Les voisins gênant: Reality Check

A few weeks back, one of my grandparents' neighbors saw me at their house, chatted me up and invited me over for a "reality check." Immediately I regretted not being quite skilled enough with my evasive maneuvers and able to avoid the entire interaction. Then I thought, "I'm an overly anxious 30 year old with health issues, no career, working in a job that isn't even close to what I want to do with my life, being hit on by at 36 year old who's never not lived in his parents' basement, did not (to my knowledge) get a degree and who has at least one illegitimate child. That's quite enough reality for me, thank you." Out of curiosity I asked him, "what do you mean by a reality check?" He came back with, "a whiskey or tequila." I thanked him, declined and told him, "it's not as bad as all that," and went back inside. 

Sometimes I feel badly about wanting to avoid certain people and interactions. But only sometimes.

October 28.

I really like the google doodle today celebrating Edith Head's birthday. I really love her.

Sometimes when I think of everyone that I share a birthday with and admire, I kind of feel like October 28th is a pretty great day to have a birthday.

Edith Head
Evelyn Waugh
Bill Gates
Andy Richter (and Donnie, Chareth, Rocky, Emmett)
Jonas Salk
Brad Paisley
Ben Harper

I also feel like I should start accomplishing things with my life.

Rebel without a cause.

There has got to be something about my demeanor that screams 'rebel' -- something that the rule follower in me is completely unaware of. I bring this up for a few reasons:

1. It was recently suggested that a very tattooed man, who dresses in leather and teaches kindergarten was the "perfect" guy for me. I'm not sure what about my non-ironic wearing of grandma cardigans screams 'I'm looking for a Hell's Angel turned kindergarten teacher,' but clearly something must.  Here I have been all this time inaccurately thinking I wanted a preppy guy who saves leather for wallets, shoes and belts.

2a. When I ran into a dear friend a couple weeks ago after not seeing each other for a few months, she asked me if I was still going to church. Not in a "are you still attending the singles' ward?" way, but in a "have you gone inactive yet?"way. When I told her I was very much still going to church, she seemed more than a little surprised.
2b. One of my co-workers who is also LDS, (and who claims to not judge people) told me I was on my way to being apostate. Is it just me, or does that sound conspicuously like a judgement? Also, if I am about to be apostate, I am doing a terrible job.  If I weren't so convinced that being a disciple of Christ is the best way for me to be a good human, I'd have to reevaluate and change goals.

3. This last instance needs a little back up. One of the girls who was on the committee to plan our summer YSA conference last July told me that weekend how shocked she was that I was being nice to her. Apparently, she did not find me at all nice in any of the planning meetings- this might be due to the fact that I would shoot down her less than stellar ideas, i.e. getting pre-made pancakes from Winco to serve at breakfast. I really was diplomatic with all of the ideas I wasn't crazy about, but to that one, I just asserted "VETO!" (You would've done the same thing.)  So, already she doesn't really have the greatest picture of me, unless she's right and I'm just the biggest jerk ever.*

The other night I was at a dinner that she was at along with some stake presidency members from the regional committees, their wives, and four regional YSA reps from the three regions in our area.  This girl informed me that I would respond to a certain situation by just screaming, "shut the bleep up." I said, "probably not, and definitely not with the bleep**" "You don't cuss? That surprises me. You seem like such a rebel." The rest of the table, filled with people who know me significantly better than this girl and one clueless guy, all looked at her with a quizzical expression. I said, "How am I a rebel? Because I am a critical thinker? Because I'm politically moderate?" My Vancouver counterpart said, "Those are considered rebellious when you're Mormon." Then the clueless guy says, "there are two questions to see if you are really a rebel." Friends, I knew I was in trouble at this point, because homeboy is crazy bananas pants. "#1. Can you do the rebel yell?" "Like the Billy Idol song?" "No, like the confederate soldiers would yell..." "Let me stop you there, I always favored the North as I am solidly anti-slavery." At which point, one of my favorite people in the world, a stake presidency member from a different committee said, "I don't think she meant politically moderate in the 1860s." Crazy banana pants then said, "#2. When you see a storm trooper..." Friends, I'll stop recounting this tale right here. It just got stranger, and then it turned in to a Spanish Inquisition type situation with this girl asking me questions that I was not even close to wanting to answer. I am not a confider by any means, especially when I am not a huge fan of the person asking the questions, but she was looking for answers so I was forced to evade.  As we were leaving, one of the stake presidency members remarked to me that he had never seen a questioning like that, ever.  I think it is quite an accomplishment that at no time during the dinner did I scream out, "shut the bleep up!"despite the fact that that is not even close to how I roll.

