The following is a play-by-play of a typical day in one of my senior year English electives, Print Media. As may become apparent very quickly, we did not respect this teacher at all, and even with sixteen years of perspective, I have to say that this guy was SERIOUSLY THE WORST. His identity is protected here by the nickname we had for him, Mack. Here goes:
1-20-98: OK -- funniest Print Media class EVER. Jasi and Larry, while wrestling, caused quite a commotion.
Just the fact that two students could EVEN BE WRESTLING in the middle of class tells you quite a lot about the dynamic with this teacher.
Larry cheated by resorting to tickling. Naturally Jasi was forced to fall to the ground, scraping her back on the chalk tray! Mack began inquiring, "Did she faint? Did she faint?"
Not, though, "Why the fuck were you wrestling in here?"
It seemed like an easy way out, so Jasi responded, "Yes. Yes I did." Mack kept asking, "What happened?" No one wanted to use the word "wrestling," so finally Jasi came up with an alternate story. She explained that she had tripped and fallen upon trying to "enter the closet." (In actuality, it's a cabinet. It contains shelves, and therefore it's virtually impossible to step inside.) She blamed her fall on the "loose wires" on the ground. (Actually there was only ONE wire, and she herself had knocked it to the ground while falling.) Mack insisted upon filing an "accident report."
First responsible and professional moment from Mack so far. But one that could also possibly incriminate him, right?
Jasi was like, "No! I'm fine." Actually, the "laceration" on her back was terrible looking (As Andria Jones put it -- "You look like you got electrocuted!") This whole incident sparked another: Pat wanted to trip over the garbage can and spill its contents.
My memory is a little hazy on this one, but I feel like that was a near-daily occurrence: Pat trying to trip over the garbage can to be funny. You can tell there was very, very little actual academic work happening. In fact, my senior year, we didn't produce a newspaper at all with the exception of a back to school issue in August and "The Knight Times: Senior Edition" at the very end of the year. We were supposed to have like one a month. Perhaps this diary entry sheds some light on why we did not. Anyway, we left off with Pat's attempt to purposefully trip over the garbage can:
Instead he ended up actually falling INTO it! Steph and I were dying. And the garbage can was in pretty sorry shape.
In the upper margin of this page, I drew Before and After pictures of the garbage can. In the Before picture, the garbage can opening is a perfect circle. In the After picture, it looks like the outline of an amoeba.
Mr. Mack was like, "THAT'S IT! EVERYBODY HAVE A SEAT!"
He should absolutely rip us a new one. We're being total dicks in his classroom.
We thought we were in trouble for sure. However, he merely wanted us to sit down because "apparently no one can walk around in here without falling!" He wondered, "Is there too much radon in here? Do you all have to urinate in a cup to make sure everyone's not on drugs?"
That's the thing I can't figure out about my high school experience. We never WERE on drugs, but we ALWAYS ACTED LIKE WE WERE. I have no idea what caused that or how it might have been exacerbated by actual drugs. I can't even imagine it.
Larry pointed out, "You'll have to file ANOTHER accident report!"
Oh, that Larry!
We found it to be incredibly interesting that Mack actually believed it to be a coincidence that TWO people fell in one period! Later Andria tripped on purpose on her way up to talk to him, and I knocked over a chair.
Jesus. We had NO IDEA when to stop. But, with no consequences LIKE EVER -- why stop?
Steph and I later designated the 20th of every month "Stumble / Injury Day."
That's another thing we were always doing in high school: making up weird holiday-like celebration days. And we completely REMEMBERED them and CELEBRATED them. This is why I didn't have time to do my math homework. I had so many holidays to keep track of, and I wasn't alone in this endeavor. My friends were just as fucking weird as I was. But I think they probably got more homework done than I did.
In retrospect -- especially from a teacher's perspective, now -- I really can't feel sorry for Mack. It was obvious then (and it's even more so now) that HE DID NOT GIVE A SHIT about teaching. He was some sort of amateur actor in local plays (I remember that, once, he played God), and he wasn't exactly secretive about the fact that he cared more about that than teaching. This account is actually kind of one of the CALMER days in Print Media -- I have a bunch of other journal entries about the picnics we would have in there, even when he expressly forbade us from having picnics. But that's a story for another time.
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Friday, June 27, 2014
My Fitness Enemy
These days, along with approximately 65 million others around the globe, I meticulously track my food, exercise, and water consumption on a handy little app called My Fitness Pal. Twenty-three years ago, though, the only app I was concerned about was my "appetite" -- that is, my pre-teen tendency to want to eat all the things.
In an earnest attempt to fight what I then clearly perceived as a terrifying slide into obesity (when, in reality, I didn't even weigh 100 pounds), I decided to write down every single thing I ate and every physical exercise I performed -- but in true early nineties Ashleigh style, there were no lists or bullet points: we're talking pure narrative, people. So here, with a horrifying blend of shame and amusement, I give you a day in the life of my dieting self circa 1991:
Monday, July 8
Well, I started my diet plan. First thing in the morning I was supposed to ride my bike 10 times UPHILL! (ouch!) But guess what? It rained. Also, I'd planned to ride around 8:00, when no one else was up, and then eat breakfast. I didn't wake up until 8:30.
