Word On High

So Word On High (aka Mom) has come down and told me I can't talk about my family online. Well here's me thumbing my nose at Ma.

Let's start off with The Oldest sister, shall we?

I've always been impressed with Nikki's grace. From the calmness and surety of the way her fingers move over a keyboard, to the silent presence her posture makes in a room, Nicole has always exhibited a smoothness of motion that reminds me of a ballet. She'll always be smarter than me. It used to kill me when she'd make my papers bleed, but now that I do it myself, I know what an impact a good critical eye can have on a piece of writing. She's a great critic and editor. She's got a gift for the expository where I sometimes run away from. Nikki's organized in ways I could never hope to be. She's a perfectionist, but willing to compromise where it counts. And did I mention she sails and cooks too?

The Youngest:

Tricia excels in areas I couldn't hope to imagine being proficient at. She's got four phones and manages them all with the strategic precision of a general. I'd have lost at least 2 by now. She's a natural leader. I muddled my way through my terms as Worthy Advisor. Tricia ran the show for over a year and made it look effortless. She has a real drive to find a job that brings her not only success, but challenges her in new ways. She has a nack for dealing with kids that sometimes flumoxes me. Tricia has an easy speech and wit that turns confrontational into conversational, making her the greatest people person I've ever met. She got a natural nack for networking and resource building. And if she ever wanted a date, my guy students ALWAYS point her out of the picture of the three of us... and want to know who she is.

So Mom, Blegghghghghgh.

SAD

It's really rather creepy outside my classroom. It's about two minutes before school starts and the clouds and the sun are having a fight. The clouds are winning. The trees look rather ominous with their straggly patches where they've shed portions of their leaves like they've got bad poodle haircuts. Rabid green poodles. Yeah.

Probably isn't helping that I'm still in a very bad sad mood. I just started crying this morning as they showed the news story of the Hendricks family plane crash. I keep telling myself that I've got to get over it... this funky mood, but if my students do anything to piss me off today, they're gonna know it.

I came home from doing my laundry yesterday, and I didn't think I was going to make a big deal of it, but the moment I came through the door, Liz knew something was wrong. She came over to give me a hug and I started bawling and trying to get the story out, but it was just blubbery and hiccuppy and bits and pieces of phrases.

It's stupid really, how much I can be hurt by my sister, but no matter how old I get, when she makes her digs I want to scream and scratch and hit and bite, and only the adult in me backs away and leaves her triumphant.

Because I know, whatever I say, I will be wrong. Because she has a guest and I don't live there. Because she wasn't as good in school. Because I'm older Because I know better.

I know better.

Long Week

Man, Monday seems so long ago... and there's a story I'd like to tell about it, but I'm afraid I can't tell you about it. Just that Nikki got busted!

Tuesday was choir night. I did another one of those listen and pretend to sing and only sing when the altos got low enough for me to sing baritone. I also had an English Department meeting that lasted two BLOODY hours after school.

Wednesday was fun. Lizzie and I went coffee shop hunting. We drove down Broadway to four cafes I had found on the internet. After driving all the way to Long Beach Blvd without stopping (mainly because we sighted potential cafe as we drove past), we headed back and finally ended at a place called Library. It was cool in the atmostspere department. It had brick walls that were lined with crazy photos and bookcases of used books you could purchase for a dollar. There were all sorts of mismatched comfy chairs and coffee tables. Unfortunately on the way out, Lizzie tripped and sprained her ankle. "Is she okay, Miss Mathis?" Suddenly one of my former students appeared - one from Rogers that I based a character in my screenplay on. It was rather random.

Thursday was class night. I didn't do as well as I would have liked on my pages. I was concentrating on sensory and didn't get enough plot or dialog... which is funny because usually I have the opposite problem. On the way home, Lizzie asked me to stop by and pick her up an ace bandage. So I wandered into the grocery store at about 10:30. I think it's back to being open 24 hrs after the grocery strike. I grabbed a bandage, some fruit bars and a bunch of bananas. The line was literally ten people deep. Finally when they got a second line open, I got in the wrong one. Slooooooow! This was all made worse by the fact that I had to peeeee. I looked back when I was second in line and saw there were now 10 people waiting in both of the lines. Fun.

