I have found a calling.
(It would be really nice if I could believe that this is my only calling, or the best calling, or the most important calling, or the one I'll enjoy most, but I know better than to make statements with superlative words when I'm talking about myself.)
During opening exercises in YW's yesterday, I told the person conducting that I had an announcement. (In a loud voice.) She said, okay, what is it. I stared at her. "It's a secret until I announce it. I just wanted you to know I have one."
She said: "Okay." And went on to do her other conducting things. Which proves that I've thoroughly broken in this YW group. My work here is almost complete.
When it was announcement time, I stood up and said in my sweetest voice, "For those of you who don't know me, my name is Peaches," and I wrote it on the board. Then I wrote my email and my home phone number.
"I am advertising," I announced. (It's fun to announce. I want to do it more often.) "I've got my Personal Progress finished already, but as so-and-so said, they're coming out with something new called the Honor Bee, and I really want one." [Note: These are not exactly my words, but this is the gist of it.] "I am looking for people who want/need a mentor. As a mentor, my services include encouraging you, reminding you, nagging you, helping you, finding ways to do more than one goal at once- leaders, if you didn't want to hear that, just close your ears- cornering leaders to sign things off, and general mentoring. If you're a Laurel and you want to rush your Personal Progress so you don't have to work on it during your Senior year- that's what I did and I can help you with that. If you're a Beehive-" Here I looked at the back of the room- "I love you guys! I'll help you too! I don't care if I know you or not. I don't care if you don't know me. You will know me by the time we're done, which may or may not be a good thing, but we'll take care of that when we get there. And that's all."
And then I sat down.
Advertising is fun.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
I Was Thinking
...which, as you know, is always dangerous for those around me or at least within throwing range.
[WARNING: This post is completely unrelated to the ones before it and will most likely have no effect on the ones after it. If you are in any way, shape or form subject to mental and emotional whiplash, consult with your doctor so that you won't feel guilty about skipping this post. In fact, if whiplash is a problem for you, just skip my blog altogether. Go watch something predictable, like CNN, and feel warm and fuzzy inside that other people are supplying the necessary weirdness to keep the earth from wobbling.]
[If that last line didn't make sense, be aware that 1) the stories on CNN and every other news channel carry basically the same stories all the time with only names, dates, and places changed and 2) it's my personal belief that if everyone on earth was reasonable, sane, and normal ALL THE TIME the earth would crack under the strain, half of our world careen into the sun, half would rocket off to find out how far it is to Kolob anyway and the core would stay in orbit as a throbbing broken heart, mourning our folly. Oh, and we'd all be dead. Don't you feel better for knowing that?]
So I've heard that mothers always think that their first baby is absolutely perfect and the best baby ever born. Hence the phrase, 'a face only a mother could love'. This makes sense to me. Newborn babies are so ugly there needs to be some insanity involved or procreation and continuation of the human race would grind to a stop.
I normally avoid mothers with new babies so that when they say "Isn't she/he CUTE!" I don't have to lie. They get upset when you say something like "He/she will be. I guess. Most likely."
I like kids. I like teenagers. I like old people (defined as the ages between twenty-one and a hundred). I like babies, once they're no longer bright red and wrinkly. In fact, I'm willing to befriend anyone who isn't bright red and wrinkly. Red and wrinkly, for me, sends a message: Uncute: Interact At Your Own Risk. With some sirens thrown in.
Before you start complaining about how narrow I am, or point out in a smug voice that when I have children they will be red and wrinkly and I'll be totally besotted with them, let me mention that there is no expiration date on the red and wrinkly warning. I have seen four, six, ten, thirteen, eighteen, and seventy-five year-olds turn red and wrinkly. It is always uncute. It always means Interact At Your Own Risk.
Ah... the earth feels steadier already.
[WARNING: This post is completely unrelated to the ones before it and will most likely have no effect on the ones after it. If you are in any way, shape or form subject to mental and emotional whiplash, consult with your doctor so that you won't feel guilty about skipping this post. In fact, if whiplash is a problem for you, just skip my blog altogether. Go watch something predictable, like CNN, and feel warm and fuzzy inside that other people are supplying the necessary weirdness to keep the earth from wobbling.]
