I saw a 9th grade associate of mine at the library today, as I do most days. There's not much of anywhere else to hang out in that neighborhood without encountering a bad element.

"I'm gonna move to Cancun," he sulked.

Now, when a teenager begins a sentence with "I'm gonna..." it's usually bull, but I still felt like getting the story. It came out almost like a slam poetry:

"I'm sick of California.
The gangs.
People killing each other.
Over what?
Stupid stuff.
COLORS!"

I asked if he couldn't change schools, maybe go to Catholic school like he did in elementary school.

"If I change schools, I'm not running away from it.
It's still all around me.
If I change states, I'm not running away from it.
It's there.
If I go to Arizona,
it's there.
If I go to Chicago,
it's there.
I go to New York,
it's there.
If I go to the boonies,
I bet it's there, too."

He wasn't believing me that there are places in America with no (or minimal) gang problems.

This is what LA does to its kids. I worry it's starting to do it to me, too.

Now here's an LA moment for you: traffic was so bad this morning, I turned around and came home. After 45 minutes, I realized I was going to miss 1st period (the class that needs me the most) and I should just play hooky. I called my boss, and 15 minutes later, I had fought my way off the freeway.

Here, from the CHP site (CHiPs!), is what turned the freeway into a parking lot for miles and miles. I've translated it into English:

4:01AM - Big rig overturned
4:11AM - All five lanes blocked. Will shut down freeway.
4:12AM - Truck is slowly leaking diesel. LA Fire Department is not responding.
4:24AM - Two lanes are partially flooded, one lane is 3-4 feet deep (?!?)
6:06AM - "MULIPLE MEDIA ON SCENE"

At 7:24, 20 minutes before I decided I might as well go home, the CHP reports stop, but a news article I found says cleanup was expected to last until 9am. Yep, glad I gave up. They don't pay me enough to deal with that kind of business.

No thanks to:
* LA's idiot "morning jocks," who don't do traffic reports nearly often enough
* AM 1620, the supposed traffic info station, which I could not receive on my car radio
* The "Freeway Vision" channel I used to check on TV in the morning, before they kept the name but removed the useful blinking map.
* LA's crippled public transit system, which makes all this a necessary part of my life.

Oh, and this and other accidents today were all because it was RAINING early this morning, which drops every southern Californian's IQ at least 50 points. God, I hate this place.

Greetings to any Reading Public Library people who stumbled here via Andrea's interview. Truly, I am not up there with BoingBoing, but I hope you won't hold it against her. :)

"My name is Sue! How do you do! Now you gonna die!"

I pride myself on being a bastion of useless trivia tidbits, so I'm ashamed that I never knew Shel Silverstein, of all the cool but definitely age-appropriate poetry for kids, was also a whacked out adult poet.

Rick brought this to my attention by informing me that Shel Silverstein wrote the lyics for the Johnny Cash classic "A Boy Named Sue." Ol' Shel also penned such classic ditties as Drinkin' And Druggin' And Watchin' TV, and Never Bite A Married Woman On The Thigh.

He also wrote and drew for Playboy, the original publishers of an ABC book even more out there than Edward Gorey, Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book. When it came out in book form parents bought it without looking inside, and later editions came with a "Adults Only" warning due to goodies like this:

"G is for gigolo. See the gigolo. A gigolo is a musical instrument. The next time your mommy goes shopping ask her to buy you a gigolo. She will think you are very cute and she will write it in to the Reader's Digest and they will print it and send you money."

and...

"P.S. The paper in this book is not really paper. It is made from candy."

And let's not overlook the silly drug poems, the philosophical drug poems, and "Hamlet as Told on the Street", which despite (or because of) the vulgarity, should be smuggled into every senior-year English classroom in the land:

Well, this information just flips Hamlet out.
He starts walkin’ like this, with spit hangin’ out his mouth.
His eyes are all bleary and his tongue looks worse,
And he’s talkin’ in couplets and blank fuckin’ verse.
I mean the dude is indecisive,
He don’t know how he’d like his eggs,
And he’s got no opinion on tits, ass or legs.
He can’t decide which horse to play at the track,
And when they ask him what suit you wanna wear today?
He say, "Ah…um…gimme the black."
He calls his uncle a murderer,
Calls his momma a whore,
And he can’t get it up for Ophelia no more.
Oh, and Ophelia? She’s tryin’ her best
To make him feel better,
Wants to polish his crown jewels,
But he won’t let her.
"Stead of sayin’ yea, the fool says nay,
And the whole court’s figurin’ he must be gay.

