Admit to the Truth...

"Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't," Brand New

Tim and I went to Panera for lunch on Sunday. I ordered the Fuji salad, and was settling into Gorgonzola heaven when I found a tiny green aphid-like creature amongst the leaves of Romaine. Because I apparently have no shame (is it shame I'd be lacking?), I simply plucked the sucker out, wiped him on my napkin, and proceeded to finish the meal. In a related story, two months ago a student brought me a sugar cookie from McDonald's. I left it at the side of my desk and promptly forgot about it; I didn't notice it again until after school as I was unabashedly avoiding grading Latin root tests and instead spending entirely too long wondering why colonel is spelled c-o-l-o-n-e-l, a question one of my students had posed minutes before the bell rang. I remember because I distinctly recall thinking, "I should know the answer to this, and I don't." In any case, I looked down on my desk to find the cookie covered with about 10-15 ants. With (maybe?) a split second hesitation, I picked it up, briskly wiped the ants hygienically onto the floor, and ate the cookie in about 3 bites. It was small; I was hungry.

I like to think of myself as a fairly clean person. Tim would, I'm sure, protest, but that doesn't really count because he puts "cleaning the apartment" in the same category as "going to Disneyland." Tim recently purchased a new vacuum, after making the comment: "Our old one just doesn't pick up as much as I'd like it to." (Sadly, my response to this was: "We own a vaccum?") He scoured websites and reviews with reckless abandon, and eventually brought home one of Costco's latest models.

Tim: Look what I got!
Me: Nice! You did the dishes earlier today, so I'll vacuum.
Tim: No way! This is my new toy. I get to use it first.

(I'm really, really not kidding; that conversation did actually take place).

I'm sure I should be more careful. One day I'm going to catch a disease from not washing my hands after touching a doorknob, and I'll regret that I didn't keep a little bottle of hand sanitizer in my back pocket. But until then, I'm going to hope for the best and continue to live daringly, even if an occasional insect stumbles across my lunch. And if I accidentally consume a little 6-legged treat, it's just arbitrarily adding a little bit of protein to the meal...


Yeah. It looked like that.

As a completed unrelated sidenote, I am so incredibly excited for October 16th and the release of Where the Wild Things Are:

http://www.mamapop.com/mamapop/2009/03/where-the-wild.html

I'll Miss the Playgrounds and the Animals and Digging up Worms

"Time to Pretend," MGMT

Last weekend, I got walking strep-throat (yes, just like walking pneumonia). No, it was not medically diagnosed, nor does it even exist on WebMD, but I'm certain that's what it is. I worked all week (the constant reading out loud did NOT help the situation) and felt like hell, but didn't think it was worth it to spend 3 hours writing lesson plans and hoping everything would go well with a substitute. I came home from school on Friday and crashed on the couch, People magazine in hand, and didn't move until I dragged myself into bed a few hours and bad TV re-runs later. Tim left Friday night to go on an overnight fishing trip to San Clemente Island on our neighbor's boat, The Horizon, out of San Diego Harbor.






Saturday morning I woke up still feeling sick, but I was determined to get through as much grading as possible. However, USA was having a Law and Order: SVU marathon, so of course that trumped analyzing thesis statements and underlining inaccurate evidence. I had never seen the show before, but that didn't stop me from becoming completely and unnecessarily immersed in the world of Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson, the two fictional New York detectives on-hand for any sexually-charged crime or offense NBC can stir up. It was the perfect sick day: 4 cups of weak coffee, a comfortable couch, and a bad but nevertheless engrossing TV show that didn't stop (seriously, I kept telling myself I would only watch one more episode, and then another would start, and no one could explain why the woman was found dead in the park, and...). Tim got home, exhausted, around 11 after a successful outing, and watched the last 30 minutes of the final episode with me. Most of the time, the scripts are entirely predictable and mediocre at best; Tim was able to call the shots before the detectives were. However, he didn't say a single negative word about it; he must have been silently thanking the powers that be I wasn't watching Lifetime.

Today, we took Bailey to the vet and, 300 dollars later, left with 2 antibiotic prescriptions, an ear collar, fish oil pellets, and a shaved and freaked out dog. Apparently, he is allergic to fleas, thus prompting his frequent itching, scratching, and hot spots. And then, our computer crashed, and now the geek squad at Fry's is doing what they do best, but have also told us the computer is finished and they may or may not be able to retrieve the files. And of course, they had all kinds of great questions to help us understand that, yes, this was a long time coming and, basically, we're idiots: Why didn't we back-up pictures and files using an external hard drive? Why did I leave iTunes open all night so the memory virtually fried? Why are we still using an IBM ThinkPad, which came out on the market about the same time as a record player?

