Updates

I hadn't realized how long it had been since I last posted. If you haven't friended me on FB, you may not be aware of the following things going down:

1. I am teaching half-time at an alternative high school. I facilitate a credit-retrieval class and teach senior English to 15 kids and am done by 11:30.

2. I am in grad school what amounts to full-time (technically two-thirds time, but no summer off) getting a Masters of Library and Information Science. There is a lot of reading to do. Then I get to be a librarian and make other people read stuff.

3. I got an extra job as a "theme reader," which means English teachers call me when they have too many essays to grade and the district pays me an hourly rate to grade them.

4. I found out yesterday that I can probably take one or two free classes through the state and be a school librarian next year, a whole year earlier than I thought. Also, when job postings say "master's degree required," it's sometimes okay to just be working on one (you're cheaper that way, anyhow).

So, good, I guess? I'm really liking working half-time, but we'll see how much when I get my first paycheck. I am really liking coming home by noon-ish, changing into PJ pants, and taking a nap.

My new health plan:

Don't get sick or in a car accident.

When I added my husband and son to my insurance a few years ago, my premiums went from about $75 a month to about $250 a month. So when Tyson started filling out paperwork for his new job and went to add me and his son to his policy, he realized it was going to cost nearly $800.

EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS A MONTH. That's nearly what we pay in rent. Shit. Just covering him and Nick is only going to run $140. So basically I'm out on my ass on this one. (Even if he had considered it, I would have asked for the $650 in cash every month instead and bought myself something nice.)

So today I've spent some time reviewing my other options for healthcare:

1. Go without, and hope for the best. I'm under thirty, in fairly good overall health. Odds are good I'll find a job with its own insurance in a few months. Tyson went without for like 30 years and still made it through okay. Plus, no insurance means I can go to the free clinic for my lady problems.
The major drawback to this plan is that pesky pre-existing conditions thing. Between the skin cancer, clinical depression, and history of frequent abnormal PAPs, I don't think I could get the care I needed when I got coverage again (and when I eventually need that hysterectomy, I don't want to be the one footing the bill).

2. COBRA. Because I voluntarily left my job, I don't qualify for reduced rates. Keeping my current level of benefits will cost about $650 a month, leaving us no better off than we were before. Or I can get an "at least I'm not fucked if I have to go to the hospital" plan with like a $3000 deductible for under a hundred bucks. Not really a lot of middle ground here.

3. Private short-term insurance. Depending on the deductible and co-payment involved (from 20% to a whopping SEVENTY PERCENT), I can get middling coverage for between $70 and $250 a month. Problem: The maximum length for this type of insurance is six months. I'm fairly confident of having an insurance-providing job by then, but the universe (and the economy) may have me waiting tables at Applebee's six months from now instead.

4. Private regular old insurance (AKA "Corporate Ass-Rape"). Basically for a lot of money I can have a shitty plan with a high deductible, with the option of continuing to pay the ridiculous premiums ad infinitum, if such is my desire.

I don't qualify for Medicare, I can't get insurance through my school, and, because I spent seven years as a liberal arts major, I have absolutely no skills that transfer to the non-school world, allowing me to get a good job in another field. Apparently, jobs in the field of sentence diagramming aren't required to provide benefits.

Being a grown-up sucks.

I just want to go on the record as saying...

1. Insurance itself is a pretty socialist system. We all put money in a pool, and that pool is supposed to pay for others' injuries, property damage, or whatever, with the expectation that all the other premium payers help you when you need it. (After the Clinton "healthcare reform" in the 90s, though, it turned into just another big business.)


2. Medicare is a great example of a socialized medical system that delivers basic coverage and keeps costs down. If you don't agree with a public insurance option, write your congressman and tell him to oppose Medicare. That'll give his staff a giggle.


3. Veterans' care. See above.


4. How can you take seriously a congressman (congressperson?) who lobbies against a public insurance system when he himself is covered by such a system? I don't think any of them pull out their Aetna card when they go to their doctors. It bothers me that these people rely on a government-administered insurance plan can accept campaign money from insurance companies, then deny regular people even the option for such a plan.

Ugh. I'm writing this here because I'm tired of yelling it at my computer screen or people on the TV.

