Irrational Fears, I Haz 'em

(Did you know if you accidentally hit the return key instead of say, the tab key, that your post gets posted likity split? We learn something new everyday.)

So the irrational stuff. Or is it? Or should we just get all pseudo-psychological and blame my upbringing on this one, which I'm having a very hard time putting into words:

If I run out of gasoline, VERY, BAD, THINGS will happen.

No really. The other morning my first errand of the day was to go get gas. Of course my "let's not use up more dead-dinosaurs than we have to" self said I should try to go to a gas station on the way to JC Penny as that was my next intended goal. (more on that later)

This entailed my getting onto the freeway at about 10 AM, you know, AFTER so-called "rush" hour?

Lies. Bitter scarring, lies.

As I was patting myself on the back for correctly navigating my way onto the freeway on-ramp (dude, seriously, did not get lost AT ALL), I was presented with the sea of stopped cars, as far as the horizon, really...and my gas light chose at that exact moment to light up.

No, really.

In the place where the rational thoughts live I knew that the light was on because I was indeed dangerously low on dino-blood, but the incline was the culprit. As soon as we leveled out, the light should go off. I also knew that even if I was really in the orange-light-of-doom level of gas, I had miles, MILES to go before the car would stutter and sputter and transform into 1600 lbs of detritus.

MILES!

Unfortunately, the irrational part of my brain has the power of projection, because these thoughts wholly and completely drowned out everything else:

"OH! MY! GOD! ORANGE LIGHT! ORANGE! LIGHT!"

and took control of my limbs even:
"IS THE AC OFF? TURN OFF THE RADIO! DIM ALL THE LIGHTS! DON'T USE THE GAS PEDAL JUST LET IT ROLL! LET! IT! ROLL!"

No, really. Cuz turning off all the electrical bits will make my engine work that much less so I will have a drop more if needed. The world may never know, because actually, yes, I did need every spare drop of gas before I got to the gas station, but instead of drowning out the thoughts while listening to NPR go on about all the awful things going on in the world, I got to sit back and listen to my crazy-pants thoughts weave all sorts of world-ending scenarios that had me stalling and running out of gas MILES from anywhere...um, in the middle of Seattle.

See, I kept thinking back to when my mom, older brother, and I were driving back from my mom's work and the gas gauge was dangerously sitting at the "E" while we were sitting in non-moving traffic. In the middle of summer. In LA.

The freeways are not just the arteries of the state of California, they are the only known ways of travel for the majority of Angelinos. They will NOT, NEVER, EVER get off the freeway to take the streets because, um, NO IDEA how to get to their destination that way. Or that was the case back in the 80s. Had we been equipped with GPS navigation equipment, I think my mom might have ventured off the freeway, found a station, filled up and tada! We'd have been all good and happy.

But she didn't.

Instead it was (what felt like) hours of her sighing and tapping the steering wheel with her right-hand pointing finger and saying things like, "Andale carritos," and musing about what we'd have to do if we got stuck on the freeway, out of gas, and more tapping of the finger and moving it about conducting some weird symphony (and yes, I do actually do that myself now, hmmm, learned habit maybe?).

And here's the thing, the entire time, needle on empty, no orange light. Not until we got off the freeway and drove up, then down those hills right off my mom's exit.

My mom's "AAAAAAIIIIIEEEE" wail is not something I can reproduce, but I can tell you it only comes out when REALLY BAD THINGS are about to transpire and therefore has seared itself into my brain in connection with serious accidents, deaths, losses of passports/important documents, and the appearance of that damned orange light from hell.

We coasted into her gas station of choice just in time...just as I did, somewhere in the middle of not-University but not-Ravenna, orange light firmly blazing by that point.

Once I finished topping everything off and resetting my trip-meter to 0.0, this weird calm came over me. I knew I was going to have to deal with way more traffic and madness and errands and possible 100 degree weather, but I just didn't care. The orange light was gone and there was gas in the car and I did not have to use plan I was stitching together in my head (Andy + motorcycle + gas can that I did not yet own + where the hell am I and how do I get him here...), and all was right with my world again.

