*I love the Jimmy Fallon song "Idiot Boyfriend" and Cade took this into consideration when he bought me what is by far, the weirdest birthday gift I've ever received:


Ooooooo
Ahhhhhh

I know what you want, and I know what you need
But I'm goin' screw it up, yeah
Cause I'm an idiot, and I'm your boyfriend, yes I am

I'm goin' take you out, and leave my wallet home
Then I'll use your cell phone, baby
Long distance, and I'm your boyfriend

Baby I know I'm a man who's made mistakes
I still got some learning to do
I made out with your best friend the other day, and
Now we're best friends too
Yeah Yeah

And I know what you want, and I know what you need
But I'm goin' screw it up, yeah
Cause I'm an idiot, and I'm your boyfriend, yes I am

And I'm goin' get you a gift, Hey! But its something I like too
Hope you like this Norelco Beard Trimmer with my name on it,
And I'm your boyfriend

Hey Deh Deh Deh Deh Deh
Yeah deh deh deh deh deh deh
deh deh deh deh deh deh deh deh deh deh

Goin' Get real drunk,
And call my baby up at four o'clock in the morning
Wake you up
I'm an idiot!

Pick up the phone, come on
Now Look
Lets get in my dad's SUV,
And we'll go over to my house, my crib, my pad
I'll tell my mom to go to sleep
Then we'll have the living room all to ourselves, you see
We'll put on some great DVD's I picked up
How bout like, something like the Matrix

Ooooo
Ahhhhh

I can turn my boom box up, and make the bass
Smack the side of my moms couch
Yeah!

Hey baby you like fine cooking? Cause you know what?
I got a Swanson's dinner in the freezer with your name on it
Check it out

Yeah!

I got a permanent wave, yeah!
I got an Ogilvie home perm, baby

Uh! I Honk the horn can you honk the horn?
Can you honk the horn?
Let me hear you honk it! Come on!

Let me hear you say uh uh!
Let me hear you say uh uh uh!
Let me see you say uh uh!
Let me hear you say uh uh uh uh uh uh uh oh yeah!
Let me hear you say uh uh uh uh uh uh uh oh yeah!

Today I found out that Jody Herro passed away on May 25th. Jody was the husband of Jan, one of my mom's cancer patients. Together, Jan and Jody ran Jan & Jody's Treasures, an antique shop in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Jody was by Jan's side throughout her illness. He shaved his head in solidarity after her chemotherapy. He stayed with Jan in the hospital. He was encouraging and hopeful during times of remission and sickness. He loved Jan and tried his best to continue after she was gone.

Jody became a family friend along the way. I didn't know him as well as my mom or sister did, but I can confidently say he was generous and warm and kooky in a good way. He forced me to pick out a vintage hat and coat, beautiful pieces he could have sold for a good amount of money, as graduation gifts. He hardly knew me except in stories my mom told, but he did his part to recognize my achievement and to send me off to New York looking good. He also told me a story about partying with Kinky Friedman in the libertine Austin of the '70's. He had so many stories.

Jody, you were loved and appreciated and will be missed.

*Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of Jody to put here, but I do have a picture of the hat and coat he gave me.

The girl said, "I think we should take a walk." She thought, "The days have grown long without our taking the time to notice. I'm boxed indoors all day. Everything else around me is just now coming to life, they say, but I couldn't tell you if it's true."

The boy agreed.

The girl remembered serendipitously finding this bridge late last summer, alone. Who knews months later that she'd be finding it again with him?

The camera flash interfered with their foolish attempts to capture a fleeting moment of beauty...except for that one shot.


Everything had blossomed overnight. But really, inchoate seeds had been growing since way back. While the boy had worn the black jacket to work and walked through clouds of his own breath, the seeds were dancing themselves into flowers.


After a long journey through the winding trails of Central Park, the boy and the girl were surprised to see they had traversed a huge part of the city. It felt like an early summer night's dream. The boy took the girl's hand and they walked with each other into the weekend.

Have you heard of the new Coca-Cola drink, Blak? Cade brought it to my apartment yesterday morning. He insists it's been widely advertised, but it was the first I'd ever heard of it. I was trying to think of what must have been added to warrant a new name with a cool tilde-like flourish, and decided it must be 1) chocolate syrup, 2) soy sauce, or 3) chocolate syrup and soy sauce. Alas, coffee is the new ingredient!

