Cursive is Incredibly Useful

My youngest student has to write five cursive sentences a day, because, as we all know, the third grade decree clearly states - "Learn Cursive or Die." Plus, cursive is a super-essential skill and if you can't execute it with some aplomb, you're pretty much going to get fired from any job immediately. Yeah right! I never use cursive! What is it even for? Signatures? Embroidering names on jackets? I actually heard it was developed so the writer wouldn't have to lift his or her hand from the page as often - economy of movement so to speak. Fantastic. Thank you for those eight seconds a year I get back. Might've been nice to have the fifty hours I spent learning cursive back instead. No offense to any of my teachers; I appreciate their instruction. Plus, I can't complain too much since I continue to teach it as well. The tradition lives on. In any case, all of her sentences have to do with my little daschund, Cooper. She decided to include a portrait of Cooper at the bottom, dressed up as "The Cookie King," not to be confused with "The Boom King." It's kind of hard to see, but he's saying "My cookies!" She gave me permission to post her work on the blog after we studied Cooper's portrait a little more carefully and then both burst out laughing.

Best Friends

Wow. I love stories like this! There is an article here, too, in case you can't watch the clip.







Also, I went ahead and included a picture of my new BFF! Check it out.




I know, we're an unlikely pair, but somehow we make it work! BFF 4-EVA!

The All-Electronic House

This is from Chris Smith's Home Movie. It totally reminds me of "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury. The whole clip is pretty fascinating, but if you can't watch the whole thing, just catch the last five seconds when the coolest bathroom fixture of all time makes an appearance.

Fun Dip is a Liar

Lik-m-aid Fun Dip haunts me. Not literally - I mean, the phantom of a sugary treat doesn't hover around me at night waiting to stab me with its dagger-like Lik-a-Stik; it's just that something about it doesn't sit well with me. I can't seem to shake this particularly bold claim it continues to make.

First let me direct your attention to the lower-left-hand corner of this familiar wrapper. As you can see, it champions the fact that its blue raspberry powder changes to green apple on your tongue via some kind of wizardy. I remembered this vividly and it was confirmed by Wikipedia, "The most common flavors are cherry, grape, and blue raspberry. The blue raspberry flavor was changed so that it changes from blue raspberry to green apple when it comes in contact with saliva." Even the newer version of the candy makes a point of saying that the magical powder changes colors and flavors! [Sidenote: Why do they always make food eat itself with delight? It's unsettling].

So, all of this adds up to the fact that the blue raspberry changes to green apple on your tongue. Here's the thing though. It's never blue raspberry. It's only blue apple! I don't doubt that it turns green. I've seen it. It's just a little hard to believe that it changes flavors. Listen Fun Dip, you're telling me that when the powder is sitting in its little packet, it tastes like blue raspberry, but "when it comes in contact with saliva" it becomes green apple through some kind of spectacular transmogrification? Are you kidding? You could say that about anything. You could be like, "This strawberry tastes like a roast beef sandwich until it comes into contact with your saliva and then it tastes like strawberries! It's a miracle!" It's impossible to prove. You can't taste something without tasting it, and once you taste this powder, it supposedly changes flavor. It's like chasing a constantly retreating rainbow, or wondering if the refridgerator light really goes off when you shut the door, or hearing a tree fall in the forest, or cutting out a mobius strip, or wondering if your terrible analogies will distract everyone from your extremely good point.

In any case, the good news is that all of this candy fury brought up what I believe is going to be my most fantastic and controversial idea yet.

A Partial List of The Worst Candy of All Time

5) Atomic Fireballs

I told you this was going to be controversial. Right now, many are saying, "But, I looooved atomic fireballs!" Yeah, I know, they were totally popular. In fact, I totally pretended to like them in order to be cool! "Mmmmm! These are great!...ouch...Let's listen to Debbie Gibson! Ow...my eyes are burning...I mean, are you going to the skate party?" I was so relieved when the trend died and dipping your finger in Jell-O packets took its place.

