Four complaints sandwiched by two completely awesome things.

One of them more awesome than the other.

1. So you may know that I'm one of those people who's totally obsessed with those little hotel soaps.  Or if you didn't know that, maybe it's not so hard for you to imagine.  But, like any adorable collection, they were growing out of hand.  So I'm only using my hotel soaps until they're all gone!  Three down, a dozen to go.  The sense of accomplishment I feel about this is outrageous.
2. The radio needs to stop playing that song, "Good Life" by One Republic.  Yeah, you probably couldn't complain that much if your life is just waking up in famous tourist locations having drunkenly traipsed through Europe, making swanky British friends and forgetting about all your lame friends in various US cities.   We all got our stories, and yours is one of freely galavanting all over the world without need for employment.
3. Someone needs to tell charities that in their plethora of gifts to encourage donations, not all women want their return address labels to use Ms. as the title.  Either get it right or don't do it at all.
4. The sixth graders just got done with a social studies unit on the Harlem Renaissance.  They made collages, and they look okay, those who did them, but I still feel no connection from them -- even to this, this most engaging of eras.  No genuine interest.  Just regurgitation, no appreciation that this was real, what was it like to live this, how did it shape today, etc.  If I had found out about the project earlier, I might have made the teacher show a clip of the lindy hop.  Frankie Manning, even.  Maybe I would have explained that I have the Harlem Renaissance to thank for my favorite activity, for a good chunk of my friends, for my Monday (and also now Tuesday) nights.  Would that have sparked them?  I see all these clips and articles about these amazing students who took something and ran with it.  Wrote a crazy awesome poem that changes their own life.  Started a club.  Petitioned a congressman.  These kids, even the best of them, just don't think like that.  It doesn't occur to them to, no matter how many poems we make them write.
5. For the first time in my many three years of doing taxes, we owe money.  I used to get so excited about taxes.  Now I am so sad.  In fact, we're even a little bit in denial about it.  "WHAT'S THAT YOU SAY, TURBOTAX?  THIS CANNOT BE!  LET US TO THE H AND R BLOCK!"  I'm reminding myself it's all just mental games, the money is the same whether they took it out first and it was too much or you fixed it to take out too little so you could buy a house and then it was too little in the end.  But I guess my point is I AM NOW A JADED AMERICAN
6. EXCEPT FOR THIS.  In this, I am an ecstatic American.  I also drive more considerately so as not to be a hypocrite.  As promised, and a repeat if we're friends on facebook.  Which we probably are.  And if we're not, we should be.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks to everyone for your input.  It was heeded.  Obviously.

In which the Gym Class Heroes do it again.

Holy smokes.  In addition to the still-overwhelming schoolwork, the last twenty days have featured dancing! and ocean! and food! oh my!  Richmond.  Love.  I took the advanced track for classes for the first time ever and I am like, so happy.  Thennn I drove by myself to Ocean City for the MSEA Convention, which did not provide me with nearly as many post-its as I thought it would.  It did, however, provide me with ocean views and docks, lonely hours, strategies which are at turns invigorating or saddeningly unrealistic, several apples, and an absolutely infuriating documentary where I walked out after the first 40 minutes.  My time was better spent pacing the dock just outside the exhibit halls.  Maybe if I feel like getting super angry some time, I'll write a real post just about this alone.  THENNN I've been making food!  We do this thing where our fridge is almost completely bare, and then we'll make lots of food AND have a dinner out and bring home leftovers AND have more ingredients for food in the works.  Man.  I made quinoa!  With cranberries and cinnamon and apples and toasted walnuts!  Who even am I!  In fact, it was my SECOND TIME making quinoa!  I repeat, WHO EVEN AM I.  Another butternut squash and radish leaf soup is coming up, but this time I felt bad about the radishes, so I braised them (?!)!  They were pretty good! 

 

But.  When I haven't been attempting to teach the children or dance or cook, I've been singing this song.  I can't stop listening to this song.  Not since Up have I heard such professions of love and friendship that ring so true in my heart.  I want to live such that this song defines my life.

