hello to anyone who may still visit occasionally (attn: all you spammers who’ve been leaving all the 30,000+ comments: this does not mean YOU) (i really don’t even know why spammers do this; i mean, (a) i haven’t even posted here in a year, (b) therefore i’ve pretty much lost all my readers, and so (c) no one is even going to see their spam-comments) (i’m going to market that and make a new word: spamments).

my husband and i have reconciled. i did move out last june of ‘07. i have a story about how i figured out i was happier with him than without him, and it’s fairly international i might add…but it’s also really long.  the happiest part is that i moved back home over christmas, and then in march of this year we discovered we are to be parents this coming nov. 1. surprise! (shocking surprise, but a happy one)

if you are still reading and would like to come see my new digs, i am here: Magical Thoughts. you can also visit me at my myspace spot on the web…if you think you can handle the myspace creepy factor. 

i will visit some of your blogs and leave real comments (not fake spamments) when i have some time.

yay! i’m not dead! (but still rather irrelevant to the world) (unless you’re a spammer, and then apparently i’m, like, totally your favorite).

My marriage of 6 months is ending. We’d been “married” for 6 years and finally made it legal this past July, but it just wasn’t enough, in the end. A week ago, everything seemed fine. We were laughing and joking around like always, there was a lot of love there, but it just wasn’t enough in the end. Some times love just isn’t enough to make it all better.

There are many, many reasons why some things couldn’t be fixed and my heart is absolutely broken. I just didn’t have it in me to make them better. In the end, I just didn’t want to. So, ironically, like K & A, I will be hugging a lot of memories close to my heart over the next few weeks and then letting them go.

But let me just say that the decision to leave was ultimately my choice and so I am suffering horrific feelings of guilt. I’ve let a lot of people down.

I will visit your blogs as soon as I can to catch up, but it might be a week or two before I’m emotionally capable.

**English and Spanish do not use the same talking muscles. After 8 (8!!) hours of translating (back-to-back-to-back) parent-teacher conferences for Spanish speaking parents last month: my tongue was bloated and my jaw was sore for 3 whole hours afterwards, my throat was raw until the next morning, and clearly I was smoking crack when I made the decision to learn a second language years ago.

**It takes 5-7 years to become proficient in a second language, occasionally up to 12. If you don’t use it, you lose it. For every so many months you do not use your second (or 3^rd or 4^th) language, you lose 30% of it. I use my second language here and there with small children daily, but really only USE use it twice a year, for a total of 16 hours (I call these: my bi-annual reviews). By my mathematical calculations (and don’t put all your trust in these, I’ve already gone over with you people how it is with me and math), this means that after 4 years of high school Spanish, 4 years of university Spanish, and 3 years of living on the Mexican border teaching almost exclusively in Spanish, that equals 11 years of Spanish acquisition. However, because I haven’t lived on the border and thus have not used Spanish every day for 8 years, I now only speak 30% of the Spanish I once used to.

 ……………………….Which equals 30% more Spanish than any of the teachers around me speak. And I speak 100% more English than almost all of the parents around me speak. So it’s all good.

**Sometimes, children just aren’t developmentally ready to read. This is not a negative; some kids are just late bloomers. Actually, I think the United States has it all wrong about what age young children are ready to read—I think the Swiss handle this much better by waiting until the end of 1^st/beginning of 2^nd grade. (To be even franker, I think the United States is all wrong about a lot of things when it comes to the teaching of young children, but unfortunately I am not the boss of schools in the USA) (because if I were the boss of schools in the USA, we would totally do things that made sense) (I’d dismantle that ridiculous No Child Left Behind testing mess, for starters)

**So if you’re a parent, and your child can’t read, please do not automatically assume that it’s the teacher’s fault. Because, usually? When a teacher has 5 other teachers sitting in on a conference? (And these 5 other teachers do not typically enjoy sitting in on conferences. But they aaaaaall begged to be at your child’s.) And they are all saying the same thing and expressing the same concerns as the teacher you are angry with because you’re convinced s/he is obviously lazy and not working up to his/her full potential in getting your child to read? This situation always means: it is not the teacher’s fault. And that is 210% of the time.

**Because, sometimes, it’s not a developmental problem. Sometimes there’s a lot of stuff happening up there in a kid’s brain: there really are such things as processing problems; and we have specialists for this, people who are specifically trained in specific ways to teach children how to overcome specific processing problems. So please do not throw a tantrum about how your child is NOT going to be different than other kids and so you will NOT have your child labeled by teachers; sometimes, it’s okay to be different. Different isn’t always bad. Sometimes, if your child truly needs help, a label can be a GOOD thing. Sometimes, getting your child the help s/he needs is far more important than your worries about how it might be a negative reflection of you as a parent.

Because sometimes, it’s not actually about you. Sometimes, your child having a reading problem and your refusal to grant your child the help s/he needs to conquer that problem reflects much worse on you than your child visiting a school specialist every day. Which means YOU get the label, not your child. And then, yes indeed. Labeling does suck.

**If it turns out your child does need extra help, please do not assume that it’s your fault, that you are a bad parent, and that you can somehow fix this yourself. Please do not think that, if you just beat your child more at home, doing so will magically help him/her decode words and comprehend stories and then they will be okay. Because they will not be okay if you do this. They will be very, very, very not okay.

……We have thousands of people in the USA  who shun books and reading; these people would rather listen to Snoop Doggy Dogg rap about all the women he takes to bed or spend their time watching Violence: The Movie. I would like to beat these people, too, so they would read more and vote smarter.

Unfortunately, their parents got to them first.

**If you have personal psychological issues, please find a babysitter so your child can stay at home when you come for a school conference. Please do not make him/her listen to you rant about how stupid s/he is and/or how s/he is just like his/her father/mother, the skanky ass who cheated on you 5 years ago with another skanky ass and so you divorced his/her skanky ass in the midst of a nasty custody battle and now you always lovingly refer to his/her skankiness as “Shithead.”

**Appropriate attire for a parent-teacher conference is typically: a nice, clean shirt or sweater, jeans, and decent shoes. As a golden rule, underwear should be worn.

**Inappropriate attire includes but is not limited to: leather and chains and other dominatrix/gay bar frequenter outfits; and hooker costumes combined with clear-heeled stripper shoes and/or thigh-high stripper boots. Dressing your child in the aforementioned clothing is also not generally recommended.

