Dialogue with my inner 5-year-old

5 Year Old Me: I want that.

Me: I'm sorry, there's no way that's gonna work out.

5YOM: Really?

Me: Really. Sorry.

5YOM: Really Really?

Me: Really.

5YOM: What if I tried really hard and gave up this and did that?

Me: Nope. No way means no way.

5YOM: Oh. What if I waited? Then would it happen?

Me: I'm sorry, but that's never gonna happen.

5YOM: Never?

Me: Never ever.

5YOM: What if I waited a month? Then would it happen?

Me: sigh. No. It's never gonna happen.

5YOM: Never ever?

Me: Never.

5YOM: What if I waited a whole year? Would it be alright then?

Me: No. I'm sorry but never means that no matter how long you wait or how hard you try, the answer is still going to be no, no matter how many times you ask.

5YOM: oh.

Five minutes or five days pass.

5YOM: I want that.

Miscellaneous thoughts

Yes, I do love grocery shopping at two or three in the morning. The aisles are empty, people whistle along to the music, and sometimes we late-night shoppers smile at each other in sympathy. Chances are, if I'm grocery shopping that late, it means I've got everything else I had to do done for the day, so whether this grocery trip takes ten minutes or twenty won't make that much difference, so why not sift through the bargain bins?

Nat King Cole did a multi-lingual version of L-O-V-E. His Japanese is atrocious. Seriously sickening.

I'm wondering what country I should teach in next year. Any suggestions? And yes, the US is still an option.

I had an attitude adjustment this weekend. Thank heaven, I sure needed it. You know something? I like my life. Take that world. I intend to live it up and down and backwards and sideways and all over. I'm done sitting and watching.

I'm going to start chasing dreams again. Because I can, and because I want to.

A toast

I just skipped grading papers to read The Gospel According to Larry in one sitting. I don't regret it at all. That's my advice. Smile. Drink in rain and tears because each drop is a private moment between you and God. Smile because you can.

Hurrah for snow!

I like living where I do. I don't mind the twenty minute commute to work that much, and I like being able to go to the grocery store or the coffee shop without running into my students. But today, as I watched the glorious snow fall in soft but determined globs all around me and turn brown as it hit the slush filled freeway where cars moved slowly forward like cows wading through mud, I wished I lived closer to work. It took me forty minutes to get there, and I barely made it by contract time. Looks like I'll be leaving earlier tomorrow.

But still, hurrah for snow! Maceys is collecting a letters to Santa, and for each one that it receives it will donate $1 to the Make a Wish Foundation. Because my students have been reading letters, and because we've writing letters to the editor today, this morning's warm-up activity is writing letters to Santa while listening to Christmas music and watching the snow drift past the window of our classroom.

Hurrah for snow!

My favorite literary device

"Caution: Slow, Ironic Twists Ahead" was the sign on my friend's door growing up.

"Isn't ironic, dontcha think?"

"Life is funny; life's a mess. Sometimes a curse sometimes a blesssing."

"Roll the bones. The night has a thousand saxophones so get out there and rock and roll the bones!"

I think my love for irony is a defense mechanism I have developed so that I can laugh at my life.

As I told my students the other day, "Real life can be so much weirder than fiction."

If someone were to write a book about my weekend, they would probably be criticized for making things "too coincidental," for having irony almost too perfect to believable. It has to be the trick of the filmaker to make them movie better. But no. Ladies and gentlemen, this exercise in irony is my life.