What is this?:


It is Sarah from Joe Millionaire, AKA Cindy Schubert, professional fetishist! She has starred in bondage and fetish films (though fully clothed only). I was at dinner last night with some other reality show savants who, had I been able to reveal this knowledge, would have undoubtedly been impressed. In this particular picture she is tickling a woman's feet. But it's all over the internet and now everybody knows so they won't be so impressed; i bet chris will be shocked however.

I had a really yummy dinner last night, trout salad, it was really quite good. I have a wireless internet card, i discovered but then i discovered it doesn't work when it almost exploded my computer. Yes, I said exploded, so what? And now my left shift key doesn't work so I have difficulty making question marks. This sucks.

I did super great on my Fantasy Challenge! For those who do not know, Real World and Road Reals have battles, where a variety of former cast members, some who are well into their 30's, come back to reality television and compete in games for money. This year the gimmick is all the girls are on one team, all the boys on another, hence, "Battle of the Sexes." MTV also has added a feature that is similar to fantasy baseball, where you choose teams and gain points when your members do things like get into hissy fits, give hugs, cry, get bleeped, or actually earn points on the "challenges" this show is based on. So I have a team, and currently my members are Ellen (go Korean American exposure on television! from the Road Rules no one watched and where she hooked up with totally hot Adam who kind of looks like Evan from Joe Millionaire but better looking), Ruth (the drunk from Real World Hawaii who is kicking ASS during the games), and Emily (more on her). The guys on my team are Antoine (my favorite! but sort of weak, from Road Rules Europe, known for threatening to kill Belou with a fork.), Yes (again, a cutie, yes yes yes!--from road rules semester at sea), and James (a random road rules, but not the same one emily is from).They met on another of these challenges, and now they are dating, and they are sooo cute together. But they are going to earn me points for making out (i hope!).

My team is named Puck Sucks, because PUCK is on the show, infamous from Real world season 3, where he made fun of Pedro, who later died of AIDS and was a good decent person while Puck was everything bad that exists in the world. He is the biggest point earner because he is bleeped numerous times, trash talks, fights, cries and whatever else you get points for in the game. So if i wanted to play competitively, he would have to be on my team, but since i am playing with heart, he can kiss my ass till he dies.

In knitting news, things are not going well. Does anyone know how to knit? Does anyone want to help me?

I have switched to a new comment host; it's at blogExtra.com. Unfortunately it's not as coool as enetation, but it is far more reliable. It still has some smilies though. Enough of this madness, I'm going to bed!!

Just a side note, for anyone watching Joe Millionaire--Isn't he the densest guy alive? He's trying to be so sincere but he is literally a lunkhead! And those two girls (you know who i'm talking about, meow!watch out for those claws), would dump him in a minute if they found out he wasn't rich. Poor Zora, she deserves so much more. At least Mojo is gone.

So what have I been working on? The comments function, powered by enetation, which is a wonderful wonderful service, it is just driving me super batty. So I will keep working on it. Basically, sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. I like the smiley feature and I may be updating the template soon which the enetation site allows you to do, so I like that. It's just that sometimes it doesn't work (the link to comment won't show up at all). It helps to hit reload a lot, I have discovered. It does not help to bang your hands against your head in frustration.

Update on Ms. SAT (Stinky Awful Teacher)--this afternoon while I was working on this commenting dilemma, Ms. SAT came into my room and asked if Mr. BYT (Brash Young Teacher) next door was still there, saying, "his door is locked." My assumption was to tell her, no he is not there. Unfortunately she took this as an invitation to use the door in my room that is connected to his room to take a pen. I was like, "um, I said I don't think he's there," and she, distractedly, answered, "oh yes, i just want to borrow I pen I use sometimes." A PEN? that she USES sometimes? She's going to sneak into his room for a PEN? doesn't she have ONE pen??? I was about to offer her a pen, when she went into his room, then popped out saying, oh I couldn't find one, then rushing out again. So so sketchy.

one more time

ugh, more and more. what is this syntax error they speak of?

woohoo, it worked it worked it finally worked. now i wash my hands of it. I wasted my whole afternoon, so i tip my hat to you, glen, for being my inspiration. I am happy to have this, hopefully it will stay around and I won't have to waste any more time on it.

Goddamn i hate this!!!

I got so many things done today:
I went to my first Unitarian Universalist Church Service. It was pretty interesting but in the end, it was pretty much like..church. You sing songs and you pray and you listen to a long sermon. Some interesting things: They don't have crosses, they have "chalices," they call the prayer time "meditation," the prayers include poems by Walt Whitman, the sermon today was a long history of how Unitarians and Universalists are crazy liberal and how their whole thing is religious freedom. Basically they're saying, hey, man, believe whatever the hell you want, peace, you know? They're very new-agey. Chris was like, let's get the hell out of here, it is super white. I enjoyed myself however, I thought it was interesting, but at the same time I'm always looking out for the big C--not christians, cults! I will be back next week however to check out the 11:30 service, maybe it will be a more diverse crowd.

