Questions I Need Answered

Is it hickey or hickie? Either way, there is nothing more disgusting than seeing the tell-tale signs of adolescent lust and awkwardness on the neck of a 14 year old boy who seems to always be in need of a shower. Hygiene, boys. Hygiene.

Why are we paying a $174,000 annual starting salary to individuals who don't do their job? (That being to actually pass laws that make our country better.) If I taught they way they govern I'd be the worst teacher in all of human history. And I'm including Mary Kay Letourneau in that list.

Why must my birthday be sullied by the beginning of Daylight Saving Time? Every year since they changed it I've spend my birthday week extra tired from waking an hour earlier. Thanks again, government.

Do you understand the zombie thing? Can you explain it to me. I've tried to find the humor in it to no avail. Zombies are generally disappointing.

Why are stripes so appealing to me? I have a stripe problem.

How can a sandwich consisting of a breaded, deep-fried chicken breast and sliced pickles be so delicious? I even pull off the pickles, so basically it is the chicken and the breading and part of the bun. Why are you so good, Chick-fil-A? And why have you not set up shop in my neighborhood? Couldn't we agree to kick Taco Bell out?

Who even goes to Taco Bell anymore?

What book/movie/musician do I not know about right now that you just know would be worth the time/Netflix/iTunes investment? No, really, I want your brilliant suggestions, readers.

What did you think of Seth MacFarlane on the Oscars? Convince me it didn't suck because I thought it was awful. Really awful.

More importantly, why do I continue to watch the Oscars year after year? It is a lackluster event with a few poignant speeches that can be found plastered all over the internet the next day anyway.

Why is it so hard to find a perfect pair of jeans? And why do stores "upgrade" to new cuts and styles once you find your ideal?

Why is it that the older I get, the more I just want to stay at home in yoga pants? Must be the jeans issue.

Earning it.

I want my face to flash my life's narrative in an instant. I want each emotion and thought and whim carved there. I want a permanent set of parentheses around my mouth--a side memo to the world that I am a woman who has smiled so many times that my joy is forever etched there. I want a brow furrowed in thought or concern for my children, my students, the people I love. This brow will show I cared. Deeply. I want crow's feet scratched across my eyes' corners from squinting and straining to see my world in clarity, from laughing and making funny faces. I want my face to be a written word, a calligraphy of experience, of pain and peace and worry. I want my skin to memorize my life's work. To not only whisper but project the message that I lived a life worth living.

I want to earn my face. The story--my story--that is written on it. I want my face to tell my tale before I utter a single word.

Amen and Amen: Found on Pinterest

Imagine That

"Nothing happens unless first we dream."
~ Carl Sandburg

***

Oprah and I have a love/hate relationship, one-sided though it may be. But Friday, because it was my day off, I stopped channel surfing and watched her.

There she was, Oprah Winfrey, airing out her closet for the world to see--Oprah "my-dog-gets-acupuncture" Winfrey admitting that she went through a phase in which she bought fanciful, delicate little pocketbooks with the dream of being one of the ladies who lunch, pocketbook in her overly expressive hand. Except in her internationally televised closet clean out, she confessed that she doesn't have time to lunch. The dream was just that. A romantic notion. In the context of reality, it grew rather ridiculous.

There I sat on my couch, shocked. Thinking to myself: Oprah does this too? I mean, she's Oprah! Surely, if you were Oprah Winfrey, there would be no need for fantasy. Because you're Oprah. You're living the fantasy.

But Oprah, adult that she may be, dreams of lunching with ornate, miniature handbags.

***

My niece, "Mugs", used to lie down on her back on her bed or the couch or the living room floor, and say, "Don't bother me, I'm having imaginings." Her face would beam, eyes closed, as her mind drifted into the fantasies of her heart. She has never looked so beautiful or spirited or content as in her quiet, imagined moments.

***

If I could be one person in all of cinema, I'd be Meg Ryan's character, Kathleen Kelly, from You've Got Mail. She owns a bookstore in New York. She has gumption or moxie or whatever you want to call it, yet she's quirky and kind. And she dresses with a classic finesse. I often channel her while shopping for clothing. I think she is responsible for all my cardigans.

If I could be one person in all of literature, I'd be Elizabeth Bennett from Pride & Prejudice. Not because she gets Mr. Darcy (frankly, he's a bit of an ass), but because she has just the right thing to say at just the right moment. She's a wit whereas I wake up at 2 in the morning with the perfect, saucy retort I wish would've come to me 12 hours ago when my cheeks flushed and my brain went quiet.

***



When I was little, my day was spent imagining. More sentences began with "Pretend that..." than I know how to count. I lived for make-believe. Dress up and tea parties and princesses and baby dolls. These are the magical times of my childhood, living that intangible pink something that isn't.

And then I grew up. And life got busy. And make-believe was for children. Magic was for children. Lying under the tree in the backyard, dreaming of my life stretched wide before me, it was all a thing of the past.

But is it really? Does it have to be?

