the Diva Platform

We’ve been a little stressed out over the past couple of weeks, and I haven’t wanted to talk about it until we made a final decision.

The Boy’s been offered a job outside of Boston.

Yesterday we decided to take it.

It’s not just the fact that he’s been unemployed for 11 months, but this job is a good way for him to switch careers, something he’s been trying to do.  Me?  I can pick up and move anywhere, which is nice.

We’ve spent the last couple of days in the area, checking it out, making sure we could handle living here.  I think we can make it work.  The area is really pretty and charming.  We’d have to get used to driving everywhere–and the roads here are like Ireland’s:  Narrow, lots of stone walls bordering them, and horrible street signage (if the streets are even marked).

Over the next few months we’ll be in transition–even though the Boy starts right away, we get some time to pack up and relocate.  I’ve never done a full-on relocation like this, so it will be interesting, needless to say.

We had to make a quick trip to Pittsburgh this week to attend the funeral of Sir’s dad.  It was a little unexpected, but we were glad we went (and if you need a guy to do a eulogy, I might be able to get one.  Sir’s younger brother did an amazing job and was incredibly cool and collected throughout the speech.  Heck, he even improvised–the priest almost forgot the eulogy, and the brother said he’d hoped divine intervention was playing a role).

I also got to check something off my master “to do” list:  Visit a Giant Eagle.

I’d heard of Giant Eagle grocery stores before, and really, they’re just another grocery chain, with “Giant Eagle” instead of “Jewel” plastered on the Peanuts fruit snacks.  But they’re in Pittsburgh, and I’m not, so visit them, I had to.

I didn’t even think about it until we were on the road, and then I had one of those “a ha moments.”  ”Giant Eagle!  Can we go to Giant Eagle while we’re there.”

The Boy was nice enough to humor me.  ”If we have time and can find one,” he said.

Oh, we found two!

I wandered the aisles, looking at all the East Coast brands that we don’t get in Chicago:  Heluva Good cheese (which apparently is in Illinois–I just don’t buy enough cheese to notice it).  Tastykakes.  Pittsburgh Pretzels.  Herr’s chips.  I loved how the pierogi was enough of a food group to make it on the aisle label, e.g.–Aisle 7: (frozen foods) Entrees, French fries, Pierogies, Pizza, Sweet Goods.  Perhaps they were arranged alphabetically, but I’d like to think that pierogies were a better seller than pizza, therefore getting a better billing on the sign.

I was curious as to why beer wasn’t sold there, and Pennsylvania seems to have some wacky alcohol laws that we didn’t have time to get explained to us.  We wanted to find Three Stooges beer.  We went to a Giant Eagle that advertised “wine and spirits,” thinking that beer was included.  Apparently, to buy beer in Pittsburgh, you need to either go to a bar, or you go to a “beer distributor,” (i.e.–beer store).  We went to the latter and discovered that the distributor only sells cases.  Thank goodness for variety packs!  They didn’t have the Three Stooges, but we did get some microbrew, which we’re looking forward to trying.

Now we have a little bit of Pittsburgh in our house, and it’s kind of nice.  The Tastykakes aren’t horrible, the pretzels are good, and I understand the Giant Eagle just a little bit more.

Bryant Mumble: Ready for WCR Action

Let’s see, where were we?  Yesterday was a bit of an intro, so let me dive into the fun stuff.  I got to St. Paul in the early evening–rode the bus with Helsa Wayton and The Shoveler.  The Shoveler turned out to be one of the jam refs on Team Legoland, and honestly, I could watch him ref all day.  So elegant!  His penalty signals were large, fluid movements, and he did this beautiful flip of the hand when displaying the score after a pass.  I feel a little silly swooning over someone’s hand motions, but they were mighty pretty.

Anyway, I shared a room with Dr. Vroom, Scorey Feldman, Tally Savalas (penalty tracker extrordinaire), and Elke Hollic (fab ref alternate).  Since there were five of us, Scorey called ahead for a cot in our room, only to check in and discover our hotel didn’t have cots.  Scorey’s bed?  The floor.  He was thrilled when housekeeping left him an extra comforter halfway through the stay–so excited, in fact, that while relaxing on a bed one evening, he drooled all over Tally’s pillow.  Thank goodness they gave each bed about 50 pillows!