It's a far cry from The Giving Tree.

Time to get my flabby ass back into some kind of shape after my post-marathon, toenail-shedding, recovery/sloth period. I'm signed up for the Long Beach Half Marathon (hereafter referred to as the Half-Stupid) in October.

I refrained from signing up for the Las Vegas Marathon in December, as amusing as it would be to run a marathon down the Vegas strip. I'm not going through that type of pain again so soon, unlike Crazy Husband Rick and Crazy Third Roommate Craig. I'll just go to Vegas, take surreal marathon Strip photos, and drink microbrew at the Monte Carlo with them afterwards, thanks.

And another good reason to further your education...

One of my less academically motivated students was grumbling today.

"I'm sick of this. I want to be 21. I want to party, and not be in school anymore."

"Oh, you'll still be in school when you're 21," I replied.

"Nuh uh."

"Yep. You'll be in college."

"I'm not going to college."

He says things like this sometimes, often while stifling a grin, merely to annoy me. This time, the frustration seems more real.

I pause for effect. "You want to PARTY...but you don't want to go to COLLEGE?"

"Uh...yeah."

"But college is where all the BEST parties are!"

"Yeah?"

"Of COURSE. Especially the good sports schools, like the ones you've talked about going to."

"Yeah! UCLA!"

"Arizona State, too," I add, though I don't know this for a fact. What's he going to do, come find me in 5 years and tell me I oversold the ASU party scene?

Just don't let this happen to you, kid:

To provide balance to the below horror stories, I feel obligated to mention that one of my students just got a big-ass scholarship check in the mail to attend summer school in Paris.

Meanwhile, the seniors over at the high school -- part of our tutoring program's original class and now middle school tutors themselves -- are hearing from colleges. One got into Berkeley. One got into Harvard. I just hope this school system has given them even close to enough preparation.

VH1 presents, "I Love Bored Retail Workers"

For no particular reason, I decided to buy myself a CD today (this has become an unusual occurance, as I'm so po' I can't afford the "or"). I went down to Rhino Records and started browsing with an eye towards expanding my collection of music made before I was born: The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, something like that.

Refusing to pay $35 to replace my erstwhile cassette of The Wall or purchase the white album, and not actually knowing which Hendrix disc to start with, I settled happily on a $7 used copy of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" and took it to the register.

"Would you like to play Trivial Pursuit for a 10% discount?" asked the cashier.

"Sure," I said.

"Pick the Dead People category," suggested his manager, "Those are kinda easy. No one ever picks them, though."

"Which category?"

"'Rock and Roll Eternity.' We should just cross it out and write 'Dead People.'"

"Then I'll take 'Dead People,' Alex!"

"My kind of girl!"

The cashier asked me how many number 1 singles the Carpenters had.

I groaned. "The Carpenters?" I said, "All I know about The Carpenters I learned from that Sonic Youth song."

They're record store guys; THEY got it.

Anyway, the correct answer is 3, but I guessed 7. Alas. The manager did engage me in an animated discussion about the VH1 "Behind the Music: The Carpenters" episode. I am secretly pleased that at least one LA hipster shares my guilty pleasure in VH1 programming. We lamented that there haven't been many new Behind the Music trainwrecks lately, as VH1 is too busy preparing "I Love 2002" or whatnot.

"I Love Last Week," offered the cashier. Giggles all around.

I need to get out more. I mean, among people over the age of 14.

Because I was a little too nice to McDonalds yesterday:



In case you are not fluent in street slang, here's the joke.

Yesterday's LA Times had a coupon for free coffee, good only yesterday and today. The catch? Free McDonald's coffee. The attached marketing was all about how it was new java and even coffee "elitists" and "snobs" would like it.

Anyone with tastebuds, elitist or not, will testify that McDonalds coffee is, like cough syrup, for medicinal use rather than sensory enjoyment. Still, free is free, so I got my cup this morning.

I am way too poor to be a coffee snob, but I must admit, the new stuff wasn't bad. In fact, I was able to drink it black, which implies it was damn near good.

Score one small victory for quality.

I still won't be making a habit of McDonalds anytime soon.

Since last time, I've walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, scrambled up rocks in Death Valley, and gone back to school to a chorus of "Thank God you're back! I didn't learn *anything* last week!"

The apartment is a mess, buying underwear will be faster than dealing with the laundry pile, I've got not one but two freelance writing gigs I really must get cracking on.

More when I come up for air.