The Grump

Earlier tonight I was in the worst mood. I don't think I've been in this bad a mood in a pretty long time. My friend had emailed me about getting dinner, and though I couldn't make it anyway, I actually did not call him back because I thought the first thing I would say was, "I'm the grumpiest I've been in such a long time, I don't want to spend time with me," and you know what? It would have been true.

I didn't feel like doing much besides just laying around, but I couldn't because I had made plans to go to the gym at 7 pm, not a good move. I should know better, but whatever, I make mistakes. (Really?! Do I?!?) So I get myself looking slightly better than death, which involves wearing a baseball hat. I go to open the door and get outside, and my hat literally flies right off my head. It fell on the floor of Warren, which would have been nasty enough, but then I couldn't find it so I stepped on it a few times with my muddy sneaker, just to pack the dirt right in there. I think I actually growled. I really might have, I was so frustrated with everything. Then I got my bag stuck on the door handle. Yeah. So the poor old guy trying to come in to Warren through my door had to wait for me to have my spasm and then the poor guy actually held the door for me, like I was some invalid. Which, by the way, at that point? I probably looked the part.

So then, I was thinking, hmm, maybe I should cut my losses right now and take the T, because I'm feeling like death and I almost always get hit by a car and today might be the day when I have to remove the almost from that little phrase. And that's when I think that I have my first stroke of good luck of the night, when the T magically is coming right towards the T stop. And then I meet the morons who are my fellow T passengers. These two guys are basically screaming the merits of (no joke) tuna fish vs. salmon. They're seriously having this debate. And then the woman sitting in the seat I'm standing next to, well, she decides to basically sit in the aisle and her bag keeps hitting me over and over again until it takes every inch of me not to slap it right back at her. See, here's the thing: normal day? This stuff doesn't get to me. (Okay, so that's a slight lie. But it doesn't get to me in the same "I'm going to explode right now" way.) Thank god my stop came quickly, and I was on my way out of the T when some big stupid girl tried to push right past me ON to the T. I seriously felt my head about to explode. I felt like I was literally going to combust, right there on the T steps. Then let's see how fast this stupid freak gets to her next appointment. AND! She was carrying with her a white cane, so I thought she was blind. And that's the only thing that made me not glare at her (for real - no pun intended. I've glared at blind people before. Umm... yeah, that sounded WAAAAY worse than I had thought.). Well well well, I turn back around, and guess what? She's not blind! It's some stupid prop. Here's my issue: I bet that girl USED that cane because she KNEW that people would think she's blind so she would get away with everything. She thought she was a real Jamie Foxx (tough sell on the joke, I know, I know). I think that officially makes her, like, a horrible person.

This is all conjecture, though, which could make ME the horrible person. Who knows. I was too grumpy to figure it out.

That's another thing. I want a Grumpy dwarf stuffed animal. I'm set on it. When I go to Disney World sometime, whenever I actually get there, I'm buying myself a Grumpy one. I bet not that many people buy him, and plus, at Disney? Can you see the irony in getting a Grumpy guy in the happiest place in the world? I love it. Plus, the word grumpy is ridiculously good, and being grumpy might be a little less painful if you could look at some ugly dwarf whose NAME was actually Grumpy. I'm not sure why this makes me so happy, but maybe Walt really knew what he was doing. Anyway, I might name my dog Grumpy.

And here's possibly the saddest thing of the day: you know what cured me of my grumpy day? At the gym, the movie they were playing was "First Daughter," the funniest unintentionally funny movie EVER. Right off the charts. It was at the end, when the First Family is at some Christmas ball, and Katie Holmes is wearing a low-cut dress. Her dad, the PRESIDENT, definitely takes a good look at her chest before telling her, "Well, honey, we're proud of you." In addition, Katie Holmes - playing an 18 year old - gives her father wicked profound advice, saying, "Well, I think there's nothing more important than taking care of home." Cue the barf music. Puh-leaze. But, I have to love the end when Katie Holmes leaves the White House lawn (what? no security suddenly?) in this little bug car like she's going to drive all the way to her freaking college, right in her ball gown. No license. No bag. Nothing. Loooove it.

You know the only bad thing about watching "First Daughter" at the gym? You're watching it with headphones, and there are like three other screens that everyone might be watching. So it's tough to laugh or smirk when you're running on a treadmill because you might look like you're dying or something, so you can't do that because trainers will come over and ask if you're okay and you have to just say that you're laughing at Katie Holmes on First Daughter, and they don't really get it unless they stick around to hear the whole explanation or unless they've seen the whole movie - both unlikely. So that's just a bad thing that might happen to you. You might also get some pretty weird looks from the person next to you. Also possible.

Anyhow. That was my grumpy experience. I wasn't so grumpy when I left the gym, which is either because of endorphins or because I was too exhausted. I'm going with the latter, because I'm not some super-gym freak. And trust me, I see a lot of them. But here's the thing: right when I was back home, as I was coming in, what do I do? I step in a giant puddle, get all frustrated at soaking my sneakers, and I drop my dinner sandwich-wrap, in a paper bag, right in the puddle. The truth is, it didn't taste bad because I picked it up within like 15 seconds of dropping and D'Angelos puts some aluminum stuff wrapped around it. I never thought I'd say it, but those people are geniuses. They saved my day. And possibly my life. And possibly the lives of anyone around me, who would have been subject to the explosion when I spontaneously combusted right there.

Not Much To Tell

Rain brings out all the morons.

People should have to apply for a license to carry an umbrella. They would need to pass a test, a walking test, with some simulated rain and stuff like they have on TV and in the movies. They could pay people to act like regular pedestrians: some with umbrellas, some without. How do they deal with this traffic? How about actual cars? You would be shocked at how many people think that an umbrella will save them if a car smashes right into them. It's like they think that because they can't see the car through the umbrella, it can't hit them. This flawed logic also leads to umbrella-carriers to believe that they are the only people on the street. It doesn't matter that they have a golf umbrella; they still need that four inches under the building awning. The person with just a sweatshirt hood? Nah. They can take the rain beating down on them. You have to love people like this. My personal favorite, though, is definitely when you are walking down the street and some jerk with an umbrella isn't even watching where they're going so they walk right into you and almost kill you with their stupid spokey umbrella. Complete morons.

The other morons on rainy days are the freaks who wear flip flops and a t shirt, as if in defiance of the rain gods or whatever. Seriously, every time it rains, there's somebody like this walking down the street. There are usually two types of these people: one type who seems to be enjoying the drenching, and the other type who is walking down the street, hands shoved in his pockets, frowning like this is the most annoying thing ever. I get a big kick out of that. I'm not sure that I think they should have known or anything, but it still makes me think, "Wow, what a moron." And you know what my next thought is? "Not surprising... seeing as it's RAINING out." I swear. It's like they're drawn to it.

And get this. I'm watching Oprah, and Oprah just asked Priscilla Presley, "Was it your idea to turn Graceland into Graceland? Because Graceland IS the number ONE tourist attraction in Memphis." Umm, Op? Memphis isn't that hot. It's what, either go to see where Elvis lived or check out the world's largest trailer park? Not a tough call. Chill on the Graceland garbage.

