Musings

The backbone of this blog – my thoughts and feelings about pretty much anything.

Some Assembly and Yoga-Like Contortion Required

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I sat on the floor of my room, curled like an apostrophe around a bookcase lying prone on the infuriatingly un-level carpet.  Holding the side of the bookcase against my knees, I clamped the shelf under my arm and twisted the screwdriver painfully with my right hand (I’m left-handed, so this took a fair bit of coordination).  It was nearing dinnertime, and I had a meeting to go to, but I was absolutely determined to get this thing put together.  Before I had to go anywhere, before I ate, before the Engineer came back from whatever he’d been doing all day, this bookcase would be upright and my books would be rescued from their homelessness.

This corner of my room had been driving me crazy for weeks.  My printer was perched precariously on a wobbly table with spindly legs.  My books were stacked as neatly as possibly in various corners of my room.  My papers were strewn in heaps under the printer and on the ledge running under my window.  Clearly, I needed a bookshelf.

What I had envisioned was a bookcase already assembled, perhaps one from a garage sale or a family member’s guest room, or even Goodwill.  Nothing fancy, of course, but already possessing nails and screws in all the vital places.

I found myself instead with this pressboard, “coffee cherry” finish kit from Shopko and a familiar stubborn voice in my head telling me I didn’t need anyone else to help me put it together.

And I was right.  I may have attached the bottom slightly crooked and had to redo it.  I may have had red lines that purpled into bruises on my legs from holding the pieces tightly together while I twisted the screws through.  I may have nailed the cardboard backing on so that it bubbles out a little bit at the bottom.  But it stands, and it holds my books, and I am happy.

My mother (who, as you may recall, also likes to rearrange furniture at times) put together the table and chairs in our breakfast nook at home all by herself.  She wrestled with the legs and heavy top, chased screws across the floor out of the cat’s reach, and threw a tablecloth over the finished product with a proud flourish.

I suspect I get some of my independence from her.

I’ve been fortunate enough to always have people to call if I need something moved, or built, or fixed.  But it’s nice to know that, should the need arise, my bright pink toolbox and I can probably figure things out.2015-09-08 16.24.20

Seniority

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2012-11-09 13.45.17
The Senior Bench upon which I may now sit with impunity by virtue of completing 3/4 of my undergraduate education.

I had this weird thought as I walked past the Senior Bench the other day that I am now a senior and therefore may sit on the Senior Bench without fear of breaking some Long-Dead-But-Potentially-Resurrectable Tradition about not graduating on time or incurring the wrath of Actual Seniors.

It’s not like I was ever afraid to sit on the Senior Bench before – actually, Bird and I have a tradition of getting a picture together on the bench every time she visits me at school, and she doesn’t even go to college yet, much less this college.  There were never any passing Actual Seniors who snarled at me or threatened to drum me out of the student body.  I’m pretty sure half the people sitting on that bench at any given time are freshmen and sophomores, just because upperclassmen are too busy.

But it’s odd to think that that’s who I am now.  An Actual Senior myself.  I find myself with a case of nostalgia for the experience I am still in the middle of.  Mourning the coffee shops I still have months to visit.  Hugging my friends just a little too tight.  Grasping at the familiar walkways with curled toes inside my shoes as though I’m trying to make them stand still when I’m the one moving.

College is coming to a close.  Slowly, yes, and not unexpectedly, but still.

Candle Shopping with the Commodore

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Some people decorate their homes visually, strewing fake leaves around for fall, some posies for springtime, and maybe a snowman or two in the winter.

The Commodore and I prefer to seasonally scent our apartment.

We go to the so-called mall just over the state border every few months to jointly purchase our new candles.  We take these shopping trips very seriously, solemnly marking them down on our Thomas Kinkade Disney calendar.  They are not without their hazards; Bath & Body Works, for starters, is in itself a dangerous place for our wallets.  Rarely do we make it out without purchasing some other item unrelated to our original goal.  But the important thing is that we never leave without at least two new candles for the season ahead.

20150902_191413Of course, there’s the sniff test.  Ranging from tried-and-trues like Fresh Linen and Sea Island Cotton to bakery-themed like Maple Pecan Waffles to cologne-ish like Black Tie, we sample pretty much everything.  We both have to like the scent.  It can’t be too sweet, or too sharp, or too fruity.  And the candles have to be the squat, heavy, three-wick ones, big enough to last at least half the season (we usually buy two).

