Cracking the SAT's with...Twilight?!?

Why didn't I think of this?!?


Some genius jerk wrote Defining Twilight: Vocabulary Workbook for Unlocking the SAT, ACT, GED, and SSAT and one for New Moon, too.

From his website:

Can you resist the allure of Edward’s myriad charms—his ochre eyes and tousled hair, the cadence of his speech, his chiseled alabaster skin, and his gratuitous charm? Will you hunt surreptitiously and tolerate the ceaseless deluge in Forks to evade the sun and uphold the facade? Join Edward and Bella as you learn more than 600 vocabulary words to improve your score on the *SAT, ACT®, GED®, and SSAT® exams!

I started fuming jealously and then realized this was ridiculous.

Siegfried and Roy

Jifo and I are fostering these two stinky black pugs named Siegfried and Roy (we did not do this), who have severe underbites and leave eye boogers all over my skin and clothes whenever I go near them. How far we go to save dogs.

Roy, the one with the skin condition (it's patchy and sad)

Now that I have your attention - if you've got a dollar or two to spare, please consider giving it to "The Muppets" - a trio of three drowned rat terrier-like fuzzy dogs who need tons of medical treatment.

I Sing on the Radio Tonight

*Update: the song was Doomed Cool, which I did not write, and can be heard in the archives - we go on first!*

So apparently I'm going to be on internet radio tonight.

L.S. passed me a Tweet from Cynthia Paulson (@CynLuscious) who will be playing a song that I either wrote and/or sang on with Hepnova a couple years ago.

6 P.M. Pacific
WomenRockRadio

Unfortunately, I have no idea what song they're playing. So I'm slightly, as in downright, terrified.

This is the paradox I faced for years when I was an active playwright. I had two things going for me as a youth: prolific output and guts. I wrote a lot and I put stuff out there. And people would pick it up - my plays would get produced or workshopped; I got invited to participate in the Play-A-Thon, where I wrote an under 10-minute play in 1 week, using 2 characters and 3 props that I pulled out of a hat on the first day. (That was my debut as a butch dyke on stage - so convincing that no one recognized me after I changed back into my femme clothes for the bow.)

Unfortunately, the problem with youth is that the work an artist produces at a young age is not always great. So I had plays read that I now cringe when I think about. (It's probably my internal critic berating me and they might not have actually been that bad.)

However. My singing has, without a doubt, improved by millionfold. Let me put it this way:

When I first wrote for and recorded with Hepnova, I was an alto. Now I'm a soprano.

My upper range is completely opened, my belt and mix range is higher than I ever imagined and I can switch from jazz broadway to legit to bel canto on command - with the proper placement.
I couldn't do that before.

So it is with great trepidation that I tune in in half an hour to see if the world is going to hear a novice singing a song written in 2 days. Oh lawdy.

Wish I Stayed In Vegas

At the Venetian


Molesting a Blue Man with Luv


At the XS nightclub right before the Chicago party girls pulled me to the pool platform to dance.

It Never Happened In Vegas

Now that everyone on the internet knows who I am and half the people in real life know about my blog, I present for you a brief account of Vegas that neither confirms nor denies that following occurred...

Hugging a Blue Man Group member

Asking the older gay black guy next to us at the Wynn buffet if he could explain to my friend what "fierce" was, as I held up a photo of Beyonce. (He nodded and giggled charmingly.)

Getting photographed in fake lesbian positions with crazy party girls from Chicago

Throwing my back out having a dance-off with breakers...again

If you're my boss, none of these happened. I spent the weekend at the Clark County senior center singing to elderly ladies and freshening up their rooms. I got plenty of sleep and didn't crawl into bed at 6 in the morning.

For the rest - I am so crashing from my high this weekend! I partied like it was 1999 and didn't have joint issues.

Backstreet's...BACK?!?

I'm jetting off to Vegas for the weekend, where I will meet a great gal pal at the airport, who is flying in ass early from NYC. We're going to be Blue Man Grouping and Cirque du Soleil-ing and generally escaping the "June Gloom" as my brother's ex-girlfriend says.

I'm leaving you in good hands - none other than those of the Back Street Boys. Leaders in the tradition of boy bands returning with initials only, these 90s guys are now BSB. They bring their wives on tour and blog about babies. That last part creeps me out.

After my most amazing concert experience ever at NKOTB a few months ago, any boy band reunion has the official 52 Faces seal of approval. Watch as they discuss their "water butt" issues in non-potable countries and Howie suddenly gets fakely Hispanic. And for the record, my favorite was always a tie between Howie Dorough (the clean cut ethnic one) and AJ McLean (the tattooed, stage-humping one with the molester voice).

Nick has lost the baby fat to reveal a grade A douche.

(Not sure how I feel about the cleaned up, totally boring, "so L.A." AJ)

"My Hot Cute Teacher"

I'm a teacher at last!

I've officially finished my first week as an SAT and summer high school English teacher. I thought I would hate high school kids (I usually dislike children from the ages of talking through...oh, the late 20's), but I adore their energy.

This is in large part because I teach the easiest kids in the world - Asians. Smarty pants emporium! (An SAT word, btw.)

I spent the week getting sore throats after my long teaching days (never talk for 8 hours straight) and making Gollum noises as a mnemonic device to help kids remember the word "guile". The latter anecdote caused Jifo to throw his head back and laugh, which happens about once every three months, and say, "Now they're gonna remember, 'That's the word that made my cute, hot teacher make weird noises'!"

I can't believe how much I enjoy being around youthful energy, including my fellow teachers, who are all a good 4-7 years younger than me ::cries::, save for this one JA* actor in his forties who went to MIT.

Jifo bought me a used GPS to go with the used car (yes! he bought me a car!), and an MP3 cassette adapter so I can listen to Twilight on tape. My road rage is now completely gone.

*Japanese-American, for non-Asians not in the know.

I've Got a Bemis Dog

2 hoarders.
300 dogs in the Mojave desert.

I have one of them. (the dogs)

I'm fostering Reed, the prettiest dog I've ever worked or lived with. He's a silky, blond with a ginger way about him. He's currently running back and forth, freaked by the, well, freaky thunder in this L.A. sun storm.

Read about the Bemis case at the Wuffington Wag (I know, right) and see footage of the actual compound below:

I Want to Dance Like a News Anchor

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm going to journalism school:



I'm kind of amazed. It's pretty difficult to keep up a 2 minute choreography, even if it's just upper body.

Round 4
J-school: 0
MFA: -2

Miss the first 3 rounds? Catch up here! Not sure what the battle is over?