**Also inappropriate for girls under 10: shirts that say LUSCIOUS across the chest; sweatpants that read SEXY across the bottom; sandals, micro mini-skirts, and spaghetti strap/belly-baring mid-drift shirts in 20 degree Fahrenheit weather.

**Please at least LOOK as if you’ve showered before coming to the parent-teacher conference.

**Cologne and perfume: less is more.

**Ditto jewelry.

**Please come sober. Sobriety always helps you get your points across much better.

  I’ve been in a reflective mood all day today. Also, a tad melancholy. And for once, it’s for something that is not about me. (But wait for it! Because I am sure I can MAKE it about me.) 

Those of you who haven’t just met me might remember my two good friends A & K. I met A through Charles because they worked together, and then K just naturally came into the picture and before we knew it, we were all spending weekends, taking boating and mountain trips, celebrating birthdays and holidays, and suffering through football season together. (Though technically, just A and I suffered through football season together because we are simply not football fans—I’ve lost count of how many US Weekly, STAR, and PEOPLE magazines we devoured from November through January while we ignored the football games…but I do know we both easily could have started hosting our own celebrity gossip channel with our new knowledge.)(And the US WEEKLY, STAR, and PEOPLE magazines people should all post a big ass Thank You to us in the front sections of their rags for spending so much of our hard earned money on their celebrity smut.) 

But now, the end is near. (And so we face the final curtain.) (Here, should I break into the rest of I DID IT MY WAY by Frank Sinatra? Because I’m really having to control myself not to.) And so A is ending the relationship and K is just devastated. There are many, many reasons why A is ending their relationship (there always are many reasons, at the end of any kind of a relationship), but I don’t want to go into the exact details as to why out of respect for their privacy.  

So let’s talk about how the end of them is affecting ME. (Because I am not an expert on A & K, but I am an expert on ME.) 

When the news was announced, and I realized A was very, very serious about her decision and there would be no going back, I was just grief-stricken. I felt as though someone was breaking up with me. I was thrown into a state of immediate grief and began moving through the 5 Stages of Grief.  

Do you know about these?  

1. DENIAL

A: Tomorrow, I’m telling K that I’m leaving her.

Me: Nooooo! Are you serious?!

A: Yes.

Me: You’re not serious!

A: Yes, I’m very serious.

Me: No way! Seriously?

A: Sigh. Seriously.  

2. ANGER

A: I’m so angry at K.

Me: Do you want me to be angry at K, too?

A: No. You don’t have to be angry at K.

Me: Thank goodness! Because I don’t think I can even get angry at K. 

3. BARGAINING

A: K wants us to go into counseling.

Me: Well, maybe if you go into counseling it’ll help and then you can stay together.

A: But I don’t want to stay together, Amy. It’s too late for that. I’ve tried everything I’m willing to try, and I’m just done. I just don’t want to be there anymore.

Me: Are you sure you don’t want to go talk to someone, even just for a month or two? It really might help.

A: No. Really. No. 

4. DEPRESSION

Me: This is making me so, so sad, A.

A: I know. I’m sad, too.

Me: But I’m REALLY sad.

A: I know, I’m really sad, too.

Me: No. I don’t think you understand. I’m really, REALLY sad about this. So sad I feel like jumping off a cliff about it, I’m that sad.

A: Are you trying to put me in a more severe depression??

Me: Oh. No, not at all. Because this isn’t about me. Of course! Sorry. 

5. ACCEPTANCE

Me: So, this is it.

A: Yup. This is it.

Me: You’re sure?

A: I’m sure.

Me: And there’s no fixing it?

A: Nope, not at this point.

Me: I’m so sad.

A: I know. Me, too.

Me and A: Sigh. 
 

I learned a lot about the stages of grief when my dad died. Like, I learned that everyone goes through them differently. Some people move through the stages one right after another and bing, bang, boom, they’re done. Other people are more fluid and go back and forth: Denial, Bargaining, Denial, Depression, Bargaining, Depression, Depression, Denial, Depression, Acceptance. Some people get stuck for years at a stage. Some people skip whole stages: Denial straight to Depression then on to Acceptance. 

Right now, I think I’m stuck at Stage Depression about A & K. Because I mean, what happens now? Who will we spend our summer weekends on the lake with? Who will read PEOPLE magazine with me during football games and snicker at all the weird Hollywood people? Who will make the good chili recipe? Who will we go to our favorite Brazilian steakhouse with? What about our favorite Mexican restaurant? I don’t think I can eat there anymore; there will be too many bittersweet memories. Will I ever see Skeeter, the fat dog with the funny bark, again?  I will miss Skeeter terribly.

Who will barbeque with us? Who will help us unwrap Christmas gifts on Christmas morning? Who will be our best couple friends? Most of all, I will miss having a couple I’m best friends with.

This is why, right now, I am thinking of all our “lasts.” The last time we took a trip together. Our last pizza and a movie date at A & K’s. My last shopping spree with A & K. The Christmas last breakfast. The last PEOPLE magazine gossip session. Our last barbeque; our last summer together; the last lake outing…I’ve come to the conclusion I hate lasts; I much prefer firsts. When you get to memories that are lasts, you have to hug them to your heart and then release them forever. I hate that, letting go. 

The night A told me it was over, she was very drunk. She didn’t want to go home to K, because K would want to talk and A was very tired of talking, so she stayed at our house overnight. She was crying and confused when she arrived and very, very sad. I wanted to fix it all for both of them; I wanted to make it all happy, like it used to be; I wanted to make everything be okay again. But then, nobody can do that. Some things are just not okay; some things are just not fixable; some things could not be fixed with super glue from Heaven.

I’ve always known that’s just part of the challenge of being a human being, something we sign up for when we make our way to this planet. But even so, while I know in my head these things are ultimately what make us strong and actually food for our souls and not the death sentences they feel like, my heart always wishes there was a way to make everything just be okay when it’s a big, unfixable mess. I am a mess fixer upper, to the core. 