There's so much I want to point out about it, but I'll leave it at the two lines, "Appreciate every mix tape your friends make/you never know, we come and go like on the interstate."  So sad! beautiful! true!  People, guys.  Connections.  Good friends.  I'm not even going to try to form sentences about how special and important these ideas are.  Every six or eight months or so I get crazy into the idea that I have zero friends and no one but Justin would ever hang out with me.  But then.  But then!  Some way or other I settle back into reality and find and cherish all my people again.  This line epitomizes that simultaneous joy and sadness.

PS.  Gosh.  Embarrassingly enough, when I listen to a song, basically any top 40, a secret part of me listens, like, undercover to see if it has great examples of literary devices and imagines myself playing them to my awesome high school English classes and they think I'm the coolest and they TOTALLY get personification and simile AND metaphor and the difference between the two.  Then I remember where and who I teach and more often than not, something else in the song nixes it for itself anyway.  ANYWAY, this would totally be one of those songs.

PPS.  Simile and metaphor is totally coming up in sixth grade.  Oh snap.

Night of homelessness

Friends.  Romans.  Countrymen. 

If you read this blog, we are probably facebook friends.  I probably then don't have to go into how Friday was NOT actually closing, that we were told of totally new (and, incidentally, nonexistent) problems that canceled the whole ordeal, that we started investigating lawyers, that we had to have a new letter from a contractor issued over the weekend for this all to start again on Monday.  Needless to say.  Friday was basically the worst day.  Also, Verizon had also cancelled itself despite my (at the time) successful phone call to extend the service til Tuesday.  So we've been to Panera a whole bunch the last couple of days, and here we are at our friend Eric's so we have a roof to sleep under tonight.  Thanks, Eric!  All of our earthly possessions are currently in our (old) living room, and Justin's going in to work super early to take care of business things while we wait for drama to unfold our mortgage to happen and then he'll come get me from my station in Panera when the A-Team over there gets all our housing documents together, and we will sign all sorts of closing papers and move all our items from old house to new house.  I'll then be home to field appliance and Verizon delivery on Tuesday.  Someday I'll go back to work!

Before all this ish hit the fan, I went to Camp Schmidt.  And boy did I love it!  I learned how to use a compass and hung out with all sorts of fifth graders.  I also hiked many miles of trails!  I leave you with a picture of our campfire at which I told the Greatest Scary Story.

It was the best of times, etc.

Well hello friends!  I'm sure many three of you are wondering what in the world is going on with Our House (in the middle of the street).  To explain, let me start with The Worst of Times and copy and paste a portion of an email I had to write to our realtor, mysterious mortgage lady #1, and mysterious mortgage lady #2 (believe it or not, in the middle of the gmail conversation, we were informed that MML #2 would not be working with us anymore because we're switching loan types from Man's Worst Nightmare Loan to Conventional); enter MML #3):

"3. Anyone, please, please please tell us if we can buy appliances and get termite extermination to install/service before whenever closing happens.  We are more than happy to pay for them out of our own pocket.  The logistics of installation/termite service are what seem to be the problem -- can someone open the door for Lowe's to put in a refrigerator and oven?  Can someone let the termite guy in?  These problems seem far too simple to solve to prevent us from purchasing a house.  In case it matters, the homeowner's insurance that I have already paid for is starting on Thursday. 

4. And MML #1 and MML #2, please tell me if these conditions happen before closing, if we can just for goodness' sake have a conventional loan. 

I expect answers to these four items before the close of business today.  We have been more than compliant, and these problems are way too last-minute for my taste.  The fact that closing needs to be pushed back should have been brought up weeks ago.  The lack of communication here is profoundly disturbing, and we still want in plain English, a straight and reasonable answer about the status of our purchase of this house.  I've noticed throughout this process that we will ask a question, and in the response emails, it hasn't been answered -- hedged, if anything.  That is so not acceptable, it's not even funny.

Keep in mind that these aren't numbers and issues to us, this is our house.  We need to move.  We've already made and broken plans with each other, friends, and family to pack, renovate the kitchen counters, and move in and clean the whole place this Saturday.  One of our housemates has taken to smoking inside the house despite emails to her and the landlord, and it gets vented literally into my face all night long.  We're relying on the kindness of our current landlord to put up with these back-and-forth issues on are-we-aren't-we, and when.  We haven't gotten the sense from you that you appreciate what this is to us.  This is your job, and this is our life."

