That's Right

nobituary

2011-11-13T18:23:00.000-05:00

I think this blog has died.

I don't know exactly why, and it is with some ambivalence that I must pronounce it, and maybe I'll someday revive it for a specific purpose, but in essence, it is dead.

Sunday, November 13th, 2011 at 6:23 pm

I'll love you forever, little blog.

hashtag fonthumor?

2011-10-16T15:10:00.004-04:00

The other day I watched Helvetica. Except, I couldn't figure out how to change the widescreen format that was squished into a full screen shape. So really, I watched Helvetica Narrow.

I've been dying to share that with someone. I felt so darn clever throughout the entire documentary.

this summer I...

2011-10-03T17:41:00.000-04:00

had a crab feast
went to festivals, an O's game, outdoor movies, and the usual
swam in a reservoir
slept on an airport floor
broke tradition in Massachusetts
found a new favorite pool
learned to walk on a slack line
watched fireworks from a roof deck
popped champagne with my newly-engaged roommate
joined a spur of the moment dance party to a Balkan brass band in a parking garage
finally started biking on the regular...by myself and in community
sneaked into a venue by squeezing through a fence
marched in an Artscape parade
received a chakra healing
continued sewing
bridged joists, removed joists, joined joists...generally did a lot of joist-related work in a Habitat house
locked myself out of the house where I nanny :/
furthered my stiltwalking skills
watched a synchronized swimming murder mystery in Patterson Park Pool
made ice cream all the time and entered it in a competition
made a Star Wars costume
started a new collaborative, Baltimore-centered writing project that is kind of still going?
rekindled my love for Lithuanian dance parties in a pool of sweat
celebrated the birthday of someone I met in Guatemala who has since moved here
reunited with some old friends after 7 years
went to a rap round robin show
felt a big earthquake
is it still called moshing? went to a show where we both moshed and layed hands on the people in front of us to do some visualization exercises
tried new things and made new friends
furthered my alterations business
celebrated my roommate's impending nuptials
moved (okay, it was fall, but it seemed like a good ending point)

Ode to Aslan

2011-09-29T01:20:00.004-04:00

Will you miss us when we’re gone,
You lion made of stone?
Regally you guard our house,
A king upon your throne.

For two years you have been with us,
Through all our joys and hurdles
While stoically you look ahead
From out of the crape myrtles.

And though your eyes are fixed due north,
I think that you can tell
Just what went on inside our house
And in our hearts as well.

You know these walls hold memories
Of dancing, games, and song,
Of breakfast cooked with company,
Of dreams for which we long.

You know that as a ‘grown-up’ this
Was my first stable home,
A place to sink my roots down when
I could no longer roam.

And now it’s time to pull them up,
Transplant them to new ground
That isn’t all that far away;
I’ll surely see you ‘round.

I know you’ll never shed a tear,
For stone cannot feel blue.
But Aslan and your legacy,
You know we will miss you.

what a lame excuse for an overdue update

2011-07-26T10:23:00.000-04:00

This morning I dreamt that I was at the grocery store when some gunshots went off. However, due to some sort of time travel, I knew no one got hurt, so I wasn't worried.

We all had to climb under the checkout lanes, just to be safe, at the direction of a Spanish-speaking police officer. While I was down there, some sorority girls stood around my checkout lane and started talking trash to me and lightly kicking me with their pointy shoes. That was annoying.

Also, there was some sort of continuous mimosa machine dripping into my cup.

they were out of pillows

2011-06-12T00:27:00.002-04:00

I’ve created a rule for myself when experiencing frustration during air travel:
Commiserate with the other passengers; joke with the airline staff.

My flight this evening was delayed, apparently due to weather. Then I missed my connecting flight, called to rebook another flight for tomorrow morning, and joined a long line of people with similar plights. We exchanged the usual gripes about flying. You know, nothing too bitter. Just enough to let each other know we’re in the same boat and to feel justified in our annoyance. As I neared the service desk, I changed my tune to fit a new audience…

I approach the Delta desk with my friendliest smile, which is not reciprocated.

me: Hi, how are you doing?
Delta Guy: Fine.
me: I just rebooked my flight over the phone, so I only need to print my new boarding pass.
Delta Guy: Okay.
me: Aaaand see what you can do about overnight accommodations.

Delta Guy begins to shake his head with an air of weariness. He has said this many times tonight.

Delta Guy: We do not provide hotels for ATC.
me: Why not?
Delta Guy: Air traffic control. It was caused by weather, so Delta does not provide hotel accommodations.
me: So, what are we all supposed to do?
Delta Guy: You can go out and get a hotel on your own. Or you can stay here.
me: …Okay. That’s a bad policy. I mean, I know you didn’t make it. But it’s a bad policy.
Delta Guy: It’s from the federal government.
me: How about meals?
Delta Guy: Meals we can do.
me: Alright. Is everything closed by now?
Delta Guy: Well, there’s a 24 hour Dunkin Donuts in Terminal 3. It’s a bit of a walk, but not bad.
me: That’s okay…I’ve got time.

A close-lipped smile spreads across Delta guy’s face as he looks down at his computer, typing in the magical codes that will produce free food for me.

Delta Guy: Here you go.
me: Thanks.

I take the vouchers and turn to leave. After a pause, I turn back around.

me: Oh, I see. Are those the overnight accommodations right there?

I point to a pile of plastic-wrapped blankets on the floor next to the service desk. Delta Guy smiles once again, seemingly against his better judgment, and hands me a blanket.

Delta Guy: Here, have another.

Two blankets. Ooooooh yeaaaah.

Who knew I was so charming?

don't forget to watch the movie

2011-06-05T23:04:00.003-04:00

I went to a movie today. The girl next to us kept narrating it. I'm not talking about making comments here and there. She was describing verbatim what was happening on the screen. "She's pouring peas on herself!" I thought maybe she had a blind friend next to her or something, and she was simply providing a service to make the film comprehesible and enjoyable. But no.

Then, maybe when her fingers got tired from texting, she took a phone call. "I'm at the movies. Yeah, I've gotta go." Don't worry, I gave her the stink eye. Okay, I also leaned over and quietly said, "That's really rude." A step too far? Oh well, it was true.

As if that all weren't enough, at the end of the scene where we meet who will turn out to be the main character's love interest, she goes, "Oh, he's cute. Maybe they'll end up together." Seriously? How many chick flicks does one have to ingest before recognizing the male lead when he shows up? This is not a Shyamalanian twist here; this is formulaic. Formulaic!

And then I realized...this girl must have never been to a movie before. Clearly, it was her first time, which shed some light on everything. She must have been experiencing sensory overload and missed all the pre-movie etiquette reminders. It wasn't her fault. Anyway, I hope she really enjoyed herself. Bridesmaids was a good choice.

we used the elastic to make necklaces at my non-real career, and it was awesome

2011-06-02T09:02:00.002-04:00

"That's an interesting Homarus americanus."

I had asked her for help finding elastic thread for making necklaces, and after directing me without a smile towards the appropriate aisle, she made that comment.

"Excuse me?" I replied.

She gestured toward my arm without saying anything else.

"Oh," I said, "the lobster?"

"Yes, Homarus americanus."

Clearly, she was not trying to admire the artwork of my tattoo or connect with me over a shared affinity for lobsters. She didn't ask me about it. She didn't say she liked it. It was just the perfect opportunity for her to broadcast her knowledge of the genus species name of a certain animal.

"Okay, I didn't know that was the technical name."

"Yeah, I used to sit through lectures on them all the time. Back when I had a real career as a marine biologist."

Her condescending tone made me cringe a little and hope that none of the other employees could hear her. I took it this woman was bitter to be working at Michael's craft store, and I could only imagine how she made her coworkers feel, as if she were above them and only stocking shelves and dealing with customers because she had been somehow ripped away from her rightful place at lobster lectures.

As sometimes happens in my brain, a portrait of this woman and snapshots of her daily life at Michael's began to take shape...

She never explains what ended her glory days as a marine biologist, and no one asks. They want to talk about their weekend plans and commiserate about how the ends of their respective shifts can't come soon enough. They don't want to hear about how they're "almost out of Hippocampus erectus stickers on aisle 7." She's not even assigned to aisle 7. It's not even time for inventory. She's just trying to show off to people who don't care. They duck around corners when they see her coming, because they know she just wants to try to alienate them with a tirade about how the seasonal display is impossible, because Amphiprion ocellaris and Oncorhynchus mykiss would never share the same habitat. Doesn't she realize she's only alienating herself?

She must not realize it, because she continues to talk down to the people around her. They continue to avoid her, leaving her to feel more isolated, more misunderstood, more set apart from these people she's forced to work with, meaningless day in and meaningless day out. Yes, she's a martyr here at Michael's,a lonely victim, a Carassius auratus out of H20.

still haven't eaten a snowball though

2011-05-30T22:34:00.003-04:00

This weekend I ate crabs, swam in a pool a few times, went to a festival and a half, saw a lightning bug, went to a drive-in, and listened to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young with the windows down.

It's so official right now.

the rats were a no-show

2011-05-28T11:06:00.006-04:00

Memorial Day weekend, a time when a Baltimorean's fancy turns to crabs.

For the official kickoff to summer, an epic birthday crab feast for one of my roommates was in the works. At our house, we frequently enjoy evenings outside on our deck, but we rarely venture down to the patio area, which is basically a jungle ruled by the rats. They stick to their territory, and we to ours. The rules are simple.

However, in order to have a decent crab feast with room to swing a mallet, the jungle needed to be tamed, and the rats challenged. Now don't get me wrong; we're not messy people. We have a tightly-fitting trash can lid and we don't leave any junk out for the rats. However, we do share a fence with a notorious group of male Hopkins students who choose to carpet their backyard with empty-ish cans of Keystone Light. They also sometimes adorn it with large bags of trash from what I must assume, judging by the sounds of Cali Swag District and spontaneous cheers through the walls, are killer parties.

Our own backyard is a lovely brick patio with a gorgeous dogwood tree and planters full of overgrown shrubbery lining the fence. Therein lies the problem. After feasting next door, the weary rats seek a place of comfort, a place to gather with their kind. Our planter boxes offer the space in which to create a vast network of underground tunnels, perfect for sleeping off a Keystone Light-induced stupor or planning future capers in peace. Basically, our two houses together form a veritable bed and breakfast for the rabbit-sized rodents.

The job of reclaiming our own backyard had not been tackled in the 2 years we've lived here, but armed with a borrowed pair of shears, a pushbroom, and my trusty set of Ikea tools, I was ready to take on the challenge. I'm sure it's just as overwhelming to read about as it was to do, so I've broken it down into a few manageable episodes.

round 1: shrubbery

There's something satisfying about hacking away at plants without regard for technique or finished product. So that's what I did. I kept going until the yard looked like a haircut gone horribly wrong. Then I knew I had succeeded. It may look ridiculous, but at least now we no longer have to fight the branches for space.

Anna: 1, backyard: 0

before...

...and after

round 2: lion fountain

Once the brush was cleared, it became apparent that we had a lion fountain in the corner. Huh. How awesome would it be to have a lion elegantly spitting water in the corner during our crab feast? Wicked awesome, that's how.

So, I set about to figure out how to hook up the fountain to the electrical outlet. After tipping the whole thing over and taking it apart, I determined there was no pump at all. Maybe it functioned without electricity, using gravity to power a siphon. Well, I only know of one way to start a siphon. I'll spare you the details, but it does involve me getting up close and personal with the lion. Shudder. I hope no one was watching from any nearby balconies.

In the end, I realized there was no way to make the fountain work, as we were probably just missing the pump altogether. That was a waste of an hour.

Anna: 1, backyard: 1

round 3: lighting

You can't pick a crab in the dark, so the next task was adding some lighting. Apparently it requires 12 steps and a pair of pliers to change each light bulb in our backyard. I am not even including the step of 'buy new light bulbs.' There were 5 bulbs total, and each one was surrounded by some sort of locked cage, as if light bulb theft were a huge problem in our neighborhood.

In conclusion, eating in the dark is romantic and underrated. But seriously, I changed them all.

