poland bound

i might be getting nervous about my trip. i can't tell. i might just be excited. tricky.

VACAY Part 2

So, here's how I spent Friday, in text messages:

11:08 AM
to Elizabeth BB (Elizabeth's fancy new blackberry that she has to use at her fancy new job, which by the way she has been at all week while I've been on vacay)
"They are having a major throwdown in the courtroom bc Paris wants to appear by phone this morning. WTF!"

11:18 AM
from Elizabeth BB
"That is a BFD. Keep me updated."

So, because I know my roommate and I know what important details matter to her, I did this all day long.

11:50 AM
to Elizabeth BB
"The judge said she has to come to court. She is all like, 'TISNF." They sent a sheriff's patrol to get her now."

12:52 PM
to Elizabeth BB
"Paris is taking forever and they have rushed her makeup artist in. It is breaking news on MSNBC."

1:29 PM
to Elizabeth BB
"The MSNBC reporter got run over when they were taking her out of the house. His microphone got drug away with the patrol car. He is ok, just traumatized emotionally and he has to borrow a mic."

3:31 PM
to Elizabeth BB
"Judge sent her back to jail. A reporter outside asked a lawyer, 'True or False-she looked totally hot?' He declined to comment."

What a day. Stupid, I know. I ran out of books to read. Go figure.

VACAY

I've been out of school now for nearly a full week. Technically, the kids left last Thursday at 11:35, and then Friday I just had to go in a clean up my room, pack it up to move it out to the portable where I will be teaching next year and hopefully the year after that. So, aside from a mildly emotional and annoying faculty breakfast/speech-giving event, Friday was no big deal and Elizabeth and I were sitting at Olive Garden eating lunch by noon-ish, fully checked out and done with DFMS. She's done with it forever, except for the relational tie that will come from living with me, and I'm done with it for a few months.

So, this is good, this being done with the school business. I've been very busy this week.

1. On Saturday I went and bought three books, two by Jodi Picoult and one by Anne Quindlen because I'm sometimes girly about books. By Wednesday I had read all three and had to go upstairs to unearth something from the shelf that I owned but had not read. There are an astonishing number of these books, and so I find myself about to finish my fourth book for the week (Note: It is also by Jodi Picoult because once you get sucked into her style there is little chance for escape if there is another book by her in the vicinity).

2. I carried all of my work stuff upstairs to "the office."

3. I have watched The Food Network for approximately several hours a day.

4. I've been to the gym, twice. I'm contemplating another attempt. Gotta start somewhere.

5. I cleaned the carpet in the house. It looks awesome.

6. I've slept a great deal. It was a long, tiring year.

7. I've alternated between being very very excited about my upcoming trip to Poland/Israel and having paralyzing panic attacks because I've never left the country before.

That's it, really. I'm on vacay (Sometimes we abbreviate words, for some reason that I'm sure has to do with television but I can't pinpoint it. So, sitch=situation, which I know came from Michael Scott on "The Office," and profesh=professional, and vacay=vacation, etc. etc. and we do this as often as we possibly can and still have things make sense.)

doing this

i'd really like to be doing this often. i don't know what i do, meanwhile, which evidently, whatever it is, keeps me so busy that i can't be doing this.

it could be work. it could be, if not the actual work itself, the work-related stress. there's been a good bit of that this year, more so than before, and i'm not sure what that means for the future. it's easy to feel beat up in my line of work, and hard to feel appreciated, but it's what i do. the thing is, and i think this is the real deal, i hate with a firey passion incompetent adults, or adults who are stupid, or adults who say stupid things, or adults who are rude, and it seems to be that i deal with a lot of them in my day-to-day workings and goings on. oh well. the kids are my favorite people anyways.

i'd like to be doing this more often, because i feel like a contributor when i do. contributing is pretty critical when you think about the whole thing.

i'd like to be doing other things too:
1. running, and any distance at all would suffice at this point
2. reading good and meaningful books
3. sitting outside, because the new patio furniture is nice and i built the table myself
4. preparing for the poland/israel trip this summer, because i'm excpecting it to be life altering, and because they sent me a big reading list which coincidentally might help with #2 on this list
5. finding myself, and maybe the previously listed item will part of the beginning of that, and we'll see

funny story: the other day i got out of the shower and i picked up my hand towel instead of the real one, and i only realized that i had the wrong towel when i tried to put it around my head to hold my hair (like girls do) and it wouldn't fit, and i was like "wtf."

funny story no. 2: the other day i came home and i said, "elizabeth did you put that shoulder bag in my room at work?" and she said, "no." and i said, "are you sure?" and she said, "yes i am." and then five minutes later she said, "did you get that bag i put in your room." and then i said, "wtf."

mildly upsetting thing related to television: i used to really love emily van camp when she played amy on everwood, so when she got cast on brothers and sisters, i was so excited. until of course she started behaving very inappropriately, like she did last week when she hit on her new long-lost sister's husband. and this was upsetting because amy would've never done anything like that, and everybody knows it.

today i'm glad because i did this. and it is just whatever it is.

things to say

it's been a very very long time. i realize that. this is funny now, because somehow this feels awkward, even though it's just me in my house sitting at the computer and there is no one to witness my tricky first-post-in-a-long-long-time attempt. i was thinking earlier, after kris told me sunday that i should post again, that perhaps i haven't done it in so long because i have nothing to say. then i got sort of upset for a minute, because i thought, "of course i have things to say." having things to say is critical.

so here goes. here's what i have to say:

1. the koger center broadway series had RENT a few weeks ago and i went and it was a great time. the reviews in the paper the next day panned it and i thought that was stupid and presumptuous because hello, how many people from columbia even go to broadway? so comparing that production to the broadway one is silly.
2. i think that american idol has become less about finding the best singer and more about finding people to make fun of.
3. i'm very hyped about election 08
4. emily vancamp, who portrayed "amy abbot" on the relentlessly wonderful yet still cancelled everwood, has signed on to play "rebecca" on brothers and sisters, and this was likely the best news i came across all weekend.
5. i really think that little miss sunshine should win the oscar for best picture
6. i think that angelina jolie is too pompous. she's all about good causes, but she turns people off with that "i'm above this" attitude, because she's so "above" everything. you know, how she's so enlightened and above everything that she was rude to ryan seacrest at the golden globes? i thought that wasn't cool. so then, i don't want to listen to her spout off about saving the world, because she's such a jerk. so what's she really accomplishing? maybe that's just me.
7. oprah is the number one example of a great person. she has loads of money, and she truly uses lots of it to try and make the world a better place. and she is not "above" everything.
8. i'm going to poland this summer as part of a prestigious seminar for teachers. it's internationally renowned, and they only take about 30-40 teachers from the country each year. i got accepted. so off i go to poland to get educated on the Holocaust, so that i can be titled a "tolerance education leader." oh yeah. that's my life's work.
9. the latest anne brasheares book, the fourth in the traveling pants series, was borderline terrible. this worries me for the seventh harry potter book coming out this summer.
10. i think that when people are obnoxiously all about putting their three-week relationship in your face 24/7, and they plan their wedding right in front of you, that it is hysterical when it falls apart. i think that if you act that stupid, you deserve what you get. this could possibly mean that i'm a mean person, but i don't really think so.

that's it. this was hard.

Isn't it so weird how the number of dead people is increasing even though the earth stays the same size, so that one day there isn't going to be room to bury anyone anymore? (from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer) 

Part of me is made of glass, and also, I love you.
(Nicole Krauss in The History of Love)