I've Made a Huge Mistake

I Am Not a Dog Person revisited

2007-10-23T16:52:00.000-07:00

Although I am still living in the suburbs, I am in the city a good 3-4 nights each week. Thanks to my good friends that live in the city and my boyfriend, I have a place to stay any time I want to get out of the 'burbs. Each week the nights I spend in the city change, except Saturday night. I cannot tolerate being in the 'burbs on a Saturday night. It feels even more pathetic than being here on any other night of the week, which is to say that it feels unbearably pathetic because it is only Tuesday and already I feel pretty damn pathetic.

This past Saturday night I went out with a girlfriend. We had fun and went to bed fairly late. For some reason, however, no matter how late I go to sleep and how drunk I am at the time of falling asleep, I am still up and around before 8:00. So I woke up early that Sunday, and I decided to take friend's dog for a walk. Some of you may remember that I am not a dog person. But that does not mean that if there is a dog in the room, I cannot figure out what to do with it. The dog was clearly eager to go out, so I threw a leash on him and took him for a walk with me. My intention was simply to get coffee and bring the dog home, but it was such a beautiful day in Chicago that I decided to walk around Bucktown for a good hour.

I learned a few things from this excursion. First of all, I confirmed that I am not, in fact, a dog person. I found myself annoyed with every totally natural dog-thing he did. I mean seriously, how many times do we have to stop and sniff the fire hydrant? Yes, another dog pissed on that hydrant. And, Henry*, those are leaves. Mystery solved. Enough with the stopping so we can smell them already. The second thing I learned is that, in spite of the first lesson I learned, if I am ever single again, I am going to buy a dog. I looked like poop when I went on this dog walk. My hair was in a pony tail. I had on workout clothes and running shoes, and I was wearing no makeup. Yet, I got hit on by more people than I did the night before when I was out on the town in full makeup**. None of the men was particularly attractive, but neither was I. Imagine if I had on even little makeup... a dash of blush here and an application of mascara there. Finally, I learned that dog owners somehow manage to ignore the fact that their dogs are sniffing each other's asses when they greet. Should we not acknowledge this? I mean, I would not expect a dog owner to acknowledge it if she encounters the same people on her walk all the time; but why not make a funny joke about it the first time? "Hey, didn't I see your dog at [insert local bar here] last night pulling that same move on a blond?" I mean, why the fuck not? It is so uncomfortable for me to watch this perfectly natural ritual happen. The whole sniffing situation paired with the daddy of the aggressor dog hitting on the mommy of the submissive dog makes for one awkward situation. Am I the only person that finds this impossible to ignore? Finally, I learned that I miss living in the city even more than I thought. It was a perfect fall morning in Chicago, and I walked that dog as long as I could before I had to head back to the 'burbs. So I had to suffer through some awkward dog sniffing moments along the way, but it was worth it. Is it Saturday yet?

*That's the dog's name, the same dog, in fact, who helped me to discover originally that I am not a dog person.
**Which isn't really saying much, since I don't generally get swarmed when I go out, but two guys in hit on me during my dog walk.

"V as in ________"

2007-09-24T17:26:00.001-07:00

I was shopping with my friend one day, and he had to spell his last name to place an order. He has a V in his last name and as he spelled it he said, "V as in Victor." I started thinking about this, and I asked the sales associate what word was most commonly used with "V as in _____." She said, as I suspected she would, "Victor." This puzzles me. Who the hell is Victor, and why do so many people agree that he is the guy for the "V as in _____" example? Since that day, I have asked everyone I know, and nearly all said that they would say "V as in Victor" if they had to spell something with a V in it. One or two patriotic types said "V as in victory," which might actually be worse.

I started thinking about hilarious alternatives to Victor. Now, if one wants to get blatantly gross, I would suggest "V as in Vagina," but I think one runs into the possiblity of offending someone with that choice. A more interesting approach would be to say something that might just make the person a little uneasy, such as "V as in Velvet-y" or "V as in voluptuous." This standard could be applied to other letters of the alphabet as well. Instead of "M as in Matthew", one could say "M as in moist," a word that causes many people to cringe. "P as in penetrate," "P as in push," or "T as in touch", "N as in naughty" "D as in discharge." I could go on for days. All these words are gross to be sure, but none of them is totally R-rated when given a neutral context. It is only R-rated to the person who has his/her mind in the gutter, which many of us do. If anyone tries this approach, PLEASE post a comment and let me know your results. I have not met anyone that has used this borderline dirty approach on a complete stranger. Anyone have any suggestions for borderline disgusting words? Or if you use something other than the standard "V as in Victor," please share.

But seriously, I do think we should push for something or someone other than Victor. I asked a friend of mine, whose last name begins with V, to try Vito. She is Italian, but that is not why I suggested it. I just like the name Vito, and I thought it would be a good substitute for Victor. The plan did not go well. The person whom she was talking to started laughing when she said "V as in Vito." What is so damn funny about Vito anyway?

On an unrelated note, I know I have not posted in a while, and I am seriously going to try to write more. As I said in my comments on the last post, I am feeling uninspired because of my current life situation. If things would start looking up, I might be more inspired to write. Until then, it is a struggle to get myself on a regular blogging schedule. I am going to work on it. I promise. It is really nice to see the people that keep coming back and prodding me to write. Ooh that is a good one, "P as in prod."

My iPod is queeny

2007-06-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

To keep me busy here in the 'burbs*, I have decided to get a job. Now, to be honest, my instinct was to keep myself busy at Oak Brook mall. I decided, instead, the mature thing to do would be to work to stay busy rather than spend to stay busy, a concept that I wish had occurred to me at 22 rather than 30. I am working at a trucking company with my mom. I have no idea what I am doing. I know that on some days I sort papers into separate piles. I put the originals in one pile and then the duplicates in another. Then I staple the piles together and put them in a stack and hand them to another person. I do a few other things too. I take these small cards and input data from them onto an Excel worksheet. Inevitably, one of the nice ladies working there will ask me something like "Did you get the Savannah pay sheets done" and I have to ask her to phrase her question using simple terminology, such as "Did you put the numeric information from the blue sheets and white sheets onto the beige machine with numbers and letters on it?" Then I am like, "Oh yes, they're right here."

It is mind numbing, and I am certain I am losing IQ points each day I sort papers into piles. They are paying me a fair wage, however, and the hours are flexible so I think I can spare a few IQ points. Frankly, I am losing no more than I would lose on the average Saturday night drinking binge. To pass the time, I listen to my iPod while I am doing my tasks. If I am just sorting documents into piles, I like to listen to the podcast of "This American Life", which I download every week. But if I am putting the numbers from the blue, pink or white sheets into the computer, I put my iPod on random because, although it is mind numbing work, I do need to pay attention at least a little while I do certain tasks; music can be good background noise, while Ira Glass' compelling stories of Americana simply cannot be tuned out. **In order to expose myself to all of my music, I try to listen to any song that comes up, even if it is one that I do not necessarily like very much. As it turns out, my iPod is a gay man with shitty taste in music. It picks Elton John, but only the bad songs like "Candle in the Wind". Or Queen, but only annoying songs like "Good Company." The other day the song "Let's Hear it for the Boy" from Footloose came on. I suddenly felt very embarrassed, and I immediately felt the need to switch it. I have this fear that just as, say, "Let's Hear it for the Boy" comes on, a news reporter is going to come up to me and ask me what I am listening to for some kind of story about people and iPods. I can imagine myself trying to justify having such a shitty song on my iPod and explain how it does not accurately represent my taste in music. "Wait! I should have been listening to Built to Spill! Or Pavement! Or the Flaming Lips! Or anything! ANYTHING BUT LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE BOY! " In fact, I am getting a little nervous just thinking about this unlikely situation.

* Yes, I have officially moved to my parents' home in the 'burbs. I am two days into it and already I am kind of losing my mind. Other than that, it's great.
** I have a lot of music on my iPod that I got from my ex-husband's collection. He has, let's call it electic tast in music, so there are hundreds of songs on there I have not listened to.

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President

2007-06-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

As I have may have mentioned before, I have a long commute to work every day. On average, I spend a good 2 hours each day in the car, roundtrip. This gives me a lot of time to think about various things... from my exciting life to the state of Illinois roadways. I spend an awful lot of time, in fact, on the latter.

One of the three roadways I take, I-88, is undergoing construction. The signs claim it is a "rebuild-widen" project, and I think that is supposed to make me feel better about the giant clusterfuck this constructions has caused on what used to be a smoothly run tollway. One of the first things they did in the 'rebuild-widen' clusterfuck project was install an electronic roadsign, much like the one seen in this photo. The one on the I-88, or the Regan as it is now called, spans the width of the highway. When I first saw that this was going up I thought it was an outstanding idea, even if I was a little bit annoyed with how much traffic it caused. I figured the sign could provide useful information, such as travel times, or, in the event of an emergency, evacuation information, like the one in the photo.

I overestimated the Illinois Department of Transportation in assuming it would want to use those costly signs to provide useful information for travelers. In fact, I would guess that on one out of every 30 days that sign displays useful information such as travel times. The other 29 days, it displays one of three messages:

U Drink, U Drive, U Lose

Click-it or ticket

Trucks take a longer time to stop. Please keep a safe distance away.

Not only is that first one annoying because it is written like a text message, but it, like the other messages, is a completely obvious piece of advice that could have been conveyed without spending millions of dollars on materials and construction crews and causing a lot more traffic than even an expert like me would have anticipated. Click-it or ticket? That is the one message the Illinois Department of Transportation wants to give me in the one second it has my attention? Are you fucking kidding me?

I am not here simply to rant about the useless information provided by those costly signs; I have a suggestion for how to improve the situation. If IDOT refuses to display useful traffic information, which I still maintain is the most obvious use for a sign that spans the width of a highway, I suggest using the sign to display information that the average American should have. Maybe IDOT should get its hands on the US Constitution and display things like the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. Or during Black History month, the sign could display information about important black people*. Frankly, I could come up with a million more interesting messages to display on the sign. How about a word of the day? Or a random fact about a famous Illinois resident? Or the cost of a ticket for speeding in a construction zone? Really anything other than U Drink U Drive U Lose would make me happy.

If you were in charge of the electronic road signs, what would you display?

*Well, I guess they could provide that information any time really, but you get my drift.

Is that your name, Rrusty?

2007-06-04T04:50:00.000-07:00

Now that I am off for the summer, I finally have time and motivation to write. Plus, my "loyal readers" (i.e. Marc), have hassled me enough that I feel bad for neglecting my blog. I have not posted since February, but I do not really have a reason for why. Every time I sat down at my computer to write, I could not bring myself to go to this page. If I got an email alerting me of the comments made on the blog, I just deleted them because thinking about responding felt like a lot of work. It is the worst case of blogger's block I have ever had. Anyway, I do have something to write about now, and, except for a little rustiness, so far I am in no pain.

My lease expires on July 1. That is less than a month away. In fact, it is a mere 26 days before I move. What exciting plans for my living situation do I have planned? Oh it is very exciting; I am moving in with my parents. You heard right, loyal reader! I turned 30 not two months ago, and I am taking a giant step back to suburbia and living with mom and dad. This was not an easy choice for me. In fact, I will not be totally confident that I will go through with it until I have all of my clothes, shoes and other personal belongings stored in my old bedroom and I am crying hysterically on my old bed. Then I will know for sure that I have officially made the decision to move into my parents' house. Honestly, my parents are fine. We get along well, and I like spending time with them. I think it is obvious why I am unhappy about this situation. I am 30. I, as everyone does, had expectations for where I might be at this age, and let me tell you, I never thought I would be where I will be in 26 days.

There are three things keeping me sane as I try to come to terms with this move. In no particular order they are:
- Money: By September, I should be completely out of credit card debt. By the end of the year, my car will be paid off. I will also be able to start saving money as well.
- "I've made a huge mistake" is the name of the blog for a reason. Although this is not the easy choice, it is the right choice. How does that saying go? The right choice is not always the easy one? I keep telling myself that. Then a friend of mine, who pretty much always makes the right choice, said in an email "You are making the right decision." That helped. I am going to tell her that today when I go to lunch with her.
- The light at the end of the tunnel: The Cop and I have been talking about buying a home and getting married... in that order. My hope is that both of those things will happen during my Winter Break, with a private wedding in Maui or Mexico the first week in January. I am prepared, however, to wait until Spring Break, with the wedding happening the first week in April. This option is clearly a DISTANT second to the December/January plan, but I am trying to stay positive about it. Plus, that gives me more time to save money for a home, furniture and a flat screen TV.

That is my boring post after a several-month hiatus. I promise to try to write something funny and entertaining on my next post, which will hopefully be within the next week or so. Now who wants to cheer me up and tell me moving home is not going to be that bad?

Disturbing or hilarious?

2007-02-22T15:06:00.000-08:00

On any given day, I hear some pretty interesting things as I roam the halls of the suburban high school where I teach. Some of the things I hear are kind of funny-- like the girl I overheard in the sophomore hallway near my room. "Jobs are hard when they make you do stuff," she said, in the most stereotypical 'bored teenage Midwestern girl' voice you can imagine. Mostly, though, they are disturbing. Once, as I worked at my desk, I heard a girl shout, and I do mean shout, to her friend in the hall, "I got LAID last night!" I felt like walking out there and offering her congratulations in her amazing feat. God knows it is a challenge to find someone to sleep with you when you are a teenage girl with low self-esteem.

By far the most horrifying thing I have ever overheard was said by a girl that was no older than 14. I was leaving the building and passing the mass of students waiting by the exit for their buses. This is a particularly perilous time to leave the building for a few reasons, not the least of which is that you are likely to overhear students in their first moments of freedom after being held captive in school all day. They are loud. They are rude. And they are crude. Apparently, they are also whores.

Here is what I heard Tuesday when I left work. A few boys and one girl were standing together waiting for the bus. One of the boys was carrying a platter of cookies, which he probably made in his "Foods" class. The girl said "I'll give you a blow job for one of those cookies."

Now, you have to understand; I walk past thousands of kids on a weekly basis. I hear stuff that I have to let slide-- curse words, arguments, anti-teacher propaganda-- even if it is my instinct is to turn around and beat the shit out of the offender. If I stopped every kid that appalled me, I would not make it to class. To be fair, I did not exactly ignore this girl, but I wish I had done more. As I stopped dead in my tracks, this misguided girl realized she had offered a blow job for a plate of cookies in front of a teacher. I simply turned to her and said, "Can you please at least have the courtesy not to talk like that in front of a teacher?" When I got in my car, I could not help but think I should have said more. But what? What can I possibly say to a 14-year-old who is willing to offer a blow job for a cookie? Here are some options:
1. "I will give you a lifetime supply of cookies if you promise never to offer sexual favors for cookies as long as you are alive."
2. "Come with me; we are going to the social worker."
3. "Give me your cell phone so I can call your parent/guardian and tell him/her what you just said."

The worst part was her reaction, or lack thereof. She glanced at me with this coy look on her face, a look like, 'oh I'm so ashamed that this old lady heard me being slutty. I'm so naughty aren't I boys?' I wanted to drag her by the hair into my car and tell her that she was making a fool out of herself. It was almost like she was proud.

On one hand, I find this story HILARIOUS. On the other hand, I find it disturbing. If it happened in a movie that was a parody about how high school girls are turning into cheap whores with low self-esteem, I would find it hilarious. But it was not a movie. It was at my job, and it was a real girl with low self-esteem who, at the very least, thought it was appropriate to portray herself as a cheap whore.

How about you? Is this disturbing or hilarious?*

*I won't be offended either way.

I'm not a dog person

2007-02-02T15:16:00.000-08:00

I have a good friend who is the type of person who will do anything for you if you ask. Technically I do not ask for many favors from Friend, but I know when I do he will say yes. Because of that, and because I want to be a nice person, I am happy to help him out when he needs it. Then he got a Puppy. He's little, fluffy and energetic. When Friend asked me to dog sit Puppy for one night, I was not exactly thrilled at the idea of fulfilling this request. In fact, I was terrified. I have never had a pet in my life*, and this is the first dog I have ever really been around for more than a few minutes. But seeing as how I live three blocks from Friend, have a predictable work schedule and have been on the receiving end of one or more of Friend's favors and good deeds, it was a reasonable request which I felt I ought to fulfill.

My first task was stop at Friend's house on Monday and let Puppy out so he could pee. This is a manageable task, even if you had a relatively petless childhood. Sure it was kind of annoying trying to calm Puppy down enough so that I may put on his collar. And it was also a little frustrating trying to get Puppy to stay focused long enough to actually exit the building before he pissed with excitement. And frankly it tried my patience a little as I stood outside waiting for Puppy to find the right place to take a piss in the 8 degree weather. Not surprisingly, I also did not like picking up Puppy's poop. But I was out of there in under 10 minutes so I was feeling confident.

Once I got past that event, I figured the one night's stay on Thursday night would be a breeze. I mean, how bad could one night be? I kept a fish alive for a good three weeks when I was a kid, how could I fail at taking care of a harmless little puppy for one night?

How to fail at taking care of a harmless little puppy for one night in three simple steps:

Step 1: Do no play with Puppy. Friend left me a bag with toys, treats, food and a note. The note indicated that puppy would be eager to play once I got him home because he had been caged all day long. So I got Puppy in the house, and I thought, 'Ok, dog, play.' But he did not. He just stared at me as if he expected me to play with him. The idea of playing with the dog baffled me because, frankly, I do not know how to do that. I have seen people wrestling on the floor with dogs. But Puppy weighs maybe 5 lbs; I don't think he would last long in a wrestling match with a full-grown woman. And to be honest, if he were a safe wrestling weight, I would not roll around on the floor with an animal that licks his own asshole on a bet. I still do not know what Puppy expects of me. In fact, this very minute he is moping around with a bored look on his face and whining every so often. It is a little sad.
Step 2: Overestimate how long Puppy can go between bathroom breaks. That had to happen only once. Now I take him out every 10 minutes, which is great as Chicago is reaching its lowest lows of the winter.
Step 3. Make Puppy feel unwelcome in bed. Friend told me that Puppy likes to sleep in Friend's bed with him and has never slept in his own cage before. Friend said I did not have to let Puppy sleep with me, but I would probably have a better shot at a good night's sleep if I allowed him to do so. So I laid down some towels on the bed, set up a barrier between him and I so his dirty paws did not touch me. I figured I had met all the requirments for a good night's sleep, even for an animal. Not the case. I was very tired yesterday so I try to lie down in bed by 9:30. Puppy looked at me like I was joking. So he whined, and cried, tried to get out of bed, and stared at the door, and tried to jump on me several times, in a failed attempt to be charming and playful. Finally I realized two hours had passed since the last time I took him outside. There I was in the below zero temps trying to convince Puppy that he should be peeing, not trying to chase his tail, make his paws dirtier by running around in the snow or chasing the occasional car that passed. When we got back in the house, I put Puppy on the floor and let him whine until he gave up. I feel asleep, and when I woke up at around 2:00, Puppy was still awake, curled up under my nightstand and listening to Miles Davis with me.

Overall, I have decided that while I may like the occasional visit with this puppy and others like him, I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a dog person.

* I did have a fish once, but I didn't realize until this dogsitting incident that owning a fish does not qualify one as a pet owner.

Paisans

2007-01-17T18:47:00.000-08:00

I do not want to jinx myself, but I think I am finally better. After the last post, I was still sick for several more days. In fact, I only started feeling like myself just yesterday. I even went to the gym on Monday and Tuesday. I know how I got back to normal; it was the mere act of calling a doctor that made me better. That's right. I did not even have to actually visit a real doctor. I just had to call one, find time in my schedule for an appointment, and arrange a sub so I could leave early to make this appointment. It is a good thing, in fact, that I got better without an actual visit to the doctor because when I got there for the appointment, I was too afraid to go in. Let me explain.

If I blindly have to choose a person from a list of names, say to pick a doctor, I always try to find a person with an Italian name and select him/her. I have to resort to such an arbitrary means of selecting a doctor because I grew up in the suburbs and so did many of my friends. So while most people might choose a doctor based on a referral from a friend, I could not do that because I want a doctor near my home in the city. That explains why I had to go about finding a doctor based on whether or not his/her name ended in a vowel. I went on my insurance company's website, and I found a list of doctors within a 5 mile radius of my home. In Chicago, a 5 mile radius of anywhere can encompass the richest and poorest neighborhoods in the city all at once, and Bucktown, my 'hood, is no exception. When I looked at the list and found a Dr. Mario Silvo* 11 blocks west of my house, I hesitated because it is a shady neighborhood. But Dr. Mario Silvo? How can I say no to Dr. Mario, a paisan? I cannot say no to Dr. Mario. In hindsight, I probably should have been struck by a few things when I called for the appointment. First of all, I called to make an appointment on Monday, and I got one for the following Wednesday. That is unheard of, especially if you are a new patient. Second, the receptionist did not ask if I had insurance. When I offered that information, she seemed surprised that a potential patient actually had insurance. Finally, she did not ask for what reason I wanted to see a doctor. Sure, it is a general family practice, but I kind of expected her to ask what event convinced a healthy 30-year-old woman that she needed to see a doctor. None of these facts registered as odd at the time, but when I pulled up to the office today, it all started coming together. Not only was my doctor's office in the ghetto, but I have a hunch that Dr. Mario Silvo himself is, in fact, ghetto. Again, I knew that 11 blocks from my home was a rough neighborhood, but I also know that is an "up and coming" neighborhood* that is getting many new businesses and restaurants. I was hopeful that Dr. Mario Silvo was part of that wave of nice new businesses establishing themselves to revitalize this struggling neighborhood.

Not so much. The mere fact that I was not hit by a pickup truck or a stray bullet on my way into the "office" was a miracle in itself. Sure, I was hesitant, but I wanted to keep an open mind. When I walked up to the office, I looked in the window and saw three alarming things;
1. A man in the waiting room who looked just a little too close homeless for my taste***
2. Trash strewn on the waiting room floor
3. The receptionist seated behind a cage

Yes, you read correctly, the receptionist was seated behind a cage. I opened the door, looked in to see this mess and walked right out. I am not that sick folks. I keep telling myself that Dr. Mario Silvo is probably Latino to ease the guilt I feel for skipping out on an appointment with a paisan.

* I have made only a minor alteration to his name to make a half-hearted attempt at protecting this doctor's identity
** to be fair, it is more "coming" that "up" but still...
*** not to be a snob, but I have insurance and a steady job; there's no need for me to have the same doctor as a homeless man

mmm... generic

2007-01-11T15:11:00.000-08:00

After bragging in a recent post that I rarely get sick, I fell ill last week. "Fell" puts it mildly by my standards of illness. It was actually more like a dive, maybe even a plunge, into illness. I found myself working out and going about business as usual one day and a prisoner of my couch the next. Everyday I went to bed ill, I said to myself, "Well thank God that's over" because I have never been sick for more than two days much less the six days I was this time around. And if you read that recent post, you will not be surprised when I tell you that I did not have any of the necessary medications in the house when this illness struck. So I got my tired, be-fevered body off the couch, and I made a trip to Walgreens, where I became even more ill when I saw the price of the brands familiar to me. NyQuil, Advil, Tylenol... no thanks. Why would I buy Advil for $7.29, when I can buy "Wal-profen" for 2 for $4? It's a no-brainer.

However, I learned the difference lies not in subbing generic "Wal-profen" for Advil, but in subbing "Wal-quil" for NyQuil. NyQuil comes in cherry. You have options with NyQuil. "Wal-quil" however, comes only in green, which when I selected it, I was hopeful might signal mint or perhaps something in the apple family. I brought it home and waited eagerly for bed time to come so that I could take NyQuil, sorry "Wal-quil", which would knock me out allowing me presumably to wake up cured because, god knows, I had awaken in a pool of sweat enough times that I should be cured by morning. I digress... Guess what flavor green "Wal-quil" is? No, not mint. No, not apple. Black licorice. I cannot think of a more polarizing flavor than black licorice. You either love it or you hate it. There is no neutral in the realm of black licorice. I am in the 'hate it' camp, and downing my nightly dose of "Wal-quil" for the past week ranked up there on the miserable meter with the cold sweats and pounding headaches.

The only good thing that came out of this was having my parents take care of me for a few days. For the first several days I just stayed at my apartment, where my roommate and boyfriend kept me company. Because I was on winter break, I just couched it all week and assumed the illness would be gone by this Monday when school started. And on Sunday morning, I even woke up feeling okay (albeit clammy) so I thought I was safe to go hang out with my parents, stay there and go directly to work in the morning to begin the new semester. But by 6:00 that night, the fever came back to the tune of 103.4, which according to my dad, is .1 away from a trip to the hospital (which I interpreted as .2 away from brain damage).

Anyway, I am almost 100% now, and I am even going to attempt going to the gym tomorrow, which is probably where I caught this thing to begin with. Better wear my skull cap.

Post Holiday Blues

2007-01-03T11:23:00.000-08:00

The holidays are over and that makes me sad because I enjoy the holidays. Here is something else that makes me sad...

That little emoticon sad face kills me. On Yahoo Instant Messenger, this sad face is even more pitiful because it is animated, and its little eyebrows raise up and down to emphasize just how sad he is. There are a few other things that make me sad, such as Tom Robinson in the movie To Kill a Mockingbird and when my boyfriend leaves and I know I will not see him for a few days.

Besides obvious things like death, war and break ups, what makes you sad?

The Year in Review

2006-12-20T16:58:00.000-08:00

I stole this idea from ND Heathen, whose page is listed on the right. Below you will find the first line of the first blog of each month this year. Also, I have added a new post to "My Favorite Mistakes" list. It is called 'Inner Peace,' and I don't mind saying that I think it is pretty funny stuff. Anyway, in honor of my one year blogging anniversary, which just passed, here is my year in review.

January: There's really no delicate way to tell this story.
February: I am the advisor of the student newspaper at the high school where I work.
March: We've had institute days for the past 1.5 days.
April: Spring break, the last extensive recess of the year, officially comes to an end tonight, hence the sad face.
May: I don't have much to say.
June: I was married once for 8 months.
July: I TiVo "Inside the Actor's Studio."
August: I am off to St. Louis this weekend to visit my friends from college
September: I'm supposed to be grading right now.
October: I have always been fond of tests, surveys or inventories that purport to classify my personality.
November: Thanks to those of you that have pushed me to come back.
December: One of the best Christmas gifts I ever got was a huge box filled with various types of medicine.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Panic

2006-12-17T05:34:00.000-08:00

I am nothing if not predictable. Monday-Friday, I eat the same food for every meal. I wake up at the same time every day, go to bed at the same time every day. By 5:00 you can find me at the gym, 6:30 eating dinner, 7:00 on the couch grading/blogging/watching tv/emailing friends. If we make plans for 7:00 on Friday, I'll be there at 7:00 on Friday. If there is a chance that I am going to be more than 5 minutes late, I'll text you or call you to tell you so. I have told my boyfriend that if ever I tell him I will be somewhere at some time, and I am not there within a few minutes of when I say I will be, call the police to tell them to start searching for the bloody remains of a 30-year-old white female on the side of the major roadways in the Chicago.