Anna: 2, backyard:1

the final score

At last I emerged victorious. The patio was swept and well-lit, the bushes had been relegated to their spots along the fence, the lion sat motionless yet regally in the corner, and the rats were probably lying in wait, ready to swipe the carefully-picked crab meat right off of the classifieds, seagull style.

The feast was a success, and our patio is finally usable for what is sure to be the best post-apocalyptic summer ever. I wouldn't have been able to do it without some crustacean motivation.

say blogging one more time

2011-05-18T13:22:00.003-04:00

I may be blogging less on this site, since I am now blogging here, on the North Baltimore Patch website. Feel free to check it out, but it's a local news site, so it may be a little less relevant to those of you in...you know, Minnesota and California.

Local fame! Not exactly, but maybe someday. Now if I only I could figure out how to actually get paid for my writing...

I guarantee it

2011-05-14T18:58:00.004-04:00

(A version of the following can be found here. I just want to save it in both places in case they ever decide to delete all my work.)

I first heard of one in Baltimore County. Soon, I saw one with my own eyes on Erdman Avenue, and then on Falls Road.

Judgment Day billboards.

In a matter of months, these billboards predicting the beginning of the apocalypse were everywhere. People were handing out tracts. And finally, while enjoying a lunch with friends in Canton one afternoon, I saw a caravan of five trucks pass slowly by, each of whose sides were emblazoned with, Have you heard the awesome news? Judgment Day: May 21, 2011. The Bible guarantees it!

I've got to say, I'm a little disappointed that for all the money this one religious group has spent on nationwide marketing, there is little to no hysteria from the general public. I want a bit of Y2K hype. I want some of that will-it-won't-it drama. I want a reason to stock my basement with hand sanitizer and toilet paper, but more so a reason to gather with friends and strangers on an appointed date for some manufactured tension and feasting.

I understand though; there's no need for the hype. The Y2K panic was born out of our nation's dependence on technology, something much more tangible to most of us than religion. People simply don't believe in this predicted day of reckoning, and those who do believe also have faith they will be lifted up into Heaven at that time. If that's the case, there's no point in selling 'Judgment Day Emergency Preparedness' kits or 'I Survived May 21st' T-shirts. There is simply no market for them.

But really, do we need to believe it? We have a long history in this country of commercializing religious holidays that don't necessarily hold significance for the majority of the population. I see no reason why there shouldn't be pre-Judgment Day drink specials at the bars on May 20th and all-day street festivals on the 21st, punctuated with cheers and toasts when 6:00 pm fails to bring the prophesied catastrophic earthquake. Since when do we need to be coerced into celebration for celebration's sake?

I, for one, will find some way to mark the occasion, however small it may be. Let me know if you want to join. Together we can bask in the fact (although it may come as no surprise) that we are still alive and well.

not candid

2011-05-03T18:38:00.003-04:00

The other day, I went for a walk and a drive, and I was caught on video by 4 different people in 4 different places. I thought this was weird. Why was everyone filming at the same time? Is there some sort of city-wide video project I didn't know about? Or is it a new sense I have acquired?

Ode to an Oral Surgeon

2011-04-28T09:53:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow you will slice my gums
And take from them what lies beneath.
How deeply do I loathe the thought
Of knives around my precious teeth.

‘Vestigial’ is the claim you make,
A tissue not worth keeping,
A curse upon my mouth in time,
A poison slowly seeping.

Now maybe I’m a skeptic, true.
Perhaps I’m just a little scared.
But could this be another racket
Your kind has prepared?

‘We’ll bleach your chompers by three shades,
And then you can regain your youth.
We’ll chain the crooked into shape,
Eschew the wicked wisdom tooth!’

My mouth and I have done quite well
Sans intervention from your trade,
But to your will I shall defer,
And bare my gums before the blade.

Though losing teeth still haunts my dreams,
Tomorrow you may pull it.
For lack of better metaphor,
I have to bite the bullet.

Piagetian vortex, aka, Anna shouldn't spend this many hours by herself

2011-04-17T20:00:00.006-04:00

We construct our knowledge of the world based on our background information. From this information, we create systems of knowledge called schemata.

Basically, a schema is just a set of information, or how you view the world. When you receive new information, you assimilate it into your schema. If you can't assimilate it because it contradicts your schema, you have to accommodate the new information by changing your schema.

For example...

Ducks are yellow.

Wait a minute! That's a duck, but it is not yellow!

New schema: Some ducks are yellow, but some are not. They can also be brown, and maybe other colors too.

I've noticed this process at play lately when overhearing strangers' phone conversations.

CONVERSATION 1

I'm trying on clothes in a thrift store dressing room. A Black lady outside the dressing room talks on her cell phone.

lady 1: What? You're locked up? Oh. I'm at the thrift store on North Avenue. No, I can't. Call Willy. I said, just call Willy.
my thoughts: Man, this lady's pretty callous. Does she think they get unlimited calls in jail? Obviously this guy chose HER as his one call. There's nothing else he can do, and she's just ignoring him! Maybe he does this all the time, though. Maybe she's sick of bailing him out, and he should just depend on his good friend Willy, since he always lets Willy influence his decision-making anyway. She's had it with him! She just wants to find a pair of jeans in peace today, for goodness' sake!
lady 1, several minutes later: Yeah Aaron's locked out of the house. Could you go get him the key?
my thoughts: Oooooooh. I get it.

New information accommodated, schema changed. Bam.

CONVERSATION 2

I'm walking down Wyman Park Drive, right behind Hopkins' campus. A petite, perhaps Indian, lady walks past me with her dog. She's wearing a cardigan and capri pants, both brightly colored and somewhat worn, and speaks with a slight accent.

lady 2: She's gotten two UTI's already...
my thoughts: This lady must be a medical professional, and she's talking about a patient or something.
lady 2: ...because she keeps picking up dead mice and eating them.
my thoughts: Ew! Ah yes, the dog.

These are two fairly simple examples of accommodating new information by changing your schema, but even within these very short anecdotes, I'm drawing on a huge amount of background knowledge. Not only was I relying on these people's words, but the entire context, including ethnicity and perceived socioeconomic status based on the area I was in at the time. Both my assumptions could have been proven right, but they were both just as easily proven wrong.

The whole thing gets much more convoluted when you start actually interacting with people.

That person doesn't like me. Oh wait, they just started a conversation. Huh, now they shot me a weird look. I'm gonna go stand over here. Now all future interactions with this person will be viewed through the lens I am currently painting. Schemata constantly shifting! New information can be perceived in too many ways! This is much more complicated than seeing a brown duck! I have no idea what color this duck is! How do I even know that what YOU call brown is the same as what I call brown!?

Ahem...in conclusion:

Everything we believe is constantly shifting, and it's all based on our perceptions anyway, which change with the direction of the wind. What begins as the recounting of two amusing anecdotes supposedly linked only by the common motif of cell phone usage quickly becomes an epistemological crisis.

OR
I over-Anna-lyze everything.

still the baby of the world

2011-04-14T00:20:00.000-04:00

Three years ago, I wrote this for him. I don't think I can top it. However, now he's like, an actual person. So here's this at least:

Many things have changed,
But about you we're still crazy.
I love you, Johann Ezekiel.
Sincerely, your Aunt Azee

that minivan really does hold a lot of memories

2011-04-10T23:16:00.000-04:00

I wrote this at the end of November and never posted it.

There was a time in my life that I had no earthly concept of what rejection felt like, which is good, because kids really shouldn't have to experience that. The first time I felt it was in ninth grade, when I tried out for the school play. I had done some plays before, beginning in preschool when I was (as a sheep) the only one who had any lines. I continued acting in school and at good old Drama Learning Center up through middle school. I had experience. I liked it. I wasn't good at nor did I care about sports. The play was what I wanted to do. And then I didn't make it.

The director/drama and art teacher personally spoke to me afterward to tell me that I had done such a great job, but they just didn't have enough parts for ninth graders. They had to give parts to older students. Why did she have to say that? Rejection speeches are the worst. Nobody wants to hear, "You're great, but." Especially since there was one ninth grader who DID make the cut, and she was not me. Obviously, age was not the only reason I didn't get a part. Rejection speeches are always only half the truth. I remember riding in the Chevy Astro that night, lying across the bumpy gray seat and crying quietly, pretending it wasn't a big deal but inwardly feeling the pain that comes from knowing this one chance will never ever come again. Sure, maybe another one will, in a few years, but this one is gone. And this is the only one I wanted.

Well, after that, I went back to a rejection-free life. I got my learner's permit and my driver's license each on my first try. I got the first job to which I ever applied. And the next. And they were both really good. I got into the only college to which I applied. And then my first professional job when I left college. And when I quit that job during a questionable time in our economic history, I got turned down from one county but ended up in a great job anyway. Smooth sailing yet again for Anna the Unbreakable.

And then there was this year. I have been rejected from teaching, substitute teaching, grocery stores, administrative positions, after school programs, and nannying jobs. I kept going and eventually got a decent part-time nannying job. To me, this became success. It is not ideal, but it is good. It is not challenging, but it is a stepping stone. I am not settling, but I am accepting for now. How has all this rejection affected me? Oddly, not that much. I am still confident in who I am and what I have to offer. I decide every day that I can enjoy where I am, though I am not content to stay there. I am not crying on the proverbial backseat of the Chevy Astro about my occupation.

Recently, the pendulum's been swinging the other way. I just got offered two jobs. The one I accepted is only a temporary thing, but it's a foot-in-the-door kind of a situation. I choose to see this as the beginning of a new season. This actually has been a really great year, but I'm ready for 2011. Early 'Peace out, 2010.' I'm done with ya.

I have since experienced more rejection and disappointment. The foot-in-the-door job was great, but it's over now, and it doesn't feel like it was a stepping stone to anywhere. I have felt stuck in a lot of areas of my life for almost a year now, and I am starting to wear thin. Anyway, these words offer a little perspective, and maybe the pendulum will keep swinging. I think that's what they do.

oh well, it's the spice of life

2011-04-08T17:42:00.000-04:00

As my long-term subbing job, the best one I ever could have asked for, began winding down, I started to look forward to having a plan book filled with different things every day. I would miss the stability and the children and preschool, but it would be replaced with adventure and the unknown. The other day's adventure was subbing in a school I knew nothing about for what turned out to be third grade.

The room was pretty bare - no color, no student work displayed, instructional posters at all the wrong angles on the chalkboard. The plans left for me were minimal and grammatically repulsive. They also included 10 practice pages of math work for the students to do in an hour and fifteen minute period. You can guess how well that went over. I like to think I don't judge people I've never met, but I feel safe in saying that this woman is a bad teacher. She didn't even seem to have set up the most basic of routines. There was some sort of drastic pencil shortage going on. Every few minutes, another third grader would approach me with a broken pencil, their ONLY pencil, and ask me if they could sharpen it. Pencil sharpening is one of the most obnoxious distractions that can go on in a classroom.

The first most obnoxious distraction, I learned, is hand sanitizer use. The students used up the hand sanitizer within the first ten minutes of the day and pulled from a locker an industrial-sized bottle to replace it. Apparently the rule was that if you blow your nose, you must sanitize your hands, and another student has to squirt the bottle, so as not to contaminate its surface. This seemed to be the only rule this teacher strictly enforced. Every time I turned around, 5 children were gathered around the sanitizer, squirting gobs of it onto each other's hands. I couldn't stop them, because this was the rule, and they would sneak over to the tissues and fake blow their noses every 2 minutes. By the end of the day, 1/5th of the industrial sanitizer was gone.

Oh yeah, and at one point, 4 children at the same table were fake crying about their dead grandparents. Except that the tears were real. Their eyes were all red, and their noses were puffy, and they were sobbing legitimate tears all over their desks as their friends rubbed their backs and offered to walk them to the guidance counselor's office. No thank you.

Subbing is the worst.

have you heard the awesome news?

