Get your own bling!

Thanks, Charlie.

Argh! This week has been absolutely crazy! Between going to my own classes, tutoring, teaching a writing workshop to 5th graders and going on an observation at a school, I no longer have the slightest idea what day it is. I’m pretty sure I’m incapable of making sense.

This morning, I went to observe a 5th grade language arts class in a Chicago Public School district charter school. I wish I knew what was meant by charter school. But I will tell you that it blows me away to walk into a public school and see the logo for a prominent bank chain painted on the wall in the hallway. Why would that be there? you may wonder. Well, this particular school, and many, many just like it in the Chicago Public School system can only remain open and provide education to students if they take funds from corporations. Who, you may ask, is the Prominent Bank Chain advertising to with their three foot x six foot logo emblazoned in the hallways of the school? Fuck if I know. And I’m so bowled over by the whole experience that I can’t even properly talk about it without getting really bitchy.

I will say that these kids spent a giant chunk of the 2 1/2 hours I was there writing and reading their writing aloud, and that heartened me quite a bit.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say on this subject at some point. But right now I need to go into the kitchen, averting my eyes from the clock so that I cannot see that it is not quite yet 5 p.m., make myself a vodka tonic and start preparing dinner. I’ve got Bunco tonight (keep your fingers crossed people, momma needs a new pair of shoes) (and my friend JuJu is hosting, and we get to show up in our pajamas! Just my kind of night! Booze, food, friends and pajamas!). Tomorrow I must be out of the house by 7 a.m. so that I can drive my son to his regional wrestling tournament, which will more than likely take the entire fucking day. I plan on attempting to do homework while I sit in the stands, but you know I’ll just end up writing really bitchy things about the wackjobs sitting around me in my journal.

Hopefully, I can play blog catch-up on Sunday. We’ll see!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Discuss It » Tripping for God

New article by your’s truly up at Discuss It! (Click link to go read it, and please comment. I love comments.)

I was going to write a post about how I’ve been blog-surfing on Blog Advance this week, and I’ve run across several blogs that have old posts (September! December!) at the top that say things like… “I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had time to post! I’ll be back!” or some such shit.

But I’m too busy. ha!

I am busy. I’ve got assignments that are due, phone calls to make, yadda yadda yadda. I have to think up a post for Discuss It! for tomorrow. I need to go to the damn grocery store.

Who cares about any of this stuff? Nobody! Why am I writing about it? Because I’ve got nothing else!

I just didn’t want anyone to think I was dead, that’s all. I’m not dead. I’m just busy.

Have you checked out Pandora yet? If you haven’t, go do it. Make yourself a radio station and listen to it while you read my entire blog from beginning to end. Because you have that kind of time. Because my blog is fascinating and amazing and wonderful.

Except for this post.

the title has nothing to do with the post

actually, it does, only because that’s what’s playing right now.

from Pandora

This is the most kick-ass thing to rock my internet world since, since, I don’t fucking know what since. It just fucking rocks. Go check it out. Type in some band you love and get music playing on your computer that fits the style of the band you typed in. or some such thing that miht make more snense if i typed it or thought it when i wasn’t all shitty ass durnk

just go check out Pandora

Where’s my drink? Oh, there it is on the stove. you people are going to probably have to deal with some typos here because although i’m catching them now, i’m probably not going to catch them when i’m done with this post which might be in a minute or it might be ten minutes from now but i have give up on capital letters because you know what? the shift key annoys me. i enjoy the freedom of not having to capitalize stupid kids and their im thing ruining punctuation.

i have some things to say but i can’t say them here. today is a momentous day (i dont’ think i spelled momentous right just a minute i have to check i can’t stand it). well, hell, i guess i did spell it right. yeah for me. today is a momentous day for me. not because anything momentous happened, but because i have been looking forward to this day for eighteen years. yes, eighteen years (i know, it’s a long time, eighteen years, jesus hell, that’s a long fucking time that’s half my fucking life). it’s momentous because i have been wondering how i would feel on this day for eighteen years, and how i feel is…

nothing. i mean, i don’t feel nothing. I feel no different than I have every day for the last eighteen years. It’s just another day, you see? I’m still waiting. I’m still wondering. I’m still missing.

Fuck

I shouldn’t be writing this here because now i’ll have to deal with questions.

Do I have answers for you? No. Can I tell you everything? No. Not here. Which is sad, so sad.

But let me ask you a few questions.

Can you live a life missing someone forever? I don’t know, because forever hasn’t happened yet. Today is the day I’ve been thinking would/might be the end of the missing. And it’s not. Damn it all to hell, it’s not the end of it. It’s not the end of eighteen years of missing something, when I’ve been pretending all along I wasn’t missing it. Pretending to the outside world, but never pretending to myself.

