Winter Bummerland

Yeah, that's right. That IS the street in front of my house. Or rather, the ice-rink in front of my house. You'll notice I'm posting at noon on Monday. Would I rather be at work right now? Hmmmm, I have one week before break, a test scheduled on Wednesday, three projects unfinished, 75 kids in the grips of Vacation Crazy...nah. Trapped in my house is way better. I'm not stressed AT ALL! Aaargh! Honest to Frank, I'm ready to walk to work!!
Tempering that ulcer-inducing cabin fever is the grin on my kid's face when she goes thundering past on a skim of plastic over a sheet of ice. Check this out:

The part that is amazing...did you see how long that run is? I kid you not, that is 50 seconds of flying. How the shite am I ever going to get to work? It's negative two right now with wind chill. NEGATIVE TWO!! That ain't ice melting temperature my friends. Sweet crap in a basket. I'm screwed!

Oh my word!

You have to help me out here. I don't know if this is as funny as I think it is, or if I just burst my spleen because I think Simon Pegg is currently the funniest man on the planet. He did a movie a while ago, Run Fatboy Run. Cute. Not spectacular, but funny. Especially if you are working through a very serious crush. This is from the press junket, some dude crashed, "on behalf of fatboys everywhere" and Simon and David Schwimmer, who directed, seriously seem unable to tell if he's for real or not. Now granted, they are actors by profession, but I seriously think they don't know what the hell is going on! I LOVE random humor. If I were in the middle of 14 hours of answering the exact same questions ad infinitum, I would pray for some crazy running fatboy to shake my tree! Their reactions as they try desperately not to offend while clearly not wanting to be suckered...gold, baby

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Wanna see somethin cool?

Have your eyes been drawn upward over the last week? We've had these crazy cool deep blue skies at sunset, with vivid purple and magenta horizons. Then a high beam bright crescent moon shining in crisp glory. For a while, right next to the white slice of lunar brilliance, these two spotlights of glimmer. Jupiter and Venus have been making themselves known around these parts a bit. The first time I saw it, I thought it had to be satellites or something like that, they were that bright. And huddled right close together. It's one of those things that just screams out what is whizzing and flaring and, most awe-inspiring to me, floating in massive silent vastness just out of sight. I adore the night sky. It's one of the shiver inducing, perspective jarring, "Wake up!!!" things I can never get enough of. Love it. Unfortunately, the light show is almost over, sinking below our horizon, separating from each other until another meeting in the night three years from now. Not even a blink in the time tables of these two.

As exciting to my girl, the tree is up! Let the festivities begin. We've had the ritual live sacrifice to the altar of shopping on Wal-Mart's doorstep, holiday sales are reportedly up despite the brutal economy...let's do this thing!

triptych

So I have three things on my mind right now. The first is this...what the hell is going on with Prop 8 in California? How did that happen? I'm so excited that Trueby will just take it as part of the world that there is a black first family in the white house. It isn't a historic leap forward for her, it just is. I'm hoping we can get the rest of this "us vs. them" out of our systems someday. Take a look at this, from Melissa Ethridge:

Okay. So Prop 8 passed. Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate? Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here because I am not sure what to call her now. Anyways, she and I are not allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.Okay, cool I don't mean to get too personal here but there is a lot I can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping instead of handing it over to the state of California. Oh, and I am sure Ellen will be a little excited to keep her bazillion bucks that she pays in taxes too. Wow, come to think of it, there are quite a few of us fortunate gay folks that will be having some extra cash this year. What recession? We're gay! I am sure there will be a little box on the tax forms now single, married, divorced, gay, check here if you are gay, yeah, that's not so bad. Of course all of the waiters and hairdressers and UPS workers and gym teachers and such, they won't have to pay their taxes either.Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.Oh and too bad California, I know you were looking forward to the revenue from all of those extra marriages. I guess you will have to find some other way to get out of the budget trouble you are in.…Really?When did it become okay to legislate morality? I try to envision someone reading that legislation "eliminates the right" and then clicking yes. What goes through their mind? Was it the frightening commercial where the little girl comes home and says, "Hi mom, we learned about gays in class today" and then the mother gets that awful worried look and the scary music plays? Do they not know anyone who is gay? If they do, can they look them in the face and say "I believe you do not deserve the same rights as me"? Do they think that their children will never encounter a gay person? Do they think they will never have to explain the 20% of us who are gay and living and working side by side with all the citizens of California?I got news for them, someday your child is going to come home and ask you what a gay person is. Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.I know when I grew up gay was a bad word. Homo, lezzie, faggot, dyke. Ignorance and fear ruled the day. There were so many "thems" back then. The blacks, the poor ... you know, "them". Then there was the immigrants. "Them.” Now the them is me.I tell myself to take a breath, okay take another one, one of the thems made it to the top. Obama has been elected president. This crazy fearful insanity will end soon. This great state and this great country of ours will finally come to the understanding that there is no "them". We are one. We are united. What you do to someone else you do to yourself. That "judge not, lest ye yourself be judged" are truthful words and not Christian rhetoric.Today the gay citizenry of this state will pick themselves up and dust themselves off and do what we have been doing for years. We will get back into it. We love this state, we love this country and we are not going to leave it. Even though we could be married in Mass. or Conn, Canada, Holland, Spain and a handful of other countries, this is our home. This is where we work and play and raise our families. We will not rest until we have the full rights of any other citizen. It is that simple, no fearful vote will ever stop us, that is not the American way.Come to think of it, I should get a federal tax break too..