Though I don't drink coffee due to my own indifference when it comes to acquired tastes, I took a sip. Nasty. But Cade liked it, so you might want to go with his recommendation that you try it. After all, he's more of a foodie and eats vegetables, aquatic creatures, chocolate, and soy sauced stuff. Clearly, he's the expert on amalgamated beverages that aren't "the real thing" and will ultimately fail to catch on. Bwahaha!

This week I read Gina Barreca's Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Co-education in the Ivy League. The book is extremely self-indulgent and consists of too many isolated conversations that aren't really that clever, but Barreca thinks are just fabulous. (Are my terse conversation scripts like this? If so, my apologies).

As per usual, I will share some parts that spoke to me for some reason. They are mostly motivational, as I've admmittedly been in a funk and have been trying to pull myself out.

"Risking Dartmouth was, after all, worth the fear and anxiety. Risking loneliness, I found lasting companionship. Risking rejection, I found an odd sense of acceptance. Risking failure, I discovered native ability and honed it into skill. Risking unhappiness, I found at least measured and memorable joy. Risks are worth it."

"What remained totally out of my reach was the polished look that comes from being a kid from a family with a solid financial and social foundation... As hard as it is to define, it is nevertheless essential to understand: fancy people - not necessarily the irrefutably rich, mind you, but the socially and culturally privileged - have a distinct way of handling the world, as if they are simply overseeing what belongs to them. I didn't have this and I couldn't take it."

"I didn't have the 'the look,' and so literally couldn't look at things from the same perspective. I had good grades and the stuff it took to get good grades. I had a bravado that often got mistaken for strength and a big mouth that was sometimes interpreted as self-confidence."

"I became desperately fond of interlibrary loan and regarded it as my passport to libraries in, for example, other galaxies. The weight of books calmed me; the feel of the paper under my fingertips as I turned the page grabbed and held me. This pleasure was sharpened by the understanding that what I loved at that moment had been loaned to me. I could possess it fully but only temporarily - like life."

"I hated when anybody asked what I was going to 'do' with my major in English; they talked about my education the way you'd talk about a crazy old relative."

HORNS UP:

*A very good, expensive birthday dinner. It gave a whole new meaning to the words "food coma." I don't need to eat the rest of the week.

*The three-day weekend. Cade and I had talked about leaving NYC, but I don't think I feel well enough. Nonetheless, a weekend is a weekend is a weekend.

*The smell of quince.

*Finally seeing Shopgirl! Jason Schwartzman is hilarious. Steve Martin is an aloof suitor in just the right way.

HORNS DOWN:

*Limping the first part of the week, because I hurt my previously uninjured left foot. (The right one has recurring tendonitis). My shoe fetish has been abusive for a long time, so it's little wonder my feet want to walk out on me, pun intended.

*Getting more and more sick as the week has progressed. Thursday, I felt like my head would explode. Somehow, it was worse Friday.

*My mom is also sick with a staph infection stemming from cold symptoms that started last week. She's been in pain and has to take antibiotics through an IV twice a day. I hate that I can't be at home with her right now.

*A student was shot last weekend and is in critical condition. I worked with his class, yet I can't put a face to the name. I feel horrible about what happened and the fact that no one at school has addressed it. Things like this need to be discussed - it might save some other student.

At 23:

I thought I'd know better by now.

I thought I'd have the prescience to know the intentions of those around me, that yolk beneath the shell. I thought I'd know who would be kind only later to spit out poison. I thought I'd know when it was the right time to not let my guard down.

I thought I'd remember how far I've come. The odds stacked against my very being indicate that I'm an exception. Why do I wither under the heat of this pressure, afraid I won't succeed? I've done it before. I should be more confident after my successes, but I only feel more afraid their aren't any left, that I'll never achieve again.

I thought I'd identify myself more as an adult than a child, but I'm still caught in between. In some ways, I'm so optimistic about what the future holds. I dream of the day I go back to school and start a career and make a home with someone else. I thought I'd be there by now. Or closer. Now I'm a vagabond with few possessions to my name and nearly everything - my job, my house, my heart - on lease.

