The Crush Factor

Since most days I act a sixth grader, it’s probably not a huge shock to find out that I engage in that all too common middle school rite – the crush.  While most of my peers are busy meeting potential life mates and forming actual adult relationships, I’m still hanging on the monkey bars giggling about my crush o’ the moment.  I am so mature.

I had my very first crush in the second grade.  His name was Greg Tarlo and he was the cutest boy in Room 6.  It never went anywhere because, well, we were seven and do you honestly think I told him that I had a crush on him?! 

My next serious crush was, of course, Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Love.  And we already know that 1) I was to shy to ask him to a dance and 2) I still giggle like a nervous schoolgirl around him. 

Then there were the crushes on all the guys I worked with at the supermarket, including Muffin Boy, the Utz guy, the meat guy, the bakery guy, the frozen food guy.  But I never, ever had a crush on any of the deli guys.  I mean, who wants to crush on a guy who cuts the cheese? 

(Seriously, if you did not laugh at that one, you have no soul.)

Ahh, let me tell you about Muffin Boy.  Tall, dark, and handsome, I saw him every morning when he helped deliver Thomas English muffins to our store.  That crush was borderline - actually, I guess technically not borderline – illegal.  I was the older woman, 21, to his 15 going on 16.  For the record, I did NOT know he was 15 going on 16.  He was very tall and mature for his age.  As soon as I found out he was 16 (um, on the day that I gave him a birthday card - can you say, Denise is a dork?  'cause I did.) and that he was helping his dad deliver muffins, I stopped my crushing.  I still can’t look at Thomas English muffins without blushing just a tad.    

There have been other crushes here and there over the years.  And there have been a few threats of bodily harm to friends if they, God forbid, actually reveal my crushes.  (Did the bell ring for fourth period, yet?) 

But today, an idea – so far-fetched, so ludicrous, so ridiculous – was suggested to me that made me laugh in disbelief before I quickly disagreed.  What if, what if rather than being the crusher, I was the crushee?  Well, doesn’t that just spin the Earth off its axis?  I don’t think I’ve ever conceived the notion of someone actually having a crush on me, of all people!  Is it possible that I have a crushability quotient?

Not that I’m going to find out…because, OMG, that would be sooo mature embarrassing!  {giggle, giggle}   

Lazy Sundays

I have a confession to make.  I spend an inordinate amount of time doing nothing.  Like, absolutely nothing.  There are entire weekends when I don’t do anything productive or worthwhile.  Aside from feeding my cats and doing other minor household chores, I really don’t do anything on the weekends.  I think, well, I think I’m an incredibly lazy person.  It’s odd, I’m not a lazy person at work.  I actually think I’m a pretty hard worker.  But it’s my down time – that time when I’m not at the office, when it’s just me and the cats, that I think, oh my God, I’m lazy.    

There are a hundred million things that I should do.  I have household projects that I really could tackle by myself but I don’t.  There is a bedroom in my house that still needs a second coat of paint – a year after the first coat went on.  I have electrical outlets and switches to replace – which, you might be surprised to learn, I actually know how to do.  I have a curtain rod that is sitting in my basement that I really should put up because I’ve had it for two years and the window kinda needs curtains.  A year after starting on a bathroom demo, it’s still in the same shape I left it on the day that I took a break.  I have pictures to hang and a desk to organize and a refrigerator to clean and yet, weekend after weekend I find myself not doing any of it.

It’s Sunday and I’m doing what I always do on Sunday.  Being lazy.

I think, deep down, there is something wrong with me.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

I’m taking a chance here, dear readers, but for you, it’s worth it.  I’m pretty sure that after reading this post, my mother will call me to remind me “you know what you need to do.”  And I will grudgingly sigh, roll my eyes, and say “I know,” and then ignore her advice.  Of course, I know what I should do.  Doing it is an altogether different matter, however.  Oh well, here goes.

You guys know I’m hearing impaired – by the way, I just found out this is politically incorrect!  But it’s okay if I say it.  Just don’t you say it.  Anyway, I’ve never considered it to be a disability although according to this Q&A paper about hearing impairments and the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), I’m pretty sure I’m Example 2:

If an individual uses mitigating measures, such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, or other devices that actually improve hearing, these measures must be considered in determining whether the individual has a disability under the ADA. Even someone who uses a mitigating measure may have a disability if the measure does not correct the condition completely and substantial limitations remain, or if the mitigating measure itself imposes substantial limitations.

