And Now for Something Completely Different...

... A lavender head in the park (snap courtesy of Meem's phone... ooooh)



Somehow this reminds me of the whole Benny Hill skit:

A: "What's that in the [park], a head?"
B: "No, no, no! It's 'What's that in the [park] ahead?!'"

Sorry, my ability to recall tidbits like that just reminds me why new, more pertinent knowledge appears to have a hard time attaching itself to my brain.

Biggy Blessings to J of J'n'S

How to go from shallowed breath leaking to laughing clapping grinning deep breath sigh in 10 seconds flat?

Push playback on my virtually ignored home answering machine and hear the soothing sweet voice of one mister j.h. of j+s saying,

Springtime weather reminds me of you.
Everything reminds me of you.
You remind me of you.

Followed by:

This is a poem I wrote for you, S.

God. I love love love these guys. J has NO idea how much I needed that just then. It more than makes up for making me the keeper of that phenomenally creepy and persistent Prayer Doll that will not disappear from my life. Really. Well, maybe.

Now I am no fancy foody but...

I rolled into my house a couple minutes back to recover from the ridiculously tasty "Theme Night" at Millennium, which MiAMy brought me in honor of being a Master of Mokut(h) Nei.

Cute. Southern Comfort Food night, t'was.
Which somehow turned out meant that they served Pabst Blue Ribbon and Mint Julips with the four course meal and all the waitstaff (plus some of the diners) dressed up as stereotypes of either '80s suburban girls hanging out at Dairy Queens or as, well, working class white folks.... John Deere hats, mullets, spandex and hairspray, studded tight jeans and all.
It was FUCKED UP.
And yet there we were at the vegan restaurant (which is normally even more ridiculously prohibitively expensive) turned bad movie stereotype halloween night, and so eat we did.
Pictures really say it all.
Here are the first three sets of plates. All fake dairy. Fake meat. Pickled okra and celery jam. Fake chicken and waffles.


And then there was the ice "cream" bar, complete with a man blowtorching (seriously) bananas. Weird shit. Unfortunately, we missed the opportunity to take a final shot, in which our starry bright eyes are slipping into food coma and the sugar manic episodes are subsiding.

The various phases of dessert:

Daily Hero

Today's Hero Award goes to my sister-in-law, who SOLD HER HOUSE on Craig's List today. Seriously. That shit is sweet.

Si(gh)tings

I am under any circumstances a cheerleader for freecycle.org. But today I particularly appreciated:

OFFER: THE ART OF EATING MAGAZINES

I was soooooooo unaware that eating periodicals was an artform. I am decidedly twentieth century.

And Now Some News That Would Be Better Off as Songs

It's been a good spell for freedom, with the hopefully permanent moving on of Jerry Falwell, and a bad spell for lovin' birds. Not one but TWO depression-inducing stories on birds and love: (1) Albert the Lovesick Albatross. I wrote an angry letter to the BBC wondering why, in all their coverage, nobody is offering a one-way ticket HOME to this unfortunate soul. I mean... 1967?! WTF?!

And then there is (2) the sadness of the (former) Snowy Owl owl couple of Bernal Hill (credit to artolog for the photos). Stinks to be a bird these days, especially where mating for life is concerned.

Season Finale

First, a one-breath haiku for you:

Grad school completed
Timed to cold weather returns
Typical. I cope.


On Monday I turned over three copies of a bound, 104 page paper to my Muppet professor, who reacted by saying,

1. I am so proud of you.
2. I never wanted you in this program.
3. I fought to keep you out.
4. You are quite tenacious.
5. You should get this published.
6. You should get a PhD.
7. You are NOT coming to graduation?! Why not?!
8. Have a square of bittersweet chocolate.

The Muppet is sooooo funny, no?

On Tuesday, I turned in my final for my last class. Our final assignment was to write a song. Could I have waited, I would've written that song about my class. My last class on grad school consisted of the following:

1. Students bring EVERY imaginable form of off-white food to class. It is almost creepy how much food can be off-white. Even the wine couldn't blush. Even the strawberries paled in fear. Typically, the tomato and green chile of a certain someone's corn bread felt uncomfortably out of place, and florescent pink frosting of a certain - perhaps same - someone's peppermint butter cookies stood out sorely. Surprise.

2. When I point out this is the second time we've broken a meal of off-white bread together, I am glared at. Apparently, off-white food is suggestive, perhaps of something race related? Don't get me started on this.

3. Students evaluate professor on scantron. I will keep this description to myself. Luckily for this unspoken process, I happen to like Palm-Sweats himself.

4. Students drink to oblivion in classroom.

5. Students turn in final - a portfolio of 30 poems.... 15 related to a theme (mine is about folks on the 22 MUNI), 15 from the class assignments.

6. S smiles at Palm-Sweats a Lot. Blinks. Says, "Sometimes 30 looks a lot like 18." Blink. Hand over rather lightweight envelope. Prof blinks back. Appears mildly confused. S figures he will eventually figure this out.

7. Drunken students pull out our assignment for the day - to write a song.

8. S has learned many things during grad school. One of these things is not like the others, but this one is right in line, for it is a "S should never..." moment. This one is "S should NEVER become a songwriter."

9. S has also learned that when drunken, sex-poetry-obsessed, white hipster mid-western boys start circling you saying comments like, "You smell delicious this evening," it is time to go.

