Better Things = Favorite New Mag Fields Song

Not the part about mermaids and princesses and wolfboys. (Sigh.) The BIRDS. The lovely chorus about birds.

"And I have heard
The singing of real birds
Not those absurd
Birds that simply everybody's heard
Real birds"

I'm sorry but I cannot find an audio clip to link to. Not youtube, not that free site J used to use, nowhere to listen without buying. Everyone wants .99 cents.

This is supposedly a trilogy and so I offer you my opinion on these 3 albums:
1. i
2. Realism (Better Things, You Must Be Out of Your Mind, Always Already Gone are the only songs you need... tho the rest right grow on me)
3. Distortion (ugh)

This Explains So Much.

The setting: an empty classroom, re-arranging desks. The desks look like this:



The staff are dragging the desks back to their appropriate positions and it is making a noise that makes me start twitching involuntarily.

"Do you want to see the Ms. D----- method of moving desks?" I ask my co-worker.

Sure, she says.

So I demonstrate the procedure, one that was executed religiously in my classroom, always with one student modeling and the rest following row by row, noiselessly, punctuated with lots of praise from the teacher.

Since we did a lot of turning our desks around to face one wall or the other, I taught my students that they stand next to the desk, lift the whole thing up, and shuffle their feet until the desk faces the desired wall, then place it back on the ground. In other words....

"LiiiIFT! Aaaaandddd pivot."

I totally stole this procedure from Friends when they are trying to get the couch up a narrow staircase and Ross is yelling fruitlessly "pivot! pivot! pivot!"

So I am lifting and pivoting and Elena says "Gosh, Mary, you're like a 65 year-old ballet teacher. 'Pivot, children!'"

And I am thinking yes, yes I was a 22-year-old 65-year-old ballet teacher, for better or for worse, that is basically how I approached my work and why it felt so weird/awesome/fleeting.

Side by Side

You know what is super cute?

If J and I both give money to something, something like an arts organization in Houston, then our names appear next to each other on the sponsor lists because of the alphabet and not because of relationship status.

If we had attended grade school together, I would have constantly been pulling his pigtails. Or staring at the freckles on the backs of his ears, more likely. Or telling my gossipy friends that it doesn't mean anything that our lockers are next to each other and I was only carrying his backpack because he broke his arm playing soccer, GOSH.

Cute cute.

Teamwork

Cat: Hello! I have stunned this cockroach for you, it is ready to...

M: FEEL MY WRATH. DIE, BUG, DIE.

C: Yes, see, I found it, and then I knocked it out,

M: BRING ME A PAPER TOWEL.

C: Right. I cornered it, and then I knocked it on its back... see...

M: Yes, and then I stepped on it. Well done, Cat.

C: I... Ok. I mean, I spotted it..

M: Yes. Let's snuggle. Best Cat Ever.

C: ::purrrrrr:::

OMGCD

Lately, I have been rediscovering podcasts.

My favorite way to listen to podcasts these days is to sit and listen and play spider solitaire.

I can't read anything and listen because I get distracted, but spider solitaire seems to work just fine--and adds enough activity that I don't get bored with listening alone.

But... whatever works for you.

I enjoy NPR's All Songs Considered with Bob Boilen and have been listening to highlights of and sets from the recent Newport Folk Festival. I bought the entire The Low Anthem album after hearing "Oh My God, Charlie Darwin" on the highlights reel.

The CD is now in my car and I have this daily debate between listening to the news and listening to the CD. Which, I haven't had in some time. So this is a good thing.

Highly recommended. You too can listen to their Newport set here.

Economies of scale

Earlier this week, I thought a lunchtime pedicure might be nice and relaxing. So I walked to the place by my office and learned that toes-only cost $48. I thanked them, bought a sandwich next door, and worked through lunch. Later, I painted my own damn toenails.

I once posted (or thought about posting) about the slow game show movement -- the switch from fast-paced Jeopardy style shows of trivial pursuit to a suspense-based Millionaire host-contestant-audience based "we'll see the answer... after this break" format where it was entirely possible to see 5 questions in a half hour.

I am watching Millionaire now and noticed that they added a timer.

It's making me nervous.

I don't think they should start the timer until Regis reads the question and all the answers.

Maybe we as a society are getting more impatient. Also, cheaper.

In her genes

Earlier, I declared myself the supreme bug killer in the house.

Since then, the cat has entered new evidence demonstrating:

Exhibit A: cat's relative size and density to bug in question vs human

Exhibit B: a record of past bug killings, executed quietly, at night, and "without all that shouting and fuss"

Exhibit C: mutually agreed upon "cat" job description stating that cat will kill bug on sight or stare indefinitely at spot where bug once was until food, nap, or need to use cat box arise.

I concede my title.

Remember when "plain" was a difficult order?

Girl in front of me at Wendy's wants Sprite: large, not medium; no mustard on her sandwich; must be in seperate bag. She is communicating this to her man friend by pulling on his elbow as he orders. He grits his teeth and asks for a small bag, please. She takes her large Sprite back to the counter and asks for a new one, no ice.

Staff are exceedingly patient.

Reality Bites and then Moves to the Suburbs

Reality Bites is a 90s movie about recent college grad 20-somethings drifting aimlessly through career and relationship aspirations (or lack thereof) in Houston, TX. I had seen it several years ago but did not retain the important plot points. We rewatched with Debi last night in honor of her recent Reality Bites photo expedition. There is lots of 20-something angst between main character "friends" Lilana and Troy.

M: Do Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder get together in the end?