4) Banana Runts

In Hell, everything you touch turns to banana Runts. Oh, you want a glass of water? Here's a never-ending supply of banana Runts. Enjoy.

3) Tie Between Rock Candy and Honey Stix

Rock Candy: It looked like rocks. It tasted like rocks. What the fuck.

Honey Stix: They used to sell these at the Crystal Mountain General Store. Just flavored honey in a tube. Kids would just mainline them on the way home. I imagine in the old ski bus driver's nightmares, Honey Stix march in on him like storm troopers. [Sidenote or Nerd Trap: storm troopers, one word or two]?

2) Giant Jawbreakers

Hey, do you want a huge, chalky, piece of candy the size of Gliese 581 c that gives you a debilitating cheekache and destroys your mouth with its patina of white sandpaper? Do you want to keep a sticky Ziploc bag by your bed for weeks? Do you want a piece of candy that will last through all of 6th grade? Giant jawbreakers are for you!

1) Black Licorice

Black Licorice is a total polarizer. You either love it or you hate it. There's no halfway with black licorice. That actually makes me kind of like it.

Honorable Mention: Twizzlers
As Scott said, you might as well not even take off the wrapper before eating them, because it will taste the same.

Now, I'm going to go eat some Sixlets, the best candy of all time. After that, Rachel, Whitney and I are going to ride our bikes to Country Corner. See you there.

Be Kind Rewind

I love Jack Black's improvised Ghostbusters theme.

Wonder Woman's Invisible Jet

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Wonder Woman has an invisible jet, yet, it doesn't make her invisible! How inconspicuous can you be flying through the air in that seated position? Seriously.

I was going through some old boxes full of oversized Hypercolor sweatshirts and Nirvana concert tees when I unearthed a mint J. Peterman catalog from 1994. I was overjoyed. I had saved it because I couldn't believe that someone would actually write the ridiculously ornate descriptions that accompanied the clothes. I remember reading it in my kitchen and thinking, "No way. No effin' way is someone serious about this." For example. Read this selection from the description above:

A small village on the French coast. Not a shop. A private jumble of swords, velvet chairs, sepia daguerreotypes, ancient taffeta dresses. Uncut emeralds scattered on a tabletop.

Three extraordinary hats, suitable for coronations.

A small black-haired woman with amber eyes, an enormous sleeping white cat. Not much patience with my foreign French. I point to an incredibly detailed cotton dressing gown, gold with age.

It goes on to detail Indiana Jone's quest to attain the alluring dressing gown even though he finds himself distracted and maybe even falling in love with the equally alluring, mysteriously protective, cat-loving gownkeeper. Wow. Pardon my French daguerreotype - but it's just a fucking nightgown. No one is going to take you Out of Africa just because you're wearing it. I feel kind of bad for the people that long for that though. They just want to go back in time.

This next one was my favorite. I had to include the text in its entirety.

He was a physicist (famous) at the Sorbonne. She was a young student, she was brilliant, she had ash-blonde hair, she was the "woman of genius" he'd longed for.

Intimate conversations about crystallography led to bike rides, picking wild-flowers, marriage, then years of backbreaking experiments.

(At night, they would turn off the lights in the laboratory and watch their discovery glimmer, phosphorescent blue, in tiny glass dishes...)

She was devastated when he died: "Your lips, which I used to call greedy, are colorless...it is the end of everything, everything, everything." But she continued the work. For both of them.

A second Nobel Prize to add to the one they'd received for isolating radium. One hundred and fourteen other decorations and titles.

Madame Curie's coat. Cotton laboratory worker's coat of odd, precise French design (curious breast pockets for burettes, densitometers, pencils?). Very narrow notched collar. Below-the-knee length. Back vent. Two flapped front pockets and two side-seam pockets. Worn open over a dress or jeans, it contributes a rather bracing sense of purpose.

Women's sizes: S, M, L, XL.

Color: Sun-bleached Black. (The only color she wore after losing Pierre.)

