Girl in my Wednesday night meeting: "I just got a new job!"
Us: "That’s great! Hooray!"
Girl: "Yeah, I’m now a DG girl" -
Me: (thinking) DG girl? DG…DG…Dolce and Gabbana? Wow!
Girl: - "working for Dollar General."
Oops.
First off, people, I am in pain. Last night was Crazy Class with the S.E.A.L. By the grace of God, she was in a good mood and didn’t yell at us. I swear, she must be in her "maturing woman stage," because some days she’s as sweet as sugar and other days…the word Satanic comes to mind.
Sigh. I wish I could become one of her favored students she’s nice to, the Chosen People.
I also wish I didn’t suck.
But this is not about dance, for once. This is about work.
You ever feel like everyone else has it together except you? I feel like that about work.
I’ve worked at the same company for nearly 3 years, ever since before I graduated college. Which is fine. Mostly.
I met a girl at dance last night who is a second year law student at Vanderbilt. Which is what I thought I would be someday this time last year. And now…I have no clue. I just woke up one morning, my LSAT taken, my personal statement drafted, my letters of recommendation secured, and put on the brakes. I just said, "nope, I don’t think I want to go to law school." And what scared me so much about this was a) it wasn’t "I don’t think I want to go to law school right now," but sounded in my head more like "ever" and b) it felt not just okay, but really, really good to say that. Oh, and c) I was out about $1,200 for my LSAT prep course, books, transportation to said prep course, and all the other crap the Law School Powers That Be make you pay for.
So I’m terrified that I’ll start making those kind of decisions again and then put on the brakes. Again.
But I can’t be a research assistant forever, right? I feel this need to Do Something with My Life, which undoubtably means going back to school. And, secretly (okay, not so secretly), I salivate at the thought of cracking open a huge leather-bound book with hundreds of pages in tiny print. (I am such a nerd).
I just don’t know in what.
And then there’s the location thing to contend with. Not only do I think living here is good for me in a lot of ways (a healthy distance from crazy family, affordability, exploration, seeing life outside the insanity of the beltway…BALLET), but I’m starting to really like this place. I can’t put my finger on why, exactly. But there is a certain amount of affection growing for the rolling hills next door, the park I run in, the cute little shops lining Broadway.
Do I want to stay here for a little while? And do what? Do I want to try somewhere else, like…I don’t know, Denver or Seattle or San Diego or Boston?
Not that I don’t miss DC - I miss home terribly sometimes. Especially the people, of course - I miss you all so very, very much! Especially since I realized last night I can be impossibly shy and I think this makes me come off as a snob. Or at least, not approachable.
Sometimes I just want to wear a t-shirt that says, "I’m just new here! If I look a little puzzled, it’s probably because I can’t remember how to drive home!"
Or, "Please talk to me. I work from home and have started talking to the cardinals nesting in my porch for company."
Or, "Seriously, do you take 440 East or 440 West?"
Sigh. What to do? Where to go? What about school?
Answer: Take some asprin, suck it up, and get right back to those pique turns. That’s all I know.
I saved four children from almost certain death this weekend. Twice.
Saturday morning I went down to the weight room at our apartment complex. I opened the door (which, by the way, is locked and you need to know a four-digit access code to get in) and foud four children, all under the age of 7, including one that couldn’t have been more than 4, playing around on the weight machines. Not an adult in sight. At first, this was merely annoying. You know, screaming contests. Making the lat machine squeak. Running on the treadmill until they almost fell off.
Then the lat machine got stuck. The genius kids, without adult supervision, decided they would try fixing it by pulling down the weights with their hands. This would have resulted in about 80 pounds falling straight on their hands and breaking them, if not amputating them off at the wrists.
So I stopped them and fixed the lat machine before they became handicapped. Once they left, I left for the blissful silence of the other gym.
Ah, peace.
On my way back to the apartment, I walked by the pool outside the weight room. Naturally, the pool isn’t open yet - in fact, there is a fence around it and the gate is padlocked. But for aesthetic purposes, they’ve left the pool uncovered for the winter. And who had discovered the pool but my four little friends? They had climbed over the fence (nearly falling headfirst on the concrete deck on the other side of said fence) and I found them running around the edge of the deep end of the pool, "testing" the water with their hands.
Again, not one of these children is over the age of 7.
I scolded them with my best Scary Adult scold, explaining to them they weren’t allowed in the pool area. And then, once they left, I marched straight to the rental office with the intent of alerting the rental agents so our complex wasn’t faced with a lawsuit when the maintenance man had to fish a few bodies out of the pool. I knocked on the office door and addressed the more authoritative-looking agent lady.
Me: "Excuse me. I just wanted to let you know there are a bunch of little kids playing around the far pool."
Agent lady: "Oh, they’re my kids. They’re over there."
