Been busy and haven't been updating...

Yawn...

Sorry...

Anyway, last night I spent Thanksgiving with my future in-laws and the right wing conservative side of the family I'll be marrying into.

The country club was nice (I'd been there before), though it was obviously an exclusive country club. I was pretty much the only non-white person in the place besides the help. I had more than my fair share of funny "what-the-hell-is-SHE-doing here" looks, and one of the waiters was shooting lasers at me with his eyes, but I tried not to notice.

I had to bite my tongue through so much of the conversation since my Old Man and myself were the only leftists at the table.

Sigh...

What the hell is wrong with the interface?

Anyway, I know I haven't updated in awhile, but nevertheless, life goes on...

Well, I'm back, but I can't say that I'm better than ever.

My computer crashed and the dillweeds at the computer place made so many stupid mistakes that I'm not even sure if all of my files are still on this damn thing.

Anyway, it's been a crazy few weeks without my little black box. Complete with a rocking engagement party (you haven't lived until you've seen me growling out "Highway to Hell" in a tight black dress ), snot nosed kids getting me sick AGAIN (yep- that's why I'm actually home and able to update), the apartment painting fiasco, Ohio recounts...OY. My head....

Here's to being the laziest blogger in the world.

I haven't had much to say in the past few weeks. Things have been hectic, and to tell you the truth, politics have been extraordinarily boring these days.

I've even taken a break from the addictive political forums that I normally frequent, simply because I am just plain tired out.

I recently got a call from an old friend of mine who has lived in England on and off for over a decade.

We used to hang pretty heavily in high school. Back then, she was a punk and I was a full blown goth chick (this was the 80's, mind you. None of that Marilyn Manson shit), and I remember the very first thing she said to me i our smelly high school cafeteria was, "Hi! Do you like punk?"

And after that, we were friends.

We shared a common bond back then- we were pretty much the only non-white subculture freaks in our specialized math and science Brooklyn high school in the 80's.

Later, she introduced me to the ska scene (she became a skinhead and I made a futile attempt at being a rudie) and we used to muse about starting our own ska band a la Selecter (she used to say that I sounded like Maxine, but in truth I probably sounded like a drowning cat) while we went to ska shows and soul dances in short little skirts, fishnets and Doc Marten loafers with SHARP kids, Mod kids and Checkered Demon scooter kids.

I even think that I took my first drink in a n East Village punk bar called "Sophies"  with her when I was about 17, and I remember days of swilling back pitcherfuls of Guinness as I sang Desmond Dekker songs rather loudly and obnoxiously, brandishing a cigarette like a microphone.

Later on, she went off, moved to England and married a guy in an Oi! band, got divorced and made a few trips back and forth to the States, and I'd see her whenever she would make it back.

It was good to hear from her simply because it's good to be reminded of who you ONCE were, especially because sometimes when you get to about my age, you start to forget who you really are and how you became who you are.

Here's to you, Julie!

I know for a fact that I'm going to piss off some of my friends for saying this (namely my pal, Phatdawg), but I'm actually pretty hyped up to see this:

As a (possibly abnormally obsessive) fan of the 1972 version with Gene Wilder, I was intially inclined to think that this version would probably suck, despite the fact that I know that Roald Dahl, author of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory (and some of my other favorite kids books, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, The Twits, and The Witches) absolutely DESPISED the 1972 musical.

I must admit that I am very curious to see how faithful this is to the original story, and although I thought Burton could've made a better choice in casting Mr. Willy Wonka, I KNOW that I'll have to see this film.

In any case, watch the trailer: http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1808403419&cf=trailer

To the dismay of every man I've ever dated, I've been a vegetarian for just about 19 or 20 years now.

The thing is, I can't tell a lie- sometimes a hamburger smells damn good.

When I became a vegetarian back in the 80's, I was an extremely sensitive, overweight kid who had issues about eating meat. Hell- I used to freak the hell out whenever I saw an animal get hurt in a movie, for God's sake.

Enter The Smiths.

Yeah- they pretty much put the lid on my meat eating days after listening to the sound of mooing on "Meat Is Murder".

I spent much of the rest of the eighties extolling the virtues of vegetarianism and being a carnivore-hater.

As I became an adult, I more or less dropped that attitude and finally realized that the real reason why I can't eat meat is that the idea of putting a dead piece of flesh in my mouth simply disgusts me beyond belief. No matter how good that fried chicken my grandma used make smelled, or how tantalizing that hamburger was, I simply could not do it.

Essentially, I'm a vegetarian for psychological reasons. I'm a vegetarian because I'm crazy.

So anyway, lately I've been considering chucking vegetarianism and going back to eating animals.

Why?

I think that it may be logical that the reason why I CRAVE meat with a passion is because I most probably need to eat meat. My body probably wants it, but my brain is so messed up about actually eating it.

Last night, after imbibing a few Jamesons and a couple of pints of beer, I actually ate a piece of meat. Well, I took a bite or two, got freaked out, and just swallowed.

It wasn't a life altering event and I didn't get sick or anything, but I can't say that I enjoyed it. All I thought about was the poor chicken looking at me with it's beady little eyes, clucking, "How can you do this to meeeeeeeeeeeeeee?????"

Why?

Because I'm crazy.

I realize these days that teaching has turned me into a casual alcoholic.

Really.

It seems that these little hellions, these darlings of their parents but the bane of my existence, have driven me to drink.

I don't drink much during the summer, nor do I drink much during  vacations, but once the school year starts, the sauce just calls me.

What is it about stress that elicits the desire for vice?

I guess I've been waiting patiently to hear more about this, but apparently, it has elicited no more than a yawn from the media.

You probably haven't heard about it yet, but many of us on the left who were called wackos and unpatriotic for refusing to support this lie of a war, knew this from the start:

NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.

NONE.

"Search for WMDs called off
(Filed: 12/01/2005)

American officials in Iraq have abandoned their search for weapons of mass destruction and concluded Saddam Hussein had no biological or chemical weapons arsenal." <SNIP>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/12/uwmd.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/01/12/ixportaltop.html

What gets me is that no one seems to give a fig about this. All those foaming at the mouth so-called patriots on the right seem to have NO problem with sending your kids to a fight for a lie, and still, NOTHING is being said about this.

Shame on this country.

Shame.

You only get what you deserve...and so this, my dears...this goes out to all of you who voted for that monkey.

I TOLD YOU SO!

Bush Won't Rule Out Action Against Iran Over Nukes

"Bush said Monday Washington would not rule out military action against Iran -- which he has labeled as part of an "axis of evil" alongside Iraq (news - web sites) and North Korea (news - web sites) -- if it was not more forthcoming about its suspected nuclear weapons program. "

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050118/wl_nm/iran_usa_dc

SO what, folks? Are you ready for another war?

Are you ready to sacrifice more young men and women for this bullshit campaign by a bullshit administration?

Fair and balanced? Not unless you speak your mind!

Judy Bachrach (sp) did just that on Fox News when she criticized the Bush administration for their lavish spending during a time of war.

Preach on, Sister!

Watch the streaming video:

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2663486

*This was edited- The former link was not working~

It's snowing here in NYC right now.

I love the calm, sweet quietude that blankets the city when it snows. I feel at peace right now, and that's a good thing considering my normal state of mania during the school week.

Ahhh...

In any case, if you're snowed in, here's a highly addictive activity for your poor bored self:

http://www.popularfront.com/snowdays/

Taking the public transit system is one of my least favorite things to do.

Every morning, I troop my butt from the East Village up to the bricks in Harlem and, after a day of working as a glorified babysitter, dealing with foul mouthed little hellions , back home again for the rush hour commute.

So I'm on the L train today. The train, for whatever reason, rolls up minus one car, so of course it's quite snug in there.Per usual, it's packed from butts to nuts (as my dearest friend Karyn so eloquently says) with noveau yuppies, tragically hip hipsters and your run-of-the-mill loud mouthed, obnoxious teens. I grab on to the nearest pole and get sandwiched between a man, a woman and the woman's little girl. More people push on.

Then, the inevitable happens.

One of the loudmouthed teens comes pushing in with her yacht-sized baby stroller, cussing and yelling at the people in front of her and promptly parks herself in front of the door.

We amble toward the next stop- Union Square- which is SURE to bring in another crowd of winners.

As the train begins to slow down, the loudmouthed teen starts yelling, "Yo- fuck this shit. Fuck these people! I ain't movin' for SHIT!"

The doors open and the inevitable push for space begins, and of course, the baby mama starts shouting, "Fuck you muthafuckas! I ain't movin'! I got a muthafuckin' kid here so I ain't movin' from these muthafuckas. Some of ya'll need to get the fuck out..."

...and more of the same...

So one of the other passengers yells out what we all were thinking: "SHUT UP!"

"YOU shut the fuck up! Fuckin' white beeeee-ahhhhtch!"

"Yeah I'm white. Whatcha gonna do about it?"

"See if I don't fuck your ass up when I get off this train."

Ugh...and with a baby carriage, even...

The thing is, this kind of stuff is NORMAL for my ride home.