Anatomy of a Family

I came up with this idea a few weeks ago: the story of a family is in its details. I kept coming back to that sentence. The story of a family - of mine, at least - is in its details. I like to think that the details become memories of the senses, flashing really clearly for just a second. The tough thing is, even though they're brief, they persist; and in every effort not to remember, they refuse to let you forget. I sometimes think that somewhere in me, they settle and become an inseparable part of my breathing. With a steady in and out, in and out, they hit each heartbeat. That's how I picture it, anyhow. And to me, in the end, it's the details that count and pound the most. It's been over a year since my parents split up, and even though everyone says it gets easier, I'm not sure it does. In some ways, I think you just adjust to the new reality. I really don't know about any of it, though. The one thing I know for sure is that no matter how much you adjust, the details of the old family stay behind.

My father had the same routine every night. When he came home from work, he placed his briefcase at the base of the stairs, so that it leaned lazily on its side, and he hung his coat in the hall closet. In the winter, he smelled like the cold air, and some nights, he smelled faintly of wine if he had met with clients or friends before coming home. He would always come into the family room and ask my sister, brother, and me if we had noticed his arrival. “I work all day,” he would say, “and I come home, and nobody cares? Nobody wants to say hello to their father?”

“Hi, Dad,” we would give in. But the truth is, I’m not sure any of us felt an obligation to greet him. We took his arrival for granted, because we always expected him to come home.

And if I'm honest, it is only months after his hangers remain bare in the hall closet that I notice the empty space next to the stairs where his briefcase once leaned. Some moments, I can picture my father coming into the house, and I can hear his voice and smell his coat, even sense the soft touch of his briefcase to the floor. I know the shape and worn patches of his briefcase by heart, just like the rest of his evening routine. And the thing that kills me is that each time I think about it, it gets clearer for me, even though everything tells me that it should be fading into the new reality.

The other thing I keep coming back to is our kitchen table, which was pretty much brand-new when my father left. For years, we had a large white oval table in our kitchen, with soft leather chairs on wheels. The chairs were a real hazard. If someone leaned too far back, the chair would flip right over. If someone leaned too far forward, the chair would slide out underneath. My mother hated the kitchen set, and she spent many Saturday afternoons at furniture stores in search of the perfect dining set. My mother wanted a new table because the one we had, with its stark white color, showed every scratch and errant homework scribble. Though she scrubbed it religiously, the faint marks remained like the proud proof of our existence.

Finally, one Saturday, my mother found her perfect kitchen set. The table was rectangular, finished in a black wood. I think my father left before we had a Thanksgiving at our new table. And perhaps it was my mother’s new table runner and constant floral arrangement at its center, but my father left before any of us had done any homework at the new table. It had no marks of initiation, and even though it had looked beautiful and regal in the store, in our house, it has always seemed to me a little aloof and out of place. My father’s seat has also remained vacant. It seems as though nobody wants to touch it, because when guests come for dinner, they avoid sitting there. Whether conscious or not, nobody sets a place at the head of the table. It's been pretty much unspoken among us, like a secret pact, or perhaps a hope that if we leave the memory unsaid, it will make us less likely to remember. I'm not sure.

It’s not funny, but perhaps ironic, that my mother spent years searching for the perfect kitchen table for our family to have family dinners at, and when she finally found it, bought it, and brought it home, we now rarely eat there. It is like a prize piece in a museum: we admire it, but our admiration is from afar; there is no connection, and part of me suspects that she would return the table in a heartbeat if her old table brought back her old family. I think I would.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mope around all the time. And the truth is, I don't really think about the big picture of it all. People tell me all the time that a change in your family structure should be treated like a death, and that always makes me wonder if I should be approaching my life like a mourner and I try out the stages: denial, anger, sadness, acceptance. But when I try it out, it doesn't really fit right, and I'm not sure if it's because I'm too stubborn to just assign myself a phase, or whether these people are just really messed up in their logic. I think it's a pretty depressing way to view it all, but sometimes, I can't help but think my reluctance might be because I won't accept the reality of it all, that I rely too much on those moments of memory, and that somewhere, I'm hoping for some ideal to come through and save everything and put it all back together. And then in the end, I always come back to the most simple but in some ways, most troubling, answer: I just don't know.

A year ago, my friend gave me this grainy picture of my family. I'm pretty certain it's the last family picture we have. It's a pretty pathetically bad picture, if I'm honest. There's someone else taking a picture in the picture, and the thing's completely off-kilter, and even though it's candid, it's not candid in any artsy-way. My point is, it's not a great moment or anything, but still, it's a moment just the same. And it's not that I look at the picture every second or that I keep it in some special place and make a huge deal of it - I don't - but every once in a while, I admit that I look at it and I can't help it, I see the whole life of my family right in it. In a way, that stupid picture is really representative of us. I'm not sure if I say that because it's true or if it's just something tangible I can accept, but it is what it is, and if that's all I can come up with, I'll have to take it.

The Braces Clusterfuck

Tonight I went to a concert with about 1000 sixteen year old girls and 200 of their fathers. Don't ask. It wasn't on purpose, and the concert itself turned out fine, but I have the following observations about concert behavior:

First, I don't like wicked crowded places. And second, I really don't like wicked crowded places when the music isn't THAT great. Basically, if I'm going to be eating someone's hair, I would like to at least be enjoying the music that is causing the whole clusterfuck. And that word, ps, is the only one appropriate for what was happening tonight: a total clusterfuck. With braces.

I once went to an NSYNC concert (again, don't ask) and the girls there were about 8, so it was more manageable. I think it's a good rule to avoid any venue where there's more than a good chance that you're going to run into more than 50 people with braces. It's the braces bracket - between like 12 and 17 - that you want to shoot yourself. Or, really, them. But anyhow, at the NSYNC concert, I made friends with the little kids in front of me who were talking about how they loved Justin Timberlake. There was one poor girl, so misguided, that she liked Joey Fatone the best. So sad. But the point is, they were screaming and all, but it was half-cute because they were like, up to my waist and didn't have braces. It's a whole different story when they're about eight years older, and they think that some guy on a WB show is the hottest guy ever, and they think that they're the coolest people ever, and they have braces. Plus, they didn't even get the "Boy Meets World" joke when the kid who played Minkus came on stage. That was really depressing. I felt pretty old to be, like, the only person laughing, when I really shouldn't have been. Oh, and ultra-not-cool, one girl was putting in her rubber bands in her mouth as she was watching the concert because she had opened her mouth sooo wide to scream that it had popped, and so she had to replace it. She was actually carrying a Braces Repair Kit in her sequined bag. Huge sign of trouble for me.

Aside from the braces-wearing-crowd were about 200 of their parents, plus about 50 random people, like me and my friend, who were duped into believing that Gavin DeGraw would be performing. I now officially hate the WB, by the way. Anyway, this group brought some entertainment with them. The best parent scenario happened right next to me, where there were these two dads. One of them was a total DILF. I mean, seriously, the guy was hot. A lot of others noticed it, and I'm pretty certain a few minors noticed it as well, but because he was, oh, about 40, wearing a wedding ring, and there with his daughter and her friends and another dad-chaperone, nobody was really doing anything about it besides making the obligatory, "Total DILF" acknolwedgement to their friend. Well, everyone, that is, except for this one weirdo (approximate age: 21) who for about 30 minutes, totally entertained me with the most awkward moves ever. EVER. It took me a few minutes to realize that this girl wasn't just being friendly, but that she was actually hoping that this guy would be like, "hey, you wanna see my minivan?" and when I realized that, the concert's enjoyment level skyrocketed. In addition to watching their completely stilted interaction, it was also enjoyable to watch the other dad, considerably less of a DILF, be the awkward third-wheel. And best of all, at the end of the concert, the girl gave this send off, in her attempt to bond with his daughter (score points with the family!): "Tell your daughter she's got a wicked cool dad." Wink. Hotttt.