Example 2: An individual with a hearing impairment uses a hearing aid to amplify sounds. With the hearing aid, he can detect sounds such as traffic, sirens, and loud conversations at a very low level. For this reason, he must be in close proximity to the origin of sound in order to hear in a meaningful way. This individual is substantially limited in hearing even with the mitigating measure (i.e., the hearing aid).

Granted, this paper was written in 2006 so maybe things have changed.  I’m too lazy to find out if there’s anything more recent on the subject. 

While I’ve never considered myself to be an American with a disability, I am grateful for the ADA and its impact on my life.  And not just because of all those ramps that businesses had to put in.  No, my ADA victory came in the form of volume controls on public pay phones.  (My mom’s Norma Rae moment – making my high school install volume controlled pay phones!)  Of course, when’s the last time anyone used a pay phone?  But it’s nice to know that I could if I needed – or wanted – to.

So, I don’t consider myself as having a disability.  More like an inability.  I’m unable to hear – without mitigating measures, of course – just like I’m unable to smell or unable to use chopsticks.  Generally, I do pretty well.  Or at least I think I do pretty well.  Maybe I just hang out with loud people.  Or they’re all speaking loudly because I’m there.  Oh gosh, that would be embarrassing!

Sometimes I don’t hear everything and I’ll try to make sense of it in my head – like when I might not hear all the parts of the story about how hard it is to get your kid to nap and in my head I’m wondering who got kidnapped and why you're even at work if your kid was kidnapped.  It just gets all scrambled up and I realize the conversation quickly veered off track somewhere along the line, well, along my line at least.  Usually I think, gosh, they must think I’m a total space cadet. 

Overall, I compensate well.  At least that’s what my mom always used to say.  I work a little harder.  I focus a little more.  And while I only fall back on it in dire circumstances – like when my hearing aid battery dies mid-conversation – I’m a fairly good lip reader.   

I’m also a strategic positioner.  I know where to sit in meetings or at lunch to make sure I’ll be able to hear.  I know who has to be on my right, who can be on my left, and who really should be directly in front of me so I can read their lips.  It’s a pretty good strategy except when I forget who the lefties are.  Walking down the hallway, it’s best if people are on my right side.  I’ll usually maneuver myself so that I’m on the left and my good friends usually drift to the right – without any comment or awkwardness or shouts of "get on the deaf girl's right!".  It’s not something codified in the ADA…it’s just something they do because they’re kind, caring people.  Or they don't want to have to repeat themselves.  

Is it embarrassing when I don’t hear something?  Occasionally.  Is it frustrating being hearing impaired?  At times.  Is it frustrating for my friends and family?  I imagine - and worry - that it is. 

Do I wish I could hear like everyone else?  Yes. 

But then I wouldn’t get to turn everyone off.  And that's not such a bad ability.         

The story of my life.
(I'm not sure how to give credit - I found this on Pintrest.
I'm assuming it's from itotallyrelate.tumblr.com.)

Changing Seasons

It is a quirk of my home that the floor in my bedroom is ceramic tile.  Certainly more fitting in a house built in the tropics than my little oasis in Maryland suburbia.  On summer mornings, it’s a treat to pad across the cool tile in bare feet as I prepare for the day ahead.  But as the leaves turn and then drift to the ground, as the days get shorter, and as the temperatures start to fall, I dread those first steps out of bed in the morning.  My feet hit the cold tiles, chill me to my core, and I am sadly reminded that winter is coming. 

Have I ever told you how much I dislike winter?  Not the magical parts, of course.  Just the parts when I always seem to be freezing. 

I think it might be time to break out the cardigans.   

An Eggsellent Evening

It’s 10:20 and I just got home so this is going to be a quick post – nothing substantive, basically a Facebook status update on steroids.  Gosh, it’s gonna be a long month!

My day in an eggshell – work, flu shot, chicken pot pie for lunch, rave reviews on a new dress that I wore, a margarita and dinner with TopChef before we went to a cooking class with Chef Egg, stuck in traffic on the way home. 

Did you really think I could write about an evening with a guy named Chef Egg without using egg puns?!  They’re just so (over) easy!  And they make me crack up.    

Chef Egg’s a very cool guy who teaches people how to cook while wearing a sparkly baseball cap (or is a baseball hat?  What’s the difference?  My coworker and I actually engaged in a debate about this the other day!)  Anyway, Chef Egg is very skilled, funny, and pocket-sized cute.  He made ginger chicken, some kind of salsa, and rice with beans in it.  It was good – although I picked out the beans.  Surprisingly, there were actually no eggs cooked tonight!  I’m going to write more about him after I check out his website and try out some of his tips for a little dinner party I’m throwing this month.

