Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Why I Don't Really Care that I Suck as a Blogger

1. Because it isn't really that surprising. You know the concept of "straight edge punk"? This is like a punk that doesn't do drugs, right? Well, I'm kind of a straight edge pothead. I like to loaf around about 99% of the time watching tv, playing lame computer games, reading romance novels and funny memoirs by gay men, eating nachos, and talking ad nauseum about stuff that doesn't matter but seems REALLY important. I don't get high to do these things--but it's really because I'm too lazy to figure out how to buy weed.

2. I've got a lot going on. Believe me. A lot.

3. Because I DON'T suck as a blogger! I may not be as prolific as some. But what's here is pure gold, baby!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Lice and Crabs are Funny (when you don't have them)

My dear friend M's kid has lice. The idea of her kid having lice tickles me. He's in 3rd grade, and this is the first year that he's gone to public school. He used to go to this incredibly overpriced private school (his dad taught there) with a bunch of kids whose dads spend all their time working to make scads of money so the moms can drive their suv's to PotteryBarn, the botox shop, the pharmacy/liquor store, and soccer practice. Now that my friend's kid goes to school with the great, unwashed masses, he's got lice. I think that's funny.

On the other hand, a friend of a friend's kids gave lice to the governor's kids a couple years ago. (Let me say that I do NOT run in the governor's circle or any of the circle's adjacent to the governor's circle; in fact, I think I may run in a shape that's much less complex than a circle. I think I run in a line fragment.) I can't remember all the details, but the friend's kids went to a sleepover at the governor's house. They got lice before the sleepover but didn't discover it until after the sleepover, so the next day the mom had to call the governor's wife and tell her to check her kid for lice. As I remember it, there was a little lice epidemic among the pre-teen socialites for a few weeks. I think that's funny, too.

When M emailed me to tell me about her kid having lice, she said that she had been to Walgreen's 3 times to buy various de-lousing products. She said that the last time she shopped in that aisle she had crabs. I remember that guy. It's damn lucky crabs is all she got.

Once I got crabs at Kinko's. People don't believe me, but it's true. It was the first day of school back when I was a graduate assistant and had only been teaching for a couple of semesters. I was nervous because my first class was about to start, and I was at Kinko's picking up some documents that I was going to pass out in the class, but since I was nervous, I had to pee. I went to the bathroom at Kinko's and it was really gross. Then I walked across the street to the building I was teaching in and went to the bathroom again (I pee a lot when I'm nervous), and there it was, a crab on my panties. I really did get crabs at Kinko's--and for the record that's the only time I've ever had crabs--and I only had one. So I guess I got a crab at Kinko's.

I did have lice in 2nd grade, though. All the V's and W's had it. This one girl, whose last name was Vonda, if I remember correctly gave them to me and Dick Whittle (I shit you not, that was his name). Vonda (maybe that was her first name, and her last name also started with a V?) had to have her head shaved she got them so bad. I went home and gave them to my brother, so Mom had to wash everything a million times and comb the nits out of our hair for days.

This post is making my head itch.

When I told my daughter H that M's son has lice, she said, "Oh! Victor has lice, too!" I was, like, WHAT?!?! Shouldn't we have been given some kind of notice that a kid in her class has lice? So I said, "Is he going to school? How do they keep the rest of you kids from getting it?" She replied, "Well, we just don't touch his head." Problem solved.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Uncomfortable Moment!

So, I'm a teacher, right? I teach business communications to college sophomores. And here's what happened today.

My class requires a lot of intensive group work--the students had a small group writing project at the beginning of the semester, and now we're moving in to the major final report project which requires students to work together as a group for the rest of the semester. They write their papers individually, but they have to choose topics and present their findings as a group. It's kind of high stakes, and because of that I told my students that they could switch groups for this major assignment, and that their group members could have a pretty major impact on their lives for the next 6 weeks, so to choose wisely.

Well, today I told them to group up in their final project groups and get ready to do this activity I had planned. As soon as I said it, students started shuffling around. When the shuffling stopped there was one kid all by himself. Nobody wanted him. It was clear. It was painful. It happened on my watch. What could I do? What did I do?

I don't really even know what I did. I kind of turned my back on the class for a while. I think I may have actually said, I can't watch. No, I know I said it. I'm sorry I said it, but I said it. I'm sorry I did it, for crying out loud! I orchestrated the situation, and then when the thing that was likely to happen happened, I actually said, I can't watch. What did I think? I was watching a movie? That this was some uncomfortable scene that I could go get a snack during?

The great news is that I have 2 more classes to go to today, so it could easily happen again! and again!

Monday, October 27, 2008

2nd Entry: Also About Food, but Don't Worry--There Will be Other Topics.

My cosmetology instructor recently asked me to be the student representative on the Cosmetology Program's Advisory Board at my local Technical School. I, of course, accepted both because I can recognize an honor when one is bestowed upon me and because I knew I could use the honor as an excuse to get a substitute for my classes during the Advisory Board meetings.

So, today was the first meeting, and, really, the only thing worth mentioning about the meeting was the lunch that they served. At first glance, it looked like a really nice taco salad with the fried shell-bowl and everything. There was chicken on top (yuck!) but my plan was to work around it because otherwise the salad looked really yummy with nice, dark green lettuce, black beans, onions, olives, sour cream, salsa, and jalapenos. (yeah, not vegan, I know, but seriously tasty looking!)

I was particularly impressed because this was clearly the kind of situation where "lunch will be provided" means something pretty inedible. Well, guess what? It WAS inedible. When I took the first bite, I was, like--what the hell? There was definitely a taste that didn't taste right. When I took my second (and last) bite, I realized that the chicken on top of my taco salad was barbequed chicken.

The very weirdest part was that you couldn't SEE that the chicken was barbequed--like maybe (or probably) someone had rinsed the barbeque sauce off the chicken before slicing it up and tossing it on top of the taco salad. But the barbeque flavor permeated the entire salad--like the wet from the rinsed chicken had gotten in all the lettuce and been stirred around or something.

Sooooo weird and sooooo gross!

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Okay, Here's My First Post

I've been trying to be a vegan since January 8, 2008. I totally think that most of the meat available to me in the grocery store is unhealthy, inhumane, and gross. I also think that the dairy industry is disgusting and that it's beyond weird to eat stuff that came from the teats of another species (or really even your own after about 12 months).

But, man, I love nachos!