Coin Purses and Me

In our further adventures of what is under the bed, let us look and see what's in this shoe box. Ah! It seems to be various small purses, random jewelry and barrettes and quite a few foreign coins.

The coin purses and such I don't particularly need, but they have been gifts or things I've had since childhood, so I can't give them away. One of them has coins in it, pennies from every year I've been alive - although at some point I stopped putting pennies in it - I hope that doesn't mean anything. That particular purse is also full of these stretchy band things that I had when I was a kid that were a things children were supposed to weave into a headband. They are in bright, florescent colors. Somewhere there's a photograph of me in such a headband, and my outfit could not match less. I'll see if I can find it.

There's an ankh in there somewhere from middle school or so. I've always been interested in different cultures and religions. There was also a Garfield special from when I was little where the plot line centered around an ankh.

The yellow thing is one of those random bits of plastic from the 80s - this one was for when a girl wore a shirt that was really long, and you would thread a corner of the shirt through this thing and then ... that's what you would do.

There are also a few 80s type bracelets. Besides the fact that I'm sure that there will be some sort of 80s party of in my future, they are just too much a part of my past.

And then the coins. I have coins from my trips to Mexico, England, Canada, along with random coins I've picked up along the way like from Hong Kong. And there's also an envelope with paper money - several $2 bills, some Russian money, and colorful French money - which I suppose will eventually become valuable since it ain't like they're printing that anymore.

I wish I had more uses for these things ... or a nicer way to keep the coins ... but I think they'll all be fine for right now.

Art and Me

So here's the first thing I pulled out from under the bed. An art set. I got it about six years ago or so when my boyfriend at the time's aunt gave me a ... let's call it less than desirable sweater vest for Christmas. The vest came from a company called Coldwater Creek, and the only store we could find was wayyyy out in the valley. So we drove there, I believe with his family. The clothes were all the same, that is, way out of my age range, but they had all sorts of other things I was interested in. With my store credit, I picked out a set of eight beautifully hand-crafted wine and martini glasses, which are a pain to hand wash but always worth it; a tan throw that currently lives on the couch in the living room, easy to wash; and this art set.

When I saw it, I wanted it, despite my not-very-artistic tendencies. My boyfriend thought it was too much, too bulky and frowned but I promised that I would throw away all my old art supplies if he *let* me get it (in his defense, we were sharing a home by this point, but that still doesn't defend his position). So I got it - and of course never threw away my markers from third grade that may not work very well, but still smell like lime and liquorish and lemon and there was no way I was letting go of those instant nostalgia babies.

I'll admit that I don't use the art set much - logically it would be kept at my desk instead of under the bed, but I find it more accessible this way, and my desk is overcrowded as it is. But every so often I get it out and appreciate it. For this post, I decided to make something with the oil pastels. For inspiration, I headed to Illustration Friday, where the week's word is "swamp." So I drew this:
And I feel pretty good about it. I'm pleased with the sky the most, I think. I will try and remember to actually submit it to Illustration Friday.

The Bed Frame and Me

Five years ago, my friend and former roommate M., who now lives in England, got married. My boyfriend at the time and I attended. He spent the wedding acting weird. He insisted we leave early because his stomach hurt, although the food had been vegetarian and not at all tough on the tummy. The next day, the truth was revealed: he was breaking up with me. While this didn't come as a total shock - we had been on the rocks for the previous sixth months - I was surprised. I thought our six year relationship was getting better. I took a nap in the middle of the break up, and we went to bed in the same bed. I had trouble falling asleep, so I got up and went to the couch for awhile before coming back to bed to fall asleep. The next morning, he got up before me. While he was busy, I snuck into the bathroom to take a shower. We were supposed to attend a concert together that night, but I left it up in the air when he asked me through the shower door.

After he left I called my mom, who was supportive. I got to work and stumbled through the day. I sent him an email that said I would be going to a concert with a friend, and while I was gone I would appreciate it if he would gather up what he needed and move to his parents house a few miles away until I could find an apartment.