Now, I’m going to have a small piece of chocolate cake before I go to bed!       

Post 3 posted with an hour and a half to spare!  Whew! 

Biting Off More than I Can Write?

November’s NaNoWriMo.  I’m all over that.  Imagine my surprise when I logged into Facebook this morning and saw a post from my friend TopChef about NaBloPoMo.  November’s also National Blog Posting Month!  30 posts in 30 days!  All in an effort to improve one’s writing, grow one’s blog, and maybe win a prize or two.  Any mention of prizes and I'm in!    

Now, I’m not the most disciplined of bloggers.  I mean my high point was in August when I managed to write 16 posts (what was going on in August?)  Let’s not even talk about October when this blog almost disappeared.  Sometimes, I just don’t have anything interesting to write about – I mean do you want to read about my commute back and forth to work every day and the eight-ish hours in between?  I didn’t think so.  And you certainly don’t want to hear my rants, like the one I almost posted last week about finding corrugated cardboard in a neighbor’s trash can on garbage day.  It’s two-thousand-eleven!  You should be putting your corrugated cardboard in the RECYCLING bin.  Doesn’t anyone care about our landfills anymore?  Okay, back on point…

I’m going to try really, really hard to post for 30 straight days.  I’m not sure I’ll have a lot to write about but I’ll do my best.  I can always fall back on the writing prompts on the NaBloPoMo website if I get really desperate.  Or I might just post random pictures of the kittens (they really are cute!)  Hey, it’s National Blog Posting Month….not National Blog Writing Month!   

So, it looks like I’ll be doing a lot of writing this November.  I’ll let you know how my fingertips are doing on December 1^st!

A Not So Novel Idea

I wrote my first book when I was in third grade – a biography about Abraham Lincoln.  It wasn’t for school or anything; I was just really into Lincoln and wanted to add my two cents to the historical record.  I typed it up on my manual typewriter – an ugly green hulk of a thing that I hated at the time but wish I still had – and took it to school to show my teacher.  I was so proud.  She told me it was a bit short.  A future Doris Kearns Goodwin, I was not. 

I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since I learned to read.  I’ve always had grand dreams of becoming a great novelist or at least a half-way decent mass paperback author.  But aside from a short stint writing for my college newspaper – we parted ways due to literary differences – most of my writing was private.  Password protected and not to be revealed to actual readers.

There was the next Great American Novel that turned out not to be that great.  One night, I decided I hated it so much, I deleted all 700 pages.  700 pages!  What was I thinking?! 

There’s the historical fiction book that I’ve started and stopped a hundred times but continue to research just in case I ever do decide to finish it one day.  Okay, it’s really just my excuse to collect family trees of European royalty.

There’s the mystery story that I started a few months ago that I can’t seem to figure out how to solve. 

Then there was my foray into romance – writing, not an actual romance, of course.  As someone once said to me – you, writing romance?  What do you know about romance?  Point taken.  I don’t know anything about romance.  And I certainly don’t know about those parts that really make romance books sell.

Of course, there was my autobiography – hey, former superstar QVC host Kathy Levine wrote an autobiography!  Why can't I?! 

For every story that I’ve written though, there are ten more unwritten.  Sometimes, I think I might be schizophrenic with all the characters chattering away in my head.  At least I’m never alone with my thoughts!

Recently, my friend Nebraska Outback – a fellow Deadliest Catch fan, fellow blogger, and proud Nebraskan – encouraged me to do NaNoWriMo.  A quick Google search indicated that NaNoWriMo wasn’t some sort of babbling nonsense but actually a pretty cool event – National Novel Writing Month, an annual event during November when writers…write.  The goal – write a novel in a month.  50,000 words in 30 days.  Possible?  Entirely.  Especially if you have a good story to tell.

All my stories?  They weren’t good.  It’s easy to delete a 700 page manuscript when you know it’s crap.  For the most part, what I’ve written has been crap.  I was trying to write stories about things that I didn’t don’t know about and because of that my stories were unbelievable - and not in the good way.  Worse than that, I didn’t believe in my stories…or in my ability to write. 

But this year, I’ve learned that when you write from the truest part of yourself, your words, your stories…they’re not only believable, they’re good.  And every once in the while, even funny.

There’s a lot that I don’t know about.  But there’s a lot I do know about.  Like good friends, strong families, loneliness, overcoming fears, good times, laughter…

The makings of a good story.  Maybe even a great novel.