Sunday, October 30, 2005

scary. This is the scariest picture of me that exists. I look somewhat -- chilly. Maybe even edgy. But mostly just... Meggy. The piercing is fake (lest it lend me any coolness cred I don't deserve) and was put on for some sort of punk-theme thingy I went to. I am far too faint of heart to actually add extra holes to any flesh that doesn't dangle from my ears. I have so much earlobe, I could take out any piercing jones I might have on those bits for another few rounds. I post this picture because tomorrow is Halloween and I have a super-Halloweenish workplace and I have no costume to wear. Crap. I need to think of something creative and thrilling and cool before tomorrow! Now, I'm not much of a Halloween person. I was never really down with the idea of ghosts and boogeymen and creepy crawlies. I don't really like the colour orange unless it's on a leaf or the outside of an... orange. I got bored with trick or treating early on, preferring to make my dad buy me copious amounts of exactly the candy I liked. I dig very few horror movies -- The Shining being my favourite -- and can spook the living Kit Kat out of myself if I watch them late at night. My imagination goes where no gore artist or special effects department can. But I'm a community spirit kind of chickadee, and my coworkers are bound to look awesome (I mean, they do in general, but they're pretty freaking creative about this kind of stuff), so I'll figure out something to wear that won't get stares on my bus full of corporate commuters in various shades of black and gray. My only advantage is that I am nearly impossible to embarass, having mortified myself publicly on too many occasions to recall. Any ideas? 3:53:28 PM    well, yes, but...  [] oh no, you di'int! My mother sent me an email yesterday to tell me she'd heard a song that reminded her of me. Now, when my mother indicates that this has occurred, it generally means that she cried a little when the song came on, being that she (like me) is the emotional sort, and easily moved by music. I love that about her. I love that about me, too. But that's not the point. When she told me what the song was, she pre-apologized for the potential cheese-factor of the track in question. I think she feared I would come back with a snotty response of some sort, asking her just why in the heck she was watching Country Music Television in the first place, let alone crying at that song. Not on your life. Life is much, much too short to run headlong from the cheesy things in life. In fact, sometimes you'll find that embracing them is the best thing you can do. Cheese is good for you. Don't people from Wisconsin look healthy? Now, before I continue, I have to say that there are types of cheese I cannot abide -- and I don't just mean Brie. I am not one for teen strumpets or Jennifer Lopez perfumes or Britney Spears television specials. I really don't care if Nick and Jessica are really divorcing. I don't care if Lindsay Lohan is being targeted by angry paparazzi or is just a really, really crappy driver. And really -- most of all -- I think Celine should have to wear an ankle bracelet to prevent her from leaving Vegas. No, what I love are the cheesy songs that brides can't help but choose for their first dances at weddings, when they claimed all their teenage and adult lives that they would pick something by Morrissey or Beck. I love watching them hit the dance floor and grin sheepishly when the DJ spins "The Way You Look Tonight" or "At Last". Or -- and you know who you are -- "You're The Inspiration". What I love is that my mother hears "I Hope You Dance" or "You Can't Hurry Love" and cries and pictures my wedding day (which I can't even seem to do anymore) and is filled with optimism for me that never seems to falter. What I love are the "Sweet Caroline" sing alongs that I have been a part of in hockey arenas, grocery stores, coffee shops and on road trips. And, of course, one in an elevator, on the way to a job interview -- with one of the loudest singers, as it turned out (I didn't get the job, but he appreciated my pitch). What I love is how my friends who are known best for their sarcasm and edgy sense of humour end up in a corner of Baby Gap with tiny overalls resting on their giant bellies, grinning and sobbing and clutching at my arm: "Oh, Meg! LOOK HOW SMALL THESE ARE! Oh! The baby KICKED. I HAVE TO BUY THESE PANTS! Baby, do you like these pants?" What I love are the commercials for long distance and insurance companies that make me cry, even as I know some slick guy in Armani and an artfully spiky haircut named Ethan or Tanner thought it up to rob me of my hard-earned cash. He may be taking advantage of desire for peace and good will towards men, but so what? At least it's still there to be taken advantage of. What I love is that my friends who would only eat sushi and smoothies a couple