This email sent a swift kick in the pants to the various ladies involved, and better approximations at answers were sent.  So that morning (Tuesday morning, no less), we pretty much gave up on the whole endeavor whatsoever.  I was thinking about how to gracefully and embarrassingly end it on here, and resign myself to staying in this house or finding an apartment or whatever.  It was a pretty awful, dire situation.  But now, now!  Now we have people vaguely making things happen.  Unfortunately, Someone Important didn't get back to Someone Else Important and then took most of Friday off, so we don't have actual permission to do anything yet.  But we are expecting this permission, and the necessary changes are so reasonable!  Wish us luck, three readers.  And keep your fingers crossed for May 22.

Now.  The best of times.  I went to my first (!) lindy exchange and almost died of love and joy.  Made so many friends, was such a better dancer.  Someone please tell me how to get Justin to start dancing (read: please hook him up with private lessons), and my life will be even more complete than it already is.

Moment of silence?

You almost had it, Newseum.  You almost featured an entirely appropriate violence-related display.

Don't get me wrong.  I fully believe in freedom of speech and of the presses and everything like that.  But a museum, a museum of all places, should retain that caution, that gravity with respect to the violence.  Justin and I have been locists, or tourals, for a while.  Tourists and locals.  We live here, we've lived here a couple of years now, but there are seemingly infinite sights, so you're kind of stuck being a tourist for a long time, even at the clip we've been seeing them.  First year: statues, memorials, major Smithsonians.  Next six months: neighborhoods, restaurants, more offbeat museums (shoutout to my good peeps at Renwick!).  Second year: refresher on the majors, and (dun dun dun) The Ones That Cost Money.  These are only coming now because of our friends at group discount websites whose popularity has soared and caused them to invest in such costly fare as Madame Toussaud's, Crime and Punishment, International Spy, and, most recently, the Newseum.  The memorials are very serious.  They command all the sincerity and respect you have.  The Ones That Cost Money, however, are kitschy.  They're not "DC" as generations have imagined it.  They're attempts at information and entertainment, and that second label is getting increasingly upsetting, because it undermines the horror a human is supposed to feel.

Crime and Punishment and International Spy are, in a strange sense, to be forgiven.  Or maybe it's just that I've gotten so used to this fact that I don't expect any differently -- the standard glorification of mobsters.  Now.  It's occurred to my generation in recent years that pirates aren't really as lighthearted as we liked to think.  They were brutal terrorists, on ships instead of planes.  Somewhere along the way, they became dissociated with profound violence and associated with parrots, cartoons, and hilarious accents.  That bothers me -- but, unfairly, it dates back too far for me to get as offended as I do about mobsters.  Mobsters are, obviously, way more recent than pirates; but also obviously, of similar blood.  Senseless violence (or, senseful: power and riches, duh), innocent lives.  The press coverage at the time resembles a thrilling novel, released by chapter daily or weekly, and that's bad enough.  But we understand the actions, we understand the people, and shouldn't we know better as a society by now than to make light of these characters, now an undeniable, sickening part of our history?  Should we really be okay with museum reviews like "Good news is I got to get my friend in the gallows, where he belongs" (Yelp, Crime and Punishment)?  Shouldn't we have thought twice before opening our mobster wing exhibit with life size cutouts, advertising "POSE WITH MOBSTERS" adding, as an afterthought, "Or J. Edgar Hoover"?

Do I contradict myself?

I am a very subtle person.

(In lots of ways, I am not: I hug wildly; my ridiculous face shouts from miles away, betraying any emotion ever; heart is totally on my sleeve.  But for the purposes of this post, let's focus on the ways in which I am a subtle person.)

(Clearly, I contain multitudes.)

Anyway, I really appreciate subtlety.  I make really obscure jokes based on references to things no one else would possibly remember (especially sad when I'm talking to someone and refer to something that that very person said or did last week, and that person has no idea what I'm talking about, sigh).  I make connections between things that would never go together.  I am full of really strange metaphors that (I think) beautifully explain totally unrelated things (ask Justin about his favorite, comparing a job and boss I used to have to improvisationally playing the violin).  I like poetry and body language and license plates that need deciphering.  I love under-the-breath comments, my own or someone else's, and looking around to exchange glances with anyone else who may have caught it.  In general, I put a lot of stock into well-timed eye contact or knowing smile.  There's a quickness in subtlety, a level of being "smart" that I really appreciate, especially in other people.

