:(

I just spilled coffee all over my boobs. This after yesterday, when I spilled Wild Cherry Slurpee all over MY SAME BOOBS.

Yesterday I turned down a fifth-row ticket to a certain award winning Broadway show that everyone says I should see so that I could go to Times Square and get Dippin' Dots at the wax museum. Initially, this was disappointing because it turned out that The Dots were only from a vending machine, but they were still delicious and then someone got arrested, so it turned out to be a pretty good evening.

Going to Boston today to see a rock show and then bum around with some family and friends. Looking forward to the Fung Wah bus!!! I hope the air conditioner is working!!!!!

Guess What His Name Rhymes With?

Tucker Carlson just made me cry a little bit.


I made the mistake of turning on mid-day cable news in the hopes of finding some information about what is going on with the recent subpoenas and immigration bill and THE WAR that we are in, but instead I hear Tucker complaining about how little Muslims around the world appreciate everything we've done for them:



"In Pakistan only 9% say they support the US, in Turkey only 13%, and these are our allies! We went out of our way to help these guys! And I'm tired of people saying 'Oh, it's America's fault, we're doing something wrong,' because if that many people don't like us, maybe something is wrong with them!"



So I switched to a different channel and got to listen to some other asshole tell a human rights advocate that constitutional separation of powers and racially-motivated harassment by law enforcement are only "semantics."



Seriously. This all coming on the heels of Elizabeth Edwards getting criticized for calling out Anne Coulter and Larry King dumping Michael Moore and an hour long discussion of health care in America to talk to FUCKING PARIS HILTON about WHO GIVES A SHIT.



I am sick of cable.



No, wait, I still have HGTV. Thank goodness there are almost no political ramifications to watching home decorating.



Seriously, though. Is there no place for discourse left in our culture? I listen to NPR and read the Times and, although they have a certain bent, they at least refrain from spewing vitriolic racial hate. But it still seems that the only people who listen to Fresh Air are the same people who have always listened to Fresh Air. I want more!!! I want debate and discourse from people who aren't making lots of money from being the biggest, loudest, jackass like all the politicians and "journalists." I am sick of it. I want more.

I'm Going to Write a Strongly Worded Letter...

Everything is up in the air.

Our permit for performing in the park next month got denied because they "have all the performances for the summer already booked but would you like to apply for a permit for next summer?" Are you kidding me???? It's bad enough that we even need a permit for a folk-art, community based, storytelling event in a public park anyway, and that we need to apply a year in advance is completely ridiculous. RIDICULOUS. So one of our company members is on the phone trying to track someone down so that she can convince them that we don't need a stage, it's not really a performance, we just want a spot under a tree on a Saturday afternoon. Why don't we just go under a tree on Saturday afternoon, you ask? Good question. I can't really answer it, except to say that there is something about the way I was raised that compels me to file a permit where permits are required. For the love. I'm a crappy grassroots artist, aren't I?

Plan B is going to require calling local bookstores and libraries and seeing if they are interested in hosting our performance (it's not a performance, really! but it is...) but now it's such short notice that I lack confidence that this will happen.

I didn't want to be a producer!!! I just want to play with puppets in the park!!!!

A Sumptuous Solstice

This weekend ZPJ and I travelled to the far ends of three different train lines.

(outdated picture, but it seemed appropriate)

On Friday, we travelled to the end of the L line to Shea Stadium to our first Mets game (they won) with some lovely lady friends.

On Saturday we travelled to the end of the Q line to the Mermaid Parade at Coney Island where we partook in some sea-creature shenanigans,

drank some over-priced non-alcoholic margaritas on the beach, and went to a Cyclone's game with some more friends.
Can you find ZPJ? On Sunday we continued our streak by going to the end of the N line in Astoria and visiting the Beer Garden. If you haven't yet been, go now. It's awesome.

All in all a very successful weekend, although I've had about a month's worth of sun, cheap beer, and hot dogs in a three-day period. Totally worth it. New York rocks. More specifically, the Outer Boroughs rock. Go Q, N and L trains!!!!

Alarms

Early this morning, at about 6am, our fire alarm/gas detector went off. Our first thought was not "oh no! there is a fire or a gas leak!" but "the fucking alarm is broken" and ZPJ spent several minutes trying to figure out how to disable it so that we could sleep through the rest of the morning.