2011-03-27T20:26:00.003-04:00

of the weekend...

highs:

spreading the love of panakuchen. Who can taste its goodness and not be struck by Cupid's culinary arrows?
gathering friends and enjoying their company completely
once again - feeling connected to the city I love by running into new acquaintances while out
puppet show at Black Cherry - It kept me on the edge of my seat with emotion!
watching people dance to a remix of a song from the children's literacy curriculum I used at my old school, then in my quest to find the remixes, discovering that the songs were originally from a TV show in the 70's

lows:

the nebulous uneasiness that comes with feeling like certain things are just out of your reach

huhs:

seeing 5 'Judgment Day' trucks in a row go by while out to lunch. First there was the billboard, then there were the pamphlets, and now there are the trucks! I'll post a picture as soon as I can. In the meantime, find out all about the beginning of the end here or here.

I'm excited about warm weather too, but stop

2011-03-17T16:51:00.002-04:00

Ah, spring, heralded by the fact that I have to go and tell the neighbors to get off of my roof. No, really, don't walk on my roof.

the social network

2011-03-11T22:54:00.006-05:00

Someday, I think advertisements you see on billboards will be tailored to you as a consumer. You will have some special chip that will cause your eyes to see this billboard as a different advertisement than someone next to you sees. All advertising will be hyper-targeted to each individual. Also, if you do not pay your taxes, advertisements will pop up in your field of vision, blocking everything else until you finally make your payment.

What I'm saying is, this is not far off. Facebook has been showing us targeted ads that often weird us out for years. I have had...

these
the one that said 'How to Grow Hair Fast!' right after I massacred my bangs
the one that said 'When was your last date? Is it because your car is an embarrassment?' during the Crowpocalypse
and now, this:

Facebook is trying to tell me what school to send my children to by showing me pictures of MYSELF teaching. Technology is weird. And it's not a coincidence.

of the week, Thursday to Thursday

2011-03-10T22:56:00.004-05:00

It's been over a month since my last update. Unacceptable! But since I don't have any anecdotes that I'm just bursting to tell, you'll have to make do with an HLH.

highs:

seeing an old friend, yay
seeing all the local celebrities out and about on the weekend (and all the 'celebrities' that my friends and I have created, such as Bradley Bar and Transformer Guy - Oh yeah, I know where he lives now.)
good music in my favorite venue
feeling like, for one day, spring was here and anything was possible, before the cold front moved in
seeing old coworkers and some of my favorite children at my old school

lows:

being made to wait 50 minutes at an interview with only a measly 'sorry' - If it were any other situation, I would give them a piece of my mind. Okay, the piece of my mind would sound like, "I feel very disrespected right now. It is completely inappropriate for you to ignore someone for almost an hour when you had a scheduled appointment. I hope you do not treat your employees this way, but I have very little faith in that right now." However, it was an interview, so I had to bite my tongue.
burning bridges and worrying about burnt bridges - I want all my bridges intact, all the time! Is that too much to ask? I don't even carry matches for this reason.

huhs:

the random conversations I had at a bus stop in Hampden on a Friday night...I wasn't actually waiting for the bus; I just needed a place to sit. I should sit at bus stops more often.
the chaos that ensued when a toilet overflowed in my classroom - But of course, I managed to turn it into non-chaos.

I can be nostalgic about almost everything

2011-02-09T21:48:00.002-05:00

RNOTM:

subtly messing with margins and spacing on a paper in order to get it to the required length

I should probably never gamble

2011-02-01T08:34:00.004-05:00

I went to Chuck E. Cheese the other day with a family that I met in Guatemala for their daughters’ birthdays. I spent most of the time following the five-year-old around, letting her choose the games and at times helping her play so she could get more tickets. Also, alerting her when stray tickets were left at a machine. Or on the ground. My scavenging instincts and need to get things for cheap were growing stronger by the minute.

(five-year-old not pictured)

While playing one of the games, she got a coin in a ‘bonus points’ hole. But nothing happened. No flashing lights, no extra tickets. She had no idea. She couldn’t have cared less. I was the one who was disappointed. After the brief flicker of disappointment, however, came the realization that I could get some kind of a deal out of this, the same way I can get a dress for cheaper when the belt is missing. Who needs a belt anyway?

I marched up to Donald, the 16-year-old with the authority and described our dilemma. After trying the game himself and opening it up to look inside, as if that would fix it, Donald told me that some of the machines were old and didn’t work quite right. I was ready to politely assert my rights as a customer.

me: I mean, it’s not really fair to these kids that the machines don’t work.

Donald shrugged and gave me some extra tickets. I wanted to make more of a fuss, but I wasn’t sure how many tickets I should be asking for anyway, so I took it. We continued playing more games, and every so often, one would malfunction. The skee-balls would get stuck. The tickets would run out. The pterodactyl would fail to lay an egg. Each time, I would tell my little friend, who would have been perfectly content to move on and try another game, “Necesitamos buscar Donald.”

me: Donald, the tickets ran out. Donald, we just tried two different machines and they both ate our tokens. Donald, isn’t the pterodactyl supposed to lay an egg? The game doesn’t even make sense without the egg.

Each time, Donald would take his key, fiddle with the machine, then hand me a few extra tickets or tokens. I’m pretty sure Donald thought I was trying to hustle him.

After one encounter with Donald, I was alerted by my five-year-old friend that he had left his keys in the machine. It would have been so easy to open it. I had seen inside, and the ledge of the machine was littered with coins that had fallen into the wrong places. I wouldn’t be stealing them from the actual machine, I would just be taking the loose coins. In fact, Donald probably meant for me to open it. He is on top of his game and would never accidentally leave a key lying around. It’s almost as if he were telling me, I’d like to help you. I’d like to give you back a little bit of what this overpriced, overhyped, nostalgically-charged, children’s- gateway-to-gambling-addictions establishment has taken from you, but I just can’t. However, if you happen to find the key sitting in the machine, I wouldn’t stop you from opening it and evening the score to bring joy to a child on her birthday.

There I was, about to steal from a beloved cartoon mouse while a five-year-old watched, because I felt I had been granted some kind of Divine Right by a 16-year-old with a pocket full of tokens. I took the key, and I walked it back up to Donald. He thanked me. We continued to play games. The kids had a great time. They got a few crappy prizes. All was well.

I fear that when I get older, I might become one of those women who throws cans on the floor in order to get them for cheaper because they’re dented. The capacity for crazy is there.

spoiled rotten, just with no stability

2011-01-26T10:33:00.004-05:00

highlights of my first few weeks as a long-term sub

having NO TEAM MEETINGS. ever. I'm the only Pre-K teacher.
not having to listen to morning announcements
bonding with my personal assistant over Teen Mom
oh yeah, the fact that I have a personal assistant!
having many 2 hour delays, which means I don't even have kids until 1:00
being in a flexible and stress-free school with lots of support
showing an Andy Goldsworthy book to my 3-year-olds to reinforce the concept of melting after a science lesson. (I love the fact that I can introduce young children to my own taste. They will learn to love awesome things!)
the fact that I don't have to touch a behavior contract or the attendance or papers to send home, because my para-educators and assistant do all that
many people being very friendly and kind to me
the kids, who are a great bunch

lowlights

not getting paid on snow days

be all there

2011-01-24T00:48:00.003-05:00

Now, I didn't really want to advertise it. I just wanted people to notice it whenever they did. That way, I don't feel like I'm showing off and I still get all that shock value. But...I haven't had any interesting interactions with strangers to recount, and this is what's up...

My lobster. In one sense, it is a representation of an actual geographical place - my family's lake cottage in Massachusetts, built by my great grandfather, and visited every summer for longer than I've been alive. If you know me, you've heard of it.

In another sense, it represents a perspective and quality of character I want to possess. Massachusetts is my place of peace and contentment. When I am there, I am all there. In day-to-day life, I have a hard time being present, because I'm so nostalgic, with my head in the past and sometimes the future and sometimes some alternate reality that I've created for who knows what purpose. I want to carry around a sense of contentedness and being fully present wherever I go, no matter what the circumstance. I want to be a calm, refreshed person, so I can be refreshing to others. So I have tattooed it on my arm. My little lobster. My paradoxical symbol of both nostalgia and presence in the moment.

(when was I under it?)

2011-01-13T22:43:00.000-05:00

Life is so grawful I can't even get over it.

I really really did like her; she was generous and funny and kind

2011-01-03T13:51:00.005-05:00

A bunch of relatives are at my parents' house, chatting in the kitchen while my brother's playlist runs in the background.

I go over to his computer to check on the title and album of the song that is playing, which I assume to be by Joanna Newsom, who has a whining, abrasive voice if you ask me. My brother sees me checking and gives me a thumbs-up and raised eyebrow across the room, waiting for me to concur that this song is in fact awesome.

me: Eh, I never really liked her.

The room goes quiet except for that whiny voice in the background as all my aunts and uncles give me shocked and puzzled looks.

Apparently they had been talking about my great aunt who had just died.

then washed it away down the kitchen sink

2010-12-30T15:15:00.000-05:00

I love data. According to iTunes, my top 5 songs of 2010 were:

5. Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over
4. Beirut - Postcards from Italy
3. Beach House - Used to Be
2. Yeasayer - Germs
1. Au Revoir Simone - Tell Me (Clock Opera Remix)

Most of these are actually tied for second place, and the ranking in those cases is purely alphabetical. I can't wait to reset my iTunes and see what I love in 2011.

1999 Oscar nominated psychological thriller spoiler alert

2010-12-26T01:29:00.000-05:00

I love Christmas. I love tradition and family and sentimentality and sweet treats and thoughtfulness and celebrations of all kinds. There is one thing I dread about Christmas, though.

Family Share Time.

It's a tradition that emerged sometime when my siblings and I were young adults. When we were kids, the tradition was that we had to perform before we opened presents. At some point, it transformed into talking about where you are in life - you know, emotionally, spiritually, etc. I HATE IT. Everyone knows I hate it. It's painful, almost in a, "Wow, I am really earning Christmas right now," kinda way. You know how when you were little, you had to wait and wait to open presents? When that glorious moment finally came, it felt like a huge payoff. Well, Family Share Time kind of preserves that pre-celebration angst for me. I guess it's necessary. But still, I pass every time.

This year, I decided that in lieu of sharing, I would bring back the tradition of performing. By making my family perform for me. As it turns out, if you hand people a script that you wrote, they HAVE to read it aloud, because their names are on it, and their parts are marked in pink highlighter, and...it's Christmas. And isn't that what Christmas is really all about? Forcing others to do what you want, as if they were puppets? Wait, that's not it. That's what Being John Malkovich is really all about. Using creative license to avoid uncomfortable discussions with your family? That's probably not it either.

Anyway, here are some short clips of the play, which was kind of a "Christmas Carol meets my nephew" type thing, and in which I made members of my family play other members of my family. They did a bang-up job.

actually, the house remains untouched; it's mostly above the tree line

2010-12-23T21:37:00.011-05:00

For the past few months, Northeast Baltimore has been hit with a plague. A plague of crows. I do not remember it being like this last year. And I think I would remember walking out the door to this every morning.

It's terrible. They perch up in the trees by the hundreds all night. They scream every morning before it's light out. People run down the streets in fear of standing in one place for too long. The worst, though, is its effect on our cars.

At least in our neighborhood, everyone is in the same boat. The crows don't discriminate onto which cars they release the contents of their cloacas. Crow poop: the great equalizer. However, if you travel south in the city at all, the area somehow exempt from this curse (Is the blood of a lamb painted over their door frames or something?), people will gawk at you as if you were an alien. A yellow and white poop-spattered alien.

While I am used to the stares and comments by now, today was a new record. My day went a little something like this:

Act I

I'm taking the children I nanny to the Walters Art Gallery. I park on Cathedral Street, get out of the car, and start attempting to open the stroller by some mystical combination of levers and buttons activated in just the right order. A breeze blows, much warmer than the past few frigid days. A middle-aged woman who I have never met approaches.

homeless lady: Excuse me, Miss. Can you do me a favor?
me: Maybe.
homeless lady: You know me. You see me here all the time. Can you help me and my three children get to the shelter? We're freezing out here.
me: I'm not giving any rides...
homeless lady: Could you give us some bus fare?
me: No thanks. I'm sorry.