My life...oy...

 Dear Parent or Guardian,

I’m writing you to congratulate you on raising an antisocial future ax murderer.

Your child currently excels in cutting paper, throwing and sharpening pencils, walking around the room, talking to him/herself, rolling on the ground, standing on chairs, running through the halls, chewing gum, writing obscenities on desks, detention, poking his/her classmates, calling out, cursing me out, faking sickness, interrupting lessons, tattling, hitting his/her classmates, screwing up the educational process for students who really want to learn, and going to the bathroom.

Having your child as a student has successfully convinced me that teaching is really nothing more than glorified babysitting to parents like you, who obviously has as much desire to be around your own child as I do judging from the underwhelming non-responses I get from you when I call you or write you, or your non-appearance on parent-teacher night.

Thank you for promoting and ensuring the mis-education of another generation of poor, inner city children.

Sincerely,

A once idealistic teacher

I must say that I was really saddened to hear of the death of Ossie Davis. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/05/MNGC2B6F6A1.DTL

Ossie was a lifelong activist for social justice who helped to campaign for anti-lynching legislation back in the 40's . He, along with his wife, Ruby Dee,  was once almost blacklisted for his political beliefs and his outspoken opposition to McCarthy's communist hunts.

Besides his political activism, he was an incredible actor. He always brought strength and quiet dignity to his characters.

Not too long ago, he did just that when he starred in one of my favorite cheeseball B-movies, "Bubba Hotep" (http://www.bubbahotep.com/ ).

Davis played a man in a retirement home who believes he's John F. Kennedy and is enlisted to fight an evil mummy (who Davis' JFK believes is Lyndon B. Johnson) by none other than a geriatric, obnoxious and crotchety Elvis Presley (played by Bruce Campbell of "The Evil Dead" fame).

Bruce Campbell as Elvis and Ossie Davis as John F. Kennedy

The thing is that he played JFK with such sincerity and sweetness that you actually start thinking that this old man, black at that, actually COULD be JFK.  Ossie Davis delivered such a dignified performance, you couldn't help seeing things his way.

In any case, here's to Ossie.

Two words:

Paul Giamatti.

 Paul Giamatti   Paul Giamatti in "American Splendor"

After being completely and utterly snubbed for his incredible performace as everyday man turned comic book icon Harvey Pekar in "American Splendor" (one of my favorite movies in recent history), the Academy Awards asses have yet again turned their noses up at one of the best performances of the year- Paul Giamatti as Miles Raymond in "Sideways".

Look- there's no way in HELL that Leonardo DiCaprio ("The Aviator" ) is a better actor than Paul Giamatti, and that big headed ass got a nomination?

Stupid asses.

I stopped watching that boring inside look at Hollywood masturbation years ago, especially when Daniel Day Lewis got snubbed for his performance as Bill "The Butcher" in "Gangs of New York" and of course, one of my favorite performances of all time, Ben Kingsley's BRILLIANT, chilling and disgustingly underrated performance as the cockney gangster, Don, in "Sexy Beast".

 Ben Kingsley as Don in "Sexy Beast"

 Daniel Day Lewis as Bill "The Butcher" in "Gangs of New York"

It's apparent that it's not about the acting. It's more about who's got the face, who's on the most magazine covers and which movies make the biggest social commentary.

Bullshit.

The other day, I was a bit ashamed of myself.

There I was, eating the so-called food in the teacher's cafeteria of my school.

Normally, I sit with with co-workers and engage in various bitch sessions about these psychotic hell children and the profound incompetency of the administration I work for.

Anyway, as I was eating, the conversation took its natural course to the topic of dealing with administration.

As I sat there, a coworker of mine began to speak thusly:

"Well, you know that those JEWS downtown won't do anything about it anyway."

....and then a bit louder because no one was really paying attention (except your faithful narrator):

"You know how those JEWS are. They don't..." blah blah blah...

Now, anyone who really knows me KNOWS that I hate bigots. I don't care what kind of wrapping it comes in- vanilla, chocolate...whatever. Hell- I run a forum that was explicitly created to combat racism and I co-moderate another one that embraces multiculturalism.

I'm marrying a man who is by all purposes (being a half Turkish American) semitic.

I shocked even myself because I sat there and said nothing.

Why?

I guess that when confronted with that kind of bigotry head on, I don't know what to say or how to really react. I don't know what to do.

In my personal life, I surround myself with people that are openminded and multicultural. My friends run the multi-culti gamut, and I prefer it that way. It is there that I feel most comfortable.

As a (for lack of a better descriptor) biracial person myself who grew up surrounded by a wide rainbow of people, I literally am stunned when I hear this kind of shit. I'm shocked when I hear it flow out of the mouths of seemingly reasonable people.

I am ashamed that I didn't say anything, readers, but in all fairness, I was shocked. In retrospect, I could have done something- anything- to show my disapproval of such blatant ignorance, but I didn't.

In all honesty, how do YOU deal with it when you are confronted with it head on?

Are you shocked by it?

Is it common in your world?

What would you do?

While schools don't admit officially that they are teaching to the test, in a lot of ways, we have to. If we don't (thanks to the curriculum that we are using) our kids will fail.

I try to sneak in comprehension skills like "finding the main idea, "using inference" and "sequencing", but in truth, it doesn't really have anything to do with the curriculum that we are told to teach.

The high stakes tests that these kids get make it almost impossible to do much more than that, but at the same time, the curriculum that we are told to teach simply doesn't match up.

I teach 3rd grade in NYC where kids MUST pass a standardized test in order to proceed into the 4th grade. The problem is that the curriculum itself, mainly balanced literacy and Everyday Math (which is considered to be a failure in many school districts around the country  http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon_3_7_03mc.html) , has little or nothing to do with the test itself which, of course, leads many kids to fail.

Everyday Math is a program that is basically is a spiralling way of learning, rather than linear. One day, the kids will be learning how to add. The next day (literally), they're multiplying. The next day, they may be doing some geometry.

Back to the tests. So much is at stake with these tests. If the kids fail, they get left back. If they fail, as a teacher, I'm considered a failure.

There is little emphasis on learning and memorizing basic skills. Even memorizing spelling words is frowned upon. Let's not even get started on teaching basic grammar! We can't even teach grammar as a subject. We are told to have students "correct each other's work".

Which brings me to cooperative grouping. Sure, I do think it's important that students work in groups occasionally, but the fact of it is that children also need to learn how to work independently. Sitting in groups all the time for 8 hours a day...you can't begin to  imagine how most of my day is spent telling kids to stop touching each other, to stop touching each other's stuff, to stop talking...

I have so many discipline problems in my class that you would be astounded that I'm able to teach at all. The thing is, my class is not an exception regarding discipline problems- it's basically the rule.

Discipline problems are rampant, of course, due to the lack of structure in what we are teaching.

And still...I must get the kids prepared for these tests...

The red pen (that most of us grew up seeing) is considered to be something that lowers self-esteem. Seeing all that red is not good.

Hell- we were even told that we could not write corrections directly on the paper. We were supposed to use POST IT notes for our corrections. Never mind that the kids don't look at the corrections on the post its and my classroom is littered with yellow sticky paper. Never mind that I've probably spent about $60 on post it notes alone.

I'm only in my third year of teaching and I'm very disillusioned. I'm dismayed that my students and others in the NYC school system simply are not getting the same caliber of education that I got as a child, and it sickens me that I can't do much of anything about it.

The adorable student who uttered the famous "F- you mutha-f-ing, d-sucking sonofabitch" has finally been removed from my room for good.

As he left, he turned around and mouthed to me, "YOU BITCH".

It's fun to be a teacher.

On Friday, I went to see the reunion show of my brother's old hardcore band, Fahrenheit 451, at CBGB's.

I haven't been to a hardcore show in years and I had forgotten just how much I love the energy of it all. The crowd was flying and people were hopping all over the place, their arms spinning like windmills in the pit.

We got there right before Maximum Penalty came on, and CB's was packed to its smelly gills with people.

Despite swearing up and down years ago that I would never venture into the bowels of CB's to use their hideously repulsive toilet, I had to make my way there and literally lift up the legs of my pants to keep them from getting soaked in the swamp that had collected on the floor.

Maximum Penalty did a great set and even did a song cover of one of my favorite hardcore bands of all time, Bad Brains.

When Fahrenheit came on, the sold out audience went NUTS.

I must admit that it was very exciting to see all those people who absolutely love and admire my very talented brother (who, incidentally has been called the Best Hardcore Drummer in NYC by more than a few heads). My brother even told me later that he was talking to some young kid outside and the kid said something to the effect of, "Don't you know who he (my brother, Ray) is??? HE'S A LEGEND!"

 I overheard a few conversations and it seemed that despite the fact that F451 had been defunct for a long time now, people were thrilled at this reunion.  Young fans who had never seen them live were practically gushing like little girls ("I can't believe I'm finally going to see them! I've been waiting for this for a long time!") and older heads just were happy to see friends that they hadn't seen in a loooong time.

