What I’m Reading
Oct
31
It’s official: I no longer know who reads this blog and who doesn’t. I mean, aside from the people that comment, of course. (I love you, loyal commenters. I really do.) Sometimes I can forget that there is a whole wide world of people out there and any one of them can type the NPW url in their nav bar, and hey! What do you know? There are all of my thoughts, spilled out across the internet universe. Then I’ll be in conversation with someone I haven’t talked to in months and I’ll share some anecdote and they’re all, “Oh yeah! You told me about that.”
Errr… no. No, I didn’t. You must have read it somewhere.
A few weeks back my cousin was walking downtown and ran into an ex that I haven’t spoken to in close to three years. He tried to avoid her but being the force of nature she is, she yelled out his name and forced him to look up. He spoke maybe four sentences, but they were enough to make me certain that he is reading the old blogeroo. How did he get the address? Why does he bother? I guess I’ll never know. (So, hey, Jerkface! If you’re reading, N says you should probably stop hitting the fried foods. Bad for the complexion, you know.)
Then the people that I would expect would read this- close friends, family members, etc.- it barely makes it on their radar that I have a blog. Which is fine, I’m not narcissistic enough to believe that everyone should be hanging on my every word (WHY AREN’T THEY HANGING ON MY EVERY WORD?), it’s just that I would like to believe that those people would take pleasure in my writing, in sharing what I have to say. I guess they’d rather just talk to me in person- way to be difficult, people.
But of course this isn’t really all of my thoughts. If I wrote down everything that crossed my mind you’d be bored out of your skulls. Actually, no, you wouldn’t, you’d still be as enthralled as ever; my real point is that even if I wanted to write down every little thing I am a big self-censor. Writing these posts has become a bit like a political game, a balance between entertainment and experience.
Anyway, I’m glad you’re all out there reading, whoever you are. And if you made it this far, congratulations. You get the shiny gold star: NPW Approved.
And in an amazing segue, congratulations are also in order for my Monday contest! Here’s the run down:
1. I owned and drove a hot pink Dodge Daytona.
TRUE! I’m glad this brought so much glee to so many of you, as it did not bring much glee at all to my college sophomore self. Fortunately, my sister crashed it into oncoming traffic one fall day, leaving me car-less but content.
2. I am deathly afraid of heights.
FALSE! Chris is deathly afraid of heights, not me. He doesn’t even like it when I’m at the edge of something and clutches at my arm a bit. It’s endearing, really. Until the beads of sweat break out on his forehead and he starts hyperventilating. Then I feel bad.
3. I won the 6th grade Spelling Bee but refused to move on to the next level.
TRUE! I always regretted that moment. But I truly had the most amazingly terrible stage fright, ever. Sometimes I still do, in fact. I do not enjoy public speaking, but I’m much better at it now that I’m no longer a self-conscious teen. Because a self-conscious adult is oh so much easier to deal with.
So I threw all the correct answers in a proverbial hat (in actuality my cupped hands) and picked one out at random…
Hooray for Katie! I will be happy to send your lovely blog prize to San Diego. All you need to do is email me your address and prepare yourself for awesomeness.
Oct
30
Sick Day Guilt Yields Surprising Results
Filed Under Uncategorized | 15 Comments
Yesterday I woke up and I was feeling ill and tired and crabby* and so I did what any sane person would do: I logged onto my computer. No, not to check my email. We have a new system at work where we call in sick by logging on to a website and requesting a sub and uploading our plans for the day. But being sick and tired and crabby already, then trying to figure out the online system, then forgetting to upload my plans, it all just made me feel even worse. In the end I managed to get it done and crawled back into bed at 6 a.m.
At 6:30 I jerked back awake, suddenly remembering that there is construction on my street this week and all cars have to be off the road by 7. I blearily dragged on a sweatshirt and shoes and a jacket and stepped outside into a bitterly cold wind to move my car. I jogged back up the hill to my house, crossing over the busy main road where a man in a cowboy hat was chasing his pitbull with his car and another man was tying Chinese food menus onto house doorknobs while it was still dark out (proving my theory that only the crazies are out that early), and once again crawled back into bed.