So that night, I found myself really hoping K was up on her coping skills; this was clearly an unfixable mess. But as A lay with her head on my lap and I stroked her hair and she fell asleep, I kept picturing K sitting at home alone, knowing something was horribly wrong but not exactly what, and I thought about how sad she must be, too, how big and silent their house must seem at the moment. And my heart broke when I thought about how her heart would break and how desperate she would be to save what she loves most in the world the next morning when A told her they were finished.  

Who would stroke K’s hair to help her sleep that night? 

The only thing I could do was to pop my two favorite movies into the DVD player, the two movies that always help me cope with all things sad, especially when those things are endings.  

In LOVE ACTUALLY, Hugh “I have a hot British accent and cute blue eyes” Grant starts the movie out with these important words about a sad ending the whole world got to watch once:   

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. …When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around. 

(And on a side note, just so you’ll get the full experience of how ridiculously sentimental and nostalgic I am at movies, at the end of this movie? That I have seen exactly 20 babillion times because I own it on DVD and watch it at least once a month? At the part that shows all the people at the airport greeting their loved ones, I cry. Every. Single. Time.) 

In HOPE FLOATS, Sandra Bullock’s character says this about endings:  

Childhood is what you spend the rest of your life trying to overcome. That’s what momma always says. She says that beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts the most. Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up.  

I hope that Sandra Bullock was right, and that hope will eventually float up for K and A when they find their new beginnings. And I hope that Hugh Grant was right, that love actually is all around. Because sometimes, I think The Beatles knew it best: Love is all you need.  

Even though it can’t always fix everything. 

…But I also hope K will still make her good chili for us during football season and that A will still meet us for toddies at least once a week. 

Because the Acceptance Stage can really be hard for me to get to. You know? 

 The fabulous Stephanie tagged me to complete this meme. So lucky you! Two memes in February! Woo!

The rules were, basically (I think): They have to be facts no one knows about you. You have to tag 10 people when you’re done.

But I am never one to follow rules, ha! I break rules. I live on the edge! That’s why I’m only going to tag 3 people when I’m done. Take THAT you silly rule makers!

And now, I bare my soul:

1. I used to love Menudo. No, not the nasty tripe stew Menudo! Menudo, the Puerto Rican boy band that Ricky Martin used to be in. Menudo is one reason I learned Spanish. I mean, if you’re going to marry a Menudo member and live in Puerto Rico, you should speak the language. Verdad? Claro que si!

2. I used to love speaking Spanish, but now it’s just a chore, part of my job, and sometimes I’m resentful about it. And, surprisingly, not resentful at all towards the Spanish speakers who refuse to learn English; I’m actually resentful towards the people who want me to be in 8 different places at the same time, translating things I don’t know all the vocabulary words to.  Y eso es tanto loco. Loco, yo dijo!

3. I take naps at work. Just 10 minute ones, on my lunch break. I’ve thought about bringing in a nap pillow, but then I don’t want to have to explain to any of my coworkers why I have a nap pillow. Plus, they might ask to borrow it and I don’t want their cooties on my nap pillow.

4. I love the color pink. Officially, I’m morally opposed to it on feminist, it-sends-the-wrong-message-to-girls grounds. But I actually kind of quite like pink. Especially next to the color brown. In fact, I wish I had a pink & brown polka dotted dress. I would wear it every weekend in the spring. It would drive Charles crazy–pink & brown polka dots; driving Charles crazy. My 2 new favorite things!

I’m heading over to Ebay to see if I can find one of those dresses, right! now!

5. I look like Elaine Benis from Seinfeld when I dance. I don’t care; I dance anyway.

6. When I was in 1st grade, a little red-headed boy named Todd used to chase me around all over the place. And then one day, he kissed me in the classroom while everyone else was out on the playground. I don’t remember why we were in the classroom when we should have been on the playground. There certainly wasn’t a teacher around. Today, that’d be a lawsuit waiting to happen.

But back in 1979, it just got Todd a slap in the face. And then he said he liked this other 1st grade girl better than me. And I said fine, I don’t care! But I was secretly crushed.

7. I hate peas. I hate peas with a deep, deep, unabiding passion. Peas are not for me. Most definitely not, no siree. I will not eat them on a plane, I will not eat them in the rain. I will not eat those icky peas, I will not eat them if you please.

8. I also don’t eat anything that moos. But I’m lax in my convictions. At my favorite restaurant, this one gaucho Brazilian steakhouse place that makes the most awesome chocolate martinis? If I have enough chocolate martinis in me, I’ll eat some steak. And I’ll think it tastes good, much better, in fact, than those bacon-wrapped chicken thingies they have.

But no veal! And no lamb! I don’t eat babies. I do have standards.

9. Sometimes I say I’m going to work out at the gym, but then I end up reading in Barnes & Noble or Borders for an hour or two. Barnes & Noble is nowhere NEAR my gym and the only Borders near me is in another town altogether.

I should feel guilty about this, but usually? Nah.

10. I don’t think I call or email my friends enough.

Now for the tagging: everyone who wishes to complete this on their own blog, please consider yourself tagged. Ready, set…..GO!

Oooh! Would you look at that. I am wild! Wild, I say! By tagging a possibly unlimited number of people instead of 3, I just broke my own rule that I made when I broke the rules!  

Somebody reign me in!

 Tonight I’ll be reviewing Music & Lyrics, starring Hugh “I have a Hot British accent and cute blue eyes” Grant and Drew “Amy really, really wants to take a brush to your hair because you clearly refuse to” Barrymore.

 Synopsis:

Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant) is a washed up ex-member of Pop! which is a washed up 80’s icon band. Pop! is very, very similar to the real washed up 80’s icon band Wham! and Alex Fletcher is very, very similar to washed up ex-Wham! member Andrew Ridgeley. (For those born post-1985, or for those who once lived under rocks, Andrew Ridgeley was the less flamboyant half of Wham!, the one who was not caught in the men’s restroom in a compromising position by a police officer) (or was that WITH a police officer? I can never remember) (I used to love Wham!. But I had a crush on George Michael, the flamboyant one who was with the police officer in the men’s restroom. In the 80’s, I also had crushes on: Michael Jackson (pre-creepy era), Greg Louganis, and Barry Manilow.) (I tried to deal with this in therapy once, but she said my theories surrounding this were too Freudian and Freud is no longer relevant).

Where was I? Yes. Hugh. Alex.

