Delays

My personal favorite is: “When a young Nigerian man boarded an airplane on Christmas day there was no permanent boss at the TSA… When he tired to blow up that plane, top positions at both the intelligence agencies of the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security were empty. Why? Because Republican senators refused to let this body hold a vote on these candidates.”

~Forth

Left to my own devices…

~Forth

Here’s another one from Bobby.

No man is an island.

Dr. King

I’m not actually sure how to feel about this… but it is a credit to the man either way.

Every year, as my own birthday approaches, I invariably turn back to Bobby Kennedy’s eulogy of Dr. King. Two men who would have changed America but whose deaths have instead embittered us to each other.

“The vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.” /sigh

~Forth

Humbugs.

I can’t do it.

This year I simply can’t get into the holiday spirit. For the first time in my 22-year history, I feel absolutely no enthusiasm for winter or Christmas, and it’s unclear which is more depressing: my mood, or the fact that I can’t get into the season, period.

This past Sunday, after waiting on insane mall-people all morning, I came home with the intent of having a cup of cocoa, putting on my Christmas playlist for the first time, and putting up the tiny amount of holiday decor that Forth and I have. (Still no room for a Christmas tree this year….ornaments and a string of lights on the ficus will have to do again.) The cup of cocoa turned into a bottle of Malbec as I set about getting boxes down from the hall closet and about 30 seconds into “Silver Bells” my eyes welled up and I had to put on Ingrid Michaelson and Bon Iver instead. Forth had to take me on a walk and hold my hand to set me straight again.

There is little in life that creates more misery than snow and cold. The cold steals breath from the lungs and life from the soul. Snow is no longer a fun and magical thing. Real jobs don’t afford snow days (unless you are Forth….ahem), there are no rolling hills to sled down in the city–it just creates a white prison cell for my car and causes half an hour of shoveling, pushing, and scraping to get anywhere after a storm. Plus parking is fucked for the whole season. This side one day that side the other day three hours here half the street prohibited…..Why bother?

Christmas will never be like it used to. Traditions changed. Families expanded. People have gone away. New houses have been moved to. My parents have to share me with Forth’s now. The safety and reliability of seeing everyone and performing all the old rituals is lost. Last year, instead of celebrating Christmas Eve with my dad’s side of the family at my grandparents’, I sat in Forth’s childhood bedroom and called home from two and a half hours away to say hi to everyone. I then proceeded to drink a load of whiskey and threw up at a gas station bathroom in Illinois on Christmas morning. When we arrived at my house that afternoon, my parents forgot to stuff our stockings and handed us the goodies in Wal-Mart bags instead. My mom flirted with the idea foregoing turkey and ordering a Subway party-sub for Christmas instead. All my dad did to decorate outside was plug in a couple of plastic candles on the front steps. This, my friends, is not right, or comfortable.

Great things happened this year: Graduation, Marriage, & Aruba. But when a real job is not found, money is not being made, ambition is being lost, too much alcohol is being consumed, student loans are entering repayment, my car is deteriorating, my grandpa is days from death, Christmas plans are on hold, the sun is up for less than ten hours (if we’re lucky), and I spent Thanksgiving looking at this:

….what’s the point of being excited about reality?

17 shopping days left, folks. And 3 horrid months to go…..and I can assure you I’ll be trashed and sedated for most of it.

**Back.

P.S. After curling up with Forth and watching the best modern holiday movie ever, I can now stomach Otis Redding’s “White Christmas,” John and Yoko’s “Happy Christmas (The War is Over),” and Olivia Olson’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.” But that’s it.

And they both reached for the gun.

So this past weekend brought yet another trip to the Cities, which I feel as if I blogged about not so long ago. Then again, the last year feels like the blurriest of blurs, so what can you do?

My week leading up to Minneapolis began in the shittiest of forms. During the weekend I’d learned that my lung-cancer ridden grandfather had run out of treatment options and had begun hospice, so a detour to my hometown was planned…..just in case. Monday through Wednesday included double shifts–work from 8 a.m. till 10 p.m at both jobs, all the while feeling like crying. Thursday I finished work at 4 and got to experience two cities worth of rush hour plus getting pulled over for going 76 mph in a 65 mph zone (though thankfully it only resulted in a warning–my third, but who’s counting??) and arriving at my parent’s house half an hour later than I should have. A night of gin and shots with my best friend from high school cured the first of the week, but going to have a goodbye breakfast with my grandparents the next morning was still no picnic.

Cut to Friday evening: I have a pleasant drive up to Minneapolis, singing wildly to tunes from Mamma Mia!, Chicago, and Across the Universe, and greeting the welcoming St. Paul skyline through the glare of the setting autumn sun. However, once I arrive, I realize that my bestie Xenia has gotten her car towed due to pesky street-cleaning procedures. On our way to the impound lot, I run over a giant block of wood or some such thing while going 55 or so on 394…..a highway it turns out we didn’t need to be on in the first place, thanks to faulty Google directions. I see my hubcap fly off, and we quickly pull over to check for a flat and bend my front plastic mudflap back into place. All seems well, and we continue to the impound lot where Xenia is then slapped with a $42 parking ticket IN ADDITION to her $140 impound fee.