By 10:00 a.m. I was feeling better and a bit foolish for missing work. I figured I’d try to make the most of my day off and settled in for some classic Price is Right. And what the hell? Where did Bob Barker go? How did I miss this? Bob was the staple of all my sick days as a child and now I have to watch Drew Carey fiddle around with his jacket pockets and try to imitate the original? He even asked me to get my pets spayed or neutered! Unacceptable.
After that disappointment I dragged my sorry self into the shower and actually managed to get a few things done around the house. Mostly I just wandered from room to room, wondering why I felt so misplaced, feeling like I should be doing something important with this unexpected time but unable to think of something worthy. I sent off a few “I’m sick!” emails, putzed around on Facebook a while, and flipped through the OnDemand movie selection. Then in a sudden moment of organizational OCD I decided that I needed to clean and straighten Chris’s office, the sight of which has been plaguing me for half a year now. So in between loads of laundry and bad daytime television I transformed the Room of Horrors into something workable and even, if I may say so myself, pleasant-looking.
All in all? Probably the most productive sick day ever. Now if only I could use a sick day to clean my work office.
Tonight I’ll tally up all the correct answers from yesterday’s post and announce a winner tomorrow- in the meantime, get over there and guess if you haven’t already.
*I refuse to admit that the late night Red Sox games had anything to do with this sudden mysterious illness. In fact, I went to bed early on Sunday night and missed the end of the last game of the Series and Chris had to wake me up to tell me the results.
Oct
28
Contest alert! Since I am seemingly the last person to use up this posting game anyway, maybe I should save it for November when I really need the post. I’m not known for my patience, though, so here we go. You all know the drill by now, no?
I’ll post two truths and a lie. The person to guess which of them is the lie is the winner. If more than one of you choose correctly I’ll pick one of those names randomly. That seems fair. Oh, oh, want to know what you’ll win? Too bad! I’m not telling you! It will just be a lovely surprise for you to get in the mail one day.
Annnnd…. go!
1. I have owned and driven a hot pink Dodge Daytona.
2. I am deathly afraid of heights and feel the need to lie down on the ground when anyone approaches the edge of something high.
3. I won the 6th grade spelling bee but then got stage fright and refused to move on to the next level.
Note: family excluded. Cheaters.
Oct
26
The A Portion of the Q & A
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AKA, I’m sorry this is the longest post EVER.
Thank you all for humoring me and coming up with library-themed questions. Of course I was being facetious in stating that you all must certainly have a burning desire to know everything there is to know about being a librarian; I’m just glad some of you had actual questions that were not “NPW, why are you so stupid?”, or “How did you become such a colossal nerd?”
Now imagine me doing an MC Hammer dance complete with backup singers and then saying, “Stop- Answer time!”
I know. Almost too awesome to contemplate, isn’t it?
Please forgive my insanity this morning, some lovely student dropped a stink bomb outside the library window which then got sucked up into the heating vents causing my office to smell like 10,000 farts. These kids give new meaning to TGIF.
For -R-:
KF is not actually a system, it’s part of the classification from the Library of Congress system of cataloging that refers specifically to law texts. It’s then broken down by numbers according to the type of law. If you are crazy like me (I hope for your sake you are not) and need to know exactly how it looks, here is a link to that breakdown. As to feeling dumb, I went to grad school with people who had never even heard of the Library of Congress. So don’t feel bad! There is really no reason that you should ever know the Library of Congress classification meanings unless you have gone to library school.
As to what attracted me to middle school, I will be frank: they are the least intimidating. Sure, they are stinky and goofy and sometimes just plain weird. But elementary kids demand much more attention and need much more babysitting. While I think kindergartners are adorable, I don’t want to clean up kid pee from the carpet. And high school libraries are all about research. Which I enjoy, to a point, but I also like to be able to interact with the kids and give book talks and have discussions about why Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is so freaking awesome. Plus, I feel as though I can relate to the awkwardness of these years. It appeals to my odd sense of humor.