I think Oprah and her pocketbooks, Mugs and her imaginings, me and my fictitious characters prove that our need for imagining never really goes away. We try to deny it or make the fantasies our reality as adults. As children perhaps the dream of it all is so intense that it is enough to get us by for a time.

But in the end, there's something beautiful about imagination. There is power in all that the human mind can create for us. There's a quote often attributed to Einstein about imagination being more valuable than knowledge--that imagination has the quality of being limitless, while knowledge has an ending point. I think imagination is the ultimate expression of intelligence. Anything of worth started first in the mind. I also believe that even if nothing comes of it, even if the wild fancies of the mind end where they began, there is value in allowing ourselves to imagine.

* image found here.

I Dote on Votes

I shamelessly nominated myself as the May blog spotlight over at Mormon Mommy Blogs one night, certain that nothing would ever come of it. You see, I'm neither wife or mommy--but I still follow (some of my favorite blogs have been discovered here). Even stranger still, of the many nominations made, I was selected as one of the five you vote for this month!

So get to. Go here and vote for Confessions of a Rookie. As of this post, I'm tied for last place.

I think I now know how I got myself into debt...

This week after grabbing dinner, Alice and I decided to visit our favorite overpriced store to see what we could see on the clearance racks. It was during this venture that I figured out the root of my issue with spending money I don't necessarily have on things I don't necessarily need.

I can now say that I blame it on my imagination and overly strong sense of empathy. I've been trained (by myself? by the media?) to see the potential of every diamond in the rough. And during clothing shopping this tendency manifests itself like a bad rash.

"Oooh," I think, "that knitted poncho could toast me right up during the cold winter months in my classroom!" I think. "I'd be like the school's eccentric/sophisticated/slightly hippy-ish English teacher wearing that." I think. These mistakes have found their way into my goodwill bag time and time again.

And so, my insanely active imagination expressed itself full force once again during our most clearance rack browsing trip. 

It all started when I saw IT: a vanilla colored, asymmetrical/chunky knitted collar, synched slightly at the waist, hits just below the hip, dressy-casual masterpiece at 75% off. At that price, this coat was a steal!

In this coat I could make men swoon. In this coat women would drool with envy and attack me with sharp claws when they found out the clearance special I nailed. In this coat, I would fall in love with the man of my dreams in a chick-flick-esque love montage: building a snowman together with my coat and maybe a bright knitted hat and matching mittens, kissing in the snow with that coat, walking through a brisk autumn in central park together, my coat standing out against the leaves. This coat, my coat, would star in this whirlwind romance. Imagine with me:

plus

plus

*kind of what it looked like but not really even close at all because my coat was even more splendid and I am certain I looked better than some skinny, faceless catalogue model

equals

*only the jump for joy would include my coat

I saw every last reel stream through my head and I hadn't even pulled it off the rack. When I put it on it got worse, trust me. This coat was dreamy and beautiful and looked even better on than hanging there, lifeless. And did I mention it was on SALE?




But I didn't buy it.

Oh, I took it into the dressing room with me and a smoking hot red dress (that was too tight in all the wrong places and quite itchy, really). I paraded the coat for Alice to see. I stared in the mirror at me in my coat. But amongst the reels of my future's movie footage, a few key facts kept bludgeoning in on my shopping nirvana:

1. I already own several casual coats and two dressy-er clearance coats. One red, one black. They haven't fulfilled their imaginative promises yet.

2. I spill or accidentally rub everything on me from dry erase marker dust to salsa. And here I was foaming at the mouth for a CREAM coat.

3. 75% off at my favorite overpriced store isn't really that much of a steal, especially when it's in the coat department. And I didn't have the available cash so it would without doubt be going on my credit card.

4. There isn't really a four, but one through three sort of kept reoccurring again and again and again, interrupting my imagination incessantly.

The final slap in the face came when Alice, who supported my purchase because she knows better than to stop me when I get "that glazed over, far off stare" in my eyes (her exact words describing me while facing any and all clearance racks), said, "that's kind of like Cameron Diaz's coat in The Holiday."

That is when I knew I couldn't get it. I was duped by my own imagination and too many chick flicks over the years. The purchase would be impractical and stupid. It wouldn't bring world peace or the man of my dreams.  It promised nothing, not even to keep me all that warm.  And I'd probably get a bloody nose or worse the first time I took it out on the town.  And, after all, I'd just have to pay it off when the bill came.

And so, I've learned what my problem is when it comes to the ever-stuffed-can't-find-ANYTHING-in-here closet. We can blame my imagination.  Yes, all the lies my imagination tells me as it runs away from me all the way to the counter where it pulls out my card and buys unfulfilled promises.

P.S. A little piece of me still wishes I had that coat.  

P.P.S.  Does anybody else do this too?  Tell me I don't need help!

Addendum to my previous post

Also, if I had my way, this guy's LDS, well educated equivalent would show up on my doorstep and sweep me off my feet.


Just sayin'.