Can't we all just get along? In the spirit of love, look at this. But only if you aren't in public or easily offended


Went to the movies with some gals last night, this is what we saw. Half of it I spent guffawing and the other half with my eyes averted and mouth agape. They really did make a porno...and we watched them do it! It was sweet and funny and filthy! I loved it. Kevin Smith never lets you down, and neither does Seth Rogen. So considering the company, when I say Jason Mewes almost stole the whole show, it's saying something. And bonus...Randall was the camera man! Woo hoo!

On a less derelict note, try this out


Hee hee! I just got season one of the BBC's Spaced with Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, the comic geniuses behind two of my favorite movies, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Seriously, if you haven't, check these out. The clip above isn't them, Simon is the guy on the bike, but it just makes me giggle. I've added him to my seriously problematically long celebrity crush list. He's in Run Fatboy Run and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People recently, which I haven't seen yet, but so gotta! If you can get hold of Spaced, check it out. It's really funny.
Ok, I gotta go...more Spaced to watch before True is up!

Happy Halloween!

Happy because honestly, there is no other way to describe how my kid felt on Friday. I was able to schedule the morning with no conferences so I could be at her Harvest Party in the morning, she called it doing parent hours. We got dressed up, the best part of which was putting her in the bathtub naked and spraying her hair bright pink. Her traditional trick or treat partners met up with us and we hit around in their neighborhood, made an impressive haul even though Trueby wouldn't go to any of the houses that had dogs. Finally we headed over to meet up with her two best friends in the world to terrorize the joint. While the adults visited and ate, the girls ran screaming through the house for no apparent reason other than they are little girls who love being together. I adored watching her have so much fun, be so at home, feel so comfortable. Literally, she stripped to t-shirt and tights as soon as we got there, and her buddy made it down to only panties! Those two girls are family to her, they've been part of her life every day for as long as she can remember. Luckily, all three moms are a little photo manic, so it's all well documented.
So my friend inspired me to create a new scrapbook this month. I'm going to document one thing I am grateful for every day of November. I'll put some of them here, keep an eye out. While a great time on Halloween doesn't count, since it was October, I am so incredibly grateful my girl has friends like these!

some fun stuff

For the 7% idiot population who are still undecided in this race. Seriously? Should these cranially challenged nitwits even be allowed to vote? Here is a visual representation that may help them make up the uninformed, uninterested, or unable minds they have.

I think this is hysterical. I can't decide which I like better: the steam engine teetering on the very brink of utter calamity, or the dopey face on the Thomas/Palin train. Although, it may be the McCain train that has completely derailed. Don't think so? Check this out


Remind you of anything? Maybe this?

Oh, the good old days.

So, more good stuff. Check out this shot on my morning drive. It doesn't come close to doing it justice, nor does the next from the drive home.

It's the light. I don't have the talent to do it justice, but it is so breathtaking. I want to be very clear..I still hate fall. I hate the death of summer, my dear darling favorite, I hate the onset of winter, my nemesis season, I hate the drizzly, cold, gray, mundane, back to work, death and ending and long long long pull to spring again. I hate fall! But you'd have to be blind and stupid not to see that it's beautiful. I even hated missing pictures when I don't have my camera and got a little point and shoot to keep in my purse always. All these pictures are my workhorse lovely starter camera though, I'm posting its picture too so as not to offend it. And it's my favorite.I'll close with this one. Seriously, if it weren't all eaten at, and god help whatever ate at it, wouldn't it look just like a comic book or fairy tale mushroom? Imagine it all pointy round topped with bright red and light spots and elves dancing around on it. Am I right?

More good stuff

Here's another song I love. It's kinda jammy. I adore the theme...the general wakes up after a dream and tells his soldiers he's refuting the idea of war. He tells his men they aren't to be held to his promises, but won't let himself off the hook. And the soldiers don't know what to do...as the general readies to fight by himself. It's The General by Dispatch...totally cool jam band.