Unfortunately, my aspirations of common subtlety (like common sense!) are unattainable.  Let's say a group of people have found something to joke about -- one person will always take it one step too far and ruin it.  So many times someone will just go to that overly-obvious level and make it all unfunny.  Also, I have never understood people who habitually, upon seeing x, ask if x is indeed happening.  Say you're reading a book.  "Oh!" says this woefully unsubtle person, earnest as ever.  "Are you reading a book?"  (Or its even less subtle cousin, the sincere "What are you doing?")  Using Bloom's taxonomy levels of higher-order thinking, this person is stuck on level, like, half.  Level 1, Knowledge, would even be better: "What book are you reading?"  But alas.  Often I'm so baffled and angered by this density that I scramble for a response.  Honest (Yes, I am reading a book!)?  Sarcastic (No.  Riding an elephant.  It's insane up here.)?  A simple raised eyebrow?  I am frequently at a loss.

These complaints apply not only to people but also to endless magazines and other articles purporting to give "ideas."  In my recent free issue of The Nest, there was a little section on fun ways to announce that you're pregnant.  One of them was to SEND AN EMAIL.  Another was to HAVE A PARTY.  Or the ubiquitous sidebars that explain how to save money; the first idea is always something like SAVE MONEY.  DO NOT GO TO STARBUCKS EVERY DAY.  Hmmmm!!!  I think we all hate being told (especially in an honest way) things we already know.  For further example, bank advertising.  Attention, bank marketers and advertising agencies everywhere: We now are pretty confident that the internet is open all the time.  There is no need to highlight that I can bank 24/7.  I can, in fact, do anything online 24/7.  You don't see me being like, LOOK YOU CAN NOW READ MY BLOG 24/7!  You don't see Gmail touting YOU CAN CHECK AND EVEN LABEL OR SEARCH YOUR EMAIL 24/7!!!!!!!  Calm down already, and get all classy about it.  Furthermore, if I couldn't bank online with you, if I couldn't set up automatic bill-pay, I wouldn't even consider you.  You would hardly be allowed to stay in business.  Don't pretend that that's your new "green" initiative that's going to save me hours of trouble and heartache.  It's kind of been the norm since, oh, 2000.  Maybe 2001.

In conclusion, subtlety is just classier, smarter, and sexier.  But of course, I hope this post wasn't too obvious.  What a hypocrite I'd be then!

Speechless.

Post removed.

Another graph, more musings, the usual

As the football season dawns upon us, I imagine I shall write while half-paying attention.  At least while sharing the same couch.  He'll have the remote and some pop, I'll have a candle and my snuggie, and all shall be well.

Here are the things I have been thinking:

1. I JUST FOUND OUT THAT DEXTER AND DEB ARE MARRIED IN REAL LIFE!  I spent a while flipping out last night.  How crazy is that!  I am so happy.  Someday I will be as skinny as Deb.
2. Why I am so sad that the average lady I cannot replicate anything that was done during even a simple haircut and blowdry.  When I leave, I look so awesome.  The next day, I look just like I always do, but with shorter hair.  Sigh.
3. Speaking of haircuts, I rarely get mine cut.  I did the Hair Cuttery thing for a while, and, let's face it, they're a little ridiculous and no self-respecting adult lady does that.  I'm still far too intimidated even to purchase a Groupon to a fancy salon, so I'm in the middle of the two with a fun but reasonable chain called Bubbles.  But re-enter my inclination towards not spending money: So far I've been there twice.  Six months apart.  Yup, I know my ends were probably ridiculous.  I could have told you my hair was not fun or flouncy or voluminous.  But you know what, it does the trick.  And semiannually I muster up the courage and adulthood to go in and get my hair cut by a professional.  And I love having my hair washed and everything else and overall it's a great experience except when they make me feel like crap for not going earlier.  "How long did you say it's been?  Let's definitely not wait 'a few months' next time.  Have you seen your ends?!"  This makes me :( .  Hairdressers aren't the only ones.  Dentists (who goes to the dentist during college, SERIOUSLY) and priests (confession is, you know, confession) tend to make you feel horrendously guilty for not doing their difficult thing more often or sooner.  It's DIFFICULT, yo.
4. Sighted: I BUILD.  What do you build!, I wanted to shout out my window.  Also, cause for doubled over, jaw dropped, husband-arm-clutching and pointing ecstatically: ISL&DS.  Now, the D is obviously unnecessary but maybe someone else out there already had ISL&S and this tropics afficionado wanted to express his love in the second most awesome way.  I am so happy about that ampersand.
5. Speaking of ampersands, I bought an ampersand on Etsy.  This October photo shoot gets more and more adorable, and this husband gets more and more exasperated.  Oops.
6. This is something I've vaguely always known but recently have not only been reminded but inspired to represent statistically.  Here is a graph for you to demonstrate my mood (x) vs. desire to be hugged (y), where 100 represents an average person's greatest desire to be hugged.

