make a little birdhouse in your soul.

Last night we saw They Might Be Giants at a free show in Prospect Park, which was part of Celebrate Brooklyn. The opening act, Corn Mo, was so cool, even though describing him would make him sound horrible. And TMBG were frickin' awesome.

the dnc.

We watched Kerry give his speech last night. I love speeches. They give me that feeling in my chest that I used to get thinking about Christmas morning from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve. Sheer, unabashed anticipation. And it's not even as if I think John Kerry is some kind of Messiah. I think he's okay. But not fantastic.

I watched Teresa Heinz Kerry's speech last night on John's computer. Here are a few lines that, really, had nothing to do with the campaign outside of establising a possible First Lady's character:

My right to speak my mind, to have a voice, to be what some have called "opinionated"...

is a right I deeply and profoundly cherish.

And my only hope is that one day soon, My only hope is that, one day soon, women, who have all earned their right to their opinions...

instead of being labeled opinionated will be called smart and well informed, just like men.


So, naturally, I like her.

uphill both ways. yeah. i'm old.

Seems appropriate, I think. Basic need. Water. That's something easy to understand.

I kinda feel like I've been running in sepiatone. Things feel older than they are, like an illusion. Like a trick. Kids ask me how old I am and I have to stop and think. We've only been here five weeks. Not even. Four and a half.

The joke the kiddies have been telling:

Why did the airplane crash into the mountain?

The pilot was a tomato.

Alternate reality, these children. I remember being a child. I remember my dad telling me not to be rude and run to get ahead of him through a door like a cat under his feet. It gave me that burning feeling in my chest. Because Dad didn't do that. That is, unless I knew I deserved it.

Today a kid saw me walking with a tray of food and charged at me. Didn't want me to get by that table first, even though, at the time I know he saw me, I was closer to it than he was.

My favorite joke as a child:

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Boo.

Boo who?

(sympathetically) Oh, don't cry! It's only a joke!

They're only children. And I'm only human. I have a feeling I'd be like Ashley Judd in Ya-Ya if I had more than, maybe, 3 kids. It just gets to me. Six days a week with 40 to 60 children and about 20 adults in one room. Try it sometime. It's like an endurance test.

just keep lookin' up, kiddo...

taken July 4th

We got our pictures developed today. I'd pretty much forgotten the first part of our trip. That's how long we've been gone. It's nice having something to show for it now. You know, something tangible.

So far this week I've had a class of two kids. And I'm teaching general...oops...no...HTML! What an unexpected turn of events, yes? It's quite a challenge. I've been sitting behind them with my "cheat sheet," barely two steps ahead of one of them. The other one. Well. He hasn't broken anything yet. So that's good. Trying to stay positive.

get your kicks on interstate 87.

Saturday, when driving through the town of Lake George, John and I fell in love with the quirky little touristy places. For example, the Seven Dwarfs Motel, which was made up of little cottages, and Gooney Golf, which was a completely over-the-top miniature golf course--including a huge, orange, glowing-eyes dinosaur.

My favorite of the tourist stuff was a motel called Surfside on the Lake. It had a huge, old-fashioned sign a la the 1950's. It was exactly the kind of tacky-chic that I adore. Like Tucumcari, NM, right in the middle of the Adirondacks.

Which only proves further (in my head, if no where else) two things: 1) Route 66 was truly the heart of America...or more accurately, the "aorta," if you will...and 2) Americans are ready and willing to leave what culture they can muster completely behind because we're in too much of a hurry. I really think Surfside only exists because it's by a location, rather than on the way there.

I really wanna go to New Mexico now.

nobody puts laura in the corner. *or* i had the time of my life.

John and I drove through the Catskills up to Cohoes and Lake George this weekend. We stayed with some of his family's friends, Marse and Noelle, Friday night. They were so nice. They took us to these neat, quirky local restaurants and up to their campground in the Adirondacks by the Schroon River. It was really beautiful.

It was nice to be so readily accepted by people, just because I married someone in a family they're friends with. No questions.

update.

I just put of the review of The Jane Austen Book Club.

je suis comme le prudie.

This is too cool. Who would've thought there'd actually be an internet quiz about Jane Austen...much less one that's in the context of a book I've actually read.

Who's Your Jane Austen?

what would jane do?

I finished The Jane Austen Book Club. And I loved it. Loved. It. I've already started working on the review so I'd have a reason (other than, of course, my being a geek) for typing out my favorite quotes.

On an unrelated note, I had to explain a T-shirt to my boss today. The shirt said, "Kids aren't influenced by video games. If they were influenced by Pacman, they'd all be in dark rooms eating candy." Or something like that. And my boss says, "Isn't that what kids do anyway?"

I seriously thought he was kidding. Then, I realized he wasn't and said, "That's why the joke is funny."