Next year.

Bad, sick day,
huff out of bed,
cough and cough,
leave apartment
before realizing
woven shrug has
unwoven itself
at the sleeve.
Shirt, too, rebels
with mysterious
blue stain.

Eight plus hours,
but too tired
to correctly count
down to the
approaching weekend,
time minus bells
and subbing
and the negativity
that calls this
place home, citadel
of mediocrity.

Another bad, sick day, indeed.

*So this is newsworthy enough to make Yahoo! news? Tell me my day is coming soon. I think I'm going to buy a duck.

ARKADELPHIA, Ark. - The exotic chicken that was saved from drowning by mouth-to-beak resuscitation more than three months ago has died, her owner said.

Boo Boo, the chicken who was revived after she was found floating face down in the family pond in February, died recently, said owner Jackie Calhoun. The fowl's story was featured on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Animal Planet network.

"She had seizures," Calhoun said. "I've come to the conclusion that's what put her in the pond in the first place."

In February, Calhoun said he removed the chicken from the water and his sister Marian Morris blew into its beak, causing its eyes to pop open. Morris, a retired nurse, said she hadn't used cardiopulmonary resuscitation in years. She said she was glad that the chicken she saved was exotic and not just an ordinary chicken.

The chicken, who was named Boo Boo because she was easily frightened, lived to lay three eggs before dying, Calhoun said. Until then, Calhoun said he didn't know if the bird was male or female.

"We incubated one of her eggs, and it hatched," Calhoun said. "The chick has black and white markings like Boo Boo's."

And now for something completely different, courtesy of April. My hyperlinks won't work, so copy and paste:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8260059923762628848

(As this is more controversial than anything else in the blog this week, I expect some comments, people).

I've antiqued this photo in an attempt to imagine what my grandchildren might think if they stumble upon it in a dusty, faded album someday. You know, besides, "Granny had real teeth?!"

The hat says, "I Don't Wanna Grow Up!" I donned it Saturday night at Ben's party. And it's my birthday today, and I kind of agree.

On Turning [Twenty-three]
By: Billy Collins [and me]

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
[Actually I am - my throat is sore,
I'm sneezing and coughing, and
I have a rundown feeling that must
be the very poetic-sounding malaise.]
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.
["Chicken Pox of the Soul" - now
that's a collection I'd like on my bookshelf.]

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
[or they tell me it is too early to be looking so far forward],
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
[And the hopeless melancholy that comes with fourteen.]
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.
[And the backyard swing snapped broken,
spurning me like my first boyfriend
had done the previous day.]

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
[I'd say this is the beginning of more madness.]
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.
[This stanza alone is what made me love
this poem years ago when I was still at
home, still in high school, wondering what
I'd be like now.]

On Turning Ten
By: Billy Collins

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

Cade and I sit and ponder diction.

"How about, 'No offense, but we find her vapid and tedious'?"

Cade grimaces, shakes his head, and thinks, "'Amanda and I think she's...'"

"'Difficult to stomach'?"

He consents. "Amanda and I" becomes "we," so as to present a united front instead of suggesting a domineering girlfriend-whipped boyfriend relationship. "Her" becomes "Fiona," the most famous person no one's ever heard of. Cade hunkers over the tiny screen to deliver the message.

On Friday night, Cade announces that we have plans. Mike, one of his high school friends from New Hope, is visiting from San Francisco. Cade wants to meet up with him at Blue Smoke, which has apparently become the place where I have to put on my cool girlfriend act. Isn't it always a bit of an act when you first meet a significant other's friends? Parents love me, but friends? Not necessarily. I can be read as aloof or excessively snarky.

But now things are different. This time things are serious. This time it's important that I at least be tolerable to the people who knew Boyfriend when. I'd like to think that I could get along with other people who like Cade an eighth as much as I do, but one never knows.

So Cade and I travel east to meet Mike, and end up meeting not just him, but an imposter. She looks like she needs a good meal and judging by the scanty black dress she's wearing, a Pap smear. In the first ten minutes of small talk, in which she says, "I'm like...and like...they're all like...sooo...like...me...," I know this is going to be one like, painfully long meal.

