Long Time No See!

You're probably wondering why I haven't posted since October. Well, the State Department finally e-mailed me back and apparently I'm not at liberty to say. Here's a quick "catcher-upper" on what's gone down since my last blog.

My dad fist-bumped Vince Vaughn.

I completed enough art projects about Nixon to make my teacher nervous.

I did a sweeeet paint-by-number of a horse.

I found out that pretty soon I'm moving to China.

After years of being in a state of ruin, I organized my Pokemon cards.

I know what you're thinking, "But how did you choose which style of Jigglypuff to use?!?!" It's really simple actually, Jigglypuff is cutest when its angry.

Anyway, VelocitySquad is taking a bit of a breather so the government won't need me to stay undercover for at least a few more months. Oops! I guess I let the cat out of the bag on that one! No harm in telling you now, we're like a combination of Power Rangers and G.I. Joe's but with super powers.

Stop. Drop. Roll. Blog.

Today I was happy that I had standardized testing. I know what you're thinking, "That doesn't happen." or, "Joke?" Well you're sort of right. The alternative to the super fun PLAN test was the ultra super fun Names assembly. I had to go to that last year. There was a lot of group hugging and talk circles. I don't like either of those things. In fact the only good part was at the end when we got lunch boxes and I traded somebody white cheddar popcorn for a juice box. Unfortunately most assemblies don't end in juice.

The assembly thing started way back in preschool. Next to pamphlets,  assemblies are considered the best way to tell someone what to do if they're on fire. See, from preschool to about 6th grade assemblies are terrifying. There's a lot of "This will happen to you." and "Died." I remember after a particularly brutal one on fire safety in kindergarden, I gathered all of my most special things (stuffed animals) and put them in a satchel (garbage bag) and waited by the front door for my house to catch fire so I would have an easy exit.

These days students have a love/hate relationship with assemblies. We love that we don't have class, but we hate that we have assemblies. I guess school officials decided that teenagers have grasped the concept of fire emergencies but need the internet explained. It's stopped being "Died" and become "Suspended from school with mild consequences." A lot of it is really helpful information, I'll pass along some pointers.

1. That sweet guy you met in a chat room who really understands you and wants to meet in the forest?- Call "To Catch a Predator."
2. Think your new profile picture with a gun makes you look edgy?- So does the police.
3. Internet bully someone?- Prepare to be suspended.
4. On fire?- I have no clue what you should do if you're on fire.

I dunno why they even try. The people in charge of these assemblies don't even rap. Kids today get offended when you assume they have a myspace page, logically they don't like taking internet advice. It's a lot of common sense, like in Elementary school. However, in Elementary school we had songs and puppets, now we just have policemen or ladies who wear lots of flowing clothes and art glass.

 At the last one we all had to sign a pledge to be allies to victims of name calling. My favorite question all year was, "Are we legally required to keep this pledge because I can't have that stress." And they think we kids need help.

Teacher Profile: The Pal

Imagine if the mom in Mean Girls suddenly took an interest in Science.

Don't want to? Me neither, but I'm forced to see the horrible results every day. On the first day of school Ms. Pal handed out her cellphone number. She told us if there was "a really nasty science prob we needed help with" just to drop her a text. Reading between the lines this translated to, "Please call me and ask me to see a movie with you and your friends." Now, call me a traditionalist but I'm disarmed whenever my teachers show more skin than I do. Also when they wear gold toenail polish. I observed this last piece of information when, after telling a charming story about the effects of a chemical spill, my teacher waggled her foot at us. The next day of class I found my teacher sitting at her desk surrounded by the male students of my class. Just before I sat down I heard, "You're lactose intolerant? That's so cool! I have a cousin who's lactose intolerant too!" Huh, since when is the inability to digest dairy products cool?

A Girl Can Dream

My taste in guys has always been a bit on the terrifying side. It all started when I was a baby. My parents gave me a book on museum art to learn about color and shapes. You know, to enrich me. Well this may not have been their initial purpose, but I fell madly in love with the boys in this painting.

I loved these people.

Did I mention that the last page of the book was partially eaten? Yeah, I was already weird at book chewing age. Well a relative of mine gave my mom some dishes. My mom put them in a box to save them for when I was older. When she told me about this I grabbed a writing utensil and got to work. I drew myself and Pugsley from the Addams Family on the box. I guess I envisioned our future marriage, and getting the dishes out to serve severed hands to my Mother-in-Law Morticia.