"Oh. That's the joke?"

I hate, hate feeling this much like a snob.

update.

The review of Useful Girl is up now.

i been a-readin'.

I finished Useful Girl today. (I'm working on the review.) And I've started The Jane Austen Book Club, which my mom brought for me when she came. (Yes, my mom is awesome.) I looked it up on Amazon earlier today because I like to read the reviews.

Because they tend to make me giggle. Like this one.

"Her incorrect overuse of commas makes the book difficult to read. Her third person/first person game is annoying as well. Did anyone edit this book?"

This really only made me laugh because I noticed the "buy with" option for this book is Eats, Shoots, & Leaves, a book about grammar that my dad suggested I buy a couple months ago.

the original super freak.

Man, you're not so perfect
I said man, you're not a pearl
You're nothing more, man, than a little piece of sand
That grew up inside of a girl
I don't go for the Novocaine
'Cause I don't like the pain
And I don't fall for the Jesus freaks when they seem like they want to win
-"Rick James"




The not so pretty princess met a doctor with a knife.
And he said there was a lot of ways that he could change her life.
And with the nose of a reindeer, the skin of a plum.
But now she'll be lovely, forever look dumb.
And she's so pretty cause she will never be...
She's so pretty to me, to me, to me.
I try to tell her but she just won't believe.
She's so pretty to me.
She's so, so pretty.
She's so...
-"The Not So Pretty Princess"

My laptop is getting hot in my lap and these little "earbud" (I swear that's what the package said) headphones are making my ears hurt. The lab is warm and crowded, but I'm okay. Because I have Jude.

I like being with John all the time. I hear a sad love song and look across the room. And there's that calm. Lovely calm.

amy and eric, sitting in a tree...

My sister and her husband will have been married exactly eight years at about 7:30 this evening. Happy Anniversary, guys!

but, by the way, the subway here is stupid.

My parents were here over the weekend. They stayed with us in the dorm, too. (Just in case you were worried, they both got a bottom bunk.)

We went into the city yesterday. Had lunch in Chinatown with our boss and some people we work with, then walked to the Brooklyn Bridge. It was gorgeous! Then we went to Ground Zero, St. Paul's Chapel, and Battery Park (where the sculpture that used to stand between the towers has been relocated). It was a pretty emotional experience. There was a banner inside the church from Mom's hometown in IL and, the one that made me cry, a banner from Oklahoma City. There was a woman walking around in front of the temporary plaque of names screaming, "Bush is the terrorist who killed all these people."

Heavy stuff.

We also went to Times Square, took a boat tour around the island, and went to the top of the Empire State Building.

On our six-month anniversary.

The Chrysler Building is my favorite thing about New York. It literally took my breath away.

dude. i miss living with sara.

I'm so tired. So. Tired. I burned off a disk tonight with all the stuff I did with my kid in class...complete with an html interface that I made tonight--something I'm not sure I really needed to do. It took a while...and I'm not sure anyone's going to really care.

I think that's what's bothering me lately. I want more people to care. Not about me, necessarily, but about things other than themselves.

There's something disconcerting (and I do mean disconcerting) about hanging out with the "lax" crowd for so long. I've known lots of people who were messy and only half-heartedly devoted to school/work before, but there always seemed to be at least a kernel of compassion and conviction just waiting for the right words to chase it out of them. And it's usually always been more than just a kernel. I know people who get livid.

And that's just plain endearing.

I feel like I'm a long way from home. Because I'm at home around the opinionated, the feministic, and the involved. I'd much rather fail than never try.

frozen memories.

I've started reading Useful Girl by Marcus Stevens. The main character's mother dies in the first chapter. In a subsequent scene, she prepares dinner for her father by cooking some stew that her mother made and froze months before, only weeks before she died. It was wonderfully written, partly because that kind of thing is what grief is all about. I remember finding Italian cream cake in my mom's freezer that my grandmother had made for my dad before she died. It's like going back in time. Only more depressing.

ego-google time.

Check this out.

keepin' out of reach of children.

That class I said I had? With the one student? He decided to take Flash instead. But another kid showed up today to join. And he left early to go to the dentist.

day 1. week 3.

I have my own class this week. And two assistants. (score!) The class has only one student. (therein lies the glitch.) He's a good kid though. Cute. Smart. Incredibly quiet. And I really like the junior counsellors.

But still.

I think theres always lurking in my head the image of what I expected butting up against the actual, which really isn't all that bad. But then, that's life though, right?

So, I reviewed Bubba Ho-tep (which you may have read since I put it up last night) because we watched it last weekend and I've been thinking of it ever since. I wish we had an Elvis today. I really do. We need someone the public can really get behind. Even if he/she is campy and wears too much polyester.