Her name is Fiona. She has a rare genetic disorder in which she never works out and stays in perfect shape. She craps twenty dollar bills that smell like Chanel No. 5. She's an overworked model/actress/paragon and no one can get a word in edgewise.

Have you ever met a person who turns every topic of conversation into an opportunity to extol their every virtue or relate infinite stories about how much cooler they are than you? A person that makes an infant seem less egocentric?

Fiona's the leader of their planet.

I find out Mike likes documentaries and lo and behold, Fiona's in an as-yet-unreleased documentary about lingerie models who won the lottery and cured a rare dermatological disease. Mike mentions he's 23, and Fiona says she can't remember her age - I mean, she's always cast so much younger than she really is, so it's like, sooo confusing.

At this point, I throw up in my mouth a little.

"Well, I'm 22 all the time," Cade retorts.

I cackle.

I'm reluctant to judge Mike based on his dinner guest. Perhaps I'm not making a good impression, either. Even without a mirror, I know I'm involuntarily making my I-just-stepped-barefoot-in-dog-crap face. I'm quiet in the corner and trying to astral project back to any other time before I met the most famous person I've never heard of. Like the time I was getting my wisdom teeth removed with insufficient anesthesia. Those were the days!

We're all ready to go, but Fiona wants dessert. I make my I-just-stepped-barefoot-in-dog-crap-but-this-time-it's-runnier face. Every grain of sand in the hourglass pings as it falls. Finally, Mike and the model head downtown. Cade and I go to Sugarcane. I sip a cucumber martini and warn him, "Never, ever again."

The next day, Mike calls Cade and says he's ready to meet up at the Museum of Sex. (Yes, it's a real museum. No, I don't recommend going there). Fiona is with him and I have to be honest. When Cade hangs up, I tell him like it is: "If I have to spend any more time with that girl, I'm going to gouge my eyes out. Then I'll go for the rest of my sensory organs."

After a much-deliberated text message, some phone calls, and a slow cab ride, we meet Mike at the museum. He's alone. Later he admits Fiona is an embarrassing friend of the family, saying, "After spending a night with her, I feel like I need to talk about myself for a few hours."

I couldn't agree more. I know we're going to get along just fine.

The new Apple store on Fifth Avenue opened Friday. It's set to be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Now if only the rest of NYC could follow suit.

Friday visitors could enter a drawing for a new MacBook each hour. Mike entered twice and didn't win, but he did see a homeless man take a new Intel-based treasure back to the streets.

Still, most of the hype about the new store revolves around its impressive glass cube. Isn't she lovely?

Leafy, rubber oars bob
as it pelts.
Squeaking madly,
our shoes flounder
to the restaurant -
Mexican hole-in-the-wall
with seats of
tattered vinyl
covered in
greasy crumbs.
Wet tracks mark
our progress.
By the time
the chips arrive,
the sun is
out again.

Same weather, different place.

So the finale of America's Next Top Model was anticlimactic. I really had no preference for either of the final two. The ever-suspenseful editing didn't help, either. Of course, Danielle was going to win. She was the one harped on about her accent, and she got food poisoning, but she's tall, beautiful, thin, and can walk. This screams Adrian, winner of ANTM: Cycle 1. How often do models talk anyway? And honestly, ANTM hasn't exactly launched any big modeling careers. Anyhow, I think Abby would not have necessarily been a better ANTM winner, but a better contestant than most of the girls.

10 Reasons Why Abby, Instead Of Jade, Should Have Been In The Final Three

10) Abby's a purebred dog, so none of that "biracial butterfly" crap. *Anyone who refers to herself as a butterfly ought to be squirted with Raid.
9) ANTM has never had a plus-size model in the final three.
8) Abby has a signature runway shuffle.
7) Abby can't take a bad photo, but nonetheless works her best angle - prostrate.
6) Abby would have not just kissed, but eaten, the rhinestone encrusted hissing cockroach.
5) Those photo shoots with male models would have been steamier.
4) Abby's more articulate than Jade.
3) Twiggy looks after her own.
2) Abby works her underbite and crooked teeth. Even Tyra Banks wouldn't have criticized it.
1) Abby's the bitch, no bones about it.

"If you don't have big breasts, put ribbons in your pigtails."