So Alex is a washed up 80’s pop icon who performs at high school reunions and amusement theme parks. Ladies of a certain, shall we say…age? Love him. And they love him a lot.

And why the heck not! Hugh Grant is just too cute. And he has cute blue eyes and a cute, hot British accent.

Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore) is a girl with a haunted past who also has a gift for rhyme, which she does all the time.

Ha! Well, look at that! I’ve got on my rhyming hat! And so I have a gift for rhyming, too! Didn’t know that, did you?! Ooh, I just did it again (and again)! Now I’m 10 for 10! Somebody stop me, stop me please! I fear I am about to sneeze!

Sorry. Moving on.

So, one day Alex is contacted by Anna Kournikova, who has given up tennis in favor of being a very Christina Aguilera-ish/Britney Spears (pre-head shaving, pre-cootchie baring, pre-bar crawling, pre-K-Fed, pre-trailer trash crazy days).

…Actually, I don’t think the actress who played the new millenium teen pop star in this movie was actually Anna Kournikova. But she looked like her. And she was very, very skinny. And had beautiful, long blonde hair. And this made me wish I had popcorn to throw at the screen. But I did not have popcorn to throw at the screen. We will discuss why I did not have popcorn to throw at the screen later. But the important point is: I wished I had popcorn to throw at the screen. And I did not.

Back to my synopsis: Faux Anna’s schtick is combining Buddhism with sex. She dances, practically naked, in front of ginormous Buddha statues, loves Eastern belly dance music, and combines all of this with hip hop/pop lyrics. 

And here’s where the plot thickens: Ten years earlier, at age 7, Faux Anna loved Pop! songs. And so Faux Anna asks Alex to write her a love song that will add even more luster to her career.

Alex, however, has this problem. He’s a brilliant MUSIC writer, but completely inept at LYRICS. (Are you having an aha! moment here and getting the premise of this movie?) (if not, wait for it…wait for it! It’ll come).

Then, in walks Sophie, who works at her sister’s weight loss center but for some reason that the movie casually glosses over (and cute movies that have no Oscar aspirations are always allowed to do this) is also working as a plant watering girl. Which seems like a fabulous job to me. Did you know there was a job called Plant Waterer? I didn’t know about this job: you go around to washed up celebrities’ New York City apartments and water their plants. I’m going to do a little research on this career and see how lucrative it is. Maybe in the mornings, I can be a Dog Walker and then in the afternoons I can be a Plant Waterer. That sounds blissfully stress-free to me at the moment.

I was never sure exactly what Sophie’s job at the weight loss center entailed, except I do know that: (1) Sophie did not need to lose weight and (2) she sometimes wrote catchy phrases for weight loss ad campaigns.

And then, through a quick series of small coincidences, Alex realizes Sophie has a gift for words and convinces her to help him write Faux Anna’s Buddha/Sex/Pop/Love Song. And she does.

And that’s my synopsis.

Now, here’s my faux review part, which is merely a series of thoughts that occurred to me as I watched the movie. With my mother. Without popcorn.

The (faux) review:

1. My mother is a poky puppy. Emphasis on poky. We can do nothing, go nowhere, on time. As we walked through the mall to get to where you buy the movie tickets, she kept saying things like: Ooh, Amy! Look at that outfit! Isn’t that sooo cute?! and Hey, do you think they have a GNC in this mall? I need some more multi-vitamins. Can we stop in there if we see one on our way? and You know, I’ve been meaning to stop in Bath & Body Works to pick up some more of that yummy lotion I got for Christmas. I’m almost out. Let’s run over there so I can see if they still have it.

Until I finally stopped, grabbed her head with both my hands and shoved my watch in her face saying, “MOM! MOTHER!!  Focus! The movie starts in one–ONE!!!–minute!” And that lit a fire under her ass. But then she was all mopey and resentful for the next 40 minutes, reminding me she was still my mother and mothers don’t deserve to have their daughters grab their heads and shove watches in their faces.

2. When we got to the box office, there was a line of a million people. Literally, a million people! Because apparently, everyone had the same thought we’d had, which was: Hey! You know what would be a fabulous way to spend President’s Day? Lunch and a movie! Let’s go!

3. And they had the same thought about getting concessions for their movies. 1 million people at the concession stands + 2 concession stand workers = I’m not good at math, but I know those numbers are NOT congruent.

That’s why I really, really wish the movie theater owners would have had THIS thought on President’s Day, which was: Hey! You know what would be a fabulous thing to do on President’s Day? Have more than 3 people working at our 20 theater movie theater today!

4. But I did attempt to stand in line anyway, patiently, knowing I’d miss the pre-movie ads and the pre-movie previews, and maybe even the very very first parts of the movie, but that would all be okay if I just had some popcorn and soda for the love of all that is holy and good. Because that’s the whole POINT of going to the movie theater: overpriced popcorn and soda. It adds to the overpriced movie theater experience.

5. Finally, after 15 minutes of standing and only moving 15 inches, I stifled a scream and left the line, saying Fuck this! under my breath, which caused the dad who’d been standing in front of me with his 8 year old girl to whip around and glare at me because I’d just used the F-word near his precious angel.

But so what! So what! His precious angel needs to learn that sometimes, people just need to mutter things like Fuck this! under their breaths so they can passive aggressively let the theater owners who aren’t anywhere near them and can’t hear them mutter the F-word but who still don’t hire enough workers on a major No School holiday KNOW how wrong they are! You know?!?! JEEZ!!!!!!!!

6. Fortunately, our theater wasn’t crowded. And everybody turned off their cell phones. Actually, there was one lady who didn’t. But it went off before the movie started and everybody glared ferociously at her in the dark, so she’d know exactly how rude we all thought she was. And our plan worked–her cell phone only rang one more time. But that was during the ending credits and so we all rolled our eyes and forgave her, telepathically reminding her to bring her movie theater manners with her next time.

7. Hugh Grant needs to start wearing more sunblock! I’m going to write his reps and let them know this: his face is beginning to have that Clint Eastwood-leathery sheen. Not that this is bad; just as wrinkles add great character to Clint’s face, they are doing the same for Hugh. But with global warming and huge holes in the ozone layer nowadays, you just can’t be too careful.