Also, the scary pipe is “fixed”. As in, the sink has been reattached. Is the smell gone? No. Although the stink bomb is doing an admirable job of covering it today.
For courtney:
I’m not sure whether you’re asking if I have a favorite young adult book or just what my favorite book is here at the school, but there have been quite a few that I have enjoyed discovering here in my library. Like this. And this. Or most recently, a book titled simply Cocaine that includes pictures of Richard Pryor, high as a kite, and a step-by-step process on how to cut a line. I guess that is to be expected in a library that saw most of its funding in the mid-seventies to mid-eighties.
As for favorite young adult books, there are so many. I’ll just list a few: Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, Deep by Susanna Vance, The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer, I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak, and One of those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies, by Sonia Sones.
For Laurel:
I had this sweet pair of blue and green plaid Skidz overalls that I wore with a blue turtleneck and Converse high tops. Part of me wishes I had a picture of this outfit to offer for your amusement, but mostly I’m glad my parents had the sense to never photograph me from the ages of 12-15.
I also had hot pink snap bracelets and a bitchin’ sweatshirt collection.
For Jess:
It’s ok. Library science is very geek chic right now, I understand.
For Noelle:
641.337 is the Dewey number for tea. Which I guess is why they put it on a coffee mug? Those clever marketers.
For WhiskeyMarie:
I used to love to love the smell of libraries. I suppose I still do, when I walk into a fresh clean public library and it’s like a haven of crisp book smells. Unfortunately, at any given time mine smells of pubescence, Axe Body Spray, sewer, mold, or some combination of those.
And thank you, I’m glad I’m both wicked cool and wicked awesome. But you forgot to add wicked smaht.
For Ween:
Dewey and I, we’re old buds. Learning those numbers, it is the curse of my brain. Plus, I use it every day here at school. These kids are going to be really sad when they get to college and have to learn how to find books using the L of C system.
Honestly, I crammed grad school into one solid year (full-time, all the way through the summer), so 2004 is pretty much a blur of cataloging and coffee-fueled nights. I don’t think I had time to get sick of it.
I did not have to write a thesis because I had to do two different practicums in schools. (Is that the plural of practicum?) It was intense, but I enjoyed it because it made me realize I had picked the right profession.
For StilettoHeights:
I do still use the Dewey Decimal system! Most public schools do, in fact. We don’t use card catalogs anymore, but I don’t find that sad because they were cumbersome and annoying anyway. I heart the online catalog.
As for the strangest thing someone has ever asked me to look up… well, they’re middle schoolers. Pretty much everything that comes out of their mouths is strange. But I did have one boy ask me to look up articles on making cheese from human milk. I asked him if he meant from breast milk and he turned red and muttered something about looking it up at home. I guess that was strange.
For Stefanie:
The choice seemed simple, really- I knew I wanted to work with kids in some capacity and I went into grad school already enrolled in the school library program. That program has very specific requirements. I guess I also weighed the benefits- public librarians make a little more money, but school librarians only work 180 days a year. And after being here three years, I would not give up my summers for an extra $2000 a year.
Oh, and yes, the hoboes and the perverts of any public library in a city definitely scared me off a little. I once saw a woman wiping a GIANT glob of snot off a desk at the Boston Public Library and I almost hurled on the pretty marble staircase. I’ll take germy kids any day.
For Liz:
Why thank you!
I know what you mean about the mildew epidemic. Once it sets in it’s unstoppable. When I started here I threw away over 3,000 books- no joke. I cried about it a little, but they were covered in mold. Very gross.
Love the detector story. Hilar!
For Erikka:
Ahhhhh! Ok, I’m going to answer briefly-
I do not buy online books because they are not equal access for students who do not have computers at home. I also hate online books, because I cannot read anything of length on a computer screen.