So begins Use What You've Got & Other Business Lessons I Learned From My Mom by Barbara Corcoran, NYC real estate diva and founder of the Corcoran Group. I love reading books by and about successful women, as I know I have a lot to learn from my elders. I also love a good rags to riches story. Corcoran's rise from poor, bucktoothed Jersey girl to savvy, NYC business woman was not without struggling, backstabbing, and near meltdowns.

The book got me thinking: What have I learned from my mom that has gotten me this far? What lessons will guide me even farther?

1) Be aggressive and go after what you want.
I don't consider myself either overly passive or overly aggressive (and I detest the thought of being passive-aggressive), but when I want something, I go after it. I'd wanted to move to NYC after college since I was 13. The housing situation, job, and relocation all happened with a whole lotta 'splainin' to do. My mom has often said, "Now is NOT the time to be shy." I need to listen to her more often.

2) Don't be afraid to get dirty - you're washable.
Life is messy, and I don't just mean this literally. Should you try to keep tidy, you will realize at some point that you have yet to live. Nothing worthwhile is easily attainable. Some of the best things that will ever happen to me are going to complicate things and muss my hair. But that's okay. This is why I try to jam pack each day with so much activity, why I can't go to bed early, why I've done less than practical things just to have a good story to tell. If I get hurt or dirty, I'm always washable.

3) Make your own inspiration.
My mom doesn't wait. She's always had various lists of goals and ideas. She strives to be better, not because she's competing with others, but because she knows she can. My dad sent me a one-line email a few weeks before Christmas. It said, "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to chase after it with a stick." It's true. I need routines to actualize my potential. I need to search for new ideas and experiences. I need to make it my life's goal to stay open and receptive to all the possibilities...and to carry a big stick.

4) Don't compromise your true self to be liked or popular.
Now you know I don't do that! My opinions are sometimes misconstrued, but sometimes they aren't, and people still think I'm too snarky and cynical and haughty. Check, check, and check! I can't be glib and cloying about things that I know are more complex or sinister. I can't go along with the crowd, and anyway, I don't always enjoy the company. And my sense of humor tends to be a bit dark, yes. I was scolded a few times as a kid for my smart mouth, but what could be expected? I'm borne of sass. Mine is a very extreme case of "she get it from huh mama." Besides, my mom said people would like me more and I'll be happier when I'm myself. I believe her.

I got in from work this afternoon and there was a hummingbird in my bedroom!

It was buzzing and darting around so quickly that I couldn't get a good look at it, until...it stopped to rest.

A FLY! THE SIZE OF A BIRD! OHMIGOD! EWWW!

I think I'm going to close the window now.

Angel: [looking at a framed paper called "Mary McLeod Bethune, A Great African-American Leader" on Mr. C's desk] Hey, Mr. C, is this your wife?!"

Mr. C: Angel, read the paper. It says, "Mary McLeod Bethune, 1875-1955." Do you think she's my wife?

Angel: I dunno. Is she?

ArtRock, a "fourteen day museum" set up at Rockefeller Center, celebrates its second year until May 20. Cade and I went to see the progressive, free, contemporary art yesterday after he got off work.

Many of the exhibits elicited "huh's?" and "ooo...kay's," while the anti-genital mutilation and pro-soybean messages were lost in a bunch of fabric, acrylic, and chains.

Let's go on a tour!

I most liked the Great View collection by artist Karin Weiner. It consists of collages and a community of elaborate birdhouses. It's supposed to represent the myth of utopian communities and increasing fears of domestic threats and natural disasters. For Cade and I, though, it represented a distant dream: affordable housing of our very own. Cade and I would move into one of the rent-stabilized birdhouses if we got the chance (and were infinitely smaller). I'm hoping to live in something traditional with lots of storage space like this:This is not a toddler possessed by Satan. It's a kinetic statue that beats its head against the wall, revealing a head-shaped hole and leaving plaster on the floor. Its message, according to artist Kristof Kintera, is, "Revolution is not possible. Forget it." Yeah, supposedly it's as pointless as get this, banging your head into a wall.
Finally something overtly Gothic and ornamental you can't buy at Hot Topic. All snark aside, I liked this.One of two viewing scopes by Alyson Shotz. They're part telescope, part kaleidoscope. Gabriel Delponte's Chorus combines sculptural wall pieces and an abstract mural. I love the colors.