Okay, so clearly I was not even awake at 8 a.m. to determine that the rain would put a damper (ha) on my bike-riding plans. I like, though, how I blame the rain here BEFORE acknowledging that, side note, I WAS STILL FREAKING SLEEPING.
Besides, I wasn't looking forward to breakfast. I had a choice of:
1/4 a bowl non-sweet cereal, dry
2 rasin BRAN muffins
1 blueberry muffin or Naner Nut (This is clearly supposed to be Banana Nut. Why the hell did I write it like that?)
I rye english muffin -- 1 side LIGHTLY buttered, other not
1 piece of toast, DRY
There are so many things wrong with the above list. I will now present them in list form:
1. What's up with the very liberal use of underlines? Are they supposed to represent grim determination / resentment? "BRAN and RYE, I mean it, now. I said LIGHTLY buttered, you asshat. And don't even try to butter both halves of that english muffin, and definitely don't capitalize the E, either."
2. This actually looks like a lot of choices. This is six choices. Why was I not looking forward to breakfast?!
3. Why am I allowed to have TWO "rasin BRAN" muffins but only one blueberry or Naner Nut? I fear I might have been placing far too much faith in the magic of bran.
4. Why is it okay to butter the "rye english muffin" but not the piece of DRY toast? I must have been assigning magical properties to rye as well as bran.
5. Why on earth can't the "1/4 bowl of non-sweet cereal" even have the dignity of a splash of milk? Who made this list of breakfast options -- Hitler?
Anyway. I go on:
See what I mean? YECCH. As it turned out, I ate 2 rasin bran muffins.
Still with the freaking underlining. Still misspelling raisin.
I got dressed then -- red shorts and top (red). Then I read a book. While I read, I did about 20 leg lifts for each leg (maybe more) and then did 5 lifts each where I hold my leg in place. It really hurts!
Hey, fool. If you are REALLY trying to be healthy and active, maybe PUT THE DAMN BOOK DOWN and go for a walk. Don't lie on the floor of your pink bedroom and lift your legs all over the place, for God's sake. What a waste of your awesome monochromatic red outfit.
Then lunch. I have a lot of choices here, but some of them I can only eat if Ido make lunch myself.
Huh?
I ate 4 lightly salted crackers and then a slice of cheese. (Mom didn't see what I ate.)
Because if she had, she might have said, "Hey, asshat. Eat some real food." And then she would have told me to put some more salt on those crackers, because if there is one condiment Marsha Steiner Fox defends with her whole heart, it is salt.
And also water.
Oh, good: you had some water, too. You effectively ate less than half of the lunch afforded to an inmate of a maximum-security prison. Well done, Fox.
After lunch I rode my bike. My thighs really hurt! By the time I put my bike away, my legs throbbed so much I could barely walk. Even so, I ran one lap around the house. I'm supposed to do 5 maybe 10, but after "1" I nearly "collapsed"!
What is going on with the use of quotation marks here? Did I only figuratively nearly collapse? I remember being a healthy, strong girl, but here is evidence that I almost "collapse" after running ONE FREAKING LAP around my house. (Maybe, though, that is because I legitimately thought FOUR SALTINES would fuel my body for a productive workout.)
Then I went inside, and practically inhaled 3high tall cups of water.
"No, no. They weren't high cups. They were TALL cups. Thank God I'm self-aware enough to edit this missive as I go, or my future self will be wholly unable to picture the height of the cups of water I inhaled."
Later, around 5:00, left for Grammy's! Dinner there was a problem. Grammy always has goodies. Dinner wasn't really a goodie; in fact, under normal circumstances, I might have turned up my nose at it.
I both love and hate that, by the end of fifth grade, I had mastered sentence patterns that I can now persuade hardly any tenth graders to embrace. I don't at all love and only hate the portrayal of myself here as an asshat who, under "normal circumstances," turns up her nose at her grandmother's homemade dinners.
But after my skimpy lunch, ANYTHING sounded good -- even green bean, potato, and ham stew, with Italian seasonings, which I topped off with 1/2 a piece of cake, large slice watermelon, & three cookies. I really, really shouldn't have, but I was so hungry!
That's . . . five desserts. FIVE. Yeah -- you shouldn't have.
Even after all that I was still hungry.
(WTF?)
So I ate some salad. (See? I did eat healthy stuff!) But the salad, at least I thought, was wilted. It was from last Thursday, and the lettuce was soggy, the tomatoes smushy, the cheese smelly, and the croutons soft. A regular "S" parade!!
Yes, you fucking weirdo. A regular "S" parade is EXACTLY what that rotting salad resembled. Good description.
So I pretended to eat it, but I was really spitting it out in my napkin.
Add "spit" to the "S" parade.
After dinner, Cam played Turtles (R) and I started a book, but I was bored. So I suggested a game of hide'n'seek.