8. I like Drew Barrymore because she’s one of the less annoying actresses out there. And she always does cute films with cute characters. And that’s not bad at all, in my book. Cute is good. Cute gets your foot in lots and lots of doors.

But I do wish she would open her mouth wider when she speaks.

9. Speaking of cute, Hugh and Drew should get married and form an acting/movie team. Here’s why: they BOTH like to play cute characters, in cute films.

Drew always plays cute, quirky girls who don’t open up their mouths wide enough when speaking. And Hugh always plays cute British men who are goofy and self-deprecating in a very charming way. His British men characters always have cute blue eyes and posh English accents and they never, never kill anybody. And that’s why Drew and Hugh would make a great acting team.

Also, their names rhyme.

10. Clive Owen has cute green eyes and a posh English accent. But he does not play cute characters. He plays dark, brooding characters. And in The Bourne Identity, his character did kill people. But that didn’t make me love him less. And, thanks to Hugh Grant being in this cute movie, I got to mention Clive Owen in my faux movie review about a movie Clive wasn’t even in! Thanks, Hugh!!

11. You know what else I love about Hugh Grant besides his cute blue eyes and posh English accent? His love handles. Well, actually, Hugh Grant doesn’t have love handles. He has muscles where his love handles are. Because, in this one scene? That I could totally tell was purely gratuitous on the part of the director and so obviously stuck in there for Hugh Grant’s lady fans? Hugh is standing completely shirtless, in unbuttoned jeans. And you can tell he really works out, focusing especially on his love handles.

But in shape love handle muscles aren’t going to do Hugh any good at all if he doesn’t start putting on sunscreen!

12. This movie made me cry. If you know me well, right now you’re thinking: Amy, all movies make you cry. But listen! Here’s my theory: If I’m at a movie, and I don’t cry, clearly something is wrong with that movie. And so there was nothing wrong with this movie.

Faux movie summary:

Music & Lyrics is a happy movie. Looking back over what I’ve just written, I see the word CUTE a lot. Cute Hugh Grant. Cute Drew Barrymore. Cute, cute, cute. If cute is not your thing, then you should avoid Music & Lyrics at all costs.

But that will be sad for you. Because this movie combined my three favorite things (besides cuteness): music, words, and movies.

I liked how Alex was Music and Sophie was Lyrics, because that’s how any relationship–love, family, foe, or friend works: one person is the music, one person is the lyrics. You can’t really have one without the other. (Actually, I guess you can, if it’s classical music) (but who listens to classical music these days?) (and even if you do listen to classical music these days, don’t you think it would be so much better if Mozart or Bach had added lyrics?) (Listen! Quit trying to ruin my faux movie review with your logical thinking! Music and lyrics go together; that’s the point!)

My favorite deep philosophical theme in the movie came when Sophie compares music by The Beatles to dinner and music by silly pop boy bands to dessert.

Later in the movie, Sophie’s sister says she’ll know a man is passionate about her when he does something extraordinary for her.

And even later on, Hugh Grant’s character offers Sophie dinner and that’s the part that made me cry and made this movie good.

See the movie and that’ll make sense. But don’t go on President’s Day, or any other major holiday. Leave poky puppy mothers at home. Get lots of overpriced popcorn so you can throw it at Faux Anna. Have your telepathic mind powers ready for fellow movie goers who don’t turn off their cell phones. Don’t say the F-word in front of small children at the concession stand.

Wear sunscreen.

At work, I have 6 inspirational messages on my walls that sum up my philosophy on what it means to be human: 

Stand up for what’s right, even if you’re standing alone. 

The sum of us is greater than all our parts. –Maya Angelou 

Take time to giggle. 

FRIENDSHIP: Imagine striving for oneness instead of sameness. 

The hand of friendship knows no color. 

Peace on Earth. 

I don’t spend my time sitting around with a beneficent look on my face, meditating on these concepts; in fact, most of the time, you can find me in my car muttering phrases like “jackass” to other drivers who can’t hear a single word I’m saying and have absolutely no idea that, were it legal and/or I knew I’d never get caught, I’d pull a roadside jihad on their ass so fast they wouldn’t know what just happened.

And when not doing that, I’m standing in line behind someone in the supermarket wondering how in the world they managed to dress themselves that day, much less successfully arrived at their destination. Or I’m watching yet another breaking news story on CNN about Britney’s crotchless outfit, marveling at the fact that—if the things a country’s citizenry cares about is a good measuring tool of its success—how the hell the United States of America has not yet imploded upon itself. 

My point is: the sentiments on my work posters represent the kind of human being I aspire to be; I obviously have a long way to go until I get there. And, while I completely understand where Sartre was coming from when he remarked, “Hell is other people,” when push comes to shove, I don’t actually think most people are so bad I’d seriously wish a big metal ball would fall out of space and hit them on the head. Because (and you may not believe this, but I swear it’s true) sometimes big metal balls do fall from outer space and hit people on their heads.

Unless that person is Pat Robertson. Because as far as I’m concerned, people who live by the sword are just asking to die by it: Pat has, in his lifetime, declared an entire town in Pennsylvania should be smote by God ; said the U.S. State Department ought to be nuclear bombed to teach the government who’s really in charge; and declared that women like Gloria Steinem are actually baby-eating witches. Granted, I don’t have the same direct phone line to God that Pat does so he could be right about all these things; I’m just sayin’. 

But then again. Maybe there would finally BE peace on Earth if we all just got out of each other’s faces and minded our own business and stopped killing each other (or playing religious-themed electronic games  that have us kill each other) when we refuse to convert to each other’s religious and/or political views.

Attempting to convert other people to your way of thinking about anything seems just a silly waste of time to me. Because doesn’t everyone just want to be loved and accepted for who they are, exactly the way they are? In my world, it is nothing short of sheer spiritual rape to deny love and acceptance to anyone on this planet for any reason, even if they are purple, gay, and smelly. And saying you hate the sin but love the sinner doesn’t quite make the cut either—that’s just an excuse for you to continue saying unspeakably horrible things about other human beings in the name of whatever dogma you’re following. You can tell the world until you’re blue in the face that you’re just trying to help by guiding those less fortunate, less spiritual, and less knowledgeable than you to something better and I’ll still think you’re a condescending asshole. And ay, there’s the rub, huh? Technically, going on everything I’ve just written, I love condescending assholes. Because that’s just who they are.