Fuck

You drink to forget, sometimes, you know? But sometimes all it does is make you remember.

I just ran across a blog that I have seen many times before, but not in a very long while, one that very cattily (and bitchily) reviews other blogs.

And it is now using the very same illustration that I have above in its header. The title of this other blog is even somewhat similar to mine. I don’t know when they began using the particular template they are using, but I picked that illustration off of some stock photo/illustration site when Ro designed it.

Goddamn it. I had it first! Bitches!

I stole the following from Charlie:

If you read this… if your eyes are passing over this right now, (even if we don’t speak often or don’t really know each other)….. Your job, your mission, nay – even your new goal in life is to post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory of you and me.

It can be anything you want – good or bad. It can be about that time when I spent the night with you in the South American jail because you got drunk and tried to pick up on a cop…. or it could be about that night that felt like that time half a forever ago when you and I hopped on railroad cars and rode clear across Kentucky… BUT IT HAS TO BE FAKE.

When you’re finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people DON’T ACTUALLY remember about you!

Post away – and be creative!

I’ve amused myself by what I wrote in Charlie’s comments in response to this-you should go read it and stay and read his other posts. He’s very funny. Of course, I actually AM going to Austin in March (did I tell y’all that? I’m going to the AWP conference with the fiction writing department-hotel and airfare paid?), but I doubt I’ll be meeting up and picking up boys with Charlie, although I’m sure he and I would have a blast together.

Anyway, please do this. It’ll be funny. Go wild. Push your imagination. Exaggerate. Lie. Whatever.

I’ve seen this done before, maybe on the Queen of Ass, but I haven’t yet done it myself. And yes, it kind of gets me out of having to post something of substance today, doesn’t it? I’ve just handed the reigns over to you people.

Update: Oh, you? (You know who you are). It is definitely not a good idea to try to write about that thing (you know, that thing) that happened a couple of summers ago, okay? I’m pretty sure we’re still wanted in three states on that thing, and even though I know you’re dying to tell the story (as am I), it would decidedly NOT be a good idea to write about it here, pretending it’s made up, because it would be tantamount to admitting guilt, and frankly, I’ve had some problems with the, shall we say, burial thing in the back yard. Damn dogs.

Okay, my peeps. Oh, god, why did I write that? I hate that. My peeps. It sounds so stupid.

Anyway, I got a video camera for Christmas, and of course the software that came with it is nearly unusable, and the Windows Movie Maker software that comes on my laptop is pretty shitty too. Well, it’s not SHITTY. It’s just really basic. Okay, it’s shitty.

I want to be able to turn my movies into Quicktime bits so that I can post them on my blog, send them to unwitting relatives and friends, etc. I’m seeing, in my research, that I don’t need to buy the Quicktime Pro if I get some software that will export the movies into quicktime for me (I’m trying to save myself $30 here, peeps. Shit, there I go again!)

Anyhoo (I hate that too! Why am I talking like someone I hate? I’m annoying myself), I spent last night goofing around with a trial version of Sony Vegas something or another (the $90 software, not the $500 version), and it seemed pretty good. Somehow, I seem to have lost all the sound, but I’m sure I can figure that out later. I like the fact that I can add another music/sound track (so I can add the Rocky theme to play over a video of my son’s wrestling tournaments-wouldn’t that be cheesy as hell?). The titles and end credits and transitions and all that are much more professional looking. I liked it. I really liked it.

I’m asking for a little feedback here, from my wise readers. Unless you haven’t the slightest idea, and then I guess you’re not so wise, are you? Does anybody have a video editing software package that:
1. Costs less than $100
2. Let’s me make quicktime movies
3. Let’s me make cool-looking DVDs
4. Is easy to figure out

that they’d recommend? Leave it in the comments, people!

NBC5.com – News – Inmate Escapes From Maximum Security Prison

Yeah, so if I see this guy? And he fixes those crazy eyes on me? I’m gonna shit my pants and fall to the floor, dead.

Have you ever in your life seen eyes so damn scary?

Inmate Escapes From Maximum Security Prison
Man Escaped At 11 A.M. Friday

POSTED: 4:02 pm CST February 10, 2006
UPDATED: 4:15 pm CST February 10, 2006
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CHICAGO — Officials are looking for a prisoner who escaped from the Cook County Jail Friday.

Officials said Warren Mathis escaped from the maximum security section of the facility located at 26th Street and California Avenue at about 11 a.m.

According to the Illinois Department of Corrections Web site, Mathis is a white male, 35 years old, 5 feet 11 inches tall and 190 pounds with hazel eyes and brown hair.

Mathis was being held on armed robbery charges.

Update: I guess this guy got picked up yesterday in a hotel. But last night, 6 more inmates escaped, including a couple who’ve been accused of murder. Way to go, Cook County Jail!