Potential Kids, Houseplants, and Netflix, Oh My!

I have a really bad feeling that, once the time comes for me to pass my pure sparkling genes on to the next generation, I'm going to end up being one of those parents. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones who are fascinated by their kid's every move and expression, who think every slobber bubble or fistful of strained peas is a moment that should be captured for posterity with their state-of-the-art digital camera purchased expressly for times like these.

I suspect I might be this way with my own (potential future) kids not only because of how I am with other people's kids, but how I react to progress made by my houseplants as well. Let's deal first with the most flagrant display of weirdness, the houseplant. I feel an odd sense of pride when my plant, Frank, grows a perceivable amount, and all I have to do to facilitate that is water him and make sure he has sunlight. I can't imagine how proud and accomplished I'll feel when I'm a main provider for a completely helpless, tiny little person and I manage to make it grow.

Now for an example from Adventures in Babysitting: back in the days when I kept kids to earn a little extra money, I kept this kid named Hunter a lot. Hunter was born a couple of weeks before my 15th birthday, so he was the first kid I actually watched grow up from birth. When he was about 2, I taught him how to count by counting his cars with him. I think he just liked having my undivided attention, but he would humor me and repeat the numbers while touching the corresponding car, until he could do it on his own. Whether he actually understood the concept or was just mimicking me, I'll never know, but it was cool nonetheless. So now the kid is seven, and it's not like he would never have learned to count if it wasn't for me, but when he showed me his 2nd grade Math work the other day I couldn't help but remember sitting in the living room with him counting matchbox cars. Yeah, I'm sappy like that.

All that said, I will NOT be the kind of parent who believes their kid is perfect and can do no wrong. I will be fascinated by the kid, and admire his/her ability to persevere towards normalcy even with screwy DNA, but, let's face it, if it's truly my kid some epic screw-ups are inevitable. I think there is a special place in hell reserved for parents who refuse to acknowledge their kid's moral imperfections, because that type of thinking has to originate from some distorted opinion the parent has of themselves.

Anyway, exciting news: My name is Lee Ann, and I am a Netflix-aholic.

I decided to join Netflix because there are simply not enough opportunities for mindless idle amusement for my taste, and also because of the two weeks free deal they've got going right now. I figured I would join, get the two weeks free, keep it for another couple of months until I ran out of movies I wanted to see, and then cancel. All of this is well and good, until you factor in that I already have a movie queue approximately 30 miles long. Even I don't have that kind of time, but when I reviewed my list with the intention of shortening it, I realized that I couldn't possibly part with anything. Not one single thing.

I don't suppose my Spanish workbook is going to spontaneously do itself, so I guess I'll get right on that. Right after A Streetcar Named Desire.

Arrogant Is the New Creative

One of my new professors is a lovable, hilarious cross between Conan O'Brien (tall, lanky, always wears dress pants and a button-up shirt) and Harry Potter (British, wire-rim glasses, yeah, that's all I got). Since he's funny and doesn't bug me, I actually listen when he starts to venture into territory that sounds suspiciously like a tangental idea that will never appear on a test, and last week, my listening was rewarded when he made an offhanded comment about how writing in and of itself is an act of arrogance. This is so totally true that I felt really stupid about never having consciously acknowledged it, but then I didn't think about it again until a few minutes ago when I was talking to a friend about a certain college's English Department policies. Now that the idea is back in my head, I was thinking about how it applies to weblogs, livejournals, and the people who write them.

I know that, for me, there is a certain level of arrogance in sharing my thoughts in a public forum. I know that actual living, breathing somebodies visit this blog because my site meter tells me so, and when I sit down to write a blog entry I want to make the subject matter at least somewhat interesting for those people, whoever they may be. However, I also have to refrain from scandalizing family members whom I know have this URL or offending people who may possibly access this site at some point, so it's a trade-off. At any rate, I do have an "audience" in mind when I write, however limited and anonymous that audience may be, and I'm guessing other bloggers and journal-ers do as well. Anyway, this wasn't really a thesis-driven paragraph, but as a born-again college student I spend a ton of time on the internet, and I find it fascinating what people choose to share/discuss/babble about on their blogs or journals. Not that there's anything wrong with a little self-indulgence--my stats have shown a dramatic increase in "readership" since I've been spending such a disproportionate amount of time bitching and moaning. I guess my pain and suffering is amusing to you people. Sheesh.

But you know what else I learned? When I do have a specific, non-anonymous, totally sympathetic friend to bitch to, the result is much more caustic and much less vague. It's also way more fun. Ready for today's example? This is an excerpt from an email that I was inspired to write to a dear friend in response to her sweet, encouraging email. (Don't worry, she's hilarious and awesome, and has been a character on this blog before, so she wasn't shocked or appalled.) I'm including it because, in addition to illustrating my point about intended audience, it also does a more thorough job of expressing what happened with the whole New York thing.