Equally entertaining was this group of two girls and two guys who met in front of us, danced in front of us, made out in front of us, and declared their love for each other (no, seriously) in front of us. They were, oh, about 16, and apparently had found their soulmates at a WB concert. (Can you SEE this as a most memorable moment in a future yearbook?) "I can't believe I met you!" said one of the girls. "I can't believe I met YOU!" said the guy in return. "I totally have to thank my dad for driving us in," said the other girl. "Me too!" said the other guy. "I love your braces," said one guy. "I love yours too," said the girl. (Okay, so that part of the exchange didn't happen. But it COULD have, which is my point.) "You think we'll stay together?" asked the first girl. "I'm committed," said the other guy. (Should be true.) Oh I love teenage love. So beautiful. (If I could, I would put a big old braces-smiley right here. Really, I should email AIM and tell them to add some braces to that fat grin of theirs.)

Considerably less enjoyable was the signature concert move, which was made multiple times tonight, when couples make out to some random song that they have never heard but just becuase it happens to be a slow one, must have some sort of romantic undertone and therefore is a suitable declaration of their love for each other. This move usually entails the girl leaning back against her boyfriend, and the boyfriend starting to sing the chorus in her ear. Totally nauseating. I'm not just saying that. It's just ridiculous, especially when the song lyrics go, "And I told you this was the end/Please believe me that I'm done/I can't be with anyone." I love watching couples dance to that like it's Endless Love. (Random sidenote: WTF is with people choosing "My Heart Will Go On" and "With OR Without You" as their wedding song? The world is really populated with morons.)

And completely unacceptable: this girl in braces (of course) turns around halfway through the concert and goes, "Hey, can you buy me a drink?" When I looked at her like she was from outerspace, or at least the suburbs, she didn't even blink. So I had to actually tell her no. Sure, kiddo. Nobody in braces should be drinking an alcoholic beverage. Seriously, can you imagine someone with a metal-mouth ordering Merlot? Totally ridiculous. So if you're 15, and you're asking for a drink, at least hide your braces. Good god. (I just realized braces are nothing compared to headgear. My friend Liz won the award for best comment of sophomore year: "I wish someone on our floor had headgear." We spent about 15 minutes selling our souls to the Devil and discussing why it would be so much fun.) Not that I would have bought her a drink if she didn't have braces, but don't you think the braces should be a pretty obvious sign to her that her request is borderline insane? I think so.

One last thing: the clothes that 15 year olds wear are ridiculous. I sound like I'm eighty, but I don't even care. As always, it all goes back to the braces: if you're wearing braces, don't wear pointy-toed high heeled shoes that you're wobbling in. Don't wear lingerie tops if you're going to the orthodontist. I wonder, I really do wonder, how these girls can think that this is a hot look, when the smile in the mirror and see chunks of metal shining back at them? Isn't that a hint - I'm not that cool? I mean, I think that every day of my life, and I don't even have braces.

In the end, maybe braces are good for teenagers to have. Most of the time, they think they are the coolest people ever, and so maybe once in a while, if they get one of those wires loose and have it constantly poking them in the side of the mouth, they'll be reminded of their dorkiness. Or if they get food stuck in their wires, they'll realize they aren't as smooth as they think. Or whenever their orthodontist asks them if they want to color-code them for Easter (umm, yes, as kids, we actually had black-and-orange braces for Halloween. How cool can you REALLY be?), they can be humbled - if even momentarily. Plus, it always puts the whole thing in perspective when I see some girl completely bitch out a bouncer for not letting her order a drink when she turns around and shouts at her friend that the bouncer is a total "lame ass motherfucker" and I see metal glaring back at her audience.

Someone should give an award to orthodontists for this stuff. If my kid ever gives me trouble and starts acting like he's too cool for school, I'm taking him right down to the orthodontist's office and making him get headgear. Even if he doesn't need it. I'll make him walk around for a day or two (well, I probably won't have the heart to do that. Maybe like ten minutes) and he'll see how cool he really is. That has to be, like, the best punishment ever.

These ideas can only come from experiences like tonight's. I think they should rename the tour. Forget One Tree Hill. The show isn't that great, and the music isn't either. They should bill it for what it is: a complete braces clusterfuck, in all its glory. Even I might buy a ticket for that.

Bracket Busted

It's official. I know it was official in the last update, with Wake Forest, but I had a bit of hope, because I still had some semblance of a put-together bracket. If your final two are still there (Oklahoma State and UConn), then you're okay. I came back to my room this afternoon ready to check the NC State-UConn final score to see that at least something was right in the basketball world. UConn would obviously advance to the Sweet 16, right? Right, like everything else that has gone as it is supposed to in my bracket this year. (Read: nothing).

NC STATE! NC FREAKING STATE! ACC! THE WOLFPACK?!?!?! THE WOLFPACK?!?!?!

I love how this crap happens. The year after UConn won the championship last time, that's 2000, the team didn't make it to the Sweet 16 either. It's funny, well, actually, no, it's not very funny to me right now, but it's ironic or weird that while I was filling out my bracket that I stopped on that fact. I remember not having a great feeling about UConn, but out of loyalty or hope or some messed up combination of the two, I went with them anyway. I actually remembered reading the article in the New York Times about how the Huskies "off-balance, lose crown". I actually pictured that image of Kevin Freeman and Jake Voskuhl, the two returning seniors, standing on the sidelines with towels over their heads in failure. I had that image. And yet, I went with them anyway. Way to go. Way to freakin go.

The thing is, everyone tells me that I'm nuts to bet on UConn. Last year, people made fun of my pick, and I won huuuuge because of it. I was the only one who had them beating Duke. Two years ago, people told me not to go with UConn very far, but I gave them at least some credit (I wasn't moronic enough to put them all the way) and again, I won big. I figured third year in a row, I would start to get some credibility. And amazingly, I did. Other people started to put UConn in their brackets - so many, in fact, that I also questioned whether it made sense financially to be betting on something that so many others were backing - but I went with them anyway. Even my partner in one of my brackets gave me the go-ahead without any fight. A huge huge win for me.

Now this. It's like some little kid at the big kid's table, and the kid wins a few hands in a game, so the adults look around and think it's luck. And then the kid still wins, so they start to give her some credit. Maybe she's got something. Then she makes a horrible play, loses it all, and they go back to saying, "See? It was all luck." That's painting a pretty sorry picture, and I don't believe it's that bad, but it's sort of in the vicinity. Nobody's going to let me put UConn as winning it all anymore without having to hear about this debacle.

And you know the worst part? I'm going to have to seriously stop putting my faith in UConn. I find it funny - and this I truly do find funny, albeit bitterly funny - that prior to 2004, I would say, "Well, at least I'm a UConn fan. If the Sox can't win, at least UConn can." That's how a Connecticut fan thinks. It's sick, but it's how it goes. Then the Red Sox won, and they turned the whole sports world upside down for me. Don't get me wrong - I'll take the new situation ANY DAY. ANY DAY. Over the break, when I watched UConn and they lost, I played the Red Sox video to cheer myself up. Guess what I'm watching tonight?

This is how it goes. It used to be that when the Red Sox season ended, I would only have to wait a few weeks for UConn to begin. Now it's the end for Jim Calhoun and the guys (I'm sorry, I know I should be politically correct, but I really really don't care much if the UConn women win. I can't even name a player on their team really). And the good news?

Two weeks from tonight, the Red Sox play their first game of the season at Yankee Stadium.

And god help me, I'm burning my bracket.

I'm Done

Wake Forest was picked off yesterday.