[If that last line didn't make sense, be aware that 1) the stories on CNN and every other news channel carry basically the same stories all the time with only names, dates, and places changed and 2) it's my personal belief that if everyone on earth was reasonable, sane, and normal ALL THE TIME the earth would crack under the strain, half of our world careen into the sun, half would rocket off to find out how far it is to Kolob anyway and the core would stay in orbit as a throbbing broken heart, mourning our folly. Oh, and we'd all be dead. Don't you feel better for knowing that?]
So I've heard that mothers always think that their first baby is absolutely perfect and the best baby ever born. Hence the phrase, 'a face only a mother could love'. This makes sense to me. Newborn babies are so ugly there needs to be some insanity involved or procreation and continuation of the human race would grind to a stop.
I normally avoid mothers with new babies so that when they say "Isn't she/he CUTE!" I don't have to lie. They get upset when you say something like "He/she will be. I guess. Most likely."
I like kids. I like teenagers. I like old people (defined as the ages between twenty-one and a hundred). I like babies, once they're no longer bright red and wrinkly. In fact, I'm willing to befriend anyone who isn't bright red and wrinkly. Red and wrinkly, for me, sends a message: Uncute: Interact At Your Own Risk. With some sirens thrown in.
Before you start complaining about how narrow I am, or point out in a smug voice that when I have children they will be red and wrinkly and I'll be totally besotted with them, let me mention that there is no expiration date on the red and wrinkly warning. I have seen four, six, ten, thirteen, eighteen, and seventy-five year-olds turn red and wrinkly. It is always uncute. It always means Interact At Your Own Risk.
Ah... the earth feels steadier already.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
An Excerpt From My 'Work' Known as NaNoWriMo
Suddenly, The Author was hauled away from her computer by two big thugs in purple striped suits, and thrown at the feet of A Parent, who demanded of the Innocent Author what she had done with a little doohickey The Parent wanted for the sewing machine. There were Words, and then The Author told The Parent that it was really annoying to be immediately assumed guilty EVERY time something goes missing, and The Parent rolled her eyes until The Author, who is taller, could only see the whites, and said that it was only REASONABLE to ask the last person who had it what they did with it, at which point The Author said she DID NOT KNOW, and stomped out. No one likes to be yelled at when they're writing.
And I tell you all of this to explain why the quality of The Author's work may or may not drop, because she is mad and feeling sorry for herself because everything is always her fault and she is considering running away except that it would probably be uncomfortable to run away at this or any other time of year, and if she's stuck it out for almost sixteen years, surely she can stick it out for another three.
End of commentary.
This is from a year ago.
I'm going to hit the NYT's bestseller list any day now, aren't I?
And I tell you all of this to explain why the quality of The Author's work may or may not drop, because she is mad and feeling sorry for herself because everything is always her fault and she is considering running away except that it would probably be uncomfortable to run away at this or any other time of year, and if she's stuck it out for almost sixteen years, surely she can stick it out for another three.
End of commentary.
This is from a year ago.
I'm going to hit the NYT's bestseller list any day now, aren't I?
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Warning Still in Effect
I don't remember learning to walk (or crawl, in case you were wondering) but I think it wasn't too frustrating because I was surrounded by people who encouraged me to "Come to Daddy! Go to Mommy!" And also because I hadn't learned perfectionism yet.
I don't remember learning to read, but I suspect that it was on par with learning to walk: hard and painful but I had fun while I did it. Especially since the Teacher considered Asterix and Obelix good learning-to-read material for quite some time. Probably longer than was technically necessary, but I certainly wasn't going to tell her that. I was already catching on.
I won't go into learning to swim. Suffice it to say that I can float and doggy paddle with the best, and my marine skills end there.
Learning Spanish (still on-going) is mind-numbing with brief flashes of just how amazing it's going to be when I can speak it without saying 'um' every third word. But mostly mind-numbing.
Having considered these monuments of learning in my life, I'm prepared to make a sweeping, all encompassing statement:
Learning to drive stinks.
I would say it stinks more than anything in my entire life, but I haven't lived the rest of my life yet so I have no data to back that up. But it's certainly very odorous.
