I'm not bald, I am balding-- it is true that I don't have as much hair on my head as I used to have, but I still have some hair . . . it's a process (also, I'm not old, I'm getting older).
My Miracle Is More Miraculous Than Your Miracle
At our first department meeting, Liz told a story about a "miracle" where she was stranded at an airport with her baby, and she was stressed out and lonely, and for some reason she was thinking about a certain wonderful person named Audrey and-- miraculously-- there Audrey was, sent by God to relieve her loneliness and to give her a much needed break from caring for her baby . . . but this sounds more like a coincidence than a miracle, unlike what happened in my class on Monday: I was making the kids think analogously about how having romantic relationship with a human is similar to having a relationship with a book . . . the students had written down questions they might ask themselves before they decided to "get busy with" a romantic interest and we were assessing the continuum of queries, which started light (do they make me laugh?) and ranged to the profound (would I die for him?) and it was easy enough to wax metaphorically about liking a book that had some humor, or being monogamous with a book, or liking a book with a cute cover, relatable subject matter, an attractive font, and that new book smell . . . but when it came to speaking of art you would die for, I hit a brick wall-- my only example was if one was a complete fanatic for the author or piece of art, and then I made the natural leap to Mr. C., my friend who loves the TV show Battlestar Galactica, loves it so much that he has purchased many, many props from the show-- including a chair from the military conference room, several uniforms, and loads of other bric-a-brac that appeared on camera in the various starships and planets of the Galactica universe-- and moments after I explained this (and my classroom door was closed) and remember, I wasn't thinking about Mr. C., I was talking about him in front of many other witnesses-- so moments after this analogous example, Mr. C. himself walked through my classroom door, and if that wasn't coincidence enough, he was holding a funky microphone covered in blood . . . and he immediately explained that he had made a "new acquisition" and that he had just purchased the microphone that was used just before the "slaughter in the Quorum" in the episode "Blood on the Scales" and so I was able to point to this man and say, "Here is the man that might die for a work of art" and Mr. C. acknowledged that he would take a "heavy wound" for Battlestar Galactica and if Liz is going to call meeting up with Audrey in a strange airport a miracle, when she was only thinking about her, then I am calling this a bona fide super-miracle, because I was actually talking about Mr. C. just before he walked in, and he was holding just the prop necessary to complete my analogy.
New To Me . . .
My friend Rachel told me that her property was " a skosh less than half and acre" and I said, "A what?" but apparently a "skosh" is a real word . . . it is a unit of measurement and it means a smidgen . . . and while I have never seen this word in print, people assure me that it is used in conversation quite often . . . but not with the people I converse with . . . and while I am glad I learned a new word, I much prefer saying "just shy," as in "Dammit! That ball was just shy of hitting me in the testicles! Watch where your kicking!" and if anyone has the testicles to say "a tad," as in "maybe you should drink a tad less beer" then I will punch them in the face.
Some Life Decisions Are Easy to Make
I couldn't decide if I wanted one fried egg or two fried eggs for breakfast, but when I opened the carton . . . there was only one egg left.
I Am a Good Person (But It's a Struggle)
So in the interest of being a good person, I decided to clean up my classroom a bit before the start of this year-- I took a number of American Literature text books that had been sitting in a corner of my room for several years back to the common book room so other teachers could use them and I also found a stack of misplaced World History textbooks on the windowsill (my room is used like a terminal for packages in the summer, so all kinds of strange stuff ends up there) and I found a history teacher and asked him what I should do with the books, and he told me that they were certainly needed and he asked if I could bring them across the school to the history office-- and in the interest of being a good person, I complied and returned the books . . . the next day was the first day of classes, and after I finished teaching my last period and was cleaning up and getting ready to go coach, a harried woman hustled into my room and when I asked her if she needed anything, she said that she was a new history teacher and they had her in five different rooms and that my room was one of them-- which surprised me, because usually my room is empty last period-- and then she surprised me again when she said, "I can't find my text books" because I realized that, in the interest of being a good person, I had totally screwed over this green and rather frantic new teacher . . . those text books that I returned to the history office were hers . . . and so there was a moment when I had to decide if I was really going to be a good person, and confess my crime-- and although I didn't want to because then I was going to have to retrieve the books and it was hot as all hell and I had a million things to do-- but the lady seemed nice and she was in five different rooms . . . so in the interest of being a good person, I told her that I was the culprit, and offered to track the books down and bring them back to her-- which I did (and I met an old student who is now teaching math in the high school and she helped me bring the books back, so it turned out to be more fun than I thought) and now I can honestly say that I am a good person (for now).
A Canine Analogy
Peeing on public property is a dog's version of graffiti . . . but, of course, dog's are working in the realm of the olfactory instead of the visual; perhaps this could be Banksy's next project.
Breakfast Food Woes
I'm not sure which task is more difficult . . . peeling a boiled egg or breaking apart an English muffin.
Does This Count As Fair Use?