10. S has also learned that when drunken, sex-poetry-obsessed, white hipster mid-western boys have written an "underground, like Jay-Z" rap that they want to perform, it is long past time to go.

11. S employs learning from her time in faculty meetings. If you put your bag on your shoulder and BACK OUT of a room with a "Hi everyone!" smile on your face, people will become confused and believe you are arriving.

12. S casually walks by the window outside the classroom as she flees campus. Drunken students inside classroom, between song crooning, are discussing which bar to "move" class to. Those who notice her outside look mildly confused, but S figures they will attribute this to being a surreal Simpsons' moment or something chemically induced.

13. S has liberated herself to go home and graduate from other aspects of her current life.

And so I am quite done. People keep asking how I will celebrate. Thus far it has consisted of recycling every ounce of paper related to grad school, reading into the wee hours a book for pleasure, listening to deafeningly loud live music, witnessing the incredible abilities of my students to inhale pizza and brownies, and encountering an armadillo. I am open to suggestions. Good times.

My Love For Prom is Maybe a Little Maniacal

I have a problem.
There, I admit it.
I have a problem with prom.
I love prom. The kind of love that is deep, intense, boundless, illogical, and in opposition to every political value I hold true. The type of love that wears a dress from the '50s and fat high heels. The kind of love that leaves me unable to sleep and still hung over the next day even though I didn't even drink water. A dangerous kind of love.


See these pictures?

Imagine my face. This expression. Times 60. For four hours. Because I make, and I mean MAKE, each and every one of my students at prom take a picture with me. And so I wish to publicly thank them and the Bear Whisperer and My Favorite TA and everyone else for putting up with me. Think it is because I was anti-prom in high school? My students seem to think so. Their reaction to my mania:

Pre-Prom Moment, 2007

I love the wide eyed unquestioning students who love prom.

I love the deeply angsty and embittered students who detest and resist prom.

And I particularly love the fence-sitting students who go to prom but exasperatingly shrug their shoulders and/or drag their feet through every single painful bit of it, one of whom said today in class, "Prom. I guess I am going because I have to go. I mean, it is like the Superbowl of High School."

Brilliant, my students are. Sages, every last one.

Every meeting has a tipping point

We find our cliff as we tumble over it at approximately 6:35pm each class. Tonight the tipping point is illuminated in the following moment:

SETTING: Critiquing of student poem concerning the deforestation of the Brazilian rainforests.

EXCHANGE:

A: Normally, I don’t think about cows fucking. They are normally just standing there.

B: Actually, cows really put out only about once a month. So there is a lot of homosexuality amongst the bulls.

Class: (a moment of silence interrupted by)

Me: Wow. 6:37. I really thought this time we were going to make it.

Palm Sweating, Eyes Darting Prof: Anything at all to say about the poem, people?!



*********

Stay tuned, Lovely Readers, for next week’s Season Finale (fingers crossed, and not just because of the sudden onset of carpal tunnel from thesis typing):

The Last Class of Graduate School


Our professor already warned us not to bring hard alcohol. Not even vodka in water bottles. Hmmm... has he been talking to my students?

The Lost Art of the Compliment

A: So S, you, well you have such fantastic long hair. It really looks good on you. And so I have a question for you. You, well you are so very smart and you are such an intelligent person and bright enough that you could certainly get a job that pays you a lot of money. So tell me, why are you a teacher?

S: (Blink. Pause. Insert cake slice into mouth for added chewing thinking moment)

A: S?

S: Um.... So it sounds maybe like you are implying that high paying jobs take more intelligence than, say, teaching, which sounds like is perhaps for idiots? I am sure that is not what you meant to say.

A: (Blink. Pause. Turn curried chicken on grill for added cooking consideration moment)

S: (Raise eyebrows. Smile expectantly. Blink.)

A: I suppose I should rephrase that. I do see what you are saying.

A: I called you intelligent, though. And I think your hair is just wonderful. I am complimenting you, really.

S: Hmmm. (Blink. Pause. Blink. Pause. Ponder plethora of possible responses. Insert cake. Blink. Ponder. Blink. Continue indefinitely.)

Haiku to Thank You, My Current Favorite Hero

My Friend A, of AA'n'A


Sar o'erwhelmed when with
English teacher tackled Four
It's outlined now. Yeay!

Let's face it

It's just really hard to concentrate on class when....

1. Your thesis is due in 14 days and you have not even remotely written Chapter 4,

2. You have two recurrent nightmares and in both the same thing happens,

3. You have had a mysterious infection that could put the persistence of L. Ron Hubbard brethren to shame,

4. You have been surviving off two hours a sleep per night, at most, for the past several nights,

5. Which you are pretty sure is directly related to how you recently heard a whispering woman's voice, even though you were quite alone in the room,

6. The best night sleep you've had was the night you broke your own heart,

7. And now everyone has written a love poem,

8. And you hold back all shallowed breathing leaking only by knowing that in your life all will occur like physics, once and forever, and

9. This holds your soul up until someone remarks that it is also a law of physics that on the deepest atomic level, nothing ever really touches, and meanwhile

10. Behind your professor's head, on the board, is a huge chalk-drawn wedge of large-holed swiss cheese with bulging eyeballs and an open mouth of sharp teeth under a glowering halo of flames, and from where you are sitting,

11. The cheese mouth is clearly about to devour his unsuspecting head.