Back to School!

Today was the first day of school. I'm tired so this is going to be short and to the point. School starting means you all get to read fun/interesting/strange stories about the children that are mine for the next 179 days...Lord help us all.

Things I should know after four years of teaching but forget every year:

1) DON'T wear heels for the first time in 3 months and expect your feet to be fine while walking on concrete all day.

2) Make 2 extra copies of everything. You will get new students in the middle of the day and have nothing for them.

3) If you make 2 extra copies, you will get 3 students. However if you make 4 copies you will get no new students.

4) Add an extra 10 minutes of time because you will be late going anywhere.

5) If you actually remember to add an extra 10 minutes you will arrive too early and be stuck outside of the building in 90 degree heat.

6) Plan past the first day.

7) If you plan past the first day you will have to re-do your plans because you didn't get through everything.

Concert Recap

I haven't had internet access since last Thursday (complicated story that's really not interesting at all) but now that I'm back I would like to start by recapping the Coldplay concert I went to with Girlfriend and our two other friends we will call Matchmaker (the chick who set us up in the first place) and Socially Awkward (Matchmaker's on/off/on again girlfriend...the name says it all).

S) If you have never been to a Coldplay concert-GO. It was fantabulous...so awesome I had I to make up a word. The entire time the energy was amazing. They even came up to the lawn where we were and performed a few songs. It was seriously one of the best concerts I have been to in quite a while, and that is saying something considering how many concerts Girlfriend and I have been to this summer.

H) If you are sitting on the lawn, you should be able to sit in a "Lawn Chair" and not have them confiscated at the gate for being too tall (Sidenote: this was NOT mentioned anywhere on the website and there were a LOT of angry people taking it out on the poor workers stuck at the guest services tent. If this happens to you, please don't yell at them it's not their fault and they didn't change the rules.) Oh, did I mention that there was a downpour the night before and the ground was soaked? Yeah. That probably didn't help the situation.

O) If somehow you do sneak your "too-tall-for-the-lawn-lawn-chair" in, don't sit in it. We will all talk about you, point, and make up silly songs including, but not limited to-Big Man in a Little Chair; Security Breach; and Big Man in a Little Chair That's Too Tall a.k.a. the remix...we got there early and had some time on our hands. Don't judge us.

W) If you are on the very crowded lawn, do not act like you are in the front row and flail about all willy nilly. If you flail about, do NOT under any circumstances smack into my people. Girlfriend got smacked twice but she didn't tell me the second time because I would have lost it. I was already steaming mad after the first time and she refused to let me do anything about it. Later in the night she told me she wanted to switch spots so she could talk to Matchmaker for a minute. Crazy Flailing Girl later slammed into me with all of her weight and nearly knocked me down. Well readers, my roots came out...my Jersey roots...ending in me cursing a lot, getting up in her face, demanding she move two steps to the left and warning her not to touch me again. I was, shall we say pissed and let her (and everyone in our area) know. Apparently I was quite loud as this became the mantra of Matchmaker and Socially Awkward in the car ride home as they repeated, "Jersey! Two steps! Two steps to the f*cking left!" at the top of their lungs and then dying in laughter. Whatever. She moved and I won. :-)

Concert Conclusion:

Coldplay rules. Lawn chair rules suck. Give me my personal space or I will go ape-shit on your ass.

Pride Quotes and Stories

Quotes from Girlfriend for your reading pleasure. Welcome to my world people, it's awesome..

In Pride Color Order...because that seems appropriate:

Red-When I told her what time we had to be there, "11 AM, that's too early for the gays"

Orange-While riding in the car in total silcence "This one time, on Golden Girls..."

Yellow-When getting back into the car after taking a potty break "It's too hot for a baby."

Green-While sitting on a bench at pride people watching "Wow. Someone lucked out in that relationship."

Blue-After walking around in 90+ degree heat "Would it be inappropriate to use a tampon to dry off my face. They're super plus."

Purple-As we were walking past a barricade that ended the pride area "NO! We're going out of the safe zone. Turn around!"

Do you ever have a moment when you hear yourself talking, and you know you need to shut up, and while your brain is telling you SHUT UP, your mouth decides otherwise? SHOCKER that that happened to me. My friend S had looked online and saw that it started at 11, which to us meant that the parade was at 11. Well we get there and there is no parade (we will come back to this in a moment) and S is running almost 2 hours late. When Girlfriend asked where she was since it was all her idea, I responded with, "S runs on her own time. She makes you look like you get to places early." I KNOW. I KNOW. As I was talking I could hear myself in my head saying, SHUT UP but I also thought it was funny. It didn't deliver funny. It delivered in a jackassery way that required some backpedaling to get myself out of trouble. The best part was that there were two police officers nearby and when we walked by one of them chuckled and said to me, "Nice save." That was awsome :-)

Now back to the no parade thing. WTF. What the hell is pride without a parade? I mean, we do a parade really well. As girlfriend pointed out, we even have a marching band just for this kind of occasion. Everything about a parade is gay-from the glitter, to the streamers, to the choreographed dancing in the streets...I was highly disappointed. We will be attending the Durham Pride this September where there IS a parade, and it's awesome.