Some Things

1. Dog + unknown stuff in compost pile = ick.
2. Berries are much cheaper when they're not shipped 1000 miles in from the Northwest.
3. I am handy enough to make a closet into a pantry.
4. Self-service dog washing is cool--especially for 10 bucks.
5. A PVC sofa and chair may not have been the best choice for a house full of cats.
6. It takes approximately 18 hours after establishing new phone service for telemarketers to start calling you. It takes 3 minutes to register on the Do Not Call list.
7. Here, "clear across town" is 8 miles (3 freeway exits) away. Boise only has 5 exits.
8. You can compost dog poop with a big garbage can buried in the ground and septic tank starter.
   
9. Here, "It's SOOOOOOO hot" means it's 95 out. It's possible to be outside at any time during the day, not just from 10 pm to 10 am.
10. I have three tomatoes in my yard. As soon as the dogs figure out there is food growing out there, I will not have any.
11. I paid less than $2 for a gallon of milk.
12. Central air rules!
13. We've chatted more with strangers (the Starbucks girl, neighbors, the landlady, the cashier at Hastings) in the last week than in the last 9 years in Vegas.
14. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies = AWESOME.
15. Movie tickets, even in the evening, are under 8 bucks.

Here's to hoping things know how to take care of themselves!

We've ended the lease on our house, and we still don't have jobs anywhere else yet.  We started packing this weekend, and plan to go...somewhere...in July.

So far, we've had interest from Eagle, Colorado and Idaho Falls.  But if nothing pans out, we're waffling between three cities we think we can just show up in and make things work out.

Missoula

Pros: We have friends there.  Good friends.  Friends who have offered us the bottom floor of their house or a pasture to pitch a tent camp in until we have jobs.  Liberal.  Full of hippies.  U of Montana.  Good, mild weather.  Small.

Cons: Small.  70K population may be too small to find jobs (especially education jobs with insurance). 

Idaho Falls

Pros: Pretty big.  Cheap (4 bedroom house=$800-$1000/mo.).  Farmy.  A few hours from the Tetons.  Summers hot, but not too hot.

Cons: Pretty vanilla.  The San Antonio to Missoula's Austin.  Close to mountains, but no actual, visible mountains to speak of.  Cold winters.

Boise

Pros: Metro area about 600K people.  Lubbock-like weather.  Way cheap housing.  Reputation for liberal politics.  State capital=state jobs.

Cons: Never actually been there.  Have heard it called "consumerist" (although we might not even notice, coming from Vegas).  Pretty far from Rocky Mountains.

So we are still waffling about.  Hopefully, something will come up.  Tyson is going to Idaho Falls in two weeks for a promising-sounding interview, and maybe our path will be illuminated.

News Briefs

...or boxers, if you prefer.

I got rejection #2 today from a charter school in Nampa (next to Boise).  I figured since I'd applied six weeks ago and hadn't heard anything that I didn't have the job.  

I applied for a job as a research assistant in Eugene, Oregon, that sounds interesting.  I am probably only just qualified, but if they read my cover letter and letters of recommendation, I should at least merit a phone call.  I hope.

Boise finally posted their open positions--one in middle school English--that I was able to apply for with just a few clicks.

Helena doesn't have much going on in the way of high school jobs right now, but I'm hoping they just haven't posted yet.  They just barely got elementary jobs up last Thursday.

Anyway, jobs for next year are about all I am thinking about just now, even though I should be making a power point for American Modernism.

So keep sending your positive vibes our way.  I get the feeling this is going to be another seat-of-the-pants move.

*blink blink*

By far the most noticeable and sort of strange side effect of taking phentermine to get both my bootylicious curves and cholesterol under control is an incredible ability to focus my attention on tasks.

No kidding.  When I very first started taking it, I was all aflutter with nervous energy for the first few hours until I levelled out, but lately I get this crazy focus along with it.  I can get on a cardio machine at the gym and hammer out 40 minutes without really thinking about it.  I'll start on a project and forget to eat, go to the bathroom, feed the dogs, or whatever, and before I know it, HOURS have gone by.  Tyson's been gone this week, and I've been alternating between playing video games and reading blogs and stuff and working on materials for my class next year in about four-hour stretches at a time.

Today a contractor with a giant tile cutter pulled up in front of the neighbor's at 6 a.m.  The dogs started barking so I got dressed, fed them, let the dogs out of the back house, ate some quick breakfast, took my meds, and sat down at the computer at about 8.  I remember resurfacing at noon and thinking, "man, I'm hungry," preheating the oven for leftover pizza, and forgetting all about it for another hour.  I did think to set a timer once I put the pizza in, or I may well have caught the whole house on fire.  