You know what else just makes me giggly happy? I have given my kids an extra credit assignment. If they watch the debates, write down something intelligent that proves they actually thought a little bit, they get the credit. From the last two debates, 1/3 of each of three classes have brought in written statements that they can support when asked about them, another 1/3 of each class didn't write, but watched and brought opinions, and almost the whole class is involved when the candidates' performances are discussed. There's a little bit of "I like _________ because he's cool" or whatever, but most of the time they are giving thoughtful answers. I am ever so impressed, and so pleased that they are thinking and reasoning and excited about this stuff. One kid came up to me and said, "You're making me feel special that I live in such an exciting time." Damn! And they are totally stoked for tomorrow. They are excited to see how the candidates react when they get to take questions from "real people." What are the chances that just half of these 75 kids will retain some sense of civic understanding as adults? That they will understand they need to be informed, that it is their responsibility and privilege to have a say in who is the leader of their country. I'm so proud of them! I love listening to what they have to say. Granted, it's all parroting from their parents, but they are able to explain when I say "What do you mean by ____" so they have discussed it and get it. Obviously, I have to totally bite my tongue a good third of the time, but I'm thrilled they are interested and involved. If they learn from my class the responsibility to listen to both sides and make an informed choice, the small town knee jerk stuff will go away, right? I showed them about fact checking and they LOVED it. "It tells you right there!" Yep. I know. I'm excited about tomorrow. I'm excited to discuss it Wednesday with my elementary schoolers!

sorry

I don't mean to be mean, but turn it up and listen to the background noise.

Heh heh

Anyway....the very strangest thing happened to me today. An old lady, had to be 75+, stopped me and asked me about my hybrid. I told her I loved it and gave my standard, 500+ miles to a tank speil and we discussed it for maybe a minute. She said she liked my Obama sticker, and started to tell me about how he is good for green energy. I swear to whatever that 45 minutes later that chick had not stopped talking. I know how many kids she has, what they do, how much one of them makes, where they live, how her husband died, where her six homes have been, what features are in the geodesic dome she lives in now, including three bathrooms and an elevator! I know how she and her husband met, her self-image, her world view. It was astounding! There was LITERALLY no break in the monologue. I was flabbergasted each time she segued. I'm not bitching, it was truly a wonder to behold. I cannot imagine what she is like with people she knows. I've been thinking about it all day. She said she was a teacher for 35 years. No, she doesn't know I teach as well...I swear there was no where to pop a comment in! But what must her class have been like!!! Holy crap! Or maybe she's just lonely since she lives by herself and has lost all sense of civil dialogue. Again, I'm not complaining, I just can't get over the strangeness of it. Totally bizarre!

This is another of my favorite songs. And a great video too! This is the best disfunctional relationship song ever. My favorite thing about it is everyone knows exactly what he's talking about. The one who is so awful for you and you just can't get enough of them. "You bear the mark of the beast..you're born of a jackal! You're beautiful!" I love it.

Something else fantastic...my favorite late night guy is Craig Ferguson. Not as smug as the other guys, a little manic, and an accent! The best of all worlds!

these make me happy

Ok, I don't necessarily agree with this picture, but I love it. People are furious about this! I love the sentiment, so nasty. But as an afterthought. Like a neat little capper. I love it.

And I love this. This is the scenery on my commute. That's White Horse Mountain, with Baker peeking up in the back. I almost crash twice a day staring at this gut-wrenching wonder. What really gets me is the barren but awesome sharp, bare peaks. Most of the year these are capped with white, like Baker, but in the summer they are so naked, so jagged, so strong and silent looking. I am overwhelmed by the stretch of time, by the vastness of the world, by the fragility and iron strength. By the sheer wonder of it all. And so I try my very best to not careen through some poor county farmer's cattle pasture as I gape. You'd think, with the sunrise coming later now, it would be too dark to enjoy, thus cutting in half my hazardous driving record. But I saw the sun rise behind the mountain yesterday, with an unholy orange and gold that was so beautiful I nearly gave up the ghost. The pictures I tried to get sucked rocks though, so I'll have to be content with these shots from the afternoon. Good god amighty, do I live in the most beautiful place in the world, or what?

Road to Joy by Bright Eyes. Raucous, cacophonous, loud! I love to crank this up in the car and scream along with it as I drive. Ok, I'm starting to sound like a really bad driver, but I'm not! Turn this up and bask! Ode to Joy's rise and fall and pound is some of my favorite music, throw in some emo punk and screaming...what could be better?



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amb-richard-c-holbrooke/calm-methodical-obama-vs_b_130343.html This article says exactly what I am trying to say, only more articulately. I'm so hopeful this time! I am overjoyed at the thought of having a government that actually tries to do good. I am overjoyed at the thought that I believe they will try. I really believe it!

I also love that I will have to make this an ongoing theme. Such an embarrassment of riches!