Grown-up Lesson

As I stroll through the world of actual adultness I find that I am not as well equipped for it as I thought I would be.

As a child I was armed with those golden rules like "treat others as you'd like to bem to treated" and "always say please and thank you" and "don't eat food off the floor." I felt sure, as I grew older and older, that these little nuggets of shiny wisdom would carry me through to a happy and strife-free life.

However, now I find that all those little niceties are just that: niceties...and they aren't going to get me anywhere fast. In fact, in order to survive life without having your spirit crushed everyday you have to do the exact opposite of the golden rules (all except eating food off the floor...you can stick with that one.)

As I learned a week ago while I stood in a room of 40 or so women all prepared to learn the magical and mystical art of shaking ones body fat around. Or in other words: Belly Dancing Class.

I stepped up to the front row, unashamed of my lagging skills in hip dropping, and knowing that without my heels I'm a fair bit shorter than most women. And as the instructor handed out scarves covered in sparkly, jingly bells to those of us in the first row she warned that she "didn't have enough."

Well, of course everyone in the front row grabbed up a scarf or two. And while they wiggled and squirmed making their hips musical instruments I figured I would pass a few scarves back to those ladies who weren't in the front row and might not have the opportunity to pick one that suited them best. After all, it's only fair to share, right? I passed a few here and a few there. And when I was done I turned around to the last few left in the pile and reached down to pick it up...only to find that some other first row lady was also grabbing it in order to add it to her already jingly scarf AND jingly skirt.

"Oh." I said, "Did you want to wear this one instead?"

"Yes." she replied while snatching it out of my hands and failing to replace it with her first scarf.

I looked around. Everyone had a scarf except me. I danced my way through the class like the best of them, but I didn't make any music.

Until I got home. Where I whined to my husband about the lack of jingle scarves and my un-musical day.

"And what is the lesson from this?" he asked after listening to my probably over-dramatic account of the class.

"To not be nice?" I tried.

"Exactly."

Wish I had learned that one before belly dancing class.

Better Half

I swear, there are tons of very interesting posts swimming in my head right now, just begging to be written...

In the meantime, my husband has a blog now:

Zoom Zoom

So now you can figure out which one of us is the better half...

Math Motorcycle

Every once in awhile I find myself sliding into that disgusting comfort of stereo-types and I always hope that someone, somewhere, will be able to surprise me out of them.

Thankfully, I go to community college.

Every Tuesday and Thursday night I drag myself out to an obscure supermarket and hike my way past four different Korean barbecue joints and two tattoo parlors in order to sit for two and half hours and "learn" math.

My math teacher is exactly what one expects when one thinks of someone who essentially volunteers to teach higher-level math. I'm sure he can't be in it for the money...there is no money for community college professors.

In anycase, this man is tall, lanky, and awkward. He bumps into things that aren't even threatening to get in his way. His favorite trick is to simply stand still, and then suddenly hit his head on the overhead television. He has shoulder-length hair that is, indeed, unkempt. It's shiny though, and full, so it makes his face look that much more emanciated, which makes his eyes look that much more caffeine crazed.

He wears tight jeans, a mistake for someone who resembles a green bean, and generally reminds me of gumby if gumby still had his mom dressing him.

He isn't really a teacher type. He mumbles and has trouble communicating simple concepts like "take one and pass it around". He rushes through his lessons without realizing people are in the classroom with him - just so he can get to something really obscure and strange - then talk about that in detail for an hour before he announces "But you don't need to know this, I just think it's neat."

In short he is a skinny, pale, gawky nerd.

Who, one day as I was getting out my calculator, four notebooks, three text books and numerous erasers, shocked me out of my plastic yellow chair by walking into the classroom wearing a thick Harley-Davidson motorcycle, his helmet held jauntily under his arm.

In truth he looked more like a modern Don Quixote than a Hell's Angel, but it was the fact that this is his normal mode of transportation - in the middle of November - that really shocked me.

He's still kinda a nerd...but he's a nerd on two wheels. And that makes life worth living just a little bit more.