I am like this because my parents made me this way by being the two most predictable people on the face of the Earth, leading me to this story. It takes place over the course of about 25 minutes, which, in my family, is 20 minutes longer than is needed to make my sister and me totally hysterical.
My parents were supposed to go to my sister's house on Thursday night. I was at book club when my phone rang at about 8:00, and I saw my niece's (adorable) face on the caller ID, indicating that it was my sister. Because my sister never calls me at 8:00 on any night, I picked up the phone, assuming it must be important if she was calling me at this hour. She told me that my parents had said they would be coming over, but they had not yet shown up. This is not at all like them, and my heart immediately started racing. I said goodbye to my book club friends, and started toward my boyfriend's house, which is about 10 blocks from where book club was being held. I called him to tell him what was going on, and he told me to keep calling them and to try some of their friends to see if anyone had heard from them.

On my way to his house, both my sister and I tried home and cell phones multiple times. When I say "multiple" I mean I made about 15 calls in those 10 blocks. They did not answer any phone. When I tell normal people this story, they might think, "Well maybe they were at dinner or a movie and they had their phones off." Wrong. Not only would they never go to dinner and a movie when they said they would be at my sister's house, but they ALWAYS answer the phone. My dad could be at the consecration of the Pope, and he would take a call in the middle of Holy Communion. We do not screen out the phone calls of family members in the Mischke family. If we do, and the person calls 15 times in the space of 10 city block's drive-time, we come to our senses and pick up.

My sister lives only about 15 minutes from my parents' house, so she drove over there to see if they were home. To me, this meant my soon-to-be permanently scarred sister was driving to find the bloody remains of our parents. At this point I was sobbing, hyperventilating and sweating, while trying to figure out how I would deal with the news media that would inevitably descend upon the home of the tragic suburbanite family who had its loving parents slain in some awful way in their quiet neighborhood. When she got there, she opened the garage door, and all of the cars were there. This sent us both into a complete panic (as if we were not in one already), and she hung up to call 911, as my boyfriend told her it was not safe to go in the house alone if something might be wrong. *For some reason it took the cops about 15 minutes to arrive, which gave my sister and I plenty of time to sob on the phone together while she sat in her car in front of their house, and I sat helpless in the boyfriend's living room 25 miles away.

When the cops came, they went in the house, and my mom was sitting on the couch, probably watching soap operas, and my dad was upstairs, probably watching 'Seconds from Disaster'. They had gotten in an argument; they "weren't in the mood to talk," so they didn't pick up any of the three phones that had rung 30 times in the last 25 minutes. Unacceptable. I have never been so terrified in my whole life.

*My heart is literally racing just telling the story.

Stocking up

2006-12-10T05:32:00.000-08:00

(The picture is irrelevant, but those are my adorable nieces and nephew)
One of the best Christmas gifts I ever got was a huge box filled with various types of medicine. At the time, I just thought it was funny, but months later when I had a sore throat and actually had a remedy for it in my house, well, I was never so grateful. It was from my now-former father-in-law, and he bought it because I had become notorious in their family for not keeping medicine in my home. Their son, who was prone to getting ill, had to drive over to their house to pillage the medicine cabinet everytime he had a headache. Poor bastard.

In my "medicine cabinet," there are no cures for any kind of ailment (except wrinkles, dry skin and bad breath). Once I had a jar of ibuprofen, but that belonged to a roommate. Currently, I have a box of halls that my boyfriend bought me when I had a sore throat. The only thing that bothered me more than the sore throat was the taste of those lozenges; only one is missing from the 2-year-old box.

The lack of medicine in my life isn't just because I don't get sick. It goes deeper than that. Some people are planners. Take my roommate for example. Under her bed she has one of those giant rolling tupperware thingys filled with backups of every beauty product she'll ever need. Shampoo. Conditioner. Cotton swabs. Hair brushes. Rubberbands. It's a virtual pharmacy under her bed. Under my bed? Giant dust bunnies, summer clothes and a duffel bag of the journals I've kept over the years.*

I have only one of everything I need. I don't deny that it makes sense to live like my roommate; I even envy the sense of stability she must feel. Yet I cannot bring myself to buy something at the store unless I absolutely need it. I have to be down to the last squirt of contact solution, the last squeeze of the toothpaste tube, before I will venture into the drug store section of my grocery store. I've even tried buying things I don't yet need. Every so often I'll see a bag of cotton balls displayed at the end of an aisle as I'm walking toward the items I actually need, and my body simply will not allow me to buy the cotton balls when I know there are cotton balls in the cabinet at home. Or when I bought my multi-vitamins a few months ago, I stared at the shelves stocked with Tylenol and Advil type products, and did the math in my head. Sure, I drink a lot of wine. But will I get $8.00 worth of headaches before this thing expires in four years? Nope. Back to the salad dressing.

Just like everything else, it stems from my childhood. Growing up, we were not allowed to get sick. Our medicine supply was limited to a box of generic aspirin under the sink that my dad stole from his first-aid kit at work. Beyond that, if you got really sick, you either had to ask mom to go to the store and buy you a cure for your ailment or suck it up. Either way, you were going to school. I could be bleeding out my eyes, and my mom would have handed me a square of toilet paper and said, "Go to school."

I'm afraid I am making my mom sound like a total bitch. She's not at all. She's actually the best mom in the world (seriously), but she is intolerant of the not-deathly ill. I mean, I heard the woman just two weeks ago call my dad a pussy for having a cold. And my dad never gets sick, so on the rare occasion that he does, you'd think she'd have some sympathy for the man she's been married to for 33 years. Nope. Suck it up, old man, and go to work.

What's in your medicine cabinet?

* I'm really hating this personality flaw right now, as I was in a mini-quiche eating contest last night and lost, and I would kill for some pepto bismol. A bottle of ibuprofen would be nice as well to combat the wicked headache I'm fighting because of the bottle of pinot I drank just before the quiche eating began.

Skull cap brotherhood of Chicago

2006-11-28T17:35:00.000-08:00

I really don't have much to say today, but I felt I needed to create another post to stop all the negative feedback I'm getting from my most recent post. Here's a picture of a pretty flower. Everyone feel better now?

As I considered what to write about this week, I realized all I have to say involves the gym. That's because I pretty much do nothing but go to the gym and go to work. Work isn't much fun to write about because kids are kids and no one wants to hear about the goofy stuff my freshmen do. Frankly, I'm probably the only person that finds them adorable. The gym, though, is becoming my favorite subject to write about, mainly because there are so many interesting people there. I still focus primarily on the skull cap guy, who is relentless in his assault on common sense. Regardless of the fact that it has been unseasonably warm, skull cap guy continues to wear his winter gear indoors. To make matters worse, he has initiated a new member into his sick cult, and now there is another skull cap guy roaming around. New skull cap guy actually wore a gray cable-knit winter cap that clearly belonged to his girlfriend (or more likely was left behind in his apartment by the last Trixie he bagged). He wore it only once though; I suspect original skull cap guy informed new skull cap guy that he had to find a more manly skull cap to keep his membership active.

I'll try to come back with something more positive someday. However, I will say, I have a notoriously dark sense of humor and a generally negative outlook on life. I'll laugh at things no one else will. So I thought my last post was hilarious... one of my favorites even. You don't have to agree, but if it pissed you off, I'd suggest finding another blog because I can't promise that I won't piss you off again.

Female Unbonding

2006-11-19T05:17:00.000-08:00

I'm notoriously bad at breaking up with people. I don't mean just boyfriends (but I am, in fact, terrible at breaking up with them too), I mean friends. Here's a good example.

I made friends with a girl in junior high. Even at that time, I wasn't nuts about her. But she was the first person I met when I moved into the new town, so I was just happy to have a friend at all; I wasn't about to be picky just because she had bad taste in music and was wearing spandex teal biker shorts and a tie-dyed shirt the first time I met her. She was friendly, but we didn't have much in common, even in 6th grade. Still, I hung out with her because she was nice, and her circle of friends welcomed me in. Through high school, we continued to be friends, although only casual ones. When college came around, I thought I'd finally freed myself of her, until the internet thing caught on, and she tracked me down at Marquette. She started emailing me, and I, of course, replied and continued to feign interest in her dull life.

Fast forward 10 years, and she is still my friend, although, once again, only a casual one. And I am not happy about it. To make matters worse, our parents became friends while we were away at school, making a breakup even more impossible. I am sure I am coming across as evil in admitting that I pretended to like a person for a good 18 years, but you'd understand if you met this girl why I never really liked her. First of all, she's Republican. And I don't mean a level-headed conservative who just has different views on, say, social security than I do; I can be friends with people like that (hell, I'm dating a person like that). I mean I went to her house one day and saw Ann Coulter's "How to Talk to a Liberal (if you must)" book sitting on the kitchen table. Ann FUCKING Coulter, people! Can any liberal truly be expected to have a friendship with a woman her reads that filth? Of course not! On top of that, she became one of those people that tries to sell stuff to her friends. Girls, you know the kind of friend I am talking about. She has makeup parties and sells a product called Arbon out of her home. *When you go to her house, there are Arbon catalogues filled with $500 jars of eye cream and skin firming agents. She doesn't pressure you to buy it; she just gives you her "no-nonsense" I'm-not-into-this-kind-of-thing-either, but-it's-just-such-a-quality-product! routine. The arbon thing grew out of her next big flaw; she's on a very tight budget, which she will tell you roughly 19 times in the first hour of meeting her. It will become immediately apparent to you that she and her husband hoard their money and forgo any type of entertainment or joy in their lives just so that they can say they have enormous amounts of money saved. Finally, overall, we have nothing in common. She lives in the suburbs. She has kids. She married her high school sweetheart. She thinks gays are evil. She has dogs. And cats. In a big stupid house. She has never lived in the city. Never wants to. Can't understand why anyone would. She's fiscally responsible. She's conservative. **She "runs errands." Why, in god's name, would she want to be friends with me anyway? What possible appeal does a girl like me have when you are a girl like her?

I finally had enough recently (I think the last straw was after she named her child something ridiculous), and I have officially dumped her. I just didn't answer the phone one day. And I never returned her call. After she had the kid whom she gave the ridiculous name to, I didn't send a gift, which pretty much seals the deal on 30-year-old woman breakups.

* If any of my readers sell Arbon or anything like it, please do not be offended. If this were her only flaw, I would forgive it and probably buy a jar of eye cream to support her.
** I hate the word errands; but worse, she says it ALL the time, and invites others to go with her, as if this is her idea of fun.

The return of the ridiculous!

2006-11-12T06:39:00.000-08:00

Thanks to those of you that have pushed me to come back. I'm really rusty so I cannot promise this will be any good. Marc was nice enough to offer some suggestions of celebrity folly to inspire me to write. That was nice, but I don't find inspiration in celebrities being ridiculous. If I did, I'd be on this thing every minute of the day. I find inspiration in every day people being ridiculous. And for some reason, I haven't encountered nearly enough idiots being ridiculous to put together a blog.

The lack-of-ridiculous record was shattered last week thanks to a few ridiculous people who are now the topic of my first blog in over a month.

1. Lisa Labes of Chicago Public Radio.
I woke up a little early on Election day so that I could get to the polls before work. As I was getting ready, the incompetent morning hostess Lisa Labes said that the polls opened at 7:00. I was baffled. I was sure they opened at 6:00 because I always vote before work, and 7:00 is not before work. I figured she must be mistaken and that she'd correct herself before it was time for me to leave. But she just kept saying it, and I assumed it was I who was mistaken. Then, at 6:20, when I was half way to work, the bitch comes on and says she was wrong; the polls opened at 6:00. It totally ruined my day, and I sent an email to Chicago Public Radio to tell them so. I pulled the whole, "I'm a member of this station and I expect more of my public radio station..." bit. Sure I voted after school, but it really messed up my day and night. I didn't even get to show off my "I voted!" sticker to my students.

2. People in my age group.
I'm just about the only person I know in my age group who voted. My roommate didn't vote. My former roommate didn't vote, and I'd be willing to bet his current roommate didn't vote. My best friend didn't vote, and several other people I know who are my age did not vote. It's disgusting. I don't care how busy you are; you can make time to vote. I don't care if you know nothing about the election; you should still vote. For example, I know only one judge on the list of judges we are asked to reject or retain. He is the father of one of my elementary school rivals, so I always vote to boot his ass off the bench. But other than that, I am completely ignorant of what's going on with our judges. So I take the Chicago Tribune's election day endorsements into the booth with me, and I take their recommendations on judges or any other race about which I am uncertain. If you know nothing about two candidates, pick one based on the party you tend to agree with. Or God forbid, listen to the damn news once in a while and learn something about what's going on in the world. Thousands of soldiers have died trying to bring Democracy to the people of Iraq, not to mention the millions more who died before them to protect ours. Maybe more than 40% of us we could show a little appreciation of that and take advantage of the one we have going here? Just a thought.

3. Skull cap guy at the gym.
The primary reason I go to the gym, of course, is to stay in shape. But a VERY close second is the opportunity to people watch. There are some very ridiculous people walking around the gyms of Chicago, and mine is no exception. My favorite people to watch are the trainers and staff of the gym. They are all "hot" in that gym rat kind of way, which is to say that, once they step outside the protective walls of the gym, they immediately become cheesy, fake and annoying. The guy that annoys me the most these days is the one who wears his winter skull cap indoors. I've seen guys like this in other places, and it's bad enough. But something about wearing a hat designed to protect your ears from the cold in a hot and steamy place like a gym is extra ridiculous. His ridiculous-ness doesn't stop at the skull cap though. Yesterday he had on a very tight long sleeved shirt that had a gun air brushed on the shoulder... I presume to be ironic about the "huge guns" sausaged underneath, nearly tearing the seams of the flimsy shirt. But the skull cap is killing me. The first time I saw him with it on I thought for sure he'd just come in from the outside and would be taking it off momentarily. Nope. The entire time I was there, he wore it, and he'd had it on every day I've seen him since then.

Well, that's all I can come up with right now. I have another idea for a post brewing in my head, so I'll be back soon.

Are you an asshole?

2006-10-06T18:12:00.000-07:00

I have always been fond of tests, surveys or inventories that purport to classify my personality. When I was a teenager, the first place I looked in those teen magazines that inevitably destroyed my already fragile self-esteem was the obligatory personality test. With these test, I sought to learn my "shopping personality" and "which jeans best describe my personality?" To this day, I even do those stupid internet quizzes to determine which South Park character I am, even though I don't watch South Park. I rarely like the outcome, but that never stops me from taking part.

So when my colleague told me about an enlightening personality test she was "trained" on, I of course asked her for a copy of it. To begin with, I did not realize personality tests required training; however, even though I have taken many of these, I can't claim to be an expert in the field of diagnostic personality profiling. Inevitably, when I take these tests, I find out what I have always suspected was the case...
I kind of suck.

Now to be fair, I do, of course, learn that I have a few positive traits, but I can't help but harp on the bad ones. Based on the "Wired That Way" personality profile, I am mostly a "powerful choleric" but with strong "popular sanguine" tendencies. What does that mean? In a nutshell:
Sue Ellen The Powerful Choleric:
I'm a born leader, dynamic and active but also bossy, brassy, impatient, unsympathetic and inflexible.
I'm goal oriented, organized and I seek practical solutions, but I'm also intolerant, rude, tactless, demanding and manipulative.
I'm a leader who is "usually right", but I tend to use people, dominate others, am possessive and incapable of saying I'm sorry.

Sue Ellen The Popular Sanguine
I'm a talkative storyteller who is "good on the stage", but I'm also a loud talker and laugher who scares other off.
I'm energetic and enthusiastic and charming, but I'm also forgetful, undisciplined and emotional.
I make friends easily and I'm "envied by others", but I need to be the center of attention, am domineering (this one keeps coming up) and I hate to be alone.

Basically, I'm an asshole.

This isn't totally accurate, which I am sure you won't find surprising. For example, the powerful choleric "excels in emergencies." That's not me. I respond well to pressure, but put me in an emergency, and I'm in the fetal position in the corner with tears streaming down my face. The powerful choleric is also unemotional; I am nothing if not emotional. I guess that's why I'm not totally one or the other, but a mix of both. I made my boyfriend take it. Turns out, he's an even bigger asshole than I am. I guess one asshole deserves another.

Gym woes

2006-09-30T11:48:00.000-07:00

In an effort to save money, I have joined a new gym. The gym I used to belong to was 18 holes shy of a country club. Every piece of cardio equipment had a flat screen television attached to it. There was a free ice maker and water machine on every floor with complimentary cups so you didn't have to bring your own water bottle. The cafe had a salad bar, the best smoothies outside of a jamba juice and fresh-baked rolls. The locker room had granite countertops, some kind of fancy tile work and huge lockers. There was a nice dressing area with complimentary lotion, hairspray, gel, mousse, mouthwash and razors. It was nicer than any bathroom I've ever had in my own home. And I paid a hefty price for all of that-- to the tune of $90 a damn month.

Not so with the new gym. In fact, I paid a hair over $500 for a 15-month membership, which is a considerable savings. There are, like, a thousand locations in the Chicago area alone, so if I find myself in, say, Kanakee, and I have an urge to do some cardio, I'm in luck because there is probably a location there where my membership is accepted. I'd wager the Kankakee location is only slightly more unglamorous than the Lakeview location that I frequent. It's not that it's dirty, or dank or small, but it's just a plain old gym, which is unfortunate since I have to go roughly 4-6 days/week to keep my ass from getting big. And the Lakeview location is one of the nicer ones, or at least that's what "Brent" told me when he was taking my money for the membership. I signed up at the Lakeview location, but I went to the Old Town location one day to see what it was like, since it is slightly more convenient to my home depending on traffic. While that one did feature cardio equipment with televisions attached, I noticed that every single person was watching either MTV, BET or the CW. At my old gym, most people at least had the courtesy to PRETEND to have a brain and watched CNN or the History channel. There was even the occasional blue-blood Fox News viewer working up a sweat to Hannity and Combs. At the Old town location though, people shamelessly watched reality TV, dating programs and checked each other out, all while sculpting their ridiculously toned bodies. I simply cannot workout around people who do not understand the value of pretending to have an interest in something intelligent for a mere 60 minutes to spare oneself from looking stupid in a public place.

There was one girl who seemed less interested in working out than getting nailed in the men's locker room. She was wearing tall retro-inspired knee socks (you know, the ones with the colorful rings around the top that Dr. J might have worn in the 70s) hot pants, a thin sleeveless thing that just barely passed as a shirt, a black push-up bra and fucking PIG TAILS. Pig Tails! She paraded around the gym walking up and down the aisles like it was a catwalk and not once did she put her skinny ass on a piece of cardio equipment, which was a mystery to me because she did have a nice ass, that bitch. I was half expecting her to ask me to direct her to the nearest pole so she could prepare for her act for later that night. Anyway, I had only to go to that location once to know that I was not cut out for that. With my Target bought two-sizes-too-big yoga pants and yellowing Hanes "dago" tee (I can say that because I am a dago), I felt uncomfortable at this place that felt more like a night club than a gym. I admit I even felt a little threatened by all the veiny, muscly men pumping iron, and I feared I might get gang raped by a gaggle of roid-raged former frat boys clinging to their 20s in their tattered baseball caps. That is, after they got done with hot-pants-pig tails girl.

Instead I just go to the Lakeview location, which is about 7 minutes farther than the old, glamorous gym. That one is less intimidating, but there is no shortage of trampy looking girls and muscly dudes. One girl had a Chicago Sport and Social Club jersey on with the number 69 on the back and the words "Balls Deep" scrawled above it. Now that's class.

Can I aksk you a question?

2006-09-17T06:18:00.000-07:00

I will preface this with the fact that I am concerned about posting this because I don't want to offend anyone. If you are offended by it, I am sorry. I might come off as a racist, but that's not what I want because I don't think of myself as racist.

I have probably mentioned before that I teach at a high school in a upper middle class community. In Illinois, if you teach in an upper middle class community, you more than likely teach at a school that has either lots of whites and Asians or lots of Jews and Asians. It's just a fact these days that, although that whole Brown v. The Board of Ed thing happened, Illinois schools are still quite segregated. In previous years, one could count on two hands the total number of black or Hispanic students in the entire school of nearly 3,500 kids. This year, however, is different. You can look in the halls and see an actual difference. There are a lot of black and Hispanic students now. They are spread out among the four grade levels, but it is mostly concentrated in the freshmen class for some reason. I have five black kids and one Hispanic kid in one class and two black kids and one Hispanic kid in another. I was even concerned at first that the administration had put all of them into my class to segregate them. But I asked three other teachers in my department and, as it turns out, they have similar numbers in their classroom.

Let me be clear; these are not kids that were born and raised in the community where I teach. All of them just moved to the suburbs from Chicago, and they do not live in the old stately homes of the community; they live in apartments next to the school. Nearly all of them are considerably "lower" academically than my kids that have been in the district since 1st grade. They come from the wretched Chicago Public School system, and now they are overwhelmed in our high achieving district. By the way, these are not assumptions. I know all of this to be fact because of a teacher letter assignment where they have to tell me a little about their past and how the year is going so far.

It's really nice to have a little diversity for once, and I am happy about it. But it hasn't come without complication. Just like the white and Asian kids always have, the black and Hispanic kids are segregating themselves into their groups. The lunchroom looks like a holding area for auditions for the new season of Survivor. You see "the black tables," "the Hispanic tables," "the white tables," and "the Asian tables." It's ridiculous. My editors always want to write about it in the school paper. However, once they start writing, they realize they have nothing new to contribute, no idea that doesn't sound like a weak attempt at solving the world's problems with an editorial. My biggest issue isn't with this self-segregation, which is human nature I suppose. I do have an issue with the way my black and Hispanic students seem to want their rich, spoiled classmates to see them as "ghetto", a word that is being tossed around far too often in our school these days. The new students seem to be doing everything they can to fulfill every negative stereotype these native suburbanites have about them. I see the Hispanic and black students in the hall doing every stereotypically black or Hispanic thing you can think of- from sucking on a pacifier to yelling obnoxiously across the halls to get their friend's attention. And I don't even know if that bothers me that much that they fulfill negative stereotypes in the halls because many teenagers want to fulfill a stereotype; they just want to fit in, and what better way to fit in than act like everyone you hang out with. And I know every teenager uses slang; but it bothers me when this behavior comes into my English classroom. Is it unfair to expect my black and Hispanic students to speak standard English during a speech? Or when they ask me a question, shouldn't I insist that they "What is this?" rather than "What this is?" Or that they say "ask" and not "aksk"? One kid, during his introduction speech, kept insisting that he was "ghetto."

I'm picturing their moms and dads working their tails off to pay rent in that community to give them an opportunity to go to a great school. Wouldn't they want their kids to take advantage of that opportunity? Is it racist for me even to say that? Isn't there a time and a place for everything- even the language you use? The worst part is that there have been more fights than ever already this year. And it is fights between the Hispanic students and the black students. Is that why their parents uprooted their life in Chicago, where their families probably lived for generations? So that their kids could move out to the suburbs and start a race war?

Reality sets in

2006-09-07T16:49:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to be grading right now. My bag is on my floor next to me; 50+ freshmen collage/paragraph assignments are calling my name. My junior AP essays will haunt my sleep tonight if I don't start grading them soon. Instead, I am sitting on my couch with the ol' iBook for a little blog session, which is long overdue.

So much has been going on with these first few weeks of school; I feel like I have too many unrelated thoughts swirling through my mind even to figure out what topic I should attempt. I'll start with a boot update: I visited the boots at Nordstrom the other day. It was painful. I think I have accepted that I cannot have the boots. Gone are my hopes of owning them in 6-8 weeks. I came to this conclusion when reality set on Tuesday night as I reviewed my financial situation. Basically, if I don't spend one single penny on anything but food, shelter and transportation for the next 6 months, I will have completely paid off my credit card. After that, I have another six months of more of the same while I try to pay off my car. Yes, that's right, no clothes, shoes, going out, drinking, dining out or gifts for one full year.

Realistically, I don't think I can do it; frankly, I don't know who could. No gifts is the one that hits me hardest. With my mom's, dad's, roommate's and best friend's birthdays all around the corner, I don't think I'm going to get away with no gifts. Then comes Christmas, which will be miserable if I cannot buy gifts for anyone, particularly my boyfriend and my nieces and nephew. Not being able to go out is also a considerable problem for obvious reasons. Although, with winter around the corner, that becomes significantly easier to pull off the colder it gets. Unless, however, someone plants a rapid-growth money tree on my balcony, I am facing a depressing, uneventful and challenging 12 months.

I'll conclude with a story that actually makes me feel good instead of totally miserable, and that is the story about Open House, which was last night. Some teachers plan extensively for this. They might make copies of some sort of document or plan out what they are going to say. I, however, have never been one for planning the open house speech. As it turns out, I don't need to plan stuff like this because I am the queen of 'winging it', as they say. In fact, I would even venture to say that I could probably 'wing' the State of the Union Address if I had to. By the end of open house, I am convinced that just about every parent loved me. Still, by the end of the night, although my ego had been adequately massaged by what I envisioned were my adoring fans, I was completely exhausted.

I'm pretty confident that public speaking is what I do best. Are you good at it? Or are you one of those people that would rather be in the coffin than eulogize the dead?

Retail Therapy

2006-08-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

These boots are gorgeous, are they not? Mr. Donald J. Pliner has once again went and designed a pair of $300+ boots I cannot afford. My obsession with these boots has been so intense that I dreamt about them last night. Sadly, that's not the first time this has happened (I have a recurring dream about the pair of Joe's Jeans in my closet that I wore so often that there is now a giant hole in them preventing me from wearing them). However, I spent an entire therapy session today discussing these boots with my shrink... now that's a first. I may have never mentioned that I am in therapy, but if you've spent any time reading this blog (particularly this) you probably aren't surprised to hear that.