Based on information from my browser history and jump drive, I have reconstructed what my day looked like, I think:

1. Read blogs.

2. Read comics.

3. Did crossword on yahoo.

4. Made a blog post.

5. Dicked around on Facebook. (This is about where my medicine would have kicked in.  I remember feeling really thirsty about then, a sure sign of being hopped up on stimulants.)

6. Started working on school stuff.  Typed up job descriptions for 6 management positions, training checklists for 4 of them, and evaluation sheets for all.  Lots of it was straight off the hard copies I have in a folder, but I had to invent some things, too.

7. Made a long list of logs, calendars, and other organizational templates I still have to make.  Decided not to get into an involved search for whether I could import XML files from my gradebook program into Word, or if I needed an Excel table instead.  Made sketches of what some of the tables should look like, instead.  Somewhere in here is where I ate leftover pizza (sort of--I kept forgetting I was supposed to be eating and kept working instead until it was cold).

8.  Started searching for school and office supply wholesalers.  Specifically, compared prices on cheapest 2" binders available.  This is where my right hand started to ache and I had to switch to my left.

9.  Shook head to clear the cobwebs.  Realized my butt and right foot were asleep and I really had to pee.

10. Checked email.

11. Remembered I was supposed to check the status of my federal student loan consolidation application.  (Hooray for 4.2% interest!!)  Waded through online bureaucracy to find out my loan was in "preprocessing," meaning nobody's probably even looked at it yet.

12. Read increasingly desperate emails from local Kung Fu studio I expressed interest in.  Followed links to some interesting videos on the different styles they teach.

13. Facebook again.  After my students last year accessed my blog from my profile, I removed it, and now that I am back on I am driven by an intense need to know what's been going on in the lives of lots of people I don't really like in person all that much.

14. Blogs again.  Nothing new since this morning.  I need a bigger blogroll.

15. Realized I was very, very hungry and the dishes I started this morning are still sitting in cold, murky water in the sink.  Ate ice cream and tried not to think about it.

And now it's, well, it's now.  I purposely worked too hard at the gym yesterday (I'm sure there was a reason, but now I've forgotten it), and my mouse arm and shoulder are aching.  I stayed up too late and woke up too early, but my brain is still just humming away.  If I wasn't so sore, I'd be doing a few more things, like: looking online for a memory foam mattress topper, doing research on the AWESOME Christmas present I'm thinking of getting Tyson, looking up ab exercises, playing with Pandora radio, trying to learn how to use Excel, trying to figure out why dividing a portion of text in a long Word document into columns makes a new section start, therefore restarting page numbering and also how to fix it, looking for or designing a snazzy logo for my program's course expectations, making a list of school supplies we can sell to get the other stuff we want since our budget's all slashed to hell, looking for advice on how to write a small grant to get some DVDs from Boys Town Press, practicing importing XML files into other documents, reconciling my checking account in Quicken, plugging the AmLit reading list I made yesterday into a week-by-week planning chart for each quarter of next year, going back over the stuff I did today and making sure a few of the details are consistent with my 25-page expectations packet, figuring out how the code for my "Recent Comments" plug-in got broken and how to fix it, and pricing plane tickets to Rochester in November.

Whew.  I am glad I have to go to the airport soon to pick up friends or I might never leave this chair.

UPDATE: This is possibly the stupidest post ever.  Still, I seem to have expended an awful lot of energy getting it all down.  Case in point?

Update: Hooray for the Internet

Marmots: They're sort of both.  Males are territorial and have harems of multiple females and offspring, usually creating a family unit of less than 20 animals.  We can split the 10 points.

Planets: Here are descriptions of where the planets are chillin' at over the course of this year.  They are not always visible, but it was probably either Jupiter, which is at opposition right now (essentially we're seeing a "full Jupiter") or Saturn that we looked at with binoculars.  One million points for me for general astronomical correctness; ten for Tyson for correctly differentiating between a star and a planet.

A Dirty Sanchez is either funny or gross, depending on the degree of seriousness with which it's suggested.