Scorey + comfortable surface = drool

We weren’t that far from our venue, The Legendary Roy Wilkins Auditorium.  What makes a place legendary?  Is it because of Roy Wilkins himself, a civil rights activist and former executive director of the NAACP?  Is it the remarkably cool stage backdrop, complete with funky lighting?

The Roy's legendary lighting

Is it because the massive, yet close balcony made for great derby watching?  Or is it because I haven’t seen roaches that big in a long time?  Yes, we were told the place had roaches, and true to form, I immediately ran into one in the ref bathroom (upon seeing one, I immediately did an “ew, bug!” dance/shiver and got the hell out of there….to never use the ref bathroom again the entire weekend), and I saw a couple of large dead ones on the floor in the back.  Delightful, but really, what are you going to do with an older building?

Sad to say, the tournament started on a somber note.  One of the North Star Roller Girls (but not on the travel team) was out walking with her baby daughter, when she was hit by a car and killed.  Her daughter was unharmed.  [note: the police are trying to reconstruct what happened; a fund's been set up for the daughter]

Team Legoland started off the tourney….and to be honest, for the most part I don’t remember who we reffed or how well anyone did, except places 1-4.  I do know that we did all of Brew City’s matches (including an exciting OT ending to their last game)–and Brew City is fun because they chant, “Brew City Bruisers!  Beer!  Beer!  Beer!”  [and if you think I'm not being impartial, I also like a Madison Dairyland Dolls shirt that says on the front, "MOO Bitch" and on the back, "Get out the Whey!"].  We also got to ref the finals, which was Windy City beating Madison soundly to take the regional crown.

I should talk for a moment about the NS official attire.  WFTDA tournaments have dress codes.  That means, if you’re an official who wears a costume, you don’t wear it.  That also means that I, Intejill, had to put my “pants by number” concept on hold (you’ll see it next home season), because, well, frankly, I don’t have a lot of dark pants and didn’t want to wear a skirt.  We NSO’s were given pink “official” t-shirts, which we can put the WFTDA patch on, if we’d like.  We had to pair them with dark bottoms and–as I could’ve sworn I read in the wee hours of the morning as I printed off the dress code before I packed (since I was scared shitless of messing up)–dark socks.

So yours truly is running around in black capris, black socks, and tennis shoes.  It’s not pretty.  And I noticed that everyone else is wearing white socks with their dark bottoms (unless you’re Rink Floyd, and then you’re wearing tall boots with your utilikilt, and you don’t even see the socks).  On Saturday night we were hanging out in our room, talking about dress, when I blurted out, “Yeah, what gives with everyone wearing white socks? We’re supposed to be wearing black socks!”

To which I see four faces–the head ref of the tournament being one of them–staring at me dumbfounded, wondering what the hell I’m talking about.  Tally Savalas is amazed that I even notice everyone’s socks (I’m a girl, I’m insecure about my attire, I notice).  After I go off on everyone wearing white socks when we’re supposed to be wearing black socks, I say I’ll prove it, and pull out my handy A4 folder that’s got my tourney rules in it.  And it clearly states, “SOCKS:  Black and/or white socks….”  Oops.

Thank goodness I was going with formal dress pants on Sunday.  Nobody would notice my black socks.  They’d just notice my stupid tennis shoes with the pants.

Suffice it to say, I’m now known to a select few as “Socks Jaracz.”

It could’ve been all derby, all the time for me, but it wasn’t so.  Usually when I go to a conference or meeting, I’m dying to get out and see some of the city.  I want to ditch.  This time?  Not so.  But I got out because I needed to find a drug store (someone hasn’t been traveling enough–my travel saline expired on me, and I didn’t notice until I got there), and I wanted to see a little of St. Paul, even if it was only a few blocks.  St. Paul has a bunch of Peanuts-related statues all over, and I enjoyed seeing them, especially outside of different businesses who’d sponsored them.  I wandered down the 7th Place Market (a block-long pedestrian zone) to get to Walgreens, and saw the marquee on the Palace Theater, which said, “Minnesota!  It’s not just for Lutherans anymore!” which I thought was funny, until just now, when I looked it up and saw that it was a comedy show that closed in 2005, which means it’s kind of sad.  And maybe that the state is just for Lutherans.

