"'Are you sad? Do you have anxiety? Do you feel stressed?' Of course I do, I'm alive." Ellen Degeneres last night in her performance being taped for HBO

So I saw the headline in the NYT today, that Bush has declared ONE victory in the war against terror. Now first of all can anyone remember when we used to declare war against finite entities, like say countries? And then ideologies started to come into the fray and there was the war against communism (the cold war). And now he have wars against universal emotions. But it does seem to be there is a war against terror, what with paxil, celexa, clonazepam and variety of other drugs, then there is the sudden yoga phase (as Ellen correctly pointed out last night we do have two counter intuitive trends going on the consumer United States, the coffee place VS the yoga) spas and meditation. Does he really think that this is a war that technology can win? Do we?

I'm sick and that's all you are going to get out of me today. Go over to The Jig is Up! for more exciting commentary.
"Knowledge comes slowly, and if it comes, it comes at great personal cost." Paul Auster In the Country of Last Things
LAST DAY OF CLASSES

I have had these students since last september, and now the time to say good bye is at hand. Somebody get a bottle of Cristal. Actually, at this point, a bottle of Boones and some cough syrup will do. (Ah, I remember when the boys in art class used to sniff permanent markers in order to get high-oh those golden days of yore in middle school) It's a very conflicting moment for a teacher to let go a class after all this time, I have had the same kinds for about seven months, three times a week for an hour and fifteen a pop. Anyone care to do the math on that? I think, and I stress think here since my math is awful, that it comes out to about 315 hours with these students, to counting grading papers and offering help through Im and email as well as in office meetings. So there is this feeling of "Please, please get out." But then on other hand there is this gap when they leave, and there is very little to fill it with. And there is bond that exists. So some of my students have invited me to go with them six flags this summer. They will, predictably, never call or write. (This happened last year, students said they would invite me to parties and so forth, most of them have yet to send even an email.)


So I had my students go around and say one thing they learned. It is always upsetting that some students can't come up with anything or they come up with something random and unimportant (ie "I learned about Groucho Marx" "I learned the importance of the film 'Fight Club'"-actual examples) But some of them come with sweet ones, "I learned a teacher can be a friend" others showed "personal growth" or interest in learning "I learned that reading can be fun" "I learned that homework can be interesting" "I learned to enjoy reading the newspaper." (generally these are the types of things that I aim for) and finally some learned about the things I was actually supposed to teach "I learned to question the sources of information and not just accept" "I learned to examine to circumstances under which statistic were gathered." So overall a sad but satisfying day.


When I was in Scotland my junior year I met a man from Liverpool who was a cabinet maker. He said he loved his job because when he finished not only had he left a part of himself there, and he could always go back and say "see these cabinets, I built them", but because he knew people would get great use out of what he had built. That he had enhanced lives. With a good teacher, you can't point to something, and say "See I did this." But there is nothing more amazing than watching someone learn, to actually see the improvement, and to know that whether he or she is aware of it, you have changed his or her life permanently. People ask me all the time, if I am so underpaid and frustrated and sleep deprived, why do I do it. Why do I not follow my fellow grad students into publishing (where, if their whining is to be believed they are equally tired and underpaid and frustrated)? Because in publishing you don't know that you have actually taught someone something. Because in publishingyou don't see that look when some one actually has a revelation that will alter, no matter how insiginifcantly, his or her life.


In this day and age believing in yourself is common, it is believing in something beyond yourself that is unique.

I am lucky enough to have amanged to escape marrying my father (or really anyone for that manner, but it is worth the sacrifice) and come to find out I am working with him instead. I always used to say that if my father could have come back from the dead to torture me, he would have done it by now. Boy, was I wrong.


"Ok it's official, I hate everyone in the Universe." A phone message from my good friend J.P. Walt

Bad bad day. Sore, tired, depressed bunni. So focus on the good here, I figured out how to do the shout out thingy at the bottom of my weblog. I actually did a little bunni dance when I figured it out (now if I can just fix the rest of my template) meanwhile one of my students can program a background with stars that actually twinkle. I am such a twit. But now you, yes you, can actually respond back to my blog! Oh the thrill. The excitement. The sudden array of new ways to torture me.

My good friend, and fellow blogger Jin thinks that by using shout out I will discover that I have many more fans that I think. I think that Jin needs to check the brand of sake he has been gargling with, but that is another issue altogether. But go prove me wrong by clicking the little shout out icon at the bottom of the post and tell me what a silly bunni I am.

Ok so in keeping with the whole I am too fabulous and smart and sexy for the men that I actually want, and the men I can't stand chase me down like, well, like a rabbit, I would like to ask the age old question, why the hell is it if you can't stand someone they are sure to be attracted to you? It's like how cats love anyone who is allergic to them. I have to think that this is an evolutionary failure on an epic level (almost as bad as that whole wisdom tooth situation-why the hell do we have them? why won't they just go away?). So I was thinking about why is that the people I can't stand are drawn to bother me with their presence all the time, why can't they be drawn to do my taxes or pay my rent or something doesn't involve me having to refrain from picking up the closest heavy object within my reach and rendering the whole checking of dental records a moot point?