Brian Jones founded the Rolling Stones and is now dead.  I still don't know how or why John Darnielle thinks he'd be like Brian Wilson. Maybe sort of old and sad, and trying to capitalize on their past success?

Dinu Lipatti was a Romanian pianist.  I don't know why someone would need his bones.

Gas in Baker is an even $5.

Sand accumulates not because of static cling or anything like that, but primarily because of a process called saltation.

The lake that covered a big chunk of the intermountain west was Lake Lahontan.  A summary of Nevada's brief history as a seafloor is here.

As for Mercury, that's going to take some digging, and I haven't downloaded Google Earth on this computer yet.  If anything interesting turns up, I'll post it.

Arguments and Discussions that Require Internet Assistance, but Arose While Travelling Without Immediate Computer Access

What is the deal with the town of Mercury?  The sign says there are no services, and roads leading into town appear to be gated.  Also: check Google Earth for satellite photos of the Nevada Test Site.

What are the social habits of yellow-bellied marmots?  Are they social, like prairie dogs, or more territorial?  (Ten points for me if they're social.)

Was that, in fact, Saturn we saw the other night?  Can someone please find a way to explain to Tyson that Jupiter and Saturn are NOT visible every night, all the time? (Minus one million points for me if I'm wrong on that one, because I'm not.)

What are the physical properties related to the movement of sand dunes?  How come all the sand in the Great Basin desert is all in one place?  What keeps the sand together as it moves?  (I say the size of the particles and their composition--lots of silica--does a static-cling maneuver and holds everything in place.

What parts of Nevada were, at one time, under water?  When?  How many times?  Salty or fresh water?  What about the lake that covered central Nevada all the way to Idaho and into Washington, and now survives as the Great Salt Lake in Utah?

What is a Dirty Sanchez?

What happened to Picaridin, a DEET alternative in bug repellent that keeps bugs off but DOESN'T melt plastic?

Who is Brian Jones, and why would he be like Brian Wilson?

Who is Dinu Lipatti?

If gas in Mammoth Lakes is $4.99 a gallon, what's it going for in Baker right now?

Excuses for my recent and prolonged absence

1. Busy. This summer I had more free time than I knew what to do with, and I spent about 6 hours a day in front of the computer. Now I spend 6 hours a day in front of a room full of teenagers, and the rest of my time recovering.

2. Lack of Interesting or Original Thoughts. I am not thinking or doing anything lately that a) I have not done before (and possibly failed at, anyway, like being able to buy skinnier pants), b) you would find interesting or care about (grading papers, making more papers, assigning papers, and grading them when they are turned in, and meeting with other teachers to plan, assign, and grade papers. Oh, and one of my classes won a donut party.), c) are not too gross to talk about, such as the discharge resulting from my cervical biopsy and resultant cryotherapy, or d) that I actually want to talk about, such as...

3. Being Depressed. Things have been bothering me lately, not the kinds of things I feel like going into here, right now, and usually I get over pretty quickly, but, really, most of my "adventures" lately have consisted of mood swings.

So anyway, yes, I am still alive, but just sort of idling in neutral while I wait for Christmas break. Hope everyone else is doing okay.

Gak!

Okay, so I am poking my head in here really, really quickly. You should be reading this post in a high-pitched, manic voice because I have like 5 minutes of free time today.

Why, you ask? Well, let me tell you:

thejuniorshavecrucibleoutlinesduetomorrowandthefreshmenturnedtheiressaysintoday andimstillbehindongradingfromlastweekandneedtocatchupdidimentionthatmyjuniorshave morethan40assignmentssofarthisquarter? insteadofthesmarter(andmoreboring)choiceofworkingallweekendweallwenttocaliforniainsteadwhereitwascoldandtheboysgot somefishbutthatmeanttodaytherewasallkindsofstufftodo
thenigotalovelynotefromastudent-parentsayingtheyhad "moralissues"withtheessaypromptandthereforeshehad"excused"herselffromtheassignment sotherewasthatdramaandididntreallyknowwhattodoaboutitbesidesstew

whew

iwassupposedtostarttutoringforproficiencyexamstodaybuttherewasnoannouncementsandno flyersandnoplansoranything(thatonesmyfault)soanywaybut thatmeansihavetokicksomebuttbeforewednesday
soiamheretakingaquickbreakbecauseimfeelingguiltyaboutalsonotbloggingbutthereislaundry readytocomeoutofthedryerandahandouttomakeforact3ofthecrucibleandineedtomakeagrading sheetfortheoutlinesthataredueandifidontgetsomeofitdoneithinkmybrainwillexplode.