I'm so glad you used the registered trademark after Turtles to describe what Cam played. In case the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle franchise ever reads this diary, you won't owe them any explanations or fines regarding inappropriate use of their product name. Also, though -- what the hell is "playing Turtles"? Is it a video game? Is he just . . . somehow playing all the parts? I wish, in my 1991 hastiness, I had not been quite so vague.
We played almost the whole time we were there. I ran a lot. I hope I ran off some of that fat. After that, Cam and I picked berries for Grammy. Our reward for doing that and helping her weed was . . . grape pop! I'm sure it had lots of calories. Oh, and at dinner we also had limeade. (High-calorie.) Anyway, I drank my whole can of pop, then 1/2 of Cam's. (He hates grape.)
Since the pop is clearly high in calories, make sure you drink ALL of yours AND half of your little brother's.
THEN I went in & drank some more limeade. And THEN (are you getting tired of then's?) Grammy gave us a bowl of puff'n'corn (like popcorn but softer).
My mother and I were just reminiscing about puff'n'corn on the phone the other day. Full circle, people.
Cam didn't like that too much either. So I ate most of it.
Are we detecting a pattern here, possibly?
Later I put cream on Grammy's feet and painted her toenails. (With clear polish.) Then Cam & I finished Grammy's popcorn, about 1/4 of a bowl.
I would pretty much bet my life on the fact that there is NO WAY IN HELL I would have washed my hands in between lathering up my grandmother's feet with Avon Skin So Soft and eating MORE popcorn with my bare hands. Good times.
Cam offered me a candy orange slice, but I turned that down.
DO YOU SEE THAT RESTRAINT, PEOPLE? I turned down that candy orange slice with NO PROBLEM. Maybe because I had just eaten a dinner, five desserts, and nine thousand calories of popcorn. But -- wait for it:
Then Cam & I went in the kitchen & ate 1 more cookie each.
Dear sweet Lord in heaven. ENOUGH WITH THE COOKIES, FOX.
By that time, it was 9:45. At 10:00 Mom came home. Then we all went home.
Once again, the use of the underlining is wholly unnecessary, bordering on misleading; it implies that Grammy came home with us, which I totally know she didn't. The use of "home" to describe both Grammy's house and our house is also confusing. Finally, where had Mom been until 10:00 p.m.? I cannot for the life of me imagine. Mom will have to consult her diary entry for July 8, 1991, and let me know. Thanks in advance, Mom.
I don't know what else to say about this day. This was a real day. I really did eat those things and write those things, apparently. Perhaps one day twenty-three years from now, when I'm fifty-seven, I'll access the My Fitness Pal records from June 27, 2014, and I'll scoff, "Apparently she had a light lunch and walked five miles at North Park with Jess Frieder, but then she ate a bunch of pizza and ice cream. Asshat."
In an earnest attempt to fight what I then clearly perceived as a terrifying slide into obesity (when, in reality, I didn't even weigh 100 pounds), I decided to write down every single thing I ate and every physical exercise I performed -- but in true early nineties Ashleigh style, there were no lists or bullet points: we're talking pure narrative, people. So here, with a horrifying blend of shame and amusement, I give you a day in the life of my dieting self circa 1991:
Monday, July 8
Well, I started my diet plan. First thing in the morning I was supposed to ride my bike 10 times UPHILL! (ouch!) But guess what? It rained. Also, I'd planned to ride around 8:00, when no one else was up, and then eat breakfast. I didn't wake up until 8:30.
Okay, so clearly I was not even awake at 8 a.m. to determine that the rain would put a damper (ha) on my bike-riding plans. I like, though, how I blame the rain here BEFORE acknowledging that, side note, I WAS STILL FREAKING SLEEPING.
Besides, I wasn't looking forward to breakfast. I had a choice of:
1/4 a bowl non-sweet cereal, dry
2 rasin BRAN muffins
1 blueberry muffin or Naner Nut (This is clearly supposed to be Banana Nut. Why the hell did I write it like that?)
I rye english muffin -- 1 side LIGHTLY buttered, other not
1 piece of toast, DRY
There are so many things wrong with the above list. I will now present them in list form:
1. What's up with the very liberal use of underlines? Are they supposed to represent grim determination / resentment? "BRAN and RYE, I mean it, now. I said LIGHTLY buttered, you asshat. And don't even try to butter both halves of that english muffin, and definitely don't capitalize the E, either."
2. This actually looks like a lot of choices. This is six choices. Why was I not looking forward to breakfast?!
3. Why am I allowed to have TWO "rasin BRAN" muffins but only one blueberry or Naner Nut? I fear I might have been placing far too much faith in the magic of bran.
4. Why is it okay to butter the "rye english muffin" but not the piece of DRY toast? I must have been assigning magical properties to rye as well as bran.
5. Why on earth can't the "1/4 bowl of non-sweet cereal" even have the dignity of a splash of milk? Who made this list of breakfast options -- Hitler?
Anyway. I go on:
See what I mean? YECCH. As it turned out, I ate 2 rasin bran muffins.
Still with the freaking underlining. Still misspelling raisin.
I got dressed then -- red shorts and top (red). Then I read a book. While I read, I did about 20 leg lifts for each leg (maybe more) and then did 5 lifts each where I hold my leg in place. It really hurts!
