I'm a loser

I am thoroughly entertained by the 15/16 year olds I teach in Sunday School. They are a delightful bunch. We joke around and have fun, but still get the job done. Generally before class I like to see how life is going for each of them. When one of the girls said to another, "how far are you in Supernatural?" I had to editorialize and give a thumbs down along with a Bronx cheer. She then said, "you're such a loser," not in a jovial way, but in a woah-there's-a-lot-of-hostility-there-fangirl kind of way.

There are few things I enjoy more than when people jump straight to character assaults over disagreements. Especially concerning humanity buoying art like Supernatural.

She spent the rest of class being angry at me, and I spent the rest of class asking her questions and asking her to read passages. Here's hoping next week we can patch things up.

have you heard: Grouplove

Months ago Becky told me to read A Fault in Our Stars by John Green.  Had I known initially it was a young adult fiction about kids with cancer, I probably would have cast it off in to the same pile of unread saccharine and trite sentimentality as a Nicholas Sparks story. As it was, I started reading it before I knew anything about it except for that Bex thought I would like it. About 40 pages in and still all of the characters were teenagers I flipped the book over and read "Young Adult," I was like, "that makes sense," but the damage had been done. I devoured that book in one sitting, and then promptly in the same fashion devoured Looking for Alaska, and Paper Towns (although I think it took me two days to get through Paper Towns.) I am a fan of John Green.

Unfortunately, I am not a fan of Shailene Woodley.* So much so that I have yet to see the movie of A Fault in our Stars. I'm sure I will eventually despite the huge deterrent. I know that they are two separate entities, but she is just not Hazel Grace. Anyway about the time it came out, Spotify told me I would probably like the new Grouplove song from the soundtrack. I was skeptical, because I am pretentious and hate it when algorithms can predict so correctly what I will and won't like. **

Fact: I really like it. As in, I'm listening to it pretty much non-stop these days. So thanks Spotify.




*Courtney, Nancy and I were one day in stitches with her In to the Gloss interview from a few months back.

**Something I don't think I'll ever have to worry about with Netflix' algorithm. 

***Also when googling how to spell her name I discovered that James Franco, Dave Franco and Theo James are three separate individuals. I had no idea.

Go my favorite sports team, GO!

While watching yesterday's match against Portugal, I noticed this excited fan. I was thinking she must have gotten ready in front of a mirror a la Karen from Mean Girls. 

A letter to Johnny B.

One of my favorite humans ever is a 14 year old boy on the autism spectrum. Because of how his autism is manifest people really don't see his full potential. I was disheartened to learn the results of some recent testing at school that I feel is so far off base with this kid that I worry it will do more harm to his future than good, which was the aim. I'm pretty sure it has been and will continue to be a pattern in this child's life to be misjudged and underestimated, and that is a tragedy.  I worry about how our society perceives people on the spectrum, and I worry that this kid will become a victim of our prejudices. In our conversations over the length of our friendship, I've tried to buoy him up as well as prepare him that he will have to work hard--harder than someone without the different processing of autism, because the world as a whole doesn't understand it. We see it as a disorder, but we are doing a great disservice to kids if that is how they are seeing themselves - as someone with a disorder, whatever this supposed disorder may be. The most heartbreaking thing you could ever hear is a child saying, "I wish I was normal." We are all human, we all have issues and things we have to deal with.

Being the end of the school year, I wrote this child a letter. I want him to know that I am in his corner. And I want him to remember that he is awesome. If you were to meet him, your first impression might not agree with me. But trust me - this kid, like SO MANY OTHERS, are worth getting to know. Get past the first impressions, because there is a lot going on there that we can learn from and contribute to.

-->

Johnny,

I want you to know it has been an absolute pleasure to hang out with you these past two years! You are such an awesome kid! Since I’m not sure when I’ll get to see you next, I want to make sure you know just how awesome you are, so please remember that:

• You are hilarious.
• You are kind and a good friend.
• You flirt with a lot of girls, but you always make sure your number one girl Jamie gets to her bus with your arm around her shoulder.
• You are so smart! I love that you are using Rosetta Stone to teach yourself Japanese, and Khan to teach yourself Calculus. Keep going! These skills will come in handy.
• You are a great problem solver. I love it when you beat me at Blokus.
• You are awesome at coding and Video Game Maker. Keep working on these skills. Not everyone can succeed at coding, but you are a natural. That could be a way for you to find your niche and make the big bucks!
• You know where every country in the world is. Most American adults don’t know where any other country is- but you do.  And you know most of their capitals--keep going, you only have Europe and Oceania left!
• You are very strong and athletic. I know very few people who could pull themselves up and sit on a basketball hoop.
• You are charismatic. Do you remember how many people cheered for you at the SOAR Smash dance off? Or how many girls you slow danced with?
• You have great style. Maybe one day you can get those diamond earrings you want so much--just make sure it is cool with your parents first.
• You are very helpful in the kitchen.
• You make funny videos about getting grounded after ordering too much fast food.
• You are insanely good at Dance Dance Revolution. How’d you get so good?
• You are learning how to break dance. And you are probably the coolest kid to air guitar to Journey, or do cartwheels to Michael Jackson that Skate World has ever seen.

