What I’m Listening To (May)

1. Metro Station – Shake it
2. Joaquin Phoenix – Cocaine Blues
3. Joaquin Phoenix – Get Rythym
4. Johann Strauss II – Op. 437
5. Alison Krauss – What’ll I Do
6. Jace Everett – Bad Things
7. Anna Netrebko – Sempere Libera

Read Full Post »

Alyssa in Wonderland

I adore the police log in my town. I live twenty minutes north of Boston in a town marked by a sense of entitlement, a remarkably low crime rate, and often delusion. I await the weekly publication of the police log to see what kind of something will have been made out of this week’s nothing. A few weeks ago, a woman was convinced that she spied a body in a bag in a dumpster. It was a hockey bag filled with equipment that someone had discarded. Another resident of this fine little town was convinced that in another dumpster, this time the one belonging to a combination country store and deli had a human hand inside, wrapped inside a leather jacket. When the police went to check, they found that this time it was a discarded chicken. This week’s police log featured a woman who called the police at eleven in the morning, convinced because she heard a sound in the house that there was an intruder. Naturally, there was no one.

People call the police here over turkeys, and often enough, those who are arrested in this town are not from here, and driving without a license. But what should I expect? This is wonderland. An insane little world where the same women who call the police over rogue poultry cut off other drivers with right of way by taking left turns wherever and whenever they want to, Starbucks cup in one hand and cell phone in the other. I live in a town which is inhabited by those who have never mown their own lawns, consider fake breasts a good investment, and don’t bat an eye when married women with children go out on Thursday nights to get wasted in a passe bar next to the library. It is a truly alternate universe. Next week’s police log I can predict will feature: “dead body” discovered to be mass of leftover removed face lift and tummy tuck chunks.

Read Full Post »

“You’re So Impossible”

I know I am. Let me alone, please. If you can imagine my pleasure at being finished with this semester of classes, go right ahead and double it. I amass books throughout the school year that I might read even one them given even a small window of free time, which, as you can imagine, never seems to open itself up for me. Therefore, I have hundreds of literary treasures with unbroken bindings upstairs in my library/solarium/cloister of a bedroom eager to shuffle themselves into line, one after the other, to be cheerfully consumed by me. I’m back to my old tricks again. Reading like a fiend, sitting outside on my parents spacious porch (when the neighbor’s children aren’t screaming at the top of their lungs in the back yard and making my life miserable. Did I tell you that a few days ago I had my window open and while I couldn’t hear my brother’s music blasting in the room beside me I could hear the shrieking and endless whining and crying of my wonderful neighbors’ whelps? No, of course I didn’t tell you, not yet anyway, but I thought that would be a great introduction to my donation of that unsolicited information. Oh, and about the mother of those runty little pups? Knocked again. Fantastic. Personally, I think people should just respect others’ space, and that includes not making so much noise that I can hear you over in mine. Thank you.)

Instead of shying away from my laptop lest I be reminded of all the tasks I have yet to complete before the semester is finally over, I am happily seated in front of my glowing computer screen, typing snarky and supportive comments on my friends status messages and Facebook notes, actually checking my school email, and resolved to start chipping away at the multitude of novels/short stories swimming around in my head by putting more of them down on paper instead of letting them run like reels of film in my head.

Welcome to summer.

Read Full Post »

Attention Contemporary Parents: Your Children Aren’t Perfect, and Neither Are You. Not Even Close.

Dear Delusional Contemporary Parent,

When your insolent little brat comes whining to you telling you that another adult “yelled” at them, there are several things you should consider before going to talk to that adult, and being a yappy, intolerable shrew.  Because you look completely foolish trying to defend your child when you’re both clearly in the wrong.

1.  See the sun…..up there…..in the sky?  It’s right beside our planet.  You know, the earth, that big sphere which is  clearly revolving around you?  It’s not shining out of the ass of your yelling, screaming, insubordinate result of the successful plan you enacted to poke holes in your diaphragm before you husband was ready for kids.  Thanks.

2.  Your child could be lying because he or she knows it always works with you.  Especially when you’re wearing those rose colored mommy glasses you’re so fond of.

3.  You were clearly not with your child when the so called “yelling” occurred and therefore were not acting as a proper vigilant parent.

4.  Most people cannot tell which parent belongs to which child simply by looking at them, so “coming to you” isn’t always possible because…

5.  Safety issues often demand that “mommy” and “daddy” not be consulted before a kid is told to start behaving.

Parents today are doing a disgraceful job.  Some of the things I’ve seen kids doing in public would have gotten me put in time out so fast my skull would have spun off the atlas bone in my spine (the first cervical vertabra, but I’m sure for those of you I’m addressing in this blog that didn’t have to be explained because Oprah magazine keeps you so informed that you knew that already).

But today, the assumption is this: they are not misbehaving.   They are expressing their individuality.  They’re so creative, and we don’t want to squash their spirit. They’re not obnoxious, unnecessary, entitled little shits.  And they’re certainly not a reflection on their parents, who certainly aren’t exactly the same.

Read Full Post »

Brilliance. (Sarcasm)

There is a rather sour faced individual who occupies occupied, thank heavens, one of the seats by the window in my Horror Fiction (1000 level, pauvre moi, I needed it for credit) class. She’s probably one of the most adept at stating the obvious that we had in that class. I no longer have to put up with her annoying behavior and her less than insightful and quite below par observations on the text. Finals week begins next week and then I am happy to announce that I will then be able to enjoy the freedom of pursuing the intellectual avenues of my choice.

Today, clad in my riding pants and mucking boots, straight from the farm, I stood helping to collect golf pencils after doing professor evaluations and I saw said unremarkable looking female staring at me and remarking to the boy behind her (another aeronautical engineer in the making) in what appeared to be a pretty insolent manner. “I work at a farm, guys, it’s not like I put this on this morning because I like the way it looks.” She muttered something to the effect of “okay” and I hope that she realized from my remark that I was entirely unimpressed by her career as a student or a human in the past few months. She is responsible for one of the most incredibly asinine and mentally deficient comments I have ever heard uttered from a human blowhole…and I will share it with you now that you might bask in the astonishment that is certain to be your fate.

She said “I got a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble. What am I supposed to do with that? You can’t use Barnes & Noble gift certificates at Starbuck’s, believe me, I’ve tried that.”

Stay in school, kids…and while you’re there…stay in the upper levels.

Read Full Post »