dream.

I was taking a social work class that was held in the basement of the church I grew up attending. Ernie Harwell was the teacher. I was having a hard time paying attention because I was just so amazed that Ernie Harwell was my professor. He asked for volunteers to read a play and my hand shot up in the air and I bounced up and down in my seat and whispered "pick me pick me pick me" like that annoying ass-kisser in 1st grade that wants to answer every single question the teacher asks. Mr. Harwell picked me and several other students. I had the first line in the play but every time I tried to read it I realized that my A.D.D. went into super-overdrive and the words wouldn't stay still on the page. I couldn't read. I tried several times to read the passage aloud but I kept skipping words and lines on the page. Mr. Harwell thanked me and asked me to sit down. I was mortified. I took a break in the class to take some stuff out to my car. As I was walking up the stairs, Mr. Harwell passed me. He walked to his car and started packing his trunk with his suitcases and books. I wondered who was reading the play. I went back into the classroom and Sparky Anderson was teaching. He had placed a brand new pair of sneakers in front of everyone. They were all different styles and sizes but each one had his autograph. When he was done speaking, the plan was for us to choose a pair of shoes. I was debating whether I should try to get a pair of shoes that looked cool that might not fit, or get a pair that fit but might not look cool. I decided that I should get cool shoes even if they didn't fit because I wouldn't be wearing them around anyway. Then Mr. Anderson thanked his assistants for taking the time to autograph the shoes for him.

Merry Christmas!

I must have been a good girl this year...

That's right, it's an Xbox360! I just played Gears of War for 5 minutes and am so motion sick I'm about to puke. I am so excited!!

family christmas

PacMan is back.

I love Christmas. Love. It.

My family was always waaaay into Christmas. I believed in Santa Claus until I was a senior in high school. I'll never forget the evening when my parents told me that Santa wasn't real. For some reason we were in their bedroom sitting on their bed and when they told me I cried. Okay maybe I wasn't a senior in high school the first time they told me. Or the second. I was a firm believer in Santa Claus and it was hard for me to face up to the truth. And maybe they didn't have to tell me a second time. But I really did cry when they told me. And when we (my sibs and I) were all in college (I'm the youngest in the family) my mom decided to stop writing "from Santa" on the gift tags and it was like she stabbed us in the hearts with her Grinch sword. I could barely open my presents that year. Yes, I knew they were from "mom & dad" but I so wanted them to be from Santa. The next year our gifts were from Santa again.

Since I've been sharing holiday memories I thought I'd share some Christmas memories.

Every year we would all get presents and then we'd get one "big" family gift. One year all we wanted was an Atari. We dropped hints. We wrote it on our lists for Santa. We begged. We pleaded. We probably made deals with God and Santa. At the end of our marathon gift opening session on Christmas morning there was no Atari. Since we were all polite children we thanked our parents for our wonderful gifts with big fat Atari tears in our eyes. We would have felt bad letting our true disappointment show. Our dad worked hard to give us what we had. Perhaps he didn't work as hard as he could have and couldn't afford the Atari? Perhaps he just wanted us to know what disappointment was? The next part I remember as if it was in slow motion. My dad reached behind the brown plaid couch (super ugly but oh so comfy) and said, "Oh! What's this? There's one more back here!" and pulled out a big box. My brothers, sister and I looked at each other while our eyes grew wide. Could it be? Did dad get that Christmas bonus? We tore the wrapping paper off and there was our Atari. Oh the PacMan and Space Invaders and sore wrists from the non-ergonomically correct controllers. *sigh* The best part is that I always remember my dad playing video games with us. Sure he sucked but it was fun to play the games with him. A couple years ago my brother got him the PacMan game that you can plug right into the tv. He played it forever. I'd call my parents and my mom would answer. "Where's dad?" I'd ask. She'd say, "Well of course he's playing PacMan." and then I'd hear him yell "GOL DARNIT!" in the background and I knew he'd just lost. He played so much he broke it and went out and bought another one. Now PacMan has been put away because he has found ShotOnline, an online golf game.

Another fun memory was the year my grandparents were separated. Now I know that doesn't sound fun but it was really cool when my grandpa showed up at our house at 5 on Christmas MORNING and pounded on my parents' window to wake them up. We didn't think we'd see him that Christmas and it was so fun to have him there when we got out of bed. He was the fun grandpa that would tell us jokes like this: How do you catch a fish with chewing tobacco and a baseball bat? You sprinkle the chewing tobacco around your boat. The fish eat it and when they come up to spit, you hit them on the head with the baseball bat.

This is Jesse and my first Christmas as a married couple. We're staying at my sister's house on Christmas eve so we'll get to see her kids open their presents from Santa. I am so glad they invited us to join them. I also hope that someday Jesse and I will have Christmas traditions of our own. He says if we have a kid he doesn't want to tell them there is a Santa Claus. That's cool as long as he doesn't mind that I'll be pulling said kid aside and telling them that daddy is looneytunes and is off his meds and that of course Santa is real.