So I moved out. Within a little over a week I had found a place, and within two weeks I was moving out. I did not own much furniture, just a desk, a trunk, and a metal shelf. We happened to be borrowing a fold up futon-like thing from his parents at the time, so I took that with me, and it was my bed for the next couple months.

When M. returned from her Italian honeymoon, I took a long lunch to go to her office and tell her what had transpired the day after her wedding. At some point, she told me that they were using part of their gift money to buy a new mattress for her husband's not-so-great-at-the-time back. Would I like the old one? Yes! By Christmas, it was mine. I gave the futon back to my ex during a weird January night, in the parking lot of his work.

So now I had a real mattress, but no bed frame. I can't remember if there was talk of me maybe getting the one from M. and her husband, or if I just put off purchasing a new one, but by the time it was summer, M. and her husband where headed off to live in London. Would I like the bed frame? Yes!

It's one of those lovely frames that gives you space under the bed. I store many things under it.

This is all to say that many things that one owns often have a story to them. So my plan is to dig under the bed and see what other stories are under there. There are quite a few things from my childhood and past. I'm curious as to where I'm keeping my toy cars ... so that's part of the goal. But yes, that's the plan for the next little while.

Popularity and Me

Was I popular as a child? Hrmm .... yes and no? I've never lacked for friends, and I was generally well known at school, but I don't know if you could ever label me as popular. In elementary and middle school I was picked on. My bully in elementary school had a name that had my own name in the middle of her last name. Even as a child, I knew there was something to that ... although I'm sure I didn't have the right word for it. Hell, I don't think I have the right word for it now, besides 'ironic.' But it was more than that ... I'm thinking something Greek ...

In middle school I was bullied by a group of girls in sixth grade for not shaving my legs. I'm sure there was more to it than that ... probably also had something to do with, and not having gone to the feeder elementary school. So I started shaving my legs, and generally staying away from those girls ... and that was pretty much the last time I was bullied. In seventh and eighth grade I found friends among the nerds, the slackers and the potheads (some of them were all three, I was just the first). I fit in, but I wasn't class president.

In high school, I was never bullied. In fact, I apparently stopped bullies. A friend has told me a story of when we were in senior year, that we had watched a couple of seniors throw a freshman into a trashcan and that I had yelled at the seniors and then helped the kid out. I have NO recollection of this, and in fact, question the truth of it.

Regardless, I found my niche in high school. In my freshman year, I assembled a group of five other girls, and we hung out a lot (the picture above is from a pool party of ... well, four out of the six of us). Our group did not continue, but I still had friends, and I was well known at school for being the 'Star Wars' girl - the one who wore her hair in Princess Leia buns for no particular reason around campus and who got up at four in the morning to get tickets to episode one.

I could hang out with any group, really - the theater kids, the popular kids, the ethnic kids. I spent my senior year as pretty much the only white girl around a large contingent of Asian girls, and I enjoyed myself. I amused them, I'm sure.

So I may not have been popular - but I survived with my sense of humor in tact. I think that's more important anyway.

The Preschool and Me Part II

So Reggio Emilio, as I understand it, is basically: give children freedom and beautiful things and they will create things that will amaze us. It was mostly the freedom part that I was in line with. I didn't want to teach a particular "curriculum" to children - I thought that would be boring for me and boring to them. The way I described my philosophy was "say the kids are playing outside and there's a bug that they find that they're interested in. Well, we would spend the next day, week or month, however long they were interested, studying that bug or more bugs. We would see where things take us."

And so I got the job. At first I was a little lost, and still thinking in antiquated ways. When one child did something mean to another, I insisted the child who hurt the other apologize. But another teacher stopped me and explained that at this school, we asked the injured child what they would like the other person to do. In this case, it was give them a hug. That was often the requested response. "Interesting..." I thought.

Eventually, I brought eggs to the children for some sort of project that I had come up with, and their interest in them brought us to the Egg Project. For the next couple of months, we focused on eggs, their yolk and different aspects of them.

