School

When I was little I decided not to have children, because there is so much else to be done, but having met people and parents and children I have revised my plan because I think I would be insanely good at parenting.

What I'm trying to say is my Dad is going to homeschool my brother. And I won't be here to help and I know I don't have a very normally structured family but I am the tiniest bit convinced that I was (unknowingly) the anchor that was keeping us from disintegrating (it's a special anchor, okay?) into something unrecognizable and chaotic. So in my last 2 weeks here I am trying really hard to get this one big thing, the homeschooling, into gear, because someone has to. It is mid-September but the homeschooling has yet to begin. Mid September!

To my way of thinking, this homeschool has got to be maximally structured! With deadlines and assignments and curricula and reports! Because as lazy as I am, that child is four times lazier. For example: at work I use a little bucket when I'm mopping instead of rolling the big smelly wringer bucket; Nick doesn't work.

I am a first year university student so this little issue doesn't involve me at all really, but that doesn't stop me from doing my little research and compilation and nagging.
Me: It's September now. School time! Go!
Dad: First we're working to get you settled, then we'll figure things out with Nick.
Me: What are you doing to get me settled?
Dad: I've... delegated that to your mom.

When I was researching educative models I found the multiple intelligences, which my middle school academy was obsessed with. I was always visual but at the moment (by which I mean for the last few years) I feel very, very logical. Comparatively speaking.

Do I have to?

The more I think about what I like the less college seems like a good idea. Degree, yes, proper life on hold for FOUR YEARS (Longer than I have spent on anything in my life!), no. I think that I would like to spend all of my young adulthood working job after entry level job, trying everything and being an insider at everything! The advantage of college is the whole future earnings thing and also learning a thousand things, neither of which is the specialty of a certain liberal arts college.

I think what I'm trying to say is I have enough money to fly to Wales, and back. And presumably stay somewhere unless Wales prices things higher than America does. And also maybe get coffee and a postcard. Or whatever. It's also one quarter's tuition. Oh my God, Wales. And Welsh people! With the Welsh voices!!!!

What I am trying not to say is that today at work I saw the back of someone's head, and it looked like the headback of someone I knew once, someone rather attractive but nonetheless quite rude. It probably wasn't him, but if it was at least I look good in my workshirt, which is green with orange writing, and my hair looked good and I was wearing my favorite pants, not khaki pants, and actually come to think of it even my shoes were cute, so I think I'm okay. I wonder why all my cuteness came together today, and also why only crazy people asked me out:

Crazy man: Hey! *something else but I have my headphones on* real pretty today.
Me: Polite smile.
Crazy man: Naw, I'm not SCARY!
Me: No, of course n-
Crazy man: It's cause I'm not FROM here!
At that point I gave up and turned down my song.
Me: Wow. Really.
Crazy man: I mean I'm not FROM here.
Me: Oh, where are you from?
Crazy man: Pennsylvania. Do you like snow?
Me: Uh, no, it's pretty but I wouldn't want to shovel a walk or anything.
Crazy man: Well, I'd have you shovelin my walk! No, I'm just playin. Ima catch the bus and see a MOVIE! Gonna go to the MOVIES! You catchin the bus? What's your name?
Me: Uh, that's not important.

And I gave up again and put the volume up. But if he had had a Welsh voice, like crazy men in Wales presumably do, it would have been excellent.

Juggling

I think I maybe want to be a clown.
I can't see the outfit and facepaint and wig, though- trying to visualize myself in a pair of pants with a wire rim at the waist is really hard to do. But I definitely could learn juggling and balloon animals and stilts and all of that.

Fat March

I haven't got television, which is sort of okay because I have, you know, hobbies, but the internet has abc and nbc episodes, some of proper shows like desperate housewives and some that are just pilots or a few episodes, which is what Fat March appears to be. The show is about people who have to walk really far, but they have a really long time to do it in. I want to love it because it is like a more dramatic version of my whole "Not a Wimp" thing, but I feel uncomfortable about the focus on fat people, because honestly I only know a few people who are stoic like everyone's ancestors were, like people are meant to be.