Hey, fool. If you are REALLY trying to be healthy and active, maybe PUT THE DAMN BOOK DOWN and go for a walk. Don't lie on the floor of your pink bedroom and lift your legs all over the place, for God's sake. What a waste of your awesome monochromatic red outfit.
Then lunch. I have a lot of choices here, but some of them I can only eat if I
Huh?
I ate 4 lightly salted crackers and then a slice of cheese. (Mom didn't see what I ate.)
Because if she had, she might have said, "Hey, asshat. Eat some real food." And then she would have told me to put some more salt on those crackers, because if there is one condiment Marsha Steiner Fox defends with her whole heart, it is salt.
And also water.
Oh, good: you had some water, too. You effectively ate less than half of the lunch afforded to an inmate of a maximum-security prison. Well done, Fox.
After lunch I rode my bike. My thighs really hurt! By the time I put my bike away, my legs throbbed so much I could barely walk. Even so, I ran one lap around the house. I'm supposed to do 5 maybe 10, but after "1" I nearly "collapsed"!
What is going on with the use of quotation marks here? Did I only figuratively nearly collapse? I remember being a healthy, strong girl, but here is evidence that I almost "collapse" after running ONE FREAKING LAP around my house. (Maybe, though, that is because I legitimately thought FOUR SALTINES would fuel my body for a productive workout.)
Then I went inside, and practically inhaled 3
"No, no. They weren't high cups. They were TALL cups. Thank God I'm self-aware enough to edit this missive as I go, or my future self will be wholly unable to picture the height of the cups of water I inhaled."
Later, around 5:00, left for Grammy's! Dinner there was a problem. Grammy always has goodies. Dinner wasn't really a goodie; in fact, under normal circumstances, I might have turned up my nose at it.
I both love and hate that, by the end of fifth grade, I had mastered sentence patterns that I can now persuade hardly any tenth graders to embrace. I don't at all love and only hate the portrayal of myself here as an asshat who, under "normal circumstances," turns up her nose at her grandmother's homemade dinners.
But after my skimpy lunch, ANYTHING sounded good -- even green bean, potato, and ham stew, with Italian seasonings, which I topped off with 1/2 a piece of cake, large slice watermelon, & three cookies. I really, really shouldn't have, but I was so hungry!
That's . . . five desserts. FIVE. Yeah -- you shouldn't have.
Even after all that I was still hungry.
(WTF?)
So I ate some salad. (See? I did eat healthy stuff!) But the salad, at least I thought, was wilted. It was from last Thursday, and the lettuce was soggy, the tomatoes smushy, the cheese smelly, and the croutons soft. A regular "S" parade!!
Yes, you fucking weirdo. A regular "S" parade is EXACTLY what that rotting salad resembled. Good description.
So I pretended to eat it, but I was really spitting it out in my napkin.
Add "spit" to the "S" parade.
After dinner, Cam played Turtles (R) and I started a book, but I was bored. So I suggested a game of hide'n'seek.
I'm so glad you used the registered trademark after Turtles to describe what Cam played. In case the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle franchise ever reads this diary, you won't owe them any explanations or fines regarding inappropriate use of their product name. Also, though -- what the hell is "playing Turtles"? Is it a video game? Is he just . . . somehow playing all the parts? I wish, in my 1991 hastiness, I had not been quite so vague.
We played almost the whole time we were there. I ran a lot. I hope I ran off some of that fat. After that, Cam and I picked berries for Grammy. Our reward for doing that and helping her weed was . . . grape pop! I'm sure it had lots of calories. Oh, and at dinner we also had limeade. (High-calorie.) Anyway, I drank my whole can of pop, then 1/2 of Cam's. (He hates grape.)
Since the pop is clearly high in calories, make sure you drink ALL of yours AND half of your little brother's.
THEN I went in & drank some more limeade. And THEN (are you getting tired of then's?) Grammy gave us a bowl of puff'n'corn (like popcorn but softer).
My mother and I were just reminiscing about puff'n'corn on the phone the other day. Full circle, people.
Cam didn't like that too much either. So I ate most of it.
Are we detecting a pattern here, possibly?
Later I put cream on Grammy's feet and painted her toenails. (With clear polish.) Then Cam & I finished Grammy's popcorn, about 1/4 of a bowl.
I would pretty much bet my life on the fact that there is NO WAY IN HELL I would have washed my hands in between lathering up my grandmother's feet with Avon Skin So Soft and eating MORE popcorn with my bare hands. Good times.
Cam offered me a candy orange slice, but I turned that down.
DO YOU SEE THAT RESTRAINT, PEOPLE? I turned down that candy orange slice with NO PROBLEM. Maybe because I had just eaten a dinner, five desserts, and nine thousand calories of popcorn. But -- wait for it:
Then Cam & I went in the kitchen & ate 1 more cookie each.
Dear sweet Lord in heaven. ENOUGH WITH THE COOKIES, FOX.
By that time, it was 9:45. At 10:00 Mom came home. Then we all went home.