Have a great rest of your weekend, I've gotta get going because Girlfriend doesn't know I blog and here she comes!

Ugh.

*Disclaimer-this post is very depressing. If you want to skip to the bottom where I make up for it with two happy/fun stories I will not be offended.*

It's been a couple of emotional weeks over here which caused me to run away from blogging for a little while in order to take care of some things. 1) Girlfriend's childhood dog (we shall call her Feisty Ankle Biter) has had a large mass in her abdomen for about 7 months. They had drained it several times, but Feisty Ankle Biter was turning 15 years old, and clearly suffering. Girlfriend's mom made the decision to put her down on Wednesday. I went with them and seriously, it was one of the saddest things I've seen. Everyone was waiting on the vet to get there (who normally doesn't work on that day) and Feisty Ankle Biter was not doing well. It should come as no shock to you that I am a rock. A rock people. A. rock. I was not a rock. The vet got there about 5 minutes after Feisty Ankle Biter passed, and all four of us sat there and cried. Everyone is doing better, but it was a rough time. 2) My grandpa who I love (and am SHOCKINGLY just like) had to have a double hip replacement. The doctors were waiting on doing the surgery because he had an infection that wouldn't clear up, leading them to believe that it might be bone cancer. He is currently undergoing treatment for stomach cancer and about 10 years ago battled colon cancer...twice. Thankfully the tests came back that it wasn't bone cancer, but in the process of replacing both his hips they broke his leg. Yes, you read correctly. They broke the man's leg. Which SOMEHOW they didn't notice until after they were looking at x-rays of his completed surgery, thus sending him back to the OR to fix their f*ck up. When I was taking with him on the phone he said, "Those G*d damned doctors broke my G*d damn leg and are making ME pay for it. What kind of bullsh*t is this!?!?" I love my grandpa, he makes me laugh. 3) Grandpa was doing better and had moved to a rehabilitation center when his blood pressure went through the roof and wouldn't come down. The doctors finally got it down a little but everyone is shocked that he didn't stroke out. I'm not. The man is made of chemicals and is essentially radioactive after so many treatments after all these years, compounded by the fact that he drove an 18 wheeler delivering hazardous chemicals to different companies for all of his working days. He's going to outlive us all and bitch the entire time. I love it :-) SOOO, hopefully this helps explain where I've been and why I haven't posted in a little while.

Ugh, it's too depressing to end a post this way...now for two happy/fun things!

1) Girlfriend and I were driving and talking about who knows what when the conversation made its way to her talking about how she's "knocking at thirty's door"...here is a paraphrase of what followed:

Me: You have two years.

Girlfriend: 1 year, 8 months.

Me: Whatever. Are you really freaked out about turning thirty or are you just messing around? (if she was seriously freaked I wasn't going to pick at it)

Girlfriend: Nah, it doesn't bother me but you should know something.

Me: Ok.

Girlfriend: My biological clock is ticking. Seriously.

Me: How fast is it ticking? Did this just start?

Girlfriend: No, it's been ticking but it's gotten loud and now I can hear it.

Me: [insert awkward silence here] Um, baby....I love you but there is nothing that I can do. You're the scientist. I'm just saying...

She makes me laugh. I'm not sure what she wants me to do about her biological clock ticking. I think she just likes making awkward and mildly uncomfortable situations when I have nowhere to go (a.k.a. in a car) and hide.

2) We are heading to Charlotte Pride tomorrow with some of our friends which should lend itself to some fun stories and maybe (gasp!) pictures. Down side: it's supposed to be in the 90s. I'm from Jersey...I don't do 90s...I do air conditioning. If you are at Charlotte Pride tomorrow and see a puddle of cargo shorts sluggishly moving, it's me-come by and say hi!

All about the adverb people, all about the adverb

In Atlanta this weekend Girlfriend and I realized something about speech. Here are two examples (in story form) that prove my point.

