gluttony

Abdallah's Bakery and Restaurant on Hillcroft has a plate called, a "Half-Chicken Plate."
It is, literally, half of a chicken--honestly the body of a small game hen cleaved in half, thrown onto and flattened against a flaming grill, and served to you, intact.
It's Amazing.

true tales of fatness and woe

Often, my jeans receive compliments.
"Those are nice jeans."
"Thank you," I say.
"Where did you get them?"
"Some resale shop."
"Wow, what a great buy."
"Yes," I reply, "they are all I wear."
What I do not say in polite company is that, these days, (only six weeks into the school year) they are all I can wear. My other pants strain at the seams. Merely walking across my classroom might be enough to cause my hips to burst forth from the fabric. It would be like watching a baby whale emerge from the womb--my hips being the whale and my pants being the womb, of course.
Of course.
My second-hand Miss Sixties are indeed "nice." Somehow, they manage to run sensory interference between how my thighs appear and what my thighs are. I dwell thankfully behind the illusion.

My jeans: I hail thee. May there be many a pair like thee, and may it be my fortune to procure every last pair.

Continuation

My sister called me.

"Hey"
"Hey"
"How're your vital signs?"
"Flickering."
"Flickering?'
"Flickering."
"Well. I'll bring flowers (to your funeral)."
"Thanks."

Now, though I blog-lecture my cousin for not knowing to offer flowers at the mention of what is, apparently, my imminent demise -- it amuses me that my sister knows, instantly and without reflection, that this is the appropriate response.
"I'll bring flowers."
We are casual about my approaching death, flippant even.

We have such a warped sense of humor, my family and I.

after sleeping for 24 hours

Last night, my cousin came home to find me in my usual position--at the kitchen table, in front of my computer.
He asked, "What are you doing?"
Usually, I say, "Working." Last night, I said, "Looking up in-network doctors."
"You're still sick?"
"Yeah, I think so."
He placed his hand on my shoulder. "How do you feel?"
(Instantly) "I think I'm dying."
(Pause) "I'm not sure how to respond to that."

I generally respond with, "What flowers would you like?"
A wreath of red roses, please.

life and death

don't tell my mother, but: i was nearly killed driving to school--not once, but three, separate times.
i'm taking a day off from work.

AIMerous

JoieTang: jude law, by the way, is a beautiful creature
medolie: heck yeah he is
JoieTang: he's somewhat unearthly
medolie: i know
JoieTang: I mean, WHO looks like jude law?
JoieTang: why, jude law of course
JoieTang: but none other
medolie: it IS amazing
JoieTang: indeed
JoieTang: i think i will put this conversation on my blog, as it will prove me not quite as asexual as i believe myself to be

straight up

I am convinced that I never work --
for, each month, I earn a mere $10 more than my personal expenses.
However, my schedule belies this assertion, because, today, I was at school from 6:21AM until 9PM.

There is something very awry in the world of education.

the year 2004

I have heard tell of a commercial in which the women are counting carbs and one says, "I licked the butter off my toast."

It's a sign of the times.

"...Things fall apart.
The center cannot hold.
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world..."
--Yeats

movie theatre protocol

As a worshipper of Zhang Yimou (director of such movies as Raise the Red Lantern, To Live, Not One Less, The Road Home, and Happy Days), I highly recommend watching Hero on the big screen.
Towards the end of Hero, last night, someone's cell phone went off. Completely absorbed, I barely registered the ring. Not so, the boy to my left. A ripple went through his body; there was an agitated clenching of a fist, and as the guilty party walked out of the movie theatre, the boy suddenly reached into his pocket and pitched his spare change at the guilty party's back.
He missed.
But beware.
Beware all ye of the offending cell phone.

random

that i am.

insomnia

(muffled rage)

It is 1:10AM, and I cannot sleep.

It is 1:20 AM, and I am staring at the computer screen.
Tonight, I am breaking my personal blog protocol. I am breaking with my near ethical dedication to keeping things light.
I wonder sometimes at this ache in my head and at the other aches at the base of my neck and in the space between my left shoulder blade and spine. There seems some correlation between the fact that this aching happens in the gaps between one thing and another--at the temples, where the skin is stretched over hollows in the skull, etc--and the fact that I feel in-between . . . things, in-between people, homes, self and self.
It's a terrible cliche, I know, to complain of feeling that one is in-between things, that one is neither one thing or another; it's a terrible cliche to complain of being lonely. So many people are lonely, and when so many complain of the same illness, it becomes not so much an illness but a condition and then not so much a condition but a fact of life.
I know this, but still--I don't want these to be facts in my life, this aching and this feeling that I am not one thing or another. Which is yet another cliche, I'm sure. And this writing it all out, on a blog, at nearly 2AM, that too, is a cliche.

To hell with cliches.

