i think its best if this takes a mental health break

those of you who are named readers know how to get in touch.
otherwise see you on the flipside.

ps. if history repeats itself this probably won't be long lived
pps. the moon rising/brightening due to declining sunlight light over the water was gorgeous down at coney island tonight

am i the only one who remembers making caramel in 7th grade science?

i want to do it with my kids on thursday but can't find any info. really i should be prepping for the field trip tomorrow or really grading so i can write all my fucking report cards.
umm its hot as hell in my room
i can't believe i'm not asleep. considering i did not sleep on the red eye.
i need to buy a new air conditioner. has anyone done research on energy efficent, least bad for the environment ones? please pass it along if you have.

ps the amount of sunburn i received this weekend does not bode well for the summer. if you would have looked closely you would have seen tan lines with my dress-and it wasn't even memorial day

old dan tucker

(note to self to buy that song)

wall climbed higher than i ever have before this morning at rei. didn't make it to the top, could have if i did the easier route, but i felt proud of myself.
the ferry ride out to brainbridge just for ice cream was totally worth it. pretty boat, good company, awesome view of ranier and damn yummy ice cream, even if the person waiting on us was hating her job.

the wedding was very nice and pretty and simple in a good way. love that they only did WA state wines and beer. it was a mcmennomons beer and i liked it. forget the name. she looked gorgeous. it was clear how happy they were and he picked a good one, she's got spunk and an edge and he needs that. wish i was going to greece insetad of taking the red eye back to new york and going straight to teach the 4th graders.

should have said next year in seattle

turns out mickey's wedding and the first night of passover coincide. fun times.
starting to see some blue poke through the clouds as we get closer to wedding time.
went to folk life festival today, saw baby gramps. he was more family friendly than when i saw him at hanks. the best part were all the groups just busking away, so many cool instruments.
will admit wish i had time to take a nap before the wedding. its too cold for me to shave my legs though. hopefully the roobis will be a little pick me up.

damn the azeleas and rhodadendron are pretty out here

so how long do i have to wait for tilda to come home from shul before i assume she doesn't think i'm coming to her place and i can go hit rei or the new art museum?

why do airplanes that were presumably built after the total smoking ban have ashtrays in the bathroom? wasn't it never allowed to smoke in the bathroom? i guess these weren't soley manufactured for the american market.

part of the joy of flying jetblue is that i got to watch bush's annoying press conference this morning, or as much of it as i could take. i was so pissed off by his comments on china and the need to change their economy from one of savers to one of consumers, especially american products. and the whole we took out saddam to protect against al queda in iraq drives me insane, since there is so much more al queda there now than pre us. also the hey we created this mess and this fake democracy has to fix it up. arg!

i am totally thinking of this as a college reunion wedding with the added bonus of seeing mickey and tilda, but just realized that there will be people from usy in high school there possibly including someone i had a crazy crush on. random!

looks like we won't be going to a mariners game on monday

i was going to suggest it to the crew, but it turns out they will be in LA. oh well. i wonder of the o is fixed on the safeco sign. it was out when i was there in feb. darts would be the other let's doing something like what we did in st louis activity.

went to the drawing center today. picked up some of their lit, two pieces of which had thier mission and each listing of a different year it was formed. neither listed what their definition of drawing is. which i would like to know, even though that's being kind of reductionist of me. But most of the works on view today were 3-D and i would say sculptures. liked them a lot. gego's stuff was very cool, esp the streams and apparently she calls some of her work drawings without paper. the stuff across the street was awesome. it reminded me of sol lewitt, but only in the small instructions that are given for the pieces and how they could be replicated, its the kind of coneptual art that i can totally get into-william anastasi

um. skinny cow 'ice cream' bars (more fudgescicle like) are awesome. yummy for dairy eating holidays.

currently missing in my apt:
my red shoes
one chaco
my hoodie
my roommates ability to turn off any lights

next year i am so going away for shavout

had a nice dinner with some work peeps and nursery school boy, but the 92nd st Y tikkun was fairly lame. all the action is at the jcc, but i'm not sure the sessions there are any better from past experience. my best shavouts have been the ones that i have left town and headed to the woods for. but going to a friend's for dinner for the second night of chag tonight which should be nice and maybe i'll read ruth. missing yizkor tomorrow. oh well.
and hopefully i'll get my ass to the housing rally around sty-town. middle class new yorkers need advocates to, while that sounds sarcastic, its actually true and the rapid decline of mitchell-lama housing is totally problematic.

are people going to read miranda july's book? should i be all contrary and protest it? is it actually supposed to be any good in all this hype its getting?
um its fleet week people. look out for the sailors. if i were in town i'd totally go to the fleet week burlesque show at southpaw.
the public theater sends me more emails than ps122, i didn't think that was possible.

