Wonder Years.

Ladies and Gentleman, The Wonder Years:


Narrator: Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place, a town, a house like a lot of other houses, a yard like a lot of other yards, on a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back, with wonder.


Narrator: If there’s one thing every kid learns growing up, it’s that life is a series of risks. It’s a cause and effect relationship. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Still, with the proper guidance we learn to deal with the risks. Pretty soon we set out into the world, sure in our options, confident in our choices.

Narrator: At some point in your teenage years, if you're lucky, you make a discovery. You find out you're actually good at something. It's that critical juncture, where talent becomes...expertise - kinda. It's your chance to start or, end up flat on your face.


(HOW DO YOU WRITE SOMETHING THAT GOOD, WONDER YEARS NARRATOR?)

i love the wonder years. hearts hearts hearts Kevin & Winnie hearts hearts hearts. I love how it paints the picture of growing perfectly and it brings me back to my wonder years. When I was still cute and not awkward yet, and running around blonde with a koolaid mustache and a sundress. So full of energy that I can’t get words out fast enough (AND I stuttered so that's just cruel) full of ideas and imagination. Back in those wonder years there was plenty of ‘you can grow up and be whatever you want to be’. With the exception of public speaking on account of the afore mentioned stutter. I also eventually discovered I was terrible anything having to do with math, I’m pretty afraid of heights/high speeds/uncontrollable forces of nature. So eliminated candidacy for president, tornado chaser, professional skydiver, and high school algebra teach from my list of possible careers. But there was still big world out there and Kevin Arnold and I were going to explore it. Maybe I could grow up and be a high school English teacher and teach Maya Angelou and Mary Oliver and Salinger.Or I could open up a bookstore downtown Knoxville and be bid-ness woman. Or join the peace-corp. Or I could move back into the hostel I lived in in England and drink cider at the Free Press pub. I could be a book critic or figure out some other way to get someone to pay me to read. Or maybe I want to buy Manhattans. And really, I really wouldn’t hate being in college for a long time and learning a little bit about everything. Psychology, Women’s studies, every single language, Music, Underwater basket weaving, Anything but Math. sick. It's like a good ole fashion after church buffet. And i intend to eat it. All.




That’s me.

So really, you can go to 2 colleges, declare 2 majors, take 5 years for undergrad and ton of classes that you don’t need but after all that, at some point, another critical, important, expensive point, one must decide on something. The little girl with the sundress and the imagination must meet the adult(ish) girl with reality: public enemy #1. REALITY. sick. Pick a plate at the buffet of life that is vocation selection. What would make more sense than going back to school (cue Adam Sandler, back to school, back to schoool ...). So. Grad school. MSSW, 2012. It would appear my on again/off again love/hate relationship with school is on again. A lot of staring out of windows of coffee shops with open books in front of me and conducting life at business end of a highlighter. In these first couple of months, here are some things that I have found that have quelled the boredom and dulled the pain, in no particular order:

Coffee shops: Less than 3 them (Read the previous blog, people. This stuff BUILDS on each other. Like LOST). So I heart coffee shops. If coffee shops were bars and iced coffee with sugar free vanilla was something alcoholic, I would have a sho ‘nuff problem. Golden Roast is like my cheers. I order that same drink every. single. time. To the point that one of the baristas saw me at counter, looked at me, and made the drink. I have arrived. So I like having places, having people at those places, and drinks I order and specific tables and even seats at those tables. These routine things comfort me and my brain agrees to work. (OCD people, pass it on. Making it work for me since 1986.)



wikipedia. Somewhere in undergrad basically well meaning (but basically incorrect) professors gave me the idea that wikipedia is somehow not substantiated by “facts” and therefor unreliable. This is false. Totally erroneous. Wikipedia is full of information that is very helpful to me. It actually belongs on JSTOR. Seriously, it practically saves me. On the daily. It is the Gayle to my Oprah. The trucker hat to my kid rock CD. The scarf to my hipster jeans. (I don’t have a Kid Rock CD or hipster jeans. But i do love Oprah. Hard. DON’T HATE.) Chalk one up for wikipedia and the GP (general public) with their effortful collaboration of knowledge.



Bed: She’s a beauty. A Maple sleigh bed with deep crimson sheets and a ton of blankets. When I moved back from MTSU to Knoxville, I discovered wonderful and crumby pleasure of ending the day eating cereal and reading in bed. Just cereal (delicious), no Milk (digestion. I am FOR IT. Milk is a bad, bad choice). I remember one summer reading East of Eden every night by flashlight and eating Special K with Strawberries. (The flashlight was not to create an ambiance with Steinbeck, it was, in fact, because I was too lazy to get out of bed to turn the light off). Crawling into bed with my little baggie is what my girl Sarah Jessica Parker via her girl Carrie Bradshaw calls a “Secret Single Behavior”. It successfully combines 3 of my favorite things: bed, books and carbohydrates. for the win. Now i have to spoon with my APA stylebook. For the fail. These days I crawl in at night and I start to whisper my sweet nothings: I love you bed. I am gonna sleep on you SO HARD tonight. (whisper:) so hard, so hard. Bed: not having it. “You smell like caffeine. Woof.” Hell knoweth no fury like thread count scorned.



Remedy Coffee. I guarantee that I like my job more than you like your job in a my dad can beat up your dad kind of way. Work is my joy. For the downtown-ness and big windows and good coffee and regulars and strangers and friends and musicians and music. Beautiful people come in and out of there all the time. I’m serious. And I get to sit on a stool behind a very, very slow register and meet them. “Small or large?”, “for here or to go?”, “ tell me your name?” “Blended coffee, it’s like a frappaccino”, “iced or hot?”, “Do you need cream?”, “Remind me of your name?”, “Bathroom key’s on the wall, bring it back.” (seriously, bring it back), “Sugar on the table. Do you need cream?” “Music at 8, close at ten”, “I’m sorry, tell me your name again”. “um, your bathrooms are locked. yeah, the key. it’s on the wall.”. “How long have you guys been here?”, “ohhhhh this is soooo niiice!I love this place!”....me too. I love it too. and I do. a lot. a lot. and I’m thankful thankful for it. 125 W Jackson, Avail yourself, people.



TV: This was recent rediscovery. Short lived. I don’t watch TV much, just a little Today show, just enough to thin the blood and to give a good morning to my main man Matt Lauer. Don’t watch the rest of the day because Matt and Al and Ann and Willard Scott (less than 3) aren’t going to be on be it. But recently while housesitting at my dear old dad’s I was taking a swim in his king size bed and flipped on the TV at night. And I mean. Come on people. Have you all been aware of nighttime television programming this the whole time? Honestly. Jerseylicious. Hoarders. Sister wives. (SISTER WIVES?!). Now given, on a very basic level, all of this rampant social dysfunction is good job security for social work but still makes me concerned that these are same members of the GP contributing to wikipedia and polluting my virtual well of intellectual and academic knowledge. UNCOOL.
And now to totally contradict what I just wrote about not watching television, Go Bravos. You got this.


What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me? Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song, I will try not to sing out of key. Wonder Years Theme