Day 34: Hieroglyphics Set

Fun With Hieroglyphs, A Poem

This is the hieroglyphics set
I bought in third grade
From a Scholastic catalog
With twenty dollars I took
From my mother's wallet
Without her permission.

This is the hieroglyphics set
That came in the mail
To my teacher at school
That I snuck back home
And opened in the living room
When my mother wasn't home.

This is the hieroglyphics set
That my mother caught me with
In the living room
When she came home early.

This is the hieroglyphics set
That got me into a world of trouble
And taught me never to steal
And taught me never to lie
And taught me never to incur
The wrath of a mother
If I could help it.

This is the hieroglyphics set
That my mother let me keep.

I have no idea why.

Day 33: Notes and Papers

From the look of it, you would think that keeping notes from high school and college in boxes in a closet would be a guaranteed way to avoid forgetting all the information they contain.  Unfortunately, sifting through all these notes today, it becomes clear that there is no guarantee besides frequent use, and I clearly don't use chemistry, US and European history, or German enough to remember anything beyond the basics.  All these papers have done is weigh down the closet floor and make getting to fallen clothing incredibly difficult.

There were a few memories mixed in with them, though, that I had to keep.  The postcard we bought in Gibraltar to commemorate the nice bite-marks a Barbary ape left in my arm while we were there ("Thinking of You," it reads, above a picture of an ape).  Yearbooks from high school.  A diploma or two.  And an autobiography I started in middle school, called "My (Boring) Life."  This one is my favorite of the lot.  It begins with a very serious introduction, explaining the motivation behind such an autobiography: "As a child, I had always had a keen imagination, but could never get anything down on paper. I decided I could only write a biography of some sort and I have decided to try it."  There are lists of friends (subdivided into bestest, best, great, good, and okay), lists of careers I'd considered, lists of places I'd been, not so nice commentary about a few siblings, and some real gems of insight into my slightly arrogant twelve-year-old self.  Reading over it again almost fifteen years later, I can only laugh...and hope that, should I ever write a real autobiography, it reads better than this one and gives my brothers and sisters a little more credit.

Day 32: Cameras

I use these so rarely, I can't even find the third one I need to give away.

Unlike most of my teacher friends, I didn't know I wanted to be a teacher until high school.  Instead, I bounced around idea after idea, year to year: primatologist, architect, zookeeper, writer, artist,...  For my sixth grade yearbook, we submitted a sentence or two on where we thought we'd be in twenty years.  By the time I got the yearbook in May, I had to scratch out my original answer (scientist) to correct it to my most recent plan for the future (archaeologist).  Among the careers on my long list of maybe-to-dos-when-I-grow-up was photographer.  In high school, my parents bought me a Wildlife Photography book by National Geographic, and I bought a refurbished manual film camera (this was back when the "manual" part of that description told you I meant business, not the "film" part).  I had a blast playing with it, but after the excitement died down and digital cameras became more affordable, the old manual Pentax took up the job of collecting dust beneath the bed.

Since then, I've bought four different cameras.  There was the 3 megapixel Olympus I bought the summer between high school and college (It was my first digital camera, and I was enthralled: No more trips to the Walgreens photo booth!  No more paying for terrible photos!  No more buying film!).   A few years later, came the upgraded 6 megapixel Olympus (so thin!), and then a few years after that, a 10 megapixel Canon and the Nikon D40 DSLR I thought would be my segue into hard-core photography (wrong).

