Video Pancakes

Our old upstairs neighbor (we have both fled the realm of our prior insane landlord on 8th street to other apartments...on 8th street!) has a hilarious website called Video Pancakes where she makes videos that either make me cry or crack up.

This is of the crack up variety.

Mary--what goes on in that head of yours?

MARY JUST EDUCATED ME ON KEYBOARD CAT--CHECK IT OUT...FASCINATING! BRILLIANT!

Marital Disputes

Every marriage has its issues, and ours is not without an entire catalog of them ranging from the small to the "I'm divorcing you!" variety. Lately some small marital disputes have been making me giggle and reminding me to be thankful that I have such a great partner in crime. Probably a good thing to dwell on before baby #2 comes and our lives enter the perpetual spin cycle of insanity that children bring to a marriage. Here are a couple funny-haha marital disputes:

COMPOSTING--I hate composting. I am a bad person, I know this, and I really don't give a rip about the tons of organic waste I toss into the garbage for the NYC Dept of Sanitation to haul to the landfill to live happily ever after. I hate composting b/c the compost never gets taken out and turns into a stew-y, smell-y mess in the compost container which then inevitably gets the funk and smells up the kitchen. Adam adores composting. He feels so green and happy and takes baby girl out back to open the festering composter full of maggots and fruit flies and I can see the glee in his eyes. BUT, Adam does not really take out the compost with any regularity, so I have stopped composting. We are at war. He thinks I'm horrid. I don't care. Marital dispute.

BUG KILLING--Bugs. . .If they let me see them, they are dead. I am a serious bug terminator. I have been known to linger in the hallway of our apt with a fly swatter and kill no less than 30 mosquitos in one bloodbath. I get great zeal from this. Adam wants all bugs to go to heaven, and not by my murderous hand but by being "released" to the outside world where they will roam free and never enter our ground floor apartment again. Yeah, right. Those mother f***ers have got to die. I kill any/everything I see (except ladybugs--they're my one exception) and show no mercy. Baby girl is my baby terminator. This weekend we had an ant infestation and I taught her how to smack them with her bare hand. No punks here. The other morning Adam had her on the changing table and a spider was on the wall. He was about to educate her on how spiders are good bugs b/c they eat other bugs when she sat up, smacked it with her bare hand, and said with a beaming smile, "I killed it!" That's my girl.

The list goes on, but these two have been at the forefront lately. We literally argue over them, then look at each other and crack up. I just read somewhere that the key to a good marriage is to argue everyday. Check.

Joy & Pain

I am totally stealing this from my new favorite blog, FIPS (Fucked in Park Slope), so I must give credit where credit is due.

"Joy & Pain" is one of my favorite songs from high school. It reminds me of early high school when I was a cheerleader (9th & 10th grade) and how the JV cheerleaders cheered for the girls basketball team. We could ride the bus with them (no fear of hot lesbian trysts on the bus, I guess) and on the way back from games we'd listen to music. "Joy & Pain" and "It Takes Two" are the two songs that stand out to me. Robyn, Heidi, and I would sit in the back of the bus and sing different parts of the song. Robyn and Heidi were on the basketball team, and I got major cool points because they didn't think I was some perky cheerleader airhead. In fact, I remember someone else from the team telling me how surprised she was that I wasn't an idiot. Thanks!

Heidi died less than a year later in a car accident driving to school but singing "Joy & Pain" always reminds me of her. I'm sure she'd love this video. And that girl freaking out on her boy reminds me of high school drama all over again. Does it ever end?

kittens (inspired by kittens)

you gotta love the creative genius of kids sometimes.
this post is for lisa, who reigns supreme in cat craziness.
her son will be doing this someday!

Relive One Moment (TMI)

Since I mentioned my old student Vaughn in my last post, I had to share one piece of his writing that I saved from teaching him. I have a folder of kids' writing from over the years that has made me laugh, moved me, or was sweet. I keep this folder in my file drawer at home and refer to it on the days I want to quit and make pretty milk-froth designs on cappucinos for a living.

The assignment was to write a page on one moment of your life that you'd relive over and over again for eternity. Vaughn's response was:

"If I had to relive one moment over again it would be the first time I had sex. It was magical. Me a young stallion, her a beautiful princess, rolling around in each others love and sweat on that hot summer day when school was out and my mom was at work. It was fun. A LOT (capitalized and underlined) of fun. I relive that moment all over and over again and again and again."

