SilverSpiral.net

Emails I have both sent and received today, without explanations:

—–

I think i’ve got it bad, here. I was watching his live Unti Unti
performance from the AAA in Dome tour and thinking about how hot he
was…and then i realized he was wearing GOLD PANTS and a trucker hat
COVERED IN SEQUINS and i had to go sit in the corner and cry for a
while about how confused my fashion sense has gotten from Japan.

Im sure it’s all your fault. Im positive.

—–

EXACTLY WHAT KIND OF BEDTIME STORIES ARE WE TALKING HERE?! BECAUSE IF
IT’S MOTHER GOOSE, YOU AND I HAVE TO TALK ABOUT WHAT KIND OF BEDTIME
STORIES ARE APPRORIATE FOR 23-YEAR OLD JAPANESE HOTTIES

—–

oh god. OH GOD I KNOW. He looks like a rainbow glittered unicorn
THREW UP ALL OVER HIM. IN STRIPES. *cries* WHAT WAS ANYONE THINKING,
DRESSING HIM LIKE THAT.

—-

holy crap, im moving in 2 weeks. *panics*

—-

>>Or to become completely convinced that they are one big happy gay orgy.

If they arent, im going to be reallyreally disappointed.

—-

*cries* I DONT KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO! i would do a strip tease for
your spam filter, but i dont think that would work! also, im at
work!

—-

The exchange went something like this:

C: What was that about?

R: It’s, uh, nothing.

C: (to the rest of the office) I looked over at her and she’s doing this muscle pose *does pose*.

R: It’s difficult to explain.

C: How can it be difficult to explain?

Others: What were you doing?

R: It was nothing.

C: She doesn’t want to tell me about it.

R: It’s difficult to explain.

C: Well, let’s start with you were feeling muscular …

R: *blushes*

—-

*cries laughing* OH I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.

A few weeks ago, I turned in an application for a proofreading job for an online publishing company.

I heard back from them today, and starting in June, Ill be expected to proof stories from 20,000 to 60,000 words a month.

Of gay erotica.

This is gonna be awesome.

1. Walking into the door to see MY CHILD screaming and covered in his own blood

NOT COOL UNIVERSE. TOTAL FAIL.

His bottom lip has a huge chunk out of the inside, and the inside of his top lip got cut pretty bad, and we are now down one dinosaur outfit. Im still not entirely sure what happened, and Im not sure the babysitter knows either - she says he was walking around his bouncer and slipped and fell - but he’s done some decent sized cuts, and Im not sure he would have fallen far enough to do that much damage from just his feet. Im worried he climbed in the chair and fell off onto his face.

April 23, 2007:

April 23, 2008:

Happy birthday, buddy!

For some odd reason that we are desperately trying to figure out so we can reproduce the experience, the child sleeps REALLY WELL when placed in his playpen.

Out of sheer frustration when he wouldnt sleep and wouldnt calm down and all he wanted to do was climb on our heads or scream from his cosleeper, brandus chucked the Dark Lordling into the playpen in the den and climbed back into bed. Seeing as it was 5 am, I winced and prepared myself for the screaming.

..Which lasted about 5 seconds, and then cut off abruptly.

OH GOD THE CATS ATE THE BABY TO MAKE THE BAD NOISE STOP.

We peek out…and kiddo has his face in the mattress, his butt in the air, and a peaceful expression of FINALLY THOSE IDIOTS LET ME SLEEP.

*blink*

‘Kay.

So, last night, after he ate but didnt want to settle back down around 2, i took him and put him in the playpen.

He cried, and then screamed, and i turned around from closing the door and said, “this will never work..wait…why isnt he crying?”

Now, the not crying isnt the point of this post.

the point of this post is that i know for a fact that he woke up 2 more times to eat…but neither Brandus nor I remember going to get him out of the playpen…and i fed him in bed…

Did he levitate? HIS POWERS ARE FINALLY MANIFESTING.

THE WORLD WILL NEVER RECOVER.

Hmm. Fishy looking theme, here, don’t you think?