Even yours truly with my old 34 year old, prim schoolteacher ass jumped into the mix (fantasizing about the days when I was 24 years old and not prone to getting knocked on my backside) when they did a few songs. I think my students would be shocked to see how I really am.

In any case, it was a great show and a testament to the fact that NYHC is still alive and kicking.

If you ever plan to marry, please take my advice- ELOPE.

There's so much drama involved with family that it practically devours you alive.

In fact, I can honestly say that it's the first time that I loathe being in such a large family.  My father had 11 brothers and sisters and my mother has about 10. I have scores of cousins that I never associate with who are somehow crawling out of the woodworks to make it to my wedding. Somehow, they've all seem to have forgotten the fact that being a teacher, I am somewhere in the league of a pauper.

I love these folks, but come on- I have friends who are closer to me.

My darling little school has erupted into what can easily be described as chaos.

Students roam the halls biting each other, cursing out teachers, spitting on each other...

I remember the days when I fantasized about being an educator, and I wince. How could I have possibly been so naive?

Haven't been blogging much as you can very well see.

Things are speeding up around here.

My kids will be taking the NYC standardized tests in a few weeks, and I've been hauling my ass to work at a quarter to six every morning (so I can be there by a quarter to seven) for early morning test prep and tutoring.

It's something I volunteered to do. I’m not getting a stinking dime for it.

Why?

Part of it is that I'm hoping that it'll at least get some of my kids through and on to the fourth grade.

The other part is to let parents know that yes- despite the fact that learning has suffered in my classroom thanks to the 5 or 6 behavior problems in my class- that I put in a concerted effort to get their kids out of the third grade.

Hell, I have at least two kids who belong in Special Ed (though their parents refuse services), three who belong in Special Ed but haven’t been evaluated, and at least one who is just plainly mentally ill.

That aside, I have bigger fish to contend with.

A common misconception that non-teachers have is that teachers can teach whatever they want and that we are somehow wholly and totally responsible for students passing these tests.

There is little to no discussion about the other factors that contribute to low test scores and failure. Theory translates into policy, and the policy never seems to view the issues with a realistic eye.

Some of the things that contribute to student failure I've observed are:

• Poverty and the various issues that plague poverty stricken neighborhoods, like drugs, are decimating test scores. When I first started teaching, my first batch of kids were the direct products of the year when crack hit the ghetto. I had a roomful of violent, uncontrollable students. One was actually diagnosed as psychopathic. He used to beat the shit out of his classmates and elicit no emotion whatsoever.
• Parents who are not involved- Anyone with half a brain knows that if the parents are not involved, then more than likely, the child will fail. Case in point: I have one student who has seriously bad eyesight. He sits close to the front , but still complains about not being able to see the board. I have literally begged this student’s parent’s to get him glasses since October. Do you think he got them?
• Lack of funding- Why is that the curriculum calls for use of “real” literature, but at the same time, doesn’t provide the books to fill up classroom libraries?
• Consistent and outlandish miscommunication between administrators and teachers
• Lack of discipline in the school environment- Like in my school. Yeah. Ever seen the opening scene of “Lean On Me” with children going buck wild all over the school? That’s my school on any given weekday afternoon. Think I’m exaggerating? In my next post, I’ll tell you how my co-worker got her head slammed between the door and the wall of her classroom two weeks ago by the resident fifth grade psychopath.

There’s so much more I want to say, but right now, I’m more enamored with this Brooklyn Lager I’ve been kissing.

To be continued…

Well, I had quite a busy weekend.

On Saturday, I found out that a childhood friend of both my brother and me died of complications related to a spleen removal that he had back when he was a kid.

James was one of those people that I called "One of my brothers". He was a close friend of my brother's and spent many days of our childhood, sitting in my living room, getting yelled at by my mom (like any good son would), eating up our food, and talking about drums with my brother. As an adult, I remember having many arguments with him about various topics, but in short, I did love him like a brother.

The last time I saw James was at the local watering hole during the 2004 Blackout. I remember him re-introducing himself to my friends as my "brother".

Wow.

It's strange how things like this can remind you of your own mortality and how easily and without warning one can just...cease to be.

I will mourn his passing.

...and then today, one of my students was taken away in an ambulance after complaining that she was getting sharp pains in her abdomen and that she  was so weak that she couldn't walk. I don't know what's going on, but she left wailing from the pain.

What a day...what a weekend...

Fuck.

What a life.

In memory of Jamie Norcross who was a drum tech for Joan Jett and The Blackhearts...and my friend since childhood...

7/21/1969 - 3/24/2005

I'd like to have children one day.

I know I do.

But then I see things like this: THIS IS THE BEST ADVERTISEMENT MESSAGE YOU COULD EVER MAKE.

and this View video of classroom
View video of assistant principal's office, arrival of police, it really makes me think...

Well, the wedding is officially less than a month away, and as you can very well see, I have not been blogging.

I've been having some humdingers for nightmares lately, most likely brought on by stress related to the wedding and school.

A few nights ago, I had a nightmare that I was being hunted by flesh-eating zombies a la 28  Days Later. A week before that, I woke up slapping on my couch and whimpering because I had a dream that my fiance left me for a menage a trois with a woman and two gay men.

Nice, huh?

Sunday started off relatively cold, and I was worried. I knew that rain was on it's way because the sky looked ready to open up at any moment.

The Old Man was already awake at 4:30 am, which is highly unusual for him (but as you can see, not for me).

My mother, who had slept over, was wrapped tightly in a blanket on the couch, already about ready to leap off the couch into some Mother-of-the-Bride action.

And so the day began-  May 22, 2005- our wedding day.

Things went fast from here, so I wound bore you with the minute details.

Eventually, we went our separate ways- I, to the bare, undecoratef  loft where we were having the ceremony and reception and he, to the hotel to drop off our things.

Fast forward...

At around 4 pm, one our until the moment was to come, I was getting ready as fast as I could. Craig Matthews, my stylist, was making me beautiful and Erika and Karyn finally got a second to take a break from decorating the bare site to get themselves ready (and help me) get into my corset and dress.

Craig poured us some champagne and I felt my stomach doing somersaults- the kind that make you wish you hadn't eaten all those eggs early in the morning.

How could I possibly be nervous? All those people...looking at ME!!

Ray, my brother, was walking me down the aisle since my father had passed many years ago. I carried a picture of my dad on his wedding day, so in a sense, he was there- in my brother, and with me- as I walked down the aisle.

He finally came upstairs to the bridal room to get me and we walked arm in arm together down the elevator and into the ceremony room.

The processional, "In My Life" by The Beatles, began, and my heart went racing.

Here it was- my beginning...the newness of life...

And as I walked toward David who stood there gazing at me amidst a crowd of loving friends and family, I knew I was home.

To make a long, lovely story lovely and short, the wedding was a blast, and everyone (including myself) danced as if it was their last night on earth.

To all of my friends and family, I thank you for your loving support.

To my dearest husband, it now begins...

http://tinypic.com/5dtmh3

Living in the city and taking public transportation every day can make you an angry person whose disdain for humans chips away every moment you are in contact with them.

Here's my list of people who make you want to slap the taste from their mouths. Please feel free to add more...

• corporate-type men who say "smokin'!", as in "I saw a smokin' girl yesterday." I don't know why I hate these types. I think it's because they remind me of frat guys who go to "keggers"- the kind of guys that I hated when I was in school. You know what they look like- lacquered-up looking hair, button down shirts, really expensive looking ties, probably got hazed into a frat in college by having his ass beaten with a paddle by his latently homosexual frat brothers. When their not at work, they tend to wear baseball caps with the front molded into a duck bill and they often attend Dave Matthews concerts.
• sleazy, busted up looking men who get offended when you don't respond to their catcalling. Example: Busted up bastard: "Did anyone ever tell you that you look sexy in black?" Me: "Yeah, my husband." Busted up bastard: "Yeah, well you're a fat bitch anyway."
• Men who MUST take up at least 2-3 seats on the train because they feel the need to spread their legs out. What are they trying to prove? That their sexual organs are SOOOOOO gigantic that they need an extra seat just to rest them somewhere?
• Loud, obnoxious teenagers- the real reason why I won't teach high school. I'd probably end up fighting one.
• Women who feel the need to fling their hair in a crowded subway car. There's something about feeling some other person's hair on my skin that makes me want to vomit. To me, it feels as if an insect is crawling on my skin.
• Women who stare at my husband despite the fact that he is obviously attached to my hand. Yeah- he's a good looking guy, but show a little restraint, Bitch.
• "Summer Campers"- you know- the crusty kids that make that journey to the city in the summer months so they can sit on the corner nodding out on smack, begging your struggling working ass for change. Mind you, I have nothing against crusty kids per se. I used to hang out with a bunch of them back in my late teens/early to mid-twenties, but they weren't the ones that were here to go "spanging", or "spare changing" . They lived here in squats and lots of them had some sort of job. It's the ones that come here from somewhere else, sitting on the corner with signs that read, "Homeless. Please help." with their dogs as they nod out in the summer sun. A few days ago, the Old Man and I saw a young crusty couple standing outside the neighborhood McDonald's. The girl looked young- young but old. An Old Girl with her face swollen, her slitted junky eyes blackened. Her companion was a stereotype of the filthy matted stringy dreadlocks, greyed-out clothes, tatooed face mode. He angrily gestured her along. Anyway, I once had one call me a "rich bitch" and was told to "go back to your neighborhood." What did the five fingers say to the face? SLAP!