Senza voce no longer

If my Italian is correct... that means sin voz nada mas... or without voice no more!

That doesn't mean that I don't sound like a crackly old two pack an hour hag.

Disappointed currently as it seems Nano is down.

Last weekend was a bit exhausting, but fun.

Started off with a football game - ASU vs. USC. Now the fun part of that is the teams have the same colors, but generally the ASU wore bright yellow and USC wore cardinal. There were all sorts of drunken fools... especially the ASU fans behind us who kept literally kicking us in the butt. They were extremely cocky when they scored their one touchdown, even though the score was 21 to 7 at that point. They left at halftime when it was currently obvious we were kicking their ass, figuratively, of course.

Off we went to Rob's party where he had some amazing yummy stuff. I didn't try the salmon, but the beef stew was excellent. I nearly fell asleep on the couch after a margarita and a glass of wine. I passed on the grapa and limonchella, as I was the one who was going to drive home.
It poured on the way home and has been raining intermittently all weekend.

On Sunday I went to the Yarn Shop and grocery store for beer and chips before Liz and I headed over to Annelisa and Ken's house for their party. If I thought Rob had food... holy moly. Everything was great, and Jessica kept fixing me drinks. There were a lot of people there I hadn't seen in a while, including Ben, a British conspiracy theorist who thinks it wasn't a plane, but a missile shot into the Pentagon on 9/11.

I highly aprove of K and A's new house. They are totally redoing the guest house in the back. It's all torn up except for Chris's room. I got to meet his Brazilian Boa Nena that Annelisa likes to pretend doesn't exist. Snakes are no problem for me.

Okay... I'm totally rattling now... no pun intended.

So losing my voice has lost it's appeal. It's rather difficult to communicate when someone is pushing chairs into the way of the piano you're pushing and you can't warn them to stop.

And when a nervy English teacher actually says tick tock tick tock as you make copies of the test you're giving next period at the onlyoperating machine, you can't reply, "Hey, I lost my conference to PSAT proctoring and have 4 preps... what's your excuse?"

Not to mention students who seem to think you're faking it.

I wish.

I'm Princess Agbani!

Which Nigerian spammer are You?

Super Trooper

So is it sad that the only reason I really showed up to work today was because I couldn't find the sub system number?

I'm running a fever even. 100. Considering last night I was running a 97.5 that's icky.

Back to School Night was last night. Things went well. Very few parents but no major catastrophes. Got home at 8:45 and went straight to bed.

Ever notice how a foriegn language becomes completely incomprehensible when you're sick? Had to have my students repeat themselves multiple times to put the jumble into my head and make meaning of it.

Not the sharpest tack today.

In addition: Sig Files

So last year my sig file for NaNo was:

Yoda of Borg are we: Futile is resistance. Assimilate you, we will.

Which you've got to admit is pretty funny... but any suggestions for this year?

Escribiendo

Today is Official NaNoWriMo sign-up day... well if it isn't, it should be. I've been looking forward to it for weeks now. They reopen the forums and start sign-ups again at 3:00PST. I hope they have good t-shirts this year. I love my black one.

I'm not so stressed today as yesterday... I'm in the second phase - exhaustion. My class went well yesterday, and when I explained the concept for my new novel, no one stared at me as if I had three heads. Screenwriter Man even mentioned something about a physics bubble... which, though interesting, doesn't exactly fit with the rest of Seven and Tamarin... which I think are the titles so far... rather than Seven, Seven II, and Seven III. The new one has a working title of Questing.

I didn't mention that the book I was What Ifing was the third in a series. I mean I didn't want to cause a stir for taking a class, "Beginning Your Novel" when I'd already written 2 1/2.