Debi: No, she marries Ben Stiller the business guy.

M: Really!

Jason: And then they move to Kingwood.

M: Kingwood! What!

M: Wait... you're making this up.

D: Did you miss the picture I took on Clay where Ryan wrote: "Stand here and imagine Ethan Hawke professing his love to you?"

Being Helpful

After J spent most of his morning hacking at overgrown shrubbery with a shovel, rake, and clippers, I pointed out that there is an outlet not 10 feet from the worksite. Now he is going at it with a chainsaw.

Helpful!

Later, I will drive him to the emergency room when he accidentally takes off a finger.

Stuff You Missed Out On

Crud!

Just stumbled upon the fact that poet Mark Doty lived in Montrose for years, he even went to Favorite Poem parties at Brazos, and it looks like he's now living/teaching elsewhere.

Love this poem about the Kroger parking lot:


Theory of Beauty (Grackles on Montrose)
by Mark Doty

Eight o’clock, warm Houston night, and in the parking lot
the grackles hold forth royally, in thick trees on the lip of traffic,

and either they’re oblivious to the street-rush
and come-and-go at the Kroger or else they actually like it,

our hurry a useful counter to their tintinnabulation.
Now one’s doing the Really Creaky Hinge, making it last a long time;

now Drop the Tin Can, glissando, then Limping Siren,
then it’s back to the Hinge done with a caesura

midstream, so it becomes a Recalcitrant Double Entry.
What are they up to, these late, randy singers,

who seem to shiver the whole tree in pleasure
when somebody gets off a really fierce line,

aerial gang of pirate deejays remixing their sonics
above the median strip all up and down the block

from here to the Taco Cabana? They sample Bad Brakes,
they do Tea Kettle in Hell, Slidewhistle into Car Alarm,

Firecracker with a Bright Report, and every feathered body—
how many of them are there, obscured by dense green?

seems to cackle over that one, incendiary rippling, pure
delight, imperious and impure singing: the city’s traffic in tongues,

polyglot cantata, awry, expansive, new.

Sexy Attack Crashes Your Wedding

Love this!



Baby brother, take note!

Half-fiction, indeed

"It is important to note that this blog and the story depicted above is to be used as an illustrative example of what some individuals have achieved with this/these products. This website, and any page on the website, is based loosely off a true story, but has been modified in multiple ways including, but not limited to: the story, the photos, and the comments. Thus, this blog, and any page on this website, are not to be taken literally or as a non-fiction story."

I am not going to link to the website, because, as you have just read in the fine print, it is an ad. A weight loss ad, for that acai berry stuff. (Pronounced, by me: "ackie" berry. J says it is "ah-kai" berry.) Said website is called "Sarah Cooper's weight loss diary" and contains before and after pictures, a weight loss story, and 15 "comments" penned in the same distinctive writing style -- one is addressed to "Brenda." Ooops.

I get these twitter followers who are sometimes spam, sometimes real people, and sometimes -- well -- something in-between.

Interesting, right?

No, you say? Just spam?

Ok.

Reinventing the Internet

As has become embarrassingly clear over the past year, I'm not at all sure what to do with this space anymore. This is not an uncommon phenomena, in fact, my blogger mentors have all been through one or more mid-blog crisis: Alison slowed down, Ryan shut down and then reinvented his site.

Other things have happened, too, since 2003. Flickr happened. Facebook happened. All my friends moved away, and I stopped teaching. My life got a lot less interesting, or at least less blogable. (The ethics of blogging while teaching are debatable, too, and I don't care to debate it.)

Things got really private for awhile. Blogger deleted all my posts from 2003-2004, and I was crushed, and then I got over it. Tumblr happened and I couldn't get into it. LinkedIn happened, and that was good for my professional career. Facebook expanded to older (than me) generations, and suddenly Moms were friending me. The iPhone happened, and I was connected ALL THE TIME. Twitter happened and I was like NONONONONO and then, finally, ok.

Other people in my immediate circle are still successful at blogging. I enjoy Mindy's updates about her life and about her daughter, and I imagine what an amazing baby book it will make. Babies across the globe will one day have access to their early years in detail that is mind boggling to me.

For the most part, my family members either do not understand or are justifiably concerned about our (our = the world's) growing internet presence. I share their hesitation and try to stay private/censored/professional as much as I can, while staying true to myself and enjoying the ease of connectivity and a public outlet for creative ideas.

I am not the first one to question the merits of staying connected to people I would otherwise grow apart from, and I have on many an occasion cut contacts ruthlessly and without remorse. Would I go out of my way to say hello to you in a crowded space? No? Then I wish you well, and you do not need to have access to my personal profile. Do we have any past interactions that make regular updates feel "a little weird"? Goodbye, friend, and go in peace.

The point is -- and after all these characters, I do have a point -- you see, Twitter would have cut me off LONG AGO because, like Mr. Moore my 9th grade English teacher, it is all: Get to the beach! -- the point is that ponycrusher will stay, until blogger decides to cruelly and unusually erase everything I have written over the last five years. The point is, I'm stretched in more internet directions, and that is ok. It is good to be concise. It is good to let the picture speak for itself. And it is good to, every now and then, post the diatribe that ties several ideas together. It is good to document. And good to know when to let it all go.

Let it never be said

That M--- D------ is not one to keep her cool.

Like our president, I am one cool, collected, chicky.

Or anyway, I aspire to be cool and collected. Saavy, even. Nimble! And other adjectives.

Schlitterbomb, jury duty, aurora picture show, Galveston, beach hats.