Dusty Snausage

I took a brief foray to Downtown Crossing in Boston today, for no other reason than I had some time to kill before meeting my cousin, Jules, for lunch.

I was amused by the sight of a sausage vender who had set up his cart right on a corner where there is an absolutely massive construction project happening. There was debris of all shapes and sizes raining down on this guy's sausage stand, and he was carrying on as if nothing was happening. The crazy thing is that he had plenty of customers there, which only served to reaffirm his choice to set up shop right there, smack in the middle of a massive dig-up.

The other little thing I wanted to write about was the scene that unfolded in front of the DSW store.

I was on my way in, and about to reach for the door, when this young couple cut right in front of me. "Even better" I thought, "Let them open the door for me."

The woman reached for the door, and in fact had her hand on the handle to open it. As she was about to execute the opening of the door, another friend called out to her, and the couple proceeded to have a raucous conversation in Spanish (and for quite some time) all the while exhibiting no intention to leave the doorway so as to facilitate my entry. And it isn't as if they had seen me. We had already acknowledged each other with polite nods. But once they stated their conversation, they just chose to ignore me, while clogging up the door.

Finally, I sort of barked, "Excuse me" and barreled through the door. I could feel their angry eyes boring a hole in my back as I walked by them, but I didn't care.

Bad TV

In my last post, I talked about our new cable subscription. More importantly, I addressed my emerging obsession with some really bad shows. It's rather frightening how this can happen so quickly.

When bad TV happens to good people!

Anyway, I'm getting reacquainted with LIfetime here (having managed to pry myself away from Bravo in order to reestablish my connection with the esteemed "television for women" channel). Sure I've flipped through the channels and briefly lingered at Lifetime prior to today, but old episode of "The Golden Girls" and "Designing Women" just haven't been enough to entice me to stop and take note. Today, however, all that changed. The combination of the driving rain outside and the "Fallen Angels" marathon on Lifetime is enough to have me hooked.

Yeah, that's right. I said the "Fallen Angels" marathon! I probably don't have to spell out the leitmotiv of the films, but I will anyway because it is too delicious not to. The movies all spin the yarns of highly successful young women who ha effed up royally in one way or the other. The last movie they played depicted the not-so-original saga of the straight-A-student who gets preggers with her boyfriend's kid, much to her mother's chagrin.

Yawn.

The movie on now, however, is pretty decent. A young woman gets into Harvard, but before taking off for the ivy-lined, hallowed halls of the venerable institution, she marries her high school sweetheart, who, at the time of the wedding, is awaiting his final decision on his own Harvard application. Needless to say, he does not get in, and is stuck working construction jobs while his wife hob-nobs with her new Harvard friends. Enter cute guitar-playing classmate, and impending marital disaster.

I'll let you know what happens.

I'm sure that at some point that Brian Austin Greene movie about "Too Young to Be a Father" will come on. Or maybe that focuses too much on the boy, not the "fallen angel." I guess that movie will have to be fitted into another marathon..."Boys To Men Too Quickly" or some crap. I'm sure Lifetime will name is something a lot less awkward, and with a much more dramatic flare. I'm just not Lifetime marathon-naming caliber, I guess.

At 7 there's something on called "Odd Girl Out." I didn't even read the description of that one, but GEE, I wonder what on earth is could be about. And then at 9 they're premiering something called, "Cheerleaders Gone Wild." Sounds a bit pornographic, if you ask me.

Anyway, moving on....

In a posting about really cheesy TV, I would be remiss if I did not mention the crap on Bravo. I know I talked about it yesterday, but after having been forced to dwell on the reading matter for these horrible courses for an entire month, I consider it a welcome chance for my mind to be completely trapped focusing on these shows. I like a little brain-deadness.


Did I mention "Flipping Out" in my last post? In the even that I didn't, let me talk about it again. Here's a picture of that asshole, Jeff Lewis. Just so you can put a face with the name as I rant....



Man, this guy is a jerk. He is such an arrogant, egotistical, self-centered, world-ends-at-the-tip-of-my nose Bitch! I have never heard him speak to anybody with anything other than apparent contempt. My god, how any of those people keep working for him is well beyond me. I suppose it is safe to assume they remain in his employ for the television exposure. Although they needn't bother. They're all such talentless ass clowns that the likelihood that they'll be picked up by some other show is nil to none!

I am oddly compelled to watch the show, as I said before. I don't know why, but when he's on, I just want to invest so much energy in hating his ass that I just can't swap the channel! Isn't that sick?

Can I just say one more thing about Lewis before I move on?

Calm down with the lip Botox, Jeff! Jesus.

On second thought, a few more injections, and his lips will be so massive that he won't be able to talk. Might not be such a bad idea!


Shear Genius is another show that I am really enjoying...




Jaclyn Smith is the host and she looks great for 9,000 years old. Actually, if I looked half as good as her at 34, I'd look freakishly amazing!