I want a celebrity I can get behind. No. I want a hero. A mass hero. I want to stop feeling like an elitist. But there will always be elitists. As long as there are people who want to feel good about themselves by feeling "different" or "better" or whatever. There will always be people who think they're smarter/cooler/weirder. And I know not everyone liked Elvis.

Maybe what I want... What I want is to feel united. In the United States kind of way. I'm sick of having that "gotta watch your back" feeling. I want to wear tie-dye and flowers and go to Berkley. And. I want to put on my Sunday best and go to worship. I don't want to feel pidgeon-holed, one-sided, or two-dimensional.

There's a vibe I keep getting. And it keeps saying: Give. In.

*sigh* Maybe I just need to watch TV. There are enough instant-gratification makeover shows now to make me feel like I've changed after a while.

new shoes.

As you can see, I finally have a complete website. There still aren't any book reviews up yet though because I haven't had the time to read lately. But I will soon.

down with the homesickness.

Dear Charlie,

We should hang out soon. I miss the way you chew on my shoulder and smack your hands up and down on my face. No one understands me like you do.

All my love, Aunt Laura

what i learned at summer camp.

I've been working on the rest of the site a lot this week. Hopefully it will be up soon. There's a glitch I have to work out first, but I'm pretty much finished. That's right, I am almost finished, because I am making it. If that doesn't sound like a big deal, it's understandable, but it's a big deal to me because I just learned how to do it.

Having fun with a computer? Who knew?

The new sections of the site are going to be: reviews, bio, and links.

we should've seen the tom hanks movie.

We saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last night. When we got back to our little dorm room, I cried myself to sleep. I thought it would make me have a lot to say, but it didn't. In fact, all I can say is that if you already know you're not voting for Bush don't go see this movie. If you want to know what the fuss is about, that's one thing, but don't expect to be enlightened. If you already know you're going to vote for Bush, you don't read my blog anyway.

hi! i'm tour guide barbie!

I went to Target today with two of the other counselors to pick up stuff for people who are waiting for nights off and get supplies for the camp.

Part I

One kid didn't bring a blanket with him. And obviously he got cold. 'Cause we bought him a blanket. The older of the two counselors found a pretty, yet fairly masculine quilt to get him.

Which prompted me to ask, "How much is it?"

"Thirty dollars."

"Thirty dollars?" You're going to spend thirty bucks on a quilt for a ten-year-old boy you just met yesterday that you probably won't get reimbursed for? "I saw some fleece ones back there."

"Fleece would be kinda hot in the summer."

Didn't this kid get cold?

"I actually think that quilt looks pretty heavy."

"Okay, go check."

$7.99, people.

Part II

Poker chips were on this crazy list. Where did they look? With the markers.

The younger counselor wanted an insulated mug. Where did she look? Everywhere but where they were, apparently.

These things are not important, really. I'm only bringing it up because I started leading them around the store like I worked there. All Targets are basically the same, right? The set-up may be different, but the departments are always the same. The one looking for the mug goes to school, like, a mile from the Target...and she was asking me questions about where things were.

Then it hit me, they're normal. I feel like a weird closet addict, trying to hide the fact that in Atlanta I went to Target about twice a week...or more. And I didn't even buy anything most of the time.

I just crave good graphic design.

Or something.

watch out, pixar.

I'm helping out with the Flash class this week. You may be thinking, There's no way Laura knows Flash. Well, you'd pretty much be right. At any rate, I'm learning. Wanna see?

Little Blue Man.

I should tell you, it would probably look best to you if you screamed "boo" at your monitor just as it starts.

and on the 5th day, they instated imperialism.

I wrote a really long entry yesterday about seeing the fireworks over the Statue of Liberty, but the network hiccuped and I lost it. These things just aren't as good the second time, you know? So here's the basic idea:

I saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time Sunday, the 4th of July, during a time in my life when I'm leaving everything I know behind and jumping right into the future. I cried...and want to scream and kick like a baby because I can't feel that same swelling of pride when I watch the news. (That would be the day I stick a little flag sticker on my car, Mr. Bush.) Battery Park was full of people from all over the country--and the world--just waiting to watch these beautiful explosions over a city that has seen the torment of war. That's seen. I wonder if those immigrants who came haggard and huddled onto Ellis Island so many years ago (and those that still find their way here) did it so they could be on the happy side of the explosions.

fattyheit 9/11.

I found this link to Michael Moore cartoons. The funniest part? Most of the opposition can only find fault in his weight. Oh yeah, and that he's fat. Wait a minute... Could it be that the right-wing commentators have no real support for their statements?

the sound of thirty-five children shooting each other in tanks. *or* things the terrorists can never take away.

We're done with our first two class periods of the day. Game time is by far the scariest part about New York at this point.

We went into White Plains last night. It's really cool. It's like a combination of Buckhead (GA) and Oak Park (IL). Sort of.