This is by no means a complete list. As I said, please feel free to add on to this.

When I tell people I'm a teacher, they always seem to react this way:

Person: "Wow! How wonderful! What grade do you teach?"

Me: Third grade.

Person: "That's a great age. The kids must be sooooo cute!"

Me: *SNORT*

My students range in age from 8-11.

8 to 11 in the third grade.

Catch my drift? Sounds strange, huh?

Well, we finally got back our test results from the standardized city-wides that they took recently. Here's the breakdown:

Of 20 students, 5 failed both the math and reading tests and 2 failed one.

•  Of the 7, three of them  I tried to get into special ed.- one was rejected because he "doesn't throw desks or anything, so he doesn't need special ed" (according to my vice principal). This despite the fact that the kid talks to himself, has no comprehension or social skills and is in the early stages of Tourette's syndrome.  Another one's mother refuses to put him in special ed, despite the fact that every teacher since kindergarten suggested it. I even got him evaluated and was told that besides having a lower than normal IQ, he is severely depressed, needs his own paraprofessional to shadow him, and needs to be in a 7 students to 1 teacher classroom. The child spends his whole day running around the room, bothering other students, throwing paper, cutting paper, and doing no work at all. The other one, who had been left back twice before this was never evaluated despite my best efforts to get her evaluated.
• 1 is never in school, and when he is in school, he finds some way to show up about an hour late for school, not do a drop of work, pick fights, and not make it back to the classroom after lunch. He's about waist high with an attitude of a thug.
• ditto for this other kid who failed. He speaks like a 5 year old, is the largest kid in my class, and is the son of a semi-famous 90's hip hop artist. He comes in dressed like 50 Cent wearing clothes that are more expensive than my own but for some reason, his mother can't find a way to get him to school, on time or at all, with a pencil or a notebook in his bag.
• another one, a girl, came to me about 3 1/2 months ago. She speaks like a toddler, wanders around the room all day instigating fights, does no work, and makes sexually suggestive comments.
• this other girl who came to my class about the same time does the same thing, minus the sexually suggestive comments. She came to me after being left back in her old school. Her parents want her special ed, but she wasn't placed there.
• the last kid, a boy, was placed in my class last month- a week before the test. He came from a bilingual classroom. I was told by my VP that he "tested out of bilingual" when in truth, his former teacher tells me that the kid tried to box him. Oh- and he also did no classwork.

Fulfilling. Very.

It's been on my mind, I must admit.

Then I ran across this:

(White) Women We Love

*snip*

"A damsel must be white. This requirement is nonnegotiable. It helps if her frame is of dimensions that breathless cable television reporters can credibly describe as "petite," and it also helps if she's the kind of woman who wouldn't really mind being called "petite," a woman with a good deal of princess in her personality. She must be attractive -- also nonnegotiable. Her economic status should be middle class or higher, but an exception can be made in the case of wartime (see: Lynch). "

*snip* http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/09/AR2005060901729.html .

Now, don't get me wrong.

This is not to say that I have anything against these women because they are white. Hardly.

My question is this: What makes these women more valuable than the thousands of non-white women and girls who disappear without a trace?

If I had decided to jilt my Old Man at the altar and take a powder to New Mexico, would there have been media coverage like the one that we saw when that bug-eyed woman Jennifer Wilbanks had disappeared?

If I had disappeared in Aruba as a teen, would we see what we see now in the case of Natalee Holloway?

A few months ago, a young white unknown actress named Nicole duFresne was killed on the street not too far from where I live. The story was all over the news here in NYC. You would've thought that someone had killed Angelina Jolie from the amount of coverage it got on the news.

If I had been murdered- brown-skinned , NYC schoolteacher- do you think there would have been that kind of coverage?

Let's put in perspective.

You remember Jessica Lynch, right? Cute, petite and a war hero?

Now here's a kicker- do you remember Shoshanna Johnson?

Yeah...I thought not.

Shoshanna Johnson: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/10/24/sprj.irq.pow.disability/

Food for thought.

I used to dabble in poetry when I was a teenager and haven't really been doing it that much since then.

Recently at a literacy workshop, we were asked to write a poem modelled after a poem we loved.

I chose Langston Hughes' "A Dream Deferred". Read---> http://www.cswnet.com/~menamc/langston.htm

I've always been impressed by the sheer power of this poem despite its simplicity.

Here's my try:

Untitled

How do dreams take seed and bloom?

Does it pray for

rain to drench its dry soul?

Or does it stretch its

tender green shoots to a hot and merciless sun?

Or maybe it just waits

and roots its limbs in the earth

and patiently hopes for

its time to become?

Not too bad, eh?

: )

This is a continuation of my post about the disproportionate amount of media coverage given to missing white women as opposed to missing non-white women.

Tamika Huston, a 24 year old black woman, has been missing for over a year now, and her mother has been struggling to bring attention to the case of her missing daughter.

Have you heard of her?

According to this article http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050624150709990001 , Huston is a symbol of those who have disappeared who have largely been ignored by the media.

Again- I won't say that the case of Natalee Holloway is not important.

It is.

But what of the Tamika Hustons who disappear under suspicious circumstances?

Are they less important?

Are they as valuable as the Natalee Holloways who disappear?  

Tomorrow, we'll be leaving for two glorious honeymooning weeks in Scotland.

Interestingly enough, our resident talking monkey, George, will be there, too.

If you haven't been following the news, the G8 Summit is taking place in Scotland this week. The G8, or Group of Eight, are leaders from 8 countries (The US, Japan, Germany, and Russia to name a few) who are meeting to discuss issues such as Africa and the growing global climate change (interesting, since the monkey doesn't believe that there is any shift in the global climate).

Scotland's police have been busy handling throngs of Scottish protestors in Gleneagles who are intent on disrupting the summit. ( see---> http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=148310832&p=y483yy538 )

Humph.

Leave it to Bush to disrupt MY damn honeymoon.

I just don't get the fascination with explosives.

My husband assures me that for several years as a kid growing up in the suburbs, he and his friends were habitual pyromaniacs. Once, they even lit his backyard shed on fire, but that's another story for another day.

Anyway, to celebrate the 4th of July, we went to a roof party thrown by our friend, Boomer, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn last night to watch the fireworks. Beer and food...

At 9:25, the sky lit up. The fireworks display over the East River had begun, and all over Brooklyn, people were setting off firecrackers and other explosives.

A couple of geniuses at the roof party were setting off bottle rockets and various other explosives.

While no one got hurt, one of the idiots got the fantastic idea to put a bottle down on the roof and set off a few rockets.

The bottle broke and sent glass flying around the roof. One bounced off my Old Man's face. An inch or two more, and it could've cost him an eye.

An inch or two more and one of those idiots would've found themselves plummeting 8 flights down from me coldcocking them over the side of the roof.

A few years ago, I went to another roof party that my brother's then-girlfriend threw. I went out onto the fire escape to smoke a cigarette. A drunken fool decided to let off a few rockets underneath the fire escape and it went shooting up, blowing my skirt up, scorching the side of my tank top and smarting my right cheek.

My furious brother went running downstairs to introduce someone to his fist, but the person was already gone.

Yeah.

Firecrackers and stupidity are not a good combination.

Well, here we are in Glasgie, Scotland.

Apparently, the Al Qaeda bombs were going off just as we were landing at Heathrow on Thursday. We still didn't know what was going on as we took our British Midlands flight into Glasgow Airport.

As soon as we saw Aunt Marion, she told us what had happened...

Shit...

....and the headlines over here are like the headlines were on 9/11.

....

Anyway, this European keyboard is making my hand do all kinds of contortionist tricks right now. I'm getting massively fucked up cramps in my hand that I'm not even sure that an update is really that necessary.

We are safe, and that's the most important thing...

More to come later....

Well, we're home at last and I've been assaulted by a vicious cold. Since I've been home, I've been sleeping on and off for a total of about 20 hours.

I haven't had time to update.

In any case, we had a smashing good time, despite the bombings on the day we arrived and the bombings on the day that we left.

I have lots to talk about- the bombings, driving up to the Highlands, honeymooning on the Isle of Skye, Edinburgh, family troubles- but maybe not today...

It feels about 92 degrees this morning and I'm having fantasies of being back in Edinburgh...

Talk to you in a few.

Since I'm feeling a wee bit lazy about writing, here's some pictures from our honeymoon.

This picture was taken on a day trip to the town of Largs. Largs is sort of a waterside community where they have a boardwalk and all sorts of amusements. I love the quilted fields in the distance. You can see them all over Scotland outside of the big cities.

Here's a picture of some mountains just near Glencoe where we stayed for about 4 days.