But it doesn’t mean I have to hang out with them and have lunch dates.

I’ve always thought that God, Mother/Father God, the Universal Power, the Creator, Allah, Zeus, Yahweh, the Great Spirit, a Big Bang…whatever people want to call it…created a world with natural rhythms that are so intricately magical, so mathematically incredible, and so harmoniously balanced, it’s absolutely impossible for any human being to truly ever grasp the level of astonishing intelligence that invented the life that’s been placed on our planet.

So I have a very, very hard time believing that whatever put us all here needs our help doing anything at all. It didn’t need our help when it created the first tiny molecules that breathed life into Earth, it didn’t ask us what we thought when the first plants and animals took over, and so I’m pretty sure it doesn’t exactly need our petty little ego-specific agenda-based opinions about how to run the place now either. The mere fact it continues to let us thrive here—thrive to the point we’re destroying all the hard work it took it 9 gazillion years to lovingly create—is a good testament that it either: doesn’t care because it doesn’t have emotions…or it’s a shining example of what healthy, functional love truly looks like (which is: you can’t control what anyone else does; you can only control how you choose to react) (for the record, the mentally healthy policy is always: don’t react…let other people dig their own graves, suffer their own consequences, and learn or not learn at their own pace and peril) (can ya tell I’ve been in therapy?) 

Why am I ranting about all of this?  

Because currently we are in the Season of Non-violence. Not everyone celebrates it because not everyone knows about it, but I started celebrating it when I started going back to church. It starts every year on January 30, the anniversary of Mahatma Ghandi’s assassination, and ends on April 4, the anniversary of Dr. King’s. 

And this one year for the Season of Non-Violence? My church invited a guest speaker to talk to us about the vibrating number theory: everybody vibrates to a number. I only understood half of what was said because it was all based on Pythagorus’ number theories about math, music, the nature of the Universe and how all that is tied to humanity’s ability to heal itself. Because when someone says something that contains the words number and theories to me, I hear: Math Math Math and then I start thinking about all the crap around my house I need to do. And I never think about all the crap around my house I need to do. 

Anyway, the important part was: most people are pretty decent and vibrate around a 200-300. The lower you go, the less nice you are; below 100, you’re just one big ass troublemaker. The higher you go, the more enlightened and tolerant you are. People like Dr. King and Ghandi? Probably in the 600-700’s. People like Jesus and Buddha? Vibrating in the 900’s. And here’s the world’s problem: the people who vibrate under 200, all the troublemakers? Usually end up assassinating all the people who vibrate at 600 and above.

Turns out, numbers less than 200 are a real nasty scourge upon the earth. So during the Season of Non-Violence and beyond, my aim will be for a safe 450-599. 

And I swear I tried as hard as I could to make this entire entry extremely tolerant of the intolerant and very pacifist toward the violent, but I’m sure I wasn’t successful: I’m still only in the 200’s. But one day maybe we’ll all make it to 1000. 
 

If I could be totally wild, I would…. Quit my job, buy a beach house, and write pornographic novels (to pay the bills) and literature fiction (to maintain a false sense of dignity). I would not be a complete sell out. I mean, I would be writing my pornography under an assumed identity.

Right now I’m reading…. THE WHOLE WORLD OVER by Julia Glass. I heart Julia Glass. I also just started THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING by Joan Didion. It’s about grief and loss and magical thinking, three things I’m good at.

My best friend says I’m…. sparkly.

I still can’t get the hang of…. parallel parking, public speaking, confronting angry people, truly living on the edge, and keeping my house Martha Stewart-perfect. Not that I actually wish to be Martha Stewart-perfect. I just want my house to be. Without having to work at it.

The world would be a better place if only….. people minded their own business. And chocolate cake.  I really think there should be more chocolate cake.

Favorite website….. [Do not be a typical materialistic American consumer and type potterybarn.com, do not be a typical materialistic American consumer and type potterybarn.com, do not be a typical materialistic American consumer and type potterybarn.com!]

……..I love SaveDarfur.com because what is happening over there is inhuman and we should all get involved and stop it. We missed our chance with Rwanda. So let’s do it right with Darfur. 

Also, An Inconvenient Truth, because sometimes? You just can’t handle the truth. And also because, once upont a time, before he lost the election and went a little pudgy, Al Gore was a smokin’ hot politician (as far as politicians can be smokin’ hot).

Also: THIS Clive Owen website. Because whenever I’m bored or need a pick me up, I can look at his pictures.

If I were a super heroine I’d be….. I can’t decide! I can’t decide. When I was 5, I wanted to be The Bionic Woman. She embodied feminine empowerment and physical strength. Bionic Woman was married to Bionic Man, but she didn’t need Bionic Man. I even made my mother write a fan letter to her, signed my name, and Bionic Woman wrote me back a very nice form letter.

Later, I switched loyalties to Wonder Woman because she had ice blue eyes, bullet proof bracelets, and flew an invisible jet. Also, she ran around in her swimsuit all the time and, at 8 years old, I deeply wished I could run around in my swimsuit all the time. Actually, even 25+ years later, I still wish I could run around in my swimsuit all the time.

Oh, fine then. I’ll take the ice blue eyes, the plane, and the perpetual swimsuit.  *sigh* I’m so predictable. And shallow.

I wish I’d known…… Life comes at you fast, so play hard.

What keeps me awake at night: Not much. Charles says he’s never met a person before who can be asleep as soon they put their head on a pillow. Sometimes, this will happen when I’m in mid-sentence. For awhile I wondered if I might have a narcolepsy problem, but if I do, I only do it in bed.

One thing I never want to do again: The Brazilian Bikini Wax. That was supremely un-fun. They told me: take some Tylenol beforehand, and you’ll be fine! What they should have told me: Take some Vicodin and Percoset and drink 1/2 a bottle of vodka beforehand, and you’ll be fine!

My theme song: Somewhere Over The Rainbow and I’m so very annoyed that Katherine McPhee is copycatting me.

My work: If I could get rid of some top level administrators, the paperwork, one bitchy coworker, and early morning arrival times, I’d be in total work nirvana.

My family: can be crazy. But they are all good people and I love them.

