Shoelaces for Josie

I had a meeting yesterday at 3:00 p.m. I showed up at 3:11. My professor wasn’t there until 3:22 at which point I stood up and told her I had exactly eight minutes until I had to leave for work. The whole point of the meeting was to talk about my presentation for Scholar’s Day. Sounds prestigious, doesn’t it? I don’t really think so. She asked me how much I have done and I told her the truth: a whole lot of nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. The bird has flown the coop - wait - I never had a bird that was in the coop to be flown. I’m birdless.

I’m supposed to be a mini-expert on cyberterrorism in two weeks. Fat chance of that happening. Good thing I’ve got acting skills in my little bag of tricks. Although I’m not quite sure what the hell I’m going to say when the head of the computer science department comes up to me and asks me my “scholarly” opinion on the imminent threat of cyberterrorism. Me, scholarly? I may have whipped this university’s gluteus maximus in the grades department and be all set to serve it up to them on a silver platter on graduation day but I tend to lose all sense of intelligence when it comes to discussing a topic I know nothing about with a PhD.

Ah well, it should prove interesting and, at the very least, I’ll have some great stories to recount that night about spending an hour in a skirt, fielding questions and trying to prove my expertise in a topic that really hasn’t ever happened. Of course, I could spend the next two weeks embroiling myself in this subject and actually know what I’m talking about but, seriously, where’s the fun in that? Besides, I have a guitar to learn how to play. Priorities are necessary and I’m quite certain that I have mine in the correct order.

I’ve had a crazy few days ever since classes started again and I’m st-ressed out but I’ve just spent the last hour or so in the throes of beginning to learn how to play the guitar. Seriously. Who needs Guitar Hero when I can just play the real thing? Some people may think I’ll never accomplish it but I guarantee you I will. I pick up music fast anyway and these last few hours I’ve been pouring over it and trying to pick it up?  Yeah, they’ve been the most relaxing of the past three days. Maybe I should take a hint.

Monday I met the Clayton Miller Band. Heard of them?  They’re a family band - three brothers and a dad - that play the blues. The youngest - LD - is 13 and plays the harmonica like it’s going out of style. That kid has incredible talent. Sadly, he knows that and I’m afraid it’s going to get in his head. I guess it would be hard not to considering his resume and the things he’s done already. Anyhow - I saw their show and then interviewed them afterwards. Nice people and pretty unassuming - I felt pretty important anyway - talking to some pretty good musicians on the verge of making it big. It’s kind of made me think a little bit about what I want to do with my life. I know, I know, everyone tells me I need to have that figured out, that I’m running out of time. Well, screw them, I’ll take my own sweet time figuring out where I’m headed and I bet you I’ll be a lot happier when I get there because I took time to think about it.

Well, the guitar is calling me again. If anyone has any good tips on how to get my fingers to curl in the proper direction and stay off the strings they’re not supposed to be on, I’d really freakin’ appreciate it.

“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.” It really is an art and should be listed under the skills section of resumes if it weren’t a red flag to employers and an automatic dump into the trash can for your resume. I used to be quite good at putting things off and still be able to squeak in just as the gate was slamming shut on the deadline. These days, I am not so confident in my skills and once confidence leaves you, doom descends. 

We have all procrastinated on one thing or another at some point - or many things at all points - and so we all know what it feels like to be stretched to the limit, pulling our hair out and making neat little rows of empty coffee cups on the window sill. And after you just manage to make the deadline on a big project, the relief is almost worth the agonizing journey you took to the finish line. Almost. And then you vow that you will never, EVER, do that again. You WILL do every project, reading, phone call, task as soon as it is given to you and you will never go without sleep due to a nasty deadline ever again. If most of us were honest, we would admit to a tiny little voice in our minds barking yeah right at the same time as we are signing off on vows to never procrastinate again. 

After taking about 10 days off and doing nothing but watching movies, basketball, sleeping and eating, this week has kicked me. Hard. Repeatedly. And it’s only Tuesday. The major inconvenience of attending class, the studying, the mountainous piles of work from the paper that sprung out of nowhere, that astronomical 25-page paper and scholar presentation I have to put together before next Friday are all looming over my head. It reminds me of this theater show that I ran lights for once. They had a HUGE stuffed hammer and they hit people on the head with it during the show. I guess maybe you had to be there - it was a good show with a really big hammer.

And what do I do with all of these things to do?  I go to a baseball game this afternoon - my first one. I know, I know - I can’t quite believe I have never been to a baseball game either really.  Here it is, the all-American pastime and I had never witnessed it in person before today. I loved it, of course, how could I not? So I tell myself that while I was sorely neglecting the rest of my duties I was broadening my cultural horizons and finding a new way to put things off. Since my skills in keeping up with yesterday are getting a bit rusty, I plan to give them a good chance to get back in shape.