Ive redesigned a bit..mainly because i decided to sell out to BlogHer Ads, because everyone else is doing it! My mother would be so proud*.

anyway, there’s a fish. i kinda like him. For reasons I refuse to explain, I shall call him Momo.

Of course, this update didnt occur without mishaps. after all, it’s ME.

so, i got two new themes uploaded to play around with, got this one all set, got the widgets set up and handled the blogher codes and stuff..and then promptly deleted Momo and all his code. the entire theme! gone in a splash flash!

*facepalm*

however, after some swearing, flailing, and general mayhem, Momo has returned. and he brought all his widgets with him.

hooray for Momo!

let me know what you think, hey?

however, heck if i can remember what code to add to my php to add more space between paragraphs. *prods code* fix yourself, dammit!

*No, REALLY. As a kid, I made my mother CRAZY because i didnt care what the other girls did or wore. Im fairly sure at one point we had the “if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?” only in reverse.

A couple of weeks ago, we had school wide standardized testing. During which I got to administer four separate tests to six different kids, all of whom got accomodations or modifications. Three got the whole test read to them. Four got calculators. All got extra time.

And Im sitting there, listening to the principal remind me us how go about administering and invalidating a test if necessary, and I remember why No Child Left Behind is killing our schools.

No Child Left Behind, by itself, isnt the problem. It’s a nice idea. One hundred percent of our high school kids will graduate high school.

Great.

But, how they’re going about it - the endless standardized testing - is killing kids and schools and teachers.

Teachers are finding their jobs on the line - a school in Chicago has already fired all of their teachers for next year. Fired. ALL OF THEM. The principal wants to start over fresh, with a new group of teachers.

It wont happen.

What will happen is that school will get ever closer to starting, and the school will panic because they dont have the teachers. They’ll rehire whoever will come back, and plug the holes as well as they can. To me, that means teachers who arent qualified, teachers who have little experience in the area they are hired for, teachers who are bitter over their treatment, and who arent going to put effort into it.

Now, dont get me wrong, im hardly a model teacher. Im a slacker who hates paperwork, and currently the special ed secretary has been leaving me death threats because of it. But, Im decent at my job. I am well trained. I work with kids, and I work hard.

Did you know that the very first recommendation from the government for schools who dont make AYP is to fire your current teachers?

AYP is Average Yearly Progress - fail making it too many times, and they shut you down. Failing/Passing AYP is determined by standardized test scores. A certain percentage of all of a schools’ students - including bilingual, including special ed, including new transfers - have to score “Proficient” or higher on the standardized tests.

My school - a school in the middle of the Alaskan bush, where most kids come into kindergarten not knowing their alphabet or how to spell their names, a school where 90% of the kids are considered English Language Learners - my school has never passed AYP. Most of the schools out here dont.

Part of the reason is that the teacher turnover is very high. Teachers spend a year, two years, three years, and then they leave. Tell me, then, if getting a new staff is so helpful, why arent we passing? Why havent we hit AYP?

Those are the easy problems. The problems that can be seen with No Child Left Behind without having to look hard. The other problems are a little more subtle.

Let’s say that a certain percentage of students (I believe it’s 80% of kids) have to measure as “Proficient” on the tests.

Great! You say. Let’s get those test scores up! So, you turn your focus to the lower scoring kids. The kids who try so hard, but don’t have a clue.

No, wait. That isn’t right. You don’t turn your attention to THOSE kids. If you do - I mean, sure you might help them learn something, and their scores might go up, but they won’t go up enough to actually PASS. Don’t focus on those kids.

Focus on the kids in the middle. The kids right on the edge.

The kids who passed are fine, they dont need any help. The kids who failed spectacularly, well, there’s no help for them. It’s these kids, these golden kids right here, that make or break this school.

In theory, it doesnt sound too bad. The kids on the border need help. You help them. The school passes!

But, what about the other kids? What about the kids who dont understand enough of the test to pass it - whether that’s because they have a learning disability, have anxiety about tests, or don’t speak enough English to understand what the questions are asking? What about them? Do they matter?

Most of my kids fall into that lower range. I give them every accommodation I am capable of and everything legally allowed to be given.

