I’ve got a lot of time on my hands and decided to record myself reading these a-mah-zing jokes from kids who are the funniest/scariest. All of these are being read from this tumblr which is in my list of top 5 tumblrs at the moment.
On Being Single And Then Not (repeating, forever)
Everyone has romantic relationships and they all have a story and I want to hear all of them. Really, every single one of them.
Very fast romances are my favorite kind. You spend enough time getting to know each other to know you want to touch each other. Your imagination can run with all the what-ifs of the relationship were it left to grow and change and the what-ifs are always beautiful and fulfilling and not at all in the vein of “we will eventually treat each other terribly”.
I am a huge fan of letting relationships lie (as in “sleeping dogs”, not a “non-truth”. Feel me?). I wasn’t always. I wanted COMMITMENT so bad so early on, and for so long, it was embarrassing.
Tell me you’re my boyfriend now or else what the fuck is even going on, I’m leaving (please follow me, tell me to stay, etc).
But they’re not all supposed to be like that—some long-term commitment. Some of your relationships are supposed to feel like they’ll last forever but only end up lasting a month. Then again maybe one or two will last for yeeeeears when they really, really shouldn’t have. They’re all different and possibly none of them will survive but maybe one (or even more) of them will.
Some relationships will leave you feeling like a complete idiot. There are few worse feelings than feeling that you were blind to something so obviously wrong. Others will make you feel empowered and in control.
If you’re lucky some of your relationships will feel totally perfect. I recently left a relationship that felt like it had a true birth and growth and death, and that it died quickly and of natural causes. It was sad but it wasn’t “heart breaking”, whatever that means to anyone. He dealt with it and so did I. He is my friend and I know him. I feel lucky for that. This kind of relationship…I don’t think it’s common and I don’t think it’s even understood a lot of the time. It’s either that or I’m finally just growing a pair and not falling to pieces every time a relationship ends. Whichever it is, I’m really in to it.
On Trying And Failing Because Someone Else Can’t Get A Hold Of Themselves
Sometimes you do things that you think you’ve got a pretty good handle on, only to have it turn out much worse than you could have ever imagined. For instance, when I was in high school my cello teacher made me (he had a ponytail, I obeyed his every command/suggestion) preform at a recitale a few counties away in front of a bunch of other cellests and parents I didn’t know. It would be the first time I had ever preformed outside of an orchestra. The piano accompanist, who I had met 30 seconds before my performance, was some old church organist who was obviously on meth because she sped up the piece by about 500 times and I was immediately lost. I played the first 5 notes and then stopped, while she continued to play the piano like she was God’s MotherFuckingGift to us all. I shrugged my shoulders, picked up my cello, and walked off stage while she was still playing. People gasped. I heard someone’s mom say “oh no” or “uh-oh” or something. It was the most embarrassing experience of my life, and on the way home my parents bought me a sack of sandwiches from Krystals. I stopped being sad and embarrassed after that because both of my parents were being super nice and encouraging to me at the same time and if you’ve ever experienced both of your parents being on your side and saying “fuck those other guys,” then you need to realize that THAT is actually God’s MotherFuckingGift.
BELOW: A Short Story
It appears that I still haven’t figured out the internet yet so for now you can just read my short story on my tumblr. It’s not as important-looking as a pdf but let’s not kid ourselves, right?
What is your favorite childhood memory?
Describe it and explain why it is your favorite memory.
That was a writing prompt that I had to give to my students today before I suddenly felt really sick and puked in the bathroom (unrelated to the prompt, I think. I ate some bad Bibimbap before class).
Before starting the assignment one student asked, “What is childhood?” and I had to explain that it’s a time in your life when you were young, but these kids are still young and they’re still children so I realised this prompt was kind of stupid. But for some reason they were interested in me and asked “teacher what your favorite childhood?” (just like that) and of course I hadn’t prepared anything so I just thought of a random memory of when I was 5 years old and went to a hockey game with my parents and sister. We had just moved from South Carolina to Georgia and my dad’s boss had gotten us box tickets to an Atlanta Knights (whatever happened to them?) game. I had never been to a sporting event before so I thought this was probably how everyone watched hockey games; on couches in a glass room with a mini bar and a private bathroom with nice soap and TV and stuff. It’s like I was pretending to be a wealthy trust fund kid but not on purpose.
But later when the students shared their memories with me I realized that my memory was super lame. They all wrote about the time that they spent in nature or when their dad taught them how to play basketball. And I’m like “I was a 5 year old millionaire for 3 hours and it felt great.”
If I could have a do-over I would say that my favorite childhood memory is when my family and I were at the beach and my mom and dad let my sister and me rent The Shining. My parents were reminicing about the first time that they saw the movie in the theater all smiles and stuff and my sister and I were just shitting our pants in fear and I had to sleep with the light on which was embarrassing because I think I was 13.
Goddammit that’s a bad one, too.
How about the time we were on vacation at Disney World and a VHS tape fell on my head? No lie that’s actually my first memory of being a human.
These suck.
But these new writing prompts that I’m giving the students are great. Last week’s was “Describe your favorite place to visit on weekends,” and one kid wrote this:
10 Most Common Things I Hear From My Students
Teacher, hungry.
Teacher, water?
Teacher, break time.
Teacher, nooooo.
Teacher, game?
Teacher, finish?
Teacher, what does ______ mean?
Teacher, what phone do you have?
Teacher, couple ring or married ring?