I have a number of options available to me in obtaining these coveted DJP creations. All of these are options I've explored in the past with varying degrees of success. They are, in order of most to least likely to wield success, with success being actually having these gorgeous specimens on my feet by Sep 5:
1. Beg my mom to buy them for me
2. Whip out a credit card and pay for them over 5 years
3. Beg my boyfriend to buy them for me

However, both my therapist and I agreed that these are the decisions that the Sue Ellen Mischke of years past would make. I am a new and improved Sue Ellen Mischke driven by several factors to get my ass out of debt. They are, in order of most persuasive to least:
1. My boyfriend won't marry me until I pay off my car and my credit card (a decision my therapist says is a good one).
----
Did I say several? Well, I was lying. I wish I had more motivation than that one thing for many reasons (not the least of which is I want to create parallelism between the two lists), but really, this fact is the only fact that motivates me to get out of debt. Every time I find myself in a shoe store (today in fact) or a clothing store (last weekend in fact), I ask myself if this pair of shoes or that pair of jeans is more important to me than him (which typically the answer is no). With that in mind, I've decided to try something that my doctor says I am not very good at--- and that is WAITING to buy them. While I am WAITING, I am going to put money aside and then pay for them in cash if I still want them so badly. The idea here is that I will feel "good" about exercising restraint to save up for them, rather than having someone buy them for me or charging them on a credit card. My instinct is to say that I will feel good the second I get those sexy boots on my feet no matter how I make them mine, but, as George did one fine episode of Seinfeld, I am going to ignore my instincts and do The Opposite, as my initial instincts are so often wrong.

Things not to do when out with co-workers

2006-08-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've started this trend that, when drinking, I think it's a great idea to make the lewd hand gesture used to represent a private intimate activity usually performed on a female. Don't ask me why this trend started, but I think it's becoming a problem. How do I know it's a problem? Well, when my colleagues sent out the photos from our night at the wretched Howl at the Moon, I knew I'd hit a new low. As my roommate Kelly said, I have to be stopped.

Howl at the Poon

2006-08-19T07:28:00.000-07:00

School starts Monday. I'm quite excited about it actually. Sure, I'm mourning the death of the Summer of Sue Ellen Mischke, but I am looking forward to getting back on a schedule that includes more than working out, laying out and getting hammered.

Speaking of which, one of the newer teachers suggested we all get together for a department outing to start off the year. She boldly went where no suburbanite teacher has gone before; she suggested that the outing take place in ... The City (cue dramatic music). Had such an outing taken place in the 'burbs, I would have had a good excuse to decline the invitation. But since it was in The City, I kind of had to say yes. Besides, although I don't attend every outing my colleagues plan, I enjoy going to a few each year.

Of course, a suburbanite cannot plan a city outing without choosing an appropriately wretched suburbanite tourist trap location. Sure enough, my colleagues planned for us to go to Howl at the Moon, a dueling piano-theme bar. I do not like, never have liked, and never will like theme bars. Maybe that makes me an elitist fuck. Maybe it just makes me a curmudgeon. Either way, I don't care. As I walked into the bar, I looked around to make sure no one I knew was nearby to see me enter the place. At first it felt awkward to be there with my co-workers while the crooning pianist rapped Sir Mix-a-lot's "Baby Got Back." Something about hearing a white man rap "'Cuz I'm long, and I'm strong and I'm dying to get the friction on" to a piano in the company of married women with children felt very dirty. But eventually, I just started drinking chardonnay, (bleck.... I hate chardonnay, but it's the only white they had. The only white wine, by the way, not people; there was no shortage of white people here, particularly trashy-looking white girls), and I found myself on the dance floor with my colleagues belting out the lyrics to a shitty Billy Joel song (which one?). I guess I was, in fact, howling at the god-damned moon.

In the end, I was happy to see all the suburbanites having fun in The City, even if it was at a hole like that. I was just glad I didn't have to get behind the wheel after that night of drunken teacher debauchery. My boyfriend was kind enough to spare me a drunken el ride home, and he picked me up at about 11:00. Now that I think about it, 11:00 is awfully early to be as drunk as I was. Oh well, I guess the theme bar got the best of me.

Howl at the Moon is a chain. Do you have one in your city? Have you been there? If not, do you go to and like theme bars?

The Gaiety

2006-08-15T19:34:00.000-07:00

I am reading "Don't Get Too Comfortable" by David Rakoff. It's a series of witty and snarky essays that I read here and there. I came across an essay the other night where Rakoff writes about his experience at Puppetry of the Penis, a show wherein men do obscene things with their penises by pulling them every which way, fashioning them into familiar images such as the Loch Ness monster. Rakoff's story reminded me of the trip I took to NYC when I graduated college. Some people backpack across Europe when they graduate college. But, I, on the other hand, had a week-long fag hag extravaganza in NYC, where I sampled gay night life with my good friend from high school, Jeffrey, and his posse...
Rakoff contrasts Puppetry with The Gaiety in NYC:

"The drill was the same with each dancer: he came out wearing very little, danced quite badly- the strippers were largely, easily identifiably straight- and then went offstage while the very well-behaved audience waited. In a perfect world, he was supposed to come back onstage starkers and erect. In an evening of twelve or so dancers, Dan and I only saw one instance of tumescence. The boner got some polite clapping, like the entrance applause that greets an ingenue who has received good advance notices."

Technically, I should leave it at that, as I fear I cannot say it better myself. But I feel compelled to share my Gaiety experience with you, if for no other reason than I have nothing better about which to write.

Jeffrey and I were drunk, and it was late- probably about 4:00 in the morning. He convinced me we should go to The Gaiety, which he described as a male strip club. Although I'd been his hag for years, we went to separate colleges and did not have any time as legal drinkers together, so my experience on the gay bar scene was limited. These days I'd be suspicious if one of my gay friends said we were going to a 'male strip club.' At the tender age of 22 though, I pictured a roomful of drunken bachelorettes cheering wildly while burly men on the stage in cop uniforms (yum) danced seductively and accepted one dollar bills in their belts. And even though I knew were we going to a place called The Gaiety, I clung to the hope that it would measure up to my bachelorette party expectations.

I don't think I have to tell you this, but that's not what I saw when I got to The Gaiety. We walked up a brightly-lit dank hallway, its stairs covered in thinning, gray carpet. I handed $10 to a person (whose gender still remains a mystery to me) who sat in a little room behind a window. I thought it odd that it was so quiet behind the door we were instructed to enter. Where were all the screaming bachelorettes, I wondered. I got my answer when we entered the dark theatre. The bachelorettes were not at The Gaiety; they were smart enough not to spend their last days of single status at a place with a name that is a derivative of the word gay. In fact, there were only about 5 other people in the room with us, and none of them were women. They were men, and they were all dateless, which made it even more unsettling. The stage was empty, but as we awaited the arrival of the strippers, a huge movie screen came down from the ceiling to entertain us with hard-core gay porn to pass the time. Having never even seen straight porn, I was shocked, and clearly I did not want to be here. When I told Jeffrey I wanted to leave he argued that "we'd look funny" if we just up and left. As if a girl in a gay strip club didn't look funny to begin with...

Finally, the first stripper came out. Just as Mr. Rakoff said, he was clothed and he danced poorly. The best thing about it though was the song he danced to when he came out for Act I. It was "Sailing" by Christopher Cross. This is by far one of the worst songs of the 80s, and you've probably heard it in more than one elevator or dentist's office in your lifetime. True to Mr. Rakoff's account, the stripper left the stage mid-song. He returned a few minutes later completely naked, and he was considerably more aroused than when he left (unlike Mr. Rakoff's experience, the three strippers I saw achieved this result). This was where the polite golf-clap came in, and I found myself joining in on the applause in spite of the fact that I was still in shock from the point-of-entry porn during the prelude. The music was a much faster pace for Act II of this gentleman's routine so he was kind of bouncing around onstage stark naked. I would categorize this as 'bad naked' (kind of like coughing or sanding the floors naked), but the audience loved it, and they went up to the stage in droves with their dollar bills. The worst was when they would put the dollar bill on the ground and the stripper would reach down to grab it without bending his knees so the audience could see the goods very clearly. It was hilarious and horrifying all at once.

We didn't stay much longer, but we stayed long enough for me to learn that when a gay guy says he wants to go to a male strip club, there probably aren't going to be any screaming bachelorettes there.

"I got a Guy for that...."

2006-08-07T19:20:00.000-07:00

The car situation is much worse than I thought. I left for St. Louis on Friday under the impression that, upon my return, my car would be as good as new. I couldn't have been more wrong. When my boyfriend drove it home from the tire place on Saturday, he knew immediately I had done more than destroyed my tire. He called me to tell me it would have to be towed to my mechanic because it was unsafe to drive. I called my Guy the mechanic, and told him my other Guy the tow truck driver, would be delivering my Prius to his house asap.

I use Guy as a proper noun because I grew up with a dad who had a Guy for everything- a car Guy, a tow Guy, a lawn Guy, a shrimp Guy, a meat Guy, a leather Guy, a diamond Guy, a watch Guy. We aren't allowed to do anything in my family without first checking if my dad has a Guy for it. If you made the mistake of going out on your own and finding your own Guy, my dad would say, "Why didn't you tell me you needed _______ done? I got a Guy for that!" My dad used to be a Guy himself. He worked for a juice company so he was a juice Guy. When my car Guy or tow Guy would give me a deal on something or get me out of a bind, Dad would hand me several quarts of assorted juices and instruct me to give them to the car Guy. I think the idea there is that you get better service from any given Guy if you can offer Guy services in addition to your payment. We used our Guys more often when we were driving American cars. Now that we drive Japanese or Swedish cars, the Guys don't see us as much, that is unless I have a run-in with a curb, in which case the Guys will receive 20 calls from me in the space of three days. My dad doesn't work for a juice company anymore, but he does work for OxyClean. I wonder if he's an OxyClean Guy now? I've even sort of become a Guy myself- I'm a shopping Guy. If you need a hot outfit for a special event or an entirely new wardrobe, take me to the mall with you; I'm your shopping Guy. Somehow I don't think my towing Guy or my car Guy needs a shopping Guy to walk him around Nordstrom. They might rather have an OxyClean Guy.

Guys are very reliable under normal circumstances. When I deliver my car to my Guy, I can be certain that
A. he is going to have it fixed by 5:00 the following morning
B. he will call me to tell me the list of 35 things he did to it (in the thickest Chicago accent you've ever heard; think Andy Sipowitz on steroids)
C. it will be 5:30 in the morning when he makes the call
D.he will charge me only, like, $62.39 for it

I wasn't so lucky this time though. My Guy called me and said that he didn't even have to go under the car to know that the bottom of it is completely messed up (he said something about a left lower somethingorother and a ball joint and something else about a heat shield and a bent frame). It's all very mysterious to me but I wrote it down, and that's enough because I trust my Guy. That's why you have Guys after all- because you can trust your Guys. You cannot, however, trust those other guys.

Now my car is at the dealer, whom I do not trust, because the dealer is the opposite of the Guy- he is the other Guy. The dealer is why the car Guy exists; he is what keeps the Car guy in business. I am looking at a costly repair. Fortunately, my insurance is going to cover much of it, but not enough of it not to put a considerable dent in my checkbook and set me back a few months on getting out of credit card debt. Needless to say, I'm feeling a little bit of stress about the whole thing. I need a money guy.

Do you have a Guy for anything? Are you a Guy?

Tomato To-MAH-to

2006-08-03T06:56:00.000-07:00

I am off to St. Louis this weekend to visit my friends from college. The five of us girls haven't been together in about a year, so it should be a good time. The bad news is that I am going to be a 9th wheel all weekend. My boyfriend couldn't get the weekend off (something about his district being "the murder capital of Chicago" and it being "short-handed"), so I will be the only one there without a companion. I should probably be used to that situation, as it happens all the time, but I still kind of hate it.

Most people think I'm a "bad driver." I don't agree, but yesterday was one of those days that make those accusations difficult to refute. I was in a big hurry to get somewhere (as usual) and I took a corner too fast. There was a very high, sharp curb, and, as I turned the corner, it literally JUMPED out and ATTACKED my front driver's side tire! I've never seen anything quite like it. My poor little tire was mangled. I keep telling people "I got a flat" but really, my boyfriend (who changed my tire in the extreme heat) insists I "caused a flat." Whatever. "You say tomato, I say to-MAH-to" as they say. I wonder how many people out there are bad drivers but won't admit it. I mean, I would wager that nearly 80% of the people with whom I share the road are awful drivers....
Are you one of them? Or are you a good driver?

This turn of events could have ruined my weekend plans. Fortunately, one of my friends lives near my parents in the suburbs, and she offered to let me drive with her and her husband, so my lack of transportation didn't render that trip impossible. I hope to return with some good stories, or at least some new pictures of little Charlie.

"If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college"

2006-07-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

I live a short bike ride from the beach. By my estimation, the fact that Chicago even has beaches and a beautiful (albeit occasionally-polluted) lake makes Chicago a solid 14 times better than most cities, but particularly NYC. I love the beach, and I often do my tanning there*.

On days when I don't feel like biking up there and making a day out of it, I tan on the rooftop sundeck at my gym after I workout. When I went out there the other day, except for the 17 or so 9-year-old daycampers eating lunch on the benches, no one else was there. Then this guy shows up shortly after I arrived. The fact that I did not at that moment possess a spy-sized digital video camera suddenly left bottomless black hole in my soul. In other words, you'd have to see this moron to believe someone like him actually exists. He is clearly gay, but he is too deep in the closet to admit it. He acts overly masculine, saying stereotypically chauvinistic things to try to hide how gay he is. He's not fooling me though; this shaven-head and shaven-body man with a lisp and a **perfectly rock hard body is ***gayer than a three dollar bill. I'd put him at about 40-years-old, divorced and wealthy. Here is a sampling of some of the things he said to the 16 different people he talked to on his cell phone in the 30 minutes I tolerated of him, which I did for the sole purpose of collecting fodder for this blog. Keep in mind, he chose to sit two chairs away from me, even though there are about 500 open chairs on the deck. Oh, and once again, keep in mind the 17 or so 9-year-olds eating their lunch about 20 feet away from us.

Conversation 1: Hey amigo! (as if that's not annoying enough) Yeah, hey listen, I was talking to this old guy at the gym today and he said I have a real bad boy reputation here at the gym. Oh yeah! Isn't that crazy? I guess everyone thinks I'm a real badass with my shaved head.
Conversation 2: Hey baby. How are the kids? God I love those fucking kids (don't forget the 9-year-olds behind us), you know that right? Yeah that little guy is fucking awesome.
Conversation 3: Hey man! Yeah we're going to Bolero tonight (a Cuban place by my house that gave me food poisoning). Yeah. Jeff will be there, Ellen will be there. Yeah, Ellen. She's doing good. I mean the divorce is final so, you know. Oh yeah, she's a player; we're all players. Oh yeah? Well get in line because I would like to hit that piece of ass. Oh yeah man! I'd do her.
Conversation 4: Yeah I went out with that freak from Schaumburg the other night. Oh yeah she's wild. You know her sister's a porn star. Oh yeah it's hot.
Conversation 5: (to Sue Ellen Mischke, who is holding an iPod in her hand) Hey you have an iPod? I bought one for my friend and she can't seem to get it to download any music for her.
SEM: Well, do you mean she can't download any music onto it?
Him: Yeah, I guess so.
SEM: Well does she have a Mac or a PC?
Him: Huh?
SEM: A mac or a PC?
Him: What do you mean? I'm not a techie or nothing.
SEM: Well, douchebag, you don't have to be a "techie" to be able to answer this question; you simply have to be able to SEE and READ. Does her computer have a picture of an APPLE with a bite taken out of it on the machine? Or does it have the words "DELL" or "GATEWAY" or something like that on it?

Okay maybe I didn't say that, but it drained all of my energy not to say that; I had to get out of there. I waited for his next conversation to start and I hit the road. One of my other favorite overhead conversations is in my sidebar as one of my favorite posts. It's called "Bruised Ego" if you haven't read it already.
What's the best thing you've ever overheard in a phone conversation?

* no lectures please
**Dwight, you'd love him; look for him at Marketdays this weekend.
***this phrase comes from a friend of mine. He was working at a used record store, and this guy came up with a ton of Queen music he wanted to buy. Feeling self-conscious, he said, legend has it in a thick hillbilly accent, "I don't care if he's gayer than a 3-dollar bill; that Freddy Mercury can sing!"

Irrational Hatred

2006-07-26T15:54:00.000-07:00

I wasn't pouting the whole time I was on hiatus; I had to work (gasp!) on Wednesday and Thursday. It is getting dangerously close to August, and you know what that means for teachers (well, and students, too).

Ed Burns was on the Daily Show the other day, and I was reminded how much I hate him, but I don't know what the source of the hatred is. I just don't like him. I'm one of those people that has irrational hatred for people and things. My ex used to get a good laugh at my feisty, irrational rants about one of these people or things; others do not find them so endearing. Here is a list of my Top Ten irrational hatreds (*but this one goes to 11):
1. Star Jones (in fairness, I developed this hatred years ago, when she was still fat, and there was no real reason to hate her except for the fact that her huge, ugly face took up the whole screen when she was on television and she was a pitch person for Payless Shoe Source, which I contend never made shoes that could withstand the weight of her fat ass)
2. Rush (unfortunately for me, my boyfriend LOVES Rush)
3. Steven Spielberg
4. Jane Fonda (I don't think I'm alone with this one)
5. Football
5. Pepsi products
6. Ed Burns
7. Rich people
8. Grey's Anatomy
9. Natalie Cole (the first person for whom I developed an irrational hatred; the 'duet' she created with her dead dad was truly unforgettable- and unforgivable)
10. Superman
11. This girl I see all the time at my gym (with her perfect abs, cute tennis skirts and her giant diamond ring)

Do you have an irrational hatred?

* Name that movie

-palooza

2006-07-19T12:44:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling a little blue today. Boyfriend-palooza is over. After over two weeks vacation, my boyfriend was back to work today at midnight. That means I'm back to seeing him only 3 times/week (if I'm lucky). It's brutal. To combat the sadness I felt yesterday, I spent the day in a veritable baby-palooza, starting with Declan and June (my best friend's babies) and capping the day off with Gianna, Rosa and Anthony (nieces and new nephew). As he is only one-month old, Anthony (pictured) is the least entertaining of the bunch, but he sure is a cutie. He's one of those babies that is so clearly a boy- no need to deck him out in blue for everyone to know his gender. And with a 2-year-old and a one-year-old at home already, my sister is happy to see that Anthony is a well-behaved little sleeping machine. Rosa and Gianna were adorable as usual, and Declan can't stop telling me about the Sox game he went to a month ago. I told him someday he is going to hate me because I'm a Cubs fan, but for now he can't get enough of me. He's not even two yet, so it's pretty funny that he's already obsessed with baseball, particularly the White Sox (he hoards the remote control and flips through the channel saying "baseball" over and over again). He's one of the few people in this town who can genuinely say he did not hop on the bandwagon when they won the World Series last year.

One more baby note: One of my very good friends from college had a baby boy last week. Charles Jon. Isn't he adorable!?

All You Need is Comfortable

2006-07-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

I got a drunk dial from an old male friend this morning. He's famous for these and we always have a good philosophical talk when I'm on the receiving end, even if it is 4:00 in the morning. He just recently started "seeing" (I am using this term loosely) a girl who finally meets many of his requirements I've been hearing about for the past two years. There is a list of personality traits his potential lovers must possess, among them are: attractive, smart, funny, nice, good family/job/head on her shoulders. Some of the girls he has dated have met all of these requirements, some of them only a few. Yet there was one requirement that had never been met since his ex, with whom he had a painful breakup a while back. She has to love good music. When I say good music, I don't mean fucking Coldplay. I mean never-make-it-to-the-radio, hard- core high brow indie rock. Let me tell you, people that like the music he likes are few and far between (hence the lack of radio airtime). Yet he has found one. He found one! She's cute, smart, funny, and owns Alien Lanes by Guided By Voices! It's unheard of (except for me of course). She gets the obscure pop culture references he makes! She laughs at his goofy sense of humor! She can appreciate a good old-fashioned guilty pleasure rock song, and she can dance like a rap video girl! What's the problem, right? He called me at 4:00 in the morning to express this concern that is, in my opinion, the best phrase of the 90s:

"I need to get out of this thing before it gets too serious. I can see myself falling in comfortable with her and getting stuck."

OH. MY. GOD. If this weren't so hilarious, it would be disturbing. This led to, of course, replacing the word "love" with the word "comfortable" in a whole shitload of songs like "Comfortable lifts us up where we belong" and "All You Need is Comfortable."
He said that he is missing that "boom" he gets when he meets a girl and wants to hook up with her right away. Yet he's had that "boom" about 16 times in the past two years, but he hasn't kept a girl around for more than 2 months. He said "She's just Jen, you know?" And I'm saying, every girl turns into "Just (insert name here)" at some point, right? (He seriously needs to re-read High Fidelity). I mean, do you seriously need to have that butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling every single time you see a person to make it work? I would think that would get to be kind of annoying after a while, no? I mean, a constant nervous stomach? I think I'll pass on that. Since when did getting comfortable with someone become a bad thing?

* Here's a shout out to my readers in Darien. Great party on Saturday night; HunkyKen and I had fun. Thanks for reading, and leave a comment!

Superman Schmuperman

2006-07-12T18:45:00.000-07:00

I saw Superman yesterday. I hated it, and I knew I would. I went to see it only because that is what my boyfriend wanted to see.
I knew I'd hate it because I hate Superman because Superman is unrealistic. Obviously he's unrealistic, right? He's a fucking superhero! But still, I prefer to see some kind of vulnerability in my superheroes. Oh sure there's Superman's vulnerability to Kryptonite, but seriously, that's one minor vulnerability and the only person who seems to be able to get his hands on it is Lex Luthor, who is Superman's only enemy because everyone LOVES Superman! Superman can do anything, and for that, I hate him. In the movie, he flies into the core of the fucking Earth and actually LIFTS and ENTIRE landmass out of the ocean (a landmass laced with the supposedly formidable kryptonite by the way) and LAUNCHES it into space. There's nothing this man can't do. And, by the way, the Superman of this film can actually come in contact with Kryptonite without losing power, whereas the Superman of Smallville can't so much as be in the room with it without causing him to double over in what appears to be extraordianry pain. And, of course, there's the fact that Clark Kent is so obviously Superman. Glasses? That's it? Everyone knows what Superman looks like because he's banging the only female news reporter in Metropolis, and his face is completely exposed when he swoops in to save the day. He doesn't even wear a hat much less a mask! And I'm expected to believe that putting on a pair of khakis and nerdy frames is enough to fool anyone, much less Lois? Which brings me to my final point: Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane was intolerable. She might be the worst actress ever.
My favorite superhero is Batman because he's human, a little dark and disturbed, usually hot and drives a cool car. Who is your favorite superhero and why?

OGM pet peeve

2006-07-10T21:49:00.000-07:00

I'm probably going to offend a few people with this below rant, but I have to get it off my chest, (don't worry; it won't take long). The first time I discovered this pet peeve was probably about 10 years ago when I heard the below offense on the answering machine outgoing message of my then aunt. I've since met several people whose outgoing message has caused me the same discomfort every time I have to hear it. I won't lie to you and say that I love all of the people that do it. Most of the people that do this are fine people. A few others, however, are exactly the kind of people I would expect to do it....
It bothers me when a person says "have a nice day!" at the end of his/her outgoing message on voicemail. The most obvious problem with this closing is the complication that arises when the call comes in at nighttime. Then the 'have a nice day' is not only annoying, but also inappropriate. In addition to being time-sensitive, it's also artificially positive. I don't believe that any person could seriously want to wish a nice day to every single person that calls, especially with telemarketers now actually having the gall to leave voicemail. What if the person listening to your outgoing message is calling you for the fifth time that day to feed you a line of BS that you might be the winner of a vacation to an exotic place? Or worse, what if it's a potential employer calling to tell you they decided not to give you the job of your dreams, or a boyfriend/girlfriend calling to break up with you? Would you not regret having wished those people a good day on your outgoing message?

It's probably weird that I feel so good having gotten that off my chest.

Toner

2006-07-06T21:38:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned before, I got a new roommate last month. Her name is Kelley. To say that Kelley is different from Michael, my previous roommate, would be an understatement. They couldn't be more different, but I love them both anyway.

Getting a new roommate makes me more aware of my quirks. It's just another person in the room when I am at my dumbest, my funniest, my most brilliant, or, more often than not, my craziest. Tonight, I had a moment where Kelley questioned a step in my beauty routine, making me think twice about my habits.

I never thought of myself as needing a lot of products to maintain my hair and skin. But when Michael moved in last year, I was amazed at his multi-layered beauty routine, and I feared I wasn't doing enough, or rather spending enough, for my skin and hair. That's where the Aveda obsession started. So now I have Aveda face wash, makeup remover and eye cream in addition to all the hair products. I know the purpose of all these products (cleanse, remove, tighten and clean/curl/tame respectively). But there is one step in my beauty routine whose purpose is suddenly baffling. I use toner. All I know about toner is that I spritz it on my face after I cleanse but before I apply eye cream and moisturizer. I bought it because Michael had it, and I figured if a gay man uses it, it must be a necessary* step to making me beautiful. Kelley was scrutinizing my product assortment tonight, and here's what happened:

Kelley: (sorting through Sue Ellen's 12 products in the medicine cabinet to make room for her two products; holding the toner) What's this stuff?
Sue Ellen: (horrified that Kelley is not familiar with this essential step in the beauty routine) It's toner.
Kelley: What's it do?
Sue Ellen: (suddenly horrified that she doesn't have an answer to this question) Ummm... it... tones.
Kelley: (silence)
Sue Ellen: (loudly now) IT... you know ... TONES!
Kelley: (laughing) Does saying it louder mean it makes sense?

Now I feel like an ass because I've went and purchased something whose purpose is mysterious at best. I blame it on Michael. See what happens when you live with a gay? He turned me into product-hoarding floozy who will buy anything that supposedly **increases skins moisture level' and 'brings instant refreshment to dry skin.'

* I've since realized that this is flawed logic.
** After this "a-ha moment", I looked up the purpose on the Aveda website. It doesn't make me feel any better.

The Fall from Grace

2006-07-04T09:08:00.000-07:00

There are few things I enjoy more than watching a celebrity fall apart. My favorite fall from grace, of course, is Brittany Spears. But a fall from grace needn't be as dramatic as Brittany's to satiate my need for a celebrity train-wreck. I even enjoy the more subtle declines, such as when a particular celebrity is on every channel, magazine cover and in every gossip column, then makes a shitty movie and, finally, suddenly disappears (ala Jennifer Lopez). But the dramatic steep decline into "hot mess" territory is clearly the most fun to watch, and Brittany has outdone herself with hers. I saw a portion of Matt Lauer's Brittany interview, but no matter how much I love the fall from grace, I can tolerate only so much of that girl. I did stick around long enough to hear her "We're country" excuse for driving around with her son on her lap. If I was from the "country", I'd be headed to the city to save myself from having anything in common with Brittany Spears and Kevin Federline.

What's your favorite celebrity fall from grace?