It was the perfect time for some new hope.

Last week, I felt pessimistic and aimless. The school year is not ending soon enough, but I haven't quite figured out what next year holds. Ultimately, I want to go back to school. But when? Could I get into the program I want to be in? Doubt looms in every corner. I want to go back to school, but I need to support myself and my pursuit of higher education by working a full-time job. I've just been feeling that all sorts of barriers impede my progress. For the first time, these aren't all mental barriers, either. I'd rather comfort myself with the idea that I'm psyching myself out, but honestly, not all jobs or graduate programs want me right now. Naivete is cute and all, but experience shouts when ambition whispers.

So my trip to New Hope was relaxing and far too short. I finally got to meet the friends Cade is constantly text-messaging, guys that know all the embarrassing stuff to tell me, but don't (or at least, try to abstain from telling me). I met Alex, who reads my blog and makes comments about gentrification.

HI, ALEX!

I also met Paul, a creepy guy named Anton, and other New Hopers. Cade and I rode the Ivyland Railroad and forgot to act out scenes from Strangers on a Train. We sat by the Delaware River, listening to the surge of historic waters and making fart noises with our mouths. Oh yes, and New Hope is clean and beautiful and calming.
I proved I was indeed special when I walked on water...and later turned the water into wine at Paul's graduation party, thus spilling the bowl of Chex Mix all over the floor and winning Ziggy's heart forever.

Him: [pointing at billboard] I want to see that.

Me: What?

Him: That. The Last Stand. It's the last X-Men movie.

Me: You'll be the biggest little boy there.

Him: No, there will be fat, 35-year-old virgins, like at the Mono concert. And I'll be like, "Wow, I can't believe we're both human."

Fourteen teachers were out of school today. Fourteen!

It's Monday. It's been rainy and gray. There are seven weeks of school left. It all reminded me of this poem I have been paraphrasing to co-workers for weeks, and have finally remembered to look up:

Telephone Booth Number 905 1/2

woke up this morning
feeling excellent
picked up the telephone
dialed the number
of my equal opportunity employer
to inform him: i will not be in
to work today
are you feeling sick?
the boss asked me
no sir, i replied i am feeling too
good to report to work today
if i feel sick tomorrow
i will come in early.

- Pedro Pietri

"It's a day for running out of town
with a man whose eyes are brown..."
- Gwendolyn Brooks

I'll be in Pennsylvania with Cade from tonight to Sunday evening.
Happy Mother's Day Weekend!

With the end of the school year still over a month away, everyone at I.S. 666 is getting restless.

It's warm enough for the tulips to toss their silken heads skyward, but not yet hot enough for the snap of dried stems, all straining ending with the advent of the sultriest days.

So why are we still cramped inside our wartorn school watching the city grow lush and green from smudged classroom windows? It's a shame.

I teach my least favorite class of the week on Fridays. Today I felt bad for the hoodlums - all of their teachers for the rest of the day were absent and their class was being self-contained. Almost all of the opportunities for evil have been exhausted this far in the year, with the exception of actually killing someone. That, however, might lead to consequences and might be more trouble than it's worth.

The students were understandably sulky and dejected. What would they do all day? It rained all night and the sky was just then taking a break. Too humid to playfight.

There's no joy in Thugville.

Ever since that one atrocious Friday in March - the 9,785,123rd time I pondered bringing a gun to school to pistol whip the kids into shape - this class and I have an understanding: Don't fight, use prohibited items, or disrespect me. You can choose to sleep. You can choose to fail. But don't go against basic school policy. If you're looking for a fight, an audience for your plethora of ring tones, or a human punching bag, cut class with all the other fools up in this bitch.

Mmkay?

Michael X actually answered a question about who the narrator of a short story was. Now that will come in handy someday. Victory in education!

(Ecstasy in weekends)!

