i have a question...

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Mr. Miyagi would be so proud.

So, we all know that I'm a fan of TV.

Lately, I've been rewatching the entire series of Scrubs and it's seriously reigniting my Zach Braff crush.

I'm also a fan of reality TV but not a ridiculous, obsessive fan.

Like, I don't watch Jersey Shore, for example.

I have, however, become newly fascinated by the horrible schlock show Celebrity Apprentice but mostly because Marlee Matlin's on it and I am totally in love with her. Also, I didn't know who Lil Jon or Nene Leakes were before the show, and now I love them both.

And Dionne Warwick is a horrible person who thinks that teaching 4- and 5-year-olds about deaf people is bringing them too much diversity.

Anyway, I like to be kept informed about the other significant reality phenomena around me. So I read and occasionally watch clips of this season's Dancing with the Stars.

And it features Ralph Macchio.

You know, this guy!
















Except, today, he looks like this.














Which is to say, EXACTLY THE SAME AS HE DID IN THE KARATE KID!

Like, it is freaky.

And he does this:



But, my absolute favorite part of that clip is that he named his son--WAIT FOR IT!--Daniel.

As in, Daniel-san.

SOB!

Monday, March 28, 2011

Escape

I had a dream on Sunday night about two guys I once had crushes on. In my dream, they knew each other, were fighting over me, even.

It took me gradually waking up to remember that they've never met, had, in fact, been parts of entirely different eras of my life, though only a couple years apart, one at the end of middle school and one my last two years of high school.

As I remembered this, I was suddenly wide awake, trying to figure out if I was doing the math right and that it has really been ten whole years since I graduated from high school.

I still can't really believe it.

But 2011 minus 10 is, in fact, 2001, the year I graduated from high school.

I thought about this most of Sunday morning, trying to figure out where the time had gone.

Yes, I spent four years in college and two years in graduate school, but that only accounts for six years.

The other years, I sometimes feel like I lost. Mostly, I was busy being unhappy or trying to figure out where to find happiness and actively pursuing it.

So, in honor of these ten years that have passed, the last few of which have revealed certain happiness to me, I am reposting something I wrote five years ago.

I always hear that time flies even faster as we get older. If I'm already so disoriented by this passing of time, I'll be 90 before I know it!

September 2006

For some reason, I’m thinking a lot about my childhood these days. About a childhood that I sometimes look back on with regret because it was overshadowed by adult matters that left me self-reliant at an early age. I remember high school as the epitome of this contradiction. A time when I was supposed to be experimenting with booze and boys, cutting classes, rebelling against my parents but which, in reality, was a time when I took school too seriously because I knew that would be my way to escape.

I didn’t really smoke anything or drink until I was 19 and 21, respectively. In high school, I never crammed and I never cut class. I was mortified to find out that I had gotten a B in an art class once because I thought that meant I’d have no chance at getting to be the valedictorian and I felt that made my entire four years at high school a 1460 day long waste of time. I had entered high school as the “smart girl from New York,” the one who left high school with the same reading and writing skills as she had when she had entered. I knew at the end of my freshman year that I could make it to valedictorian and that B was the one chink in my academic armor. (I ended up making valedictorian, after taking one more honors class than the person who was salutatorian.)

The point is, when my mother and step-father moved us from Brooklyn, NY to Cambria, CA and I left a school of 1100 to attend a school of 400, I knew the first few days that I needed to get out as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Once I had graduated and finally moved away from Cambria, I knew I was off the hook, and I stopped being so rigid with myself. I took classes I wanted to take, and ended up deciding to major in theater, which was the first “rebellious,” independent decision I had ever made. I lived with a male roommate (we shared one room, two beds); I started smoking cigarettes, pot, and drinking (all recreationally, of course). I partied. A lot. Hosted costume balls and spontaneous dance parties in my apartment. Sometimes even sacrificed my homework for a night out with friends. And even cut classes now and then, to catch up on sleep. Or homework that hadn’t gotten done the nights before. It was a time of intense self-awareness and transformation.

Five years after graduating from high school, I try to look back at those years without too much regret. I had to make the best of it at the time because, otherwise, I probably would have killed myself. Or gotten pregnant and really been stuck there. Who knows what might have been if I had actually fallen victim to the closed mindedness of the tiny, white-washed town? But I do know that the way I saw it, as a gateway to what ended up being the most wonderful times of my life, helped me get through each day and not resent four years of my life. I can chalk it up as just a long, torturous transition. And maybe that is actually what high school means to everyone.

But Cambria has a way of swallowing people up. I always called it a black hole, and I knew that if I caved in college at some point and crawled back to Cambria with my tail between my legs, as I saw and heard many of my high school classmates do, I might never leave. And some of those kids still haven’t.

I’m not sure if it was because it was their hometown. Or because the town itself seemed to breed a certain type of non-thinking and unmoving young person. But there seems to be a particular phenomenon of people I knew moving back, after various times at colleges or not, and subsequently never leaving.