Having used all her pitches to no avail, the lady drops her pained expression. A genuine smile crosses her face as she points toward my car.

homeless lady: You park by a lot of birds?
me: Yes. It's the worst!!!

The lady laughs and shakes her head as she walks away.

Act II

Leaving the museum, I scheme about the best way to get the baby to fall asleep in the car. I decide we should drive around a bit, and I propose this idea to the three-year-old girl.

me: Do you want to drive by my house? And see where Miss Anna lives?
three-year-old girl: ...It have bird poop on it?

Act III

After having seen my house, which is NOT covered in bird poop, thank you, the kids and I head back to their residence. On President Street, some teenage girls in the back of a black SUV start heckling me.

teenage girls: Hey! Hey! Roll down your window! You got something on your car! I think there's some bird poop on it! I'll pay YOU to wash your car!!

The girls continue to shout at me for the duration of the green light as I stare ahead and refuse to engage with them, much like I did with the bullies in sixth grade. Even as they turn right at the light and I go straight, one girl sticks her head out the window and continues to shout at me. Apparently distracted by her antics, the driver makes a very wide turn, passing too close to a street sign on her left and knocking that girl's loud head clear off her shoulders and onto the sidewalk.

Okay, so that very last part didn't happen, but it could have. A curse upon her house. We know there's already one upon mine.

sooo, I kinda like being behind a microphone

2010-12-19T02:35:00.002-05:00

This was probably the pinnacle of my storytelling career. Aah, Center Stage. Years of putting my name in the hat finally payed off.

I like aligning the videos so that they're all singing together

2010-12-16T15:54:00.003-05:00

a blog is an awesome study in identity

2010-12-14T00:12:00.003-05:00

Five years ago on this date, this was me.

Sometimes Young Anna was embarrassing, but I really admire her ability to see meaning in everything and her desire to be so intentional about living a good life. The part about the professor who was taking care of his paraplegic son and girlfriend stood out, because I completely forgot about that, five years later, and only remembered him being rude and insensitive. Also, the parts about "living on the surface" stood out to me, because I'm reading a book on meditation, and it talks about living on the surface of life and letting your mind run out of control because you are unaware of how to be in charge of it.

Yes, of course this is true for me. Two Years Ago Anna explains it pretty well here.

So, I was reading this book thinking, Yes, this sounds so good. I would love to have control of my thoughts and therefore live a life where I can be refreshing to others instead of entirely consumed with my own spiraling mind. Then the book mentioned twice a hurt elbow, just as an example of some distracting physical ailment. I laughed out loud, because I was sitting there reading the book with my arm in a homemade sling.

Yes, there is something to be learned here. There is something to be learned everywhere. I'm still skeptical of my ability to meditate.

when Jack says yes, you pay less!

2010-12-12T15:14:00.003-05:00

When I am faced with an opportunity for local celebrity, I take it. That is why, when a friend who works for a cable company asked for volunteers for one of her clients' commercials, I was ready. She wouldn't tell us what it was for, so my roommate and I started brainstorming what kind of creepy outfit this could be. There's the obvious story: cameraman tells young, inexperienced women they have a future in modeling...but there are also more sinister options. What if it's an ad for the new Wal-Mart opening in Remington? Hmm...we decided if that were the case, we'd have to bail on the commercial.

It was going to be filmed at the inner harbor, so we set out to meet the crew by Phillip's, all dolled up for winter in our cozy coats and cute boots. Upon arriving, we looked for a bunch of older people in blue vests with smiley face stickers. Not seeing any, we decided it was probably safe and moved forward. We met the crew and found out the commercial was for none other than local car salesman Jack Antwerpen. For those of you unfamiliar with "Jack says yes!" here are some examples of his high-brow sales pitches:

pedicures
water

We signed our lives away, met Jack, and began filming, with minimal instructions. I was determined to overact, and during the first take, when I rushed with a crowd of people to surround Jack, I slipped and wiped out completely on the bricks, which by the way, are not an ideal surface for my cute boots. I put my hand out behind me to catch myself, but it didn't do much. When the laughter wore off, I realized it was really difficult to move my hand, but I played it cool to the crew and other actors. "I'm alright; the show must go on!"

We filmed several more scenes, which included more running. Jack told me to sit that one out, but I wouldn't. I will sacrifice my body for my art. That's just the price of being an ac-tor.

So, the rest of the shoot went well, and within an hour, I couldn't move my elbow more than 45 degrees. Watch for the commercial in January.

my life's awesomeness

2010-12-07T00:21:00.002-05:00

I could have started earlier than 2002, but I thought this section was the most interesting. This year has of course been the best, but I'm done with it. The numbers are in and next year's projection is looking good.

Peace out, 2010, I'm ready for 2011!

basically, the plan was a vacuum

2010-12-03T14:01:00.002-05:00

I dreamed that my mattress had bed bugs last night. It was vivid and gross. I spent the rest of the dream devising a plan to get rid of them.

another lonely toothbrush

2010-11-21T18:45:00.000-05:00

Jayme and I sit in the kitchen, and I whine about my roommates' upcoming trip that leaves me alone for a week. Enter Becky, through the front door.

Becky: Hey, what are you guys doing?
Anna: Eating my emotions.
Becky: Oh no, why are you eating your emotions?
Anna: What else am I supposed to do with them?
Becky: Just shove 'em, deep down inside.
Anna: You guys are leaving me for a week. Seven. Eight days.
Jayme: Seventy-eight days.
Becky: Yeah, we forgot to tell you. We're actually gonna be gone for seventy-eight days.

I'm LITERALLY dying here

2010-11-16T22:25:00.003-05:00

I'm dying for this to happen again. Not necessarily the part where Kirsten squeezes me and messes up my shirt, but the part where we're all together again at Christmas. Maybe in...2012?? No, something must be done about this.

Though not technically Christmas, this photo is still during the Christmas season. It is my birthday, and you can tell by the traditional headdress I'm wearing. I really want this to happen. Once again, not necessarily the headdress, but the fact that everyone's together on my birthday.

Someday.

because I haven't in a while

2010-11-14T23:15:00.001-05:00

of the day

highs:

visiting Loring Cornish's houses - His art inspires me more than any other visual art I've seen. Or at least the combination of his art and speaking with him in person.
Olympic weight-lifting with Jayme by Druid Hill Lake
perfect weather - warm and crisp, with fallen leaves, ephemeral at this time of year
watching an incredible animal documentary narrated by Alec Baldwin
generally appreciating the life I live and the things I choose

lows:

striking out one more time when looking for a spiritual community/church in Baltimore
Sometimes, life is just so beautiful that it hurts.

huhs:

counting how many times the pastor said 'literally'...22!!
Apparently we are the rat-keepers of the neighborhood. If it weren't for our back yard, they wouldn't have such a cozy network of tunnels in which to live and breed. Also apparently, the rats kicked a huge pile of dirt under our fence and into the alley. So...the roomies banded together to try to fill in their holes. I guess this is also kind of a low...we're that house.

Skylark's not bad either

2010-11-12T00:10:00.004-05:00

Some things last a long time. One is my love of Shelley. He's got some good stuff, but I always come back to Ode to the West Wind. It's just everything.

Also, Elizabeth Bishop is awesome, and I am not ashamed to say that I first encountered her poetry through a film starring Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz.

But Shelley, man.

but I really should invest in a kit

2010-11-01T00:19:00.003-04:00

I love carving pumpkins. Perhaps I'll start adding pumpkin-carving to other holidays. Or you could hire me, and tell me whose face you want, and I'll put it on a pumpkin. I'm dying to do another one. Please take a look at my portfolio and contact me for all your jack-o-lantern needs.

fact: this was 2008

200...wait for it...9

'twas the year 2010, to nevermore return again

at which I would/not be good

2010-10-27T21:24:00.002-04:00

I went to the grocery store today, and it got me thinking.

game shows I would be good at

Wheel of Fortune
Password
Pyramid
Family Feud

game shows I would not be good at

Supermarket Sweep
Jeopardy!

I think The Price is Right has a balance of games at which I would and would not be skilled.

Since my mind is on Halloween costumes lately, here would be a good one: Get a friend. Wear matching sweatshirts and stonewashed jeans. Apply hairspray liberally. Carry around a giant inflatable can of Pepsi or a ham. Run around a lot. Supermarket Sweep contestants!

except you, you are the wiser

2010-10-25T22:05:00.002-04:00

simple pleasure: having the kind of schedule where you see different people on consecutive days, so you can wear the same outfit 2 days in a row, and no one's the wiser!

I'm so thirsty right now. really thirsty. I know you can't give me water yet. it's not a plea; I'm just describing my symptoms.

2010-10-21T19:52:00.003-04:00

I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance the other day. That was a new experience.

I was watching a toddler, and I started getting dizzy. I wouldn't have called 911 otherwise, but I felt like I was going to pass out, and I didn't want that to happen before anyone could come watch the child for me.

So, the paramedics came and sat with me and kept asking me if I was stressed or had had some kind of bad day. Once someone showed up to take care of the toddler, they loaded me into the back of the ambulance and took me to Good Samaritan.

I kept trying to figure out what had caused this episode. I had drunk a latte that morning, and I don't usually consume much caffeine. But I was dizzy, and my hands were doing weird things, and my heart rate was way up, and I was having trouble breathing and thinking straight. Caffeine has never done that to me before. And there was that bite of brownie I had eaten. I mean, I didn't make the brownies, so who really knows what was in them? At every step of the process of being checked into the hospital, a different person asked me if I take any drugs. I replied no, all the while thinking about that bite of brownie...

Suddenly, in the ambulance, I was a little loopy. I just started grinning, sitting there on the stretcher, reacting to my own internal monologue. I realized that as I was describing my symptoms and trying to slow my breathing, I was also playing out how the story would go when I told it to people. I would describe this paramedic who sat beside me, and whose gender I had been trying to determine for the entirety of our interactions, as either a super feminine guy or a very boyish lady, whose face would be really pretty either way. He/She had no idea what I was smiling at, which struck me as all the more hilarious.

The ambiguously gendered paramedic asked for my address and then told me he/she lived on 27th.
me: Ooh, you're in Charles Village too?
him/her: Yeah. 27th at Maryland.
me: So, I guess that's Remington?
him/her: It's right between Charles Village and Remington. They call it Charles Village.
me: Well, it sounds like Remington.

Man, I thought to myself, I am being feisty right now! It is kind of inappropriate to argue with someone you just met that they are confused about the name of their own neighborhood. Was I under the influence of an unknown substance??

Lying on the stretcher in the hallway, waiting for a room to open up, I found myself being (hopefully) pleasantly sarcastic with the staff. They were chuckling at me a bit, and I hoped they were having a good day. A million people asked me a million questions and filled out the same amount of forms. Some of the questions made me laugh out loud. One lady asked me my religion. I couldn't figure out why they would need that, but she assured me they did. I started arguing with her. I didn't see the purpose, and I also don't like putting labels on myself. I mean, spirituality is a complicated thing and a generic term doesn't really convey the full meaning of any one person's beliefs, values, and practices. In that moment, it somehow seemed really important that I not give in to this lady's attempts to box me in. I refused to answer her, and she wrote 'no religion specified.' Judgmental Hospital: 0. Anna: 1.

As I watched my heart monitor, I tried to lower it by being calm. As it got lower, I got excited that it was working. Then my heart rate went up. Up and down, up and down. In that moment, nothing could have been funnier to me. I was stifling laughter, because I knew it just didn't fit. For whatever reason, I still felt the need to describe all my symptoms to the paramedics.

me: Everything...(long pause while I tried to figure out how to not sound stoned)...is making me laugh right now.
him/her: ...Maybe you accidentally ate a pot brownie.
me: I did have a bite of brownie today! And I don't know what was in it!

Shocked by the serendipity of this accusation, I was also so relieved to finally get that piece of information of my chest. Probably mistaking my enthusiasm for sarcasm, he/she did not react to my brownie confession. Whatever. I had come clean, and the blood tests they were going to run would bring everything to light.