Sometimes, I wake up in the morning and think that I can’t do it. ‘It’ being a catchall for a multitude of things. More often than not, it isn’t one huge thing that completely overwhelms me, it’s all the tiny things. By themselves, they are small and insignificant but when I put them all together it’s like the tidal wave that has no end. And then when people ask me what’s wrong, what has me so down, I can’t even begin to express it because describing each part of the problem sounds so minute because each individual element is so small.

Maybe that makes little sense but it clicks in my head. Although I am realizing more and more that the things that make sense to me really make no sense to the rest of the population, I’m ok with that. I claim that as individuality while my crazy psych professor might say differently. Really, though, like she has room to talk. She folds paper into points and pokes herself with it. Over and over again. And she spends Friday’s bonding with her fish in her office - and listens to Eminem. Not to mention the wardrobe selections. She’s a good soul, though, and I do enjoy her immensely.

Just a little earlier, I was having a quarter-life crisis. Well, it was actually more like a - something. I don’t even know what to call it. My whole life I have been writing. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m doing now, it’s what I do for class, it’s what I get paid for. If someone were to get on my computer, they would find inordinate amounts of writing - snippets of short stories, ideas for novels, bits and pieces of poetry. And just tonight, I was sitting here and panicking - “What makes me think I can do this for the rest of my life?”  As in a job. It’s going to be a lot of all-night brain-rackers as I wait for writer’s block to pass if I write for the rest of my life. 

Sometimes I think all of my dreams are just a concrete set-up for failure. I exude a lot of confidence and somedays I actually believe myself but I think deep down that I’m a doubter. Everybody in the whole world can tell someone that they are going to succeed and they’re going to achieve what they want to but if they don’t believe it first, well, fat chance yo. 

I’m awfully pessimistic tonight which is odd. Sort of. I’m generally not so - I don’t usually verbalize it anyway. I guess that is what comes from spending a week by myself, not that I’m complaining. While the rest of my college compatriots have been spending their time doing things they half remember or not-at-all remember, I’ve been watching a lot of TV - the Lord of the Rings trilogy is quite good. Although it brings back ridiculously horrible memories from two years ago, one must carry on. Ah, Frodo Baggins, such a good chap.

There are so few people who actually listen. Have you ever noticed that when you’re telling someone something, they’re spacing off and the only response they can come up with is something unintelligble and completely unhelpful? 

I went for a walk tonight because the weather is absolutely amazing. I am not a huge fan of winter but I do love the changing of the seasons - there is just something about it. It’s March 23 and it got up into the 70’s today - who can resist the outdoors when a day comes with credentials like that?

I live by a lake and I was just sitting there, on a bench - not on the lake, listening to the birds and to the kids down the block playing ball and to the old couple walking their two yappy dogs. It was nice - really nice. I met a few people on the sidewalk and we talked…it’s pretty official that I am a townie now and no longer a college student. Gah - I need to get out of this burg.

Really, my point is that we - you and I - need to take more time to actually listen. And smell. And see. There’s so much going on in this world that goes unnoticed which is sad. I don’t think this little post of mine is going to change that, goodness knows I don’t stop to smell the roses enough either but a little awareness never hurt anybody.

And that’s pretty much all I got. March Madness is amazing and so is mint chocolate chip ice cream. And spring break - try not to be too jealous. 

Everybody’s got goals and everybody has things they want to accomplish. Last night, while waiting for the sleep monster to come attack me, I decided to browse the web and see what the “experts” considered high on the list of things to do before you die. Here are the highlights from Travel Channel’s 99 Things to Do Before You Die list:

* Go to a nudist colony

* Learn how to be a clown

* Train like an astronaut at space camp

* Help dig for dinosaur bones

*Kiss the Blarney Stone

* Visit the Hershey Chocolate factory in Pennsylvania

Those are pretty much the highlights along with the usual: visit the ruins of Pompeii, ride a cable car in San Francisco and sleeping in a haunted castle. I’ve decided that it’s really up to the individual as to which things are important enough to crack the top 99 things to do before keeling over. I’m down with nudity but visiting a colony devoted to that is not real high on my list at this point - or being a clown for that matter. They kind of scare me a little. 

I was lying in bed when I thought I heard the faint tones of my phone from the next room. I bolted out of bed, thinking it might be my sister calling.  Alas, it was my boss - at 11:30 at night. First of all, who does that? Second of all, who leaves bed for a phone call, any phone call? Oh the dedicated person that I am…

So now I’m awake, not that I was asleep anyway, I was trying to fall asleep but a thousand and one things were racing through my mind. Have you ever had that?  Such a rhetorical question - everyone has. It’s one of the most maddening things, really.  You could be more tired than great-aunt Hilda but sleep escapes you no matter how hard you try to chase it down.