Sadness aside, I came across an awesome candy shop called Candyland that I would’ve spent a ton of money at, if it weren’t for the “no outside food” rule at The Roy.  I really wanted a big bag of popcorn–and even then it was a tough decision.  Fresh caramel corn/cheese corn mix?  Or buttered–and the butter is squirted on in various intervals as the clerk fills up the bag?).  No way I was getting that into the auditorium.  I did get some candy blocks (not Legos, per se, but close enough to make Team Legoland excited), some choco rocks (like M&M’s on steroids), and a coconut haystack.  That was plenty.

Due to only having one bout to officiate on Saturday, I managed to fit in a quick run along the river.  Honestly, St. Paul has/is building a really nice path along the Mississippi River, that is probably stunning later in fall when the leaves turn.  What I loved about it was that the bike and pedestrian lanes were totally separate–makes for a much better experience for everyone.

That said, that was just about it to downtown.  I mean, it was like Chicago, circa 1995–not much is going on at night, and not that many people live in downtown proper.  Yet.  Sure, I felt safe, but it was also weird talking to the hotel staff about the fact that Walgreens closed early.  Still, it wasn’t a bad city.  We went to The Bulldog a couple of evenings, and they had a good bison burger and a decent beer list.  Also, $1.75 an hour for parking at a meter.  What do you think of that, Chicago?

And although we couldn’t do anything dangerous at night that could possibly take us out of the tournament (sorry, but no mechanical bull riding for me), we still managed to drink a few and have fun.  The bummer part of the weekend was that I had some work to do, due Monday night, which meant I dragged around my laptop and skipped the final afterparty, which apparently had this awesome Guns N’ Roses tribute band.  All in all though, excellent tournament, and I’m looking forward to the next one I get to do!

Me and the awesome Steely Danielle

This Non-Skating Official (NSO) has officially recovered from the Brawl of America!  And what a tournament it was–honestly, everything seemed to go really smoothly, from the venue to the bouts, and it really was a great experience.  This was my first tournament to officiate at, and I hope I haven’t been spoiled.

Our tournament head ref was Windy City’s own Dr. Vroom, and assisting her/wrangling NSO’s was Scorey Feldman, aka Nurse Vroom, who is anal in all the ways you want an organized person to be.  When I worked at McDonald’s in high school, I had a manager who constantly harped on “proper procedure.”  Scorey’s developed his own proper procedure for pretty much everything related to the non-skating officiating side, and dammit, it works pretty well (he’s also open to suggestions though, which does take off some of the anal edge).

A quick explanation for those of you who aren’t schooled in derby speak.  Officiating is made up of two types of referees, skating and non-skating.  Each bout can have up to seven skating referees, so each of the bouts here had a head ref (who also did inside pack reffing), two jammer refs (one for each jammer), an inside pack ref, and three outside pack refs.  The pack refs skate around with the pack and specifically look for penalties there.  For NSO’s there was a scorekeeper, scoreboard op, jam timer, one penalty tracker, one penalty wrangler, one inside whiteboard, two outside whiteboards (used for communicating penalties), one penalty box manager, and two penalty box timers.  We also had two alternate refs.  A lot of people are involved.  Our tourney had three crews to staff it all, and we rotated bouts, each crew officiating five times over the weekend.

I was on Team Legoland, led by the excellent Professor Murder, and my job was operating the scoreboard, which is a pretty harmless position and a good one for someone like me who didn’t have a ton of non-WCR experience and no tournament experience whatsoever (people apply for these jobs months in advance–I got lucky and filled in for a dropout).  Scoreboard’s not as much pressure, as say the scorekeeper, who sat next to me and was responsible for making sure the score was actually correct.  I just had to make sure the tallies were correct, start and stop the scoreboard timer, and keep the jam clock as close to the jam timer’s whistles as possible….which I did fairly well.  I had a glitch we had to take a time out to fix once, and in another game, the teams didn’t sit on the right sides, so the score was reversed for a few minutes.  Still, I did all right, and Steely Danielle, my excellent scorekeeper who hailed from the North Star Roller Girls, and I made Scorey proud.