My favorite posession: A card my father wrote me when I graduated from high school. I still take it out every now and then, read it, and deeply, deeply miss him so much I can almost touch the emptiness.

I’m thinking about: Clive Owen’s eyes and hot British accent. In fact, if you ever catch me staring off into space, this is most likely why.

I’m most proud of: making it this far.

I’m inspired by: Clive Owen’s eyes and hot British accent. And Maya Angelou. Maya Angelou is always a good answer when you can’t think of something or someone inspirational…or you want to get into Oprah’s good graces.

   Yesterday, I had to work with a group of 5^th grade students for an hour. Usually, I don’t work with older children—I’m a small child school specialist. I like small children; they’re still in love with school and teachers and always ask “How high?” whenever I teach them to jump. But I only do jumping lessons on Fridays. Tuesdays through Thursdays, we discuss major world events and Mondays we focus on deep breathing techniques. 

So 10 and 11 year olds are just not my cup of tea. I have nothing against 10 and 11 year olds in general—they can be sweet. But they’re smarter than me. And I just can’t have that. I did earn a master’s degree at some point; I have to keep up appearances. Also, I can only add and subtract to 20. Anything other than that is usually math involving numbers combined with letters or it has names containing –ometry at the end. And these always cause various neurons inside my brain to jump in horror, scream, and die. Even when I was in 5^th grade, my neurons were horrified by 5^th grade math. 

But this was not a hard job at all. Because their regular teacher had left a very large packet of math sheets for them to complete and all I had to do was watch them do the packet. Also, the math sheets were mostly graphing and graphing I can do because there are pictures. Except for that one Area=Length x Width sheet at the end of the packet. That was a nasty surprise. They all came to me for help with that one. The problem on it that stumped us went like this: 

S=3.2 cm

Area=___ 

I just patted those confused children on the head and said, “I’m sorry, sweetie. Ms. S only speaks English. Wait until you can ask a real teacher.” Because it was obvious to me at that point I am nothing short of a fraud in the upper grades. 

But before I was exposed for what I am, I had been instructed to take them to the bathrooms. When we got back, the girl at the end of my line said, “Ms. S? Can I talk to you in the hallway?”  

I would like to note here that this question was asked in a very calm, very quiet manner.  

As soon as I stepped into the hallway, she immediately became hysterical and began shaking, crying, and gurgling something about Blood! Blood! The bathroom! All over! Blood! 

I had no idea what to do. I hadn’t even finished my first cup of coffee of the morning. I could only stammer, “Blood? What blood?”  

Had a 10 year old knifed one of the 8 year olds in the bathroom? Was there a Stephen King-like haunting in there? Was this child just demented and seeing things? Why would there be blood all over an elementary school’s bathroom at 9:00 in the morning? I am not equipped to handle bodily fluids, especially at 9:00 in the morning. And could I at least finish my first cup of coffee before they began the bloodletting? 

Finally, she pointed to one of her inner legs and indicated that she, in fact, was the source of the blood. Of course! Of course. Yes, it would only be fitting and right that one of my new charges would decide that today, of all the mornings in all the world, she should become a woman.  

At this point, I was faced with an enormous decision that would, perhaps, alter this young girl’s life forever and ever: should I…(A) laugh hysterically and tell her to rent Stephen King’s classic Carrie after school because it would explain everything? (Because this is the first image that came to my mind when I realized what was happening: did this child’s mother light lots of candles and spend a lot of time reading violent Biblical passages railing against womanhood to her daughter because she was trying to keep her girl a girl?)

Or should I (B) give a mini-sex education lesson right there, in the hallway, as the 2^nd graders walked past us to the computer lab, gaping, listening in?

Or should I (C) send her to the school nurse with a note reading HELP!!!! PLEASE. I’M ONLY USED TO DEALING WITH BOOGERS AND BLOODY NOSES, NOT BLOODY HOO HOOS?  

In the end, I hugged her, told her everything was fine, what had happened was completely normal and she didn’t need to be scared, and then I chose option C. Because I am not a school nurse and so I do not know how to do menstruation talks. I read books about sheeps driving jeeps and I teach young children that, to make a friend, you need to be a friend and I correct grammatical sentences like, “My dad go a car and take me to a store and I have a toy.” 

Later, the school nurse and I laughed and laughed about it all. Because here is what happened in her office five minutes later: 

Hysterical Girl: Blood! I have blood! I want my mom!

School Nurse: Now you stop that. Didn’t your mama ever talk to you about growing up and having babies?

Hysterical Girl: Yes but she didn’t say there would be blood!

School Nurse: Okay then. Now let me break this down for you: You have 3 holes in your body down there. Poop comes out one, pee comes out the other, and blood comes out the 3^rd. This is a big thing! Be happy! You’re growing up! You tell your mama to take you out for pizza after school to celebrate! 

In the end, the nurse had the hysterical girl call home to ask for a change of underwear and please don’t forget to pick up some sanitary napkins on your way over. Which the mom brought and then promptly took her hysterical girl home early so they could eat pizza. 

But did anyone offer ME pizza yesterday?! Hell to the no! I didn’t even get to finish my cup of coffee yesterday. Also, kids today are so freaking wimpy. I don’t think I got pizza when I was 12 and had blood coming out everywhere for the first time.

In related news:

The other morning, when I logged online and went to yahoo, I found THIS and I laughed and laughed. I know I shouldn’t be laughing; it’s not really a ha ha funny story, because a woman tried to kill another woman. That’s sad. But it does seem to fit with the 5th grade menstruation incident for some odd reason.

I laughed because I didn’t know astronauts wear diapers when they take off and land space shuttles. Did you know? I didn’t know. Now, the next time I watch a shuttle launch, that’s all I’ll be able to think about. And that makes me laugh.

But now I’m also thinking: NASA might be able to put a spin on this and create some extra revenue for themselves. I can think of several long ass traffic jams I’ve sat in where a pair of diapers would have come in quite handy.  

And so there you have it: I have blogged about adult diapers and tampons. I do believe this indicates I am officially at the end of a rope. I’m not sure what rope. I just know have no more slack. 