So there's that. Hope your weeks are starting out manageably because I seem to be stressed enough for everyone already.

"I thought it would boost my social status!"

Two researchers at the University of Texas have apparently spent a great deal of time and money in an attempt to figure out why people have sex. The results are interesting.

Out of the 237 reasons given by more than 1500 respondents (ages 17-52), the top answer was "I was attracted to the person." The bottom answer?

To give someone an STD.

And that's the only bottom answer I believe. The top 50 are pretty predictable: "It feels good", "I was horny", and "The opportunity presented itself" are all ones I would have guessed. Take a look at the bottom list, though, and let's try to figure out how many of these people were being honest, while the Top 50 people lied through their teeth:


Someone offered me money to do it
I wanted to get a raise
It was an initiation rite to a club or organization
I wanted to get a job/promotion
The person offered to give me drugs for doing it
I wanted to punish myself
I wanted to hurt/humiliate the person
I wanted to breakup my relationship
I wanted to breakup another’s relationship
I wanted to be used or degraded
I wanted to gain access to that person’s friend
I wanted to get a favor from someone
I wanted to enhance my reputation
It would get me gifts
I wanted to make money
I wanted to hurt an enemy
Because of a bet
It was a favor to someone
I wanted to end the relationship
I wanted to break up a rival’s relationship by having sex with his/
her partner
It would damage my reputation if I said ‘‘no’’
The person had a lot of money
Someone dared me
I wanted to have more sex than my friends
I wanted to even the score with a cheating partner
I thought it would boost my social status
I wanted to be popular
I wanted to get a special favor from someone
I was afraid to say ‘‘no’’ due to the possibility of physical harm
I wanted to relieve menstrual cramps
My friends pressured me into it
I felt sorry for the person
I felt jealous
My regular partner is boring, so I had sex with someone else
I wanted to get rid of a headache
I wanted to change the topic of conversation
The person had too much to drink and I was able to take
advantage of them
I wanted to impress friends
The person was famous and I wanted to be able to say I had sex
with him/her
I wanted to get out of doing something
I wanted to get even with someone (i.e., revenge)
I wanted to make someone else jealous
I was competing with someone else to ‘‘get the person’’
I thought it would help ‘‘trap’’ a new partner
I was slumming
I wanted to brag to friends about my conquests
The person demanded that I have sex with him/her
I wanted to stop my partner’s nagging
I felt guilty
The person bought me jewelry

There are several reasons I can think of for these surprising results:

1. People lie about why they have sex.
2. I am too jaded.
3. The only people I talk to about our sex lives are under 36.
4. Too many reasons were closely worded and bumped other, more frequently-occurring reasons down in the lists.
5. Soap operas, movies, and TV do not accurately present reality.

Do you have any theories?

Is my period of prolific blog-writing at an end?

Probably.

Tyson is home, and we have been working like mad to get things done around the house: flooring in the computer room, resolving some tech issues, coordinating various repairs to the van and motorcycle, replacing sucky furniture, and getting ready for Nick to come out in two weeks (!). There's also the matter of school-planning hanging over both our heads, as well as getting last-minute vacations squeezed in somewhere.

All said and done, I have had a lot less time to sit and stare at the computer screen this week.

Which should, in theory, give me more to blog about, but unless you want to hear about how much easier it was to pry the relatively newer tack strip from the floor in the computer room than it was the old crumbly stuff from the bedrooms, it's pretty mundane.

In case you were wondering, though, here is a brief overview of the week so far:

1. ordered 7 cases of laminate flooring to be picked up in San Diego next week
2. walked dogs every morning
3. got up at about 7 every day
4. got halfway through the first season of Heroes
5. ordered a 50-foot S video cable
6. bought a 3-piece recliner sectional from Ashley
7. tried out Sleep Number beds
8. brought order to thousands of coiled-up cables in computer room
9. made quiche, chicken-fried steak, and beef Stroganoff
10. paid bills
11. went to the gym
12. kept on top of kitchen cleaning
13. did some laundry

See? None of that is very conducive to interesting blogging, even if it is one of my most productive weeks in some time. It's like some kind of Buddhist koan--how is it that a productive outer life begets a dull inner one, and vice-versa?