This takes at least an hour.  Sometimes longer.

Then there was that time we dropped one of the candles while reaching for a bottle of lotion.

And then when we finally get the candles (and, if we’re being honest, a bunch of other fall/Christmas/spring/summer-y smelling stuff we don’t need) home, the hazards do not cease.  Once, I was blowing out the Sundress candle in our living room when a spark flew up and burned a hole through my shirt!

The Southern Belle later gave me a candle snuffer, “for your own safety,” as she put it.

I don’t really enjoy playing with fire (certainly not as much as the Engineer does…).  But it’s soothing to come home and let the smell of Harvest Gathering turned my mood autumnal.

Hermione Did It, Why Can’t I?

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I quit something!

Normally I’m not the type of person who shouts this from the rooftops, or even whispers it across a table in a noisy coffee shop.  But in this case, having gotten overwhelmed and exhausted and emotional and angry and just generally drained on the second day of school, not to mention having three separate friends ask if there was any way I could cut back on my activities – well, something had to go.  I didn’t have many options; most of my time is taken up by classes, which qualify me as a full-time student, and work, which brings me a little money and which I also happen to love.  One of my internships is technically being taken for credit, and I only need 5 more hours to earn it.  So that left the newest internship, the one only a few days old.

I felt like a traitor, because I had pursued this opportunity myself.  I felt like a slacker because I had only completed one task (she had only given me one task, but that didn’t make me feel any better).  I felt like I always do when I have to make a perfectly legitimate excuse for bowing out of something, which is to say that I was certain my professor would think I was flaky, irresponsible, and ungrateful.  It took me a full five minutes of staring at the email I’d written her, analyzing its professionalism, to work up the guts to hit send.

And you know what I felt?

Relief.

This internship thingy had to do with organizing writers’ visits to my university campus throughout the year.  Now I didn’t have to worry about sporadic weeks of hectic stress cutting into my already packed routine, nor did I have to shove aside activities to make room for writers who may or may not have even worked in my preferred genres.

But even though I knew it was the smartest decision for me and my mental health, I still found myself justifying to all my friends who asked about it.  “Oh, yeah, I just didn’t have room for it in my schedule,” I would say, hastening to add that I was still very busy, not slacking off, not flaking out on all my other obligations.

My friend wrote a wonderful column in our university newspaper today about the problem with perfectionism, particularly in college students.  She points out that many of us strive for perfection in order to avoid shame; if we’re perfect, no one will chastise us.  The size of the failure doesn’t matter because the shame is always looming, gargantuan, disproportionate to most of the ways we fear “failing.” I thought pulling out of the internship would undo all the good work I had done in that prof’s class last semester.  Even as I happily marked down the hours I could now spend relaxing or doing, I don’t know, the homework I hadn’t had time to do, doubt poked at the back of my mind.  What if she got mad?  What if my thesis advisor thought I’d flake out on him too?  What if this was the beginning of my new slacker lifestyle?

I realize this is illogical.  The thing is, when it comes to shame and perfectionism, logic has very little to do with it.  Hermione took All The Magic Classes Ever in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I tell myself.

Yes, the more reasonable part of my brain answers, but she needed a magical Time Turner to do it.

As it happens, I got an email from my professor a few days ago.  She said that my schedule did look demanding, and she hoped that I could join the group for dinner with one of the writers anyway as a thank-you for the work I had already done.

I think I can pencil that in.  But if I can’t… it’s no big deal.

Personal Bubble Encroachment

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Lacking a parking pass, I have to navigate my college town’s public transport system this year, unless I feel like walking for 20 minutes in the smoke.  Interestingly, I’m finding that the bus is becoming the perfect metaphor for my experience of the first few days of school.

For one thing, the bus is packed.  All the time.  Being short, I get to either dangle from the overhead bars or lean awkwardly over another person to grab the upright handles (there’s pretty much never a seat).  So my personal space shrinks to nothingness first thing every morning.  The first week of school is also the most crowded.  It’s when everyone shows up to class to find out if attendance is mandatory.  It’s when it’s impossible to find a parking spot or a free mat at the gym because everyone is trying out the free classes and telling themselves that this semester they’ll work out every day.  It’s when people who are pretty much never on campus for the rest of the year explore every nook and cranny of the buildings they never visit and steal the regular seats of students who actually hang out in on-campus coffee shops (I may be slightly bitter about this part).