of years ago are STOKED about roasting their first turkey and making yams with marshmallows on top. I love that you can find Velveeta next to the marinated sundried tomatoes and $20 dollar capers in their fridge. What I love is how we rent DVDs of foriegn films and have to return them unwatched because we ended up flicking past "A Walk To Remember" on cable. What I love is how the Doritos go before the bruschetta at every party we hold. What I love is how my friends will come out to events dressed in the same colours as their spouse and DON'T EVEN NOTICE ANYMORE that they match. What I love are the pop songs that are the romance soundtrack of my teenage years: "Against All Odds"; "Up Where We Belong"; "Time After Time"; "Baby, I Love Your Way"; "At This Moment"; "Right Here Waiting"; "More Than Words". Each one a semi-travesty of taste, but attached to a boy, a time, a love, and a hope. What I love is that "hip" has finally come around to being a mocking term once again -- as it should be. What I love is how all my girlfriends can sing the hits from 'Annie', 'Les Miserables', 'The Phantom of the Opera' and 'Grease', and that we don't care how much the boyfriends/husbands/dates cringe when they come to mind, because we know that they still have hockey cards and an Alyssa Milano poster buried somewhere. What I love is that we all still know the rules to Uno. At the end of the day, when the editors of Wallpaper, Interview, Spin, and Index close their Powerbooks, toss their vintage coat/shawl/wrap/poncho over their American Apparel tiny-t's, sync their Nanos to the stereos in their Saabs to play the Postal Service or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and put their Pumas to the pedal, they have one dark secret that they are unwilling to admit. They're going to get McNuggets at the drive-through and head home to play Cranium. Embrace the cheese. Get over the lactose intolerance. Be a dork. Cry at the "very special episode of Seventh Heaven." Quote 'Better Off Dead'. Admit that you thought Kirk Cameron was hot before he went all Armageddon on your ass. Because you can only be cool for so long until you freeze to death. 3:02:48 PM    well, yes, but...  [] praise the lord and pass the chicken balls. I went to Bible school. For eight months -- a full term, right out of high school. Did you know that? Well, I did. Regardless of the fact that my faith these days sometimes feels like a rock encased in Jell-O (solid on the inside, wobbly on the outside), I remember it pretty fondly. It changed me and developed me in a million different ways -- some intended by the administration, and some definitely not. It was a tiny little Baptist college in a city on the Prairies, comprised of two dorms, a cafeteria, a small games room, a classroom, a library, and a large lounge. There were only 47 students: 27 females and 20 males. We applied to go via a lengthy application and reference process and I actually only decided I wanted to go after the application process was closed. But they let me apply anyhow -- it may have been my dad's position as a pastor that helped them decide to give me a shot. Regardless, I got in. And I was incredibly excited. There were a bunch of us -- eight, I think -- going from my area or thereabouts. I loved how small it was, I loved how I was going to be far from home (I would miss my family, but not the small city I lived in), and I loved the kinds of things the school focused on: music, drama, and leadership were some of the main thrusts of the courses and programs there. It was an unusual set-up: every week brought classes in some of the same subjects on a consistent basis (choir, drama, recreational leadership, exegesis, public speaking) and a new guest speaker to teach us a five-day crash course in a discipline or topic that the school deemed relevant. It was good for those of us with short attention spans and those of us that were easily overwhelmed: if you got bored, you knew it would be over soon. And if you couldn't handle it, well -- the weekend would bring your reprieve. This made for some crazy last-minute Thursday cram sessions, since the instructors would generally give us a quiz on the previous four days before they left. Fortunately, I had always been a fabulously last-minute kind of girl, so even that aspect of the structure suited me just fine. Drama was great, since I was a limelight-seeker by that point in my teenage development, and choir -- well, choir had its ups and downs. Everyone who came to the school was required to join the choir, whether they could sing or not. The leadership at the school felt like this contributed to the unity of our class community, and they wanted everyone to be involved in the choir tour that we did at the end of the year. Well, I'd been in choirs since I was old enough to stand up on my own and not pull my dress up over my head in front of