My comments: 65%, Too much information!,nice use of metaphor, NOT a whole page....

my next life

in between periods at school, i have several students who'll hang out in my room to avoid the horrors of the high school cafeteria. one showed me the new beyonce video below. oh, my my. in my next life i want to be beyonce. i not only want that figure, but i want to be able to shake that figure, too. is that too much to ask? seriously, i'm a good person. if karma exists, i think i have thus far earned at least those legs. i have the rest of my life to earn her torso, face, and those moves. unfortunately, i think my moves in this life more resemble those guys in the saturday night live parody of the music video...

i might be practicing some dance moves to youtube during adam's late work meetings this week...

oprah parody

saturday night live did a great parody of the crazy oprah audience a while back.
it is virtually impossible to find a good copy on line to reproduce--SNL is strangely a bunch of heartless czars when it comes to sharing their material on the information superhighway.

one maverick blogger has caught a bad copy of it here. click for a good laugh. the humping, limb ripping, and spontaneous human combustion get me every time.

i heart america

you know, oprah kills me. i have had many a heated discussion about oprah--in doctorate level education classes, in teachers' lounges, with friends--everyone debating if oprah's acts are beneficial or superficial.

regardless of the oprah effect, people go bonkers over her, especially when she gives away free shit. for oprah to give away all this crap is the equivalent of me giving a street musician a dollar, but lord have mercy, her studio audience goes buck wild.

what could oprah do that would make me lose my shizz on national television and act a fool? hmmmmm.......

oprah, you could:
1. buy me a brownstone in brooklyn and let me renovate it with an endless budget
2. pay off our college loans and the loans of everyone who takes them out study education (because we'll never make enough to pay them off ourselves!)
3. fund my school, but let ME make all the spending decisions
4. buy out all SUV makers so that those asinine cars get abolished
5. totally fund a non-profit i'd love to start that sends inner-city high school students on international travel/work trips

oprah, i promise if you did the above (probably even ONE of the above), i'd cry, pee my pants, scream, and wriggle down the aisle to you like a snake to kiss your wrinkle-less face! i swear!

chuckle

somecards.com always makes me laugh. here are a few of their cleaner examples.

food court musical

my dear friend and neighbor Mary (the one who got us one degree from Tina Fey) sent me this....

FOOD COURT MUSICAL!

but what Mary doesn't know is that i dream of this happening in real life....i break into song, everyone joins in, we all know the words, suddenly there's a dance routine with excellent choreography, emotions run high....i am a sucker for the musical. i blame this (and endless other neuroses) on my mother who only let us stay up late twice a year when i was younger: once to watch "The Sound of Music" and another time to watch "The Wizard of Oz" on television (you know, back in the days before VCRs when movies where shown on TV). we had to take naps that day, but then we could stay up and watch these movies, drink orange soda, and eat popcorn until 11pm! it was childhood bliss.

if you go to the improve everywhere website, they have videos of their missions. i really want to do the NO PANTS mission next year with Alexandra in her diaper. do you think she'll get taken away from me by social services?

one degree from tina fey

tina fey is the new kevin bacon, and we are only one degree from tina fey now that we have met anthony, friend to our friend and neighbor mary matthews. anthony is an actor on 30 rock. despite my obama vote last week, mary still introduced us to anthony the evening of super tuesday. we immediately thrust alexandra into his arms for a photo opp. here's the photo. please note the 30 rock hoodie.

i had to resist getting a gold L circle necklace at my favorite neighborhood jewelry store today (you know, like the one liz lemon wears on 30 rock...). i thought that might be taking my fanaticism to a new level. i'm not sure i'm ready for that type of commitment to 30 rock. especially b/c lost is so damn good right now. i think i am cheating on 30 rock with lost. i feel a little guilty... can i still be gay for tina fey but want to get frisky with sawyer in an abandoned zoo cage? these are the questions that keep me awake at night.

as you might have gleaned from this message, my evenings have not been full of gym workouts and typing up data. i am a boob tube addict. i need rehab. will my city health insurance pay for it?