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?