When you’re filling out your OK Cupid profile, you are supposed to complete the sentence, “I am really good at _____.” It’s kind of a tough question, because you don’t want to BRAG or anything, but there is so little in life that a person can be objectively GOOD at. Ideally, you’d be able to cite something where data backs you up: “I am really good at being tall;” or “I am really good at getting fan letters to Michael Bolton published on his fan page.” Lucky for me, I have exactly one skill like this. I am really good at finding four-leaf clovers.

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I have almost never been single. If we were to psychoanalyze, this is probably because I was the last to have a boyfriend in high school. I wanted one SO BAD, but I was extremely moody in public, and openly read “The Babysitters’ Club” way past a time when it was socially acceptable, so. I wrote in my diary every night about how I would do ANYTHING to have a boyfriend, and how if I had one, I would take him on a train ride and put my head in his lap, innocently, so he could stroke my hair. (This was my main fantasy: train ride hair stroking. As an boyfriend-having adult, I have secretly made, like, six boys ride on trains with me to live this out. Can’t lie: it’s as amazing as I imagined it would be.) The moment a boy finally took interest in me (Eli, when I was sixteen), I clamped onto him and thought, “I am never, ever, ever letting this go."

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I don’t drink much. Really, I feel uncomfortable writing about alcohol, because it feels a little like I’m a twelve-year-old writing about being a teenager. I have observed some things about alcohol and drunkenness — I’ve flirted with it — but I have no authority at all to write about it. My observations are things like, “Whoa. Alcohol is so WEIRD. Things get kind of spinny, and you can kiss people with less reservation!” 

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I had really been looking forward to my contracted trip to Washington, DC. I had been hired to present a workshop on working with students who have emotional differences (my preferred term for what the rest of the world calls “disturbances,” “disabilities,” and “difficulties”). I'd spent a lot of time preparing the workshop, and I was excited to spend the extra time I had to romp around DC, finding new libraries and eating at vegan restaurants alone. Maybe I would even go to a MUSEUM. No sarcasm here: heaven for me is a day at an unfamiliar library or museum all by myself. Because apparently I’m 65 years old.

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I only ever had one imaginary friend, but she was awesome. Full disclosure: I didn't get my imaginary friend until I was way too old for it to be socially acceptable. Granted, there's no real age where it's socially acceptable to have an imaginary friend, but I was WAY too old. I was 14 and about to start high school. "Lizzie Maguire" was on television (I was too old to be watching that, too, and yet); I liked how she had a little cartoon who thought things out for her and gave her advice. Also, I thought it would adorably quirky to have an imaginary friend. I thought that telling people I had an imaginary friend would make them think I was cute. I'm very lucky that, of all the people I told, no one acted on what must have been a very visceral impulse to call some kind of authority.

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I’ve turned into one of those insufferable people who gets painfully nostalgic about high school. You know my type. Give me a drink and a copy of the ’04 Wilson High School yearbook and I’ll be happy for days. 

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There’s this part in “Harold and Maude” where they’re sitting out on a pier after what might be described as the best date of all time, and a flock of seagulls crosses the sky. Maude says, “Dreyfus once wrote from Devil’s Island that he would see the most glorious birds. Many years later in Brittany he realized they had only been seagulls. For me they will always be glorious birds.” Maude is such a baller. Who even knows who Dreyfus is? None of us do. (OK, actually, a quick Google search reveals that she was probably referencing Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army who was wrongly convicted of treason in 1894. But that’s not the point. Most of us go on thinking Maude is a lovely, genius eccentric.) I have always associated that quote — one of my favorites in a movie simply TEEMING with great quotes — with pigeons.

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Right before Halloween, my roommate Hannah had her friend Adele over to make costumes in the living room. Hannah was going to go as an eggplant plant (not redundant because of the inclusion of flowers). Adele was going as Weetzie Bat. WEETZIE BAT! DO YOU REMEMBER WEETZIE BAT?! FROM THE FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK SERIES, “DANGEROUS ANGELS”? DO YOU REMEMBER THIS!? Clearly, I remember it. Weetzie Bat was a pretty big part of my childhood. That’s an understatement on par with, “Recipes are a pretty big part of a cookbook;” or, “Religious stuff is a pretty big part of the Bible."

