movie rules.

Cinema ninjas: brilliant! It should be a high-paying
career option.
Source: whenonearth.net

Yesterday, Miss M and I went to the movies. (Side note: I love my child, but I'm tired of doing everything SHE wants and never getting to do what I want. I remain desperate to see adult movies...if it's a child-oriented movie, I promise I've seen it. But movies for grown ups are elusive to me, and I still need a date with a movie professional.) We saw Minions, which I thought had some issues - mainly with keeping my attention - but had its ridiculously cute and funny moments. Also: I would like to have a minion for a pet now, please. 

But mostly what weirded me out was the quality of human in the theater with us. We go to this theater a lot, but never on a Saturday evening to see a highly anticipated movie right after its release. (It was crowded, is what I'm trying to say. It was ridiculously crowded, and we had to sit in the break-your-neck-looking-up-at-the-screen area.) 

I try not to judge other people. I really, really do. This is a hard planet to live on, the Supreme Court and Congress are making the divide between the haves and have-nots even worse, and Donald Trump is running for president...AGAIN, jesus god. We are all fighting hard battles, some harder than others, and I genuinely believe that makes it important for us to be gentle with one another.

Having said all that, please indulge me a moment while I judge some of my fellow human beings. I'm going to judge these people and then I promise I'll go back to being a really open, loving, accepting person:

1. The lady directly in front of us sat on her cell phone for almost TWO HOURS, playing on Facebook. From my vantage point, what she was doing was working on pictures depicting herself and her sweet children having a great time at the mall, in the car, all of them just one big ol' smile-y, happy, aren't-we-a-really-awesomely-cute-and-sweet-totally-have-our-shit-together-kind-of-family-don't-you-wish-you-were-us?! sort of pictures. I watched her, off and on, for two hours do the following: tag the pictures, adjust the pictures, repeatedly go back to check for comments and likes under the pictures. 

Meanwhile, her family sat next to her while she totally ignored the movie and the two sweet children in the pictures she was obsessed over. She was far too busy looking at pictures of herself being an awesome mom than, you know, actually BEING an awesome mom. (Pictures lie, is the moral of this tale, I think.) 

I find the 21st century to be totally ironic in this way. Thanks so much for mucking humanity up, social media.

2. I really wanted to take a picture as evidence of this, but then that would have made me part of the problem and not the solution.

3. Ladies. Ladies! If you are over 300 lbs, you are NOT allowed to wear halter tops with leggings. I know it's hot. I know that outfit is comfy. But please. This was an area with very small children. One of whom turned to me and said, "Mom! Mom! Why is that lady's huge boobs coming out of her shirt!" 

4. If you are standing in line, waiting to buy tickets and your entire party is not with you yet and you do not have the money to purchase the tickets for them, then you may NOT tell the lady with the antsy kid behind you they're not allowed to go in front of you. You may not tell them this. Because that makes you a stodgy line-holder-upper. 

And then, when you've put yourself in the situation you have put yourself in and so now you're forced to move forward to purchase a group of tickets of which you can only afford one, and the ticket seller kid tells you you can't do that? And then the lady and her kid move up to buy their tickets like they should have been able to do in the first effing place? You may NOT stand there stewing and grumpy and put out about the whole thing. You may not do this. Because that makes you an asshole.

5. If you are buying tickets as a very, very large group of teenage boys and there's a long line waiting to be, you know, where you are so they can also buy tickets, please (a) know exactly which movie you want to see and (b) have enough money to buy your ticket. Standing around, discussing your options and saying things like, "Yo, bro! You got another dollar?" will just cause the lady with her 6 year old standing ten people behind you to wish you death threats and utter a million swear words about you in her head.

6. All babies should be outlawed from cinemas.

The End.

Kermode & Mayo's Cinema Rules: also brilliant, and should be posted in every
cinema on Earth. Standards, fellow planetary citizens. Standards.

social media thoughts, part 1: the insane stuff.

Hi, Internet! How are you since I last talked at You? 

So, today I discovered Periscope. It was Jason Isaacs' fault. He tweeted about watching Andy Dick eat cheese puffs on it, and I saw it in my general Twitter feed when I logged on in the morning. I had no idea what the heck he was talking about, so I Googled it. 

I ran away! Because no. NO! Stop this insanity, Social Media! Jesus God stop it!! Stop giving human beings one more excuse to be narcissists! I can barely keep track of all the social media I do use as it is. Are not Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, About.me, Flickr, Google+, Snapchat, Vine, LinkedIn, Meetup.com, wordpress, blogspot, vox, typepad, and Pinterest quite enough for the world?????? 

At some point, this has got to go like the housing bubble did and just blow up and ooze pus everywhere. Right? How much more can our limited brains handle? And so now there is Periscope, which connects to your Twitter account, which lets you live stream (as long as you like, I think) video of yourself talking and/or putzing about, or be an amateur Reality TV show producer/director/camera person and video stream live events as they happen around you. Meanwhile, people who are watching--random, total, COMPLETE strangers--can just pop in and sit and watch. And if they're so inclined, they can comment, live, on your life as it happens. 

Bizarre. Freaky! What the hell is going ON with us, Humanity?!?! We are so desperate for validation.

But then, being infinitely curious and always full of WHAT? and WHY??, I downloaded the app. I missed Andy Dick eating cheese puffs, but was able to sit (for 35 minutes!) on this app and watch a really lovely trio of musicians play live music outside a cafe in Birmingham, Alabama; a friendly, outgoing girl who looked slightly like Mila Kunis just sit and talk at various strangers saying hello to her and leaving her comments while she ate donuts; I watched someone in Africa at work--rather, I watched their desk computer; I watched someone else just sit. Thirty-five minutes later, I shut it off. Because I have a life to live: I needed to shower and get dressed, the kitchen was a disaster, and my child had put eye shadow on her to make it look as if someone had punched her. And she had done this on purpose, and was in the process of adding in a bloody lip. And demanding I take her out in public like this.

Speaking of my child and social media: Miss M, 6 years old, has discovered texting. And leaving comments on YouTube. I think the YouTube comments are scariest. First, because, well...my name is attached. The comments are not being posted as a 6 year old crazy girl from Georgia, they're coming in as a 43 year old crazy woman from Georgia. I'm sure Matty B., the teen YouTube rap sensation, and all his little pre-teen friends don't find that freakishly alarming at all. Second, I caught her trying to leave Matty B. and his friends OUR HOME ADDRESS.

So we had to have The Internet Talk. Which is far more frustrating to have with a 6 year old than the Birds & Bees Talk, please know. Listen to me: if you need to speak to a child about delicate Life matters, I promise you want to talk about sex. Not the Internet; this is a labyrinth you'll never figure your way out of, trust me.

Because it's very hard to explain to an egocentric, concrete thinker about all the baddies out there. And also about how Matty B. doesn't know her, and she doesn't know him. (Because, in her brain, Matty B. is her very best friend--he's cute, he's talented, he's seems so! friendly! Clearly, he wants to be her boyfriend and come have a sleepover at her house. This Friday! Right? Right!) 

Totally very frustrating.

So I told her my story, the one about how this one time a bad guy stalked me on the Internet because of a blog I wrote, and how scary that was. Didn't move her. Because Matty B. IS HER FRIEND. 