Lady titles

You guys!  You will all be exceedingly relieved to hear that I found a hair and makeup artist who can make my hair look like it does cool things!  This is stellar.  Also stellar are my shoes.  We all knew the Gap or one of its associates would feature in my wedding someway, somehow.  I'm basically the talk of the town at school, between my volunteering to teach next year's six-child self-contained classroom and my imminent matrimony.  They all say I glow!  I am guessing that is due to the latter rather than the former.  They all ask me about my new name; I tell them.  But something that bothers me about this day and age is that even though I will officially be Mrs., that will invariably get shortened to Ms.  My principal is Dr., and she insists on Dr., and that's her right, but unfortunately instead of keeping her staff's titles straight (granted, 135 is a lot of titles to keep straight), everyone is Mr. or Ms.  And this culture is so ridiculous that it might even be more likely by now that a woman is Ms. rather than Mrs., and no one should dare assume Mrs., because that is assuming marriage; there are too many touchy situations and sore subjects, so everyone just plays it safe with the catch-all Ms., which is absurdly pronounced Mizz, which is like 3% away from Miss.  There's also that political, level-the-playing-field argument, well, no one knows if MEN are married, MY identity will not be determined by whether I have a husband!, etc etc.  The same argument can be made for Dr.!  It's a title you earn by doing a lot of things.  Those people who get upset about identities being tied to marriage should also get upset about identities being tied to the highest possible degree, HMMMMM?  And I have loved being Miss.  It's young, it's pretty.  It's a statement: no, I am not married.  Similarly, I will love being Mrs.  It's another statement:  yes, I am married; yes, I have found someone whom I love immensely and who loves me immensely, and we made a commitment, and we are very comfortable in our commitment.  It's humble and motherly and gentle and surprisingly assertive in this society in that old fashioned way, holding its head high.  I have way too many children whose mothers or mother figures are Ms., often with different last names.  Family!  I hear myself saying in my head, that's just the way it's always been, that's the way it's supposed to be; and I hear the rebuttal, but why does it have to continue!  And I don't know that exact answer, so in an attempt to answer a related question, here is the sum of my reasoning:  I heard of this one completely predictable study where Ms. was seen as more successful, assertive, powerful, attractive; Mrs. was seen as slow, homely, you get the idea.  But you know what, Mrs. was seen as being very warm, and Ms. was seen as being a bitch.

There is someone you need to know about.

And his name is Aundre.  Good thing he doesn't know my name or this weblog, or else (and only or else!) this might be super sketchy.  He works at our closest CVS, which happens to be the most sloppily run CVS of all time.  The pharmacy screws up prescription orders like there's no tomorrow, whether you call it in, drop it off, or order it online.  No matter how, they get something wrong.  There's always a huge wait.  None of the photo machines ever work.  But Aundre works there, and that is more than enough for me.  Early 20s, dreads, and a big, easy, goofy smile.  A typical exchange as you put your items down on the counter for him to ring up: "Hey man, how's it goin?"  "Good, how are you?"  "You know, just livin' my life to the fullest like Indiana Jones."  Or this, as he finishes scanning: "Your total today is $13.68, tomorrow it may be different."  And a sign off, "See ya later, don't worry about much."  We've seen him probably four or five times by now, and this most recent time, he shook our hands in happy greeting, recognizing us too!  The joy leapt in my heart.  You have to understand that when he says these wonderful things, they're beyond natural.  It's not a thought-out gimmick, it's smooth and genuine.  He may be the only thing I legitimately miss about this area once we move.

ps - Totally unrelated.  I was ecstatic to see Girl Scout cookies for sale on sidewalks recently, having not had any in years!  Imagine my surprise to see that they were the same price (maybe $0.50 more) as when I sold them, twelve (!) years ago!  Imagine my dismay to realize that the box in my hand was roughly half the size as it used to be!