Anybody got a fork?

Serious March Madness

Texas Tech took down Gonzaga today in the tournament. People ask me why I don't bet anything on baseball, and I tell them because I'm already too involved in watching the sport to take on any more of an interest. I'll spontaneously combust if I have money riding on any games, in addition to my life's general happiness. This is what March Madness does to you, though. See, I don't even care about Gonzaga until this one weekend, and then suddenly, if they lose, I feel like my world is a little darker.../poorer. Texas Tech. Good god. Kansas is done. I already wrote about UVM sending Syracuse... 15 minutes down the road? (The tournament was held at Syracuse). It's supposed to be a fun weekend. Take a good look, because this is exactly how gambling can ruin a person. Gambling can make an entirely good thing - like a weekend full of fun college basketball games - and turn it into a stress-inducing experience.

I can only say that I finally understand why it's called March Madness. You go insane. It is entirely credible that you have a horrible weekend because your brackets are completely busted. Take me, for example. Friday afternoon, I was full of hope with a solid bracket in hand. I had a legitimate chance of winning a ... lot of money. Six hours later, I'm done. It's almost like bipolar manic-depression. You know what the worst part might be? You start to not care as much about your team winning. When UConn barely won last night, I freaked out a little. And not just because I didn't want their season to end. It was also because I had them winning the whole thing, and I need them to at least hang on to the Final Four for any shot of winning. Little did I know that twenty hours later, it wouldn't even matter, because of stupid stupid Gonzaga. What a stupid name. I should know better. From now on, I'm filling out these brackets like normal girls: which names sound cute, which players are hot, and which teams have good mascots. Gonzaga wouldn't stand a chance.

This is it, though, this is why I don't bet on baseball. Last October, I just didn't want the Red Sox season to end. That was enough for me to be certifiably insane. I didn't need the extra stress of having actual money on anything. My life was practically on the line. Then again, the way my stress level has been increasing exponentionally with each upset (which, let's face it, would be enjoyable if I didn't have any cash on anything - another lesson learned), I could easily explode if Oklahoma State has a bad game.

I can't believe this. Day two into the tournament, and my elite eight is shot. My final four is down to only a final three. The scorers of the brackets must be laughing their asses off, thinking how happy they are that they have my... entry fee. Perhaps the saddest part of this is that somebody could see me muttering to myself about this stuff and send me away to some sanitorium, and nobody would question it. March Madness. It's not just a basketball tournament. It's a disease. I swear, I'm catatonic.

While You Were Out To Lunch...

Some memos that would be helpful for the NCAA Tourney:

To: Syracuse Men's Basketball Team
From: Me

Message: Syracuse, I hate you. I hated you before I bet on you to win against UVM, but now I hate you even more because you completely messed up my NCAA bracket. Also, I don't like the colors orange and navy blue together, either. And your coach looks like a tool.

To: University of Vermont Men's Basketball Team
From: Me

Message: I should have bet on you. The reason I didn't is because I don't like your middle-aged fans who trek all the way around New England to cheer on an America East team that never has a chance of winning a game in the NCAA tournament. Now that argument's shot to shit. Still, while I have your attention, enjoy Coppenrath now, because I don't think your team will ever have a guy as good as he is on your team. He should run for mayor. Hold please.

To: Taylor Coppenrath
From: Me

Message: Hey Taylor, you rule. I'd like to propose some business ideas, because I basically think you could run Vermont if you wanted, and I like money. I mean, I have really good innovative ideas for you. How does Coppenrath, Vermont sound? How about Elana Coppenrath? Give me a call back.

To; Duke Men's Basketball Team
From: Me

Remember 1999? 2004?

To: UConn Men's Basketball Team
From: Me

Don't do this to me.

Random End of the Week Notes

I was sitting in the lunch room the other day and my buddy Joe was eating across from me. He was talking seriously about how he loves to eat oranges because of the smell they leave behind on your hands. Now, if you know me well, you know that I absolutely hate that smell and though I do like oranges, I hardly ever eat them just to avoid having the smell left on my hands. So I tell Joe that, and he's like, "really?" and as I'm saying yes, he gets an especially juicy bit stripped away and... bam! a whole bunch of it sprays all over my hand. Yeah, just like that. It was one of those days.

I don't have good luck with librarians, which makes me approach every librarian a little skeptically. Like, I am always shocked when they are just these nice ladies. I think it goes back to my elementary school librarian. This lady was a total beast. She was older than the Native American painted on the front of the school, probably, and she would always yell in this gravely voice when you came in, "Where's your book? Your book's overdue," as though that was going to be your pink slip to hell. Imagine being a fourth-grader just trying to read up on dinosaurs or whatever, and you've got this geriatric ogre to deal with. And don't even think anybody else was much help. The head librarian was deaf, which she promoted like some daily deaf awareness parade of something, so she always just shook her head and said she couldn't hear what was going on. Probably how she hired this cackling nutjob. Anyway, I heard that this woman died a few years back. I hope she took all her stupid books with her.

She was probably a nice lady outside of school, but I can't picture it. Even later on, in high school, I didn't have good librarians. They were always telling everyone to shut up and sit down even if you already were doing both. Once, they told me I owed $75.00 on overdue books, even though I found the books and showed them that I had never taken them out. See, the myth is that people think librarians have to be smart. The truth is, they just have to be miserable people. I think that must be a required course: How To Be A Miserable Mean Spirited Dictator. Seriously, all the librarians I've had could've taught that course.

I was just thinking that I didn't have any male librarians, and how only a total mess-up would be a male librarian. Then I remembered that my old English teacher became a librarian. This doesn't surprise me, and even supports my case further. The guy was a total freak. I had him in middle school, and once these three guys were all comparing... sizes, and he muttered under his breath, "THAT award would go to me," which made all of us want to puke. He also told us that the lead in Kenneth Branaugh's "Much Ado About Nothing," was the hottest actress ever. As one of my classmates tactfully pointed out (this guy had serious mental issues - he was the kid who did the science experiment in 10th grade about the components of human gas and made the entire class smell like death), "Hey, Mister, how come whenever Hero comes on the screen you get all red in the face and leave for a few minutes?" I'm telling you if this was happening now, he probably would be fired or something. But instead he's in the library. Makes total sense to me.

This kid in my class looks like a total toad and is a self-important arrogant jerk. Normally I would say that I want to punch him in the face, but the thought of having to have any contact with him whatsoever makes me want to be physically sick. Ugh gross. I'm seriously grossing myself out just thinking about his face. Completely disgusting, and yet he thinks he is the single greatest gift to humanity. Let me tell you, if he's a gift, I want to know what we all did wrong.

The Inferno

I admit that I'm a fan of MTV's Real World/Road Rules challenges, like "The Inferno II". I almost want to set up a sort of bracket like the NCAAs, so that you can predict who will win out in the end and win money on it, but nobody would go in on it with me. But last night, it crossed the line.

Quick premise: one member from each team has to go into this one-on-one battle to see who gets to stay in the competition and who has to be kicked off each week. To make a long story short (so unlike me!), last night, the guy who was supposed to go into the inferno (the one-on-one challenge) for one team got the lifesaver, so he had to have someone else from his team go. So this guy, who's ultra religious and friends with whacko Julie (the idiot Mormon who was racist, then blonde, then somebody who went to cut the safety cord on an opponent's skydiving-type equipment... nice touch, Jules), Jon, he volunteers to sacrifice himself. (Get the meaning there?) So anyhow, he goes into the inferno and loses and goes home. And what happens?