And we talked about stranger danger. Didn't move her. Because Matty B. IS NOT A STRANGER. 

And we talked about how you can't leave Matty B. comment after comment after comment until he answers you. Because I'm sure Matty B. has seen your comments (which he thinks are from your 43 year old Mommy) and now his parents are warily watching you (i.e., me). 

I said that part of our talk to her, studiously ignoring how many famous people I regularly leave tweets for who probably have me on some Internet Watch List as well. (But it's different! It's different! Because those famous people and I are all adults. And THEY know I'm just gently joking with them online because I admire them and want them to know they're loved, even if we don't actually know each other. And also..........okay, fine. Fine! It's not very different. I'm sure I'm on a Twitter Watch List or something.)

At any rate, I've had to institute a No Comments Without Parental Permission and Approval policy on my YouTube account. And now I have to regularly monitor what she's watching (which isn't hard on YouTube, because you watch one thing, and suddenly they make 10,000 similar suggestions...for awhile, I was getting a lot of anime videos of voluptuous cartoon ladies giving birth. And so then we had the Where Do Babies Come From? talk. Lands. Child rearing in the 21st century is exhausting, y'all. EXHAUSTING. And also: Damn it, YouTube! Get a parental password protect option!)

We also have had to implement a No Texting Without Parental Permission and Approval policy. That started when C was off on his fishing trip last week--texting is a quick, excellent way to keep in touch with someone who refuses to do social media and also likes to take fishing trips to places near Canada that are practically off the grid. However, she left him bizarre text messages like: 

Daddy, Mommy is being mean to me. (insert 10,000 angry emojis here)

Daddy, I really think I'm going to cry!!!!!!!! (insert 10,000 sad emojis here)

Daddy, Mommy bought me a lot of make up and I'm on YouTube doing videos! (insert 10,000 random emojis here)

Daddy, I hate Mommy!!! (insert 10,000 devil emojis here)

And so on and so forth. Sometimes, they would just be whatever popped up randomly in autocorrect. I don't know if you've ever visited damnyouautocorrect.com, but if you have, I'm sure you can imagine what those read like.

Then she moved on from Daddy to Grammy. And then random people in my contacts list. Two people were worried about me. So now I've had to pre-emptively apologize for weird texts or facebook posts from me, because these are NOT from me. They are from a nutty little person posing as me. 

In addition, now I'm terrified M is going to say something bizarre to some famous person I follow on Twitter or Instagram and then I really WILL get put on a Twitter Watch List of some sort, or banned. So I'm mulling over making that my next pinned tweet on my Twitter page: bizarre tweets with emojis are not from me; they're from my zany, wayward 6 year old. Because the clue will be that her bizarre tweets will include 10,000 emojis because she knows where to find those on my phone and I don't since technologically I'm obviously about 190 years old.

This is the end of Part 1. 

Tomorrow, come back, because I'm going to talk about social media, part 2: the good stuff. There is good stuff to social media. For example, once I downloaded Periscope, I could see its value--imagine if something horrible is occuring...oh, say, some crazed racist cop going to town on a 12 year old unarmed black boy or something. Periscope = excellent to get the word out about that, in conjunction with Twitter's rapid fire information dissemination. 

Really, true Villains of the world should be terrified at the moment; there will be nowhere to hide their evil doings, eventually. 

(The frustrating, sad part is I know they aren't...they're in a dank, dark cave somewhere trying to figure out how to work this to their advantage. Thus, Sons/Daughters of Light continue to the fight the good fight.)

happy hour music.

I wasn't sure I'd have anything to write about, but I just thought of something to write about, and hopefully you won't finish reading this post and go: Man! That Amy: she needs to get a life. Here's what I'm going to write about tonight:

Applebee's.

you know--the chain restaurant. We ate there tonight. It took 30 minutes to get a server to come get our drink orders. Have you ever had to sit, for 30 minutes, with a hungry, peevish 6 year old? It is the opposite of fun.

However, it gave me an opportunity to do some really good people watching. I've long said airports, shopping malls, and subway trains are THE best locations for good people watching/character development ideas. Now? I'm going to add chain restaurants to the list.

It wasn't an easy mission. First off, Miss M called it  "Applebeets" for the first 5 minutes we were there. But then I laughed and told her when she did that, she was the cutest 6 year old ever. This made her mad. So! MAD! Because Mommy! Don't laugh at me! I told you I don't like it when you laugh at me! ...And also, she is NOT the cutest 6 year old, Sydney is! (So then we had to have a brief, side therapy session to build her fragile self-esteem.)

After 10 minutes of continued waiting for a waiter to say hello to us, I waved at a cute 4 year old sitting at the table next to ours, which pissed Miss M off further because HOW DARE I?! How dare I. ......How dare I (A) acknowledge another child's existence right in front of my own child, and (B) what?! am I saying THAT little girl is cuter than MY little girl?! (After several attempts to explain I actually did not find that little girl cuter than my little Miss M, I just waved at that little girl to be nice, M concluded: This is HORRIBLE! I RUINED THE WHOLE NIGHT!!!!! (So then we had to have another brief, side therapy session to build up her fragile self-esteem.) But then we ordered some sweet potato fries as an appetizer and she was fine.

.....are you getting yet that my child has, like, 90% of my DNA and 10% of her father's? She is all quirky, raging hormones of pure neurotic insecurity. I tend to bundle mine up so nobody looks at me askance or asks me to leave the mall before they call security. M, being six, isn't confined by those societal pressures quite yet, and so hers fly loose and proud and free. She's going to make an excellent Fortune 500 CEO someday. Or the despot of a small, impoverished country deep in the South Pacific. (I actually would be fine with either scenario...because I'd like to be her special advisor and thus earn special favors, like my own private beach and manservants who all look like Channing Tatum.)

Second of all, when we walked in, there was a strange haze of smoke in the air--I think it was sizzling fajitas, but you can never be sure after 6 PM on a Friday in a place like that. It appeared to be the happy hour location that all the OTP (it's an Atlanta thing--Google it) swingers come to exchange business cards. And they had some type of sound system that changed the ambient lighting as the songs switched. Classy. And its songs were loud and slightly inappropriate for small children's ears when we came in. The swingers at the bar might as well have just passed around the bong and been done with it.

Third of all, it was a motley assemblage of humanity: wannabe hip hop stars, creepy business guys, women in business suits in dire need of a shower, girls with arm sleeve tattoos, and a family of people I swear were part of Duck Dynasty. As soon as all the hip hop stars vacated, the Duck Dynasty family changed the music to twangy country.

Have I told you about my issues with rap/hip hop and twangy country? I'm generally quite electic when it comes to music. Right now, I've been listening to a lot of music by Damien Rice and Alison Sudol and Patresa Hartman and The Civil Wars (have you heard of The Civil Wars? I only recently discovered them--only to find out they've disbanded....that sounds about right for me: I'm a late bloomer, about everything). They calm and soothe my soul, and my soul needs a lot of calming and soothing right now. But I'm not opposed to Motown, Reggae, Latin, Jazz, Blues, Classical and Pop/Rock/Alternative music from the 1920s all the way through til today. And Broadway show tunes--there is nothing better than singing a Broadway show tune at the top of your lungs in the car. And, of course, there is my beloved Barry M., who Miss M is also quite in love with right now (but only because he sings to her briefly--briefly as in a 1 second mention of her name--in Could It Be Magic).

