Today, one of my 15 year-old students said, "I dislike you so much that when I look at you, when I see your face, it makes my ass burn." I wanted nothing more than to respond with, "Do you need some cream for that?" or "Is that a healthy kind of burn?" or perhaps even, "Does it feel kinda like you lit a match and stuck it onto your sphincter?"

But, I didn't. I kept my calm. Then, when all of the students left, I laughed. I laughed a lot. Because really, that's all you can do.

Thankfully, I can still school him in dominoes. That's what really counts in the whole scheme of things.

I am not alone.

The new teacher at my school today, upon finding out the name of my blog, called me exceptional. I'm not sure that I'm "OK" with being exceptional. I like being mediocre. I like the idea of surprising people about my mediocre-ness...and yet, I like surprising people with my abilities....like my exceptional ability to chop wood. Somehow, I'm not sure that's what Mr. Wild was talking about.

Any comments on the subject?

My roommate is awesome. Have I told you this? She is. She so awesome, in fact, that we have stopped calling each other by our real names and have gone as far as calling each other "T.O." "The One." I am not a lesbian, nor am I planning on becoming one, but as far as I'm concerned, Carrie is T.O and I am T.O. for her--forever and ever, amen.

Read on, friends, read on...

1. T.O. and I have equal distribution of household chores, including, but not limited to, the understanding that if we are doing the dishes together, I wash and she dries.

2. T.O. has accompanied me to a rehearsal dinner for a friend's wedding and then took me to a dive bar to cope with the fact that yet another friend was gettin' hitched. Of course, she also got me nice and loaded so that I could get the guts to make the move on the dude who came with us.

3. For Valentine's Day, when she was making cookies for the man in her life, she made me one too. AND, she laughed at my pathetic/anti-Valentine's message that I created out of conversation hearts, which was really not pointed at anyone, by the way. (see photos above)

4. We've seen each other's body parts (all on accident, of course...you know, bending over and "oops, you're in the shower" moments.) and when I got bruised up at school one day, she was the first to want to photograph it.

5. She tells me that all of my food that I cook is good, even if it really isn't.

6. We've met each other's parents.

7. When I can't remember all of the reasons she's T.O. she finishes them for me...


Friends, I hope that you'll discover your T.O. someday. It'll come when you least expect it--that's what they always tell me. And always, ALWAYS remember, that you are allowed more than one....and that gin and tonic tastes better with limes. That's very important too.

2 Thoughts on wine, even though I'm not currently drinking any.


1) I was given 4 gigantic wine glasses + a caraffe for singing in a friend's wedding. My roommate has wine glasses from her place of employment. Every time she drinks wine from her glasses she toasts, "Here's to the public's health!" and we laugh for about 5 minutes. Everytime I drink from my glasses, I like to compare my glass to that of my roommate's and talk about how much of a bigger wino I am compared to her. Really, she's just much smaller than I am and I can tolerate a hell of a lot more wine.

2) I love wine. I really do. But the fact of the matter is that I don't really care if it's good wine or bad wine. If it's good wine, I hope that someone else purchased it, because I can't really afford to buy good wine. And if it's bad wine, I hope that I had enough cash to get some Sprite too. That way, I can have a cheap woman's Sangria. You should try it sometime, it's quite lovely.

Not too long ago, I was driving through Rockridge in Oakland and witnessed an enormous truck backing out of a parking lot. Something tells me that the parking lot attendant told the driver that his truck was too big for the lot. It really was that big. The driver of the truck stopped traffic with his rig, then made its way down the street again. Then, spotting a few empty spaces on the street, decided to PARALLEL PARK the gigantic truck. I shook my head in disbelief as I took a photo with my phone, then drove off to my hippie-loving city.