Julie cries. She has a two-minute wail session in front of the cameras, saying that the rest of her team is a bunch of losers who have no idea about the good in life, and they will never understand that his sacrifice "meant so much more than just the inferno." Yeah. And she's dead serious. Like, she truly believes that this guy has made some huge sacrifice for the greater good and that he sacrificed himself so that her entire team can be... what? saved? Who knows. The point is, she's a moron. Seriously, Julie. It doesn't work like that. See, you're on a REALITY TELEVISION SHOW. Jesus? He wasn't. Also, Julie, the set with all the fire and dirt? MTV paid someone a few thousand bucks for it. You're not really in danger of going to hell when you're watching the inferno battle. Nobody's soul is up for grabs. Their self-respect, yes. Soul? No. I'm not sure that she gets that walking on stilts and juicing grapefruits in your mouth isn't really the type of trials that Christ endured - and I'm not even Christian, and I get that. The thing with Julie is, she went to this Mormon university in Utah, which got pretty upset at her when she lived in a house with guys when she was first on the Real World (with UNBELIEVABLY hot guy Jamie) and they kicked her out for a semester. I never got that, because that was the best publicity for the school ever. Still, she got the boot. Then she went back, and if you ask me, she's been embarrassing the place ever since. How would you like it if your school boasted its most famous graduate was Julie, the girl on the Real World, who can't get a steady job and who has to go on these ridiculous missions every other month to pay her bills and give her self worth? And when she's in danger of losing, she tries to undo her opponent's safety harness! Oh, and, she thinks Jesus is this Southern country-singer wannabe who wears a cowboy hat and who has to endure a chicken fight-to-the-reality-show-death. Nice job, BYU. Great graduate.

Also, when Jon left, one of his teammates said, "Pray for us, Jon." Pray for you for what? I would hope for them to get real jobs so they can stop parading themselves around on nice islands and having cat fights... but... you know, no, I like the show too much. So I hope they weren't praying for that. And I don't think I have to worry, because I bet they were just praying for them to do well in a competition. That's not narcissistic or anything. Soldiers in Iraq? People with terminal illness? Those tsunami victims? Your family? Nah. Pray for them, Jon, so that they can win an inferno. After all, according to Julie, you ARE Jesus! These people absolutely kill me.

And last, if you haven't watched it, you should. Just to see Mike, who's nicknamed himself "The Miz," (Seriously, can these people get funnier?), talk about going into the inferno and kicking poor Dan's ass. Seriously. This Dan guy goes out there and is like, "yeah, I guess I can go after Mike. It's a worthy fight." And Mike? I mean, The Miz? He starts screaming into the camera, "Dan! Do you KNOW who I am? Do you KNOW how many people I've sent home?!!" And he just goes nuts.

It's the best half hour on tv. Next week, Robin does a cheer that says that Tonya is a slut and then Tonya throws someone's clothes in the pool. Cannot wait.

(Mondays, 10 PM, MTV. Check it out.)

Killing Time

My friend Joe and I drive to and from Dedham every day, and every day, some driver, on some part of the road, cuts us off. It drives Joe nuts. He gets the best road rage I've ever seen. What he does is, he rolls down his window and shouts into the air, "Do you think you're better than me?! Huh!! Do you think you're better than me because you drive a MERCEDES?!" He gets a big kick out of Mercedes drivers because he thinks they all think his Chevy Blazer is trash. The truth is though, Joe yells at anybody who cuts him off. "Do you think you're better than me because you have a Toole?!" Or he'll just yell out, "What the hell, subaru?!" Anyhow. If I get road rage someday, I hope to have it like Joe. Because right now, I only sort of mutter to myself, like, "Oh, okay, don't worry, you can have both lanes." But Joe? Joe takes it to a whole new level. He takes it personally that someone cut him off. I love it.

It reminds me of the time I was two years old. My folks told me this story. Apparently my mom and dad were driving along and someone cut them off. And without any prompting from them (supposedly), I said from my car seat in the back, "Jerk." Yeah, I guess at two years old my personality was pretty much in place. I must've been the most fun kid EVER.

Additionally, when I was four years old, I yelled at my dad. My dad loves to tell this story. We rented a beach house in Rhode Island when I was little, and my aunt and uncle had a house about thirty minutes away (so the opposite end of the state, basically). One night, my mom went there early and my dad was supposed to come with our bathing suits so I could go in the kid pool or whatever. He had a bag of garbage in one hand and the bag of clothes in the other. Yeah, you can see where this is going. So my father throws away the suits and brings the garbage. We drive all the way to the beach house, and my dad gets me into my stroller and then he looks down and sees a bag of trash. My father, talking to me like an adult, says, "You're not going to believe this, Elana, but we have to go back. I threw away the bathing suits." And me, at four, well, I turn around to look at him and ask, "Where is your brain?" A real charmer. My dad loves that story. Every time he hears it or tells it, it just about kills him.

So every morning when I get up, I have the distinct thought, "Am I going to make it to Friday?" It's not that I don't like what I'm doing, I do - but it's just that I can't imagine getting up and making it through the day. Some days, I play this game where I try to figure out something that will get me excited enough to get out of my bed. This used to work, back when I was in high school, even. I'd think, "Oh, I'm going to get that grade back," (yeah, I know, I'm a loser) or "Oh, the new episode of the Real World is on tonight" (Again, I know). When I was in third grade, I was supposed to get this Samantha American Girl doll in the mail on a Friday. So I thought that if I got up every morning and did my work right away, the time would go by faster. I was a real smart one, you see. Yeah, well, the time didn't go by much faster. But it still got me up every day because it was one day closer to Samantha. When the doll arrived, I just about flipped out. I took care of her for a good few years, but the problem was with these dolls is that they were no good for playing house. See, you wanted to have like a two year old and a baby. You didn't want to have a nine-year-old that came up to your calf. That didn't look right. But she was too old looking to pretend she was two. So I always had to pretend she was four years old, which was really a compromise with... who? myself? the doll? Jesus. Anyway, to further complicate matters, my brother always was playing too, and as a real live three-year-old or four-year-old, it looked like I had this giant child, a messed up four year old dwarf thing with that aging disease, and an infant. Just the picture I was going for.

Anyhow, back to getting up. My point is, if I have one, that I don't get excited any more. I can't think of anything that is worth pulling myself out of bed before six a.m. Now, before everyone starts freaking out (and by the way, if your friends don't freak out if they think you're depressed, isn't that a bad thing?), it's not that I don't want to get up and go through my day. That's not it at all. This isn't some psychobabble trying to get attention for depression. (By the way, one of my friends once told me that we should stage an intervention for my friend who seemed down for a while. She said because she didn't know a lot of people, we could invite random people to this intervention to make her feel more loved. Oh yeah, genius, just what this girl wants. A room full of strangers telling her she's depressed and needs help, but she doesn't even have enough friends to come to one of these things so we had to get people she didn't know. Great help.) God, I can't stay on track at all today. So the point is, getting up sucks. That's my point. That one, stupid sentence that took me two pargraphs and two completely random stories to get out.

For godsake, shut me up.

Roomus Rules of Talking About Dating

Someday I'm writing the book called, "Roomus Rules," because I like that it can be taken both ways: a list of rules, or saying, "Roomus rules!" like the old 90's definition when "rules" meant "is wicked wicked cool." I've listed enough rules in the past months that it could be the guide to life. Anyway, in this segment of "Roomus Rules," I'm taking on dating - meaning, talking about dating. Nobody ever gives rules about this. They only give rules for how to date, but if you ask me, it's just as difficult for people to understand how to properly discuss their dating without losing their significant other or their friends. Because trust me, if this isn't handled well, you risk losing both.