Yawn….did I say I’d recovered?  Apparently I haven’t, so more tomorrow, including drool, what makes The Roy Wilkins Auditorium legendary, avoiding the mechanical bull, and my very own trading card!

So WFTDA North Central Regionals are over.  Windy City won.  I, to paraphrase referee Ana Bender, operated the shit out of the scoreboard.  And I had a great time.  The odd thing was that for once I went to a conference-type thing, and didn’t feel the need to duck out of the show.  Don’t get me wrong, I did duck out a couple of times when I wasn’t working because I wanted to make sure I saw a teeny bit of St. Paul, even if it was only a few square blocks.  I did so in the same way I’ve had to learn to stop eating when I’m no longer hungry.

At any rate, I’ve got work to finish up for today, some sleep to catch up on, and a tournament to ponder.  I’ll have more tomorrow–including a great candy store, a word about socks, whether or not Minnesota is just for Lutherans, and what it’s like to order a breakfast, only to have about a half-dozen eggs, four pieces of sausage, four pieces of bacon, a huge hunk of hash browns, and a basket of toast set in front of you.  Denny’s Grand Slam had nothing on this.

So while I digest this all, tell me something from your last vacation or business trip, or where we should go next.

When the phone rings, and the question on the other end is, “I just got four tickets to see U2 on Sunday.  Do you and the Boy want to go?”, the answer is always, “Yes!”

College Roommate S’ favorite band is U2, and living together in a dorm room makes you appreciate each other’s favorite bands more.  I’d liked U2 before we met, but from her I learned to appreciate them a hell of a lot more. I’ve seen them in concert with her a couple of times.  We saw the “Achtung Baby” tour (AWESOME!), and then one a few years ago–probably the “All You Can’t Leave Behind” tour, but we can’t quite remember because we can only remember the awesomeness of being in the general admission floor section in the United Center and winding up about 10 feet from Bono when he strutted around the front ramp stage extension.

She lucked into some seats for the big 360-degree tour, which kicked off its North American leg in Chicago.  It’s been big news.  I hadn’t thought about going–and then we got the call.  And in my excitement, I answered yes for the Boy, not realizing he’d made other plans, but then our other college friend Indy was able to come up and surprise S, which was great fun.

Our seats were in the far corner from the stage, in the top of the Club level.  Let me tell you, the Club level at Soldier Field is pretty sweet!  There’s a ton of different food (prime rib sandwiches, BBQ brisket, burritos, chicken tenders, and much more), comfortable outdoor seats, and lots of indoor seating, with TVs tuned to the Bears game, which was cool.  Granted, I have no clue what a ticket for a football game would cost, but the amenities might actually be worth it.

We were also pleasantly surprised that even though our seats weren’t great on paper, they were actually quite decent.  The U2 spacecraft set was enormous (about half of the football field), and we had a great vantage point to enjoy the songs we knew–and we could sit through some of the new stuff we didn’t know.

Overall though, it was an excellent show (you may have heard, since 70,000+ people have probably Tweeted and Facebooked the hell out of it), and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that U2 knows how to perform.  This was a fact that I really appreciated, and in the middle of the show, I waxed poetic to myself about what great performers they were and what I could learn (should I ever do a public reading) from Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen, and….oh, man!  What’s the fourth guy’s name?!  How could I forget this?

I felt like Maria in “The Sound of Music” during the scene where she’s praying for all the Von Trapp children and can’t remember the one boy’s name until just after she finishes the prayer and has to add a postscript with the proper name.  Even though I danced and sang with the songs, I spent the rest of the concert trying to remember who my Kurt was, and by the end of the very last number of the second encore, I had it:  Adam Clayton.

And I took comfort in knowing that even though it took a while, my brain could still perform.

I’m actually putting some effort into clearing off the piles of paper stacked on and around my desk, and I came across a bunch of notes I’d scribbled on the back of an Art Institute Visitor Guide from when I went to visit the new Modern Wing.

