Smile And The Whole World Smiles

Disclaimer: I have only had thirty minutes of sleep.

After having the worst dream of the year, I tossed and turned, woke up every ten minutes, and finally slid out of bed this morning. With one eye open and the other squinted, I got dressed and sluggishly drove to work.  Taken back by the air freshener, I peeled open one eye with one hand and started the ignition with the other.  Surprisingly, I’m very chipper,  as I update all of my five billion websites. Recently, I’ve been having one of those “horrendous months,” where it didn’t just rain on my parade but appeared to have a freakishly odd, torrential downpour  that did not cease to disperse. Oddly, I woke up this morning and EVERYTHING turned around completely. Everything that I was stressed over was suddenly taken care of.  All my problems just disappeared as if they never existed. I’m baffled and grateful. Thank God.

On this fine morning, where I would normally be asleep in my somewhat comfortable bed, I find myself catching up on my blog (That’s code for I’m too sleepy to do paperwork at work this morning and will push it off til Monday). No online shopping today, aside from that one book that I found for a good price this morning.

ON TO MY PROFOUND REFLECTIONS OF THE MORNING: I find it odd that the older we get, the more we regress and cling to toys and objects of the past. For example, I still love and sleep with my stuffed elephant (Mr. Effy, I will keep you FOREVER). I’ve kept all my favorite bedtime story books from my childhood and refuse to sell them. I STILL play with sidewalk chalk and draw mini-murals next to my car in the driveway. My co-worker made a profound statement that “as we get older, as each year passes, so the sense of age hits us and we realize that we really just wish that we can go back to our childhood days.”  I’m not certain if this statement is true for everyone, but it’s true for me. I’m not fearful of old age, I just wish that great responsibility didn’t have to come with growing old.  (TANGENT: WHAT’S UP WITH EVERYONE POPPING UP PREGNANT NOWADAYS? FIND A HOBBY OR GET FIXED! ) I feel that with my major “situations” in life, referring to trials and tribulation, I get by only by the grace of God. Is this really what growing up feels like? I feel like I cheat death on more than one occasion, or that I succeed when there’s clearly no possible way. It sends chills up my back. I’m amazed.

Enjoy your day, dreamers.

Love,

Ari

Café en el Café

Good evening dreamers,

I’ve been reading several novels lately. I always enjoy a good read and will one day retire just to have time to read all the books I want. All these novels have sent me traveling to my favorite coffee shop. There’s this one café, in particular, that I drive to simply because I find one of the workers extremely attractive, plus he makes one wicked iced latte. I’m reminded of Landon Pigg’s song, “Falling in love at a coffee shop.”  Wouldn’t it be nice to fall in love at a coffee shop. It sounds so romantic.  An, I know you’re already shaking your head. Coffee brings people together (decaf. in my case), truly.

I was watching the movie “Laura,” the other night while reading this mystery novel when I drifted off to sleep. I dreamed that I was in a reform school, a university. It was a Catholic school. This one priest was giving a lecture when a nun came to relieve him. In the dream we bowed our heads to pray. Being the full gospel person that I am, I remember being outraged by something that I can no longer remember. I was so taken by it that I began debating with the nun and even ventured off into a full blown argument. I started yelling at her until she scurried off, crying. I followed her down the corridor and continued making my speech. After she faded off in the distance, I sat on the marble steps that wrapped around a large pillar and wept. The next day a few nuns informed me that she killed herself. I woke up. How awkward is that?

Was this the coffee, the movie, or my sick twisted mind that caused this dream? I was jotting all this down in my journal at the café when the cute bartender walked in. I smiled and took my leave. It was too much of an abrupt change in atmosphere, from awkwardness to delight, in too short of a time span to formulate anything meaningful at that moment. I drove home in haste. I’m exhausted and pray that I don’t dream about reform school tonight.

