Tao of Grey's Anatomy

There's nothing you could reveal about yourself that I wouldn't want to know.

Isn't that a nice thing to have said to you? No, no one said that to me. It's what Dr. Burke said to Dr. Yang on Grey's Anatomy last night.

So, even though no one loves my shit enough to say that, I'm telling you a few very random things anyway. So random, if fact, that I totally didn't think out this post first.

So, here goes...

-I know too much about pop culture.
-Music is like air to me and I'm usually breathing the White Stripes. I also breathe Ben Folds, Lifehouse, Rufus Wainwright, and James Blunt.
-I love pink.
-If I could, I'd pick your brain apart.
-If I could, I'd breathe you in.
-I think Warhol is a demigod.
-I have a lot of spiritual conflict and confusion.
-When I was young I thought about flying all the time. Really, all the time.
-Talented people make me feel like Salieri.
-Shallow people make me want to puke.
-I might believe in time travel.
-I value honesty more than many other qualities.
-When I'm interested in something or someone, I'm obsessive.
-My worst quality is that I'm very passionate yet very passive and quiet.
-My best quality is that I'm genuine.
-Even when others don't, I really like myself.

What should I know about you?

Whatever Makes Ya Happy

Sometimes I can't decide if I'm annoyed by people or if I celebrate their oddities.

Today I was in a department store and a middle-aged lady was with two of her middle-aged friends. She had slipped on a skirt over her clothes. The skirt jingled. This lady was literally squealing with delight over this retarded jingly skirt.

At first, I rolled my eyes and thought, "God, what a retard." Then, I put the bitch away for a minute and gave this a little more thought. Sure, she was a dork, but the truth was, I had just witnessed someone made happy with one of life's little things instead of being made sad by one of life's many sadnesses.

I'm glad I saw that dorky lady today, and I hope she bought that skirt.

Holiday Greetings and Other Crap

Quote from the classroom: "I know this sounds weird, but please, no more than four eyes on your turkey."

Never let it be said I didn't allow for some bizarre creativity.

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Thanksgiving was okay. I love my family, but I love my me time more. We mostly ate and laid around. I guess that's what you do on Thanksgiving. The girls all piled into my mom's bed for girl talk. We met my little sister's newest boyfriend who tried to take a picture of this said "girl pile" with his camera phone. Not the best first impression. What can I say, he's a northerner from Boston. All northerners are dirty aren't they? If not, I'm sorely disappointed.

I thought I was going to get away with only one family day, but my mother smartly tricked me into keeping my little sister all day and night tomorrow. Apparently my 9-year-old sister thinks I'm Captain Kangaroo. I said to her, "You'd better bring some movies." She replied, "Oh, I don't need to, you'll keep me entertained with crafts all day." Where the hell did she get an idea like that?

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Now, tell me if you see something in this picture that doesn't belong...


Okay, have a closer look. My fifth graders were supposed to choose a cowhand from one of four continents and draw and label thier attire:

cowhand one

cowhand two




cowhand three (although a little sad)




cowhand four

In case you're worried about her, I did give her partial credit. I probably would've given her full credit had she cared to label it.

She Mumbles Under Her Breath

The Tag teacher hates me, Tag meaning gifted and talented. He probably is just intimidated a little by my awesome. That's understandable, I do that to a lot of people who like to be the center of attention 24 hours a day, and he does.

I remember the first bad taste I left in his mouth. (Get your head out of the gutter.) He said something in reference to a movie like, "Is it the wide-screen or theatrical version?" to which I replied, "It's 'director's version' or 'theatrical version'." When he visibly scowled, I said aloud, "Note to self, N.D. does not like to be corrected." He ignored this comment.

Now I have all out pissed him off simply because I confronted him about keeping my tag kids 5-10 minutes past the allotted hour. "But 5-10 minutes isn't that much time," you say, but for good teachers it's an eon as we value every minute of our class time.

I like my colleagues very much, but there are only a couple of them that I think are "off the hook" cool. One is the media specialist who, if I were writing a children's book with a "librarian" she would be the epitome. She's just fab. The other is another 5th grade teacher that all the other teachers think is a bitch. When I heard this, I thought obviously she must be awesome. I was right. Not to mention, she's 51 and watches [adultswim]. How cool is that?

The awesomely bitchy (and nicest ever) 5th grade teacher and I went for sandwiches after school the other night. Here's how I know the Tag teacher hates me.

other teacher: You know I love your personality. You're sarcastic and witty in the very best way. You can be sitting in a room and everyone else is talking and you'll throw in those little jabs that make us laugh. Having pre-referenced what I'm going to say with that, let me tell you what N.D. said the other day.

me: okay.

other teacher: "She mumbles under her breath. I just don't like her because she mumbles under her breath."

me: what??

other teacher: [laughs] Yep, that's what he said. I said, "You can't think of anything else wrong with the girl, so you come up with, 'She mumbles under her breath'?"

me: Yeah, I think that's a stretch.

What a retard. Besides, how gifted can you be when you have your acronym ass backwards?

How Annoying Am I?

I'm thinking I'm probably slightly annoying. It's hard for me to imagine because I know I'm so awesome, but here are some examples of the things of which I speak...

Example One: I walk into a room full of people and say things like, "I'm very proud of myself." Then, when one or two people in the room smile and say, "What did you do?", I look at them quizzically and say, "Oh. Nothing in particular, I'm just, in general, very proud of myself."

Example Two: I go around to random people while they're doing menial tasks, stick my thumb up, and say, "You're doing a great job!" They always look at me strangely.

Example Three: Sometimes when people I don't know that well give me a quiet and polite, "hello", I give them a loud, "Hey, how the heck are ya?"

