where I've been

This is my precious nephew, Theo.


I want one! I want one!

Just kidding, Ben.

I need skills!

So I saw Joaquin and Reese on Oprah, and they said neither of them had ever sung a note before Walk the Line. Through voice lessons alone, they were able to emulate musical legends.

Yesssss!

My friend Stephanie and I have talked about the fantasy of shyly showing up onstage somewhere to wow the crowd, which usually includes ex-boyfriends and people who've made fun of us in the past, with our amazing guitar-strumming and singing skills. We'll also look much, much hotter than ever before.

Now, it seems it could really happen! At least the singing part. I just need to find the right voice teacher to believe in me, to turn what Ben calls "the sound of an old lady who's just woken up" into mellowed honey.

I love smiling; it's my favorite!

This week was fabulous in several ways. Yesterday was the last day of school, but we watched videos since Tuesday. Shh, I could get fired for that.

1. I have watched Elf and Napoleon Dynamite three times apiece. They've passed the litmus test for My Favorite Movies; the more I watch them, the funnier they become. Kids were turning around in their seats to look at me, astonished at how hard I chortled when Will Ferrell (or, as I like to call him, "Elf") does the splits on the escalator. At home, it's a kick to watch Ben seethe as I insist on saying, "Look at me! I'm being Elf!" instead of "Look! I'm being Buddy!" as he believes is proper. It's also nice to see the kiddos choosing the exact same lines of Napoleon's to mimic that I did.

2. My first period's Bob Marley Rasta Christmas door won first-place in the schoolwide door decorating contest. For two days, it was the talk of the school. Every few seconds during passing, I'd hear, "Ho, tight, da door!" and "Miss, your door is sick!" It's amazing how a giant image of Bob in a Santa hat can instill even the hooliganest of hooligans with the holiday spirit. Just kidding. I know they only like it because it helps them envision the ganja they're on their way to smoke.

3. I shamelessly bribed the kids and even more shamelessly drank in the sights and sounds of their gluttony as they smacked pizza, slurped soda, and, to a person, joked about my "hash brownies." As I savored the harmonious chorus of burps, I pretended they were feasting upon a bounty of knowledge only I could provide.

4.. This is the crown jewel. Two Hawaiian boys who hang out in my room at recess showed up wearing two-foot-tall Pope hats they'd made from construction paper, complete with crosses, in order to taunt their friend who doesn't believe in God. It was frickin' hysterical. They chased her around, giggling, "Repent! Repent!" I don't know why the fact that they're Hawaiian makes it funnier, but it does. Don't worry, everybody was laughing, including the heathen. Most days she's making fun of one of the popes for his dark skin. Just the fact that they took the time to plot and execute this was utterly delightful.

I guess my lesson learned today (and, indeed, this entire week, as I prayed no one would notice how I'd turned my room into a den of iniquity): it's so much more fun when I don't have to try to teach them anything.

Hello. I'm Missy Mussy.

I have self-diagnosed myself with Cinematic Over-Identifying Affective Disorder.

Does anyone else have this problem? Anyone over the age of 13? I didn't think so.

Last night Benoit and I saw Walk the Line. I loved it, but my love for it feels a little too preteen, a little too....much like my love for other films that have caused me to doubt my sense of self. Like Home Alone, when I totally thought I was the next Macaulay Culkin. As we walked to the car afterward, I felt a healthy identification with June Carter. I told Ben to disregard our recent “commitment” talks; I would be stringing him along for the next seven years in order to heighten the dramatic tension needed to turn our relationship from ordinary to legendary. No biggie. I'm sure tons of people make life decisions this way. It's got to be more reliable than horoscopes.

Here's what happened. I needed coffee to stay awake through the 10:00 movie, and I think they put ground-up speed in my iced mocha at the weird Japanese coffee shop.

A few hours after our return home, tossing, turning, twitching, and scratching at invisible bugs while Ben tried to sleep beside me, I felt dead certain that I WAS John R. Cash. I was right there with Johnny when he was going through his withdrawal from the black Mexican uppers. I know what he went through, man!

But I also wanted to be June, with her adorable, feminine outfits! Who can blame me for fancying myself a Southern Baptist divorcée who stands by her hard-living man? I've lived that life. Thus began an existential dilemma from which I am still recovering. How can I be satisfied being normal: Or, more truthfully, how can I be satisfied living a life that never gets made into a biopic? Or even a screenplay that has millions sunk into pre-production but never gets made, causing Kate Winslet to nurse a lifelong desire to play me, to the ruination of her career?

Someone famous said a life unexamined is not worth living; some things make me feel like it should be amended to the unfilmed life is not. I blame the E! Network, Oprah and Paris Hilton. Just not myself.

I've always known this was a problem, but thought I had it under control. My worst bout was in 1994, after seeing Legends of the Fall, when I pined away the year believing my life would be worthless if I never drove a man (preferably named Tristan) so wild with longing (by marrying his brother) that he had no choice but to circle the globe on pirate ships, smoke opium, and name his daughter after me when he settled for someone else.

That was embarrassing, but I got over it.

Then there was the “Frida” Minesweeper debacle. If I could think of a way to describe it without appearing completely insane, I would. Equating carpal-tunnel syndrome with a full-body cast is pure hubris, but quite fertile for the old imagination.

Good thing I've stopped short of appearing completely insane.

I luv F.O.L.K.!

(Friends of the Library Kona). I got about 20 pounds of books, plus 3 videos (I still luv VHS) for $6, and that includes a generous $2 donation. Good thing we got there early, though. The clearance sale was set to start at 9:00; we arrived at 9:15; by 9:20, all the good books were gone. Because of me. I am a book-selecting MACHINE. Three non-consecutive years under an oppressive bookstore regime were not for naught.The wheat flew from the chaff with such alacrity, none of the other patrons looked up from browsing the self-help table.

