"My parents keep asking 'How was school?' It's like saying 'How was that drive-by shooting?' You dont care how it was, you're lucky to get out alive."

i went back to high school today...to teach.

i opened my iTunes to play an mp3 for the kids. a particularly vocal girl squinted at my artist list on the projector.

girl: "30 Seconds to Mars? i've seen them. Jared Leto is so hot."
boy: "Do we have to go over this again?"

i guess some things never change.

tattoos for example.

my mom: "is it still there?" referring to the tattoo on my [very] lower abdomen.
me: "yes, mom. it's still there."

unrelated: i finished the first Harry Potter. i would check the forecast for Hell if you plan on visiting. you might need a sweater.

the irony of a wrong number.

I was listening to my father complain about his life this afternoon (I am, if nothing else, a loving daughter) when I got another call.

"Hi, can I speak to Mike?"

no, I thought, but if you do speak to Mike, I have a few things you could say to him on my behalf.

His opponent, as proud as the rooster who is left unchallenged upon the midden, crowed away in a last long burst of quotation and deduction.

(my word of the day was "midden" if you are reading this, thinking to yourself, my, where the hell did that headline come from. side parenthetical - i much prefer "midden's" sister synonym, "muckheap" but this is all entirely irrelevant)

i'm really just looking for some fantastic Google hits. and i'm totally not drinking wine right now. my iGoogle homepage (genius lovechild!) makes for fantastic fodder, let me tell you...(okay, i'll spare you).

i don't have anything in particular to say. this troubles me. it is the result of a couple of things: 1) i forgot that truly meaningful diatribe i had intended on writing, 2) it occurred to me recently that i blog a whole lot less when in the frame of mind of "oh, isn't this all so trivial?" and 3) i have midterms.

we'll go with midterms, for the sake of excuse.

a few things to mention this week:

it is entirely possible to get a floor-wide notice citing complaints of "olfactory disturbances." it is also possible that this notice is going on my wall for the purpose of amusement.

my brother made an exceedingly generous donation to the Melaina Guinness Drinking/Scottish Castle Hopping fund. (i was planning on beginning this blog with the phrase "i'm having trouble deciding which castle to stay in this summer" just because i could, but deemed it too...bombastic).

it occurred to me recently that i don't know what the hell i'm really doing with my life. and for that moment i was happy.

the same old prejudice prevails. war matters; love does not.

my lovely Chaya sent me this article by Erica Jong. it is worth reading, thus i urge you to.

i have many things to say. alas, i have many things i should be writing that are not my blog. for six more weeks at least, school and work will outweigh frivolity.

unrelated: it is my great wish that the people i know, namely the young men i know, could have the opportunity to have a heart-to-heart with my father. he has Gandalf's beard and more perspective than Brunelleschi.

he is somebody worth knowing.