I'm still really disappointed about being back in Carrollton, but I'm trying not to dwell on it too much and instead focus on just getting finished with undergraduate stuff as quickly and painlessly as possible. If nothing else this experience has taught me that next time, if there ever even is one, there is no point in justifying, rationalizing, or otherwise wasting time trying to reason with people with the assumption that, once articulated well enough, they would see, understand, and accept my side of things. On the bright side, if there is a next time, I will be the proud possessor of a (admittedly useless) degree that I obtained from the Podunk University I was forced to attend, so I will have to quell the urge to hang my grad school acceptance letter on the refrigerator and say, "I applied, again, and I got in, again, and I'm 23 and financially independent, so fuck you" and instead act like a rational adult and leave in the dead of night without mentioning anything.

Okay so that probably wouldn't be appropriate either, but what happened this time WILL NOT happen next time, and if that means leaving without a formal announcement, well, if it gets me out of an intense and emotionally draining weeks-long mindfuck, I think it's preferable.

It is important to note that this was actually the second of two emails I composed. The first was the victim of an untimely disconnection of internet service. Oddly, my internet has been sketchy all day. Perhaps the random person from whose wireless connection I have been anonymously freeloading finally got wise and is purposefully booting me off. Bastard.

So, anyway, to conclude, thanks, Professor Ramble McRamblesalot, for providing the comment that launched this whole entry.

My Parade Was Rained Out

For years I have harbored a deep and insatiable need to have the opening riff of Aerosmith's "Walk this Way" as my cell phone ringtone. My wireless provider, Cingular, does not offer it. Perhaps someone in this wide wonderful world of the internet knows from whence I can obtain it. I am prepared to pay any amount of money for this piece of polyphonic perfection.

Well, I have to be honest, I really thought I would be composing this post from the comfort of my Skyhall suite in New York. I'm not.

And I have little interest in discussing the hows and whys. I guess I could bore you with the details of all the time I wasted filling out endless forms, writing essays, and schmoozing up to professors to make sure they had plenty of material with which to write glowing Letters of Recommendation. I could tell you how gratifying it was to receive my admission letter, proof that I had successfully communicated to the admissions staff my merits and aptitude as a student despite my grades, which, while not terrible, were on the mediocre end of the requirement spectrum. Then I could bitch tirelessly about the acute injustice of having the end product of all the aforementioned effort be shat upon by someone who had no knowledge of, nor tried to understand, the work that went into it. But there would be no point in any such diatribe, so I won't bother.

Whatever. It's not the end of the world, so I suppose now would be as good a time as any to stop acting like it is. I thought about deleting the last paragraph of my previous post and just breezing past the whole subject like it never happened, but I want to keep all the details straight for the searing tell-all I plan to publish.

First Post

Who's idea was it to give Briggitte Nelson and Flava Flav their own show? Seriously. I want names. VH1, you've always been a guilty pleasure, but come on. Even guilty pleasures should have some boundaries.

Also, I am concerned with Fatty the Cat's mental condition. I have reason to believe she is suffering from a feline form of Alzheimer's. She acts... different. I don't know, it's hard to explain. The most troubling thing about her deteriorating mental state is that evidently, the first part of her kitty brain to go was the part that contains the Who Loves Her The Most knowledge. Meaning, she doesn't even sleep in my room anymore. In fact, she barely even comes in; she sleeps in my mother's room. This is deeply disturbing, because it was I who, in 3rd grade, picked her out of a large litter of kittens to be the resident Feeley feline. It was I who nursed her back to health after she was spayed and only laughed to myself while she staggered around like a drunk. This is the same cat who used to crawl into my luggage and refuse to budge because she knew it meant I was leaving her. The same cat who climbed onto my rocking horse and put her paws on the handles just because she knew it was cute. This is also the same cat that my brothers put in a crate and pushed down the stairs, but hey, childhood is rough. At least I still have Scout to keep my feet company at the foot of my bed.

Also, I guess I should mention that I'm moving to New York on Thursday. Well, hopefully, if I get everything done and get all my shit together. Everything has happened so fast and I have so much stuff to do in preparation for it that I cannot adequately describe in words how overwhelmed I am. So that's why I'm currently focused solely on this blog entry which performs no function whatsoever in helping shorten my to-do list. To this end, another thing that is not on the 8 mile long to-do list is visiting with everyone, but I've made and will continue to make a concerted effort to meet up with as many people as possible before Thursday. I made great strides in this arena Friday night when I met up with my boys, including my high school Mr. Big who shall remain nameless but is as hot as ever. The Army black ops have got a great guy in that one. Don't screw him over, please. To conclude this pointless and glaringly profanity-free entry, if you want to hang out in the next 3-4 days, email or call the cell.

Watch out, New York. I'm a-comin'*!

*A-comin' contingent upon completion of 8 mile to-do list.