I got in a couple of days before it opened because Ma Jaracz is a member, and members got a special preview a couple of days before the official opening.  That was a nice little perk, seeing as how I’d probably say, “Yeah, new wing.  I’ll get there.  Someday.”  And someday would end up being a decade later, much like my visiting the Shedd Aquarium a couple of years ago, which was the first time I’d been there since third grade.

The new wing is gorgeous–worth all the money they put into it.  The place is huge, almost like a museum in and of itself.  It’s lofty and airy, has a few classrooms, a dedicated room for film and video art (which I’m not terribly convinced about, but whatever.  It’s just a different medium).  I didn’t get to go across the bridge that leads from Millennium Park, but I will go down on a nice day and do so because the view of the park from the Modern Wing is spectactular.

Anyway, some other thoughts I wrote down:

• Sign by Amedeo Modigliani’s portrait of Lipchitz–Modigliani died young due to tuberculosis and “his legendary bohemian lifestyle.”  Well, that’s a nice way to put it, isn’t it?
• Cy Twombly (special exhibit) is not Ed Emberley.  Not even close.  But for some reason I kept confusing the two.  At least they both are artists, so chalk one up for me getting them both in the same category.
• I spotted a couple of paper conservators cleaning the glass on one of the pieces.  That was cool to observe (but not take pictures of–NO PHOTOS in the special exhibit!)
• The Art Institute received a donation of Joseph Cornell boxes that they were quite proud to get and display.  Some people call them boxes.  Others call them dioramas.
• Favorite title of a piece?  “Figure with Meat” by Francis Bacon.
• Matisse’s “Lemons on a Pewter Plate” was awaiting frame delivery.  It was kind of cool to look at the canvas without the frame–I don’t think the frame would’ve covered up much, but it was still interesting to see the canvas nailed into its wood backing.
• In the graphic design area, there was a series of posters from Guatemala on a specific national campaign called Cultura de Sueños. My favorite read, “Remember the days when Guatemala touched the world.  Ricardo Arjona sang.  Juan Doe ran.  Jaime Vinnale climbed.  Who will be the next Guatemalan to make a difference?”  Not only did I get a kick out of the name Juan Doe, I also thought about how I in imperialistic America don’t really consider people from smaller countries like Guatemala who can make a difference.  I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be from a smaller country that perhaps didn’t have as much impact on the world as the one I live in does.  How would life be different?
• Frank Gehry’s concept sketch of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum was a mass of scribbles, and I couldn’t see how he got an entire building out of a lackidasical doodle.  Amazing.

At any rate, I hope it’s not an eon before I go back to the new wing.  It’d be nice to get back there before they stop calling it “new” and just call it “modern.”

Yesterday I mentioned that I was really tired and didn’t go to bike with Phil Keoghan.  Why?  Because I drove all day on Friday (so it seemed).  The 50 miles to Joliet wasn’t bad.  Tooling around Joliet wasn’t bad.  The 50 miles home wasn’t awful, but traffic was starting to build up, it being a Friday afternoon.  The 30 miles to Lansing was a nightmare.

We could’ve taken Metra to and from Joliet, but seeing as how I thought the afternoon would run long, I rented a car for the entire day.  I’d planned to drop the Boy off at the Metra and head east to a different suburb for the German Party.  However, we finished up pretty early, and I had time to drive back into the city and relax for a little bit.

When we first got into Chicago, I noticed that traffic heading south on Lake Shore Drive was backing up a bit.  This would be how I’d normally get back out of the city.  After listening to some traffic reports, I thought it’d be quicker to cut west through the city and hop on a different expressway.

Wrong.

I got on the Kennedy and crawled.  I’d hoped to make it back to the ‘burbs to buy gas there, but by the time I hit the Loop, the gas light was coming on.  With traffic this bad and me not knowing how long my tank would last, I exited and drove around the West Loop until I found a gas station.  Of course, it was pretty far south in the Loop, and I couldn’t hop right back on the expressway because it was too close to the Circle Interchange, where several expressways meet.  I ended up getting back on at Chinatown, which was a couple of miles away.

