Wishing

I have to pee right now but I don't actually want to get up and go into the bathroom.

I wish it was socially acceptable for me to wet myself. I also wish it didn't make a large mess and smell bad.

Game Day

Today is game day at Boise State. What that means for me is that about five hours before the game people start parking in my neighborhood, flocking past my house toward the stadium. Usually, it starts about eight hours before kickoff, but the game started at 1 p.m. today rather than 6 p.m.

Kelly and I are not going to the game today; we're going to a wedding instead. At about noon I left to get the wedding present, leaving two lawn chairs in my parking spot to garauntee having one when I returned home.

While driving about the town I became worried that someone would drive by my house and take it upon themselves to toss my chairs back onto the lawn and park in my space. In my head, I pulled up to the house and saw this monstrosity of a vehicle where my Jetta should have been. I got out of my car, yelled a little, and kicked some part of the car. Probably the tires. What I would have liked to have done is ram that car with my own, but the damage to my own vehicle wouldn't have been worth it. Then I stormed into my house and wrote the jackass driver a note on blank white paper with a red sharpie yelling at him for his wrecklessly rude behavior. Then I taped it to his windshield with masking tape.

But alas, when I returned home my chairs were just where I had left them and I had more than enough room to wiggle my Jetta in there. All was right with the world, even on the craziest of days: game day.

Ode To Being A Real Teacher

When I am a real teacher - instead of a teacher of one class and a student as well - it will be so wonderful.

I will have six English classes all doing relatively the same thing. That means I'll do the same thing each day rather than something new and unrelated each day.

Progress will be made when the students and I are ready to progress. Progress will not be enforced by someone else who moves at their own pace and expects me to keep up.

In the last five minutes of the day there won't be someone there saying "Oh yeah, go ahead and do this too. And turn it in tomorrow." There will be questions: "Ms. H, can you do this and bring it tomorrow?" And I will have the luxury of saying "No" without worry of failing.

I will be paid. I will be paid real money. And for once in my life, I will make more than $13,000 in one annual year.

Movies I've Seen At Least Ten Times

10 Things I Hate About You
Center Stage
Bring It On
Napoleon Dynamite
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Dodgeball
Top Gun
Beetleguise
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Terms of Endearment
Steel Magnolias
A Night at the Roxbury
A Knight's Tale
Dirty Dancing
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
The Big Lebowski
Love Actually
13 Going On 30
George of the Jungle
Along Came Polly
My Best Friend's Wedding
Zoolander
Clueless
Moulin Rouge

I don't feel like grading papers

Well, it isn't really grading. It's me, reading their papers, telling them what I think is good and what else is stuff they obviously didn't read before sending it from their computer to the printer and then turning in two hours later as though they thought I may not notice its level of crappiness.

Congratulations to Mali and Dana, the loving parents of brand-new-to-this-world Holden Walter.

My attempt at a love poem

I Love My Husband

In July, when we came home from Las Vegas,
we discovered a puddle of water in front of the kitchen sink.
He opened the cupboard
and took everything out and
declared it was a cold water leak.

I just don't know plumbing, he said.
He tried and he tried
with large wrenches
and grunting and
hitting his head
on the pipes
and the like.
Then he declared,
I fixed it -
Well, temporarily at least.
I shut off the cold water
in the kitchen,
the cause of the problem,
and I'll figure it out another time.

Three months later,
after telling family and friends
why there's no cold water
in the kitchen,
and after burning our fingers
while washing our hands
in the kitchen,
he opened the cupboard
and took everything out and
cleaned a piece
and ordered a new filter.

And twenty minutes later,
we had cold water in the kitchen
again.

They like me! They really, really like me!

I had student conferences this week. I had two students ask me when I'm teaching English 102 so that they can take my class. They both said they would wait to take 102 until next fall so they could make that happen. I would love it if these students were in my class again because they're two of my favorite. I know that sometimes scheduling gets in the way, especially with other classes and work and life and everything else, but it still makes me feel all good and warm inside.

Homely Changes

Kelly and I have been spending some time the last few days making our home a bit more homely again. I like doing home improvement projects; they make me feel productive. But not just an "I'm getting something done today" sort of productivity. More like an "I'm doing something today that will be in my home for me, my friends and my family to enjoy for many years" sort of way.

Going Out On The Town

I went out last night with some friends.

We ate dinner at this great restaurant downtown called Pair. I highly recommend it.

Then we crossed the street and went to a country bar equipped even with a mechanical bull.

For the majority of the two hours I was in this other world, I sat watching people ride the mechanical bull.

I also sat watching the other people there.

The more I watched, the more I took joy in the fact that I don't play the downtown game any more.

There were guys drinking far too much, dressed in their catch-phrase tee shirts with the attemptedly appropriate five o'clock shadow going on and just the right sway in their hair to gain the affections of a "hot chick."

There were girls drinking far too much, dressed in the newest trendy stuff always fixing and adjusting the one strand of hair that may have blown out of its strategically sprayed place, walking with the walk that tells guys to look but only touch if invited by the sultry gaze.

I feel displaced in this environment because I used to do that. I used to go out thinking that I was the shit, when in reality I looked just like any other girl there. I was sprayed, painted and dressed in what was trendy at the time.