Until the next thing.

Santa Claus & OLG's Miss E

It is amazing what a flood of memories a single statement can bring up.

And what lies they tell you with regards to how you, as a teacher, will or will not affect the teens you are teaching...

Okay, in order of the title.

So I scoured through my journals to try to figure out who had said what, when, with regards to my "one and twenty" post. I really was curious enough to pull out dusty tomes best left untouched (most of the time, really).

It was in the battered and beaten notebook I kept during my sailing days where I found the entry. Reminiscing, (as I did much of--I mean there wasn't much else to do during your midnight watch), while in transit between Bajia Candelaria and Mazatlan after talking endlessly with Santa Claus--really, maybe I mentioned him before? I'll look-- that I found my reference.

It was Mr. Claus that brought up the search for Home; the need to connect with others--especially those who already know you. Those with whom you don't have to start from scratch.

So what if you were a poopie-head when you were a kid, if they were your friends then, and loved you as friends will, they will see past that horrid kid to the person you are today--and remind you of your poopie-headed adventures and you will laugh and laugh, cuz really, what else can you do? That was you, after all.

For Santa, it was very important to have folks around him that knew you better than anyone else, cuz, well, by the time you got to be his age, most of your family is gone. He was the baby of the group. He lived through wars (and wartime shortages) and served in the marines (Semper FIE!--please don't shoot me ;)), and had accumulated many careers, miles, kids, and an ex wife or two under his belt. And now he was trying to make it in Mexico, cuz even when you're Santa Claus, your Social Security check is still only a pittance, + the VA bennies.

Aaah, it feels good to be able to place that in correct context.

***

Okay...Miss. E...OMG, OLG's, Miss E.

I have to keep reminding myself that she was only 29. It really does bring things more into perspective. I mean, I still blame her for a whole heck of a lot, but that's cuz I have those "letting go" issues, right?

Miss E. was as awesome as she was traumatizing. She was our 6th and 7th grade teacher, right? Or was it 5th and 6th? See how bad it was? I'd rather not remember:

Sr. J
Ms. H
Sr. J/Ms. M/Ms. G, and other random subs, crazy year
Ms. G, but the nice one! HA!
Ms. R who was new and had this thing about our nails being the right length and us being super neat...
Ms. E
Ms. E
Mrs. T

That seems right.

So when I read Suzanna's comment:

"but I do remember that one of the OLG teachers said that the only lifelong friends we'll make are the ones you make in college. How disappointing to hear for 7th/8th graders with their friends in tow."

I sat at my desk stunned as it all came back. Her voice, the nonchalant way she said it, were we in her car? It was almost summer. Were we helping with something? Maybe the graduation? I think I've inherited Homer Simpson's brain, remembering things the way I want to have had them happened, with green hair, and a jack-in-the-box ;). Whatever the case, I was floored.

What did she mean by that! How could she say that! Did she realize how much she was belittling the friendships we had currently? And she thought I was tactless? (Yeah, I've been this way all my life.)

But she was only 29, and using that 20/20 hindsight? Sheltered. She may have grown up in "LA" but she was an El Sereno kid. She went to school a few miles from the house where she grew up. She lived NEXT DOOR to her dad. I think she was uber bitter and disappointed, and really missed her mom (she'd just died, I think). I honestly thought she was WAY older than the 27 we'd guessed during the "how old am I" guessing game in 6th grade.

I mean, really, I am tactless, I fully admit it, I can't help it! I will bust out with the gods' honest truth -- if you are my peer. If you are a 12-year-old, however? Who might even sorta look up to me? I will not dash your hopes. I will be positive and patient (though I stop short at lying) and she is the reason why.

I never "called anyone out" in the middle of class to embarrass them; even if I was having a bad day; even if I hated them with every core of my being; even if I thought they need it. As surly and adult-like as teens will act, they are still kids and these things will stick, I should know.

