My First Day of Not Having a First Day of School

I didn't go back to school today.

For, like, the first time ever. I went from high school to college to grad school to teaching, so for pretty much as long as I can remember the day after Labor Day has been The First Day of School, a day of both nervous anticipation and new beginnings. But today was just any old day, with nothing in particular to anticipate and nary a fresh start to be made.

And despite the fact that I made a conscious decision not to teach this year, I'm feeling out of sorts. Sure, I'm looking forward to a year without papers to grade or bratty students to reprimand, but I already miss the not-so-bratty kids and I haven't quite grown used to my new identity as someone other than a teacher.

So because I can't let go -- and because I never got around to it back in June -- please enjoy Exhibits D through K from last year's classroom portrait gallery.

Exhibit D:

What I don't like: Dude, I NEVER wear heels. Plus that apostrophe is totally unnecessary. And, um, I know I was concerned about the lack of teeth in exhibit C but these teeth are just weird. Oh, OH, and poor Luna!

What I do like: The GMOs! We were totally studying GMOs at the time, and this kid knows enough to know they're bad news.

Exhibit E:

What I don't like: Oh gosh, where to begin? Let's see. . .A) meat is NOT good, B) why is my face a different color than my body?, C) did I just decapitate my cat?!, D) belly shirts are SO 1994.

What I do like: Um? I see the word "organic." That's nice.










Exhibit F:

What I don't like: Whoa. Crazy hair! I look scary.

What I do like: Nice pink dress, plus this is the portrait of a chick who doesn't fuck around. I mean, you'd sit down if she said to, right?











Exhibit G:

What I don't like: Hellooooo, arms?

What I do like: "shhhhhhhh" sounds a lot more like something I would say than, "sit down you fooooolls!" Also red is a good color for me.











Exhibit H:

What I don't like: Um, hellooooo, ARMS? Also why am I twice the size of Mr. Michigan?

(sidebar: Early in the year I got so tired of trying to distinguish between the inseparable and nearly identical Blair and Ashby that I just started calling both of them Blashby. It worked.)

What I do like? Awwww, first portrait to include my totally awesome boyfriend! And I think he's making a kissy face. :-)





Exhibit I:

What I don't like: Dude, that ring is WAY too big for my nonexistent finger. Plus it is important for young ladies to understand that there's more to life than snagging a husband and scoring a nice rock. Seriously, is feminism dead?

What I do like: If I WERE getting hitched, the Outer Banks (or OBX in local parlance) would sure be a nice place to do so.








Exhibit J:

What I don't like: Am I wearing Timberlands with a DRESS? An ORANGE dress? And what is UP with my eyes?

What I do like: I'm rich! Look at all those dubs ($20 bills) I got!











Exhibit K:

What I don't like: At the end of a year-long Geography course, you'd think my students could read a map well enough to determine that Michigan does, in fact, have beaches.

What I do like: Is that a beer in my hand? Oooh, and I have a much nicer rack here than in real life.

A Brief Note to the Neighbors

Dear Neighbors,

We have a front door and it is perfectly okay to use it. There is really no need to stand in our yard and attempt to hail us through the windows, nor is it necessary to remain shouting from said yard for the duration of the conversation you've initiated. Seriously, we'd love to chat, but we paid good money for that door and we might as well get some use out of it.

Although the other day when you knocked persistently at nine in the morning that wasn't so cool.

Lil' Bit of Film Review, Lil' Bit of Bitchin'

Yesterday the totally awesome boyfriend and I attended the final day of the Traverse City Film Festival, which is exactly like the Sundance Film Festival except that nobody's ever heard of it. Which is unfortunate because the Traverse City Film Festival is really a pretty cool thing. It's the brainchild of local left-wing pinko Michael Moore, who believes that "we need movies that seek to enrich the human spirit and the art of filmmaking -- not the bottom line."

So yesterday afternoon Chris and I saw two documentaries -- Chicago 10 and In the Shadow of the Moon -- that did just that. And although I didn't plan it that way when I bought the tickets, both films were set in the same time period and seeing the two together presented a really neat dichotomy of the late 1960s. While Chicago 10 illustrated how fucked up and torn apart our country was, In the Shadow of the Moon painted a picture of oneness and. . .well. . .grace experienced not just by Americans but by all of humankind.

I've always preferred books to movies, but since Chris started sharing all his obscure documentaries with me I've realized that this is one of the coolest things about seeing quality films. Just like a good book, a good film makes you think, which I guess is the whole point of the Traverse City Film Festival and why the schedule includes panel discussions in addition to film screenings. Not that you need to attend a discussion in order to discuss; as they exited a theater, I heard some guy say eagerly to his companion, "Let's go sit somewhere so we can discuss, in depth, what we just saw." (PS - that guy was Chris).

