Line from an Instant Message with One of My Many Single Friends Through Whom I Live Vicariously

Me: Oh my god, your entire life is like a Penthouse letter.
Her: hahahaha.

Important Debate Topic

Me: Wow, John McCain licks his lips like a lizard. Do you notice this?

Ian: Yeah, and when the camera's on Obama you hear all this grunting and growling off screen. You expect them to pan over and he's half-beast.

Me: Definitely. You know what it is? He's making old man noises.

Ian: Yes.

Me: I wonder if he has an old man smell like my grandparents. I feel like voting for Barack just out of pity, if he's had to hang out with all these bodily functions over the course of three debates.

First Week of School

Internet, did I tell you that I got a teaching job? State hired me back to teach three sections of comp classes. That is good.

The problem is that I really don't like the person I'm forced to become during the first few weeks of class. I am continually encouraged--by peers, other experienced lecturers, and professors--that I need to be tough in the first few weeks. Especially as a young woman, I cannot appear vulnerable or tolerant of bullshit in the least. Thus, this means I need to become a cold-hearted bitch. Example from yesterday:

I am setting up materials in front of the class. I have walked in, not made eye contact with anyone, and have not smiled. I can feel them all staring at me; the tension is ridiculously thick. Student walks in:

Student: "Is this room 4176?"

I make no movement or sign to the student that I even heard him; other students in the class will confirm the room number. I repeat over and over to myself in my head, "Look like you can't be bothered. Look like you can't be bothered."

The humor--or tragedy--in this is that this is totally not the person I am. I looooove my students. I would do anything for them. And I'm a really nice, helpful person. I like helping other people, making them feel at ease, pointing them in the direction they need to go. I just can't do this yet, because then they will realize that I am a 26-year-old softie, and they will throw things in class, and cut each others' hair in class, and I will start the day's lesson and it will be like I am not even there. I'd normally be of the opinion that you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar... but man, I've seen it, and I am not walking down that road again.

Dear Summer Job Coworker-cum-Douchebag:

As the only woman employed in our surf-shop-turned-internet-business, I am a bit sensitive to gender politics in the workplace. Your comment the other day that "I'd better not spill this or Lauren will have to clean it up" was not particularly welcome. AND YOU WERE NOT EVEN JOKING.

So please be advised: the hairy eyeball and "Excuse me?" I shot at you should be translated as the following. I did not just earn my Master's degree so that I could clean up after your chauvinist, tattooed, sunburned punk ass.

Cheers,
Lauren

Packing

We are leaving for a week-long vacation to Portugal tomorrow, and as Ian has been home exactly three hours (1:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. last night) in the past 48 and has slept exactly one hour less than said time, he has had no time to pack. So as I've been putting things together this afternoon I've decided to start an Ian-pile of things that I know he will want or will wish he had remembered when his brain recovers from the forced insomnia. This process is a little like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie; I'm calling it If You Give Ian Lang Some Noise-Cancelling Headphones.

Because if you do, he will want some puzzles of some kind to do while he's listening to his latest grooves (cue my packing of the Sudoku). And then he will get hungry, but he is picky and won't eat airplane food; he will want instead his Quaker Chewy Chocolate Chip 25% Reduced Sugar granola bars. (Add those to the pile.) And then he will notice that I am stoned on Xanax, which will be true, but I will also be watching the West Wing on my laptop (thanks, Karina!) and he will want to watch something too, so I've packed some Seinfeld episodes. And then he will get grouchy and irritable because I have taken the aisle seat (heh heh) and he really wants the window, and thus the best thing for him to do is nap. (Include the travel pillow.) Married four years... or FOUR HUNDRED?

Also, I am very excited because I received my invitation for Fantasy Football! This year's theme is Arrested Development (and Adam, Ian called that months ago. We've been contemplating our names now for some time. Not that it's a problem!) and my name is Ms. Bananagrabber. Allusive, yet sexually deviant!

And with that, I'm off.

Why we don't switch jobs

"I need to write an article about bedroom furniture. Do you have any suggestions? I'm totally out of ideas."

"Your Bedroom Furniture: Where the Magic Happens."

Announcement:

Christian Bale is as hot now as he was in 1994, when I first fell in love with him in Little Women. (Shut up, it was a very formative film for me. I was twelve and wished that I had a Laurie. Poor child, no one in 1994 had hair as good as they did during the Civil War.)

But I digress. My thesis is this: Batman was okay, but DAMN, Bruce Wayne.