Once again, the use of the underlining is wholly unnecessary, bordering on misleading; it implies that Grammy came home with us, which I totally know she didn't. The use of "home" to describe both Grammy's house and our house is also confusing. Finally, where had Mom been until 10:00 p.m.? I cannot for the life of me imagine. Mom will have to consult her diary entry for July 8, 1991, and let me know. Thanks in advance, Mom.
I don't know what else to say about this day. This was a real day. I really did eat those things and write those things, apparently. Perhaps one day twenty-three years from now, when I'm fifty-seven, I'll access the My Fitness Pal records from June 27, 2014, and I'll scoff, "Apparently she had a light lunch and walked five miles at North Park with Jess Frieder, but then she ate a bunch of pizza and ice cream. Asshat."
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Cheers, cheers to old Alpha Chi . . .
Since today is Allegheny College's Run-Out Day (congratulations, all new members!), I thought I would go back in time to my own Run-Out Day, 23 January 1999:
Jen and I got up around 8:45. We got all ready, but as it turned out, they were running late and we were waiting forever. My PX didn't HAVE my name!! I was SO nervous. But when the AXOs came in cheering and singing, they stopped at my door! It was Erin and Kathy and Mich, who I hung out with at Perkins later (and was christened "Pledge Fox"). I was SO overwhelmed: we ran out, got pics, watched songs performed by each class, then bonded with our pledge class. We had a small break then Nicole picked me up at 5:45 to go to the chapter room; had a ceremony in which we got pledge pins & ate. I sat with Janie and Erika. We went to Bid-Day Bash; it was so much fun, especially the karaoke: we sang "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." The dancing was GREAT! Afterward we went to Perkins. I rode with Amanda, Keysha, Jess, and Mich. I had one of the best days of my life. I'm so happy!
Jen and I got up around 8:45. We got all ready, but as it turned out, they were running late and we were waiting forever. My PX didn't HAVE my name!! I was SO nervous. But when the AXOs came in cheering and singing, they stopped at my door! It was Erin and Kathy and Mich, who I hung out with at Perkins later (and was christened "Pledge Fox"). I was SO overwhelmed: we ran out, got pics, watched songs performed by each class, then bonded with our pledge class. We had a small break then Nicole picked me up at 5:45 to go to the chapter room; had a ceremony in which we got pledge pins & ate. I sat with Janie and Erika. We went to Bid-Day Bash; it was so much fun, especially the karaoke: we sang "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." The dancing was GREAT! Afterward we went to Perkins. I rode with Amanda, Keysha, Jess, and Mich. I had one of the best days of my life. I'm so happy!
Friday, January 11, 2013
Life in Town
Yesterday my friend Natalie and I reminisced about one of the most appealing features of our summer vacation to the beach: in Rehoboth, you can drive into the charming town, park, and never get in the car again until you are ready to depart. For people who love walking and hate driving as much as we do, this aspect is as paradisaical as the beach itself.
I currently live in a suburban housing plan, a place that is perfect for exercise-walking but very impractical in terms of errand-walking. I sometimes miss living in a place like Saxonburg, my lovely hometown, where I was able to walk to pre-school, the library, restaurants, shops, and eventually my after-school job at a law office. The fact that I currently live in a city of neighborhoods without actually residing in one of these cool neighborhoods hurts my soul just a bit. I am only in my "starter home," so I hope that my "grown-up" house will be in a walking town more reminiscent of Saxonburg (though perhaps a smidge closer to an urban setting).
A journal entry from 1994 reminds me, however, that I did not always cherish the proximity of Saxonburg to, for example, the local grocery store. This excerpt is from an entry describing the annual cards party my mom would host for our whole family the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve. This particular year, as the dramatic tale below suggests, she must have forgotten a CRUCIAL ingredient for the making of the traditional bean soup and potato cakes:
12-29-94
Anyhoo, I was the last to get my bath because -- Mom made me go to the store for Crisco! I'm like "Uh -- I'm in my pajamas here . . ." Meanwhile, Cam's all dressed but "He couldn't find Crisco!" That is one of her more ridiculous statements. So I had to put on clean clothes, try to comb back my greasy hair, and walk in the cold -- all for Crisco. :(
I hope Cam is just as amused as I am by our mother's lack of confidence in his Crisco-spotting abilities. I also enjoy the graphic detail that, pre-bath, my hair was presumably as greasy as the Crisco I so reluctantly purchased.
I currently live in a suburban housing plan, a place that is perfect for exercise-walking but very impractical in terms of errand-walking. I sometimes miss living in a place like Saxonburg, my lovely hometown, where I was able to walk to pre-school, the library, restaurants, shops, and eventually my after-school job at a law office. The fact that I currently live in a city of neighborhoods without actually residing in one of these cool neighborhoods hurts my soul just a bit. I am only in my "starter home," so I hope that my "grown-up" house will be in a walking town more reminiscent of Saxonburg (though perhaps a smidge closer to an urban setting).
