The Booger Picker

MY last night in New York, my roomates at co-presenters and I decided to leave the city with a bang: we commenced on a bar hop in lower Manhattan. I"ll leave those details to your imagination (much of it is still very sketchy to me anyways) but I do remember one very pronounced incident that happened when we were at our last bar.

We were seated near the window, quaintly sipping on (or guzzling down, however you want to paint the scene is fine with me) margaritas. The windows were tinted so we could see clearly outisde, but the people on the street could not see us. A very nice Mercedes-Benz station wagon pulled on alongside the bar and we could see a very smartly dressed man sitting in the driver's seat. He appeared to be about 40 years old. He looked right; he looked left. Then he began shoving his pointer finger as far up in his nose as he could go without finding brain matter.

At this point, my comrades and I were squealing and lauging in complete disgust.

After digging around for a few minutes, he pulled his now slimy finger out of his nose and looked inquisitively at what he had managed to produce. He appeared suprised. Then, to bring my utter disgust to total rupugnance, the booger picker (and my sensitive readers should probably stop here) graduated from picking to eating. Yes, dear readers: the Benz driving, suit wearing, 40-year-old man was eating his boogers.

This went on for 25 minutes.

The margarita made it ever funnier. So we started yelling booger eater and pointing at the window while quaintly sipping on our margaritas.

Then he got out of the car, locked the door and entered the bar where we were sitting. That's when one of my comrades decided that we should leave the Benz driving, suit wearing, 40-year-old booger eater a friendly note. It read:

Dear Booger Eater,

We saw you.

Love, the Three Blind Mice.

and left if on his windshield when we left the club.

*M*

Sin City meets the Big Apple

This past weekend I attended the NCTE conference in New York. I haven't been to the Big Apple since 2003 when the high point of my trip was throwin up on Ed Lover, but I'll save that story for another day.

Anywho, when I arrived in New York tired, weak and hungry on Thursday evening the first thing I noticed after the ridiculously gridlocked traffic was the constant anomaly which gives the city its character. New York is marked (at least Lower Manhattan) by its ability to jam together two things that seem not to belong with one another and make them work. The ritziest hotels, like the Ritz Carlton, boasted of having parking in the parking garage for $85.00 a day; right in front of the hotel were two of the oldest cars I have ever seen and one had a flat tire. In front of Morton's Steakhouse mountainous piles of rodent infested garbage sat on the street, waiting patiently for the dump truck. From the beautiful skline of Cental Park, resplendent in golden and amber fall colors, one sees nothing but gray, smoggy skies and industrial strength buildings with bars. The hoods of yellow cabs with cursing, angry, speeding drivers are covered in flowered murals designed by special ability children to encourage calmness. One block East of the Coach store where signature bags start at $240.00, stands a Senegalese man selling darn good knock offs for $30.00. It's like mixing peanut butter and ketchup between two pieces of bread and then getting a suprisingly good sandwich.

One of the things I appreciate about New York and am longing for in Las Vegas is the indivuality and creativity of independent stores and restaurants. Sin City does have its fair amount of sin and debauchery, but there is nothing particularily unique about the city outside of the 4 miles of Strip. New York, however, seems to thrive on its uniqueness where Vegas succeeds at silencing its.

I did have to do at least one cheesy tourist activity when I was in the city so I woke up early on Friday morning got dressed and went with my friend Ebony to a taping of the Today Show. It was disappointingly small and clearly producer staged, but I was still excited. If you were watching Friday, that was me and Ebony behind the Junior World Duck Calling Champion. :)

Where will my adventures take me next?

New York

cabernetmartiniscotchdrambuiebrandymojitomartinitequilamargarita....

is how I ended my last night in New York.

More Vegas Crazy

Today I went to Kinko's to make copies for a presentation. I was standing directly next to a well-dressed, elderly black woman. She was wearing a farily conservative business suit, had her more-silver-than-brown hair in a sensible bun and was wearing tortoise rimmed spectacles. Her jewelry was sparkly, but understated. Her shoes? Classic and comfortable. She was holding what I assumed to be a business portfolio and making copies. I pretty much ignored her and went about my business.

Until I had to walk around her to get to another copy machine.

In her "business portfolio," there were pages of body building photos of just her. In the picture, the demure, classy lady I was standing next to looked like Zena, Warrior Princess. I felt my eyebrow raise just slightly when I saw the first couple of spreads shooting out of the copy machine.