The problem was, I got tired of standing behind the camera.  As a kid, I loved taking pictures.  But I was a different person back then.  I was painfully shy, and being behind the camera meant less attention, less eyes focusing on me.  I got better with age, but it was a long, drawn out process.  It started with denial.  I somehow convinced myself by high school that I was just a quiet person, and that it didn't mean anything bad; I wasn't anxious or fearful, I told myself.  But I was lying.  In a freshman geography presentation on South Africa, I was so nervous, I was literally shaking and caused the music stand the teacher had set up as a podium to shake, too.  It didn't help that the "ethnic" food I had brought to appease my hungry classmates was more like play-dough than something edible, and while the guy I had a huge crush on was really nice about it, he didn't seem particularly impressed.  Of course, I wouldn't know because I almost never talked to him.  Even in my junior year physics class, three years deep into a crush completely unfounded in reality, I couldn't overcome the shyness.  When he walked up to me one day and made a comment about a stick figure gangster he had drawn earlier on the piece of styrofoam I was holding, I didn't say anything.  I think (hope, pray, beg) that I nodded, but I can't be sure.  If you've ever seen Sixteen Candles, that moment at the dance when Jake says hi to her and she just stares at him, yeah, I'm pretty sure that was me.  (To make matters worse, my sister and her friend called him a few months after that and left a voicemail on his home answering machine telling him that I liked him.  Luckily it was the beginning of summer, so I had plenty of time to hide.  I thought surely my life as I knew it was over, but I never heard about it.  Not even in the fall, when we returned to school, which reinforces my belief that there is a God kind enough to save a poor girl's dignity by having his parents delete the message before he hears it.  But I can't be sure.  To this day, I am still mortified that the message made it through.)

Senior year wasn't much better.  I was beginning to break out of my shell, one tiny crack at a time, but I was still convinced that I was meant to stay behind the scenes.  As I applied for a scholarship centered around leadership skills, my mom had me read an article about "super-followers."  I don't remember anything that article said, but I would guess it made the following point: someone has to be a follower for there to be a leader.  I was convinced that was me.  Needless to say, I did not get that scholarship.

In college, I learned that I didn't much like doing just whatever others told me to do, and I found myself speaking up for myself and for my ideas more often.  By the time I graduated, this was my new status quo.  I no longer sat behind the scenes.  I no longer followed where I could lead.  And I gave up my penchant for picture-taking in favor of actually doing things worth having a picture of.

Day 31: iPod Speakers

I recognize that there is probably a moral in here somewhere about investing in quality products, but my bank account doesn't want to hear it.

One thing you should know about me is that, when it comes down to it, I like my music loud.  It tends not to happen in the presence of others (in fact, now that I think about it, I'm usually the one asking people to turn down the sound, for ear health), but little gives me more joy than cranking up the volume to a good tune and singing/dancing my heart out.  I'd worry more that my roommates and neighbors hated me for it, except that I have serious trouble finding speakers or music-related machines that can actually get loud.  My laptop speakers are straight up weak (fail, Apple), and all the speakers I've found for my iPod are barely audible above my window unit's complaints of old age and poor upkeep.  You'd think the manufacturers of these things were hoping they'd be used for nursery and elevator soundtracks.  It is thoroughly disappointing.  But don't you worry, I will find loud speakers one day, and there will be a mighty dance party in my room.  I would invite you, but it's like imaginary friends.  Some things are better kept to yourself.

These speakers broke a year ago, and when they did, I wasn't even surprised.  You see, in addition to having terrible luck with finding loud speakers, I also have terrible luck with electronics in general.  A few years ago, I bought some speakers to use in my car for the long drives between home and school to spare me from hearing Beyonce tell her man to get out the house (and to the left, to the left) even one more time on the radio.  They worked great, until thirty-three or so days later, when they just up and broke (story of my life.), and then sat in my car for a few weeks, as if to commemorate my utter inability to keep electronics alive.