I don't remember learning to read, but I suspect that it was on par with learning to walk: hard and painful but I had fun while I did it. Especially since the Teacher considered Asterix and Obelix good learning-to-read material for quite some time. Probably longer than was technically necessary, but I certainly wasn't going to tell her that. I was already catching on.
I won't go into learning to swim. Suffice it to say that I can float and doggy paddle with the best, and my marine skills end there.
Learning Spanish (still on-going) is mind-numbing with brief flashes of just how amazing it's going to be when I can speak it without saying 'um' every third word. But mostly mind-numbing.
Having considered these monuments of learning in my life, I'm prepared to make a sweeping, all encompassing statement:
Learning to drive stinks.
I would say it stinks more than anything in my entire life, but I haven't lived the rest of my life yet so I have no data to back that up. But it's certainly very odorous.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Public Service Anouncement: Stay Off Roads
So in my family's most recent attempt to kill me (past efforts ranging from pickles to dark chocolate to baked mushrooms), they're teaching me how to drive. At this moment, 'teaching' means putting me behind the wheel and telling me what not to do whenever I do it.
On Friday nothing really happened. I learned to drive in a circle. Then I learned to do it backwards. According to my grandpa, the sacrificial lamb in this exercise, I was learning where the edges of the car were. I'd buy that. I threatened a few stop signs, but since this is the hill country, home of the utra-rich-and-almost-inescabably-silly-looking-housing-development, these stop signs were encased in totally-tasteful-don't-you-believe-a-word-of-it-when-people-call-them-tacky stone, I don't think they were particularly worried.
On Saturday I was spared.
On Sunday I had a disagreement with a barbed wire fence, which we also have a lot of, but that's just because it's Texas. (This was the day I was transplanted from automatic to manual transmission.) I managed to kill the engine before I killed the fence, and we hauled the truck (did I mention it's a truck? It's missing the right rear-view mirror- totally not my fault before you even think of saying anything, I have a cast-iron alibi- and the wheel pulls-literally- right.) back onto the road. It was a washboard road, which is a technical term that dates back to when women pummeled their clothes on the river bank and got the dirt out of them by scraping them- along with any unwary or unfortunate knuckles or fingers- on a washboard, made with waved layers of metal framed in wood. When a road resembles this washboard of pioneer days, it's a washboard road. You probably know this but everyone needs a reminder.
On Monday my family decided that they needed to hurry things along or I was going to actually learn how to drive before they got rid of me. They decided to have me drive (on back roads) from our house to Fort Worth to 'visit your aunt'. I love my aunt, or they never would have gotten me in the car.
The thing about back roads? They think straight lines are for the unenlightened and passing lanes are for citified wimps. And the speed limit is an uninformed suggestion. I was driving at the break-neck speed of 47 whole miles an hour for maybe ten minutes before I had someone trying to climb inside my tail-pipe. (So, all you sweet people who turn into frothing, raging maniacs whenever you're stuck behind someone who apparently can't read the road signs? That's me you're crowding. Metaphorically. Consider what follows your last dire warning.)
So hear I am on this windy road, going faster than I've ever gone before, with an increasingly grouchy (I know he's grouchy because calm people know better than to get that close) driver behind me cussing me out for being a little old lady. And my only support in this time of national emergency is completely unaware that anything's wrong because he can't see our friend (missing right rear view mirror, did I mention) so he starts playing with the GPS so that it will stop telling us to turn around at the next opportunity. Which, incidentally, means I now don't know how fast I'm actually going. (The speedometer is also broken. The GPS tells me how slow I'm going.)
It is in these circumstances that I come to a fork in the road. And this is where I make a really dumb mistake that, if I had been calm and cool and collected and free of distractions I totally wouldn't have made. I saw a sign blur past that I thought was for the road I wanted. I whipped the car around to make the turn, going somewhere between 40 and 50 miles an hour. The (does it matter if I call it a car when it's a truck?) vehicle went into a skid
The truck ended up with the passenger side wedged on top of a culvert and my side up in the air. Those billboards that talk about click it or ticket aren't kidding. I wedged myself in place, since I figured landing on my grandfather would probably be an infraction of the fifth commandment and I might not have much time left to repent. The guy who had been tailgating us stopped, strapped us to his truck to keep us from rolling over- the car was teetering and shaking and all in all it wasn't much fun at all- and gradually winched the car from being at a ninety degree angle to a forty degree angle. He and another passing truck driver helped us out. A lady (who mysteriously had reception when no one else did) stopped and called a tow truck for us.