And another thing, as women we are always being told not to settle for less (remember the lady on saturday night?) My question is how the hell do men settle. I mean I see smart attractive men OPTING to date unattractive unintelligent women. In fact, most of my friends find this a predictable state of affairs. They justify it by saying that men want women who are easy to control, etc, etc, but my god HOW DO THEY STAND IT? I mean, I have had some attractive men in my time and if there isn't a brain rattling around in there somewhere, well, ok I would use them a little first, but really I can't handle it. I would just go insane. There was one guy, Jim, who everytime he opened his mouth I wanted to throw the toaster at his head. And it was a quality toaster. I had break up with him for the sake of my kitchenware.

So there might be the answer to why men go out with these other chicks, but hit on me for cheating pruposes. They know they can't control me, but on the other hand they can't stand what is waiting for them at home, so they basically use me in small doses to help them get through their dreary lives. Bad Bunni- little. red-head. different.

MUST SLEEP. AND YOU MUST SHOUT OUT!


"So are you going to bark all day little doggie? Or are you gonna bite?" Reservoir Dogs

Here is a little story that happened to me on the way home from ballroom. I was walking and I saw this cute, alright, hot fifteen year old guy. I'm talking like Ryan Phillippe ( Cruel Intentions andI Know What You Did Last Summer) hot. (Girls, you know what I am talking about. Don't even try and tell me that you don't find him the least bit sexy.) SO I walk past and I don't think anything of it. Until he passes me on the street and I notice him checking me out as he walks past. Now i get this all the time, people thinking I'm a kid and then suddenly seeing that I'm not so I didn't think anything of it. So I keep walking and I stop at the corner. Well, he had pasted the corner, but he comes back to wait next to me and then he asks, drum roll please, "What time is it?"

Again, originality, kid, look it into. Although I don't know what else I was expecting me, "Pardon me miss, but could you direct me to the ocelot sanctuary?" or, and this one is for Ryan Smith, the come on line voted both most original and most disgusting at my high school, "I am Moses, let me part your red sea." ( That line takes ona whole new context when you realize that my high school was unofficially about 70% Jewish.) But no he asked the time, and I looked at my cellphone and told him. So then he was ahead of me, and I could tell he was preparing himself to ask me something. So I am desperately phoning my friend James, A to tell him what is going on and B to pretend that James in my boyfriend. But I couldn't get James on the phone and so I looked like this girl who was afraid of him because i'm like "pick up the phone, pick up the phone " as I walk by ignoring him. Now my friends I'm sure are going to be kicking, first because i have been worried that I look older lately (not a problem apparently), second because here I had the chance to fulfill every young man's fantasy-the hot teacher (a medley of the Van Halen original is available at Van Halen's tribute band,Hot For Teacher, website) and third because i could use some hot young man meat. Yes I know its wrong, but sometimes the wrong thing can be pretty damn pleasurble. But I am trying to be a good girl here. The key word here is trying. How sucessful I will be remains to be seen. I resisted hot young guy on this occassion.

The sad thing was that in all of my high school career I was never hit on by a guy that hot. I was OWED this guy. I deserved him. And in typical kay fashion, I only get him when I can no longer have him. And of course the truth is if I talked to him, and he found out how old I was he would freak. Or more likely he is idiocy would totally ruin it for me, and I would have to treat him the way the director of the Matrix treated Keanu Reeves. "No no it's better when you don't speak."


Why is that men think it is some great consolation to tell me that I almost the right woman at the right time. ALMOST. It's always if only I had met you sooner, or if only weren't so young, or if only I wasn't in ove with a married woman. Like it somehow makes it easier that I missed happiness by an inch and not a mile. But the point is, I am not happy. Unfortunately I don't get to live in what if land. I don't get to live in a slightly different reality, I have to live in this one. And in this one I can't get past that critical inch. I get to be almost happy, close enough to feel it and touch it and smell it, but not close enough to actual be wrapped up in it.
"You who know me....remember and suffer." Musetta from La Boheme

Depressed. You know fow a few days there I was doing really well, but I didn't write about it. And I didn't write about it for a reason, that is I knew it was only a false start. It happens every few months, suddenly I start to feel better, I start to feel like a norml person. I'll be walking down the street smiling and thinking things aren't so bad. I decide to do things to try and change the situation. And then after about five or six days (sometimes a little longer) comes the crash. I almost hate it when I start to feel better, because I know the crash is coming. It's just a damn tease. Last night I'm in Fitzpatrick's (for all of you nyc blogger fans on friday and saturday night why not head to fitzpatricks and see if you can spot the bad bunni herself in the flesh? or should it be in the fur?) and, this is going way back, so you remember Alex of Gerry and Alex fame? No, quick refresher, I hung out Alex a long time ago (about a year ago) and things seemed to be going well and then he never called me. And then I met his roommate. And then there was um an incident. And predictably neither of them EVER called. I've seen Alex in F's a few times since they moved in March and most of the time, its beena blow off. In fact, the last time he brely acknowledged that I exist.

