "put it in a box of important things?"
Yeah.
So, um, Josh and Sjet, you can have your tapes back now...
(I became compelled to figure out where they were when I watched the beginning of the Andy Richter show and realized that Todd Louiso was Dick in High Fidelity. I also found two Santas and a Mrs. Claus: not as rockstar as "two turntables and a microphone," but these hold candy!)
So there's a billboard in Everett that is always changing to various scary bouncing creepy babies. Each time I go there it makes me feel afraid in a new way.
Can you explain this one to me?
Because I don't get it at all. Especially since the version that I saw didn't mention the pro-life organization on it. (I wrote down the phone number and called when I got home.) I mean, I assumed so, because that's the sort of billboard that's always in that spot, but because of it's DNA message, I thought maybe they were saying the baby's daddy was dead and couldn't have had his eyes otherwise. Now I think maybe they're opposing stem cell research. Is that it? Am I supposed to start thinking that stem cells come from a baby farm? Am I supposed to think that there's a bunch of babies on this farm who are missing their daddy's eyes and now have the eyes of sheep?
I think I'm a little disappointed that when I called the 800 number it didn't turn out to be a special how-to phone message of making sure your baby had a specific eye color, compiled from old vocal recordings of Rutger Hauer. (Don't even think of making any Gattaca references.)
While at the Everett middle school this morning, I noticed the following words on a sign in the hallway:
Keep your backpack in your sight. If you cannot see it, it will be stolen.
It will be stolen? Do you think it's up to the school's authority figures to steal the left-alone backpacks if the students don't?
I wanted it to snow last night.
It didn't.
Now I have to go to Everett.
I put off getting out of bed, and this is what my brain did:
A Farm Dream
It is summertime and night and very hot. Many of us are running around in bathing suits at a party that is at my grandparent's house (but the farm machinery isn't there). We decide to go cool our feet in the siphon ditch in my uncle's bean field. As we're sitting there, the guy from the cafe across the street (no, there aren't really any cafes near my uncle's farm) comes over and says "You shouldn't be sitting in the wheat."
"It's not wheat," I say. "It's beans. Wheat has a tall slim stalk and turns golden this time of year. It's really lovely."
The man does not think this is funny and stomps away.
A Real Life Plan Keira had in 1998
Keira had just started dating Slits. It happened twice in a row that when she went to meet him and his friends, she happened to be wearing elbow length gloves. Keira really liked those gloves, so kept them on while at the bar. The friends noticed and commented. For four months, Keira wore gloves everytime she thought she might run into them in hopes that they would be overcome by their fear that something was horribly wrong with her hands or that maybe she was an alien. "Slits! You're dating an alien!" they'd say.
(It still isn't snowing.)
Today is the birthday of Bret Busacker. I had a crush on him that began with an 8th grade track meet and ended in 10th grade when we were finally at the same school and I found out he was bad at math. I moved on to a punk rocker who was good at math and who gave me an old golf ball for my birthday.
I received the following dating guidance in my youth:
When I was sixteen, my uncle was the bishop of our ward. During one of the annual teenager-bishop interviews, my uncle told me that it was my responsibility to date Mormon boys because if I didn't, they would be forced to date non-member girls and that would be two souls lost. (I'm still not sure which two souls he was talking about, whether he meant the Mormon boy who would become non-Mormon because I didn't date him and the non-Mormon girl because I didn't convert her or if he meant the Mormon boy because I didn't date him plus me because the non-Mormon I dated would lead me astray or...it's mind-boggling, really, but every path leads to And It Was Your Fault.)
Contrastingly, my father's advice came in this fashion:
When I was eleven or twelve my father and I went to a church-sponsored Daddy-Daughter party with a bunch of other girls of the same age. At it, we played a Newlywed-style game where we answered questions as our fathers would and vice versa. Right. So even though we were not even teenagers yet, one of the questions was "What is the most important quality your daughter would look for in a future mate?" (I'm not kidding. Mormon's were always using the word "mate.") My dad and I were sitting at the far end of the circle. We waited our turn to speak while listening to matched answers of "a return missionary," "someone who can take her to the temple," "a member of the church," and endless combinations and permutations thereof. My dad's anwer?
"Smarts."
Guess who of the above crushed-on boys was Mormon? Guess which girl isn't anymore? Guess which girl still has the same dating standards?
Robin Hood and Little John
Walkin' through the forest
Laughin' back and forth
At what the other'ne has to say
Reminiscin', This-'n'-thattin'
Havin' such a good time
Oo-de-lally, Oo-de-lally
Golly, what a day
Never ever thinkin' there was danger in the water
They were drinkin', they just guzzled it down
Never dreamin' that a schemin' sherrif and his posse
Was a-watchin' them an' gatherin' around
Robin Hood and Little John
Runnin' through the forest
Jumpin' fences, dodgin' trees
An' tryin' to get away
Contemplatin' nothin'
But escape an' fin'lly makin' it
Oo-de-lally, Oo-de-lally
Golly, what a day
Oo-de-lally, Oo-de-lally
Golly, what a day
Why is it that an anthropomorphized fox makes a much more attractive Robin Hood than any of the ones who are actually human?
I just wrote everyone's birthday in next year's calendar.
You'd better tell me when yours is just to be sure.
If you walked through that intersection eleven years ago, you might have passed a girl hidden under a mass of long blonde hair. She was most likely wearing a hooded black sweatshirt over a scoop-necked yellow cotton dress or Wrangler cut-offs plus a brown Sensuous Bean t-shirt with black tights and the mary-jane-est of Birkenstocks.
As she walked, she might have been running over ASL fingerings or hungry for an omelet or humming to herself or fiercely attempting to look mean or really late for work. Regardless of destination and style, two things would have been certain: she was shy and she was me.
One of my favorite things about living in one city for so long is that there are so many ghosts. I'm able to synchronize history and memory simultaneously if I'm talking goodtimes with other people, but if memory is recalled through a specific location the ghosts appear. Street corners and cafe tables star Haley Mills and Haley Mills.
The mirage of the city is Me and Her: we occupy the same space in two times at the same time. We share a name and a birthday, but our hair is different lengths. One of us rides the bus and the other drives a car. We have different jobs. One of us now dials the phone number of the house where the other of us used to live. One of us knows people the other has only heard of. We hang out in different places. One of us is really good at math. One of us really loves hair styling product. Neither of us has a passport.
Ghost riding through Ravenna on a sunny day, I've noticed we both think somebody is probably singing this about us.
Me: Take out a piece of paper...
C: You give us more homework than any of our other classes.
Me: Are you serious?
All students: Yes!
Me: You're kidding.
D: You're supposed to feel sorry for us, not think it's a joke.
J: It's way more than our other classes.
(Entire class responds.)
Me: No way. More than your math and science classes?
H: No, but this is an arts class.
C: Yeah, it takes me more time to do homework for this class. It's easier to write an essay.
Me: It takes you less time to write an entire essay than to write a short review?
C: Yeah, it takes like twenty mintues.
Me: Why does it take less time to write an essay?
H: We have to do research for this class.
Me: You don't have to do research for your essay?
H: No.
Me: What's your essay about?
H: A book.
Me: Didn't you have to read the book?
H: Well, yes, but...it's a book.