rant of the day. we all know i can't stand crocs, seriously the sight of them makes me want to gag. i was subbing for kindergarten on monday and no less than 20 % of them were wearing them. yuck.

mickey and tilda how to you feel about me showing up in seattle on thurs with dirty clothing and do laundry at your place?

cause i don't think i have enough underwear to make it through the weekend nor time to drop it off.
um how did i not know about the tour of the subway car depot in queens yesterday. i so would have been there.
hoilla the richard serra retrospective opens at moma in two weeks. they are doing it on the second floor and outside which i find interesting. we'll see.

the dinner dance/benefit was ok. a ridiculous amount of food and meat and waste. the auctioneer sucked. i did not get the week house in the hudson valley or vermont, so i need to come up with other vacation plans for august. the jewish dancing to hava negila was so crazy lame, the recording sucked and all of the israeli's in the room looked at the people dancing like we were all crazy.

philip roth (better nickname than woody allen?)made a good and i do think often forgotten point last night about being wrapped up in semantics and semiotics and ignioring the underlying problems that cause injustice, intoleracnce and rasicm in general. the way to fix societal issues isn;t to be pc or reclaim language (although i do think that is really important for groups to do) but to address the underlying causes and level the playing field.

purchased let's get it started by the black eyed peas.

pomme frites at 3:30 am=tummyache

alt. title the weekend of wasting carbon-its ridiculous how many cars i've taken this weekend. hard earned money and conserved carbon out the window-eer into the atmosphere

is sunday the day when they put the new cabbies who don't actually know where anything is--like the manhattan bridge from the east village on the roads. two experience with this. but my second cabbie was possibly the cutest man i;ve ever seen.

i have to go to my work dinner dance/benefit tonight. so meh and i don';t want to be bothered to shave my legs and have no interest in drinking.

this weather is giving me a headache, not pleased

its just what middle schoolers do/we did it when i was in middle school

NB I am currently fucking myself over for work tomorrow. and yet here i blog instead of making phone calls.

got an email relating a convo another teacher had with a parent about some middle school antics that have been going on that upset her daughter. one being MASH, not the awesome show, but the stupid game where you find out what kind of house you will have, car you will drive and person you will marry. i have very distinct memories of doing that endlessly in mrs chungs class. i've seen the 6th grade doing it recently and basically thought-ah yes this is what middle schoolers do. but it is also a game that is either ripe for bullying or making people that are not as physically/not as interested in sex yet developed feel bad (as were more of the things that parent was concerned about) but how as a progressive educator should i be dealing with this shit. avoid at all costs is what i want to do, but that doesn't in any way create a more just world. it reminds me of MW in college who complained seriously while he was pledging that he would never do this shit to the future pledges, but then once he had some power totally took over the well it happened to me attitude. just because i had a shitty time in middle school doesn't mean i should be an enabler in other people having a miserable time? which also leads to why are we so fucking afraid of difference and why does different automatically get labeled as bad or even have any value judgement. what is the evolutionary advantage of that? i really think that even if it is an evolutionary advantage its a socialized/learned thing and non-innate no matter how prevalent the fear of difference and the unknown being translated into hate of it is.


how the fuck am i on the bangitout listserve? do i look like i want to spend a shabbaton with bob dylan's rabbi or have anything to do with bat ayin?

put up a park over the hudson rail yards not lots of tall buildings

seriously what is the office vacancy rate in manhattan? in midtown? i don't know but i don't think its high enough to build new empire state buildings. and it won't be afforable housing. people rehab buildings. that's more sustainable development. quick search seems to say that its under 10% so ok. that's low i guess. but its not like these buildings will have cheap rents to drive market rates down.
so citi bank and others that have buildings are putting up money to help retrot fit buildings to reduce emmissions as part of the clintion climate iniitaive, are they starting at home and retrofitting all of their own buildings? b/c its ass if they aren't.

still in love with the killers album.

was chatting with someone last night who said he couldn't get behind the whole environmental adgenda when there was such other suffering in the world. he also very incorrectly assumeed my vegetarian ways were linked to cute fuzzy animal rights ideas and couldn't really comprehend how it could be for other reasons. and how those reasons could possibly lead to a reduction in dependance in foriegn oil. i'll be needing to skool him and to point him to eo wilson's book consilience.
ok totally late for heading out to queens.
yikes.

kintera what if i don't want to make a $25 donation?

so a friend is doing the aids walk this sunday. i'm going to sponsor her $18, but the ubiqitous kintera online fundraising site won't let me donate less than $25. i know that there is over heard and credit card processing fees but even after that they would have at least $10. now they are in danger of having none. wtf

um. the new york theater workshop 07-08 season looks fantabulous

elevator repair service doing faulkner, beckket, the misanthrope among others. i'm pumped i might even buy a subscription.

