Hey Joe

At school, a small middle-aged man with glasses has been saying "Good morning Dave" to me for several years now, and this has been embarrassing for me because I didn't know his name and whenever I described him (hey, there's this little guy, with glasses, maybe he's fifty or so, wears a shirt with a tie sometimes, do you know his name?) no one could ever give me a definitive answer and then I would forget all about it until the next time I ran into him and he rudely flaunted his knowledge of my name again, but yesterday near the mail boxes, another teacher (I don't know her name either) said hello to him and she also said his name and his name is Joe (but am I really going to start calling him by name now?)

No Cake For Me

There was chocolate cake in the fridge last night and I thought about eating it, but-- get this-- I did not eat it . . . amazing, but true-- instead of eating cake I took three ibuprofen and went to bed at 8:30 because my back hurt because I'm trying to learn this soccer juggling trick called "Around the World" which involves this really violent leg motion after you flip the ball in the air-- you have to whip your foot all the way around the ball and then flip it back up, and although I'm getting closer to achieving this, I may have to quit trying to avoid serious injury.

What's the Only Thing Better Than One Fox?

While walking back from A&P yesterday, a bright red fox walked across my path (I followed him across the soccer fields just to confirm this-- just to make sure he wasn't a big squirrel or a cat or something, but, of course, it was a fox-- they are unmistakable in their color and gait . . . and a fox's tail sticks out straight and rigid from their body) and the reason I note this is that this is the second bright red fox I've seen in a week; while we were hiking with the boys on Friday one ran right by my feet . . . and if this seems far-fetched . . . if perhaps, you think I'm fabricating this, then think of what an ingenious fabrication it is-- because most people would fabricate one fox so they could have some daily content on their blog, but they would never think to fabricate two foxes-- not that I'm fabricating this-- or maybe I am . . . because that's exactly what someone who was fabricating a story would say.

Mumbai Multitasking

It's official: the Giants are so good they're boring; I yearn for the days of Butch Woolfolk (that was exciting football, in 1983 Woolfolk set the record for rushing attempts in a game-- 43), but I am getting a lot of reading done during the games . . . yesterday I finished Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger-- a first person tale of corruption, entrepeneurship, amorality and perserverance in the jungle of the modern Indian dream: and I give it nine rickshaws out of ten.

How and When to Get Trampled

For the first time in my life, I got up early on Black Friday to try to get a deal on a TV . . . or I thought I got up early (especially with all this talk of a recession) but when I got to Electronics Expo at 6:10 AM, the line already wrapped around the building and they were letting in fifteen people at a time, so I beat a hasty retreat; it turns out I was lucky not to be trampled to death . . . which was the fate of a Wal-Mart employee; I read this story on-line at the Daily News site, and though it was a tragic tale, there was a comic irony to the first comment on the story: a woman expressed her disgust at the futility of the death, and the ignorance of the tramplers-- because she pointed out that the best sales are NOT on Black Friday, they are AFTER Christmas . . . so if you're going to trample someone it should be during a January sale, not a Black Friday rip-off!

Is Dave Spongeworthy?

After a year of blogging, one becomes introspective . . . one wonders: are my thoughts blog-worthy . . . are my sentences special and unique . . . is my perspective worthy of valuable space on the information highway . . . or am I a self-centered egotist who could make better use of his time learning a trade such as air-conditioner repair or dog-grooming?

I Love Coffee But I Hate Tea?

Perhaps it was due to the fog of beer, but it took an inordinately long time to solve Stacey's ridiculous riddle Wednesday night-- she just kept saying things like: I hate tea but I love coffee, I hate cats but I love dogs, I love mice and chipmunks and squirrels but I hate rats, I love love but I hate hate . . . and on and on and on until finally, finally we got it . . . will you?

Back in My Didn't Need to Breathe So Much

Great moment of laissez faire 1960s parenting in Madmen-- Don Draper's daughter walks into the room, her body completely inside of a plastic dry cleaning bag, and her mom says, "I hope you didn't leave my dry cleaning all over the floor-- now you march right back up there and clean it up" and the little girl leaves the room, still enveloped by the plastic bag.

Put Those Clementines Down!

I was spacing out in line in the grocery store, cradling a box of clementines in my arm, and I guess this bothered the old woman in front of me-- though she had put her items down, she was apparently bothered by the fact that I wouldn't put mine down, the fact that I was awkwardly holding the box instead of placing it on the conveyor belt-- because she turned and said, "You can put them down now-- put them down!" and pointed to the empty spot on the conveyor belt . . . and I took one look at her and put them down.

Getting Rich

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of my blog-- "Sentence of Dave" has accumulated 31,594 views, which earned me 15 dollars and 37 cents in ad revenue, so I won't be quitting my day job any time soon (and what would I do with my day after I had written my sentence anyway?)

Our Children Are Crushing Our Spines

I took the kids to the Museum of Modern Art (the Joan Miró exhibit-- good for kids and doodlers alike) and FAO Scwartz (not the best place for a claustrophobic, but the kids had a good time jumping on the Big piano) and it marked the end of one era-- we no longer have to bring diapers when we go anywhere, and it's nearly the end of another era: the Stick the Kids in the Backpacks and Run Really Fast to Catch the Train Era, because the snap broke (brittle from the cold?) on our fancy foreign-made super-sized child-backpack and so I had to carry all child weight on my shoulders, and by the time we got on the subway to go back to Penn, Alex was compressing my spine (he was fast asleep and so was Ian, so they were both dead weight and now they're big enough so that when they fall asleep and lean to the side they often bang their heads against door frames and such) and so now I think I'm only 5'8" . . . so no more free ride for him-- next trip he will have to walk every step of the way . . . and judging by how Catherine's shoulders were feeling by the end of the day, Ian may have to hoof it as well.