Traffic flowed fairly smoothly for a little while, but it started to slow down again as I got further south on the Dan Ryan.  Once I merged onto the Bishop Ford Expressway, everything slowed further to an absolute crawl–until ~130th street, where I found out that a couple of news trucks on the frontage road filming a gaggle of people in front of a new strip club had created this enormous delay. After that, traffic flowed pretty smoothly.

All told, it was the absolute worst day I’ve ever had in traffic.  I’d budgeted over 1.5 hours to get to the party on time (and maybe even early so I could talk to people), and I got there 20 minutes late.  Two HOURS to go 30-some miles.  That’s just insane.  The gapers blocks are absolutely asinine–if you see a news truck, watch the news later.  You’re not going to figure anything out by seeing it from inside your car.

Friday was also one of the better weather days we’ve had so far this year, so everyone poured outside (hence my reasoning for budgeting 1.5 hours for what’s usually a 30-40 minute trip).  The traffic turned into an instant nightmare, and it immediately grated on my nerves.  It’s one of those things that makes me wonder if I can survive another summer living where I do–if I can, I’m certainly going nowhere!

The suburban excitement isn’t over yet, folks!  On Friday, the Boy and I trekked to Joliet to see Phil Keoghan, host of my favorite show “The Amazing Race,” who made an appearance at Harrah’s Joliet casino while he was on his bike ride across America. You might ask why we rented a car and drove the 50 miles each way just to see Phil, when he was going to be just a couple miles away the next morning, but I had Dark Lord Day and didn’t want to try to cram in too much (I seriously thought about it but hadn’t gotten much sleep on Thursday night.  Friday wiped me out from this trip and the trip to the German party, and although I woke up early on Saturday morning intending to ride bikes with Phil, I felt a little sick at that point and decided that another couple hours of sleep would mean a happier Jill for the rest of the day.  I was right).  Oh, and there were auditions for the next season of the show too.

I’d love to be on “The Amazing Race.”  I love to travel, I love the excitement of this show, I’d love all the new experiences.  So, after some discussion and a long time writing up the application, we went down to Joliet.  Auditions were from 10-2.  The Boy didn’t think we needed to be there especially early–we could wait in line and be fine.  I figured there’d be a bunch of people, but it was Friday, and the audition was announced fairly quickly.  How many people could show up?

Apparently a lot.  We got there pretty much at 10 AM and found out all the slots were taken (they could only fit in so many auditionees during the allotted time, a fact that wasn’t mentioned).  They were gone so quickly because people had started lining up at 9 PM the night before.  All the spots were gone by 3:30 AM. We were a bit flabbergasted, but oh, well.  We were still there, so we might as well make the best of it.

We hung out and watched all the couples around us.  People in combat gear, Moms with homemade sashes that declared them “Brownie Buddies,” folks in matching Cubs t-shirts and pajama pants (Sox fans were there too).  Apparently a team from “The Biggest Loser” showed up to audition as well, but I don’t watch that show, so that didn’t really resonate with me (I’d be curious to see if a team from an NBC show can get on a CBS show though).

Phil Keoghan did indeed come out and say hello to everyone.  He pimped his bike ride and his NOW One Square Meal bars (not bad, but a bit bland–they come in packs of two bars.  You’re supposed to eat both, but you get pretty full after just one).  He looked good and was pleasant in that “yes, I’m well-known and will be nice and everything, but don’t fool yourself into thinking we’re going to be buddies after this one chance meeting” way, which I always find impressive.

Hey, Phil!

Phil was only around a few minutes, so once he left, we were done too.  We wandered around the casino for a little bit–it actually has a fairly small gaming floor, with a lot of slot machines, including “Village People Party” and “Dean Martin’s Wild Party”–though the people tethered to the machines didn’t look like wild partiers.  Another machine was called “Lucky Lemmings.”  Oh, the irony.

I thought it was interesting that the Race had auditions in a casino.  After all, the Race is all about adventure and exploration, and when you went into the gaming area you saw mostly senior citizens with canes, in wheelchairs, or dragging oxygen tanks alongside them.  They didn’t look much like adventurers, unless by “adventure” you mean “try the next slot machine over.”