Here's a sampling of my bounty:
-hardcover of The Corrections
-something on race by bell hooks (hmm! go figure!)
-a Baby-Sitters' Club or two
-assorted critically-approved teen novels, with either hot pink (for girls) or macabre black-gray-death-themed (for boys) covers

That last is for my one stude who reads a book a week, and recently asked if she could borow some of my books. Since "my books" were pest-eaten, mildewed 80s novels that my dad's teacher friend threw out when she retired, I felt kinda bad. I will casually position these next to Then Again, Maybe I Won't, and see if she takes the bait. Then I'll become her best friend and a heart-warming movie will be made about me that will be shown on airplanes across the country.

Who knows if I'll ever read any of the others (except for the BSCs, obviously), but with our library's draconian 50-cent-a-day overdue fees, which accrue even on days the library is closed for holidays no one else gets, this is the smarter approach to reading.

Twas a good day.

comment to your heart's content

How very arrogant of me. But just in case, I have made it possible to comment without being a member, having a profile, or whatever. We'll see how many offers I get for vinyl siding and low-cost editing.

I give up

Sorry about that last esoteric contest-gone-awry. I had a few specific people in mind, and they let me down. (Stephanie, are you still reading?)

The answer is Jem and the Holograms, of course. But then, I do have the advantage of being probably the first person ever to get Jem from Netflix and watch my favorite episode several times, the one where Jerica and the girls arrange a benefit video, and it's all on ice, and someone nearly dies. The orphan is an indeterminately Asian girl named Bah-nee.

Thus ends my sojourn into late-80s cartoon territory. I've realized that among the non-OCD, nostalgia for it is limited to the fuzzy images and not the intricate plot twists and character development. You know that Rio Pacheco had purple hair, but the fact that Danse was a fragile orphan who filled her need for attention with a love of performance? Probably forgot about that.

Tomorrow, I promise, I shall return to normal. Navel-gazing of my own navel, not that of defunct fictional characters.

Ooh, unless I can dredge up a memory of a choice tidbit from The Get-Along Gang. The Portia-Montgomery dynamic could be very resonant with today's political landscape!
After I get back from the Friends of the Libraries discarded book sale! Yee-haw!

p.s. The contest-within-a-contest is from Speed. Another area of ignorance no one should ever try to correct.

name it! NAME IT.

A girl is going blind. Her only hope? Some sort of operation, of course. But how will she pay for it, this ward of the state, for whom no one cares?

With a benefit music video, duh. And who better to star in that video but Danse, the aptly-named, rainbow-haired lithe dancetrix who looks suspiciously like our established heroine. Could they be grooming her for a takeover of the lead role? Or is she just a decoy, created for a few episodes, only to be sacrificed for the thrill of seeing a cartoon teen crushed by some misfit's crude sabotage?

This is a contest, FYI and BTW. What the hell am I talking about? What do you do? What do you do? (Contest within a contest: what mid-90s film does that last sentence reference?)

Prize: VIP seating at the premiere of Mercedes Benz, PISW, should the video ever resurface. Failing that, Ben and MM will sing a duet of your choosing at the bowling alley karoke bar, when you come visit us.

answer to sham contest

Napoleon Dynamite, durn it. Gorsch!

I'm running out of new ways to spell that.

If anyone is looking for a Christmas present idea for me, there's this t-shirt:

http://www.glarkware.com/securestore/c181846p16737910.2.html

If you're too lazy to click on it, it reads, "Good grammar costs nothing." It's a take-off, but edited for grammar, on "Love don't cost a thing." Get it? Eh? EH?



Ben claims I will be the dorkiest teacher in school if I own it. But I'm thinking a little dorkiness might not be a bad idea right now.

ben vs. missymussy, installment one

This is a series I should have started long ago. Like back in May 2004, when Ben was housesitting and I was there, enjoying the satellite TV, and he let me "use" the remote control for 20 minutes, getting more and more frustrated with its spastic and unpredictable performance, until I realized I had the remote for the stereo, and he was secretly changing the channels at whim with the real remote shoved between couch cushions.

Anyway. Those of you who have ever conversed with me have probably heard that story several times. It was, possibly, the catalyst that turned our fling into true love.

Today's Thanksgiving-themed episode finds us home from dinner at my parents', watching the 2-hour Apprentice we taped. Ben gets up to make a snack, won't let me into the kitchen to see what he's making, then returns with a mug of hot chocolate for me, which I refuse to drink, even though I am not quite sure what he's done to it. This does nothing to diminish his glee at crowing, "It's not hot chocolate, it's gravyyyyyyyyyyy! Mwah- ha- hahhhh!" as he pours it over his bowl of reheated cornbread stuffing.

He's already bragged about how he "almost made you drink gravy" twice this morning. I guess he thinks it's funny that I couldn't identify its graviness by smell. Garsh, what a boob. (Him, not me.)

shamefully begging comments with a sham contest

I know I'm behind the curve here, but name the movie this line is from for a super-cool prize!

Bow to your sensei. Bow to your sensei!

For some reason, I keep thinking it.

some things i miss about living on the mainland

• being able to go to the 'Dyne without fear that the next day, someone will call out, "I saw Miss going into a bar!"
• appearing in public without fear that the next day, someone will call out, "I saw Miss with her boyfriend!"
• going out to eat after 8 pm and not feeling like a degenerate
• Old Navy, Charlotte Russe, and other purveyors of cheap knockoffs so I don't have to go to Macy's for expensive, less-cool knockoffs
• Cost Plus World Market
• no geckos in the house
• friends, obviously. GOSH.

Move over, Alanis

What better time to catch up on my posting than when I've just sat down to write a lesson on compound verbs?

It's times like these that I realize I am not an English professional. I am not a grammarian, as much as I like to act like one. I don't even know all the verb tenses, which is, like, 4th grade stuff. It turns out I coasted through my academic "career," such as it was, on an instinctual grasp of English gleaned from voracious but narrow reading. This means that I can, if pressed, write like a 1950s schoolgirl, or, as more often happens, string my thoughts together in cheap run-ons imitative of the mysteries I reread as a nerdy teen. Perhaps because of this reading, and the fun I found in doing my schoolwork, I can pick out the mistakes in a church newsletter, restaurant menu, or eavesdropped conversation like that, and I'm always right.

