Sleep to dream...

Happy Sunday to all!  For those of my readers and friends (Bill and Roxanne) who ran or are presently running the Twin Cities Marathon, I hope it exceeded your expectations.  It certainly looks like a beautiful day outside to run 26.2 miles!

I would normally not be writing an entry again so quickly after a long and illustrated one, but this will be a "mini."  I promise. 

Somehow I was able to do a massive sleep-in today, which probably signals that I have NOT been getting enough sleep during the week.  I blame my new attempts to get up at 5:45 a.m. to exercise and my seeming inability to fall asleep before midnight.

Anyway, the interesting thing that came out of my late morning snooze was a semi-repeated dream theme of being back in high school.  Specifically, senior year of high school.  Now, in reality, I would probably rate 12th grade as my least favorite year overall.  I was more than ready to be done with high school, my family had moved away to Wisconsin leaving me back in MN, one of my best friends decided to go post-secondary and take her senior year at the community college, all the hot boys were gone, blah blah blah...

However, in my dreams, these things do not enter into the equation any more.  Essentially, the underlying theme is that I am now BACK in high school but I have forgotten all of the important details of high school life.  These details include:  my locker combination, my class schedule, how to play my clarinet and my band locker combination.  Sometimes there are extras.

Additionally, I seem to enter these dreams with a record of truancy.  I find myself wandering through the music area and feeling quite guilty that I have not been to band or choir practice in several years.  Technically speaking, this is true.  I have not been to band or choir practice for more than 12 years.  But apparently in my dream, some of my former classmates have continued their dedication to practice and are now making me look very bad.

In last night's dream, I found myself again wandering the music area and discussing with one of my friends how I had just decided not to be in band or choir by simply never showing up to class.  Why I was not freaking out over the potentially fatal effect this would have on my GPA, I have no idea.  I then found myself back at the main office with my friend searching for my student ID so that I could eat lunch in the cafeteria.  We also picked up my schedule.

Please remember that this is a dream, so my sequence of events may be extremely non-linear.  The next thing I remember is that we were crammed into an auditorium/lecture hall space (which do not exist in reality at WHS) listening to a teacher and writing in spiral-bound notebooks.  On my right hand side was my friend, Kellee, and we were busy making snarky comments about the teacher and the course material.  This is something that we likely would have done in reality.

On my left hand side was a male classmate with whom I was marginally acquainted in high school but was apparently super close friends with in my dream.  Given the cramped space of the auditorium, we were sitting very close together.  There was a lot of disruptive whispering going back and forth among students, and I think the teacher was pretty angry.  Again, this was something that would have deeply bothered me in high school, but not here.

The rather embarrassing conclusion to this dream was that I started making out with the boy on my left.  Again, completely out of the realm of reality for my actual high school experience as I most definitely did not experience my first kiss until I was far away from Willmar.

Does this mean anything?  Nothing?  Should I start practicing my clarinet?  Should Kellee and I road trip it back to Willmar and visit the old alma mater?  Should I attempt to reconnect with the male high school acquaintance and ask him out for coffee?  Hm.  I think it is more than likely that the only one of those things even remotely likely to happen is that I connect with Kellee, but it probably won't be in Willmar.

However, there IS a good chance that I will be back in town sometime in November for a wedding, so who knows?  Stranger things have happened.  I will start practicing my clarinet just in case.

Top of the Pop (Concerts)

Although I am not personally a fan of the TV show Glee, I am amused by the popularity.  I am fairly certain that most fans of the show will not claim that it honestly reminds them of past high school choir experiences nor will they state that it is realistic in any way, shape or form.  They simply find it entertaining the way that many people find musical theater entertaining.  Or World of Warcraft.  All of these things are for people playing pretend, but they're fun anyway.

All of this talk of "music" and "fun" has led me to contemplate my own choral experiences.  I am not going to lie, I honestly enjoyed being in choir most of the time.  My high school's top choir focused mainly on concert choir singing.  For the uninitiated, this is music that is designed for large, well balanced choirs and can be both accompanied and a Capella.

Unfortunately, once a year all choirs in the school had to participate in a debacle known as the "pop concert."  In this format, we were required to learn "modern" music and jazz it up with choreography.  For choirs that are specifically coordinated to do this kind of schmaltziness (a la Glee), this is not a problem.  For choirs that typically stand still in big formal robes and focus on sound instead of appearance, it was usually a bit of a hot mess.

For entertainment purposes, I shall now endeavor to offer illustrated highlights from my pop concert history, starting with 7th grade.