And if I ever meet up with an ex-student who has told me they just got accepted into Stanford's teacher education program? I won't tell them that they just made the worst decision in the world! That they shouldn't teach! And not because of their personality or what I remember about who they were back in my classroom. I'd never go on and on about how teaching is the most under-appreciated job in the universe; that no matter what they think they can do with the system they will fail. Not when you see the gleam in their eyes and the energy they have to expend! Cuz all that told me was that she was bitter and really should get out of the teaching world...and not be the principal of our old elementary school. (Oh yes, she was.)

And just to round out the whole Tactless clan? Because of her status at that school? My little brother got to experience her too. That last conversation I had with her? Even worse than the "don't be a teacher" one, was her utter disbelief that the child in Kindergarten wasn't MINE. That I was lying about being his sister and not his mother.

Lady, I may be "blessed" with the overly big tummy and child-bearing hips of my dad's side of la familia, but really and truly, I think I'd know if I'd carried and delivered a baby while trying to finish high school. Just sayin'.

Aaauuummm...

Where was I? I was nowhere...that was me really needing to rant and try to get it all out in the quietest way possible. Cuz really, who am I going to tell this all to? Andy? Poor thing hears enough about how awful my day was to have to deal with my childhood trauma. Have I mentioned how much I love the blogiverse? So very much cheaper than therapy :).

When I was 1 and 20...a Wise Man Said to Me...

Actually I don't know how old I was or remember if the person was male...or wise.

I just remember what they said...but not verbatim, of course, cuz that would require all those brain cells I killed in college, or my mom's memory, which I never had...

Forgotten person and I were talking about friends and friendships and they said that you get to a point in your life where the most important thing to you is finding a place to call Home, and seeking out and/or reconnecting with childhood friends. It's like a kind of taking stock of your life.

It seemed rather odd to me then, a person who was STILL friends with their "childhood" friends. Suzanna, were you there? Was it one of the OLG teachers?

Anyhow.

At 34, I can count on one finger the person I still keep in touch with prior to 8th grade graduation days... High School? Let's not go there, that subject is still a bit painful and raw. College? Counting Grad School and friends outside of classes that I made? I can come up with a handful, tops.

Where did they go, George? Where did they go?

Combine that with my J. Alfred Prufrock moods (I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled), and I am jumping at the chance to help out a friend to check out one of those websites where you might find old acquaintances.

So I've found six people from my decades of yore. But now the conundrum...do I actually contact them?

Reaching out to people I used to know? It's asking a lot from my inside self that would rather sit in her room and knit and read and not go out and mingle with the outside world. I am a hermit at heart. Posting my stuff for other people to see is a whole different universe than addressing an individual. Even electronically. I mean, what do you say?! How do you start?

Hi, we used to be friends then I fell off the planet and now I'm back again, a dozen (yipes) years later, how are you?

The best part of friends that knew you "back when?" We use to be able to just pick up where we left off...No big ole' fill-in-the-blanks. But that was when a couple months - a year tops - went by. It's easy to summarize a year in a couple of sentences.

12 though? Urrr...

There was one site I almost joined because my very first crush's name was in the list of people I might know. Can you imagine that one?

Hi cool guy I used to know and last saw 20 years ago before I had boobs or hips or could control my obvious fascination of you as I stared and stared at you from behind my those dorky glasses and oh yeah, braces! Then there were the bangs! You got to see them through their entire evolution! From the days they were worn short--that would be back before Betty Paige became popular...heh heh, you know, when we just called them Mr. Spock bangs -- to those wretched teen years I was a victim of BIG POOFY East LA BANGS! Yeah! THAT girl.

I am almost old enough to be able to do that. I mean, do you remember that "My So Called Life" episode where the mom was supposed to meet up with an old boyfriend and the anticipation and the worry and the "am I cool enough" and I am so old and then he can't make it cuz he has the snuffles or something? Cuz I might be 15 pounds heavier than I'd like to be, but he could be balding with a beer gut and 10 kids.