My introverted side is having trouble adjusting to this.  Unpredictable behavior from hundreds of other bodies milling around the same spaces as me is preventing me from slipping back into my School Routine as quickly and easily as I would like.  Other people are variables; I like limiting the uncontrolled variables in my life, but for the first few days of school, I can’t do that.  I can’t prevent others from invading my personal physical or mental space.

Then there’s the fact that the bus tends to be so packed that it cannot take on any more passengers, thereby precluding itself from serving its purpose… by serving its purpose.  It’s a weird cycle.  My schedule is starting to take on a similar tinge of cyclical futility.  I’m only taking 12 credits (the minimum required to be considered a full-time student), and I’m only working 10 hours a week (so far), and I’m only working out about an hour in the evenings at the rec, and I’m only doing 2 part-time internships, and I’m only starting the research on my thesis (the real work comes next semester, I keep telling myself).  But all those “onlys” add up to a lot of stuff going on in my life at once, all of it ostensibly necessary, most of it something I really do want to do.  This leaves very little room for error; procrastinating on one assignment would be like putting another bus out of commission and increasing the demand on all the others.

All my work on self care in the past year has taught me that I am most likely to drop the things that are personal first.  It’s much harder for me to bow out of obligations to others that I have agreed to fulfill than it is to tell myself that I don’t have time to work on my manuscript because I have so much homework.  But the manuscript makes me happy.  So, to drag this metaphor past the point of reason, like the bus systems, there are many demands on my time.  Now I just need to figure out a screening process to decide which passengers to allow to get on.

Which would be a lot easier to do if there weren’t so many other people throwing elbows in line for coffee.

First Day of School!

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This might be my last first day of school.

Well, sort of.  I realize that I’ve got another semester after this, and technically those will be all new classes, but I only get the true Back To School Sensation when, as Fitzgerald says, “life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”  It doesn’t matter if school starts in August or October – on the first day of school, I view everything through a frame of rustling, reddish leaves.  Back To School smells like the spice of crunching foliage underfoot, like the fresh wax of a new box of crayons, like the curlicue wood shavings emptied from a pencil sharpener.  And Back To School has all the potential of a freshly sharpened pencil, smoothing perfectly from school-bus-yellow barrel to graphite spear point.

Never mind that I haven’t actually used crayons for school since 5th grade, or that it’s August and smells more like a campfire than spicy leaves outside (thank you, wildfires).  No matter what year it is, Back To School is a comforting blend of fresh start and familiarity.  Everything is new and clean and open, but I also know already that I’m good at it.

Some of the comfort has departed from this particular First Day of School in that it is no longer one in a reassuringly lengthy series.  For the first time in my life, I don’t know what I’m going to be doing next year.  Even during other transition years in my academic career, I knew, in broad terms, my plan.  High school, whether B or C (I picked B).  College, whether B, P, or W (I went with W).  Essentially, the plan was always More School.

That’s an option here, too.  I could go to grad school.  I took the GRE in the hopes of keeping that avenue open.  I could choose to stay at my undergrad university or go somewhere else.  I rather like the sound of an advanced degree.

But it’s not a given, like all the other times have been.  The decision is no longer a formality.  And depending on which choice I make, this could be my last first day until my own child dashes off into a kindergarten classroom, backpack full of crayons and safety scissors.

So forgive me, fellow college seniors who are too cool for school, if I ruin our collective jaded image by joining Nemo in excitedly chanting “First day of school!  First day of school!  First day of school!”58303176

Night Owl

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I think I stay up late because it feels as though I’m stealing time, sneaking in a little more living, even quiet living, while the rest of the world is asleep.  Never mind that the sun is shining on the other side of the planet, that thousands of other people lie awake staring at screens or at pages or just off into space.  The important thing is that I feel hidden, secret, and therefore powerful.

Sister Car Dancing Level: Pro

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19a4839788909bdabb46838c9630e130One of my favorite things to do in traffic is defuse the tension by being that weirdo jamming out in her car, and I blame my sister for that.

