Stellar News, Everyone!

I was rejected from the charity singles auction!!  At first I was all, hey, no big deal.  It's like not getting a job that you weren't sure you even wanted in the first place.  But then I realized that no, it was much worse.  It was like being told that you are neither hot enough, nor interesting enough, to spend your time raising money for sick children.   It is saying that you are ugly and boring.  It is saying that no one would want to date you.  It is saying mull over everything that you did and said infront of these complete strangers until you can pinpoint exactly why you were rejected.  At least I didn't devote a lot of time to agonizing over what to wear or how to answer my questionnaire.  I mean, it's not like my friend jokingly texted me to make sure I got an acceptance email and then I spent the next two hours refreshing my inbox and checking my junk folder only to have to face the empty reality.

You ever feel like you can't mention anything good going on that hasn't happened yet because if you mention it, it won't happen?  Or if you think something bad may happen, you have to imagine every awful scenario that could transpire because if you cover all of the bad imagined bases, then they can't happen?  Yeah, me neither.

I hope it rains on auction night.  No I don't.  Sprinkles would suffice.

*True story:  My mom actually gave my that picture as a gift when I was younger.  She said the loser girl looked just like me when I got mad, and she thought it was so cute.  I wanted to ask her if I should write my suicide letter on the back of it.  Kidding!  I wanted to use it as the kindling that would burn the house down.  Kidding!  I wanted to hang on to it so I could grow up and be super-desired and prove her wrong.

Yay or Neigh?

This post will be 100% shoe-related.  No sads.

1. Review of Maybelline's Lash Stiletto mascara: 3.5 out of 5 stars.  I had to get the waterproof kind because I (obviously) have a problem with crying in public.  It is pretty decent for a cheap mascara.  I also like the packaging because I like shiny high heels, and the container itself is shaped like a stiletto.  So clever!  I also saw a girl who had amazingly long, shiny lashes and this is what she used.  I surfed in it today and it wasn't as waterproof as I would like it to be, so that's why it didn't get 4 stars.  But it's not clumpy, and it will lengthen your lashes.  It didn't give mine the promised patent shine, though.  So if you're bored and want a mascara that will lengthen without gooping, I'd say try it.  In Very Black, of course.

2. I was bored on Saturday and ended up at Neiman Marcus' shoe department.  I go there every few months and try on shoes that I never buy.  Instead, I hunt for them on ebay or wait for Saks' holiday sale so that they're half-price.  The same guy is always working in the shoe department and he always half-asks me out and give me his card.  He has earrings, a pit bull, and Versace glasses.  Not exactly my type.  Last time I was there, it was right before Valentine's Day (shocker, right?), and he said I should come hang out with him for Valentine's Day.  Now, what in the hell does this mean?  Was he preying on my retail therapy/relationship needs and trying to make a quick commission?  Was he asking a total stranger out on the most romantic/unmet-expectations-for-dates day of the year?  Was he gay? 

The gay thing isn't as cut and dry as it seems.  Yes, he works in the shoe department and wears pink ties and maybe had a silk handkerchief.  And yet he would constantly pick out the trashiest stripper platform strappy shoes for me to try on.  But they were the kind of shoes that a gay man who is pretending to be straight would pick out, because he's assuming a straight guy would like shoes like that, but no guy would actually like those shoes unless they were a creepy foot fetishist.  And then he could also be a creepy foot fetishist working his dream job, but if he liked strappy whore shoes, he'd have better luck at Bakers or Aldo.

So I walked in and he was so excited to see me.  And he asked how my Valentine's Day was.  Awkward.  He said I should have hung out with him because he didn't do anything.  So now I'm assuming he's straight.  Anyway, I tried on shoes that I had no intention of buying for about an hour.  And I realized that he is awesome on many levels.  We discussed Louboutins because they are every girl's dream, but they really aren't my favorite because the amoutn of toe cleavage that they show seems obscene to me.  But I do have a tax return coming.  And they are a great investment, and when you wear them everyone knows what they are and they are red with envy.  So I was thinking of getting a sensible pair so I could wear the eff out of them and get my money's worth.  But he reminded me that wasn't really the point of having a pair of Louboutins.  And if you're going to get a pair, you should get the fushcia, six-inch platform ones with sequins because they are so outrageous that everyone will want to look at them. 