Washington

So I'm on vacation in Washington. I absolutely adore the climate and the foliage. In California plants look like they are being tolerated, sort of isolated and confined, but in Washington there are hundreds of kinds of tree and fern and flower everywhere, spilling over the boundaries and growing and growing. It's refreshing and relaxing and gorgeous. I seriously considered a couple of Washington colleges, but I'm glad I'm going with Santa Cruz because the people here are very different from what I grew up with. When I told Grandma Colleen I'm going there she asked if I had it all figured out. After a bit of conversation I figured out she was asking if I'd been accepted. Aunt Sue did the same thing. Perhaps when they went to school colleges didn't enroll students until the start of classes.

Grandma Colleen and Aunt Sue are cat people- cat stories, cat impressions, and pet cats. I understand cat people because I'm the same way with shoes. "Where are we going today?" I ask them.



So today I got these shoes and also a pair with sort of mini british flags on them (That is a very good flag for putting on things, compared to all the two and three stripe flags and the flags with pictures of animals or whatever.) I can remember the old days when after a year my feet would outgrow all the most fantastic shoes, but now I can keep shoes for my entire life! Stylistically, I'm excited about my twenties and thirties but after that I'm not sure... Grandma Colleen and Aunt Sue get the LL Bean catalogue delivered and I'm pretty sure I can't rock supima cotton full fit tees or whatever. I mean, if models can't... On the other hand, my eleven balls of sportweight lambswool yarn should be delivered by the time I get home. So I clearly have at least some mature... inclinations.

Bitter

When did I get bitter? Last I heard, I was an 18 year old idealist, painfully and obviously naive (people can be a little harsh). And last time *I* checked I was a bit of an optimist, happily knitting woolen socks and sculpting the things I saw in my dreams and confident that the misanthropists I encounter are simply having bad days.

I'm not really comfortable with Lily Allen's "Not Big" as my personal theme song, but it has been for weeks. Really? Mine? "I'm sorry if you feel that I'm being kinda mental, but you left me in such a state- now I'm gonna do to you what you did to me, gonna reciprocate." Really? I remember rather liking people, on the whole. "You're not big, you're not clever- not big whatsoever." Well. There it is. And not as a response to a breakup or whatever, just as a general outlook, applying equally well to life and to humanity. Really?



You know, "Ooh, Flowers! Picture time! Daddy will you take my picture, too?" Not "Eff this, I can't believe I'm wearing heels to a garden tour. I can't believe I'm ON a garden tour."

Employed!

I am employed! At a grocery store! I am the supplements girl, and work in the Health And Beauty Aids part of the store. I really prefer the beauty section because I'm more familiar with the products and the stakes are so much lower- "Where are your facial scrubs?" vs. "Do you have anything to reverse the effects of lead poisoning?". But I'm getting the hang of supplements, to an extent- I at least know where the mushroom tinctures and the multivitamins and the women's health sections are, and all the other sections, but I'm not neccessarily able to find individual items, such as kelp or Gaia Milkweed or charcoal tablets.

And employment is about the best thing ever, because it's like being in a club except accomplishing things at the same time. We have teamwork and a work schedule and familiarity with long term trends in sales and a staffroom that isn't exactly dirty, because that wouldn't be allowed, but is much less polished than anything in a grocery store, or any other store. And we have a bulletin board and a label maker and an intercom and an employee health drawer and ALL SORTS OF THINGS!

And half my job is "facing"- turning and dusting and straightening products so that they look new and tidy and appealing. You would not believe, from looking in my purse or at my bedroom, how much joy this brings me. People do chaos, I undo chaos. Over and over, all day until they go home and I count the drawer (with the help of supervisors with various levels of expertise)and mop.

There are some things I don't like very much, such as the concrete floor and the confusing ancient operating system and ringing up customers (because I'm really, really slow at it). Also, very few people work full time at that shop, and so every shift I meet new people and the old ones are gone. (Well, I've only worked 4 shifts so far so I imagine that will stop soon.)

But the really lovely thing is people come in convinced of a need, a deficit, and I have only to direct their need. This is great because whenever I used to sell things, cookies or balloon animals or bumper stickers, I felt really uncomfortable trying to convince people "really! your life will be marginally better if you exchange money for this item!" And luckily no one asks me what I use, because that would be "Whatever people give me" in the beauty section, and "I try to stay hydrated" in the health section.