Restaurants are for two

and I made too much potato salad.

it's the little things...

Leaving you in Pennsylvania was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do of my own volition, and every little thing reminds me of you. Who knew that leaning sideways on BART and not finding a shoulder to lean on, or finding your hairbrush in my bathroom drawer, or eating home-made canned peaches would be so difficult now that you're not here.

Notes in the Margins

• One of my classes started off with an 'Oppression Unit'
• (above drawing of professor) 'my kid hates me, I'm in therapy. I'm a mean person, i get frustrated.' (this professor used to make lots of tangential remarks about his personal life.)
• (other remarks from the same professor) 'I have more breasts than two! Ask my son.' 'Go look at a lot of bodies.' 'My mother thinks I'm a bad Jew.' 'i taught my kids to be revolutionaries. Now when I tell them to go to their room they defy me.'
• After a few weeks of the above commentary, we began to suspect that his coffee cup didn't just have coffee in it. Oh, and he told us that it was spiked. (joke?)
• 'This class is really cute. He's learning :)' 'Bravo.' 'he is less cute.'
• Exams from my Shakespeare class that only had one TA (in a class of 300) and therefore had to give us multiple choice questions that primarily dealt with how hypermetric, Italianate, and trochees various sonnets were.
• 'yesa hota he' means 'that's the way it is'
• 'he has a large head' 'I think it's just a lot of hair'
• Almost all the notes from one class are surrounded by detailed pattern drawings. Clearly there were some dull moments between note taking.
• From my internship: 'Next Step: Summarize everyones needs, Create something for this year, Create long-term thing' '((who is Arielle? (banners, mailings)))' 'Tardy, etiquette, churches' [no clue what this is referring to...]
• Again from the internship, in large letters, 'Sue has a timeline' [I'd been asking for one for months!]
• I printed out some choice files left on a school computer at a closing school:

dear pen pal,

Sup my name is Tommy c lark. I stay in oakland ca,I play football.I am also yo dad okay.Daddy loves you. I know i havent saw you but i am in your life.I am going to start writing you more often okay.

Scooby Doo Is my favorite cartoon person I just found out that scooby Doo and Shaggy that show is based on weed because they smoke first and when they are look for ghost they are always hungry for food.

Alot of students here own XBOXs but i bet no body even heard of the XBOX 360. The XBOX 360 is the XBOX 2. The XBOX 360 can play regular XBOX glames and XBOX LIVE. The XBOX 360 is mostly white and has some green color. It can sit up straight like the PS2 or just flat down.

• At the end of a journal article synopsis written for a Female Physiology course, 'HPV is a widespread disease that affects everyone, whether indirectly or directly. How it spreads and who is at risk for it are important things to know to develop better prevention methods. Penile scrapings sound painful.' And then a note from the TA "what did you learn?"
• A quiz question from the same class: "Which of the following DOES NOT apply to NORMAL vaginal discharge?" I answered "a. has a fishy, salty odor" but also wrote next to it "fish is bad, but so is too clumpy." And on another handout:

What messages do you wish that you received about sex?

I think everyone did a pretty good job. Although when I was little I thought oral sex involved a lot of talking.

From whom would you have liked to receive those messages?

Well, i first learned the term 'oral sex' from overhearing a bus driver complaining about kids doing it on her bus. That's just nasty.

• 'Note to self: Meacham is the antichrist.'
• 'Rappers' mothers -> on a pedestal'
• (In the margins, to a friend) 'You're a virgin sex machine, it seeps through your skin.'
• Drawing of a girl holding a sign that says 'Down with PowerPoint!'
• A page of notes taken during a guest lecturer:

Even guest lecturers use power point!

The Big Bang (bang!)

Are molecules real?Hooray for Einstein

[in margin] this has so much to do w/ evolution

Molecular clock -> changes in animals seem to follow a pattern. Molecules 'tick' at different rates, those more important change less

(fell asleep)

• 'xtreme baboons'
• 'Rat = Bigger (?)' [I believe this refers to Native Son, but I'm not sure how.]
• Some notes from the video of the Clarence Thomas hearing:

Hill immediately mentions family, church, & education.

Entire panel of white males has bad hair.

panel member picks his nose

• Quote from my professor (the notorious Bettina Aptheker) as she started a lecture on Harriet Tubman. "she suffered from...necrophilia...narcolepsy!" "She was only five feet tall, a very little woman. Watch out for little people."
• Another Bettina quote, after she'd filled up the chalk board with names of famous anti-slavery black and white women. '"I was going to write down some men, but I ran out of room" (hilarious laughter)'
• 'Ray Charles "In one form you say God, in the other you say Baby" on Blues and Spirituals'
• 'reification -> thingifying'
• 'papers will be lumpy, like ginger.'

substitutes

It's a varied and interesting group of people who substitute. People at in-between stages of life, people who are bored, people who really need a few bucks here and there.

A delicate older fellow, an ex-professor, who enjoys telling everyone various tidbits of his life story. Unfortunately, also a fellow who repeats details and facts while explaining his stories. Ah, so what school will you be attending? The University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania have very nice Egyptian museums, small, but they've done a lot of digging in Egypt, so they're very good collections, small, but I was visiting the University of Chicago and I went to see the Egyptian collection, because my wife, she's Egyptian, we met in Egypt when I was teaching there, so we went to see the collection that the University of Chicago has because my wife is Egyptian, and they have a very nice collection, it's small, but they've done a lot of work in Egypt, dug up the artifacts and shipped them back, you know, so it's very good.

