The Love Affair Is Over, Or Help! No, not with Ed Begley Jr.; my love for him is steadfast and true. I'm talking about my damn IPod. I charge it, I safely remove it from my computer, I listen to it a little (or not), and after a few hours of being turned off (or "at rest") it won't turn on again. So I plug it back into the computer, and the little charge icon cheerily says it's fully charged! What the heck?

  ¶ 1:11 PM 7 comments

  Wonderturtle Adopts Ed Begley, Jr. Some people around the blogworld have been putting up cute posts about "adopting" a character actor. They post a picture, and explain why this actor is underappreciated. I can't tell whether these posts are meant to be ironic. I can't decide that about this post either.

I hereby adopt Ed Begley, Jr.

Since Ed first came to my attention as Ruth's tool of a boyfriend on "Six Feet Under," I have harbored an inexplicable affection--some might say attraction--toward him. Imagine my delight when I realized, upon doing some research, that he was That Guy in most of Christopher Guest's mockumentaries and apparently, according to his website, starred in a 1977 feature called "Lust of a Eunuch."

I'm a little concerned about Ed's need for adoption. He bills himself on his website as "Actor and Activist," and has his own line of cleaning products called Begley's Best. He has also written a musical, and has his own TV show and a hot wife.

However, his That Guy status was recently confirmed when Anthemsled denied all knowledge of him. The fact that Anthemsled refers to all brown-haired actresses as Bebe Neuwirth in no way detracts from the value of this evidence.

Ed may not need me, but I need him. Consider "In Her Shell" his new adoptive home.  ¶ 8:20 PM 12 comments

  Lest You Think, After That Last Post, That I'm All Deep And Stuff Here's the dream I had last night:

I had to break into some high-security facility, Alias-style, wearing snugly-fitting black combat gear. It was dangerous and the patrolling guards had orders to shoot on sight. I snuck past the retina scanner on the back of a cleaning woman.

In the records room, I discovered a locker full of videotapes of my childhood performances. Everything from my third-grade portrayal of Mrs. Claus through my last high school show, meticulously labeled. In manila envelopes were detailed maps of my family tree.

A guard busted in and I grabbed him and slammed him against the wall. "What are you doing with this?" I shook the papers in his face. "Tell me!" He wasn't talking, but seemed intimidated. I kicked ass!

Hm. Maybe that one is deep too.  ¶ 7:38 PM 5 comments

  How Little Things Change Last week I had my first anxiety dream about returning to school. In it, I was completely unprepared for any of my classes, and when I came up with a backup plan and went riffling through my file cabinet, the handout I needed was nowhere to be found. Toward the end of the dream I looked up at the students and realized I had taught them all last year. They were looking at me scornfully as if to say, Come on, you can do better than this.

I think that to myself all the time. It goes along with my belief that a teacher is only as good as the last class period she taught. Every day is different, and every student is different, and that's what makes teaching so exciting, so interesting, and such a challenge.

Every year at the end of August I start to panic a little. What made me think I could do this? Can't I just have the same students I had last year? What if they don't like me?

It is amazing how much being a teacher is like being a student.

I remember poring over school supplies and new clothes, sharpening pencils and vowing to be more organized this year. I remember wondering who would face me at the other end of the classroom, and not being able to sleep the night before the first day. That night always felt more to me like New Year's Eve than any December 31st.

The next morning, I put on my carefully selected outfit and tried to act casual, like I had it all under control. All the while feeling so much potential it made my heart race.  ¶ 3:06 PM 6 comments

  IPod-Induced Post Ten songs in a row:

1. Born to Hum--Erin McKeown
2. No Scrubs--TLC
3. Sister Morphine--The Rolling Stones
4. Under the Hedge--Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
5. Back in NYC--Jeff Buckley
6. Do It Now--Mos Def
7. Mama's Got A Girlfriend--Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals
8. Cold Brains--Beck
9. I Was Born--The Magnetic Fields
10. Hope--Sublime

Am I cool now?  ¶ 12:09 PM 5 comments

  I Am Going Back To Playing With My IPod   ¶ 9:30 AM 2 comments

  HaHAHAHaHaHaHa   ¶ 9:14 AM 2 comments

  Holy Crap, I Just Bought An IPod. You'll have to excuse me for a few days.  ¶ 1:30 PM 6 comments

  Another Eventful Morning I set a paper towel on fire

by putting it down next to the open flame underneath my teapot.

Honestly.  ¶ 5:36 PM 7 comments

  Horrors This morning, in the middle of my kitchen floor, there was a dead mouse.

I had to sweep him onto a piece of cardboard and into a plastic bag.

At which point I discovered that he wasn't quite dead. He was dead enough not to move when I had stomped my feet on the floor and shouted, "ARE YOU DEAD?" but not dead enough to keep him from kicking his back legs a little when I touched him with the broom.

UGH.  ¶ 4:00 PM 12 comments

  Michelle When Mattel finally came out with a different-looking Barbie (besides Skipper, Midge, and Ken, always minor players), Roni and I were ecstatic.

Her name was Miko, but we called her Michelle. Her name was Michelle regardless of the setting, storyline, or the day we were playing. The other Barbies were interchangeable, but Michelle was always Michelle.

Her personality was also constant: the calm, big-sister figure to whom all the other Barbies went for advice. I admired Michelle, as much as it is possible to admire an 11 inch piece of plastic upon which you have projected your issues. I wanted to be that girl--the calm one, the one everyone else relied upon.

And I managed to create that for myself, as I became a teenager. I loved giving advice, and revelled in what I perceived to be its measured wisdom. Even though I had never had a boyfriend, I could counsel my friends on love. Having kind parents, I commented on tales of abuse. My seat on the outside afforded me a safety that they did not have. They had the experiences, and I reviewed them.

Over years I felt the weight of this role. Michelle was long discarded at the bottom of a box in the attic, and I existed under a pile of my friends' worries. I internalized them, but being undigestable, they travelled around with me in my belly. Slowly, I crawled out from underneath.

At first it felt like a terrible detachment, and it still does, sometimes. In recent years I've revelled in my self-centeredness in much the same way that I used to love my selflessness. It was a protective measure, but sometimes I wonder whether too much was left behind.  ¶ 1:13 PM 5 comments

  Ways I Was A Wuss This Weekend 1. AnthemSled and I went to donate blood, but my iron was too low. I was secretly relieved. I can deal with the needles, it's the consciousness of my warm blood flowing away from me that gives me the icks. Even the prick test for my iron level made me feel a little woozy.

2. We had planned to go see The Bourne Ultimatum the previous evening, but after spending the rainy day in my underwear watching "Alias" DVDs, and the evening reading/talking about the recent horrific killings in Newark, I felt too anxious to leave the house.

3. The next day, Hapabukbuk and I went for a walk in the woods, where even the smallest hill made me short of breath. Then at the "hey it's the seventies, let's exercise outside!" stations along the trail, HB bested me with two chinups to my zero. I could only grab the bar and hop wildly.

In other news, if you type "98 lbs" (as in "98 lb weakling"--clever, right?) into Google Images, you get lots of pictures of naked ladies, from websites with names like "bigfuckingboobs" and "newcummers." Ew!  ¶ 8:37 PM 7 comments

  Mesopotamia, If You Will


  ¶ 12:36 PM 10 comments