During the summer we spent each week doing different things, more curriculum based than the school year, oddly enough. That fall, with the new class, I brought in a map of California, just to show the kids. They honed in on Lassen Volcanic National Park, and the Volcano Project was born. On and off for the rest of the school year, we learned about volcanoes together. It was amazing. I cherish the experience.

But it wasn't just teaching that I miss. I miss learning things about that age group. There was one afternoon where the girl pictured above and I spent a long time just sitting in a chair together, her in my lap, watching the other kids ride around on the tricycles. I learned a lot that day about the importance of just having quiet time on occasion, just enjoying the company of another person without words, just nice and comforting with her on my lap, relaxed. She'd been going through kind of a tough time - her best friend's mother had been trying to break them up, since she thought the girl was kind of a bad influence. But it was nice. I hope wherever that girl is, she's doing well. She'd be ... ten by now.

I miss preschool teaching ... but that's not quite my career path at this point. It's not the most stable of jobs, it doesn't pay well, and it's thoroughly exhausting - which is the main reason why I left the profession. But it is rewarding to the soul.

The Preschool and Me

I'm an only child. I didn't so much mind it - I don't remember actively pining for a sibling, except when I really wanted to learn how to double-dutch and there was no one around. I grew upon a block full of kids, and I had an active social life.

I spent a lot of time babysitting, even as a very young child - this would involve me watching the children of family friends in one room while adults where in another. By the time I was in high school, I had regular, weekly babysitting gigs.

My first real, paycheck job was as a hasher (food server) at a dorm at Stanford over the summer, when I was fourteen. I was lucky enough to have three of my friends begin working there as well. It was not great, but I made money. That fall, as a sophomore, I began supervising/tutoring a sixth grader who lived down the street after school. The following summer I became a preschool teacher's assistant. I continued working at the preschool until my senior year, when they stopped offering an afternoon program. I was offered a position as an after-school nanny to a family with two preschool aged children, and I continued that through the summer, along with the summer after my freshman year in college.

At college, I initially began courses that would allow me to become a computer science major. But I didn't quite get programming, and I didn't love it, and I especially didn't love having to take statistics again and doing quite badly in it. I made a radical change to a major in creative writing, and somewhere along the way began taking child development classes. I got it into my head that I would graduate a semester early, and when my mom asked what I would do with myself when I graduated, I answered that I would work at preschools until my writing career got off the ground.

So when I got out of school, I started at first with a substitute program, but that was pretty awful. Then I began at a school on Robertson in Los Angeles, and that was awful. I became a nanny and started taking night classes at the local community college so I could have enough Early Childhood Education credits to become a real teacher, not just an assistant. By the following fall, I had 13 credits, and I quit my nanny job, and went to Europe for six weeks with my then boyfriend.

I was unemployed for about three months before a preschool hired me. It was a Reggio Emilo type school - a philosophy I had never heard of, but lined up incredibly well with my own.

Tomorrow - Part II

Hammocks and Me

When I was in high school, sometime before junior year, I found a hammock in a box. It was faded, but without holes, and I asked my parents if I could set it up between two fruit trees in the front yard (before we lived their, our home had been occupied by Green Peace at some point, and so we had no lawn in either the back or the front, just fruit trees - fig, several apple, crab apple, lemon, orange and tangelo). I found a good spot between, I think, two apple trees in the front yard. My first plan was to put a screw or a nail in to hold up the hammock. After encountering resistance from the tree, I asked my dad how I was supposed to do this. He was a little horrified that I had tried to put something in the tree to hold it, told me that could kill the tree. So he gave me some rope and I figured it out eventually. Then all I had to do was put a little stand next to the hammock, and voila, instant paradise.

Our front yard was surrounded with a tall hedge, so my space was pretty much private, assuming no one came through the gate. I read a lot out there, mostly leisure. I remember reading a Katharine Hepburn bio out there. I also remember talking on the cordless phone to my new boyfriend (and first boyfriend) over Thanksgiving break. He told me about his dog, a Jack Russel terrier, who had chewed through the pipes and flooded the house. They were going to have to take him to a farm (for reals, not put him down) and he was quite devastated. I tried to console him. I never met the dog.