We talked for quite a while.  It got quite philosophical.  He even remembered that I had already tried on a pair of Valentinos but didn't like them.  I also was the first to try on the new Manolos that have men's suspenders as straps.  He gave me his card for the third time, but this time he put his number on the back.  At first I was going to call him to see if I could get a major discount out of our date.  Although it'd be much easier to just have the alcoholic surgeon that I met on Friday buy me a pair of Louboutins.  But where is the story for my blog in that?  But I've decided that I don't want the discount (I'm lying), and that it will be great to go out with someone who will have a deep appreciation for my heels.  We shall see.

3.  Shoe guy made me try on a pair of platform heels.  They were quite comfy and made my legs look a bazillion miles long.  It is not fair that this trend is only for short people. The one trend that is for every woman is nude heels.  They shouldn't have any straps to break up the line of your leg, and if you have tiny feet, you should get pointy-toed ones because that will elongate your leg line that much more.  (If you have big feet, get peep-toes so you have more room, as the pointy toes tend to curl up like elf shoes on larger sizes.)  D'Orsay heels look more conservative than sandals because your heel is covered, but you don't get sweaty feet or blisters like you would from a pump, because they're pretty much like wearing a sandal.  I like Manolo's d'Orsays because they run a bit bigger in that style, and they have a little elastic band on the inside of the heel that keeps it from slipping off.

Anyfashionlessonsasideway, I broke down and bought a pair of platform heels.  And they are nude.  And they are beyond adorable.  But they are L.A.M.B. and I've hated Gwen Stefani ever since I saw the premiere of "Just a Girl" on 120 Minutes fifty years ago.  (But at least my students can spell bananas because of her.)  I guess buying her shoes isn't as bad as buying Jessica Simpson or Fergie shoes, but still.  I know I complain about my height, and it makes no sense to even wear heels, but I don't think I should have to miss out on fun shoes because I'm tall.  And these shoes have a little sea foam green logo on the sole of the shoe, which makes me happy.  But I'm not just tall in them - I'm scary tall.  Like I had to bend over slightly to pick up something on my counter.  I read what all of the celebrity bloggers say about Khloe Kardashian, and I don't want to remind people of her when I wear these.  Shoe Guy said that there is not much of a difference between 6'3" in heels and 6'5".    And if I'm already taller than every guy that I meet anyway, what is another two inches?  I don't want to look or sound like a Clydesdale while clomping around in them, though.

So, what do you think?  Keep them or take them back?  Could I wear them to work once I get a real job?  Or would that be too scary?

Sad

The end of the school year is supposed to be fun.  The pressure of passing standardized tests is out of the way, and 95% of the kids have been whipped into semi-passable academic shape.  However, this last week was especially draining because I decided to bring my personal life into the classroom.  I am known as a strict teacher, but after the first few weeks, they realize it's just an act, and things will be good so long as they are respectful and make an attempt at with their homework.  But I am not a touchy-feely, nurturing, maternal type of figure in any way.  There are mom teachers at the school that don't mind giving out their cell phone numbers, along with hugs and kisses to anyone that's having a bad day.  Not really my style.   And even though I don't take the kids home with me at night, sometimes it's hard to leave their problems behind.  They get in your head and you worry for them, have nightmares about them, and hope none of them are hurt in a car accident before graduation. 

And I know I joke about my job a lot, but I take it pretty seriously.  I've failed if they don't come out of my class with a different perspective on how they see themselves and others.  Whenever I teach a book, I get obsessed with it.  It's hard not to, because you're constantly trying to think of ways to relate its themes to the students' lives in a way that effectively fights their narcolepsy.  The end of the year is when I hit them with a pretty controversial book that sparks some heated discussions in and outside of class.  There are always a few parents who are not happy with my book choices, but if they want Sally to stick to Tom Sawyer, they can homeschool her.  And I don't want to mention the book that I'm teaching, because even though my students don't understand that you have to research things in order to write about them intelligently, one of them might actually decide to google a book one day and I don't want them to find this blog until I'm no longer their teacher.

One of the things we've been discussing is school violence.  A nearby community has experienced two horrific incidents of teenagers doing shockingly inhumane things to each other, as other students have watched.  My school is unique in the fact that everyone gets along with each other pretty well.  I was pleased (I guess) to see a few of my students step in and try to break up that fight.  I was not pleased to learn that one of my students was involved in it.  Not physically, but I guess she was expelled for online bullying that led to the fight.  I, of course, feel like I didn't make a strong enough impression on her during our discussions.  And you can say oh well, it's not like everyone can be saved, but what is she going to do now that she has an expulsion on her record?  She was a little rough around the edges, but she had really started to put a lot of effort into school, and I was looking forward to approving her for AP next year, and I know she would have been proud of my recommendation.  Except now she's going to be stuck in a school full of gangs, drugs, and violence.

