All-stars

Tonight I got a phone call from an old middle school teacher, which I realize doesn't happen to most people, but that's just because most people aren't the shit, like me. Anyway, he wanted to confirm that I was actually getting married (as I had hinted in an earlier e-mail) and asked if he could tell various attendants of a Harmon Middle School retired teachers lunch the following day.

I asked him who was going to be there, and it was a cavalcade of old favorites-- Mrs. Hayes, Mrs. Wolfe, and others. And as he was listing them off, it hit me how strange it is that, while pretty much unknown to the rest of the world, the teachers you have when you are young are like your first encounters with celebrities-- like when I freaked out when I was nine and saw my old second grade teacher, Mrs. Mills, at Heinen's, which made no sense, because teachers do not go out in public or appear anywhere other than in their classrooms.

This is a feeling I was never able to shake-- I once ran into another teacher, Mrs. Brookhart, out at the same Heinen's (only in a different plaza now, so can that really be considered the same Heinen's?), while visiting home from graduate school when I was 24. And I was still like: "Wow. Mrs. Brookhart. In Heinen's."

Maybe this isn't a phenomenon common to other people, as I was freakishly attached to my teachers growing up (which might explain why I still consider the original aforementioned sixth-grade teacher one of my favorite people). I do remember that some of my own (male-- just to clear up the coming confusion) students seemed totally freaked out to see me at the beach one day when I was a TA, but I think that was more because they didn't have their shirts on and felt totally grossed out that their TA could see their nipples.

But still, I couldn't help but feel sort of proud that news of my impending marriage was being carried back to the all-star crowd at the Harmon reunion lunch tomorrow. I just hope a certain gym teacher doesn't ruin it by doing his hilarious impression of the way I run.

I don't run like that anymore, ass! And I'm marrying a hot guy. So bite it.

Fergie's Insecurities, brought to life

So I borrowed Fergie's CD from the library, because not unlike the rest of the nation, I apparently find her "tastey". And I have to say, there are some pretty interesting songs on there-- I hope this does not diminish whatever little amount of music cred I have garnered by being an Elvis Costello or Cake fan for all these years. But there is one song in particular that irks the shit out of me, which contains the following lyrics:

Would you love me if I didn't work out/

or I didn't change my natural hair/

And I could be the/

One you want to grow older with baby/

I'll give you all that I got-t-t-t

There are several issues with this:

1. Fergie, if your boyfriend doesn't love you because you don't work out, then boyfriends across America must be living shams of lives.

2. What do you mean by your "natural hair"? Are you refering to the color? Or is your natural hair actually a matrix of snakes, a la Medusa? In that case, I, too, would be apt to leave you if you did not change it.

And, most importantly,

3. THAT LAST LINE DOESN'T FUCKING RHYME WITH ANYTHING! This isn't free verse! It's GOOD for things to rhyme in POP SONGS! It is ENCOURAGED! And for no apparent reason, that bothers me above all else.

Anyway, I thought I should make this lyrical gem available to everyone else, so we could discuss its badness. Meanwhile, I am off to go listen to Warren Zevon's greatest hits, so as to counteract whatever Pop Music Haters I may be attracting here.

(By the way, pop music RULES! There. I said it. Just not this song.)

The following activities were performed in my car between the hours of 5:05 pm and 8:15 pm yesterday, when I was caught in a really bad traffic jam on my way home from work.

1. Called Ben to find out the situation: overturned cement truck at E. 140th. Minor annoyance.

2. Called Megan to find out when I will be going to visit her and her husband and their new baby! Fun times! Too bad I'm not moving at all. Urge to pee rising.

3. Called Kelly to discuss the newest BNL release, which I had planned on buying when I got home. Not only was it beginning to look like I wasn't going to get home in time, but Kelly infomed me it's not even that great, anyway. Then, phone begins to die. Must hang up with Kelly. Distance traveled: 1.3 miles in 30 minutes. Urge to pee rising.

