Tuesday tidbits

Don't have total brain power left for more than randomness since I spent the entire morning watching 10th graders take the math TAKS test. Test proctoring of any sort is a mind numbing process for those not actually taking a test. You can't take you eyes off the little suckers, so you need to occupy yourself for endless hours with the excitment of watching fifteen year olds take a test. The thrill wears off about minute two. The last hour usually involves bathroom requests and the mental challenge of alphabetizing their answer sheets as they turn them in. Occasionally someone's pencil wears down and you get to bring them a fresh one. But honestly that's the way you want it. No cell phones going off or projectile vomiting or whatnot. Might liven the seconds but the ensuing paperwork just isn't worth it!

Showing the seniors Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to follow up Romanticism unit. Ooey, gooey, bloody, this particular version. And honestly, not great cinema. The transitions are so predicatable, Kenneth Branaugh so overwrought, Robert De Niro's monster currently so slimey and gooey from the whole birth thing (ewwww, Mrs P! Is that why he was going around collecting all that birth goo?) that we ended up supplying much of our own dialogue just to liven things up, which was actually quite entertaining. And Helena Bonham Carter needs to do something about the hair. Seriously. She's a great actress and all, but the hair. It's distracting. And of course, many are disappointed at the absence of Igor and neck bolts. Ah well...

Am at a serious crossroads with WIP. Two distinct ways I can start. And no current answer in sight. A serious epiphany better be in the offing.

And finally - prom is coming. Oh the emotions and preparations of the week that ends in prom. Tux talk and dress talk and nail talk and date talk and party talk and expectations about, well, everything. Even the most jaded are talking.

Prom is bigger than it was when I was in high school. No limos and professional mani/pedis back then. Much more do it yourself. But it still felt like a rite of passage even if we weren't quite sure why and even if I spent the evening becoming increasingly certain that the current boyfriend wasn't going to last much longer. (okay, he lasted til new year's eve of that year, but only because we were at separate colleges and weren't actually going out in any tangible fashion and I never had to actually inform him that I was crazy in lust with someone else) I do believe it was all sparked by that horrible moment when he asked for a coke without any ice because, as he leaned over and informed me, you got more coke that way. My inner ack meter turned on and never went off.

And btw, the parenthetical crazy in lust guy? Ended up marrying him. Go figure.

Til next time...