A middle-aged (on the younger end of middle) new-agey woman who, seeing that I was reading a book on religion (The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt) said "I think you might like this" and showed me the book she was reading–subtitled "A Deliciously Unorthodox Approach to Igniting Your Divine Spark." I think she may have mistaken the book I was reading on Jewish guilt as a self-help book, instead of the short comedic essays that it actually is. And I'm not sure why I would be identified as someone with any interest in the divine spark- just because I'm white and look unthreatening does not mean I roll with that soul-searching white people crap.

A woman who you could mistake for motherly at her overall jean dress, but at a closer look definitely screams cat lady. Surrounded by screaming kindergarteners who she can't get to shut up or sit down or really do much of anything (and, not to belittle her teaching skills, neither can I) in a very overheated classroom. She's having a bad day (and her hair doesn't look so hot either). She's clearly given up trying to get them to do much of anything, and I might appreciate her more if she didn't take me so seriously. (No, I don't actually think it would be good if the kid started choking, it was an exaggeration on the extreme measures it would take to shut these monkeys up.)

A beautiful lady who randomly begins conversations at awkward moments.

A talkative middle-aged white fellow with thick curly hair who has a huge bald spot in the middle of his burgeoning afro.

A young Asian man who's spending the time before he goes to an MBA program substituting and needs to wear a suit and tie to distinguish himself from the students. (I relate to this fellow quite a bit.)

A young white lady who makes awkward conversation with other awkward people, dresses in collared shirts, and looks too young to be in charge of anyone. (Oh wait, that's me!)

Men...

A bunny: hey
tretonin: Hey
A bunny: how's it going?
tretonin: It's going well
tretonin: I chatted with a cute girl today
tretonin: So that's always good
A bunny: yes
A bunny: going to chat with her more?
tretonin: She's going to be at Relay for Life, and so will I, so yeah, probably
A bunny: ruby is suspicious
tretonin: Of what? My unlikely story?
A bunny: yes
A bunny: but mostly of the girl
A bunny: her intentions
tretonin: I see
tretonin: They might not be honorable
A bunny: this is spiraling out of control sean
A bunny: I forbid you from seeing this woman
tretonin: But you can't do that! We're in love! *slams door and turns on country music*
A bunny: hahaha
A bunny: awesome
A bunny: lets shoot zombies together
tretonin: Good idea
tretonin: Give me like ten minutes
A bunny: sure

Rain is Invigorating

I love driving in the rain.
When there are few cars on the road I can blast my music and sing til my voice is scratchy and useless and feel like I'm driving 140 and completely out of control when I'm driving 60mph and staying firmly within my lane.
I stare out the windows and see white fog gripping the luscious green hills and pooling in the valleys while the sun spears through the dark cumulonimbus just enough to add a pinch of pink and orange to the blue and violet grays.
The spattering rain across my windshield is whipped off violently by the wipers, flung, scattering across the unsupecting asphalt which is too wet to notice and new precipitation.
My heart is beating faster than it has all day, feeling like it hasn't beat this fast all year, and I am laughing and having the time of my life, all by myself, wishing someone were here with me to enjoy this.

Epic Moment of Cat

There is a basement. The basement has a floor and walls and windows, and hanging across the ceiling are several sheets that hide ugly pipes and floor boards. A flight of stairs, open on one side (although with a banister, because safety is important), goes up to the rest of the house. A snake lives in the basement, in a tank, in the basement.

The basement is located in a house. The house has a cat. And a cat door. And many cat toys. The cat is young and very curious and also will poke people in the eye if they wrestle with her.

The one place the cat is not allowed to go is the basement. This is due to the presence of the snake. When in the same room, the two have long staring contests in which each creature asks itself "what is this? Can I play with it? Is it edible?"

The cat really really really wants to go into the basement. Not only because of the interesting and possibly edible snake, but also because it is the One Place She Cannot Go. (I assume this is how she thinks of it, all the words capitalized, because it is a place name and therefore a Proper Noun. I assume cats understand the importance of proper punctuation.)

Once in awhile the cat manages to sneak into the basement, usually when it is occupied by a human, who scoops her up and carries her back to the many places where cats are allowed. Like anywhere in the rest of the house.

Occasionally, the human in the basement tries to scare her away when she gets too interested in a slightly opened door or the top of the stairs. This is done by making monster noises and running towards the intruder. The intruding cat then runs to the safety of Anywhere But The One Place She Cannot Go.

Except when the monster noises are so frightening that instead of running UP the stairs to safety, the cat tries to run through the convenient space right next to her. Which leads to...nothing.

In a desperate attempt to defy gravity, the cat claws wildly at the air, connecting with one of the sheets that is hanging from the ceiling. The weight of the cat (who is no sleek and fit feline, but actually rather tubby) strains the thumbtacks holding one end of the sheet to the ceiling and they pop off, allowing the cat to swing Tarzan-style through the air until she lets go, twists wildly, and falls on all four feet on the ground.

Then, while the human almost dies from laughing, she hides under the bed in shame and won't come out.

The morning after this debacle? She tries to sneak into the One Place She Cannot Go.