I got stood up at brunch. The person who was supposed to meet me was fifteen minutes late. The Fabulous Girl's Guide to Decorum states that you should never stand tardiness. You should wait until your designated time and then leave, explaining later, "Oh, I just assumed you forgot." The person who was supposed to meet me ate brunch by herself, while I ate brunch with my fabulous boyfriend--french press coffee, crisp bacon and sweet orange rolls.

I bought playing cards. Chris and I, rather _I_, enjoy board games but many require too many people. I decided to get a pack of cards, teach chris gin rummy and hopefully this will expand our friday night repertoire, which is to watch movies, eat food, and that's about it.

I got my hair cut. My stylist is from Alaska, who knew? She made my ugly hair look pretty again. But she always blows it out until it looks like a big mushroom cloud. I want to scream don't you see how puffy my hair is?? Apparently she thinks I like it this way. But she flipped the ends out and everything became ok again.

I bought yarn. I was reading martha stewart living--a mistake already--and it had an article about knitting. Long story short, now I can do both a knit stitch and a purl stitch, and I need to special order angora wool from some crazy yarn company in New Jersey to complete the project. Frustration complete.

There are so many things you can do to a blog, even if you know nothing or next to nothing. You can even get cool skins, so non-designers like myself can have attractive blogs. If I keep this up I think I get an honorary "bloggin" membership card or something. Of course some of us have had this blog less than a month, hardly respectable. If you see many blog changes then WATCH OUT, i've been fussing.

I tried to watch Y Tu Mama Tambien, but the gratuitous sex just made it unwatchable, particularly late at night when I was sleepy. It was ew, get that teenage boy's ass OUT of my face! We ate Malaysian, which I was surprised Atlanta had. Chris and I have constant arguments about this all the time, is Atlanta the south or is it an urban oasis? You see signs everywhere that it's the south--confederate flags, people in hunting gear at the mall, but most of these sightings have been OTP (outside the perimeter). What I see is the gay hub of the south, ethnic restaurants and the real desire to eat there, and learn more about the culture that created this food, and some cold cold weather for what is supposed to be a hot and humid area. However the more I live here the more I like it, so maybe I'm just making excuses! Truly there is very little racial mixing though there is a large non-black/white presence here. But the city is growing and changing and diversifying which is a good sign for the future.

Tonight we eat Moroccan--belly dancing, woohoo! And the Hours--woohoo again.

School was cancelled today in Atlanta because of the "abnormally cold" weather. It was 9 degrees this morning! I think the reasoning was the many kids who ride the bus or walk should not be exposed to this abnormal weather, which they are not at all used to. I agree, most of the kids in my class wear huge parkas when it's forty or fifty degrees. I spent my day making:

It took a few hours--it's one of those quilt a month projects from Jo-Ann fabrics. Each month you make a quilt square (this was month one), and at the end you get the setting set and complete the quilt. I only got the one square, but maybe i'll stick with it to the bitter (batting) end. I think I might take a class. That or knitting, which is infinitely cheaper. You have to buy all kinds of tools for quilting.

Wednesday was the 100th day of school, so we celebrated by doing all things one hundred. We played 100 hide and seek, made 100 froot loops necklaces, made 100 crowns, and had 100 snacks. Here is the 100 poster we made:

To that end I spent all day on the one 12" square piece of fabric and now i'm spent.

I saw an IMAX about whales yesterday and fell asleep several times. It was sooo soothing with the music and the waves and the quiet and the lulling and the warm seats. Anyway, I felt bad. I was at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History researching a field trip my class is taking next week. There's dinosaurs and dead stuffed animals and shells and jewelry too! Very cool museum.

Ate at Taqueria Del Sol which is one of my all time favorite restaurants now. They have these soft tacos that are sooo yummy--this isn't the refried bean and fatty chicken taco my friends, we're talking jalopeno mayonaise and fried tilapia tacos, pulled pork with red chile sauce, the best damned shrimp corn chowder on the planet!! And it's very cheap. I would consider it one of the best reasons to live in Atlanta. And I don't even like mexican food. It's kind of neuvo mexican take-out I gess. On my list of things I don't like:
1. Pasta
2. Indian food, particularly anything okra related
3. milk, except whole milk, sometimes
4. turkey

That's all for now. Right now I'm reading The Founding Brothers--pretty good read, very informative and well written. Joyce Carol Oates' Middle Aged: A romance, which is good but her use of the second person narrative is a bit jarring at times. (i.e. You are dead, you are being cremated, you were so ALIVE, now you're dead...yeah, we get it, stop beating us over the head with it!), and finally Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. Apparently Bret Easton Ellis called him the new Delillo. When you write like bret Easton ellis, I guess that can seem realistic. The book is ... juvenile, but still interesting. He definitely comes up with some interesting stuff-but it's like, can you write a whole novel based around urban myths? I guess so!