 The fall of my last year at UVA, I bought a DVD player at Target, replacing the one that had graduated with a roommate the year before.  Again, it worked great at first, but sure enough, a few weeks in, the thing just stopped responding.  It would turn on, and then go into screensaver mode as I jabbed my finger at every imaginable button, unplugged and replugged every imaginable cord, and occasionally beat it with my fist (it works sometimes).  Once I got past the obvious frustrations, I found myself relieved: at least this one managed break before the first thirty days were up.  Well, I drove the twenty minutes out into the boonies to return it and traded it out for a new one.  As soon as I got home, I plugged it in, pressed play, and watched as the brand-new machine haltingly skipped through a particularly suspenseful episode of The Office (damn these electronics and their skipping!).  I quickly threw a hissy fit, unplugged the thing, shoved it back into the box, and sped back out to Target.   Fed up with their crappy DVD players (and hoping to cut down on any time not spent obsessively watching episode after episode of the show we had just discovered), I got a refund and bought a DVD player at the closer-to-home Best Buy.  Not too long after, I ran into the house, put in the DVD again, and took a deep, relieved breath as the first previews began.  But it didn't last.  Wanting to just get on with it already, I hit the "next" button on the remote, only to get no response.  I hit it again.  No response.  I pushed every button on that Best Buy remote, and nothing worked.  I couldn't do it; I couldn't drive out there again that day.  I just didn't like Best Buy or my car or the traffic on Highway 29 that much.  So instead, we sat and watched every episode and deleted scene and anything else that came up when you couldn't choose "next" or "select."  The next day, I brought the thing back to Best Buy, pretty much resigned to a fate of frequent interactions with Customer Service, but with the fourth, slightly more expensive DVD player, things finally worked.  It turns out that as soon as I break down and pay the ten dollars for insurance, the thing stops malfunctioning.  That would be great if it were a preventive feature, but since it's not, it most feels like the electronics gods are spitting on me.  It's like finally paying up for flood insurance after getting three feet of water, only to find yourself in a drought.  You think to yourself, this can't possibly be necessary, but you know as soon as you stop making the payments, that sky will open up and you'll be swimming to that front door.  (Alanis Morissette, I believe, would call this a little bit ironic.)

Nonetheless, I am an eternal optimist when it benefits my pockets to do so, and so I have held on to this portable iPod player that only plays when plugged and with terrible quality, in the hopes that one day it will get its act together and do what it's supposed to do.  But no more.  Time to stand up and say sayonara to this useless assembly of plastic and wiring.  So long, farewell.  May I learn to resist cheap price tags, and may Altec Lansing stop making crappy products.

Day 30: Jewelry

Most of this jewelry I never wear.  Some of it was a poor purchase choice on my part, but a good bit of it was given to me without me actually in mind.  One of my grandmothers in particular is a repeated offender in this.  Each Christmas, she sends five things: one thing for each Olinde grandson and three of the same thing--in different colors--for the granddaughters.  The selection is hit or miss.  I love the watch she sent one year, and the purse from another year, but most of the necklaces she sends just aren't my style.  Let's be honest, anything from HSN probably isn't so much my style.  So, I have two choices: hold on to everything I get, in the spirit of being a good and grateful granddaughter, or let the unused pieces go, still grateful for the love but not necessarily the necklaces themselves.

Choice made.

Day 29: Writing Utensils

I am a sucker for office supplies and power tools.  And while a female of my age and profession (and incapacity to even assemble Kmart furniture) has a hard time justifying the purchase of a good circle saw, I can come up with several good reasons for why I might need a new set of sharpies or another box of pencils.  They are deceptively useful.

In my desk, there are three doors, three cabinets, and four shelves.  Of those storage spaces, at least six hold some type of office supply.  In most cases, they are filled with them: pencils, pens, scissors, sharpeners, colored paper, loose-leaf paper, black sharpies, colored sharpies, silver sharpies (okay, only one of those), mailing tape, envelopes,...the list goes on.  If I count them up, I have a total of 172 writing utensils, of which I probably consistently use five or six.  I have collected all the rubber bands from my delivered newspapers over the course of the last year, though I've only used probably three.  I still have the pencil pouch I used in sixth grade and another from middle school.  I am knee-deep in office supplies, and I can only imagine how many dollar bills I could be wading in instead if I'd never bought all this stuff in the first place.

