Reasons I shouldn't go running today

Please choose three of the four excuses.
○ It's snowing.
○ My knees feel sort of loose. Is that a thing?
○ Maybe I should stay home and watch tv so I know more about pop culture.
○ My hair looks too good to mess up.

so unmusical

If you are looking for hobbies I recommend these:

Taking photos of other people's dogs.
Sometimes discreetly and sometimes not discreetly. These photos will be worth millions someday, when dogs are extinct.

Walking around the city early in the morning, eating food out of a bag.
Almond M&Ms, snap peas, dried coconut flakes, the type of food doesn't really matter as long as it can be transported in a bag.

Running in the middle of the night.
It's the perfect temperature and noise level and the sun never gets in your eyes. And after you fall a few dozen times because you can't see the ground, you hardly notice the falling anymore.



Talking to strangers.
I like finding out if they have interesting stories, and also I like their shoes or skateboard or hair or dog and I need to tell them immediately. The bus is the best place on earth.

Planning elaborate fitness regimes in Google Docs and never ever doing them.
Next week I'll run prime-number mile intervals on odd-numbered days and run my weight in roman numerals at the speed of the earth's rotation on even-numbered days. Let's title this one "new idea" and put it in a folder with the others.

Watching tv and practicing my cursive by transcribing every line with a paintbrush.

At this point I'm just a bookcase away

So the other day I was watching a documentary on prisons, is how I'm going to start all blog posts from now on. They interviewed copious amounts of prison specialists and historians, which seems to be what you do when you make a documentary.

As a child I always assumed that I would most definitely be interviewed for a lot of documentaries when I was older and I never worried about what topic I would be a specialist on. How to make nachos? Pool sanitation? The mass-production of cole slaw? Giving birth on the moon? 



What is a filmmaker going to be researching that makes them say "Oh we most definitely need to interview Brooke or there's no point in even making this movie"? 

That was for Adult Brooke to sort out. It also seemed logical when I was younger that if for some reason I didn't end up as a historian in a documentary, I would be interviewed as a witness to a horrible crime.

I make the best nachos.

emojis and the other six wonders of the world

Reality tv is one of the seven wonders of my mom’s world, along with hashtags, gchatting, foursquare, mobile browsers, emojis, and one I won't say but it starts with sex and rhymes with texting. These are things she doesn't understand but calls me about every few weeks and says "Today is the day, Brooke. Explain this to me."



And they remain the seven wonders because I guess I never do a good enough job of explaining them, or they’re really nuanced subjects, or it’s hard to get a good grasp on them when they’re not as deeply rooted in your life as hashtags are in mine. It #scares me that one day I will have a child and one day the world will change so much that I will ask that child for an explanation of #conceptsbeyondmyunderstanding. I can't explain reality tv.

But after a few solid marathons of non-reality tv shows, it's hard to tell them all apart. How many quirky attractive characters in their 20s can there be? Why are you all wearing such colorful outfits? Why do all the male love interests have sweating problems? Why does bonding always have to happen near water?

Why does every episode of every scripted show have that joke where someone says "Is it good?" and the other person says "No." and everyone panics until the person continues "...it’s great!" When did humanity decide this was the best joke ever?



Reality tv is refreshing because it doesn’t have any of these things. The plot doesn’t bother me because, there’s no plot. Usually I just decide whose hairstyle I like the best and fast-forward to the parts with that person in them. You can ignore large chunks of dialogue while working on something else and I promise you won't miss anything at all. And they make me feel like America is doomed, which is the hallmark of any good reality tv show.

There is something really invigorating about feeling bad about America that I wish my mom could understand.



Coolest hair ever!

How about it, Science?

I've only had trouble sleeping twice - once when our fire alarm kept going off every thirty seconds and once when I found out every season of Arrested Development was on Hulu - but sometimes when I'm very tired and want the best sleep ever, I like taking ZzzQuil. Because ZzzQuil is like a party drug for people who like partying alone in their pajamas drinking tea and waking up feeling amazing.

Also because sometimes I feel just a little cheated for growing up when scientists have already told us we can't mess around with fun dangerous things people used to do, like leeches and electroshock therapy and soda. Just based on the way it's spelled we know ZzzQuil is probably horrible for us, but no scientist has said it for SURE yet. At least, not right to my face. 

Ten hours of sleep and no dreams! Not even that recurring dream where I can sense a nearby object's weight instead of its color, smell, or texture! That dream makes me dizzy all morning.

please don't ever wink again

The other day my friend said I had parmesan cheese in my hair and I wasn't sure which was worse: the fact that it was probably actually dandruff, or the fact that I eat so much pizza she automatically assumed it was cheese.

I put the two w's next to the k in awkward.