Teacher, I don’t like black people.
To which I answer:
I’m sorry.
No. Okay, yes. But FAST!
I’LL TELL YOU WHEN IT’S BREAK TIME.
Yeeeeess.
No.
I’LL TELL YOU WHEN WE’RE FINISHED.
I’LL TELL YOU WHAT _______ MEANS.
It’s a Galaxy 3. Sit down.
Neither. It is actually possible to own a ring that you bought for yourself.
You literally have never met one black person. Be quiet. I can’t even start to explain racism to you right now because you’re 12 and live in Korea and everyone looks exactly the same.
Places I Would Like To Live At Some Point In Time
NoLA cause she’s environmentally doomed when you think about it but she’s still got a better outlook than most of y’all. Texas is just like the rest of the United States. NoLA’s the one that needs to succeed from the union. Werk.
Portland, OR because everyone visits there one time and is like “bye, I’m moving.”
Chicago, IL. It’s big and it’s cool and it’s not New York City.
San Diago, CA. No weather. You’re just floating in a luke-warm bath except your hair looks great.
Somewhere in Montana where I have no neighbors and it’s just me and god and the grass or something.
Hong Kong. That House Hunters International episode looked super fun.
North Carolina so my family can’t say “you just want to be anywhere that’s not near us”. Plus it actually feels like home there.
Denver, CO. So many micro-breweries, dogs, and rock climbers! I don’t really care about rock climbing but fuck me if those people don’t have the best attitudes.
New Zealand. I feel like I have no cultural reference point for that place in my head even though I’ve met some people who were raised there. They say things like “gum boots” when they’re talking about rain boots and I’m like “what universe are you from?” But they look like me. I have to know more.
None of this is to say that I don’t love the city in which I currently live. Daegu, South Korea is a bang-up city to live in, for sure. Reliable public transportation, great food, friendly people. I would suggest moving here if you’re considering it. Just don’t come to visit cause the closest Hard Rock is like 150 miles away.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR HAVING ME, RU. YOU LOOK FUCKING MARVELOUS.
photo props to the BF. I’ve never known the workings of photoshop so I consider this shit pure wizardry.
How To Have One Less Internet Friend
Say something on facebook like, “Got two news professors today. I couldn’t be happier. They shouldn’t let pregnant woman teach, they’re so bitchy.”
Well said, blockhead (Yes, just watched It’s The Great Pumpkin)
As a matter of fact let’s just take women out of academia all together until they’re post-menopausal. But by then the arthritis might make them not-so-good at making sandwiches soooooo…Yeah. Altogether, then.
How To Get Screamed At Outside The Grocery Store
There’s a thing that happens in the U.S. (and in other places, too, I guess. I just can’t comment on those places) where some men feel that they are entitled to a conversation with a woman. Any woman. All the time. No matter if that woman is in the process of reading a book, or texting, or trying to make a decision on what cereal to buy, or generally just attempting to mind her own business and live her life or whatever else women do. So mysterious.
I can’t understand this, because never in my life have I felt like it would be okay for me to walk up to a person and say “Hey, how long have you lived here?” or “Where are you from?” and I don’t know what the motive is behind a person who thinks that doesn’t seem abnormal. I mean, I kind of get it. Some people just want to meet other people. But they should just wait and do the eye-contact thing. When I was single, that was the test. I made eye contact with a cute someone and just held it for like, .5 seconds too long. And if they made a scared face and looked away, then I didn’t push that shit man. Sure it was creepy, but in a no-harm-no-foul-kind-of-way-I’ll-just-move-on.
So when the ONE DUDE in my neighborhood grocery store who spoke english today waited outside for me to finish shopping and then proceeded to ask me questions about my job and where I was from and what neighborhood I currently lived in, I asked myself “Is this really happening?”
Then when I made it painfully obvious that if I could run away from him I would but I have a ton of grocery bags in my hands and this cab driver wouldn’t OPEN THE DAMN TRUNK JUST OPEN IT ALREADY, the guy tried even harder. And by “try harder” I mean he just started yelling.
WHERE DO YOU LIVE?
Nope.
GIVE ME YOUR NUMBER!
No.
WHY NOT!?!?!?!
Jesus. Christ. And the cab driver was just like “………….” Buuuuut in his defense, he didn’t speak English. But I wish he did. Do you think if I was in New York the cab driver would have been like “HEY THE LADYS TRYIN’A GET A CAB OVA HERE! SHUT YA TRAP SHE AIN’T IN’TRESTED PAL, A’RIGHT?!”
That was a stereotype. I’m sorry. I love New Yorkers (that I’ve seen in the movies).
But the point is that if this is happening to me in South Korea where most of the men I come in to contact with can’t even speak to me, then this happens to women all. of. the. time. in the states. I’ve read about it. I’ve heard it first hand from my friends. And it’s harassment. If a stranger you are attempting to distance yourself from is screaming at you from 15 feet away, that is harassment. And the people that do that shit don’t read this blog. And they don’t even know people that read this blog, or anything like it. So it doesn’t do any good to write about it except help me work out my bullshit and be like, “This happened to me, and it made me so flustered that I dropped my bag of apples as I was attempting to exit the cab when I got home and so the apples just bounced down the street like I live in some kind of slapstick cartoon land”.
And if the internet isn’t a forum that was created specially for me to work out my bullshit beefs with society then I don’t even know what to do anymore. Can I get an Amen?