Eventually, I was wheeled into an observation room, given an EKG, a CAT scan, blood tests, urine tests, and an IV. They all came back normal. The ultimate diagnosis? 'Probably dehydration and too much caffeine.' Go figure. The brownie was a red herring.

red eared sliders live indefinitely

2010-10-18T22:12:00.003-04:00

I tried to Google how long do rechargeable batteries last. I used to think it was silly to Google in the form of a question, but I have since changed my ways.

Some of the most popular searches were:
how long do relationships last
how long do rebounds last
how long do recessions last

People must have a lot of faith in the internet's ability to provide definitive answers.

I can just imagine the situation..."Jaden just broke up with McKenna, and now he's been stopping next to my locker every period. Hunter says I'm just a rebound. Homecoming is in three weeks, so I have to get the timing of this perfectly so he doesn't break up with me too soon. So tell me, Google...how long do rebounds last??"

also I dreamt I was substitute teaching and couldn't do anything but yell and chase students

2010-10-10T15:08:00.003-04:00

I had a vivid dream this morning.

I was sledding down a path through the woods on an inflatable air mattress type thing. It wasn't snowy; it was just the air mattress on pavement.

Somehow, I got this bird in my hand. Its legs were tucked under, and it wasn't flying. It was just this beautiful, sparrow-sized bird with big purple-blue eyes that kept staring at me. Its eyes were almost human.

I started talking to the bird, and I told it how much I loved it and I hoped its legs were okay so it would be able to fly. We just kept sliding down the path with the bird staring back at me as if it understood everything I was saying. Slowly, the bird uncurled its legs and perched on my finger as it got ready to fly. It took off, and my feelings of worry for the bird turned kind of bittersweet as I realized it didn't need me anymore and it might not come back.

As soon as that thought crossed my mind, the bird flew back. It fluttered around me for a second, then it flew behind me and got caught under the air mattress and dragged along the pavement. I reached back to free it, but by the time I got it out, its whole back had been scraped up and it was bleeding quickly.

I kept careening down the path, hoping to end up in this little city where they might have an animal hospital. As I went down, the bird's body went limp, and its eyes lost their look of recognition. I was overcome with guilt and regret. By the time I got to someone who I thought was a vet, the bird was already dead. I asked her frantically if she could help.

"Sorry," she said, "it's just-"
"Natural selection, I know."
"I'm just not really a vet."

And that was the end. Okay, gotta go Google the symbolism of birds in dreams now.

worth a shot

2010-10-04T00:05:00.003-04:00

From The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner, regarding his trip to Bhutan:

We’re back in the Toyota, climbing and climbing to ever higher elevations. More than ten thousand feet. The road is only wide enough for one car at a time. Passing is negotiated through a series of elaborate, poetic hand gestures, and I’m reminded of what one Bhutanese told me back in Thimphu: ‘There is no room in Bhutan for cocky assholes.’

He’s right. Everything in this country requires cooperation. Harvesting the crops. Passing another car on the road. In the west and in the United States especially, we try to eliminate the need for compromise. Cars have ‘personal climate controls’ so that driver and passenger need not negotiate a mutually agreeable temperature. That same pair, let’s say they’re husband and wife, need not agree on the ideal firmness of their mattress, either. Each can set their own ‘personal comfort level.’ We embrace these technologies. Why shouldn’t everyone enjoy their own personal comfort level, be it in a car or in a bed? I wonder, though, what we lose through such conveniences. If we no longer must compromise on the easy stuff, like mattresses, then what about the truly important issues? Compromise is a skill, and like all skills it atrophies from lack of use.

I like this. I tend not to compromise if another option is available - you know, another option like trying to convince people that they should see things my way. Compromise has this connotation of 'last resort' to me, when maybe it could be a first choice.

And the part about skills, or I would even say attitudes, atrophying from lack of use makes sense. I often feel incapable of change in my life. And I wonder if it can actually come about through tiny, intentional habits.

Compromising with your roommates on what kind of peanut butter to buy in order to be able to make larger compromises in relationships later
Talking one minute longer or asking one more question of that person you're not really friends with in order to keep yourself from becoming distant from people you care about later
Taking the initiative to decide what time to meet someone so you can be decisive about larger things in the future

Living your life as a series of small changes now in order to become the person you want to be in the future. Maybe that works.

it's a fact

2010-10-01T14:57:00.002-04:00

Every time one of my teacher friends starts to tell a story, or even discusses guided reading groups, I really start to miss teaching. Of course, there are all the usual things to miss, but there is also a ton of tiny things, too. For this reason, I will start a segment called Things I Miss About Teaching.

TIMAT #1: When young children eat pancakes or waffles for breakfast, they smell like syrup for the rest of the day.

cutest infestation ever

2010-09-27T13:59:00.002-04:00

Everyone keeps talking about the stink bug invasion, and I have no idea what they mean. I feel really left out. Where are all my stink bugs???

In other news, we have an infestation of flies that come out of our bathroom sink. Not the drain, mind you, but the little overflow vent. You know what I mean? They're these little tiny gray flies that I have NEVER seen anywhere else in the entire world. It's like they're indigenous to our sink. I tried pouring bleach down the vent, but the little buggers remain unaffected.

pretty sure this one is finance-related

2010-09-20T19:06:00.003-04:00

Another tooth dream last night. This time, it started with my incisors, which I can't remember happening before. First I felt a little bit of grit in between some of my front teeth, then I remember the one on the right side feeling loose.

"Oh no!"

But it was too late. Out they came. Followed by the rest of them. All 28 teeth came out in crumbles. I spit them in my hand and tried to rinse them off, as shards of them got washed down the drain and the bigger chunks clogged it up.

"I don't even have dental insurance!" I said. That's a new one. I've never worried about dental insurance in a dream, though it would be a very real concern if this ever actually happened.

Ugh, it was terrible. Definitely feeling out of control again. Interestingly enough, though, my teeth grew back in again. Huh. That's the second time that's happened in a dream. I suppose I have hope yet.

never exhaustive

2010-09-14T17:26:00.003-04:00

things I like about my roomies

We like to do things together. Sometimes we'll plan a roommate night or other event, but most things are unplanned. Often, both Jayme and I will go pick up Becky from work, though it's completely unnecessary. But who wouldn't want two roommates picking them up?
They name food after me. Every type of food that I regularly make becomes 'Anna _____.' As in, Let's bring Anna Pasta Salad to the cookout, or I just want an Anna Bagel, or I'm gonna make an Anna Omelette. It makes me feel good.
They listen to me discuss the same issues ad nauseum. I know they must get tired of hearing my same dumb ramblings all the time, but they don't act like it.
We like to celebrate. Sometimes this can mean big parties and planned events, but mostly it's just little things, like making signs on special days or writing down little events or memories on our weekly calendar. The trivial becomes important and the forgettable becomes memorable. Because come on, life's worth celebrating. And our big parties are pretty awesome. (Halloween 2010? Maybe?)
We are clean, but not anal retentive. This just makes a house pleasant to live in.
We like to take advantage of events. Whenever something fun is going on in the neighborhood or city, we try to go, sometimes on short notice.
We share things. Food, clothes. It all becomes kind of communal. Too bad Becky's feet are so small, though, cause she has some cute shoes I can't access.

There's probably more.

romanticize the mundane, hon

2010-09-13T16:15:00.003-04:00

A lack of car and internet cause me to walk around the neighborhood and do my work in a local cafe today. Somehow, this makes me feel more authentic. Authentically, what, cheap? Not fully employed? Unlucky with cars? Maybe.

Sigh.

handy stitch all over again

2010-09-06T01:49:00.004-04:00

Three and a half years ago, I had the best idea of my life. Then I posted it to the internet. Posting it was probably the WORST idea of my life. Some hot shot over at Hasbro must have, in the past few years, discovered my idea and stolen it.

I'll admit, they did kind of one-up my idea of stacks of paper on writing tablets by making little scrolls out of them. I don't even want to know what the other items are.

My dreams have been shattered.

...OR...

not bad at all

2010-08-30T17:03:00.000-04:00

This summer I...

listened to stories from strangers and friends onstage
watched 'Cable Stein' while observing the diverse crowd of Sowebofest and the hula hoop craze
played Props at a dinner party with the disposable handcuffs someone had found on the ground outside our house
used a laundromat
watched outdoor movies and created my own
revealed a mystery to a stranger I'd been following (Transformer Guy)
saw (and heard) some great hons
tried to stand on one foot on my tiptoes with my eyes closed for 15 seconds (can't be done)
soaked up the beauty of Stiles Reservoir
confused people with my apparently strange habits at a city pool
got hit by fireworks
explored an abandoned fort populated by thousands of birds
learned a little Spanish
experienced many kinds of transportation in Central America (van, tuk tuk, back of a truck, always seatbeltless)
taught in a school that was well outside my comfort zone
ate frijoles, tortillas, crema, platanos, and queso fresco until I could eat no more
climbed a volcano and swam in its lake
had an aventura
brought back the habit of bartering to the US
jumped off cliffs into beautiful green water...and had a run-in with the law
reached my physical limit on pretty much my first bike ride
maintained outdoor concert traditions
danced at a party from another decade
flew in airplanes - hey, it still excites me
participated in the wedding of Jan and Katie
danced like crazy with siblings, cousins, and new friends at said wedding
applied and applied and applied to jobs
cleaned a dirty house, kind of
spurred-of-the-moment with the roommates
soaked it in

another simple pleasure

2010-08-27T12:54:00.002-04:00

So we finally got our air conditioning fixed...just in time for NOT needing it AT ALL. It has been so gorgeously crisp and cool outside these past few nights. This is the first time all summer that I've been able to sleep under the covers and ooooooh, I forgot how good sheets feel!

watching TV in bed on stolen internet before getting dressed doesn't count

2010-08-18T11:41:00.002-04:00

simple pleasure of the day: having an outfit picked out the night before

...I need to start working again soon! Can't you see I'm dying for routine!?

air compressor

2010-08-12T14:07:00.000-04:00

Today, the HVAC tech guys made visit number six to our house. Number Six. The five previous visits did nothing to fix our air conditioning. They came yesterday and said it was fixed once again, but they were wrong. You can't trick me. I know what air conditioning feels like. It does not feel like I have a fever all night. That is the feeling of NO air conditioning. If this dude didn't know what he was doing the five previous times, PLEASE SEND SOMEONE NEW.

HVAC tech knocks at my front door.
me: Hi. Come on in.
tech: Is your air conditioning still not working?
Really? Why would you even ask that? What, do you think this is all a scheme to get you back to my house so I can see you again? I didn't want to see you the first five times! Are you just going to add some freon again this time? Stop adding freon; that is clearly NOT the issue!
me: It hasn't worked all summer. But do what you need to do.

Was I rude? I guess I shouldn't shoot the messenger. He's just doing his job. But he's not the messenger, really. He's the guy who doesn't know what he's doing and keeps trying to pass it off as if he does. I was just shooting the guy who has no idea what he's doing.

visions of 20% discounts dance in my head

2010-08-08T17:01:00.002-04:00

In case any of you don't know, I quit my teaching job and still don't have a new one for the fall. But I'm not too worried. Maybe my unemployment hasn't seemed like such a big deal because it's still the summer. Or maybe it's the fact that I have a stable life with a lot of support and I know that temporary unemployment won't ruin my credit or make me lose a house or any other harsh reality that might befall other people.

Or...

Maybe it's the fact that teaching turns me into a complete stress case and I'm feeling the freedom of NOT having an impending teaching job. I mean, honestly, teaching in a public school makes me a little crazy. The amount of planning alone makes me feel a real heaviness. I actually fantasize sometimes that I get no kind of teaching work this fall and have to go work at Wholefoods full time. Am I crazy? I'm good at teaching, and it's challenging, and it's a stable job if you have it, with good benefits and opportunities for higher education and yadda yadda yadda. And part of me is dying to work at a grocery store.

Even in Guatemala, where I was only teaching half-hour lessons in the mornings...I started having my stress dreams. That's right, the teeth dreams. I haven't had a tooth-crumbling dream since my first year of teaching, if this blog serves as an accurate record.

