pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

The longest word in the English language. Sort of.

It was extra credit each week on our test in the 7th grade life science class. Which class was taught by Mr. R, a single guy from California who was funny and irreverent in a way that was both appalling and appealing to kids 12 and 13 years old and just moving into adolescence. He was cool. And I was never totally comfortable in his class. He was tall and thin and wore jeans, plaid shirts and cowboy boots. He owned horses and if you were cool enough he would invite you to ride them. It seems, though, that you had to not only be cool, but also a girl, which is utterly creepy from my current perspective. I don't know that he had any mal intentions. (Is mal a word in English? Substitute poor/bad/etc.) He seemed to be a nice enough guy. But there was something he missed about being an adult among teenagers; that just because he had a way with them didn't mean he should be one of them. But he had a hard time with that. There were boundaries he thought were funny to step over; just a quick little dance and then back on the right side of the line. Better to be cool, than be adult. He let us have cool parties when we got good test scores. He had a cool way of taking role.

I was not cool enough to be invited to ride horses {thank goodness for that}.

Cool may be a descriptor, but it is not a virtue.

The Art of the Mini-bio

It is an art, right? I have to write a short but sweet bio and I cannot for the life of me figure out what to say. Possible sentences run through my head and say something like this:

Allysha is not a bohemian. No matter how much she would like to be, there is something utterly responsible about her, or at least utterly boring. She does like to read, write and prefers cats to dogs infinitely.

Or:

These days Allysha is mostly (but not limited to being only or just) a mom. She is also a pretend poet, amateur artist, former modern dancer and resident exhausted lady. But she just started taking her vitamins last night, so hopefully that last one will fall by the wayside.

Or:

Allysha used to speak French, likes pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and tends to be a creature of habit and thinks things she can share with mostly no one because they would think her rude or rather crazy. She avoids movie theaters and thinks we should all go to the opera instead.

Hmmm. I'll come up with something.

Here's Your April Fish

The French have some peculiarly charming ways of doing some things. April 1st certainly falls into that category. Instead of trying to pull of minor or major practical jokes, they stick fish onto each other's backs. It's called Poisson d'Avril.



Seriously. What could be better than that? Very few things, my friends.