But "teaching" grammar? It blows! When pressed to explain why a fragment is a fragment, I fall back on, "You can just tell, because it sounds bad." And teaching kids to interpret literature with graphic organizers (flow charts, pie charts, Venn diagrams), which is all the rage, goes completely against my technique of staying up all night until the meaning comes in a flash of coffee-buzzing intentisty and desperation, then turning it furiously into a paper.

I've also had to start professing a false allegiance to such bunko high school "literary terms" as rising action/climax/falling action, and my nemesis, theme. And, last week, I think I taught 30 9th-graders the wrong definition of "irony." (According to my textbook, it turns out it really is like a free ride when you've already paid.) If only I had a strong, caterwauling voice with which to profess it across the pop radio airwaves! I could do an entire album on vaguely erroneous literary-theory ballads, then live, moderately, on the proceeds for the rest of my life.

this is how our world now turns

Here is what we do for fun 'round these parts.

[Truth be told, I'm the one who carefully carved the doggie-door from the box, trying to fashion a box for shipping an ukulele to Albuquerque. Ben was quite disgusted with the result (I don't know how I thought it was going to work)].

It's funny how it's come full circle; some of my best childhood playthings were made from reused boxes. My series of playhouse-forts; the Barbie house Beth made for me (yes, I spurned it at first, but it was a feat of Hawaii-sodden cardboard, bbq skewers and crochet--I'm sorry, Beth!); the sled upon which we slid down grassy knolls at Konawaena. The miniature golf course we tried to fashion from Crest and Sun Flakes boxes. I could go on.

And now, look at me. Still finding joy in life's simple pleasures, and passing on that joy to my domestic partner.

This is what Benj said as he revealed his handiwork: "Maybe if I dress up like a television, Missy Mussy will pay more attention to me!"

To all of Benji's friends who once knew him as a radical, rabble-rouser, channeler-of-all-his-energies-into-world-changing-pursuits, non-TV-watching-book-reader, I apologize. He has come over to my side now. We take turns: I watch The Apprentice for an hour, he plays Grand Theft Auto for an hour.

the mullet returns

Vote for who you think this looks like. From the front, the sh-long effect is especially pronounced and Little Richard-esque. The layers around my face sproing up and make my head look funny-shaped.

If you tell me it looks like it always did, I'll be sad! But I will probably feel the same way in a few days. In the meantime, I'm straightening it with my CHI IRON for which I shelled out 140 clams over 2 years ago. I'm finally getting my money's worth.

Coming soon, the Ben and Missymussy follies in photos.

my ugly, ugly haircut

Sing that to the tune of "Hungry, Hungry Hippos." It's the soundtrack to my life this week. I miss Julie at Mark Pardo! And Silvia at Studio 929! The executors of the greatest haircuts I've ever had, and now it's all undone in one over-priced hour at the salon I chose at random from the phone book.

I also picked it because it sells Aveda, which has always led me to skilled scissorhands in the past. Not this time. My head looks enormous, yet the hair is too short to be put into a ponytail, or even a claw clip. With the right styling, I could pass for an early Claire Huxtable. With no styling, I look like Little Richard.

picture pages!

I'm sorry I don't have a squeaking black marker to annotate these.

Here's our front door. It opens for thee! If you are reading this and you know how to reach us, it means you are our friends, and we love and miss you, and cannot wait to lug your wheelie suitcases up these lava rock "stairs."

And then, here's me sipping my birthday drink. I'm wearing the '80s knit dress that I bragged about a few months ago, and still haven't been brave enough to wear to school.

Back to the visiting issue.Where the heck are you guys? Please, please come. I promise you, we drink swanky drinks like these every night! And roast a pig every two nights in our backyard imu. At least, we will when you're here. Or go to Costco for a rotisserie chicken. EVERY NIGHT!

tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick

Sunday night is not easy like Sunday morning. Sunday morning, you sleep in and relish it, knowing it's the last day you can sleep in for the following 5 days. You may reflect upon what you did the night before. You may try to think back to Friday, and it (along with work/school) may seem so very distant. You can't even remember what it's like to work.

Sunday night, right when the sun sets, is when the theme "song" to 60 Minutes haunts me with memories of my tightening chest as I faced a weekend's worth of neglected homework. My mom would be blithely learning about the S-n-L scandal or Iran-Contra affair while she heated up the corn chowder my grandma had sent home with my dad when he took her trash to the dump, and I would be having a coronary as I opened my Al Gore binder. One night, I had to read The Once and Future King from beginning to end. Another, I had to do a project depicting the Culture Area of Indonesia (more or less) that I'd had all quarter to do.

What do I get now that I've slogged through [the Cliffs Notes to] As I Lay Dying, come up with a plan to save Social Security (in a group, to give props), and gone through other initiation rites of adulthood like posting bail, waitressing with a hangover, and racking up towering debt? The same Sunday night anxiety, times 100, because tomorrow I'll be doing it in front of 75 teenagers who would like nothing better than to see me unravel completely.

Naw, they mean well. But unraveling is the possibility at the back of every teacher's mind. At least mine.

My only consolation is the knowledge that none of my students are reliving my plight. No, they are out hunting boars and spearfishing, or lolling on the beach finishing up the weekend-long rager that will give rise to this week's "dramas," as they looooove to call them, or loading new songs onto their ipods so they'll have something to listen to during classes. To know that my years of heartfelt effort were not in vain--that this generation doesn't have to toil as I did, because of how I helped solve the world's most dire problems--well, that makes it all worthwhile. Rest up, kids. Enjoy your youth!

saturday morning live

Today I'm forgetting that I'm a teacher and devoting the whole day to things that to be my only concerns--planning a dinner party, shopping for a dinner party, obsessively preparing for a dinner party. I'm making red chile enchiladas, which I have never had the conejos to try. I know what conejos means, and I prefer to say that. But now that the real experts are so far away, and I am making these for New Yorkers and Philadelphians, I can muster up the courage.

I'm also helping my mom shop for new shoes AND cleaning the whole house! Yippeee! Seriously!