And now, Mr. Lipton, I'm ready for my interview.

2006-07-01T16:51:00.000-07:00

I TiVo "Inside the Actor's Studio." I watch it only if I find the guest interesting, such as this previous week when Dustin Hoffman was on (for 2 hours for the 200th episode, which was a bit much even if you like Mr. Hoffman). My favorite part is the final 10 questions James Lipton asks his guests. I suspect most of the guests prepare for this, but they always make it seem like they didn't know this part was coming. Hmmm... my favorite word? I never thought of that. Sure you didn't. Anyway, because I sense that my acting career is on the verge of taking off, I thought I should get cracking on the 10 questions for my appearance on the Actor's Studio.

What is your favorite word? Requisite*
What is your least favorite word? moist
What turns you on? a nice smile
What turns you off? bad teeth
What is your favorite curse word? Fuck (obviously)
What sound or noise do you love? City noises (cars, sirens, horns, the occasional bird, busses...)
What sound or noise do you hate? football
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? celebrity stylist
What profession would you not like to do? stay-at-home mom**
If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? You're family is waiting for you in the kitchen; grandma's pasta is served in 5 minutes.

I won't burden anyone in particular with a "tag" here, but I would love it if anyone who reads this would answer at least one of the questions.

* I don't know why I like this word; I just like the way it sounds. I also like the word auspicious.
** If you are a stay-at-home mom, please don't be offended by this.

It's Monday right?

2006-06-28T20:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when my boyfriend is over, and I am about to take my daily dose of birth control, I'll open the pack and say something like, "Umm it's Monday, right?", even though I know it's a Wednesday. I think this is a hilarious way to make him nervous and think I stupidly missed TWO whole days of birth control. I get a hearty laugh about it every time, even if my boyfriend is neither amused nor concerned. I mean, I can count on one hand the number of times I've missed even one pill. But two? I've never missed two! You'd have to almost want to be pregnant to miss TWO pills.

My flawless birth control streak was finally broken tonight, and I assure you, I do not want to be pregnant. I opened the pack of pills to take my dose of birth control, which as you may know is supposed to be a daily one, and I saw that it is in fact Wednesday but somehow the pills for Monday and Tuesday were still residing in the not-so-discreet purple carrying case. I actually did open the pack and say, to no one in particular because I was alone at the time, "Ummm it's Monday, right?" As a teacher on summer break, I can't tell the difference between Monday and Wednesday (both of which, during the school year, have a distinct feel). That doesn't do me much good because my ovaries do know the difference. The point is, Sue Ellen Mischke is in big trouble (that third-person point of view makes this easier to cope with). I read the informational packet to determine what happens when one misses TWO pills. As it turns out, what happens is that if one has sex on either of the two days that one misses the pill, one can become pregnant. I won't go into details (because this blog is not THAT kind of blog), but I can assure you, this piece of information did not ease this one's concerns.

10 reasons I am, let's call it "hesitant", to have children:
1. Getting fat
2. Driving a minivan
3. $$$$$
4. Not being able to rebound from #1
5. Wearing sweatpants in public
6. Thinking #5 is okay
7. Fucking up my kid for life (this one is kind of a big one for me)
8. $$$$$ (so is this one)
9. The inevitable upcoming shotgun wedding
10. $$$$$

Anyone care to ease my fears with at least one reason I shouldn't be concerned out right now?

Brand (f***ing) loyalty

2006-06-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

I started watching the first season of Deadwood. I love it if only because it teaches me fresh ways to incorporate the word fuck into my vocabulary, which is appreciated. More importantly, what I learned in high school is basically the extent of my knowledge of the Old West and the Gold Rush, so I like that the show is teaching me a little something about that era. While I watch it, I have my computer on my lap so I can look up the background of the characters. I knew Wild Bill Hickock was a real person, and I was pretty sure I'd heard of Calamity Jane, but I was surprised to find out that many of the characters were real people, such as Al Swearengen, Seth Bullock (hello- HOT) and EB Barnum.

Prior to my Deadwood marathon, I did some hard core cleaning yesterday. With my new roommate in the house, I had the opportunity to try out some fancy new cleaning products. What fun! She has a special toilet bowl cleaning product, an orange-scented furniture polish, even a high-tech Rubbermaid bucket. It was heaven. All of this exploration of new brands got me to thinking about brand loyalty. For example, I have two cleaning products to which I am loyal- Pledge for cleaning furniture and Soft Scrub for cleaning the bathroom. I remember the first time I went to the store to buy my own cleaning products when I got my own place in college. It was like I was on autopilot as I filled my cart; I picked all the same stuff my mom has in the house. I've since dropped my brand loyalty to glass cleaners and laundry detergents, but I can't let go of Soft Scrub or Pledge.

People are funny with their brands, and I always wonder from where these loyalties originate and when people are willing to deviate. I have lots of products that I am willing to buy generic or because they are on sale. For example, I would never buy brand name contact solution. Never. What's the point? It's all saline and some kind of "no rub" cleansing chemical that probably doesn't make any difference anyway. Razors are another thing I don't give a *fuck-all about, and I refuse to buy shaving cream because I think it's a gimmick and totally unnecessary. Deodorant is another non-issue for me, but I found out recently by surveying a few women I work with that I am alone in this. If a particular brand is on sale, I'll buy it. I don't care what it smells like, if it is a "clear solid" or if it's pH balanced for a woman. As long as it prevents me from smelling like a tourist after a long day in Disney World, I'm in.

My brand loyalties extend beyond Pledge and Soft Scrub. I'm very brand loyal to Verizon. You are probably familiar with their slogan "We Never Stop Working For You." Well, it's totally true. It's the one company I've dealt with that I can count on to accommodate my needs. All I have to do is tell them I've been a customer since the day the company existed and they'll sell me a Motorola Razr Phone (more on Motorola later) for $50, cut me a deal on text messaging, and get rid of a 411 charge if the operator was an incompetent *fucknut. In a related matter, I am also loyal to Motorola. When I ran my first Motorola phone through a washing machine and it worked when it came out, I knew this was the brand for me. I'm also loyal to Aveda, which is my newest preference. It's costly but my hair and skin have never looked better. Finally, in college, I was loyal to Bud Light, but that was only because I went to school in Milwaukee and I wanted to be a pain in the ass in a Miller town. Had I gone to St. Louis University, I probably would have been brand loyal to Miller Lite.

What are your brand loyalties? And what products are you willing to buy generic or on sale?

* A use of the word fuck I learned while watching Deadwood. Brilliant!

Last supper

2006-06-22T18:47:00.000-07:00

I went to Target today with the intent to purchase one item- a rug pad. I ran into a familiar problem: I came home with more than I had planned. I bought the rub pad, a bike lock, two shirts (they were only $6.99), a backpack, and a bike lock. This total was $97, which isn't bad, for all I came home with, but it means I have to cancel either the haircut or the color I scheduled for next week. This will require some serious decision-making, which I may or may not have mentioned I suck at.

My boyfriend and I went for pizza tonight. We went to one of my favorite spots in Chicago, a hip pizza joint in Wicker Park called Piece. It is not "Chicago" pizza. In fact, it might even be closer to "New York" style pizza. There are lots of places that I feel have better pizza, but very few that have a hipper atmosphere. Today we were sat a table that already had six girls at it, which I didn't even know communal seating was a practice at Piece. As the hostess sat us at the table, my boyfriend and I looked at each other like "Uh... is this a mistake?" I felt like the odd-girl-out at a sorority pledge party. It was weird at first but eventually I got used to having giggling former sorority girl-types at my table. That's because I was distracted by the pizza that had arrived. Pizza could distract me from just about anything. I can eat pizza like it's my job. If I got paid by the slice, I could quit teaching tomorrow. And there I was at a table with a bunch of dainty girls who barely touched their pizza. My boyfriend likes pizza quite a lot too, so we both agreed that pizza would be part of our last meal were we facing execution. Here's the menu for my last meal:

1. Double-dough pizza with extra cheese (probably from Pete's, Rosati's or Salerno's)
2. French fries (from anywhere really but I do like a good waffle fry)
3. Grilled Cheese (from, of course, Silver Cloud)
4. Lots of Diet Coke (at this point, why Diet right?)
5. Something that tastes best when dipped into ranch dressing (which is just about anything if you ask me, but I might go with breaded fried zucchini)
6. Mozzarella sticks
7. A big old pint of this

If that doesn't look like the last supper request of a 10-year-old boy, I don't know what does.

What would be your last meal request?

Looking up

2006-06-15T20:29:00.000-07:00

It's summer festival season in Chicago, and tomorrow starts one of the better ones on Randolph St. in the West Loop. I'll be there tomorrow night to enjoy the view (it has the highest population of ridiculously attractive people) and see Sunvolt, whom I don't really even like that much. I spent the day on the beach today (my bikini made its North Ave. Beach debut), and I plan to do the same tomorrow (this time on Oak St. beach) so I can get a tan to compete with the all the Randolph St. hotties. Ahhh summer vacation...
My sister, Melissa, gets home from the hospital tomorrow. My parents have been helping out by watching Rosa and Gianna while Tony, my brother-in-law, visits my sister and Anthony in the hospital. Melissa had a cesarean so she was laid-up all week, and it seems to be wearing on my otherwise tolerant parents. I plan to head out to the 'burbs on Saturday to lend a hand. Melissa cannot pick up the girls because of her incisions; this does not sit well with Rosa and Gianna so someone has to be
there to distract them while she recovers. I'll do my best, but I'm a somewhat inadequate substitute for mommy (or grandma for that matter).
Finally, another piece of good news. I talked to the BF today. We are going to do some work on our relationship. I feel so much better; it put a lot of my concerns and doubts to rest when he agreed to the conditions I had for getting back together. I won't go into details, but it's good. I'm so glad. So are my parents, who are quite fond of him. Things are finally looking up.

Anthony Robert

2006-06-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

Some good news: My sister had her baby on Monday. It was a boy, and his name is Anthony Robert. We were convinced it would be a girl since she has the two girls. He was 7 lbs. 7 oz and 22 inches. He has his daddy's nose, which means it's quite big. My sister is doing well.

Hiatus

2006-06-13T21:51:00.000-07:00

I broke up with my boyfriend, and I feel like shit. It started with a minor disagreement, and it ended with me finally calling him out on the things I feel are missing from our relationship. I told him at the end that I can't take it anymore and that meant I was breaking up with him. He said "If that's how you feel, that's fine. I have to go." It's like he doesn't even care. No, it's not LIKE he doesn't care; he essentially TOLD me he doesn't care. Which is just great to know when you've spent two years with someone. I called him back a couple hours later, and he did not answer. I left him a message to tell him I'd like to talk to him about this and that I was not comfortable with the way our discussion and relationship ended. But I probably won't hear from him. The last time this happened, last April, he called me within a couple nights drunk and sad and begging for me back. As he is someone that never drinks or begs, it was quite an effective approach to get drunk and beg me. I didn't give in right away, but with time, I came around. It worked that time, but I don't think he'll be back this time because it is clear he does not care that I am gone. I don't see how he cannot care, but that's the impression he gave me. If you knew our entire history, you would understand why this is so hard. Breaking up is always hard anyway I guess.

So now I'm faced with a summer where, on my calendar, I have a little "K" marked for all of his days off. I'll look at that calendar and think about how we would have been together on that particular night, but we are not because he seems not to care that I am no longer a part of his life. I know when his vacation is; I know what days he has requested off and why. The icing on this cake of shit is that my therapist is out of town until, leaving me alone with this hole I feel in my heart.

This spells trouble for the blog. When I'm sad, blogging is difficult because I don't write well when I'm sad (as you can probably tell from this post). Also, I choose not to write about scandal or drama for obvious reasons so even if I do go on some mad drunken whore binge, I won't write about it. I'll try to be back soon, but I can't promise it will be any good.

Shirts and Skins World Cup Soccer

2006-06-10T13:38:00.000-07:00

I've never been much for soccer. I know it's like the world's most popular sport and all, but I never had the opportunity to get into it. The fact is, the only sport I like is baseball so I don't take much of an interest in any sport, American or otherwise. The BF, on the other hand, is quite a soccer fan. So in order to make an effort to enjoy something he enjoys, I've been watching some of the games. I went to his house on the morning of the Germany/Costa Rica match (is that the right term?), and, as this was the first time I've watched a professional soccer game (again...), I was struck by several things, such as the chanting audience and the clock ticking up instead of down, but only one of the revelations has inspired me to continue watching this World Cup:

Soccer players are sexy.

Had I known this, I may have taken an interest in soccer at an earlier age. Hell, I may even have played soccer on the off-chance that I might meet a soccer player someday so I'd have something to talk about with him. And while I enjoyed watching these handsome fit men running around in circles for 90+ minutes (amazing, by the way), I kept wishing it was shirts and skins. In fact, I think the World Cup would be even more popular if this were the case. Maybe Verizon could sponsor it, and viewers could text their vote to determine which team is shirts and which is skins. I love this idea, and I hope someone from the World Cup is reading my blog and taking notes.

In other news, I was out far too late last night. An interesting fact. I was out with several graduates of the high school where I currently teach. The older sister of one of my students showed up to the bar I was at, where I was consuming countless shots of god knows what and drinking white wine like it was my job. I begged her not to tell her brother she saw Ms. Mischke at a bar getting hammered, but I'd wager she'll tell him. He's one of my favorite students ever, and he's a good kid. Still, that doesn't mean my lush-like behavior won't show up on his My Space page or something.

Finally, on a completely unrelated note, the Cubs are facing Cincinnati right now,. The Reds named their relatively new stadium "The Great American Ballpark." Really? In Cincinnati? That's funny, I know quite a lot of people who would argue that the Great American Ballpark is in, oh, I don't know, Chicago or Boston. I can't get over the people that came up with this name. It would be like naming your department store "Everybody's favorite department store" or your restaurant "Best New Restaurant in Chicago." Talk about tooting your own horn.

Etc

2006-06-07T19:07:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is my last wake-up. Well, it's not technically my last wake-up, at least I hope not, because I guess that would mean I am going to die in my sleep tomorrow night. No, it's my last early wake-up for school because SUMMER STARTS TOMORROW AT 11:30. I realize your calendar may say it starts on or around June 22, but your calendar is wrong. It starts tomorrow, June 8th at 11:30 when I've submitted my final grades, biatches!

Although I am excited that summer is beginning, I'm afraid. I'm afraid because for the first time in years, I don't have a summer job. I kept putting off looking for one, and now I've pretty much accepted the fact that I won't have one this summer. This sounds lovely at first, but as I'm sitting here on my couch tonight having watched my newest Netflix pick (Me and You and Everyone We Know) with no grading to do, I can tell already that I'm in big trouble. It's not even the first day of summer and I already bored. Bored! And what did I do today to alleviate the boredom? That's right, folks, I shopped. DAMN IT.

Now in my defense, I did, in fact, kind of need the items for which I shopped, but I probably could have survived without it. But more than need it, I deserved it. Tonight I shopped for a bikini. I've never done this in my whole life. Never. I've never worn a bathing suit that came in two pieces so closely resembling lingerie. Yet today, having lost quite a lot of weight, I went to the Gap and bought the most boring one they had (it's the one you see here, except it's black). I also bought a cute little skirt coverup. It's all very exciting.

There is good news buried under the joblessness that awaits me this summer. The first piece of good news is that I still get a paycheck all summer. The second piece of good news is that I will get to spend lots of time on the beach in my new bikini. The third piece of good news is that I signed up for Netflix to combat the boredom. The fourth and final piece of good news is that my boyfriend has a whole week off during the first week of July (2 years from the date we met in fact) so I am hopeful that we will get to spend more time together.

In other news, Dog Bites Man starts tonight. It's a new show on Comedy Central starring my best friend's brother Matt Walsh. It looks pretty damn funny, but I would watch it either way because I am the number one Matt Walsh fan, mainly because I've known his sister since 6th grade, but also because he's hilarious, both in person and in his career. Go Matt Walsh!!

Finally, the last bit of news I have is that my noisy neighbors have moved only to be replaced with yet another noisy person. The new tenant wakes up as early as I do. Normally this wouldn't be a problem for me (although I suspect it might be for my roommate), but now that summer is less than 18 hours away, it's going to be a problem when I am trying to "sleep in." I guess the floors in the apartment are old and creaky so I don't think she can control most of it, but I would like to make some suggestions to her should I ever get the balls to go up there and confront her (which I did once to my old neighbors). First of all, I'd like to suggest to Ms. Murphy (that's what it says on her buzzer) that she should try walking rather than STOMPING around the apartment, and that she should have a seat, as she apparently has a serious pacing problem. Secondly, I'd also like to suggest to her that she be more careful with heavy objects as she seems drop them rather frequently. My final suggestion to Ms. Murphy would be that she take off her shoes when she comes in the house at night and put them on just before she leaves in the morning, rather than when she has to make 6 or 7 more STOMPING trips around the apartment. Other than that, I think she's just great.

I'm getting a new roommate next week. Michael is moving down the block to live with our friend Amy and my girlfriend Sarah is moving in with me. It was an amicable separation that we decided on to help out Sarah and Amy. Sarah is a teacher too so I hope we can have some fun together this summer. We've spent the past couple summers going to the beach together every now and again, so she'll be the first to see me in my new bikini.

100 things

2006-06-01T21:53:00.000-07:00

1. I was married once for 8 months.
2. We were together for 5 years prior to the marriage falling apart.
3. It was my fault.
4. This fact of my life weighs on me constantly; there isn't a day in my life that I don't think about some facet of the situation.
5. This also could have been condensed to occupy only one spot on this list; however, for better and for worse, I felt it was important that it occupy at least 5% of my list because it is at least 25% of who I am.
6. I probably have more regrets than any 29-year-old you know.
7. I'm an AWFUL decision maker.
8. Most people that meet my parents say I look exactly like my mom and have a similar personality to my dad.
9. I take that as a compliment because my mom is' hot and my dad is hilarious.
10. For several years, I thought the lyrics to California Love by Tupac were as follows: "California: No Doubt About It" (rather than "California knows how to party").
11. I have 2 nieces, Rosa and Gianna. Sometimes I cry just thinking about them in pain, be it minor pain like someone saying something mean or serious pain, like something awful happening to them.
12. This, combined with many other issues, makes me terrified of being a mom.
13. I also have another niece/nephew due in roughly 10 days.
14. My boyfriend is a cop, but we never do role- playing naughty cop stuff, even though people always assume we do.
15. I met him when he was in his uniform; he was working traffic duty and he stopped traffic so I (and 50 other people) could cross the intersection of Monroe and Columbus in Chicago.
16. Early in May, the Chicago Police Dept has the St. Jude Memorial march, where all off-duty officers march down Chicago Ave in their dress uniforms. This is unquestionably my favorite day of the year.
17. That march usually comes no more than one week after my birthday, which is my least favorite day of the year.
18. It's not that I feel old, it's that I had many expectations for where I would be by this age, and I have met only one of those thus far.
19. I get along better with men than women.
20. But I have a nice group of girlfriends whom I went to college with; most of them live out of state.
21. Even though I'm afraid to have kids, I have considered just not taking my pill to see if I will get pregnant.
22. I'm very insecure.
23. But I don't think that is outwardly apparent to most people who meet me.
24. I won "Funniest Laugh" "Odd Couple (with my then boyfriend) "Most Talkative" and, worst, "Most obnoxious" in high school. I am the only person in the school's history to have won so many "Senior Superlative" awards.
25. In nearly every conversation I am a part of, I am thinking of funny things I could say, even about inappropriate topics like death, abortion and war.
26. I'm usually pretty good at censoring those inappropriate thoughts, but every now and again, I will let one slip and piss off at least one person in the room who I feel lacks a sense of humor.
27. I'm cynical.
28. I have a very bad habit of looking people up and down when they walk in the room.
29. After doing this, I usually conclude that most of the women in the room are better looking than me.
30. But I console myself by being convinced I must be funnier and smarter than anyone prettier than me.
31. I'd like to go on believing this.
32. I am the butt of the joke for everyone that knows me.
33. People make me the butt of the joke because, apparently, it's very funny to see me worked up.
34. However, it bothers me that people always goof on me. I never say anything though because I don't want to seem like I'm being a wuss. And so I don't outwardly get as worked up as I feel inside.
35. My therapist says I exacerbate the problem with my self-deprecating humor, giving permission to virtually everyone who meets to me to goof on me.
36. I have a paralyzing fear of wide-open spaces of any kind including lakes, oceans, large empty pools, open fields, large empty rooms.
37. That's why I'm a city girl.
38. I've never left the continental United States save for one trip to Mexico.
39. I tan easily.
40. I speak Spanish fairly well, and when I was in Mexico, the people that worked there were nuts about my husband and me because he was a funny drunk white guy and I was a funny drunk girl who thought her Spanish improved with each bottle of wine she consumed.
41. I know I'm supposed to want to travel because I'm "young" and "unattached", but I'd probably be perfectly happy taking one small vacation each year to a warm place on a beach.
42. I'm disappointed in myself in this regard.
43. My all-time favorite Cubs are: Jody Davis, Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson and Greg Maddux
44. I hate everything about football, especially the sound of it; the only football I voluntarily watch is the Bears, and even then I can tolerate it only if it is on mute.
45. I go to my grandma's house every Sunday, where we eat a "dinner" at noon that consists of pasta, meatballs, sausage, salad, Diet Rite and bread. It's been the exact same meal my whole life, with very little variation in any minor detail (including the type of pasta- usually rigatoni).
46. When I was in 8th grade, I signed everyone's yearbook as follows: Love Tara, the #1 Crue fan.
47. That's because I thought I was the biggest Motley Crue fan ever.
48. I'm embarrassed by this.
49. I used to make mix tapes for my friends with Motley Crue songs on them; I probably made more mix tapes than Motley Crue deserved.
50. I think tourette's syndrome is a scream.
51. My mom is 100% Italian and my dad is half Italian/half German.
52. I don't like rich people.
53. I realized not too long ago that I will never be rich so I think that's why rich people bother me so much.
54. I will never live anywhere more than 30 miles away from Chicago.
55. If I'm ever single, I'll weed men out based on the likelihood that they'll want to move away someday. I'd sooner give up a potential soul mate than move.
56. I listen to music very loudly.
57. I used to believe people when they would console me with "Everything will work out. You'll see." Now it just pisses me off because I don't necessarily believe that anymore.
58. I started writing this post in early March because I knew I would agonize over it.
59. When I can't sleep at night, I say the alphabet backwards, which was advice I got from another blogger.
60. I am on the fence, no pun intended, on the immigration issue.
61. My hair is naturally curly, and it is dark brown.
62. My eyes are a goldish brown color.
63. My best feature is probably my skin, which is olive in color, inexplicably soft and almost always blemish-free.
64. I wore braces from 5th grade until 8th grade so my teeth are pretty straight, but not as straight as my sister's teeth because she wore her retainer more frequently than I.
65. My arch nemesis up until 6th grade was a girl named Roberta.
66. I haven't been to the dentist in 13 months.
67. I'd consider getting plastic surgery some day.
68. My students typically think of me as kind of a hardass because I don't sugarcoat things.
69. That's why I teach high school instead of junior high; most high school kids can handle constructive criticism, whereas junior high kids are sensitive wussies.
70. I taught 8th grade for one year and it was the worst year of my life as a professional educator.
71. I subbed in the Chicago Public Schools a few times in the year after I quit teaching junior high.
72. I met a midget named Jarmel who was hilarious, and I wanted to adopt him.
73. I met a kid who called me a salty cracker when I told him to sit down and be quiet. I told him I'd be mad at him if that wasn't the funniest thing I'd ever heard.
74. I met both of those kids during one day of subbing.
75. As much as I love my current students, they don't have nearly as much character as some of the kids I met as a sub in a shitty school in the Chicago Public School system.
76. I spell things backwards in my mind when I'm sitting in traffic.
77. I get virtually all of my news from National Public Radio.
78. My first job was at a banquet hall called Ripples. The owners were Greek and the son's name was Gar; I've never met anyone before of after that with the name Gar.
79. I've had many retail jobs including The Nature Company, The Gap, a boutique in Hinsdale, IL, Pottery Barn and West Elm.
80. I did have one job for 2 days before I got the job at Ripples. It was at TCBY, and I resigned after my first day because it was "too much pressure" to go to school (I was a sophomore) and work (one day/week).
81. I got 3 moving violations in one night less than 4 months after I got my license.
82. I've been pulled over 13 times, but I've only been given tickets a few times.
83. However, since I bought my Prius, I haven't been pulled over once.
84. "I've Made a Huge Mistake" is a line that was repeated frequently in the TV series "Arrested Development."
85. It doesn't apply exactly to my life because I don't think every choice I've made was a bad one, but the phrase does run through my mind every now and again.
86. I'm terrible at math.
87. I enjoy napping on the couch in the middle of the day with the fan on and the windows open.
88. I am a clean person, and I feel myself getting more anal retentive about cleanliness as I get older.
89. This might have something to do with the fact that my boyfriend is a neat freak and he is rubbing off on me.
90. I am not a pack-rat. In fact, I throw things out all the time.
91. I don't save my paycheck stubs.
92. I'm not even sure why I'm supposed to keep my paycheck stubs.
93. I don't trust people with small noses.
94. The sexiest part of a man's body is his shoulders.
95. I pee at least 10 times a day. It's not necessarily that I have to go that many times; it's more that I am terrified that I will have to go when I don't have access to a bathroom.
96. I don't feel I read often enough.
97. I went to Marquette University where I majored in journalism.
98. I loved it there, but the two facts listed in #97 are two of my biggest mistakes because I didn't ultimately go into journalism and I paid too much money to go to college.
99. I have made lots of other mistakes that I don't care to go into right now.
100. I'm so glad to be done with this list.

25peeps.com

This I believe...

2006-05-30T20:28:00.000-07:00

NPR has a series going right now that is an homage to an Edward R. Murrow series called "This I Believe." In it, people of all walks of life submit an essay declaring their belief in one specific concept, thing, person, etc, and, those that are selected read their essay on the air. I've heard everyone from Colin Powell to an annoying woman who said she believed in being nice "to the pizza delivery dude" (and, yes, she called him the pizza delivery "dude" throughout the whole piece). I hear this series almost every single time it airs, which I'm pretty sure is on Mondays during Morning Edition. With each declaration of belief I hear, I wonder to myself what I might write should I decide to write a "This I Believe" essay. Time and again, I'm stumped. I spent a while talking about this with my therapist tonight, and I'm not sure if I should be thrilled that I can't boil my beliefs down to one concise concept or if I should be horrified that I am so uncertain in my beliefs that I can't even come up with one single belief I find essay-worthy. I told my therapist I'd try to come up with a This I Believe essay, or at least some possible options. Here's what I came up with after very little reflection:
1. I believe in the power of premium denim to make any ordinary ass look smashing.
2. I believe I will never see the Cubs win a World Series.
3. I believe the asshole going 40 MPH in the left lane is from Wisconsin.
4. I believe Chicago is superior to NYC.
5. I believe in my grandma's meatballs.
6. I believe people who use religion as a justification for ignorant, oppressive and racist policies should burn in hell.
7. I believe in Murphy's Law.
8. I believe I will always pick the slowest lane, even if I was fairly certain at the time of my choosing that lane that it would be the fastest.
9. I believe in George Costanza.
10. I believe in Pinot Grigio (that one's for you Canadian Uncle).