But hip hop? Too angry. And, yes, it's true I can have a bit of potty mouth at times, you can see evidence here occasionally. But I promise I only do it when I feel it adds to a thought or emotion I'm attempting to communicate...or you've cut me off in traffic and I really feel I must damage you, psychically, in some way. Rap and many hip hop music makers often feel, to me, as if they maybe could've used a different word in that one sentence, but nope. Because street cred. And possibly the swear was just easier to spell.

And country? Too twangy, too whiny. Sometimes I do feel like hearing country music...but only when I'm in a bar and want to pretend I'm John Travolta's girlfriend in URBAN COWBOY. Otherwise, country music just makes me nervous. Not the people who make country music, please know. Country music makers always seem very nice and sweet. Maybe in need of some therapy, but god knows I can totally empathize with that. No. It's their listeners who make me really nervous. I can't imagine anything more frightening than finding myself deep in Alabama, at a roadside bar, surrounded by people who are line dancing, hocking saliva into their spittoons. A grandpa whittling a piece of wood off to the side, under the Confederate flag. Humming DIXIE softly to himself, periodically muttering "South gone RISE agin!"

Which is why I always tell people I think that when country singers and hip hop/rap stars get together to make music, I think they're mocking me. It's very possible they don't care about me at all, don't even know who I am. But still. They're definitely mocking MLK, Ghandi, Jesus, Father Abraham, and the memory of Johnny Cash. Which is why when LL Cool J and Brad Paisley made that song together, I was SO annoyed. I'm certain Patsy Cline and Harriet Tubman were both annoyed, too.

And that brings me back to my Applebee's experience tonight: it was nothing but rappers and country boys in that place. I watched the rappers hit on the worn-out looking women in business suits and the worn-out looking women in business suits weakly try to engage...then turn right back to their girlfriends, which is who I think they actually wanted to be with. And I watched the country boys sullenly drink their $1.99 draft beers, refusing to interact with anyone in business suits, dread locks, or gold front teeth. The only people having ANY fun at this place tonight were people under age 10. Everyone else was just...papering their cracks.

Oh, and I got to listen to a drunk blond woman complain about her chicken to a waitress. (Why are drunk people always so LOUD?) As she complained about how bad the chicken was, she kept eating it. She'd say something about how nasty it tasted, take a bite, chew and swallow it, and then loudly insist to the waitress that it wasn't the waitress's fault the chicken was so disgusting. And then she'd take another bite and swallow. Eventually the waitress gave up; she may have comped their meal, which could have been the whole point of the production. Plus, the blond was with three other blondes...and they were all dressed alike, as if they were in a dance troupe. I bet they're restaurant performers who go from business to business drinking, ordering dishes, and then drunkenly complaining as loud as they can about the food. It's probably a cheap way to eat out on a Friday/Saturday night. Clever.

Okay. That's it for this entry. I am done. Grateful I have some story fodder for the weekend. And now? So do you! Feel free to borrow/share mine. Or better yet! Go to a chain restaurant (it doesn't have to be Applebee's; they aren't paying me to shame them here or anything) and sit at the bar. But go at happy hour on a Friday after a long, cold, grueling work week! That's when all the interesting characters come out.

It's better if you're in the American South, too. Our characters are 500 times crazier than any of yours, I promise.

colorful.

Today, I stayed in my pajamas until 3 PM. I strung out on Twitter from 10 AM until 3 PM. Yes, you read that correctly: strung out. On Twitter. Until 3 PM. In my pajamas. I could have been reading or writing, but instead I got on Twitter and fell down a rabbit hole.

Yesterday was better. Yesterday, I got to grocery shop alone so I went to Whole Foods (where you can spend a billion dollars on exactly three items). I listened to a live jazz quartet in the cheese section. I reveled at how nice shopping was without someone tagging along touching everything and begging for treats. Oh! And I made Art. Each year about this time, I make a vision board (some call these treasure maps, others visual prayers)--I just cut out pictures, words, or phrases that seem interesting or pull at me or represent things I'd like to have, do, or be. Then I glue them down onto something--paper or posterboard or into a journal--in collage format. Have you ever done one of these? They do actually work, but (a) you have to look at it and meditate on it quite a lot and (b) be serious. And also leave some spaces between the images and words so God can get in. 

Instead of doing my regular vision board, though, I saw that my writer hero Liz Gilbert likes to do a color board--she finds colors she'd like the new year to feel like. So I grabbed the book I'd intended to use as my 2015 vision journal, a couple of magazines, and started cutting out anything that appealed to me. Then I glued them all into a mish mash collage. Anyone can do this, these color or treasure boards; no artistic ability required. 

M did one with me. Let's compare a grown up's vision of what a new year should feel like to a 6 year old's:

This is how I'd like 2015 to feel: splashes of bold, wild color with some calm, soothing ones.

This is how M wants 2015 to feel: cute like a lion, pretty like Oprah and whoever that other woman is. With a bar code.

Interesting. I asked M: why the barcode? And she shrugged her shoulders and said, "Cause I like them." Later, I posted that picture in the comments section of Liz's color board Facebook post (I'm just going to call her Liz now because we're totally writer BFFs in my head, and she can just go ahead and call me "A" since it's very difficult to shorten "Amy"). Some sweet soul came in afterwards and said she loved what M had created, that she saw strength and courage and felt the bar code symbolizes a certain "can't be bought" attitude, and congratulated my sweet girl on growing up into a strong, courageous, beautiful leader.

I love other human beings like this, and it's one example of why I picked Liz Gilbert to be my ultimate writer hero--she attracts nice people. I am very, very into nice people and people who attract nice people to themselves these days. I would like to be surrounded, in 2015, by nice people who help one another, who are sources of strength and courage and good attitudes. I would like to be one of these people as well. I am no longer interested in being judgmental or mean or closed. 2015 is going to be a doozy for me, for Miss M, for a lot of people I love, and I am desperately seeking Niceness right now. With splashes of wild color here and there.

.....It does occur to me that being strung out on Twitter may be why I'm suddenly into very, very nice people these days. Have you ever spent a day, a week, a month strung out on Twitter? It's full of snarky people--who are very smart and very funny, but many times do it at the expense of other human beings who are having a really hard time. Hey Humanity, can we stop being snarky at other people's expense when they're having a hard time? There is a fine line between poking fun at someone's eccentricities, with the implicit understanding we are ALL a bit wonky and deserving of being poked fun at, and just being mean because you need to feel better about your own eccentricities.

On the flip side, you can find some really compelling, wonderful people to follow on Twitter. I found a really lovely website today called The Bitter Southerner (I identify with the title...except for the fact I'm really more of a bitter Southern Yankee) and a story on it titled "We're All Freaks."  The story is about The Clermont Lounge, specifically the ladies of The Clermont Lounge.

