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November 30, 2006
'Tis the time of no time
Free time? What free time? Teaching until 4, then school committee meetings until 6. Get home at 6:30, have dinner and hang with Derrick until 7:30, then back to work grading papers and writing lesson plans. At 10:30 I watered the plants, now a quick blog. This has been the pattern all week. Add in the sinus problems, and it just isn't pretty.
My sister and bro-in-law from Dallas are coming into NYC for the weekend. I'm very excited. I'm also very tired.
Posted by G at 10:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 29, 2006
Search for beer
Back when I lived in Brooklyn, I discovered Brooklyn Chocolate Stout. It's an imperial stout, Russian style, with a strong alcohol count, smooth flavor, and great body. Back in Brooklyn, I could buy it easily at the local grocery store.
Now I live in Harlem, approximately 12.41 road miles from my old place. Does Fairway have it? No. Do any of the local bodegas carry it? No. I've called and left messages at Brooklyn Brewery. No return phone calls. I've emailed Fairway, no response.
Derrick found some at the Whole Foods down at Union Square. Does anyone have a better suggestion? I'll share the beer with anyone with a good idea.
Posted by G at 06:46 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
November 27, 2006
My latest pics
Let me see.... What have I done this month? I missed the Chocolate Show, I saw the exhibits at Brooklyn Museum (I loved Mueck), ate chocolate in Brooklyn, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, had a great Thanksgiving over at Jerry and Patricio's, rented a Zipcar and went to Dia:Beacon, and taught lots of kids math. Will pictures make up for the lack of descriptions?
Click on them to make biggie.
I have no idea how that last one got in my pictures. No idea at all.
Posted by G at 08:11 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
November 23, 2006
This little Pilgrim's very first Thanksgiving
I'm getting ready to bake cornbread, some pies, and maybe some bacon wrapped cheese/breadsticks. I will never attempt to cook a turkey again.
Back when I was 18, I moved to Phoenix supposedly to gain residency in Arizona. I really had no idea what to do post-graduation, as I had a semi-retarded basketball coach for a guidance counselor and a vague idea that U of A in Tucson seemed nice. It was all rather silly, as I was a National Merit Finalist, super high ACT and SAT scores, that sort of thing, yet my lack of planning gave me no hope of scholarship. I also rejected my Rotary scholarship of a year in Japan. I was too scared.
Being scared was something I lived with back then. I had finally had my first gay sex in Alaska, and I had admitted to my best friend and my youth pastor that I might be gay. They confirmed to me that what I felt was a huge sin, and I went through quite a few nasty Christian exorcise-the-gay-demon experiences, Christian counseling, ex-gay kind of stuff. Through it all, I was absolutely certain that I was evil and headed straight to hell, and yet I still dreamed of hot, sweaty man-on-man action.
In order to avoid confronting ANY choices in life, I made a non-choice. I moved with my best church friend to Phoenix, where I immediately joined the new church of my youth pastor. I worked a minimum wage job at a lithographer, learned to eat lots of cheap food, and had to beg for money from my parents. I immersed myself in denial, determined to be a normal Christian boy, even justifying having sex with some women in the church, as it was better in my mind than having sex with men.
Now, my wonderful friend Breck was a born again Christian, a hot skater boy who found God when he was 17. Everyone loved Breck, as he was a sweet, fun, and simple soul. The fact that he had huffed gasoline to achieve a high for many years made him a simple, forgetful soul, but I wouldn't know that until we were roommates. He wouldn't ever flush the toilet, would spend all his money on a bike the day before rent was due, and used MY cologne as air freshener for his car.
Thanksgiving came around. I was determined to be little miss homemaker, even though I had no real cooking experience. I went and bought a huge turkey with a pop-up button on the side. Neither Breck nor I had any idea that stuffing was called stuffing because it was stuffed into the turkey, that sort of magical thinking. The turkey was still basically frozen when we put it into the oven. At some vaguely appropriate time, we pulled out our bird that symbolized our independence and adulthood.
Obviously something was wrong with our turkey. As we sliced into the poor creature, we discovered a horrible lining along the inner cavity.
Nobody told us there were organs in a plastic bag inside the turkey. What the hell were they doing in there in the first place? During its long time in our oven, the bag had essentially bonded to the inside, giving us an uncooked cesspool of bacteria stuffing. Yum.