For the first time in my life, I used our granite mortar and pestle (it is quite heavy, and so I balanced it on top of our panini maker so I didn't have to squish my panini manually).
Not For Those With Two Weeks of Vacation Time
All you folks with full time jobs probably don't want to hear this, nor will you believe it, but nothing is worse than the end-of-the-summer-holy-shit-I've-got-to-go-back-to-work anxiety stomachache . . . it's an awful feeling (but not so awful that I would choose to work in the summer . . . God bless the agrarian calendar) and my stomachache was compounded by the fact that a tooth of mine cracked off at the crown, and so on the same day that I return to work, I will also visit the dentist for some kind of procedure which I can only imagine to be horrific . . . and the worst part is I can't even whinge about all this because it falls on deaf ears, since most people have been working all summer long and have no sympathy.
Wrestling for a Greased Watermelon is Laborious
Last year on Labor Day weekend, I learned that "wrestling for a greased watermelon with buff lifeguards" is not the theme of an adult film, it is an event at our family swim club-- and this year I learned that last year's melee was rather tame because the watermelon broke open after one round; this year we played best of three and I am proud to say that I scored the first point, hefting the watermelon over the side of the pool from distance . . . but there is plenty that went on in this scrum that I'm not proud of-- ankle grabbing, the dunking of minors, pleading with the almighty that I might be allowed to return to the surface, attempting to drown my friends and neighbors, occasional cowardice, and a general sense of bewilderment that I have never felt in any other sport (besides cricket) . . . a petroleum jelly coated watermelon behaves very strangely in water-- someone said it is neutrally buoyant, so it goes in whatever direction you push it-- up, down, sideways, or all three-- and apparently, you can see where it is from the sidelines, so there is lots of cheering and screaming, and when my tall friend John, from Team 1 (my team!) spiked the melon over the side and broke it, cementing both our victory and the end of the battle, everyone was exhausted and relieved, and I am positive that the event was far more exciting than an Olympic water polo match.
Unpacking VERY Slowly (A Follow Up To Yesterday's Stupid Question)
After a vacation, instead of unpacking one's luggage, is it acceptable to leave the piece of luggage on the bedroom floor and simply take clothes out of the piece of luggage until it is empty?
Probably Not As Long As I Left It Up There
How many days after you return from vacation are you allowed to leave the big sack full of beach stuff attached to the roof of the car?
Breaking Meta-News!
The New York Times claims that 1/3 of all "consumer" reviews of books and other products found on the Internet are fabricated, whether by marketers or the retailers themselves, or by friends of the seller, or even companies that you can hire to write positive reviews.
Glad That's Over With
I finished the fourth George R.R. Martin book in his epic A Song of Ice and Fire series, and all I can say about A Feast For Crows is that I survived it (unlike most of the characters) and I hope the next one is an easier read.
Cow or Cat?
As we were walking home from The Dish Cafe, my son Ian spied a strange creature posing on a stoop-- and so he asked, "Is that a cow or a cat?"-- though the thing was most certainly a cat, but his question was reasonable because it was a hairless cat-- and spotted like a cow-- and not only was it hairless but it was also very saggy (much saggier than this hairless Sphinx cat in the picture) and apparently (this is news to me!) there are a number of hairless house cats, each one uglier than the next.
OBFT XIX
The 19th Annual Outer Banks Fishing Trip went off without a hitch, and a big thanks to Whitney for putting us up and putting up with us for this many years . . . here are a few things that I vaguely remember from OBFT XIX: 1) driving with a hangover while Whitney participated in a 90 minute conference call for work . . . very boring and oppressive, especially when Whitney had a bout of flatulence, and would not allow me to roll down the windows because he needed to hear 2) an innovative and scary ride home from Tortuga's for Jerry and me, thanks to Cliff 3) Whitney and I reigning for five hours in a row at corn-hole 4) waiting too long at Tortuga's and never getting to order lunch 5) cornbread and beef brisket at Taylor's Barbeque , which is just outside fo Salisbury Maryland 6) back to back pork bbq sandwiches at Southland and Pigman's, within a two hour window 7) napping on the ferry to Cape May 8) getting "shushed" at the bar 9) the best water in a long time (but no waves, I had to wait until I got up to Sea Isle City for that) 10) Bruce's fantastic joke, which cannot be repeated, even on the internet.
A Man With A Beard Is More Of A Man Than Me (But That's Not Saying Much)
I don't know how men with beards got over the IT ITCHES! hump.
Alfred Hitchcock Was Right!
A presumptuous seagull swooped down and yanked a Blueberry Belvita Breakfast Biscuit right out of Lynn's hand while she was chatting with Dom on the beach, and this is a frightening development in avian intelligence, because once all the other birds learn that humans wandering around with food in their hands are fair game, we are going to starve to death (or I guess we could just eat indoors, but you can't make a horror movie about being forced to bring your kids off the beach and eat lunch inside . . . even though that is a horrible process).
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