why thank you!

best parts of thanksgiving:

beating rosie at her own best-gingerbread-house competition

cinnamon-roasted almonds

having a bedroom and a warm house, all decorated for the holidays

late night discussions with sibs about the effects of too much in-front-of-screen time

subsequent resolves to abolish screentime for the month of december (woot!)

doing laundry in machines that actually work

getting completely caught up on grading

christmas present shopping (i'm almost done! boys are the hardest to shop for. whyohwhy.)

sleepovers with cousins

raymon's interpretive dances ('dance of the tenderlilies' is a real show-stopper)

'the nutcracker' duets on the piano

lots of journal&thinking time

setting up the tree

deciding my life plan for the next two years (hats off to tiffany who is my personal shrink)

realizing all the pieces that still have to be put together for the next two years to pan out

two rolls of good ole black and white, shot through the telephoto (photos forthcoming)

one great find at d.i.

writing one new song...the ballad i've had locked up for many moons. still in the polishing stages

and speaking of polishing, i meant to do that to my car this weekend, as it's been a good six months since i had that done. but alas, no time.

cheers to all those i love.

(*and for those of you who love me and who are concerned about the previous post, it's just a quote. my heart is not really pink, nor is it bleeding. but man those words are. i like them. so do not worry.)

look at this!

(pink like my bleeding heart)

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”

Neil Gaiman

list #5

while not doing the usual run-of-the-windmill things this weekend, here is what i accomplished instead:

1) christmas-morning-worthy squeals of delight upon waking up to a sky full of snowflakes!

2) finding that two of my students plagiarized their scary story assignments. i'm talking ctrl+c, ctrl+v direct from the internet. revenge will be sweet.

3) bought my first shirt from banana republic. or from 'BANANA', for those of you in "the know." and the best part was, with the 30% off discount, i paid less for it than i would pay for a shirt pretty much anywhere else. yes.

-------->a) sidenote: the name banana republic. that is a reference to....?

-------->b) wait wait don't tell me: i'll look it up faster than you can: wikipedia:

Banana republic is a pejorative term for a country that is politically unstable, dependent on limited agriculture (e.g. bananas), and ruled by a small, self-elected, wealthy, and corrupt clique.^[1]

-------->c) wow. some veiled meanings in the name of the place. small, self-elected, and wealthy? and what does the gap mean? and old navy? what's with that? if you didn't know what was being sold there, you'd think it was some kind of army/tackle store.

4) speaking of which, i had a friend offer to buy a 6"x6" cardboard tackle box off me for $50. that's right. i think by the end of the conversation, if i remember right, he had also thrown in a fishing pole, another $25, and his SOUL. (i make that large and white because his soul is large and white. i believe.) i declined. but sent him a link to ebay where he can buy a brand-new one for $7.95.

5) watched part of america's next top model. semi-shameful. sorry world.

6) made a new 'friend' who apparently also thinks that max is the greatest thing to happen to the world since we found out exactly where the wild things are.

7) learned that the phrase "junk change" (blingbling!) that i've been using all my life is actually wrong. it's "chump change." lame. junk change makes so much more sense.

8) was crowned indian leg-wrestling champion, of both female and male divisions. hold on just a second, i think i may have a picture of me with my sparkly jacket and belt. ah yes:

9) hosted a truly lovely First Snowfall of the Year party with friends. we drank hot chocolate through grasshoppers and shared our favorite parts of books. (my favorite part is the spine.)

10) finished 'the curious incident of the dog in the night-time'. difficult for my brain to read, but brought light to a certain aspect of my career in the form of a tidal wave. bffffrewww! (that's the sound a tidal wave makes. especially if it's a tidal wave of knowledge. water tidal waves sound more like: bffffrowww!)

11) ate cafe rio which is an adventure in and of itself.

12) ingested a large wad of christmas music.