My family has always been vehicularly musical; our road trips to visit relatives always involved rotating through tried and true soundtracks.  I knew the words to Camelot, Godspell, You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, etc. before I started first grade.  We still bust out Hairspray and The Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber.  So I sang in the car a lot growing up.

But car dancing didn’t really start until I taught Bird the moves to a dance associated with a particular retreat at my high school.  Although The Dance is and always will be connected to that retreat, the more I chauffeured my sister around, the more it became our thing.  If either of us was having a bad day, we’d put on The Song.  If we were bored driving home, we’d put on The Song.

Now, initially we only tended to do this while moving, so we felt like no one could see us (side note: I always toned down the moves enough to maintain full control of the vehicle at all times).  But one day, when the other drivers at a lengthy stoplight looked particularly irritable, Bird turned to me and said with that little-sister grin, “These people need Jesus.”  Before I realized what she meant, she had cranked up The Song to full volume and rolled down her window.  We were attracting glances from our neighboring cars, but the moves hadn’t started yet.  They thought we were just another couple of teenagers with really loud music.

I sighed and rolled down my window too.

When the lyrics began, we bounced in rhythm to the song and performed the moves in perfect synchronization.  The drivers across the intersection started to stare.  By the time the chorus came around, pretty much everyone was watching us.  The light turned green, and we drove on, still dancing and singing, but I definitely noticed some smiles.  Maybe they just thought we were ridiculous.  We probably looked ridiculous.

But who doesn’t love telling stories about ridiculous stuff?

Our car dance performances are not necessarily restricted to The Song or religious music.  We make up moves to Ariana Grande and Hunter Hayes.  The point is that it’s fun to get weird looks from total strangers and to make their day a bit more interesting.  (We also love to do this when we’re stopped by construction workers.)

car dance gif

And yet, for all our unbridled enthusiasm for car dancing, there has been only one spectator who dared to, as they say, get on our level.

Remember how Bird and I volunteered at VBS?  Well, one year we were given our own class to teach, a group of rambunctious 2nd and 3rd graders.  Like every other class group, our students had to learn a song.  At the concert at the end of the week, each class would perform their song, with the corresponding dance moves, for an audience of parents.

And as the teachers prompting them at the foot of the stage, Bird and I had to learn the moves too.

We were in the car on the way to St. C’s, practicing the moves and lyrics, music at full blast, when we stopped at a red light.  Since the choreography was designed for little kids, the chorus was mostly just waving your arms back and forth.  So that’s what we were doing – when we noticed the guy behind us staring.  And so was the lady next to us.

We bounced all the harder in our seats (restrained by our seatbelts, of course – safety first!) and exaggerated the ridiculous dance moves even more for our audience.  We figured we might as well.

And then, just as the light was about to turn, I glanced in the rearview mirror to see the guy behind us grinning and waving his arms back and forth in time with ours.

Well danced, sir.  Well danced.

Oh, You Don’t Want To

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If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me, “And what are your plans after graduation?” I could probably pay for another year of college.

But that’s just kindly curiosity.  People are just being inquisitive, or concerned for my welfare, or even just making small talk.  I get that.  It’s what we ask as humans, isn’t it?  What are you going to be when you grow up?  What college are you going to?  What outcome are you aiming for after this Big Socially Recognized Transition?

What gets me is the number of opinions offered based on my answer, no matter what that answer is.  It’s usually, “I don’t know,” to which they reply, “Oh, you don’t want to decide anything now, you’re so young!”  If I elaborate, “Maybe grad school,” then the op-eds really start flying.

“Oh, you don’t want to get an MFA in creative writing – all you can do with that is teach.”  “Oh, you don’t want to study literature – all you can do with that is teach.”  “Oh, you don’t want to stay at the same school for your Master’s.”  “Oh, you don’t want to lose any momentum by taking a year off.”  “Oh, you don’t want to stay in school forever – work for a few years, then come back and get that degree.”

If I mention a job?

“Oh, you don’t want to stay here, publishing is much bigger in New York.”  “Oh, you don’t want to go into editing, there’s no money.”  “Oh, you don’t want to go too far from home.”  “Oh, you don’t want to get stuck in some office job, you’re much too smart for that.”  “Oh, you don’t want to waste any time, you should start networking now.”

And forget even hinting that the Engineer might come into it.