Grammatically speaking

I just cannot come to terms with the state of grammar (and, coincidingly, the acceptance of the lack thereof) today.  I know that's young and naive and old-fashioned of me (all at once!), but it comes up in so many different forms all the time, and they all make me very sad.

Two important ones:
1. You and your business.
I would probably be very interested in what you have to say.  In fact, there's a couple of you out there where I AM VERY interested in what you have to say.  I am obsessed with your product.  But you don't know the difference between "its" and "it's," you misspell common words, and forget about correct comma and apostrophe usage.  And that makes me profoundly sad.  I know grammar is going out the window, especially with all these standardized tests in public schools that don't test grammar, especially with the internet that doesn't care about convention, just straight text-to-speech where no one cares how it looks, as long as it's understandable (which, you know, it is).  I just know that in a simpler time, in the good old days, we wouldn't patronize a business that didn't appear educated.

2.  Um, a legal document.
So there's this thing called the IEP.  Individualized Education Plan.  The end-all, be-all legal document that details a student's special education accommodations, modifications, services, testing, goals, and progress.  And yes, copy-and-paste rears its ugly head, and we have dudes being called by ladies' names and pronouns and vice versa.  That is careless and unprofessional.  But what crosses those lines into unforgiveable are things like "ciculator," "multiplicatin," and "Although [student] has som good calculation skills, he nedds to be reminded to apply them. He quite frequently rushes through and does not check his work. often, his poor test grades reflect this test taking behavior."  Not a joke.  Straight from the IEP itself.  The kicker to this gripe is that I was advised not to fix this.  Now.  This document lives.  It is passed among many hands: teachers, therapists, parents/guardians (frequently grandma, uncle, etc).  I offered to fix what I saw, but I was told to leave the wrong ones and make sure mine were fine.  Mine will always be fine, and it broke my heart that the system wouldn't want a united, correct front presented to parents but that vicious 'every man for himself' mentality.  It continues to blow my mind that teachers are so frequently incorrect.  Not that we're superhuman, but I firmly believe we are and should be held to higher standards.  We instruct.  Shouldn't the instructors be the best at the subject at hand?  It seems obvious for the high school and AP teachers among us.  But shouldn't elementary school teachers be the most correct and the strictest about the big concepts as well as the important details?

You're Not Special

Let me tell you about something I hate.  Something that comes up on an unfortunately regular basis.  I hate when people say things about themselves that they think are incredibly unique but that actually are quite universal.  For example, facebook interests.  What?!!  You like hanging out with friends!?  You're into shopping and spending time with your family?!  Don't even tell me - I cannot believe you like to just chill out sometimes.  You have got to be joking.  That is WILD!  I totally hate just chilling out!  I also hate spending time with friends and family!  It also comes up in terms of learning styles.  You're a -- a -- visual learner?  It helps you to SEE something when you learn it?  That is the most absurd thing I've ever heard!  You must be the only person on the planet!  Wait a minute - you find it hard to concentrate on something that doesn't interest you?  Outrageous!  Unparalleled!  Someone also told me recently that music calms her, that she has to listen to music to stay sane.  Now.  I think we can all agree that music is pleasant and can go all the way up to necessary.  For most, if not all, of us.  To tell me that as if it's inconceivable, as if you and you alone discovered music's calming effects, fills me with terrible rage. 

It angers me when people tout these facts and qualities about themselves AS IF they are the first.  Sharing those facts and qualities are fine.  But you have to do it in such a way that acknowledges the commonality, the naturalness, of your fact or quality.  Not in that GET THIS I AM ONE OF A KIND way.  Because you are not.  You, my friend, are not special.