I'll save the panic attack for tomorrow. Deal, neuroses? Deal.

the claw

can't navigate mouse accurately. can barely type. went hog wild cutting shrubbery with clunky manual trimmers, and now hands are frozen, cramped, and trembly. tried to drink a glass water to calm my nerves, and my hand actually quivered like a little old lady's! i can barely hold onto anything.

also, yesterday i spent 3 hours typing recipes for the junior class cookbook for 3 hours, and my fourth finger spasmed for the rest of the day every time i tried to hold a fork or pen. i still have 90 more Cool Whip-, Campbell's Soup-, and Rice Krispies-laden recipes to go! and i've yet to find one that maintains a consistent verb tense all the way through.

i'm off to take a powder, drink weak tea,spritz myself to smell like lavender, and flutter my eyelids. looks like the change of life is upon me. time to draw the drapes if i can't even do old lady-ish yardwork.

seriously, do you think i might have a disorder of some kind?

my favorite gift of the day

This is the first in what I hope will be a regular series.

Today's gift is from Lucrecia. Two of the best movies in the world that no home library should be without:

1. Follow That Bird, starring Big Bird, featuring cameos by such diverse actors as Sandra Bernhard and Grover. One of my favorite Big Bird movies of all time. He does some of his best work when he's forced to play the "Bluebird of Happiness" as a sideshow attraction when he's birdnapped by carnies.

2. Party Girl, one of my favorite library-themed movies of all time. Or at least of the '90s. I must try to find a way to work the "sound of a cat puking" scene into my classes, because I would LOVE to show it to my studentés.

If I may list retroactively, my favorite gift on Friday was my awesome new digital camera. Thanks, Mom, Dad, and Sis! Just as soon as I work my helpless-with-computers shtick and get Ben to hook it up for me, I will post all kinds of fabulous photo essays.

waiting for the hunger to come

Ah, how I love the hour after getting home from the restaurant, as I watch the gauge on my stomach move from Sickeningly Full to Slightly Hungry Again. It's such fun to rip into the take-home box and watch my companion's disgust rise as I scarf down the congealed chicken fat and wilted vegetables.

Actually, I'm getting hungry already.

(I know Stupid Rachel enacted this very scene in a Friends once, but it achieved its resonance only because small-stomached women everywhere had done the same thing millions of times before.)

We just got back from our Birthday Observed Dinner, and I wanted to post to all the world how very much Benji and I would love to have any of you come visit. Many of you came up in our erudite, romantic and illuminating over-the-candles discussion. To learn whether you are one of the many, you must email or call me personally. Off I go to eat half of my birthday cake and (I hope) watch Ashlee add insult to injury atop the failed Simpson name.

only in hawaii pt. 2 (or any other coastal place)

On a post-it note in the copy of The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor I just picked up from the library:

"Sand in book before patron Missymussy checked out."

How kind! I know sand isn't really any different than a smear of jam, which would be gross, but still, I love it!

Oy (Tues) Day!

This week, I have learned a lesson. Never look forward to a measly week off as if it's some sort of nirvana where time will cease, human limits will shatter, and a lifetime legacy of chronic procrastination will be shrugged off in a burst of unprecedented accomplishment and creativity.

In other words, it's Day Four of the week I've been dreaming of since school started, and I have done jack squat. (In the words of Christopher Farley.)

I have, however, turned the spare bedroom into a totally cute office, lined with my favorite books and appealing fabrics. It's exactly the kind of place Martha Stewart would sit down and write notecards in. "Dear Missymussy, you just don't fit in." Signed, professional teachers everywhere.

Benicles attended Rosh Hashanah services (or, as I like to call them, church) last night and this morning. And he made friends! Real, Jewish Friends! We are going over to their house tonight for dinner. They're from New York, so I will wear all black and scowl a lot.

channeling debbie downer

Okay, I give up. I just realized that I dilly-dally and don't post anything for days when there are no comments on my previous post. I suppose I am trying unconsciously to punish you, the reader(s): "Nothing to say, hmm? Then I've nothing to say either!" (pronounced "EYE-ther," of course.)

Is anyone out there terrified of the avian flu, which has been predicted to mutate into a human virus and cause a pandemic on a scale never seen before? I am. Or I was, until last night on SNL Debbie Downer mentioned it. If you haven't seen that skit, find a clip online right now. BWah-bwahhhh! Anyway, Ben has pointed out that my social skills bear a slight resemblance to Deb's, so I have been trying to cut down on the fear-mongering. Here are a few examples from actual conversations:

Scene 1: A recent dinner party we attended

Cute surfer boy guest: I went surfing at Pine Trees yesterday and caught some killer waves, dude. [Or something like that]

Missymussy: Did you hear that a developer bought Pine Trees and is turning it into an exclusive resort? [ignoring frowns of dismay] Yeah, construction is starting next month. I guess there won't be much surfing happening there soon.

Wah, Wahhhhhhh.

Scene 2: At dinner with the couple who threw the previous dinner party

Waitress: And our fresh catches tonight are ahi and opa.

Male companion: Mmmm, I'm getting the ahi.

Missymussy: Huh. I try to limit my ahi consumption to twice a month, as suggested by the FDA. Those fish are chock-full of heavy metals and can cause mercury poisoning, which mimics, perhaps even causes, Alzheimer's.

Luckily for the fate of our evening, I went over that one in my head, and decided not to say it. But boy, did I think it.

it's a nerd's world after all!

I just ordered a book called The English Teacher's Survival Guide, and I'm more excited about this than I was when I got my first Cabbage Patch, Terrence Bruce. More excited than when my mom and I bought the Get-Along-Gang train set for my friend's birthday present and I begged for her to buy me one too, and she wouldn't, and I threw a tantrum, and later found that of course, she had bought one for me and hid it in her bedroom closet. Boy, was I ashamed of myself. But also excited! Like I am for the book that eight of eight reviewers promise will save my life!

Starting Friday, I will be a free person again, for 9 glorious days! I plan to spend three days working nonstop, scaring Ben with my frantic, coffee-fueled hummingbird movements; then, I'll throw myself into the activities of adulthood I have neglected for too long. Staying up past 10:30, cooking meals, going to movies and not feeling guilty. I cannot wait!

