To quote my friend Rachel’s blog, I’m probably the last person on the planet to discover the PS 22 Chorus, but the wonder of the internets is that Target doesn’t run out of the great new toys.  If you haven’t watched these incredibly talented fifth graders singing songs like Eye of the Tiger, Don’t Stop Believing, Just Dance and Viva La Vida, you are missing a chance at joy.

Part of what I love about the videos is the pure quality of the singing: strong voices, great harmonies, impressive attention to rhythm.  But the other great part is the spirit.  The kids are hilariously ironic, and yet, still sincere and sweet.  Check out the moody chest-clutching during “Viva la Vida!”  The unselfconscious swaying during “Don’t Stop Believing.” 

 It’s as though Greg Breinberg, the chorus director who should be offered a MacArthur Genius Grant any day now, told the kids, “All right, this is old white folks’ music, and one thing we love about the old white folks is that they like to feel emotions deeply.  So everyone, put your hands on your hearts.  Now scrunch down your eyebrows.  Now nod as if to say, ‘Dude.’  Yeah.  Can you do that?  Oh, Srivasti–awesome!  D’Angelo–your sway rules!  Tanika–I love the closed eyes!” 

But the kids aren’t making fun–they’re totally into it.  I’ve thought all this time that the sweet-spot of kidland was the seventh grade classroom—from the teacher’s point of view that is (it’s often inferno for the kids.)  The kids want to please, laugh at your jokes, and can take sarcasm, which can be a necessary buffer to venting actual frustration.  But maybe Eden is waiting for me two doors down, in the fifth grade homeroom, where they’d flinch at my sarcasm but offer something so much sweeter.

Yes: what does a writer write when she’s not writing, especially when she’s writing in the evening to meet a deadline? These things would all be Facebook and Twitter updates, but NO, I am not going to those pages.  Frankly, doing those things at night is just embarrassing to me.  So here are my deep thoughts:

1) Is the New Yorker cutting back on its use of glue to affix the label to the magazine?  I used to get such joy out of label-peeling, but the peel no longer yields a delightfully gummy strip of glue

2) I can’t believe I’m almost done with the pack of Orbit Sweet Mint that Mom gave me.  I didn’t even think I liked Sweet Mint, but it turns out to be nothing like Wintergreen, which is a good thing (I’m not even going to talk about Mojito Mint, which is a crime against nature.)  Orbit gum wrappers are fun to fold into fans, if you can’t get your happies with New Yorker labels. 

3) I’m about to use the word ’shove’  Have I used that before in my 123 and counting pages?  Nope!  Ben, feel free to shove your way into the crowd.

4) When you look at it a lot, “shove” looks like it should be pronounced to rhyme with “grove.”  (It actually took a while to think of an ‘ove’ word that rhymes with ‘grove’ instead of ‘love.’  Or, you know, ’shove.’)

5) What would “shove” (rhymes with “grove”) mean?  I think it is the past tense of “shave.”  “I got dressed and shove and then went to work.”

6) Speaking of getting back to work…

7) (I will not contemplate how “work” could rhyme with “dork.”)

I’m hungry for real dinner. 

9) (while eating) Toasted tortillas are the best.  I should write that in my post

And on and on until bedtime.

Happy birthday to my website, just over a month old.  If it were a baby, it could…hm…despite being a new auntie, I don’t actually know.  But since it’s my website, it has something to report: poll results! 

Last month I asked whether you, in seventh grade, were/are nice, mean, or somewhere in between.  54 of you awesome people reported the following, with the most popular in green:

You in seventh grade:

I always try to be nice, no matter what 30% (16 votes)

I’m usually pretty nice, except if I’m in a bad mood 33% (18 votes)

To be honest, I can be both nice and mean 28% (15 votes)

I’m nice to my friends, but if I don’t respect someone, I have no problem being mean 7% (4 votes)

I’d be mean to friends, enemies, or whoever, if they get in my way 2% (1 votes)

I was inspired that so many people tried to be nice as often as they could.  But frankly….I don’t know…who else out there teaches seventh grade?  Who else remembers seventh grade?  Don’t you think there were way more people who had no problems being mean to someone they didn’t respect? 

So–the people who took the poll–friends and fellow children’s book writers–are exceptionally nice?  We have faulty memories?  We don’t think we’re being mean, but sometimes, we are?  To what do you attribute this discrepancy?  Very curious.  Can’t wait to hear thoughts.

Oh, and: As you may have guessed, these answers correspond to characters in the book.  Most of you were Sachi, and not Marina.  You’ll see what I mean.