R.I.P. R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I'm fairly certain the words "religious" and "traditional" aren't often used to describe me, but even this modern agnostic has some sense of propriety. When you're pay your last respects to someone, dress the part. Don't show up like you just came from the beach. If you did just come from the beach, change. It's a wake for God's sake.

Admittedly I probably shouldn't have been outside playing fashion police with my aunt, but she needed a smoke. The two of us nearly choked to death when this girl rolled out of her PT Cruiser. Who shows up at a funeral home in a gauzy white see-thru sundress and aqua blue flip-flops? Flip-flops?! Seriously? Seriously. It's almost not even worth mentioning that her toes were painted the same shade of blue as the offending footwear.

The offense of her outfit was superseded only by the guy who cut into traffic between the hearse and the limo, and then passed the hearse over a double solid line. What is wrong with people?

26 and counting

When I was finishing college my sister, in her infinite wisdom, kept telling me that I should enjoy the moment because there's no such thing as a tolerance after graduation. Oh, how I wish I had listened. As my 20's edge closer to my 30's the pain of a hangover takes on new magnitudes. Margaritas and chips are delicious, but I'm not certain if there are still traces of blood in my tequila and sodium stream. I awoke as the puffiest girl in all the land - thank Jose Maria I keep a gel eye mask chilling in the fridge for just such an occasion. Now if I just keep telling myself that a lean pocket and a vitamin water will make it all better, if I believe this, then it will be so.

+ =

Victory!

My afternoon Scrabble match with Monika resulted in a 277-278 win for Mon, but I feel pretty damn good about myself for coming within 1 pt of her. While English is not her first language, she is a fierce Scrabble player. I prefer charades, but landing "frog" on a triple word score late in the game did give me a little rush.

Idols away

As predicted, Jordin Sparks won American Idol last night. So much to talk about from the show - we're going to bullet points:

• Did anyone besides Jane and I notice that Bette Midler can't sing any more?
• Blake and Doug E. Fresh were HOT! And I bet $20 Teri Hatcher (who was in the audience with her daughter) tried to screw them both after the show.
• We know the kids African Children's Choir are from Africa - the clue is in the name. Was it really necessary to drape them in animal skins?
• Paula's hair was so much better than the night before. Was it a wig Tuesday, or was she just too busy to brush her hair after tripping over her dog and breaking her nose? While I celebrate her sobriety, the finales are much more entertaining when she's bombed.
• What do you think Joe Perry was thinking when he was accompanying Sanjaya on "You Really Got Me"? My guess is it was something along the lines of, I'm a member of one of the most successful rock bands of all time, I'm a living legend, I'm slept with millions of women, and now I'm entertaining an emotionally disturbed 10-year-old? How did I get here?
• Who is styling Carrie Underwood? She is a gorgeous girl, I love her music, and yet she seems to have an unhealthy affinity for butt-veils. The gossamer train she wore last night wasn't nearly as offensive as the mourning peacock frock she sported at the AMA's, but it's a worrisome trend.
• What does Ruben Studdard get up to the other 364 days a year he's not at the American Idol Season Finale?
• I love Kelly Clarkson. That girl has got some pipes, and I love that her new song is about some guy that broke up with her, and now he has to hear it played on the radio, in the mall, on television...I don't have the resources for that type of post-breakup come back, so I'm glad that Kelly, who does, is using hers to the fullest.
• Chris Daughtry? One word: yum.

And the best part? So You Think You Can Dance starts tonight! I don't have to go one day without the reality tv talent contests that are so dear to me!

Teaching Moments

You just cannot make this stuff up. From a student response paper to Adrienne Rich's essay, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence":

Thus, as the ocean flows and react to El Nino wind patterns, mountain cougars thrive caring for packs, lesbians too respond to frictions that create havoc and possible extinction of their own environment.

You are what's on your feet?

A month or so Mrs. Hammond brought to my attention a new trend in footwear style - the cone heel. It's no secret that I love shoes, and I love ice cream, so in theory the equation seems simple:

something I love + something I love = something I really love

but in practice, shoes + ice cream cones = this, which I do not love. there's something painfully reminiscent about the drama club banquet junior year when I took off my shoes to dance and someone with the initials L.S. "accidentally" stepped on my foot, ripping through my control-top pantyhose and causing me to bleed, and that was just in regular heels

Weekend Recap

After a less-than-fantastic week I had a really great weekend that deserves to be homaged in a blog entry. Saturday Peter planned a surprise hot date for us - he wanted to share some of his favorite NYC experiences with me before I leave (a month from today - eek!). We started off with champagne and snacks chez Peter - which, might I add, is looking fabulous after phases 1 (bathroom) and 2 (kitchen) of Extreme Makeover: Homo Edition. Then we took the B/D uptown - I knew it must have been something pretty darn special for us to be venturing above 14th St. - and we watched the dress rehearsal of SNL with Zach Braff and Maroon 5!! It was so cool! They test some material that doesn't make it into the final live show so we got 2 good hours of comedy. Zach Braff if fantastic, you should definitely check out his tribute to the Garden State (and also the TV Funhouse clip with Oprah and the Presidential candidates - it's hysterical). I cannot wait for the new Maroon 5 CD to come out - they might be my new favorite non-new band. Afterwards we had a late dinner at a trendy lower east side byob Japanese restaurant with another friend and capped off the evening with some wine at 'inoteca.