I can understand if your hometown is a big city, like San Francisco or New York, that you might move back after college. Or even go to college in the city. And maybe that’s because I did grew up in a big city, and even though I was never really an adult in New York until a year and half ago, I knew that a rural town was not where I belonged. I just don’t understand what opportunities exist for young people in a town of 6000, a town with one streetlight (actually, the second got installed my last year in college), a town where not only do you never pass anyone on the street who isn’t white but you probably know the names of everyone of those white people. And their kids.

Sometimes I imagine the scene at my ten-year high school reunion. I know some of the people there will be fatter and that those who aren’t are the ones who got some plastic surgery, and a lot of people will be married and even more will have kids (since they started in high school or right after). I even know of one of my high school classmates who has come out of the closet. (I somehow doubt she’ll make an appearance at the reunion.) I imagine sitting and drinking with the one or two people I still keep in contact with and judging all the others while I stuff my face with buffet food and congratulate myself on the 10th anniversary of my escape.

Monday, March 21, 2011

This is My Story. What's Yours?



Created on youtube.com/search stories

Made even funnier/truer/sadder by the fact that even Google maps thinks Silvertone is a good place for first dates.

Also, the related videos at the end of mine include "Gay Speed Dating in Boston" and "Depression--Cooking for One."

Sigh.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Overheard at Work, vol. X

Technically, this is two weeks' worth of quotes. What I'm finding is that my day passes so quickly and I see so many kids that, by the end of the week, or even the day, I don't remember what ANYONE said.

I keep threatening to keep a tally of how many people I talk to in a day of work.

I swear it would be at least 100.

"Look at you in your skinny jeans!"--my colleague
"They're JEGGINGS!"--her 10-year-old mentee

Colleague A: You want to eat this for me?
Colleague B: What? Yes!

Colleague B is also the one who suggested "Cake. Or a big hunk of cheese" as incentive for our staff fitness challenge winners.

"What's a Nate Dogg?"--our HR person, showing her age.
(May he rest.)

Monday, March 14, 2011

My Brother is a Support System Unto Himself

me: i reported to the board of directors tonight
it was kinder scary

C: was it like the council in superman
GUILTY
GUILTY
GUILTY

me: um
no

C: oh
it's on netflix
you should watch it

me: it was like
hi
i'm new

C: GUILTY

me: these are my goals for the programs i'm managing
k bye

C: phantom zone!
oh
nice
how many programs do you manage?
what are they called?

me: music, art, dance, drama
eventually 5 people, including me

C: whoaaaaaaaaaaa
that's huge
each of those categories had its own god in ancient greece
that's serious

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Carrie Got Dumped on a Post-It, But...

That's just fiction.

In reality, getting rejected via email doesn't sting any less.

I could spin a funny, witty, cutting yarn about my recent foray into online dating.

It involves contacting someone on the stupid site, right after my PREVIOUS rejection, emailing him for less than a week, being impressed with his wit via email, meeting him at one of my favorite restaurants (his pick), being pleasantly surprised by what he looked like, feeling very awkward at paying for my own food and drink on our first meeting, spending almost 4 hours with him that night, having him walk me to my train station (out of his way), assessing the date as a solid B, while being concerned at his apparent lack of warmth, worrying about hearing from him for two days, hearing from him, making a second date, shaving and dressing up for it, deciding that I actually liked him while spending another almost 5 hours with him, walking in the rain, being totally impressed with his candor, getting kissed good night, thinking about making plans this week, sending him a text because I knew he knows people in Japan, and, basically, having him write me back that he didn't want to see me anymore.

It's not actually a funny story.

And, while I'm totally sitting here, shocked and confused, trying to make sense of whatever is going on his head, and, at the same time, understanding that I WILL NEVER KNOW, I'm also thinking...

Dude. That was a big mistake.

You are missing out.

Because I am fucking amazing.

Good luck finding whatever it is you're looking for...*cough* at 32 and after six years of online dating *cough*

In this case, I know, it's not me.

It's you.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Work, vol. X

So, I collected exactly two quotes this week.

Partly, that is because I spent a fair amount of Wednesday and Thursday not really with kids. I'm running interviews, calling references, giving tours, meeting funders, and generally getting thrown to the proverbial wolves (but in a good way).

Doing lots of extra things around the Club.

Because I can.

As my job gets crazier and busier, I will collect quotes until I get a fair amount. THEN, I will share them.

I hope you don't mind.

Also, I survived my first day at this job hungover.

So there's that.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Overheard at Work, vol. IX

Lots of great things happening at work. I am finally settling into what my day-to-day really looks like; I have been given a couple more responsibilities; I am feeling good about my management; I am happy about how my programming is going.

My 90-day evaluation is coming up at the beginning of April. I am both terrified and confident about it. HA!

It was a very, very busy week, so quotes are scarcer.

"They allowed me to a beer bar."--an eight-year-old announced this to me, in a whisper. She followed that with, "I didn't drink or anything. I'm not an alcoholic!"

Discussing my colleague's affinity for Justin Bieber, an eight-year-old said: "You're obsessed!" Then he urged her, "Don't be so picky!" I don't remember why, but his emphasis was hilarious. Later that day, he very confidently asked me, "Can I have a 20?"

"Maback Obama"--an eight-year-old's total mispronunciation of our President's name.