I hate when I go to OkCupid, and my mailbox turns pink, and really it's just an invitation to take a PeanutLabs survey. I want mail from cute girls, not computers. Well, the computers of cute girls might be okay. There *must* be a way to turn it off, and I'm about to go find it right now.

OkCupid says so, so it must be true. I just re-took the OkCupid test, and I went from being Genghis Khunt to the Playstation. The difference, for those of you who might not be OkCupid test experts, is in the brutal/gentle divide. I'm still random, sex-oriented, and a master. Allegedly. I'm pretty pleased, although I was pretty pleased before. Anyway, OkCupid says everyone but the Mixed Messenger and the Priss are good for me. I say, the more the better. If I now match with 30 out of 32 types, fair play to me. I wonder how many I matched with before?

Right, so, this is exactly the kind of navel-gazing I do online, and having tests to talk about makes it even more appealing. I should be in bed, not writing about my expertise at random sex. Or I should be exercising my expertise at random sex. However, since I am choosing to stay home, I should get some sleep. Hooray for sleeping in!

My kids (students) are so funny. Today I�m sitting with four of my kids, playing a letter game, and I hear this wailing from the dramatic play area (dress-up area for you non-early childhood folks). I look over, pretty sure I recognize the voice, and, sure enough, it�s my kid who�s been held over from last year. He�s bigger than almost all the other kids, bullies them on a fairly regular basis, and is also the biggest baby. Classic bully: can dish it out, but can�t take it. I wait, and he comes over to me, and throws himself upon me, howling. I hug him and ask what�s wrong. Turns out someone hit him with a spoon (a big plastic spoon). I call the other kid over. He�s one of my very quiet, very conscientious kids. He�s never hit anyone before.

�Did you hit him with a spoon?� He nods. I�m a little surprised. �Why did you do that?� He doesn�t answer. I ask the crying kid, �What happened before he hit you?�

�We was playing and he had the spoon and he just hit me on the head with it.� Sounds a little unlikely, but it�s a start.

�Is that what happened?� I ask the perpetrator. He nods again. Hmm. The crying kid has stopped crying, so I send him back. I ask my perp to sit down, and I look at him. �Can you explain why you hit him?� No answer. I wasn�t really expecting one; I can tell he�s scared he�s going to get in trouble, so I switch tactics. �Did you want to hurt him?� He shakes his head. �Oh, I didn�t think so. Were you angry at him? Sometimes when we�re angry, we forget to use our words and we hit.� He shakes his head again. That�s a little unusual, but okay. �Well, did you see what happened? How was he feeling?� I ask.

�Sad.�

�Ohh. Did you want to make him sad?� He shakes his head again. �Oh, good. What was he doing after you hit him?�

�Crying.�

�Ohh. Did you want to make him cry?�

�No.�

�Oh, I�m glad. So why did you hit him?�

�We were playing and I was the police.�

�So you hit him on the head?�

�Yes.�

�Is that what the police do, hit people on the head?�

�Yes.�


Well, what can I say to that? That is what the police do, although I�m sad that my five-year-olds know that. I don�t think I knew that until I was thirteen and watched Eyes on the Prize. And even then, I kind of thought it was only police in the South in the 1960s that did that. The reality of my children is kind of fucked up. So we had a talk about pretending to do things when we�re, well, pretending, and sent him back to play, reminding him to make sure the other kid was okay. There was a time when I might have mentioned that most police don�t hit people on the head; their job is to keep people safe. But, then again, this is the reality of my kids. Gotta love the NYPD.

Well, goddamn. I guess I have the answer as to why *I* haven't started a revolution. This is what happens.
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20061029140652676
I guess I'm just not that brave...

I realize this slogan has been claimed by a rather fringe group, but I can agree with the sentiment. So, where *is* the revolution? I've been knitting, and listening to soundtracks (that's what I do when I'm being crafty; I "watch" musicals when I'm sewing, since they don't require a lot of eye-attention). Today I played around with iTunes and arranged my Les Mis songs in order (somewhat). And in the play, there are all these students sitting around with revolutionary ideals, saying things like, "With all the anger in the land, how long before the judgment day, before we cut the fat ones down to size, before the barricades arise?" Which one hears students say fairly often; hell, I probably said similar things when I was a student. But then these privileged college boys go out and *start a revolution*. No kidding. Barricades, guns, death, the whole nine yards. And they don't do so well, as anyone who's seen the play/read the story knows. But they set the stage for a revolution. And they got off their collective ass and did something, which impresses me no end. Which leads to the question, why am *I* still sitting on my ass? Why haven't I (or any of the many people just like me) started a revolution? There are some obvious answers, like the fact that I've got this serious issue with people shooting at me, or doing things to cause me bodily harm. And I probably like my comforts too much. And I don't have any good ideas as to what to do that would actually effect change; assassinations and the like wouldn't end oppression, and I'd be very dead. I'm not sure those are good answers, but they're true, nonetheless. I've been wondering what the answers are for others. Are we too cynical? Too fearful? Too much at a loss for good ideas? I think all of the above are true about me, to some extent. So now the question is, how do I (we) overcome all of this?