Most of them don’t even try, anymore. They already know they’re going to fail. They look around at the other kids - the border kids - the ones who get to come after school and play math and word games on the computers. They look around at the kids who get ice cream for coming to school on test days and awards for passing as “Proficient,” but no one pays a damn bit of attention to the fact this kid went from “Far Below” all the way up to “Below Proficient.”

What do these kids see? What are we teaching our kids? What are we teaching our schools? Our schools are learning how to cheat the system, how to pass kids at any cost, how to invalidate test scores, how to refuse a new student’s entry to school until after the test window.

Is this what we want?

I was feeling all smug and superior yesterday because I had been doing so well at the No Spend Challenge this month.

And then..well, honestly, then I just forgot.

I bought a plane ticket from Denver to NC for me, the kid, and the cats, AND i bought the kid a new carseat.

I could have waited on the carseat, but the one I wanted (a Britax Marathon) was on clearance - not the pattern i really wanted, but saving $60 meant that I really didnt care so long as it wasnt hideous. He’s still got a little growing room in his baby bucket still (he’ll height out of it before ever getting near the weight limit), but I was worried I wouldnt be able to find that good of a deal again, plus I sent it to my parents’ house, so it’s not like we have to juggle it while moving.

Um. At least i wasnt just buying crap for the sake of buying crap. I do legitimately have to get to North Carolina by plane, and prices go up the longer you wait.

Still. Im annoyed. Because Im a dufus who cant remember simple things.

Im playing along in Crunchy Chicken’s Buy Nothing Challange for the whole month of April. Just for fun.

This means, according to the rules:

* No new clothes
* No new gadgets
* No new furniture or housewares
* No salon services
* No makeup
* No tools
* No whatever the hell else people buy

Notice, the no NEW stuff in there. Used is ok, but because we’re also trying to get rid of/sell/ship/pack all of our crap for our upcoming move (OMGSOSOON), Im going to try and avoid buying ANYTHING that isnt a necessity.

Of course, needed things, like food, medicines, etc, those are exempt from the challange. Because eating is important.

Of course, the instant after I commented saying I was going to play along for the entire month of April, I had a sudden wild urge to go buy all kinds of things at amazon. It’s a sickness!

I do think that it will be pretty easy for me. I mean, salon services? Wherefore, exactly, art a salon? Im five hundred miles away from a salon, so needless to say, Im not exactly worried. And makeup? What is this odd thing of which you speak? And I cant buy new clothes or gadgets, because there’s something disappointing about taking away that immediate gratification of buying a new toy and then actually, you know, PLAYING WITH IT. Its just not as much fun when you have to wait for 2 weeks to a month to destroy the new gadget.

Hey, maybe this Alaska move wasn’t that insane!

Crunchy Chicken was wondering about digging trash out of the landfills in the future in order to recycle it.

Funny, I always wonder what people in the future will think of the things they find in the landfills.

Picture: hundreds of years from now, the lost civilization of Atlanta being discovered! And there are all these things! Important things! The dig up boxes with glass fronts, thousands upon thousands of them! They discover piles and piles of broken toys! Lawnmowers with missing wheels! A WHOLE BUNCH OF DIRTY DIAPERS (comes with complimentary poop!).

What will they think of this stuff?

Honestly, this is something I sit here and wonder about. Which shouldnt surprise anyone, as I also sit here and wonder things like, “Who ate the first eggplant? Did they convince some idiot who didnt know the rest of the plant was poisonous?” and “How did Egyptians get the bright idea to pull dead people’s brains out of their noses?”

You know, archaeologists get so excited about finding objects from everyday life from long ago civilizations. So, when they find a whole pile of Swiffer easy mops, what will that say to them about us?

There is actually a picture book that takes this on - all I can remember about it is the future people are convinced that toilet seats are worn around someone’s neck, and the “sanitized for your protection” paper strips across the seat are what keeps the lid up on your head. Im pretty sure you had to wear it while worshipping the pretty box with the screen. I wish I could remember the title, because I kinda want to read it again. And possibly cry, because honestly, that’s some wildly disturbing stuff for me.

Once, when I was but a wee lass, I had a birthday party.