"International Harmony General Theme"

Any resemblances to actual people are purely coincidental.  :)

For my first ever pop concert, I really don't remember the overall theme.  What I DO remember was the main song.  It was a Michael W. Smith number called "Seed to Sow" that involved singing in some foreign (African) language.  The song itself wasn't bad, and I could probably sing most of it for you now.  What was memorable about the performance was the dress requirement.  Every single choir student was required to make (or have their mother make) a cape/poncho/drapery out of colorful fabric to wear over their t-shirt and jeans.  This was probably to symbolize some sort of colorful diversity idea, but I would definitely pay good money to see any video recording of this shenanigan again.  It had to have been extremely hilarious to my parents.

8th Grade:  COUNTRY MUSIC

Grrrr.  If you know me well, you know that country is not and never has been a favorite of mine.  Fortunately, the year that we did a country theme, my choir directors kept things old school with what I suppose you would call "traditional" country songs.  The school even splurged this time and purchased cheap straw cowboy hats for all the little choir students.  Our choreography even included the hats with some fancy twirling movement that was guaranteed to look awkward and again provide our parents with comic relief.

9th Grade:  Generic Lame Music Medley

I have to say that I found our senior high school pop concerts to be a bit of a let down after the major production values of junior high.  I'm not sure if this was because the choir director's heart wasn't into it and he just felt like had to fulfill an obligation, or if dancing on risers really just is THAT ridiculous.

Either way, our 9th grade pop concert was entirely forgettable.  We did some medley of oldish 60's and 70's music.  I can remember a few of them (unfortunately), but the one that always gets stuck in my mind is this one:

You can see that the costume budget went way down in 9th grade as well.


10th Grade:  Last Minute Disney

My sophomore year pop concert is a bit of a blur for me.  This is mainly because I didn't have to learn any of the choreography or lyrics.  Why?  I was playing the piano through the entire thing.  I'm pretty sure I did a crappy job of it too.  What I do remember is that when the time came to start preparing for the pop concert, our director didn't seem to have any idea what he wanted us to do.  We happened to have a Disney medley that we had played around with before, so we decided to tune it up and wing it.  This is definitely a concert that I would pay NOT to have to see on video.

This is from an obscure Disney song.  We were not dealing with modern stuff here, to be sure.

11th Grade:  Great Expectations

My junior year in choir was definitely my favorite overall.  We had a large and talented group (largely thanks to the senior class) and I was always proud to perform.  With this much promise, I had high hopes that our director would choose a really good set of music for our pop concert that would showcase our vocal abilities and maybe let us have a little fun.

For some reason, my director opted to sift through the old and obscure 60's and 70's era music in our files and pulled out some bizarre and somewhat "blah" choices.  I think one was from the musical Godspell.  The other one which was supposed to be "upbeat" was one no one had ever heard of before.  The only good thing about this concert was that we got to dress up in authentic 60's and 70's garb.

I KNOW there is a picture of me in this outfit somewhere.  If I ever find it, I'll add it here.  My dress was SWEET.

12th Grade:  Finishing On a Lame Note

This was my final year of high school.  By this point, I had learned not to have any expectations for the pop concert, and therefore I can say that I was not disappointed.  We didn't even get cool clothes this time around - just monochrome t-shirts and jeans.  Although we did get to "lounge" on the risers for our song from the musical Rent so that we could appear more casual and slacker-like.

Now that I am looking at the evidence, it appears that my pop concert experiences may have had a downward trend.  If the peak occurred in 7th with the technicolored ponchos, I'm not sure I can identify much with the plot of Glee in any given episode.  We certainly never got to sing Journey songs.  Or Young MC.  Honestly, I do think that our concerts would have been a lot more entertaining if we could have used "Bust a Move" instead of "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah."

Bad Hair Days

When faced with the soul-numbing task that is my weekly reading assignment for Management Class, I must find a release that brings me back to reality. I don't plan to wax poetic on the ridiculousness of too much management/leadership lingo, so don't worry.

However, if you were hoping for my much-hyped multi-picture blog that I've been working on for over a week, I must disappoint you yet again. Take heart, dear reader. I am tentatively planning to spend some time at MY home over the weekend, and in between study breaks I may be able to finally get the job done.

At some point in my day, I was reminded of a time in my life that perhaps is better left forgotten. Unfortunately, I've already delved into that era more than once already, so I really can't ignore it any more.