I'll leave you to think on that one.

In which I enumerate my awesomeness!

Today was a good, if outwardly inauspicious, day.

• I ate sushi.

It was of especial delight because a) I didn't have to share my Sue roll (tuna, shiitake, cucumber, and avocado--yum!), and b) there is probably no sushi in Versoix, so Tyson can be jealous of my doings, for once.

• I talked to strangers in a public place.

People who know me (and my antisocial proclivities) will know that, for me, this is cool. I talked to the sushi guy (he says "Hi," Tyson), and to the guy at the bar next to me. This was, in fact, way better than Tuesday night, in which I got all dressed up to meet a friend at an actual bar, and did not talk to people or have a good time.

• I got a new book, and read it.

It's called Into the Wild, and there's actually a movie coming out about it.

• I visited my old Starbucks.

Where everything is different. It's been remodeled, it's staffed by tattoo-showing people (that was not OK when I worked there; I always had to wear a watch), and they closed at 10. (I spent four years of Friday and Saturday nights there making frappuccinos until midnight.)

• I read Dinosaur Comics.

I am working my way through the archives. Today I got to May 2005.

• I replaced broken parts on my roof rack.

Soundly, and all by myself. That is the second car-thing I have fixed on my own this past week, and it was cool.

Tomorrow I am practicing my kayak tie-down skills by taking a sunset/moonlight paddle at Willow Beach. I will probably also do dishes, and vacuum.

It's not all bad...

There are some upshots, I'm finding, to Tyson being 9 time zones across the Atlantic. Here are a few that I've found:

1. I get the dishes washed right after I get them dirty, or I can just rinse off the ones from earlier. Hell, they're my germs anyway.
2. I can wear the same clothes three days in a row and nobody notices.
3. Less laundry to wash (in conjunction with #2).
4. I can leave clean laundry on the other side of the bed when I go to sleep.
5. Pity points with friends. Free lunches and movies and stuff.
6. I can leave the TV on all day, tuned to whatever I want, and I don't have to be watching it to keep "driving privileges."
7. I can play on two computers at once.
8. I'm forced to figure out how to do some things on my own, like hook up computer stuff and replace car headlamps.
9. I'm not hampering anybody's schedule if I go to bed at 8:30, take 3-hour naps, or wake up at 6.
10. I can vacuum at 6 a.m. and not wake anybody up.
11. When I IM Tyson in the morning, it's already, like, 5 or 6 p.m. there, so I can see whether the day is going to go okay or not.
12. I can keep the bedroom as cold as I want at night.
13. I get to pick which side of the bed to sleep on--as long as there's no laundry sitting there (just in case my side gets too cold).
14. I can watch tv and practice guitar at the same time. (See #6)
15. I finally solved the mystery of who doesn't rinse their cereal bowls. (hint: It isn't me!)

That's not to say there aren't many, many things I miss, but being sappy is just so trite. Some of the less-smarmy things I'm sorry to be doing without are:

1. punches in the butt
2. punches in the porcupine
3. a lap to lay across on our God-awfully uncomfortable couch
4. sex

Erin's 100th Post Retrospective

It all started one hot, boring day in June 2006. I was three days into my first summer of freedom in twelve years, and I was getting tired of wandering around the house in circles.

My, it's amazing how things just don't change.

1. Vegas is still a miserable, smoggy, soul-searing, apathetic, lethargic, sun-baked hell-hole after about 10 in the morning.

2. I still don't have much more going on than meals and naps.

3. I still weigh the same as at this time last summer.

4. I think my skin cancer is back.

But if that was the whole story, there would be no reason for this blog to exist. Let's see what else happened over the last 100 posts:

There were lots of great vacations, with lots of great pictures. Click here, here, and here for cool, refreshing photos from the Sierras.

Last August, Tyson wanted some pictures for Tracy, an old friend from high school.

In September, we had a little poster contest. The second poster from the top was declared the winner.

In December, we got snowed on and said goodbye to the beach house.

Things were pretty boring around here until the end of February, with the debut of the a series of participation exercises. Soon dubbed Audience Participation Monday, these activities quickly became the highlight of this blog.

April brought a potential Spring Break crisis and a new job for next year.

May consisted almost exclusively of Audience Participation Mondays, and June, well, scroll down to reminisce about June. It's all still there.