As both of us were broke, we still ate what we could of the turkey. It was too big to fit the disgusting remains in our tiny fridge, so we left it out over the next four or five days on top of the stove, picking at the edible parts. I think it was the day that the grease began bubbling on its own that we finally threw it away. I should have taken it as a sign that my entire life wasn't working, but I continued disastrously for at least another 7 years, and some would say longer than that.
So this Thanksgiving, I give thanks that I have a good life, good friends, good family, and a boyfriend who keeps me away from cooking large birds.
Posted by G at 09:23 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack
November 20, 2006
I'm not dead
Just floating.
Posted by G at 07:26 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
November 10, 2006
Search for the Chris
Back on my birthday, I received a birthday Amazon gift certificate from Chris. It was wonderful! Thank you!
Which Chris are you? I know SO MANY CHRIS. Chrises? Chrisi? Chrysanthemum? Chris crisis?
Posted by G at 07:28 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
November 08, 2006
Nancy Pelosi third in line for presidency
Please let there be a simultaneous 'pretzel incident' and 'hunting incident.'
Posted by G at 07:49 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
November 07, 2006
Different levels of decoration
It's always interesting to visit another school. As a teacher, you feel a bit like a spy. Today I went to an elementary school to vote after work. At the elementary level, decorations and 'pretty things' dominate. At this school, the Halloween decorations are already gone, replaced by hand turkeys, autumn leaves, and lots of brown, yellow, and orange construction paper.
I used to work at middle schools. You could always tell the teachers who had moved up from elementary. They had all the nice posters, smart groupings of vocabulary (different colors for different topics), carpets on the floor. Those of us who started in middle school are less skilled. We can try to emulate the gifted, yet often mathematically challenged early grade teachers, but never actually match their decorating skills. I always felt silly showing them my students' rather ugly work of quadratic equations. It didn't help that my handwriting is truly awful. Mathematically, my room was always brilliant. Other math teachers would come in and tell me how much they loved my students' work. The elementary teachers would just 'tsk,' as it was never pretty. Damn it, math is often not pretty.
Whenever I moved on to high school, I realized that I'm now the comparative elementary school teacher. As far as high school goes, my room decorations (actually, ANY room decorations) are exciting. As my school had some things on the bulletin board from last year with no plan of replacing them, my work is hailed as wonderful. Student work on the walls? Can that be done? My zod, it's amazing! When I use different colors on the same poster, people are flabbergasted. What? Not black! Sacre bleu! Plants? Crazy!
Now I just have to figure out a way to calculate the areas of hand turkeys, and we've got the next project.
Posted by G at 08:52 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
November 06, 2006
Chocolate groove thing
As I drink my Mariebelle Aztec hot chocolate that is thicker than syrup, I'm purchasing my ticket to my favorite annual event in NYC.
I think I'm going to go on Saturday, even though I'd prefer to go on Friday with fewer children around, but it is too hard to be absent at a small school. In fact, the "Focused tasting/pairing of coffee and chocolate" at 12:15 on Saturday sounds perfect.
Does anyone want to go with me to witness my inevitable descent into choc-coma? Tickets are $25, but you get so much free samples of amazing chocolate that you'd believe that the Wonka chocolate river is just one aisle over. You can buy tickets here.
Posted by G at 08:24 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
November 05, 2006
Costumes
Someone at school asked me why I liked Halloween so much. As far as holidays go, it is my favorite. It definitely has the fewest unpleasant family memories linked to it, as holidays with my family usually consisted of some form of screaming, some form of violence, and gifts. Fuck all of you!... I mean, please pass the salt.... Happy Holidays.... thanks for the gifts...
Deep down I like the idea that for one day, you can be whatever you want to be. For a kid who wore a mask every day that he didn't want to wear, it was a liberation. I got to try on a totally different face, behave differently, and not be the person that everyone knew.
There is also all the candy (both chocolate and eye based). Any holiday with candy being passed out will always be good for me.
I like being creative, such as my best work- building a giant phallus with working load.
This year, I went with something fun, gay, and purchased:
South Park Satan
The rest of the Halloween Pics, especially of NEW, IMPROVED Medieval Derrick are on my flickr link.
Funny thing about my costume. First off, wearing the mask became frustrating very quickly. Maybe being someone else isn't nearly as fun now that I'm more comfortable with who I am. Maybe I just like peripheral vision now that I'm cranky and old.
Last but not least, plushies will enjoy my one video of the night. My camera rocks!
Posted by G at 05:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack