My bad memory sometimes tricks me into remembering things that never happened. Like sometimes I am so sure I've written about something that I Google till my eyeballs are about to fall out trying to hunt it down. Certainly I'm just using the wrong search term.
::tangent for memory not failed:: It's commonplace for me to start retelling a story, not realizing that I've told it. Mister mrtl knows that I won't get butt sore when he stops me because he's already heard that one. One time when this wasn't the case was in telling him about my last serious relationship (see second love), which I deliberately delayed until I was more sure of us. Imagine my mortification when mister mrtl -- then my boyfriend of only a few months -- stopped me because he already knew. Imagine his mortification when he realized he hadn't heard it from me, but from hearing my mother's stories at the office. ::end tangent for memory not failed::
Today I had a Google fest to find where I had written about chaperoning my first dance as a teacher. I'm still shocked I didn't.
Story Time with mrtl
Once upon a time mrtl graduated from college and started teaching middle school Language Arts. So fresh-faced was she that she was often mistaken for a student (e.g., questioned about being in the hallway during class times, charged student rates in the cafeteria, being asked to school dances by 8th-grade boys). Add to that her first-year lack of assertiveness and we have a recipe for some severe embarrassment.
For Halloween that year mrtl dressed as a hippie (see jeans on Newt), which got her asked to the dance by a boy in the neighboring homeroom. Said boy was never seen at the dance; poor thing must have been too traumatized and humiliated. mrtl, however, attended as a chaperone.
The principal of the school was this portly, walrus-mustached fellow who looked a lot like a younger Wilford Brimley. He was a Very Serious, no-nonsense man who parked himself near the DJ's raised table to ensure that no students harrassed the DJ with their song requests.
This was mrtl's first chaperoning experience and she enjoyed it immensely. Her dance stylings were (and still are) PERFECT for middle school dances, and paired with her youthful appearance, she was easily able to sidle up to groups of students who looked to be up to no-good shenanigans.
Her age and musical knowledge was also of benefit to her success as a chaperone, like when the DJ turned on an uncensored version of Nine Inch Nails' "Animal." Her first-year lack of assertiveness, however, was not. Had it been, mrtl would have immediately made a beeline for the DJ. Instead she went to the principal.
mrtl: You need to have the DJ turn this song off.
principal: Why?
mrtl: It's uncensored.
principal: What's it saying?
mrtl: [panicking inside, stomach turning and feeling cold chills before leaning in and whispering in his ear] I want to fuck you like an animal.
principal: [totally not hearing her] What?
mrtl: [panicking moreso and speaking a little more loudly] I want to fuck you like an animal!
principal: [obviously deaf] What?
mrtl: [realizing all hope is lost for retaining any shred of dignity now -- which by the way helped when she pooped during labor -- and screaming] I WANT TO FUCK YOU LIKE AN ANIMAL!!1
principal: [goes wide-eyed, huffing, and books it to the DJ]
After this, my principal and I rarely made eye contact.
end Story Time with mrtl
Today I was reminded of this moment. Nine Inch Nails has already been in my brain, but the electrician who came today reminded me a lot of the principal who reminded me of Wilford Brimley. It was hard to look him in the eye, too.
UPDATED: Now with an acute attentiveness to detail!
Don't you hate it when people supply guidance that's not welcomed? Force you to show grace under annoyance when they ain't got all the facts?
Dude. Watching AI right now and girlfriend is singing Bublé. HOW DID SHE KNOW I was just about to write about Bublé?
Hi Michael Bublé! This blog post is about you! I'm not psychotic.
You are adorable. You are funny. I saw you on Graham Norton where you talked about wanting to touch Oprah Winfrey's teeth and box Prince Charles upside the head, and I totally get that. I also saw you on SNL. The "Hamm and Bublé" sketch was awesome. Let's watch it. For some reason it's backwards. I'm sorry if that freaks you out and gets you all discombobulated. Or would that be "discomBUBLÉted"? I'm sober.