I hope my impatience and defeatism, having given up on imparting any knowledge this quarter, aren't too visible to the studes. I wonder if they've noticed that while they're enjoying their "study periods" leading up to this Thursday's test, I am reading recaps of shows I've already seen! I doubt it.

only in hawaii

Would your landlord come to town and bring you a box of pastries he'd carried on the plane from Maui. Delicious, flaky manju crust filled with apple, pineapple, coconut or blueberries, cleverly impressed with little glyphs in the dough to tell you which filling each one contains.

In the interest of full disclosure, this was my dad's friend, who gave my dad the box with instructions to give half to us. So it's not like he came all the way here to visit us and give us goodies. But still. Omiyage rocks!

That was my first link. I hope it worked. Scroll down to the post entitled, "Ah, Hawai'i Nei...here I come" if you would like to read a hilarious ethnography of this practice (obligatory gift-giving).

Our weekend was good. Continuing in our surely unhealthy practice of complete co-dependency, we spent the whole thing together, unencumbered by the company of anyone who doesn't speak our language. The fact that I just say "we" and assume you'll know who I mean is itself unhealthy. Eh.

Dinner at the parents' house followed by a little Rainbows volleyball and the season premiere of Supernanny. A drive to Waimea (aka Kamuela) and Kohala (aka Kapa'au), where I bought my new favorite dress! A teal-and-maroon-striped jersey dress with a wrap front and shirred bodice. I can't describe it, other than to say it is almost exactly like a shorts jumpsuit I had when I was six, only a dress, without the sticky snaps at the shoulder that once caused me to pee on the bathroom floor as I hopped around, trying desperately to unsnap them.

It's sooooo cute! now, if I can just get up the nerve to wear it without irony. Clothing risks are a lot more difficult to take here. I could be ruined. Ruined!

Tomorrow is "Nerd Day" at school (homecoming spirit week), and I'm afraid one of my students is going to say, "Miss! You dressed up for Nerd Day!" no matter what I wear. I have a few who would do just that.

Sorry this post has no theme. Incidentally, I have become that teacher I vowed to never be: the one who teaches that stories have "themes." I might as well have gone to graduate school for an MBA.

in the center ring...

True to my avant-garde nature, I am now going to experiment with dialogue.

J: I hope you realize that storing the 20-pound sack of potatoes from Costco on the kitchen counter is not a permanent solution.

B: Okay! I know just where to keep it! [scampers off]

J: [rolls eyes]

two hours pass

B: You must be tired. Why don't you lie down? Really. You look tired.

J: [raises eyebrows]

B: Seriously! [chases her into bedroom, pushes down to the bed]

J lays her head down upon the pillowcase, from which pillow has been removed and replaced with bag of Russet potatoes.

And, scene!

my first list

Here are some words that have crept annoyingly into my vocabulary.

- disrupt
- respect
- productive
- tardy
- attention (pay)
- worksheet
- correct
- try

Soon I'll be joining the war on drugs and watching nothing but 7th Heaven and Supernanny.

dilly-dallying

I'm just posting this to remind myself that "dilly-dally" is a SUPERB verb! It evokes ice cream, southern gentility, and silliness all in one nonsense word.

REAL night fever

Last night Ben and I saw The Brothers Grimm. It warn't bad. But I can't figure out why the bros, who were German (right?), spoke with English accents. Heath Ledger's character, a bumbling scholar of folk tales with a slight speech impediment, is my kind of movie heartthrob. I can't say I would have a crush on Jacob Grimm as played by Wallace Shawn; what I'm saying is that jocks dressed up as nerds, who then dress up as ladies in bonnets, are HOT.

In the middle of the night, Ben woke me up and claimed to have heard a prowler in our backyard. We spent an edgy hour or so with our ears cocked at various windows and, ridiculously, refusing to turn the lights on or speak out loud. Were our exaggerated lip movements supposed to allow the guy to enter the house, so we'd have something to charge him with? I can't explain our logic.

I'll now take every opportunity to poke fun at Ben for being brainwashed by the movie into dreaming up our own Evil Forest. It's entirely possible that someone has built a fort in our backyard, camouflaged by vines and ti leaves, but I hold to my belief that it was a wild boar. I prefer to reserve my hysterics for predictions of volcano eruptions, WMD attacks, and giant meteors destroying the earth. Things against which Heath's square jaw and bulging biceps would be utterly useless.

night fever, night fee-VER!

Tonight, B-ho and I each checked our blood pressure on the free machine at Longs' Drugs. Or is it Long's? I should know these things so I can drill them into the head's of my "Student's."

In the scheme of our social calendar, that would rate a "Best Bet."

cotton candy coated weekend!

Ah, me. The kids at school are abuzz with excitement over this weekend's "carnival." It's actually the county farm fair with a few rusty rides and rip-off games thrown in, but has been called "The Carnival" since I was a kid. The traditions are still alive: kids expect their parents to spend a week's wages on the same polyester stuffed toys and plastic fruit-shaped sippy cups filled with sugar water. And the tube-topped teens preside over it all.

Ben wants to attend the Carnage, probably to see if he can befriend any carnies. Exactly one year ago, we were visiting Kona and spent an afternoon (and 20 bucks) there. We rode one ride, The Sizzler. The next week we learned that an identical Sizzler in Baltimore had malfunctioned and tossed a few people to their death.

Tonight some people we met through Ben's job are coming over for dinner. We went to our first "company party" the other night: 10 people at the beach, eating grilled fish & drinking beer. It gave us hope that we might yet have friends beyond each other. I'll try not to scare them off tonight with trivia games or circle-sharing of hopes and dreams.

gloating

Two months ago, as one of Jennifer James's acolytes, I attended a "water-tasting seminar" pitting Fiji bottled water against Albuquerque tap, was paid, then worked three hours for the amount of money I now make in a 12-hour day. Today, I'm facing a three-day weekend, and I'm psyched at the prospects: scrubbing mildew from the bathroom (a tile enclosure without adequate sloping is a terrible thing), combatting our growing ant problem, then trying desperately to think of ways to motivate my students (in some cases, to learn to read) as I question my worth as a human being - child's play! That, and maybe having a margarita with Ben. And sleeping past seven o'clock one day.