The first official to arrive was a constable. Then a fire truck. Then another fire truck. The firemen replaced the kind tailgater's strap with some heavy duty chains. The tailgater, who was also a deer hunter, left at some point. Neither of us noticed him go. I was busy crying and sobbing that it was all my parents' fault, it was an assassination conspiracy, and I wanted to go home. Well, not out loud, because I didn't want the police to think I was drunk, but I was thinking it very loudly.
The sheriff's deputy and the ambulance arrived at roughly the same time. The ambulance left again pretty quickly when they realized neither Grandpa nor I were bleeding to death. Then came the tow truck. Then the state trooper. Meanwhile I was wondering if I really had survived, or if this was the newest ring of hell reserved for beginning drivers. Grandpa claims there were three firetrucks, and since it was his truck I crashed, and his life I endangered, I'm not going to disagree, so we'll pretend it showed up now. At one point I saw the police- don't ask me which ones- measuring my skid. It looked impressive to me, but maybe it wasn't. I wouldn't know.
The tow truck lifted the truck out of the ditch. Once it was out, the firemen lost interest. I heard one of them ask someone "Can we go now?" Like me when the Teacher drags me to one of her ultra-boring whatevers. They did eventually go. When Grandpa opened the hood of the truck I freaked out because there was this huge gaping hole right there. Grandpa told me it was supposed to be there before I had time to hyperventilate too badly.
The fun now over, the emergency responce vehicles evaporated. (We didn't really need them, but it's nice to know that if I ever do, they'll show up then too.) I got two warnings. One for making an unsafe turn. One for the expired inspection sticker.
I sang the first verse (which was all I could remember off the top of my head) of 'How Great Thou Art' as we drove away. It seemed appropriate.
Grandpa drove for the next half hour while I convinced my body that I was alive after all. I took over again on 16 (which is a 70 mph road) and drove almost all of it up to 20. At that point I figured the worst had already happened and I might as well just get on with it.
The fastest I went all day was 66. I stepped on the brake as soon as I noticed.
Now I'm just waiting for the whole thing to show up in the newspaper.
On Friday nothing really happened. I learned to drive in a circle. Then I learned to do it backwards. According to my grandpa, the sacrificial lamb in this exercise, I was learning where the edges of the car were. I'd buy that. I threatened a few stop signs, but since this is the hill country, home of the utra-rich-and-almost-inescabably-silly-looking-housing-development, these stop signs were encased in totally-tasteful-don't-you-believe-a-word-of-it-when-people-call-them-tacky stone, I don't think they were particularly worried.
On Saturday I was spared.
On Sunday I had a disagreement with a barbed wire fence, which we also have a lot of, but that's just because it's Texas. (This was the day I was transplanted from automatic to manual transmission.) I managed to kill the engine before I killed the fence, and we hauled the truck (did I mention it's a truck? It's missing the right rear-view mirror- totally not my fault before you even think of saying anything, I have a cast-iron alibi- and the wheel pulls-literally- right.) back onto the road. It was a washboard road, which is a technical term that dates back to when women pummeled their clothes on the river bank and got the dirt out of them by scraping them- along with any unwary or unfortunate knuckles or fingers- on a washboard, made with waved layers of metal framed in wood. When a road resembles this washboard of pioneer days, it's a washboard road. You probably know this but everyone needs a reminder.
On Monday my family decided that they needed to hurry things along or I was going to actually learn how to drive before they got rid of me. They decided to have me drive (on back roads) from our house to Fort Worth to 'visit your aunt'. I love my aunt, or they never would have gotten me in the car.
The thing about back roads? They think straight lines are for the unenlightened and passing lanes are for citified wimps. And the speed limit is an uninformed suggestion. I was driving at the break-neck speed of 47 whole miles an hour for maybe ten minutes before I had someone trying to climb inside my tail-pipe. (So, all you sweet people who turn into frothing, raging maniacs whenever you're stuck behind someone who apparently can't read the road signs? That's me you're crowding. Metaphorically. Consider what follows your last dire warning.)