I think what bugs me most about the two situations is that these are people*** who have seen me in limited settings and then draw conclusions about me. I want to join every person who was on a talk show in the 90s or reality show in the aughts and say, "you don't know me!" But clearly, I'm leading them to a place where they draw these conclusions. So maybe I should just embrace this rebel in me and start frequenting tattoo parlors and the Harley Davidson store and try to meet kindergarten teachers there. 


* I actually might be. Tonight when my father asked me when I wanted to come over and celebrate my birthday I told him I didn't want to celebrate anything with his wife, and that he and I should get together the two of us. I've not heard back from him and it has been 4 hours.

**hell, damn, asshat, and bitch don't count as swear words, right?  OK, so I might have lied, but I sincerely doubt the bleep she was referring to was hell.

***I'm not sure either are reliable character witnesses. If I were a cattier person, I'd relay that one of them started crushing on and then stalking an adorable and very kind guy after summer conference, thinking that the stalking seemed less weird when she called it out. Wrong. And the other, being one of the prudest and mormoniest Mormons around has said multiple times to me, "I'm not a Molly." Wrong, and she's making me like my name less. But I'm not catty, so I won't.

Worst Song Ever

Last week my friend Annie posed the question, "what do you think the worst song ever is?" I immediately came back with "Tubthumping," or that 'hey now, you're an all star' song. Both of which were completely discounted by Annie and Becky. Then I suggested "Wooly Bully." Again shot down. We'll have to agree to disagree on the quality of those songs, and now I completely question my friends' taste levels. But as I was driving to work this morning, I heard a song. A song so terrible, I can now believe with confidence I have found the worst. song. ever. And in the spirit akin to, "this is disgusting! Try it!" I implore you to find this song and give it a listen and tell me I am wrong.

Lies I Told Today.

One of the things that I find so exhausting about being in a school environment is the hundreds of interactions I have in 7.5 hours.  Sometimes in order to make some of those interactions less awkward or as short as politeness will allow, I lie. Also, to inspire and/or relate to students I lie. Sometimes it absolutely is necessary. Even though I know I am not 'supposed' to, I told some lies today.

8:30 am- Nice to see you too!

10:00 am- That's so cool!

12:00 pm- Nice to see you too, but I've got to run.

1:00 pm- Boys like girls who are good at math.

1:30 pm- That sounds like a good plan.

2:30 pm- No judgement, but...

And chances are pretty good that I'll repeat more than one of these tomorrow.

Flow

Today I was able to have the first proper chat with my dear friend Ashley since she got back from her summer in Central America.  With the two of us it could go anywhere, so I wanted to document the subjects broached during our 84 minute conversation this afternoon. In order:

bird poop
luck
Nicole Richie
Australia
bad music
running
tendons
NPR
school
depression/anxiety
meditation
Miley Cyrus
twerking
drugs
creepy old guys
boyfriend (past tense)
Utah
how much we love Jen
boyfriend (present tense-hers)
jolly ranchers
boy
Groucho Marx
eloping

Training Wheels

My brother got some training wheels for our little brother and I played deliverer bringing them back to the Westside after trivia on Tuesday. When I told my father that I had them, he was excited and we arranged for a time for me to swing by his house to drop them off. I then said, "Why are you even putting training wheels on Isaac's bike? They're a crutch. You're enabling him. The most efficient way of him learning to not fall is by falling. I never used mine. Remember, I made you take them off, like, immediately?"* My dad was chuckling at how ridiculous I was being, saying, "I'll think about that," in a way that meant of course he wasn't going to even consider not putting training wheels on Isaac's bike. I then said, "I have no idea why I'm not married with a family of my own." My father laughed heartily at this.

Why is that funny, dad?**

*I really never used my training wheels. They were installed on my bike, but I hated the noise they made so I learned really quickly how to make them not touch the ground. That said, I was four and have no idea how long those things actually stayed on my bike. But that didn't stop me from being ashamed of them from day one.

**Reem, that was just for you.