Rate-A-Concert

Artist(s): Life and Times, Mono, and Pelican

Length of performance: 4 hours

What I did: I went with Cade last night to see the Japanese instrumental band Mono at Avalon, a church-cum-venue. Cade had seen Mono previously and is a big fan. We met on the Upper West Side, took the subway to Avalon, and had dinner at Cosi before getting in line. Cade repeatedly warned me that the music would be loud, but he didn't say my ears would nearly bleed. The little hairs that move and allow me to hear sound have permanent waves now. I'm on the verge of needing some weave to replace them.

High point: Cade was happy I went. Mushy, I know. Also, I got to wear my cute, tweedy shrug.

Low point: Standing room only. My feet and lower back hurt. My fingers and ears were sore from the former being poked into the latter. And as Cade and I joined the line outside Avalon before the show, I was laughing at his original plan of wearing workclothes to the concert. Pretending to be a random concert-goer, I quipped, "Ummm, are you somebody's dad?" The guy right in front of me in line turned around. He was a dad. An older dad. With his son. Oh, the embarrassment.

Overall impression: All of the songs by Life and Times sounded the same. Mono can really rock out. It helps that all the Japanese bandmembers have amazing, Pantene commercial hair and it's flowing back and forth as they play. Mesmerizing. Pelican is way too loud and attracts loud people. Walking into Avalon felt like walking into a junior high dance in the school gymnasium, minus the bleachers. I yearned for bleachers.

Reason I went to the concert: Cade.

I learned: Yep, I still prefer songs with words.

You breathe
huskily
in my ear
and I know
how you want
things to be.

You, me on the floor,
in your bed. We'll
watch the afternoon
slowly drain from the
sun. Me wet from the
storm of your kisses.

Your every fold exposed,
thick legs draped
across mine, whiskers
on my cheek. I ask,
"So, you wanna bone?"
And you don't have to speak.
















*per Cade's suggestion

Margaret Cho once said, "When I see children, I...feel...nothing. I ovulate sand." After a day of substitute teaching, I can't agree more.

Holy blood of the lord of the lamb of the Jesus Christ, it was painful!

Time to lie down before I fall out and you hafta call a amba-lance, as the kids would say.

Funny how
brunch becomes
a sampling of silks.

A Central Park
stroll becomes
a landslide of mirth.

A journey back
home becomes
a lesson in giving.

A two-month
acquaintance becomes
you, me, us.

When the train skips my usual stop, I start counting, trusting I won't get down to one before I can exit the underground and be on my way.

It doesn't stop.

I realize that the train isn't even on the track near the platform. There's no way I could get out. The bag on my shoulder suddenly gains ten pounds. Sweat beads my neck. The collective breath of these accumulated strangers putrefies.

The train skips the next stop, then the next. Finally, people begin to grumble aloud. So much for thinking it's just you, that your ipod has condemned you to ignorance, that you must have missed an announcement. No. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, for there wasn't any damn bell. No announcement. Silence. Ignorance doesn't equal bliss.

I could be angry, but I have nowhere to go and only a faceless bureaucracy to blame. Man, some things in this city are so difficult. How can it take an hour and a half to travel two miles? Why does it take trips to three different grocery stores to get basic nourishment? The little things, which are ultimately the atoms, the building blocks, of the big things could be so much easier anywhere but here.

Someone says the train will stop at 145th Street. No one asks questions. How long has he been on the subway to have received such highly classified intelligence? Or is he one of them? Stammering tourists are looking at maps, dumbfounded, "Oh, God. We're in Harlem." They start to really miss Omaha and Plano.

The crowd gushes out of the sliding doors at 145th. People scramble for the exit stairs, clutching their bags desperately. One tourist asks which stairs she should take to go up. The MTA worker says they both work. On the downtown side of the tracks, I realize I've never seen so many white people in Harlem.

The man who exits the train, gangsta walking like he's in no hurry but you better be, confirms this with a scowl that says, "What's all these white folks doin' up in here?!"

The tourists are freaking out. The locals are inconvenienced and aggravated. I'm a denizen of both worlds, laughing, shifting my bag to the other shoulder, and marveling at how I still want to be here. How I can't wait to tell you.

It appears Brooklyn is the place to be on Saturdays. Cade and I returned via the running 2/3 (yay, MTA!) to attend the free Target First Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum. Yep, just Museum. It's an art museum, but Brooklyn's kind of unassuming, you know.