I know, this sympathy-begging tune is becoming tiresome. I am embracing my triteness.

And of course, today, I am listening to rain on the tin roof: not falling, like lame Norah Jones would describe it, but cascading, drumming. The rain will probably give way in a couple of hours to a glittering sunset, and maybe it will be cool enough tonight to sleep with the bedspread on, and I can curl up in it and feel all cuddly. That wouldn't have happened in Albuquerque. Take that, nostalgic yearnings!

I realize it is poor form to bliss out about rain when this benign natural phenomenon has created a living hell for millions of people. I'm sure I'll be punished for it in some way. But since I have no insight to offer, why not be happy for what I have?

simple pleasures

Yesterday was a day of luxury for me; my mom and I scrubbed out the kitchen cabinets, which were full of little piles of termite droppings and other undesirables. We packed away seven boxes of dishes, freeing up about one-eighth of the cabinet space for my stuff, which was more than enough. I'm not kidding about the day of luxury. To be alone with my own thoughts (and the occasional silly comment shared with mee-maw), free to go to the bathroom when I so chose, was delightful. To go through an entire day with complete surety that I won't be ridiculed, ignored, or trampled by football players is now my greatest source of joy.

Schmoopsie and I went to the beach today. Just kidding, I don't really call him that. Not often, anyway. ANyway, it was our first real day at the beach since we moved here. Horrifying, isn't it? We only stayed for a couple of hours because I got stung by a jellyfish (I guess). The welts have already disappeared, so what was the point of that? I was scared out of the water, but have nothing to show for it. For a few seconds, I thought I might get out of working this week. Now I'll have to hope I get chosen for jury duty. (I filled out the questionnaire last week, answering in a way I hope will make me the ideal juror.) I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Now I'm off to school. My dad is going to clean my room, since no one cleans the rooms at school. I have to empty the trash myself, and the floor has never been mopped, as far as I can tell. It's a biohazard.

Happy weekends!

other news

Our container arrived, and all of its contents have been lugged into the house. Ben's car made it to Hilo, where he picked it up along with some malasadas (Portuguese doughnuts) for me. Now all we have to do is unpack dozens of boxes, stop kicking ourselves for paying to have our crap shipped 5000 miles, and enjoy the accoutrements of modern living! (dancing gorillas, Target photo frames, and secondhand books.)

Ben started his job yesterday. He is working at our equivalent of the Alibi. Translated to Hawaii, that means it comes out every two weeks, is considered radically leftist (it does give a regular column to a pothead who wants to legalize it and runs for every public office there is), and instead of pages of kinky personals, will have a full-page ad placed by a very lonely man in its next issue.

Ben will be editing, writing occasional articles (he already has an assignment this week), and doing other stuff that I don't know about because I am so absorbed in my horrible job.

violating mine own tenets of the essay form

I am, for the first time, someone who lives for Friday. I used to live for Sunday, or sometimes Thursday, or Tuesday when I closed at the BookSnore, but never have I been so enslaved to a schedule: 8:20 is purgatory, 12:46 is the next one, and 2:30 on Friday is heaven. Catholics, tell me if I got it wrong. Which one is the inferno?

48 hours of freedom! Before Monday, I must decorate my bulletin boards with motivational materials, create seating charts for six classes, start reading 3 different textbooks and their matching boxes of teacher resources, internalize the discipline plan, and plot out every minute of the next week so I don't suffer interminable silences when I run out of material. But 16 hours of work will be two days at the beach when I can be alone with my own thoughts, free of the responsibility for 85 lives.

So tonight, Benicles and I are eating mahi-mahi and ono (leftovers from last night, pilfered from the parents' fridge) and watching a whole season of The West Wing (Dub-Dub if you're in the know). If the name or face of a student pops into my mind, I shall shoot it down with a shot of tequila. Just kidding. I am already twenty years older and forty times dorkier since assuming the mantle of teacher, or "Miss!" as EVERY SINGLE STUDENT at my school calls their female teachers. Last night I turned down a glass of wine at dinner, because I needed to wake up at 5:30 this morning and was afraid of having a headache. I'm a shell. (I changed my mind halfway into dinner, but still.)

And today when Bennifer picked me up from school, he was blasting Cypress Hill. I shrieked at him to turn it off...and I meant it! I am quickly losing my tolerance for profanity and insubordination of any kind. I mean it, and don't ask why. Because I said so!

They made the new teachers do a silly dance at the welcome back assembly today. That is all.

people who care...are people who share

A case of Kona Brewing Co. Pale Ale to anyone who can sing more of that Jem song! (You'll get it when you visit me.)

I'm at my parents' house for a blessed half hour break. Ben picked me up at school because I didn't take a lunch (we're just borrowing a car until his comes, so I'll always be trapped at work), and it felt like the old days when I would hide on the floor of a friend's car and sneak past security to go to Billy Bob's Park n Pork for lunch. I have a free period, which I just learned is rare and will not last for long.

I won't be posting much (sighs of relief all across my vast, vast readership) since the sis, her husb, and THEO!!!!! arrive tonight, AND I have to condense four years of education training into one weekend. Just wanted to say that it's going okay, I guess, but I feel like I'm in over my head and should probably quit next week and try to be a beekeeper with Ben. (He's on his way to an interview now, my little worker bee.)

Teaching sucks, yall!

but i was such a NERD!

I got the call today that I had been dreading: the principal, telling me I start tomorrow. I’ve had two weeks to prepare for this; I knew I would probably have 10th and 11th grade English, and could at least have come up with my classroom rules, made lists of possible poems to study, found some curricula online, or shopped for an insulated coffee mug and adorned it with stickers.

Instead, as I mentioned before, I chose my timeworn approach of denial. It worked so well in high school (writing an entire semester’s writing portfolio in one night), college (writing a 30-page senior thesis in two nights) and my “professional career” (writing a crappy bookstore newsletter in an hour).