The Rules:

EVEN BEFORE YOU GO OUT...

Here's a question. How much pre-date talk should your friends have to listen to? My answer? About ten minutes - and that's generous. Until you actually go on the date, there's no need to discuss whether he would want to build the picket fence or just buy it out of the catalog. Besides the "I met this guy, I think he's cute, we're going out," there's little left to say. I don't really want to analyze every word of his two-minute voice mail trying to figure out if "Meet me at 7," means "Meet me at 7," or "I really want to marry you so please meet me at 7," or whether it means, "I hate you but I'm asking you out just for the hell of it so meet me at 7." You think I'm exaggerating, but barely. Here's the thing though: the more you talk about it before the date, the less I'm going to want to hear after the date. See, there's the trick. If you tell me everything, I'll be bored already. (And the truth is, the more you obsess and analyze, the less you'll care to know about him, too, though I'm still trying to get people to believe this.) Also, the more you talk about it, the more I'll think, "Thank God somebody asked her out, because she seems to really need this." You don't want that.

There's a gray area to the first rule, of course, which comes into play when you know the guy ahead of time. If both us know him, and if there's a lot riding on this date (as in, you are good friends, this is your crush since forever) you get a break. So instead of 10 minutes, you get about 15-20.

RULES FOR ONLINE

We'll start with the obvious here: instant messenging is the absolute worst thing to happen to dating. As an extension, it's also the worst thing that has happened to talking about dating. It's because it's so easy to copy and paste every conversation you have with a guy or girl, and so you just keep sending it to your friends so they can decide whether "hi" means "I like you," "I hate you," or, better yet, "I want to go out with you, have you meet my parents, marry you, have children, and pay for your retirement." So as the first rule, keep the IM conversation copying to an absolute minimum. The only thing I really want to read from IM conversations is something so outrageous that you can't believe someone just said that to you (think: "I used to have a crush on my sister, but that passed... so you want to go out Friday?) or something so funny that you had to send it along (think: "I used to have a crush on my sister, but that passed... so you want to go out Friday?). Other than that, chill out on the copy/paste function.

Also, no matter how "cute" you think some conversation is, my guess is that nobody else will think it's cute. Not even if he calls you your secret nickname (snookums sounds cute to.... no one), not even if he tells you he loves you, not even if he confesses that he really had the weird childhood habit of biting his toes (not cute, even fifteen years later).

As for the email, I can't decode email. Neither can you, but you won't believe me. Either way, I don't need to read every email conversation that you have. Here's how to navigate this one: pick and choose. You know how when you go on vacation and come back with about 2000 pictures? Think of this the same way: the truth is, nobody really cares to see every single picture and hear the story behind each one. And nobody likes their friend who makes them sit through a session like that. Choose about five that highlight the trip - one great one, one funny one, one horrible one, and one that you just happen to love for whatever reason. Apply the same to emails, and we're rolling.

And last, and perhaps most important: away messages absolutely count in terms of "talking about dating." If I send you an IM, and I get the away message, "love you baby, good luck on your test," I'm cutting you right off my buddy list. That's it. Same with "Class, lunch, homework, dinner with the best boyfriend ever" or "3 months! love you (insert insane smiley here)" I can't really talk about the profile business, which I think is overdone anyhow, but that's my own choice to check those. But the away messages are communication, so they fall right in this category. So the rule is: away messages aren't the forum for your public displays of affection. And also, it's impossible for every single girl to have the best boyfriend ever. Even in online world. Just to let everyone out there know.

NOW THAT YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND/GIRLFRIEND/DATE/THING?...

First off, for girls, I'm putting an end to the obligatory "the boy" nickname for any guy who she's dating, who's become her boyfriend, who's the guy everyone knows she likes. It's too much. Every time a girl answers her phone, it's suddenly "the boy." If you ask who she's talking about, it's "the boy." Who are you having lunch with? "The boy." Do these girls realize that there is, in fact, more than ONE boy in the world? I would rather hear them say, "a boy," because at least that's grammatically and linguistically correct. Bottom line? The guy has a name. Use it. I don't think you're any cooler for calling him "the boy," and I don't think he's any more or any less yours if you call him "the boy" or use his real name. Seriously. I promise.

Additionally, I don't have to hear about your boyfriend's plans. People have this tendency to take on their boyfriend's or girlfriend's lives as part of their own. I've asked my friend, "Hey, how are you?" and heard, "Oh, Jen's got a huge test tomorrow, so she's really stressed." I can't tell if my friends are deaf, dumb, or as my sister famously replied to that question, "just couldn't hear" me. (Get it?) As an extension of this, if I ask you, "Hey, what are you doing tomorrow night?" The correct answer is, "I'm not sure yet," not "We're not sure yet." Reread that if you need to, it's a big one.

Along the same lines, having a boyfriend/girlfriend/date does not make you incapable of carrying on normal conversations. You can talk about current events, a movie, or heck, even something to do with someone's life other than your own, without having to mention him or her. I love when I'm talking to a friend about the Red Sox, or the weather, or my day, and she responds with, "Yeah, well, I just don't know what I'm going to do about Jason." I'm thinking... Jason Varitek? Is Jason a weather guy? But no, she was just back to thinking about her boyfriend. Complete one-track mind. And it happens to guys too. Once, my friend shut off a television episode with only about three minutes to go because his girlfriend called and suddenly was ready for him to come over. The message sent? You're not important, and she is. Not a good thing.

Here's another big one: unless you are going to break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend, don't tell me how much you hate them or how much they are driving you nuts. This is a little tricky, because obviously it's fine to vent about something that happens, but if you constantly tell me that you are in a fight, or that she's treating you badly, or that he's always bailing on your plans, I'm going to realize that your boyfriend or girlfriend is a loser. And because I've got the objective perspective to see this, and you don't, you're not going to like it when I'm not thrilled for you that she or he has yet again redeemd him or herself. For me, it just means more of the same: complain complain complain happy happy complain happy complain. Sign me up.


THE BREAK UP RULES

When things become messy for you, they become messy for your friends. The problem with a break-up is that I've never seen a clean break. Even if people mutually decide it's been enough for now, one person is always sad and mopey. And if that happens to be you, you are going to feel the need to tell everyone - I mean EVERYONE - how much happier you are without your ex. And no, that's not a typo. The sadder you are, the more intent you are on making sure that everyone knows just how joyous your life is. So here's clue number one: if you really want people to know that you are indeed better off without him, then you should say nothing at all. Going around with puffy red eyes, tissues, and using a sarcastic and bitter tone to tell everyone, "I'm so glad to be rid of that asshole," makes you sound... less than happy.

Also: misery may love company, but company doesn't like misery.

And last, I would really rather not rehash the whole relationship... ten billion times. Every conversation. Every gift. Every phone call, email, IM, look, sigh, moment... god help me. Please. No. More.

SUMMING IT UP

Yeah, I know this probably made me sound bitter. And that's not it. Obviously, hearing about this stuff is part of being good friends, and I get that. Like everyone I know, I want to hear the highlights - a big concert, a great restaurant, a must-see movie, the first time he says "I love you," the first time you realize you love him, the big fights, etc. - but think of those as relationship landmarks. Going back to the travel analogy, if you go on a trip, you wouldn't tell everyone about every stop at the convenience store, every single moment at the beach, or ever restaurant you stopped at. You'd tell them about the best and worst of it. Think of this the same way, and we're in business.