Now there is a girl who is part of the F's regulars. Let's call her Mary. Actually Mary, not her real name, but close is Jewish. She is overweight, wears no make up ever, isn't that smart or a gifted conversationalist, and puts little effort in her appearance. I find out that she is "sort of seeing Alex." Now I know not to put faith in bar rumors, particularly when a girl is putting them forth about herself, but it did ring true. She talked about him dragging her to plays that his friends wrote. OK here I am, I love going to the theater and I would love to go with Alex and I'm being ignored over THIS CHICK? She gets to go with Alex to see shows and I have to settle for kissing a plumber who wants to argue that the smoking ban violates taxation without representation! (What the hell is being taxed except my patience?) I mean, have I been putting all this effort into my appearance for no good reason? Should I have never bothered? And what about that I am smart and I know about writing and can talk to himabout his work. does this mean nothing? I mean there I am at F's looking great (In fact the only reason I went out last night was that I looked great and I felt obligated to do something about it.) and I'm being ignored. I end up chatting to a woman who works in pharmaceuticals (sp?). She keeps telling me that I'm beautiful and that I shouldn't settle for less. How can I settle for less than what I have? I don't even have anyone I could settle for less with. Lady, you need an offer first. Right now I couldn't give myself away with a free cellphone. Now, what the hell am I doing WRONG? I mean I meet these guys and they can't believe that I don't have a boyfriend and they wonder what is wrong with me and I wonder the same damn thing. What the hell am I doing wrong? Any ideas out there? Pointers? Something? On one level I want ot think it's the way I look because I'm so, let's say, eye catching, unusual, but then if its looks why go out with unattractive girl. I guess the answer could be at least she is conventionally unattractive. I guess I could think that he is going out with her because she is so not a threat to his intelligence. But somehow I have to think that it is something. Mary has dated men from F's, this isn't the first time. Why do they call her back and not me? And I'm talking about the guys I just give a number to? Do I have a reputation? And if so, it seems that a reputation should be something that can be changed. After all, I was in a terminal depression. My behavior at that time should at least be tempered by the fact I was totally deranged. I'm different now, as exemplified by the fact that I have been barely kissed since the second week in March.

Ok so at this point I am going to write a little bit about what happened on friday night. I went to the movies as I said with friends including the maintainer of The Jig is Up!. There was another guy there named, um, Al. I met Al about a year ago through some other friends of mine. I didn't really think much of it when I met him. After all, I was ina big pack of guys who ll had girlfriends. I kind of assumed he had one too. But he didn't and he still doesn't. He's cute. (Then again at this point Steve Buscemi is cute. Don Knots, even dead, is beginning to look good.) In the movie Identity, we sat next too each other. During the film we sat with out shoulders pressed against each other. I know its sad that I have gotten to this point of interpreting elbow presses.But it was nice, to have that kind of simple human contact, a warm press. I missed it. I didn't realize how much I missed seeing a movie wih someone pressed next to me. So then my friend Ty and Al and I went to DT-UT, short for Downtown Uptown for coffee. They stayed until almost midnight. This was a suprising turn of events since Al lives apparently in a bad neighborhood and Ty lives about an hour and a half away. Al talked about this girl that he went out with for two years. He told us the whole story. ( Which, since the relationship only last four months, was not a particularly long story.) But one thing he made a point of talking about is that he is very shy and that she made the first move by kissing him. He went on to talk about how much respect he had for that and how much he needs a woman who is let's say aggressive.
Now both Ty and I talked about it when Al went to the bathroom, and we both thought that this was a serious hint for me (writers, conversation can't just be conversation, there has to be subtext, nuance, and most importantly intent) to do something. Beyond that he told this story about this girl I met three weeks ago named Irene. Apparently he was about to ask Irene out when fate intervened in the form of a girl named Tanya. When Al found Irene again she already had a boyfriend, and now I guess their friendship has reached the stage that the whole dating idea can not be revisited. But the point of the story he was telling is that if he knew then what he knows know (oh the cliche) he would have excused himself from Tanya and run after irene. I said, well at least you learned and the next time you will do that. Unfortunately I didn't learn. I shoud have done something, found an excuse to give him my phone number or something ridiculous. But I didn't. I'm a loser. And now I'm sitting inside on a gorgeous day being depressed in my pathetic apartment with no hope of ever getting a boyfriend.

"In the immortal words of Socrates, I drank what?" Val Kilmer in the 80's classic Real Genius