Yes, I am referring to that magical and idiotic time known as my freshman year of high school. As you should be well aware by now, I was a bit boy-crazy in that year. In addition to several other ridiculous schemes and antics that I engaged in (with my friends) as a response to these out-of-control hormones of puberty (that I shall likely relate to you later), I made a very odd and uncharacteristic choice to become a manager of the varsity track team.

First of all, let's back up and have an explanation. My very good friend, Liza, was a well-established distance runner on both the varsity cross-country and track teams by the time she was in 7th grade. By 9th grade, she was quite familiar with the practice patterns of both teams. She was also quite familiar with the roster.

It just so happened that a high percentage of our adored senior boys were on the track team in the spring of our freshman year. We were all quite jealous of Liza that she would be able to spend nearly every day after school in close proximity to these boys and possibly even (gasp) speaking to them.

I believe I have mentioned before that my friend Liza is very intelligent. In this case she was a genius. In what was probably both an attempt to spread the joy of hot guys in running shorts and a way to have her friends close-by to talk about said guys, she suggested that I, along with two of our friends, volunteer to be track team managers.

If I remember correctly, I had moments of doubt about my skills to manage anything. In addition, I knew next to nothing about what a track manager would do, and I pretty much knew next to nothing about what track and field events really were.

Despite our collective ignorance, we actually were able to pick up on our duties quite quickly and I would like to say (from my foggy memory) that we did an OK job overall.

Now that I have given you the back story, I have to come to the point of this entry: hair dye.

There was a girl on the track team who was a freshman, like us. She was new to the school as she had recently transferred from a smaller district nearby. I think her parents thought that a Willmar education would improve her chances for the Ivy League. On a completely unrelated note, she was transferred to a boarding school on the East Coast after sophomore year. So much for that plan.

To come to the point, this girl was a bit "spoiled" to put it mildly. She always had the newest and most fashionable things that her parents bought her from Minneapolis. Ooh la la indeed. One of these unique items that she brought to the school was real permanent color hair dye. I'm not talking about Loreal or Clairol. This was professional-grade, from a jar solid color dye in bright pink, green, red, orange, etc.

For the most part, these colors only appeared during spirit weeks such as Homecoming and Snow Week, when one day was fully devoted to "Weird Hair Day." She really took it to a new level with the permanence of her color as it stayed with her far beyond the end of the week (or month, for that matter). I was always a bit intrigued by her bravery, and although I often imagined what I would look like with purple hair, I never took the leap.

At the end of the track season, the team was preparing to go to the regional meet. There were several team members who were quite promising, and there was just a teeny tiny chance that they could advance to the state championships. We were all fired up and ready to go as we rode the bus into a high school that I cannot now remember.

Prior to this trip, the big point of discussion was that as a show of school spirit, various members of the team were going to let the hair-dye girl paint their hair red. (My school colors included this color as a main feature.)

Ever the prudent child, I asked the permission of my mother to participate in this plan. Not surprisingly, her answer was an emphatic "NO." My friend Liza took a different approach by simply not telling her mother anything about the plan and thereby avoiding the denial of permission.

I should add here that neither Liza nor myself intended to dye our entire head of hair. At most, we wanted to just add a small streak. We weren't that daring, after all.

However, once we got on the team bus to travel to the regional meet, my fear of motherly disapproval began to waver under the seemingly logical persuasion of peer pressure. As I watched my fellow track managers and Liza get their streak on, I made one of my only bold and defiant moves as a 15-year old and decided to defy my mother.

Although I decided to break the rules, I was not stupid enough to do so blatantly. With my hair in a ponytail, a small amount of hair always escaped at the back on my neck as the length was overall somewhat short. When my hair was down, this section of hair was completely hidden by the top layers. I decided to have this small amount dyed as it would stand the best chance of avoiding detection.

I spent the rest of the day feeling like a real rebel and trying to block out the fact that my mom was definitely going to find out and that I would likely have to face severe punishment.

The day passed in a blur, and I cannot even remember my initial arrival at home. I do remember the next morning. I was preparing to take a shower, but was somewhat unsure of the protocol for washing newly dyed hair. As I was pondering this problem, my mother happened to check in on me and discovered my disobedience.

Here is where the story gets a little weird. I had been expecting some anger and probably some punishment, but I actually think that my mom found it a little bit humorous. She told me to just get in and wash my hair. Strangely enough, it washed out almost completely, leaving me with a slightly pinkish tint to the bottom layer of my hair. Within a week it was completely gone, and oddly, I received no punishment.

Now that I look back at this event with older eyes, I can see why my mom did not react as forcefully as anticipated. First, I had not dyed my whole head. Second, I really did not ever get in trouble for anything, because I just didn't know how. Third, I had done it as part of a school-sponsored group event.