That's all I got. See? Even my half-assed "This I Believe" potential TOPICS are shit. Even an NPR intern wouldn't select an entire essay on any one of those topics (except maybe #9) as one that might be worthy of air time on Morning Edition. What kind of people can actually boil their beliefs down to one essay? Can you? What would you write about?

Netflix newbie

2006-05-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

I signed up for Netflix recently. I heard a story on NPR about the concept, and I was inspired to sign up for it. This in spite of the fact that I don't remember the last time I watched a movie unless it was suggested by another party. Still, the whole Netflix concept sounded too good to pass up. The first movie I selected was Glengarry Glen Ross, a 1992 film based on the David Mamet play. I've decided that I might be the first female Netflix member under the age of 30 (barely) to have this as the first movie in her queue, and frankly, I feel I should get some kind of recognition for it. It's not that this is the movie I wanted to see most in the world. It's simply that I was recently thinking about a guy I went to junior high who happened to be named Glen Ross, and I thought how weird it was that he had the same name as the second third of a David Mamet play that I have never seen. Don't ask me why I was thinking about this person, but I was and so Glengarry Glen Ross was the first movie I selected on Netflix. I'm glad I selected it; it was a damn good movie, but I found myself wishing I had a bottle of pinot with me because it would make an excellent drinking game film. Here's how I can guarantee you'd get loaded within the first 30 minutes:

- take a shot every time someone says "leads"
- take a shot every time someone says "close"

At this point you'd be in the ER with alcohol poisoning but in case you need more ideas...
- take a shot every time Alan Arkin repeats the last two words of Ed Harris' previous sentence
- take a shot every time Jack Lemmon pretends he has a secretary named Grace

And there you have it. Four foolproof ways to get drunk while watching a David Mamet film. By the way, I looked it up on IMDB and some douchebag submitted a summary saying that it is a New York real estate firm but it's not; it is, in fact, a Chicago real estate firm. I know this because:
- they have the 50 token "el shots"
- Ed Harris makes a reference to how things used to be on Western, meaning Western Ave.
- Al Pacino says he's going to Cuomo Inn, an old Italian restaurant in Chicago which no longer exists
- the cops are wearing blue shirts
- they use an address on Euclid, a Chicago street
One final reason this movie was so good is that Jude Ciccolella is in it. Who's that right? That's Mr. Mike Novik, the president's chief of staff on 24.

Workout couture

2006-05-18T20:06:00.000-07:00

I belong to a nice gym in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. Contrary to why most people select a gym, I joined this one because of its exorbitant monthly fee of $90. I guess to some that's not a lot of money. But to a teacher, that's a shitload of cash to pay for 2 hours of torture 4-5 times/week. My logic here is that if I write a check for $90 each month, I am more likely to attend just to I feel I am getting my money's worth. For once my logic was not flawed. I can tell because I get a panicky feeling every time I miss a workout. These panic attacks have less to do with the remorse I feel from missing the physical activity provided by a workout and more to do with the money I'm throwing away each time I miss an appointment with the elliptical.

One of the many drawbacks to being a member of an expensive gym is that I am the only member who doesn't dress in workout couture. My workout wardrobe consists of faded Target yoga pants that are two sizes too big on me, men's Hanes ribbed tanks (dago-Ts as we call them in these parts) and a pair of cross trainers that desperately needed to be replaced roughly 3 months ago. My mom donated a couple pairs of expensive workout pants to me, but even those look sad next to the gear of the hot Lincoln Park trixies next to me on the machines. Well last week I had a wardrobe mishap that has unwillingly thrust me into the world of workout couture. As I unpacked my gym bag to change into my glamorous workout clothes, it occurred to me that I had forgotten to pack a pair of workout pants. I had missed my workout the night before, so going home was not an option. No fancy gym would be complete without a store fully-stocked with overpriced workout gear, and I figured this was as good a time as any to take advantage of the convenience. I put my street clothes back on and went into the store to buy a pair of workout pants. To my dismay, there wasn't a single pair of reasonably priced pants. All they had were two pairs of shorts (which I believe are completely inappropriate no matter how thin you are or how hot it is) in size XS, fluorescent pink swishy pants that were 30% off of $40, and a selection of black low-rise yoga pants with contrast stitching and, oddly enough, belt loops. Clearly the only viable option here are the yoga pants with the gratuitous belt loops. The only problem is that they were $47. Yes, $47, as in $3 away from $50. I walked them up to the counter and informed the women (a complete stranger) that I would, for that moment forward, forever wear these hideously overpriced yoga pants. Since that day, I've worn them to the gym at least two times each week, once to the grocery store, and I even wore them around the house for a few hours when I felt they were being neglected. I will say, they are tons more flattering than my baggy faded Target numbers. Not flattering enough though, for the cringing to go away every time I think about how much I spent on them.

But here's the best part of this story: Upon returning to the locker room after my workout, I rifled through my bag to find my hoodie to wear out to the car. Not only did I find my hoodie, but I also found the pants that I had, in fact, remembered to pack. A classic Sue Ellen Mischke blunder.

Are girls funny?

2006-05-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

I overheard a few of my editors talking yesterday about a "Senior Superlative" survey that had been distributed this week. All schools have these things, where students are asked to vote on who is "Most Likely to Succeed", who has the "Best Hair" and who has the "Best Buns" (seriously). The students vote for one guy and one girl for each category. My seniors were discussing the category "Class Clown" and decided that they couldn't decide on a female for this category because girls aren't funny. There were even girls in this conversation who went along with this claim.

At first, I was offended, mainly because I think of myself as funny. But then I started thinking about it, and I wondered if they weren't on to something. I tried to think about female actresses that people think of as "funny." *Debra Messing? Not funny. Megan Mullaly? I guess. Lucille Ball? Not my type of funny, but widely-considered "funny" by people that know what's "funny." But even as I listed in my mind the women we consider funny, none of them can make me laugh in the same way male comics can, especially **Chris Rock, Dave Chapelle, Eddie Murphy, and Richard Prior, ***Jerry Seinfeld, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Johnny Carson, and George Carlin.

And then I was reminded of a conversation I once had with my ex. ****He said he couldn't find a funny girl. He said he hates that he feels like he has to be funny all the time. Like girls just sit back and wait to be entertained. So what do you think? Are girls funny? Who is the funniest woman you know? And . . . do you think of yourself as funny?

*Of course, both of these women have funny people writing for them, and when I searched, I found that most of the writers on this show are men. And it's not like I think this show is the funniest in the world, or even the funniest on TV right now, but I've heard people compare Debra Messing to Lucille Ball (including Ms. Messing herself) so the leading ladies of Will and Grace came to mind.
**Uh-oh, these are all black men... are black men the funniest people in the world?
*** ok, that's better
**** He claims I'm one of the only funny girls he knows.

Sparkling grape juice + Michael Damian=cop fetish

2006-05-10T19:08:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to figure out the root of my fascination with men in uniform, particularly police offices. I searched into my past to find my earliest encounter with the police that didn't involve getting 3 moving violations in one night (that's a whole different post) or a parking ticket. After much consideration, I think have a pretty good idea from where it stems...

It was New Year's Eve 1989. My parents were out with their friends so my sister and I were home alone. In order to make the night special, my mom bought us sparkling grape juice and told us we could sleep in their big bed while they stayed in the hotel. What my mom didn't know was that this night would have been special with or without the sparkling grape juice and the master suite (not true anymore). That's because Michael Damian was performing in Times Square when the ball dropped. At this point you should be saying to yourself: "Michael Damian? Who the hell is that?" That's because he sucked. He was one of those soap opera actors who tried to become a rock star (ala Rick Springfield, Jack Wagner and John Stamos). At the time though, I thought he was incredibly talented and underrated. I even saw him in concert (opening for Sheena Easton; I bought a t-shirt with her face on it). All you have to do is look at this picture to know just how ridiculously lame this guy was.

Anyway, you must be wondering at this point how sparkling grape juice and Michael Damian led to a cop fetish. Well, I'm getting there. My sister Melissa and I, both crazed Michael Damian fans, were very excited that he was finally getting his due propers by being given the honor of performing at the ball dropping ceremony. As time ticked down to midnight, we settled into our parents' big bed, poured ourselves a glass of sparkling grape juice, set the burglar alarm, and geared up for a Michael Damian fest. Just as the ball dropped, Michael Damian came roaring (more like prancing) onto the stage and played some crappy ass song that sent me into a frenzy. I started screaming like he was playing live in my parents' master bedroom. I screamed so loud that the windows and sliding doors rattled, setting off the burglar alarm in the house. The alarm company called immediately and asked for the emergency security code, which my sister and I did not know. I promised them I lived at the house and it was a false alarm, but they sent a cop anyway....

And that one cop sparked a life-long fascination with the badge. The doorbell rang only seconds after I hung up the phone with the alarm company. My sister and I ran to the door to see a local police officer there in his uniform with his gun and all the cool (hot) gadgets that come with being a cop. I don't remember exactly what he looked like, but in my current fantasies he's tall, dark, has a chiseled jaw and is just a little bit dumb. I assured him that everything was okay (but maybe you should come in and do a search, just in case...), and he left us to our Michael Damian fest. But as Michael performed, I couldn't help but think he'd look even better in a blue shirt and a badge.

7 May 2006

2006-05-07T15:24:00.000-07:00

Check out my post on Wordaholism to learn about my favorite day of the year.

Retail therapy

2006-05-05T16:33:00.000-07:00

As you've probably noticed, things aren't going so well in Sue Ellen Mischke's life these days (so bad in fact, that I'm experimenting with writing in 3rd person to distance myself from my misery....George likes his chicken spicy!). In fact, it feels just about like everything is going to pieces. It's so bad that when I called my grandma, who recently had surgery, to check in with her, I nearly broke down. I'm so bad at masking my sadness that she could tell within the first 5 words that something was wrong. Then she started grilling me (in a way only my grandma can) to tell her what was wrong. I gave her my stock "I'm tired- long week" excuse, but she wasn't buying it. By the end of the (2-minute) conversation, I was crying as I said goodbye. Hence, I will soon be getting a phone call from my mom (who is babysitting my 2 nieces while my 8 months pregnant sister stays at the hospital with her husband who may have to have emergency surgery for some reason relating to his cornhole) who will rightfully be mad at me for making my 75-year-old sick grandma worry about me. I didn't mean to do it; but when she said "I Love You" I couldn't stop myself from crying. Now everyone in my family knows something is wrong.

In an effort to combat this sadness I decided to go to Old Orchard, a fancy mall in the northern suburbs. As you might recall from my previous post, I took a personal day today. I didn't take the personal day for the purpose of going to the mall, but I had lots of time to myself (which I did not want) so I went to Old Orchard in search of retail therapy on my limited budget. I started at Ann Taylor Loft where I got the cutest white shorts/capris and two cute summer tops. These were all under $40 so I did well. Plus I was using birthday money, so I'm still okay. This photo doesn't do these shorts/capris justice. They look awesome on me. For me to acknowledge that anything looks good on me is pretty rare, so that should give you a pretty good indication of how cute they are. Then I got a navy blue cami with sequins on it and a cute white (sale) tank as well.

But the coup de gras was these shoes from Banana Republic. No, they won't be as comfortable as the Aerosoles I've been loving these days, but I won't put as many miles on these. I tried them on with the shorts/capris and the white tank when I got home, and it looked almost good enough to bring me out of my depression. The good news is that my gift certificate covered all but $24 of the shoes. I plan to wear them tonight with my cutest jeans and the blue tank and my white jacket while I'm drowning myself in margaritas and/or Modelo and/or Pinot Grigio.

92

2006-05-04T17:52:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to say. I'm only posting to ensure Esbee that I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth, even if I wish I had. Turns out the only thing worse than the birthday is the week after the birthday. But no need to worry; I'm still here. I just don't have much to say. I could write about the fact that I took a personal day for tomorrow in anticipation of having a good night of quality time with my boyfriend. And the fact that I won't be seeing him after all so now I have wasted a personal day. But I won't.

Just a few posts away from the 100th.

Saved

2006-04-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

All the plans I had made to celebrate my birthday were cancelled in this order:
1. Dinner with the BF
2. *Friend #1 coming out with me for a drink
3. Friend #2 coming out with me for a drink
4. **Dinner with my family so I could go out with friend #3 and others for a drink
5. Friend # 3 and others going out for a drink
6. Going to Cubs game

It was gray and rainy all weekend in Chicago. I was as sad as I've ever been.

*** Then there was one bright spot that saved my 29th birthday from going down in history as one of the worst ever, making all the gloom and sadness go away. My BF was about to clock in for his midnight shift, which he had requested off for my b-day but was not granted it. His captain stopped him and told him he could have that personal day he had requested after all. That was at 11:30 on the night we were supposed to have a romantic dinner. So he showed up at my house at about midnight, saving me from a night of crying myself to sleep. By that time, it was too late for a romantic dinner. We don't get those very often because we are both trying to save money, so I was looking forward to splurging. But I don't care. I've never been so happy to sit on my couch with him and talk about whatever. It was the cheapest perfect birthday gift I've ever gotten. I was beaming; it saved my weekend, and provided the one thing I was just about convinced I wouldn't have: a happy birthday.

* This after my best friend couldn't join me because she was going to a dinner party where my ex-husband and his new girlfriend would be; I'm not mad at her, I'm just saying is all...
** In fairness to my family, they DID NOT cancel on me; I cancelled on them so I could try to salvage the otherwise depressing weekend.
*** There were two other subsequent bright spots: With some of my birthday money, I purchased a new pair of Joe's Jeans and a cute summer tank.

368 or so

2006-04-27T20:00:00.000-07:00

368 or so days until I turn 30.

It's not that I think 30 is old. I've managed to convince myself that 30 is not old. I've even convinced myself that 60 is not old.

It's just that I'm not where I assumed I'd be at 29. Or where I, at, say, 17, would have though the average 29-year-old should be at 29. You know? For example, I thought I'd be married, but not necessarily divorced. Or have published something that wasn't just on blogger. Or I thought I'd have a kid. Or at least be pregnant with one. Or at the very very least be ready to be pregnant with one. If any of those, I guess I'm technically ready. Physically I guess I've been ready since 8th grade. But I don't like to face that I might actually be ready especially because I'm:
1. In debt
2. Selfish
3. Terrified of getting fat.
4. In a relationship with someone I only see twice/week.

I don't think I could handle the heartbreak of being actually ready when I am not in the place to be ready.

So I hate birthdays not because of how old I am, but because of how old I am not. I am mentally approximately 43. Emotionally, maybe 23. But actually 28 and 363 days.

But who's counting?

When I was a kid and my mom was turning 30, she was very sad. I remember her being sad. I had some wise advice for her, even though I was no more than 6-years-old: "Don't worry, mommy. Just stay in bed on your birthday. Then you won't have to get older." I think I'll try that next year.

My mom had two kids at 30. Yet she was still sad. Maybe I'd be unhappy with where I was at if I was where I expected to be at 29 (or 30). That's either very good or very bad. Bad because I might be unhappy no matter where I was in my life. Or good because I should just be happy with where I am at now. Which is:
1. Living in my favorite place in the world
2. Dating a handsome man whom I love
3. With 2 (soon to be 3) beautiful nieces
4. And a good family
5. And an amazing job
6. And a nice rack

Maybe I should not be examining my life, which is complicated at best, at this hour. It's Thursday at 10:13 pm, which is 28 minutes past my weeknight bedtime. I'll try this again on April 30th and see what I come up with.

But I have a question for you:
How old are you and are you where you expected you'd be at this age?

Oedipus complex

2006-04-24T19:59:00.000-07:00

I lost my glasses. Hence, I've been wearing my contacts every waking hour of my life for the past 2 weeks. This is not fun. Normally when I come home from work, the first thing I do is tear my contacts out of my face to relieve myself of the burning sensation I experience after wearing contacts from 5:00 in the morning until 7:00 at night.

But now, I have to keep the contacts in when I watch TV at night. I have to keep them in when I look at my computer screen, read a book or make my dinner. It's a nightmare. You know how Oedipus gouged out his own eyes when he realized he had fulfilled his fate when he married his mother and killed his father? Well, I finally know the pain Oedipus felt, and I am one dry, fatigued and painful blink away from doing the same to myself.

I went to For Eyes today and picked out new glasses, which I cannot find a picture of to post here. While I was there, a woman actually came in and inquired about buying glasses sans prescription lenses. She said, with a straight face, that she just had Lasik surgery and wanted them "just for fashion." This is easily the dumbest thing I've ever heard a woman ask without the slightest hint of self-awareness of the ridiculousness of her inquiry. It's not so much the buying frames for the purposes of fashion that bothers me, although let me be clear that this does in fact bother me, but it pales in comparison to the other problem. It's more the paying thousands of dollars for a surgery that frees you from glasses only to head directly to For Eyes to buy glasses that concerns me. When she left, all the people in the store talked about what an idiot she was. It was gorgeous.

Finally, if only I had the capability to share with you the audio of my eye exam. The opthamalogist was a woman, probably in her mid 30s. You know how they put that scary contraption up to your face and do that "1 or 2? 3 or 4?" to get you to tell them which lens provides the clearest vision for you? Well, this woman was doing it in the highest pitch most annoying voice I've ever heard. I actually started laughing out loud half-way through the exam because I was thinking how much I'd like to record her voice so I could post it on my blog. I don't think she liked me very much.

I see gay people

2006-04-20T17:53:00.000-07:00

I'm in the middle of teaching my sophomore journalism students the non-fiction novel "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote. I'm reading along with them because I procrastinated and didn't read it in advance. I'm quite a bit ahead of them, but
frankly, I probably should have read it, oh, I don't know, last summer. But this post is not about my sophomoric procrastination. No, it's about the woes of being a teacher in the conservative strong-hold, DuPage County, IL.

When the movie "Capote" was released, the other journalism teacher and I knew it would be an excellent choice for a film to show after completing the novel. It really should be called "Capote's In Cold Blood" rather than simply "Capote" because it is as much about the process of researching the story as it is about the man who wrote it. In the department in which I work, when we have a film we wish to show, we propose it to our boss, who then sends out a mass email to all the other teachers in the department notifying them that a teacher has requested permission to show a particular film, in this case Capote. The teachers in the department are then supposed to approve it or raise concerns they may have about showing the film, be them curricular concerns (i.e. it's already used in another class) or concerns regarding whether the film is appropriate for teenagers. So I submitted the proposal, and shortly after my boss distributed the email to my colleagues. When I get such emails, I simply delete them without even second guessing the film. Why? Well, #1, I have enough shit to deal with without having to worry about what goes on in one unit in one classroom in my school. But #2, I trust that my colleagues are making an informed choice and aren't showing a film that is going to destroy the delicate moral fiber of the innocent teenagers in our classrooms. Apparently, I'm the only one who has this reaction. Several months went by after I made the proposal, and my boss still had not given me the verdict. So I asked her about it recently, and she said there were a couple of "good points" raised about the film (which she had never seen). Two people questioned my proposal. The first person asked "Is there any other author on whom we spend so much time dissecting personally after reading a novel?" To that I say, "Hey, Jackass. Watch the film and read the book. Once you do, you'll realize that Capote isn't just about Capote; it's about how a revolutionary writer and journalist pursued a story and compiled a ground breaking novel." The second person evidently is more in-tuned to the religious/conservative population in our school. He/She (but let's face it, in my department, more likely a "she") said "With the gay issues raised in the movie, the Mormon population in our school might have objections to the film." Oh, I see. Because the mere fact that gay people exist is enough to offend the Mormon church. There are no point-of-entry raunchy gay sex scenes in this movie. There isn't even a single kiss between two men. In fact, all the viewer sees is Capote and his monogamous lover vacationing in a villa in Spain together. Now, is that the gayest thing I've ever heard? Sure. But is it OFFENSIVE? Hell no. Let me tell you what the Mormon church should find offensive.: the shitty music my students listen to wherein the "artists" throw the word "bitch" around like it's a pronoun; the MTV programs my students watch wherein hot tub hookups are standard procedure for first dates; rainbow parties, grinding, homophobia, racism and plagiarism. But two men in a committed relationship as nothing more than a footnote in an otherwise incredible film is not offensive. If we have to tip-toe around what the Mormon church, or any church for that matter, finds offensive, we'd never be able to teach half of the novels or films we teach in this country.

Okay. Well, my goal was the have 100 entries before my birthday on 4/30 so I could post my 100 things list on that day. Unless I go on some kind of crazy writing binge in the next 10 days, I don't think that's going to happen. Just one more goal I won't have met before my 29th birthday.

Bo Knows Sue Ellen Mischke

2006-04-15T19:47:00.000-07:00

Money is tight right now, and to avoid the pricey temptations of spring in Chicago, I come to the suburbs to stay at my parents' house for the weekend. Sitting home in the city during the winter cold is one thing; but in the spring it's a whole different story. So I came to the 'burbs on Friday.

Today I went to the area LifeTime Fitness with my parents, or, as I like to call it, Gym of America. My dad claims it's so crowded that he's had to wait in line to use the showers after his workout. There are rows and rows of equipment, yet not a drop of free water to be found in the entire place. The towels they provide are roughly the size of a buffet napkin, and the personal trainer-to-member ratio is 6-1, which, if they fired 10% of that staff, they'd be half-way home in solving the overcrowding problem. In spite of this, the workout was quite satisfying because it came with a complimentary Chicago area celebrity sighting, which qualifies as a quasi to a not-at-all-a celebrity sighting for those of you outside Chicago. Bo Jackson lives in a suburb near my parents' house, and evidently he belongs to every gym within a 5 mile radius of it. I know this because I've seen him twice in my whole life, and both times it was at a gym, but not the same gym both times. Plus, a friend of mine belonged to a completely separate gym, and he worked out there too. He's a monster. Anyway, the point of this story is that he (along with just about every other disgusting middle-aged man there) totally checked me out. My mom says he does that to all the ladies at the gym, but I like to think he was drawn to the wife-beater I wear when I work out.

The weekend in the suburbs was, otherwise, pretty uneventful. I baked a carrot cake, completely from scratch for tomorrow's holiday. I also discovered a violent twitch in my arm. It's so bad that it looks like that scene in Alien where the alien comes out of that guy's stomach- except the alien appears to be trying to emerge from my arm. I hope an alien doesn't come out of my arm at the dinner table tomorrow.

Uninspired but still really f-ed up

2006-04-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

Since I have nothing to write about, I'm stealing this idea from Isabel. I'm a freak so it wasn't hard to compile a list of . . .
6 Weird Things About Sue Ellen Mischke

1. When someone is talking to me, I lift my toes for every word they say or tap my fingers for every word they say. With songs, I do this so obsessively that I can tell you what position my toes or fingers will end in after one of my favorite songs. If I mess up, I'll start the song over and and do it again. If I'm driving, I do the same thing with road signs. The goal is to end up with both toes down or all of my fingers down. God, that's weird.

2. I talk to myself out loud all the time, but most often in the car. It's typically a made up conversation with someone that isn't there, and I'm usually telling them something about this imaginary fabulous life I've made up for myself. Usually I'm being interviewed by someone about how I fell ass-backwards into fame, stardom or riches. I also practice being interviewed for jobs. This is why I'm such an awesome interview. They can't ask me a question that I haven't already asked of myself and answered.

3. While I secretly love being interviewed, I also love interviewing people I meet. I'd try to make a mute person talk if left alone with him for long enough. Sometimes I regret that I've initiated an interview with my subject. It's not going to be a surprise to any of you to find out that not everyone I meet is worthy of being interviewed. But I take my chances anyway and launch into a Barbara Walters style one-on-one every chance I get.

4. I fidget constantly. I usually curl my toes (that is, if they aren't being used to keep track of the words to a song) or put my hair up in a ponytail and then take it out again.

5. I pee a lot- easily 15 times/day if I'm near a restroom the whole day. I don't necessarily have to go 15 times/day, it's just that I'm afraid that suddenly I won't be allowed to use the restroom and then I'll be wishing I peed before "they" took away my bathroom privileges. To make matters worse, I keep the door open most of the time (but not in public of course), and I don't flush every time (I mean, when you pee 15 times/day, it's nothing but water anyway). This probably irritates my roommate; I know it irritates my boyfriend. I also use roughly a catcher's mitt-worth of toilet paper each time.

6. I chew pink Orbit bubble-mint gum constantly. I never even chewed gum until I discovered pink Orbit. Now I'll risk being late for an event or work or an engagement to stop at the store and buy a fresh pack. I have a Costco membership for the sole purpose of buying pink Orbit in bulk. It's the perfect gum. Sometimes I chew it so much that my jaw hurts from chewing all day long.

Sue Ellen Mischke

2006-04-09T07:59:00.000-07:00

I won't pretend that I'm not surprised by the results of this quiz, which I got from the site of a self-proclaimed "Jesus freak" on Blog Explosion.

How evil are you?

That's just silly.

Note that I've changed my photo a little bit and changed my name. Sue Ellen Mischke, of course, is one of Elaine's friends on Seinfeld. Elaine thinks it's inappropriate that she doesn't wear a bra, so she gets her one for her birthday. Sue Ellen wears it with no shirt on, but a blazer over it. Sue Ellen and I have nothing in common; I wear a bra all the time. I just think it's a funny name. This is my half-assed attempt at anonymity.