Want to see the most unnatural someone can be on camera? I knew it! Our friend has a YouTube show and filmed an episode with us, then edited my hopelessly camera-shy ramblings into what sounds like near-English, at times. It's so short it will take longer to explain than to watch so just watch EXTREME CRAFT CHALLENGE:

Things I love about getting older

Here's a tip: if you write something wrong try writing over it and if that doesn't work add dots around it.

 

good news: I don't have your email address

In my opinion, the only thing worth emailing is this video.



With no subject line and often.

Dog Year

Happy New Year friends and readers and suckers!



Mark your calendars because 2012 is the year I'm finally going to get a dog, teach him tons of tricks and hang out with him all the time. I promise there will be pictures and I promise he will have a great name and I promise this will happen as soon as possible.



My only other resolution is to eat more bacon. Basically this is going to be a really great year. I think it will be a really great year for you too.

DISCLAIMER: I am tired and haven't eaten cookies in almost two years

After I read through this I realized it's the most self-centered, dramatic, angry thing I've written since I was fifteen and writing strange poetry and lighting it on fire. I just feel like I should mention that this post was inspired by strangers on allergy forums and my step-brother's ex-girlfriend's sister. Every gluten-intolerant person I know is awesome, and if you're thinking "oh curses, this is about me" don't worry, it isn't. I do have some charred teenage poetry about you though; let me know if you're interested.

Here's a fun experiment for anyone with a self-diagnosed gluten allergy. Take a water and flour paper maché mixture, and put some on your skin. You can do this while making a sweet paper maché piñata if you want. If after a few minutes your skin breaks out in huge burning poison-ivy-esque hives like mine did, you are allergic to wheat. If not . . . well that's weird isn't it.

As good as it feels to have friends who eat the same strange gluten-free foods as I do, and who also can't participate in social rites of passage like birthday cakes and free pizza - it feels kind of sad to have those friends turn around and say that they apparently CAN eat wheat SOMETIMES and it's no big deal. If I licked a sandwich I'd have three days of throwing up and lose ten pounds over the next month. I would be dizzy, gray, and susceptible to every virus in my zip code. Why can't I lick a sandwich, but their allergy disappears on birthdays?

On the other, more positive hand, the more people that don't eat gluten, the more companies will make gluten-free food. In the last three years you helped bring favorites like cereal and cookies back into my life, and that's pretty cool.



So on second thought, maybe don't do the flour test. Stay away from flour. You're deathly allergic after all. Unless there's a pizza party.

The most exhilarating part of my mornings and afternoons is The Overpass.

It's halfway between my apartment and my office - an empty, dark, tunnel decked out with bright yellow signs that read "DANGER! BEES!" and beneath that PELIGRO! ABEJAS!

I don't know about you, but to me there's nothing like an upside-down exclamation point to make you ask WHAT BEES? What are you freaking talking about? Is this thing just packed with bees? Why so many signs? Are you breeding them with a chemical that makes them super angry? Does the tunnel smell like honey?

And there's nothing like a honey-scented, psychotic-bee-packed tunnel to get me biking sixty miles an hour. I fly through that thing like a bee that smells dinner. No, faster. Just a hair faster.

and then I cooked it and ate it

A lot of times the French eggs I buy still have feathers stuck to them. And I love it.



Is that BAD?

I'm not saying she's a gold-digger...

I'll be the first to admit it, I listen to pretty wimpy music. My favorite artists are all under a hundred pounds, have sweet beards, like medieval history, and would probably be caught dancing with a beaver before running a half marathon. And since I'm doing the second one, it's becoming kind of unsupportable (can't remember English equivalent of this word) to listen to while I'm running.

It's the most embarrassing thing ever but I LOVE running to rap music. And pop music.

Let's take a short break to think about how awesome a music video with dancing beavers would be. I can't stop thinking about that idea now.

And we're back. My iPod has been filling up with some unusual stuff lately. It's half the nerdy things one would expect me to listen to, and half Eminem, Lil Jon, and Lady Gaga. Which brings me to my question.

Usually I'm too "in the zone" or something to stop and notice just how terrible these lyrics are. But I caught this one at a stoplight:

It's not that I don't like you, I'm just at a party. And I am sick and tired of my phone ringing.

Are there listeners out there that say to themselves "That's what I've always wanted to say, I could just never find the words."?



And my next question for these listeners, can you give me some more music recommendations?

good morning USA

On a completely different note than my last post, I never was really obsessed with being an American until I moved to France. I could write enough about this subject to fill a freezer full of ice cream, but since that space could be better spent let me just show you a picture and a thirty-second song.

cheese at the supermarket in Vienna:


I have never watched this show past the opening credits, and wasn't even a huge fan of the opening credits before September. But lately it is my FAVORITE song.



