WE'LLBOTHFORGETTHEBREEZE. . .MOSTOFTHETIME

(2007: philadelphia, pa. autumn on the east coast is superb.)

for a very brief moment, it was the most beautiful thing i'd ever experienced in my life . . .

and yeah, the leaf was nice too, i guess.

INYOUREYES,ISEETHEDOORWAYTOATHOUSANDCHURCHES

(2008: la habra, ca. yes, i had my camera in the car. yes, it was a red light. yes, i'm nuts. the sticker on the back windshield reads "actual size". adorable, huh? it's a 1957 nash metropolitan from the american motors corporation.)

i was so meant to take this photo (did you check out the license plate?!).

only in california, people, ONLY in california . . .

ALLTHEPIECES,PIECES,PIECESOFME

(2008: whitter, ca.)


(2008: whitter, ca.)


(2008: whitter, ca.)


(2008: whitter, ca.)


(2008: whitter, ca.)

LIKECLEOPATRA,JOANOFARC,ORAPHRODITE

(2008: los angeles, ca. vic and hem at chez victoria for the housewarming.)


(2008: los angeles, ca. vic talking . . . yada, yada, yada. gee, you don't say?)


(2008: los angeles, ca. clearly vic's laughing at MY jokes. see, i'm very witty and funny, did you know?)


(2008: los angeles, ca. wait. what? i'm NOT funny OR witty, i just have something stuck in my teeth? don't just laugh, you ass! is it gone? *suck, suck, suck, swish* how 'bout now?)


(2008: los angeles, ca. vic is quite the literati . . . let's see what's on her shelf now: villete by charlotte bronte; alice's adventures in wonderland and through the looking-glass by lewis carroll; nip the buds, shoot the kids by kenzaburo oe; love in the time of cholera by gabriel garcia marquez. wait, "shoot the kids"? glad I'M the high school teacher. else, i hope that book's not what i think it's about . . .)


(2008: los angeles, ca. ribbit, ribbit. umm, am i the only one slightly turned on by these frogs? did i just say that outloud?)


(2008: los angeles, ca. above: crepes suzette (i sliced all of those oranges myself, thank you very much). you would not believe the incredible spread that vicky put on. few people are as gracious or generous. she HANDMADE EVERYTHING FROM SCRATCH. two kinds of crepes (handmade!), THREE different kinds of tarts (from scratch!), parmesan tomatoes (i helped grate the cheese), couscous, apple salad (yep, that was me julienning), asian mandarin salad, and lots of goodies in between, including brie, french bread, pate, olive tapenade . . . company, food, and wine were all tremendous. little else in life is more satisfying to the soul than good friends and good food. thank you, vicky!)


(2008: los angeles, ca. (cutie-patutie. he's three and fabulous. i wanted to put him in my purse and take him home.) "what's in this, you say? chocolate and hazelnuts?")


(2008: los angeles, ca. THIS is how to PROPERLY enjoy a crepe.)


(2008: los angeles, ca. don't ignore me! (latoya, then vicky, then hem.) hey, hem, what are you looking at?)


(2008: los angeles, ca. oh, HIM! is he rolling that ball or is that ball rolling him?)


(2008: los angeles, ca. "i'm sorry, we're you saying something to me?")


(2008: los angeles, ca. clearly no-one enjoyed the food. but seriously . . . yum, yum!)


(2008: los angeles, ca. at around 9pm, with the tike gone, it was time to kick off our shoes. this is MY shoe. nice, huh? i wear a size 13. i'm a sasquatch. a sasquatch in really hot, sexy, expensive stilletos. cinderella ain't got nuthin' on me, baby! but i digress . . .)


(2008: los angeles, ca. with the shoes off, it was time to open up the rest of the wine . . .)


(2008: los angeles, ca. don't act so surprised, hem, you knew this was coming all along! really now.)


(2008: los angeles, ca. the next few hours, i regret, i am unable to post photos. so in lieu of those censored images, here's an orange gerbera daisy from the table's centerpiece.)


(2008: los angeles, ca. lemme see . . . nope. sorry, still censored. here's a blue daisy . . .)


(2008: los angeles, ca. and we're back. boy, am i glad i don't have to be the one to clean up that mess! thanks again, baby, for everything. congrats on your new place!)

CAMINANDOPORLACALLEYOTEVI

(2008: whittier, ca. daisy outside of my school.)

could this be the prettiest daisy you've ever seen?

MR.JONESANDMETELLEACHOTHERFAIRYTALES

(2008: whittier, ca. fire hydrant.)

how appropriate.

IT'SSOSHAMEFULOFME,ILIKEYOU

letters.

a beautiful pen.

paper, watermarked . . .

carefully crafted words, now phrases, now paragraphs.

exquisite penmanship.

a seal.

intimate.

a long time ago, people wrote letters.

now people write emails.

i . . . i love letters.

WE'REGOINGDOWN,DOWNINANEARLIERROUND,BUTSUGARWE'REGOINGDOWNSWINGING

OMG, so i read in an article today that a "pathologically aggressive" german teen was sent to REMOTE SIBERIA (redundant, "remote siberia", isn't it?) to reform.

