Smells Like Teen Spandex

The beginning of the year signifies one thing in my family. DANCE COMPETITION season! The final competition was this past weekend. Every year I walk away from these competitions with approximately 300 less brain cells than I came into it with. This year colorful commentary was there every weekend. One weekend in particular was the climax. In a matter of a couple hours all of the following things happened.

I made conversation with this woman in the hallway because she had the coolest shoes on. I noticed everyone was kind of watching me talk to her, but I chose to think they were all freaks and I was the normal one. Turns out she is a really famous dancer and was one of the judges. I still maintain that they were all freaks...I am sure famous dancers like to be told they look cute just as much as those of us who don't have muscles that are visible when doing arduous things like pointing.

I tried to reserve some seats when some women were getting up and one of them looked at me like I had just kicked a three-legged puppy and said "We aren't leaving." (really rudely) I held my tongue because I know the type of people who will start a fight. She was one of them. I didn't want to have to beat her up in front of 1,000 people.

Every boy that took the stage only buttoned the second button on their dress shirt so that their skinny 16-year-old boy abs could easily be viewed by everyone in the auditorium. I am sorry if that is the new thing to do, but please, you look ridiculous. Everyone knows the 3rd button is a much sexier option.

A chick in one of the worst dances of the evening kept making a face that would scare Hannibal Lector. It was a pucker so big it made her eyes shut almost completely. I didn't get it, but I did laugh.

A girl used my face as a spot. (Spot- when turning a dancer will keep their eye on one spot, typically a spot on a wall, in order to keep dizziness and yaking at bay.) I didn't know where to look. I chose the high road and made the weirdest faces I could.

Last but not least during a song appropriately titled "skin" a girl popped out of her costume and didn't realize it for about a minute. Maybe they should have considered costumes that weren't scraps of fabric tied around their bodies. Just an idea from the department of obvious.

So all in all I would say it was a really winning year. Whit did great. Won a bunch of scholarships as per usual. And I, well I got to experience the pure joy of laughing at strangers.

I suppose 1/2 a lecture in nearly 24 years is good.

I made a good decision, and I got a lecture from my dad anyway. It is highly possible that he is trying to make up for never giving me a lecture before..at least not that I can remember. It is probable that the reason has much to do with my very high level of determination. This quality is most certainly a double-edged sword. Much of the time all logic is thrown out the window when I have a goal in sight. This, I am sure, is utterly frustrating as a parent. When your kid takes a cigar out of your mouth and breaks it in half when you're celebrating with your buddies because she is going to stop you from smoking if it means following you around and breaking everything you smoke, I'd imagine it is irritating. Or when I decided that procrastination is not the answer and I single handedly moved all of my bedroom furniture into my dad's old office in the basement. I say old office because it became the "old office" when it became my "new bedroom." Or when I tried setting up a "Say NO to Drugs" product sale at the end of my neighbors driveway only to get told by a mean old lady down the street that the cops were getting called on me...I don't get this either. I could see protesting if we were selling "Let's smoke some weed in 1993" t-shirts out of a tie-dyed spray-painted old suburban, but 10 year olds trying to make a dime, are ya kidding me lady? Nope she wasn't. Cops showed up. We went inside. Lesson learned, don't test old women. They call the cops, and are out of their minds. I think at least one of those instances required some sort of lecture, but I didn't even kind of get one until last weekend... I realized why about half-way through when I looked up and said "I don't know why we are talking about this, I have already made the right decision." Sometimes I scare myself because I know I will someday look down at a two year old who is picking up the phone to call third world countries and save babies and they will say "don't even think about the lecture mom, I am saving millions of kids, You can spare a couple bucks on a phone bill, they only have one shirt...have you seen your closet lately? Whatever I don't care. I AM MAKING THE RIGHT DECISION. " and at that point the world will implode.

I'll Cry if it Saves Me Money...

I can never talk my way out of tickets, ever. Unfortunately, I have the sometimes pain in the ass characteristic of telling it how it is. The inability to lie or cry when it would be most lucrative. So I find myself saying things like. "Yeah I know why you pulled me over. I was speeding." Very matter-of-factly, with very little emotion. Well, I got pulled over...again. I was so pissed off I started crying (because it is the 3rd time I have gotten pulled over for going 36 in a 25 when I didn't know I was in a 25.) Guess who didn't get a ticket for speeding?

I have compiled a list of things that do and do not work when trying to talk your way out of tickets (most are things I have actually witnessed or used)...

Do...(obviously a lot fewer of the dos because I always get the ticket)

1. be honest, and a good conversationalist. My mom once talked her way out of 5 tickets in a month because she told the truth, and within seconds had the officer chatting up a storm. One of those times she was with my girl scout troop. She was taking us to the prison, and you better believe she had that officer engaged in conversation about the jail.

2. If you actually have tears coming, use them to your advantage.

3. If you see the opportunity to flirt, do. (Sorry men, this may not be the best solution for you)

4. Stay calm. Even if you are crying this is crucial.


Do Not...