These days it's either shrugs or short jackets. And dinosaur hair. When girls pin just the front of their hair on top of their head and make it look poofy, it reminds me of a dinosaur.

There was one girl there who was far too trendy, far too social and far too drunk. When she pulled her shirt and bra out of the way to show everyone at the bar her breasts while on the mechanical bull, I wondered where her friends were because it was at that time that they should have taken her by the arm and told her she was done, that it was time to go home.

I never went out without that friend who would make certain I was healthy, safe and not degrading my self or my body in front of a flock of strangers. For that, I am thankful.

Plus, last night I saw a guy I knew once or twice from that lifetime so far away. Thankfully, he did as good of a job ignoring me as I did of ignoring him.

Except that I don't know if he was ignoring me or if he had no idea. That's the glory of it all - I don't know if he knew my name. I sure didn't remember his. I just have a talent for remembering faces. It's sad, really, but that was part of the game of it all, I suppose.

He was there last night with his girlfriend and they looked so happy smoking their cigarette after cigarette and drinking cheap ass Bud Lite after cheap ass Bud Lite until he couldn't walk straight and she couldn't sit up or even keep her eyes open.

He looked dumpy, overall unhappy, and a little unwashed.

I imagine him still tending bar, still struggling through classes (Does he even take classes?), still making jokes about the wonders of porn, still drinking heavily every night, still scamming around every corner, and still hitching rides home from near strangers.

I thought of my life, with my husband who is not dumpy. My life with a good job and a solid partner also with a good job. My cars. My dog. My education. My home with the walls I painted with my partner and the furniture I picked out with my partner. I thought of the love I share that is independent of how much either of us drinks or the amount of courage we decide to have at any given time.

And I felt happy. Not the happy that comes from a carton of cigarettes and a case of lousy beer, but the happy that comes from security and well-being and accomplishment.

I Hate Rhetorical Questions

Why do you think I hate rhetorical questions?

Ah! Because they're STUPID!

Asking a rhetorical question is a pointless activity. You gain no information or clout in asking a rhetorical question. They are a complete waste of language!

I had a professor in Virginia who's theory of death was that everyone was allotted a certain number of syllables to utter before they died. For this reason, he advocated that people say things like "empathic" rather than "empathetic" and "doctoral" rather than "doctorial." I think his theory was more tongue-in-cheek than honest-to-god, but just think...if it's true...then all those people who waste my time with rhetorical questions WILL DIE THAT MUCH SOONER!

The only benefit I can see in asking a rhetorical question is that the asker makes himself feel superior and more intelligent than the person he asks. But that is only good for the asker, and only on a superfical level. In actuality, the person being asked feels inadequate, stupid and put down while the boastful asker appears selfish and arrogant. The asker only finds this to be a good thing because he obviously has an identity or self-esteem complex.

And writing with rhetorical questions! Aaaaaaa! If I have to read another paper from one of my students with a rhetorical question...I may just poke myself in the eyeball with a toothpick! It would definitely be more enjoyable! I find these examples and more all the time: "And what do you think she did about that?" "How long do you suppose he spent in the hospital?" "Can you believe she has never even been kissed?" I'm going out of my mind!

I want to purpose an amendment to the Constitution outlawing the use of rhetorical questions everywhere. We can grant foreigners citizenship status based on their ability to write a two-page paper without using a single rhetorical question. In grade school, children can be taught only one type of question: a good kind. They will be taught the criteria of a good question and told that if a question does not fit ALL those criteria then it is crap and they should not use it. We can structure death penalty laws around the number of rhetorical questions a human uses in a lifetime. I grant everyone three, just because I think it is acceptable and understandable that people make mistakes. Those count for writing, too. Which means that many members of my class would have been electrocuted after turning in their first essay. (I suppose that's just fewer essays for me to grade.)

So electronically sign your name below and forward this on to everyone in your address book. If you don't, you will be struck by lightening tomorrow but if you do, you will probably win the lottery or have all your wildest dreams come true.

Pets Are The Devil

No, this isn't another rant about Radley chewing stuff up. It's about how my pet allergy increased my susceptibility to a cold virus so I caught a cold in record time. It's more of a pain in the ass than anything else, meaning simply that I don't really ache or have uncontrollable symptoms. Rather, I'm stuffy and I've developed a slight cough straight from my chest cavity. My spine aches, though. Whenever I get sick my spine aches.

In other news, I've decided I'm going to drop out of school. It's too much work and so much of it is work I don't really want to do. I am, however, going to continue teaching. I like that part. First, I just have to convince Boise State that my paychecks granted to me through the assistantship should not be contingent upon my student status.

And something has been bothering me lately. Around this time last year, I wrote about how I hated living in Virginia and I complained about my roommates. Well, it isn't true. I was in a bad spot and was just lashing out at something convenient. Actually, my roommates were some of my closest friends and confidants in Virginia and I came to love all three of them very much. I still think about them and wish they lived near so we could still pal around and watch Love Actually and knit and get drunk on two glasses of white wine together while talking about our myriad relationships and how they've made us who we are today.

So yes, in conclusion (that's a shout out to my students who overuse that phrase), pets are the devil. They are hairy, they shed, they scratch, they lick, they bite, they chew up your stuff, they dig in your yard, and they never watch where they're sniffing.