Some publishers are more pushy than others. In general, no, I do not. But then I also have a very small budget. Academic and public libraries might do more direct business with publishers.
I buy a lot of books from big vendors like Baker & Taylor and Follett, only because we have a co-op and those vendors give us huge discounts. Plus, they catalog and barcode everything for you and you just download the MARC records. So convenient.
I go to a LOT of administrative meetings, but less than classroom teachers. Every Monday is scheduled for some sort of meeting, Tuesdays I have Library Council and team meetings, Wednesday is Technology Council, Thursday I have an after-school club, etc. Then there’s all the inter-school stuff I do, but then, I actively try to stay super-involved. For instance, today is Spirit Day and I am dressed like Super Librarian. (Seriously. And this cape is itchy.) I also do the district-wide Spelling Bee, and help out with the Holiday Party, and have a Friends of the School Library group. Oh, and that’s not mentioning the PTO meetings and Back To School nights and all that. Yeah, it’s a lot.
For Kelli:
Hands down, the most checked out books are The Clique series by Lisi Harrison. I also get a lot of “can you recommend something?”, which I love.
Strangest request: I did have a student ask me if I slept in the library. I joked, “Of course, how else would I keep the library elves from stealing the books?” He just gave me a worried look.
For DM:
Pride and Prejudice, or Jane Eyre.
Sometimes I do. With the Pullman trilogy the end was so… well, I don’t want to give it away. Let’s just say I can’t believe the series is over. And what the heck happened to Lyra and Will?!
For Lisa:
Pride and Prejudice, Austen
Jane Eyre, Bronte
The Amber Spyglass, Pullman
I think that’s it! I’m done with Q’s and A’s. This library superstar is out to enjoy a lovely fall weekend. You do the same and I will see you for a rash of non library-themed posts next week.
Oct
25
This Librarian Walks Into A Bar
Filed Under Uncategorized | 15 Comments
First off, I’d like to apologize for making the last two posts all about the incompetent and/or insane people that I work with. Now that you’re all afraid for the future of our country (like you weren’t before!) I would also add that a good 95% of my co-workers are sane, and, in most cases, delightful people who love the kids and are amazing teachers. Myself included, of course.
With that said, I am currently putting together a post that will break the mysterious world of school librarians wide open; the working title is “Tools of the Trade” and it will be photographic in nature. I know you’re all on the edge of your seats just thinking about it! You can thank me later. I won’t reveal too much right now, but rest assured, come November you people will all know exactly what it’s like to be a librarian in a middle school. Why November? That would be because of that whole thing I’m doing where I post every day, and people: I am going to need topics. Besides, I know how invested most of you are in the life and times of your favorite librarian.
So: secrets and intrigue! I’m such a people-pleaser.
Anyway, like I said, sometimes I have to vent to the internet before I lose my mind. Like today, when I had fourteen catalogs in my mailbox of stuff that I would never, ever, EVER buy that I immediately dumped into the recycling box without even looking through, earning me a few glares from the secretaries. Whatevs. Would you like it if you were constantly throwing away glossy order forms for items like this?
Or this, even?
Well, maybe you would. But I have enough library-themed paraphernalia to last me until I’m old enough that I think this stuff is “cute”. And that will be a very long time from now.
Which brings me to the interactive part of my post. It’s Q & A time! What burning questions would you like answered about the library sciences? Don’t be shy, now. You can ask anything you want. Except, just don’t make it too hard, okay? I don’t want to have to go look something up.
And if you can’t think of any questions for me, feel free to leave a comment telling me how awesome I am, or how I look great in this new sweater. Because after this week, I sure do need it.
Oct
23
Because! That’s Why
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I’m guessing that most of my readers do not have personal assistants. And I know you’re probably all reading this thinking, “No, I do not have a personal assistant, NPW. But damn, that sure sounds nice.” You are wrong.
