Initiating CPR...

How long has she been out? Initiating CPR now...

Waiting for pulse...

WHY DOES THE BLOG KEEP DYING?

Is it really that hard?

RIP.

PORK TAKES FOREVER

Hello friends (AKA SLACKERS. WHERE ARE THE STORIES? WHERE ARE THE GLORIES?? YOU PEOPLE ARE NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF WHORE-IES. Really, NOTHING to share? FOR SHAME.),

I don't really have any stories either, but I just yelled at yall, so I have to put my money where my mouth is, sotospeak.

I just finished eating a home-cooked meal that took, oh I don't know, 2 EFFING HOURS to prepare. I decided to swing by the local grocery-mart on my way home from work (SIDE NOTE: fridays at the studio, I teach my "Production Class" which is code word for "PUT ON A FULL ENTIRE SHOW." It's at the end of the week, so usually I'm like totally burned out by then; and it's definitely my most challenging class because there are so many kids and it lasts 2 hours, and, oh yes, right, I have to present a fully-birthed show by the end of the sememster. But today, I came in early, I watched the old video of the show back in the day (AND THEN OH MY EFFING GOD I CAME ACROSS "11-YEAR-OLD-HADLEY-AND-13-YEAR-OLD-AMY-PERFORM-THEIR-SOLO-VOCAL-(AND IN HADLEY'S CASE ALSO DANCE)-PIECES-FOR-STAR-POWER-COMPETITION"-AND-OH-MY-GOD-IT-WAS-LIFE-CHANGINGLY-HYSTERICAL.) Ahem. Deep breath. But about Production class: I watched a video of the old-version of the show, learned a whole huge dance number, practiced and practiced and practiced, and entered class utterly prepared. There are about 16 kids in the class ranging in age from 8 to 13. Or at least it USED to range from age 8 to 13. But today, 3--I SAY 3, I SAY ALL 3 of my 13-year-olds--KIDS DROPPED OUT today (after THREE fridays) due to the "childish" [aka: lame, aka: they are wrong] nature of the show. Ok this show is NOT lame. You can ask Hadley who performed it back when she was a wee-thing (I have footage. She is the top. The show is great.) But really, how is it that 13 year olds can STILL manage to make me feel stupid?? I thought that at SOME POINT I would outgrow that. Anyway, to make myself feel better, I decided to swing by the local grocery mart on my way home from a super-annoying day at the grindstone and pick up ingredients for a full fledged dinner. There is nothing more relaxing to me than cooking my face off after a stressful week. I now kind of understand how Hadley feels about vacuum cleaners. Too bad I'm not as much of an expert at cooking as Hadley is at cleaning, as displayed in the fiasco that was cooking my dinner tonight. At the g-store, I got m'self some pork chops, some okrah, some lettuce leaves, some--who am I kidding? Yall don't care. What you SHOULD care about, though, is that TWO HOURS LATER I was still poking my pork with a thermometer watching it eek up to 140 degrees. (Google losers told me that it needed to be at LEAST 155-160 degrees!) FINALLY it reached 152, and I was like whatEVER, living-bacteria-in-pork-that-might-make-me-sick-and-die, I'd rather die of that than STARVATION.

So I ate it. And so far I'm still going strong.

And then my dad walked in and fed our dog clyde in a mere 10 seconds. Life is really not fair.

BRING IT ON, BLIZZARDDD!!

I was told by my deli man it was going to snow 18 inches tomorrow in Manhattan.

I am told by Al Roker we can expect no more than 4 inches.

PLEASE, LORD JESUS GIVE ME A BLIZZARD.

I love weekend blizzards.

What the hell, happy birthday elle.

I would like to open the blog (in these final hours of this special day) to any and all reflections and memories of, and roasts and toasts to our awesome friend Ellen.

Here are mine.

1. When she was sick (and if my memory serves me correctly, maybe potentially just "sick" as in HUNGOVER). Having spent a day out in the city, I returned to to ph d to find Ellen in her bathrobe, splayed on the floor in the hallway of the apartment, with a big empty bowl in her clutches. It was about 3 in the afternoon. Despite my many attempts to figure out why she wasn't in her bed, a whopping 10 feet from where she lay, I couldn't get a straight answer. She just kept laying there on the floor, mumbling every now and then, but more importantly, blocking my way to bathroom, and I had to pee. In retrospect, I probably should have been a little more tender because she was nursing the worst hangover of all time AND food poisoning simultaneously, but I wasn't, so she called mychal and told her how tough I'd been. Tough, you say, elle? No, tough I SAY: Tough LUCK, Elle. Lay off the vod next time.