In Guatemala, I dreamed that I was out to dinner with my first principal, and my teeth were loose. I tried to ignore it, but two or three of them eventually fell out. That familiar sickness set in, that feeling of wishing beyond all reason that you could go back in time and prevent what just happened. And then...I felt that there were new teeth growing in! The sense of relief was almost as good as waking up from these nightmares.

I choose to interpret that dream as stress and a loss of control, with the knowledge that it soon would pass. I wasn't trapped. I was just teaching for two weeks. But if I were back in public schools...

Do I really want to invite those dreams back into my life? Wholefoods surely wouldn't do this to me.

tale as old as time

2010-08-03T19:24:00.002-04:00

I have been devoted to this outlet for over 5 years. Crazy. I haven't ever lived in one place or had one job for five years. That's a long time, in which much can change. Occasionally, I like to go back and read old posts, comparing my current self to my 5-years-ago self.

This one's still me and probably always will be.

bigboyzpens.com

2010-07-31T02:38:00.002-04:00

Tonight, I went out with some friends in the lovely neighborhood of Canton. Someone there asked my roommate and me where we were visiting from. Clearly, we don't fit in there.

As we were walking the two blocks to Becky's car on the way out, we heard someone scuffling behind us. Suddenly, something hit me in the shoulder, and I looked down on the ground to see a pen. Yes, this guy who had been following us threw a Big Boyz Bail Bonds pen at me, and then turned and walked the other way as we called out to him, "Seriously? Did you just throw a pen at us?"

That was my night in a nutshell.

Ipala, te amo

2010-07-29T16:52:00.000-04:00

I'm always skeptical when people tell me that something will change my life or be 'amazing.' I don't really experience things that way. There are no profound spiritual experiences or entirely different perspectives for me. Was my trip to Guatemala a life-changing experience? Well of course it was; every day is a life-changing experience. You can't talk to a street vendor, or climb a mountain, or wake up in the morning and walk away the exact same person you were before. Ipala changes me and Baltimore changes me.

Oh, my city, my best friends, my heart. I am glad to be back. But this was all pretty great too:

summer 2010 event schedule

2010-07-28T00:00:00.000-04:00

Here it is, the latest list of (mostly free) events I may attend this summer. I'll update as necessary.

TBA: camping, 4th of July

May
Sat, May 1: Kinetic Sculpture Race, Federal Hill to Patterson Park and back
Thurs, May 6: First Thursdays, West Mount Vernon Park
Sat, May 15 - Mon, May 17: MICA Commencement Exhibitions, MICA campus
Sun, May 30: Sowebofest, Hollins Market

June
Thurs, Jun 3: First Thursdays, West Mount Vernon Park
Thurs, Jun 3: Stoop Stories, Centerstage
Fri, Jun 4: Caleb Stine, Charles Village
Fri, Jun 4 - Sun, Jun 6: Charles Village Festival, Charles Village
Sun, Jun 6: Jazz & Blues Festival, Federal Hill
Tues, Jun 8: Walk the Line, Wyman Park Dell
Fri, Jun 11 - Sun, Jun 13: Honfest, Hampden
Sun, Jun 20 - Sat, Jun 26: vacation, Spencer MA
Tues, Jun 22: This is Spinal Tap, Wyman Park Dell
Thurs, Jun 24 - Mon, Jun 28: Folklife Festival, DC National Mall
Tues, Jun 29: The Harder They Come, Wyman Park Dell

July
Thurs, Jul 1 - Mon, Jul 5: Folklife Festival, DC National Mall
Thurs, Jul 1: First Thursdays, West Mount Vernon Park
Thurs, Jul 1: Singin' in the Rain and free entrance to AVAM, AVAM
Wed, Jul 7: She & Him (hopefully??), 9:30 DC
Thurs, Jul 8 - Sun, Jul 25: Guatemala, Ipala
Wed, Jul 14: The Hangover, Fells Point
Thurs, Jul 15: The Princess Bride and free entrance to AVAM, AVAM
Fri, Jul 16 - Sun, Jul 18: Artscape, Mount Royal
Wed, Jul 21: The Hurt Locker, Fells Point
Wed, Jul 28: Avatar, Fells Point
Thurs, Jul 29: King Kong (1933) and free entrance to AVAM, AVAM

August
Wed, Aug 4: The Blindside, Fells Point
Thurs, Aug 5: First Thursdays, West Mount Vernon Park
Thurs, Aug 5: A League of Their Own and free entrance to AVAM, AVAM
Wed, Aug 11: Twilight: New Moon, Fells Point
Thurs, Aug 12: True Stories (?) and free entrance to AVAM, AVAM
Wed, Aug 18: The Proposal, Fells Point
Wed, Aug 18 - Mon, Aug 23: Jan's wedding weekend, LA area
Wed, Aug 25: (500) Days of Summer, Fells Point
Fri, Aug 27 - Mon, Sep 6: MD State Fair, Timonium Fairgrounds

no more monkeys jumping on the bed

2010-07-07T13:03:00.005-04:00

Well, I'll be in Guatemala for the next 2ish weeks, supposedly teaching English. Let's hope I get little kids rather than high schoolers, because my repertoire is mostly full of cheesy songs.

Also, I'm avoiding our broken AC by hiding out in Starbucks. The baristas are arguing about pizza. One (New Yorker, pfff) says there is no good pizza in Baltimore. Then the other one says she hears Ledo's is the best. What!? I'm just biting my tongue for now.

Mmm, I could really go for some Zella's.

a place where there was nowhere left to go

2010-07-06T00:07:00.004-04:00

I often want to put everything into words, into pictures. I want to capture the memories of my life so I can go back and relive them as often and as vividly as I want. It's that, "I don't have my camera!" syndrome. As if not having any way to make a memory tangible somehow negates it.

That's just silly.

Some of my best stories remain unwritten, because this is just not the place to share them. I look back on a weekend of good experiences, New Experiences, and I just can't write them all. And I shouldn't. Some things need a little space around them for mystery, to remain mine to share when I will and not to be typed for general consumption.

And yet...the capturing need is still there. Here is my compromise, one snippet of a weekend:

I sat with friends under the biggest fireworks I've ever seen, watching the burning embers rain down on the people around me, people who screamed and shielded themselves from the debris and stayed. Stayed because it was a New Experience. And it was good.

no chance of getting pizza delivered, I guess

2010-06-29T15:04:00.003-04:00

With my new-found free time, I enjoy experiencing things around the city that I've never done. You know, like using the laundromat. Today's New Experience was swimming at the Druid Hill Park Pool.

Now, I fully expected to be the only white person there. I fully expected to be the only one sunbathing rather than sitting in the shade. I wasn't shocked when a little boy asked me, "Are you a lifeguard?" despite the fact that I was wearing a blue and white bathing suit and carrying a towel. However, I was unprepared for the other cultural differences I would experience.

The place is like a maximum security prison! I payed my fee and walked into the locker room, about to waltz right through the showers and into the sunshine. I was stopped at every turn by a different bored teenage prison warden making me jump through some new kind of hoop.

bored teenage prison warden: You need to check your bag.
me: You mean...I have to leave my bag here?
BTPW: Yeah. And your dress and your shoes. You can keep your towel.
me: Can I at least bring my book?
BTPW: It's a pool...bring a book for what?
me: You know...I'll lie out in the sun for a while, read my book, get in the water when I get hot...

BTPW gave me a puzzled look and a shrug as if I had just told her I planned to conduct a seance or wrap myself in tin foil or some equally ridiculous yet ultimately harmless endeavor. Was she unaware of the habit of white people to work on their tans, twenty minutes per side before flipping over, then take a dip when they get overheated? Surely she must have witnessed this phenomenon in a movie or something. Apparently not, but she let the book pass.

Next, I had to go through the showers and get wet, front and back, as BTPW#2 told me. I held my book and towel high above my head while drenching the rest of myself in the showers, then walked, bare-footed, cameraless, telephoneless, penniless, into the pool area. I was stripped of every item I usually consider essential for a day at the pool. Thank God I hadn't tried to bring snacks, or even water!

I spread my towel out and plopped down with my book, nervous that I was breaking some hidden rule. No lying on the concrete! You cannot be out of the water for more than 10 minutes at a time. Did you actually wear glasses in here!? I got even more nervous when the police officer on duty started walking by me. Play it cool, Anna, play it cool.

I don't think I'll be returning to this particular pool. Someone please tell me that Patterson Park is not like this. Or at the very least, give me detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to enter the pool before I try.

police

2010-06-28T22:33:00.002-04:00

I'm back in Maryland, a state which seems to be saying to me, Oh yeah? You spent a nice, relaxing, gorgeous, week on a cool lake with a constant, gentle breeze? Maybe Massachusetts boasts beautiful bodies of water, but you know what I've got? The most oppressive heat and humidity you've ever known, that's what!

Yes, Maryland. I get it. I didn't forget. As I sit here, lacking the modern wonder of air conditioning, I have to cool myself down the only way I can think of - by spreading out to create as much surface area on my body as possible, maximizing the amount of skin being hit by air from the fan. It brings me back to my days of living in Cumberland and Hagerstown, two of College Park's non air-conditioned high rises. I would lie on top of my covers and plaster one arm and one leg to the cinderblock wall, the coolest part of the room, until I was almost sideways. I'm also reminded of the hottest night of my life, the overnight train from Rome to Paris. That's a good memory.

Anyway, in honor of the heat, here are some temperature-related mad gabs:

sew achoo cuff Ryan nag
win elf Reese's sulfur
my toss wallaby wok king Hawn thus hon
police affix a rare corn dish awning

at least he scraped the lungs off

2010-06-18T09:30:00.003-04:00

He came in and sat at the table across from me - a man with white hair and a wrinkled, ill-fitting, suit. In place of the suit jacket, he wore a sweater draped over his shoulders. The seat across from him was empty, and he looked down at a magazine, barely lifting his eyes and magazine when the waitress covered his table with brown paper.

This little scene takes less imagination to figure out than most of my observations. He's in town on business. He's not incredibly popular with his co-workers, but he's pretty sure of himself as a traveller. Instead of eating with the others at the hotel, he decided to find a restaurant renowned for its crabs and experience them all by himself. His status as an out-of-towner was sealed in my eyes when the crabs were delivered.

He picked up a crab and held its face towards him, poking it with a knife as I made no effort not to stare.

Oh, honey. That's wrong.

As he poked the crab in the face, he tried turning the knife between the top and bottom shell, as if it were an oyster, but of course to no avail.

So wrong.

After trying the 'pry it open with a knife' method, he picked up the mallet and whacked it near its bottom. Then he returned immediately to the knife prying at the spot he had just crushed. Seeing that this didn't work, he started to peel up the tab with his knife.

Yes! Yes, now you're onto something.

I cheered him on from the table, perhaps a little too loudly, excited that this novice was now on the right track and would soon be enjoying the delicious crabmeat that was locked away in front of him. Once the back shell was removed, he cracked the body down the middle pretty well, but my support for Mr. Businessman soon faded when I saw what happened next.

He lifted the crab half to his mouth and bit straight into the meat, attempting to suck it out of the body as if it were a crayfish. Well it wasn't a crayfish, and the result was that he had to spit out some shell, and most of the meat was still left attached to the legs. Rather than pick the remaining meat, he tossed the whole thing out with the leg, and repeated the process with the next one. I looked on in horror as he continued with the speed of a lion devouring its kill, blood on the face and paws, in too much of a rush to separate any one organ from another.

Next, he came to a claw and tried to crack it with his fingers. After one half-hearted attempt, he threw the entire thing into the brown paper bag next to his table, usually reserved for shells and lungs, but in this case filled with delicious yet untouched meat. All that salty claw meat would never even be tasted. The mauling of probably six crabs was finished in under fifteen minutes, and I was left sitting in judgment of this man, too sure of himself, yet unaware of all that he was missing.

Oh, honey. So wrong.

I have a lot of time on my hands this week

2010-06-14T14:09:00.006-04:00

Today's new experience was using the laundromat around the corner. Our dryer's been broken for a while, so I figured now was a good time to try out a communal dryer, which I hadn't done since my sophomore year of college.

