Tragedy of the Life of a Spinster

Let me open this post by apologizing for the numerous typos, misspellings, and run-on sentences in my last post. I was ashamed, but too lazy to do anything about it. And for those of you who do worry about such things, I do usually notice my grammatical errors after I post. I'm just far too lazy to take action. So, I'm not stupid or grammatically challenged, just LAZY.

Now on to the title entry:

The Spinster Life has its perks. Doing what you want when you want is one of them. Sitting around in your underwear all day watching chick flicks is another. Only having to deal with your family is yet another. But, then there are things that are not so great: listening to that ol' biological clock tick, nightmares about dying old and alone with all your toy poodles eating your face off, having to deal with nearly everybody thinking there's GOT to be something wrong with you because you're not permanently attached. And then, every once in a while, you come across a guy that you think is perfect for you. "Great!" you think. "Companionship is fun!!" "Maybe this could last longer than 5 months and maybe it won't end in disaster!"

*sigh* These thoughts are inevitably followed by disaster, however, and you find yourself listening to Fiona Apple and watching Bridget Jones Diary over and over and over and thinking, "Maybe there is something wrong with me!" But, there's never anything wrong with you. It's men.

I'm serious. I've lived in Everycity for 5 years now, and I have yet to find a decent man who isn't married, gay, or really, really old. And trust me. I've shopped around.

So, what to do now? Become a lesbian? Enter a convent? Submit to tragic spinsterhood, buy some more toy poodles to ensure that at the time of your demise there will be enough to do a real number on your face? (And by number, I mean eating it off, not "Number 2.")

I choose the latter. Why?? Because it makes the best story. If I have to die old and alone, I plan on getting A LOT of attention for it! I might even write my autobiography before the dogs eat my face off, so upon my demise it can be immediately published, and I can look down from heaven and be satisfied with how sorry everyone feels for me.

And now I have to go throw a pity party for myself. No, you're not invited.

Is anything more vulgar?

Really. The Pussycat Dolls make me a little sick to my stomach, but I found myself glued to the tele last night whilst the finale of that ridiculous show they have in which they select another skankified skinny-mini to their already large group. I'm not really sure why they feel like they needed another one, because no one really knows who any of them are, and I think I can say with confidence, we're all pretty annoyed at this point.

And while the bad singing and the fighting and the slutty outfits were simultaneously entertaining and irritating, the most compelling thing of all was Lil' Kim. Have you seen her lately???? She looks awful! She's had so much plastic surgery she's morphed into something grotesque and inhuman...or should I say unhuman...

I suggest you all do a quick google search of Lil' Kim to see how something that was already pretty vulgar and disgusting can transform into something vulgar, disgusting, and plastic...or and chunky. She's gotten chunky. What fun!!

Take a look!! You won't be sorry. (Although, she still probably has less cellulite than me. I hate celebrities.)

Explanation

So a few people have been wondering what the heck I was doing hacking down a bunch of bamboo in a rain storm. And, really, it's a valid question. But first, I wanted to share a-dub's comment from the last post, because it's genius:

"Queen, I love the image of you hacking down bamboo in a violent rain storm in hott galoshes. If this were a perfect world, you would have developed a fever and swooned, and a gallant and ruggedly handsome young man (a complete blackguard, of course) would have thundered up on a stallion to sweep you to safety. Sigh. You would have eventually come to a bad end, though (worse than death, stillborn bastard child, living out the rest of your days in a remote Italian convent, yadda, yadda, yadda). So it's probably just as well."

First, let me say, a-dub, you're perfect. Next, you're right, a-dub, it's probably just as well. There was, however, a very dedicated runner who came by and said, "Are you building a booby trap?" He was kind of handsome, but certainly not a blackguard.

Anywho, enough with the silliness! Why was I out in a typhoon cutting down bamboo?? Well, for an art project, of course. There's this place off the running trail close to my apartment, that has some bamboo growing. It's probably about a mile and a half from my house. Since it had been drizzling all day, I figured that there wouldn't be many people on the running trail, and it would be easier to carry my hacksaw around without arousing too much suspicion. I should mention here that I live right beside the professional basketball/hockey arena and there was a game Tuesday night. That meant there was also a lot of law enforcement. So, while many of you would probably like to imagine that I carried a hacksaw around whilst wearing an anorak and hott rain boots, I actually put the hacksaw in a big bag so as to not look like a crazy serial killer. The walk back caused a few stares, though. I mean, if you saw a girl with a giant bag on her shoulder and a bunch of bamboo in her hands in the middle of the Typhoon of '07, what would you think?? I wouldn't think she was doing anything legal, that's for sure.