If you aren't from Atlanta, you may not know about this place. When I met C and we started dating, he lived about a mile down the road from The Clermont Lounge. It's an Atlanta icon. C lived in a very upscale apartment complex in a neighborhood/area Atlanta calls Poncey-Highland. Atlanta's very odd in many many ways, and one of these ways is that its neighborhoods class up then class down sporadically, with no rhyme or reason. Like, you'll be driving and driving and going: ooh! Look at all these lovely, posh houses and then BAM! you're locking your doors because there's a crackhead on the corner beating on windows of cars stopped at red lights, drinking from a paper bag, offering blow jobs for $5. I've never seen anything like it--I'd leave C's apartment at 6 AM to go to work, drive past several expensive, nice townhomes until the road dead ended into a grocery store parking lot everyone here calls "Murder Kroger" (called that because once upon a time 1000 years ago, two people got shot in front of it--and also, this is how Atlantans locate one other: "drive past Murder Kroger til you see the Big Chicken. Then take a right at Disco Kroger and that'll take you to Spaghetti Junction. If you find yourself OTP, you've gone too far." It's a language only we speak, and you have to live here for about 10 years before any of it makes any sense). I'd take a right at Murder Kroger, go past the police station, and then turn left on the crackhead corner to get to I-85 and a sense of normalcy.

At any rate. The Clermont Lounge is at the bottom of, and behind, The Clermont Hotel. The hotel was once a swanky place to live, if you were an upper middle class flapper. Ninety years later, it was pretty much bedbug-ridden and a place crackheads on the corner took their $5 clients to (though it's getting a big update now, and let me tell you: people here were freaking their freak because there was a moment when rumors about closing down The Clermont Lounge were flying around--it's safe, in spite of all the failed health inspections).

So The Clermont Lounge is behind the hotel, down a steep hill. It's a dive bar, with strippers, and its claim to fame are its ladies of the night (and sometimes day) with names like Blondie who can do things like crush beer cans between their breasts. Celebrities like to go here, for the sheer freakishness of it all. (I know for a fact Lady Gaga does.) So do non-celebrities. And strippers? Well, this is where strippers go to die. (No, actually, I'm just kidding--quite frankly, The Clermont Lounge welcomes all working ladies, regardless of age, ethnicity, ability, etc. And I read something long ago about the strippers getting to keep all of their earnings, which pretty much makes it stripper nirvana).

I've been to The Clermont Lounge three times. It's not really a place you want to go to every week--I mean, you can. But they'll take all your money, and then you might have to work there. So I've gone twice with friends, once with C. The first time, we didn't stay long--it was a lot to take in but mostly one of the girls in the group got freaked out by bare nipples (as if she didn't have her own? weird). The second time, I think there was a group of rowdy frat boys there and that made one of us nervous (okay, fine. It was me. I was nervous). I'm far more freaked out by rowdy frat boys than bare nipples, let me tell you. The third time I went with C, and that time was when I kind of fell in love with the place. I'm not really sure how I feel about it. I mean, it's a strip club. On principle, I generally disagree with the concept, because I disagree with how we treat women and use their bodies and put them in situations in which they feel using their bodies to make money is their only option. I don't like this, I abhor it. And yet. I think The Clermont Lounge is rather kind to its workers, in terms of these situations and the ones they have found themselves in. And so I sort of give it a pass? I guess? I'm still sorting out my feelings about it. I certainly don't want my daughter working there, and I harbor tremendous feelings of white collar privilege guilt about having landed the Life Lottery with options so I don't have to work there. And yet, I'm okay with it if other women want to work there because that's their choice and what if they have no other options? There are worse jobs they could be doing. This is what my internal conflict looks like about lots of things, by the way.

What I do know is that it is rife with stories. If you need some good characters or character development ideas, you should grab a friend or five (it doesn't seem to be a place one should venture into alone, at least not the first time) and go here.

Have you ever seen the movie WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? with Betty Davis? There's a stripper there who I feel channels Baby Jane very well, and she enchanted me. Later, I found out I had gotten to interact with THE Porsha, who often likes to dress up like Red Riding Hood or Little Bo Peep (which is who she was that night) to dance. I met her in the ladies' room--I was applying more lipstick (you just DO this, when you go to this place) and marveling at the rotting Las Vegas feel of even the restroom, when she came in. She told me I was pretty and asked if I'd come alone. I thought she was another odd bar patron hitting on me, and let her know: nope, I'm taken. She was sweet, and told me to have a good time and to be careful.

About 20 minutes later, she was doing her Little Bo Peep burlesque in front of me.

So here's the set up: you go in, and you need about 5 minutes to breathe it all in, get your bearings. The bar is also where the strippers work--you sit and drink, watching ladies of all shapes and sizes in various forms of undress in front of you--the bar is circular with a catwalk in the middle. This is where Porsha danced for me. She didn't take much of anything off. I figured this was because she was old school and back in the day, strippers didn't necessarily strip--an ankle or a bare shoulder were considered risque. But then? At the end of her dance? Right in front of me she lifted up her dress to reveal: NO UNDERPANTS. It was like looking at the sun, y'all. I mean, seriously: it wasn't anything I haven't seen before...I just wasn't expecting it after a rather tame burlesque show. I'd have been fine had someone clued me in that was her big finale.

(Side story: once, when I was 8, I was lying on the floor at my paternal grandmother's house watching TV. My grandmother bent over me in her nightgown to pick up something from the living room floor and I got an eyeful, and to this day when I think of my grandmother, this is pretty much all I can see. Psychological trauma. The Clermont Lounge with Porsha incident was very, very similar: Unexpected and jarring, though not unfamiliar.)

Afterwards, off stage, she came and asked if I'd enjoyed her show. (I'd given her a $10 bill after the flashing, in a shell-shocked stupor). I said I had and she told me to come back any time; she liked pretty, nice girls. And I have to say, in spite of the shell shock from the unexpected, I was completely bewitched by her at that point because I could tell: this was a genuinely sweet human being who was making Life work for her in the best way she knew how. I was amused and flattered and if I'd had a $20 bill on me, I'd also have given her that. But it was fine since she'd already had gotten all my dollars.

So I get why The Clermont is a draw for all kinds of people. I understand why it's iconic. Down South here, we not only embrace our freaks, we love them up. We stick them on the porch in a rocking chair, put a glass of MeeMaw's best sweet tea in their right hand, give them a hand fan for the other, and talk about them gently behind their backs. We say things like "Bless old Bubba Junior's heart. He done got the head sickness. 'Member when he was a li'l ol' thang and dang near kilt himself jumpin' off Brown Taylor Bridge? But y'all know his mama and granddaddy done the same thang so guess he just gets it honest." Southerners mourn their crazy and accept it, all at once. It's why Faulkner got away with writing A ROSE FOR EMILY and nobody down South even blinks an eye at that tale--everybody here knows a Miss Emily. They either live down the road from her, someone married her into the family, or she's their aunt. And she is what she is, and so be it...while people up North still analyze stories like this to pieces because seriously, William Faulkner, what the fuck?!

So don't make fun of people having a harder time in life than you. If you're laughing with them, it's funny. But I've read things where people just go to laugh at these women, and that's not funny. They don't take themselves seriously, but that doesn't mean they have the kinds of hearts you can break.

I have no idea what this has to do with color vision boards. I do see the connection between getting strung out on Twitter. Don't get strung out on Twitter, kids. It leads to flashing strangers at bars. Make a color board instead. And get some sleep. (O! Sleep! Thou art elusive these days. I'm typing this at almost 3 AM. If I don't start sleeping better, I'm going to get  put in a rocking chair on a porch with a sweet tea while people write crazy stories about me behind my back.)

Here. Go watch Anthony Bourdain be mesmerized by Atlanta's most famous stripper/poet/beer can crusher:

the eve of christmas eve list.