While I don’t have a personal assistant per se, long time readers will remember that I do have numerous volunteers (both parents and senior citizens), as well as a number of student aides that show up periodically throughout the day. Of course, these people are untrained and unpaid, so it’s not like I’m expecting them to remember my order of Tazo soy chai latte with half a Splenda, but they could at least write it down.
Anyway, unlike my volunteer situation, classroom teachers have the distinct pleasure of getting Instructional Assistants to help them out. Really the IAs are there to make sure students with disabilities are not falling behind or reading comic books behind their science textbook, but they also help out with general classroom management. And they even get paid! I mean, it’s crap, but they do get a meager hourly wage. To deal with tantrums and screaming and threats and being punched. Usually I feel kind of bad for IAs, since for the most part they are people with college degrees looking to get some experience in a school while they’re taking graduate courses in Education. Is there any more surefire way to scare them away from schools permanently than by giving them the most difficult students for the least amount of money? If there is, I’d like to hear it.
But there are a couple of IAs that I cannot muster up any sympathy for. Yesterday a young girl came into my office as I was working on creating some stuff for the school website. She was supposed to be watching the class but instead thought she’d like to complain to me about how bored she was, how she had nothing to do. All the while I’m watching her students out of my office window slap each other with rulers, lean each other back in chairs until they crack each other’s skulls on the floor, and issue shrieks of outrage over stolen hats/notebooks/pens. I just looked pointedly at the kids, but this young IA didn’t get my point, which was “get the hell out there and take care of that mess before I kick your ass”.
So I walked towards them and immediately things quieted. I noticed one kid with his head down on the desk. I asked what he was doing and he responded, “I’m tired. Miss YoungIA told me I could rest this period.” I informed him in no uncertain terms that if I was not allowed to nap during the day, neither was he. As I walked away I heard him whining to the IA, “But why can’t I?”
“I don’t know why, you just can’t”, was her response.
I whipped around to gape at her, but she already had her nose in an old copy of Seventeen.
Seriously. I know this girl is probably like 19 years old. And it’s clear she doesn’t have children of her own, otherwise she would know that you NEVER answer a kid’s question of “Why?” with “because” or “you just can’t”.
As I walked away I heard a couple kids resume their shouting and I caught her saying, “Why are you guys always so horrible for me?” as she put away her nail file and got up to logout of her Match.com profile.
Oct
22
Retired, But Not Forgotten
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Since this is only my third year working in a school and I’ve only been in this one district I sometimes find it difficult to judge whether the things that go on here are weirder than the average school. But they sure do seem it. For example, we have at least four people in the building who have retired every year that I’ve been working here, and then when I show up in September, there they are, setting up their classroom, hanging posters like I didn’t just pay $50 in June to wish them a happy retirement with a cold country club dinner. So do I just ignore the fact that they retired and should therefore be dead to me, or do I approach with a “Why the hell are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be walking laps in the mall or something?”
Even weirder, I know for a fact that at least two of those people are no longer getting paid.
No, for real.
They just show up and teach “enrichments”, which basically means that when there are leftover kids that the adminstration needs to shove somewhere for a period, guess who gets them? Which, okay, I guess I understand if you’re 80 years old and you live by yourself without so much as an overweight cat trying to eat your lasagna to keep you company why you might want something to do during the day. Especially something that allows you to interact with hundreds of people. But the other day one of the women told me she hated teaching and she loathed children and the only reason she did it was because she couldn’t think of anything else to do. This woman taught for 35 years and hated it, but kept doing it because she was too lazy to find out what other options were available? And is now so set in that routine that she can’t stop, even when they’re not paying her to be here? That is probably the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.
One of the other women seems to actually enjoy teaching, but she flat out refuses to go near a computer. She claims she “does not agree with technology”. It’s unclear whether she means they don’t get along or whether she objects to technology in general, but when 90% of your communication with other teachers and administrators comes through email, her No Technology stance can sometimes make life difficult. For me.