This whole incident made me second guess whether or not they even listen to me.  Should I let my students know about something that I've been dealing with for the past several days?  I mean, no kid wants to see a teacher's vulnerable side; they just want to be entertained and get an A (or, in my school's case, a D is okay).  But the issues we've been talking about everyday have hit too close to home to not bring up.  So I cried infront of every single class last week.  The first two classes were the hardest, but it got easier to talk about it after that.

Last week a post showed up on facebook saying that someone was missing.  I saw the first name, panicked that it was a friend from my restaurant days who was just an amazing guy, but then saw the picture and breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn't him.  But then another post on another friend's page popped up, and I took a closer look and saw that it was him.  He was working on his master's and was known for being intelligent, hilarious, and pretty awesome in general.  He was walking home and crossed paths with three career criminals who saw him as an easy target.  He has been missing for two weeks and it's pretty obvious that he didn't go on a surprise vacation.  Seeing his grinning baby face juxtaposed with their empty-eyed mug shots outrages me, and everyone who has been following the story.  Knowing that his last few minutes alive were spent being scared and in pain makes me break down whenever I think about it.

Feeling helpless, I sat refreshing the news links all week - waiting for a glimmer of hope to show up in the growing number of headlines concerning his whereabouts.  I also started to feel disgusted at the hateful, racist comments that were starting to pop up in the discussions following the articles.  Bigots were calling for widespread violence against all of the "monkeys" who thought that they were in power now that we have a black President.  "Blacks are lazy thugs who who are responsible for all of America's ills."  This type of ignorance and knee-jerk reactions would have outraged my friend, as from what I can gather, it looks like his grad school work examines how rhetoric is used to perpetuate these stereotypes.  I thought that not sharing his story with my class would be a cop-out, and I'd be failing my friend if I kept it from them. 

I showed them the news clip and some pictures of him.  Some of them were crying.  Some of them were thinking about people they'd lost to violence.  Some of them wanted to give me hugs and presents.  I still don't know if I made the right choice.  I mean, school is where a lot of them go to get away from some pretty bleak situations, I don't want to take that escape away from them.  And I don't know if I want to, or even can, deal with this everyday.  It's a lot harder to be objective about issues when it's someone you know.  But for now, instead of lightening up for the last six weeks, we'll be working on trying to figure out what how to understand all of the issues that my friend's disappearance brings to light. 

And I'm sorry to bum anyone out.  I wrote this instead of going to a vigil for him tonight.  I don't do well at public gatherings like that, so I thought that writing this would be my way of thinking about him.

Neighborhood Trash

I took this last Saturday because I promised to show you how ridiculous my neighbor's stupid Jeep is.  Pink Shirt informed me that this is actually called  a buggy.  Whatever, neighbor.  Go drive around in dirt after you bought this and then declared bankruptcy and then attended your KKK Tea Party meeting and railed about how all them lazy coloreds are working the system.  (It is through my screen door because I was scared he would see me and shoot me.  Journalistic integrity, people.  I've got it in spades.) 

Notice the truck tires compared to the size of his tires.  Imagine having to nose your car in between this, and a gold, extended cab pickup truck with a gargoyle painted on the side of it, every day of your life.  The even-though-I'm-from-New-York-I-really-want-to-try-to-fit-in-with-all-of-the-rednecks-so-I-talk-with-a-fake-Southern-accent buggy is on its way to get a new paint job.  I guess he doesn't like to drive it on asphalt if he can help it.  Might ruin the treads. 

In other neighbor news, we are having trash wars again.  His new roommate, which is a hole (I'm aware of the typo) other story, put all kinds of rotting carcasses in MY trash can, which is easily distinguishable from his trash can because it is in my parking space, with MY address on it.  It is overflowing and full of flies.  It is so disgusting and there's no way I'm dragging that down to the curb.  So I'm going to just start putting all of my trash in his can.  I haven't yet decided if I'm willing to take it to the level of tampon applicators scattered all over his parking spot due to the "wind" knocking over his trash can after I leave for work.  (Cardboard applicators, of course.  Anyone who uses plastic applicators is a selfish jerk who should just endure the discomfort of using cardboard, knowing that the earth will be a better place for her efforts.)

And somehow my recycle bins went missing because I was hurrying from my job to my charity work, and didn't have time to take them in on Monday.  I don't think this is the work of my next door neighbor, because his bins are full of pillows (??), and he thinks recycling is for homos and communists.  I think I'm now going to have to go take a picture of all this. 