I must have been seven or eight, I suppose, and I was enthroned on a chair in front of my guests, both girls and boys.

Their shining faces looked eagerly at me as I ripped colored paper from packages and flung ribbons to the floor in my haste to open things meant for my enjoyment.

Many things were discovered! Rejoiced over! My Little Pony! Strawberry Shortcake! Care….

Wait, WHAT?

Mind racing, I jammed a small package underneath something else, and thanked the giver, a young boy whose mother obviously did the gift shopping.

“What’s that, ally?” Screams my beloved mother in a voice loud enough to be heard three states away. “Oh, look, everybody! CARE BEAR UNDERWEAR!!”

From thence onward, I insisted on single gendered birthday parties. Where I could walk around in a tshirt and my cute care bear undies all I wanted.

Recently, I’ve been watching a tv show. Im not outing it, as Im rather embarrassed about it, but it’s one where the male lead is COMPLETELY in love with the female lead, and she has no freaking clue about it.

That makes me crazy. How can she NOT KNOW?

I made this huge face and whined at my computer screen about it until Brandus began to laugh at me.

“Weren’t YOU that girl?”

Err. Well. Maybe. Once.

For over a year…

Um.

See, I entered high school, and got moved from my normal French class to a independent study French class with another classmate - while at the same time, an independent study from another level was also using the same room. One of the guys from the upper level class and I got to be really good friends.

We passed notes! We called each other and talked all the time! He took me to prom! HE HELD MY HAND ROLLER SKATING SO I WOULDN’T FALL DOWN and at this point every single one of you reading this are going WHAT ARE YOU STUPID?

and the answer is: YES. Yes, I was stupid! Honestly, it never even occurred to me that he liked me. It.never.crossed.my.mind.

I dont know why. Maybe because I didnt want it to.

We stayed friends for a while, then we drifted apart some. Then he graduated, and I saw him a couple of times after that.

And last year, more than ten years after high school, it hit me one day while I was complaining over Lorelai Gilmore continuously overlooking the hotness of Luke Danes:

HE.TOTALLY.LIKED.ME.

So, on behalf of all those people on tv who make you absolutely crazy when they ignore the friend who’s in love with them, And, especially, to Gary, who was such an awesome guy to a complete airhead: I AM SO INCREDIBLY SORRY.

Dear Babysitter-of-the-week,

I realize we have had some communication mishaps! Perhaps we should go and examine each misunderstanding!

For example, when I said, The baby can have one container of babyfood a day, and some of these neat finger food crackers with a baby on the front of the package,

I did NOT mean, Please stuff my baby full of this yummy allergen-risky peanut butter!

And, when I said, You can’t take the baby to your house,

or even, The baby needs to stay here,

or EVEN I understand that you took him to your house today, thank you for telling me. Please don’t take him, again.

I did NOT, in fact, mean, Please take my child out into the cold weather OF ALASKA in god-knows-what clothes for god-knows-how-long to get to YOUR HOUSE, where my husband and I have never even seen.

I understand your confusion! These things could happen to anybody!

I mean, after all, I know you know that it’s not ok to let OTHER PEOPLE’S KIDS into our house “to play” or “to visit” before school starts after we’ve left! I mean, WHO WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT?

But, there is ONE MORE TINY misunderstanding we need to clear up.

When we welcomed you into our house to babysit, and told you Feel free to use the television. Here are all of our movies. Adjust the temperature to your comfort level!,

at no point EVER did I mean OR say, Feel free to use my computer.

Nor did I say, Be sure to let the child rip off some of the keys! He LOVES that game!,

and I FOR DAMN SURE never said, After the child has ripped off the keys, be sure and close the keyboard and pretend it never happened! Don’t feel the need to tell me!

Because there is NOTHING I like more than coming home, opening my laptop and noticing that FIVE KEYS HAVE SPONTANEOUSLY DISAPPEARED.

Now, we’ve got those silly little misunderstandings taken care of! Let’s go over one more thing, ok?

When I say, We’re going to hire our old babysitter back,

I mean, The girl who stays with an abusive jackass at least knows how to follow our rules and respect our stuff.