Fortunately, we survived.

Crap and a Half

I just dropped my cell phone for what I suspect will be the last time. The screen lit up, went blank, and then the battery started overheating. So if you try to call me and can't, it's because my phone is in three different parts on my table.

My advisor is promising to give me rewrite notes tomorrow, which is sooner than I would have liked, but maybe it's okay. After spending two days out at the beach (good, good choice) and two days sitting around my apartment watching "what not to wear" and "project runway" reruns, I have decided that maybe it won't be so bad to have something to be working on for a few more weeks. Feast or famine, folks. I'm either swamped up to here (picture me putting my hand at my forehead) or without anything whatsoever. So maybe I'll actually work some more on my paper, or maybe having something to procrastinate will help me to enjoy all the reruns.

Fortunately I have one other small project running right now- I'm re-staging The Light Princess. TOTALLY DIFFERENT from the show last fall. Except some of the cooler puppets are the same. We're going old school/low budget with this new production- we're staging it in the park on the weekend. I think it's 9 parts commedia homage, 1 part amateur hour. The difference between whether its cool or nerdy to do free theatre in the park comes down to how good the actual work is. Here is to hoping! (clink)

Okay...

It went as well as it ever could have gone. Let's just say that and move on.

I did something today that I haven't done in a long time. I sat in a coffee shop and read a book. A novel. I'm not even joking. It was outstanding. Then I went to lunch with someone who shares my career trajectory and finalizing issues, as well as one other important defining characteristic that I'll let you all guess at, and it was wonderful. We planned our summer plans and rubbed fuzzy kitten bellies and based on this, I think it is going to be a wonderful summer.

I did, in fact, find someone to feed my cats, so I'm heading to the North Fork to sit and try and reclaim a little of the relaxation I found in Jamaica those few short, and yet oh-so-long, weeks ago. And I'm going to keep reading that book! I'd forgotten how enjoyable a book can be...

A Grand Finale

Turning in the thesis yesterday was a little anti-climactic. I mean, it felt good, but somehow I couldn't feel relieved because even though I know that the first draft was the hardest part, I still can't let go of the upcoming summer of re-writes. I'm trying to, though.

This morning is my last in-school residency session of the year. I'm am very happy about this, because even though the year has been filled with magical moment that make teaching worthwhile, the last month has been filled with mouthy middle schoolers and their apathetic teachers. I'm not too optimistic about today's chances of success: it's less than a week until school is out, all the homework and testing has been finished, yearbooks have been passed out, and these 8th graders are DONE. At least I won't have a sub in the room with me, like yesterday. Ouch.

Who knows. Maybe my post later today will reveal that all went well and I ended the year on a high note.

P.S. I think we are going to go out to the beach if I can find someone to watch the cats. The beach sounds very nice. Even if it's a little overcast, I can still walk along the shore in my bare feet and collect pretty rocks that will then clutter my house for the next year. Or I could go to a winery. Yes, I think that sounds nice. Who knows? I might even read a book.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

95 pages including: Intro, Background, Research Problem, Project Design, Implementation, Project Assessment, Project Analysis, and Conclusion.

I'm heading into the city to meet with my advisor and turn in a copy of my thesis. Does it still need work before my defense in September? Yes. Am I going to do that work in the next couple weeks? Hell no!

It feels good to be done, even if it is only done for now. I'm anticipating that my advisor will take several weeks to get me her comments and revisions, so I'm not even thinking about this damn paper until I hear back from her.

I had all these great plans of going to the beach this weekend to relax and celebrate, but now it's all cold and rainy, so I don' t know if that is still a good idea.

What do you think?

A Break?

I seem to always be just around the corner from a break, and yet I never really reach one. It's not even ten o'clock and I already have agreed to two meetings in the next two days when I really should probably be home working or actually letting myself relax but, hey, that's the world of a freelancer, right? You can't say no to a paying gig...

That being said, I really do think tomorrow is the day that I'm going to be done working on my thesis for awhile. One of those meetings is with my advisor (not the paying gig) and after I give her that huge stack of paper I'm just going to sit back and wait.