And HOW SAD is it that when I watched those few reruns on ABC.com (no longer there for me to link to, sniff) I empathized with THE MOM!!! "Do I dare to eat a peach!"

Sigh. It has been a long week. Happy almost Friday!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Xmas...In LA...

7:09 PM

Seriously, this is th kind of weather I've come to associate with DECEMBER in Los Angeles. But maybe a smidge warmer. It's like 50 degrees outside! Can someone tell Ma' Nature that it's JUNE now and that this is Seattle and not, um, Siberia? Please? I'm sitting here shivering in pants, a long-sleeved shirt, my pull-over FLEECE sweater, and yeah, my SCARF. That is just so wrong.

JUNE!

We're talking 2 weeks until SOLSTICE!

Aaaauuuummm....

Okay, let me instead distract myself by telling you about my Pippi Longstocking moment. Or maybe it's my Sex & 'The City', My 'The City' moment...(This post is quotation mark heavy, I hope I don't end up here.)

So as I was making coffee yesterday morning, I kept thinking about Pippi Longstocking and how she would never "fly" in today's world.

Yes, I realize I'm 34 years old and have no business thinking of Pippi Longstocking cuz that's kid's stuff...(maybe, more on that later) but I think it's the same as Andy busting out xmas carols whenever he whistles, or hums for that matter -- though he is rather emphatic about his hatred toward that particular holiday season, he just can't help himself! I don't think it's a case of "the lady doth protest too much," but possibly the amount of inundation of the songs and melodies in childhood in much the way that the aforementioned red-headed freak appeared in my constant weekend viewing of KTLA Channel 5 during my youth in LA!

Family Film Festival with Tom Hatten, anyone? Yep, a product of television as babysitter. I may have said this before (I'm super good at repeating myself), but it was probably one of the only ways I was able to experience "traditional" "American" "culture". (Just picture me doing the quotes with my fingers as I pronounced those words...) I am famous for being at the periphery of most popular cultural phenomena...

Take the movie everyone is talking about at work--okay, the OTHER movie people are talking about at work...in the world of "Who Are YOU in Sex and the City?" I don't even make the east coast cut. Seriously, when that show was actually on teevee and all the cool kids were talking about it, I was living on a sailboat the North Harbor in Santa Cruz, CA. The City? My "the city" was San Francisco. (PS, thank you creators of The Tick for that one.)

When my friends and I said we were going to "The City," everyone knew what you meant, 60 miles up the coast, SF baybee. And sex? In the City? So not to be too stereotypical, just plain honest, the only people I knew still having sex who were not college students were either married or living alternative lifestyles...so does it really surprise you that I was the one who said something like,"So the show is about Lesbian women?" (Oh L Word, were you even a gleam in your creator's eye back then, I wonder?)

Right. I was also a popular one at parties for the simple disbelief and awe I inspired that I'd made it this far without dying of super-uncoolness.

Wow what a tangent. Back to Pippi Longstocking.

I honestly thought syndication meant you lived forever. Is that because I grew up in LA watching the original Star Trek, Dukes of Hazzard, Popeye, El Chavo del Ocho, Gilligan's Island, and who knows how many shows that were out of the public eye for eons before I was even born?

How shocking is it then that no one under the age of say, 30 knows of those wonderful grainy Pippi Longstocking movies (tv show if you were in Sweden--or are lucky enough to know enough of the language to follow the serial shot in the late 60s)! They don't get my fascination... everyone wanted to be Pippi, boys as well as girls...

But now-a-daze...can you see her trying to compete with the likes of "Dora the Explorer?"

They made Pippi into some kind of cartoon a while ago...I guess cuz, you know, that would be WAY more acceptable than the live-action version. In the more frightening of conservative America, can you just imagine the freak-out parents would have about a 9-year-old girl dressed in what amounts to a long t-shirt, thigh-high stockings and a garter belt? Wow, that just sound wrong, doesn't it?