I have also been thinking a lot about Jesse's cousin (I guess she's my cousin-in-law), Karen, whose boyfriend was killed in a car accident a couple weeks before Thanksgiving. I don't know what holiday traditions they had but I do know that whatever they were, Karen will be going through them without him. He was only 24 years old. They were supposed to close on land to build a home together the week after he was killed. I've been thinking about them a lot because I knew him. They came to our wedding. We spent last Christmas with them. I can't even imagine what she is going through. I'll definitely be thinking of her and their families.

This is also the first Christmas in a while that I'm not working with homeless families. My coworker and I always worked hard every holiday season to make sure each family had gifts to give. The agency I worked at had an "adopt-a-family" program where people in the community would sign up to buy gifts for a family. Even though it was a lot of work for us, we really enjoyed making sure every child at the shelter had a few gifts to open. We also made sure everyone had enough food for a giant holiday meal. It was just nice that the adults could have one day when they could have fun and not worry about housing, employment, or feeding the kids. We always came back after the new year ready to worry about that stuff.

I don't know what your holiday traditions are, but whatever they are, I hope you have a wonderful and peaceful time!

I apologize for the marathon post but I figure I haven't been posting much lately so this makes up for it. Or I'm just bored.

procrastination

It never ceases to amaze me all the things I can find to do while "getting ready" to go for a run on the treadmill. This morning I got up at 9 and have been "getting ready" since then. And now I'm watching some stupid crime show on A&E and considering staying here to finish it since we don't have cable in the treadmill room. No no no. I need to get this over with so I can "get ready" to go shopping at the mall and finish the Christmas shopping fun, yet another activity I just love to pieces.

In other news, I made beef stew for dinner last night. Jesse liked it because he is a carnivore. I didn't like it that much even though I'm a carnivore.

Okay okay. No reason to make you suffer for my mad procrastination skills anymore.

neglect.

Ah it's been a while since I've posted anything. Don't worry, I haven't just been neglecting this, I've pretty much been neglecting everything. My house is a mess. My period even neglected to come on time which was a fun day of thinking I was pregnant and figuring out what the hell we were going to do all for nothing thank GOD. Yesterday I neglected to eat lunch.

I have my last final tomorrow morning. I'm not prepared. But hopefully I will be able to get some good studying in tonight and will be okay.

This afternoon I had my evaluation for my field placement. What a joke! My supervisor is hardly ever around so when I'm at the office I usually do homework, read shit online and play games online. Yeah, I've learned a lot. She clearly doesn't have a clue because on my evaluation form she marked "exceeds expectations" on every box. I don't think she even read the form.

Time to study...

get a room.

Last week and this week my Wednesday morning class met in the computer lab. We were doing these projects on this stupid statistics program. After our professor did her little presentation thing we reviewed for our final exam next week. I'm not sure why we even met in the computer lab today because pretty much everyone brought their assignments and turned them in at the beginning of class. While we were going over stuff for the exam a woman sitting at a computer across the aisle from me (the monitor was facing me, away from the professor) was chatting away on IM and checking out MySpace pages. All of a sudden I heard her gasp so I looked over. She was looking at Britney Spears' kootch on the internet. The uncensored version. And then she and the people sitting next to her giggled. I kind of laughed because well, it was Britney Spears' kootch in research methods class. But then I looked over a few minutes later and she was still looking at the photo.

And she looked at it for a few more minutes.

And I wasn't laughing anymore.

i *heart* meter maids!

Woke up this morning to reports of a prisoner that escaped from Detroit Receiving Hospital. He also managed to take off with the police officer's gun. They were looking for him around Wayne State University and the last place they had seen him was on Canfield and Third, which is about 3 blocks from where I park my car.

Pulled up to my usual parking street and realized that I won't be parking there anymore because they started to put up parking meters. I don't like to pay for parking. But since the meters weren't installed yet and just the poles, I parked there anyway.

After class I hung out with a couple people. Walked back to my car, watching for fugitives to the left, right, and front of me, and noticed the meters had been installed while I was gone. And I had a fucking parking ticket. Granted, if there had been a meter when I left, it would have been a 2 hour meter and would have expired had I put quarters in it. But there wasn't a meter there when I left so there was no way I could have put quarters in it to let it expire. I wouldn't have parked there if the meters had actually been there. And I probably shouldn't have parked there because even though the meter wasn't there, the pole for the meter was there. But I really didn't think I could get a parking ticket for not plugging a meter that wasn't even there.

And they still haven't caught the escaped prisoner. Perhaps the meter maids should be on the lookout for escaped prisoners as opposed to writing parking tickets for cars parked where there wasn't a meter in the first place. I'm going to tell them that when I call them...

i see.

On cloudy days...

I'm not sure why I look so happy about a cloudy day. And I'm not sure what is going on with my lower lip. Or my upper lip.

And on sunny days!!


Damn. I have a fat face.