Sometime in the first couple of months I was working here she got it in her head that my name was “Sandy” (it’s not) and has been calling me that ever since. So not only is it too late to correct her, three years later, but a bunch of my co-workers discovered that she calls me Sandy and have been sending me emails like, “Dear Sandy, could you please send down an overhead lightbulb?” and I have to reply, “Ha ha. Very funny. You will get your overhead lightbulb when SANDY feels like getting off her butt.”
On Friday she came wandering into my office saying, “Err, Sandy, I need help with the little computer.” What computer? Your laptop? The typewriter? “Umm, no. Not my computer. The little computer.” After asking 53 more questions and getting nowhere I finally followed her down the hall where she pointed at the photocopier. The photocopier that is the size of a small army vehicle.
That was the “little computer”.
I feel like sending out a school-wide note saying, “Dear retirees: go home. I will send you craft projects to work on and I will drive to the SPCA to adopt an animal for you. Please, please, please do not show up at school anymore. You are making me crazy. Sincerely, Sandy”
Oct
19
Memo: NPW Is Lazy
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Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the design of this site. I’ve always felt like a person’s blog reflects their personality, the tone of their writing, what they hope to accomplish by publishing their thoughts. I think that’s part of the reason I dislike reading blogs through an RSS feed: you just don’t get that sense of personality that you do when you read directly from a person’s site. All posts look uniform and boring in Google Reader, and that makes me sad. Because a post about zombies should not look the same as a post about a first date, and a post about the crazy weekend you spent in Mexican prison should not look the same as a post about your daughter’s kindergarten graduation.
When I made the switch from Blogger to Wordpress I spent hours looking through themes and layouts and ultimately decided on this, and for better or worse, so it has remained since June. But something just feels wrong about it. I’ve been trying to pinpoint what, exactly, is bothering me, but I’m having a difficult time. All I can come up with is that I just don’t feel like it’s me. And since it’s my site, I guess that’s enough of a reason to change it.
The lovely and talented Aly has been through about a dozen changes on her site over the last couple of weeks and there were a few in there that I thought, hey, I could live with that. But I don’t want to be a layout stealer. Instead, I will simply say that she is my inspiration to stop bitching about it (you know, to myself) and do something already.
Here’s the lowdown:
- I like the three-column set up. It looks clean and organized. I am a nerd that straightens her pens and pencils and paper clips into even rows, lines up tape dispensers with an even one inch gap between them, and separates her Sharpies by color, so obviously neatness appeals to me.
- I like the blue and the brown together. A few weeks into this new theme I realized it’s not the bird that I like, it’s the colors. So Chris helped me customize a new header which I then promptly forgot about. And when I remembered it I was too lazy to change it out, as it would cut into my time that could be spent playing Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Ahem. Like I said: nerd.
- I like that I already have all the plug-ins that I want installed and running.
- I like that it’s already here, ready and waiting for me to just type away. If you don’t think this is a valid reason, see above, re: being a lazy ass.
Unfortunately, there are also a number of things that I do not like about the current scheme:
- I do not like the font. It is too big and ungainly. It makes my posts seem ridiculously long, even when they are not. And, if this makes any sense at all, I feel like the font often does not reflect the feel of my writing. I know it sounds strange, but take for example my one stint as guest blogger over at Funky Carter. It felt eery to be writing a post in a font that was not my own. It was like I was suddenly trying to become Ace, like I needed to write in his tone. (I really wanted to make a joke here about his tone being depressed and stupid, but I refrained. You’re welcome, Ace.) My point is, I hate the font and I hate the font size.
- I don’t like the way the header and the title line up. If I were better at graphic design I would make something myself or at the very least I’d fix what I’ve already got. Instead I will probably just keep using the stupid bird until I log in one day and it has magically changed itself into something I love. (Why did I pick a bird? I don’t even like birds.)
- I hate that every post says “Filed Under: Uncategorized” because I am the last remaining person on Earth that refuses to use tags.
- I hate that my bullet and numbered points are in a smaller font than the regular post. My bullets should not be diminutive, dammit!