I was romantically interested in him.

Then came a string of historically significant boyfriends. First I liked Christopher Columbus. Only because he was really cute on my Carmen Sandiego computer game. Then I liked Johannes Gutenberg, of the printing press fame. Then one night in Kindergatrten I woke my parents up because I had to talk about Cosmonaut Cutie, Yuri Gargarin. The next day when my mom was dropping me off at school she approached the teacher.

"Lulu might be a little tired today, she was up late last night talking all about Yuri Gargarin."

"Would she like to talk to the class about him?" my teacher asked.

This is actually the best response I could have hoped for. I am so glad I went to a Montessori.

I liked somebody who had two beards.

I'm glad to report that the tradition of weirder crushes continues. I've mostly moved on to political pundits. Around 94% of MSNBC's on air talent is referred to as my boyfriend. Peanut wasn't spared the weird either. On a recent trip to Washington D.C. we took a tour of the capital building. My brother only spoke up twice. Once to ask if Nancy Peolosi was in the building. The second time to ask where her office was and if we could go in.

Not that I'm in any position to judge, but really?

I guess while my peers are doodling "Mrs. Zac Effron" on their notebooks, I'm just watching C-SPAN and sighing.

I Am a Secret Agent.

This is me

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT ME

So in my family our everyday Juno-eque speech has become a sort of secret code. I became in on it as a toddler.

We call these "Butt Rolls"

As time passed our weird dictionary grew. You know how they say Eskimos have 20 words for snow? We're like that, but with butt jokes. We've also branched out to include topical references. "Limbaugh" is used to desccribe a certain symptom of food born illness. The only one who never really got the secret part of our secret language is Peanut. He only just found out the entire world doesn't say butt rolls. This being something he learned the hard way. Recently he's started to warm up to that fact the other people are normal. Unfortunately this also means that he thinks nobody understands his code words. He's started to say "Lidiot" as a disguise of the word "Idiot." It's pronounced exactly like the word idiot but with an "L",  clever!

Best. Homework. Ever.

I am currently enrolled in a sketch program. My teacher gave the class this assingment: Try and listen to people saying bizarre or hilarious things that would make a good line in a scene. My immediate thought was that people were far too boring to say hilarious things. Boy was I wrong. Walking out of class I heard a snippet of someone's phone conversation, "...and then there were all these guys in kilts." The funny part was that she said it so nonchalantly. Like how a normal person would say, "...and then it was cloudy." Eavsdropping this made me feel like Harriet the Spy.

 I decided to pay more attention walking through the halls of my school. I heard some weird stuff. One of the better sentences being, "Moles... Why is this?" It's not just things people say too. I've begun to notice a variety of weird things in the written world as well. For example, in my french text book, somebody went to the back in the vocab section and underlined only "Yogurt" and "Poultry." In English class today we had to come up with words we associate with the middle ages. My teacher then passed them back out and had us read them. The person's I was reading wrote "Death, plague, and music books" as their last three things. Now, maybe I haven't gotten to that part of the middle ages yet in my reading, but are those things really that connected?

=

Joseph McCarthy is why I stay in school

I was ten. Like any decent ten-year-old I didn't really feel like going to school much. So after setting the groundwork the night before, "I don't feel so well", and after maybe an hour of dignified begging, "It's not like I'll miss anything important! I already know how to spell!", my mother gave in and let me stay home. See she was on to me by then. Up until age eight I was a pro. I could fake any symptom known to man. 

Then Peanut started to see what I was doing. Mom got suspicious when we both had "this stomach thing" especially because he was way worse of an actor than me. In 4th grade we both tried to stay home the same day. I was nine and he was five. My mom said, "Ok, but you have to stay in bed all day." My response was, "Oh you're good." Peanut stuck it out another hour before giving in. Well anyway, by the time I was ten she knew my game. She said I could stay home. She even suggested we go see a movie. Now, I like to think of myself as sophisticated but I don't think I understood the deep depression that comes with the alienation of being blacklisted. There was a lot of talking and it was in black and white. This may sound severe but the loss of my brain's ability to process fun was around that time. I was raised on documentaries about oil spills and I consider the history channel special Life After People a bit like a lullaby. Unlike other people, I've seen more of Michael Moore than Jennifer Aniston. 

      
not

Still though, every time I think about skipping school all I see is a dark room with people talking about McCarthyism. Which, even for me, is a bit much to handle.