RIP, blog

a week or so ago i attempted to write a blog about my favorite movie, the warriors.

it turned into this epic and ugly battle of trying to upload a photo of the warriors’ glorious penchant for leather & afros.  but it just would not post!  and so i took my frustration to a new home, a tumblr home.  i am in love with tumblr’s manic & fairly unintelligent stream of posts.  FINALLY i have a place to talk about the warriors & petting zoos.  i will be writing there from now on.  if you ever want to read about my fantasy pets (mini pigs and sugar gliders) or view shitty microsoft paint drawings, go here:

tulipmania.tumblr.com

bye!

philippe cousteau jr.

philippe cousteu jr. came to my classroom.  he’s the grandson of jacques & also famously known as the dude who was filming steve irwin during his sting ray mishap.  he had the air of a person who was humble yet keenly aware that he was really, really, ridiculously good looking.  i also got a very “new age” vibe from him.  he was great to the kids, even when they asked about how steve irwin died (those little suckers already knew but i guess were hoping for grotesque deets).

i secretly hope that the kids all greatly prefer matthew.  philippe cousteau jr. has got documentaries but matt’s got an ACCENT.  and dry ice.

“Our enemies’ opinion of us comes closer to the truth than our own.”

-Francois La Rochefoucauld

oooh BURN La Roche.  you are correct, indeed.  i wonder, though, if kids can be worked into this mix.  i wonder if kids’ opinions of us come closer to the truth than our own.  kids are blunt and generous, in one fell swoop.  i appreciate their heart & candor, every day.

today a girl presented me with a shell necklace.  from the cold shores of delaware straight to my undeserving hands.  when i’m having a shit day, it’s stuff like some tiny shells strung onto a simple piece of string that really bring it all home for me.  i’m grateful for it.

probably don’t put me on a wheaties box

matt’s flight was due to arrive from dallas at 9:04pm.  what a gleeful, wonderful friday evening we would have, full of yuengling-swilling and evading the mutants at happy hour.  but it was pushed back, seemingly seven?  eight? times.  seriously, it felt that way.  finally, after much wishy-washy behavior on the part of american airlines, the flight was cancelled.  i hung up the phone after receiving the news and proceeded to cry so hard that not only did i make my eyes puffy, my top LIP puffed out.  like a beesting.  i held ice to it for a few minutes and it seemingly went away.  i think.

then he called with ‘great’ news – he could catch a new flight.  and this one would arrive at dulles airport, in virginia.  at 3 in the morning.

because my husband is too pretty for jail and too pretty for dangerous rouge cab drivers, i elected to come and pick him up.  so here i sit on my lonesome.  at the beginning of the night i actually had a dress on and had my hair styled in something other than an eighties comedy sidekick ponytail.  but i gave up the will to look like anything less than a slub around the time that i realized i would have to drive through the popped collars pubcrawl of georgetown.  so i’m wearing blue stripes with a shruken lilac hoodie.  and my lip still feels puffy.  but MATT IS COMING HOME.  simple victories.

my starbucks cup is my companion.

liberty is the toughest man south of the picketwire

yesterday matt and i went to a museum in dc that most people snub.  i don’t know why.  i got math dice for the kids and a matchstick garden, which is actually cooler than it sounds.  i sobbed at the end of “the man who shot liberty valance” because john wayne always plays the type of sad and noble man who just won’t cry for himself.  i tried tastee diner in bethesda for the first time ever with my bffs; i didn’t finish my pancakes and chris suggested to matt that they “lady and the tramp” them.  reaching new heights of friendship every day.

these photos from my classroom make me happy.  using construction paper and creating these works is MUCH MESSIER and time consuming than you might imagine.  but it’s worth it because my life is pretty much 24/7 color and quirky kid thoughts.  i like that.

it may be his stunning banana pants, or it may be the way in which the big band members are swathed in a dusky silhouette, but i can’t get over this video.

if you supply me with enough quaaludes, i would love to recreate it.

you see.  dreams are simpler to achieve when you do what i like to call AIMING LOW.  my life goal is to coordinate a dance like this.  it’s probably attainable.  therefore, success.  to hell with publishing and conceiving children.

time flies i guess

flashback to 2006 (!KLDFJLFKJFD!!) and matt & i are standing in south station, waiting on his amtrak, and we’ve just enjoyed a weekend of fenway stalking and pino’s pizza eating and running to trader joe’s before they close and we miss out on the three dollar wine.

i am crying in south station.  CRYING.  kill me?  but i just don’t want matthew to leave.  he lives in maryland and i live in boston.  and what will happen in this irrepressible love saga?  the weathered old man clipping the tickets already knows.  he looks at us, calmly, wearily, through my tears on matt’s shoulder and he barks

DON’T WORRY… HE’LL BE BACK

and at the time, i was like, dude how do you even know

but now i realize that i should make pilgrimage to south station and be all ‘dude…. you knew.’

i lost my excel spreadsheet

Pepper McFee and the Cursed Coin being read in full by Andrea Brown Lit Agency, Cowles Ryan, Wendy Schmalz.

Will anything come of this?  Not likely.  But Andrea Brown?  Just to be out of the slush pile and  read is feelin’ like heaven on Earth.

who will love you, who will fight

i guess matt probably doesn’t love that i hate the dudes from australia’s the chaser.

it’s on an american channel now and i guess i see australia as humble cricket champions and anzac day heroes; koalas and spiders; people who are funny in a hilariously, brilliant kind way.

i think that the dudes from the chaser are over-priveleged wankers who might as well be upper crust english boys.  that’s the way that they treat common folk and they like to winkingly allude to their audience that they are SO MUCH MORE superior and with it than the cretins that they are attempting to dissect.  uh-oh.  honestly?  get a life.  get a job outside of a paltry sketch show that has unfortunately spawned itself into a D-List category comedy sketch show in the states.  you’ll never be big, or meaningful, but you’ll get enough sponsors of male deoderant just to stay afloat.  maybe that means something to you natty pocket book but it means fuck all in the history of life.

i’m not bitter i just hate vague misogynists and classicists who actually pretend to be left-wing and support such causes.

my dinner.  go australia.

i don’t care that she spelled my name “halarie”

Hi Halarie -

Why don’t  you send me the mss.  I’d like to take a look.

so my shit-tastic query letter?  it attracted at least one agent to want to look at my shit-tastic middle grade children’s book.  karinya, you are my little shining star for offering to take a look at it.  i can’t bring myself to bother you for two reasons:  you are a professional, and my letter is crap.  also, you have a newborn baby.  i WOULD like you, however, to tell me what you think about this lit agency – have you heard of it?

http://www.cowlesryan.com/