Marching Band and Majorette's Does Not a Cool Girl Make...

Inky did a post on her blog about the quest for cool that she's been on most of her life. Unlike her, I realized early on that cool would allude me. Probably as early as sixth grade when I chose to be friends with Melissa Hibbert instead of ditching her to be part of Steffi Nunemaker and Sharon Douglas's "club".

Then I donned the majorette uniform in junior high. I always liked to think it made me closer to the cheerleaders. We were all about promoting school spirit right? Not exactly...not at all really. Then it was on to marching band in high school. As a ninth grader I thought the older kids were cool - especially the seniors. I honed my craft, hung out with kids a year older then me and because I had an older brother, got to go out after football games when my other freshmen friends had to go home. So to them I might have been cool for a short time. I suppose I never minded my larger level of uncoolness in high school because in my world my friendship circle were the cool girls.

College was more of the same for me. I had close friends and we touched on the edges of cool now and then but over all I was unremarkable. I'm sure not one professor on campus would have remembered me a year after graduation, hell probably not even one week after.

I've known all along to embrace my inner dork because that's truly who I am. I owned a unicycle for God's sake - no one cool does that.

On Taking Things Personally...

As most of you know Oprah is doing an online class on the book "A New Earth". This book and her class are to help us all to find our life's purpose. I have not read the book, nor do I take part in the online class. I do however have XM radio in my car so I listen to the Oprah and Friends channel from time to time. On a few occasions that means listening to encore airings of Oprah and Eckhart discussing various chapters in the book. Yesterday I caught just the tail end of things and it had something to do with giving up the notion of control.

Oprah and Eckhart were talking about how they didn't understand why people get upset when they are stuck in traffic. Since traffic is my Dante's inferno my ears perked up. Eckhart was saying that traffic isn't "personal" so why get upset. That the cars aren't sitting in front of you just to piss you off so we should all let it go, to not get angry and rail against something that is beyond our control. "But Eckhart I am the queen of railing against things I can't control" I said to the radio. So as a change of pace I'm going to try not taking things personally. Like when my daughter blows her 1000th raspberry of the day - soaking yet another item of clothing I'll let it go and know that she isn't trying to upset me, she's just a creature of habit. Or when a customer complains about the price of something I've quoted him. I will have it looked at by my boss to be sure we're offering the best price we can and then offer that to the customer. If its not good enough - it doesn't mean that I'm not good enough - just that the quote isn't and if they end up going somewhere else then so be it. As for being stuck in traffic - that's a tough one, but I'll try.

How Could I Be Anything Else...

Wow, You're a Poodle!

Poodle

The Star

Intelligence, style and good looks in one able-bodied, well-manicured package? But of course! You are a Poodle, and proud of it. You scoff in the general direction of passers-by who cast admiring (or is it amused?) glances your way, knowing doggone well that if your private jet were not waiting to whisk you off for a spa weekend getaway, you would handily paddle their hindquarters in a game of Trivial Pursuit. Blindfolded. You are well-educated and enjoy the finer things in life, but are not above taking an impromptu skinny dip in an old limestone quarry. It would, however, be soooo much more convenient if said quarry came with a towel boy and swim-up cocktail service, of course.

Or Him Either...

I Just Never Get Tired of Looking at Him....