Really, how much more lame could I be?

Footwear Musings

So here is an interesting story. This past weekend, I braved the Mall of America, a.k.a. the Hellmouth, to meet up with some of my lovely friends for lunch and light shopping. This location was chosen mainly based on the fact that it is air conditioned and the outdoor temperature and humidity were beyond our tolerability index.

After a very good lunch at our “usual” restaurant (we’ve been going to it since high school), we decided to brave the crowds and tour some shops. One of our first stops was a shoe store. I know, it is cliché, girls like shoes, whatever. While I do enjoy shoe shopping, I generally only engage in the activity when I have a specific purpose in mind. For example, when I was asked to be in my best friend’s wedding last year I initiated a search for a pair of dressy yet comfortable heels. Mission accomplished.

At present, my shoe needs are pretty minimal. I have sturdy and reliable enough summer shoes to get me through the last couple of warm months left, and I still have my basic black and brown mules and clogs to get me through the winter. I may perhaps need to invest in a new pair of winter boots, but I prefer not to think about that right now.

With this in mind, I entered the shoe store. I was not looking for anything, and more importantly I did not NEED anything. This might seem like the ideal situation for not spending money, but sadly, it is often the opposite. I mindlessly wandered through the aisles, glancing here and there at everything from the conservative to the risqué fashions of feminine footwear.

I was just about ready to seek out my friends and move on, when I spotted an interesting specimen. For the record, I am not typically a stiletto/ultra high-heel kind of gal. Sure, I like to wear shoes with some height, but I also need to hold my balance. In my overall experience, high heels can only be worn on special occasions that do not require me to be on my feet for more than five minutes at a time. I realize that high heels are fun, sexy and can be a real attention-getter, but it’s really not worth having my feet go completely numb.

However, every once in a while my logic brain misfires. My eye is captivated by some novelty piece of apparel, and I simply must have it. It does not help when my friends catch me trying on said piece of apparel and offer highly positive feedback. Happily, I do not share the footwear propensity of Carrie Bradshaw, so my options are far lower in price than her $400-500 range.

My temporary insanity combined with my friends’ encouragement along with the excellent price point pushed me past the point of no return. I bought the shoes. Oddly, I experienced no buyer’s remorse over my purchase. I have never owned a pair of zebra-print shoes before, and I likely never will again. When I arrived at my parents’ house with my purchase, my mother was anxious to see what I found. Like my friends, my mother was suitably impressed with not only the print but the height of the heels.

I have now owned the shoes for two days, and I decided this morning that today I would try them out in the workplace. As I dashed out of the house, I paused to grab a pair of flip flop sandals just in case driving proved perilous in my new heels. It turns out that this was a wise decision, not only for driving, but for some of the running around I have to do in the morning at work as we prepare for the day.

Only time will tell if this was indeed a wise or frivolous purchase. Actually, I can already predict that it will be a little bit of both. It is wise because I really need to improve my wardrobe and make my look a bit more noticeable. It is frivolous because the shoes are purely for aesthetic enjoyment and offer no arch support whatsoever. I guess it is just a sacrifice for the sake of fashion.

Underage Consumption: Epic Fail

If you’ve been reading my entries thus far, you may recall my story of teenage hottie overload in my early high school years. You should also know of my brush with the law from my bike cop arrest story. It’s very strange, but as I think back on my life to the craziest and strangest stories, this era remains the richest resource of all. So I have decided to mine the crap out of this resource and put the resulting pieces of nostalgic comic gold here in this blog. For free. You’re welcome.

In case you didn’t know, I was a pretty well-behaved kid. For clarification, by “well-behaved” I mean that I was law abiding (except for bike laws) insofar as the big things were concerned. As I am the oldest child in my family and the only girl, my parents were perhaps a bit more cautious and strict than was necessary, but I rarely rebelled. Had I known what my brothers were to get away with in the coming years, I might have pushed a little harder on the rules. But knowing my personality, I can’t say for sure that I would have.

By no means do I wish to claim that I was a perfect angel to deal with in my teenage years (or any years for that matter). My parents and brothers could certainly tell stories of my bratty angst-riddled outbursts and occasional lack of logic or compassion. However, aside from my hormone-driven home dramas, I appeared to society to be a “good girl.”

Lucky for me, most of my close friends were just like me. We were all good students, participated in extra-curricular activities, followed curfew and returned library books on time. We were, of course, completely oblivious to any illegal activities going on around us, such as drinking, smoking, kissing and drugs. It actually was not until years out of high school when I learned just HOW oblivious we were. But that’s not the point here.