And for anyone who has never walked around France humming it to themselves let me tell you, it just feels right. Especially the part "he's hailing a salute to the American race." Try it sometime.

make sure you're sitting down.

Yo Gabba Gabba + The Decemberists = OH MY GOODNESS.



UPDATE: The video disappeared. Try watching it here, and if that doesn't work, call me and I'll sing it for you.

can't fight that logic

8-year-old boy: Brooke, have you ever met the Simpsons?
me: No, they're not real.
boy: Yes they are real. They live in Springfield, in America.
me: They're just a tv show. But on tv, yes they live in America.
boy: Have you seen a school bus?
me: Yeah, kids take them to school.
boy: HA! The Simpsons ride a school bus and school buses are real and the Simpsons are real! I knew it!

my mom's going to make blueberry pancakes

Here is the funny thing about teaching in France: I have no teaching experience. And I've never tried to hide that, from the program or my schools or teachers. I tell them all the time that my only experience with English is speaking it, and my only qualification for working with kids is that my favorite food is candy.

My actual job title is "assistant," to a real English teacher. But for me and all the other assistants I know, that's somehow been interpreted as teaching classes to 400 kids a week, and doing all the lessons completely on my own. So, I'm just making this teaching thing up as I go along. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If it works half the time I consider that a success. The kids like it, the teachers never complain, and sometimes I'm excellent. (Especially in kindergarten. I'm a natural with five-year-olds.)

Until today, when one teacher stopped me as I walked into her class and told me she had some news.

"I've been talking with some of the other teachers," she said "and a lot of us don't want you to come to our classes anymore."

"Oh, ok." I said, somewhat taken aback by what sounded more like a 14-year-old not inviting me to her birthday party than a grown woman talking to a college student. "I see, English every week does take up a lot of time."


I was rarely invited to birthday parties as a child.

"No, it's not the time at all. The thing is, and it's nothing against you but, you're not a good teacher. In fact you're actually a really bad teacher."

"Alright, that's fair." I wondered why she had felt like she needed to add this, and why she hadn't said anything three months ago. "I've never taught before, and I'm only supposed to be an assistant, but if you're ok without my help that's no problem at all."

"Oh we're MORE than ok without your help." Oh my goodness why was she being so mean. "You just confuses the kids more - it's horrible."

I thanked her again, and didn't bother to remind her for the tenth time that I'm not a teacher. But if I had had more time to chat, say, two minutes and forty-eight seconds, I would have said this:



Then I got a crazy idea that no one wanted me anymore, and the principals would fire me and I would be sent back to the US with a frown-face stamp on my passport. But I went around and did a head count, and the rest of my teachers still definitely want me. Everyone else thought I did an awesome job today. And a boy with a bloody nose walked up to me right before I left and said, with excellent pronunciation: "Good morning, Brooke. I've got a bloody nose."

Granted, it was afternoon. But I don't think he has a horrible English teacher.

and now for something you'll really like

I thought I had already heard the most bizarre things kids could be thankful for, until a ten-year-old girl was making her list yesterday, and asked me for the translation of a "bald mouse."

Me: A bald mouse?
HER: Yes a mouse that is bald.
ME: Can you describe it some more?
HER: Well, it's like a mouse, but it can also fly, and to fly it spreads its arms.

If you speak French you already know what this animal is so please don't laugh at me. Actually, everyone, please don't laugh at me. I told her it was a flying squirrel. And she thanked me and wrote it down, and I made a mental note that she was crazy. But then I got home and looked up "bald mouse" and it's a bat.

And it wasn't that funny until I thought of my alternate-reality Batman: FlyingSquirrelman.
All the alternate-reality super-villains are trembling in fear right now.

Esssactly

Major spoiler alert for people who are months behind on reality television: I was catching up on Project Runway last week, and when Casanova was cut I was crushed.



Casanoava was a Puerto Rican contestant who spoke in broken English and was always yelling "Essssactly!"

INTERVIEWER: You seemed to struggle with some of the challenges [...] do you think it was an issue with the language barrier or do you think that it was that you had a different interpretation of what you thought that they wanted?

CASANOVA: Definitely maybe I can say both.

The guy never made any sense. No one could understand him. In short - he was me.

Because that's how I see myself lately - I am the zany foreign character on my own French reality show. Always thirty seconds behind in the conversation. Laughing really loudly when I don't understand jokes. Only speaking in the present tense. Drifting off midi-sentence when the vocabulary gets too difficult. And always, with a bewildered look on my face, repeating my famous catchphase: "What is going on?"

Other likenesses include Gloria from Modern Family



and Consuela the maid from Family Guy.



Cross your fingers that viewers find my antics endearing, so I don't get voted off.