the whole church, so I was an easy fit to take some solos and help some of the more harmony-challenged along the way. We had our share of divas -- girls who were revered for their voices and the height of their hair (it was 1992) -- but I was more a fan of making sure we all sounded good than having my voice be distinguishable in the midst of a group piece. The only person who didn't sing in the choir was Dave. Dave really, really, really couldn't sing. And when I say he couldn't sing, I mean that he sounded off-key when he talked. He was the page-turner for our pianist. It worked out well. But more than drama or choir -- or anything else, really -- I was all about what they called 'Community Life'. I was a social butterfly who couldn't even remember where she'd left her cocoon. And I knew that I was in the right place in the first week I got there. Only 4 people in the whole student body had brought cars, so most of us had to figure out the bus system if we ever wanted to leave the campus. Three of my friends and I decided to head out to the mall on the Friday night and do a little fall shopping. Once we were there, we happened upon a group of the guys from our school that were doing the same thing, except they'd come in a car that one of them owned. They offered us a ride back to the school, and we happily obliged (did I mention they were four of the cutest guys there?). So all eight of us crammed into a mid-eighties model Chevy for the journey. I was on the lap of a guy I'd never actually exchanged two words with, but he was cute -- SO cute. And his arms were around my waist and his voice was ticklish in my ear and I was dizzy with all of it. I phoned my parents that night to tell them I was happy to be there -- SO happy. I think this may have worried my father. But I can remember a million ridiculous and excellent experiences in those few months: The ice cream store down the street would give you a free cone if you sang and played something on their big black grand piano. We'd go down in various combinations at least once a week and do four part harmony to earn our required dose of Rocky Road or mint chocolate-chip. I once even sat on the piano while my friend played and did a campy rendition of 'Big Spender'. I didn't know any of the words past the first line, so I made up something about wanting "a man who could afford two scoops". The innuendo of that didn't occur to me until one of the guys informed me that I "already appeared to have two generous scoops". Oy. We would order pizza and Chinese food fairly regularly late at night, but since we had a dorm curfew (and dorm parents... I know, I know), we weren't allowed to go down to get the stuff. So we rigged up a system with a large rope and a hockey bag: we'd lower the bag down to the delivery guy with the money in it and he'd fill the hockey bag up with munchy goodness for us to pull back up. A d we'd place our orders on the pay phone in the dorm that we quickly figured out how to use for free. If you stuck a paper clip just so into the workings of the thing, you wouldn't have to put in a quarter (solid Bible school ethics right there... oops.) to make a call. However, about 1 time out of 50, you'd get a little shock trying to do it. The risk seemed worth the savings until one night when Christie went to call in our Chinese order. We heard her from the other room: "Okay, one fried rice, 3 egg rolls, 2 orders sweet and sour pork, one chicken chow mein, one order chicken ball OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT...." and then her voice trailed off. This was not something we wanted them to include in our order, so we ran out into the hallway to find her rubbing her arm and screaming. Apparently she'd managed to absorb a much bigger shock than any of us had ever experienced by jamming the paper clip in a bit too firmly. We picked up the dangling phone, comforted the poor woman who was shell-shocked by her language, and then got Christie some Tylenol and a cup of cocoa. Oh, yeah -- the chicken balls arrived without a hitch. Our lounge was filled with weird sectional seating that was actually just a bunch of cushions stacked into pseudo couches. We were always moving the cushions around to create different arrangements to suit our purposes: expanses of cushions to watch movies from, cushion forts in which to study with a bit of quiet, giant stacks of cushions at which we would take running leaps (resulting in one dislocated shoulder for our resident quarterback hottie, several elbow sprains, two concussions, and countless bruises and abrasions). Our dorm parents and the school principal always looked a bit worried about what we were up to with those cushions, but I think we were pretty innocent. I held a few hands and did some cuddling, but that was about it. I slept between 2 and 4 hours every night. And I don't actually recall being tired. Once. We'd