1. I watched AFTER THE FALL last night. Because I'm a parent who can't afford a lot of babysitters and so I can't get to an actual theater, most of my movies for grown ups have to be viewed late at night, fervently, on pay per view or DVR'd or streamed via Netflix. This is no way to live. There's nothing I can really do about it at the moment, but this is no way to live.

At any rate, may I suggest you watch this beautiful movie? It is finely nuanced and thought-provoking, and I wish I had someone to talk with, to argue with, for hours about it. (This is why I need a cinema date with a movie professional. I'll buy dinner.) If you like super exciting scenes with blood and guts and stuff getting blown up, and very defined outcomes to your movies, this will not be for you. (There is, however, a gun shooting scene for all you crazy gun nuts.) However! If you are a cultured and nuanced and very very thoughtful human being who is able to think critically and maintain an open-mind, then go see this! Go see it. It's playing in an indie theater somewhere near you, I bet. (Or it's on pay per view and you can watch late at night when everyone is asleep and then we can compare notes on having to do that, too.)

The only thing I didn't like about this movie is the fact they changed its original title from THINGS PEOPLE DO to AFTER THE FALL. I wish they'd left the original title because there's (I thought) a pivotal scene that sort of just defines the whole movie, in which one of the characters tells the other character (I'm paraphrasing, because it's been 24 hours since seeing it) "There's no virtue and there's no sin, just things people do." 

There's a thing short story writers and novelists sometimes do within their stories that reflect the overarching theme of the whole story and if it has a term I've forgotten it but I know it when I see it: they'll write a sentence or a paragraph, a beautifully crafted and lovely sentence or paragraph, somewhere inside the story that sort of defines the entire piece. It's a sign of an artistic soul, and I've never ever been able to accomplish it in my own writing. 

Philip Roth's THE HUMAN STAIN had a really beautiful passage in it that does this:

“We leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint. Impurity, cruelty, abuse, error, excrement, semen - there’s no other way to be here. Nothing to do with disobedience. Nothing to do with grace or salvation or redemption. It’s in everyone. Indwelling. Inherent. Defining. The stain that is there before its mark.” 

This movie's "things people do" scene does that, and that's quality writing and you know how I am about quality writing. Plus, I love when that happens. I feel like I'm in the hands of someone who's way better at this than I am. (Most everyone who's been published or produced is, I sense.)

So please see it if you have a chance. And if you do, and want to discuss it (the open-ended ending; why's and why not's; the themes of virtue vs. sin, man vs. self, man vs. God,etc and so forth), call or text or tweet or facebook or email me! My six year old is completely disinterested. She just wants to talk Santa right now.

2a-I finished my Christmas shopping today. Oh my god. Sweet Jesus on a parking lot popsicle stick. What a day. What a DAY! The mall was the most relaxing part, because I got there before all the other shopping humans awoke. The cashier at Justice (a diabolical store--not only is it set up to attract my daughter like a fly to honey, it is also set up to make me want to buy all the sparkly things and completely live out the childhood no one born in the 70s ever got to have...we only had polyester. These kids! They have SPANGLES. And freaking cute stuff with their initials on them. With soft feathers. THAT LIGHT UP) agreed with me: it's better to get to the store before all the other shopping humans.

2b-I came THISCLOSE to drop kicking another person in the grocery store parking lot. That's when last minute shopping day shit got real. Literally, there were NO spots. When I finally got one, 20 minutes later, I entered the store (on a tight schedule because I had to pick up Miss M from basketball camp so I was slightly stressed and pressured) and immediately found myself navigating a store full of oblivious people shopping for dinner in groups of 10. All standing in front of the condiments, spending hours debating which type of mustard to get: French's? The store brand? I hear Heinz makes a tasty one. Oh, but what about Dijon? Maybe we should go for a Dijon this year. OH MY FREAKING GOD, JUST EFFING PICK ONE!!!!!!

I had to grit my teeth, breathe in with the good, out with the bad, remind myself what Baby Jesus would want me to do in this situation, and use my nice words.

2c-But not in the parking lot, when leaving! I put my bags in my trunk, got in my car, and answered a text message before driving. Because answering texts while driving is dangerous and illegal. But I wasn't fast enough for a woman who wanted my spot. There were two other spots in the row, but she wanted MINE. And so she repeatedly honked her horn at me. And I could feel my tightly wound rage beginning to unwind. So I casually finished my text message and slowly turned the car on and sloooooooooooowly backed out of the spot (because remember? I'm totally passive aggressive). And then I passed her and she gave me an unfriendly wave. I wiped at the corner of my eye in return. With my middle finger.

I'm not proud of it. I mean, I know it's Christmas and that was the opposite of what Baby Jesus (and Ghandi and Dr. King and Mother Teresa) would do. But I felt that response was a lot better than jumping out of my car and bashing in her passenger window with my bare hands like I actually wanted to. I bet she went inside and stood in the baking goods aisle in front of the cake mixes debating between Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines for an hour. 

3-Phew. Thanks so much for letting me get that out of me! I really needed to rant to someone.

4-I'm not religious. I believe in Something, which I call God for convenience and to not get strange stares and threats from the Bible Belt Christians. But I'm Christian culturally, and so this is one of my favorite holidays. I love all the tacky lights people put up in their yards, particularly the ones that spell out JESUS IS THE REASON. People in the South get so frickin' defensive; they act like everyone's out to get them at this time of year. I disagree--this is clearly the time of year Christians own the entire world. All the marketers bow down to them. Stop being so paranoid. Jesus wasn't, and he totally should have been.

One time I drove by this house that had spelled out SINNERS REPENT on its roof, a very elaborate and lit up Nativity scene in the yard, and there was an entire series of lit up crucifixes outlining the entire place, and one had a crucified Christ on it. It was delightful. In a really creepy, CARRIE by Stephen King kind of way. 

5-But I love the story of the Nativity. I think it's a nice story. I think it's a metaphor for possibilities and rebirth and innocence and hope. I think there may have been a real Mary and a real Joseph and a real Jesus, but I remain skeptical about the magical bits. And this is coming from someone who really, really, really wants there to be magical bits to life. I don't always read The Bible, but when I do, I read it metaphorically. I think a lot of our planet's problems could be solved quickly if everyone read their religious texts metaphorically.

6-My favorite holiday movies of all time go in this order: LOVE ACTUALLY (which feeds all my anglophiliac needs), A CHRISTMAS STORY (because you'll shoot your eye out), A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS (because, hello! Charlie Brown). There are no other holiday shows worth watching. Maybe Baryshnikov in THE NUTCRACKER. When he was young and luscious, back in the 70s. 

7-Melissa got her picture taken with Santa. We always go to Bass Pro Shop's Santa. First, he's free. Second and most importantly, he's such an awesome Santa! Full, real beard, really really blue eyes. Very kind. There's a wait--you go in, get a Get In Line ticket, and come back in 2 hours for your picture. And when you get back, there's always a huge line to wait in...you don't get in right away. But this Santa, he doesn't even care about that--if a kid wants to give him a list, he takes it and puts it in his pocket. If a kid wants to sit and talk to him for a bit, he sits and listens. He says to the children things like, "Come on up here, baby." and "Here you go, darlin'" as he hands them a little candy cane.