300+ useless channels

2006-04-08T12:58:00.000-07:00

The Cubs are playing today, but I can't watch the game. You'd THINK with 300 channels I could find ONE of the channels that the Cubs game might be on. I can watch the fucking White Sox if I want, which clearly I do not, because they are on WGN. The Cubs used to be the only team on WGN and WGN was the only channel on which the Cubs games aired. These days, however, the rights to The Cubs games are divided among at least three different channels, only one of which is included in my 300+ channel package. Why are all these channels so eager to air Cubs games? The Cubs lose. A lot. Oh wait, I know. They want to air the Cubs because jackass fans like me tune in whenever possible even though we are fairly confident that the outcome will not be favorable for us. So I had the Sox game on, simply because I need to see baseball right now, while I listened to WGN radio to hear the Cubs game. This approach got confusing because every time Hughes or Santo would call a play (more Hughes than Santo of course, since Santo really just yells, sighs and speaks in fragmented sentences), I'd look up at the TV expecting to see what all the excitement was about. I gave up and now I'm watching the Masters because golf is my new favorite sport to watch on television. I hate loud sports, and that's why I hate football. But golf and baseball are so peaceful, that is unless of course you are watching baseball on Fox where all of the graphics get an obnoxious sound attached to them. But generally, I can watch baseball or golf all day long, drifting in and out of naps only to wake up and find I've missed only a few innings or holes. It's brilliant. I used to hate golf for this exact reason, but in my old age I've come to appreciate the announcers who speak quietly so as not to disturb the audience at home whom I am sure they know spend at least a few holes each round snoozing.
Well, back to nappin'.

The Summer of Tara

2006-04-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the sage advice of Esbee, I went to Aerosoles today in search of two pairs of sandals to get me through the summer. Normally finding two pair of anything isn't a challenge for me, but this shopping trip came with a new set of rules. I would only allow myself to buy shoes that are both cute and comfortable, while still fitting into my limited "eyes on the prize" budget. I did find cute shoes that were moderately (there's that word again) inexpensive, but it remains to be seen if they'll actually be comfortable. I walked around the store for roughly 23 minutes to try to get a sense of how my injured foot would take to them. When the saleswoman told me I basically had to buy them because they were now considered "worn" and thus, unreturnable, I figured I should pull the trigger. Incidentally, this does not break my vow not to shop 'until Spring except in cases of emergency.' First of all, it's Spring. Secondly, the fact that I cannot wear anything on my feet that isn't a sneaker constitutes an emergency because I am only 5'3".

I purchased a brown pair and a black pair, both of which are pictured here. They are not bad looking shoes overall. Sure, the heels are high, but it is my theory that I have foot problems not because of the height of the heel, but because of the pointy toe factor. So we'll see how it goes. Rest assured, I'll blog about it either way.

From my achin' feet to my achin' back. . . the new mattress arrives on Tuesday. As I got the mattress in a sort "back door"/ "fell-off-the-back-of-the-truck" manner, the mattress won't arrive at my house; I'll have to pick it up on my own. I also ordered one for my parents, so I'll actually be picking up a full size for myself and a king for my Ps and delivering them to each location in a rented truck (and they say Americans won't do the jobs the illegal immigrants are doing!). The BF is working that night, and my roommate will be on a love-in with his boyfriend, so I had to ask an old friend to help out. I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep on a mattress that isn't older than my freshmen.
It occurs to me that these two events could change my life, or at the very least my summer. To walk around pain-free in my back and my feet- all summer long! I'll be a new person! I'll have to change the title of this blog to something like, "I'm finally not making mistakes anymore" ... "I've figured it all out."
Stay tuned!

An excerpt . . .

2006-04-05T19:47:00.000-07:00

Time and again, the Chicago-is-real theory simply does not stand up to scrutiny. There are no man-eating vines on the wall of Wrigley Field. No Al Capone. No John Wayne Gacey. These are stories invented to frighten children.

This is not to say that there are not Chicagoans, but I would suggest that they are a nomadic people, whose lost home exists only in their minds, and in the glowing crystal memory cells they all carry in the palms of their hands: a great idea of a second city, lit with life and love, reasonable drink prices at cool bars, and, of course, blocks and blocks of bright and devastating fire.

from: The Areas of My Expertise
By John Hodgman

Looks like a torture rack, feels like a torture rack

2006-04-03T20:51:00.000-07:00

It's almost 11:00 and I am not sleeping yet. I have a lot on my mind- mainly, my feet- specifically the left foot. I don't have a ton of shoes, but the shoes I do have are mostly impractical. The heel is usually high and the toe is always pointed. I opt for this pointy look because I feel it makes me appear taller and thinner. Most people probably think the idea that shoes can make a person look tall and thin is absurd, but I stand by that premise. People always want to know if such shoes hurt, but they never did. I swear to God; they never did.

Well, a few weeks ago when I was at the gym, I had a little mishap. While awkwardly operating an equally awkward weight machine to exercise my calves, I felt a shooting pain in my left foot. This lead to an even more awkward dismount from the machine, wherein, upon putting my weight on my left foot, I folded up like a cheap table. I'd like to think no one saw me but, as it was "peak hours" at my gym, I'm pretty sure everyone in there got a good laugh out of my clumsy fall. I hobbled out of there, head down, iPod on, tears streaming down my face (tears of pain and embarrassment). In retrospect I probably should have either
A. taken a couple days off for the gym or
B. had it looked at asap.
Instead, I just rubbed it a little bit and ignored the pain that seemed to be dulling with each day.

The days following this incident were casual days at work, so I was able to wear my Puma tennis shoes. No heel, no pointy toe. The pain lingered, but it eventually subsided within a few days. That is until the following week, when I put on my pointy-toed torture racks again. And now the pain is back for good. My dad and my boyfriend both suggested that the shoes were the cause of my pain. Fools, I thought! Don't they know Carrie Bradshaw wore shoes like this all the time? She seems to have no problem prancing around NYC in her pointy-toed Manolo Blahnik heels. Why would I be any different?

Well, apparently Carrie Bradshaw has some kind of genetically engineered foot that can handle that kind of abuse, whereas I do not. As it turns out, my expensive pointy-toed shoe wardrobe was a silent killer. Now I have to find an alternative to the heels, at least until I get the nerve to see a podiatrist, who will probably tell me never to wear heels again. Or worse, he'll say I can wear heels only if I wear the ones from that commercial from the 80s . . . "Looks like a pump, feels like a sneaker." Anyway, this problem is weighing on my mind even more heavily because of the fact that I only own one pair of cute tennis shoes, and those are Pumas, and, cute as they are, they don't go with everything I own. On top of that, I have like 2 pairs of pants that aren't huge on me. That includes my premium denim collection, which I am now calling my Premium Denim Sweatpants collection. None of these things can be replaced or tailored because I have to get out of debt by the end of next year (I'll explain why in another post), and I can't spend a dime on anything but groceries, bills and the occasional night out.

To recap, here are the things keeping me from sleeping right now:
1. left foot pain
2. no shoes
3. no clothes that fit me
4. no money to replace or alter clothes
5. I'm not Carrie Bradshaw
A girl can't be expected to sleep with such problems.

Any suggestions? Any podiatrists out there?

Bad news/Good News

2006-04-02T19:15:00.000-07:00

Spring break, the last extensive recess of the year, officially comes to an end tonight, hence the sad face. I'm feeling a little melancholic tonight. The storm, this being my last night with my boyfriend for a while and the end of this break . . . it's all getting me down. To make matters worse, I can't find a damn thing to wear to work, and it's going to be rainy and gloomy tomorrow. Can't wait to wake up to all that. A true Monday indeed.

There is one bright spot to report. Esbee invited me to be a part of Wordaholism. It's a really bitchin' site so stop by to check out my contributions and the contributions of the other blog members. I am hoping to post at least once each week, and once summer break comes, even more.

And don't forget to check out my renter by clicking on the thumbnail on the right or click here. It's good stuff.

My moderately bruised ego needs some massaging. Any takers?

2006-03-31T13:30:00.000-08:00

Last night I was out with some friends, one of whom was a colleague. I overheard the following phone conversation taking place between my colleague and his friend. Of course, I only heard one end of the conversation. I was able to discern, however, that the conversation was clearly one wherein the colleague was trying to encourage his friend to join us at a local lounge:

my colleague: So are you coming out tonight, man?
there's a pause while guy on phone speaks....
mc: Well, I'm with Dana and my friend Tara, whom I work with.
another pause while guy on phone speaks...
mc: hmm... Moderately

It's not the first pause that concerns me. It's more the second pause with which I take issue. I am speculating that the guy on the other side of the phone asked "Is she good-looking/attractive/hot?" to which my friend answered "hmm... Moderately."

I had to call him out on this, of course. He seemed embarrassed at first, but he did not come out and tell me I was incorrect in my assumption. He made a few feeble attempts at coming up with some less hurtful options. My favorite one was, "Are you comfortable with the direction your friendship is taking?" Although this is funny, it doesn't strike me as the sort of thing one would ask to determine if he should join an already assembled group of people at a bar, that is unless said person is a psychotherapist (or an analrapist for you Arrested Development fans).

Another interesting fact about this exchange is that the guy on the other end of the phone did eventually join us at the bar-- with his girlfriend in tow (who, frankly, if I'm only moderately attractive, was not at all attractive). Why the hell was it necessary for this guy to ask my colleague if I was attractive if he already has a not-so-attractive girlfriend of his own? When they walked in I introduced myself. "Hi, I'm Tara. The moderately attractive one."

For the record, I don't know that I disagree with this evaluation of my looks; I'd just rather not know that other people have made that same assessment. Also for the record, I'm not mad at my colleague at all. I'm only moderately shocked that he was dumb enough (and/or drunk enough) to think that I would not have heard this exchange, seeing as how he was sitting right next to me in a cramped booth in a relatively quiet lounge.

So I need your help here, 4 readers. Anyone care to propose possible questions that would elicit the response of "moderately" in this situation? Let's limit it to questions that might heal my (moderately) bruised ego. Please?

2006-03-30T12:38:00.000-08:00

I stole this idea from I-66, and I love it! Try it in your next post. Answer the below questions using only the names of songs by your favorite band.

Band: Built to Spill
1. Are you male or female? Distopian Dream Girl

2. Describe yourself: She's Real

3. How do some people feel about you: Untrustable

4. How do you feel about yourself: Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss

5. Describe your ex boyfriend: Out of Sight

6. Describe your current significant other: You Are

7. Describe where you want to be: Happiness

8. Describe how you live: The Plan

9. Describe how you love: Temporarily Blind

10. What would you ask for if you had just one wish: Reasons

11. Share a few words of wisdom: Singing Sores Make Perfect Swords

12. Now say goodbye: Stop the Show

BYO-TP

2006-03-29T13:36:00.000-08:00

Check out my first tenant! I suspect this is the closest I'm ever going to get to owning something. She's a hip mom/teacher who isn't afraid to throw around a few curse words. My kind of gal.

I just read the most recent post of one of my favorite bloggers. In it, she tells her readers that she will be spending the summer in Egypt for an internship. This same girl recently returned from Greece and spent some time in Haiti this winter. She's even hoping to go to Israel while she's in Egypt. I'm sure to most people this all sounds thrilling. But for me, I just get mini-panic attacks over the idea of traveling abroad to exotic corners of the world.

Except for a trip to Mexico a couple years ago, I've never left the continental United States. It's not necessarily that I don't want to travel abroad, it's simply that I'm certain I couldn't do it on my budget. I suppose I could stay at a hostel, but a "hostel"? Really? They can change the spelling all they'd like, but as far as I'm concerned, it still sounds just like the word for 'unfriendly' or 'of or belonging to a military enemy'. On my dime, I'd have to stay in a place where guests are required to supply their own toilet paper and water; I simply am not down with a place that doesn't even provide the most basic tools required to maintain personal hygiene.

Beyond my budgetary constraints, which, let's face it, probably aren't going away, what scares me the most is the idea of not being able to communicate with anyone in the native language. I picture myself wandering around a strange urban square unable to find a bathroom, figure out the price of a leather good or determine how many points were in that croissant I just ate. Then I imagine myself starting to hyperventilate, causing me to pass out on the cobblestone, crack my head open, and bleed to death on the sidewalk, while the natives walk past the dying ignorant American who didn't even bother to learn how to say 'bathroom' 'leather' or 'points' in their language. Maybe I'm being dramatic, but I'd just as soon play it safe and crack my head open on the pavement here in Chicago.

However, I can speak English and Spanish so I do have some options. As long as I can stay in a place that provides toilet paper and water, I think I could survive in these overseas destinations:

1. London
2. Anywhere in Spain, but especially Seville and Barcelona (I speak Spanish pretty well, and the more I drink, the more fluent I become)
3. Germany, but only with my boyfriend, who is fluent in German
4. Anywhere in Italy, but particularly Cloz in Trento where my grandma is from (I took Italian in college and, combined with my Spanish, I bet I could pull it off).

Of course, I'd be hated in these countries because I'd almost certainly do what I always do when I visit a new place, which is walk around comparing everything to Chicago, with the host city always coming up short in all comparisons. "Come se dice, 'the flan in Chicago is much better than it is in Spain'?"*

*I think that would be "El flan in Chicago es mucho mejor que el flan en Espana" but I'm sober so I could be way off.

You deserve a Spring Break today

2006-03-28T17:38:00.000-08:00

The spring break debauchery continues, readers! I spent last night doing blow off a hooker's ass and singing "Your Love" by The Outfield at a karaoke bar. I woke up this morning in the bed of a complete stranger! Spring break 2006, baby!

I'm not kidding anyone. I spent last night hanging out with my married friend in the suburbs, and I woke up in my old bedroom at my parents' house. I even had to go into work today. The most scandalous thing I've done since I last saw my students was eat fast food, and I'd probably feel less guilt about doing blow off a hooker's ass than I do about my recent trip to McDonalds.

Saturday I had a little tiff with the BF*, so I called Michael crying and told him I needed to have a drink. We went to The Map, a local tavern we frequently visit, and I drowned my sorrows in a bottle of pinot. Once again, on
the way home, we went to McDonalds. In my entire life, I can count on one hand that number of times I've eaten fast food, but you wouldn't know that from reading my blog. Once I moved in with Michael, somehow I became incapable of resisting fast food when under the influence. When I'm sober, I see Michael bring home McDonalds pretty regularly. I'm not even tempted by it. Sure the fries smell good, but I usually resist so that I can continue to be successful in Weight Watchers. When I'm drunk though, my judgment is obviously impaired, and an impending Weight Watchers meeting weigh-in can't deter me from the McDonalds that is just blocks from my apartment. I've done some pretty irresponsible things under the influence**, but I regret going to McDonalds the most. The kicker is that, on our walk there, my thought process was as follows: "This is a good idea. I won't regret this. I lost weight again this week, so I DESERVE this order of fries and 6 piece chicken McNugget. I predict I'll feel less hung over in the morning because of this trip to McDonalds."

Needless to say, my prediction was not accurate.

* This passed. We're fine, in case anyone is curious.
** There is a portion of my life which I don't write about on this blog for various reasons. It's mostly in my past and always involves bad decision making and a bottle of pinot grigio.

Cabo, Cancun... crabs

2006-03-24T17:35:00.000-08:00

We've come to one of those glorious weeks in the school year where I love my job the most; that is, it's a week where I don't have to go to work. It's not that I don't love my job; it's simply that I'd prefer not to work at all. If I ever have children with the kind of man that expects one of us to stay home with the kids, I might just volunteer for that position. I'd probably miss work at first, but I suspect I'd find ways to cope with the loss. If I stay on the track I am now, however, I will be having kids someday with a police officer, which means we won't exactly be rich, which means I'd have to go back to work at some point. It's hard enough going back to work after one week off; I can't imagine the shock of having to go back to work after several years away from it. Maybe I should just not have kids at all. I don't think I could sleep at night knowing someday my daughter will ask me if she can go away with her friends for spring break.

I'm always shocked when I hear about the trips my high school students take with their friends and the permission of their parents. I have seen a few MTV Spring Break clips, and I think it should be mandatory that we show such clips at open house so parents know what they're sons and daughters are doing on their little spring break getaway. They might be shocked to find their students are posting photos of their spring break date rape on their MySpace page; or drinking 'til they puke and drown in a pool of their own vomit; or getting/giving oral sex in a hot tub to three or four different people. Then again, maybe they wouldn't be shocked. In my personal life, it's difficult to offend or shock me; but when it comes to the things my students do, I find that my jaw is on the floor every time I learn something new about what teenagers do these days. I know, I know, I sound old and prude, but I simply cannot accept that fact that girls actually volunteer to attend rainbow parties. In the 90s, there were no rainbow parties. Not only because we were too grunge to wear lipstick (the requisite party favor for the rainbow party to be a success), but also because we were depressed about the death of Kurt Cobain and Jerry Garcia. Who wants to give a blow job when in mourning?

So when I said "Good bye! Have a nice break!" to my students yesterday, I did it knowing full well that a few of them would come back a different person. *Maybe Megan would have crabs. Steve might have lost his virginity (but realistically, not without the help of a few roofies). Lisa's parents might be at the early stages of a lawsuit with a guy who posted photos of their drunk daughter being taken advantage of by 6 phi kappas. Who knows? I might even have a girl in the first trimester of her pregnancy. Not too late for an abortion though, right Jeanne?

I won't be doing anything nearly as scandalous on my Spring Break. I'll try to make more time for the blog, and I have to read In Cold Blood so I can teach it in a few weeks. No hot tub blow jobs for me, folks. If I change my mind though, I promise to blog about it.

*All names have been made up. I have some students who might come back with crabs or a baby, but none of them have these names.

Can you peaceably assemble next weekend?

2006-03-20T16:51:00.000-08:00

I took a sick day today to get some grading done. I had planned to take the whole day, but this morning I had a "summative conference" with my supervisors so I had to go in for an hour or so. The summative conference is the meeting where they tell me whether I've been rehired or not. I've been rehired. I wish I could say I'm "relieved" or that it took some kind of weight off my shoulders. But the truth is, I knew I was getting rehired. I don't have tenure yet, but I've gotten all positive reviews over the past 3 years, so I'm usually pretty confident going into these meetings.

This past weekend Michael and I went to a wedding for one of the girls in my bookclub. My BF was supposed to go with me, and since he has never met the bookclub girls, I was looking forward to that. These protests were going on, however, so he was not allowed to take the night off. As a liberal, I'm usually in favor of the rights of Americans "peaceable to assemble" in protest of our government. I learned, however, this past weekend that my fervent defense of that particular right granted in the First Amendment is contigent upon it not impacting my "and guest" option on the wedding invite.

Overall, it wasn't a very good wedding. It wasn't quite as bad as the wedding I went to where, during the first dance, the couple looked more like they were making a business deal than actually being in love. It wasn't even quite as bad as the wedding where it was a cash bar and we were kicked out of our tables so they could clear space for a dance floor. But it wasn't very memorable. I like the girl who was getting married, but we had never met her husband, and it seemed like the crowd was older than most weddings I go to. The first five songs were all released around the time most baby boomers were in high school. To make matters worse, it was in a far suburb of the city, and the traffic on the Dan Ryan expressway was bumper-to-bumper on the way there and, from what Michael tells me, on the way home as well. The ride home is a little hazy so I don't remember the traffic; all I remember is rolling the window down, then up again, every few minutes to ward off the vomit I was certain was on its way up. I didn't mean to get so drunk, but I did, and I thought for sure I was going to lose it in the car.

I made it home without vomiting, partially because I fell asleep, but mainly because, when I woke up, I found that we were in the drive-through at the McDonald's ordering chicken McNuggets and french fries. I never eat fast food, but this was one time I feel like it was a good decision to eat 14 grams of trans fat (which is about 14 more than I have in a week) at 11:00 at night.

The Chicago Sideways

2006-03-19T07:49:00.000-08:00

I've been tagged by Southie, who is freaking out about today's fantasy baseball draft. I, however, am not freaking out. There's no point in doing that; I won't maintain a level of commitment throughout the season to surpass Southie's and Gino's because, frankly, I have a life outside of fantasy baseball. With that in mind, my team, The Chicago Sideways, is guaranteed not to place in the top 3, hence the lack of stress for the draft. I have the 2nd pick though, so I am pretty excited about that. I kept Johan Santana from last season, who is ranked #1 in the league. I'm thinking of making my 2nd pick Bobby Abreu. We'll see.

As I said, I've been tagged by Brian. Since I'm completely out of topics, I'll play along.

The rules:
List seven songs you’re into right now. No matter the genre, whether [or not] they have words, or even if they’re any good, they must be songs you’re really enjoying right now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs, then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

1. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea: Neutral Milk Hotel
2. Reasons: Built to Spill
3. This Broken Heart: Funkadelic
4. The skin of my yellow country teeth: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
5. AM 180: Grandaddy
6. How's My Drinking: Guided By Voices
7. King of Carrot Flowers Part 1: Neutral Milk Hotel

I'm tagging the below people, but I'm most interested in the list of The Electric Goose, since I read a review he wrote about Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Of course Dr. K knows I want to see his list; that goes without saying.

Heather B
Dr. Kenneth Noisewater
Esbee
The Electric Goose
Dilligaf
Marc
Blake

Blog-o-licious teachers

2006-03-17T18:34:00.000-08:00

I raised my hand. My 5th grade teacher, Mrs. McCall, came over to my desk to answer a question I had regarding my spelling
book assignment. I pointed to the question that stumped me, and she leaned over to take a look at it. As she leaned over, she exhaled, and a flat, round booger dropped out of her nose, landing on my spelling book. An awkward moment, for sure. Her solution was to brush it away and say, "Well..."

I don't remember anything she said after that. I just stared at that spot in my spelling book for roughly 10 minutes, wishing I had a witness to the situation- not just because it was so bold of her to simply say "Well..." to such an embarrassing moment, but mainly because it was easily the biggest booger my young eyes had ever seen, so big that I think I heard it land on the page. Who would believe that story? Do YOU believe that story? It's true.

The thing is, I have tons of memories of my teachers all the way from my 3rd grade teacher who took me shopping to my driver's ed teacher who did a cartwheel in front of my class. After a long week where I feel like I've been too busy grading and going to meetings to have had time to make a difference, I remember that, at the very least, there are probably several kids out there who will someday tell stories about their high school English teacher who:

1. while being observed as a student teacher, tripped over the strap of her bag and landed on her face in front of the whole class.
2. said "condom" instead of "comma" to a room-full of 8th graders
3. shouted "no grinding!" to her high school students as they left class on the day before a big dance.

That's only in my first few years. Hopefully I won't have a moment like Mrs. McCall or the teacher with the itchy crotch, but you never know.

What seems to be the problem, officer?

2006-03-14T20:10:00.000-08:00

This is Shane from The Shield. I just started watching the Shield a few weeks ago, and I'm completely lost. I think so far I've figured out that the goal is for the viewer to hate everyone on this show. It's the season finale next week, so I smell a sitting-on-the-sofa-and-catching-up-with-a-riveting-series marathon in the near future. Perhaps over my Spring Break. In any event, in spite of the creators' best efforts, I cannot hate Shane. Even though he is a lying, no-good dirty cop, I find him to be very sexy. Look at that chiseled jaw. And those eyes. Good christ. I'm not saying I'd do anything unlawful just to get him to arrest me, but I wouldn't object to a little deal making to get out of any trouble I might find myself in, if you catch my drift. He always wears a brown vintage leather blazer and hot jeans. He's what I like to call BaldingHot. Somehow, the BaldingHot guy succeeds at being sexy even though he has a forehead the size of a drive-in movie theatre.

The creators have been very successful in getting this viewer to hate everyone else on the show. Everything about it is dirty... the people, the set, the language, the story line. Dirty, but good.

I finally watched 24 on my TiVo tonight. The gratuitous deaths have to be stopped. As long as Curtis and Jack stay alive, they can take any fat loser from CTU they want. Just spare Curtis and Jack, and the world will be safe from evil.

p.s. The original photo I had for Shane was much better. It was not showing up for some reason.

Big Love

2006-03-12T20:40:00.000-08:00

I caved in, naturally, and watched the Sopranos tonight. Not that I was trying to resist. It was intense. The thing I hate about that show, aside from the obvious, is that I get so worked up that I cannot fall asleep after I watch it. Hence, I am here posting at 10:45 when I should have been asleep a good hour ago. As I'm posting, I'm watching the new HBO series "Big Love." So far, I'm a little grossed out. I saw far more of Bill Paxton's ass than I'd ever hoped to see. I think there was even a glimpse of the scrotum from the rear. Not pretty. Too much mediocre-looking people sex so far already.

Italian guilt

2006-03-12T07:50:00.000-08:00

The Sopranos are back tonight, as most of you probably know. I tried for a good two seasons not to watch the show. I didn't want to take part in yet ANOTHER show specializing in negative depictions of Italian-Americans, feeding into the stereotype that all Italians are criminals. It's easily the most well-accepted stereotype out there, to the extent that people are shocked when I am offended by people who assume my grandpa is a mob boss- a criminal (he's not). Imagine meeting a black man and saying, "What was that like? Growing up not knowing who your daddy was?" You wouldn't do that! It would be IGNORANT. Imagine a movie, no a whole GENRE of film, focusing on the drinking problems of the Irish, the math-savvy of the Asians, the taco-eating of Latinos, the self-deprecating wit of the Jews (oh... wait...). Aside from that last one, those things simply would not be acceptable. Yet, we Italians have allowed, and in most cases even encouraged, it to happen that a character in a film cannot be Italian without his affiliation with organized crime becoming an issue. Moonstruck, one of my all-time favorite movies, is one of the only movies I've seen where the realistic (sometimes positive, sometimes negative) side of Italian-American culture is explored: an old married couple who can't stand each other, an old married couple who loves each other, big meals with red wine, curses (not just cursing), Catholicism/Catholic guilt, opera, love, family-owned grocers, bread, dinners with family... In my life, that is what being Italian has meant (except you should replace opera with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin). Not gangsters, men who hit their wives and kill their best friends. Italian-Americans (as are all ethnic groups) are interesting people with quirky and loving families. That should be the subject of a film just once. Hey Sophia Coppola. Why not make a movie like Lost In Translation whose main character has an Italian last name. And that's it. Just use an Italian last name ONCE without that and his criminal history being the focus of the whole damn movie (and inevitably the trilogy that will follow).

Yet . . . yet . . .

I watch it. And I love every second of it. DAMN ME!!!! To atone for my sin of finding pleasure in the perpetuation of the negative stereotyping of my people, I've provided a link that will give the tools to other braver Italian-Americans to fight back against the Sopranos. This link, by the way, is hilarious. You'd be at step one of three for at least a decade. . .

. . . Which gives me hope that these brave freedom fighters won't succeed before we find out if Tony and Carmela are going to stay together.

*This was supposed to be a short post that included only a picture of the Sopranos and one line that explained the guilt I feel for loving the show. I apologize for the rant.

Car Talk

2006-03-11T07:26:00.000-08:00

I've had two boyfriends in my life who are car obsessed- my current BF is and my very first boyfriend from high school was too. Both of them have had an impact on me to the point where I can carry on a pretty lengthy conversation about Car and Driver's rating of mid-size luxury sedans, the next car I am going to buy and why, and my dream car. I don't even mind doing it. I don't claim to know anything about horsepower or torque or pistons, but I like walking around dealerships to look at cars I'll never buy, and I can identify just about any car from a mile away within two seconds of spotting it. I still talk to that high school boyfriend, and he still sends me pictures of himself in his friend's Porsche Carerra GT (see left). With my current BF, if he's being quiet, all I have to do is say, "So what is your next car going to be" and he is off and running for a good 45 minutes.

