alphabet meme

since hilary left this one open, i thought i'd hop on it for the sake of content. so here's meme-ing at you, kid!

A- available? nope!

B- best friend? i have a few, actually: laurie, bunny, ashley, foxy, the housemates lqt and angel bunny.

C- cake or pie? mmm, cake!

D- drink of choice? coffee or water.

E- essential item I use every day: uh, deodorant? toothpaste? celly phone? internet?

F- favorite color? shades of pink, green, or blue.

G- gummy bears or gummy worms? blech, neither. sour peach rings, however...

H- hometown? vancouver, b.c., canada

I- indulgence? shopping (books, cosmetics, cooking goodies, groceries)

J- january or february? no big diff, imho.

K- kids and names: none and none, thank you very much.

L- life is incomplete without? laughter, television, vegetables, kissing, flowers.

M- marriage date: no thanks.

N- number of siblings: zip, zero, zilch.

O- oranges or apples? apples all the way.

P- phobias or fears? birds' wings.

Q- favorite quote? "it's not easy livin' in a disco world, baby!"

R- reasons to smile? my darling boy, my students, my friends, my family.

S- season? autumn or spring.

T- tag: oh please, like anyone reads this. or, rather, i tag anyone who reads this.

U- unknown fact about me: i was a contestant on the short-lived usa network gameshow smush. (i lost)

V- vegetable you don’t like: little.green.peas.

W- worst habit: procrastinating, overthinking, scab-picking, disdain for housework.

Y- your favorite food? sushi!!! (good sushi, though)

Z- zodiac? capricorn, baby.

guilty pleasure

sometimes i like to watch mtv's my super sweet sixteen--not because i enjoy the show, but because i find it extraordinarily comforting that i am nowhere near my mid-to-late-teens; i am not planning "the biggest quinceanara Miami's ever seen" or the sickest sweet-sixteen party ever; i have never begged, cajoled, or pleaded with my parents to buy me a jaguar or bmw; i work to earn my keep; i don't go around threatening my friends and loved ones with death if they don't shut up and get in line and dance like i told them too or else they will ruin my party which is the biggest and most important day of my life; i don't have to hand-deliver invitations to a-list teens via horseback or canoe or with emmanuel lewis in a bentley; i've never expected my father to use his important industry connections to embarrass himself by asking for big name bands and musical acts to play at my party; and that i didn't have parents who indulged my ridiculously selfish and extravagant notions of myself by throwing me a party with a price tag of anywhere from $75,000-$300,000.

oh, bobby goren, how i love your tilting



i found this just now on good old youtube. i think that a vid could be assembled that did more with the detective goren lean (because, jesus, does he ever lean and bend) and i also think an excellent drinking game would entail watching criminal intent and having to take a shot every time goren bends/tilts/leans. that would, easily, make anyone shitface drunk by ten p.m. on a tuesday night, just in time to watch special victims unit and text message the witticisms of ice-t and belzer to an appreciative friend. not that i do that already or anything. the text messaging part, that is. i know better than to play a drinking game on a tuesday night.

bad day/good day

missing the turn off the i-5 to the i-10 for the first time in over ten years of traveling that way to campus: bad day

bunny slippers arrival: good day

being disappointed by someone: bad day

reading over the student opinion surveys from my 3 classes last quarter and seeing the wildly awesome things some of my kids wrote: good day

skin trauma: bad day

this american life on my ipod: good day

somehow managing to misplace two defrosting ahi tuna steaks: bad day

bunny slippers on feet: good day

seeing a craggly old burnout smoking a cigarette and mumbling to himself on campus and wishing, for just one moment, that i could do what he was doing (despite having long quit smoking) instead of going to teach english 102: bad day

not being a craggly old burnout smoking a cigarette and mumbling to myself: good day

go ask yourself, volume the second

because i'm enjoying blogging a tad bit more lately i thought i'd reinvigorate my "go ask yourself" series. you know, the one where i pretend to interview myself, a la ba-ba wa-wa minus the tears and mandatory tour of the stables.

what food items are you a "snob" about?
two things immediately come to mind: coffee and sushi. in regards to coffee, i will without a doubt turn my nose up at anything that's sold in a can (except trader joe's coffee, which i do enjoy on occasion)--like folger's or maxwell house. it may have started when i had my brief stint as a barista at that big old chain of coffeehouses we all know the name of, which would have been when i had to attend coffee school and first fell in love with their gold coast blend. the best trip souvenir you can get me or that i can get myself is locally roasted coffee (ground for a cone filter drip, thanks!). the other day i was just delivered my internet order of intelligentsia coffee (introduced to it last year when i visited chicago) and it is truly delish. i don't mess around when it comes to coffee. now, with sushi, i started at the novice level (california rolls and that junk you can buy at the supermarket) and educated myself on the cuisine and its customs. i can come off as potentially unbearable, because i will shoot you a sidelong glance of horror if you swish wasabi into your most likely over-filled dish of soy sauce and then proceed to marinate the entire piece of nigiri sushi, soaking the rice and thereby breaking a chain of sushi etiquette standards in one fell swoop (to correct that behavior: 1. only put a splash of soy sauce in your dish 2. wasabi goes between the fish and the rice; enough should be there already thanks to the chef, but you may add more 3. dip only one small corner of the fish--and the fish only-quickly in the soy--provided it's a piece of fish that is not already sauced [a good sushi chef will tell you what not to dip in soy sauce] and do not, i repeat, do not, dip the rice. 4. eat the piece of sushi in one bite.) i will always prefer to eat at the sushi counter, and i also really like ordering omakase (chef's choice). i've developed my palate so that i really don't care for imitation crab (why, people, why?) and those crazy, wacky, deep fried, mayo-drenched spectacle rolls. i have come to learn, in my experience, that there i certain people whom i love very, very, much, but with whom i cannot go eat sushi or i will go insane.