So hear I am on this windy road, going faster than I've ever gone before, with an increasingly grouchy (I know he's grouchy because calm people know better than to get that close) driver behind me cussing me out for being a little old lady. And my only support in this time of national emergency is completely unaware that anything's wrong because he can't see our friend (missing right rear view mirror, did I mention) so he starts playing with the GPS so that it will stop telling us to turn around at the next opportunity. Which, incidentally, means I now don't know how fast I'm actually going. (The speedometer is also broken. The GPS tells me how slow I'm going.)
It is in these circumstances that I come to a fork in the road. And this is where I make a really dumb mistake that, if I had been calm and cool and collected and free of distractions I totally wouldn't have made. I saw a sign blur past that I thought was for the road I wanted. I whipped the car around to make the turn, going somewhere between 40 and 50 miles an hour. The (does it matter if I call it a car when it's a truck?) vehicle went into a skid
The truck ended up with the passenger side wedged on top of a culvert and my side up in the air. Those billboards that talk about click it or ticket aren't kidding. I wedged myself in place, since I figured landing on my grandfather would probably be an infraction of the fifth commandment and I might not have much time left to repent. The guy who had been tailgating us stopped, strapped us to his truck to keep us from rolling over- the car was teetering and shaking and all in all it wasn't much fun at all- and gradually winched the car from being at a ninety degree angle to a forty degree angle. He and another passing truck driver helped us out. A lady (who mysteriously had reception when no one else did) stopped and called a tow truck for us.
The first official to arrive was a constable. Then a fire truck. Then another fire truck. The firemen replaced the kind tailgater's strap with some heavy duty chains. The tailgater, who was also a deer hunter, left at some point. Neither of us noticed him go. I was busy crying and sobbing that it was all my parents' fault, it was an assassination conspiracy, and I wanted to go home. Well, not out loud, because I didn't want the police to think I was drunk, but I was thinking it very loudly.
The sheriff's deputy and the ambulance arrived at roughly the same time. The ambulance left again pretty quickly when they realized neither Grandpa nor I were bleeding to death. Then came the tow truck. Then the state trooper. Meanwhile I was wondering if I really had survived, or if this was the newest ring of hell reserved for beginning drivers. Grandpa claims there were three firetrucks, and since it was his truck I crashed, and his life I endangered, I'm not going to disagree, so we'll pretend it showed up now. At one point I saw the police- don't ask me which ones- measuring my skid. It looked impressive to me, but maybe it wasn't. I wouldn't know.
The tow truck lifted the truck out of the ditch. Once it was out, the firemen lost interest. I heard one of them ask someone "Can we go now?" Like me when the Teacher drags me to one of her ultra-boring whatevers. They did eventually go. When Grandpa opened the hood of the truck I freaked out because there was this huge gaping hole right there. Grandpa told me it was supposed to be there before I had time to hyperventilate too badly.
The fun now over, the emergency responce vehicles evaporated. (We didn't really need them, but it's nice to know that if I ever do, they'll show up then too.) I got two warnings. One for making an unsafe turn. One for the expired inspection sticker.
I sang the first verse (which was all I could remember off the top of my head) of 'How Great Thou Art' as we drove away. It seemed appropriate.
Grandpa drove for the next half hour while I convinced my body that I was alive after all. I took over again on 16 (which is a 70 mph road) and drove almost all of it up to 20. At that point I figured the worst had already happened and I might as well just get on with it.
The fastest I went all day was 66. I stepped on the brake as soon as I noticed.
Now I'm just waiting for the whole thing to show up in the newspaper.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Good to Know
When you're about to give a presentation in front of your Spanish class... it's not a good time to chew on tough, stringy beef jerky which will get stuck in your teeth.
When you've spent three minutes explaining how good your cookies are, be prepared to jump backwards quickly when you open the container.
When you've spent three minutes explaining how good your cookies are, be prepared to jump backwards quickly when you open the container.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Final Exams
Three more days. Three more days.
I can do three more days.
I have to do three more days.
I don't know if I can do three more days.
I can do three more days.
I have to do three more days.
I don't know if I can do three more days.
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