Glencoe's a small area and it's surrounded by mountains. We stayed in the town of Kinlochleven in The Macdonald Hotel.

Glencoe is famous in Scotland as being the site of the Glencoe Massacre of the Macdonald Clan by the Campbells. http://www.electricscotland.com/history/glencoe/

Believe it or not, the people of this area share a connection with Native Americans. http://www.electricscotland.com/history/world/american_indians.htm

Here's a picture of The Old Man taking a walk on the rocks near the wee waterfalls of Kinlochleven.

Of course, I was too afraid to get onto those slippery rocks!

These are the ruins of Dunstaffnage Castle. We didn't get to go in for a visit because we got there too late.

The ruins of Castle Stalker in Argyle. I believe the lake is called Loch Linnhe.

Apparently, you need to make an appointment to go visit it by boat.

This is Eilean Donan Castle in Lochalsh in the western Highlands, which belongs to the Clan Mackenzie. It's castle that still is inhabited by the Clan Mackenzie descendents. We found some of the tour guides (members of the clan, I think) to be a bit arrogant and have since referred to them as "Snottish".

It's the most photographed castle in Scotland.

This picture was taken in a graveyard in Dunvegan where we stayed on the Isle of Skye (we didn't stay at the graveyard....LOL).

There was a weird cloudbreak and the sun just seemed to erupt over this one spot where the villagers had erected a stone. I love this picture.

Dunvegan, by the way, was really remote and a bit boring, so if you ever go to visit there, I wouldn't advise staying more than a day or two. 

The day after we took that picture, we went to visit Dunvegan Castle. The castle offers seal boat tours out on the loch so I took a few close ups of these big fellas. The seals were very, very shy, but absolutely adorable. It's very easy to see how people often mistook seals for mermaids.

Ahhh...now here's the man.

Ever seen that crap of a movie, "Braveheart"?

This is a statue of one of Scotland's most important heroes- Robert the Bruce- taken at Stirling Castle.

This a picture of a street taken in Stirling. Like Edinburgh, it still looks like an old town in lots of places.

The view from The Balmoral hotel was beautiful. Here's a shot of Edinburgh Castle from our room window!

I'm not a fan of The Davinci Code, but here's a picture taken at Rosslyn Chapel.

If you've read the book, then you know that part of the story ends at Rosslyn.

Apparently, the chapel has many connections to freemasonry and the Knights Templar. The chapel inside is made of exquisite and strange masonic and religious carvings.

The picture above is a stone carving that has something or other to do with a Knight Templar.

Inside the chapel, there are thousands of weird, hidden things. The picture above is one of them. It's barely noticeable when you just look around.

Apparently, it is purported to be the death mask of Robert the Bruce.

This is a picture of The Balmoral Hotel, the hotel that we stayed in on the last few days of our visit. We had a honeymoon suite that was almost as big as my apartment!

That's about it for now.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

...or how about a chit'lins-eating contest?

Quote:

"Miami city leaders are apologizing for a news release that invited summer campers to a ''Ghetto Style Talent Show'' and ''Watermelon Eating Contest.''

The release said that children participating in the summer camp who "know the meaning of ghetto style" would have a chance to "prove just how ghetto they are.''

Members of the black community expressed outrage at the wording of the invitation to the talent show. The show will be part of the grand finale picnic for the city's summer camp program to be held Friday at Hadley Park."

(end quote).

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/wplg/20050726/lo_wplg/2846468

I am completely astounded by the sheer ignorance of this.

To me, it's not so much that the contest is about wolfing down some watermelon, but the implications of seeing hundreds of black kids "showing how ghetto they are" as they chow down on watermelon...Shit.

What a perfect way to revive a disgusting stereotype.

What do you think?

Apparently, it's an ad for some line of male facial tissue/wipe.

What are your thoughts?

EDITED TO ADD: ***Please proceed with caution- I was told that the link caused one person's pc to crash. As I understand it, the ad has been removed from Mandom's website. It can be viewed at this blog: http://www.vudeja.com/05/06/mandom-ad

Well, Brawny Paper Towels has just the man for you.

This is absolute hilarious. Make sure your volume is on so you can hear what he's saying.

http://www.brawnyman.com/innocentescapes/

Today, I have decided to say goodbye to an old friend.

Dear Friend,

Today, you and I part ways.

For years, you have been my comfort and closest, dearest friend, but let's face it- it's been a destructive relationship.

You have done me no good.

Anyone who knows you knows that you, dear friend, have been an integral part of my life since I was seventeen, and now, at 34, I realize that it's time for you to go.

Goodbye, dear friend.

Goodbye, cigarettes.

I want to smoke so badly that I can feel it in my fingers and toes. I can feel it in my belly and my head and all over my anxious skin.

Lord.

Anyway, Day ONE is nearing the middle mark and already, two times today, the blasted nicotine patch fell off. Here I am with patch #3.

Bloody waste of money.

To this day, I curse the moment I made the concious decision to smoke those damnable things. The cigarettes, not the patch, of course.

Addiction is a powerful thing, and they say that it's harder to kick smoking than it is to kick smack. Well, I've pretty much known for a long time that I'm a damned junkie for cigarettes, and I knew it wasn't going to be easy.

I have, after all, been down this path before- after all, years ago, I gave up smoking to please a boyfriend. FOr almost a year, I didn't smoke. When we broke up, I took them up again.

The great irony of it all is that now HE'S a smoker.

The thing is, I LOVED smoking. I loved the feeling it gave me from my first puff in the morning to a nice, smooth smoke with a pint in a pub.

Ahhh...damn.

All I know is that it's going to be damned difficult as hell to do this, but it's something I must do.

I don't want to perish the way my uncle did.

I want to make healthy babies with my husband.

I don't want to feel like a pariah anymore.

I don't want to have prolonged colds anymore.

I want to smell GOOD.

Damn.

My kingdom for a smoke.

Okay- so here I am on day four doing...okay.

Yesterday was quite an ordeal for me.

A lot of folks have been reminding me to think on the positive.

It's just not that easy when one has developed a very real, very physical addiction and habit to a known drug. If you have been smoking for as long (or longer than) I have, you realize that smoking inundates every part of you on every level. You understand that it's not just a matter of putting the damn thing down and being done with it.

Your body craves it, but hates it, and you can almost feel it in every pore of your body.

Sometimes, you even can smell it and feel like you're getting a contact high from it.

Then there's the habit.

Imagine this- the average one-pack-a-day smoker puts a cigarette to his/her lips about 200 times a day.

For me, that's 200 times a day for almost 17 years.

You do it so much that it becomes almost a ritual, much like a obsessive-compulsive disorder.  It is certainly a habit- a bad one at that. After all, am I NOT obsessed with smoking? Do I NOT feel compelled to smoke?

The bad news is that I gave in and smoked about 4 puffs from a Marlboro Red that I harangued my brother for, and the good news is I HATED EVERY MINUTE OF IT and was nauseous and on the verge of kissing some porcelain for the rest of the evening.

Maybe I really am done...

Yesterday, we were sent 6 letters (all the same!) informing us that our lease will not be renewed.

***edited because I don't want anything I say to be used against me***

We'll be meeting with a lawyer next week.

Yeah- because THIS (see below) is SUCH a palace.

Am I not beautiful?

Does your heart not pitter and patter at a mere glimpse of my countenance?

 AHEM.

What's so infinitely un-funny and simply ironic about my state of being when partaking of yummy red red wine...

I speak as a philosopher BUT type as a moron.

With all of the stuff going on regarding Hurricane Katrina, everything else seems...well...small.

For the past few days, I've been very thankful that I live in NYC (which, incidentally, is built on a FAULT LINE. Go figure.).

I feel spoiled, privileged and pampered these days.

How could I not?

How could one not feel spoiled, privileged and pampered these days when one has the simple luxury of a roof over their heads and food in their bellies? 

I hope you are safe where you are, and I hope your loved ones are too.

Apparently, our Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, while visiting my home city of New York, thought it was appropriate to attend the Monty Python play, "Spam-A-Lot" in the midst of the horrible crisis in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. She also apparently went shopping at the designer shoe shop, Ferragamo and bought thousands of dollars worth of shoes.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/342712p-292600c.html

True to form, my fellow New Yorkers booed her at the show.

If you have five dollars in your pocket, you probably have more than the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Donate.

http://www.redcross.org/

Listen to New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin's, impassioned plea for help.

I've listened to it several times, and each time, it hits me like a brick.

"I don't want to hear anyone do another goddamned press conference!" - Ray Nagin

http://a901.g.akamai.net/7/901/13186/v002/airamerica.download.akamai.com/13186/aarplace/media/Nagin.mp3

If the link doesn't work, go to www.airamericaradio.com . The link to the mp3 is on the main page.

Yesterday I had three people ask me if I was pregnant.

Funny, huh?

Nope.

Not really.

The first, a West Indian co-worker of mine who is not known for her tact, says to me as I was walking my class to lunch, "Brightstuff- you expecting?"