Let’s just say that had we showed up at any of the underground underage drinking parties, our classmates would have gone into shock. Even though we were not a part of the party scene for most of high school, we all knew that it was there. I think we even were mildly fascinated by it and a little curious about it.

The city of Willmar is not large, and in many ways was a very traditional American place. Parents in the community were aware of the teenage party “issue” and came up with what they considered to be “creative” ways to combat this problem. One way was to provide school sponsored parties as an alternative.

In Minnesota, particularly in more rural areas such as Willmar, peak party season is at the end of the school year and branches into summer. It’s likely due to the coinciding factors of impending freedom from summer break and the warmer weather that opens up a greater number of hidden party venues unavailable when the land is covered by several feet of snow and ice. Plus, the last week of school is always a slack time.

Obviously, the last day of school combined with graduation is cause for celebration. I believe it was common for high school students, especially graduating seniors to have big blow-out parties around this time, usually with alcohol. I can’t say for sure, because I never attended one of these gatherings, but I’ve heard plenty of stories over the years. Actually, I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss much since they seem to devolve into fights, name-calling and bad memories, but whatever.

At the end of my freshman year of high school, the school announced that they would be hosting a party at the football field to celebrate the end of the year. There would be refreshments and it would be a chance to mingle with people before you said your summer good-byes. For us, it would be our last chance to see our favorite hot seniors in one place forever.

As I recall, we were all super psyched about this party. It was being held in town at the football field, and my friend Jill’s house was the closest location to hang out before the action started. For some reason, Jill’s parents were not home during our pre-party gathering. Obviously, given the fact that we were 15 years old and were well-established rule abiders, I’m sure they weren’t too worried.

We sat around in Jill’s kitchen just chatting. I’m not sure what we were discussing, but I’m sure it had something to do with boys. Now, I’m not entirely positive about how our conversation turned to the subject of alcohol, nor do I know how it was brought up that Jill’s parents had wine coolers in the basement, but somehow this all happened. It’s possible that there was a dare somewhere in here, but I’m not sure if I could say this for a fact.

All I do know is that Jill went and brought up one of the wine coolers from the basement. My friend Liza and I were apparently the bravest and most rebellious members of our group (later to be proven true by our bike offense incarceration), because we each took one sip from the bottle.

I wish I could describe the sense of excitement, fear and adrenaline that was in the air as this happened, but I cannot. It was crazy. After our two sips, we started to freak out a little bit. After all, we had just participated in underage drinking! As we had no intention of consuming the entire bottle and none of our friends wanted to try it, we were faced with the dilemma of hiding the evidence. We could have just dumped out the rest of the wine cooler and threw away/hid the bottle. But then her parents might notice that they only had five left instead of six.

Our brilliant solution was to add a little water to the bottle and attempt to re-attach the lid. We put the bottle back and took off for the party. I remember sitting in the grass with my friends, feeling that I was pretty freaking awesome and that Liza and I had just been established as the most bad-ass members of our group. (Of course, I wouldn’t have used the phrase “bad-ass” back then because it is a swear word.)

I think I even went so far as to say that I thought I felt “a little woozy.” Of course, I also said this phrase to my mother after having my thimble of first communion wine in 5th grade, so I obviously knew what I was talking about.

For about a week, I kept expecting my parents to get a call from Jill’s mom or dad telling them that I was a delinquent, but nothing happened. In fact, nothing EVER happened. It has simply become a story that occasionally comes up between me and my friends as an example of how completely and ridiculously naïve we were about everything.

The whole story is even more stupid because it involved a wine cooler. I realize that to someone who is unaccustomed to the taste of alcoholic beverages that a wine cooler holds great appeal, as does Boone’s Farm “wine.” However, now that I am completely of legal drinking age and can afford to be more discerning about my beverage choices, I NEVER have picked up a pack of strawberry flavored wine coolers. Despite the fact that my friends are still fans of fruity “foo-foo” drinks themselves, they shockingly do not purchase them either.

After this brief venture into underage consumption, I can safely say that I never drank again in high school. Am I proud of this fact? Sure. Did I have to fight off a lot of temptation? Not really. So I guess I didn’t overcome any great odds or withstand a ton of peer pressure to abstain, and I therefore do not know if I deserve any congratulations for this accomplishment. Perhaps it will lose me my nomination for “Biggest Square” of the Class of ’98, but it certainly will not qualify me for the title of “Most Bad-Ass” either. I guess you can’t have everything.