And I haven't even done my freakin' taxes yet!

Sometimes it's hard to be a grown-up. I remember being 9 years old, FURIOUS my parents wouldn't let me stay up until 9:30 to watch Doogie Howser, M.D., and SWEARING I would let my own kids watch Doogie Howser when they were 9. My biggest problems consisted of deciding which Littlest Pet Shop toy I would buy with my week's allowance, figuring out how I would give my steamed carrots to the dog without Mom noticing, and getting to sit on the blue couch instead of the itchy, tan one while Paul and I watched Are You Afraid of the Dark? on Saturday nights. John Mayer sings,

"...and most my memories
have escaped me
or confused themselves with dreams
if heaven's all we want it to be
send your prayers to me
care of 1983..."

But that feeling is fleeting, and I know it. I'm overwhelmed, and tired, and ready for spring break. Because above it all, I'm happy, and fulfilled, and grateful. And I agree with my pal Jimmy Buffett:

"Oh, yesterday's over my shoulder
So I can't look back for too long
There's just too much to see waiting in front of me
And I know that I just can't go wrong"
"Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes"

And besides, I act like a kid about half the time anyway...

Piratical Nerve and a Vaudevillian Style

"School Boy Heart," Jimmy Buffett

1) We are semi-infatuated with the Travel Channel's "Mark and Olly: Living with the Machigenga," a show that documents two English men trying to assimilate into the isolated Peruvian tribal culture. Tune in to watch grown men ferment alcohol with their own spit, prove their manhood through demonstrating the ability to catch a frog, and eat monkey hands; hair, bones, fingernails, and all.

2) We tried to nurse an injured bird back to life last week. We found the bird on the side of the road, made a defunct habitat out of an animal crackers barrel from Costco, purchased trail mix (for the seeds) and an eyedropper, and were 3 minutes from home when we realized he had died. Tim buried him in the front yard and I cried for thirty minutes.

3) There are mice and rats in my building at school. I came into my classroom last Monday and found five visibly placed mouse traps in various corners of my room. Each morning I am terrified I will walk into my room and find a helplessly stuck or brutally murdered little mouse inside one of the traps, but so far the critters have outsmarted these devices. I did, however, catch one with my bare hands last week in the hallway, and set him free outside. Really.

4) I eat Kellogg's Special K Fruit and Yogurt cereal for breakfast most mornings, and have found that while the production company/FDA/ridiculously-small-people-of-America committee have decided one box should last 11 servings, I am finished after 4 bowls.

5) There was a huge lizard in my classroom last week. It was sitting, dumbstruck, on a pile of papers; panting desperately and eyes silenting screaming. In fear and protest and retaliation, it had dropped its tail somewhere along the way. One of my students informed me it had crawled out of another one of my student's purses. We checked her purse for the bloodied stump, but to no avail.

6) When John Lennon was killed, his murderer had a copy of The Catcher in the Rye on his person. While I realize that's certainly a morbid thought, I do understand the pure power, pull, wonder, and appreciation a book can offer. The first time I read A Prayer for Owen Meany, I was certain John Irving was my long-lost soulmate from another life; by the time I finished Cat's Cradle, I had already decided to name my next pet Jonah. Catch-22 made me laugh out loud and helped me appreciate the lunacy and hilarity of satire, and The Time Traveler's Wife simply made me want to be a writer. In a completely dissimilar vein, we are reading Jane Eyre in my sophomore honors class, and the process is not unlike getting a filling at the dentist.

As Kurt Vonnegut would say, so it goes.

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
-Bob Dylan

Viva La Vie Boheme!