I just want to give a shout out to all my readers who have been there from the very beginning--Tyson, my sister, and my moms. Without their support, this would probably have been another one of those "ehhhh" projects that sounded good, but never got off the ground. And for everyone else--Tammy, Erica, Elaine, Brannon, Michael, Billyfish, J--I'm glad you showed up and stuck around. (With apologies to anyone I may have forgotten. I can always add you in, good as new, and nobody will know the difference.)

Here's to another 100 posts.

So I haven't posted anything lately because I was waiting for a lot of little news to come in. Now that it has, and now that I'm stuck in a public, wi-fi enabled place with nothing better to do for the next hour or so and no book to read, I suppose it's about time for an update.

Some newsworthy items:

1. Tomorrow and Friday are staff development days, which is sort of like a holiday because we'll get to learn some things and we won't have to see any kids, plus we'll have hour-long lunches and the occasional department meeting where we'll be given a "homework assignment" that entails going to our rooms and doing all the stuff that was just going to keep us late today if we'd stuck around to do it. And they're feeding us breakfast for the next two days, and a "soul food" potluck on Friday. All in all, I could think of worse ways to spend two work days. Sometimes it's nice to hang out with the other grownups.
   
2. I have a half-hour presentation to do tomorrow for the WHOLE STAFF on some of the stuff I learned at the National Reading Conference. It is sort of starting to scare me, and Tyson finds it incredibly amusing since half of our staff has masters degrees or higher and all but a handful or so have been teaching longer than I have.
   
3. Tyson was doubly amused, then, when I was invited to miss a whole day of school last week (with the sub paid for, even!) to a meeting where I told a group of Title I principals about this system we only sort of use at our school. I say "sort of" because we really don't do any paperwork on it or anything, so it can't really be tracked or measured in any significant way, naturally an issue of concern to Title I administrators in the height of testing season.
   
4. I'm being distracted by the pleasantly dorky-looking drummer of a small blues ensemble at the coffee shop.
   
5. I am waiting at this coffee shop because a whole bunch of students from my school are, right this moment, loading up a bus to come to a UNLV basketball game tonight. I haven't been to a real b-ball game in a hundred years and I'm actually really looking forward to it.
   
6. In one of my classes we are drawing comic strips about someone who survives a shipwreck. I wish you could see some of them. They are really, really great.
   
7. On that note, there is a new Scott McCloud book on drawing comics that I would LOVE to have...hint, hint, Tyson....
   
8. I have not made any more bread lately, but I did whip up a nice frozen-box lasagna last night for our Tuesday night date.
   
9. Tyson and I are sharing a classroom bunny. Pics to come. Eat your heart out, Deidre!
   
10. I am taking off next weekend on my first solo trip in a while, probably to Utah, and am really looking forward to it, although secretly I think it would be more satisfying if I were leaving Tyson at home rather than going on a trip to avoid being left at home, myself. Enjoying yourself is always so much easier when you can think about someone you know who isn't.

Finally,

11. It has been around 70 degrees every afternoon for the last few days. The rest of you are having some kind of cold snap, right? How's that working out for you?

Christmas Shopping Help--Fast!

NPR saves the day, once again. If you, like me, are having trouble finding smart gifts for smart people on your list, Head Butler has ideas. They will even email them to you if you are really desperate or shop all year long.

Tyson and I happened to stumble upon this review of Amadou and Miram's album, Dimanche a Bamako. For some strange reason, Tyson heard of this band about a year ago and had been trying to remember who the heck they were and where he could find them, and POOF! here they are on NPR as we pulled into the grocery store parking lot. Weird, huh? I hope you like the video; as loyal readers know, I no longer have a working sound card on my laptop so I just went by looks.

So anyway, I realize it has been a long time since I checked in. Here is a partial list of things I have been doing and may, at some point, get around to telling everyone all about:

1. Going to the National Reading Conference in LA and feeling incredibly dumb around all the researchers, all talking about their "pedagogy" and "methodologies" and "multimodalities" and all that.

Related topics:

a. Everything in LA is expensive.

b. I got to drive a Prius.

c. I had five birds on me at the aquarium but then one of them bit me.

2. Going to Texas for Thanksgiving and eating Tex-Mex food and seeing the fam (except Deidre and my gay cousin Matt)

3. Desperately cleaning my house (including scrubbing the detailing in the cabinet doors with a toothbrush!) because other family is coming on Friday.

