Bored? Try Twilight

BigD reminded me last night that I haven't written anything to entertain him or the 3 other people who read this in TWO WEEKS. WELL...for starters between the two lax kids there have been something like 13 games in 8 days. It's been either raining or freezing, or both.

Loathe to write about lax yet - though I feel sure it's coming - I went to Imagination Prompt Generator!

Last quarter at school I taught an 'elective' Creative Writing for 8th grade students. Elective means it doesn't actually count. Creative Writing means you get an A unless you turn in absolutely nothing. That's what it means for students. For the teacher it means come up with something stimulating (Facebook) and 'worth my time' (Twilight) for a group of incredibly wise 8th graders. A solid characteristic of the 8th grade is that all students are bored, all classes are useless, all assignments are pointless and all teachers are numbingly stupid. Also, most have some strong opinions about Twilight.

In my search for constant 8th grade stimulation I found this little gem: Imagination Prompt Generator. It has a "Next Prompt" button that one clicks for a series of deep and stimulating questions, about which one might write. Whenever a student finished my genius assignment too soon (as in 5 minutes), I directed them to Imagination Prompt Generator and told them to write as much or as little as they wanted about as many or few prompts as they chose. If nothing else, it held their attention as they clicked 'next prompt' and snickered about the lameness of the prompts. Let's see what it does for me!

Does God care? Whoa, strong way to start! The answer is YES. Next prompt?

What should you be doing instead of sitting at the computer right now? Nothing is more important than absolute obsession with BravoTV and the lives of strangers strewn across the United States.

Maybe laundry.

Maybe not.

What remains constant in your life? Laundry.

Describe a trip downtown as a youngster. "Youngster"? Seriously? Even I think this is lame, due entirely to the word "youngster." Next.

My three closest friends.... The people who are sitting next to me in whatever bleachers I find myself.

Feeling low? Why? Is the other choice, "Feeling HIGH?" Not EVEN going there.

Look out the window. Write about what you see. I see a bunch of yard work that needs to be done. Do you really want to know about that?

What do you do with all of the things that you write about? Sorry, I don't understand the question. At all.

List five things you need. Will one do?

How old would you be if you didn't know your real age? I would be a vampire and I would be 17 forever.

Ten people who are alive today I would love to meet (and why). You can tell a teacher wrote this one because it is supposed to take a long time to write the answer. Alternate answer: the whole cast of the Twilight movie.

What was the last CD you bought? Debussy, like Edward Cullen. Because I live for Twilight.

Write about your favorite pet. Lame. Next prompt.

Did you have a bicycle? What was it like? Pink, I think. I read Fat Cyclist, does that count?

When someone asks for your opinion, are you always honest? Why or why not? Oh, please. Next prompt.

Without my children, I'd.... not be spending my life at the lacrosse field, that's for sure.

Do you have choices? Yes, and I choose next prompt.

How do you feel today? Bored, perhaps I will watch Twilight the movie. Oh wait, I forgot, the school play. Cinderella. Same thing.

How do you feel about the holidays? the ones where I should cook, clean up and decorate? or the ones where I don't have to go to school?

Does belief in a higher power matter? Again? See first question.

What is YOUR meaning of life? I'm done.

The rules of Mouth Noise

I have about 1876 pet peeves. Mouth noise is at the top of the list. And to make it worse, I have super-hearing, specifically to mouth noise.

I was born this way. My siblings made it worse. In those days, I called it SMACKING because that is what they did to make me crazy. I have a vivid mouth-noise memory involving salad. I was in what we now call the tweens or Middle School years. They should be called the miserable years, because I was miserable to be around. Especially when there was an abundance of smacking.

One particularly miserable night we were sitting at our little kitchen table, eating supper involving a salad which we were required to eat. Salad=crunchy, right? Right. Just ask my sibs. They used that opportunity to combine crunching of salad with the smacking enhancement of salad dressing. They could really tune it up.

ME: STOP SMACKING

THEM: Smack, smack, smack! Lickety smack.

ME: STOP IT! You are doing it on purpose. Stop smacking.

Them: Smackity, smack, smack, smack (leaning over right next to my ear) Slurp-smack.

ME: YELLING Mama, make them stop. I can't eat. (note, I didn't need to eat - perhaps it was some perverse diet thing they came up with. )

Them: Smack, smack, licking wet smack, stick-out-the-tongue-to-show-the-chewed-food SMACK!

ME: now screaming: You are doing it ON PUR-POSE. (ya think?) I'm going in the dining room.

The dining room was on the other side of the wall from the table in the kitchen. By moving to the dining room, I was moving roughly 6 feet away. The better for them to smack at me. I tried to slam the door, but it was a swinging door and wouldn't slam. That was a shame. I could have used a good door-slam about then.

Them: holding the door open with a foot and laughing hysterically. SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK. Mouths wide open and food spewing everywhere.

ME: I'm going to tell Daddy when he gets home. Now crying.

They did this a LOT.

Imagine my dismay when I got out into the whole wide world and found out that mouth noise of all kinds makes me crazy. It is the root of my hatred of gum. What is the purpose of gum? Only two things - to generate mouth noise and to attempt to cover up something on one's breath - say smoking, which I never did.

So, I trained my children carefully to chew with no mouth noise. Which is impossible. Everybody makes mouth noise. Unfortunately, not everyone trains his or her children to eat with his/her mouth closed, which is rule number one of table etiquette.

I was horrified to make my first visit to my potential in-laws home to find out that no one taught them to chew with their mouths closed. It was bad. Old country manners, and open mouth chewing, plus talking with mouth full - EH, paesano...how about closing up your Italian mouth when eating that sloppy lasagna? Actually I didn't say that. I thought it. Lots of times.

To make matters worse, I have some sort of uber-hearing related to mouth noise. Think of the whole drive-you-insane heart-beating scene in Poe's Telltale Heart. You know what I'm talking about, everyone in the world read's Poe's Telltale Heart in Middle School and again in High School. It's the MS/HS English teacher's dream story, because there are all kinds of recordings of it which take a bunch of class time. Except for me, who has never, ever done that for any reason. Bell-to-bell, every single day.

For me, it's not a beating heart that follows me throughout the house, it's the mouth noise. It seeks me wherever I go. Smackity-smack, smack.

And then, to top it off, I ended up with a child who has TMJ and so when said child chews, on top of mouth noise, we have the popping of the jaw joints. Pop-pop-pop, minor-smack-crunch-pop. Can't help it.

Also, I have children who go hide to eat, because they know I hate mouth noise.

My rules for mouth noise are these:
Don't make any.
Ever.
If you must, don't do it around me.
No gum. The sound will seek me out and find me.
I do not want to see your chewed food.
I do not even want to think of your chewed food.
I also don't want to hear your chewed food.
Ever.
Thank you.