 As I indicated in my previous entry, I’ve been under the weather. I was offline for many, many days: I did not check email. I did not post blogs. I did not check other people’s blogs. I did not sit in front of YouTube for hours and hours doing bizarre searches for bizarre people who film themselves doing bizarre things for the bored or procrastinating or sleepless people of the world. But I also: did not answer my phone; I refused dinner invitations from my friends; I did not visit the gym; but this last one was okay, because I also did not visit the grocery store and, therefore, I did not eat and so I did not gain weight. 

I have been the human equivalent of a rainforest sloth, only slower. 

I am still in a bit of a sloth-like state this week, only now I am a sloth that can breathe better and no longer has the kind of cough that forces others to look at me cautiously and then quietly remove themselves to a far side of the room.

So, I went to work today and was helping a group of very small non-English speakers grasp the craziness we in America (and much of the UK and occasionally Australia) like to call “English,” by drudging up as much enthusiasm as I could for a book which was called Sheep in a Jeep. This turned out to be an exceptional literature circle choice today because, apparently, the mere image of sheep riding around town in a jeep strikes non-English speaking 6 year olds as absolutely, hysterically funny. They couldn’t understand a word I read, but had a fabulous time nonetheless. Who knew sheeps in jeeps were such a hit among the youngster set?

When the story was done, a child asked me (in Spanish, but for your convenience I translate it now): “Why do you smell good?” 

I was touched. Here I was, slowly recovering from a nasty, nasty bout with the flu, a flu which had caused me to stare listlessly at TV screens and shower quite infrequently; so infrequently that even that morning I’d argued with myself for at least 10 minutes over whether or not it was worth it to shower. And now here was this lovely, lovely, innocent little being telling me how good I smelled to him. Somewhere in between Sudafed and eucalyptus cough drops, I’d somehow managed to exude a pleasant, human-like aroma that caused others around me to breathe in deeply and smile.

This is very, very important to my story because it is a psychological law of the universe that small children are always brutally honest…if they don’t think you smell good, they have absolutely no qualms making you aware of that, too.

However, right now, I would also like to take a moment to note something you might have already noticed: this child’s question had absolutely nothing to do with sheep or, for that matter, jeeps.

Do not be alarmed. This is a very usual occurrence in my world and another psychological law of the universe: I attempt to teach small children something of tremendous, world-wide significance, like why a polar bear would never eat a penguin, though they might sometimes eat a human (for the confused: polar bears and penguins don’t live in the same hemisphere)(On the other hand, polar bears and humans do). But my small friends, while incredibly fascinated by polar bears, often would rather talk about how the cat they had 4 years ago (whose name they can’t remember but they think it might have been called Yellow Cat) ran away and got run over by a truck. They cried for 100 days about it but now they have a new cat (whose name they can’t remember but they think it might be called Orange Cat). And when asked what in the world Yellow Cat and Orange Cat have to do with man-eating polar bears, simply give a blank look and say, “I don’t know.”

But like my small friends, I digress. So back to the boy’s why did I smell so good question: I said, “It’s just soap, lovebug. Es mi sopa.” 

And my tiny friend laughed and laughed at that.  

I was a little put off. You know, I have a cold, I feel like shit, and now I have this 6 year old laughing at my hard-learned Spanish. And not everybody in America takes the time to learn another language, you know. In fact, some people spend a whole lot of time writing letters to the editor about things like: Why do people in America have to learn Spanish when this is America and we should only speak English.

But not I. No, I took the time to learn the language and embrace the culture(s) of the language, so don’t blame me. I spend a lot of my time writing letters to the editor about things like: The world does not revolve around people who speak English and maybe people would love America a little more if we took the time to learn other languages and cultures in the world around us, since the world also does not revolve around America.

And so I found myself contradicting my very own letters to the editor by thinking, Well, fine then. Fine, fine, fine! Laugh it up, buddy! Enjoy yourself. Let’s see what a funny man you are when YOU don’t get a sticker on your way out the door. That’ll teach YOU to laugh at somebody’s Spanish when you don’t even speak English. 

But then I realized: in Spanish? Oh, ha! The word for soap is actually jabon; the word for soup is, uh…sopa. Silly me, I’d just told a small child the reason I smelled so luscious was because I’d showered in soup earlier. Lucious, luscious soup. Probably: chicken noodle.   

By the time I realized this, the child was already running around to all the other kids, pointing at me and screaming, “She has soup on! She has soup on!” And then they all agreed: this was just THE funniest thing EVER, much, much funnier than sheep in a jeep, even. And then I was laughing with them too because, well. It kind of is the funniest thing ever. I mean it’s just not every day you meet a person who bathes in soup and proudly tells the world about it. Maybe on YouTube. But not, typically, in day-to-day reality.

This is exactly why little kids are just the coolest people on earth to hang out with. Everything has comedic potential, nobody is above being laughed at even if a person is at the throes of death’s door with a cold, and kids find things like: pictures of sheep in jeeps; ice cream pies in faces; clowns beating each other up; a left shoe accidentally flying halfway across a room and clobbering someone upside the head; the mere insinuation there will be people kissing one another; poop, farts, boogers, and burps (in that order); the word “underwear;” and the briefest, fleetingest glimpse of a barenaked butt (including and especially their own) to be THE most outright, hysterically funny things. And they will laugh at these things until milk comes out their noses, which always makes them laugh harder. And when they laugh, it is usually in a combination of giggles, screeches, and small screams until, when they are finally done, they lie on the floor, a miniature ball of hiccups, completely spent, with a stomach that aches, but in a really good way. 

In fact, whenever I meet a child who can’t laugh, I immediately know at least three things: (1) there truly are people in this world who don’t know how to laugh—at anything, but especially themselves—and this unfortunate child has been burdened with at least one of these people as a parent or caretaker, (2) this is a child who will be a very lonely adult with few, if any, dinner party invitations later in life, and (3) they are surely headed for a mid-life crisis heart attack, possibly as soon as they enter their 20’s.  

And so, my life lesson for the day (and yours now, too) is: Laughter has magical health properties (so they say) (“they” being all the experts on magic and how it relates to human health). And kids usually believe in magic. Clearly then, children are practitioners of magic since laughter is magic.

So I prescribe one medium-sized to large-ish dose of childish, magical hysteria each day, possibly more if you think you can stand the ensuing hiccups and stomachache. I took one today myself and totally forgot about my dripping sinuses for like, a whole 5 minutes. That was awesome.