why won;t my room clean itself?

someday you will die somehow and something's gonna steal your carbon

apparently its from the new modest mouse album. but how great a quote. of course i'm just a science nerd.

um apparently i have to spend 2 days at club getaway with my campers this summer. um how shitty does that sound? and check it, tonight was the first i ever heard about it. yeah i need to talk about some extra pay for that. how do you forget to mention that there is an overnight as part of the interview!

i need to be more patient and not quick to jump to conclusions. ok yeah good luck there.

seriously people have you watched the video yet

many many many thank yous to jennifer on carrol st who found my phone which i lost earlier this evening. it has most conveniently been returned, it would have sucked to have lost it.

um mr ironic les side dude what's up with not even emailing today. people are so annoying.

i drank the cool-aid, err bought the chocolate bar

i was repulsed by the idea of microstructured water but had to get an art bar--an organic, fair trade, milk chocolate (i don't actuallyu like fine ie dark chocolate) bar whose wrapper used post consumer waste paper and was aluminum free wrapping where part of the profits go to arts education in dc and ithica and inside each bar is a small reproduction of an art work. i was marketed too and it worked they got my $2 without a complaint.

ended up just meeting slipnslide buddy and her sister for breakfast and pointing them towards a spa. sad not spending more time with them. good that i can get some work done--at a coffee shop that doesn't open til 11 everyday. odd but nice atmosphere-uncommon grounds

grad school friend did you find the modest mouse cd?

beautiful brooklyn

so i got a potentially sweet pilates class hook up. private one on one machine classes with a friend of a friend at a place in dumbo where classes cost $25. i'm pumped. two more times scheduled in the next week.

dumbo was packed. between the nice day, mother's day and brooklyn designs (which drew a large crowd for a paying trade show) the neighborhood was teeming. overall a great beautiful brooklyn day. brunch in prospect heights-cheryl's was ok, brooklyn bridge park, dumbo, nice walk home--didn;t there used to be more than one building for the brooklyn casket company? has gentrification sent them elsewhere?

i sucked it up and paid the six fifty for a bud and the 12 for a mojito and got some
free champagne, but i won't be going back to obvia. good to hang out with ern though.

yesterday i was asked to write a character refernce for my kid who is a blood and got picked up by the cops. he says he's innocent, and i have to believe him, make that i want to-the story he gave me was totally plausible but we'll see.

um this song is awesome.
http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=1190

i'm sorry

but i'[m supposed to go to a bar where a bottle of bud costs $6.50. that it atniotheical to all i believe and anywhere i am interested in going. there better be cute single men there (and her b;day was supposed to be a picnic in the park)

back to my old ways

going out to one bar and getting drunk then going to a queer party at another bar to support my roommate and be out way past my bed time. but more my old ways is the number of people i flashed at the bar and how i had to expose myself to the bartender b.c flashing wasn't getting her attention. what am i a senior in college again?

went to karma, never been before, no need to go back, esp since my hair now smells of smoke. bleh, i should have called out pot head boy on that. heard some remixes i wouldn't think would still be playing, like nine inch nails songs from when i was in high school-not that i was complaining there are a couple i like.

must sleep have to go way out to queens in the morning and am only vaguely prepared for class tomorrow.

magical

its the best way to describe coney island this evening. so cool looking, so peaceful but dyanamic and empty. good walk from stillwell to brighton 6 and the waves crashing against the breakers and the surf splashing up. i'm glad i went and got this last chance of the place being mine. it was also cool to see the buildings and top of the cyclone and parachute jump covered by fog, and also that above the low lying and fast moving fog, it wasn't windy or that overcast. it was cool to walk down the beach and look back and just abrely see the parachute jump coming through and the sun behind it. it made me want to live down there so much. it was just so nice. there were some people out but not many, more fishermen than i have seen away from the pier. saw gulls breaking open mussels. just love it! it makes me feel peaceful and centered and like i've seen/been some place special. moving water and beach and cool light a good combo for me.

had a very sex in the city lunch with nyuwriter girl at 202 in chealsea market today. i thought it was super yummy excpet for my lemonade which was lame, but sitting outside made up for it.

vox pop on cortelyou is all about their fair trade and localness yet they sell odwalla which is definately a coke product and generally anti-fair trade and labor. i think i should email them, i was going to tell the guy but didn't really want to get into a whole thing.