4. Called Ben despite dying battery. Began to cry. Not good. Cut off old woman to get in far right lane, which I have learned from the radio is the only place to be to pass the overturned truck. Looked forward to seeing truck in flames, with cement volcanoing out from every direction.

5. Listened to Blue Collar Comedy on Sirius. Blue Collar Comedy is not really that funny, so I listened to a CD I made to take to Wilmington. Upon three consecutive listens, decided that I really don't like the song "You Can Call Me Al." Who knew?

6. Sobbed uncontrollably for about 15 minutes for no reason. Urge to pee reaching deathcon-4.

7. Popped massive zit on cheek, only to discover too late that it was one of those zits that is filled with blood, which made me look like a crime victim and thoroughly freaked out the people in the lane next to me.

8. Did more crying. Wondered if a pack of travel tissues would absorb at least a little pee if needed.

9. Finally approached the location of the so-called overturned cement truck, only to learn that it had been removed several hours before, and that absolutely nothing remained to impede the flow of traffic. Immediately began going 60 miles an hour again. Cried over lack of flaming truck. Cried bitter, bitter tears.

Unfunny bop

So, I haven't been feeling very funny lately.

This scares me, because it makes me feel like I was only given so much funny, and squandered it all in my youth, so that by the time I have children, I'll be the mom who makes inane banter about cartoons that went off the air years ago and encourages my kids to join a social group like Scouts, but not even as cool as Scouts, more like Indian Princesses.

Not that there's anything wrong with Indian Princesses. If there even is such a thing. If not, I could found it, which would give me even more humorless crap to talk about.

I don't exactly know where my funny has gone, but if you read back over the last few weeks of blog, you'll see that it's been sadly lacking. Could it be due to:

1. This shitty weather, which went from blizzardy cold to unseasonably warm, causing the two feet of snow here to take on the consistency of florist's styrofoam-- the kind you like to touch at the craft store because it so willingly accepts thumb prints?

2. The presense of TiVo in my life, which makes it so I don't have to come up with funny things to entertain myself?

3. My slow but persistent transformation into The Bride, but not the cool ass-kicking bride from Kill Bill, but rather the kind of bride that wonders if post cards or magnets would make better Save the Dates? (We're leaning toward magnets.)

I don't know. But I am so unfunny right now, it kind of hurts. Do you guys still love me?

Pepzilla

In an effort to prepare for our overnight journey to Charlotte this evening, I have already drunk one 24 ounce Diet Pepsi (left), and have moved on to a comically oversized 1 liter Diet Pepsi (right).

My entire upper lip fits in the mouth of the bottle. It is madness!

Never Mind

There are only two ways to get to work from my house, and they're both closed. Snow day!

To those of you out there in the thick of it, please don't think I'm a wuss, but I am just not the kind of person who is cut out for Great Adventure. PLEASE BE CAREFUL!

If I die on the freeway on my way to work

Please

*Call my parents and Ben and tell them I love them

* Don't read my journals-- ever

* Make sure someone feeds Mamie

* Try to forget all the times I freaked out and cried or screamed for no reason, and remember as someone cool and socially acceptable

That, by the way, is not my house, but is somewhat similar. I took a half day from work and am now steeling myself to head out. I also broke Ben's coffeemaker this morning in an attempt to make him some coffee while he so graciously and uncomplainingly shoveled us out of our driveway. So if I die on the freeway on my way to work today, also make sure he knows I really am sorry about that.

The Blizzard of Aught Seven

Once, 29 years ago, Cleveland was hit with a blizzard, commonly known as The Blizzard of '78, that people still talk about to this day. I, being young and vibrant, was not alive then, but have heard much of its fury and anguish.

But let me just say, that blizzard was probably pansy-esque compared to this.