1) We went up to Midtown on Friday night to catch a drag show at one of the local bars. We looked places up ahead of time and found one that not only was having a drag queen show but also was hosting a softball league night a.k.a. lesbians, right? Um, what they failed to mention on their website was that it was men's softball. WTF. We got there and the place was packed, I mean really packed with softball playing gay men. We found a table near one of the bars and hung out with some fabulous gay men who were just as hospitable as the gay south we expected to find-including one bending down and giving me a kiss on the hand just because quote: my fabulous shoes and beautiful smile. Since the place was so crowded there were several times that men bumped into Girlfriend or me. Each and EVERY time they said, "I am SO sorry!" sometimes adding in, "Are you okay? Did I spill your drink? Did I spill my drink on you?" or my favorite to Girlfriend, "Love, LOVE your hair!"

2) On Sunday we headed back up to Midtown to go have brunch at Flying Biscuit. After that we walked across the street to Outwrite bookstore just to see what they had compared to White Rabbit by us. I opened the door for Girlfriend [cuz that's how I do] and two men were leaving at the same time. After she walked in I held the door open for them and ushered them out [again, because that's how I do]. As they left each of them said, "Thank you SO much."

Now to get to my point: Gay men love the adverb "so" and use it freely. Straight men bump into you and say "excuse me" or "I'm sorry" while gay men say "I'm SO sorry." I told this to Girlfriend and after observing a little while she agreed with me-she also added that while an equal number of people might have bumped into us at the bar as at other places we went...it didn't bother her at the bar. After futher discussion we decided that adding the "so" somehow makes whatever has happened okay and removes any negative feelings...we also decided that it only applies to gay men-not sure why, but it does. Here is a graphic for your viewing pleasure that I think proves my point:

I'm curious about your thoughts/opinions on this topic. Let me know and I'll be back in a few days to share stories about my 9 hour car ride with a carsick dog, visiting my family, etc. Fun times all around people, fun times all around.

P.S. I leave you with this-Girlfriend and I also went to the World of Coke. She decided that most of the vintage adds with couples in them look an awful lot like the Viagra and Cialis adds today. Coincidence? We think not. It also took Girlfriend 2.5 seconds in the gift shop to shout "FOUND IT!" when she came across this hat. Seriously, she has a gift for finding inappropriate things in wholesome environments...and I love it :-)

D.O.N.E.

Summer and I are done. D. O. N. E. Now, yes I realize that summer has only officially been here for three days, but already we are done. Reasons why summer and I are done-in no particular order this time:

1) I don't like to sweat...so of course the air conditioning unit broke. $250 later the air is fixed and I am no longer sweating. Seriously not a good way to start the season....

2) B won't play outside or go for walks past the end of the street so I have one crazy pent up energetic dog on my hands. My solution has been to buy a laser pointer and wear his butt out chasing it around the living room. It works, it's funny, but he still has too much energy that I can't get rid of.

3) Me bored = useless shopping. I'm not working and when I 'm bored I spend money...yeah...I've bought a seat cover for my back seat, a new radio for my car (mine did break) and random things that I don't really need but need something to do during the day.

4) I've remembered that I don't do "alone" very well. My roommate is away visiting her family, her boyfriend's family, and travel for work all summer. Girlfriend is working everyday (like most people with normal jobs). Teacher friends are away traveling with their kids, and my non-teacher friends are in the same boat as Girlfriend. Needless to say, I've caught up on my reading, laundry, cleaning, and am out of stuff to do...suggestions welcome!!!

Right now I'm looking to July 4th weekend-Girlfriend has off on the 3rd and we are heading to Atlanta for a long weekend trip! After that I *might* be going to visit the family...always an adventure there...but ultimately I'd like to reiterate that summer and I are d.o.n.e.

FIRST AWARD!!!

I just received my first blog award from Rebecca for my battle wound post. I'm humbled, I'm honored, I'm at a loss for words (momentarily...ok, moment over) and I'm following the rules. Side note: Yes I made the graphic obnoxiously large on purpose. Okay, the rules are 1) write 7 things that make me happy 2) nominate 7 of my favorite blogs.

7 things that make me happy (in alphabetical order...cuz that's how we roll around here)

1) A completed rack of well starched and ironed shirts (don't judge me)

2) Being spoiled by Girlfriend (who doesn't?)

3) Laughing at inappropriate moments/situations (You should not be surprised by this one)

4) Peanut M&M's (especially the holiday mixes because then they are doubly special)

5) Playing/cuddling with my puppy (Again, who doesn't?)

6) Spoiling Girlfriend in little ways (Again, you should not be surprised by this one)

7) Writing (blog posts, poetry, short stories, novels, etc.)

7 of my favorite blogs (in reverse alphabetical order...just because you are at the end of the alphabet doesn't mean you are inferior)

1) Pretty Witty And...

2) Oh,snap! A daily photo journal

3) Eh? Lost again are we?

4) Dyked Out

5) Butch Style

6) Burning or Building Bridges in the Community?

7) Adrenaline's Shadow