glasses or contacts?
both, but to be honest, 95% of the time i wear my glasses. they're cute (red, prada) and easy. and my eyes dry out in contacts, especially at night. so i can't go out at night to see a movie or play or go to a bar wearing contacts.

who are your favorite people?
my friends and family, of course, are the immediate folks that come to mind. but, admittedly, there are some who have an extra-special place in my heart, like my nana, or my cousin munchkin, and of course the darling boy, who gets bonus points for making my heart actually skip a beat. and, gee, i don't know...mariska hargitay? megan mullally? once i cross into celeb listing there'd be no end to my list.

what magazines do you subscribe to?
los angeles. gourmet. martha stewart living. there are some others that are coming to an end that i'm not renewing.

are you friends with your ex-boyfriends?
well, let's see. there are six guys that, by my definition, served terms as my boyfriend. we'll call them: the first one (1995), the darling boy (1995-6, 2005-present), the younger one (1998-99), the v.d.b. (2003), the difficult one (2001), and the one that married a bridesmaid (2002-3). the first one and i didn't really have much of a relationship, and he kind of screwed me over, and when i ran into him at a social function a few months post-split he split without even facing me, so, no, i'm not friends with him. the younger one and i were at the sending christmas card phase a couple of years ago but have since lost touch, but i don't think it would be horrid to talk to him again (m.d. you out there?). after the v.d.b. uninvited me to his birthday celebration in the bay area after our relationship did the on-off up-down thing too much that was that. the one who married a bridesmaid was none too pleased that i blogged about my feelings about the end of our relationship and his new relationship with his now-bride, and when i saw him at target last year i deliberately made a game out of hiding from him, just for laughs and not out of anger, mind you. the difficult one and i were chummy, mostly in the instant messenger small talk sense for a while, but that faded out at least a year ago. and the darling boy, well... they say you can't go back again, so after a nine and a half year hiatus in contact we wound up boldly going forward, and so, really, when you get down to it, he's the only ex i'm friends with, and then some.

"give a little respect to (oooh-oooh-oooh) me"*

when i first started teaching at the university i thought i'd be all "i'm hip and down to earth and approachable" so i let my students call me by my first name. then, after giving it some thought, and reflecting on the professionalism of the many professors i'd admired and learned from over the years, realized that i can be "hip and down to earth and approachable" but still maintain some of the respectful formalities of the instructor-student divide-slash-relationship. from then on i introduced myself as ms. lastname and, for the most part, students were fine with calling me ms. or miss, or ms. lastname, or teacher, or (grin) professor. but despite my introduction as such, and to my amazement, new students some times call me by my first name. for example, a couple of weeks ago, a student who was hoping to add in to one of my classes sent me an email pleading their case. the email began: "hellooo lindsay" and didn't improve much from there. under even the best possible of circumstances i would not have been able to add the student, but i did pause to marvel at what i saw as their boldness; to address an instructor you've never met in the hopes of joining their class by their first name strikes me as highly unassuming and also inappropriate. why, i never! was my first thought. and i never have. and i've been invited to some of my professors homes for dinner, and call them only dr. or prof. so-and-so. only. even now, when techinically we're colleagues. then, the other day, a student was leaving me a note at my office. "hi lindsay" it began. oh dear. here we go again. so i thought: how can i let them know in a subtle and kind way that i don't think it's appropriate to call me lindsay? luckily, in both cases, i could respond to the students by email. normally in response to students i sign emails with my initials. but for these two i came up with this solution: i signed my emails Prof. Lastname. i think that was a wise solution--it's not how i expect to be addressed, but i think the extremity of it makes a point. we'll see if the one student who is in my class catches the hint. it's one of the few lines i've drawn (besides never calling students, or their parents, or meeting them off campus, or sharing my personal phone number with them) and i think it's a reasonable one.

*apparently i'm jonesing for some classic dance-pop from erasure. obvs.

