"Cuz breakin' up is hard to do"

*spoken in cheesy DJ voice* I just wanna dedicate this song to a friend of mine out there...because love stinks!!

Love Stinks (J. Geils Band)

Love stinks
Love stinks yeah yeah
Love stinks
Love stinks yeah yeah
Love stinks
Love stinks yeah yeah
Love stinks
Love stinks yeah yeah

Two by two and side by side
Love's gonna find you yes it is
Ya just can't hide
You'll hear it call
Your heart will fall
Then love will fly
It's gone that's all
I don't care what any Casanova thinks
All I can say is
Love stinks

Love stinks
Love stinks yeah yeah
Love stinks
Love stinks yeah yeah
Love stinks
Love stinks yeah yeah
Love stinks
Love stinks yeah yeah

Now that we're not paying 2 morgages each month... lol

Check out the dining room furniture (and matching living room occasionals) that Aaron and I bought today. Rogie and I discovered these last Saturday as that was how I wanted to celebrate my birthday. :D

The china cabinet will go in the dining room, of course. Three drawers are on top, and two glass panels in the middle slide open. Ignore the other stuff in the room.

Here are the table and chairs that we're getting; seats eight at full capacity. The brown-black mix should work well to try the oak flooring, wine walls, and black/white picture frames together.

To tie all of our rooms together, I discovered living room occasionals in the same style. The sofa table and two end tables will be in the living room (end tables not pictured, just imagine them square instead of rectangular) and a cocktail table will go in the entry way opposite the front door. (again, not pictured; just imagine it skinnier than the sofa table and 75% taller.)

"Gray is my favorite color; I felt so symbolic yesterday."

Although I have not read Obama's lastest book, The Audacity of Hope , I am highly impressed from what I have seen of him online and on television since he first appeared on the political scene 2 years ago. But, on the back cover of his book, I read that even though his mother was a white woman from Kansas, he is labeled a black American because of his African father. Now, if he and his team are purposefully playing up that aspect of his heritage, then I don't really have any problems. However, this resembles a lingering prejudice in America, a residue from Jim Crow laws and segregation. In our history, a person who had even the slightest percent of African decent was considered a second-class citizen. Blatant racism and segregation may be gone, but if you look closely, that mindset is still prevalent in main stream society. Tiger Woods is one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Thai, one-quarter African, one-eighth Native American, and one-eighth Dutch. He affably refers to his ethnic make-up as Cablinasian (a portmanteau of Caucasian, Black, American-Indian, and Asian), but the rest of America simply labels him black. If America is going to label Woods with only one ethnicity, shouldn't it be Asian since that's the prodominate heritage? I am glad that he and Obama are able to act as role models from the black community, but why are we still polarizing ethnicity in America?

What else can I say except to end with a great quote from Bullworth starring Warren Beatty: All we need is a voluntary, free-spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction. Everybody just gotta keep [sleepin' with] everybody 'til they're all the same color.

Managing and Waiting

I feel a little guilty at being jaded before finishing even my first year. Even as I am waiting for a worthless, time-consuming tech class to finish, I am waiting for the second semester to finish. And yes, I'm waiting while I wait. Although I haven't had a meltdown in months and thus obviously be coping with the daily grind much better, I have apparently taken a very callous outlook on my classes. Hyperbole though it may be, I have, it seems, stopped caring. This is a good approach for my sanity, but not the best for my students.

Today, for example, the class that I take to lunch was acting like a barrel of monkeys hyped up on Mountain Dew. On the way back from the cafeteria, they could not stay single file or shut their mouths for a second. I informed them that for every minute they continued their immature shenanigans, they would loose that time from tomorrow's lunch. TWELVE minutes later, I had to quietly admit defeat and walk them back to class. Legally, I can not deprive them of their required lunch time. I was hopping mad when we got back to class because, of course, they milled around the room socializing rather than sitting down quietly and starting their warm up. I wrote down the page numbers that we were going to cover that day and the exercises that were due at the end of the hour (more than other classes had to ensure they'd stay busy) and informed them: "Because I tire of trying to talk over those individuals who care less about their education than I do, I will simply not bother. You have the day's objectives here, so you know what to do. Any information you need are on those pages, so read them before you ask me a question. I am more than glad to help you, after that point, if you have any questions; however, I will not waste time with students who are wasting theirs." Interestingly enough, the class was more focused and more productive than most other days.

Maybe I should give up more often.