But that's not why I listen to Car Talk. I am an NPR junkie, so I'll listen to any old thing that comes across its airwaves, and that's how I found Car Talk, which is on Chicago Public Radio at 9:00 a.m. on Saturdays. It's hilarious. Even if you would rather eat poo that talk about cars, I'd highly recommend tuning in. Yes, they take calls from people having problems with their cars. But it's surprisingly entertaining to hear a woman explain the noise her 1996 Chevy Cavalier makes when she's in idle, a guy explain how a banana ended up in the tailpipe, calling an odor coming from a the vents a "car fart", and the two brothers goofing on the callers and each other for an hour.

Mammalian protrusions tonight in rm 263!

2006-03-10T11:28:00.000-08:00

My lack of writing these last several days is due to a few things:
1. My BF was here two nights this week
2. I had parent-teacher conferences last night and today, and I stayed at my parents' house
3. I have nothing to say

Parent teacher conferences usually provide some pretty good fodder for the blog. This time, however, I had only a few appointments, all with level-headed parents who committed none of the following blog-o-licious offenses:

1. Stare at my boobs
2. Blame their child's poor performance on me
3. Have one eye that had a flap of skin sewn over it
4. Shake my hand with a sweaty palm
5. Scratch their privates

All of these things have happened to me at one time or another, and #3 was pretty unsettling. In fairness to the people responsible for #1, I unintentionally invited the shocked, open-mouthed stares at my chest. Allow me to explain: I wore a suit with a blue camisole under it. This camisole was new, and it was from Old Navy, which means it was cheap, chinzy and sort of deformed. But I had a blazer over it so I figured its flaws would remain hidden. As it turns out, the whole camisole remained hidden, drooping just low enough that it was nearly completely concealed by my blazer. The thing about parent-teacher conferences, however, is that you have very little time to leave your classroom to look in a mirror where you might want to, oh I don't know, apply some lip gloss, comb your hair, or find a way to contain your breasts before the next happy couple walks into your classroom. Finally at the end of the night I had time to stop in the restroom before my ride home, and it was then that I saw that I had some incredible cleavage going. I was very impressed with myself until I remembered that I was not at a bar or a club, but at parent-teacher conferences. Of course by then it was too late, so I decided to make the best of it. From there forward, I signed all emails

Regards,
Ms. J
(the one with the nice rack)

Fake Plastic Teacher

2006-03-06T20:07:00.000-08:00

I am in the middle of a poetry unit with my freshmen. I always feel like an awful teacher this time of the year. With a background in journalism and the majority of the writing on this blog about the things that happen to me, reading and writing poetry is NOT my strength. Therefore, neither is teaching it. My kids just didn't catch onto the poetry analysis we attempted last week. They turned in an analysis sheet for a poem of their choice, and 90% did a half-assed job. Part of that might be my fault in some way, but I really felt like there was a lack of effort and in-depth thought, which, although it is unpopular with teenagers, is absolutely required with analysis of any kind.

So I decided to select a few songs from my collection to let the kids choose from for analysis instead of the awful poems provided in the curriculum. I would have allowed them to pick their own songs, but that would be a treat- and they really do not deserve a treat right now. I initially consulted with Dr. Kenneth Noisewater for his input, but I ultimately selected my own, even though he did have some awesome ideas. After logging a solid 2 hours on my sofa yesterday pouring over the 9 days worth of music in my iTunes, I finally arrived at the following songs. Fake Plastic Trees, by Radiohead; Opus 40, by Mercury Rev; Wish You Were Here, by Pink Floyd; I am Produced, by Guided By Voices. I'll try to post some of those lyrics below or in my next post, especially for Opus 40 and I am Produced, the lesser known songs on the group.

I spent several hours today and tonight analyzing these songs, and I'm concerned about what my kids are going to think about me after we analyze them together. Here's what I can conclude about myself from them:

I have an intense hatred for people who are phony or unoriginal (Fake Plastic Trees, Wish You Were Here, I am Produced- and upon further review, like a million other songs in my collection). That, and I'm this close to killing myself (Opus 40).

Maybe if they think I'm on the verge of suicide, they'll feel guilty and start actually working hard for me again. I might have to take advantage of this opportunity.

Opus 40
Mercury Rev

She tossed all night like a raging sea.
Woke up and climbed from the suicide machine.
With her Spanish candles and her Persian poems
stuck on the rocks inside Opus 40 stones.
And scratching her wrists in the pouring rain
she collapses down upon the ocean floor
again.

Tears in waves
Minds on fire
Nights alone by your side

Catskill mansions, buried dreams.
I’m alive, she cried, but I don't know what it means.
Somewhere out there across the moonlit sands
there's a line drawn like the lines on her own hand.
And slamming her eyes
locking the door
she collapses down upon the ocean floor again

Tears in waves minds on fire
Nights alone by your side

The search for the Lazy Saturday

2006-03-04T14:20:00.000-08:00

I love the idea of sleeping in on a weekend and having a day of laziness. Unfortunately, no matter how much I long to experience it, I simply cannot succeed at having one of these days. I can sometimes manage it when my BF is here, but otherwise, when I am on my own (which I am 90% of the time), it's hopeless. There are several reasons for this:

1. IF I am ever going to see my BF during his work week, it is most likely to be on a Sat or Sun morning when he gets off work and I am waking up. Sadly, he often has a late arrest or is "too tired" to come to my house after work. Still, that doesn't stop me from waking up at 7:00 and watching the clock tick away until it turns about 8:00, at which point it's pretty much guaranteed that he is stuck at work or he won't be coming over. Once I'm up, I'm up for good.

2. You might remember my neighbors. They are loud at any hour of the day they feel is appropriate with no regard whatsoever for anyone around them. If our dog wants to play catch with a lumpy bowling ball at 6:00 in the morning on a Saturday, then let's get it on! (today) If we want to have a raging party starting at 3:00 a.m on Saturday that rages on until, oh, 6:00 a.m., we will (last Saturday). We will do this in spite of the fact that our irritated brunette neighbor below (after pounding on the ceiling with the flat end of a swiffer for the first two hours of the party) pounded on our door at 5:00 a.m. and made a request to PLEASE ask that girl to take her HEELS off while walking around on the hardwood floors, lower the music, put away the lumpy bowling ball and muzzle the dog. Instead of being considerate human beings, we'll just say "Sorry, dude" in our best stoner LOSER FUCK voice and have EVERYONE put on their heels so we can have a runway show!*

3. I hate working out. It's the worst 90 minutes of my day, but I have to do it. So that automatically makes my lazy Saturday at least 90 minutes less lazy than the average person wishing for a lazy day.

4. The way I see it, a lazy Saturday afternoon is not complete without a greasy meal. If I could do this, I would go to Silver Cloud and get grilled cheese with tomato soup, a side of tater tots and a large diet coke. I have calculated this very meal on Weight Watchers, and the only part of it I can do is the large diet coke; I don't think I have to tell you that the diet coke part of the meal isn't really the point of going to Silver Cloud.

5. I have to grade papers. I probably won't do as much grading as I should, but if any amount of grading goes on, the lazy factor is automatically lost.

Don't get me wrong, I've done my fair share of couch sitting on the weekends, and if I'm lucky, I'll take a little nap during the day. But what I really want is the full lazy Saturday treatment, which would involve:
a. Wake up at 11:00 after a night of heavy drinking and smoking in a bar
b. Roll out of bed, throw on jeans and my black Banana Republic turtle neck and go to Silver Cloud
c. Come back home.
d. Sit on couch. Watch "What Not To Wear", Seinfeld, Golf (great napping material), Arrested Development. Sleep for a large portion of the TV watching time
e. Keep doing this until it's time to go out again.
f. Repeat on Sunday.

* As I write, one of the neighbors is STOMPING around up there, which is what woke me up for the little cat nap I managed to get in. I have wished death on these people so many times that if one of them actually dies suddenly, I am certain a thorough investigation by the authorities will lead to my incessant wishing that they die.

Teacher's institution day

2006-03-03T13:58:00.000-08:00

We've had institute days for the past 1.5 days. Institute days are always brutal. There is a committee at school that exists for the sole purpose of designing institute day agendas that are engaging and relevant. I know some of the people on that committe, and they are some of the most dynamic people in the school, but they fail miserably at making institute days enjoyable every single time. It doesn't help that we have, like, 12 institute days each year. The gimmick this time was to offer free massages during the breaks. I wonder if those massages came with a happy ending? I'm not a big fan of the massage. I've only had one massage. I never would have paid for that sort of thing; it was "free" with the inititation fee at my gym. I think I insulted the massage therapist. At one point I was actually twiddling my thumbs under the table because I was bored with this creepy Eastern European man's oily hands being all over my oily body, and I kept picking up my head to try to get a glimpse of the clock in the dark room with the "soothing" music (Enya). It was one hour long and all I could think about was the many other ways I'd rather spend that precious one hour. Here's what I came up with:
1. Sex
2. Shopping
3. Bikini Wax
4. Watching my BF get dressed for work
5. Sex
6. Grading papers (not kidding)
7. Reading
8. Teacher's institute day
9. 24
10. Sex
When he was done, I hopped up, got dressed and got the fuck out of there. I think he was expecting some kind of compliment, maybe a few mini-orgasms, but I just rushed out and said thanks.

I didn't have to try to dodge the massage therapists at school today because, in leiu of today's institute, I went to a conference at Northern Illinois University called "New Ideas in Communications and English: Pop Culture and New Media." I didn't sign up for the conference, but someone asked me to go when one of the original attendees had to drop out last minute. Southie probably should have gone, but I happened to be in the room when my colleague told my boss she had to cancel, so they asked me to go. I went to one session on film and literature and another on "The Television Western Returns: Deadwood and Genre Revisionism." I don't watch Deadwood, but I have a new respect for it after the (adorable) professor talked about it for an hour. I still don't know if I can watch it; as vulgar as I am, I don't generally like violence, cursing and sex in movies or television. I do like crime shows (24 and recently The Shield), but I think that has more to do with my cop fetish than the genre itself. The last session I went to was called "What's Old is New Again: Using Historical Popular Culture Materials in the Classroom." It was easily the 3rd most boring hour of my life (the first two most boring hours being the ones during the institute day yesterday when a Harvard professor gave a presentation on ADHD consisting of a PowerPoint presentation with brain scan pictures of what an ADHD kid's brain looks like in certain situations compared to what a non-ADHD kid's brain looks like, but with no information on how to make the former look more like the latter). This particular session featured a librarian (sounds exciting already doesn't it?) who read a speech word-for-word off a 5 page document about all the "exciting" primary sources in the library. Then she proceeded to make a pitch to try to get us to be "Friends of the Library" so we can have access to all these exciting resources whenever we want.

After checking my site meter, I noticed I had a few hits from someone inside of harpo.com. I wonder if it was Oprah herself (Esbee, you might get that spa robe after all!). I hope she's not mad at me (you know, like The South is) and in the process of putting a stop on my paycheck.

Good news: I'm finally getting a new mattress! A friend of mine works at The Fairmont. When I mentioned to her that I need a new mattress, she said that the hotel places orders for mattresses all the time, and they offer them at a discount to their employees and their friends and family. She said she sleeps on the mattress every night, and it's super nice. So I got a full mattress and box spring for about $400, and it retails at over $1,000! My mom and dad paid for it as my birthday gift (my birthday isn't until April 30, but this was too good a deal to pass up), and they got a king mattress and box spring of their own as well.

More teacher's institute days next week. I bet you can't wait to hear all about it.

An apology

2006-02-28T17:40:00.000-08:00

Dear readers:

This Oprah essay contest thing seems to have gotten me into some hot water. After participating as a grader in this contest wherein students were asked to write about the book "Night," I criticized writers from a certain portion of the US (a certain half of it technically). I feel these few posts have unfairly tarnished my otherwise spotless reputation in the blogosphere, especially to these new readers who found me via a desperate google search to find out when the winner of the Oprah essay contest would be revealed. The posts they read were, unfortunately, written after hours and hours of reading essays, not all of which were terrible, and so I was feeling particularly snarky. My fear is that they will go back to their high school counterparts and talk about the awful teacher from Chicago they found on the internet who hates children, especially those from the South. That's simply not true. And if you were one of the unfortunate Southern writers who submitted a crappy essay that I had to read, that's okay. If you were in my class, which, let's face it, you probably would be, I'd love you anyway. I love all my students, even the ones that are shitty writers. In fact, I submit that shitty writers are more rewarding to have in class than grade-grubbing geniuses who think they know everything there is to know about the craft of writing.

As for my opinion on the South as a whole, it's not really my speed, but I've heard great things about it. Hell, as a kid I vacationed in the South every damn year of my life. *I'm a Yankee to the bone, but I'm sure the South is lovely in some ways as well.

Sincerely,
Tara

* and so begin the google hits about boning members of the NY Yankess

The Daily Grind

2006-02-23T16:57:00.000-08:00

"Kids today. . ."

I try not to start any sentence with these two words. I think it automatically makes you sound old. I don't make any attempt to listen their shit music or dabble in any aspects of their "culture" though; I just try to remember that we were all teenagers once, and that they aren't that much different than I was (except for the meth; no one did meth when I was a kid). There is one crucial thing that separates teens of the 2000s from the teens of the mid-to-late 90s- the dancing. We didn't dance in high school; we were too busy being grungy and depressed about Kurt Cobain being dead. "Kids these days," on the other hand, love to get their groove on- or should I say, they love to get their grind on.

The school where I work established a "dance policy" that outlined the kind of dancing students were not allowed to engage in at school dances. The policy simply states that they are to refrain from "dancing that is sexually explicit." When the policy was originally presented to the students, it actually specifically said they were to refrain from "grinding" and mimicking sexual activity, particularly "front-to-back grinding" (gross). The policy was announced over one year ago, yet the kids will not let it go. Apparently, at the dances, the chaperones stand in the balcony above the gym and they shine a flashlight at the kids they identify as dancing in an unacceptable way. Then, the students are warned, and if they just can't stop themselves from "grinding" in a sexually explicit 'front-to-back" posture, they get busted again and thrown out of that dance, and banned from the next school dance to boot. But now that we are over a year into this new policy, with it being applied at many a dance, you'd think they'd be accustomed to the policy. Maybe they'd do some research to find out how to dance in a more acceptable way. That's not the case. Instead, they whine about it every chance they get. Although I am very liberal personally, I tend to err on the side of caution/conservatism when it comes to children. So I am all for this policy, even if the way it is enforced is a little bit much. I used to teach 8th grade, and I was shocked at the way those children danced. It's shocking. It's like a Nelly video breaks out every time there is a dance, complete with their sweaty bodies bumping and grinding in front of their 1st period teacher and parent volunteer chaperones.

When discussing this with my students recently, I learned that some parents are opposed to the dance policy. And so that their little darlings don't miss out on those precious teenage memories of dancing in a sexually explicit way in a stinky school gym, they get HOTEL ROOMS for them so that they can have their own little private grinding party. Excuse me, but I have a question. I'm not a parent, and I really don't claim to know anything about being a parent. But I'm pretty sure that if I were a parent, I would do everything in my power to make sure that my son or daughter was never in a room with a person of the opposite sex where there was a bed and dim lighting. Sure, they might find themselves in that situation at some point, but I'm not making the fucking reservation. What is this fucking world coming to when parents are more concerned with their children getting their way than with their children getting pregnant? Why are parents more interested in being friends with their children than parents to their children? These are, likely, the same parents that buy liquor for their children and allow them to drink at home (during a co-ed sleep over) because, hey, at least they aren't driving!

Finally, I told my students that it is, in fact, possible to dance without grinding. They say I'm full of it. So I told them I'd bring in two people to demonstrate dancing without grinding. Anyone want to come to my classroom and dance in a wholesome way in front of my sophomores? Southie, maybe you and Dana want to demonstrate for me? I already told them that I don't believe in dancing (unless I'm drunk at a gay bar), so they know I won't do it.

Well, I'm off. I borrowed the DVD of "Into the Woods" from a girl in my book club. It's my favorite musical. What an exciting Friday night. I wonder if you can grind to "Into the Woods."

For a good time blog....

2006-02-22T17:20:00.000-08:00

I have about 5,000 papers to grade tonight, so I can't write much. However, I do have time to say that for a good laugh, you need only to go to Dr. Kenneth Noisewater's most recent post. I don't watch American Idol, but I still laughed my arse off. Enjoy!

2006-02-21T19:40:00.000-08:00

Southie says my posts are too long. So here's one for you, South.

Above you will see a picture of the logo for the Torino Olympics. I hate the Olympics. BOO OLYMPICS!!

I sat on the couch and graded all night. My roommate is never home even when he's not working, so I get plenty of quiet time to do my grading. I did have the games on for background noise, but only because I knew I'd have no trouble ignoring it so I could concentrate on my student work. I especially hate ice dancing. We watched a little of it the other night, and the most entertaining part was the clumsiness of the sport. People were falling lefty righty, and somehow the rumba and the samba just don't look nearly as electric on the ice. The judges kept complaining about how certain couples were lacking sexual energy. Who knew sexual energy was a requirement for an Olympic event? That's some crazy shit. And how the hell does a woman manage to give the image of feeling sexual energy with a gay man? I don't want to stereotype, but let's be honest here- male figure skaters aren't known for their mojo. It just doesn't seem fair to expect that of them. They're ice skaters, not actors.

I'm having one of those days where I am coming down from the high of having time with my BF. He's back to work now so I'm sad again, making this short post even easier to accomplish.

Windchilly

2006-02-18T07:31:00.000-08:00

You'd think that you'd be be able to avoid the screaming child in the restaurant when you are going out to eat in the city at 8:30. Don't get me wrong; I like kids. They're fine. I especially adore my nieces, and sometimes they are even too much for me. But there's no child I hate more than the screaming one in the restaurant. My friend from college came in last night (who, by the way, is pregnant), and we went to dinner at a casual place in the city. But it was almost 9:00 at night. Who the hell brings a 3-year-old to a restaurant at 9:00 at night? And this kid, whom I call Damien, was clearly tired- maybe overtired. He was screaming "Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya YAAAAAA" over and over and over and over again. I understand that children do that. And I also understand that if you are sitting at home, your best bet might be ignore Damien's attention-seeking ploy. But for christ's sake, you are not at home; you are in a restaurant. There are other people in the room who do not find Damien charming, nor do they have the patience to wait for Damien to figure out that mommy isn't giving in this time. Mom and her friends got a big kick out of it. Then they finally looked in my direction and saw the disgusted look I was shooting at Damien. Then they looked around the restaurant and saw that everyone in the restaurant had the same disgusted look on their face. Mom was finally convinced it was time for Damien to take a walk. When he returned, their food had arrived so she stuffed his face with grilled cheese (I was so jealous) and he finally shut the hell up.

So it is -2 degrees today, which means the windchill factor is probably about -14. Do you have "windchill factor" in your city? Or is this the kind of thing weathermen make up in Chicago to account for our hideous winds? It means that, although it is -2, which feels pretty damn cold anyway, it actually feels like -14. Chicago is known as the Windy City not for the actual winds. Nevertheless, it is damned windy here. If you don't know, Chicago is called the Windy City because of the way it lobbied to get the 1893 World's Fair- bragging about the city like "blowhards" (imagine the Google hits I'm going to get this for having this word on my page) in order to win the bid. It's also called the Second City, because some New York newspaper columnist called us that, not because we actually think of ourselves as second to any other city. I know I don't.

This -2 degrees thing would normally mean I'd be on the couch all day and watch my backlog of Seinfeld episodes and catching up on grading. But my pregnant friend is here to shop for maternity clothes because the selection in St. Louis isn't very impressive. There is a fancy maternity store on Damen Ave. that sells maternity premium denim and all kinds of cute stuff. It almost makes me think I could tolerate being pregnant. Almost, but not quite. Then we'll head to Michigan Ave. to go to the Gap, which has a really huge selection of maternity clothes. We'll be only a few blocks from the lake, so we'll get a good sense of just how cold a -14 degree windchill is.

The credit cards are safely in the freezer, and they are not coming with me today. Actually, they'd probably stay frozen if I did bring them with me. I vow not to purchase anything today. I will report back later. The only thing I may buy is a parking spot. We should take the El, but walking to and fro the El in -14 degree windchill weather does not sound like something I want to do today.

You can't very well dust for vomit

2006-02-16T19:58:00.000-08:00

I heard an interesting story on NPR this morning about this. Good stuff. I listen to only NPR. Most people click around to other stations here and there, but I see no reason for that. I don't have much free time during the week, so even though a newspaper would be my favorite source of news, the fact is I am out of my house for 14 hours each day, leaving very little time to curl up with the Trib and a cup of coffee. So I can get great in- depth coverage of horrifying things like this on my ride to and from work. Plus, I love the slightly less horrifying stuff like this that I can get on the weekends. I'm even a member.

I watched part of Spinal Tap today. I ordered it and Airplane last week from Amazon.com, who shipped the two DVDs in an enormous box that, when it arrived, made me wonder if I had ordered an actual airplane rather than the film Airplane. It was an impulse buy; I never buy movies, but I made an exception for these two classics. There are so many great moments in Spinal Tap. Every time I watch it, I notice something funny that I didn't notice before (like the matching cold cores that Nigel and David have or the bulge in Derek Smalls' pants).

You can probably tell by this shit post that I am feeling uninspired. I'm not entirely sure what the reason is for the lack of inspiration, but it might have to do with one or all of the following things:

1. I can't talk to my best friend anymore (long story that I cannot publish).
2. I haven't seen my BF since Sunday and I won't see him until this coming Sunday.
3. One of my friends from St. Louis is coming in to visit this weekend, and I am stressed about how much money I'll have to spend while she's here.
4. I have my period,
5. and I have a weigh-in tomorrow at WW, and I am sure #4 is going to impact my numbers.
6. So I am going to have to starve myself all day tomorrow.
7. I left my awesome portable coffee thermos on my desk at work,
8. so I am going to have to use my other "portable" mug that does not close all the way, which means I will be splashing coffee all over myself as I leave the house tomorrow morning at 5:30 carrying my gym bag, my book bag, my lunch bag and my not-so-handy travel mug.
9. My editors are, once again, late at getting the issue out.

Okay. I better go before this list makes it into the double digits.

I'm not making this up

2006-02-13T19:13:00.000-08:00

I once had a teacher that scratched her coochie in front of our class. I am not making this up. She would stand in front of our 6th grade class, put her leg up on the desk (also not made up) and scratch her cha-cha with her forefinger and her middle finger. She would do this while addressing the class. For example she might say something like, "Students, take out your spelling book." While she was giving this set of directions, she'd have her fingers all up in her coochie, just scratching away. She'd even do this if she was wearing a skirt. In her defense, her skirts were really long ones, so it's not like we could see her na-na; we were just very aware of its presence because the woman could not keep her hands off of it. She'd do it while talking to parents at open house, or while standing in the hall having a chat with a colleague. Can you imagine? I don't even like to use words like "fox" or "batch" because they rhyme with.. you know..., and this woman had her forefinger and middle finger all up in it. My sister was in her class the year before me, so I knew it was coming; likewise, as you can imagine this woman developed quite a reputation. Still, I couldn't help but be shocked when I first saw her do it.

This story is 100% true. If my sister weren't so traumatized by this woman, she would corroborate my account of our 6th grade teacher.

Who doesn't like a good hamburger?

2006-02-11T15:25:00.000-08:00

I put in my 2nd day at Oprah yesterday. I used a sick day for it, and so did two other teachers at my school. It was much better with them there because we could share the horrible essays and get a good laugh out of it together. There is still a huge number of essays left to be evaluated. They hope to be done by Monday, but I just don't see how they could be.

There were really no perks outside of the free food and parking. A few girls answered some Oprah trivia questions and won an Oprah "Make the Most of Your Life" hat. Another girl won a new robe and another a pair of Oprah's favorite jammies. I was glad I didn't know any of the answers. There are so many women obsessed with Oprah, and I just don't want to be one of those people. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy a hearty dose of Ms. Winfrey every so often, but I wouldn't call myself a devoted fan. I'd call myself a curious bystander who wouldn't pass up an opportunity to be on her show on the off chance I might win something. I kept waiting for someone to say, "Okay everybody, look under your seat! Everybody wins a new ____________!"

Alas, there were no surprises under my seat. There were some surprises in those essays though. As I am a high school teacher, you might assume that I know a lot about teenagers. As it turns out, I know a lot about rich upper middle class white and Asian teenagers from a Western suburb about 40 miles West of Chicago. I apparently know nothing at all about anyone that doesn't fit that profile. Here's what I learned about teenagers while grading:

1. They are not, on the whole, very strong writers.
2. When they are strong writers, it's usually because they are good at writing an organized and coherent essay, not necessarily because they are eloquent or have a voice (which is hard to do, I realize).
3. They think that the holocaust was "a terrible thing" (Really? I hadn't thought of that).
4. But they also think high school bullies and cliques are equally as terrible.
5. The ones from the South, Michigan and Indiana are probably the weakest writers in the country (which is a gross generalization, I realize, but I couldn't help but notice a pattern).
6. NONE of them know how to correctly use a semi-colon.

Yes, there were quite a few really, really bad essays. One of my colleagues had several really amazing ones though, whereas I have maybe 2 good ones. One girl my colleague gave a 50 to was from Rwanda. Her parents where taken away and killed when she was a child. She now lives in a posh suburb of Chicago (don't ask me how she went from Rwanda to a suburb whose average home price is upwards of $1,000,000), goes to probably one of the best high schools in the country, and speaks at other high schools about the awful things she went through. *I nearly cried when I read it; it was that good. The bad ones were more fun to read. One kid actually started his essay by asking "Who doesn't like a good hamburger?" I don't know what came after that because I stopped reading for fear I might lose valuable IQ points just having read the work of a person that starts an essay about the relevance of the holocaust by asking a question about a popular American sandwich. Another kid used two words that none of my colleagues could identify. I think they were completely made up. All of the essays had the student application attached to it. The application included their home address and phone number and school phone and address. On more than one occasion I considered calling the number on the application:

Tara: Hi. Is this Ashley?
Ashley: Yes.
T: **Ashley from Washington High School in Mississippi?
A: Yes, that's me.
T: Ashley, I just got done reading the essay you submitted to the Oprah essay contest.
A: REALLY? Did I win? Am I going to get to meet Oprah? Am I coming to Chicago?
T: Oh no, Ashley. I am calling to ask you for that 2 minutes of my life back.
A: I'm sorry? I don't understand. So I'm not the winner?
T: No, Ashley, not unless Ms. Winfrey decides to give out an award for WORST ESSAY EVER, in which case you would be the winner- hands down.
A: Oh... um...
T: I would like to pass on some advice that I got straight from Ms. Oprah Winfrey herself:
A: Okay. What is it?
T: Give up now, Ashley. Just give up.