A journal entry from 1994 reminds me, however, that I did not always cherish the proximity of Saxonburg to, for example, the local grocery store. This excerpt is from an entry describing the annual cards party my mom would host for our whole family the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve. This particular year, as the dramatic tale below suggests, she must have forgotten a CRUCIAL ingredient for the making of the traditional bean soup and potato cakes:
12-29-94
Anyhoo, I was the last to get my bath because -- Mom made me go to the store for Crisco! I'm like "Uh -- I'm in my pajamas here . . ." Meanwhile, Cam's all dressed but "He couldn't find Crisco!" That is one of her more ridiculous statements. So I had to put on clean clothes, try to comb back my greasy hair, and walk in the cold -- all for Crisco. :(
I hope Cam is just as amused as I am by our mother's lack of confidence in his Crisco-spotting abilities. I also enjoy the graphic detail that, pre-bath, my hair was presumably as greasy as the Crisco I so reluctantly purchased.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Too Creative and Funny
Somehow, during the busiest, most active years of high school, when I was juggling AP classes, dance team, musical, track, homework, church, family, dating, and calling way too many friends each evening, there was time to create an end-of-month reflection with a short summary (usually about three-quarters of a page long) and multiple categories (New Friends, Best Days, Worst Days, Finest Adventure, Best Joke, Funniest Sight, Person I Most Wanted to Knock Off the Planet, Person Who Most Wanted to Knock Me Off the Planet, Biggest Regret, Biggest Disappointment, Scariest Moment, New Year's Resolution Update, Best Songs, and Month on a Scale of 1-10). Sometimes there were stickers.
From March 1997: In Retrospect
Person I Most Want to Knock Off the Planet: Mr. Barnard; he's a total moron, giving our group a zero for being too creative and funny in the wedding groupwork.
I like the use of the qualifier "too" here, as if the zero were issued ONLY because we were "too" creative and funny -- had our funniness and creativity stopped at an earlier point on the continuum, we would have had a good grade. Meanwhile, the subtext of "creative" and "funny" here is certainly "irreverent" and "ridiculous." I'd also bet money that my use of the phrasing "a total moron" is borrowed from The Catcher in the Rye, which, by eleventh grade, I had probably read about a dozen times.
My recall of the details surrounding "the wedding groupwork" project is hazy at best, but I'm pretty sure it entailed creating a budget for a wedding, along with a justification for what we were spending. (Why would this have been an assignment in an eleventh-grade Health class?) I'm also pretty sure my group, featuring Stacy McCall (now Vernier) and Megan O'Laughlin (now entirely off my radar screen, and I miss her dearly), would have approached this project with a great deal of gusto, though not at all the kind teachers hope for. I can only imagine the bizarre piece of crap we presented to the class. I would pay at least ten dollars to see it now. I bet it was funny (though not to Mr. Barnard, who was also the track coach. I was about the worst member of the KHS track team. No wonder he gave me a zero).
Now that I think about it, maybe this is why I wasn't such a great student in high school: I often, especially in a groupwork setting, devoted mass quantities of energy to making fun of an assignment rather than completing it with any degree of academic seriousness. I felt not only perfectly comfortable, but also completely justified in outright mocking assignments that I did not deem worthwhile. I must have been an absolute nightmare for my teachers. I wonder what I would think of myself as a student. I would probably regard myself with equal parts horror and fascination.
The bottom line is, whenever I encounter a student who makes me want to tear my hair out, it's as though karma is tapping me on the shoulder, being all "Hey, Miss Fox! Remember the wedding groupwork? Here that is coming RIGHT back around."
From March 1997: In Retrospect
Person I Most Want to Knock Off the Planet: Mr. Barnard; he's a total moron, giving our group a zero for being too creative and funny in the wedding groupwork.
I like the use of the qualifier "too" here, as if the zero were issued ONLY because we were "too" creative and funny -- had our funniness and creativity stopped at an earlier point on the continuum, we would have had a good grade. Meanwhile, the subtext of "creative" and "funny" here is certainly "irreverent" and "ridiculous." I'd also bet money that my use of the phrasing "a total moron" is borrowed from The Catcher in the Rye, which, by eleventh grade, I had probably read about a dozen times.
My recall of the details surrounding "the wedding groupwork" project is hazy at best, but I'm pretty sure it entailed creating a budget for a wedding, along with a justification for what we were spending. (Why would this have been an assignment in an eleventh-grade Health class?) I'm also pretty sure my group, featuring Stacy McCall (now Vernier) and Megan O'Laughlin (now entirely off my radar screen, and I miss her dearly), would have approached this project with a great deal of gusto, though not at all the kind teachers hope for. I can only imagine the bizarre piece of crap we presented to the class. I would pay at least ten dollars to see it now. I bet it was funny (though not to Mr. Barnard, who was also the track coach. I was about the worst member of the KHS track team. No wonder he gave me a zero).
Now that I think about it, maybe this is why I wasn't such a great student in high school: I often, especially in a groupwork setting, devoted mass quantities of energy to making fun of an assignment rather than completing it with any degree of academic seriousness. I felt not only perfectly comfortable, but also completely justified in outright mocking assignments that I did not deem worthwhile. I must have been an absolute nightmare for my teachers. I wonder what I would think of myself as a student. I would probably regard myself with equal parts horror and fascination.