After finally being released from work today at 4:30, it took me three hours to complete the normally 30-minute drive home, including an unscheduled and most unwelcome stop at a BP to chisel free my windshield wipers from their awkwardly-frozen ice prison, which caused them to seize up and completely stop functioning about ten miles from home. Finally, after prizing them free ("THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, MOTHER FUCKER!" was, I believe, the exact phrase I used once they finally began moving again-- Ashley can corroborate this, as she was on the phone with me at the time-- on my hands free, of course, as I do not have a death wish), Ben came and rescued me, and I followed him the rest of the way home.

I would like to thank the manufacturers of my intensely oversophisticated ice scraper and the makers of Orbit Mint Mojito gum (it really tastes like an alcoholic beverage!) for helping me survive this ordeal.

In the meantime, I thought it would be prudent to announce, for those of you who don't know, that I WILL BE IN WILMINGTON THIS WEEKEND, and expect to see all my Wilmingtonian friends while I'm there. Please tell me the temperature is about 18 degrees, and I will be able to get the car wash I so desperately, desperately need.

Drama, deferred

At work, we have Fox News playing in the lunchroom at all times (not because we are particularly interested in the thoughts of Greta Van Susternen, but because we don't know where the remote is, and therefore cannot change the channel), so it didn't take us long to find out about the death of Anna Nicole Smith. And soon, the entire office-- men and women both-- were abuzz with the information, speculating on cause of death (TrimSpa? Was it TrimSpa?) and remembering our favorite ANS moments.

I have to admit that, even as a well-educated woman of literate aspirations and supposedly lofty life goals, I am utterly fascinated by all celebrity disasters. For instance, I wrote a paper on the OJ Simpson civil trial verdict that got me a scholarship to my undergraduate university-- and I wrote it not to make an ironic statement, but because I was genuinely addicted to the OJ trial.

And now the death of ANS gives me a whole new stable of things to obsess over-- was it suicide? Did someone kill her? Does this have something to do with her dead son? Who is the father of that baby? Things I never would have really put any thought into otherwise-- ANS was not particularly high on my Celebrities To Watch list, despite her being batshit crazy.

But the question remains-- why do these things so interest me, when in theory, I am supposed to be reading up on literary theory and paying very close attention to the political climate around me?

I have two theories on this:

Theory 1: I. Love. To Gossip. But yet suffer from a crippling fear of fully gossiping about anyone for fear of being caught, and also, yes, because it's really just wrong to do so. I try to limit my gossiping to only well-trusted sources, whom I know will not repeat my gossip; I try also to stick with gossip I know to be true, not things I heard or thought possible. But my thinking is, celebrities sign away full gossip rights by stepping into the spotlight, and I am free to gossip about them with impunity. So now, I am free to go buckwild with my theorizing, and to share my speculations with anyone I see fit.

Theory 2: I also love drama, but as anyone who has attended an MFA program (or any school, for that matter) can tell you, too much personal drama can lead to very bad things. Celebrity drama, however, can be enjoyed at full-strength, because while you know Anna Nicole Smith, you don't actually KNOW Anna Nicole Smith, which enables you to delve as deeply as you want into the sordid details of her death without any personal emotional repercussions.

This, of course, does not mean I'm glad Anna Nicole Smith is dead; it's never good to hear that anyone has died. But am I interested in her death? Indubitably.

Death to Scum

I highly recommend that you all go out and buy this Scumbuster RIGHT NOW. If, for example, you have a scummy bathroom, like I do, it will allow you to destroy scum in a most satisfactory manner, as well as unidentified blue-black smudges of what can only be Super Scum, various types of mildew, and other nastiness.

You can also use Scumbuster to clean:

*sinks
*toilets
*the lid to your perpetually scum-covered metal garbage can
*windowsills (which get very, very dirty, in case you haven't noticed)
*carpet (or so the packaging says, although I can proudly say that at least my carpet is free from scum)
*the other heads of the Scumbuster

and so on.

All I know is, my bathroom is a million times cleaner than your bathroom. At least a million. Which is why it pains me so that, immediately upon completion of Operation Scumbust, Ben suggested that tomorrow, we wash the dog in the bathtub.