*will not be played by Michelle Pfeiffer in a major motion picture.

As of a few weeks ago, I am finally a certified employee of the Department of Education and have started working with a program that provides additional one on one education to children in lower income homes in schools that are currently being a given a “failing” grade according to state and national standards.

I can’t even begin to go into the details of the shit-fest that is the New York City public school or how increidbly unfair it is that within a public system a child being raised 100 blocks south of another is afforded infinitely more opportunities.

All I can say is that, to be honest, I was pretty terrified to take this job on, even only on a part-time basis because like most other things in my life, I based my expecations of what my experience would be like on a major motion picture. And that motion picture was of course Dangerous Minds. If you have not seen Dangerous Minds and don’t know all the words to that godforsaken Coolio song (HOW did he not make it with a name that awesome?) than you might as well not count yourself as a friend of mine because I spent an entire summer pretty much listening to that song on repeat and watching that movie over and over and over again.

I swoke that was going to be me.

Counseling the pregnant teen.

Breaking up gang violence.

Possibly busting a cap or two if the situation called for it.

But instead, and what is perhaps more sad, I’ve encountered children that really are pretty great and really do have their heads and hearts in the right place, yet they still aren’t flourishing under the backwards system controlling the city.  We’re talking seventh graders who can’t do simple addition and subtraction. High school kids who don’t know who Adolf Hitler is. And perhaps even more upsetting, high school kids that don’t even know how to begin applying to college or even that such a thing as a need-based scholarship exits.

It pretty much blows.

hipster holy water

I’m loving the Tilt Shift Gen photo app for the iphone. It makes me a way better photographer.

deep thoughts

This week is supposedly ‘celebrity doppleganger’ week on facebook, which means you are supposed to post a photo of a celebrity you think you look like. Through this experiment I have learned that most of my facebook friends have pretty inflated egos.

mark morford pretty much sums up life, in particular this most hideous month of all months…january

I can’t muster up the strength to blog right now. Number one, I have been suffering from various diseases and ailments for the past three weeks and it’s as if the second I recover from one thing say, a painful stomach virus, my nose all of sudden decides it wants to stop working. As does my heat, in 20 degree weather. And my landlord is in Bermuda. Fuck my life.

The only thing that is making me feel better is the occasional shot of tequila, my new iphone (who needs friends when you have an iphone?), and Pandora radio.

That, and this genius article: Why are you so terribly disappointing?

Someone I follow on Twitter re-posted it and it is simply amazing.

just because i’m addicted to social media, doesn’t mean i can’t make fun of it

If there was a vote, and anyone actually asked for my opinion, I would vote Stuff White People Like as probably the best websites/blogs there is. Or at least in my top five.

This opening paragraph from the latest entry, regarding Conan O’ Brien is pretty amazing:

“The recent news that Conan O’Brien will be replaced by Jay Leno has caused white people to erupt with rage and hostility. You might even expect them to lash out and do something about it like take to the streets or write a letter to NBC to voice their dissatisfaction with the network. But no, white people will solve this problem the way that they solved the election crisis in Iran – through Facebook and Twitter status updates. In 2009, millions of white people took 35 seconds to turn their twitter profiles green, and consequently sent a very powerful message to the leaders of Iran. Their message was that they wanted their friends to know that they would stop at nothing to ensure freedom and democracy for the Iranian people. Thanks in large part to that effort Iran is now completely democratic. With that issue settled, white people are launching a similar campaign for Conan that is sure to have similar results.”

this was too good not to share with the rest of the internet

Ok, so I have a strict no blogging about work policy. At least not in direct terms. Number one, because it’s stupid and it opens you up the possibility to your boss and coworkers finding out that you have written about them and therefore could warrant you getting fired. Two, I genuinely enjoy my job and my coworkers and aside from the occasional “oh my god there is to much work on my desk I want to jump out of a window” moment, my job is pretty low-drama, low-key and overall pretty fun.

