Q: i want to grade stuff
Q: that is so hot
Gidge: totally hot
Gidge: i am so hot when i grade papers

today was first paycheck of my grown-up life day! we'll try not to think about the fact that over 1,000 dollars was deducted from it. no, we'll ignore that part. (damn government.)

i did a lot of sexy paper grading in the last month and a half- i earned it.

celebrated with a double double. alone. in my car.

tommorow i'll be 22. my students were trying to guess my age after school today... one of them thinks that i'll be turning 21. some of the others think i'll probably be 31 tommorow. (i always refuse to tell them my actual age, insisting that i would lose my air of mystery.)

oh my gosh. i can't even say what my kids are doing this week cause it is so terrible. in three days, i've suspended two of my boys. i thought it was only in santa maria that fifth graders tried to pull stuff like this.

quote of today:
"sad, how today's children need props."

yes. yes it is.

i took a three hour nap today. when i woke up it was almost 9 and i was confused for a few minutes. i always lay down for a nap and assume i'll wake up after an hour or so, but i don't.

because i slept so long, it was too late to call some of my student's parents about coming in tommorow to do some grading, etc. rats! i hate that it is tuesday and i already feel like i'm totally behind for the week.

i haven't eaten dinner yet. i'm thinking frozen green chile chicken burrito things from trader joes... i think i could live on those. variety smariety. i need a guest for dinner every night so that i eat normal foods at a normal time. i've got to stop doing this eating cheese at midnight stuff. (not that i do that too regularly.)

for three years, i've been cooking dinner for a guy almost every night. i need that- it fattens me up. there is just zero motivation to put forth that kind of effort if there is no one else here. i got my new issue of cooking light magazine today but who will i cook for?

so there. 

memories that make me smile:

stephanie with toothpaste dripping off her elbow
drunk christina singing to her alarm clock
the bird pooping on jonathan's head in the backyard when we were kids
gummy bears stuck to the light poles
naps in sunny bedrooms
gramma's strawberry ice cream
andy coming home from college with a biker beard
laughing after my first kiss

the worst part about working for in n out was when people would come in and say they wanted their burger doggie style. it made me mad cause most of them knew very well that the correct term was "animal style." they just liked to be jackasses.

animal style=
meat fried in mustard
pickles
grilled onions
extra spread

doggie style=
sex

i love ikea. 59 dollars, plus like 5 for the lantern, and my room continues its theme of awesomeness. now all i need is some shtuff on the walls. (just waiting for it to get framed) unfortunately, they were all out of stock on the seriously cool lamps that i plan to get for my living room. (it is much too dark to do my paper grading in there.) 

things i don't really care about posting anymore but i will cause i already typed it out:

i called my parents last night and asked if they wanted to come up today. so, they'll be here in less than an hour. this works out for me because i want to have other plans for the next 2 or 3 weekends, and they wanted to visit for my birthday. and buy me stuff.

my classroom now has internet!


things that are now more interesting:

i was suprised to see that you had written something just to me. how did you know i'd come and read it? i don't go to your website all that often... but now i'm curious, and thinking. (you're right- i think i do know.) the other thing i know is that this... this whole new thing, this honesty or okayness or friendship or whatever it is... this is good.

i was planning on posting about how i cut my thumb badly this week with a plastic spork, and how that is ridiculous and so like me to do.

but then i talked to my mom.

you know what she did this morning? instead of taking her epilepsy medication, she took the dog's thyroid pill.

if you know me, you know that that is exactly the thing i would do if i had medication meant for household pets lying around.

i went with principal man and another teacher and put doorknob hangers on houses in the school's neighborhood. we're trying to get people to say yes for the thing for the school district with the voting.

all my little boys love my shoes. today i wore my blue converse high tops. i think the boys like my shoes because they are teenage boy shoes. punk skateboarding teenage boy shoes.

what with the all stars, the jeans, and the pimple, i totally looked like a high schooler today.

oh. and this child was absent cause she's been puking and then she came back to school today and then she puked again and didn't tell me for a while and then she went to the nurse and i sat IN HER DESK and USED HER PENCIL and then i DIDN'T WASH MY HANDS and so if i start puking in a couple days you'll know why. i think i've had what... 4 pukers already.

today i sent someone to the principal for putting thier shirt in the toilet. i think that's great. completely AWESOME because dude, what is your mom going to say when you come home with a wet school-toilet shirt in a plastic bag and have to explain?