We actually did attend a sort-of discussion -- an event called "Mike's Surprise," the surprise being that you end up seeing whatever Michael Moore feels like showing you, which in our case turned out to be outtakes from his new film Sicko. The cool part about this was that we got to see Michael Moore live in person (!) and to hear him speak, and that when he spoke he said lots of intelligent and funny things. We also (obviously) got to see quite a bit of interesting Sicko-related footage that none of you losers get to see until the DVD comes out, including a lengthy conversation with the very wise, very British, and very articulate Tony Benn. Plus Mr. Moore took questions and answered them thoughtfully, and when -- for some odd reason -- he insisted that one little white-haired woman sing her question while sashaying down the aisle, she did.

Okay, so there was more than one cool part of "Mike's Surprise." The not-so-cool part, however, was Moore's response to a young woman who stood up and asked -- with a sort of helpless, hopeful urgency -- what we can do. The muckraking hell-raiser's call to activism?

Write your congressperson.

That's right. Write your congressperson and encourage him or her to co-sponsor HR 676, The United States National Health Insurance Act.

Gee, Mike, that'd be a really swell idea if the vast majority of our politicians wasn't languishing contentedly in the pockets of their corporate donors and actually, I don't know, gave two shits about what the average American wants. I mean, sure, I'll try it, but come ON. You can't go around making movies about how fucked up things are in our country and then pretend that things aren't SO fucked up that a quick little note to your elected representative won't make everything all better.

I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but "write your congressperson" seems like a pretty tough sell to a girl whose letters to congresspeople typically generate little more than a polite restatement of the congressperson's position on the issue. Surely there must be a way to convince our elected representatives to, you know, represent us.

If not, at least we can create disparaging likenesses of them to affix to local street signs, like this one we stumbled upon yesterday:


Which admittedly would be markedly improved if the culprit knew the difference between "murder" (a verb) and "murderER" (a noun). Fuck and alas.

Taking Inventory

Like many women, I prefer that my living quarters not in any way resemble a fraternity house, which is why all I can think about these days is paint. Not that a coat of paint (or three, as it turns out) completely eliminates that Delta Tau Chi sort of ambiance, but it does go a long way. Take, for example, our spare room (or the book room, as I like to call it). Mere weeks ago the book room was not a book room at all; it was a dumping ground for useless crap -- empty kitty litter containers, broken storm windows, several non-functioning vacuums -- all bathed in the shiny glow of fake wood paneling. But now. . .NOW. . .the book room is a lovely shade of Carolina Blue (hey, where I come from that's a proper noun) containing exactly zero useless craps and approximately 500 books. Oh, also there's a futon. For visitors. Feel free.

So anyway, my point here is that I painted the spare room. Actually my real point is that before I could paint the spare room I had to de-crap-ify it, and you would not BELIEVE the useless Chris crap I found in the top of the closet. Sure, we all possess a fair amount of useless crap, but we don't all write things on our blogs like, "People, I beg you. Stop buying shit you don't need!" while the following items languish in our crap room closets:

• 13 unfinished fish carvings, with assorted driftwood
• a bike helmet
• 2 passports
• a pin made out of a dead fish
• an empty book of matches
• 2 packs of Wrigley's Doublemint gum (for double the refreshment, double the enjoyment, etc. I suppose)
• a stuffed teddy bear in Christmas attire
• assorted cards, including a Christmas card from some chick named Gita
• an invisible ink baseball game book
• a deck of playing cards wherein our current president appears in drag
• a little black book
• four (yes, FOUR) beanie babies
• a dirty dollar bill (with pictures of women licking VERY large penises rather than pictures of, say, George Washington)
• condoms (1 vanilla flavored and 1 black studded)
• 5 L.L. Bean catalogs
• the nametag of some chick named Denise, who once worked at The Tannery
• nude showgirl playing cards
• a smoke detector
• a pack of Dentyne Ice (avalanche mist)
• a toy gun

Personally, I find the empty book of matches fascinating. I mean, why not just throw it away?

Don't Call It A Comeback

So. It's taken me two weeks, but I'm proud to say that I have visited every bar in Boyne City. And I did it all in one night. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how I roll.

What? You were expecting a nice, long post about the big move, and how wonderful it is living with my totally awesome boyfriend, and all the romantic things we've been doing? Tough shit. I meant to do a post when we first got here, and I even had the last paragraph -- which included this closing sentence: "And then Chris gazed at me lovingly and said, 'You know, I really need to get an axe," -- composed in my head, but I just never got to it.

Instead, join me on a tour of the Boyne City bar scene. . .

PS: You have to click on that little talking bubble icon (second from the left) for my informative captions to appear with each photo.

Holy Hiatus, Batman!