Girls Are Too Clever For Their Own Good

Last week, one of my students tried to involve me in a web of lies and deceit: we have been reading and writing process analysis essays and she apparently started writing an essay with the working title "How to Survive a Post-Menopausal Mother" but then she gave up on it-- but she left the notes out and her mother found them (and was suitably offended at her daughter's choice of topics and tone about her mom) so the student, quick on her feet, said that "post menopausal mother" was just one humorous topic of many in a satirical essay I had given her and not her idea at all; the next day, she came in and told me that if I received an e-mail from her mom asking about this, to just go along with it and say that somehow the topic was my fault but I told her "I'm not lying to your mother-- don't get me involved in this!" but luckily it never came down to that: the crafty mom simply asked her ingrate daughter for a copy of the satirical post-menopausal essay and the student confessed that she had made it up . . . but what I was really impressed by was the fact that the girl thought of that excuse in the first place-- a guy would never think that quick on his feet, he'd just say, "What essay? I didn't do it."

A Vivid Geographical Simile

From a student's poem about Newark, New Jersey: "285,000 people . . . 12, 400 people per square mile . . . tight like a virgin."

Electronics and Water Don't Mix

I had an appointment with a "genius" yesterday at the Apple store, a moniker found unbearably offensive, but this particular Young Einstein had enough common sense to spot an idiot-- he busted me for water damage, which is not covered under the warranty (apparently there is a sensor inside the Ipod that can tell if the player has been subjected to liquids) and what could I say . . . I didn't have a leg to stand on, because I had taken my Ipod swimming numerous times and obviously my Otterbox was not one hundred percent waterproof . . . so swimming with music was fun while it lasted, and now I have to try to fix my Ipod by myself (which should be fodder for another sentence).

Entomology 101

Two Oscar-winning performances by yours truly last week in class: 

1) at the start of our process analysis unit I demonstrated how to help someone get rid of the hiccups (my preferred method is to pretend that there is a bug in the hiccuping person's hair) but I guess the girl I was demonstrating on didn't realize that it was just a demonstration-- and apparently she's really frightened of insects-- so when I went to pluck the imaginary bug out of her hair, she slapped my hand and screamed . . . and all the students were very happy that she hit me;

2) the next day, to illustrate a point in an essay called "Honey Harvest," I pretended that I had a bee in a cup and that I needed a volunteer to be stung in front of the class as an initiation rite (to what stupid club I can't imagine) and again, the same girl got very upset-- you'd think she would have caught on by now-- and a few other girls actually got out of their seats and ran when I turned the cup over onto the volunteer's arm (I've been doing this for years and, oddly, someone always volunteers to be stung by the imaginary bee) but then all that fluttered out of the cup was a yellow piece of paper . . . but a student gave me a good idea for next year, I'm going to get one of those joke pens that shocks you when you touch it and put that in the cup.

Mrs. Parham Will Get Back to Us

As we walked along the Raritan River in the park by my house, my son Alex described his day at school-- specifically the class Thanksgiving song-- and so I mentioned to him about how Lenape Indians had lived right here next to the river by our house and he said "Daddy, that's a bad word! Mrs. Parham said that you can't say that!" and I tried to explain to him that "Indian" wasn't a bad word, that it was just a misnomer, and that in some contexts, you can still say Indians (no one wants to play Cowboys and Native Americans) but he didn't seem very convinced by my argument-- he said he would check with Mrs. Parham and get back to me.

Bonus American Education Week Update!!!

Today, compliments of the East Brunswick Education Association (in conjunction with the East Brunswick Parent Teacher Association) in honor of American Education Week, we received a green band-aid dispenser pre-stocked with five (I counted them) non Band-Aid brand band-aids.

Hiking Q & A

Question: how do you get your kids out of the woods after hiking in a bit too far and getting sort of lost; answer: promise them ice cream if they can lead you out.

UFC . . . The Sour Sociology

My first investigative sentence: in order to dispel claims made by frequent commenter (Al Depantsdowno) that UFC fighting is akin to the WWF, Catherine and I went to a friend's place and watched Randy "Still Juicy at Age 45" Couture defend his belt against Brock "I look sort of like Drago from Rocky IV" Lesnar-- and I can assure you, UFC fighting is very real (we watched the snot get knocked out of a guy's nose in slow motion) and it can be exciting and I was definitely unable to turn away for a second, but there is a lot of gripping, bending, grimacing, and generally ugly rolling around on the mat-- Catherine, who had a few glasses of wine at dinner was vociferously against the whole idea of "tapping out" when you get your arm barred, and she quickly and painfully demonstrated how easy it is to bend someone's arm back (on your intrepid investigative sentence writer-- it hurts) and if boxing is "the sweet science" then UFC fighting is "the sour sociology."

More Popular Than Sex!

I'm reading Bill Tancer's Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why it Matters and the premise is this: Tancer is the general manager at Hitwise, an internet intelligence company that sifts through millions of internet searchers in an attempt to understand the world's subconscious; for example, when people search "how to" do something, it usually involves sex . . . from "how to make out" to "how to get pregnant" but the number one search in the United States is "how to tie a tie" . . . but that's not number one in Britain (school uniforms) . . . and my favorite is the sixth most searched "how to"-- it seems people really want to know how to levitate.