Sunday I was deliciously lazy. I slept til about 10, read, surfed the web, had both breakfast and lunch in bed, and didn't get out of my pj's til about 2:30. It was so nice! Then SBK and RKG headed into Brooklyn (curse you Sunday night B train!) to join the rest of the gang for a BBQ at Tey's amazing brownstone. Beyond the usual chips 'n dip we had flank steak, perfectly grilled chicken, cold sesame peanut noodles, spiced broccoli and cauliflower, corn on the cob, orzo and sangria. Dessert was blueberry and apricot cobbler with vanilla ice cream and chocolate pudding pie. I looked about 4 months pregnant when I got home, but my taste buds were happy. BBQs aren't so easy to come by in the city, and this was a great way to cap off the academic year and kick off the summer. Did I mention Tey has a backyard? As her partner Alice would say, I'm peanut butter & jealous.

And now we're already well into a week of reality-tv finales! I've turned down offers for Mediterranean tonight and Korean fried chicken tomorrow because with Blake and Jordin in the American Idol finale the stakes are just too high.

Happy Thoughts

I haven't had the best of weeks (nothing tragic, just a serious of small things accumulating into a self-esteem slump), but rather than being a negative Nancy I thought I'd try this power of positive thinking crap and focus on some of the things that are making me happy:

• My students. They laughed at my "you can't get a vagina at Kmart or an organic one at Trader Joe's joke." They make teaching not suck.
• Sephora: I invested in i.d. bare minerals foundation and couldn't be happier with it - the perfect amount of coverage, totally evens out my complexion, and I'm not treading anywhere near Tammy Fay Baker land (make-up wise). I haven't watched the free DVD yet, but it's going to rain all weekend so I'm sure I'll find time. Also, I was skeptical about Urban Decay's primer potion, but it really works. I'm going to make this a permanent product; it's a simple step that really sets my eye color - just dab on a little before applying eye shadow and no more lid crease lines. And I have a feeling this $15 bottle is going to last ages.
• Target: It's on the must-do list whenever I go home, and all my fears about moving to San Diego are assuaged by the knowledge that I'll have a car and can go to Target whenever I want. On my last trip I bought 4 boxes of cereal for what 1 would have cost me at the corner deli. My sister's friend Lori had on a great dress at the baby shower, and I meant to ask her where she got it but forgot. Well, I was in Target later that day, and what did I find? The dress - $25, got loads of compliments, and it is the perfect fat day attire because the cut is incredibly forgiving, and paired with a long necklace and some fun gold sandals it perks you right up. I also scored a pair of gold ballerina flats for $15, and a matte L'oreal eye shadow quad that is now part of my everyday attire. I have been totally missing out with the matte eyeshadow - it makes such a difference!
• Friends: awwww. I love my friends, and not just for being all mushy. SBK and RKG totally commiserated w/ me after a crappy meeting with faculty saying all the right things ("He's a dick;" "They are so sexist;" "They're wrong.") SBK bought be Thai food and shared her beef pad see ew when then chicken in my pad thai was dry. Mish is having a "The Bachelor is a Douche" party Monday night (no seriously, that was the title on the evite) so we can watch someone have a nervous breakdown. And tonight Peter is taking me out to share his favorite things about NYC with me before I leave.

Step-funny, the curse continues

The women in my family aren't the most stable bunch, and I'm not just referring to our delicate emotional constitutions. The first fall I remember was down the cement stairs that led into the basement from the backyard; I was probably about 6. Obviously there were other trips and tumbles, but when I talk about our family's fall record I'm talking diggers, wipe-outs, full on ass-over-teakettle, sprawled on the ground, possibly needing outside assistance to get back on your own 2 feet.

The grammar school nurse, Mrs. Higgins, spent a significant amount of her working hours during the 1982-87 school years patching up my sister and me . Steph has had her fair share of stumbles, and this temporarily earned her the nick-name "Step-funny" in high school. When my Aunt Donna was younger she fell down the better part of the staircase inside the Bunker Hill Monument, stopped only by the kindly extended foot of a stranger (or so the story goes). Two years ago I accompanied her on the 2nd surgical attempt to repair her broken knee-cap. The injury resulted from an in-work fall when she missed a step and landed on her knee cap, literally shattering it (I've seen the x-rays, they're not pretty). She fell a 2nd time on ice, but fingers crossed the wires in her knee keep things together this time around. My mother - well cataloguing her falls would be a time consuming task, but suffice it to say I have an early memory of Mr. A., my first swim team coach, running down the pool deck (generally a no-no) and scooping up my mother after a nasty knee scraping.

