Monday, January 26, 2009

the bachelor liveblog blush!

A two-on-one date sounds like the worst idea in the whole world.

Nikki needs a Valium. Who freaks out about singing? She's already on a reality TV show. Is public singing really so much crossing the line? Also: Lauryn is going home. She wrote a serious song for the song writing contest. Just stop that right now. You are on a reality TV show. You can no longer take yourself seriously.

Molly says she's really nervous about her date with Jason, but not nervous enough that she forgot to put on her crayola eyeshadow.

Watching them kiss makes me think of the very nice time I had last night in Coral Canyon. Or Solstice Canyon. Whatever it's called. It was frigid and silent and dark and we could see the twinkling lights of the shoreline down below and then later the lightening flashing over the mountains in the distance. We were leaned up against my car, wrapped in a sleeping bag blanket, talking about Flight of the Conchords and camping and oh, I don't even remember, it was so cozy and calm. Kissing goodnight in the car in front of his house was . . . awesome.

Omigod, Walt is on a chicken nuggets commercial!

Again, Molly pretends to be all nervous about doing the Walk of Shame and then churtles out a "Yoohoo" as she walks through the front door. I kind of hate her.

I also kind of hate doing this. It's hard to watch and type at the same time.

Friday, January 16, 2009

reading, again, they are so great


I am subbing for the science teacher. This group of students finished their work early and INDEPENDENTLY took out books and started reading.

I just want to eat them


Two of my darling cousins. We had a fun time playing around with Mac Photobooth.


Wednesday, January 14, 2009

haley bojangles catherine ecru brook serafina suri morganstern

I just got off the phone with Haley and realized that Schmo is scarily similar to her husband Dan. Let me count the ways:
  1. They are both old men. Like, nine years older. They come with old friends.
  2. Love pot.
  3. Love pot so much that they smoke it all the time.
  4. Love sports. Dan has the advantage here, because sports is his job.
  5. Stubborn refusal to express their emotions.
  6. Require begging to elicit compliments other than those based on our vaginas and expertise in bed.
  7. Hilarious. Schmo is the funniest person I have ever met. Dan is weird funny, like Haley. For example, the paper bag puppet he made and hung up one midnight.
  8. No sense of style whatsoever, and holding onto hideous pieces of clothing that aren't even soft.
  9. Even if their clothes were cute, they would be way too big to fit us in the "boyfriend's dress shirt in the morning" kind of way. Boyfriend jeans would be a foot too long and fall down to my ankles.
  10. Bad decorative style. Dan had these paintings with integrated frames that I can't even begin to explain other than to say that are pretty ugly, and when they bought their house, Haley hung several of them behind bookcases. Schmo has a big collection of nothing on his walls.

I am feeling!

crap I think I just told my college ex-boyfriend that I have a raging crush on him. This while he was asking me to proof his profile for match.com. Also two days after having ten orgasm sex with my new boyfriendish. Benja, pretend you didn't read that.

Haley tells me that she loves this about me, that I sometimes blurt out my feelings even if it sounds awkward or completely off topic at the moment. Like how in Palm Springs, we were in bed in the pitch black and he was probably trying to go to sleep, but into the silence I piped up that I wanted him to say something nice about me. This request was met with a great deal of outrage.

I've been on two second dates that went so well that I ended up blurting out, "I really like you!" which was maybe a little surprising to the guys. But it was like dying to be expressed and just exploded out of my mouth.

Today, I was talking with a few girl students who had just switched into my humanities section and they were comparing me to the male teacher they had before. He yells a lot and tends to make fun of kids in public, which while completely hysterical is nonetheless terrible. One girl noted that I don't yell, I just tell them in a regular voice, and the other girl said that actually, I talk a lot, I talk to myself a lot in class. I thought about it and realized she was completely right. Like, I give instructions or explanations and then sort of branch off into a story about myself and keep going until they either laugh or begin working to escape the babble.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

romantic weekend in palm springs I mean comedy of errors

First, the trip got postponed because as I was showering and getting ready to get in the car and drive, I realized that I had a bladder infection. For reals. Instead of going to Palm Springs I spent several hours pacing frantically, on the phone with my doctor, and ingesting an obscene amount of water. That is, the few moments not spent on the toilet, cursing life. Schmo was very good about it and called me for updates and we watched movies and TV together and I managed to sleep over without him molesting me.

We ended up leaving on Thursday and had a good drive up and a good market trip and then arrived at the house and LOW AND BEHOLD! The key was not in the hiding spot. We spent several hours calling the friend who owns the house and waiting for the neighbor dad who should have a spare key (but didn't) and then looking for missing spare key, and finally not finding anything. Schmo ended up calling a locksmith to break into the house. And then he entered the alarm code wrong and it went nuts and we were not sure if the police were going to show up. Through it all, there was a lot of fooling around in the backyard, so it wasn't all a loss.

Thursday night was perfection and so was Friday. I'll just include this anecdote of when I was eating a box of Reeses Pieces and Schmo was sort of half napping, and I shoved some in his mouth so he wouldn't complain that I finished them, but then he wanted more and I had already chewed up the rest, but I helpfully pointed out that he had a yellow one in his ear. Of course he reached up and there it was.