Most of this is sarcastic and extreme, but the truth is, I really am tired of having every single conversation come back to the new guy or girl and what it all means. I would hope that there is more to each of us than just our search for someone else. And while I know it must be tempting to share everything about your beloved with everyone, I know that at some level, we all realize that it's narcissistic to think that we all care so much. It's like dogs in their front yards: they want to go explore the sidewalk, but they know it's forbidden. People have solved that problem. They've installed those electric fences that nobody can see, so that if they go too close, they get a quick shock and they are reminded of their rightful place (on a side note, sometimes I don't trust those fences. I just feel like some dogs will bolt right through them. This has yet to be proven). Similarly, I have considered trying to get a similar system going for these people who can't shut up about their boyfriend or girlfriend. I'd have this remote - tiny enough to be in my pocket - and when I felt they were treading into dangerous territory, I'd just press the button and shhhhock! They'd shut up right away. This is a little bit like my shot-to-the-leg strategy. Apparently, I'm a fan of corporal punishment that does not result in death, but simply pain enough for the person to realize, "Hmm, I shouldn't be like this."

I swear, some of these ideas are solid gold.

The Un-Spring Break

I'm beating people to it. Before I hear all the great stories about Cancun and Miami and some Caribbean Island, I'm going to give the story about my spring break.

Day 1: Saturday, The Take-Off

Saturday is the universal take-off for spring break day, unless you went early on Friday. For me, Saturday consists of getting to an out-of-the-way high school to take the second half of my educator's exam. Sweeet. I love that all of my friends are either: a. on the beach, b. on their way to the beach, or c. back from the beach because they've had all the sun they can take (already). I look at my arm just to make sure that I didn't get any sun from walking around with the glare off the snow. Pasty white, check. So I get to the high school and I realize that I have no idea about the format of my exam. Yeah. I'm not exaggerating. See, the thing is, I passed the first half of the exam - I mean, REALLY passed - so I figured, ehh, I'll get the second. And, when I heard that it was impossible to answer half of the multiple choice questions because they're just so narrow (think "What's the rhyme scheme of most Ancient Egyptian poetry?" which is questioning whether you know hieroglyphics. Answer: Don't know, don't care). So I figured, well, I won't study for it because there's no way to know all of that stuff. I love this approach. I wouldn't suggest it for anyone.

I'll skip the part where I try to leave my cell phone and the person in front of me spends literally ten minutes trying to figure out what the guy means by, "Write a number on the sheet that is a number other than your cell phone number" and get right to where I realize that I am in for a rough afternoon. This happens when I go into the tiny classroom and discover that my assigned seat is right up front. I hate being up front for tests because I like to be in the back where I feel as though the pressure is somehow less. The person next to me has total tool written all over her. She's got about six number two pencils (I have two pencils that say "Boston Red Sox" on them, and I'm not really sure if they're number 2 because they're kind of ghettoish, I think I got them off some weird cart somwhere but I can't remember). Next to her armory of pencils, she's positioned a stop watch. And an inhaler. Now, I have nothing against asthmatics. I think it's a pretty serious condition. Those kids always got to skip running the mile in gym class, which is the only perk I can think of. But why does she need an inhaler while taking a test? Is it really going to be THAT exerting? I thought about maybe she just can't breathe on her own regularly, but then I thought no, she's just a dork like that. She must think that there's a possibility she's going to die in this exam, so she has to do this. I came to this conclusion because she was wearing green pleated pants, like that army green, pulled up so high that I can only say that I think her shirt was yellow. So that's my table partner. Great. I'm not even going to ask her about thumb wars while we're waiting.

Just as I come to that decision about the no-thumb war, I see her pick her nose and politely put it on the side of the table, towards her end thank god. Gross. I bet she's taking the math exam. (hahaha ZING!)

So the test begins, and guess what - she IS taking the math exam. The proctor begins and says, "Okay, so it's two now, so the test ends at six." She looks at me funny and I realize that I probably have this weird look of shock on my face, because I didn't remember that it's supposed to be four hours. That's how unprepared I am. I don't even know how long the test is going to be. I thought I'd be done in about two or three. How long can it take people to answer thirty multiple choice questions and write two essays?

And then when I open the test, I see that it's 100 multiple choice questions and two open-responses. Shit shit shit. I hate multiple choice reading comprehension, and there are about 80 of them on here. I remember having the specific thought that I did not want to take this test at all, but after spending money to sign up, and after trekking out here, I absolutely felt I had to. It was a horrible feeling. I decided to make the best of it, but I learned a few things from this experience:

1. I might have ADD because I kept thinking about anything BUT the test. I actually started thinking about movies like "A Walk to Remember" and had a serious 5 minute debate in my head about whether it was at all realistic that Shane West would fall in love with Mandy Moore. I settled it by saying absolutely not because she wore those jumpers.
2. That Shane West and Mandy Moore, despite their unrealistic love match, had a few good moments in their movie.
3. Mandy Moore's line about "I told you not to fall in love with me!" because she's going to die is actually a pretty funny line.
4. Nobody likes when you laugh outloud during a serious exam.
5. Finishing the test in two hours and twenty five minutes is either serious brilliance or academic suicide. We'll find out in about eight weeks.

Day 2: Sunday, The "I'm Here All Week" Feeling

For most people, this is a good feeling because you think this while looking at some great beach or you say it while watching tv from your nice bed or you are at the San Diego Zoo watching the panda bears. For me, it was, "Shit, I'm Here All Week" Day, because I realized that it would be a little difficult to get from Sunday to next Sunday getting up at 5:45 every morning and getting to school and coming back to just more work, with little distraction. Great.

This day, however, was made better when Dan and I went to Uno's and I guilt tripped him into paying for lunch. Then this odd thing happened where this five year old girl tripped and fell on her face and Dan didn't move one way to help her or anything. He says it was because he didn't want to be seen as a child molester, which makes me think that either society is way out of control with this stuff or I should be concerned about my friend.

Hmm. This is disturbing. I'm skipping to Monday.

Days 3-6: Monday-Thursday "Too Bitter to Think of a Good Title"

I like thinking about how when I'm getting up to go to school, most of my friends are going to bed. It's satisfying.

Also, I had this conversation with the guys who were here to tear up the escalators. Again. They put these brand new things in over the summer, and they've had to do major repairs each break. It's a phenomenal human failure. Anyway, the morning crew has been pretty nice to me. I think they might have taken pity on me when they saw me yelled at (again) by the B&G workers who seem to hate anybody that might have to leave the building and walk on their newly cleaned floors. I love how during breaks they are maniacal about this stuff and then when students return and the floors really DO need to be washed every night, they take it easy. Anyway, these guys were really nice and were talking to me about the escalators. He said, "Wow, I don't know about this, I don't know if they'll be ready by Monday."

"Monday?" I asked. "Try, umm, Sunday at 10 AM, when the building opens."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Umm, no."

"What the fuck? Marty, what the fuck? This girl here says they're reopening the building Sunday."

Marty: Right.

"Oh man, I'm going to be fired. Jesus H. Christ. Shit."

Elevator door opens. I get in. Thank God.


Also, as a quick note, I went to a birthday party and a funeral within 24 hours of each other. Can that count as a cool spring break story? I don't know yet. The birthday party involves $2.50 chicken sandwiches and everyone saying that they want to die because it's so cold out, and then the funeral involves death-defying drives in the Big Dig and someone's last words having to do with defining "snafu". I'll think about it.

Day 7: Friday "Is it Over Already?"