Part of my job at work is to research company profiles online and gague their internet presensce and see how we can improve either their use of telecommunications or their social media outlets.  Today I was trying to google a company and get some info except they weren’t coming up. Such is the case now a days, because a lot of the companies on our list have either filed for bankruptcy or are simply out of business. However, I did find a company that was kind of similar in name so I figured I would visit their website and give it a shot. Thus brought me to the lovely L&M Enterprises.

Ok, so obviously not the company I was looking for.I’m not even here to wax political about the NRA or the right to bear arms etc, al. What I am here to talk about is the button at the bottom of the left menu column titled, “For the Little Woman”.

In case you can’t click on the lick because you are afraid of your liberal friends seeing this in your web browser, let me do you the honor of what that link takes you too. It takes you to a paragraph saying:

The “L” of L & M Enterprises suggests that while you and I are enjoying beautiful firearms, we should remember that special someone with whom we share our lives. It seems like a good idea. Think of it: you unpack your new rifle, shotgun or handgun, and after you show it to “the little woman” and explain how much you “need” it and how much you appreciate the fact that she understands your feelings and needs, you surprise her with a beautiful, handmade (in the USA!!) crazy quilt purse embellished with ribbons, beads, antique silks and lace and other niceties that women enjoy. To add to your mutual pleasure, you show her that it holds at least a full box of rifle, shotgun or handgun cartridges, just in case she would like to know that interesting fact! What more could you ask for: beauty and utility! Now it is up to you, but I think you ought to consider it (filling it with cartridges is optional, of course).

It then gives you the option of a multitude of lovely purses that one can buy for the “Little Woman”.  “Hand made in the USA!!” Because we all know USA warrants two exclamation points.

good ole fashioned tussin

For the past two days, we have both been a bit under the weather. It started late Wednesday night when around 3AM I became ill. Like, we’re talking violent stomach virus kind of ill. Expelling everything you’ve eaten for a week out one end or the other ill. Clutching over the toilet, writhing in heaving pain praying to anyone to just please oh please make it stop I would rather be dead ill. I hope the picture is now successfully painted. Around the same time, Sam came home from the bar with a really bad cold.

And let me tell you something people, cold is the operative word here. He had a cold. He had the sniffles.

But my God, only this morning did I STOP hearing about those sniffles. In the months that I was single I somehow managed to block out of  my mind how big of babies men become under the slightest physical stress. I can’t tell you how many times over the course of a single hour I was asked, “Feel my head I think I’m really burning up how bad is it?” only to have to be like, “Dude once again, you have no fever. None. Same as fifteen minutes ago.”

Not to say that I’m any better. For all the physical obstacles I’ve overcome over the past two or three years I still have absolutely no tolerance for any sort of physical pain. For the most part I was fine, but ever four hours or so my stomach would all of sudden be like OH HEY GUESS WHAT SOMETHING ISN’T WORKING OUT. Then it would tell me it was probably best we try and see other people for awhile to see how goes it right before trying to detach itself from my body. Then I would have to rush to the bathroom and curse the day I was born all over again. I plowed through work on Thursday, but wound up taking a sick day on Friday because I still wasn’t feeling great. A sick day I spent most of the day feeling guilty about and bemoaning. In between trips to the bathroom. While Sam continued to ask me to check his head every five seconds because oh my god don’t you know HOW HOT HE FELT. That surely his fever was over 102 by now and maybe he should put an ice pack on his head or something. Only he still had NO FEVER.

So basically, we’ve been really awesome to be around which is why it’s probably best that neither of us has really left the house since Thursday night. Except last night when I decided that is IT. We are going to kick this thing. It’s not going to be pretty, but we’re going to have to break out the big guns.

We’re going to have to break out the Robitussin.

