Well, the morning commute was simply dreadful today. Slippery roads, low visibility, and oh…yeah…people driving like morons in the snow even though they LIVE IN BUFFALO. Seriously, people.

One of my biggest pet peeves on the road is this: people who ride the right lane from 198 onto the 33 on-ramp even though they know G-d damn well that that lane ENDS. Not only does it not get you there any faster, it MAKES TRAFFIC WORSE. What do I hate more than this? Someone who does it when the roads are slippery. Even more? When said someone is: a) driving a Mercedes, and b) talking on her cell phone. I could barely contain my rage this morning.

I had to call the school where I was working and let them know I was not going to make it in on time. Not such a big deal, as I was subbing for the librarian. (When subbing in the library, your main duty is crowd control.) When I arrived, I found that the buses had only beat me in by 5-10 minutes.

Good thing about subbing in the library today: aside from aforementioned crowd control, I had precious little to do. I spent most of the day getting addicted to Sudoku.

Bad thing about subbing in the library today: I got NO grading done.

That’s my day. Looks like I’m going to be seeing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe today. YAY!! I saw the trailer last week when we went to see Harry Potter, and it looks very cool. I also re-read the book earlier in the week in anticipation of this event. 🙂

(thanks, Mac)

Because they print inane crapfests like this:

100 things you need to know about women

Ladies, check out the list and let me know what you think. Guys, how many of you actually believe this crap?

Look, it’s not like I’m defending women’s mags. Cosmo and Glamour are equally full of shit.

Some favorites:

89. A girl would prefer to get a $100 gift from Tiffany & Co. than a $500 gift from Fortunoff. Why? Because her friends will ask where she got it.

I am fully aware that there are women like this out there. I’m not one. I’m not friends with any of them, and I have no idea why you would want to date one.

88. �If I give you my number on Friday, Tuesday and Wednesday are your best bets to score a date. Monday is too desperate, Thursday is too late.��Claire, 27

“Claire” is full of crap. If I like you, I’ll go out with you. Period.

62. A British study claims a woman�s chances of getting married drop by 40 percent for every 16-point rise in her IQ. The same increase in IQ for a man boosted his chances of getting married by 35 percent.

I guess I can’t really blame the good people at Maxim for this one, but feh. Whatever.

52. Despite always complimenting another woman�s short haircut, she secretly celebrates having one less competitor, since men prefer long hair.

Do I even have to say it?

29. On a first date, women never order what they really want to eat.

Again, feh.

22. If you want more sex, tell your girl an attractive woman hit on you that day. Sixty percent of the time, it works every time.

Oh, for crying out loud…if you need to trick someone into having more sex with you, you’ve got bigger problems.

1. You’ll probably never know how many guys she’s slept with. The standard lie is five. Which really means about 12.

Again, maybe true for some people, I’ve never felt the need to lie about this.

I’m dying to hear responses on this one…

Last week, I was subbing in an English class. I’m not sure what it is that they’re reading, but it had something to do with the Holocaust. (and it wasn’t the Diary of Anne Frank) So in her absence, the teacher left a video for them to watch.

As expected, it was horrifying and sad (I cried several times), and as I always do when I watch or read these things, I have to ask myself, “how?”

As in how did this happen? No, not in my lifetime, but not so long ago. During a war that my grandfather fought in.

How can people, ordinary human beings, commit such horrible, atrocious acts of violence? How can people do such unspeakable things to each other?

This, I think, is what hell really is…not some fiery pit on some other plane of existence. It’s right here, right in front of us.

And I guess that makes us (the collective ‘us’, humanity) the devil.

It would be easy to give up on us, if we weren’t also capable of such remarkable goodness.

Why do church organists always have THAT VOICE? You know the one.

Why do teenage girls think flip-flops are appropriate footwear in December?

Why do those large inflatable snow globes for your lawn exist?

Hrm.

A pleasant (if lazy) weekend. I got to see Harry Potter on Saturday night. YAY! I loved it. I thought it was very well done. Of course, there was a lot that had to be left out (and precious little Snape), but still…I think the kids are fantastic, and it’s nice to see them growing up so well. 🙂

I taught 7th graders all day today, and my head is killing me…so I think any of the more serious writing I wanted to do is going to have to wait…

I pretty much finished grading tonight’s papers, so as promised, here’s some more blathering from your humble narrator.

Today’s topic: pantyhose.

One day, noticing me throwing away yet another pair of $3 hose, Rand asked me why I wear them.

The answer is, I don’t…whenever possible. I tried to explain that it’s fall/winter, and therefore I *need* to wear them. And as I was explaining, I imagined how silly that must sound. After all, a translucent layer of stretchy nylon doesn’t really offer any protection from the elements.

So I came to the conclusion that it’s an aesthetic thing. Because wool skirts and dress shoes that aren’t sandals look silly with bare legs.

Basically, I need my legs to appear covered. Because otherwise, I look dumb.

My favorite brand is L’eggs silken mist, because I like the way they look/feel on my legs.

But it is frustrating to keep throwing money away…sometimes I get a few wearings out of a pair of hose, but frequently a large runner/hole/snag prevents this. Does anybody have a suggestion of a brand that holds up better? (I tried buying more expensive ones before, in the hopes that they wouldn’t run the moment my skin touched them, but it didn’t seem to make a difference.)

Ladies, I’d love for you to weigh in on this one! 🙂

Yeah, I still have all that stuff to do…but I got to the school where I’m subbing today to find that I have first AND second periods free. (Really, you could have told me this. I could have stayed in bed.) And I’m giving tests all day, so I have loads of time to do things like grade papers.

Please do not say anything to me about Lost. I did not watch it yet. I went to bed at 9:30. (and I’m still tired…go figure.)

A quick scan of the class lists for the day tells me I have Dayna’s sister this afternoon!

I was going to write more, but I’m pretty brain dead right now. Later, perhaps.

Dear God, I am exhausted.

Hopefully, normal posting will resume once I’ve caught up on sleep, graded a bunch of papers, done the Toasted Cheese newsletter, taught a couple of classes tomorrow…ugh. Tomorrow’s gonna be a long day.

By the way, I’m going to jump on the Christmas card bandwagon. Let me know if you’d like to exchange, via comments or email!

There is too much sadness about right now.

And the weather isn’t helping.

Sigh.

I had an interview this morning…sort of came out of nowhere. Catholic school, 6-7-8 grade ELA and Lit. It is for a permanent position, not a long-term sub thing.

I think the interview went well…I’ll keep y’all posted.

My deepest sympathy to Kelly (of Byzantium Shores) and his family.

Ok people, I know that there are more than 13 of you out there. If you haven’t yet, please check out the frappr site and add yourself to my map. And do one for your own site! It’s fun! 🙂

Erin’s frappr map