1. Get so upset you are crying but not breathing and wailing but not talking. It is a ticket, not an injection of deadly poison.

2. Get out of your car and start running. Specifically if you are a man in a thong leopard print leotard. Ick to the nth degree. Things I don't need to see, there are lots of them in that scenario.

3.Try and argue your way out of the ticket. For instance:
Cop: Do you know why I pulled you over?
Perp: Because you are either blind or can't read your radar gun...
Cop: You were going 50 in a 20, sir/ma'am.
Perp: No I wasn't. The road was slippery and I was on a hill. My brakes weren't working, and I think I am coming down with the flu so my eyes are really itchy.
Cop: Yes you were, and it's 85 degrees and dry, how was the road slippery?
Perp: oil spill? *wink*

4. wink

5. Get so pissed off you have to be tasered.



p.s. For those of you who gave really great input on the last post I have chosen not "nauty codpiece, " but ROLLICK for the name of my line. Thanks for all your really thoughtful input. It was really, um, well not at all helpful actually. It did make me laugh though. An update on all things rollick to come within the next couple days.

I would rather Panic! at the Disco than do anything at a Country bar.

It has been a long time since I got a CD that I couldn't get enough of. I am talking almost a year here. I have finally found a new poison. It is a band called Panic! at the disco. I got the CD on Saturday and I think I have listened to it all the way through 10 times already. For those of you who are worried my musical taste has taken a one way flight to crapville, don't worry. It's not Disco. The best way I can describe it is Fall out boys with more electronica. AND with song titles like "The only difference between suicide and matyrdom is the press coverage" how can you not love them. Awesome. At the very least download "Lying is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off" I will warn people who don't like cussing, there is some.

On a totally separate note I am looking for a name for some clothing design I am doing. All you word people I am talking to you. I want it to be one word. Obviously it has to be kind of edgy. No, it can't be expletive. Although da' Shit designs would be great. I am not a rapper. So there are your stipulations. Start thinking, and either post a comment or email me your ideas. (Quickly, I only have a couple days.)

Depressing Excitement

Last night was rough. Personally I had a great day, but after work I called my dad to chat about some tax stuff and realized the instant he answered the phone that something was not right. He was talking really fast, it made my hands sweat. One of his really good friends went to visit his daughter and found her dead. I don't know his friend or the daughter, but I have never heard my dad so shaken up in my life. My dad has always been a pillar of masculinity. I have only seen him shed one tear. When I talked to him later in the evening he was getting really choked up, and having a hard time talking. Before we got off the phone he told me he loved me. After a couple seconds I told him I loved him. It was one of the few times I think I actually thought about the weight of what I was saying. It was a hard, beautiful moment I will not soon forget. The reason I share this is not to talk about my sad night. It is because it was one of those evenings where I realized just how fleeting life is. I am left restless by that realization. Primarily because there is so much I want to do in my life that the thought of it quickly coming to an end leaves me aching for an urgency I do not have. I want an adventurous spirit (not in a mountain biking kind of way) the kind of spirit that doesn't allow fear to take hold when something potentially risky comes along. The kind of spirit that jumps off symbolic cliffs knowing that it may hurt to land, but it is a lot better than not knowing what it felt like to jump. Sometimes trusting that God actually knows what He is doing is really hard in those situations, but I know He will catch me if I put myself in a place for Him to do so. I don't believe I am on this earth to be a quiet, mild-mannered Christian. That just isn't who I am. It is time to start living life the way it was meant to be lived. With reckless abandon. Watch out for cliff jumpers.

The reason I am not an "inventor"

There is a reason my creativity is being harnessed in the wonderful industry of insurance. It is because when I come up with ideas for new things, inventions if you will, they are absolutely horrible. Today my idea's were centering around some sort of board game. A game that asks what celebrity had a propensity for what drug. (I know, I know I'm kinda playin it fast and loose with the word invention.) Questions would read something like this. Which child star's boredom in her early 20's led to her addiction to Methamphetamines? Ding Ding Ding Who is Stephanie Tanner. CCCOORREECCCTT! And then there would be information about that drug on the back of the playing card. For instance "This drug is the reason you can't get any Friggin' sudafed when you go to target at 9 pm and the pharmacy is closed." Who doesn't want to play that game? I think it sounds like at least 5 minutes of fun. Alright not really, but it is informative. We all know how well informative games sell. Maybe there could be a whole line of Warning games. The perils of alcohol. Different types of STD's. Ahhh. (That's a scream not Aww how cute those kitties would be if I stuck them in the blender...sorry Amy) Flashbacks to 8th grade and the co-ed slide show viewing of real life STD's. Talk about scare tactics. Making 13 year olds view stranger's sickly special places in a room with the opposite sex, NOT NICE!! I was a very shy girl then, I could barely spread a rumor let alone herpes. So no STD game. I will spare those pre-teens with parents who want to talk about sex with them in a "cool" way the pain. Instead I will invite them to any family event with me. They think talking to their parents about sex isn't fun try my grandma. Talk about fun, I got your fun right here.