WOW.

calling it "an intensive educational experience abroad" (anyone up for a spot of gulag?), german youth services lit up a decidedly fierce debate about how to handle adolescent crime.

but really, i don't know what's worse? honestly, who am i to judge? so in germany they're shipping their troubled teens to siberia, while here in america we're give them ipods and spring break trips to hawaii and cozumel. (i'm neither kidding nor exaggerating.) both extremes are bad.

kids need discipline, yes. but kids also need love. they need discipline and love in EQUAL parts. too much of one is just as bad as too much of the other. there's got to be a point somewhere in between siberia and the ipod where both kids and adults can see eye-to-eye. what a child needs is his/her parents, family, love, safety, boundaries, friends, discipline. stark isolation isn't the answer, i don't think.

what we're seeing in germany is frustration, but you don't get frustrated with a kid and ship them off to siberia . . .

america has tinkered with a similar concept for decades. it started in the 50s and is still around today. called "kid bootcamp", it is basically the same thing as germany's siberia experiment. kids are deprived of their family, surroundings, comforts and psychologically stressed in order to "break them down" and then, ostensibly, to rebuild them. just like in military bootcamp . . . but if what the military churns out is any indication of what we get back from such programs, then i think this is NOT the way to go.

and no, i don't claim to know the exact path to follow, either. not like god (if he/she exists) left a cookie trail, but i am willing to bet that a) siberia ain't it and b) it probably all comes back down to proper parenting. yeah, you'll have one or two nuts that, regardless of great parenting, will grow up to be utter bastards, but for the most part kids will turn out well if they are brought up with love and discipline.

anyhow, there are my two cents.

INTHEVALLEYOFTHETHUNDERINGHEARTS

(i love hippos. they are my favorite wild beast. yes, i know, I KNOW: they kill the most people in africa every year. I KNOW! don't ask me, OK? i just love them.)

did you know that hippos lick crocodiles?

no, this isn't the beginning of a very dirty joke. apparently, it's true. they've been observed licking crocodiles near the base of their tails to get mineral salts. umm, thank god for morton's.

did you also know that they can run upwards of 20 mph (30 km/h) on land, faster than humans (really fast humans)? yeah . . .

if there is a god, he/she has a marvellous sense of humor.

TIE,TIE,TIEMEUPAGAIN

to eat or not to eat cloned meat? THAT is the question. well, one of them, anyways . . .

now, i've been trying to wean myself off of meat . . . beef, chicken, pork . . . but yes, i still imbibe. so, you know, i feel free to chime in on this cloning business. and as far as my food is concerned, call me old-fashioned, but i'll take my carne au naturel, thank you.

this whole fda "cloned meat is a-ok" stuff is a bit scary . . . and also (pardon my french) bullshit. i don't care what their research says. i say, no m'am! and i don't mean "scary" because i don't think that the meat won't be safe.

i think it's scary and total bullshit that the report fails to address whether or not food cloning is morally sound. i don't believe it is. and yes, i get that the fda is not going to go open that pandora's box, but still . . .

i mean, i'm not one of those ultra-conservatives, believe me. i want to see stem cell research. i want to find a cure for parkinson's and alzheimer's, and paraplegia, and quadriplegia, i DO (especially since i'll probably end up with parkinson's or alzheimer's myself).

i just worry that we're determining the worth of bioengineering projects--like cloning animals for food--solely on the project outcome's "usefulness". but frankly, just because we can, doesn't mean we should.

WATCHITSPINAROUNDINTOABEAUTIFULOBLIVION

is there a god?

i don't know.

i've had a crisis of faith this year. i don't think i believe in god anymore.

i want to believe that there is a god (and that jesus is him). but i don't know if i can anymore. i don't know if i do anymore. i don't know if i want to anymore.

maybe we're it, you know? maybe the only reason for being good and kind and honest is the sheer sake of being good and kind and honest.

i've posted these gerbera daisies because i love daisies (they're my favorite flowers. and of all the varieties, i love these best. i can't explain it. they're gorgeous and yet humble, if that makes sense), but also because they really make me want to believe in a higher power.

ANDWEDANCEDLIKEAWAVEONTHEOCEAN

(2007: los angeles, ca. hem and victoria.)

making the fray bearable: tweedle dee and tweedle dum. seriously, though, victoria, my wyf (ah, chaucer!), is genuinely great people. she and i met at ucla during the first year of my second round. and hem . . . he was our shakespeare ta. our AWESOME shakespeare ta.

vicky, she's certifiably witty, irreverent, kind, generous, patient, forgiving, and just fucky enough to keep things interesting. besides, she's the only person who'll have an entire conversation with me completely in middle english (she's still at ucla trying to get a phd in some totally insane little niche of the literary world).

at any rate, she just got her first apartment. it's very, very posh--just like her.

congratulations on the new pad, baby! happy housewarming (this coming saturday). el-o vino here we come-o!