So, there it is, that's why I couldn't elaborate on all the other crap that's been going on in my life.

And really, there's not a lot of crap, because I've gotten rid of all it, namely SOAPM. He is such an idiot. For reals. I don't even think that he knows that we're not dating anymore. Every once and a while I'll get a text message or a phone call from him that leads a girl to believe he has no idea he's been dumped. How could he not know?!! The last time I actually saw him was in March, and I wasn't very nice to him! Oh well, he's not really bugging me that much, so maybe I shouldn't complain. He did buy me a really nice dinner the last time I saw him, though, although it hardly made up for the white socks with dress shoes. Hardly!!

I haven't actually been out on a date in almost a month. My mom's gonna start thinking I'm a lesbian. I've thought of getting a butch "roommate" just to make everyone extra suspicious, but it hardly seems worth the trouble. However, if the "roommate" bought me lots of nice presents, it might be worth it....hmmm....maybe I'll look into that. In the meantime, if any of you know of a man that likes to give a girl lots of (expensive) presents while simultaneously being verbally abused, please give me his number. A guy like that is hard to find, but fit for a Queen, specifically the Queen: Queen, III.

Don't forget it.

Paving the Road to Hell

I had every intention of writing a long treatise este noche about how I hate men, what they do to piss me off, how I'm better than practically everybody (except for all of you who read this blog, of course), and how generally cranky I am about not being able to control the universe, etc., etc.

However, I had a very remarkable and drawn out incident involving a pair of painfully cute rubber boots, a hack saw, a deserted running trail, a torrent of rain, and bamboo.

Suffice it to say that I don't have enough time at this point to tell you in detail the very latest drama (real or imagined) in my life.

I do have time to quickly tell you a short, but painful story: I let SOAPM go to church with me a couple of weeks ago and....

*sigh*

this is so hard....

he wore...I don't even know how to say this...

he wore....

WHITE SOCKS WITH DRESS SHOES! *clunk* (sound of my head hitting the keyboard in exasperation)

It's all enough to make a girl want to run and throw her beautiful, voluptuous form into the nearest body of water.

Instead, I chose to donne my cute rubber boots and carry a hacksaw through a rainstorm. Probably a healthier choice, however bizarre.

So, please don't stop giving me attention just because I've been neglectful. Please! I need your attention more than the very breath of life!

No, I'm serious.

Hot Yoga Just Got a Little Hotter

Guys, I suck. But listen, this time I have a good reason: I've started Hot Yoga. You know, the yoga you do in a room that's 100 degress Farenheit and 60% humidity that lasts for an hour and a half? Well, I'm doing it.

Here's the thing though...after I finish the Hot Yoga, I am sleepier than a drunken baby, so blogging is damn near impossible.

But, mark my words: tomorrow I will update with a whole new slew of complaints about SOAPM, and crappy men in general.

Your loving, perpetually cranky spinster,
Queen, III

Out of the Wilderness

So, to try and make my unholy, sinful, delightfully wicked self a little more spiritually inclined, I decided that this year, I would give up something for lent that really, truly mattered to me more than almost anything else in the whole wide world. The one thing, that, if I had to spend a day without, I would feel lost and lonely, thus forcing me to face the "spiritual mirror," so to speak. And that one, singular thing was TV.

Yes! For 40 days and 40 nights, I did not watch TV (unless it was in a public place). It was a long, cold, dark road...one which was trying. I'm not sure I can ever go through it again. I'm not even sure how I made it, but I did.

Now, I'm trying to catch up on all that's happened in the past month and a half. So, for reals, what's going on with Horatio and the hot Latin girls?? They can't really think that he's hot, can he? Why are they always calling him for help?? Why?? Why don't they call that other really hot guy?? That's who I would call if I had an emergency!

But, I have a few additional queries. I have NO idea what's happening on any of my usual shows. If you can fill me in as I ease back into my TV watching routine, I'd appreciate it! Here are my usual shows:
Boston Legal
Ugly Betty
Desperate Housewives
The Office
30 Rock

Thanks, guys. And remember, you're not just helping Queen, III, you're helping the new, improved, slightly holier Queen, III.

Sinful

I just ate an entire medium pizza.

BUT - It was thin crust...from Dominos. Sooo...it can't be that bad can it?

Oh jebus, I can feel my @ss getting larger by the second.

School Teachers: Modern-day Saints or Classic Fools??

There are great perks to my job: I get the summers off; I don't have to work weekends; I don't have to take work home; I get 2 weeks off for Christmas, a Fall break, a Spring break, Easter break, and various other days as well; during the school year, I get 10 days paid leave, 5 of which carry over (next year I'll have 15); I get pretty good benefits; and I really only work about 8.5 - 9 months out of the year. Pretty sweet deal, you might say. And generally, it is...but there are days....