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There are plenty of classroom archetypes that you come to recognize more readily the longer you teach. There’s that kid who’s never really doing anything wrong but laughs at EVERYTHING and it drives everyone else crazy; there are girls who insult each other quietly and in code so their fights arrive with all the warning of an earthquake in the middle of the night; there’s the kid who’s secretly crazy-smart but doesn’t want anyone to know it; there’s that kid who’s loudly smart and NEEDS everyone to know it. But my least favorite of the bunch, I have to say, are the sensitive kids. Sensitive kids cry ALL THE TIME. About everything. They cry every day. They cry openly. When they are not crying, they are brooding. They sit on benches during recess and watch the other kids play and they frown. You ask a sensitive kid what’s wrong one time and she will say, distantly, “Nothing.” Ask a sensitive kid what’s wrong again, and you’ll get a dissertation.

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My cat ran away over the summer, so now it's easier for me to pick my favorite person: it used to be neck-in-neck between Satchmo (cat) and Alexis (human). Now that Satchmo is gone, Alexis is my favorite by a landslide

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I spent three days last week peeing at the Ashe Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans. I mean, that's not all I was doing: I was at a workshop about how to lead a workshop (pretty meta, I know). But the peeing is significant because the Ashe Cultural Arts Center only has one bathroom, and it has a sign on the door I grew to really like as I sat there peeing (and feeling bad for boys, who don't get to sit to pee and read good door signs). It was a long poster titled, "How To Build Community." It offered a bunch of practical ways that your Common Joe could contribute to a real life community. I ate it up.

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There are people out there that don't drink coffee. When I was ten years old I was like that too: walking around like life was fine without it. But when I was ten, I also thought that women should never pay for a date, and that "Lord of the Rings" was a shitty trilogy. Ten-year-old me, in other words, was pretty dumb. Let me clarify: it's not so much that I think people who don't drink coffee are DUMB, per se; it's just that I think they're ill-informed about what is important in life. Coffee is important in life. If everyone just drank coffee, there probably wouldn't be war.

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A few years ago, we were all supposed to decide that Jenny Lewis was uncool. In case you are, for some reason, unacquainted: Jenny Lewis is the painfully adorable former lead singer of Rilo Kiley. She has a big solo career. She just put out a solo album called "The Voyager." If you need to "get it," this is your song. If you're more a visual learner, try this one. 

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Hannah is one of the best friends I have ever had, which is amazing considering how we met. It was the first day of Teach for America institute (I’m not proud, but those are the facts). I was in the airport getting ready to go to Tempe, Arizona. Hannah was in the airport getting ready to go to Tempe, Arizona. I am not sure who approached whom, but I remember Hannah was wearing something kind of orange, and she looked way out of my friend-league. She looked like the sort-of-hippie-ish-but-clean girls who’d rejected me in college. In the airport, Hannah was warm and kind. She asked where I was from; she asked what I was going to be teaching; she asked how I felt about Tempe, Arizona. It was a nice conversation. I knew, of course, that this was too good to last. Hannah would notice that I was wearing a tank top from Forever 21 and reject me immediately because Forever 21 is all slave labor and synthetic fabrics. Best not to get your hopes up around a girl like Hannah. The Hannahs of the world only bring heartache and loneliness.

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The purple Raleigh is the fifth bicycle I've owned in New Orleans. It almost feels unfair to say that I own it, actually: my sister bought it when she moved here two years ago (it was the second bicycle she owned in New Orleans -- the first got stolen off her front porch in the middle of the day because she didn't lock it up). The purple Raleigh once belonged to a "wild hippie chick" named Mary, according to the owner of City Cycle Works, where my sister bought the bike. The owner's name is Neil. Neil is not a far cry from a "wild hippie chick" himself. He's got the "wild" and the "hippie" parts down, at least. 

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