so i'm reading midnight's children and have just gotten to the point where the narrator is born. i really like it so far, i think in part bc i like the backstory-in my books and real life. i'm not sure if this is the end of the back story or not, as its somewhat of a memoir (i know its a work of fiction, menoir of the narrator not rushdie) the whole thing is back story or sorts. but i guess its really back story until we get to the moment that connects him to others. in middlesex i was so in love with the backstory i really didn't want it to end, the book went downhill for me once we got to the revelation, the point that the narrator always talks around and about but we don't know what it is. just a readers reflection

the way when you look east at sunset the light reflects off the westward looking windows

is awesome. esp up on my roof. much better title than-i turn guys shomer.
got a break up email from no middle name, as i was expecting to come. and have a date with a 36 year old pot head on thursday, which i am only going on for kicks. anyone who knows me knows that the likelyhood of me being in a relationship with a pot head, esp someone who is still one at 36 is close to nil.

um its may and i haven't figured out when i'm seeing lava at the flea yet. not cool.

i took a 2 hour nap this evening and now i'm not tired, but i don't want to do work, and i need to go to sleep. and i need to change the font this appears in on my screen in firefox i don't like it. oh and i must must must go get more memory!!!!!!!!!
later people. sorry for the lame post.

power breakfast at dizzy's yum

my mother seriously gasped when i mentioned i almost bought an $1800 painting. she oibviously doesn't see that as a good way for me to spend my money at this juncture. my dad also stressed how i should always have cash on me-i know dad. chill.

barbes saved the day again sat night. i couldn't be bothered to go to this party esp since chill wasn't going to be there but didn't want to do nothing. so guate girl and i hit it up. we got there late for the set, but the band ended up playing a short second set and they were fucking awesome. LUMINESCENT ORCHESTRII loved 'em. loved teh singing fiddlers, the cute upright bass player, and the cool guitar-i really want to learn about and how to distinguish the different types and styles of guitars. unfortunately all the rest of their upcoming shows are in great britian. sad for me.

didn't get to drive the prius, it has a weird small gear shift and a camera that displays what's behind you when you are backing up-weird i say. also my mom decided on powderblue, which i think is an odd color for a car.

don't think i'll be hearing from no middle name again. oh well. but i did get a dress for aha's wedding now i just need to get a plane ticket.

should i spend $1800 on a painting?

went to some of first thursdays in dumbo last night with chill. we got a drink and a bite to eat at pedro's first. she hasn't previously thought the place was authentic, she was proved wrong and had a hard time believing that the food service looked so much less sketchy than the last time i was there. their ghetto outside seating also used to have charm, now its just fairly ghetto. and disconcernning pointing to some fucked upness in society and consequences of gentrification, a boy of about 9 or 10 who i have to assume lives in the projects in vinegar hill was just walking past us and asked us if he could have a dollar.
apparently like the rest of the city, the galleries in 111 front are full of israelis.
i seriously do not understand how the gallery business model works, esp for small galleries. are galleries essentially agents, do they sell the work that is on view, how do they afford to pay rent on the space let alone feed themselves as well. with the bigger name ones like goagsian i guess i get it a bit more, but like the big monet show that's currently in chelsea at one or several galleries i think, i'm pretty sure that almost none of those works are for sale so what's the point/how do they make money?

in any case chill and i were particularly taken with one of the artists, hilary lorenz, who did mostly woodcut and gouche painted on top of the prints. and part of me was like why not. i have that much in my savings account (and have some other expenses coming up in the fall and someday would like to own some property) and i really liked the painting and i like having art. it wouldn't be an investment, there is no way i could assure or assume that it would ever go up in value. while chill said she would get one if i did, i pretty sure she was counting on me not going through with it. the artists smaller and more in my price range stuff, i just didn't like as much. i mean i liked it too, but i couldn't imagine looking at it for years and appreciating it. and somehow its almost easier to spend 1800 including tax than 250 or 700.

do i give christian slater another chance?

i guess that depends on how things go with no middle name. but i just got an email from him after two months (most of which he was out of town if not the country) wanting to pick it up where we left off, which if i remember correctly was a rather suggestive and yet unanswered text message that i sent him. i feel like he would be a more fun, more emotionally but less in person available leopold.

so i walked through he may day immigration parade yesterday and felt like shit for not joining in esp b/c it was after work and i couldn't use that as an excuse. on a more frivolous note i was disappointed in the music going along with the parade. the reds/anarchists/communists are a joke to me in many ways at these things, but they can always be counted on to have good music/beats/catchy slogans

i am over magnolia cupcakes. usually they are too rich, the one i had last night wasn't worth it at all. oh and at dinner i ordered a side of potatoes that never came, which was ok except it showed up on the bill. when this was mentioned to the sever she said, oh i think i ate your potatoes. the rest of the service had no been impeccable either.