When she got done with those, the woman began to make more copies of herself.

Naked.

*M*

Teachers Produce Future Leaders

Yesterday I went to a workshop and the presenter wrote "principal" on her slide show. She meant to write "principle" but made a slight error. Another teacher noticed it and asked which version was correct (both would have fit in the sentence, but one was a bit odd). The presenter noted the error and said that yes, she should have written principle. A third teacher--high school English, special ed, no less-- offered to fix the spelling error:

"Yes" she replied indigantly "you should have written p.r.i.n.c.i.p.o.l."

*M*

Read a Book...

So the official spokespeople of Black men, women, and children in the great U. S. of A. have spoken:

Read a book,
Read a book,
Read a muthafuckin book.

Thank you, BET--otherwise known as Becoming Embecils TV.

This afternoon, as I was teaching, several of my students came in the room, heads bopping to some imaginary beat in their minds, and seemingly unconsciously murmuring a little ditty. The words are as follows:

Read a book, read a book, read a mummapfffting book. Yeah. Read a book, read a book, read a mummapfffting book.

In an attempt to conceal the obvious curse words, my kids replaced the key words with "mummapffting."

I looked up and asked one of my kids what in the world they were talking about.

"You know Ms. Daughtery, you like to read. The Read-A-Book song on BET."

I replied that I did not watch BET.

One of my kids told me that I wasn't Black. Another said I was a shame to the Black race.

All because I don't watch BET. (Keep in mind, these strong sentiments were expressed my people not old enough to legally vote, drink, procreate, marry or watch rated R movies-yet they all knew the words to BET's newest degredatation: Read a Book.

Just when we thought BET could sink no lower--the BET awards where rappers throw chairs and threaten to beat each other up; the constant barrage of booty-shakin', ass-and-titty little ditties; the nonstop videos that do not subconsciously influence people; the Sharpton press-and-curl hour--it manages to suck the last shred of dignity from cable TV with Read A Book--a song that encourages (?) reading. It gives the viewer great advice: read a book, read a magazine, read the sports page, just read a MFing book.

Now, the reading teacher in me, I suppose, should be happy that BET is encouraging their core demographic (ages 18-39) to read. But come on. The Read-A-Book song is accompanied with a cartoon video, complete with a stripper with the word "Book" spread across her buttocks as she bounces up and down.

Have we really sunk this low? In BET's quest to "keep it real" they somehow forgot to keep it right. A good friend of mine swears that every time we watch BET, we actually lose brain cells, thus becomming progressively stupider. I think I may agree.

Guess I'm off to read my MFing book...

*M*

The culprits have been found

Around 4:30 am I awakened to a child crying loudly outside my window. Alarmed, I looked out of the windor to see the creature in distress. When I peered out into the darkness, I scanned the porch area and saw no baby, but I heard its wails of distress. I scanned the area again: no baby. Finally, I saw it. A feral cat in heat.

It was screaming like its life was hanging on by a thread. I looked at my clock, realized that it was too late to get any real sleep and not early enough to fully wake up and understood what the third circle of Hell was like.

Cats. The feral cats are back. They never really left, but now they're back and in heat. Mating.

Disgusted, I plopped back onto my bed and tried to smother my ears with my pillow. More wails. Later this afternoon, as I was cutting butter for a pie crust (yes, the muffin man is back) I accidentaly sliced my finger. Realizing I have no band-aids, I went to ask my neighbor if I could have one so I wouldn't have to drive to the store with a bloody finger. My neighbor, an elderly woman, answered the door and had me step inside her apartment while she went off in search of a bandage.

As I looked around the darkened apartment, the first thing I noticed was a sign that read "A Home is not a Home if it Doesn't have a Cat!" and another that scripted "Cats are where the heart is." and a third that besmirked "I'm smarter than you. I"m a cat!" Upon further investigation, I noticed not one, not two, but three bowls of cat food, two cats lounging in the sunlight and eyeing me suspiciously, and cat food crumbs making a trail from the kitchen to the front door.

Aha Watson!

Is she crazy? Potentially yes. I officially live next door to the crazy cat lady.

*M*

PS--last week FedEx left a package on my doorstep. A cat peed on it.

PPS--on a completely unrelated note, above are pictures of my sister and me. She came to visit and we went to see the Blue Man Group. It's a great show. I highly recommend it!