Good show. Different from most reality shows because the people have to actually possess and demonstrate some talent in order to win. Usually these reality shows consist of people laying around on sofas, covered in blankets, whispering in the dreaded "fake raspy" voice about whom to enter into allegiances with and whom to vote against. At least with "Genius" people have to DO something.

It was interesting to watch it with Lauren today, because she could give little annotations about what "I'm going to bring her hair to a 9B instead of a 6E" really means. It was like having my own talking caption!

I'll have to go over there and watch it with her again.

Oh, wait...she actually has a life.

Back Among the Living

Do you remember how I once complained about not getting the summer school job? Well, in retrospect, I realize that this was the biggest blessing in disguise ever!

I had harbored these romantic images of me teaching every day until 1:00, then going over to Umass from 5-9. I thought, "This might be a slight pain in the arse, but I can handle it."

That was before I encountered EH, my "Designing Middle and Secondary School Curriculum" professor. Eunny pronounced, Oonie), as she liked to be called, was hell on wheels. This course only lasted one month. In that time, I wrote:

a pre and post assessment of my understanding of curriculum (1.5 pages each)
a 5 page "philosophy of education" at the beginning of the course
a 33 page critique of an existing ELA curriculum in Epsom, NH
a 19 page suggested modification of the curriculum
a 42 page document with three lesson plans**
a 5 page reflective paper on a presentation I gave to the class.
a post-course "updated" philosophy of education, this one totaling 13 pages. ***

**: I was required to cite literature and write a lengthy introduction to my lesson plan. NO teacher EVER writes formal lesson plans after five minutes in the business. They certainly don't write lesson plans with citations and freaking literature citations. Jesus!

***: She "corrected" my original philosophy of education, and told me to rewrite it, citing the literature we had read in class. Ahh...the literature was SHITE, and I had to basically scrap my enduring philosophy of education and write one in which I proclaim to model myself after the phony baloney "experts" we read in the course. NO teacher has a 13 page philosophy of education. Well, except for me.

The woman was psychotic and incredibly hypocritical. Keep the following three examples in mind:

1. She would regularly talk about the evils and ineffectiveness of lecturing the kids. She would tell us we would lose them, that they have an average attention span of 7 minutes, that kids will just disengage. Then, as these warnings were still hot and wet off her lips, she would launch in to lectures that would last for an hour or more! Fucking horrid.

2. When one of the women in our group didn't do her part of the project, she told us all she was refusing to accept the work. When I went to see her to appeal to her "logic" to evaluate the rest of us on the portion of the work we had done individually, she kept insisting that it was our problem as the work was meant to be collaborative. When I set up and appointment to meet her privately, she got angry, slammed the chair back under the table, buried her face in her laptop and barked, "Nancy, if you were having this conversation with your student, what would it look like?" After a brief pause, I told her, "It would not look like this, I can guarantee you that!" Then I called her a hypocrite for telling us to respect our students, and then treating me like this behind closed doors. She showed up to class ten minutes later, acting as if nothing had happened. I gave her the silent treatment for two days, and she asked my classmate, Mary, "What's wrong with Nancy?" Ahhhhh.....????

3. See the abovementioned list of work!! Add to that the average of 150 pages of reading per night.

Anyway, I'm freakin' done! My second class was pretty painless, but I'm glad to have it over, too. It seems strange not to have a major dissertation to write.

Ok, enough about that.

Every summer Stephen wants to watch the Tour de France, so we upgrade our cable. Usually I can take it or leave it, but this time around, I'm inexplicably addicted to BRAVO!!



Come on....what's not to love?

Project Runway....You're out, "Auf wiedersehen!"

Shear Genius. Awesome. Annoyingly obnoxious and egotistical people. An impossibly young looking Jaclyn Smith (she has to contain lots of plastic at this point), the over-the-top dramatics.

That Real Estate show with the absolute most arrogant asshole I've ever seen in my life (you know, the guy with the huge lips and the worst case of cheerleader cadence-itis I ever did hear.) He is so horrible and yet I'm oddly compelled to watch.

Now there's the Real Housewives show coming up, and the real estate show with the 12 year-old brokers, one of whom has that horrible combed-entirely-forward hairdo. Very dodgy.

I read something about Bridezillas on Reesie's blog. Is that on Bravo, too? Does anybody know anything about this? Praytell.

And finally, my computer is back. Lauren took me over to pick her up, for which I'm extremely grateful.

The silence of my computer is deafening. Whereas pre-repair it sounded like a jetway, it now sound blissfully like nothing. I'm trying to be optimistic, but we've been here before. A new logicboard and power supply, followed by a few days of silence. Then right back to grinding fans and all the other good stuff. But hey...as long as I'm still under warranty, I'll just keep bringing it in for repairs.

And hey....

7 days and counting until France!!