Me: (I turn around to see them ripping through the lounge area of the resident center, glass vases and lamps clattering precariously in the whiplash).
Agent lady: "They know not to go near the pool."
Me: "Oh, I saw them inside the fence playing in the water."
Agent lady: "Oh, they know not to play around the pool."
Me: "… Okay. Okay. Well, good thing they’re inside now. Well, I just wanted to let someone know just in case."
I am not a confrontational person (can’t you tell?), but this made me really mad. Yeah, I’m not trying to tell you how to raise your kids. Yeah, it’s a bummer when you have to work on Saturday and you can’t find a sitter (or the father of your four children). Yeah, I get a children-friendly work environment. But then you sit your kids down with about 17 coloring books at the desk next to you. You bring them a board game (without dice and other small objects!) and put it on the floor in the next room. You at least keep them in the same building as you. And no, you do not believe them when your four-year old says "I no play in da pool, Mommy" unless you make him wear a helmet, floaties, a life vest, flippers, and carry a whistle.
So I’m thinking about being a real stickler and telling the upper management.
Seriously. What an idiot.
Sometimes, when I feel homesick, I look at this little tree blooming in my backyard.
The closest thing to nature I saw in my 700 sq. ft. highrise apartment in downtown Silver Spring was the family of brown drain bugs I caught trying to eat my towels.
When I looked out my balcony window, I could see the train tracks (home of the train that whistled every fifteen minutes), the interstate, and the smog of the interstate covering any glimpse of trees.
I think this is an improvement, don’t you?
I have found the answer to the age-old question of "what do you want to do with your life?"
The answer can be yours, too, for only $999!
Seriously, how cool is this program?
I could totally teach people how to be a legislative research assistant, too!
"See this button? This is what you click to check your email."
"You want to open up at least three internet windows at a time: one for work, like Westlaw, one for semi-work, like The Washington Post, and one for when you get bored or Westlaw takes forever to load, like Omiru.com"
"When surfing, start out with work-related websites like the New York Times. Save juicy ones, like Go Fug Yourself.com, for when things get really slow."
"This is a bill. Yeah, I don’t really know what most of those numbers at the bottom mean either."
(With no ballet, this week is crawling by…can’t you tell?)
My brother and I have a complicated relationship.
Like all siblings, we bicker. A lot. And our fights usually end up with him taking a swing at me, me ducking, him hitting whatever hard object is behind me at full force, and him running off to tattle that I "made him hurt his hand."
(Huh?)
(Okay, so maybe this depicts us a few years ago. Now we’re much more mature: he says I’m such a snob, I say yeah, well, you’re a slob, and we’re even.)
This bickering stems from the fact that we are as different as night and day. He plays hockey, I dance. He hates school, I miss it so much I’m rereading all my English 314 books. He plays Playstation for at least four hours a day, I can’t get past Level 1 of Mario Bros. The 2-D version.
However, these differences are best exemplified by my brother’s choice of attire to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day at school today:
- Green bucket hat
- Green t-shirt with the word Dublin on it
- Green plaid pajama pants
- Sneakers
- And, my favorite touch, shamrock boxer shorts worn over the pajama pants.
I’m really not one to talk about fashion, given the fact that right now I’m wearing grey sweatpants, a grey t-shirt, and a ponytail (I’m so hot. Yes, the italics indicate extreme sarcasm). But…I worry for my brother because he has no common sense. The other day he made my mom bring him medicine because he couldn’t figure out if he should take Advil or Pepto-Bismol to treat his headache. He couldn’t figure out how to cook pasta ("you add water to it?"). And now this.
Honey, the instructions are in the name: Undergarments.
Undergarments.
As in under your garments.
*Sigh*
In reality, I’m really proud of him. He just got into college at Salisbury state (YAY!), he can crack me up with his impressions, and he’s genuinely a sweet kid.
At least dressed like this he won’t be meeting girls…
I did it. I took the plunge. And I survived.
Barely.
When I say I survived I mean I was not driven to tears.
Barely.
I attended my first next level ballet class. To put things in perspective, this is the class one takes before one starts taking the class with company members in it. Company members. As in people that can leap over someone’s head.
I’m not really bragging because there is obviously a huge gap between class levels. I’m still taking normal people classes the other nights and I just don’t understand how they expect people to go from that to…crazy land.
And guess who teaches this class? Who else would teach the introduction to crazy land? The S.E.A.L.
And let me tell you, up until last night, my experience with the S.E.A.L. had been a cakewalk. She had been comparatively nice.
Not so last night. At all.
