things that perplexed me today

only one bullet today (so i'm not even using a bullet):

this story, about a 37-year-old NYC teacher who was fired for having sex with a student. granted, he wasn't her student, just a student, but what confuses me isn't the mary kay letourneau-ness of it all. it's how she:


landed this:


not only did they have sex, but they live together in queens and have a kid together. i know, wtf, right? the daily news recounts their entire beautiful story (the best parts in bold):

Walter, now 19, met Salamino in 2002, when he was 12. He saw her again, records show, at an August 2006 party. That flirty encounter led to dates at the movies, hundreds of phone calls, nights at her Howard Beach apartment and sex.

Schools investigators began looking into the affair in November 2006, records show, after receiving a tip that Salamino had been seen kissing and hugging a much younger male.

More calls followed, including one from an unidentified person who confronted Walter in disgust over the affair, says a school investigator's report obtained under the state's Freedom of Information Law.

"'I'm tapping that a-- and there's nothing you can do about it,'" the teen responded, says the report from Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon.

as you may have guessed, the readers of nydailynews.com didn't let us down in the comments area. there were haters:

veni26 Nov 25, 2008 4:43:52 PM
She looks like his hefty grandmother, not even his mother or older sister. What kind of cuchie voodoo was she conjuring up on this clueless kid. Not surprised he has a mommy complex--look at his own mother's response to the situation. She was probably inappropriately getting some action in herself.

and supporters:

Ladiiscorpio Nov 25, 2008 5:43:30 PM
i know him and her.i chilled with her b4 she's a nice person so ya shouldnt b judging them,and saying all this foul shi*.that's there buisness and they love eachother,and she wasnt his teacher and he wasnt in school.To all ya people who got something bad 2 say keep it 2 ya damn self and mind ya business.Gina dont listen 2 any of these people they just hating on ya.The baby is so cute, ya will b great parents.(=

and the just plain awesome:

vburrell Nov 25, 2008 7:06:07 PM
To supernaut924: DAMN!!!!!!!!!! You said it! She DOES have a face like a foot!!!!!! LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!

on another note, i realized today that my relationship with my boss is much like the relationship between sue ellen crandall and her boss in don't tell mom the babysitter's dead: "i'm right on top of that, rose!" while passing on the QED report to the temp.

trips i am taking in the next 6 months

• california (home) for christmas. it makes me really sad that working full-time and, hence, having 2 weeks of vacation per year allows me to go home only once a year. especially when horrible fires are raging basically in my backyard. check out the video below. it's of musicians driving from orange county to riverside to play a classical music gig. the apartments on fire at the very end are where my mom and my brother lived for 3 months before they could move into our house (when we moved from IL back to CA). they're all totally burned down now. luckily no one i know well was affected too badly, but my mom has packed up all of our photo albums in plastic bins for easy throwing-in-the-car capabilities and has started scanning them all so they're saved digitally. she also removed boxes of our baby clothes from the storage unit where we store all of our unnecessary extra shit - which weren't burned down but are exactly where the fires were - and moved them to the house so she can grab them if need be. anyway, i'm going home for xmas and all hendrix have agreed we're not giving any gifts this year, woohoo!

• washington DC for inauguration. hopefully this trip will include some combination of: tess brandon, david scrivener, katelyn lahr, stephanie o'cain, amanda davidowitz and/or emily miller.

• COSTA RICA! i'm seriously so stoked. and it's right after my birthday, so hello, the perfect present. even better, it's a 7-day trip where i only have to take 4 days off (thank you, president's day). in so far: stephanie, jenna, me. possibly: anna, carlina, raliza and aja. can you say, best trip ever? because i can.

trips i would like to take in the semi-near future

• edinburgh/london. right on the cusp of my 3rd year with the new 42, so i will have 3 weeks of vacation. would like to see/stay with caitlin and go to some shows at the fringe. and then of course: LONDON. my long-lost love. i miss it always.

• australia. i've been looking into BUNAC's services there and it's definitely changed since i last checked this program out. you can now go anytime between the ages of 18 and 30 get a visa to stay there for up to 12 months to work 2 different jobs. so excellent. am now working on cultivating my tenuous australian relationships: a friend of a friend i met once at a party when she was taking NYU classes last summer, and a girl i met at a theater networking thing last week who works at the australian consulate in the city, and who i basically accosted being like, OMG YOU'RE FROM AUSTRALIA??? un-smooth, but we were both 5 wine glasses deep, so who cares. we are coordinating a happy hour to talk about all things australasian and theater in the near future.
  

reasons why this season of america's next top model sucked

• analeigh didn't win.
• they did barely any runway walking.
• they seem to have mixed up the final runway dresses with beauty pageant dresses from texas.
• whitney's awful "my life as a cover girl" spots, where errant bra straps and pit stains lurked around every turn.
  
• the awkward post-win photo shoot.

mckey is from lake forest, though, which i guess is kind of cool...

awesome new york times reviews new victory shows have gotten this season

• seattle children's theater's green sheep
• knucklehead zoo's rewind
• redmoon's hunchback
• cirque mechanics' birdhouse factory

i love this theater. and apparently larry van gelder loves us.

reality shows i am totally into right now and videos demonstrating why

1) paris hilton's my new bff.



2) blush - the search for the next great makeup artist.

i'm restarting this blog on the DL, with a new format. i don't have the time or the energy (well, i might have the time, but definitely not the energy) to live up to the expectation of well thought out, long-form blog posts, so i'm trying a new tactic: bullet points. 1 topic, 5 (or less) bullet points, which i think are one of the greatest things ever.

don't update your blogrolls yet, (un)faithful readers. give me a week and i'll probably quit again.

my weekend in connecticut
(i really wanted to underline that, why isn't that an easily accessible option?)

• friday = cheesecake factory, including a "free piece of cheesecake for every $30 spent" coupon courtesy of mary's friend. we earned 3. it was as delicious as i remembered. less delicious was the explosive feeling coming from my stomach after thai lettuce wraps, spicy cashew chicken and apple crisp (in my defense, 2 out of 3 of those things were shared). i used to patronize cheesecake factory at least once a month in high school - why did i not realize how embarrassingly gluttonous that place was before now? mental note: cheesecake factory is a once-a-decade indulgence.

• saturday = marshall's + the mall. the marshall's had a whole room dedicated to home goods. amazing. the mall was already playing christmas music remixes and there were tons of little girls running around with limited too bags and braces. it made me feel old/nostalgic for going to hawthorne mall every saturday with colleen and buying stupid shit from rampage with my wads of babysitting money. the barista guy at the food court starbucks was really hot - probably 18. did you know there are whole forever 21 spin-off stores dedicated solely to accessories???

• gas stations in CT do not sell beer, and liquor stores in CT close at approx. 9:30pm. CT sucks.

• suburban barnes & nobles are 100x better than city barnes & nobles. they're so big and clean and have great discount sections with lots of coffee table books.

• thanks to mary "snuggles" yaranon for putting us up on the least-prone-to-deflation air beds i've ever experienced. thanks to BF randy for being a pleasant person and making a mean jumbalaya. thanks to parvs for being funny and starting to call me cici again. thanks to schman for talking to me on a couch for 3 hours and feigning an interest in college football. thanks to CT for providing me with a much needed dose of houses, deer, and chain restaurants. thanks to NYC for not being suburbia.

i'm out.