My grand scheme, for the last 5 years, has been to have M's picture taken with this guy every year so that when she starts doubting Santa's existence, I can whip out all these pictures and show her: See? Same guy. Every year! 

Damn you, Bass Pro Shop 2014. You messed up my entire scheme. Now I have an out of sync Santa.

This year, when we went in, we got our 2 hour ticket. We walked around the mall, had lunch, rode the carousel, yada yada. Then we went back to Santa's Bass Pro Shop. And there was no line (this was the giant red flag something was amiss). One of the elves goes, "Do you guys want to go ahead? There's no line." And I was all, Yes please! And so we went. And my heart fell.

He was a nice Santa. He was kind and sweet. His beard was real. But he was very, very old. He wasn't the youngish-old Santa. And he was too skinny. And he was out of little candy canes, damnit. And now we have an out of sync Santa. Dagnabit.

8-I've been sick. My mom is sick. So no Christmas Eve service tomorrow night. It's the only time I go to church. I like the very end of the whole thing, the part where they turn off all the lights, and we stand around lighting one another's candles, and sing SILENT NIGHT a capella. It's the whole point of Christmas, I feel. That moment completely negates the rude shoppers, the impatient parking lot drivers, the disappointing Santas, the entire craziness of the year before. It's like the moment in a story or a movie where the narrator or a character sums up the entire reason for, the overriding theme to, the story: this is about light, shining through darkness. And redemption. And hope. In spite of what people in parking lots do under duress.

And then the next day? You get to open a crap load of presents! (That's the Three Wise Men part.)

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwaanza (nobody celebrates that), Season's Greetings. May the rest of your 2014 nights be filled with quiet moments of light.

inappropriate traveler tales.

I wish I had a reason to be at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, like, every day. I've seen on Twitter Jason Isaacs appears to be using it as a layover place (place of laying over?), at least while he shoots DIG (on USA!) in New Mexico. It is the busiest airport on the planet, I hear. Quite frankly, I think he or his manager or whoever bravely books Lucius Malfoy onto flights has good taste, sending him to us. I'm unashamedly biased, because it's the airport I've come to know the best--I've been in it, through it, and outside it thousands of times. It's got its quirks, for sure. But every time I'm there, I feel like I'm home. Is that weird? Our airport has a very "Atlanta feel" to it. For lack of a better term on account of it's after 9 PM and I've tested small children's brains to death all week and so mine is now fried, too. (For all its quirks, Atlanta has wormed its way permanently into my heart; I love this big ol' smoggy, too-much-damn-country-music, traffic jammed up city of Tea Party Republicans.)

Anyway, he's tweeted about weirdos on Atlanta-bound planes asking for selfies at inappropriate moments (we do draw eccentrics like magnets, Jason), and people have posted pictures of him in Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, graciously taking selfies with them. He always seems very good-natured and kind in regards to this...I'd be very: only if my make up and hair are okay and I'm not having a fat day, okay? about it. (In fact, if I ever run into Jason Isaacs and he asks if I want a selfie, this is exactly what I will say to him.) 

Hey, remember when you could walk your loved ones right up to a departing gate and hang out with them until the plane boarded? Those were the days, right? Now travelers have to go through a labyrinth of security and they herd the non-travelers picking up the travelers into an airport version of a cattle pen at a slaughterhouse for humans. Everyone waits in one large crowd together, mooing aimlessly, and then there's a stampede as the travelers slowly come up and off the 5000 foot incline/escalator. I refuse to participate in this--if you're coming in, and I'm picking you up, Hartsfield-Jackson has a very nice cell phone parking lot for me to sit in the quiet comfort and privacy of my car whilst enjoying Damien Rice songs and waiting for you to ride the train, the escalator, deal with baggage claim, and walk out the front doors into the wilds of Atlanta. Call me once your bags are in your hand and I'll swing around and get you. And then we'll go sit in a nice, smoggy traffic jam and I'll school you on why you sound like a big, uncool nerd every time you call it HOTlanta. 

(Stop calling us that, everybody. First off, we're STEAMYlanta or SMOGGYlanta or OVERCROWDEDlanta or THESESTREETLAYOUTSMAKENOFUCKINGSENSElanta. Second, if you must go for cutesy, then might I suggest something more fitting like CocaColaville? Or Peachtreewannabe Town? Although A-Town works nicely if you'd like to sound like a rapper, or try "The ATL" if you feel you're more hip hop.)

One time? At Hartsfield-Jackson when I was headed to Phoenix, my brother and I got to watch a barefoot, 400-pound woman wearing a mini-mini-micro-skirt and way too small thong underwear bend over repeatedly to pick up peanuts she dropped on the floor. And since I can hear your brain thinking it: YES. Yes, she DID eat them. Slowly and deliberately. I'm horrified just remembering it. (I am also shuddering at the many memories I have of negotiating O'Hare International Airport, which is exactly what you do from the moment you step off a plane there: negotiate. For all its quirks, I think if you have to go through O'Hare more than ten times, you really come to appreciate a place like Hartsfield-Jackson.)

Nowadays, everyone has to practically strip AND take their shoes off AND taste any breast milk they brought with them AND go through those x-ray machines where questionably educated strangers can see you completely naked. What I'm saying is, thanks, you stupid airplane terrorists. You've turned us all into barefoot, 400 lb women who bend over repeatedly and eat peanuts off the floor. Hope you're happy now.

Speaking of traveling: I'm traveling tomorrow! And not by plane--woo! This time tomorrow, my feet will be in the sand, and an adult beverage will be at my side. I am taking some good books, this laptop, and my ghost hunter skillz (I don't have ghost hunter skillz). The cabin we are renting has bits and pieces of Ft. Skivner in it, and it was built at the turn of the century. I am certain there will be plenty of things to write about. And several opportunities for one bad poetry jam.

More important than all of that? Magic Mike XXL is being filmed ON Tybee Island! Which is where I shall be plunking my sandy feet. It's true! People magazine had a picture of a shirtless Joe Manganiello tossing a ball on Tybee Island. I suppose he could have been tossing a ball in Destin, Florida or Atlantic City, New Jersey or Malibu, California. But it was in People. And if People magazine says it's true, well then. ....Y'all! My friends and I could be extras! I could be in a real dang movie! Everyone has to get their start somewhere. (As long as my make up and hair are okay and I'm not having a fat day.) 

crowd rage.

Let it go! Let it go! (my mantra yesterday)

Miss M, C, and I went to a Fall Festival yesterday. We like parades and face painting and all that. I go for the people watching, of course. This festival was in metro Atlanta, which just doesn't have the same great characters that, say, downtown Atlanta has; the people out in the sticks are pretty washed down. I'm not judging; I'm one of these washed-down-looking characters--I am nondescript, boringly normal-looking and acting, and I like to blend. Blur. Something--basically, I don't like to be the center of attention. 

But I like to watch people who don't mind a little being watched! And that's why I love stuff like this. 

But I have a slight issue at big, crowded places: crowd rage. My friend Patresa Hartman came up with this term awhile ago, and I am now sharing it with you. Crowd rage. It's when you're in tight spaces with a ton of different people, and the vast majority of the people seem pretty oblivious to the fact that you exist, to the fact that anyone besides them exists, that this is their world and they are the stars and we're all just the extras standing around to make them look good. This enrages me. 