go to the Dollar Theatre almost every week to see second-run movies, but that soon stopped having much appeal, since the movies would cease switching over for months at a time. But it was a testament to how desperate we were for entertainment that some of us saw "A League Of Their Own" three times. And one of the guys now knows "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" by heart. We rented Karaoke machines; we froze each other's bras; we ate badly; we played endless practical jokes; we sang duets in laundry rooms; we took mini road-trips; we held dance parties; we made ramen in our plug-in kettles; we volunteered; we borrowed and traded and trashed each others' clothes; we passed around colds; we took endless photos of random and unmemorable events; we stayed up late writing bizarre essays on subjects we didn't understand; we went on candy runs, coffee runs, Slurpee runs, and MacDonald's runs; we had dress-up days; we snuck out late at night to watch the stars in the back field; and we flirted madly, loved fiercely, squabbled with all the fervour of siblings, and showed our best and worst colours at different points in the days, weeks and months we were there. A lot of us grew up a little, while others found a bit of silly childhood freedom they'd never had before. This is not to say that it was perfect. No way. To this day, I can't believe I didn't pipe up and argue more about some of the stuff we were learning. I'm fairly liberal on most fronts in life -- and this was a conservative Christian school. I couldn't play ball with several of the concepts we were learning, but arguing had unpredictable results; sometimes everyone would agree with me and at other points, they'd look at me like I'd sprouted horns. Most of us are still somewhat active in our faith now, though we count several atheists and agnostics in our numbers, too. It was rough to deal with a community that didn't really welcome questioning and searching in appropriate ways, and more often than not, they treated us like children instead of people who had their own ideas and minds. The school eventually closed down eight or so years later (it had started in the 50's and remained somewhat stuck there) when the structure of the place was deemed too anachronistic and irrelevant to really serve a purpose anymore in modern society. I mean, dorm parents? Curfew? Huh? I wasn't a minor anymore. Eventually, after our year, they started having 'open dorm' hours, but in my year, there was an alarmed door -- ALARMED, I say! -- between the girls' and guys' housing. Gah. I was disciplined constantly for my big mouth, for being ridiculous at serious moments, for various dorm hijinks, and for not going with the flow. Fair enough. Which is not to say I wasn't involved in 'positive ways' -- I was on Student's Council, I was the class historian, and I took leadership roles in many things that we did -- but I also got in serious trouble for helping organize a mass late-night exodus from our dorm to the guy's dorm (someone figured out how to defuse the alarm. I can't think who would do such a thing). Such crimes were not tolerated there. They were going to suspend us all and bump our curfew back, but I faked tears and made up an impromptu speech about life lessons. We got off with a warning. I know, I know. I was told to phone my parents and explain what I did; this was the shaming they felt would cure me of my rebellious ways. I had to school my face not to grin when my parents burst into gales of laughter during my confession. My mom in particular seemed more proud than anything. One student was expelled for showing up drunk to class and assorted other infraction -- drinking and smoking were verboten, though it still happened at points -- and I recall thinking that if they really believed he had problems, they should be begging him to stay. But the leadership -- with a few exceptions -- was stuck in the 50's, just like the curriculum. Our dorm mother always wanted to hug us goodnight, which had some of us locking our doors and faking sleep early just to piss her off. She meant nothing weird by it, but as I told her several times (once, drawing tears): "I have a mother. She's great. She's not here. You are not my mother." The principal of the school seemed to view me as a bundle of contradictions, which I encouraged by beaming sweetly from the choir while stealth-plotting my latest escapades. She would tell me over and over again how successful I was going to be if I could just apply myself to the right things. We simply never agreed on what those things were. And the food was -- well, I don't want to say those words on my blog. But I skipped a lot of meals. The cook still isn't my biggest fan. They got a lot of things wrong, though I knew at the same time that they actually did care about me -- even my poor dorm mom, as unhugged as she went. They did