Some people are going to doubt that you are capable of great things, but they are wrong. THEY ARE WRONG! Just because you do some things differently than what they decided was normal doesn’t mean that you are doing them incorrectly. It means you are doing things differently- not wrong or less than just different. Your brain processes things in a different way, and that is great! The world needs people of all shapes and sizes to approach things in different ways. We need your point of view! YOU ARE NEVER LESS THAN. You are awesome. You are smart and capable. You can do great things and make the big bucks! I can’t wait to see what you will do! I am so proud of you! You are one of my favorite people ever. After all, you’re Johnny B, the coolest guy in town.

AP English writing exercise

I was going through some of my journals today, and I came across a truly pathetic piece of writing from the first semester of my senior year. It was an activity where one person starts a narrative and it is passed along the row and each person adds a few sentences in a minute or two and then off to the next person. I think we must have been working on descriptions, because these are some flowery little sentences. Holy Adjectives!

Three out of the four additional contributors to my story were my best friends that year; the fourth was a quiet, unassuming and very nice young man. I would venture to say that all of us were fair writers, but somehow we turned out some real drivel.  I remember the day we wrote this. Mine was the only little story that ended up so ridiculously. We all giggled hard when we shared these in class. I'm sure Mrs. Hayes rolled her eyes. And because it is so terrible...why not publish it on the internet?

Molly: The North Carolina air was hot and heavy. The only respite came from a coastal breeze that blew the sea's mist up to a new home in the never ending blue sky. The scalding sand under

Reem: my feet. An attractive boy tanning near by. His crystal clear blue eyes and defined biceps caught my attention immediately. He took the lotion and lathered it up through his long slender fingers. I imagined the cool relief the lotion brought him in the heat.*

Brittany: He was like a god with a strange aura about him. I had never before seen such a person. He had a mysterious rugged look to his messy blonde locks. For a moment he seemed frozen in time: a perfect still life. 

Julie: Our eyes met and the intensity of his gaze could have moved mountains. I remained rooted where I stood, like a ship anchored to the strong cliffs of the shoreline.

Peter: As I drew closer to this god-like man, he began to open his luscious lips to say that he wanted to take me away in his arms. I realized...

Peter sure was a good sport.  I wonder what realization he would have had this protagonist come to.  I guess we'll never know.


*I think I know where the shift in tone happened. 

literally.

Most of the 8th graders at my school are reading The Book Thief right now. So, when one of my favorite 13 year-olds left me alone with her copy and her binder I hid the novel and left a note that said, "I stole your book: The Book Thief. #Literal"  Then a couple of hours later while I was driving home, I passed a chicken who was trying to cross the road. This happened. I hadn't ever seen chickens on that very busy road before or since, but on that very special day, it happened. *


*At Tiffany's wedding last weekend when someone I'd never met before started talking about how much milk her children consume (you'll be happy to know I kept my opinion that that amount was far too much to myself) and then said she should buy a cow her kids drink so much. I said, "Urban chickens are so popular, maybe you can be a pioneer in the urban cow movement." She was not the slightest bit amused. We are not meant to be best friends. Urban cows!**


**Please give your cows room to roam around and don't bring them in to urban or suburban settings. Thank you.

Brandi Carlile you can do better.

I have long loved terrible music videos, and long felt compelled to share the terrible. Those are about to converge.

I have recently started watching The Good Wife- which I have to say is much better than I had reason to believe it was, seeing as it is on the same network that airs the predictable procedurals in their many "re-imaginations"* NCIS and CSI's and the unqualified disasters 2 Broke Girls and Two and a Half Men, but I digress. The soundtrack to The Good Wife is not terrible. Music isn't used in the story in a huge way, unsurprisingly enough for a court room drama, but every once in a while they pepper in a song, and sometimes it is a song that I would listen to without the promise of Matt Czuchry.

One such song was Brandi Carlile's cover of "Heaven"-- after a quick look on IMDb to find it, I looked on spotify. It wasn't there. I then googled it, and this video was practically the only thing that came up. It is so unbelievably terrible-- you really should watch it. And after you do, will you please explain the story line to me?



I am at a loss. A girl dresses up as a terribly costumed circa Like A Virgin Madonna, writes a message and sends it-presumably across a vast distance=via a poorly constructed paper airplane and a most unenthusiastic chuck. It reaches a man who irons meticulously and combs out his disgusting ZZ Top beard, only to go NFL super-fan and rip his shirt off in the middle of what looks to be a hotel conference room. To say nothing of the terrible acting, the melodrama is palpable. What is happening? I don't get it.

*Does moving a concept to a different city count as a re-imagination?