Which is so weird, because (a) I'm a pacifist--I don't like fights or war, (b) I avoid conflict at all costs, and (b) I love my fellow human beings with all my heart. But when I am in a situation where I can't move, and you are clogging up the pathway to my freedom and clearly, you could move and change this but you're in your own little world and we're all just standing here on the edges of that world waiting to serve you? Oh my god. I could punch you. I really have an intense itch to haul off and punch a person. 

It's the only time I feel violence--out in public, in clogged up situations, surrounded by people who are oblivious to others' existence and plight. That's crowd rage.

I'm telling you all of this because I had a lot of crowd rage yesterday. A lot. A lot. It was drizzly and wet, and there wasn't a lot of space to move.

Also, when other people have crowd rage and I can tell they have crowd rage, it just intensifies mine and now we're all enraged at each other, but silently, and in really unhealthy and passive aggressive ways. I wonder if this is how terrorism starts? I bet this is how terrorism starts.

Example1: yesterday, M and I were trying to get on the Tilt-a-Whirl ride. You have to be so tall to ride by yourself, which she's not and wouldn't ride alone anyway, so I bought 6 tickets and got in line with her. We waited, patiently, and then it was our turn to ride. But right before us was a family of kids all riding together. Except when they got to the platform to get on, it was discovered two of the kids were too short to ride without an adult and the man wouldn't let them on. So I had to stand there and listen to their mom, who didn't have any tickets or an armband and had no desire to ride any rides, scream at and just generally be nasty to the ride worker (who was very calm and obviously used to being screamed at by entitled moms) about how she'd bought an expensive arm band for them to ride any of the rides and it hadn't been a problem on that ride over there or that one over there, just let them on! just let them on! She'd talk to someone about him if he didn't let her children ride! She'd make sure he didn't have a job within the hour if he didn't let those kids on this ride!

And I could feel my crowd rage surging, deep from within my depths. Because here's the thing: we're all being forced to wait because this mom is an idiot. You can clearly see there are sticks with heights to all the rides and they can't let certain height people on by themselves, or on at all, and that's for safety reasons. And the reason your two kids got on that ride over there and that one over there was probably because they met the height requirements. And stop trying to skirt the rules. And stop acting like you own this carnival because who are you? Bring enough money for your own arm band to avoid situations like this. Or think ahead and don't put your kids on rides they aren't tall enough for. Either way, stop screaming at this poor man who's just there to press some buttons. That's his job. He didn't make the rules, but he could get fired for not enforcing them and your kid could die. I highly doubt he's going to get fired because he wouldn't obey YOU. So move on.

I muttered all of that to myself as she kept screaming. And I felt embarrassed for her children, who were clearly trying to sink into the platform and disappear. I'm sure a lot of lessons were learned that day in their little hearts, lesson 1 being: Mommy's nuts. 

Crowd rage.

Example 2: standing in line to get a chicken gyro. It's hard, at these festival things, to figure out where the line ends, and if this even is a line. So you queue up, praying you're in the right spot, stand for about 30 minutes and find out you were in line for the corn dogs. So I'm standing in line, hoping I got into the right one, and a lady who'd been in the corn dog line in front of me earlier sidled up next to me to ask if this was the gyro line. 

I'd been watching her, earlier, people watching her--trying to figure her out. She looked like someone who smokes a lot of pot and drops acid frequently, but doesn't want anyone to know that, so she dresses like she and her family just love the outdoors and she's shops monthly at LL Bean. Now, she's trying to steal MY spot in the gyro line. What!? And so I told her, yes, I thought this was the gyro line, but I wasn't completely sure. She then proceeds to scream, across the food truck area to her husband (or whoever he was), in my ear that she was getting a gyro. 

It was the closest I've come all year to hauling off and attacking another human being. Aggravated assault, I think the police would have called it. And she did cut in front of me, and I did understand--for that brief moment in time--why some of my strong-willed 2nd graders occasionally get into physical kerfuffles with the others while walking in line. I plan on telling them that I get them now, and that if I can stop myself from kicking someone's shins repeatedly, so can they. It's totally doable. Hard! But doable. 

Crowd rage.

The thing about crowds is this: I'm an introvert. I'm not really a shy, can't-talk-to-strangers introvert. I mean, I don't go up to strangers and just talk to them or anything. But if we're in a situation and a stranger talks to ME, I'm entirely pleasant and can carry on a nice conversation about the weather if I have to (I hate having conversations about the weather though--let's just talk religion, sex, or politics--those are much more fun). 

I'm just an introvert, someone who's completely fine being alone and quiet, going to movies alone, reading a book for hours, not talking, etc. But I love getting out and about in the world and being social. I heart parties, I heart a good party a lot. But afterwards, I find myself depleted and exhausted and I kind of need some alone time. It's nothing personal, I just need to decompress from people.

So normally, I'd spend today decompressing. But later today, I'm going to the theatre (please say that in a fancy accent) with some beloved friends to celebrate a one of my favorite human being's birthday. We are eating out a place that serves absinthe drinks. I have never had a drink with absinthe in it before, but I plan on trying one because I will need more effort to control my crowd rage, which was at an all-time high by the time we went home yesterday. I was all love love love when we went to the festival, and by the time I walked in the door I was grumpy girl Sartre. There was an ecard I saw once that said something like "I may look calm but inside my head I've punched you three times." That was me yesterday when I got home. I had plans to grocery shop and get some grading done, but I needed to decompress. 

I'm hoping theater patrons are less oblivious and the absinthe helps. (I don't know what absinthe tastes like--I may end up just drinking a lot of margaritas instead. Margaritas make me much friendlier.)

ghostly tales with some side stories.

May I share my recent weekly Rob Brezny Pisces forecast with you, reader(s)? (I'm sharing because my suspicion is that Rob actually writes for ALL the zodiac, meaning: you could close your eyes, land your finger on any one of his astrology sign predictions, and find great wisdom you could apply to yourself. Just because I'm not an Aries doesn't mean I can't act like one...if I think it'll get me some place nice.) 

At any rate, here's what Rob says to do this week:

For a long time, an Illinois writer named

ArLynn Leiber Presser didn't go out much. She had 325 friends on

Facebook and was content to get her social needs met in the virtual

realm. But then she embarked on a year-long project in which she sought

face-to-face meetings with all of her online buddies. The experiment

yielded sometimes complicated but mostly interesting results. It took her

to 51 cities around the world. I suggest we make her your inspirational

role model for the coming weeks, Pisces. In at least one way, it's time for

you to move out of your imagination and into the real world. You're

primed to turn fantasies into actions, dreams into practical pursuits.

Isn't that nice? Let's go out and turn our imagination into the real world, Internet! Get off Twitter, turn off Instagram, stop stalking people on Facebook and get out there! Turn  your fantasies into actions, your dreams into practical pursuits.

Here's an example of how I did that this week with writing:

Some friends and I are going to Tybee Island/Savannah next month, and two of us are intensely fascinated by ghosts and hauntings. So of course we're taking a ghost hunting tour. You can't go to the most haunted city in America and not do this. If I find out you've gone to the Savannah area and NOT gone on a ghost hunting tour? Oh, we are so done. Don't even come back here! I mean it. And NO, I don't care if you're terrified of icy, invisible fingers trailing down the back of your neck. Are you for real?! That's a story you can tell random strangers you meet in pubs and subways. Now stop being a skeptic scaredy cat and get into that pitch black room where the man was butchered 150 years ago and has been heard growling ever since! GO!