But enough pillow plumping. I have some unsolicited career advice for you. I in no way profess to having a thorough knowledge of your work, but this will sell you more albums, build your male fan base, and get you laid. See how I care?
::tangent for more disclamation if that's even a word:: I don't profess to have a thorough knowledge of your sex life either. I'm just assuming that you like to get laid. I'd Google you -- that's not a euphamism, not that I don't find you attractive if you can manage to follow my doubled negative, but because I'm happily married -- but Googling you for personal information may be construed as stalking, and since I'm giving you unsolicited career advice, you may not be very happy with me and my suggestions that you're not getting laid (enough) and choose to come after me to box me upside the head. If you'd consider doing that to Charles, that is. Why would you do that, anyway? Do you think he's getting laid more? I'm totally intimidated by you, you happy doodle teeth-tapping head boxer. I'm ducking now. And adding the "Exorcising" category tag to this post. I don't want to think about Charles having sex. If it's any relief, I don't recoil at the thought of you having sex. I'm not fixated on it either. Just making sure that's clear, with me being happily married and all. ::end tangent for more disclamation if that's even a word::
The issue I'm taking is with your "Haven't Met You Yet" ditty, which I will Google just to post lyrics. By the way, did you capitalize all the words, or was that the doing of the posting website? It's a little Emily Dickinson, but without selection. Scattershotting on capitalization doesn't make the lyrics more profound. I really hope this wasn't your doing. I don't want to even trust these lyrics because I'm already getting very annoyed at the grammatical errors.
I'm Not Surprised Not Everything Lasts Have Broken My Heart So Many Times, I Stopped Keepin Track. Talk Myself In I Talk Myself Out I Get All Worked Up Then I Let Myself Down.
I Tried So Very Hard Not To Lose It I Came Up With A Million Excuses I Thought I Thought Of Every Possibility
And I Now Someday That It'll All Turn Out You'll Make Me Work So We Can Work To Work It Out And I Promise You Kid That I'll Give So Much More Than I Get I Just Haven't Met You Yet
Mmmmm ....
::tangent to ask a question about the "Mmmmm" in this song:: Are you thinking about pie right now? Whenever I hear "mmm" I automatically add pie.
Now how did THIS get here?
I even had that as my license plate for a while. See?
I don't have the plates anymore because I was in an accident. The van got totalled, but I didn't get hurt. I'm sure you were getting worried. If you were here I'd pat you on the back to reassure you. ::pat pat:: Down low? Too slow. ::end tangent to ask a question about the "Mmmmm" in this song::
I Might Have To Wait I'll Never Give Up I Guess It's Half Time And The Other Half's Luck Wherever You Are Whenever It's Right You Come Out Of Nowhere And Into My Life
And I Know That We Can Be So Amazing And Baby Your Love Is Gonna Change Me And Now I Can See Every Possibility
Hmmmmm ......
::tangent to ask a question about the "Hmmmm's" in this song:: Ok, so the "Mmmmm's" are now "Hmmmmm's." Was it my talk about the pie? I hope not. Let's blame that on the posting website. Obviously an error. How could you not love pie? Whether or not it's a euphamism for my crotch. Of course my crotch smells like pie. What kind of pie do you like? I'll be sure to buy a car freshener. I'm accommodating like that. And I just made a drink. Full disclosure. ::end tangent to ask a question about the "Hmmmm's" in this song::
And Somehow I Know That Will All Turn Out And You'll Make Me Work So We Can Work To Work It Out And I Promise You Kid I'll Give So Much More Than I Get I Just Haven't Met You Yet
::tangent to ask a question about what you give:: What are you talking about, Michael Bublé? ::end tangent to ask a question about what you give::
They Say All's Fair And In Love And War But I Won't Need To Fight It We'll Get It By It ?? To Be United
And I Know That We Can Be So Amazing And Being In Your Life Is Gonna Change Me And Now I Can See Every Single Possibility
Hmmm .....