4. Teaching one of my classes about the Civil Rights Movemement, while trying to convice them that the way to change the world is not by going to jail--a fine line to tread, I might add.

5. Playing with Power Point and poetry

6. Beginning to realize that Christmas is coming up and I'd better get off my ass and, you know, think about other people for a change

7. Writing final exams. Here are some sample questions:

What kind of soda do advertisers drink? The correct answer is E.

a. Dr. Pepper

b. This is not the correct answer.

c. Pepsi

d. Sprite

e. Choose E. It is the correct answer.

What is the name of the teacher whose class you are taking a final exam for right now?

a. Mrs. Allen

b. Mr. Strotbeck

c. Ms. Downey

d. Mr. Guinn

(Actually, Mr. Guinn's first name is, inexplicably, Shelby, so I can see where they might be confused.)

Those are by no means the only questions. There are, of course, recycled questions on warranties and story elements, but hey, these are 7th graders taking a 110-question test. They need a little break once in a while.

8. Playing Sims 2 while I wait for Tyson to get a new external CD-ROM drive so I can play the long-awaited Neverwinter Nights 2.

9. Enjoying the 65-degree weather the last few days (sounds nice, huh Deidre?)

10. Fretting about my blog. Really.

Please check back in again early next week and I will have written about some of these topics, or about other new stuff, or about other things I heard on NPR.

Man, oh man

I hadn't realized I'd been almost as negligent as Deidre, but I guess I have been. Sorry 'bout that. (Is it weird to you that neglige, as in, the lacy little nightie, and negligent probably have the same root? It is to me, too. As soon as I get some things off my chest, I'll look it up in my OED. Yeah, that's right. There's an Oxford English Dictionary on my desk, and it kicks lexicographical ass. Just you wait.)
So anyways, I'll just take a cue from Deidre, and since I have probably three more devoted readers than she does, I can always pretend I came up with the idea first: a list. And using colons.
1. The first quarter ended last week. WOO HOO! That means there are only 29 more weeks of school left!
2. I am going to LA for my first-ever professional conference and we're staying at a seriously swank hotel called the Standard that is so hip, they write their name upside-down. And they project movies onto the side of the building next door and you can watch them from your balcony or from the rooftop bar. How cool is that?!
3. I bought a table saw and put it together myself. Then I used it to put new flooring down in about half my house. If the batteries in the digital camera were charged up, I'd take a picture, but it would take to long, and I'm really just writing this until the dryer dings so I can hang the clothes that will wrinkle if I don't do them right away and then I'm going to bed.
4. Ummm......I think those clothes are probably about done, and it's getting late (for me, anyway).

So, the negligent/neglige question. They both mean the same thing, we just stole the word for the undergarment from French. I guess because if all you're wearing is your negligee, then you must have neglected to put clothing on. Or something like that. It's a bit anticlimactic, really. I could tell you what year the French version crossed over into English usage, but the print is really, really, really tiny, and, anyway, I already closed it up and don't want to be bothered finding it again.

Besides, I have laundry to take care of.

Some fun things I've been doing besides traveling and would recommend to others

1. Guillotine. This is a card game I bought at Funagain Games last week that arrived in the mail sometime while we were in California, so it was a nice little surprise to come home to. Basically you get to chop the heads off French nobles (figuratively, of course), and in the process make things a little more interesting by messing with your opponents. It's not a hard game, or a particularly complicated one, but it is fun and entertaining.

2. 500 Rummy. This is roughly the card game Emily and I played in Italy for at least an hour or two every day. We were trying to play to a million points. She still has the score sheet somewhere, but I don't even remember who won. It's a great 2-person game with enough strategy to be fun, but not to give you a headache in the middle of the afternoon.

3. The Great Dalmuti. This is a game I learned to play years and years ago at my friend Jamie's house. Back then, it was a drinking game, but I've played it since without the fridge full of cheap beer, and it's pretty much as good.

4.Catch Phrase. I just played this game for the first time last night. Games are short and intense, and we're currently working on some variations to make it even more fun and interesting.

5. Super Collapse 3. I played Super Collapse last summer for a while, and this new version has kept me entertained today in between cleaning the house and doing laundry. It's worth bootlegging from LimeWire.