HERCONFIDENCEISTRAGIC,BUTHERINTUITIONMAGIC

(the founder of kyokushinkai ("the society of the ultimate truth"): sosai masutatsu oyama. he fought 52 bulls with his bare hands. no joke.)



(just because he's amazing, here's photo of my sensei.)

"fight quest" on the discovery channel is doing an episode on kyokushin karate RIGHT NOW!!! bring it on! OSU!

STOLENFLOWERSARESWEETESTINTHEMORNING

aren't these (shasta daisies?) gorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgeous?

JUSTYOUANDMEONTHISISLANDOFHOPE

(2008: whittier, ca. 5am, in my class . . . woo hoo! no, btw, i'm not hiding food in my cheeks. they really ARE that big.)

i read an article on msn yesterday about teacher absenteeism . . . long story short: for every day that a teacher is out, a student is set back nearly twice as many, and sometimes three times as many days because when the teacher does get back she has to reestablish order, reteach, etc. what they were really driving at though, i think, had more to do with long-term substitution (i.e. when students do not have a credentialed teacher for extended periods of time). i get it: watching movies day in and day out is fun, but not great for expanding one's vocabulary. agreed.

but here's the thing. if we're going to have a discussion about teacher absenteeism, let us also discuss student absenteeism. i may or may not take my allotted ten sick days a year. and i concur that if i do, my students will likely suffer some sort of setback. and i'm sorry. however, it's been my experience that my students are absent FAR MORE than any teacher i know. i've had students out for as many as twenty to FORTY (and in some instances, MORE) days a year!

i hate to go into "when i was that age" stories, but seriously, my mother MADE ME go to school with ebola, the bubonic plague, avian flu, you name it. i could've been dying and dying or not, i had to go to school. end of story.

at my catholic high school, we were allowed to miss ten days and ten days ONLY. if we missed eleven days, we were forced to repeat the entire grade regardless of grades. to my mind, that's brilliant. seriously now, too, this wasn't during the dark ages either. i'm thirty (OUCH!) and so i'm talking about 1992-1996!

i mean, my dad died when i was ten and i only got to miss four days of school. and yes, my parents were still married . . .

anyhow, i don't know if people realize that the responsibility of a child's education rests as much with the parents as with the teachers, but i'm here to say that it does.

COLDLOVINGPROSE,WESTOLEEACHOTHER'SCLOTHES

i bought krispy kremes tonight and i've decided that they are dusted with cocaine. i'm convinced. no, really, they have to be because i can't just have one.

damn you krispy kremes! DAMN YOU!

wonder if i can snort them . . .

SHOWMEAGARDENTHAT'SBURSTINGINTOLIFE

(2007: philadelphia, pa. i meant to focus in on the big, blurry daisy (black-eyed susan?) in the middle, but things just didn't turn out how i'd planned. story of my life, eh? still beautiful, though, right?)


(2007: philadelphia, pa. blu and i at the famous "rocky" steps. we're obnoxious idiots when we go out . . .)


don't you think daisies are the friendliest flowers? unpretentious? beautiful? sweet? happy?

i do.

enjoy! they're on the house.

ANOTHERONEBITESTHEDUST

nothing good ever comes of being a ucla fan. trust me. if i learned anything at all during my time there it's that all you're bound to get in return, IF ANYTHING, from giving ucla sports your love, loyalty, and well, cash is heart break.

i mean, i can't even look at a football anymore without crying.

i'm a day late with this, but it's been a bit of a looney weekend. anyhow, i take my good news whenever and however i can get it. so, without further ado . . . yesterday our basketball team gave bruin nation something to smile about again: "No. 5 UCLA Upends No. 4 WSU to Extend Win Streak".

even from the most jaded bruin fan, THAT deserves an eight-clap:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

u

c

lllllllllllllllllllllllll

aaaaaaay

u

c

l

a

fight, fight, fight!

BEM,BEM,BEMMARIATEQUIERO.BEM,BEM,BEM

(2007: philadelphia, pa. more philly shots. you're gonna get sick of these. took this one in elfreth's alley. cute, huh?)

so, i ask, "what is nuts?" no, not, what ARE nuts, but what IS nuts? where's the line between sane and not? what's kooky for some is sheer madness for others. but how do you know?

my friend, victoria, told me on friday night that i was crazy. and that i ought to "regulate". "a little crazy (i.e. me) is good," she offered, "but too much will make your colon bleed."

hmm . . .

i'll just let that nugget stew in the cosmic beyond.

HERHAIRISALWAYSAMESS.YOUCATCHHERSTEALINGANDSHEWON'TCONFESS

(2007: whittier, ca. top image: teodorico quiros' oil painting "el porton rojo". bottom image: my version of "the red gate", but in watercolors.)

i don't know how flattered teodorico quiros would be to see his fellow countrywoman's version of his painting, but here it is. i did it as a project for one of my education classes at loyola a few weeks back, you know, for shits and giggles. now, though, i think i might keep trying to paint.

i'm thinking about ripping off van gogh's "starry night" next. i know, lame, but i've always loved that painting.

still have a bunch of stuff to do today, but i think i might hit the palette tonight.