With FOL (f our lives?) echoing in our brains, we head out for a nice dinner and more than a few glasses of Skyy Melon + Cherry 7-Up, which raises our spirits in so many ways. Now cut to Saturday morning: I walk out the door to find my rear driver’s side tire completely and utterly deflated. With no time for repairs due to the Gopher vs. Illini game (fuck the FIBs!), we slug a couple Fat Tires, and head over to the newly built TCF Bank stadium. But OH HAI, apparently I need my old UMN id card to get in with my student ticket. After being shot down by scalpers for a regular non-student ticket, we end up spending $50 on a general ticket that will let me sit in any section anyhow. Copious amounts of coconut Malibu fix this issue, and we have a superb time at the game, followed by buffalo wings, chicken tenders, and the Fire Pit burger at Applebee’s which all makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

Later on in the afternoon I call around to local garages who all tell me they are closed for the day or the weekend period.com, so Xenia and I roll up our sleeves, bust out the jack, and change us a fucking flat tire. About five men pass on the street wanting to know if we need help, and we deny it every time. By the time the grease has soaked into my unbroken press-on French nails, and the little spare donut of a tire is fixed securely to my chassis, Xenia and I feel strangely empowered and independently feminine, and celebrate this with Chipotle, pajamas, and vodka.

Fast forward to 9 a.m. on Sunday. The Tires Plus near Xenia’s apartment doesn’t have any openings until 1 p.m. despite my pleas about this being an emergency and how I don’t even live in the city and need to be home by that evening. Luckily with some perseverence and a bit of Googling by Forth, I find a Tires Plus in my old neighborhood of Falcon Heights/Roseville that gladly take me and I’m on the road with a newly plugged tire by 11.

Around 11:07 a.m. my Dad says he’s proud that I know how to change a flat and at 11:47 I’m getting gas in Baldwin, WI and suddenly the pump decides not to stop and gas begins to guzzle over my poor, gimpy, hubcapless Lola, soaking my black studded Madden Girl flats, but these things do happen.

So, the moral of the story, kids? Drink. It can solve any problem–especially when you’re supposed to be having a stellar, stress-free girls’ weekend in the city you should have finished college in.

**Back.

We Ignore It

In case you thought drug abuse was the problem of someone else: 78% of drug addicts in America are white.

Instead of spending an hour watching Survivor or Desperate Housewives this week, spend a few minutes watching this.

~Forth

more about “We Ignore It“, posted with vodpod

A toe tapper and knee slapper.

I have a feeling that Forth would like to blog about something because he is pressuring me to publicize an encounter that I had with one of my students today, so……here ‘goes.

I retrieved my 2nd grader for a tutoring session this morning and while she had messy hair and was drowning in an oversized sweater, I noticed she was being particularly antsy as well. Though when she was struggling to turn the pages of “Poggy the Frog Eats Flies,” by licking her fingertips and pinching the page corners in vain, I was particularly surprised when she threw the book down on the table and exclaimed,

“Who makes these things anyway??”

That sentence was like a burst of heat to the ice of my customer-service hardened heart and in addition made me yearn for  a simpler time when maybe you didn’t graduate college and suddenly have no idea what you want to do or be or where you want to live and what you’re supposed to think about life. But at the end of the day my adorable, hilarious, little 2nd grader forgets her frustration and gets on the number 308 bus home and I know at least I’ve married the perfect man and might make some kids’ lives a little bit better, at least from 8:00-2:30 p.m. so, win…….and win.

**Back.

Wave at me.

For all of my friends who asked me what Twitter was 6 months ago and to all of the people who have whispered to me “What’s Twitter?” in the last 3 months, I found a 2 minute video explaining what Google Wave is, or at least what 3.5% of it is.  Yes, I have actually had several people ask me what Twitter was in low conspiratorial tones as if they were embarrassed to be outside of the loop.  I didn’t mind though because frankly it’s nice to be in the know and it is nice to help a friend.  I see this happening in the next six months with Google Wave so I’m here to head that off.

~Forth

Swimming Pool.

I am about 40% happier in life right now. Why? Well because I don’t JUST serve coffee to douchebags anymore. Nope. I can proudly arch my thumb back towards my chest and say, “I teach little kids how to read.” It’s something worthwhile, fun, and makes me NOT want to jab a pencil through my eyeballs.

I now spend 20 hours a week as a tutor in the Americorps/Spark Literacy program through the Boys & Girls Clubs. Could any of you imagine me enjoying spending time with 7 & 8 year-olds? No. Neither could I….trust me. But after only a few meetings, the kids are excited to see me and eager to put forth their best effort during our half hour sessions. (Though probably just because I gave them fruit snacks and stickers.) It pays meagerly since it is technically a volunteer job with a “living stipend,” so I have to remain at my coffee shop job 2-3 times a week, but things have improved nonetheless.

Working with a largely Spanish-speaking underpriveliged public school population versus the uppity ignoramuses of the North Shore seems to balance my rage and I am now considerably more relaxed at the cafe (though Cup of Angst lives on!). Even better, the kids are adorable, and they make me laugh and smile so much that the inner core of my being is beginning to soften just a little bit. I mean, when you listen to a 2nd grader earnestly guess “swimming pool” while trying to read the word “easy” and interpret the word “lazy” to be “reindeer,” you can’t help but love them just a little bit…..especially when this little girl has a pet named Chopper the Wonder Dog. And when my 3rd grader who I’m certain is going to grow up to look just like Lucien from Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain does a ninja kick in the air and screams “YES!” every time he sees me, well…..that feels good.

But now that I dress like a real-adult human, have a real-adult job (sort of), and write lesson plans like a real-adult teacher, I really want a real-adult car instead of this.

But oh well. Whatever. Here’s our kitty being all, “Oh, when I’m NOT burying myself in Forth’s scrotum or sleeping in his underwear, I’m being a fatty with my chew toy.”

And then abstractly saying “OMG WTF.”:

**Back.