“Oh, you don’t want to make decisions based on a boyfriend.”  “Oh, you don’t want to do a long distance relationship, so few couples can handle that.”

And on and on it goes.

I’ve been calling these bits of speech opinions rather than advice.  That’s because of the four- or five-word formula at the beginning of each snippet: (oh) you don’t want to.

Don’t I, though?

Don’t I want, in some moments, to study more creative writing because it’s what I love?  Don’t I want, at times, to elbow my way into publishing regardless of the paycheck?  Don’t I want to take the person I’ve been dating for years into account?

How kind of these opinions, sensing my confusion, to tell me what I want.

I’m used to some of these.  I’ve heard them before.  “Don’t worry, lots of people change their majors,” acquaintances would say, trying to give me a way out after I told them I was majoring in creative writing.  Sounds an awful lot like, “Oh, you don’t want to do that.”  But I did, in fact, want to.  It was like Warner thinking Elle Woods couldn’t get into Harvard even after she, um, did. 

like it's hardMy chosen area of study, like Elle’s sudden decision to pursue law, has raised a few eyebrows.  It seems implausible that writing would maintain such a strong hold on me, especially in a society that places so much emphasis on money making.  I get it.  And, following up on those undergraduate doubts, it makes sense that people would make similar assumptions about my choices post-grad.

I know most of these people mean well.  They want to see me succeed, or at least not starve to death or bankrupt my parents within a year of graduation.  They probably believe that their opinions are, in fact, good advice, and I appreciate that intention.

That’s where I run into trouble.  I was raised to respect adults, to seek advice from those with more life experience than me.  So I don’t really want to just start arguing with everyone – “Oh, you don’t want to [insert action here]” “OH YES I DO COME AT ME BRO.”  But I don’t know how to politely disengage when the opinions are irrelevant to me (such as when the information is outdated or based on hearsay, or just has to do with their own worldviews that I don’t necessarily share).

And even if the advice underneath the opinion is sound, I can’t help chafing at that formula. You don’t want to.  Words carry weight in my world, and that particular phrase is like an anvil dropped from a Looney Tunes cliff.  If you know what I do and do not want – why did you ask in the first place?

Things I Used to Imagine at Night

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On the nights I couldn’t seem to fall asleep, I used to employ my favorite “Imaginings.”

I used to pretend that the walls to my bedroom expanded out and out and out into a vast dormitory with rows and rows of old fashioned hospital beds, the kind with metal bars and headboards like the backs of folding chairs.  In this dormitory lived a hundred other girls, all the cliques one would expect from high school, and we were in the charge of at least one surly matron and occasionally her kinder, younger helper.  I would whisper to the other girls in the beds surrounding me until we had to hush because the matron was walking by.  The circumstances surrounding the dormitory changed.  Sometimes it was a camp for training us to be servants to the upper classes.  Sometimes it was an orphanage.  (It really depended what books I’d been reading lately.)  But that didn’t matter so much, because I only played this game at night, so I only imagined the dormitory itself.

I used to pretend that the ground below my bedroom window dropped away to a moat far below my tower, because I was a queen tucked up in her castle.  Except I was no orthodox queen – I had privateers with whom I could only meet at night for fear of tipping my hand to the sleazy ambassadors at my court.  I imagined a trusted maidservant showing the fierce pirates up to my sitting room, where we pored over battle plans until the wee hours of the night.  Sometimes I even held audiences with thieves from all over the provinces, gleaning evidence of treason by sending them to steal from my nobles.

I used to pretend that mine was the nicest room the boardinghouse had to offer, a respite from my long, secretive journey.  But I couldn’t rest just yet.  I had to listen for suspicious murmurs from the hostess downstairs, who looked at me sidelong when I paid for the room (a girl traveling alone?) and who might this very moment be disclosing my whereabouts to my pursuers – for a pretty penny, of course.

I used to pretend I was a favored servant in the palace of a sultan (particularly after I discovered the Arabian Nights), keeping tabs on court intrigue from my strategically placed room at the center of the harem.  My true loyalties shifted from night to night – sometimes I would pass on information to the sultan, and sometimes I would bide my time.

On the nights I couldn’t seem to fall asleep, I used to pretend a lot of things.  And even though I always woke up as myself again, I think the Imaginings – especially the ones I revisited over and over and over – left their mark.