Much less the "lessons" being taught by this little girl who lives all alone! In her own house! With a horse! And a monkey! CPS would be all over her! Well, if they could outsmart her. Folks, those Pippi books and movies taught me one very basic fact: treat me like I'm a stupid kid and I will make you rue the day. Personally? I'd love to raise more kids with that mentality. Yet another reason society heaves a big sigh of relief that I'm not planning on having children.

What has all this to do with the price of tea in China?

Reminiscing, google-searching, and reading up on Pippi, Tomi, and Anika was much more fun than thinking about the weather.

And on another tangent:

June 14th!

But I won't bother to hope the sun is shining. It's not worth the disappointment...

9:29PM

Memories....

It's...ummm...I don't know what it is, actually...it's just plain bizarre how memories sneak by all the blocks and walls you've patiently built up over the years to pop in and say, "HOWDY!" at all the most inconvenient of times.

As I was putting together my grocery list yestereve, and doodling around the edges I thought back to what had to be third or fourth grade...it gets fuzzy as I had the same teachers as subs and then full-on teachers the next year, at that time...It was definitely Ms. Gomez. Yes, her real name. Not Mrs. Gomez, but her sister. I'd out her completely, but I have no memories of the first name anymore...

Yes, I am still maybe a bit bitter and need to let lots of things go...but this one...urgh. You decide if I'm maybe overreacting.

Anyhow, she had us drawing maps of California. The assignment asked us to outline the map using toothpicks. Yes, 3rd/4th grade and we had to manipulate little toothpicks and glue and outline the state of California on an 8.5 x 11" piece of special construction paper she gave us. We also had to label a whole bunch of stuff on the map....major rivers, capitals, cities, you know.

It was one of those "start in class" assignments with atlases and compasses and rulers and lots of help from your friends that then had to be schlepped home and finished with...um...yeah, from memory, cuz we didn't have anything near as fancy as an atlas at my house. I believe I borrowed a map of California from my baby-sitter to do this one. Stayed up pretty late with my mom kinda checking in on me.

By third grade I'd pretty much out-schooled both my parents and they encouraged me to to my homework...but help? Um, not so much.

I finished it though...even mounted it on a piece of yellow construction paper to make it more sturdy...the toothpicks were making the map kinda wobbly.

I was so proud. Took it right up to the teacher when she called for them. She lined us up and decided to grade them on the spot. All the A's were going up on the wall. I was shocked when one boy who never did very well walked away with an A and a pushpin. He put his map on the wall and my heart fell. Did she not notice it wasn't his handwriting? Then another A map, and wait, it wasn't on the paper she gave us and had what looked like an atlas map glued under that super thin typing paper you could buy at the drugstore. Another "A" went to a boy who looked like he'd used his older brother's work from the year before... One map barely had any labels on it! Then came my turn...

"Did you do this all by yourself?!? You must have, that's your messy writing all over it! Can't you be more neat? I'm going to give you an 'A' but this isn't nice enough to go up on the wall."

Yup...that's pretty much what she said. I really hadn't been paying attention to what she was telling the other kids, I was too busy admiring my accomplishment and wondering why those other maps had gotten on the wall. From that point on I listened to the "praises" and "scoldings" she was giving the rest of the class. Most everyone who even tried the assignment got an "A," but only those she felt deserved it got to go on the wall.

Last night, doodling on the grocery list...man, all I could think of was what a bitch that woman was. The entire year was filled with comments like those and similar treatment to her favorites. She was teaching at a private parochial school and I highly doubt she had a teaching credential. I think she only got the job because her sister had some clout. I have to wonder if she even liked kids! I do know she did not last more than a few years there. Gods! YEARS! How many groups of kids did she mess up! Urgh. But at the time? Yep, all I wanted to be was one of those favorites...let's just say I never made the cut.

How do experiences like this add to the person I am today? That's the more reflective part of this whole thing. What would my life had been like without those particular scars? How would my story have been different?

I think I think too much sometimes.