And Someday I Know It'll All Turn Out And I'll Work To Work It Out Promise You Kid I'll Give More Than I Get
::tangent for some snipping:: Going to edit out some of the repetition. Broken record. Is this how you talk yourself into things, Michael Bublé? Not that there's anything wrong with that. Rote learning can be very effective. ::end tangent for some snipping::
Oh You Know It Will All Turn Out And You'll Make Me Work So We Can Work To Work It Out And I Promise You Kid To Give So Much More Than I Get Yeah I Just Haven't Met You Yet
Now, the tune for this song is catchy, sure, but it's too light. You're singing about having a broken heart. Yeah, yeah, you're optimistic that you'll find love again... A little too optimistic if you ask me. That's too much like scattershot. It makes you look like you're not very selective. You DO say that you can talk yourself in. Into what, Michael Bublé? And how exactly do you talk yourself in. I'm worried about you, Michael Buble, that you're drinking too much and wearing beer goggles.
::tangent to share epiphany:: O.M.G. Michael Bublé. It's STD's that you give more of, isn't it? The lack of selection, the drinking, the talking in, the not fighting it, the every. single. possibility. MAN WHORE!
O.M.G. Michael Bublé. Please tell me that the posting website put the "kid" business in this song. That's disgusting and surely illegal in Canada. ::end tangent to share epiphany::
I really need to stop this freight train that's on the Michael-Bublé-is-a-diseased-pedophile-man-whore track. It's taking me away from the unsolicited advice that I truly wanted to give to you.
I'll stand corrected that you're getting laid plenty and instead focus on quality over quantity.
The secret is to show more pain, man. You make it all cute to have a broken heart. Broken hearts are NOT cute. It's flip. It's disrespectful to the women involved to say that each broken heart isn't counted. Other women see that and they think one of two things:
1. Psychotic from the Past: I didn't count to you? WTF Michael Bublé?! I'll give you something to count! 2. Psychotic from the Future: I want to be special. I want to make Michael Bublé hurt.
Did you learn nothing from Trent Reznor? Every woman wants him. Guys want to be him, his magnetism is so strong. He hurts. So much p a i n . I hate to say this with you being so adorable, but most guys I've talked to about you (which isn't a lot; I'm not psychotic or anything) don't want to be you. Or listen to your music. I'm sorry.
You have to show the suffering to get street credit for the broken hearts. Every broken heart must be acknowledged and counted. Otherwise the ladies aren't going to be beating down your door for a happily ever after. They're going to be bitter and vengeful, knowing that you're going to heartlessly dump them curbside and bounce along to your next victim.
::tangent for another suggestion:: Tattoo an abacus on your chest. Use it to count. If you can handle vampires and are willing to share some attention, have The Count from "Sesame Street" added with a speech bubble saying, "AAAAAH AAAAAH AAAAAH." That way people know that you are serious about taking the time EACH TIME to count every single broken heart. ::end tangent for another suggestion::
Shall I compare thee to Trent Reznor? Let's with a Venn Diagram!
You're most welcome, Michael Bublé. Please get the proper antibiotics before you tap into your inner Trent Reznor, do.
Blame me for my current fascination with cooking shows. I love "Top Chef," so it only made sense to watch "Hell's Kitchen." I don't much care for the run of the show, but enjoy watching him in action. He's quite entertaining. Then on BBC I saw that he has another show, "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares." Interesting enough to watch several episodes, though I couldn't help but notice that these earlier, Britain-based shows had two major differences: a kinder, gentler Chef Ramsay, and his bare chest.
Every. freakin'. show. includes an intimate moment, where the camera crew, director, and whoever else is behind the camera cram into a small room and film Ramsay while he changes into his chef coat. And there's his chest. Like the audience is supposed to swoon. Ack!
His U.S.-based version of "Kitchen Nightmares" premiered last week. I don't like it. Not only did it change up the format to include major funds going to the nightmarish restaurant (can you say, "enabler"? how about "sell out"?) -- a little leg-up is one thing, but bringing in a design team, working through the night to do a complete overhaul with a name change is too much (and if I may say so, I was totally expecting Ty Pennington to appear) -- but his chest is still displayed.