I will save the ‘My History of Drug Use’ post for another day but needless to say  though I’m very tame now, in my early twenties I built up a tolerance to most drugs, alcohol, and prescriptions medications that would probably hold up to that of an elephant. Or at least another large animal. Maybe a horse. But one thing that has always had a particularly brutal effect on me is Robitussin. As in, just the NORMAL ADULT RECOMMENDED DOSAGE leaves me tripping so bad that on occasion I’ve actually full on hallucinated things. I completely forget where I am in the time/space continuim.

The last time I took the stuff I curled up in bed and popped in a disc of How I Met Your Mother and proceeded to watch the same episode about fifteen times in a row. I didn’t realize the episode had ended because my DVD player was on some kind of ‘Repeat’ function. And the credits didn’t tip me off, because frankly, I was high out of my mind. Imagine Sam’s surprise when he came home from work FIVE HOURS later and I’m still sitting in the same position watching the SAME EPISODE as when he left me.

Did this have a point? Yes, it did. Despite the whole tripping thing, nothing gets rid of an oncoming cold or really any ailment for me like Robitussin does. I take it. I feel like I might start wigging out Fear and Loathing style for a night, and then I wake up the next day refreshed and for all intents and purposes, feeling way better. So, I decided that this was it. This was what we needed.

Sam went to the store because I have the boobs in this relationship therefore he has to do those kind of things. I specifically told him what kind of Robitussin to get at least five times because every time I send him out to get something GUARANTEED he comes back with the wrong thing. It’s mind boggling, actually. So every minute or so leading up to his departure I had to be all, “What kind of Robitussin are you going to get?….Yes, that’s right.”

And people, I should have known. I should have known he was going to come back with sore throat (which neither one of us had) Robitussin because that’s just who he is and I love him very much and in my defense, he should have known when he came back in with the wrong kind of Robitussin my sympathy levels were going to be at or around 0% and I was going to send him directly back out to get the right kind. Did we just become that Trader Joe’s couple? I don’t care, because mama is sick and needs her some of the right ‘tussin.

What I did not know, however, was that when I sent him back out to get the right kind, he was going to come back with Children’s Robitussin.

Yes, you read that correctly.

There was a moment when I just stared at the box in shock. Like, really? Did YOU READ THE BOX. And the most painful part of it is that he looks at me like a deer in headlights like he genuinely thought this was the kind I wanted. And then he puts his foot down and says I AM NOT GOING BACK OUT.

Which, had I maybe been in a bad mood would not have gone over so well but I was actually feeling a little guilty so I accepted it. Plus, he’s really hot when he puts his foot down.

So, I went back to the same bodega for the THIRD time and had to be all, ‘I’m sorry, I’m the girlfriend of the guy who was in here twice in a row and keeps buying the WRONG Robitussin can I please exchange it again.’

I’m not even going to tell you what I was wearing during this exchange I’ll only leave it at the fact that I had been sick and had not showered or changed in almost 48hrs.  Needless to say, they let me behind the counter to pick it out myself.

And once again there was peace in the love nest.

Until I woke up this morning and while we were both feeling WAY better Sam had to be like, “Yeah uh…about last night. You kept screaming at me to get off your legs in the middle of the night. Except I wasn’t anywhere near your legs.”

currently digging

The Avett Brothers: I and Love and You

deep thoughts

I’m not sure what will be breaking point in the moral demise of this country, but I am certain that Pat Robertson an Rush Limbaugh will have something to do with it.

send one text

It’s just impossible to write a blog entry about my over-dramatization of the mundane things that happen in my life when something like this happens. It’s also impossible to write a blog entry that can even begin to touch on human suffering and tragedy when something like this happens.  If you are as prolific a texter as I am to the point where you can actually trace back some of the major mistakes you’ve made in your life to a single text message, I think you should put your skills to good use by sending this text:

“HAITI” to 90999

$10 will automatically be donated to the Haiti relief fun.

Or you can just donate through the Red Cross site. That’s what I did. Because I am one of those 25-year-olds whose cell phone bill still gets sent and paid for by their mother and I don’t need her asking me “Who did you pay $10 to talk dirty to you and do I need you to book me an appointment with my therapist?”