Teaching is not writing. Nor is it philosophizing, or theorizing, my faves! Here are a few brief reasons why I am wracked with anxiety over tomorrow, so much so that a bewildered Ben is tiptoeing around me and asking every five minutes if I’m okay:

1. My classroom contains one copy of a textbook, a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich in the rusty desk drawer, and a folder of mimeographed notes on certain students…
2. These notes, written by counselors, special ed teachers, and god-knows-what-other-deviant-behavioral-specialists, instruct me on how to handle the students, strewn throughout all six of my classes, and their assorted, um, traits: ADD, bipolar disorder, history of sexual harassment and inappropriate touching of males and females, chronic truancy, to name a few (chosen for maximum shock value, I admit). Among the tips for individual kiddos: call probation officer, don’t get too close when student gets aggressive, allow student to “walk off” her anger, call security sooner than standard school rules suggest.
3. My students range from freshmen to juniors, and are either level “Y” or “Z”. These are the two lowest levels of English. Something tells me the classroom demeanor I honed from college professors (sit in a circle, try to get the students to talk about "the text") won’t cut the mustard here.

I realize this is flawed logic, and tainted by a sense of entitlement that is unfounded and unjust, BUT. I was a nerd! I was never even in an “X” class, let alone Y or Z! I did all my work, was a Star Student (really, I got to go to McDonald’s with the principal and other SS’s for that), and hung out with teachers at recess. I want an Honors class, I want an Honors class!

showtime, synergy!

Has there been anything comparable to Jem & the Holograms in the last 20 years? I don't think there has. I watched a few episodes today from Netflix. All camp appeal aside, the show embodies the best legacies of the 80s: the charity was as big as the hair, and it encouraged girls to believe they could be both philanthropists and high-fashion singers. A world where a group of thin-voiced girls in torn clothing and wigs use their cachet to make a pro bono 'rock blockbuster' to pay for a blind foster child's eye operation? Only in the 80s. You will never see Lindsay Lohan put the deed to Starlight House on the line for the benefit of others. I am not ashamed that I organized my friends in 10th grade into a Jem club. Or that we adorned our schoolwork that year with drawings of Jem's earrings and held slumber parties expressly for Jem screenings.

48 hours from now, I will either be:
-promising a roomful of high school sophomores six packs and cigarettes if they'll be nice to me
-counseling migrant parents (mostly coffee pickers from Mexico) with parenting and learning exercises for their toddlers
-traveling among schools to observe special education classes and enter data into some sort of tracking system. I don't know.

I won't lie; the third one, with its promise of hours at a desk and lack of potential humiliation, is my favorite. Lately when I go to the bank, I find myself eyeing the tellers' candy jars, photo frame magnets, and giant insulated mugs of soda with envy. What a job, all from the comfort of a padded swivel stool. I'm sure that, like waitressing, the glamour of the profession will fade after the first few Splenda-fueled hours. But, like waitressing, I would probably relish it. Even after I'd poured my thousandth glass of iced tap water and cursed the cheapos for not ordering bottled, I got a little thrill from being entrusted with people's sustenance. They drank when I said they would drink! There is something essential about such work that allows me to romaticize this and other wage labor jobs I have held.

But, really, I'm just lazy and afraid of conflict, which I fear awaits me in the classroom. So if I can get an office-y job, I will take it. All of these possibilities come from my parents' connections through the teacher mafia.

Today is B-minus two. Tomorrow is my last B-free day. Yippee! Ben told me that he liked reading about himself (but seemed bored by the rest), so I will now try to mention him in every post. Gotta keep the man interested.

b minus three

The countdown is almost over. I miss you-know-who so much. It's surprising how much my happiness depends on being tickled, teased, and otherwise tortured for several hours out of each day. Life without him is dull indeed. No wet willies or Indian burns? No giggling, curly head peeking around a corner as I try to use the remote control whose batteries have been removed? Finding my journal in the same place every day instead of hidden in the trash? As Stephanie and I like to say, What's the point?

I have been drowning my loneliness in True Hollywood Stories (the best one so far is "The Price is Right") and home makeover shows. My mom and I are now addicted to "Brat Camp," which I am writing off as research for the teaching job I am both counting on and dreading. School starts on Friday, and I still don't know if I have a job. Everyone here is sure I will get one, and it's not uncommon for new teachers to be hired the day before school starts, or even after that. I should be scared, but will choose my typical response, denial and avoidance.

Actual things that have happened:
1. last night, had dinner at the home of Kona's old gossip columnist, the one responsible for "Taka," then played Scrabble with her daughter, a champion tournament player who got over 500 points.
2. today, went to a church picnic with my mom at an estate that once belonged to the Beach Boys.
3. talked to Benito, who has unloaded the cursed U-Haul and is now Oakland-ing it up with his friend, Jon, who drove out with him. From what I could hear during our conversations on the road trip, they are basically acting like third graders, which seems to happen whenever they're together. Well, sometimes they act like seventh graders.

As for the job situation, I am ensnared in the labyrinthine bureaucracy that is the Department of Education. I am terrified that I will be offered a job this week. What will I teach? I don't know how! More important, what will I wear?

praise be to the small town

Praise the Lord, and pass the dried marlin. While Ben is toiling behind the wheel of a depressingly fuel inefficient U-Haul somewhere near Barstow (seriously, he’s a travel ballad waiting to happen), I feel like I’ve just won the lottery. If the lottery is the perfect house for us, at an unbelievable price, with rental conditions so ideal I would not have let myself hope for them because it would tempt the fates a little too much.

We’ll be renting a three-bedroom house from my father’s childhood friend. It’s his mother’s old house, less than a mile from my parents’, in the subdivision where I spent the better part of my childhood sunbathing and eating peanut-butter-and-guava-jelly sandwiches on the Sasakis’ asphalt driveway after swimming at “Auntie Faith’s pool,” our ersatz country club. Just up the hill is McDonalds, South Kona’s only chain anything, where we would split a large order of fries four ways, dipping each fry in ketchup at least three times before chewing to make the deliciousness last longer. On the same street live: my third grade teacher (who’s also my great-aunt); my sister’s third grade teacher; my fifth grade teacher and her husband, once my elementary school principal; my sixth grade teacher; two of my dad’s classmates (married to each other); and my eleventh grade English teacher.