Now - what I wouldn't give for a hammock. I do have my lovely reading chair, which I've mentioned before, but it would be really nice to have someplace that's comfortable where I could read outside. We have a small balcony, and chairs, but they're not lounge-y. And the balcony's not really large enough for a hammock, even for one.

Someday. I'll put having a hammock to lie in again amongst my goals in life, along with being published and going to Australia.

Pinecrest and Me

Back when I was in ... probably middle school? I took a trip with my best friend and her mom. We were going camping, something I almost never did. We drove out of the city, went for a bit further, and arrived at an area near a lake. My best friend and I enjoyed ourselves, swimming, running around, looking for snakes. Our last full day there my friend was sick, so she stayed in the tent and slept and her mom and I took a long hike out away from the lake. I enjoyed myself.

Cut to the year 2000. The year I graduated high school. It was the early summer, and a friend of mine, H, had spent the past summer and some of that school year working for an internet company. He had been partially paid in stock, and when the company went public, H became quite the rich man, at least by high school senior standards. When his birthday came, he decided to treat several of us to a mini-vacation out in the woods, to a place he had gone fishing with his dad as a child. Pinecrest. So we packed up and took off.

The morning after we arrived, H rented us a party boat. As soon as we were on the lake, I saw an oddly familiar scene. It took me a while, but I eventually recognized the area as where I had camped with my best friend all those years ago. Now, camping areas in the bay area are quite prevalent, so it's a very surprising coincidence that I would happen to wind up here again.

As a group, through college and after, we continued to travel to Pinecrest. Through just last year, and I assume we'll be going again this year. I have missed the trip twice, once because I was in Hawaii with my boyfriend at the time and his family, and last year, as I had already taken an immense amount of time off of work to help my grampa move, and the trip was going to take place in the middle of the week.

I love having this tradition. It gives me a chance to catch up with my high school friends, see nature (from the luxury of a cabin), eat good foods and drink good wine. This is a tradition I hope to pass on to my children. I'll update here if the vacay happens again this year. I'm rooting for it.

Objects and Me

Recently I tried to determine what my most precious object is ... and I came up without anything, really. I mean, sure, my camera is important to me, my phone, my laptop ... and then my photos, stuffed animals from childhood and jewelery ... but I would be hard pressed to find an object precious.

The other night as I was trying to go sleep, I started naming things that I owned as a child, but not any longer, that I would to have back. These included the dollhouse my father built me as an Easter present at the age of five (given/lent to a family friend, eaten by their dog), my bikes (outgrown, though one was stolen, as I've mentioned before), my Cabbage Patch doll (lost after a very brief ownership, though my mom believes stolen).

On the list of childhood things I own and am fond of are: the Monopoly game board in the picture above, with a stain on it from the time I was in fourth grade and on spring break. My mom had a conference to attend, so my dad and I hung out and ate delivery Chinese food. Nothing stains quite like inexpensive Chinese food fat.

Also, many video tapes of various programs I enjoyed watching over and over as a child. Muppets, Duck Tales, Back to the Future. And they're all chock full of familiar 80s commercials.

And quite a few books, which can be found either on my bookshelf or in a box. I've discussed how important books have been, on and off, in my life, and it's nice having many of them from when I was little still around.

I dunno, tho ... even if I got all those things back, what would I do with them? The bikes might be nice to see, and I'd enjoy having the doll around for a bit, but mostly I would really like the Barbie dollhouse back. I used to spend hours just ... sitting in front of it. I was telling myself stories in my head about what the dolls were up to, I didn't really even have to manipulate them that much besides dressing them or moving them from room to room. There are some photos of the house, plus a very clear picture in my mind ... there were three floors. On the first floor, on the left side of the house was a large kitchen, which was painted yellow and had checkered yellow contact paper for the floor. In the middle was the living room, brown, and on the left, a guest bedroom. Upstairs on the left was the parents bedroom, followed by the bathroom, bright pink, and then two more bedrooms. The third floor was slanted and had an attic, which is where the children slept, Mary Poppins style. There was a lovely staircase, painted brown, connecting the first floor with the second, and it was removable, which was great when I wanted one of the young adult Barbies to move out on her own and have a loft apartment.

