Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts

1. A lot of things irritate me, but high on the list is when people get my name wrong. Not my first name- the occasional "Christina" by a stranger is understandable. But what irks me like no other is when people assume I took my husband's last name when we got married. I did not. Nor will I ever. He doesn't care, out future kids will survive, and no I'm not afraid of sounding "Mexican" (a student asked me that, since they know the scoop). I happen like my last name and feel that just because I'm a woman I shouldn't be obligated to change anything about myself because I said "I do." Plus it makes getting divorced easier (kidding, kidding).

2. My husband has carefully crafted a plan for ending our satellite service. We have to finish watching Mad Men and then Breaking Bad when it comes on again, and by the time that's over our two-year contract will be up. Adios $92 bill! We figured out we watch maybe 8 hours of TV a month, meaning we're royally ripping ourselves off. I can't wait.

3. Something else I can't wait for is Colum Mother-Effing McCann's reading in Santa Monica on June 18th. I've raved about Let the Great World Spin and I couldn't be more psyched to see him promote Transatlantic. Even better is that I'm out of work by then and can go do something fun in the area ahead of time.

4. I reread The Great Gatsby before I saw the stupid movie and have to say, I really do enjoy that book. It had been maybe 12 years since I read it last and had forgotten quite a bit.

5. Something else I haven't done in approximately 12 years? Ride a bike. And yet I decided that I wanted to start riding and bought a mountain bike this weekend. I was a little apprehensive about remembering how to ride, but the old adage is true- I was able to do five hilly miles with no problem. I'm a little cautious about riding during high traffic times right now, so I'm really looking forward to being done with school so I can go earlier in the morning. And of course there will plenty of beach rides to come!

[I definitely don't sing the Queen song when I think about my "Bicycle! Bicycle!"]

6. I really, really don't believe kids should ride on motorcycles. I don't care if they have on a helmet or it's just around the block- the risk is too much.

7. I don't remember where I saw it, but I recently heard of farmersonly.com, a dating site for farmers. It's fantastic. I made up a fake login so that I could see if there were really just farmers on it, and, let me tell you, there are a lot of farmers in this country that are single and ready to mingle! They seem to really enjoy posing next to tractors and various animals they've shot.

8. Tonight is graduation, which I've volunteered to attend. The first class I had teaching high school, at the time sophomores, are now seniors, so it will be nice to see how far they've come. A lot of my yearbook students are also graduating and I desperately need a final good bye (my last one was "I don't want to cry, so all I'm going to say is I love you and you did a great job, now get out!"). Working in the community I work in has taught me what a big deal graduation really is. When I was in high school it was a given- it was more of a question of what GPA I'd end up with and what my orientation date for UCLA was. But for a lot of kids they barely get by, and for a lot of families it's maybe their first child to make it all the way through. I mean it's totally just the beginning of the rest of their life. They're embarking on such a journey, man. And now I will sing the Vitamin C song.

[sad but true... unless you parents beat you or you had a childhood illness]

9. One of my favorite activities is to sit with my husband and go through the bad reviews of books we love on Amazon. What, you hated Cloud Atlas but loved Tom Clancy's newest? Dumb ass, illiterate fool! And so on and so forth. We're really good people, I promise.

10.  We recently bought a new table for our great room and I've officially begun the search for a really awesome, affordable vintage typewriter and globe for it. If I didn't hate antiquing so very, very, very much I'd try to do this in person.