It was a typical laundromat, with people sitting around reading books as their clothes spun, including a little old lady in a housecoat washing several pet leashes. A big fan blew at our seats to balance out the dryer heat. Also featured in this laundromat was a Pacman machine. Interesting. As I sat there reading my book, I wondered if people ever choose to play Pacman while they wait. It reminded me the good old Dobbin Dental Center, with a darkened corner of the room to play video games while you waited.

As I reminisced, a lady in her mid-forties walked in. She did not have any laundry. She did not go to check a machine. She did not purchase detergent. She walked straight to the Pacman machine, quarters in hand, and began a game. She was on a mission.

I imagined this lady as a Pacman addict, keeping a mental map of every Pacman location in the city. She was headed back to work after her lunch break. She stopped at the Bank of America on St. Paul, knowing full well that there was a branch closer to her office. She pushed that thought out of her mind, telling herself that this ATM would have a shorter line. She was just being practical, that's all. No other reason or agenda. As she exited the bank, she turned left even though her car was parked up the street to the right. She was just trying to avoid the homeless man asking people for money. She didn't have time to waste talking to him; she had to get back to work. Now, standing in front of the laundromat, she felt that unavoidable pull. Before she could stop herself, her hand instinctually went into her pocket, fingers feeling for the ridges of a quarter. She had just enough for one game. I mean, what are the chances that she would end up here, with just enough money in her pocket? It's as if the universe were speaking to her. She might be a little late getting back to work, but no one would have to know why. She marched down the steps, past the counter, straight to what had been calling her all along. Before she knew it, the quarters were in the slot and that familiar electronic melody filled the room, drowning out the hum of the dryers and fans.

completion

2010-06-10T11:36:00.004-04:00

I did it. As my last week of work was coming to an end, I began to worry that I would never get the chance to reveal to Transformer Guy the serendipity of our shared commute. I knew that if I saw him, it would be my last chance to make myself known. I saw him today and made a speedy catch-up, pulling up along side of him and motioning for him to roll down his window.

"We have the same commute!" I said. "I always see you all the way down to Old Columbia Road."

His response?

"Yup!"

...Classic Transformer Guy.

the simple pleasures abound (ie: might be more where this came from)

2010-06-06T23:19:00.004-04:00

Ode to the Chillage and its Thrifty Residents

The other night at Brewer's Art,

A truth became quite clear:

Each item in which I was clothed,
Was cheaper than my beer.

My skirt was just a dollar,
And my shirt was only three.
My pendant: ninety-seven cents,
The chain that held it: free.

The only way my wardrobe could
Be cheaper's were it pilfered.
The truth, in fact, is once a week,
I just walk straight down Guilford.

(In summer on a Saturday,
You cannot beat the odds
That yard sales will abound before
Those colorful facades.)

Furniture, jewelry, clothes, and gifts,
Are things these sales do boast.
The simple joys in my neighborhood
Are the things that charm me most.

so good

2010-06-01T18:39:00.000-04:00

spoonerism OTD

me: If our croths don't pass in a minute, then have a good night.

Silly Bandz

2010-05-31T20:06:00.003-04:00

Today, a friend and I were talking about the fads of our youth, and we started reminiscing about Choose Your Own Adventure books, a genre of poorly-written, oddly sci-fi, second person narratives for children in which the reader continually makes choices that influence the plot of the story.

If you want to stay in the laboratory and wait for your sister, turn to page 32. If you want to climb into the giant bubble of toothpaste, turn to page 63.

Every choice you made drastically changed the story line, though some choices ultimately took you to the same place. I devoured these books when I was little, high on the fact that the author was giving me some of the power in my reading experience.

On the way home from the gathering where we discussed these books, as I came down 28th Street back into my neighborhood, I saw a potentially homeless lady, the kind you can lump together with all the other potentially homeless ladies. You know, bad skin, smoking a cigarette, damaged hair, layered clothes in shades of gray that allow all your attention to go to their faces with wrinkled mouths revealing years of poor dental hygiene, walking around on a block that has nothing interesting going on because they're always walking around on that same block that has nothing interesting going on.

You know, them. Except today, I saw myself in this lady. I saw my face on hers, as I had that sudden flash of realization that came in the form of a question: What's separating me from this lady?

Do you ever ask that? What really is causing me to be who I am and where I am in life, as opposed to where she is? The numbers on our parents' paychecks while we were growing up? A few choices we made, seemingly small choices that led to patterns of behavior that altered the trajectories of our lives?

I believe that our choices and our actions define who we are. Intentions are often meaningless, because no one else experiences them. They only experience what we do, and we create the world around us and who we are in that world by what we do. One choice one time might not define your character, but you better believe that a pattern of behavior does.

I teach my children that people are not bad. I tell them no one is bad, though they might make bad choices. In my personal life, however, I pretty much hold the opposite view. I will judge you based on what you do. And I will judge myself even more harshly.

However, sometimes patterns of behavior don't feel like choices. They feel like traps that every time you fall into, you shout from the bottom to the people around you, Please know that this is not who I am. Yeah, it was a choice I made, but it's not really ME. This hope in some hidden, true identity that has nothing to do with your actions surfaces, probably from the same place from which I authentically tell my children that people just make bad choices sometimes.

The ladies walking around on the same block every day must also be internally shouting, This is not my life. I know I'm living it, but it's not the real ME.

I don't know how to reconcile these two beliefs. I could turn to page 32 if I believe that you are what you do, or I could turn to page 63 if I believe that you are your greatest untapped potential. Either way though, I'm afraid the story might end up the same.

I love guessing games

2010-05-26T22:38:00.003-04:00

Becky: (holding a laptop) Anna, I just found two of your favorite things put together.
me: Wait, wait, don't show me. Um...a lobster...telling a short story about his life.
Becky: No. But keep guessing.
me: A bowl of ice cream floating on a pristine lake.
Becky: Neil Patrick Harris and Listerine.

Here, just in case you wanted to know.

spanakopita

2010-05-23T15:10:00.003-04:00

I had a great weekend, filled with many memorable moments. However, the one where we had breakfast this morning and gave an impromptu, semi-harmonized rendition of More Than Words followed by a loud clapping fest is perhaps the best. Cause come on, when's that going to happen again?

you have to know certain things

2010-05-12T18:48:00.002-04:00

When walking alone down the streets of downtown Baltimore late at night, some would advise, it is best to avoid eye contact with strangers. I, however, feel more comfortable acknowledging people's existence. So that is what I did last night.

I was meeting my brother, who was in town on business, at the Sheraton for a trade. His leftover crabs from dinner for some bottles of Resurrection Ale, both things that any transplant would crave when back in the area. The hand-off was made, and I was on my way to the car. (Don't worry, Mom, it was a short walk.)

On my way, I passed a dude in a yellow jacket and probably gave him a pathetic half-smile, which for some reason, is what I do when I pass people.

yellow jacket dude: How are you?
me: Good, how are you?
yellow jacket dude: I'm good.
I continue walking.

YJD: Hey. Let me ask you a question.
I keep going.
YJD: Wait!
I turn around. YJD speaks, in what I now assume to be some type of African accent.
YJD: It's okay, I won't follow you. You stay there. I'll stay here. I just want to know...how do I get a date with the Caucasian ladies?
me: Haha, I don't know!
I turn and keep going.
YJD: No, I really want to know. I can't do it here. I have to go to Europe. I try, but I do not know how. What advice can you give me?
me: Well, I really don't know. I guess just...be yourself.
YJD: No, here they want you know certain things. I don't know where to meet them, what to say, what to do. They want you to know so many things.
me: Hm...well, that sounds like it would take a lot of time to learn, more than I could tell you in a few sentences. Just...keep trying I guess.
YJD: Ha, okay, thank you.
me: Have a good night!

Always make eye contact with strangers.

I'm not ready to buy cats yet

2010-05-11T17:52:00.004-04:00

I am a rock. I am unphased by preschoolers' tantrums. I am an island of serenity in a sea of young children's chaotic emotions.

Except for today, when the sticks and stones of a four-year-old were too much for me to bear, only 15 minutes after work had begun. And I needed a hug. And I got one. From said four-year-old.

Is this what it feels like to be a crazy cat lady?

I hear it's not cool to sing along, but I don't even care

2010-05-08T23:27:00.006-04:00

I know I've said it before, and I'll say it again...

People have told me that interesting things happen in my life that don't happen to other people. I always told them that it was just a perception thing, and it only seemed like my life was extra interesting, because I like to see it that way and tell it that way. However, at some point I just started agreeing. Interesting things happen to me. And now I've started to believe that I will them into existence. This weekend, I really felt like the world revolved around me. There was just too much serendipity.

running into several people that I've met once before, including but not limited to the guy who lent us a shovel during the blizzard and the people dressed as Yip Yips at Halloween
notable celebrity sightings: John Waters and Geof from Ace of Cakes (Seriously, once I befriend them, I'll have to remove all these creepy references.)
the icing on the cookie cake of a weekend: receiving last minute, through a strange series of events, tickets to the sold out Beach House show that I'd been trying to get for months

In many of the above cases, I had literally said, "I hope ____ happens. I think it will." I mean, I told myself I was going to one day meet the Yip Yips and find out who they were. Standing in line for the concert, which was miraculous to begin with, I heard the person behind me say to her friend, "These guys were the Yip Yips on Halloween." And there you have it. Smalltimore shrinks once again.

My life is one big "huh" moment, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

the rats in the street all dance round my feet

2010-05-02T17:44:00.004-04:00

I love Baltimore.

maybe I'll never be ready for that, or maybe I need to bite the bullet

2010-05-02T15:59:00.003-04:00

I had every intention of enjoying the sunshine today. But when I got back from breakfast, I just crashed. Maybe it was a combination of heat and constant dehydration throughout the weekend. Either way, I don't do well in 90 some degree weather in the absence of a pool, and all I could do for the last several hours was just lie on my bed and drift in and out of dreams. What a waste of a day.

Anyway, I had one particularly vivid dream. I went to a new church, and before I went in to the room where they were having the service, I saw a person from my past who I never want to see again. I was about to bolt out of the building, but I think this person saw me, and I didn't want them to know I was running away. Instead, I went downstairs to the bathroom to collect my thoughts. As I was running, I began to fly down the stairs. It was more of a really really slow fall, but my body was suspended in the air for a while as I tried to control where I was going. Instead, I was kind of careening down the winding stairwell by sheer momentum, which also carried me in this flying/falling state into the bathroom, whose doors I tried to shut, but they just kept swinging around with the same kind of momentum. I felt like I was accomplishing my goal of getting where I wanted to be, but I was very out of control.

I wish I had felt good today and enjoyed the last day of my weekend.

Bob Barker is my dad

2010-04-26T22:24:00.006-04:00

I've seen Transformer Guy several times since I last mentioned him, but it was always a missed connection - too many cars between us. Today, I had the perfect opportunity. I pulled up past him and waved. No response. (Either he never sees me or always ignores me.)

Finally, we were stopped at a red light, neck in neck. I realized this was the perfect moment. I could roll down the window, get him to do the same, and explain the whole situation...

But I couldn't bring myself to do it! Maybe it's because then it would all be over. Or maybe I'd be sad if he didn't share my amazement at our situation. Maybe it's just the thrill of the chase. Most likely, I treasure the moments of serendipity in my life. Serendipity is a little fragile, and I'm not willing to risk losing it.

I guess I'll just continue my waving game and getting really excited every time I see him.

black and white horse

2010-04-19T14:18:00.001-04:00

This is for those of you who missed it on my facebook page. I have been watching this nonstop for the past few days. I especially like Black Hoody Kid's performance at 1:56. If you don't know the song, it doesn't matter. It's still good.

it could be worse

2010-04-14T20:19:00.005-04:00

Today we went on a field trip to see a nursery rhyme performance. It was pretty engaging, but the child I was chaperoning wasn't having it. He kept getting up out of his chair and talking through the entire performance, about both relevant and non-relevant things. Part of it is that he has tons of energy, and part of it is that he likes to get a reaction. Sometimes I ignored him and assumed the actors would do their best to keep his attention. Sometimes I leaned over and reminded him it was not his talk turn.

child: There's my friend (turning around). Hi! Hi! Do you see him? There he is. My friend is back there. There he is. I can't do that [nursery rhyme]. What's going on? What are they doing? What's going on? What's going on? I want to go home. I have eyedrops. I have eyedrops. I have eyedrops at home. Is this the last one? Is there another play after this? Ya. Ya. Ya. Ya. Ya.
me: (leaning over close to him and using my serious voice) You need to sit on your bottom. Your friends can't see. You need to be kind to the actors and listen to their words.
child: (quietly)...Your breath smells like a muffin.