13) wedged myself in the couch for one of the coziest naps i ever did take. well-rested. well-fed. time for more hot-chocolate-filled-grasshoppers. (chirp chirp)

(a more accurate depiction can be found here, with one minor adjustment: replace timtams with keebler grasshoppers (or other mint cookie of your choice). this may or may not change your life, so prepare yourself.):

8:16 am, Saturday

this weekend i am saving the (inside)world.

in the form of not looking at one screen, only listening to eighties music, painting little things, and stuffing my head with words.

peace! til monday.

i like this.

girl who posted this, i do not know you, but my do you have wisdom:

http://inyourboat.blogspot.com/2009/09/be-man.html

car*diggin

to: Mr. Rogers. may you inspire many more to dig those cardigans.

***

i am the proud new owner of a cardigan.

not one like this:

or one like this:

but precisely like this:

it is black raspberry.

not black cherry (), not crimson lake (),

but black raspberry. which for those of you who chose to use your art money to buy a portfolio instead of the 132 set of prismacolor pencils, black raspberry looks something like this:

(deceptively similar to black cherry, no?)

when i wear my black raspberry cardigan, i feel like this:

and the more of the cardigan i see, the more i think that real men wear cardigans too:

and what cardigan-post would be complete without a shout out to bill cosby. rock that sweater, bill. personal fav: the one with combs on it.

procrastination-->creativity

(for the avid reader who wonders what life as a teacher is like: i measured today. i currently have exactly one foot, eleven inches of papers that need grading.)

let's talk for a minute about finding easier ways to do hard things.

for example, i could post on my blog some words with lots of weight and meaning, or lots of cleverness, or even lots of personality.

OR. i could just post a million pictures. (please see the previous 3 blog posts.....)

and so, for those of you who, like me, have decided there's more life to live than you have time for, this one is direct. from me to you. mwah.

filling up the gas tank completely full and never letting it get beneath the halfway mark VS. pulling into 7-11 at 6:45 on the way to work to get one gallon so you can at least make it there without running dry.

hanging all your shirts right side out VS. hanging them whichever way they come off your body in. (*sidenote: i once had a roommate ask me, very concerned, if there was some garb-savvy reason why half of my shirts i hung inside out. purely ease, michelle. purely ease.)

sparknotes. enough said?

gourmet lasagna VS. stouffers

doing laundry once a week VS. just buying a new set of underwear (*important sidenote: i am NOT guilty of this. however, i know someone who does this regularly. this person, not surprisingly, is also notorious for cutting down on chocolate-milk-making time by pouring chocolate syrup and milk in her mouth at the same time, then swishing and swallowing.)

a planner with all thoughts, ideas, goals, and deadlines neatly organized into a series of lists VS. sticky notes everywhere. (definition: 'every-where': on bedroom walls, on picture frames, around entire perimeter of computer monitor, on closet doors, on bathroom mirrors, on car dashboard. oh, and inside wishful-thinking planner.)

grocery lists, shopping, and preparing meals for the entire week VS. a carefully (albeit helter-skelter) planned week of club meetings, lunch dates, dinner groups, etc. to completely bypass having to supply your own food at all. conserve people. conserve.

orange juice in carton to orange juice in glass to orange juice dranken/ drinken/ drunken (who even knows anyways?) to glass with pulp encrusted on inside which must then be washed VS. orange juice in carton to orange juice in stomach. best trick i learned to date.

flossing your teeth every night VS. eating celery before bed (plus urban legend has it that celery takes more energy to burn than it actually gives you in calories, hence supplying another time-saving device: now i don't have to go to the gym. thank you celery.)

now, for those ecological, philanthropic, altruistic, health-conscious sort: i am fully aware that my choices are rotting my teeth, increasing the amount of empty stouffers pans in landfills, and killing trees and whatever other plant is used to make the sticky stuff on post-its. but with all that time you're spending using minty floss and from-scratch spaghetti sauces and energy star washing machines, i am also conserving. conserving my precious moments and my invaluable energy for someday when i may figure out just exactly what i am doing with my life.