Wait. No, seriously, wait. AS I WAS TYPING THIS POST, I got a call back (still before ten) and my paying gig got scooped out from under me!!!! It was reneged!!!! I don't feel bad about this in the slightest since the very moment before it got taken away I was typing to the blogosphere about how I was not sure that I wanted the extra work...I feel like I'm in some sort of time loop here. I think this is a clear sign that I need to go back to bed, wake up in a couple hours, and then start the whole day over again. Maybe that's what I needed to really get working.

This is totally going to happen for me.

Yesterday was bad. After several days of cruising along and happily typing my heart out, I hit a wall that involved sitting and staring at the blinking cursor for several hours and occasionally banging my head against the desk and then madly going through every three-ring binder that I own looking for a particular article and then emailing every person I've ever met and then crying a little bit and after all of that only getting five pages written. And really it wasn't even five pages, it was four pages and a couple lines on the fifth page.

Today is going to be different. Today I'm going to finish this bitch. I'm going to bend it over and finish it. Then I'm going to take this bitch and spell-check the hell out of it and fix it's punctuation until it doesn't even know what happened. You watch. It's going to happen for me. And then I'm going to have from Friday afternoon at 12:30 until Tuesday morning at 9am and I'm going to take a break.

Really?

I'm impressed with myself because, despite the fact that I was extremely distracted today and did everything from yard work to kitchen-cleaning to email answering in order to avoid working, I still caught up on my un-met goals from the weekend and finished my goal for today. Tomorrow is going to be a rough day, but I think I can do it. The end is in sight.

Count 'em: 81 pages.

A Starting Point

I think I'm spending more time thinking about all the wonderful things I'm going to do with my time once I'm finished with my work than I am actually doing my work. Not such a good strategy.

There is now a scale in my house for the purpose of weighing bodies, and this has turned into a fun little exercise to see how much my weight actually fluxuates throughout the day. Usually I gain and lose about 4 lbs on any given day. Between Saturday morning and Sunday morning I lost 6 lbs, which surprised me because all I had done was eat cheese and drink beer between weigh-ins. Of course, by this morning, I had gained half of it back again.

I need to stop the madness and only weigh myself twice a week.

But that wouldn't be nearly so informative.

I have a long list of things that I need to do. Or should do. Some of them are little things like "I need to call my student loan people and get that taken care of" and others of them are big things like "I need to figure out what I want my career to look like" and "I need to start saving for retirement" and some of them are inbetween like "I need to go grocery shopping" and "I need to stop faffing about on the internet and write this damn paper."

Well, we'll just have to wait and see how many of these actually get taken care of.

Summer

I breifly mourned the ending of Lost this last month. It was the only show I really watched with regularity (read rabid devotion) and after the finale I felt empty and alone (much as those shipwrecked on an island might feel).

Fortunately, network television won't let me suffer for long. Enter "So You Think You Can Dance," my reality-show favorite and this AMAZING new discovery at CBS:



Join 16 modern-day pirates as they embark on a high seas adventure around the Caribbean island of Dominica in search of hidden treasure that will total $1 million. Over the course of 33 days, the pirates will live aboard a massive 179-foot pirate ship. Each week, these buccaneers will go on extraordinary expeditions and decipher clues along the way. Gold coins - real money that the pirates can take with them beyond the show - will be awarded after each treasure hunt, but only to some. The prized gold will then play a key role as pirates strike deals with each other and vie for long-term security. Claiming the lion's share of the week's riches, one pirate will become the captain of the ship and will assign roles and chores to the remaining crew members, setting the tone for law and order or betrayal and sabotage, which could lead to mutiny by the crew. Such fates will be decided on the ship at Pirate's Court, a lively gathering of public speaking and judgment where one individual will be "cut adrift" every episode. In the end, captain or not, only one pirate will win the largest booty, worth $500,000, and claim the title of "Pirate Master."


Only one of them can be the Master!!!!! This summer is going to rock!!!

Long Day

I had a full-day PD session at a middle school today, and although we started the day with 70 participants, we ended with only five. I am getting really tired of disorganized administrations and teachers who act more immaturely than their students.

After being gone five minutes short of 12 hours, I stumbled home and still managed to spend several hours working on my thesis.

61 pages, bitches. This is totally going to happen for me. But now I'm going to bed.

Writing Tips From A Pro

I will say this: changing the margins on your paper to make it look longer is an incredibly satisfying feeling. Especially when you are changing it to the correct margin setting, rather than just fudging.