Oh, and as we were waiting for the bus to go home, he said he didn't want to go home, and he wanted to see another play. Go figure.

bangs, that is

2010-04-12T13:32:00.005-04:00

Today, an older coworker who speaks the Queen's English passed by me and said, "I like your donkey fringe."
I said thank you, but I had to stifle my laughter til she got around the corner.

Earlier last week, another coworker from Eastern Europe had told me, "I think for you, that is very...interesting haircut."

Sometimes, compliments get lost in translation. I just assume the best.

Also:

Why are my aches so jointy?
-Becky

No joke; the spoonerisms are really common at our house.

never at a loss

2010-04-09T19:41:00.001-04:00

Spoonerism of the Day

We thould shrow a birthday party...
-me

I corned the phase.
-Becky

put some wire on the food to melt the strozen frawzberries

2010-04-07T22:51:00.005-04:00

Here's a new segment (I don't have segments) called Spoonerism of the Day. This is where I recount a spoonerism that someone spoke...that day.

You gave us rice and moaches!
-Jayme

I don't know, like a bofical.
-Becky, discussing glasses

possibly my new worst nightmare

2010-04-05T14:46:00.002-04:00

Do you think Listerining too frequently can produce a strain of mouthwash-resistant bacteria that take over my gums and tonsils?

Could my obsession with oral hygiene lead to my own demise?

misspelled signs and loads of irony

2010-04-03T02:08:00.001-04:00

These are a few of my favorite things...

it's like an apple a day

2010-04-01T00:08:00.004-04:00

One consistent problem I've had with roommates over the years is that we have cultural differences when it comes to ice cream. Here is a common conversation:

roommate: Whoa, where's all the ice cream? We just got it a week ago.
Anna: Yeah, we got it a week ago. We ate it all.
roommate: No, I only had one bowl. You ate it all.
Anna: ...I eat a bowl a night.

I mean, honestly, who doesn't want a bowl a night?? Now that Brita lives with me, at least there's someone who can identify with me. Someone from my bowl a night culture.

boy was I wrong

2010-03-28T20:12:00.004-04:00

highs:

my director saying very kind things to me at work. Sometimes, you just need to hear it, and I've been so grateful for some of my coworkers these past 2 years! They are very validating. And people think I'm calm!!! Woohoo!
friends knowing what makes you happy and making a point to do those things (such as bringing down a stack of games or asking me to open a jar or bottle)
finding the perfect pair of jeans. I now know exactly where to go, and my long elusive search is over. I'll take this as a good omen that the pieces of the rest of my life are about to fall into place as well.
successfully working a new favorite phrase into a conversation with a new person. It made me feel sneaky and accomplished.

low:

feeling out of control (I love how lows on here are always so vague.)

huhs:

Watercress Guy, maybe

I'm getting creepier

2010-03-26T14:20:00.003-04:00

Saw Transformer Guy again today. I tried to get in front of him, but he passed me at Saratoga, and I lost him at Baltimore Street. Thought I might not see him again, but I spotted him several cars ahead once I got to 95. I sped to catch up, but traffic wouldn't allow it. He maintained his lead for the duration of the trip, and no contact was made.

You may be fast, but you can't outrun fate.

we should totally carpool

2010-03-24T14:28:00.004-04:00

Every day, I drop Becky off downtown on my way to work. During this trip, we often see the same people, such as a man with an Obama basket on his bike, or a blind couple. They are my favorite, because they are always together with their white canes. No seeing eye dogs or sighted people, just each other.

After Becky's safely at work, I head down to Columbia, about half an hour away. On this leg of the route, I often see the same vehicle: a red XTerra with a "Play Rugby" sticker and a giant red Transformers sticker in the back window. I frequently follow the XTerra down 95, and one day I noticed that it made all the same turns I did, and continued down Old Columbia Road past my school. What are the odds.

Today, the XTerra and I crossed paths on my way to drop Becky off, and I told her how it was my commute buddy. Turns out the driver lives in north Baltimore too! I pulled in front of it and checked out the driver at a stop light. He looks like a man in his mid 30's with brown hair and glasses. I decided right then and there that he would find out about our matching commutes. Chances are he hasn't noticed my silver Elantra yet. I turned around and waved at Transformer Guy. He just ignored me and took an alternate route to get around the road work downtown. I tried to catch up with him, but alas, he drives way too fast (which, of course, I already knew).

It doesn't matter. Now I'm on a mission. Every chance I get, I will make Transformer Guy notice me. I will follow him, pull in front of him, turn around, wave....all the way from St. Paul to Old Columbia. Soon he will realize what I have known all along, and it will all be worth it.

Until we meet again, TG.

ah, a horse!

2010-03-21T22:57:00.002-04:00

I'm watching Food Revolution with Jayme right now. I'm impressed. I know there has been more of a focus on a culture of healthy, natural eating lately...but not on TV, as far as I know.

There are shows about cooking delicious food, losing weight, and being healthy. However, all these are pretty much individually focused. Changing your own eating habits, changing your own exercising habits, changing a restaurant's cooking habits. This is the first time I've heard of a TV show, on ABC at that, to focus on cultural and systemic change. That's pretty cool.

Also, Jamie Oliver is funny.

Also, the news just came on. They were showing scenes from around the harbor today, and the reporter said, "Sunny day today, people spending time outside in Fell's point, but will it continue? Are we expecting rain overnight, that's a big dog."

It's really not as funny when you write it.

like coming home

2010-03-16T21:03:00.004-04:00

One way to tell that the gorgeous weather is lifting my spirits: I start speaking to my children in accents more often, for no apparent reason. Today I tried out Scottish.

I try to be positive and calm all the time, but there's no way around it - long stretches of dreary, cold weather make me more irritable. I guess it's good to notice that, but it doesn't make it easy to change. I like to think that the good days when I find it more natural to be cheery are revealing the true me - my true personality and teaching style. Then I can grab onto it and keep it even when the clouds and wind come back.

I'm not speaking in metaphors here, but I might as well be.

I want to get a sleeve tattoo of Massachusetts scenes or motifs. I'm still waiting on the perfect inspiration.

did I cover them all?

2010-03-13T23:55:00.003-05:00

Why do we tell stories about other people? The only reason I'm asking, of course, is because earlier today, I told a story about someone, and then I wondered why on earth I was telling it. What was my motivation? Then I realized I had just been telling stories about people other than myself and analyzing them for maybe 2 hours.

Here are all the motivations with which I can come up:

People are interesting. They do interesting things, and we like to talk about the things they do. It is entertaining.
Other people's actions make us feel a certain way. We want to convey that feeling to a third party, and the best way to convey it is with the evidence: the actions that made you feel that way.
We have feelings about a person (whether positive or negative), and we want to convince other people to feel that way too. (Again, why exactly?)
Human interaction is best understood by processing it with other humans. We talk about stuff to understand it better. We talk about other people to understand ourselves better.
Feeling like we can control other people's perceptions makes us feel in control.
If you're telling a positive story about someone, it just makes you feel even better to spread the positivity.
We feel closer to someone when we're sharing information about someone else. Maybe?

Maybe some of these motivations are healthy. Maybe some are unhealthy. And maybe some just are.

Gordon Shumway

2010-03-10T22:17:00.004-05:00

A friend recently made this. Incredible.

Can you find me? I'll give you a hint:

rock chair

2010-03-07T16:44:00.003-05:00

Today was gorgeous. I could've worn a coat, but I decided just a sweater would do. I went for a walk on Hopkins' campus, where some guys were playing lacrosse with no shirts on. For real? I mean, I know it's a little warmer today, but it's not shirtless weather. I know how it is, though. In College Park, people were wearing shorts as soon as possible. By early April, LaPlata Beach would be covered with girls in bikinis. Everyone was so desperate for the carefree feeling of spring that they kind of ignored staying warm. I miss those days.

Even now, as I walked across unfamiliar quads looking up at the blue sky, I could feel myself internally shouting Skirts! Flip flops! Outdoor movies! Picnics! Farmer's markets! Homemade sangria! Hiking! Rock formations!

I ended up in the BMA's sculpture garden, which I didn't know existed. It's now my new favorite spot in the neighborhood. It was beautiful, and there were so many people out - reading, holding hands, chasing siblings, finding rocks and moss, laughing while talking about mortgages. They were all so happy. I tried to be still and have a nice meditative silence, but I couldn't. I could feel everyone's energy and my mind was racing. Behind all my thoughts was the constant beat: Skirts! Flip flops! Outdoor movies! Picnics! Farmer's markets! Homemade sangria! Hiking! Rock formations!

I love spring, and I love life.

great HR, great system

2010-03-06T13:07:00.003-05:00

Welcome to my own edition of Seriously!?

A few months ago, I applied through an online application system to a certain school district that will remain unnamed. After I applied, I was supposed to be able to view certain things online that weren't showing up. I emailed their application help address to verify that my stuff was received, and got no reply. Several weeks later, I received an email to all applicants, stating that I would need to reapply on their new system and all the old information was basically thrown out.

Seriously!? You're a system in desperate need of good teachers and you are actually throwing away applications? Really?

So, the new system was supposed to be effective March 1st. I signed in today to reapply. I received an error message saying the website was down for "System Maitenance."

System MAITENANCE? Seriously? Your brand new system that was so important you had to get rid of the old one for it is malfunctioning? And you can't even spell the error message correctly? Really!!?

Diligent person that I am, I decided to call up this unnamed system and ask what they would have me do to ensure that I can get my foot in the door of their crummy, crummy human resources department. All I heard was, You have reached a nonworking number.

SERIOUSLY!!??

snapshot

2010-02-19T19:09:00.003-05:00

I was driving down St. Paul on my way to work the other morning. There were still feet-high snow banks on the sides of the streets, the air was frigid, and the sidewalks were icy.

To my right, on the street pavement, a white guy in a short-sleeved T-shirt was jogging...in BARE FEET. Several paces back, a black guy with a warm coat and a hat with the little ear flap things was walking behind him and just shaking his head.

I love north Baltimore.

a Snode

2010-02-10T22:32:00.002-05:00

How do these hexagons of ice
Produce such awesome magic?
A winter lacking your sweet fall
Is deemed by me quite tragic.

Your beauty wafting through the air
Can break the icy chill,
But when you pile up three feet high,
We call that Snoverkill.

Each year I hope for plenty of powder
In which to relive my youth.
I'll build igloos and snowmen and sweet sled ramps.
I'm a kid at heart, in truth.

This year my wish has come to pass,
And be surpassed by far.
Seriously, though, how often must I
Repeat, "Dude, where's my car?"

You shut down the city,
And bring us all out.
We say hi to each other,
As we're roaming about.

As we stake out our parking spots,
Our shovels we will share,
But I might smash your windshield in
If you steal our last chair.

Maryland in the days of yore
Would shut down at a flurry.
The schools were out, and home from work,
Adults would quickly scurry.

Last year he made fun of us,

For a dusting would cause much drama.

This year he has taken it back.

(I'm talkin' 'bout Barack Snowbama.)

You shut down the federal government.
You cancelled schools and trips.
In February Twenty-Ten
We survived Snowpocalypse.

Out the window our plans have gone,
And at times we have felt caged,
But think of the memories you'll have,
Made while the blizzard raged.

Food with friends and jumping in drifts,
Games, walks, and snowball fights,
Days spent bundled head to toe,
And cozy movie nights.

So let them complain or enjoy each moment;
I'll do the latter, and I'm bettin'
I'll look back fondly forevermore
Upon the Snowmageddon.