God bless Starbucks

There, I said it. Bless you, Starbucks, bless you, for I have had it up to here with the ghetto at the moment and your corporate ambiance is actually an improvement.

As some of you know, I have several hours to kill between my two jobs most afternoons. Sometimes I shop for nonperishables, do laundry, or slog through other errands. Sometimes I sleep in the car. Sometimes I go to the library. Sometimes all of these. It's also crucial that I kill these hours in the neighborhood near my second job, or traffic will slay me later. That neighborhood, while not the worst I've worked in, shall we say lacks amenities.

Lately, I've been trying to do algebra 2 over coffee at places like the donut shop (ghetto) or the taqueria (double ghetto, and I don't think they like it because they pour me less and less coffee every time I go in there. It's not even subtle anymore). The nearest library has been colonized by an extremely smelly homeless gentleman and hordes of teenagers on MySpace, which I get enough of at the after-school job, thanks. (The MySpacing teens, not the malodorous transients).

So bless you, Magic Johnson Starbucks -- excuse me, Urban Coffee Opportunity. There are actually more people reading books in you than there are in the goddamn library, and fewer people on computers. Lingering is allowed, the music is inoffensive, and it's worth paying more for a small coffee than I usually do for a large if I get to sit and do math for an hour without hassle.

Is this my tipping point? Where I get so sick of the "urban" environment that I start seeking out soothing, homogenous chains? Or am I just standing up and demanding a decent place to hang out -- something the people of these neighborhoods have no doubt been craving forever? And, unlike Sprawl-Mart, Starbucks offers some acceptable jobs to the community.

Note to entrepreneurs: this Starbucks, in a neighborhood that was on fire in 1992, was CROWDED. The drive-through was hopping and plenty of people were always lined inside up getting coffee to go. With more seating, it could be quite a hangout, I suspect. There is money to be made in giving "poor" neigborhoods a clean, well-lighted place, where corporate policy forces the employees to be pleasant and the place to be well-kept. The suburbs and downtown don't need yet another goddamn same-y Starbucks, but the 'hood actually does, if independent businesspeople don't have the stones to step up to the plate.

Two Buck What-the-Fuck

I've mentioned cheapo paradise Big Lots, and I've mentioned Trader Joe's $2 wine. What really gets funny is combining the concepts and buying closeout wine for $2 at Big Lots.

Yesterday, I saw "Patriot Red" for the second time and couldn't resist the absurdity. (Yes, "red." Not merlot, not cabernet, "red," like a Kool-Aid flavor.) It's an Australian wine, and the back label says,
"A toast to the Patriots of America and Australia
United in the pursuit of
Freedom Liberty and Justice
We raise our glass to you!"

Poor punctuation and gratuitous capitalization all [sic]

And the taste? As Dave Chapelle's Samuel Jackson character would say, "IT'LL GET YA DRUNK!"

Note to self:

You do not each much fast food. Your body is not used to fast food. So even if it's a Taco Bell across the street from a predominantly Mexican college, in a predominantly Mexican neighborhood, and it's full of Mexican patrons and staffed by Mexicans, and you're ordering something for the love of god *recommended* by Mexicans, IT IS STILL FUCKING TACO BELL. IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, STAY FAR, FAR AWAY!

Then blame your gas on the cat.

LA trivia of the day: In 1993, Snoop Dogg was arrested for murder two blocks from my current apartment (found on Wikipedia, confirmed by the LA Times). Perhaps that's part of why some in LA still refer to this sleepy little commuter/student neighborhood, without irony, as "ghetto." C'mon, no one's even stolen my car yet!

I just wrote nasty email to all three of the bus agencies I had to use today. The Culver City bus got a particularly ripe one.

Yea verily, I am becoming an old curmudgeon. Now get out of here before I hit you with my cane.

Judy asks what grade level I'd like to teach. Right now, I am planning on teaching high school. Middle school is arguably more important, because it lays the foundation, but I simply like older teenagers better than adolescents on the whole. Little kids - no.

However, I did just fill out a volunteer interest form that might lead to me coaching a middle school math team. Uh oh.

You see, I'm a math nerd from way, way back. I qualified for the math team in my junior high, which means that theoretically I was one of the top five math students in my grade. I was also the only girl. Long story short, it wasn't a good experience. I felt that the math coach wasn't pleased that a girl had qualified, and the whole affair was rather high-pressure for a silly middle school competition, and at the most important contest of the year, I snapped under the pressure and we didn't make state. (Yes, it was due to my score. Trust me.) Being the sensitive little chickadee that I am, I stupidly decided I wasn't *that* good at math and proceeded to have a mediocre math career in high school, culminating with not even taking calculus my senior year.