Luckily, the house is surrounded by every tropical plant you can imagine, including mango, banana & lychee trees. So we won’t have to worry about being on our best Japanese schoolteacher-approved behavior. The house was built in the ‘50s, in a style I shall call Kealakekua Minimalist Modern. It evokes nostalgia for Spam and rice, creamy Jello squares, and tatami house slippers, which I may require all visitors to wear.

And it has an organ, complete with a stack of hymnals and sheet music, so I can keep Ben in line by threatening him with the opening bars of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” There's a screened-in patio, tons of windows, and a tiled furo tub. The hardwood floors are perfect for tap-dancing, but I will have to limit myself to the carport so I don’t scuff them up and ruin our relationship with the owners.

Does it sound like I’m gloating? I am. The house is, in may ways, exactly what I was picturing for our life here. Once I got past the beachfront cottage fantasy. I was starting to panic as I learned more about the housing market here, and was spinning that into hatred of everyone who has moved to Kona since 1995 (when I left). Now my self-righteous resentment of change can go back to simmering beneath the surface, where it belongs.

We were able to circumvent the demoralizing house-hunting process through a method I will never scoff at again. Yesterday, my dad's pal called to say he was in town for a funeral. I heard him ask, "You know anyone who has a house to rent?" Within half an hour, the friend had talked to his sister, they'd decided to rent it to us, and this morning we picked up the keys.

Now, if I can just find a job on this island. Although with this deal, I can probably afford to work at McDonalds. And I can walk to work!

PS-sorry about the awkward use of pronouns. I am not sure of the protocol for using people's names on this blog, even if it's just first names, and even if no one reads it. Any tips?

All writing will be in earnest

I hate blogging already. The word "blog" makes me think of a toy based on suction cups, like a green rubber frog that climbs the walls and then turns sticky and dumb.
I just made the mistake of revisiting a few of the blogs I used to read compulsively, like Que Sera Sera, then made the bigger mistake of clicking on their links lists, which led to an endless spiral of shame and despair. So many hip, uber-ironic people out there, with web-design skills and the catalogic knowledge necessary to riff on celebrities, fashion, underground writers (I guess), and items like the Roomba -- whatever consumer good is the newest thing that's cool to covet or ridicule. I don't even know if the word "cool" is still used to mean "cool" in the same way as it was in the late 90s, when my awareness, and hence ability to be post-post-post-modern, fell into its deep and eternal sleep. Now I know how adults in the 80s felt when "bad" really meant "good!" Ack!

What I'm trying to say is: I am a dork. Not in the cool way in which it was (in the late 90s, at least) cool to be a self-aware dork. I'm a Jean Teasdale dork (see "Ack!" above). In the sense that I have not turned my dorkre into lucre by becoming a programmer or graphic designer or wry social critic, or one of those people who talk on "I Love the 80s." In the sense that I know it was recently cool to address inanimate objects or institutions in essays ("Dear Retail Clothing Industry, get a clue," "Bath poufs, you're the best"), but I don't know what the current mutation of that is, or where to go to find it. In the sense that I enjoy watching Access Hollywood, and adopt the opinions of Salon.com as my own because they feel so right.

Ben was right: I am lazy. I lack the wherewithal to calibrate the proportion of irony, ennui, and ripped-off street slang presently in vogue.

So I hereby announce that I will do away with all meta-commentary, and blog in earnest. My lady friend Lucrecia knows what I mean. Earnestness has served me well, and I will trust it. This blog will be strewn with adorable photos of my nephew, Theo; crooked self-portraits of Ben and I arm in arm at sunset, holding cans of Coors Light (in our other arms); hand-wringing over real estate prices and the constant, creeping decay of the tropics; and trite anecdotes about work and family that will be interesting because they're about me.
I hope that's okay.

hot hawaiian nights

Tonight after dinner, Meemaw, Peepaw & I will go to Long's Drugs to pick up prescriptions, then stop at Wendy's on the way home for a Frosty, or perhaps Mickey D's for a sundae (you have to say Mickey D's to be in the right frame of mind). It is precisely for moments like this that I moved back here. That, and the fact that my father bribed county road workers to extend the guardrail they were fixing above our house (someone crashed into it yesterday morning) with pineapple plants he dug up from our yard. I am especially excited because they now offer mix-ins to the already perfect Frosty! To my mind, this is a far better change than mandarin oranges as an alternative to fries.

A sidenote, to those of you who are making plans to visit us: we may not have pineapples if you come in the next six months.

With a Butterfinger Frosty under my belt, I'll be on my way toward looking more like a teacher and less like a pre-teen. My friend-since-preschool, Lori, and I visited her grandma the other day, and she told me I look like a freshman. I took my mom straight to Macy's (Kona's lone source of clothes other than hoochie surf shorts and aloha wear) and bought what I thought was a respectable outfit, black microfiber pants & a sleeveless turquoise & black v-neck top. Over the past few days, I have picked apart all the ways in which my students will be able to make fun of me for my outfit, and nicknames they might spread around the school inspired by my skinny, hairy arms; frizzy hair (seriously, I'm like Monica when Friends went to the Carribean); lack of a tan; and of course, diminutive stature. After college, I gradually learned to live with my physical shortcomings, even to relish them, but I have regressed into my high school self, which was essentially a walking bin of self-loathing. Cameron Diaz claims she was traumatized by being called "Skeletor" in high school, but she lies! One day my math teacher brought in a toothpick with a grape stuck on it, showed it to the big group of kids with whom I played Connect Four in her classroom at lunch, and said, "This is what Jill would look like if she got pregnant!" From then on I was known as "toothpick with a grape stuck on it." Very original.

Clearly, I have some confidence to build before I start work. Good thing I'm not doing anything like living with my parents and hanging out at McDonald's to compound the dorkiness.

the new, better me

Well, a better color scheme anyway. True to my nature, I chose too quickly, then became dissatisfied with what I had as soon as I saw my friend Dennis's blog. Dennis has always incited envy in me, first with his impeccable filing method at Bookworks, then with his orange car, now with his minimalist blog and its freedom from banner ads. Thanks, DP! I hope people won't be too mad at me for making them sign up for the prototype before. Please don't leave me!