I was dumbfounded (and felt my self-esteem melt into the ground) and said, "Uhhh...no...not that I know of...".

"Well, someone say a rumor that you pregnant and all..."she replied.

"Uh...no...thanks A LOT."

Later that day, one of the school psychologists passes me in the stairwell and says "Ms. Brightstuff" and points at her belly smiling.

"Uh...no..."

"Well, I heard..."

Yeah, well you heard wrong.

Nice, huh?

Not really.

Later that day, after drinking with co-workers (  I kept announcing to my friends that I was "drinking for two"  ), I ran into my across-the-hall neighbor. We spoke for a few minutes, and then she said, "Are you pregnant?"

Holy shit.

"Er...no..."

"Well, it looked like it from the way you were just standing that...." and then at that moment, my husband (who was doing the laundry) came out of the elevator.

I am PMS-ing, my boobs are in full 36d glory, and am about as plump as a vine-ripened tomato, but I'm not that fecking fat that anyone should mistake me for being pregnant.

Funny, right?

Well, what makes this so interesting (here's the second funny thing that happened- but not really) is that yesterday, I got a call from my doc telling me that I need to go in for another test because things didn't look completely right in my...insides...

Funny, huh?

Yeah...not really.

There's just something about Phil Donahue that I've always loved.

Not only does he share my birthday (Pearl Harbor Day, if anyone wants to know), but there's just something about a white haired, bespectacled old Irish-American liberal talk show host that just gets my heart pittering and pattering.

Many of you younger folks may not remember this, but Phil Donahue was a talk show host. His show, "The Phil Donahue Show" was in fact the grand-daddy of all talk shows. His show wasn't of the white trash, baby daddy, chair throwing, Nazi transvestite on crack variety. It was, frankly, quite classy, and Phil was never afraid to speak his mind.

Oprah and all of those other folks owe their success to him and should bow at his feet.

Well, anyway, I recently came across this.

Apparently, Phil, in support of Cindy Sheehan (anti-war activist and mother of Casey Sheehan, an American soldier who was killed in Iraq) was on the show of my mortal enemy, Bill O'Reilly's "O'Reilly Factor" and in my opinion, served the wattle-necked, hot air windbag his blotchy ass on a platter.

Have a look-see:

Try here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170195,00.html

or here: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/22/15422/2884

Growing up in an urban setting, you'll most likely see rats at some point.

Yesterday, I was having lunch with a coworker (we were being sent to a workshop away from school for professional development) uptown in Harlem.

Now if you know anything about New York, you'd know that Harlem's starting to gentrify. Sure, there a places that aren't trendy, but it's plain to see that Harlem near 125th Street and Lenox is on the up and up.

I suggested a bakery/bistro-ish kind of place that I had been to before- a nice little joint with an outside area, soups, salads...

We had a pleasant meal and discussed the workshop and school.

As we pulled out our money to pay, a RAT the size of CAT scuttled it's hairy grey ass across the restaurant  floor, trailing it's long wormy looking tail after it as it ran under a booth about 2 yards from our table. 

Kisha let out a shriek and hoisted her legs on the chair next to her as I felt all the blood drain from my face. Two of the customers got up and ran out, another left angrily and Kisha kept saying, "LET'S GO! I AM NOT PAYING FOR THIS!!! I AM NOT PAYING FOR THIS!"

We promptly got the hell out of there.

I was more dumbfounded than anything, but I tell you, I was devastatingly nauseous for the rest of the day.

I don't think I'll be eating out ANYWHERE for a long, long time...

My husband once remarked that many people really do not believe that they are racist.

Take Barbara Bush's "Little brown ones" comment when referring to her own half mexican grandchildren.

Or you can take this wonderful person:

What a wonderful, compassionate human being conservative commentator William Bennett, author of The Book of Virtues is.

Bennett recently said on his program, "But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.....(and) That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, you know, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky."

These are the people that conservatives have representing them?

Sad, huh?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200509280006 (clip available here)

 ...but some of you did.

Happy now?

http://www.badmash.org/videos/videos_flv.php?v=george_bush_512K_Stream

Drag him with your mouse and fling him around...

http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/georgie.htm

Remember how I mentioned a few posts back that I had to go back to the doctor because everything wasn't exactly copascetic in my insides?

Well yesterday I took a day off from work (making that exactly two days I spent at work this past week thanks to the Jewish New Year) to go to OBGYN for more tests.

The office that I go to is very woman friendly (which it should be since it's an OBGYN office.

I met with the doctor who explained what was going to happen. After the explanation, she led me to the room where I was instructed to undress and...wait...

When the doctor came back, she was accompanied by an attendant who was wearing (I shit you not) a sequined black velvet dress with spaghetti straps.

"No need to get dressed up for me," I thought in my head.

It was quite comical as she put on the latex gloves, which weren't sequined.

Up I went on to the table....stirrups and everything.

Yee-haw.

I'll forgo going into any detail.

Anyway...

Although the doctor said that she didn't notice anything to be alarmed about, she still went ahead with the biopsy "just to be sure".

Before she did it, she described it as being "like period pains".

Of course, I started crying when they did it.

Never had one?

It hurts- like a BITCH.

In any case, I'm not allowed to have sex for about a week as my cervix heals from the procedure.

I get my results in about two weeks.

BRING.

IT.

ON.

http://theunitedamerican.blogs.com/Movies/2000A/2000.html

Went to my cousin's son's 1year birthday party a week ago.

If you know anything about Korean culture, you know that the one year birthday (along with the 100 day birthday and the 60 year birthday marks) is considered quite a milestone. People get dressed up, the baby wears a colorful hanbok (traditional Korean gear). It's a big whoop and everyone in the family gathers to wish the youngun well with loads of food and presents. 

I’m sitting there having a fairly mild time sitting at the table with my 16 and 23 year old cousins, my non-English speaking 89 year old grandfather and my sort of step grandma.

 Well, you can very well understand when I was shocked slackjawed when my cousin, a nurse, came up to me and asked me about my abnormal test results in the middle of her son's big party.

“So- I heard you had some abnormal test results….?”

Hmmm.

Apparently, even my aunt in California, also a nurse, knows about the state of my cervix.

The one thing that I've learned growing up in a Korean family is this- there are no secrets among family.

 You can very well forget about THAT, Sister.

Well. Anyway…

Stop yer grinnin' and drop yer linen.

I finally got my results back from the biopsy I had a few weeks ago.

Apparently, my innocent cervix has been harboring pre-cancerous cells that COULD have become cancerous had it not been caught as early as it had been. In a few weeks, I'll be undergoing a fairly minor surgical procedure to scrape those nasty lil' sons-a-bitches out.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not really.

Ahem.

Anyway,the doctor described the fascinating instrument that she would be using.

This is what it sounded like she was describing:

They'll be using something like cheese slicer on my cervix.

What joy.

The good part of this is that it won't affect my ability to have kids, which is what I was worried about.

The even better part is that because I feel a little bit anxious about the whole thing, they've prescribed anti-anxiety meds- Lorazepam-for me to take before the procedure.

Hopefully, I'll be really nice and loopy during the whole thing and I won't even notice the fact that they are slivering off pieces of me.

So anyway, this is kind of good news, but the kind of good news that is in actuality more like a backhanded compliment- it kind of sounds nice but it actually isn’t.

I left the doctor’s office feeling a little light headed and nervous. I was more than a little freaked out about the idea that I have potentially dangerous cells waiting to fester in my womb.

Anyway, on my way home to fill up my prescription of dope (ha!), my cell phone starts ringing. Of course, it's my mom wanting to know all about my test results.

One of the funniest things about my mom is that she still thinks that you have to yell really loudly into phones. I don’t know if it’s because she thinks phone technology hasn’t advanced past tin cans or what, so of course she's shouting all this extremely private stuff as I'm standing in a very public space.

I whispered something to the effect of “Uhhh…can we talk about this later?”  hung up the phone, and called her back later.

After spending about an hour trying to convince her that I was going to be all right, answering the same questions asked several different ways (she’s the master of this!) I finally got her off the phone.

An hour later, my cousin calls me.

"So...I just spoke to your mother and...."

Urgh.

There is no such thing as privacy in my Korean family- even if it has to do with my cervix.

So my husband, the Old Man, got his nose broken yesterday while testing in his Jeet Kune Do class and had to spend some time in the emergency room yesterday to make sure he was alright. His eyes are blackened up and his nose has various and  lovely shades of pinkish-mauvish-greenish and is very, very swollen.

He wasn't wearing any head gear, the doofus.

When he walked in the door and I saw his face, I was so livid that I could've done it myself. I started calling him names.

Nice wife, huh? I guess that's why any man gets married- so his wife can curse him out when he gets injured in martial arts class.

Thing is, the Old Man is an aspiring actor who actually does a bit of acting on the odd occasion and the last thing he needs is to fuck up his look. We can't afford for him to buy new headshots, dammit!

Apparently, after his nose got knocked out to the side of his face like a Picasso and he sprayed the floor of the school in glorious droplets of blood, his sifu (teacher) moved his nose back into place for him. 