seeing as i haven't seriously freaked out since last night, how bout if i complain that the internet hasn't been hooked up in my classroom yet, and i asked 6 weeks ago. six. siiiix. that is just way too long, i'm sorry. if it isn't there by friday i threaten to cry about it okay? and hmm. i'm wearing my glassess. i should have taken them off an hour and a half ago when i started reading that funny website which distracted me from my teacherly duties.

since i'm a selfish biotch i won't tell you what i'm laughing at. or was laughing at. cause now i have goosebumps and that place behind my ears is hurting cause of the glassess and i'm thinking HOT DAMN only 4 hours until i "should" get to bed and good lord where is that letter writing thing from that teacher in santa maria cause i haven't seen it since san luis obispo and its probably somewhere in that giant box full of loose papers because i am a complete mess and not good at packing.

arrrg!!!!!J!JIH!LJ!HLJBJg!HL?ihxf'zhg

another reason to be mad at him.

i'm so upset and depressed about everything that i completely forgot about the danielson show at bottom of the hill last weekend. and now it will be another two years or so before they come back to california.

damn it, i was going to go with you.

it probably would have been way to depressing to go by myself anyways. and it was a late late concert, so it wouldn't have been safe either. no way that anyone i know in san jose could have been convinced to go listen to mr. falsetto and felt tree. i'm pissed... wanted to go to that concert so bad and what was i doing saturday night instead? sitting at home feeling terrible and probably crying a bit.

i need to get rid of your car key. i have several reasons why that would make sense.

why did everything have to go so wrong? what is so terrible about me? ...or what isn't good enough?

i hate you for having friends
for getting to go to classes
for having roomates when you come home
for being the one who decides when its over

does your goal of being a better person even think about what you've done to me and what i've encouraged you to do in that regard? do you remember what our conversation was about on valentines day? and the thing, that happened last summer when i was in ny, like i said. not two years ago. this makes no sense i'm sure, but who cares. you probably dont. you didn't love me enough to stick with me.

i need to clean up the detritus of last night's party.

for goodness sake, there is FORMULA spilled on the countertop!

my life sucks you guys. someone needs to either come here and just love me, or else slap me around a bit.

i just spent 2 hours typing the names, page numbers, and problems of 150 math lessons. my back hurts, but the thing that is making me feel like crying is that i know no one here would give me a back rub.

i had a tiny suprise visitor tonight- the baby who used to live next door but now lives across the complex. she brought her mother over and asked if she could hang out with me for a couple hours. i of course said yes, because i like to party with the three month olds. oh, she thinks you smell funny. 

i do not feel like i will be 22 in less than two weeks. i haven't been looking forward to it at all. frankly, i don't know how special my birthday could feel up here. my parents wanted to come up but i don't think i want them to. they can come up the weekend after or something.

steve is going to be in sj the weekend of my birthday, and supposedly we will hang out at some point. i've been looking forward to that. our first time hanging out since i got together with ben. it has sucked that for three years, my best friend in my first year and a half of college wouldn't even talk to me, and got super pissed if i was invited to any get together he was at. so i think seeing him that weekend is important. the parents can wait. (unless they decide they want to come up for just saturday or somefin.)

of course, that still leaves my actual birthday, friday october 1. its a school day, so some of my students had better give me schtuff. but then afterward... if i am alone on my birthday i will seriously freak out.

i hear that it rained today. i wouldn't know, because i've only been awake for 4 hours. jenna and i went to see garden state, and it was really good. when it was over, she said, "that movie was full of your music, wasn't it." yes, it was. very good movie. i'm glad i didn't see it earlier because i don't think i could have watched it. 

i posted something and blogger ate it. it had something to do with the fact that i called my only friend in san jose twice today and never got an answer.

had something to do with fall arriving today in the guise of cold wind and clouds

also something about pirate cookies, and a guy at trader joes named tosh who was giving out chickenless nuggets. his full sleeve tattoo was awesome but the nuggets had a funky aftertaste. the aftertaste didn't hit until after i walked away with a box, so i guess i'm stuck.

i don't know how i'm going to survive being this lonely.

i can't handle living by myself with no one who loves me to talk to at night.

feel like crap. depressed and crappy.

you know that dr. schols commercial for the gel inserts where the two guys get into a car accident?

when they both stay calm, one asks, "are you gellin'?" dude 2 used to respond, "like a felon!" which i found funny. lately, the version of the ad that plays has him responding, "like magellan!" which is just dumb.

did some convict rights group complain or something??

i walked into a wall very forcefully today. usually i walk into things and bruise my hips like this. today, as you may see, was special. 

i have two completely different things i wanted to post. so read both okay?