Friday night, we went out for dinner with house owners Eric and Lee and some of their friends, and we all drank way too much. I was feeling a little out of place with all his friends and I went to bed mad that Schmo didn't even notice, but got over that quick when he announced (in the dark) that he might puke. Then he spent eight hours tossing and turning and burping and moaning. I couldn't touch him because he was so uncomfortable. As a result, I lay in bed absolutely FREEZING for an hour, curled up, willing myself to get warm. Eventually, I inched close enough to steal some body heat (he is like an oven) but couldn't fall asleep because I was so aware of every single exhalation and swallow. (What if he throws up ON me?!?!!?!?!?) I finally fell asleep around five in the morning and had an intense dream about working on a boat and being in a car crash. We did not make it to the sunrise hike we planned the night before.

When we woke up later, we all went out to breakfast and it was lovely. Then we said goodbyes and it was lovely. The drive home was also lovely especially when he told me he was happy with how things were going (completely solicited by me) and that actually, yes, I DO deserve to know how he was feeling about us. Boys can be so annoying.

Overall, this "weekend" was AWESOME and I was very sad and lonely when I walked into my apartment by myself. I admit I got teary, but that was also probs I got maximum five hours of sleep last night.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

animals we almost hit while driving

  1. crow
  2. road kill (unidentified)
  3. road kill (coyote)
  4. crow eating road kill
  5. deer
  6. rabbit
  7. flock of birds

fyi

FYI, we are completely unprepared for this trip, knowledge wise. We have a bunch of maps, and know the two freeways we need to drive on, but that's about it. Neither of us knows diddly-squat about the places we are visiting, which is almost exciting. I have a guidebook, but it sucks. We stop reading it after a few days.

impressions of northern arizona

Arizona is basically a lot of desert. We enter the state at seven pm. It is very cold. In fact, my car reports that the temperature has dropped below freezing! It is twenty eight degrees! AND there is snow! Winter wonderness! The windows of the car are very chilly, but we are snug as a bug with the heater going.

We bunker down in Williams, a small town at the end of the Grand Canyon highway. It is full of motels and hotels and Christmas lights and snow that has been pushed to the side of the road. We stay in a really sketchy motel (Roadway Inn) and you can tell that it is extra sketch because the towels in the bathroom are crumpled up in the bathtub and in the sink, ie unwashed.

This is the first time we perform our nightly routine:
  1. Bring our luggage inside and transfer remaining bags into the trunk.
  2. Take off shoes.
  3. Turn on the TV to the weather channel.
  4. After an hour or so, switch to TLC.
  5. Go to sleep.
(In the morning, Naomi will wake up hellishly early to go running and do stretches and weights, and I will struggle to become conscious.)

We ask the lady at the Roadway Inn how to get to the Grand Canyon, and she fumbles and confesses that she was not very good at directions, and then proceedes to direct us to "make a left on some such street and that will take you all the way there." That's it? She wasn't good at giving one-step directions? Seriously? I mean, does anyone come to Williams for any reason OTHER than the Grand Canyon?

Williams in the am is stunning. The snow is piled thick in the fields and forest areas next to the road to Grand Canyon. The fir trees are green and thick and full, the sky is bright blue, and the sun is shining furiously. I take about seventy pictures as we are driving. We almost hit some deer. Then, we almost hit a car.

We do the Grand Canyon in twenty minutes, and then we're done. It is spectacular. I've always thought that I wouldn't be impressed when I saw it in person. I've seen so many photos, I've seen it from an airplane, I've been down the Colca Canyon... But it really is awesome. Not so much because of the depth, but because of the distance between the two sides. It's like when you stand at the lookout, the other side of the cliff is so far away that you can see down to the bottom, all the different colored layers of rock. The snow has made the rock layers even more stripey, and there are green shrubs poking out here and there as well.

We take a bunch of photos, including a self portrait of jumping in the snow, and leave. Because how long can you stand around looking at the ground in twenty-degree weather? We have seven more states to visit.

First we take a detour at Meteor Crater, the "best preserved meteorite crater on earth." We are total suckers for superlatives, but don't go inside because of the steep entrance fee. I take a picture of their billboard so we can pretend how awesome it is. We decide we've basically seen every crater since we've both been in Mitzpeh Ramon, and off to New Mexico!

(The Wikipedia pictures of the crater are really neat and it actually looks super cool but don't tell Naomi.)

But not before we stop at the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Park. Both super neat and we get to walk outside and do a quick hike and see the petrified (and crystalized!) tree trunks. The Painted Desert is especially beautiful as the sun is starting to set. We take pictures through the car window. It's the kind of nature beautiful that you want to keep looking and looking, but since there is no lodging, we drive on.

leaving

Our start time is December 20, 2008 at exactly 2:00pm. The car is gassed and loaded, and we are chock full of maps, thanks to AAA. As I ignite the engine, we realize that neither of us knows how to get out of LA on the proper freeway. Naomi wants to phone a friend, but I quickly reject that out of sheer embarrassment.

Several minutes later, we figure it out, but are then stopped in Silverlake gridlock. This gives Naomi time to practice how to say "Los Feliz." I recite the Eighteen Ways Our Trip Might Suck as reported by Ronen.

It takes fifteen minutes to reach the freeway, which is less than a mile away. More traffic in Pasadena! Great start!

Saturday, January 03, 2009

I'm back

It's two thousand nine!!! Yay life!

I've just returned from my two-week road trip across the United States. It's been very edumacational. Not at all a partying trip, and quite somber in tone, I realized as I retold anecdotes and impressions to several people yesterday. But still, overall very good.

I have one more week of vacation before I return to my job I love. Our new president / savior takes office in less than three weeks. My boy is stepping it up and being very good to me and is even taking me to Palm Springs on Monday! Hurray new year!