This will not happen to any student on my watch. I will be low-key and fair. I may even pull my middle-school math trophies out of my parents' closet and display them in my classroom with geek pride.

myheritage.com

myheritage.com
Originally uploaded by jmuehlbauer.

I've found the most hilarious geneaology website: MyHeritage.com. Upload a picture, and it will scan it and tell you what celebrity you supposedly look like. I put in a recent photo of Rick and I and it said he looked like Cole Porter and I looked like Tori Amos. (Which is *really* funny if you know Rick). I was a little less excited, scrolling through lower-percentage matches, to see that the computer also thinks I look like Felix Mendelssohn and various other men, including, somehow, Yao Ming. It's not as bad as Rick who, based on his long goatee, got the Ayatolla Khomeini.

(A second photo of myself just gave me Einstein ane Anne Frank (hey, I *do* look Jewish!), plus Sarah Michelle Gellar and Kristen Dunst. Wacky.)

Time for a scavenger hunt! The Long Beach police department is missing 70 shotguns and an unknown number of revolvers. "We have absolutely no idea where the guns are," said one officer. Oops?

Just so's ya know

First, the illustrious Jimmy Guterman, who likes to tease me when I post about my bum, notes that my ass isn't really bigger than Boston. He is correct. I was using hyperbole, a literary device of exaggeration for humor or effect. My ass is, however, bigger than any reasonably-priced apartment in Boston.

Second, a clarification. I've forgotten how things like "three jobs" sound to normal people. I'm talking part-time jobs, and I still don't always have 40 hours per week. Also, a note in advance that when I bitch someday about attending school "full-time" and working "two jobs," the classes aren't exactly going to be difficult, either, despite the credit-hours. "Unchallenging" has been the kindest remark I've heard about the teaching credential program.

Next, Samara asked why I want to teach math instead of English, and she's probably not the only one wondering.
1) Nationwide, it's much easier to get a job as a math teacher, and at the age of almost-31, it's probably about time I considered my future (considering it, shuddering, and reaching for a beer doesn't count).
2, and probably more important) Teaching English, at least in the inner city, is no fun. It's teaching literacy, which is hard to do in a group. You're not the cool, tweedy prof-type introducing the kids to Great Books. You're explaining, yet again, what a noun is. Unless the kid is really driven, his reading level just isn't going to go up that much. In math, on the other hand, you can see big progress in a short period of time, and those "AHA!" lightbulb-over-the-head moments that get Ye Olde Ghetto Teacher through the day come a lot more often.

Finally, yes, Elkit and I need to meet on one of my planned San Francisco trips this year.

Jen: Damn! 4 million people live in Sydney.
Rick: See? Big.
Jen: 20 million people live in Australia...just one in five of them live in Sydney.
Rick: How many in Brisbane?
Jen: 1.6 million
Rick: Bigger than Boston.
Jen: My ASS is bigger than Boston.

Last funny anecdote of the old year

Apologies to Eric (who is not the subject of the story), if he reads this, for stealing this anecdote.

There once was a guy who put a phone in his living room. His flatmate called his cell phone and nervously said that this was unacceptable and he'd explain later.

Turns out, the roommate had a compulsion for calling 900 sex numbers, and had run up very large bills in the past. The phone in the living room represented too much of a temptation. It was okay for this fellow to have a cell phone, because cell phones list individual calls on the bills, and he had his girlfrend review each bill. This, apparently, was enough of a deterrent.

Ironically, he met this girlfriend on a 900 sex line.

This is the point in the story where Rick interjected that he could picture two people in bed, talking to each other on cell phones!

New years' resolutions for Corporate America, from the LA Times

"IT WAS A GREAT YEAR for labor — if you worked at a call center in India, made your living as a CEO or sold real estate to big-box stores. But deep in Cubicle Nation, the average American worker remained on a fast track to the Industrial Revolution, with soaring workweeks, declining wages and health, pension and vacation benefits vanishing faster than you can say job security.

"Add to the siege outsourcing, cutbacks, the dismantling of ergonomics rules and forced overtime — all while business is racking up historic profits — and even a nearsighted dingo could see that the trends are unsustainable for families, personal health, company medical plans or an informed and involved citizenry. And completely unnecessary."

Click here to read the utterly commonsense yet sadly unrealistic suggestions for improving the American workplace.