So now that I’ve shared all this with you, I’m off to lounge around in my pajama pants with a cup of coffee and my Nintendo. But I’m warning you, WordPress, the next time I log in to write a post all this stuff better be fixed. Or else I might just write another post bitching about it.
We’ll see how you like that.
Oct
18
I Get The Chump’s Roll Every Time
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We’ve been planning this amazing trip to Honduras and Belize and Mexico for my February break. The break coincides with my cousin’s 30th birthday, so basically all of my family is going on this trip and the itinerary looks awesome. So awesome! Awesome with a capital A! I’ve even been really good about putting money in my savings account, knowing that the trip comes right after a bunch of birthdays and baby showers and especially the dreaded Christmas. I am so prepared for a week of sun and fun come February!
Except I just got home from the dentist and I need a root canal. That my ridiculous insurance does not pay for. Why do I pay for insurance if they don’t cover anything? We’ll chalk it up to a naive hope that someday my insurance will come through for me, and not my relative stupidity and lack of proper cost/benefit analysis. Needless to say I was fairly bummed out by the fact that I now need to pay over a thousand dollars for someone to drill into my skull for hours.
While sitting in the dentist chair, gripping the arms so tightly I’m sure I left permanent dents in the foam, I tried to concentrate on thinking up ways that I’d be able to get my teeth fixed and still be able to go on the Awesome Vacation. It wasn’t easy, given that the torture seemed to go on forever and rattled my brain around ceaselessly. I believe it’s that sensory overload of the dentist that affects me the most- the sound of something metal and sharp grinding purposefully against your teeth, the smell of hot burning enamel, that bright light shining directly into your retinas, the taste of excess novacaine and blood and chips of tooth, the feel of something alien forcing its way into your mouth. Very unpleasant.
So, yeah. I didn’t come up with much. Does anyone know anything about black market kidneys? I’m pretty sure I only need one…
As I was leaving the office (feeling like the left side of my face had palsy from all the novacaine) the dentist added, “After you get the root canal, we’ll work on the tooth behind it and see if that one needs a root canal as well.”
Umm, the fuck?
What am I, a hobo on the street that all my teeth are rotting out? Why do I brush three times a day if my teeth are all just going to fall out of my head anyway? Do you know how much money I could have saved on toothbrushes and toothpaste over the last 28 years? PROBABLY ENOUGH TO PAY FOR TWO ROOT CANALS.
Oct
17
Fall Randomness
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My cousin decided to dress her son up as a Native American for Halloween. (Or is it American Indian? NPR calls them American Indians, and if I can’t trust NPR then I might as well give up trying. I digress.) The costume is cute, of course, as is anything you put on a one year old, with a little headdress and moccasins and a tomahawk to scalp other kids looking for candy.
When she called to tell my aunt that she had bought an Indian costume, as it says on the packaging, my aunt asked “An Indian? Like Tonto, or like Apu?”. Which, I suppose, is a valid question if you think about it? Except that she meant it as a joke, since she did not actually think her grandson would be walking around suburban Massachusetts dressed in a sari or a dhoti with a sack full of peanut butter cups.
My question is, are baby boomers allowed to be so blatantly un-PC? Or is that special brand of racism reserved for the elderly?
Chris and I went to a Fall party last weekend. Fortunately, the spell of 90 degree days has ended so the weather was appropriately crisp and cool, there was mulled cider and Octoberfest beer, and candy corn. They lit a fire in the yard and we carved pumpkins. I had brought along some of those stencils that you can buy at Target with the cool designs on them, and since my only artistic skill seems to lie in Microsoft Paint I thought I might bust them out during the pumpkin carving. But then Chris made fun of the stencils so much that I refused to use them. Good thing, since I never would have discovered my mad carving skills otherwise!
Can you guess which one is mine?
Please note that Chris’s is on the ground behind the others. Show-off.
(Although I have to admit, his was really cool and uber-detailed. And also kind of scary. There are better pictures of his here.)