Today, as I was drilling holes into the walls of my closet, my phone rings. It was an unfamiliar number, and I almost didn't pick up. Of course, I did; otherwise, there would be no story. Anyway, it was someone whose niece had found my glasses, which had apparently dropped out of my bag on the bus. I'm terrible about losing things, which is why I had my number inside, and she called it. She was friendly, and was willing to stick around her house until I could get there. Now I have my glasses back. Sure, I'd do the same thing, and so, probably, would you. But sometimes I have no faith in humanity, and assume that I'm just screwed. And then something nice like this happens, and my faith, in Brooklyn folks at least, is restored. I was similarly lucky when I lost my cell phone several years ago, and my wallet, a few months ago. Really, New Yorkers are some of my favorite people.

My very first surfboard was smashed in half last Sunday. I'm very sad. It was big, and could catch waves, and helped lots of people learn how to surf this summer. And I could do yoga on it on days when there weren't a lot of waves. But last Sunday, the waves were very big (for here; maybe 6 feet), and one of them smashed it in two. And my friend who was borrowing it felt really bad. And now I don't have an extra board, which is sad. Even though it was too big for me to carry comfortably, and even though I love my new(ish) board, I'm feeling kind of blue about my old one. Ah, well. Maybe it's time to get a new big longboard. Or maybe I'll just be like most folks, and only have one. It's not like I need two; I had actually been expecting for it to get damaged beyond repair last summer, and was pleased and surprised that it lasted this long. But then I got used to it, and it made folks skip work and come surfing with me. It was a good board. ***sniff***

Were you born in the United States?

• Yes
• No

I was, but my "ideal match"? Hmm. Maybe not. I mean, I could use me some papers from somewhere *other* than the United States... There's this very cute Canadian boy I want to marry. He's gay, so I think it would work out as a citizenship thing ;)

So, last week, on Monday, I was prevented from going about my business because half of Park Slope was closed down due to a bomb scare. It stopped me from going up 8th Ave, and then, when I decided to go shopping at the Co-op, which I finally got off my ass and joined, 7th Ave was closed by the time I got out. I had to wander down to St. Johns and by the time I got home, all the frozen berries I had gotten to make 4th of July berry pie were, well, not so frozen. So that sucked.

And then today, as I was skipping work to go to Coney Island, my mother calls me. "So, what's going on in your city today?" she says. I'm thinking maybe one of my siblings is going to come visit my grandparents this weekend and she wanted to see if I'd be around, or something normal, and this is just her way of saying hi. "Nothing much," I reply. "What's going on at home?" "Oh, nothing. But I'm at a conference, and someone just walked in and announced that a building had exploded in Manhattan, so I thought I'd call and see how you were." WTF?!? A building exploded?! So, now, of course, we all know that there was a gas problem, and a nasty divorce situation, et cetera. But at the time, I was a little surprised. And I realized that this is what happens when you have a child living in New York City; folks come to you with crazy stories. Luckily, my mother is calm and pragmatic, as well as familiar with the city. This was useful on 9/11, because she could tell all my frantic high school friends that the World Trade Center was way downtown, and I lived and worked uptown, many miles away, and I was fine. And it was useful today, since she knows that I conduct almost my entire life in Brooklyn, and am probably not in Manhattan. But I'm sure it sucks to have someone freak out at you because they know your kid is in NYC, and something crazy just happened there.

So now I'm thinking that Mondays are just days that remind me of why having a "War on Terror" that makes folks antsy SUCKS ASS. It's just no fun. And it sucks in many other ways, too, but these are the ones that are currently infringing on me. *sigh*

So I went out the other day, in the rain, in my fancy pink rainboots. They rock. I'm not always a big fan of the rain, but my fancy pink rainboots make me happy. I rode my bike to the park (first time riding in the rain) to a friend's engagement party, which was actually a lot of fun. (Too bad I *still* have a crush on her. Sigh.) And when I got there, I realized I didn't want to clump around in my boots, so I took them off and went barefoot, which is even better than wearing fancy pink rainboots. I like being barefoot, particularly in the summer. And I like wearing sundresses with bare feet, AND with fancy pink rainboots. So things were good.

But then I did something foolish: I went over to my boy's house, and did *not* bring real shoes with me. I thought, "It's raining. It'll rain all weekend. I have fancy pink rainboots, what more could I want?" Turns out the answer is, "Sandals, for when it's just hot, and not raining." Because rainboots, even if they're fancy and pink, don't breathe (they shouldn't, because then they'll let the rain in, and that would suck). And that was very uncomfortable. So now I've learned that one should always have a backup pair of shoes when one is wearing rainboots, whether they are fancy and pink or not (since there are many places where going barefoot is either ill-advised or unacceptable).

Now, today, I saw some shoes that seemed kinda like a compromise. I went out with this cute girl I met on OKCupid (she's a total hottie), and she had these fancy red shoes. And they're made out of some weird rubber amalgamation, and they were super cute, and I think they're waterproof on the bottoms and sides, but breathe on the top. Pretty darn cool.