Chef. I need to be completely honest with you. Your chest? Not a trophy. Keep it in the bag, please. And when your design team, chef, promoters, and cleaners come through, it minimizes the effect of what you're doing to help THE RESTAURANT turn things around. All you're really doing is setting up shop in a new location. What's the point?
Huhwha? I haven't blogged about Joon? My Asian former roommate? Total lapse, there, y'all. I apologize.
I had the (dis)pleasure of meeting Joon during my cross-country summer-long move to escape the friction at home. Joon was my friend's roommate, who became my roommate by default. I have a few random memories of Joon, which I shall share with you now.
He loved to play Othello on my Nintendo. He'd sit on the livingroom floor and play that game for hours. Upon plopping down to start a round, he'd throw his fists in the air and yell, "OTELLO!" (He had a bit of trouble getting the TH sound out.)
One day he went out to wash his car. He came back in and complained that the soap he was using was removing the brown paint. The "soap" he was using was oven cleaner.
His pee was super stinky. Really super stinky. I'd avoid going into the bathroom for at least an hour after him, even if he just peed, it was so super stinky. Why did his pee smell like that? I never could figure that out. He did eat a lot of rice, but I lived in Japan for three years and never smelled anything like that. (Yeah, yeah, he was Korean and I'm totally generalizing. Like the rice is that different.)
This last one. Oh my. Last night I hosted a mommy meetup. After everyone had left I went into the bathroom and was HIT by that very same smell. In an instant I was back in Joonland, 1991, checking the bowl and floor for wayward shots. Surely it must've been one of the several little boys who came over. Gah! What were their mothers feeding them? I grabbed the Clorox wipes and Febreze spray to douse the room. I don't know when I'll be able to bring myself to go back in there.
Just writing this has given me a phantom recollection. don't.want.to.breathe...
My first week sans mister mrtl went with my ass pretty firmly affixed to the couch. Last week I was determined to be more productive, thinking that time may go by faster if I got moving. I turned to a book that had been collecting dust on my shelf since I bought it and first read it five years ago.
Since then I've been doing a lot of cleaning. (FlyLady calls it "Blessing," a term you won't be hearing from me.) I'm in the process of developing routines, turning this home into a well-oiled machine. The kids are fully involved in the process and have been doing very well. (I'm considering learning how to sew to make Jem a full-body dust mop outfit.)
::tangent to acknowledge possible screw in the well-oiled machine:: Yes, there's danger ahead, called "A Long Trip to Lazyland." We're heading back to Maryland soon. I do plan to take the FlyLady with me and develop a routine or two there. ::end tangent to acknowledge possible screw in the well-oiled machine::
My favorite part of it all, beyond having a clean house (did I mention I fired the cleaners a couple months back? gah - long story, not worth the time to write it out), is that I get to write lists. LOTS of them. I have a little green notebook in which I keep all my lists. Lists are so much fun, but I digress.
Several months ago, if not longer, I had created a HUGE list of all the "little" things that needed to be done around the house. I try to put one of these things on my daily list of things to do.
One of the first was dealing with Mr. Bug.
When we moved into Buttercup back in May of 2005, we weren't the only inhabitant. I had said previously that the former owner had left the house immaculate ("I would have licked the floor in a heartbeat."). This was the exception:
Mr. Bug, as you can see here, is dead. I don't know how long he was up there before we moved in, but he was dead upon our arrival. I'm assuming this anyway, since he was too far away for me to poke with a stick.
He's in the window sill above our front door. It'd probably be a good place to put a potted plant; I noticed our neighbors, who have a similar cubby, have some kind of animal skin sitting on what looks like a saddle. To each, I suppose. Anyway, since we don't have a ladder tall enough to reach the sill, Mr. Bug has been there for quite some time.
Until two days ago, that is. At 7pm on 7/7/07, I devised the perfect implement to finally evict Mr. Bug. Behold!
It's a Sweepa taped to a painting extension pole with a Swiffer Sweeper thrown in for some added support. It had to be long -- at least 12 1/2 feet -- to reach from the bridge (our open upstairs hallway) to the sill.