Sigh. Good times. I would love to have it back, tho it was really quite heavy and probably around four feet across and three feet high. Anyway, I should thank my dad for building it for me again, it was quite the feat and I love it still.

Driving and Me

I got my driver's license when I was 16. Unfortunately, I was hit with the new (at the time) law that made me unable to drive with anyone under the age of 18 (or was it 25?) in the car for the first sixth months, so essentially I drove by myself a lot. BOR-ING. But soon the six months were up. And I could drive my best friend around. Although there was another law that said I couldn't drive after midnight for a whole year after receiving my license. The only time that became an issue was during times when my best friend would be hanging out at my house and we would play Scrabble until late in the evening. Then sometimes my mom would just write a note. My friend only lived a matter of blocks away anyway.

My first long drive was probably to this magical place called Pinecrest ... I'll have to do a whole other blog post on that, perhaps tomorrow. It was about four hours away. When I went to college, my parents drove my car down from the Bay Area to So Cal, and I flew in from visiting relatives elsewhere. But driving back up at the end of the school year ...

I left before noon, hoping to arrive before dark. That did not happen. My car was a 1985 Volvo, and the year was 2001. The radiator wasn't so great, so I wound up having to stop a lot to put more water in, let the car cool down, that sort of thing. I think I got home around midnight. Tough times.

On my way down at the end of the summer, I drove my car with a friend of mine who was coming down to visit his girlfriend, and my mom followed, as we were moving out of the house we were living in, and I was taking a lot of stuff to school with me, mostly to store, in storage units or with my parents friends. We saw a car turned over in a ditch on our way down. We were so surprised we didn't stop, but did call the police - although the line cut out.

That Volvo never returned to the Bay Area. I sold her, Katherine, on Craigslist in 2006 and bought a 1995 Vovlo I named Sandy, after a trip to the beach with my mom shortly after I bought her.

Anywho, while I love my car and the independence it gives me, driving it these days makes me somewhat guilty due to my consumption of foreign oil, and angry, because drivers out there are unbelievably inconsiderate and distracted. So I do my best to take public transportation, and bike, and walk. Altogether more pleasant, if less convenient.

Baseball and Me

My family is not a sports family. I vaguely knew that there were sports teams around my hometown of San Jose, but they didn't much mean anything to me. In an effort to socialize, exercise and normalize me, my parents began enrolling me in sports starting in second grade. First up was t-ball, followed by soccer, volleyball and basketball. None of it caught on with me, and by sixth grade, they switched me to music, and I played the clarinet through college.

The only major memory I have of t-ball, besides a vague belief that if you dropped me off in San Jose I could show you where the field was (or maybe is - but probably was). The memory is of me sliding into home (for some unknown, probably unnecessary reason) and having some fat older kid step on my pinkie finger (I think left?) while wearing cleats. This kid was outfitted in a full-on uniform while the rest of rest of us wore team t-shirts and sneakers. Thanks a lot, overzealous parents of that kid. I remember a lot of pain, and refusing the look at my finger split open at the nail. My coach tried to comfort me by telling me that we'd won because of me, but even at the age of seven I knew that was BS because we never kept score.

I went to Candlestick Park once, around that time, with a friend and her dad. I only remember that it was mind-numbingly cold. Later, in freshman year of college, I went with a friend to Pac Bell Park. It was less cold, but the game still didn't mean anything to me. I liked hanging out with my friend in San Fran.

In sophomore year, I began dating my now ex, and his father had season tickets to the Dodgers. So I became a Dodgers fan. Did I enjoy it? Yes, although I found it hard to know that one team had to lose for another to win. I enjoyed the opportunity to sit outside on a nice day, and sometimes we'd bring the Sunday paper and read it and do Sudoku during the less exciting parts of the game.

Do I miss it? Maybe. It's not exactly worth the hassle and expensive.

My boyfriend is a fan of the Rangers, and I want them to win. I root for them. You guys can do it 'cause we believe in you.