Price: $172

Oh my gosh. So romantic. Who was it that told me Madame Curie's notebooks are still so radioactive they have to be stored in lead-lined boxes? That coat should be glowing and deadly!

I think I should stop there. The passages are so rich they have a kind of numbing effect if you read too many of them.

You know, I get it. They set a scene. You're supposed to be transported to a magical world where you go on safaris and fly around in biplanes or something. Clearly, the consumer is buying the entire nostalgic experience, not just the nostalgic garment. Some people just want to walk around pretending like they're in The English Patient and I get that. What I loved thinking about though, as I tucked my J. Peterman catalog back into its time capsule, was what it would look like if they tried to pay tribute to my Hypercolor sweatshirt, fifty years from now.

INSERT STRIKING WATERCOLOR LIKENESS OF HYPERCOLOR SWEATSHIRT HERE

A humid gymnasium, the scent of Malibu Musk fills the air. Gerardo. Nelson. She lingers by the vending machine. It's glowing like a ruby in the antechamber. Her bangs are immobile, but her sweatshirt is not. It's changing, visibly. Like Monet's playful brushstrokes, its purple hues are giving way to pink. She's sure now. He's going to ask her to dance.

I am going to sell a million copies of my new novel, The Swordmaker's Daughter, and let me tell you exactly why I know this with absolute certainty. It's all in the title! There's a formula. A magical money-generating, book-selling formula that by the grace of God, I've cracked. Here it is:

Step 1: Take an old- fashioned-sounding, almost wistful, otherworldly profession like:

Dragonscrubber

Dresshanger

Boxcarver

Gemtaker

Step 2: Add "'s Daughter"

Step 3: Collect your money!

I realize some people like to use "interesting characters" or "innovative plotlines" when it comes to crafting their novels. I call those people, The Loser's Daughters. Not me. It's the magical formula all the way. See the following examples for proof:

new boot goofin

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Let's Play Goth!

Two really quick stories about my dear little students.

The other day, I was in our classroom with my little 4th grader and I was shuffling through some of their papers, kind of focusing on it intently. She had just got done with lunch and was kind of twirling around the room and singing to herself when all of a sudden she stops and says, "Hey! Let's play 'GOTH'!" I was like, "Hmm?" "Let's play,'Goth!'" she repeats. I was still trying to figure out the paperwork so I just said, "Okay, sounds good," without questioning her on the details. Then, she just jumps up, shuts all the blinds in the room to make it as dark as possible, and just lays down on the floor with her arms crossed over her like a vampire. She's just laying there with her eyes shut pretending to be dead. I was dying. I was like, "That's how you play 'Goth?'" Like, when she thinks of gothic people, that's what she thinks they do. I feel like we're going to have to have a conversation soon about how the people that work at Hot Topic are not bad people, just different.

We took a trip recently to Las Vegas, so my 4th grader could take a state writing test. We were having lunch at Subway during a break in the test and I was taking the moment to you know, set my sandwich down and tell him really seriously that I was so proud of him and I really thought he was going to ace this test because he's such an intuitive writer, "You are doing so great, I just want you to know that I'm proud of all the work you've done and" - "What if you could live in a house made of ham?" This is what he interrupts me to ask. He had been looking over my shoulder at a huge poster of different kinds of ham. I love it. I'm trying to like, have a really serious talk with him and what he's thinking is, "I wanna live in a HAM house!" They are the sweetest kids ever.

I just got back from an amazing trip to Estes Park Colorado, where my couisin got married at the Stanley Hotel. The Stanley is the hotel that inspired Stephen King to write The Shining. Also, it's where they filmed parts of Dumb and Dumber! I love the part where they race up the stairs.

Ghost Hunters did a couple of fantastic episodes at the Stanley. We actually got to do a ghost tour that highlighted some of the places where the crew filmed. It was very cool. My cousin and I went into one of the side rooms, and, I don't know why, but we had this feeling like we should take a picture in one of the mirrors there. As you can see, our inclination was dead-on. The picture is a little blurry, but we caught the faintest trace of three ghosts in the room.