In any case, it looks like his nose will require surgery in the near future...

Of course, I've been MIA since my old PC took a nosedive into third ring of computer Hades.

Yes, dear readers- the  bitch is dead. She finally gave up the ghost and met her demise since my last entry was written.

I am sitting here typing on my new computer, and it's about time. After all, I know that you've all forgotten about little, old Brightstuff.

Well...eff you.

I'm back.

Mindsay is a piece of shit.

I just woke up and typed about 30 minutes worth of the equivalent of Shakespearean-style curses at the piece of garbage who stole my wallet on Saturday.

I noticed that I forgot to put a subject on the damned thing so I went back to put the subject title.

When I hit "update", bloody fucking Mindsay ATE my whole entry.

Essentially, I wasted about a half hour typing my diatribe for nothing.

In any case, the next entry will be not only for the person who stole my wallet at Mona's two days ago, but will be also for Mindsay...

Read up...

...for the bastard who stole my wallet and for Mindsay who stole my whole entry about my wallet being stolen:

I curse you, you belly-slithering, dust-eating, shit-stinking reptile.

I curse your privy parts with weeping sores ripe and oozing with foul smelling pus.

I curse your belly with foul wind.

I curse you with inflamed and burning boils on the place where you evacuate.

I curse you with handfuls of warts.

I curse your whorish parents for issuing forth a degenerate like you.

Lastly, I curse your future generations with scores of bucktoothed, cross-eyed idiots.

There, now. I feel much better.

Hands off, ladies.

He's mine!

http://www.pixyland.org/peterpan/petersFashionPage.html

After anticipating the much pain in the ass-edness of replacing a stolen ID, I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles (also affectionately known as the 4th Ring of Hell) to try to get a replacement.

I had been there a few weeks before to change my ID to my married name and, as I waited on the line, began to feel faint.

The security guard on line saw me falter a bit, asked me what was wrong, and then went to find a clerk.

She allowed me to skip about 5 people on the queue and led me to the clerk.

He turned out to be the father of one of my students from my first year of teaching.

When I went back to replace my card, the security guard immediately recognized me and did the same thing. I said to the father, "You know, I didn't mean for you to push me up on the line."

He just smiled and said, "Well, it's good to have friends, isn't it?"

Yes, indeedy.

Tomorrow, I go under the...uh...cheese slicer...

Wish me luck.

Scary.

http://www.wimp.com/rubberjohnny/

Back in the mid 90's, I was a buyer for a bookstore in Greenwich Village.

As a buyer, I had to meet with vendors and authors who wanted me to sell their books.

I was feted, given exotic and strange gifts (my favorite were these Romeo y Julieta cigars that were smuggled out of Cuba), given alcohol- all in efforts to get me to sell books. I even once "modeled" for the cover of an erotica book, but that's a story for another day.

The freakiest and most annoying people, without a shadow of a doubt, were the Church of Scientology folks.

They wanted me to order and do a window display of nothing but Dianetics, which would mean I would have to order a couple hundred to a thousand of those orange and black books.

As a special gift for doing that, they dangled the prospect of having John Travolta (Tom Cruise wasn't as big back then) *actually* coming in to do a SIGNING of the books- you know, as if he actually wrote it.

Pushy vendor was in there for at least an hour trying to schmooze me into it.

I ended up ordering about 6.

They collected dust where I put them-  the SCIENCE FICTION section, next to Battleship Earth and the rest of L. Ron Hubbard's non-selling science fiction (which, incidently, was ridiculous considering our sci-fi section sold pretty well).

My point you, ask?

 Oh, yes.

Tom Cruise is nuts.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051129/dctu052.html?.v=31

After much deliberation, we decided to have a New Years's party.

I spent my whole vacation cleaning up the apartment, shopping, and readying myself for a fine evening of debauchery and drunken mayhem.

Unfortunately, dear husband and I ended up cancelling the party and we rang in the new year with violent bouts of puking and diarrhea (respectively)- no doubt the result of some form of food poisoning as both of his parents were laid up in their house from the same thing.

Happy fucking new year.

From the mouth of a coworker who went to visit her biracial grandchild:

" Black children need to eat more. I know White children don't need to eat as much but Black children! They (Black children) need more to eat than milk."

...and her grandchild IS half-white.

Duh.

You can see why I love where I work so much.

(I wrote this on an online forum in response to this really shitty article about teachers and the public school system.)

	http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338
	I think we can acknowledge that there's a problem with the educational system here, but it's not just one thing, and that's what pisses me off. It's not JUST the teachers, or the curriculum, or the funding, or the administration...it's just not so cut and dry. It makes me livid when I hear people bashing the teachers- as IF we have any control over what we can and cannot teach- or do. As if we can force a student to sit down or stop acting up or stop cursing. You hear people talk about home-schooling being the answer to the problem (how many times have you heard about home-schooled children success stories?) but hell- what teacher wouldn't want to work one-n-one or in a small group, right? If I could do that all the time, I'd be ecstatic and the students I had would be advanced. Then we're told that it doesn't matter how big the class is...it's the teacher. The problems are so deeply embedded and no one seems willing to understand that. Part of the article mentions a teenager who could barely read on a first grade level, right? Then he went to Sylvan (private tutoring) and went up two grade levels in 72 hours. I wonder why his mother didn't notice something was wrong? I wonder how many times a teacher might've tried to have him evaluated only to be deflected by an administrator who thought that it was a bad idea (has happened to me at least 6 times), a parent who didn't think anything was wrong ("My son does not need 'special help'!"- COUNTLESS times), or a principal who refused to hold the child back (supposedly there's no social promotion in NYC, but in my school, we were told to  promote kids up to the third grade. I had the third grade for three years and wondered why 1/4 of my kids didn't receive services or get  held back). I find it difficult to believe that through all that time there was not one teacher who didn't care enough to try to get that child help. I don't believe it at all. I'm at school every day by 7:00 am. I go from downtown to uptown every day to an "at risk"school where the kids run in the halls all day long and call teachers "b*tches" if they tell them to go back to their class. I was famously referred to as a "no-necked black b*tch"by a 9 year old. My 2nd graders try to learn as they listen to the 3rd graders in the class above them throwing tables, screaming and doing Lord knows what. Let's not forget the howling and yelling and screaming going on in the hallways throughout the school day. Oh- and did I mention the student who runs through the halls all day who has hit the principal twice and knocked a co-worker of mine unconcious? He's still there, of course... It's all our fault, isn't it? Articles like that make me sick.

Sorry I haven't updated as of late.

Been a busy little bumblebee these days.

I've been elected to one committee at school- the School Leadership Team- and I've also joined another committee- The United Federation of Teachers Staff Committee(or whatever the damn thing is called). NYC has also implemented an extra 37 1/2 minutes per day  for small group tutoring so I get home later.

On we go...

I was elected to the School Leadership Team a few months ago- by a LANDSLIDE, I might add...

Yup.

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

On this team, I get to sit around for about 3 extra hours after work and make big decisions about what the common goals for the school for the next year are to be. The only problem is that other members of the team (namely some of the parents) pretty much are only there to pick up the little bit of money allotted to the team.

Seriously.

The other team- the UFT committee- is for teachers to air any issues that they have with administration. I'm there to disseminate info to the other folks on my grade. The only problem is that the administration, represented by the principal, NEVER shows up.

As for the 37 1/2 minutes...well...as a condition of the contract the union had been fighting for, we were told that our day would be extended 37 1/2 more minutes. So the day that usually ended at 3:00 pm now ends at 2:50 pm, but only for the students who are NOT part of the extended day tutoring program. Those kids stay until 3:27 pm...and 1/2...

Following me?

Keep following...

The only problem with this is that since only a certain portion stays and a certain portion leaves, you have to spend a good 5 to 10 minutes dismissing the kids who are leaving. That takes a big bite out of the 37 1/2 minutes so what you're actually left with is...ta DA! Just about 27 1/2 minutes!

Once you get back to your students, you have to get them all settled in (because the fact of the matter is, the kids who need the extra help are the ones who have serious behavioral problems and prety much all have ADHD).  That's another 5 minutes or so.

About how much tutoring do you think I get in?

I'll venture to say that it's just about 22 minutes...and 1/2. 

Bang up idea, that.

You can thank Mayor Bloomberg and his toady, Joel Klein, for that stroke of genius.

Besides all of that stuff, I've been sick with some sort of hellish curse of a cold that won't go away. I've had the bastarding thing for a total of almost 4 weeks- a few days a few weeks ago and also the last 2 weeks.

I'm coughing and barking  like I swallowed somebody's german shepard. Never much fun on a crowded L train but hey, it sure gives me more than a few feet of space when I'm coughing like I just smoked some rock.

Ugh.

In any case, my bumblebee ass has just been OUT OF IT.

I do have much to talk about.

So much has been happening lately that I'm kind of pissed that I haven't been updating this thing. I mean, shit! The world's about to end because of some cartoons, and Dick Cheney shot someone in the face, for the love of Jaysus!

Oh yes. I will return.