2006: here's looking at you!

all in a day's (off) work

yesterday i had one of those well-paced, moderate-intensity, high-achievement days, whereupon when i laid my head to rest on my pillow i felt i'd truly earned the impending (and resulting) good night's sleep. here's what i did:

• had my lady-parts reinvestigated and my general well-being confirmed. this culminated in planned parenthood issuing me what i called "the best goody-bag a girl could ever get." pp's subtexted memo to me: you will be a fortress of impregnability. i say: hooray!
• grabbed a delish lunch at a fave spot with the formidable foxy.
• swapped out a duplicate b-day gift book at borders in exchange for a novel (upon which the film i saw monday was based) and one on learning japanese "the fast and fun way."
• hit the gym. started the novel while on the elliptical. swam laps. thought to myself: gee, this isn't so bad. i actually kind of dig this. there's no reason why i couldn't do this several times a week...
• got my toes pedicured. continued reading the novel. bliss.
• assembled a healthy dinner, and ate it while watching a documentary on boarding school.
• phone calls to gal pals. silly txt msg to the darling boy.
  
• began to learn japanese, "the fast and fun way." konnichiwa. hajimemashite. otoko no ko tachi. konbanwa. ogenki desu ka. hai, okagesama de.
• 50 sit ups, plus various stretches and leg lifts.
• finished reading the novel. all 350+ pages in one day.
• lights out. whew!
  

a little slow on the update

i really should be riding the blogger's short bus, since i'm painfully slow at getting info from the whirlygig that is my life to this here blog o'mine.

meh. i'm not really going to apologize. it is what it is.

what can i say?

my teaching schedule rocks my face off, and so far, i really dig my classes and my students. and, to make things even more delicious, my office is actually in the english department, instead of in the hinterlands of the fine arts building, and i get to see my old cronies and former profs all the livelong day (plus, to ease my lunchtime woes, i can bring a lunch and put it in the fridge and even heat it up in the microwave, which couldn't happen in the hell that was my previous office). the more i teach, the more i like it, and i'd say that's the mark of a great job.

cooking school is coming to an end... waah! i've really grown to love the group dynamics and the creative process of learning to cook. we're two thirds of the way done with our tests, and next week's is sure to be the ultimate nailbiter, since we're only being told the name of the dish. for those of you that have never thought of what takes place behind the scenes before your plate arrives at your table in a restaurant, take note: that shit is hard work. what's killing me is that i'm scoring right on par with my classmates, which was an 88 last week and an 89 this week, and in my books that's a B+, and this girl is a straight A student! i know ultimately i'm going to get my certification, but, man, if only i could crack the 90 line, i'd feel a little less lousy about myself. of course, the bottom line is, i've learned a lot, met some really great people (no, darling boy, i'm not a "shop class betty") and had a blast.

how stoked am i that my twin sister ashley is coming down here next month to hang with me? beyond stoked, actually.

anyhow, it's a cold night in los angeles, and i need to crank up the heat. it's a holiday tomorrow, and i'm going to meet up with some darling gal pals to see a flick and dish some dirt. meanwhile, i'm going to keep me warm with some of the sexiest law & order: criminal intent there is: goren and eames and barek and logan all in the same episode, oh my! couple that with some questionable thoughts about my darling, darling boy (things are v. good in that department, in case you were curious), and...

...i'll leave it at that for now. i don't want to reveal too much, now do i?

it's just the day today

today was one of those overcast days for me, inside and out. a little system-shocked from having gone back to work yesterday, a little too much mellowment in the holiday break schedule, and a little lonely feeling. it happens. ups and downs, right? i've cured the melancholoy for the most part by goofing on what was on tv with l.q.t. and taking on all sorts of ridiculous personas for our own amusement for one long, satisfactory stretch of time. i'm drinking lots of water. i'm going to get a good night's sleep.

i've been wanting to nab and post these song lyrics for a while now--it's a really great song, one of my current favorites,--and when the tune came 'round on my ipod on my way home from campus last night it reminded me that i wanted to do just that. i suppose today's a good day for it, since i am a little low-slung in the mood department. but fogs lift, and tomorrow is another day, and so on and so on and so on. there's plenty of time for that inevitable knocking on my door. it's just the day today.

"All the Miles"
(Amy Millan)

Today I'm sinkin' lower than the sun does on a Sunday
And I look around
But you're nowhere and I don't know
If I can pick up, because when I wake up
You're still gone

And all the water in you is putting out the fire in me
And all the miles have no sympathy

Then tomorrow comes, and you're knocking at my door
And I forget it all
I forget that I spend every night thinkin' of your hands
Trying to make myself understand that I,
I will love you anyway

Yeah, I'll keep on lo-lo-lovin' you anyway
Yeah, I'll keep on lo-lo-lovin' you anyway

Today, I'm sinking lower than the sun does on a Sunday
And I look around
But you're nowhere, and I don't know
If I can pick up, because when I wake up
You're still gone

Yeah, I'll keep on lo-lo-lovin' you anyway
(Gone)
Yeah, I'll keep on lo-lo-lovin' you anyway
(Gone)