After our spin through the casino, we nosed around for lunch and ended up at The Department, a pretty nice place in downtown Joliet (motto:  “If it’s fun, it’s in Downtown Joliet!”) that’s dedicated to police officers and firepeople.  Then we wandered over to the Joliet Area Historical Museum, which for being a little city museum, is put together really nicely.  They’ve got a bunch of cool artifacts from the past (but then, I like looking at old clothes and kitchen gadgets), and the look of the place is really professional.

Our last stop was the jail where “Prison Break” was filmed (we don’t watch the show, but I got confused between this prison and the one where “The Blues Brothers” was filmed.  I don’t know many places where that would be a problem).  We marvelled at the barbed wire and warning signs around the building, and then we piled in the car and headed back to Chicago.

Impressive barbed wire

State your business.

So even though we didn’t get the adventure we’d anticipated, we had an adventure of a different sort, and one that we really enjoyed.

I’m going to mix up the timeline in my suburban adventures a bit because I’m working through the list-o-stories.  This one’s from Friday evening–part high school reunion, part Kuturelles Erlebnis (cultural experience, in German), part giving thanks.

This year my high school German teacher is retiring.  Every year Frau (yep, that’s what everyone calls her.  People will call her husband “Herr Frau”) and her German students put together a little dinner with German food and skits, and the evening is a way to celebrate the year and showcase what the students have learned.  Since this was her last one, all German alumni were invited as well.

And we showed up!  It was great to see a lot of my classmates and former teachers (also scary to look at some people and realize that even though they’re my age, they may not be alums; they may have kids in high school).  It was great to celebrate Frau–she was seriously one of my best high school teachers, and that’s saying a lot because I was lucky enough to have a lot of great teachers.  I took German for three years and was so well-grounded in grammar and vocab (thanks to daily quizzes) that I was one of three incoming freshman at my college to get into 300 level German courses.  She also cared a lot about me (and all of her students, really) as a person, and as a wacky, nerdy, emotional teenager, it was helpful to have another sounding board around me on a daily basis.

All-around, it was a good evening.  Tasty food, cute skits, got to see friends….and then the weirdness of high school came back.  Yes, I was excited to see a lot of these people, but I had no idea what to say to them after a few minutes of small talk.  It’s not like I see them at church or community functions, like some people do.  I see a handful of high school friends regularly, and I’m Facebook buddies with a bunch more.  And I think I like having that Internet separation.  It’s hard to explain, but I went to a Christian school of the Dutch Christian Reformed type.  I am neither Dutch nor Reformed (nor conservative), so there was always a bit of me that didn’t quite fit in.  Oh, it wasn’t totally horrible or completely traumatizing.  I don’t mean to be dramatic.  I had plenty of friends, I was good in school, and teachers liked me for the most part, but I also felt I didn’t quite belong.  An incident in junior high (at a Dutch Christian Reformed feeder school) probably explains my feelings well:  We took a mock vote in social studies for the 1984 Presidential election:  23 of my fellow classmates would’ve voted for Reagan.  Only I would’ve voted for Mondale.  So I wasn’t overtly different, but different enough that I could feel it from time to time.  Since high school, I’m sure my ways of thinking have gotten even more different from the Reformed tradition, and I don’t even want to see how different I’d be now.

Being back at high school actually brought back some of those anxieties in what’s probably a typical high school reunion feeling, and sadly, I could make small talk, but after saying hello and chit-chatting, I didn’t know what else to do.  So after a while, I snuck off and walked up to the German room just to see it once more.  Frau’s room is ablaze in murals–this started a couple of years before me when the seniors in German 3 painted the Berlin Wall on her back wall.  I was in German 3 when the Wall fell, and on that day we all got to paint ourselves dancing on top of it.  Since then, each class has gotten to paint a mural in the room.  Some get painted over, but our dancing stick figures are still there–I’m still dancing on the Wall (the title of this entry)!  It was cool to see that and makes me happy that a little piece of me is important enough to still exist there, in a place where I didn’t always quite fit in.

Part of the Berlin Wall mural in the German classroom.

I'm dancing! My German name was Anne.