So it should come as no surprise that falling in public is a big fear of mine, specifically a) at the gym, off the treadmill and b) in front of a class. There was a rather embarrassing fall in a shower that involved a white tube top and lots of alcohol, but, as mortifying as it was at the time, at least now it makes a pretty good party story. Luck has been on my side so far with the treadmill (although there was a close call when I tripped over my untied shoelace and was saved only by an attentive neighbor who reached over from his treadmill and hit the emergency stop button). This past year I had the unfortunate experience of falling off the slightly elevated teaching platform in front of 200+ students taking a midterm. "Breaching experiment," I yelled without missing a beat.

So today's event is realize just another in a long line of falls, an expression of my genetic predisposition to clumsiness. I told myself yesterday I'd take the stairs all summer to my classroom (it's only 2 flights). Well on the way down today I believe I caught the heel of my shoes in the hem of my pants. Whatever the cause, I missed a good 4 or 5 steps and landed not-so-softly at the bottom, losing both shoes and a significant chunk of my pride on the way down. My immediate thought was "crawl to safety before a student finds me!", but it was too late. Luckily it was just one, and she was very nice (poor thing look very troubled, she didn't know if she should get help or run away). So just in time for skirt season, I've got a scraped and bruised right knee, a left shin that is swelling by the minute and is probably going to look like a supernova in a day or two, some miscellaneous toe/foot bruising, and a deeply wounded ego.

Walk safely everyone.

Idols away

My Tuesday night class has ended and so last night I FINALLY got to watch Idol, and just in time. The performances were pretty good all around so I thought I'd comment on some more pressing issues.

First of all, I love Jordyn. And I love the dress she was wearing for her first song almost as much as I love her. I would really like to see her hair blown out with a nice round brush and perhaps touched up with a fat-barrelled curling iron, not with yucky straight ends like in those clips they showed of her back home. Also, she should never ever highlight her hair because it is a gorgeous brown, and that's not as easy to come by as it might seem (to be a gorgeous monotone brunette - not brassy or mousy - think, how many are there really).

Secondly, Janiac made a good point last night when she said she didn't really trust Melinda. M.Doolittle clearly has the best voice, that's not really a question, but this competition is about finding a pop star and she just doesn't really fall into that category. As I believe I've mentioned before, she's got a head like Guy Smiley's from Sesame Street, which just isn't right. Puppets are parodies of people; people should not look like puppets, even if puppets often look like people. She suffers from this in the same way as former nightly news anchor Roz Abrams, who also looks like a Crank Yanker. It's not right.

And then there's Blake. I might actually cry tonight if Blake gets eliminated. Beyond all reason and logic Blake actually makes sweater vests look sexy, and I think Blake and Justin Timberlake among the small handful of men who can pull off the zip-up hoodie/suit jacket combo without looking like complete douche bags (a la Ashton Kutcher - sorry if you're a fan but he is just so unbelievably full of himself). I will totally buy Blake's album when it comes out, and not just on iTunes - I will buy the actual physical CD so I can have him near me and look at pictures of him rockin' argyle.

Baby Shower!

After running around NY and FL for 2 weeks I made it back to the Boston area this weekend for my sister's baby shower. Her due date is 1 month from today, and I mentioned that the end of the shower would be a good time for her to go into labor (funnily, my sister disagreed), but Li'l Spins is almost done cookin' so she could really go any time now. It was a beautiful day, the Mac's were great hosts, and I enjoyed both the yummy food and the collective "ooohhh's" and "ahhhh's" over little girls clothes. I found these adorable "bun in the oven" favors online - they have a little blueberry muffin mix inside. The bedding and decor for the nursery is called "Jungle Luv", and my mom found a beautiful cake to match (which almost made up for locking my 94-year-old grandmother in the car - almost). And there's my super-pregger sis cutting the cake - people are split over whether or not Steph and I look alike, but sometimes I find it hard to believe we come from the same gene pool. For starters she has managed to gain weight only in her stomach and chest. If I ever get pregnant I'm pretty sure my ass will expand to the size of a Toyota Sequoia, and even if my boobs swell they'll be hard pressed to rival Steph's mammary-tastic expansion. Secondly, her feet pregnant and swollen are still smaller than my boats. But I digress...

Baby Spindler got lots of cool stuff, but I'd like to highlight her Auntie Amy line of cool clothes (note: I purchased these in January and struggled not to post them sooner).
Here we have her arrival outfit, her summer BBQ/pool party outfit (she's a Mass baby, and I'll be damned if it's July 4th and my niece hasn't got anything to wear but a white onesie and a receiving blanket), her "back-to-school" outfit, something to relax in as she gets older (those jeans are fleece-lined and I want her to learn the importance of layers early on), and then finally 2 play-time feetie jumpers for when she's got lots of strenuous baby stuff to do, like sit up and have quality tummy time. She can be comfortable without being sloppy.

And just in case her dad was still entertaining any half-baked ideas of making this child a Yankees fan (the brother-in-law is from the wrong part of CT), along with the 2 Red Sox books she received Li'l Spins got this tee-shirt from Lori:

I'd also like to give a special shout-out to James, who is just too friggin' cute and made me laugh and calmed me down when I was fantasizing about sticking my mother's head in oven:

James is pretty much betrothed to my unborn niece. As one of the girls pointed out the dads are going to have to figure out how many goats and sacks of grain will be exchanged in the deal.