I won’t bore you with the thoughts that were chasing each other around in my head. Most of them are old hat and rather dull - things like job-hunting, haunting history tests and failed shopping expeditions. *Yes, I did venture out on my “business-clothes” shopping trip which is why I came home with a bathrobe and a punk military jacket.* Rather, I want to talk about the phrase in omnia paratus.

Doesn’t that just have a nice ring to it?  If I had to choose three words to make up my vocabulary for the rest of my life, these three would be a close second behind friends, fuzzy and freedom. In omnia paratus is Latin and means “prepared for all things.” Sounds kind of Superman-ish. But really, when you think about it - or when I think about it anyway - there’s a lot of meaning behind being “prepared for all things.” It doesn’t just mean you’re organized. It also means you’re optimistic and can overcome barriers. It means that challenges are something to be welcomed and it means you step outside of your comfort zone and do things you wouldn’t normally do. 

That can be different things for different people. For some, it could be a really big step to get on an airplane. For myself, it would be jumping out of one which I fully intend to do at some point, preferably within the next six years. Shh, don’t tell the parental unit. If I ever tell them, it will be after I’ve done it for logically apparent reasons to anyone who has parents even remotely similar to mine.

So this is my challenge to you. I’m laying it on the line and it’s up to you to pick it up and run with it. Do something today that pushes yourself a little bit in a direction you wouldn’t naturally go. Do something to kick your adrenaline up a notch. Do something a little outrageous and maybe a little risky. It’s ok if it’s a baby step; just do something and then rush to your computer and let me know about it.

In omnia paratus!!

I’ve got nothing, absolutely nothing. With all this time on my hands, you would think I would have something amazing to say. Instead I’m sitting here watching I Love New York. I feel like throwing five shoes at it. But instead of switching the channel or turning off the TV, I’m just sitting here complaining about how horrible the show is. Typical, so typical. If only the remote wasn’t clear across the room.  And before you start judging, I did run to the bank today.  Yes, literally run. I’m sure the teller was impressed when I came into the bank, wheezing and bent over, gasping out my account number between labored breaths.

Reality TV is a farce. It’s not reality. You roll the camera and then edit it to suit your purposes. Nobody wants to see reality. Reality is boring and, well, real.  People watch TV to get away from real which is why they watch reality TV because it’s not real. If it was real, they wouldn’t watch it. 

“Soldiers cry and dogs cry and ducks cry. Seeing Chance cry didn’t change my opinion at all.” - New York on I Love New York.

Deep.  Really freakin’ deep.

I’ve decided I’m going shopping tomorrow. I’ll chronicle my experiences as well as relate the story of my tenure as Double Agent Mona in the next couple of days. 

It’s here, finally, although at the same time it feels like it should only be February instead of on the downward slide of March. I officially have the next nine days to do a whole lot of nothing. Granted, I have to work a few times but nothing major, in fact, I’m sure I’ll welcome the work if for nothing but to relieve my intense boredom. I’m a person that likes to keep busy.

Never fear, I have ideas of things to keep me busy. I need to start filtering through my stuff and getting rid of the useless crap that I’ve aquired over the past four years, I need to look for a job, I need to watch a lot of basketball and I definitely need to sleep a lot - oh and read Anna Karenina and write up a bunch of lists for things that need to be done before I die. The important things, really. 

In other news, I just got an mp3 player. It’s the bomb digity. 

I’m a REAL grown-up! Yes, it’s true - I have finally entered adulthood. How, you may ask, can I have done that when I’m still in college?  Allow me to enlighten you.

Tonight, I met my new boss at a coffee shop and talked business over a latte. It’s the proverbial rite of passage into adulthood. It’s like on that episode of Grey’s Anatomy where that girl needed a shaman to find her soul before surgery could be done. I’ve crossed the bridge - I had my first coffee shop business meeting - I’m ready to take the business world by storm.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m not what you would call a coffee shop girl. When I think of those types of places, I think of people wearing corduroy jackets and Birkenstocks with keys to a trendy SUV. I wear hoodies and flip-flops and stuff the keys to my Buick inside my purse. I was actually kind of nervous. I don’t even know how to pronounce half the things on a menu. I don’t even really drink coffee although it’s kind of grown on me the past few months - ever since I had my internship at the police department actually. Go figure.

Needless to say, I made it through the little rendevous and am completely stoked about my transcension. My new boss is going to be great, I think, and maybe more of these coffee shop meetings will occur so I can continue to think I’m really cool. I’m sure there are few other people out there who would get as excited as I did about this, but seriously, if you can’t get excited about this, then what can you?