Is that clear enough? I can draw you a picture, if that will help.

Please, let me know. By which I mean, WHAT THE FUCK, LADY.

Sincerely,
alianora

The past couple of months in the village have been a little tense.

In February, right about the time the kid and I were headed back into the village from town after my kidney stone mishap (and, incidentally, after I took my babysitter to the airport to flee from her boyfriend who hit her AND THEIR BABY with a beer bottle), one drunk kid took a gun to the head of another drunk young man.

The village was stunned. The school was full of grieving kids and people and teachers.

The kid who was killed was my aide’s son.

A few weeks go by, and things are lightening up. We have potlatch, people joke and laugh. The village starts to heal.

Last week, another young man shot himself.

He was my aide’s nephew.

He had 3 kids, including one who is barely two weeks old.

The village, again, is devastated - but this time, there’s an edge to it.

“Oh, this again? This family again? Why must they make such a fuss about things?”

The kids talk about cleaning up the blood, and what both bodies looked like.

Last night, my babysitter called. She’s back in the village, and isnt it great that she and this guy who’s hit her 4 times before that I know of are going to work things out. And do we still need a babysitter?

Today, unbeknownst to me, one of my students tried to commit suicide. The timeline and the method are both still unknown, as he was at school at least part of the day, but we do know he’s ok, and going to town tomorrow for evaluation.

Winter out here is hard - harder in many ways than winter in the lower 48. Many of the men dont work, because they mostly fish and hunt, and there isnt much they can do in winter besides drink. February tends to being out the worst in everyone. Maybe its the lack of a break between Christmas and Easter. Maybe its just that it’s been too dark for too long.

We’re well into March, now.

Can it be over now, please?

Does anyone else have those kinds of “duh” moments, where something you’ve been thinking about and trying to find a way to do suddenly becomes amazingly clear and you realize that you’re just kind of a moron sometimes?

Ive been having those lately.

The first one was about walking.

Not the kid’s. Mine. I like to go for a walk everyday, if I can manage it. It’s less exercise than brain saving for me, and at the beginning of the year, I was really struggling. I go home a little bit early (in truth, Im on a really late lunch break), and by the time brandus got home, it was normally 4 o’clock, at the basketball team or the NYO team were already in the gym, working out. And I prefer to talk a walk without having to worry about being brained by a basketball or a basketball player. I struggled to get over to the school at 7:30 - one because our babysitter is ALWAYS late, and two because there are team practices in the mornings half of the year, too.

I was starting to become a little unglued.

Then, another teacher, while trying to set up a meeting with me during the day, said something about walking around the gym during her plan time.

Oh. Duh.

I now walk pretty much every morning from 8 (when I have to be at work) til 8:30 (when the kids are allowed in to the gym for morning gym).

Yesterday, it was about wipes.

Now, we have cloth wipes and paper wipes, and we use both. I was using cloth wipes exclusively except for traveling - I have a little tupperware container and lid that several of my wipes fit into, and I was wetting my wipes and putting them in there. And then, something happened, and the lid completely disappeared. Ive been stomping around desperately trying to find the lid so I can go back to using my cloth, which are easier to use, in my opinion, with no luck whatsoever. So, we’ve been using paper wipes, and just sticking them inside the diapers. Which means I usually end up having to pick out all the paper wipes from the washer before I dry inserts and fitteds.

Yesterday, I remembered I have one of those little hard sided portable wipes cases.

Oh. Duh.

So, my cloth wipes are back in use - even though I can only fit 4 wipes in the case at a time.

What’s your latest duh moment?

He’s WALKING. And CLIMBING.

Oh, man, I’m so not ready for this.

I changed my mind - I want a puppy, instead!

Let’s play the movie quote game! Name that movie! For bonus points, give me character names, an essay on their beliefs on green living, and a recipe for your favorite dessert!

1. If you have an ass, I’ll kick it!

2. It’s a break-dancing stripper emergency!

3. “But our shenanigans are cheeky and fun.” “And his shenanigans are cruel and tragic.”