Happy Birthday Dr. King. I know people are supposed to go to church or volunteer or whatnot but as this is a day off I have plans to get a manicure. If i ever get out of these pajamas. Yesterday we went to Discover Mills, a suckier version of Potomac Mills and Arundel Mills...most prerequisite shops such as Gap or Banana republic were missing. Not even a movie theater. However I did end up getting these cool shoes:



and Chris bought me this awesome stuffed animal at the Sanrio store--I don't usually go for this stuff, but you must admit, this is damned cool:


It's a dog...wearing a bee costume. YEAH!

We saw Catch Me If You Can, which i have to say I enjoyed thoroughly. Now I have to read the book, because his story really was affecting. Some people say they didn't like the end, but frankly I thought the end was really what made you understand that his journey was not the superficial whim of a teenage hoodlum, but a vulnerable "man-child," if you will, looking for guidance and security.

Vintage coffee mugs at the thumbs up diner.


Under the table.


The remains of the breakfast.

Today we ate at Thumbs Up Diner, my favorite breakfast place ever. You have to wait a long time because it's small and people like to eat there. Chris had the buckwheat hotcakes and I had a very cheesy omelet. I was watching the new MTV show, Made, where the girl wanted to be a cheerleader and she was a little chubby so she had to go on a diet. It included no cheese and that was so sad. I'm updating my journal in one week so i must be doing a better job keeping it up to date.

My favorite little kid stories this week include showing my kids the "Really Rosie" video, which is a cartoon made in the 70's with a soundtrack by carole king. It's so funny to hear the kids singing along to carole king. I think carole might be a good baby name. I'm always on the lookout for those. Anyway, their favorite song is called "I don't care": it's about this little boy who says I don't care all the time and one day he meets a lion and the lion asks, aren't you worried? I'm going to eat you! and the boy sings, "I don't care!" so the lion eats him (or as one of the kids says, swallowed him, because he didn't chew, and in the end he gets shaken out of the lion by worried parents). We were playing alphabet bingo and another little girl sang, I don't care! every time her letters didn't get called. Isn't that hilarious??

In other news I just completed this application to be a CMA at the Teach for America Institute, which means I will either be in Houston or New York this summer if I get it. It basically means you guide new corps members to be great teachers, but we'll see!

The EYE is watching you

Wow! Exciting things happened this holiday season. After a looong but fun vacation at home where I received long awaited Marc Jacobs perfume and a cool minidisc player, I got home and decided I needed MORE STUFF and i bought a digital camera. Now I can upload lots and lots of cool and exciting pictures to this blog. And yes by cool and exciting I mean pictures of henry the cat.

Here's a long story about my school : So I'm a teacher and on Friday we had a teacher in-service day where we would be evaluated on our teaching/assessing, etc. As a teacher it is not all fun and games, we have to keep all sorts of records on our students, fill out a lot of paperwork, etc. The teacher across the hall from me (, let's call her Ms. Stinky Awful Teacher (SAT), is, despite her fifteen years experience, incredibly disorganized, a terrible teacher (1-she has no behavior management, 2-she can't teach AT ALL--unless your idea of teaching is sitting your fat ass at a desk and giving out handouts to five year olds who don't know what they're doing), and she has terrible BO. I wouldn't not mention this if it were not truly heinous.

She has been stressed out because the new administration is trying to get rid of Ms. SAT for being stinky. It's her first year of kindergarten (she was in fourth grade, but they had to move her for being stinky). and they're watching her performance all the time, and it's like she doesn't even care. But the worst is, she waits until the last minute and then asks myself, and our extremely efficient lead teacher Ms. EEL to pick up her slack. Thursday, while ms. eel was picking up her daughter from school, ms.SAT snuck into her room and stole (YEAH, i said it!), a portfolio and a math test because she did not have ANY and did not even have a clue as to what should be in them--keeping in mind that a portfolio is a folder of each student's work that should have been accumulated over the semester. So she TOOOK it, as well as taking Ms. Eel's self evaluation which asked a bunch of gibberish questions about how we rated our own teaching abilities and then COPIED it. The funny thing about ms sat is that we both really dislike the way she does things, yet she seems to have no clue that we hold any animosity towards her. And also, I tried to like her. I really did--i tried to look over the bad BO, I tried to answer her endless and often repeated jackass questions about things she was just trained in, but i got really tired of her lazy butt attitude.

So the next day after her meeting with our principal, Dr. X, she came out crying and complaining. I feel bad for her because her job is seriously on the line, and the new administration does want to keep inept pple at their jobs. At the same time it's hard to feel sorry for someone who lies and steals and doesn't actually do any work.