We watched a performance by the Brooklyn tap dancing group The Young Hoofers. An old vaudevillian tap dancer, Miss Mable Something, joined them. She sang and grabbed her lower back dramatically, saying, "I used to do this, too, you know!" Then she'd cackle and shuffle enough to show off her still fabulous gams, but not break her hip.

After all the tapping, which is really difficult to photograph, Cade and I toured the William Wegman exhibit Funney/Strange. You know this artist, though you may not have heard of him and you hopefully have not seen him manipulate his belly in such a way that it looks like a face. A face in which his nipples are eyes and his large, flexible navel is a rather animated mouth. A mouth that sings in a squeaky voice. (This was one of his video shorts. Cade said he felt much less evolved after watching it). Wegman is the artist famous for humorously photographing Weimaraners, though I prefer his more recent postcard-painting works.

The final event of First Saturday was a screening of Four Eyed Monsters, an independent film that won the Best Director award at last year's Brooklyn International Film Festival. The story behind the film/that is the film is different and quirky and more than a bit emo. I personally love seeing young people brave all the barriers and put their creative work out there, especially in innovative ways. And some of the cinematography was awesome! Learn more about Four Eyed Monsters here: http://foureyedmonsters.com

In conclusion, the night was fun. The Brooklyn Museum First Saturday draws a lot more families than a First Friday at the MoMA. It's noisy and stimulating and the five dollar water/miniature pretzels meal is so worth it. And Cade makes funny comments when strangers unabashedly burp in his face. I recommend checking that out sometime. Really.

Like most people who live in New York City, I'm not from New York City. In fact, I almost couldn't be farther from it.

So you'd think the small town gal in me would get excited about say, a gigantic Christmas tree or a Thanksgiving Day parade with gigantic turkeys and cartoon characters or a gigantic, drunken, green orgy in March, but no.

I just haven't been interested until I made it a point to go to Lincoln Center to see David Blaine in his sphere. It's not that I like David Blaine - I really don't know anything about him, besides the fact that he is one crazy fool (information courtesy of his website). He apparently wants to amass huge amounts of press time _______ing himself alive. Insert your own fun verbs to make a gerund there.

I think he's buried himself alive. Perhaps burned himself alive. I do know, though, that he's trying to drown himself alive on television on Monday. Meanwhile, he's making like the biggest publicity whoring sea monkey at Lincoln Center.

Before venturing out to wait in line for twenty-five minutes to not even see David Blaine's face, I joked with Nick that I should make signs to hold up to the glass. Something like: "David, why the masochism?" "Want a towel?" "How's the weather in there?" "Ewww! Did you just pee?" Alas, I forgot the sign idea and while waiting, noticed some zealous David Blaine admirer holding signs up to the transparent sphere...and getting air time. Crikey! The signs, in case you're curious, said something like, "Your [sic] #1!!!!" and "Go, David, it's your birfday!" Not so clever really.

News crews were there from all over the world - Tokyo, Europe, upstate New York. (Though Blaine's aquarium has no pebbles, food, or plastic castle, it apparently has a microphone that amplifies his speech, since reporters are just dying to ask him such stimulating questions as, "How do you feel?" and "You're not actually going to drown, are you?" The answers? Glug, glug, and glug. All very audible). The media workers kept holding up the viewing of the sphere, so by the time I got to walk up the grated ramp and get the heel of my shoe stuck in it, David was interviewing with even more reporters.

So...if you're watching the news and you see people on the other side of the sphere, I might be one of them. I'm the one in the brown shirt, wiggling her heel out of the grate, snapping pictures of Blaine's backside, glad she didn't go to the St. Patrick's Day parade.

Imagine a smooth lake of skin. Now think of how the sun appears like a friendly stranger and little brown fish swim to the top of the lake to see him. This is how the melanin suddenly breaks away from the other cells it has been huddling with all winter, and my new, rather returning freckles suddenly appear. The freckle is not a migratory beast. It has been in the same place for months and months, waiting for today.

Spring is in the everywhere...

*The mechanical bear from the second picture lives outside an Upper West Side toy store. It propels its iridescent bubbles down Columbus Avenue, and yes, it actually dips the wand into bubble fluid in a metal bowl and then brings the wand to its mouth. Brilliant, I say!