None of this is my trash!  Who buys boxes of meat?  What is so hard about putting the pillow in your own trash can?  And before you get judgmental with me, I don't have a lid because it was attached to my can and he ran it over repeatedly and it ripped off and doesn't fit anymore.  So don't think I'm the kind of person who leaves their trash out in the open.  And now that the lid doesn't fit, I'm too scared to put it in my shed b/c I don't want to open my shed door and be attacked by rats that have taken over due to the open trash can.

In the meantime, I should start recycling the way everyone else in my neighborhood does, and just throw my empty beer bottles on the front lawn.  Also, I really hope there is no way for my neighbor to trace the internet signal that I poach from him back to my blog.  And I wish I could take the time to draw on the Jeep picture so I could point out that I have white trash plastic blinds, literal white trash on my front lawn, and live across from a house with a boarded up window that has been there since the '05 hurricanes.

Dramazon Takes on Online Retail Giant / "Intellectual" Property Laws

Not really.  But if there is one thing you must know about me, it is that I am one vindictive bitch.  When I first decided to make a blog, I just wanted to have a regular .com website, but amazon.com said I wasn't allowed to use any form of their name.  You know, because the word "amazon" means online marketplace, and I figured that my tall tale target audience would be a bunch of geeks looking to give their cutting-edge take on the latest Dan Brown novel.  Of course my blog's name is a thinly veiled attempt to trick people into reading my crap by piggybacking on amazon.com's customers - it has nothing to do with my wordplay proclivities.

And now I'm trying to be more responsible in my blogging.  Meaning that since I obsessively research things, and think it's ridiculous to pay full price for anything, I'd like to start sharing direct links to stuff that the three of you would really like.  Blogger had something on my dashboard (yeah I don't know what that means, either) the other week about amazon.com coming up with a program that makes it easy for bloggers to add links to products.  I thought it sounded like a good idea, plus I could probably make an extra $1.35 in 2010 from my kickbacks.  I signed up.  And then I got this email:

"Hello,
When you filled out our online application form, you listed the URL for your web site as:

 http://dramazon.blogspot.com/

We do not allow anyone with a URL that includes "amazon," "endless," or any other trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. This also includes variations or misspellings of any of them. Please review our Operating Agreement for further details:

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/agreement

Additionally, we do not accept URLs which contain our competitors' names or any misspellings of our competitors' names as a gesture of goodwill to the Internet industry.

I hope this helps. We look forward to seeing you again.
Best regards,
 Bert G.
Amazon.com
We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company"


Well, I immediately replied to Bert G., telling him that my blog's name had nothing to do with his lame, soul-sucking monopolistic employer, promising, "I will be sure to let my readers know about your 'customer-centric' company's draconian co-opting of the English language. And then I will be steering them to other online retailers." 

Apparently, customer service doesn't accept responses to your customer service issues, and my eloquent email was returned unread.  So now I am making good on my promise.  While I didn't really care that much about letting you know where to shop online, it has now become a mission to tell you where to buy stuff that I like.  In the meantime, I will be boycotting amazon.com until they stop discriminating against tall women with blogs.  (Until I get bored and need to buy some books.)

(This isn't actually Bret G.  I think.  From ssqq.com)

It's Raining Vent

I totally forgot to share what ignited my Ladyfingers tirade.  Several months ago, I gave him a copy of my New Yorker because he likes Kandinsky and it had an article on his new exhibit at MoMA.  He looked up from my generous gift with scorn (his only true expression), and proceeded to mock the pretentiousness of a teacher in Florida reading The New Yorker on a regular basis.  I told him that my mom grabbed old copies from the library, and I tried to catch up on them whenever I could, since subscribing to something that must be read every week was too overwhelming.  I was all, "At least it's not The Atlantic."  With another heaping of disdain, he pointedly informed me that The New Republic was the only suitable subscription for an intelligent adult (which I don't find to be all that exciting because TNR doesn't have David Sedaris or "Table for Two").

So this week he makes a great show of pulling out his umbrella infront of me.  I don't even think it was raining.  He loudly announces that it was his free gift for SUBSCRIBING TO THE NEW YORKER.  Of course, he doesn't really enjoy it, as it has too much fluff for him, and he will most likely cancel his subscription next week.

If Bill Murray Were a Femme British R&B Singer

From the year 2000.  This is the worst video and I can't stop watching it.  Those eyebrows!  I think I thought he was hot when this came out??

• How can the model be so skinny and still have jowls?  Did she just have her wisdom teeth pulled?
• Jeep Cherokees will always let you down; don't ever buy one.
• The wine spilled on the bad boob job was a classy touch.
• Premise of video makes no sense once he pulls a Zach Morris and rewinds!