Happy Valentine's Day.

May you have whatever it is you want on this day.

I got an MP3 player from my Old Man, which is exactly what I wanted!

Last week, Amy and I went to the Whole Foods Market after breakfast with Mo, Ross, and my Old Man.

Old Man decided not to accompany us for shopping after seeing the nightmarish line and hightailed it back home.

As we waited on the massive line, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turn around to see a gigantic man leaning over toward me and grinning like he was a cat that just swallowed a goldfish.

"Hey!"

He looked ridiculously familiar to me- like he COULD conceivably be a cousin or an old friend or an acquaintance- something. In fact, for a split second, I even thought he was my cousin, Ja.

As I shook his hand,  it dawned on me that I had no idea who the hell he was.

Freak: "How are you?"

Me (feeling kind of weird now): "Uh...I don't know you...I thought you were someone else..."

(I see Amy kind of smirking in the background)

Freak: (speaking low)"You look like an interflectual"

Me: "Excuse me.....???????"

Freak: "You look like an intellectual."

Me: " Okay...Uh...right...okay..." (pushing my basket and not looking at the freak)

Freak: "Can I talk to you some time?"
Me: (holding up my left hand) "Uh...I'm married..."

I turn around to keep going up the line and the next thing I know, he's pulled out a card and is handing it to me.

Freak: "If you ever want to call..."

Me: "I'M MARRIED!"

Besides being skeeved out for hours after about the exchange, I pretty much let it go and forget about it.

Until...

Fast forward to Friday.

I'm on my way to work at about 6:30 am (you know how lazy us teachers are), walking through the subway tunnel that connects 6th avenue to 7th avenue.

My cd player just died on the way there but I still kept the headphones in my ears.

I don't know about anyone else, but just having the headphones in my ear with nothing turned on sometimes works to efficiently block out the world that I don't want to acknowledge at 6:30 am in the morning.

So there I am, world almost perfectly muffled out, trudging on my way to another day of civil slavery in the NY public school system when what to my wondering eyes should appear....?

A big, lumbering doofus who looks strangely like that freak that called me an "INTERFLECTUAL" last week.

Freak (grinning like he was my best friend. He steps directly in front of me): "HEEEEYYYYY!!!!!!!!!"

Although I am freaked out as all hell, I don't bat an eye.

I move out of his way and just keep walking like I didn't hear or see him.

ICK.

He probably originally recognized me because he probably sees me on my way to work EVERY DAY.

This only tells me that I'm probably going to see much, much more of him.

UGH.

My Old Man thinks I should invest in some Krav Maga classes since, after all, it's been about 4 years since I've been to kung fu and my tiger crane reflexes are a bit rusty.

You never know when you might have to bust some skeevy man in the face at 6:30 in the morning on the way to work... 

Oh, the humanity.

Are you laughing?

Adam Carolla, former co-host of that pinnacle of moronitude and slob humor show, "The Man Show", thinks it's funny.

He did a skit poking fun at the Asian Excellence Awards and thought saying "ching-chong"" was so funny that he did it 42 times- consecutively. http://racerelations.about.com/b/a/244914.htm

Are you laughing your ass off?

Woo-hoo!! What a hoot!

What next? "Me Chinese! Me make joke!" skits?

How about resurrecting that bucktoothed slanty-eyed, glasses-wearing abomination that Mickey Rooney portrayed in "Breakfast at Tiffany's"?

You up for some "Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees..."?

Remember when I said that I am usually shocked when I hear about things like this?

I'm getting less and less surprised.

Asians are considered "fair game" when it comes to stuff like this. We're considered the folks who don't fight back- the invisible and silent minority.

Unreal.

Stereotypes and blatant racism are, plainly put, for the feeble minded.

They're for the folks who can't conceive of, comprehend or imagine viewing life outside of their field of vision. It's easier after all to cling to the old standby- the belief that people are, because of the color of their skins and their cultural, racial or ethnic background, a certain way.

Did you ever think what it would be like if The Confederacy had won the Civil War?

The new "mockumentary", "The C.S.A.", explores the "what ifs".

Watch the trailer.

Very, very bizarre indeed.

http://www.csathemovie.com/

Not too long ago, my Old Man told me about an incident that happened in the early days of our dating life.

At the time, he lived in Astoria, Queens.

I went to visit him.

His roommate's mother was visiting from Israel. I was introduced to her and we went about our business.

Not too long after that, the roommate laughingly told my Old Man that her mother said, "Oh...she (meaning me) looks like one of the INTELLIGENT ones."

Nice, huh?

Would've been just as offensive if I had turned to my then-boyfriend and said, "OH! She looks like one of the GENEROUS ones!"

My Old Man and I went shopping for a costume that he needed for an upcoming performance so we went to our local Halloween Adventure store.

While browsing around,  I saw this:

They're reminiscent of the ones that Mickey (may he rot in hell) Rooney wore as Audrey Hepburn's Japanese neighbor in that way overrated piece of fluff, "Breakfast at Tiffany's".

They're about as realistic as the ones he wore, at least.

They're called "Chop Suey" specs.

Obviously disgusted, I turn to my husband and say sarcastically, "Wow, Honey! Look! I wonder if they have matching buck teeth to go with them!"

Without missing a beat, the salesperson goes, "Oh! We sell those over there!" (gesturing to the next aisle over).

Ugh.

Guess where they're made?

CHINA.

I have been admittedly negligent of my blog for months and have gotten flack from a few of my readers.

What can I say?

Real life gets in the way, and a day becomes 6 days, then weeks and months go by...

I constantly think about cultivating my life as a writer and was not very happy about how lazy I'd gotten with this thing.

Anyway...

My school year got progressively crazier, and since summer's been around, I've been doing everything I can to get this apartment in order, I've joined a gym so I can get my fat ass in order, and I'm preparing for several different struggles that are looming ahead (back to school, taking my final certification exam, fighting my landlord in court, and...well...something else I can't talk about just yet).

Anyway, in light of recent events in the news and other things I want to discuss, I'll try to update as much as possible.

I pinky swear.

A sister has a life, after all...

Good grief.

It's been nearly 4 months since I've been here and for that, I'm really sorry. Really.

I'm down on my penitent knees begging for your forgiveness.

For real.

I was pretty much convinced that the Mindsay gods-that-be might've taken it upon themselves to delete my poor neglected blog, but alas- she's still here, standing on her poor wobbly legs.

I'm sure I've lost all of my friendly neighborhood readers.

No worries, though.

I started this blog for myself and no one else, really. Like my life changed, I'm sure other people's lives have moved on.

Anyway.

Much has happened in my life since I was last here.

Of course, cliches like "My life has changed so much" are meaningless until I explain what I'm talking about.

So without further ado....

Around the time of my July post, my husband did this to me.

Yup.

There's a wee little Brightstuff baking in the oven.

As of today, dear friends, I am officially 13 weeks pregnant.

This is the little bean's 12th week ultrasound. He's supposed to be about 3 inches long (about the size of a lime- give or take a few inches) and weighs about an ounce or so.

Crazy stuff.

I find it difficult to believe that I have this little person growing and just chilling out inside my body. Right now, he's way too small for me to feel anything (though I'm convinced those little twinges I feel are definitely the baby and not last night's pizza coming back to haunt me). When we went for that ultrasound, we watched as the baby hopped up and down and waved at the camera.

Seriously.

Words cannot describe the feeling of awe I felt seeing all of this going on inside of me.

Anyway...

The past few months have been weird adjusting to the idea. As a result of being knocked up, I've had to say goodbye to three of my very dear friends. The first two....

It was a sad, but necessary farewell.

Truthfully, I only really miss having a beer now and again. The smokes, I can do without.

The third thing I've said farewell to is my figure.

While I was never a small girl, the one thing I was always proud of was my hourglass figure.

Think Gauguin-ish.

However, that has certainly all changed. My belly's sticking out in the front. If you look at me head on, I don't look pregnant.

If you get me in profile...jeez.

Let's just say that my protruding belly is almost as far out as my 36D's.

I'm looking noticeably pregnant and couldn't hide it if I wanted to. I had to "come out" at work because people were beginning to guess when I was only 9 weeks along!

Oh, and before it gets confusing, no- we do not know the sex of the baby. Not only is it too early for that, but I really don't think I want to know just yet.

Besides, we are both convinced the baby's a boy and have been liberally referring to it as such. The Chinese Lunar Calendar (http://www.thelaboroflove.com/chart/cal.html ) says we're getting a boy so of course, we MUST be getting a boy, right?

Anyway.

So that's the first big, excellent news.

My life is good. I can't complain.

So when I said that my pregnant belly is about as far out as my 36D's, I was exaggerating.

Truth be told, my belly is bigger than the average 14 week pregnant chick, but I've been told that it's basically because my organs are being moved around to accomodate my growing uterus.

That's some crazy stuff, eh?

The wee laddie (or lassie) is about the size of a lemon right now- like 3 1/2 inches.

It's very hard to imagine that I have a little human with a brain and fingers and stuff growing inside of me...

Wow.