#1- my depressing life
my apartment smells funny
the food in my fridge is mostly bad
i have two sets of dirty dinner dishes in the sink, which consist of exactly the same meal
i managed to actually stain my shirt with tears. i have no idea how this happened. i thought it was just a saying but i have 20 little dark spots on my shirt. its not like i wear mascara or anything.

#2- my funny students
today we made little newspapers that had to do with the story we're reading- an autobiography of michelle kwan. here are some excerpts.

"There are some problems with skating! A little girl was pushed and landed on her head on the skating rink. She is in the Hospital and now she is mental."

"'why are you up so late?'
'cause i had coffee'
'Its 2:00 in the morning'
'Lets go fight against evil'
'I wanna sleep!'
'aw'" (from comic strip which constituted most of the newspaper)

"Oh no! Michelle quits professinal ice skatying. Michelle Kwan is five months pregnit! She says, 'I, sorry, but I think with the baby it will be to much pressure. and that it is time for to take the fall.' Her coach Frank Carrol is leving a statue for her wonderful work and skill."

"She became a senoir skater at the age of tewevle!"

did you know that coheed and cambria is a very strange little band? did keith tell you that their name consists of the two characters that their concept albums are about? a series of sci-fi love story albums about coheed and cambria. it seems so very you. now the whole low voice/high voice thing makes sense- he is two people in love after an apocolypse. i wish i could travel back in time to the warped tour with more sunscreen, so i could really watch them.

i forgot about something that happened in school today. the principal paid a surprise visit to my classroom (as he often does.) during said visit, several of my students started freaking out because there was a spider on the ceiling. (as there often is.)

mr principal assures the children not to worry. "he'll just walk around up there, he won't fall off."

this, of course, is said moments before the spider falls off and lands on the table that principal man is sitting at. principal screams like a girl and pushes his chair back so fast he almost falls onto the carpet.

while all my students and the school principal are freaking out, i walk over and smash the spider. how is that so scary?

i'm a manly girl, i guess.

when i told my mom this story she reminded me of how i caught a lizard in my neighbor's bathroom last summer with my bare hands. and then about how she killed a mouse with her shoe at girl scout camp when i was in elementary school. :o) i wonder what the principal would do if a mouse needed killing. (probably wouldn't get his shoe all gory, i'm betting. he'd be screaming on top of the bunk beds with all the girls.)

my slightly unrealistic goal is to leave the school by 4 every day. today i shoved off at 4.30, but i still have the following to do:

staple packets
grade a 4" stack of papers
staple reward tickets together to send home
call some parents
put together materials for substitutes
drive across town to pick up a geography book
plan lessons for next week

i really really need a backrub and some sleep.

i absolutely love that i found this written about my great great grandmother on the internet: "Jennie ------ ---- was the first schoolteacher in [town]. Her sisters came to [town] when she wrote '...there are lots of men here.’" (edited for safety from googling family history buffs that are related to me)

yeah. i'll bet there were lots of single men in arizona in 1877.

jennie's son was the one who was seduced by my butcher-knife wielding great grandma. (she was from back east too.) yep. she was the one who thought a good way to kill a chicken would be to hang it by it's feet from a clothesline and stab at it. i guess the first lady who kills a chicken in your honor when you come home from war wins.

great stories.

i should go to the annual family gathering next year. they gave me a thousand dollar scholarship and all... ha! no way. they're a corporation now. i love that. and dude. my name is on their website as the first recipient.

i watch too much stupid law and order.

its like when i was a kid, leaving all the lights and radios on when mom and dad were out.

oh my goooosh.

i dropped something as i was walking up the stairs so i had to go pick it up in front of my neighbor dwayne's door. dwayne came out and wanted to talk. asked my how i was, etc etc etc. so i had to tell the sad boring story of my last two weeks. dwayne responded by telling me that his white friend thought i was really cute and that he was going to bring said friend up to my apartment to say hello. he asked me if i wanted him to bring the friend up, and to be polite i said "whatever you want" instead of no.

i went upstairs and i started imagining how terrible the friend might be. what kind of white friend might dwayne have who would be over watching the 49ers game? i thought hmm.... bug eyes, wearing a jersey, and stupid.