There was yelling ("AND ONE two three four. ENERGY. This needs to be SHARPER - MILITARISTIC!"). There was taunting ("This is an intermediate class. Do you think I’ll accept anything less than 90 degree legs? Do you?"). There were admonishing sighs ("Stop, stop. *Sigh.* Do it again."). There was an outright hissy fit ("Glissade-assemblé-jeté-jeté-etrechat-etrechat-pas-de-chat-pas-de-chat. Having trouble? Well, I can’t read your mind. Looking at me does not tell me anything. I can’t help you! Figure it out yourself.").
But I did it.
I didn’t fall down, I didn’t break anything, and I kept up (I started panting a third of the way through the class, but I kept up). Shoot, I didn’t even suck completely! So I’m going back for more.
This is going to be a long eight weeks.
I think this means I’m officially a redneck.
Our door decoration started off as the highlight of the Christmas season. We found the cutest bear wreath you’ve ever seen: a green wreath with a little teddy bear in the middle, a stocking cap on his furry head and a little sled held in his mittened paws. Sigh. Adorable. I started leaving Hersey’s kisses in the bear’s Yuletide paws for The Boy to find when he got home.
Turns out the bear wreath, complete with his candy cane, was too cute to take down after Christmas. Look at him! We just couldn’t do it. So, we justified that it was still winter and he could stay up a little longer.
Until one 70+ degree day in mid-March when I came home to find The Boy had added to the decoration to make it more seasonally appropriate:
……
Yeah, the bear’s in the closet now. Until December 21st.
I realized this weekend that either my social skills are deteriorating or I need to find girlfriends around here.
Or both.
Stevie, The Boy’s best friend, came to visit this weekend. Frankly, I really like Stevie - he’s my favorite of The Boy’s friends, he’s a lot of fun and really nice, and he’s a chatterbox (much like yours truly). You can never be bored with Stevie around - if all else fails, he’s got lots of stories to tell about his female predicaments (he has the second most interesting love life of anyone I know since he tends to fall for two girls at once…A, of course, possessing the first most interesting). We get along quite well. And okay, let’s be honest - without Stevie, The Boy would still be too shy to ask me out.
So this visit was much-anticipated. I’ve especially been looking forward to taking someone from home on a tour of Crackerbarrelville.
Except, of course, I had forgotten that this was Boy Weekend.
I found Boy Weekend a little overwhelming. There was college basketball. Then more college basketball (I went running). Then pepperoni pizza (I picked off the pepperoni) and more college basketball. Then tennis (I finally beat The Boy). Then barbeque and ribs while watching college basketball at a restaurant (I ordered shrimp and vegetables). Then the next day, golf (I went to church), then college basketball (I read and did my hair). A trip to the Parthenon. Then rushing home to catch the special Selection Show about - what else? - college basketball (I watched for five minutes with my Maryland shirt on, sighed, then changed out of it. Stupid Maryland). I knew I had reached my limit when I could start commenting on the skill of teams that were included in the bracket. Shoot, I’m impressed with myself when I know what a bracket is.
(In case you’re curious, I have Duke, Tennessee, somebody else, and somebody else picked for the final four. I have Duke winning by one point because I secretly want Tennessee to win so everyone around here will be in a good mood but am trying to be realistic.)
(Yes, I have Duke winning.)
(Stupid Maryland.)
So, after hours of college basketball, I was in the mood for something else. Unfortunately, I was outnumbered two to one in my view that the Style network’s March Fabness is "essentially the same thing."
If I don’t find some girls to hang out with by the World Series, I’m in trouble. There’s only so much shoe shopping one can do by oneself.
The Boy is insane.
He is starting on his second week of working two jobs. He works at the radio station from 8 pm to 5 am, sleeps until 7 am, then works as a substitute high school Spanish teacher until 3 pm. Needless to say, conversations with him on about 2 and a half hours of sleep are quite interesting:
Me: Honey, it’s time to get up.
The Boy (still asleep): Mumble, mumble…You need to sit down in your chair…mumble… or you’ll be sent to the office…mumble mumble…sent…to…the…office…
Me: (Laughing hysterically until the bed shakes)
The Boy: Mumble…earthquake! Earthquake!
I’m trying my darnedest to be as supportive as I can since I know trying this out to see if this career path (teaching) is for him is really important. I know that idea has crossed my mind, too, and it’s nice to have an inside prospective on it without leaving The Abyss. So we went into this saying it’s only for two months, we’ll get an extra $5,000, and we’ll get to see if this is something we need to pursue without either of us quitting our day (night) job.
That was before he entered the classroom. Wednesday, his third day, he came home with this proclamation:
"You know, Monday I thought, "hey, I can definitely do this." Tuesday I thought, "hey, this isn’t so bad." Today I thought, "I just want to crawl under a rock and never interact with anyone under the age of 20 again."
Needless to say, we are learning a valuable lesson. I think I’ll take The Abyss over whiny teenagers throwing spitballs at each other while calling each other fat any day.