Truth be told, the week really did go by quickly. Here's where the true irony of the week plays out. I have about two minutes to write this all before I become late to meet my friend to go make a complete ass out of myself at some urban rebouding class. Here goes:

I am being observed by my supervising teacher today. I see my coooperating teacher (the "I'm Going to Make Fun of You Forever for being Hit On by a Troll" guy) already talking to my supervising teacher and when I get there, my supervising teacher says to me, "Oh, Mr. W as already said such nice things about you," to which Mr. W says, "Yeah, well, on the days she's sober, she's great." And then he laughs, I laugh, and this woman chuckles.

After the class, I meet with her in the library. She leans over, halfway through our discussion, and says quietly - and completely seriously, looking right in my eyes, "Now, I know that being a senior, you want to have fun your last semester and I know seniors are very involved in the bar scene, but with student teaching, you have to curb your alcohol."

Yeah. She didn't get the joke.

There's about a day break between the line above and all this, and I could add to that. It could be the obligatory "This Guy I Met On Spring Break" story, but the truth is, I don't feel like writing it all down. I will give you the highlight of the story, though, and that should tell you enough about the whole thing: I nailed four beer pong shots in a row.

So that's it. Spring Break 2005 in the books.

The Trip and Fall

I may have alluded to this in the "Top Ten Reasons I'm Going to Hell" entry back in July (a Roomus classic), but I didn't fully explain the story. Because I am in the business of humiliating myself, I figured I'd write out the whole story. In case the Santa Claus - guy on respirator didn't make me a shoe-in for meeting Cerberus himself, I think this one pretty much puts a nail right in the proverbial coffin (no pun intended?). Here goes.

Sophomore year, I took a class in teaching special education. (As a side story, I was once talking to a cute guy after a class one day during the semester I was taking this special ed methods class. He asked me if I had any other classes that day, and I said, "Yeah, special ed." And all of a sudden, his voice changed tone completely to a kindergarten-level, "Ohhhh! Isn't that GREAT... I ADMIRE you SO MUCH for TRYING to MAKE IT." I tried to explain that I wasn't a special ed student - not that there was anything wrong with that - but rather preparing to TEACH the special education children, but it was really for a loss.) So anyhow, I was in this class. It was a pretty crazy class. Actually, as another side story, the professor would always use an impression of a disability to illustrate it. So he'd be up in front of class reading from the book when all of a sudden he'd start swearing like a madman. About five minutes into it, he'd say that was what Tourette's would be like for a student in our class. It didn't matter that we were reading about eugenics or Helen Keller. He'd do whatever disability he wanted. It was really insane. This is a typical exchange:

"So, Professor, did Helen Keller ever split from Annie Sullivan?"

"No, you stupid fuck bitch ass."

"Umm, okay. Are you alright?"

"Yes I'm fucking fine you asshole."

"Right."

"Fuck you. So, do you see now how Tourette's can affect a student?"

Umm, right. That's what happened in that class. I don't know if he should be awarded an Oscar or a stay at a mental asylum, but either way, he made it interesting.

So, he also had guest speakers come to class. They would talk about their disabilities and how it affected them in everyday life. In the middle of the term, we had this guy come speak to us. He was heavy-duty disabled, according to my professor (everyone should have a politically incorrect special education professor just to add a few notches to the awkward/uncomfortable factor inevitable in every class like this). He was physically disabled, because he walked with braces attached to his forearms. And he was mentally disabled because he was semi-retarded (in the actual medical definition of the word) and he was emotionally stunted at the age of 12. The guy had it rough to begin with, and then he met me.

He had just finished giving a speech, and our class had to complete a quiz. While we worked, he talked with my professor, and at one point, my friend got up to leave early after finishing her quiz - only she forgot her scarf. Right after she left, so did the speaker. And, trying to mean well, I ran out after my friend with her scarf in my hand to give her before she left the building.

I'm trying to walk quickly to catch up with her. I see the speaker guy to my right, trying to get down the hallway, putting one brace solidly in front of the other. And I see the doors, where the hallway narrows, so that it might be a tight squeeze with his obtuse-angled braces. I have about two seconds to make the decision whether to let the speaker go ahead of me, get through the doorway, and give up on getting my friend her scarf, or I can choose to go ahead and try to squeeze by him with the braces and make it with the scarf. I choose option B, and cement my place in Dante's fifth circle.

In a split second, a horrible moment that will play out in movie-time slow motion with "Nooooooooo" echoing in that ghoulish voice in the backtrack, my foot catches on one of his braces. And he all falls down. I hear a huge crash, followed my a cry, followed by a gasp of horror (I think it's mine, but seeing as though the class is in the School of Theology classroom building, I wouldn't be totally shocked if God himself came in to give his judgment here). I look to find my friend, but she's bailed on me. Now, not only have I tripped a certified crippled man, but I have not returned my friend's scarf either. Score two for world, none for me.

I look down at the heap that is this man, and I decide to try to pick him up as quietly as possible. I hear my professor say in the room down the hall, "What the fuck was that?" I'm not sure if it's his next Tourette's impression or a justifiable reaction to the catastrophic crash in the hall. Inexplicably (and, because of my lame plan of action, thankfully), he doesn't come into the hall right away.

The guy is lying on the ground, sprawled out. I'm a mess. I feel like a horrible, horrible person who should have to wear a sign that says so, and I decide to get one side of him up at at a time. As soon as I get one side up, I move to get the other brace in place and he slides back down to the floor. I see a tear start to form in his eyes. Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god oh god. I'm going to hell. I accept it as a legitimate punishment. I try to help him up again, and with this failure, instead of just returning to the floor, he gets into a fetal position and suddenly I'm faced with the sad fact that I might have made this guy regress from the 12 year old emotional state he was in to a newborn. Way to go. Sign me up for education.

In the next instant, my professor shows up outside, sees the mess, takes a look at me and asks, "What the hell?"

I'm left with nothing. I've been offering this guy repeated apologies - "I'm so sorry. So sorry. I am an awful, awful person. I should die. This is horrible. Do you want to trip me, to be even? " - but nothing seems to make anything better. My professor, a weird but ultimately kind man, helps the guy to his feet, and brings him back to the class to calm himself. We are dismissed early so this guy can be counseled (my classmates think that this is the greatest thing, showing that sometimes, even future teachers have no sensitivity whatsoever). I'm finishing up my quiz and waiting to tell my professor and the guy again how sorry I am when I decide to check my messages, while they finish talking.

I have one message on my cell phone: "Hey, it's me. I left my scarf in class. It's no big deal, I have another one with me, but I was hoping you could just take it home and I'll get it from you tomorrow.... my mom made it for me, so I don't want some janitor to throw it away."

I look around for the scarf and can't find it. I go into the hall, and it's not there. I return to the classroom to gather my stuff and begin cursing myself - for the zillionth time that day - about how priceless it is that I tripped a cripple to give my friend her scarf when she didn't even need it at the moment and in the end, I lost it anyhow, when I look up at my professor and my victim. And then I see it. Around his neck is the familiar bright red and blue knit of my friend's scarf that her mother made.

Yeah, I give up. I decide right then and there that I'm not even going to go through the motions of asking this guy to remove the scarf that my professor's tied nicely around his neck. Nope. Forget it. She's living without her scarf, that's how it is. I live with myself, she lives without her scarf.

Nobody ends up happy in this story, which is what compromise really is, and so I figure that I can assign that term to this miserable story: I trip a crippled man to help my friend, my friend loses her scarf, the crippled man inherits it. In a way, it is like life comes full-circle, no?

No, of course not.

But I like it better that way.