The bottom line is, whenever I encounter a student who makes me want to tear my hair out, it's as though karma is tapping me on the shoulder, being all "Hey, Miss Fox! Remember the wedding groupwork? Here that is coming RIGHT back around."
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
What is Ashchives?
Exactly twenty-five Christmases ago, my mother inscribed a gift that would shape my life more than any before or since: "To Ashleigh from Mommy: Hope you enjoy keeping a diary as much as I do!"
It was a red spiral-bound Ramona Quimby Diary, one featuring both fill-in-the-blank segments and lined pages. Over the course of the next year, I would dutifully respond to both the prompts and the blank lines, filling them with many anecdotes about my cat and deep dark secrets like breaking my red headband. (That one was, in fact, such highly priviliged information that I actually wrote it in the secret code provided by the diary's creators.)
Much like my thirty-three-year-old self, my eight-year-old self both admired and adored my mother, so naturally I welcomed the chance to emulate her own diligent recording of lifely happenings. Therefore, I did keep my New Year's Resolution for 1988 to "keep a diary and write in it. I promise."
Although I broke many, many promises to myself that year and every one thereafter, something else happened. The practice -- or, rather, art -- of journalling and diary-keeping became firmly, unflinchingly entrenched in my core being. I graduated from fill-in-the-blank diaries (I also had, two years later in 1990, the Judy Blume version) to calendars cataloguing what I wore every day and everything funny anyone said at school. I filled composition books and spiral notebooks with musings on friends, family, futures. I wrote down goals and tracked my weekly progress toward them. I confessed secrets and fears. I detailed the daily happenings. I recorded end-of-month reflections featuring categories like "Best Day," "Funniest Moment," "Person I Most Wanted to Knock Off the Planet," and "Person Who Most Wanted to Knock Me Off the Planet." I rated months and years on scales of one to ten. I compared and contrasted boys and later men. I wrote down the best one-liners from the literature I was encountering in English classes at Knoch High School and later Allegheny College. I admitted things that should only ever be said to therapists or God (but probably none of the above). In short, I was preparing, I thought, for my career as a writer, one who would be lucky enough to have decades worth of material.
Today, my life as a high school English teacher features the exact same sad irony of nearly every high school English teacher: I love to read, but I am busy reading what they're reading, so I never read anything I want to read. Additionally, I spend my spare time reading enough student writing that my own writing is not only on the back burner, but not actually in the kitchen anymore. Lately, I'm sure, it might not be in the same house or even the same zip code. I am officially what one would call "rusty" (as that poor kitchen metaphor conveniently illustrates). My girlhood dreams of being "a real writer" seem to fade more with every passing school year, and when I glance at the twenty-five years worth of collected journals and diaries on my shelves -- and also consider the hundreds of pages worth of electronic fodder from various blogs from the past ten years -- I feel like I have failed in a very fundamental way.
Why aren't I doing more of this thing that I was once very certain I was born to do? I chose my college major (English), my minor (psychology), and my teaching career all very strategically: I would read the great works of literature so I would have a model for creating my own. I would study human behavior so I could inject realistic attributes into my characters. I would stay connected to reading and writing through my day job, one that would afford me all summer to write and maybe one day publish.
Well, though I loved both my major and minor -- and (this is for you, humanities skeptics) I'm proud to say that I use them both daily in my work -- I can't say that my plan to write in the summers has materialized at all. There are, as there always are, excuses: I had to write a Masters thesis. I had to recharge. I had other things to do.
One of the things I've always found time to do, though, is continue the joy of writing down my soul word for word. Though much of my writing these days takes place in the form of a facebook status or a tweet, I maintain both paper journals and blogs, and just this evening my boyfriend and I created a detailed written record of our first Christmas break together. This is still what I do and who I am, and though I may never see my name splashed across a novel cover, I do think the writing I've done thus far in my life might be worth sharing with a small audience of family and friends.
Therefore, "Ashchives" -- Ashleigh's Archives, name courtesey of Kendra Stanton Lee, one of the best bloggers I know (see why here) -- is born on January 1, 2013, exactly twenty-five years after I started my first diary. I will, each day, feature an excerpt and a reflection on how silly, sad, wise, foolish, hypocritical, or crazy I was at age twelve, eight, twenty-five, seventeen, thirty-one, eleven, or last week. Entries will be chosen at random, and they will be appropriate for an audience that could include my mother, my boss, or my students. (To be fair, my boss is very liberal, my students are nearly adults, and my mother is completely to blame for starting this whole thing, so maybe that's not saying much.)
With a nod to the fact that it's a new year of new beginnings, I want to feature this entry about a particular new beginning for my third-grade self. From September 1988 (spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are all preserved in their original form):
Mommy FINALLY Painted my room! After years of just talking about it she did it. She is a VERY good painter. She thought It would be a pale pink, but it was bright once she got it on the wall. I hardly have any toys left! But I'm glad. I don't miss anything except my jump rope. I don't know what happened to it.
In my current mindset of always having someone or something to miss -- my grandmother, size 7 jeans, being an undergraduate, believing in Santa Claus -- I long for the days when the only thing I missed was a jump rope. I also long for the time when a jump rope would have been a recreational activity and not representative of a way to squeeze oneself into size 7 jeans.