their best to love us. And my music teacher and choir leader was downright hilarious and inspiring; he was always so excited to see us succeed. We still laugh at the day that he went to affirm us for finally smiling as we sang -- until we told him his fly was down. But in the end, the formal school part of it was not my focus, so none of that really mattered. I forget a lot of what I learned, even if all my marks were in the 90 - 100% range. Probably about 60% of it I wouldn't agree with now anyhow -- if I even managed to then. I know when my parents paid for me to go (thanks, Mom and Dad -- I know you didn't have the money, but you made a lot of sacrifices) that they knew it would be more of a 'getting my legs under me' year than it was going to be anything else. And they wanted me to have the fun, the silly times, the close times, and eight months worth of nutty memories. They knew I'd blanch at some of the things being taught. But they also trusted me to figure out the truth. And I think I did. And I do. What I really loved about going there was the friendships I made. We were not all squeaky-clean ministers' kids from small towns (though that described about six of us, including me). Some of my classmates had gone through hell and back and were thrilled to be caught up in our little idyll. Some of my classmates had lived incredible lives and accomplished significant things. And we weren't all 18 -- I think our oldest student was 30. I can't imagine what it was like for her to hang out with the rest of us dingbats, but she seemed to do just fine. Even now, some of those people are my very dearest friends. We have walked many different paths since those days, some of which have ended in tragedy and others of which have brought real achievement and satisfaction. Of the 14 couples that sprang up during the school year (14... over half the student body was dating one another... ugh), 4 couples eventually married (one of which divorced a few years later, though he and she have both remarried since). I think there are only eight of us who aren't married to someone by now (including me). I've lost count of how many kids everyone's had, but I know that there are more than 25. Some of them I've held in my arms and some I've just seen via jpeg. But they're all beautiful. We have among us a lawyer, a doctor, a counsellor, an engineer, a couple teachers, a few stay-at-home parents (moms and dads), several musicians, an artist, a couple foreign-aid workers, a few PhD candidates and holders, a writer, a pastor, a fashion designer, some nurses, a car salesman, a programmer, a few businesspeople, and a few other careers and personal states that I'm not too sure about. There have been many crises in our lives, including deaths, illnesses, addictions, and various other disruptions. But none of us have passed away yet -- all 47 of us are still floating around out there somewhere. When I tell people now that I went to Bible school, they either poke fun at me or admit that they went, too (and then we poke fun at it together). But for only being an eight-month period of time -- small potatoes in the grand scheme of things -- my year at Bible school had a hell of an impact on my life. (Yes, I was trying to be ironic there.) I learned how to speak truth into a community that might not agree with me. I learned how to live peacefully with others. I learned how to deal with a roommate who slept with her eyes open and had assorted fruit peels in her bed and who never did her laundry or brushed her hair. I learned how to hot-wire a car and de-wire a security system. I learned how to shave my legs in a shoebox-sized shower stall without giving myself a head injury. I learned that I can wear Birkenstocks in the snow. I learned how to make toasted marshmallows with a pilot light on a water heater. I learned how to sing a solo in front of 4,000 people. I learned how supportive and fabulous my parents were (they brought me a care package for my whole dorm -- chips, salsa, candy, cookies, etc. I was a popular girl!). I learned how to hang around peacefully with boys after romance didn't work out. I learned how to play the drums. I learned how nice people sound when they sing in stairwells. I learned how to be fearless in the face of challenge and gutsy in the face of stupidity. I learned that I could love God without buying into other peoples' odd ideas about Him. And I learned that I could love people enough to deal with a lot of tough situations. Since then, I've also learned that the lives that we map out for ourselves at eighteen are nothing like the lives we end up with at 31. But the girl who felt like she owned the world on that boy's lap in the back of the big old car? She's still doing pretty damn well. And still happy to be right where she is. 1:30:07 AM    well, yes, but...  []

© Copyright 2006 Meg Fowler. Last update: 3/4/06; 2:29:32 PM.