Dear Blogfriends,

As you may have noticed, I ain't posted shit lately. And I couldn't tell you what's going on on your blogs.

Here's the thing: I'm moving in two weeks. And moving is kind of a clusterfuck even when you're not moving 1000 miles away from everything (okay, maybe not EVERYthing) you hold dear. For starters there's the packing, which if packing doesn't sound like a very big deal to you, it's only because A) you haven't seen my bookshelves and B) it probably hasn't occurred to you that books should be packed alphabetically by subject. So the packing is a bit time consuming.

It's not really the packing though, and it's not even so much the physical act of moving that has kept me from the internets. It's that I am consumed by the IDEA of moving. For weeks all of my mental and emotional energy has been devoted to what it means to move, and I have busied myself with a series of bittersweet lasts: my last weekend at the beach, the last time I'll make crabcakes, my last Cogan's Thursday, the last visit with my brother/sister/parents/friends, my last chance to tousle my pseudo-nephews' hair, the last time I'll see the Atlantic Ocean or walk down this particular street. You name it, I'm crying about it. Even the last rent check elicited a few tears. I'm obsessive like that.

I've picked up the phone at least 25 times to call my best friend -- a military wife who's moved five times in the past nine years -- and wail, "How do you DO it?!" But each time I've put it down because I know how she does it: by not picking the phone up all the time and carrying on about how much she misses us all. That and she has a husband who's just about as perfect for her as my boyfriend is for me, and when you find a guy like that you really have no choice but to follow him to the ends of the earth. Or at least to Michigan.

So the bittersweet lasts are tempered by an array of exciting firsts, none of which, I assure you, will involve jerky and some of which I may even tell you about.

Change Is Good. . .Right?

So. Remember back in January when I lamented my lack of direction and my inability to formulate any plans for my future? Remember how all y'all said plans are overrated and throw caution to the wind and other such nonsense? Yeah, well, you win. Although I AM currently in possession of both direction and plans.

I've submitted my letter of resignation, informed my kids that I won't be returning next year, given notice on my lease, separated books I'll likely never read from books I can't bear to part with, loaded up my CD player with Eddie from Ohio in a fit of preemptive nostalgia, begun searching for good homes for my 40 or so houseplants, and struck up a friendly online relationship with the good folks at U-Haul. Oh, and I'm cheerfully burning through 25.5 days of sick leave. Because, as my boyfriend has already announced with his trademark brevity, I'm moving in with him. (He did elaborate on this exciting news by noting that he hopes I like frozen pizza, but that was pretty much the extent of his announcement. Now you know why I'm the designated detail-sharer. His detail-sharing lacks, you know, details.)

When Chris and I first started discussing the possibility of moving in together (back in January, actually, right before I started to lack direction), it kinda freaked me out. By which I mean it TOTALLY freaked me out, not just because it involved me moving to Michigan where I hear it's fucking cold, but because it involved me giving up some of my independence. "You know, you can live with a man and still be a feminist," my married friend G finally said, rolling his eyes after weeks of listening to me obsess and over-analyze. "I don't know," I responded, "one minute you're happily shacking up and the next minute you're shuttling a minivan full of kids from soccer practice to piano lessons to cub scouts, face to face with the problem that has no name." This only elicited more eye rolling.

I pretty much got over that whole Betty Friedan thing only to begin freaking out about my living-with-a-man track record, which is not pretty: I tried it once, and I didn't like it. To be fair, it took a mere five days to confirm what I'd known long before the good folks at U-Haul got involved, and my fiancé was not exactly shocked when I called the whole thing off. "I'm going to stay with my parents,"I announced, duffel bag in hand. "Okay," he answered, glancing from the TV to me, "but do you want to watch The Simpsons with me before you go?" which I think we can all agree is not the way normal people react to their fiancés walking out on them six weeks before their weddings. But I digress.

I've never been good with change, and I rarely initiate it. I've lived in Virginia since I was five years old. My only major move was two years ago when I relocated a mere 188 miles down the road back to the place I grew up in, so while it was a self-initiated move it hardly qualifies as major. My family and almost all my friends are in Virginia, not to mention the mild winters and my proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. I really love Virginia, despite our propensity to elect morons like George Allen, and I pretty much thought I'd stay here forever.

But then, I'd never fallen madly in love with a man who lives in fucking Michigan before. What's a girl to do but invest in a good pair of snow boots and throw caution to the wind?

If You Seek A Pleasant Peninsula (or some exotic jerky), Look About You

So. I'm back from Michigan. Actually, I've been back from Michigan. I've just been busy working and drinking and petting my cat, who was beside herself with loneliness by the time I returned late Tuesday night.