i was right except i didn't throw in the crooked teeth, limp, or rap music. and then i said i had to get ready for my friend to come over to work on school stuff, and he wanted to give me his number. so i have his number. what the hell am i supposed to do now?

he is the exact antithesis to anything i could ever want. i wish i wasn't so polite. (at least to people's faces)

i miss you.

i do not feel like a dancing ray of sunshine.

evidently i was found attractive by a 35 year old pot smoker who never talked to me on the camping trip. hmm. no.

weekend plans: sleep like the dead 

what the hell am i doing. i don't even know.

besides the apple thing, i've noticed that every time i turn on my car's AC this week, it smells like someone replaced my freon with urine.

i baked an apple in my car today. i left it in the passenger seat, and when i left school it was brown and my car smelled like apple pie. it was all squishy, too. i threw it away, though- i'd rather eat an apple baked in an oven.

i said something about peeing in the bushes while camping. the bushes in question were between our campsite and the one next to us. we, however, were peeing on the other people's side because our campground was way too active and packed with tents.

so jenna told me today that the reason there was some commotion in the campsite next to us while we were leaving sunday is that one of the people there apparently died that afternoon. i didn't realize that abalone diving was as dangerous as it is.

i don't know the whole story, but i am quite weirded out that i was peeing in some person's campground their last night on earth.

denial is not just a river in egypt 

so hot here. i can't wait till my students start growing more sweat glands or whatever it is that they do in 5th grade. i may have to keep a can of spray deodorant in my classroom for them, like my mentor teacher suggested. (i think thats kinda gross)

the school district won't pay for fixing my car. i still haven't called my insurance or gotten a quote, but things aren't looking good. i have this feeling that my car may actually be close to totalled by this stupid vandalism. a 13 year old car isn't worth THAT much more than fixing 4 body panels. cross your fingers people.

i bought really cute pyjamas that no one will see.

i have cheese in the fridge so i think that will be my first dinner tonight.

update: frozen enchiladas my mom made me were my second dinner. so don't think i just ate cheese.

i'm so dressed up today, and i don't know why. black silk shirt, cream pants that make me look good. i'm just going to jenna's to write lessons. (can't he see what he's missing?) i slept in till 11. (my bed is too big) i had all these plans. that song, i was going to put it on a cd. it would have been perfect.

yesterday there was a tough conversation, and after it i was quite upset. so to distract myself, jenna and i very suddenly went camping. as in, she asked me and an hour later we were in the car. i just got back.

it turned out to be more distracting than i imagined. i got to call 911 last night from a pay phone because a little boy who we were camping with got sick in the middle of the night. met all the volunteer emergency people around fort ross (one had her shirt on inside out) and i got to sit in the ambulance that eventually came.

the kid is okay, he was treated in the emergency room for a bowel obstruction and was close to normal this afternoon.

other than that, i talked about ben. and i made lesson plans under a pine tree. and i ate abalone freshly caught by my fellow campers. (they were out diving for it)

plus, we almost got in trouble with the forest service

i'm glad we're back though, cause peeing in the bushes in the middle of the night isn't all its cracked up to be.

sarah, htere are billions of people on this planet

dont say it

okay, i won't

i'm crying so much my teeth chatter
dont say it



and so its gone. and i feel so alone. i thought i'd marry him, i thought everything. now i feel dead inside. who knows if things will change, if someday he'll change his mind.

meanwhile my life is the hardest its ever been.

martha, do know that you are completely welcome here.

someone keyed my car after school today. so i cried in the parking lot in front of the janitor. why would someone do this to me?? its deep, and goes all the way down my car.

front quarter panel, both doors, and rear quarter panel. it isn't the type of keying that will buff off. its down to the metal in areas.

almost exactly a week of utter crap and crying.

was it one of my students? their parents? the sixth grade kid i corrected in the hall?

it wouldn't bother me so much if it happened in some shopping center. now i feel like someone hates me.

in other news, i was called stupid in class by one of my good students today.

tonight was back to school night. why is it that i talk like an idiot around parents for 45 minutes, but i'm just fine with kids all day long?

so, yes. i want to go to bed right now. emotionally and physically i am completely exhausted. last night i somehow removed a peice of clothing in my sleep and put it on the bed next to me. how did i do this? i have no idea. in fact, it kinda freaked me out when i woke up. am i that tired?