High School Memory

At the end of my senior year in high school I remember going to my first commencement rehearsal (seniors got out of school about 3 weeks earlier than everyone else but still had to attend rehearsals 3 times a week, if you missed a rehearsal you couldn't march. The Commencememt Ceremony at PHHS was big business).

Anyhow they sat us all down in our assigned seats and I found myself in the first row between the class Vice President and the student president of SADD as a faculty member explained that the first two rows were populated by class officers and students who held positions in clubs and organisations in the school.
I looked at the VP and SADD girl and said out loud, "Well the what the fuck am I doing up here?"
The VP looked at me and said, "Carolyn, you're the editor of the school newspaper."
My response to her was, "That counts?" I was shocked, seriously shocked, that anything I was responsible for could count enough to put me in the front row.

And I know now, knew then even, that getting to sit in the front row at commencement is not such a big deal in the grand scheme, but that's not the point. I remembered this today and then sort of looked over the last 12 years of my life in a quick mental slide show and realised just how much I don't value a lot of the good things I've done. I brush them off as being silly or unimportant because they are only steps and not the final goal.

Examples:

• I won a creative writing scholarship when I was 20, but always make light of it because it was only for $500. It was still $500 freaking dollars!
• I was one of the main organisers of not one but two Arts Fairs back in Port Huron, but it was just Port Huron, right, so it doesn't really count.
• I've been managing this stupid department for the last year and even though I've been killing myself to make everything work and keep the whole thing from destructing I still mock it at every chance because it's not really where I ever envisioned myself

I avoid giving myself credit for my accomplishments because they aren't the final result. And that's stupid. I'm undermining myself and making it harder to focus on any sort of final result by mocking everything I do achieve because it isn't a published novel sitting in a book store window.

That's lame and I should quit it.

Conference calls . . .

make me hate my life. In fact, they make me die just a tiny bit each time I have to participate in them. Especially when the host dials in as a participant and I have to listen to crappy oboe heavy music for 10 minutes.


I know, I've been away for an age and this is what I come back with, a statement of the obvious re: conference calls. Thrilling.

We've been working on the house for the last week. Both Jeremy and I took the week off and spent the time painting, fixing walls and refinishing the floors in the living and dining rooms. So, if you need to know anything about refinishing pine floors in Victorian houses let me know, I may be able to give you some top tips.

It turns out that actually doing work on your house is really hard. Not, like intellectually hard, but if you've got the muscle mass of a kitten, as I do, it's pretty physically demanding. BUT, and this is an important but, the house finally feels like it's really truly ours after living there for just over a year. The living room is the right color and the floors are bright and gap free. We just have a little bit more to do in the living room and it will be 100% done and the dining room just needs the furniture put back in place.

I am a home owner. Fear me as I enter the comfortable middle class and prepare to bore you with tales of DIY and organic vegetable delivery. This could be a very long, very boring ride.

We're all looking for something

Recent Searches that have brourght people here:

• Party dresses for fattys
• Lousy Italian toilets
• Bore Jeremy

to the first I say, fatties has an ies silly! and I hope you find a good one

to the second I say, take extra toilet paper! there will never be enough

and to the third I say, yes, he can be quite dull (especially when he's talking about skate videos, oy)

super tuesday expatriate blues

ever since the 2004 elections, which i spent on the sofa in our old waterloo flat drinking stella, feeling jealous of the people queued up to vote, and praying for kerry to win before falling asleep and waking up to the saddest bbc reporters in the world, i have been missing the american political world. i know, i know, i hate it too, but i fucking love voting. i love the old ladies in the polling place. i love the fact that in chicago somebody named jerry orbach ran for like sewer commissioner, i love the process of voting and i miss it. i even miss the horrible assholish campaign ads.

when i was 15 i won the voice of democracy speech contest at my high school. my speech was about the importance of voting. i won a $100 US bond and i quoted depeche mode.

i didn't even know then how much i would like the physical act of placing my vote (i had a hunch though) and obviously i will be sending in my absentee ballot soon, but man, it's no replacement for the rinky dink experience of voting in a jr high school gym or the church basement or the field house of a local park. i'm serious, i actually like that. i love it. i love the transformation from normal to civics in action.

maybe i should be a civics teacher. i bet i could be a good civics teacher. like mrs martindale who used to give me tootsie rolls every morning because i almost fainted in her class.

have fun voting super tuesday states. think of me while you wait in line at your grubby bingo hall polling places, think of me as you stand behind moth eaten curtains, i'll be thinking of you and sending out a silent prayer to the gods of voting machines to ask that they not be rigged (at least not by the republicans)

OH and if you still aren't sure who to vote for, how about some tips from the music dept at the guardian

Want to see Will Smith get jiggy with Arcade Fire? Your only hope is to vote Obama. Prefer the idea of 50 Cent and Tony Bennett? Vote for Hillary and perhaps come November we'll hear a new version of Fly Me To the Moon, with added gunshots.
http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2252760,00.html

musics

i like this song by laura marling and i think the video is neat too

the anger

That's right, the anger is upon me. The anger is directed at Spanish egg sandwiches and my right sacroiliac joint (or the ass joint as I like to call it). Unfortunately, since being angry at these two inanimate objects doesn't do much towards alleviating the anger, the anger has been spilling over.

This weekend Jeremy bore the brunt of the anger. I mean how fucking dare he remind me that I shouldn't leave wooden utensils in standing water? Who the fuck does he think he is? Senor Wooden Spoon the king of kitchen utensils? Asshole.

So this morning when I got into work I made the following announcement:

Hey everyone, I've been in a lot of pain over the weekend and I still am and that makes me sort of short tempered and pissy so if I'm an asshole, I'm sorry in advance.

Hopefully this will help avoid any hurt feelings.


The anger has also been misdirected at the following:

1. the stairs
2. the bed
3. my mobile phone
4. the hot water bottle
5. the sofa
6. my knees
7. the sink
8. the television
9. the boiler
10. every chair in the world
11. the bathroom for being so goddamn far away
12. the fucking everything

Hopefully I'll get an appt in with the rheumatologist this week and she'll have some idea why the pain has come back and I will be able to direct the anger more productively and stop saying fuck so much.

for the love of something

FIRST when I was putting on my black trousers this morning the thread gave on the button and it popped off and across the room

THEN I finally got a call back from Fitness First and even though I have to cancel my membership because of physical reasons (hello arthritis thanks for getting worse this month!) not because I'm a lazy slacker they still won't refund me for my February payment because it's already been taken from my account. We can't do it they said, but what they meant was, we won't do it sucker!

THEN I went to the ladies' room and realised that the seam under where my butt goes in the trousers I replaced the other trousers with had totally worn away so I've been walking around with a big ol hole in the ass of my trousers. At least I have safety pins in my drawer.

THEN I went to the stupid ATM and put my card in before I remembered it expired today and the machine took my card away so I had to use my credit card (which I don't like to use) to put money on my work ID so I could get a bowl of crappy pasta.

THEN I called Jeremy to complain about all my misfortunes and first he said, sound like your ass is to big and then he said don't break any more pants today. Divorce is imminent.

Now I just have to make it through the rest of the day without any further trouser emergencies.