Happy New Year, all. Hope it's painted with bright pink surprises and lots to jump for joy over.
It was a red spiral-bound Ramona Quimby Diary, one featuring both fill-in-the-blank segments and lined pages. Over the course of the next year, I would dutifully respond to both the prompts and the blank lines, filling them with many anecdotes about my cat and deep dark secrets like breaking my red headband. (That one was, in fact, such highly priviliged information that I actually wrote it in the secret code provided by the diary's creators.)
Much like my thirty-three-year-old self, my eight-year-old self both admired and adored my mother, so naturally I welcomed the chance to emulate her own diligent recording of lifely happenings. Therefore, I did keep my New Year's Resolution for 1988 to "keep a diary and write in it. I promise."
Although I broke many, many promises to myself that year and every one thereafter, something else happened. The practice -- or, rather, art -- of journalling and diary-keeping became firmly, unflinchingly entrenched in my core being. I graduated from fill-in-the-blank diaries (I also had, two years later in 1990, the Judy Blume version) to calendars cataloguing what I wore every day and everything funny anyone said at school. I filled composition books and spiral notebooks with musings on friends, family, futures. I wrote down goals and tracked my weekly progress toward them. I confessed secrets and fears. I detailed the daily happenings. I recorded end-of-month reflections featuring categories like "Best Day," "Funniest Moment," "Person I Most Wanted to Knock Off the Planet," and "Person Who Most Wanted to Knock Me Off the Planet." I rated months and years on scales of one to ten. I compared and contrasted boys and later men. I wrote down the best one-liners from the literature I was encountering in English classes at Knoch High School and later Allegheny College. I admitted things that should only ever be said to therapists or God (but probably none of the above). In short, I was preparing, I thought, for my career as a writer, one who would be lucky enough to have decades worth of material.
Today, my life as a high school English teacher features the exact same sad irony of nearly every high school English teacher: I love to read, but I am busy reading what they're reading, so I never read anything I want to read. Additionally, I spend my spare time reading enough student writing that my own writing is not only on the back burner, but not actually in the kitchen anymore. Lately, I'm sure, it might not be in the same house or even the same zip code. I am officially what one would call "rusty" (as that poor kitchen metaphor conveniently illustrates). My girlhood dreams of being "a real writer" seem to fade more with every passing school year, and when I glance at the twenty-five years worth of collected journals and diaries on my shelves -- and also consider the hundreds of pages worth of electronic fodder from various blogs from the past ten years -- I feel like I have failed in a very fundamental way.
Why aren't I doing more of this thing that I was once very certain I was born to do? I chose my college major (English), my minor (psychology), and my teaching career all very strategically: I would read the great works of literature so I would have a model for creating my own. I would study human behavior so I could inject realistic attributes into my characters. I would stay connected to reading and writing through my day job, one that would afford me all summer to write and maybe one day publish.
Well, though I loved both my major and minor -- and (this is for you, humanities skeptics) I'm proud to say that I use them both daily in my work -- I can't say that my plan to write in the summers has materialized at all. There are, as there always are, excuses: I had to write a Masters thesis. I had to recharge. I had other things to do.
One of the things I've always found time to do, though, is continue the joy of writing down my soul word for word. Though much of my writing these days takes place in the form of a facebook status or a tweet, I maintain both paper journals and blogs, and just this evening my boyfriend and I created a detailed written record of our first Christmas break together. This is still what I do and who I am, and though I may never see my name splashed across a novel cover, I do think the writing I've done thus far in my life might be worth sharing with a small audience of family and friends.
Therefore, "Ashchives" -- Ashleigh's Archives, name courtesey of Kendra Stanton Lee, one of the best bloggers I know (see why here) -- is born on January 1, 2013, exactly twenty-five years after I started my first diary. I will, each day, feature an excerpt and a reflection on how silly, sad, wise, foolish, hypocritical, or crazy I was at age twelve, eight, twenty-five, seventeen, thirty-one, eleven, or last week. Entries will be chosen at random, and they will be appropriate for an audience that could include my mother, my boss, or my students. (To be fair, my boss is very liberal, my students are nearly adults, and my mother is completely to blame for starting this whole thing, so maybe that's not saying much.)
With a nod to the fact that it's a new year of new beginnings, I want to feature this entry about a particular new beginning for my third-grade self. From September 1988 (spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are all preserved in their original form):
Mommy FINALLY Painted my room! After years of just talking about it she did it. She is a VERY good painter. She thought It would be a pale pink, but it was bright once she got it on the wall. I hardly have any toys left! But I'm glad. I don't miss anything except my jump rope. I don't know what happened to it.
In my current mindset of always having someone or something to miss -- my grandmother, size 7 jeans, being an undergraduate, believing in Santa Claus -- I long for the days when the only thing I missed was a jump rope. I also long for the time when a jump rope would have been a recreational activity and not representative of a way to squeeze oneself into size 7 jeans.
Happy New Year, all. Hope it's painted with bright pink surprises and lots to jump for joy over.
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