And on the seventh day, there were no more bugs on the sill.
It was then that I discovered that Mr. Bug was really a bee, and that he was not alone.
And yes, that's the VCR remote in the Stride-to-Ride. Jem keeps it there, as well as a cup, and she likes to put shoes on the seat.
Not that it's anything "serious," or even worth losing the nails on my left hand. Still, I'm panicking.
It's over clothes, really. I shouldn't be so stressed.
Thing is, my presence has been requested at the home office. Whatever shall I wear? Sure, I have business suits collecting dust, but they're all pathetically outdated. I'm hesitant to buy a bunch of new things... ::grumble grumble, whine whine:: because I'm not quite where I want to be weightwise.
My desperation in this situation has led me to do the unthinkable: Atkins. Just till I leave, mind you, because there's no way I'd go back east without fucking up some pastries.
----
On another note, Alec Baldwin disgusts me. Maybe Kim IS being a whorebitch, but there's no excuse for him to speak that way to his child. NONE. I'd be a whorebitch in the face of that, too.
My mother has made it her quest to outfit our house with all the essential children's movies (and then some), no small feat. It wasn't until recently that Bug started showing the requisite attention span for watching a movie. Bug's tastes are also pretty fickle; many times we've started a movie only to have her decide five or ten minutes into it that she doesn't like it, such as what happened with Mary Poppins (damitol). There's always the issue of age appropriateness, as well. I was so excited to watch Ice Age with her, only to find that the opening images of Scrat chasing after his nut scared the bejesus out of her.
With Bug's current interest in toys of transportation...
::tangent to convey my shocked delight:: Bug has a daily rest time in her room. She may play quietly if she is not tired. If we see she really needs a nap and she's not making the move, we'll call lights out after some play time. Other than this quiet playtime, Bug does not willingly go to her room to play alone. She is a social animal and usually hangs out wherever we are. (I really can't wait till Jem is old enough for them to disappear to play together. I'm just saying.)
THANK YOU SANTA for giving Bug a GeoTrax train set for Christmas!! Suddenly the girl LOVES going to her room to play with her train, even before we got batteries in the remote. W.O.O.T.! ::end tangent to convey my shocked delight::
... I mentioned to her one day that we had a movie about an amazing car that could FLY! She got all excited to watch it, even after I sang some of the song to her. I only mentioned the movie because I had fond memories of it, and I really did want to watch it with her.
I don't remember the movie being so damned long. What the hell are producers thinking, making a movie for kids that is two and a half hours long?? But am I getting ahead of myself? Maybe 2 1/2 hours isn't that bad. Maybe if the movie didn't SUCK and have too much fucking twaddle in it it wouldn't have seemed to go. on. forever. Sure, there were good parts -- my personal favorite being when Truly and Cara Mr. Potts act like dolls, -- and who wouldn't snicker at the name "Truly Scrumptious," which is so stripper (and brings to mind Eric Idle's nudge-nudge-wink-wink candy photography sketch)? Besides, it's cute as anything to hear Bug's attempt at singing the song:
Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, we love you!
In, in Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, Shitty Shitty Bang Bang what we'll do!
Near, Far, Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, what a lovely time we'll spend!
Bang Bang, Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, our fine friend friendly friend!
Bang Bang, Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, our fine friend friendly friend!
Seriously, were there editors? I've looked at the movie's home page and can't find the information there.
Every day Bug has asked if we can watch the movie again, and I've griped enough that now she follows her query with, "Mommy? I don't know why they made Shitty Shitty Bang Bang so long! Why'd they do that?" with the same look of solemn disbelief she used during the grape grabbing incident of long ago.
I did it. I went to Bloglines today and clicked the "Mark All Read" link. 3117 posts gone, the ones that I have stubbornly held onto, swearing that I was going to catch up someday. It was time to face reality. There are too many other things taking priority, and while I miss reading so much, if I want to read again, I have to just start fresh.
The count was way off anyway. So many of you have gotten new digs. Now it's a matter of tracking everyone down.