So I was online looking for times/dates/suggestions/etc for ghost tours for when we're in town, when an idea for a story suddenly popped into my head, beginning with a few big What If? questions: What if there was a girl who was in love with a ghost? And what if that ghost loved her back, but in a really creepy, obsessive way? And what if the hauntings in that girl's small town started to suddenly and mysteriously pick up, in very undeniable ways? Ways that captured the attention of people who may or may not have that girl's (and that town's) best interests at heart? And how could a ghost's creepy obsessive love for a girl and a town play into that?

I'd read a story like that. You might not. You might read those what if questions and go: snore, Amy. And that's fine. But I'd read a story like that. And also, you clearly don't understand: GHOSTS ARE REAL. Stop messing around and get with the program. 

I took about an hour and developed a whole story outline. An outline that I'd call more outline-ish, because quite frankly I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to very long novel writings. My craft is short story. But I'm going to attempt a novel. And I'm going to start attempting it as soon as parent teacher conferences are over.

Hey, speaking of--can we talk for a moment, Internet?

I've noticed some trendings over the last several years in regards to how teachers are treated by the general public. Can we talk about that? Let's talk about Good vs Bad Ways to View Schools and Teachers and What NOT to Do (I promise I'll swing this back around to my ghost writing content at the end):

1-This may come as a shocking revelation/unexpected surprise/depression-inducing disappointment, but teachers are not babysitters. Yes, yes. I realize "YOUR" taxpayer money gets put in our paychecks, so maybe you feel like you should get to dictate to us how, when, where, and why we do our jobs and in what capacity. And also maybe you're a misogynist who has absolutely no respect for the teaching profession because the vast majority of its professionals happen to have two X chromosomes, and humans with two X chromosomes are supposed to babysit and bend over backwards to your every whim and command. 

If that's the case, let me school you a bit. Listen: "YOUR" taxpayer money also gets put into police officers', firefighters', postal workers', and public librarians' paychecks, too. Okay? We all enjoy certain services like paved roads, protection from criminals, being saved from burning buildings etc because we pool our monies into systems that do that for us. Sorry, i am NOT waking up at 3 AM to dump water on your burning house because you fell asleep smoking. We pay firefighters so we can sleep while the neighborhood burns down. 

But you don't walk up to firefighters and demand a drink of water from their fire hoses while they're putting out a forest fire, do you? No. And you don't walk up to a police officer and demand they arrest your neighbor because he keeps throwing his grass clippings onto your lawn. (All right, fine. Some people actually do this. And the police write them a ticket with a hefty fine for wasting their crime fighting time.)

And NOBODY in America bothers postal workers anymore. I think we've all learned some hard lessons about what can happen to over stressed people who have to deliver a lot of mail.

So ditto for teachers. You can't just say: "Oh, my conference time is XX:XX, but I can't get there exactly at that time, so I'm just going to leave my kid at school. The teacher can watch him/her because it's what she/he does all day anyway. What's 2 more hours?" 

No. NO! Do not do this. First of all, I'm not sitting around after school diddling my fingers, wishing I had more kids to hang out with. I'd actually like to get up and go home and be with MY kid. But I have a J-O-B to do. So I'm grading papers, prepping for tomorrow's lessons, making parent contact phone calls, planning for future lessons, or--more than likely--filling out endless mounds of paperwork 21st century "new" education demands of me. I love your kid and monitor and safeguard and help your child and give your progeny my 110% from 8-3, but I got other stuff to do, too. This is a JOB.

2-You can't just...SHOW up at my door whenever you damn well feel like it. I'm sorry; it just doesn't work like that. Please don't put me in a position of having to be a rude meanie and tell you to go away. If you have a conference with me to talk about your kid on Thursday at 3:30, then that's the day and time you show up. Not Friday at 6:00 AM, getting all hot and bothered about the fact I'm still sleeping in bed in a different location. Not Wednesday at 3:00 because you happened to be in the area and what the hell? let's go for it. 

No. NO! Do not do this. Listen: you make appointments to see a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, an accountant, etc. What happens if you make your appointment with Dr. Gumbleed for Tuesday at 4:00 but you're done your grocery shopping early on Monday at 1:00, you're in Dr. G's area, and so you just show up at Dr. Gumbleed's office at 1:30, going, "Oh, yeah. I know my appointment's tomorrow, but I'm ready to see Dr. Gumbleed right now. So I'll just have a seat in his dental chair back there."

What?! Gumbleed and his teeth scrapers would throw your butt right out the door, and if I'm their 1:30 appointment, I'm helping them. 

Treat teachers like you'd treat your doctor, your dentist, your lawyer. Don't treat teachers like you'd treat the police, because the police can be scary. But treat teachers like you'd treat the police when they're at Starbucks or doing police charity work, and at their nicest.

Teachers are professionals. Highly trained, professionally degreed professionals. Don't know why your kid is drawing weird crap in all her family portraits? I've actually had training on why that happens. I can talk Piaget theories until you weep. I can tell you what a Kindergartner can/can't do developmentally, and all the way up through 3rd grade, which is where, for personal reasons, I decided to stop my expertise. 

Okay, public? That's your public service announcement from your friendly teacher rep, speaking on behalf of all underpaid, overworked teachers everywhere. We just want to be respected and treated like top notch professionals, that's all.

And for those of you with big complaints about bad apple teachers? Listen, it happens. Just like you'll run into crazy doctors who make you go: "What the hell kind of medical school did YOU go to?!", unfortunately you'll probably also run into teachers like that, too, once in awhile. It happens. That's Life. Bad hires happen.

But just because you had a bad apple teacher once (so did I--two, actually) or you saw something on FOX News or read something in your local editorial section about how teachers are such douchebag problems for society, don't approach all teachers like they're your personal servants and their classrooms are your living room to flop down in whenever you want to. 

My classroom is my office, just like what Bill Gates has except I personally make all my office decor and have a better color scheme and didn't pay a designer $10,000,000 to create it. Once every single person in the public gets clear on this, teacher stress will go down, WAY down. And that's for teachers in every country of the world; I read school news from the UK, and it sounds bad all over right now (but I will say the British seem to be far nicer when wet noodle slapping their teachers around; there are times I read stuff from the UK and say out loud: "Too bad America lost the Revolutionary War") (to be fair to my country: there are also times I read stuff from the UK and go: Phew! Close one!).

Speaking of too personal, can I jump way off track with one last this-has-nothing-to-do-with-anything-I-just-wrote-about story? But connected for me because I'm talking about inappropriate public behavior?

One time I was at a movie theater, and this chick sitting two seats down from me lifts up the armrests on both the seats between us and proceeds to pull out a blanket AND A PILLOW. She puts these down on the seats and stretches the eff out. On the movie theater seats! In the movie theater! 

I'm sorry, no. NO! That's why Netflix was invented. If you need to lie down to watch a movie, then you need to be in your house, in your bed, streaming Netflix movies. 

What is going ON, Human Beings of Planet Earth?! Get it together.

Okay. I'm done. Now I'm going to go work on my ghost hunting tale. There's a pirate involved. And he's SWARTHY. Which are the best kinds.