I don't mean to be harsh, but when you spend 8 hours reading essays that claim that the Holocaust is comparable to the Columbine school shootings, even to 9/11 (which were obviously tragic but I don't think any intelligent human being could seriously say that they were as devastating as the Holocaust), you just get a little bitter.

Well, the BF and I are celebrating Valentine's Day tonight. It's just an excuse to go to dinner. We are going to an Italian BYOB in Bucktown. I love a good BYOB.

PS: I think I can hear my neighbors getting it on right now. I feel kind of dirty.

* This is the correct way to use a semi-colon.
** Student's information has been changed to protect her anonymity.

Full disclosure time

2006-02-09T17:32:00.000-08:00

I gotta be honest here.

The only reason I am doing this Oprah essay judging thing is so that I have something to blog about. That and the money. But more for the material it would garner for this blog.

The question the students had to answer was "How is Elie Weisel's "Night" relevant today." I wish I had logged all the hilarious things I read in these essays. I know a lot of teenagers, and sometimes I am shocked at how much they dramatize the most minor things. But some of these teenagers took it to a whole new level. One girl compared the holocaust to when a good friend of hers "dumped her" for a new boyfriend. Another girl said that Hispanic Americans are the new Jews. Some kids got all God Squad on me and started quoting the Bible and making connections between abortion and the holocaust. Only a few kids made the connection between Rwanda and Sudan, which I was kind of hoping to see more of. The ones that did this were all honest enough to at least cite their sources; unfortunately, all of them used fucking Google or Wikipedia as a primary source of information. Awful.

It's a good thing nearly all of them were hands-down shitty essays; we weren't given much instruction in how to evaluate them. As I have been brainwashed by a fancy suburban school district with high standards, I expect a rubric for everything. It's gotten so bad that when I go to the grocery store I search the shelves for a rubric for the produce; I simply cannot identify quality without a table containing the words "Exceeds Expectations, "Meet Expecations" and "Fails to Meet Expectations" at the top of each column. When I walked in, the girl gave me a stack of papers and told me to give each a score of 1-10 (using decimals if I wish) for 5 categories- Creativity, Originality, Relevance to the Question, Structure and something else that escapes my mind right now. She said I might not see a single essay that comes anywhere near the total of 50 so I should not stress if I found myself giving low scores. Not only did she not give me a rubric, but she would not even tell me what these kids were competing for. I mean, let's face it, if it's a college scholarship my standards are going to be different than if it's two tickets to the Oprah Show. If it's a large sum of money to be put toward a college education, I'm looking for mind blowing writing; if it's Oprah tickets, I'm looking for a girl who is going to dress real nice and put on a good hands-trembling-over-her-face crying display when Oprah walks onto the stage. If nothing else, I'd like to see a good old fashioned sob story for a pair of Oprah tickets. Still, all she said was "the winner and a friend will get to come to the show when Elie Weisel is on." Oh boy. That's really exciting. Don't get me wrong; I'm sure Mr. Weisel is an amazing interview, but do they seriously expect me to believe that they are paying all these teachers $23/hour to read 500,000 essays just so we can determine the lucky winner of two fucking Oprah tickets? Please. I've seen this woman give away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of highly sought-after material goods to an audience full of screaming upper middle class white women; there's no way she's being this stingy with two tickets and a chance to sit in the same room as Elie Weisel.

Anyway, I did not give a score that exceeded 35. The kid that got the 35 simply composed a nice, inoffensive 5 paragraph essay with a three-pronged thesis, which started to look like Pulitzer Prize winning stuff by the time I flew through 80 essays. It was easy grading though because I could tell right away when I did not need to waste time reading an entire essay. Automatic disqualifiers included:

1. The use of an exclamation point anywhere within the text of the essay (which is always an automatic DQ for me)
2. An introduction that included:
a. "According to dictionary.com Holocaust is defined as..."
b. The holocaust was a devastating time in history.
c. Some people might think racism is over, but it's still a huge issue today.
d. Pain. Suffering. Torture. That's what Elie Weisel and his family lived through.
3. The use of the fonts Comic Sans, Curlz MT or Apple Chancery (again, an automatic DQ)

I'll go back tomorrow to do some more grading. I did it for 3 hours tonight, and I was so over the thrill of someday getting a paycheck signed by Oprah Winfrey. Sadly, it looks as if the "essay grading" that I feared was actually a trip to some exotic place if I did not attend is, in fact, just essay grading. But like I said, it's $23/hour and blog worthy. And in these desperate times much like the ones Mr. Weisel faced, that's all we can hope for (that's a direct quote from a kid from South Carolina).

Oprah's newest intern

2006-02-08T18:16:00.000-08:00

Oprah's newest bookclub choice is "Night" by Elie Weisel. From what I gather, she is sponsoring an essay contest wherein high school students are asked to write about the book. I'm not sure of the details because, frankly, I don't give a crap. I share this story because I have been selected to be a judge for the contest. "Selected" might not be the appropriate word because it sounds like they are desperate for judges. I received an email from a friend of a friend of a friend of a.... you get the idea.. who knows someone that works for Harpo. They were searching for teachers who have read the book (which I did in college yet I have no recollection of it at all except that it has something to do with the holocaust) who can help out with judging. I sent in an email fully expecting to get no response. Well, I got a call tonight from the Oprah show saying I have been "chosen" to be a part of this "exciting opportunity!" They also said I should find any certified teacher I know and beg her to join me. Apparently, I am one of about 100,000 "lucky winners." Yipee! In spite of the glaring lack of prestige associated with being 1 of 100,000 of anything, I have elected to participate. I am doing this for two reasons:

1. It pays $26/hour
2. If I say no, I just know I'll find out later that the "essay judging" was a coverup for some exciting Oprah sized surprise involving free iPods, spa packages and pashmina scarves.

My choice to do this virtually guarantees that this "essay judging" will in fact be just that- essay judging. Thus, I am ruining the 99,999 other judges' chances of getting any freebies out of this simply because I'm sick of watching Oprah give stuff away to what seems like everyone in the world but me.

I am going to try to put in a few hours tomorrow and a few hours Friday. There will be free parking in the downtown hotel where the judging takes place, free food and, most importantly, the cash. Why would I say no? A girl I work with (who is doing this with me) pointed out that there is a legal and ethical reason why we should not take a sick day to partake in this event- i.e. you are not supposed to take a "sick day" from work to spend the day earning money. The way I see it, it won't be the first time I've done something illegal or unethical to earn cash.

I better get to bed... I feel a sudden cough coming on. And a head cold. Cough cough.... sniffle sniffle....

24 recap

2006-02-07T19:17:00.000-08:00

... 24 hours later

I'll buy that Jack Bauer can single-handedly save the world. 4 times.
I'll buy that he's in love with the hideous Audrey Raines.
I'll buy that the American public of the 24 world would elect someone like that.
I'll buy that Chole and Edgar are just that smart.
I'll even buy that Jack's stupid daughter could get into and out of trouble as often as she does.

But I will not buy that the 15-year-old sex slave from Russia would
A. Be able to hide a gun under her sweater
B. Not have had the idea to kill the old pervert until the exact day that he is needed to save America
C. Have been able to shoot him dead in only one try.

Other than that, great episode.

Grammy hammy

2006-02-05T13:08:00.000-08:00

Is there a football game on tonight? I keep seeing people around town with big submarine sandwiches and football-shaped cakes. And there's a guy in my building walking around with a black jersey with gold lettering on it.

Anyway, I read a good article by Greg Kot in The Chicago Tribune today about how the Grammy awards are way out of touch. It points out that Kanye West is one of the few artists who has met both critical and fan acclaim. I had a student burn me a copy of Late Registration. It's pretty good stuff. Anyway, it lists some albums that were more successful with critics but get no recognition from the deeply unhip Grammys, and I was happy to see that I owned a few of them, most importantly Sufjan Stevens' "Illinoise" and My Morning Jacket's "Z". Both are pretty amazing. If you can get your hands on them, you should. It also inspired me to download, I mean, purchase a few other items off the list.

Well, I'm going to a party tonight where we will watch commercials. In preparation, I haven't eaten anything of substance all day. My BF and I went to Walker Bros in Glenview for pancakes. More accurately, I went with and watched my BF eat a double order of blueberry pancakes (skinny bitch) while I ate a fruit cup and an english muffin with nothing but jelly on it. And drank a shitload of coffee. Mmm mmmm good. I'm not entirely sure if that was enough food for me, but if the fact that I nearly black out every time I stand up is any indication, I'd say it isn't.

Songs: What a Wonderful Man and Into the Woods (not the musical), My Morning Jacket

Conspiracy theory debunked

2006-02-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

So I am doing Weight Watchers. I was doing it all online until one of the girls in my book club said that she was also doing Weight Watchers. I asked her if she'd like to start going to meetings with me because I've heard that people who go to the meetings have more success than those that try to do it independently. We agreed to attend meetings on Thursday nights together. The first thing you do when you get there is weigh in. This meeting stuff to me feels very much like AA, so the weighing in part is the AA equivalent of doing a breathalizer test upon arrival. Anyway, I knew this would happen so I ate very little that day in preparation for the dreaded weigh-in. I stepped on the scale and it was 8 lbs higher than the two scales I've been using since I started doing this on Jan 1. I looked at the bloated (pun intended) figure on the scale and I informed the girl that this figure could not possiblly be correct. And I just know she was thinking "Sure fat girl, that's what they all say." But I was certain I had exposed some sort of Weight Watchers conspiracy to use inaccurate scale to keep members going to the meetings just a little bit longer. I also started calculating the weight of my clothes, watch and glasses, which I concluded could be not anywhere near 8 lbs. I wore a lightweight shirt, my summer weight denim (which are more like denim sweatpants now that I've lost some weight) and no underwear (because you know how heavy underwear can be) so I knew it was time to start uncovering the conspiracy. The investigation started the next day when I went to the nurse's office to use her scale; I was certain that my suspicions would be confirmed. The only thing that was confirmed was that I am 8 lbs worse off than I thought. Brian and Dana walked me down to the nurse's office and seemed to take great pleasure at the horror on my face when I emerged from the privacy of the scale room. I was pretty depressed for the first day or so, but I'm getting over it. So I have 8 more lbs to lose than I thought. What the hell difference does it make? None really.
It's the BFs birthday this weekend. We went to Wildfire last night with a couple of his friends to celebrate, and we will hang out tonight too. Wildfire is an anomoly. It's part of the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group, which is a group of quality restaurants primarily located in the Chicagoland area, but with a few locations in places like Vegas and Arizona. The restaurants in the chain are very popular. There are Asian places, American, Italian... you name it. Wildfire though is far and away the best of the group, and pretty much the only one I go to unless I'm with a group of people who suggest going to one. I live in Chicago, which has better restaurants than just about anywhere in the country so there's really no need to go to chains. I ordered a chicken sandwich. It was small and I got full more quickly than ever, which is good. I even requested they hold the fries and ordered broccoli instead. Now that I have to weigh in every week at weight watchers, I'm more motivated than ever to lose every week. I want them to scold me for losing weight too quickly, which is what happens every time I log my weight online (apparently 2.5 lbs/week is too high. Please!).
I promise not to write anymore weight loss posts. That is, of course, until I get to my goal weight, which won't be a post as much as a picture of me in that black dress in my closet that is the motivation for this endeavor.

show: What Not To Wear- some 35-year-old that dresses like a total whore (the usual)

It's Reigning Men

2006-02-01T18:46:00.000-08:00

I am the advisor of the student newspaper at the high school where I work. I really love this part of my job. I'm like one of those PE teachers who became a teacher only so he could be a coach. I pretty much decided to be a teacher because I knew I'd be a journalism teacher and a newspaper advisor. I will admit that it's probably about as stressful as any advisor position in the school, but it's probably 10 times more rewarding. Every month I get to see how incredible my editors are. I basically hand pick my staff. I recruit them from my journalism classes (by "recruit" I mean "beg them to join"). So when they finally become editors, they are well-trained. We had an editor from the Chicago Tribune do a consultation with us, and he said the writing my students did was some of the best he'd seen out of high school students. That's because, even though I tend to be very liberal in every other way, I am quite conservative with my writers and editors (mainly becuase it's my job on the line if they fuck up). I don't let them write stupid ranting editorials about how this one show on MTV sucks or how teachers suck. They write well-informed editorials and balanced news stories on controversial topics . Don't get me wrong; I let them have fun with it, too. One story this month had the editors ranking the best toilets and water fountains in the school. Another one was all about the male "beauty pageant" we have every year with a headline that read * "It's Reigning Men." Technically they do have some First Amendment rights, but they are responsible with this right. It's great. I wish all of you could see it because this most recent issue is really incredible. Anyway, I'm really proud of them. I tell them that all the time, but I don't think I can express my gratitude to the right extent. I know I bitch a lot about work, but I can't think of anything I'd rather do than teach high school students. I think what I love is that I, and every other high school teacher in America, know something few people outside of my profession know: high school kids are pretty incredible. Sure they have shitty taste in music. And they watch way too much MTV. But I'm one of the lucky people in the world that can walk into a room full of these people that adults usually find repulsive and enigmatic and actually get them to do something amazing. That's what I call job satisfaction.

Artist/Album: Neutral Milk Hotel/In the Aeroplane over the Sea

* Ok fine, I wrote that headline, but the point is, they get to have fun.

How the other half lives

2006-01-30T17:23:00.000-08:00

So, as I said in my boo-hoo post yesterday, Michael is out of town. I am looking into buying a new mattress. Actually I won't be doing the buying. I am getting my whole family and my BF to pitch in and make it my birthday gift. I need to do some research though, as this is a big purchase and I don't want to get just any old mattress. How does one research mattresses though? Going to a mattress store and lying there for a minute doesn't seem like enough, especially for such a large purchase (in size and cost as it turns out). I guess I could knock on random doors and see if people will let me sleep on their mattress for a few nights, but there must be an easier and less creepy way than that. Anyway, Michael got a new mattress when we moved in here (simply because it was easier than moving the one he already had- no, I'm not kidding), and I decided I'd start my research on his mattress while he's out of town. It took me forever to fall asleep because I was too busy boo-hooing over my BF being back at work, but once I did finally fall asleep, it was great. I woke up with virtually no back pain, which has not happened in years.

I went online to price this mattress. I found out the name of it (Verlo Embassy pillow top Enhanced) and looked it up on the Verlo website. I was shocked to see that it was nearly $1,000. This is obscene. My family is generous, but I don't think they are going to spend that much on me. The fact that I cannot have this mattress is symbolic of my life with Michael. We have lots of fun together and we get along. But Michael doesn't have to restrain himself from anything. He can eat whatever he wants; he can buy whatever he wants. He seems to have no limitations on his life at all. I don't have any negative feelings toward him for that, but sometimes it's hard to sit there eating plain broccoli with my credit cards literally suspended in a bag of ice in the freezer, while he tries on a new pair of jeans and eats his 3rd chipotle burrito this week. The mattress being out of my price range was just another reminder how I will have to restrain myself and he does not. On the other hand, Michael's father has cancer; I would rather be in my shoes (no matter how badly I want a new pair) than his right now. It's all about perspective I suppose.

Anywhoo, 24 is back tonight. This is a show my BF and I usually watch together. As he is exhausted from his first night back at work and probably sleeping, I guess I'll be watching it alone tonight. Then I'll go to sleep alone on Michael's fancy mattress. Or I'll go to my neighbor's house and give theirs a whirl. Should I bring my own pillow?

ps: Thomas J. Noisewater has a funny blog about online dating. He's not the most dilligent blogger, but he has some gems. Check it out.

poo poo pants

2006-01-29T19:42:00.000-08:00

So my BF goes back to work tonight. My BF being on vacation is the biggest treat I get outside of myself being on vacation- maybe bigger. That's because he's a cop, and he works midnights- 11pm to 7am. If he were a cop that worked days, that would be difficult enough because, strangely, being a cop on the West Side of Chicago is stressful and takes a toll. But since he works midnights, it's even worse. Plus, his week is not a Mon-Fri week. He works 6 days, then he has two days off. The two days off change each week. So he'll be off Mon, Tues. Then the next week he'll be off Tues, Wed. And so on. When he finally does get to the point where he has an actual weekend off, he is off for three days straight- Fri, Sat, Sun one week, and then Sat, Sun, Mon the following week. Those are my favorite two weeks. Those two weekends straight of Tara/BF time are hard enough to rebound from, so you can only imagine how hard it is to cope with his routine after a 20-day straight vacation. Because then the routine starts all over again. Where we see each other only 2 times each week. Sometimes we'll see each other two times and then one more time when he comes over after his shift ends at 7:00 in the morning on a Saturday or Sunday. But that's no fun. I'm just waking up, his day is ending, it's only a few hours anyway... it's downright sucky.

It was so nice being able to see him a few nights each week and for multiple hours at a time while he was on his vacation. We didn't go anywhere or really do anything special. He's 10 years older than me, and going to bars and getting wasted isn't really his thing. Also, he's much more conservative with his money (and everything else) than I am, so we don't go to fancy restaurants or go away on long weekends together, even when we do have the time to do so. Sometimes I wish he were more like me in his willingness to throw money away, but mostly I like how it is enough to sit on the couch and alternate between watching TV, napping, and whatever else I can seduce him into doing with me.

Of course, I signed up for this. I knew he was a cop when I met him- it was hard not to notice since he was directing me across the street in his (hot) uniform at the time (he's not a traffic director anymore- that was during the time when he was in training and he was on the traffic rotation). And let's just say our relationship got off to a rocky start. * So it shouldn't be a surprise to me when I go days without seeing him. And it shouldn't be a surprise to me when he's cold or distant. But sometimes it's hard to get used to. Like tonight when I am sitting on the couch alone, my roommate on a plane to Florida for a 10-day vacation, and all I really want is someone to cuddle with when I get into bed (not that my roommate would do that, but at least I could share a smoke with him on the fire escape). ** It figures that Michael's trip to Florida then the Bahamas started on the exact same day that the BF's vacation ended. I used to live alone, and I really loved it at the time. But somehow, knowing that a companion could be here at home with me but is not makes living sans roommate for 10 days even more difficult than living alone.

Anyway, needless to say, I'm blue. It's going to be a long week. The good news is that the BF only works 4 days, then he goes into his weekend- he'll have Fri/Sat/Sun off. It will be his (39th!) birthday on Saturday, so we are going to a fancy restaurant with a couple of his friends. Until then, I'm the lonely girlfriend of a Chicago cop, and the abandoned roommate of a gay jet setter. The good news is, that gay roommate has a really comfy bed, which I have been given permission to sleep in while he's gone (he washed the sheets).

*The conditions under which we met were not so good. They are also not the kind of thing I'm prepared to talk about on this blog. I wasn't doing anything illegal though.
** sidebar: I've never watched Grey's Anatomy and now I know why. It's on while I'm writing and some awful female doctor is crying in a janitor's closet. This could be the worst display of fake crying I've ever seen on television.

Cannot

2006-01-28T11:14:00.000-08:00

Blatantly stolen from Brian who blatantly stole it from Bone

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Tara!

Birds do not sleep in Tara, though they may rest in her from time to time. Usually in her hair.
If Tara was life size, she would stand 7 ft 2 inches tall and have a neck twice the size of a human! And don't even get us started on the size her rack would be.
Twenty-eight percent of Microsoft's employees are Tara. And they're all getting fired.
Tara can not regurgitate. But she can tell you that the more correct way to spell can not is cannot.
The risk of being struck by Tara is one occurrence every 9,300 years! But the risk of being struck by Tara's wit and charm is infinitely better.
The first toy product ever advertised on television was Mr Tara Head. And it was wildly popular, which is why advertising permeates our culture to this day. So you can blame her for all annoying advertising, including the commercials that appear before the previews in movie theatres.
While sleeping, fifteen percent of men snore, and ten percent grind their Tara. Only 10 percent?
About one tenth of Tara is permanently covered in ice. The rest is covered in ... oh forget it.
Abraham Lincoln, who invented Tara, was the only US president ever granted a patent for inventing the most awesome thing ever!
If you blow out all the candles on Tara with one breath, your wish will come true. But hers won't.

A simple request

2006-01-27T14:39:00.000-08:00

I leave for work at an hour that most people would consider ungodly early. On a good day, I'm on the road by 5:45; on a bad day, it's 6:10. Usually it's somwhere in between. I see some interesting people on the road. The most common one is the car-full of latin men. It's always an early model American car of some kind, typically a Buick or Ford. And there are never fewer than 4 guys in the car. I noticed something today that I would NOT allow if I were the driver of this car. The guy driving was doing what all of us were doing- sitting in traffic on the Eisenhower "Expressway". Yes, even at 6:00 in the morning, The Ike is slow. His passengers, however, were all sleeping. This is as gross an injustice as I can imagine. The poor sucker in the front, who was the only one responsible enough to come up with enough dough to buy a car, is the only one who doesn't get that coveted extra 45 minutes of sleep that we early commuters all long for. If I were a person that was lucky enough to carpool with people, I would have very strict rules about being a member of my posse. The most important one would be NO ONE sleeps. This doesn't seem unreasonable to me. If I'm nice enough to haul your ass around, you'd better keep me busy. This sleeping while someone else is driving strikes me as the most insensitive thing in the world. Are you, sleepy passenger, the only one that would prefer to be in your cozy bed? No, of course you aren't. Every sad bastard in this early model Buick Century would rather be at home. But none of us are. So none of us is going to pretend otherwise.
The other thing I see on the road all the time are trucks driven by gross truck drivers who like to stare at me in my car and then make obscene gestures at me. I've been hit on while driving more than anyone you know. One time, a guy in a truck pulled up next to me and drove even with me for just long enough that I looked over at him. He made a gesture at me that said, "Hey! Nice rack!" I'm not kidding. He did that thing you do when you are trying to tell your friend on the other side of the room that some girl has big boobs (followed by a 'thumbs up' which is what leads me to believe he liked my rack). You know, you hold your hands out a few inches from your chest, making it look like someone's boobs stick out "that far." He was old too- probably like 60. It was awful. I've learned my lesson. I know better than to make eye contact with men in trucks now.

Oh yeah it's book club night...

2006-01-26T20:21:00.000-08:00

I'm in a book club.

These 5 words were very hard for me to say out loud for the month that passed between being invited to be a member of a newly forming book club by a near perfect stranger and actually attending first book club meeting. In fact, even after that first meeting, I still wasn't confident that this was something I wanted to admit to being a part of. But within the first few months, when the membership was settled upon, it became something I looked forward to immensely. We meet monthly. It's been nearly 2 years since S invited me to be in the book club, and it really has been one of the best experiences of my adult life. The girl who hosts is the girl who picks the books. We've had some winners (Devil in the White City) and some losers (Late Bloomer- that girl got the boot), but no matter how good or bad the book is, we always have so much fun. That's because this isn't just book club-- it's 'book-tails' club, meaning everyone has to contribute an alcoholic beverage, which usually ends up being a bottle of wine. There are about 10 members total, and there are usually 1 or 2 that are absent each month- which means there's a lot of wine. We spend maybe 10 minutes talking about the book; the rest of the time is filled with gossip (provided by S, K, and K), sex talk (provided by me), complaining (provided by me, J and A), sarcasm and laughing- to which we all contribute. The interesting thing is that 10 years ago, I never could have imagined myself hanging out with any of these girls. Some would have been too proper, others too catty, but the whole lot of us together makes a really great mix. I'm not saying there aren't girls that I don't like or girls that annoy me; but all-in-all, I like this bunch. Every girl recognizes that she is required to put out a great spread; I think most of the members would agree though that mine is the best. I come from a family where there is food at every stage of entertaining, so the food I provide is always decadent. I'm not much of a cook, but when it comes to entertaining, I'll go all out so everyone leaves feeling guilty for having eaten too much of something that was likely very cheesy. All of the girls live in the city, so it's fun to see the apartments in the different neighborhoods from Bucktown to the South Loop.
Anyway, I'm beat. I had a couple glasses of pinot noir and I need to let that sink in while I drift off to sleep. Tomorrow's Friday! Yipeeeee!!!

ps: the above photo is not of a book club meeting; one of the girls got married and this photo was taken when half of us made it to her bridal shower (high tea at the Ritz- how classy!).

2nd semester, missed deadlines and country music

2006-01-23T17:28:00.000-08:00

Second semester began today. It's a hectic time of year, but I like it. I keep most of the same students, but I do get one whole new class of new sophomores. Sophomores are interesting. I hated them in my first year teaching them, but I have learned how to deal with them. They think they're cool because they aren't freshmen anymore. Juniors don't have this reaction to the 3rd year; they are too busy being frantic about what they think is the "most important year" of their lives. Seniors are fine until about March, which is when they offically close shop. Anyway, I just let the sophomores go on thinking they're cool. I don't let on that I'm not any more impressed with the coolness sophomore than I am a freshman's.

My editors kept me late after school today which meant I could not go to the gym. I'm not complaining about this; I hate the gym. I'd much rather be locked in the lab with my editors trying to meet their deadline (they didn't) than be sweating at the gym with a bunch of skinny bitches who don't even really need to be there anyway. My Mon/Thurs step aerobics instructor has purchased a new CD, which includes the world's most annoying song EVER. I'm not sure what it's called, but judging by the refrain I'd guess it's called "Save a Horse; Ride a Cowboy." My skin starts crawling every time I hear this song, which does not, incidentally, stop it from being lodged in my brain all night. It's the combo of my two least favorite genres of music- country and dance. I suppose it's only country insofar as it includes the word "cowboy" and a few other choice country-type words, but that's enough for me. My editors' inability to meet their deadline saved me from that anyway. They missed their deadline because they are trying to run a controversial story this month about a kid that came out of the closet to his family. It's a feature story for a series we call "Triumphant Teens," and we think coming out of the closet as a sophomore in high school is pretty triumphant. I had to share it with my principal this morning (he has the legal right to prior review), and he wants us to hold it until we (my editors, him, me) have the opportunity to meet with the school's attorney's to discuss how we can cover our ass should this kid get harassed for being gay (which, considering this school is in the heart of DuPage County, he will). It sounds like he supports it, but he doesn't want legal trouble for the school or to put the kid in harm's way. As much as I want my kids to be able to exercise their freedom of speech, I don't want to see this little sophomore get gay bashed.

Time to gear up for 24. I get so worked up when I watch this show (on so many levels). I have a hard time going to sleep when it's over.