Last year, I made the horrible mistake of letting all my students - all 650 of them - paint the same week. It was one of the biggest missteps of my entire life. And while I haven't made a mistake that huge this year, every once in a while, I'll have a moment where it all seems to just go to hell.

Last week was that moment. Now the whole week was bad, but the day that really, really set me off was Wednesday. I have my two "challenging" classes that day: 5D and KD. 5D started out unusually well, which should have made me raise an eyebrow, but I thought, "Maybe these kids have really reached a turning point."

Oh, Queen. You really are a fool.

Within the last 10 minutes of class these kids started acting like they were all retarded. Now, normally, it wouldn't be so bad. Okay, so you have a class of 5th graders who have a bad day and think for some reason that it's permissible to hang over your seat like you have no muscle control or jump out of your seat and start yelling at the girl across the class who blinked at you wrong or stick your own pencil up your nose or roll your eyes at the teacher. No big deal, right? It happens. They're children.

But these aren't just your ordinary children, oh no! They're gifted children who attend our Vanguard school on the 3rd floor.

About 5 minutes into their remarkable behavior, I really, really lose it. My mouth starts to move and it is like a freight train! Fortunately, I can't remember all the things I said/yelled, but I do remember using words like pathetic, sad excuse for, disappointed, will no longer be having fun in art, disgusting, rude awakening, and the like. They kept their mouths shut on the way out, probably because they were scared I was gonna pull out a shiv.

Then, 4th grade rolls around. Ay Carumba! Little Jeremy is scheduled to return to school today from the alternative school he had been attending for a couple of months. The kid's crazy and so's his daddy. Jeremy comes into my classroom and sits down well enough, but suddenly leaves class without permission. I go find him in the hallway and he refuses to come in. Finally, I convince him to come back inside, but on his way back in, he tries to knock a bunch of art off the art rack. I say, "Salvador, escort Jeremy to the office."

"I'm not goin'," Jeremy replies.

"You'll go know, or I'll send for the Assistant Principal to come and get you and that won't be pretty." He then complies. 2 seconds later, Salvador comes running back in:

"Miss Queen, Jeremy won't stop running around in circles outside!! I tried to catch him, but I couldn't!"

I step outside. "Jeremy, come in right now. Salvador will go get the Principal to come get you." With this, Jeremy decides to slowly walk to the office.

After class, I go to the office to write the referral and Jeremy is, of course, acting crazy, talkin' back to the secretary, so I say, "Jeremy this is no way to start your first day back. I know you know better!"

Jeremy mumbles with a scowl on his face, "Shut up with your big bushy head!"

(Now, my hair is pretty big, but Jeremy shouldn't have gone there.) I said, "Say that again to my face, Jeremy."

"I ain't scared of you!!!"

Well, this got me all kinds of bent out of shape, so before I knocked that little brat upside the head, I thought that I would instead go eat my lunch and write the referral away from the devil-child who was pushing all my buttons. I turn to leave and Jeremy gets up and blocks the doorway. About this time, the Assistant Principal walks up and nearly loses it when she sees Jeremy, freshly out of alternative school, acting as though his two months in kiddie lock-down taught him nothing. He got suspended for 3 days.

Then, after lunch there was KD - the Kindergarten class from hell. Hsunta had a breakdown and tried to beat up Ruby who wouldn't stop crossing her eyes at Hsunta. Jeremiah also had a breakdown and refused to come out of the corner. Arthur was crying and so was Annienell, both apparently for no reason. Reynoldo decided that it would be funny if he just yelled out, "No!" every time I asked him to do something. And Ernest was, as always, incredibly earnest. There was one point in this class where I thought they would actually take me over, and honestly, defeat was nearer than I would like to admit, but somehow I triumphed and we were able to paint some post-modernist masterpieces.

After school, at rehearsal for our end-of-the-year play, I left the auditorium to run to the office. When I came back, a fellow teacher told me that the kids were acting all kinds of crazy. So, I yelled at them and told them how disappointed I was, etc. And two 5th graders started crying. One almost hyperventilated.

Now, if all that won't drive you to drinking, I don't know what will. So, this summer, when I write about how I'm lying around in my underwear, watching TV and you all are like, "Queen, I hate you with all your time off (and your big bushy head)!!!" Remember this post. Remember. My time off is not for me, it is for the children. Because if I had to spend 12 months of the year with those kids, they'd probably all have to be hospitalized...for severe bruising upside the head.