Example Four: Today, although I don't really know her that well, I stuffed the art teacher's mailbox with junk from the workroom in the office.

Example Five: I sometimes address my class with, "What's up my peeps?"

Perhaps it's true. I am annoying. I will say this, however. I'm very proud of myself, and you guys are all doing a great job. Keep up with the great work my peeps or I'll stuff your mailboxes with all kinds of shit.

Additions:

-My mailbox got filled with junk today.

-As I was walking down the hall after school this afternoon, I passed a teacher doing "hall duty". I decided I'd spare her the "thumbs up" today, but as I passed, she looked at me oddly and said, "Am I doing okay?", to which, of course, I was obliged to say with a thumbs up, "You're doing a great job!"

*smiles*

I Peed in the Snow

There's a first time for everything.

i am happy.

Yeah, okay not really right now, but as someone who believes strongly in the power of thought I'm speaking it forth.

I got the poster I made at Zazzle.com in the mail yesterday. It isn't very big. It's "11 by "16. It's super neat though that I made it (sort of). If you haven't been to Zazzle, go play around with it. Be creative.

Once you've created your product (poster, stamps, cards, t-shirt), they're available for others to buy. I'm sure as hell not trying to make a profit out of my mug, but there are some of you that I'd love to have a poster of. How about a Pepper, Frog, or Monkey poster? Or a Calzone t-shirt that says something about drunken pillaging?

Something to think about.

Anyway, another thing you can do with your photos is make a larger poster of all your flickr pics or a bound book at QOOP. I've been meaning to make a poster, but couldn't get it perfect as they randomly generate the order of the photos.

Well, enough advertisement. I just thought you creative people should know.

This is not a good post.

I had a crap-ass day. Although generally I'm a happy and contented person, today I felt empty inside. Doberman and Calzone will appreciate this conversation I had with myself in the car today:

"I need Jesus." ...(a little thought)...
"I so fucking do." ...(a little more thought)...
"That was probably inappropriate."

I actually did try to go to church tonight. Not Calzone's church either, a bonafied Jesus church. Someone had put these flyers in our boxes at school (which I actually verbally scoffed at), but since it was very near my house, I thought I'd drive by there. There were only about 3 people there though and they were old men. I chose not to go in.

How did I satiate my spiritual dearth? Breyers cookie dough ice cream. I'm probably going to hell.

Happy Fall

Fall
Originally uploaded by Grand Poo Of Awesome.

Happy Fall from me and Harriet. Hope you're having a good one.

I So Fucking Love this Show

I so fucking love this show and everyone in it. Especially Mary-Louise Parker who is totally hot. I mean that in a non-gay way, but you can take it however you want, because she is.

Plot: Mary-Louise Parker's character, Nancy, starts selling weed in the suburbs after her husband dies.

This show not only must have some of the best comedy writers in the country cause this shit is money, but it also seriously pokes fun of the suburbs. That hits close to home for me right now, because I often get pretty sick of suburban shit.

One of my doc professors laughed at me the other day because I told her about the constant attempts from my collegues to marry me off. She said to tell them, "I'm not interested in joining your cult, thank you." If you're reading Dr. Z, thanks and you rock! :)

All I ever watch now that I have Comcast are episodes of Weeds, Curb Your Enthusiams, and Extras. I fucking LOVE On Demand! I think I'm about half way through Weeds. I'll probably watch another episode tonight. On the last episode, the main character's brother-in-law, Andy, reproduced some t-shirts of a fuck-up t-shirt he bought in Malaysia that said, "Chris died for your sins" and was selling them at his nephew's school. The outraged mothers at the PTO meeting was classic. I uploaded a genuinly crappy video here if you wanna see a clip.

The theme song from the show "Little Boxes" by Malvina Reynolds is currently playing in the sidebar. Enjoy. The song is perfect.

Quote: "Let your freak flag fly."

I Spot Pride in the Hills

I thought I'd try out YouTube. I saw the link via sockparade. I uploaded a video of my drive home. It was obviously a Friday. I was just glad to have not heard "Rocky Top" 6 times before I reached my door.

Bush is Still Not My President

Forget Geena Davis. I want Brain for president.




Narf, I miss that show.



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Poet and Didn't Know It

I just thought this was funny...

One of my students kept talking while he was supposed to be working.

me: I can see you, and hear you too, as I have both eyes and ears.
girl student: (very seriously) You should write poetry.
me: (contemplating) hmmm, I had no idea that was poetic.

I suppose all forms of art are subjective.

I also thought this was funny...

I have a student who is fabulously the pleasantly odd type of person I so much appreciate. Today she made up a "Vote for Pedro" ad.

E: Like a good neighbor Pedro is there. Vote for Pedro, but he won't save you any money on your car insurance.
me: Wow, you managed to blend two different insurance ads into one. Well done you.
E: Thanks.

Kid's Books Anyone?

If you're not interested in kids books please ignore this post (but you should be interested in kids books cuz they're awesome.)

I would love the opinion of anyone who loves kids books (children's literature) as to books I should buy for myself and for my class.

This year, I have read to the class Maniac Magee by Jerri Spinelli and Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix. They're pretty good books although maybe not my favorites. The next book I'm going to read is The Legend of Jimmy Spoon by Kristiana Gregory. After that I plan to read The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo as it seems awfully adventurous. I also just bought The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin because I thought a mystery would be fun. Although I've never read the book, it seems very interesting.

My personal favorites always include fantasy, adventure, and far out tales like A Wrinkle in Time, Matilda (and all of Roald Dahl), Holes, and my heart will always belong to the Harry Potter series.

So...anybody gots some favorite kids books?