Goodnight,

Ari

Recent Weird Obsessions and Odd birthday wishes

While avoiding this book that I’m reading for a book club that I’m apart of, I made a list of things that I enjoy, which might strike people as a bit “odd.” I recognize my eclectic behavior as a side effect of heredity; twisted genes skipping a few generations, stemming from the delights of my eccentric great-great grandmother. (that’s a long story, a novel that I’m writing. No elaboration at this moment)

• photographing bubbles. It makes me happy.
• driving, sometimes not aware of my destination
• waffles (no powdered sugar, please)
• I think that if the people from “The Big Bang Theory” were real, we would probably be great friends.

CAN YOU FIND ME?

• Dexter
• soy nut butter and all fruit jam sandwiches
• pretending that I’m from a different country (this gets interesting sometimes)

Odd Birthday Wishes

SPOCK BOBBLE HEAD

DWIGHT SCHRUTE BOBBLE HEAD

POLAROID 600 FILM

Granted the film isn’t odd but the bobble head obsession is. I’m adding a high grade waffle maker to my list. I wish I was also in a different country right now. In fact, I’ve been writing, planning, my escape to somewhere “new” for years now. I’m not sure when I’ll be executing this plan but it’ll happen eventually. Until then, I’ll be here teaching, working, and concocting conspiracies.

Peace, Love, and Photographs,

Ari

P.S. I wish it would just rain!!!!

Working with Kiddos again

I started this new job yesterday. (Is it considered “new” if it’s in the same place but different department?) I’m the summer advanced digital photography teacher for the children’s college, which, in my mind, is similar to a form of “dignified daycare.” I’ve worked with kids before but it has definitely been a while.

The class is fairly small with about thirteen students from the ages of nine to twelve. While teaching, I noticed the typical stereotypes of the students.

#1  The talker. This would be a girl named Kaia, who adds personal anecdotes each moment  I speak.

#2 The apathetic. I’d say it would be Brandon, the boy who is there because his “mom was trying to be cool like her friend and enrolled her kids in discovery college, like the other moms, to fit in.”

#3 The hyper-intense child. His name is Chris. Luckily my other assistant sparked an interest in him when he brought up the subject of online games.

#4 The know it all.  Ashish-the boy that thinks he’s king because he has a Nikon coolpix. Give me a break, kid! You are not Ashton Kutcher!

#5 The chatter boxes. That would be the rest of the class.

After brief  introductions, I stated that I “[was] going to be teaching  digital photography, not the old chemical process” when I was rudely interrupted by one of my assistant’s retort that,” old photography would just be boring.” It took every bit of patience to calm myself down and refrain from punching him in the teeth!

The class is definitely interesting. The way I see it is “no blood, no problem!”

A good day, I’d say.

-Ari

P.S. I’ll post pictures later.

The Man Who Knew VERY LITTLE

Yesterday was my day off, or so I thought. I was, obviously, wrong. Flying in under the radar about forty-five minutes late, dodging in and out of rush hour traffic, I arrived just in time to catch the lines of people wanting to change their schedules. It was the first day of summer school at the college that I work for, which meant a steady work load.

Luckily, the mob of people wasn’t as “angry” compared to years past, excluding this one obnoxious fellow.

A tall, thin man, with ash brown hair came in looking for his room number. He had registered for classes the week before but did not pay. To my misfortune, he came in without anything. He simply gave his name and expected me to find all his information. It would have been nice had he not had the most generic Hispanic name in the world. Three minutes into my search, he called his wife and chatted away in Spanish about how I didn’t know anything. “YOU IDIOT I SPEAK SPANISH! I CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU’RE SAYING!” were my thoughts as he ignorantly became annoyed. Finding his name was like picking out a specific grain of sand; in my case one “Juan Whatever” out of a list of ninety people.What was worse was the fact that his shirt was unbuttoned and his chest was showing. As I was scrolling down the list, a pale piece of man boob was peeking at me. I wanted to die laughing, which slightly intensified his irritation. OH WELL…IF YOU WOULDN’T HAVE FLASHED ME I WOULD NOT HAVE SNICKERED! C’MON GUY YOU KNEW I WAS GOING TO LAUGH. I MEAN YOUR BOOB IS BASICALLY SLAPPING ME IN THE FACE! LOL

Such an odd day!

-Ari