Canned Corn

When my older brother was very young, maybe two or three, and my grandfather was visiting, they bunked up together for the night. The next day at breakfast my grandfather asked my mom, "Does Mike not like green beans?"
My mom said, "Gosh, no, he loves them. We eat them every night with dinner."
They did, canned green beans, French cut, every night.
The night before, as my grandfather lay on the top bunk, and my brother on the bottom bunk, they had a little chat. My brother asked my grandfather if he liked green beans, and then went on, at length, about how much he hates green beans.
I suppose that explains why, by the time I came around, we ate canned corn every night with dinner.

Barbie Has a Booty Now

Big news today, Barbie now comes in all shapes and sizes. Well, not big news because I don't think anyone has taken Barbie seriously for, oh, um, well, like ten years.
Mattel must have spent their 2016 marketing budget on the TIME magazine cover story where the tagline reads, "Now can we stop talking about my body."
Hmmm, quite a contradiction.
Mattel's stock didn't seem to jump. It's actually valued slightly less than it was on Monday.
It might turn out to be effective marketing, they are the professionals, but from where I stand, I don't think I'm rushing out to buy a Barbie just because she has a fat ass. I see this more as the pornification of Barbie, she has morphed into modern sex pot, a la Kim Kardashian or Amber Rose. I don't think this is a point of liberation or implying lack of subjectivity.

In the photos were shown Big Booty Barbie in her business lady attire or casual clothes. I'm curious what she looks like under the clothes. I wonder how they "keep it real" in the nude. Does she have a fanny pack looking FUPA, or some cellulite on her ass?
Currently, my fanny pack FUPA is at max capacity. I ate four bowls of cereal for dinner, and now I feel like I could explode. I call it, Cereal Expansion. I'm sedentary, and in pain because cereal seems to quadruple in size after it's been eaten. Considering I've coined a name for this situation, I do this too often. I didn't think Cereal Expansion would hit me this hard because Honey Nut Cheerios is gluten free, which means it's basically a Super Food.
Good God, listen to me. Rambling on about my Big Booty Barbie problems. Ugh, there are bigger problems in the world. *hair flip*

Backpack

Now it's my turn to use the backpack

My mom gave the kids backpacks. Kiki's has a Doc Mcstuffins decal and George's has a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles decal. Kiki opened hers first and George was ecstatic at the possibility of having a Doc backpack too. He pulled his backpack out of the gift bag, and looked terribly disappointed.
My mom noticed, it was hard not to. George played the moment with the expected graciousness of a two year old. He said, "I want Doc!"
My mom tried to make his backpack look appealing, "Look how cool this Ninja Turtle is!"
He just stared longingly at Kiki's bag. I was half expecting him to snap, "What the fuck is a Ninja Turtle, Grandma?"
Kiki agreed they'd share backpacks, and the crisis was averted.
And thats the story. Now I'm craving pizza.

Dress To Unimpress

This hair might give me away

Someone asked me what I wear to my lectures. They thought I'd come into class looking like the cool teacher in black skinny jeans and a leather coat. I had to explain that I intentionally dress the opposite of cool because I don't want anyone to get the impression that I am cool.

I dress like a male scientist who graduated from MIT in 1975. It is a look that screams, "I like to read, a lot!" And, "I'm just passing time till the 2016 Analytics Convention after party."

My hair has taken on a life of its own since I returned to brown after bleaching it for a year, and can almost stand up on end. So I oil it down and wrap it in a tight military bun.

A couple people gave me the advice to be animated in class, like putting on a performance. I'm basically doing a drag show, so I'd say, that's entertainment.

Maybe in a couple weeks I will remove some layers and let the cool out of the bag. Although, I'm really growing fond of my oversized suit jackets, it's like being wrapped in a hug. Those MIT scientists are on to something... Other than all those other things.

Email Blast By Day

Head In The Clouds

Last night I had a sex dream with Marc Maron, randomly. I am not sure how he elbowed his way into my psyche, but I'll take it! Today has been a crazy day on the email front. I'm being blasted by a tutoring company I signed up with a couple months ago, thinking I'd make extra money. I hardly find work through it though because there's something wrong with each email request.
A common request is from the middle-aged man, back in school, needing to take a dreaded statistics course. These requests involve meeting at their house. An automatic deny, since they are obviously a killer rapist.
I frequently get requests to online tutor students who are in the senior year at an Ivy League school, and managed to put off math till the end. Their bio is a laundry list of accolades, and after eye rolling ten thousand times while reading it, I say, "You're so damn smart, I think you can figure out common core math," and then click deny.
The other common tutoring request is from a parent whose middle school or high school kid is struggling in math. The parent is on top of their kid's life. The kid usually has a very rigid schedule that doesn't fit with mine. They have after school clubs, spots and music lessons. The red flag with these candidates is often the parents complaining how previous tutors weren't dedicated enough to the students' curriculum. The parents are looking to pay someone to do their kid's homework, and unfortunately our schedules don't overlap. Nah, I'd feel too uncomfortable getting into a situation like that, like a wet nurse for a teenager.
It's the end of the day, so I'm going to watch Netflix and eat Jell-O. Or maybe, I'll watch some Maron. And now that I have a consistent thing, I'll figure out how to cancel my tutoring profile.