My trip to Michigan was great. Even the airplane part wasn't so bad. I hate to fly and I'm a nervous wreck every time I have to get on a plane. I worry that even though I've purchased a ticket, some computer glitch will prevent me from being allowed on the plane. I worry that I'll miss my flight. I worry that the plane will crash. I worry that even if the plane doesn't crash, they'll lose my luggage. In short, I'm not good with flying.

So I sort of freaked out after it took me 30 minutes just to check in for my departing flight and I noticed as I was rushing to the gate that I hadn't been assigned a seat on the plane. And when I say sort of I mean totally. Unfortunately, there was only one gate agent at the gate and he was boarding the plane. I waited until everyone had boarded, thinking, "Ohmygod I'm not gonna be allowed on the plane! I'm gonna miss my flight!" and then I approached the gate agent and said frantically, "I don't have a seat!" He glanced at my boarding pass and smiled at me. Smiled! Then he handed me a new boarding pass and chirped, "You're flying first class today." Jesus! Could they not have mentioned this during the 30 minutes they spent checking me in?!

First class was nice though. Right up until the end of the flight when the captain announced that all the luggage that was supposed to have been put on our plane had accidentally been put on a plane to DC. "Ohmygod, they lost my luggage," I panicked. But when I got to Michigan, there was my bag in baggage claim, just as it should have been. The travel gods must have been smiling upon me.

And where they left off the weather gods took over. Michigan was unseasonably warm and therefore extremely pleasant. It was sunny and in the upper 40s/lower 50s for most of the time I was there, so those snow boots I bitched about? Totally unnecessary.

Oh, and did I mention my super-dreamy boyfriend? Chris and I had a great time. We drove around checking out cute little towns, we had dinner with his aunt and uncle, we walked along the shores of several different lakes, we did the daily crossword together and yelled at FOX "News" together, we checked out places Hemingway used to frequent, AND Chris let me go in THREE different bookstores without even rushing me out of them. Also we sat around in our pajamas and made out a lot.

I could get used to that. Although I draw the line at elk jerky.

in Just -- spring

My world is not quite mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful yet, but buds are starting to appear on trees, daffodils are poking out of the ground, and robins are flitting about. It's one of my favorite times of the year. You can practically smell Spring.



And I'm off to Michigan -- land of icicles, axe-murderers, and bacon-flavored bedspreads -- for five days.

It must be love.

It's Hard To Be A Fashion Plate When It's 8° Out

I have no idea how to dress for cold weather, so my upcoming visit to Michigan presents a bit of a packing dilemma. Fortunately, I know people who DO know how to dress for cold weather and they've recommended a few Michigan must-haves.

Must-Have #1: Boots

Shortly after Christmas, I stumbled upon these boots at my local Marshall's. They were on clearance for $20. "Whoa! What a bargain!" I thought to myself. I called Chris later and asked if he thought I should get them. "Why would you need boots?" Chris answered, which I took to mean, "I have no intention of ever wanting you to live with me," so I didn't buy them. Because, really, why ELSE would I need boots?

But then later, when I started planning my trip to Michigan, Chris said, "I guess you're gonna need boots, huh?" "Not a problem," I thought, "I will simply return to my friendly neighborhood Marshall's and purchase those boots I saw a few weeks ago. Of course they will still be there, as I live in southeastern Virginia and have not seen more than an inch of snow total in the past two years." And the boots WERE still there when I returned. Better yet, they'd been further marked down to $10. But do you think they had my size? Answer: no.

Neither did any other Marshall's in my area, nor any other Marshall's in my mom's area. Believe me, we checked. I admit I might have even checked a Marshall's or two between my area and my mom's area when I visited last weekend. Nobody has those fuckin' boots.

So this morning I bought some boots online. The exact same boots, in fact. For $84.

Must-Have #2: Flannel-Lined Jeans

Both Lulu and my friend Jess, who's from upstate New York, have sung the praises of flannel-lined jeans. And I could really get into some flannel-lined jeans were it not for the fact that every single pair I've seen for sale looks like this. I mean, call me vain, but I would rather be cold than wear mom jeans.

Must-Have #3: Long Underwear

Here's the problem: I'm not even a very big fan of short underwear, so long underwear's gonna be a tough sell.

And what's the deal? Are you supposed to wear regular underwear and then LONG underwear? AND clothes? Don't you kind of end up looking like the Michelin Man?

I'm not opposed to layering -- it is, in fact, central to my look. But my idea of layering involves a tank top and a deliberately threadbare t-shirt. If it's cold out, I'll throw on a cardigan. So I'm not sure that long johns have a place in my wardrobe. From preliminary online window shopping I know that some companies offer camisoles as part of their long underwear line, and I could definitely rock a camisole, but I'm sort of suspicious of a camisole's ability to actually keep me warm.

Maybe I should just wear TWO threadbare t-shirts.

Will that work, tundra people? And are there other cold weather must-haves I'm overlooking?