Also- when you feel like you need a break, clowns and cheese will do just fine.

page 45 and counting, folks...

When I returned from Jamaica, I got up first thing Friday morning to teach some workshops down in Bensonhurst. I'd been out to the school before and although two of the three classes I was working in were delightful and inquisitive young people, the third had been really difficult. The kids weren't listening to anything I said, preferring to tease and joke with each other or fall asleep at their desks, and the teacher had been unwilling to participate beyond sitting at her desk to grade papers and occasionally looking up to scream at the kids. I actually had spitwads thrown at me. So I had done the usual things- I had called my supervisor to let her know that it wasn't going well, I emailed the teacher and let her know how important it was to participate in the workshop with the kids, I revised my lesson plan to be more active and engaging, and then I went on vacation.

When I got to the school this last week I was feeling much more confident than when I left. But I knew that things wouldn't go well when the teacher rushed in a couple minutes late, started yelling at kids and handing out papers without talking to me and then denied getting an email from me and said "they're all yours- good luck" without looking at me while the kids were yelling, fighting, and sleeping behind us.

And I tried. I really did. I tried everything. I tried every trick I know but the kids weren't having any of it- in fact they outwardly just made fun of me. I tried to get the teacher to join in and she refused in front of the kids and I couldn't even get everyone to stand up- if I got one person to stand up they would immediately collapse back into their chairs when I tried to get the next person to stand up. The teacher would occasionally shrug and tell me "you can kick them out if you want" but that seemed to be an empty threat because even when she would perk up and start screaming at the kids that they were going to be suspended and sent home, nothing actually happened. We managed to get through the first three minutes of my lesson plan in 40 minutes but the kids kept telling me "this is wack" "this is stupid" "miss, we don't want to do this" and I finally lost it and said "we're done."

At this point I did something I have never done before- I lectured the kids. Seriously. Can you see it? It was a little ridiculous. But I had to tell them that even though they may feel incredibly oppressed by the things they are forced to do in school, and complaining about everything and not participating seems like a good idea, they are only a couple years away from adulthood and if they think that things are wack and stupid they need to take responsibility for making it better rather than giving up completely. How could they possibly know that the workshop was wack when we never even got started with it? I told the teacher that the kids were too disrespectful to see the performance the next week- honestly I don't even think it would be safe for the actor to perform in front of them (she's delicate)- and she shrugged and said "I agree. But what can I do? They're terrible. You go talk to the administrators. They're across the hall. I can't do anything."

So then I left and cried a little bit and called my supervisor and told her I couldn't go back to that class because the minimum base requirements for a workshop weren't in place and she talked me down and said that next week she would either have an assistant principal sit in the class or she would come and co-teach with me. Which sounds a little better than just giving up outright, I guess.

The thing is, it's four days later and this class is really sticking with me. I had other classes that day that went really, really well, but I can't think about anything else other than these boys staring at me and telling me outright that they refuse to do anything and the teacher just shrugging and occasionally screaming. I can't let go of it. It's just one workshop, but it is really making me question my ability to teach, despite dozens and dozens of examples to the contrary. I feel so weak and defeated by these kids. I really don't want to go back there, but I also don't want to end the school year like this.

It's really made me start thinking about what these minimum base requirements for a workshop are. The kids have to be listening at least a little bit, don't they? Even if they don't want to do anything, they have to at least not be talking to someone else when I am talking directly to them, right? They can't be asleep. I don't know what I can do if I can't even be heard.

Blech.

Jamaica

Jamaica was incredible.

We had a pretty aggressive schedule of hard-core sitting peppered with Red Stripes, snorkeling, napping, spa treatments, fruity drinks and the occasional walk along the water. The hotel we were at is right on the cliffs, rather than on the sandy beach, so it provided some pretty excellent vistas and coves for snorkeling. I almost got eaten by a barracuda!!! I mean, sure, they don't really bite humans, but this one had a wild eye.

It's amazing what getting several full nights of sleep can do for a person. I made a commitment to get more sleep at home, although the first three nights back haven't been very promising. Tonight, though, for sure.

So, I'm a huge fan of vacation. I'm not such a huge fan of coming home from vacation. More on that later. For now, I'm just going to relive the wonderfulness for a little longer...