A Stand Up Show

Take A Bow

I watched Amy Schumer's HBO special last night, and had some good laughs. I wanted to watch after reading she's accused of stealing other comics jokes. She is sex positive... sort of. I don't understand her "no condom" stance. Her persona is all about being down with casual fucking, yet she doesn't wear condoms. If she is free fucking the way she puts on, then show us the receipts for the chlamydia, gonorrhea, & herpes that comes along when barebacking by the dozens. Never have I seen someone so boldly laugh in the face of HIV. I call bull shit, and have a think-about-the-children moment because kids shouldn't be diluted by false notions that condoms will prevent them having a pleasurable sexual experience. They need to wrap it up, syphillus is on the rise!
Although 90% of her material dealt with sex, sex acts or sex organs she gripes that being labeled a "sex comic" is gender biased. She does talk about other stuff; when she isn't talking sex, she talks about eating and her weight. LA is the land of anorexics, so she is right in saying she is not the "blonde skeleton" most often found prancing after a schlub in romantic comedies, however, being a big boob blonde isn't really shaking up conventionalism. And secondly, SHE IS NOT FAT. Since when did not being anorexic equate to overweight.
It reminds me of the part in Sex and the City the movie when Samantha comes back from LA and she is supposedly a grotesque fat heifer because her midriff baring shirt isn't exposing rock-hard six pack abs. My one friend watched in the theater completely dumbfounded as the audience shook with laughter looking at how disastrous Samantha became without her gal pals. She was oblivious to the joke because, heres the kicker, Samantha pushing her stomach out like a pouty lower lip, did not transform her into a fat person.

Amy Schumer is a not-fat-not-anorexic comic who talks about sex most of the time, I'm not too sure about the joke thievery, but she is rich as fuck, so I doubt she'll suffer much of a blow. It's nothing her thick waistline of cash can't absorb. The jokes she told were funny, wherever they originated from.

Off to College

Oldie, but a goodie

Tomorrow I'm back to school, but as an instructor. I landed an adjunct professor job, and am overjoyed. I've been practicing this week because I want to do a good job. This afternoon, as I was reading my power point presentation to my kids who were running around in a whirlwind, I noticed George disappeared, and shortly after, I heard sloshing water. I flipped the lap top shut, and found him with his head over the toilet, the top of his hair wet and hanging over the bowl.
He has never done anything this repulsive yet, but he certainly knows how to get my attention because I spent the rest of the day doting on them with undivided attention. Which was his intention, since he smiled right when he saw my face of disgust followed by yelps of bad behavior, and tossing him in the bath.
I'm excited to go back to the workforce, and as I'm reminded by everyone, it's going to be hard to juggle everything, but it will be worth it. Just like when I was 18, I am excited for all the new things coming my way, and life lessons I'll learn.
When I first left home and went to college after high school, there were a couple things completely foreign to me. Born-again Christians, for example. Never heard of them before I went to college, and I went to mass every Sunday my entire life. The posters up for bible study and recruitment around campus was overwhelming, but I figured their relentlessness was perhaps due to missing church for close to two decades.
Second, I heard someone mention a sport called "water polo." If you've never heard of it, then I was just like you. What was this bizarre sport people spoke of? I imagined it to be a fantastical show of people riding horses in a gigantic swimming pool, pushing a beach ball along the water's surface with mallets. What a let down. I still don't know what the hell it is, but I do know it does not involve horses.
Tonight I read Kiki Dr. Suess's Oh, The Places You'll Go. She was more concerned with the bizarre creatures drawn than the text. Every creature she asks with a tinge of fear, "What is that?" I don't know, they all look like dragon/bear/elephant/lizard/horse/duck mash-ups, so I just shrugged and read on. This book is INSPIRATION gift wrapped. My little sister got in the habit of giving this book to people for any occasion, and after she'd have a couple wines, she'd get up on a chair, and read it to the entire party. So, aside from it flaring up my gusto, it really warms my heart because it makes me think of my sister out there making the world a better place.
After we put George to bed, we started reading more. Kiki picked out a book of fairytales. She has her instructions for everything, so I listen up. First she wants to read Golidlocks and The Three Bears, but we need to stop reading before the bears come back home. It is funny to watch the tension build up in her, and at the point where Goldilocks heads upstairs to test out the bears' beds, Kiki was sitting straight up, her eyes open, and she shouted, "OK, thats enough!"
Then we read Little Red Riding Hood, but I had to stop before Red meets the wolf. We ended on Cinderella, a story I was able to read to the conclusion, probably because no one is eaten alive.

I'm continuing my life education through another form tomorrow, and I have loads of lessons from fairytales to help me on my way. I'll move mountains as Suess says, and hopefully, not get eaten alive, in which case, I can just shut the book and walk away. How's that for gusto.