Oh, and no, I didn't forget about the twelve minutes. The entire class has lunch detention for the rest of the week. They'll find out tomorrow. I can hear their whine already.

Memphis' Wet Season

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I'd rather have mid-Missouri's weather right now. Mom and Dad can keep their inches of power-outage ice. But when your backyard looks like the Mississippi delta... I don't really think it's unfair to wish for drier days.

Aaron and I, of course, have plans to landscape the backyard to help alleviate the swampage, but we really don't want to channel that amount of cash flow there when we're also trying to decorate a house and save up for a fawn. Still, it's difficult to look out my breakfast room to such a view and not acknowledge that something needs to be done, and quickly. Eventually, we're wanting to convert that back slope into a garden/waterscape with layered pools, stepping stones, waterfalls, and plants. Due to the bowl shape of our yard, we'd have to take into account the rain overflow. This would involve tapering the yard so that the rain drains to a creek winding alongside the right of our yard and leading into the city's drainage system. Because our backyard is fenced in, we'd probably also have to either end this creek in another pool which could act as the base of our waterscape system or take the "creek" underground so that pipes could channel the water the rest of the way to the street.

Which bank we'll rob to fund this project is still on the table. Even with Dad, Aaron, and I doing the majority of the work and thus eliminating a huge chunk of labor expenditure, the sheer quantity of rock and supplies would be intense. That, and I really don't want to mess with the Collierville board for permission to drain directly into their sewer system.

So I guess that for the foreseeable future, Aaron and I simply have to come to terms with this lovely swampy view.

A very merry un-birthday

Call me picky (just not Ishmael), but when I have a specific item in mind, I don't like to compromise my style. After nearly giving up all hope on finding an acceptable coat for my birthday present, I caught a break. OK, so it was more like Aaron refusing to let me stew in grumpy dejection... but whatever. Check out the GORGEOUS dress coat that Aaron and I found at Parisians! Because the store is closing, we were able to buy a $300+ coat for 60% off the original price... which of course is the only way I could justify such a gorgeous coat. As you can tell by the picture, I adore this coat - the length, the cut, the texture (Angora, btw)... Ich liebe es...

Hot off the Press: Oasis Found in 1.5 Year Long March Through Desert

Wonder of wonder! Miracle of miracles! (If you're not humming some Fiddler on the Roof, you should be.) After living here two years, Aaron and I have finally found a couple that we can truly call friends.

Yeah, there were co-workers before now... but unfortunately hanging out with my co-workers is like clubbing with your parents. That's a painful contimplation. That... and Aaron and I are a unique breed. We are not petty, we are open-minded, and we have (and will use) our brains. Couples our age for some reason can't hit all three bars on that slot machine.

So there we were, all alone, bored, and miserable... 'Twas the second year of the famine, and lo, silvery clouds did part the sky, and a host of angels did sing "Hallelujah" when suddenly the heavens did send us Carl and Roggie. And the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit-bats and large chu...

(Skip ahead a bit, Brother)

Or maybe Kutteh and Ke just hired an andrologist to replace Jessica. Either way, I am forever indebted to Carl and Roggie for introducing me to raspberry vodka (and then were adorable enough to leave the rest of the bottle at our home!) Other than their impecable taste in spirits, we seem to already have a lot in common. I can actually be comfortable in my own skin around them - such a unique relief!

So the long and skinny is that I'm finally getting comfortable in this new abode. Horray!

2006 Top Ten

Erin's Slightly Random Top Ten List for 2006

10. Finally making a few friends down here
9. Aaron and I buying our first home in a picturesque neighborhood
8. Aaron and I both getting new vehicles
7. Our both having such great jobs that we can pay all those bills and still actually have money to feed our Dinner and a Movie appetites
6. Deciding on a color scheme for the living room, dining room, and kitchen (time, money, and Aaron willing, my 2007 list will include actually painting these rooms)
5. Getting to drive a big manly-man truck (Aaron's Toyota Tacoma) that eats little cars for breakfast
4. Contract dictates that I mention the gorgeous diamond pendant that my wonderful husband got me for Christmas (which he wasn't supposed to get since it was too expensive... but hey, who can stay angry when orders like that are disobeyed?!)
3. Discovering a cheap and fantastically tasty Indian restaurant
2. Surviving an entire semester teaching 8th grade English at GMS

... and the number one most interesting thing from 2006 ...

1. Discovering a porn dvd and alcohol - both in a student's hands - in my classroom