An Assignment

Tom has asked, and he shall receive. The assignment is below, and it's much more appealing than the homework I'm facing right now...

List 5 things that certain people (who are not deserving of being your friend anyway) may consider to be “totally lame,” but you are, despite the possible stigma, totally proud of. Own it:

1. I can sit down and eat Wavy Lays with Dean's french onion dip as a meal. I can sit and eat that until I am full. Many think this is gross; I think it is glorious.

2. My dancing. When dancing, it may look to outsiders like I'm extremely white and extremely sans rhythm, but in my head, it looks AWESOME. I love the way I look (in my head) when I am dancing. It's an added bonus when friends are embarrassed about this dancing, really.

3. My dad will occasionally drunk dial me on Monday nights when he gets home from his weekly basketball night with friends. When I tell people about this, it gets mixed reactions. Some think it's awesome or hilarious; others think it's a little sad and give me a look like maybe my dad has a problem. He doesn't, and I love those drunk dials because they are funny and affectionate.

4. I make a huge scene when a song I really, really like comes on in a public place. These songs take me by surprise, I get really excited, and I either sing along, gasp, or both. People think this is annoying but I think it is awesome.

5. I like to walk around in my underwear. Pants are for work. The only one who thinks this isn't embarrassing is my roommate. She's part of the "pants are for work" foundation. I think it's glorious.

Note: This took me a really long time to come up with. I think that I'm a pretty open person, and also I think it's tough to associate things that others find embarrassing with pride. There's almost a contradiction there, because if others weren't around, nothing would be embarrassing. Right?

Do these jeans make me look fat?

There's a girl in my Monday night class. After the second meeting of this class, I went home and wrote about a remark she'd made, something I thought was a little silly. Here's that bit:

“It just doesn’t seem… academic enough.” Can we not enjoy a break? Can we not look for importance in the different? Obviously, being enrolled in graduate school makes me interested in being scholarly, more interested than the average bear even. But does scholarly have to mean source citation, cutting arguments, voices culled to all sound the same?

I think that must be it: she’s afraid of her own voice. I came to class completely behind what I’d written, even though I knew it was NOT my finest work. I felt sure that it was my voice there on the page, and for me that was enough. Perhaps Miss Skinny Jeans/Cute Bags doesn’t feel comfortable in her own voice. And I think for a student that far advanced in the program (she’s at least a year in), that’s a disservice.

And... scene. So then, I thought I was done with her. No. She continues to grow more and more ridiculous as class goes on, meriting rants on the bus ride home, rants with classmates, rants on the cell phone. Turns out, girl is NOT afraid of the sound of her own voice - as a matter of fact, she loves it. Loves it loves it loves it.

This girl + another rambler (it's called e-nun-ci-ation) + two missed buses = me buying a six pack and a bag of chips on my way home. I finally settle on my back porch with a pilsner and my laptop, ready for some writing release, when it starts to sprinkle. I spill half my chips as I scurry inside, ready to admit defeat (and drink some beer).

At least my roommate and I have some old school Nintendo in the works... her ebay-ordered Dr. Mario just came in the mail today. If I could just get her to stop reading her homework, we'd be in business.