The problem with office supplies is that they're specifically made to be useful.  That's what they do; they get used.  Sure, the pens can be in pretty colors and the pencil sharpeners might be glittery from time to time, but let's be clear here, people don't buy pencils to decorate their homes or to accentuate a neckline; they buy them to write.  Which begs the question, if I'm not using it, what's the point of having it in the first place?  So I send along two gift bags worth of pens and pencils.  Who knows, maybe they'll end up in the hands of the next poet laureate or the next president or the next Charlie Sheen.  For better or for worse, office supplies aren't known for their discriminating taste.

Day 28: A Day

Sometimes I feel that life is passing me by, not slowly either, but with ropes of steam and spark-spattered wheels and a hoarse roar of power or terror.  It's passing, yet I'm the one who's doing all the moving.  ~Martin Amis, Money

For weeks, people plugged this retreat: at meetings, before talks, in emails.  As the facilitator of a young adult group in the city, you'd think I'd have been gung-ho to be part of a retreat specifically directed at people in their 20s and 30s.  But I found myself constantly forgetting, constantly putting it off as I thought through all the things I wouldn't be able to get done if I was stuck listening to holy talks on the northshore.

But I guess God has a way of getting you where He knows you need to be.  Last week was a rough one.  Pressure about upcoming state testing left my mind muddled at work and my students antsy.  Events in the evening kept me away from home more nights than not.  I was days behind in my postings, and the mess I had spent hours righting last weekend was going back to all wrong.  The week, with all bullying, just would not end.

Until finally, it did.  I left work a little early than on a usual Friday and got home in time to get a few things in before a friend came over.  It was supposed to just be a walk, but it turned into more of a hike, without any of the negative connotations that word can carry.  The almost five miles we ended up covering was interrupted only by a quick dinner out on the sidewalk and an even quicker stop at a frozen yogurt shop.  The rest of the time we kept moving, clearing the air of all the dust stirred up over the week: the fears, the laughs, the frustrations, the stress, the hope.  We said hello to people we knew along the way and side-stepped the ones we weren't so sure about.  Those five miles were a blessing, but they weren't enough.  There were still streets to be crossed where old, sometimes unpleasant memories lived.  That bar where I had a first date with one guy.  That place where things fizzled with another.  For rents signs reminding me it was high time to make a decision about where I'd be in June.  School banners taunting me: was all I'd done for my students this year enough?  I had to get out.  I had to get away from all this.  Serenity, now, I begged.

Back home, we said goodbye, only to reconvene early the next morning to cross the lake.  The Causeway's 24 mile expanse may not be the most interesting of drives, but the steady thump-thump thump-thump thump-thump of the road was already slowing my heart rate.   An hour and only one missed turn later, we turned onto St. Joseph Way to find ourselves surrounded by green grass, a chapel, a pond, a conference room, and a blue beautiful sky spotted with clouds like strewn cotton balls.

Check-in was easy, and there were plenty of hugs to give: friends from this place and that group had shown up, some expected and some not.  I was glad to be there, but I wanted to be outside, to lay in the grass, to play a game of something in the open field, not sit quietly and listen in a chapel.  My mind, despite the relaxing drive, had not slowed down enough.  The "go, go, go" attitude I've developed after years of trying not to fall into boredom would not succumb to my gentle plea to pause.  But I suppose I just needed to push a little harder.  I walked into the chapel, made myself stop and be serious for once, and pretty soon, I found the day melting away around me.  I never took off my watch, but I barely looked at it, either.  And when I did, I didn't really care.  Between the gentle breeze as I reflected in the shade, and the pointed insights and comforting community of my small group, the day slipped away.  But unlike most Saturdays, I didn't want it back.  It was perfect and exactly what I needed.  At mass, one woman stood up and told us that the retreat's name, Charis, meant gift or grace.  What was your grace? she asked.  Huddled with the people that had made that day special, I whispered, peace.  Today gave me peace.  For just a few hours as payment, I found even just a taste of what I was looking for.