2. I also have very fond memories of seeing Ellen crossing 39th street at 8th Avenue in the dead summer heat. On crutches. She was HUFFING and PUFFING across that street. Why, you ask? Why, what. Why was she on crutches? Because she broke her toe for the eighth time. Why was she coming to my workplace? Because BEFORE she broke her toe she had agreed to sign on as a telemarketer for the American Symphony Orchestra. Did the girl back down simply because she had been gimped? No. She trekked it all the way from Union Square sans taxi (the fare would have cost as much as she earned calling strangers.) to Hell's Kitchen. More like Elle's bitchin' kitchen.

3. Watching the bachelor with Elle. Especially when she a. DEMANDS silence or b. DEMANDS we rewind to watch a squirrel cross the street or c. DEVOURS a bento box. Or sharing with her the utter destruction and disaster that was the outcome of season 13. MES-FUCK. WE WILL NEVER FORGET AND WE WILL NEVER FORGIVE.

These represent the proverbial (hi katie) tip of the iceberg when it comes to the titanic that is Ellen Wert, our beloved birthday girl. Ellen, sail-on, live-on, cornbread-on, child. LOVE and HB.

I'm so very glad that you were born.

I'm so bored and boring I can't even think of a title

Pee-pee people? Parking tickets? Being Amy Coenen? You guys kill me! Write more and write quickly. I need something else to do besides the dishes.

Have I anything to share? I read a lot. Actually, I've read 10 books since summer. Now on my eleventh. It's called Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle? Have you heard of it?

I noticed that the neighbors are repairing their garage? They are. I think they're building some storage units along the walls and in the rafters. Good for them for being organized. But the woman is a little off - she slobbers, too - and her husband has had his hips replaced twice already. That's bad. He drives a corvette because he's going through a mid-life crisis, which is totally understandable if you've had your hips replaced twice before age 40.

The other neighbors aren't really doing much – at least nothing I can see. I spy out the windows before going to get the mail each day. I do that to avoid any awkward run-ins, and also to create the illusion that I don't actually live here. You may think that's crazy, but a few months ago I was accosted on the way to my car with a yell from across the street. Usually cool as a cucumber, I just lost it. I told the nosy neighbor that I was looking for work in NYC and when he asked what type, I said something about babysitting and tutoring and haha, it's a living! What? It's a living? I've never sat anyone's babies.

What I wanted to say was BACK OFF, TITANIUM TITS - he's the one with the hip replacements. They're probably made of titanium.

Titanium... Unobtanium - Have you guys seen Avatar?

Avatar... Tattoo Bar - Did you know that I have a tattoo? Well, I don't. I do have a picture of the design I want, and that means I may get it soon enough, so don't bullshit me, okay?

Okay... Today - Today, I bored my friends by sharing this post.

Good riddance.

I Saw the Sign Follow-up

So I didn't have to teach sign language. My boss (luckily) watched the youtube clip and realized that that shit was crazy hard so she called it off. Good thing, because I hadn't watched it but once. But because I was stressing so much about all that finger wagging, I was utterly unprepared for all my other classes.

Now. When I find myself utterly unprepared for classes, which, in full disclosure, happens pretty much all the time, I have to think on my feet. I have to pretend to know what I'm doing. And I have to make up games. Sometimes all I can do is just start talking and see what happens. So yesterday, I sat everyone down (all four students. side note: you would think that less students would make an unprepared teacher's job easier. Wrong. What games can you play with four people? Four square? Yes. Except that's a sport. And this is musical theater class. Just try playing mafia with four kids. Try it. I dare you.) and did just that. I started talking.

Turns out that what you you CAN do with four students is make up a story about a super chihuahua (I cannot believe I spelled that right on my first TRY.) and act it out. Many times in a row. For an hour.

"Super Chi, Mrs. Fluffy Shirt and the Poison Coconut Juice" was our creation. It involved a plane flight to hawaii, strawberry daiquiris (I did NOT spell that correctly on my first try.) barking, a sad girl named Lily, talking palm trees, secret passwords, death by poison, fist-fights and, of course, a kick line.

They performed it four times. I sat and watched. And gave notes.

They didn't care about my notes.

But they effing loved my story.

Class dismissed.