4. It’s evil. It’s diabolical. It’s lemon-scented. This Plan Z can’t possibly fail! Spongebob Squarepants, the Movie - guessed by Emily

I’ll give you a hint - all of these are things I would NEVER HAVE WATCHED. And then? I met Brandus. And he watches them over and over and over and then I find myself laughing and quoting and omgmylife, y’all. *facepalm*

The rest are just for fun.

5. It is not the spoon that bends. It is only yourself. The Matrix - guessed by Shan

6. We’re going to die and I’m wearing my mother’s underwear! Grease 2 - guessed by Mel

7. I think being a good father is keeping the mother happy so she doesn’t drive the kids crazy. Look Who’s Talking - guessed by Emily

8. ALL RIGHT, I AM! I’M SHOUTING, I’M SHOUTING, I’M SHOUT…! *thunk*

9. You’re loose in the house all the time and I sleep just fine!

10. Right now, as we speak, your daughter has entered a hotbed of moral… turpentine.

Also, according to IMDB, “High School Musical” had the working title of “Grease 3.” MY BRAIN, IT BLEEDS.

1. I have a Thing about my belly button. I was very anxious during pregnancy. The idea of it “popping” from an innie to an outie freaked me out completely. Its not the look of it - I was very freaked out about how it would feel if it brushed against my clothes. Or my hand. Im totally giving myself the heebie jeebies right now.

The child stuck his finger in my belly button the other day. I think I scared him when I yelped.

2. I normally wake up wearing less clothes than I fell asleep in. And no, it’s not Brandus molesting me in my sleep. He doesnt care if Im wearing socks or not.

I go to bed in a tshirt, socks, and pj pants. I wake up in a shirt. Sometimes socks and pants end up beside the bed. Sometimes they’re under my pillow.

3. There is a large variety of food that I wont eat because I dont like how it feels in my mouth. Seafood. Mushrooms. Onions. Pureed anything.

I can trace my onion issues back to MacDonald’s hamburgers. As a kid, I would always order a plain hamburger, and they used those little chopped onions that got everywhere, and one or two or fifteen hundred always ended up on the burger, leaving me to squish down into it and do the dance of revulsion. Gag.

4. I never plucked my eyebrows until the last year or so. I had never heard of something so ridiculous.

Even now, I only do it when Im bored, just out of the shower, and trying to put off leaving the bathroom - because when I do, a spider monkey follows me around and tries to eat off my plate and snatches keys off my keyboard and chases the cats until they escape.

5. A few months ago, one of my friends came over to my house while I was still in my pajamas. “OOOH!” I said, “You’ve got to see my underpants!”

And yes, I dropped trou.

She loved the undies. She should, they have a dinosaur on them and the butt says RROWR.

Brandus thought it was awesome.

Im working on a sewing project of a native shirt for myself, so hopefully I can replicate it for my sister, later.* So, Ive been taking my own measurements to work with. Which is hilarious, because there is no pattern for this, and Im the least spatial person ever.

Anyway, so I go to take measurements yesterday, even though I had measured myself two weeks or so beforehand, just to make sure nothing had changed too much, as Ive also lost a few pounds.

Ooh, an inch off the hips - very nice.
A half inch off the waist? Good stuff.
AN INCH AND A HALF OFF THE BUST.

An inch and a half of boobs! Gone!

Im trying to remember when I measured myself both times, and if it had been a while since I fed the kid or if I had just pumped or whatever, but I cant get over it.

Geeze. Are they really that big that I can lose an inch and a half off of them and not notice in the slightest?

*Natalie, pocket or no pocket? Hood or no hood? These are the things I need to know.

Dear March,

You know, we kinda had a bad February. Make that, we had a really bad February.

I know that you and I are going to get along just fine. You’re going to be much nicer than that last nasty month, aren’t you?

I mean, I know we’re not going to have to worry about kidney stones, or MRSA, or pneumonia, or rabies scares*.

We’re not going to have to rush to Anchorage to go to the doctor. Not any of us.

I know you wouldnt anything like that to us, March. I just know it. I can feel that you’re going to take very good care of us.

Right, March?

Right?

Sincerely,
alianora

*Please, Im begging you, just don’t ask.