I have been thinking, lately, that being a cliche is not as bad as all that. Perhaps to be cliche is to be human, for being a cliche is to feel something or do something that many people feel and do. It means that you might be simliar to someone else. I know, shocking.
No, being a cliche is not so much the problem as a cliched phrase, because cliched speech and writing excuses people from thinking about what their words mean. Using a cliche is escapist, because cliches are allusions, and, in more statements of the obvious, when we use an allusion we never address something directly, only hint at something that everyone supposedly knows. Thus, we are not required to invest in what we hear or say.
When one uses cliched speech, another person instantly "understands" because it alludes to a "general human condition" and then no one thinks any more of it. We sympathize, but "It's fine/We're fine/They're fine," and then we go about our days, supposing all is well because, well, nothing is out of the ordinary. Cliched phrases are word bandaids. And they are to be hated, because they mask us, the cliches, the humans.

So, really, let me revise. To hell with cliched phrases and up with cliches.

Good night.

a simple pleasure

buying books.
buying books is a simple pleasure.
it makes me giddy.

Spanish III Pick-up lines

Over the summer, my friend Eric went to Spain and proved inventive with his Spanish III skills.

"Hola Mujer. Quiero tu bolsas de leches. Quieres vener con mi?"

(Eyebrows up and down)

He was hot with the Spanish ladies.

Bathroom

Today, I tell my students about how, growing up, I shared a bathroom with my siblings. We were beginning House on Mango Street.
"When we read House on Mango Street, we have to understand that the details are sometimes showing us something that the author does not say directly. For example, why does the main character want her dream house to have three bathrooms?"
Ricardo Zuniga offers, "Because right now her house only has one bathroom?"
"Exactly. Now, what is she trying to show us with this comparison?"
(Blank stares)
"When I was in high school, I shared a bathroom with 3 siblings. While I was taking a shower, my little sisters were brushing their teeth. Then I would yell, 'I'm getting out!' and they would run out of the bathroom and close the door while I got out and put a towel on and then they would run back in to continue brushing their teeth but then my brother would have to pee, so they would run out again, still brushing their teeth and he would pee and then let them back in so they could finally spit. Then, they started washing their faces, but by this time I was dressed and wanted to brush my teeth. So, you have three girls at the bathroom counter. Two are washing their faces and the third one is trying to spit. My brother can't brush his teeth yet, so he has to wait until his sisters are finished before he can come in and do his thing, which he does, at the end, five minutes after we had to leave."
Ricardo is giggling uncontrollably by now.
"So, this sharing the bathroom thing--it was rather (pause) tight. Have you ever done something that made you feel tense? When you are tense, you wish that things were--"
Ricardo finishes for me, "Easier."
"Yes."
Yes.

Virtually Concise

A concise summation of my current life, again, in the form of an AIM conversation...which is yet another statement about the current state of my existence.

Tyler El: so
Tyler El: I'm guessing that you are working?
JoieTang: uh huh
Tyler El: fine
Tyler El: FINE!
Tyler El: I'll talk to you one day!!! You'll see!
JoieTang: I look forward to this day
JoieTang: And I certainly shall see
JoieTang: In fact, i hope i am there

Midnight in the Garden of Dominique and Joy

1:30AM on a school night--

JoieTang: My criterion for "acceptable" is "Are we transcending time and space, or are we just in it for the kicks?" That's always my thing. Why? I do not know.
JoieTang: I try to transcend time and space during my classes
JoieTang: and instead, I just wreak havoc and confusion.
JoieTang: That's just how my life works
JoieTang: I am a walking zoo
JoieTang: Please don't feed the animals
LillacPuma: You need sleep
JoieTang: Always

a word on holidays

Teachers like holidays too. We like them more than the students.
Don't tell the students.

the texas 12-step

step one: rid your home of temptation

imagine, if you will, how this would look to an observer.
a sunday afternoon. the car in front of you stops in front of a dumpster. a short, Chinese woman in a skirt and high heels opens the door, runs over to the dumpster. she has a half gallon ice cream carton in her hand. she hurls the half gallon container into the dumpster, runs back to her car, and drives away.
what should i have said to the driver of the car stopped behind me?

Quote

Quote of the day:
Loren Banach sometimes tells her students, "Yeah, your brain is mine."

Food from Southern India

On my way home from school (at 6PM on a Saturday, mind you) I decided I deserved food.
The decision to eat is most life-affirming.
And so, I stopped at a restaurant called Madras Pavilion, South Indian Vegetarian Cuisine. I had never, up until this point, eaten South Indian Vegetarian Cuisine, and the menu certainly reaffirmed this fact. The dinner special read "Pavilion Special: Choice of Iddly Vadai or Pongal Vadi and Dasai or Uthappam..."
Yes. Lost.
Apparently the above words represented food, and so, I finally settled on something called Dasai. The menu claimed it was a rice and lentil crepe. But, upon receiving my food, I discovered that the "rice and lentil crepe" was actually rice crust, the crunchy leftover layer Chinese children scrape off the bottom of a wok after making fried rice. I paid $7.03 to eat an entire plate of crispy rice.

And I would do it again.

and so forth

Everytime my mother calls, I eat another quart of ice cream.
This could prove fatal.

Labor Day

So, my current rate of blog (because "blog" is a verb, didn't you know?) is approximately once a month.
Jay, a Biology teacher at my high school, says that he did not drink before he joined Teach For America. In times of stress, some people turn to drink. I turn to mint chocolate chip ice cream.
I have eaten two quarts of ice cream in four days. And I'm lactose intolerant.