In 1998, I was "living in America, at the end of the millennium." As a high school junior, I was unassuming, overwhelmed, and certainly "dying" to "come into my own," when my best friend introduced me to RENT (just one more in the litany of reasons I'm indebted to you, Jen). I distinctly remember sitting in the balcony section of the Orange County theater, excited about the production and yet completely unprepared for the effect this play would have on my life. Mark mused, "why are entire years strewn on the cutting room floor of memory, while single frames of one magic night forever flicker in close-up on the 3-D Imax of my mind?" and my somewhat lonely and disconnected self silently screamed, "YES! You get it!" I yearned to emulate Mimi's passion for life and fierce desire to live in the present. I sympathized with Roger's confusion and self-pity. I scorned Benny's inability to empathize with the "starving artists," yet simultaneously envied their ability to follow a dream so whole-heartedly. I mourned the loss of Jonathan Larson's tremendous talent, and vowed to see this play again and again. Sure enough, I was sitting in the same seat two nights later for another viewing, this time with my mom. I spent the rest of high school plastering my bedroom with RENT quotes and memorizing every nuance in the soundtrack. The first thing to grace my bare dorm room wall was a giant RENT poster. "No Day But Today" became my motto for freshman year in college and eventually the motto for the UCLA swim team, displayed proudly across the back of our t-shirts.

I saw RENT again last night, this time complete with the original Broadway Mark and Roger (Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal). I haven't seen it live for years, and yet it still resonates as much as it did the first time I saw it 10 years ago. There are too many incredible messages to be named; Larson's capacity to mix humor, passion, and heartfelt emotion is unparalleled. Essentially, his key message is this: Life is gritty. Opportunity doesn't come easy, and death is real and imminent. It's easy to let self-doubt, frustration, rejection, and pity overtake a life. However, above all this one must remember the connection, potential, and energy that is music, the necessity of close friends, and the overwhelming power of Love.

"Forget regret, or life is yours to miss..."

Pay My Respects to Grace and Virtue

"Human," The Killers

I don't floss my teeth enough. I gave up soda for Lent this year and lasted two days. I didn't miss an episode of The Bachelor this season, and was entirely too excited when my People magazine arrived yesterday and Molly and Jason graced the cover. I pick out all the M&Ms in the trail mix, and Tim does more chores around the house than me. I procrastinate more than anyone I know. I am bad at calling people back on time and tend to worry too much about things that don't matter. I over-analyze. I bite my nails to the point J.D. Salinger would call "bleedy-looking." I wear a broken watch at least 3 times a week and become obsessed too easily over bands, authors, movies, and books (hello RENT, River Phoenix, Backdraft, Brand New, John Irving, Stand By Me, Kurt Vonnegut, Catch-22, Empire Records, and Jack's Mannequin). I can quote entire movie monologues, blatantly proving I've had many Friday nights during which I had nothing better to do than memorize quotes from Good Will Hunting. Despite all this, I still think I'm a pretty good person.

Tim and I went to LA last weekend to visit friends, and 8 or 9 of us were sitting at brunch on Sunday morning, nursing hangovers and discussing the karaoke choices from the previous night. For whatever reason, my friend Joe started talking about his aversion to magicians: "I can't even be in the same room as one." Then, "I mean, what value, what progress, do they bring to society? Deception. That's it. Freaks me out."

We laughed, but it made me think about the value that I (do my best) to bring into society. In an environment I've dubbed the "curse of February" (which also, not surprisingly, extends into March...and April...), my students are struggling more than ever to stay focused and motivated. Translated, for too many of them that means a day without ditching is considered an honorable success. Sometimes, I feel like in lieu of sending "Congratulations! Joey received an A on the Great Gatsby test!" notes home, I need to start handing out "Congratulations! Joey did not ditch one time this week, AND he turned in some version of his homework which, although incredibly half-assed, nevertheless made it into my hands!" It's that time of the year where so many kids are hovering at the edge of the metaphorical motivation cliff, and I have to remind myself that part of my job responsibility is to convince these kids school is important and worthwhile. We've had lots of conversations lately about why, according to some, "society sucks." It's frustrating to see so many already pessimistic and cynical high-schoolers, kids who are frustrated by what they deem an inconquerable "system." At the same time, however, they're 16 and 17 years old. Part of their job description is to be world-weary, defiant, and ever-questioning ("Ms. Murray, where do bad words come from?") So I do my best to appreciate their angst-ridden cynicism, impart knowledge I believe builds character, and provide a forum for them to know their opinions matter. And also, we laugh. A lot. And some days, I get responses like this:

"I like this guy, Whitman. He knows what's up. Just, you know, appreciate what you've got. Roll with the punches. The 'barbaric yawp,' or whatever." (On "Song of Myself")

"Dude, this guy can write! He just says it how it is! And Holden could, like, be my friend!" (On The Catcher in the Rye)

Like, totally.

Celebrate We Will

...Because Life is Short but Sweet for Certain...
"Two Step," Dave Matthews Band

Congratulations, Chip and Amanda!