RoaringSheep

Sunday Morning, Black Leather

This morning I had the opportunity to go out alone and I went to a bookstore.  While I was there I saw a couple who were very much like who I thought I'd be at this age.  They were dressed in black, with black leather jackets, and were perusing books in many different sections of the store.  When I was in college, I truly thought that I'd be part of a union such as this, spending lazy Sunday mornings drinking good tea and engaging in literary pursuits before sitting down with the New York Time crossword puzzle.  Of course, my life isn't like that.

This morning I threw on a voluminous (and 20 year old) handknit sweater over my microbrewery t-shirt and velour warm up pants and threw on some trainers so I could head out on a solo shopping expedition.  It's been years since I last wore my leather jacket and the only black pants I believe I own are yoga pants.  My husband owns almost nothing black and doesn't wear black leather except for at work (Yes, I *did* marry one of the Village People! ;-) )  It's always a special kind of torture for me to bring him to a bookstore.  My kids like bookstores but we have to be on a mission -- in and out very quickly -- in order to bring them into a bookstore.

So, did I envy those people in black, perusing books at their leisure?  Not a bit.  And it's not because I find motherhood or family life so fulfilling.  That's not where I'm going here.  I am surprised at how different my real adult life is from my youthful fantasy of what my adult life would be like, and I'm surprised at how I'm happy about that. 

Lately, everywhere I turn I see articles and books about how to organize your life so that it's more fulfilling.  It's important to have a multi-year plan about how to live your life, they emphasize.  While I won't argue that it's smart to look to the future when making plans for retirement saving or major purchases, I can't imagine why I'd want to map out my next three or five years and work at sticking to the plan.  Whatever happened to spontaneity?  What about trying new things?

I'm not saying I wouldn't have been happy as a black-clad intellectual, but I can't imagine missing out on all the things that I've experienced in order to get where I am now.  Having a specific plan for my life seems limiting to me.  I'm always going to have to say no to some opportunities, whether I choose to not take advantage of them intentionally or whether saying yes to one opportunity forecloses the possibility of another one.

The multi year life plan requires saying no to opportunities that don't fit into the plan without considering that as time passes, people (hopefully) grow and change.  This especially bothers me when I talk to high school or college students who have their lives planned out with exactitude.  It boggles my mind when I hear the specificity that kids have when figuring out their futures.  I had a rough idea of who I wanted to be, with few details, but it seems that there's an enormous amount of pressure today to have education, career, and family choices mapped out for life by the time a child reaches the age of eighteen.  When I was 18, I hadn't heard of an enormous number of careers or opportunities that are available now, and, indeed, many of them didn't exist back then. 

I guess it's obvious that I'm the kind of person who doesn't do well in job interviews when asked where I want to be in three or five years.  The short answer to that is happy.  I'm a bit more sketchy on the details.  When I entered graduate school, I envisioned a career in a totally different field than the one in which I currently work.  If I had stuck to my original vision of my career, I'd be in a special circle of hell right now, doing something that it turns out I don't want to devote my life to doing.

So, what do you think?  Are you the same person you were when you were eighteen?  Are you living the same adult life that you thought you'd be living when you were a kid?  Are you happy about that? 

Music Log

I had a willpower failure recently and bought an iPod.  When I fall, I fall hard, so I got the big one, the one that allegedly holds 20,000 songs.  Can I fill it?  Yes, I can!  Well, I hope so.  Right now it's still sitting in the box because I can't bring myself to start the arduous task of loading music from my cd's, never mind buying mp3's online.  In an effort to push me toward using the iPod as something other than an expensive but fragile paperweight, the universe has twisted itself into a hell where radio sucks.  I drive to and from work switching radio stations so I can listen to commercials back to back for an hour or so, all the while muttering about if I had the iPod loaded I wouldn't be in this situation.  I can only mutter when I'm not singing along with gems like "Carry On My Wayward Son" (by Kansas) -- you know I *need* help!

I am enjoying thinking about where to find mp3's of music that I have only on vinyl or cassette (Yes, cassette, though those don't see the light of day much.), and whenever I can't find something, I take it as a sign that the iPod is not going to change my life.  Today's disappointment was over Forgotten Rebels.  Remember them?  I bought This Ain't Hollywood and was overjoyed to discover that there were people who lived in North America (Canada, to be precise) who felt the same way I did.  Up until then, punk seemed like an English thing to me.  I know, I know, there were other bands around, but the Forgotten Rebels hit me in early 1983 and they'll always have a soft spot in my heart for that reason.  They're actually still around and have a web site.  My favorite song, The Me Generation appears to be lost in vinyl, never to hit the iPod.  I could get Surfin' on Heroin, though. 

How I would love to find This Ain't Hollywood in a format that I could load onto my iPod.  I'd also like to get some The Judy's songs in the same format, but that seems highly unlikely to happen.  You can click on over to the link for The Judy's and listen.  I recommend Washarama and Wonderful World of Appliances.  Ah, the oldies!

Today I had to help my kindergartener with some Homefun.  The teacher can call it Homefun and smile when she says it, but the kid has figured out that it is homeWORK already.  Mostly it's work for me because I'm the one responsible for it getting done, although the child is the one who wields the pencil.  I got a bit silly after today's Homefun celebrating the letter L.  On the last page, there was blank space for drawing pictures of things that begin with the letter L.  One of the items the child chose was a log.  That got me going on that song from The Ren and Stimpy Show (the original episodes -- the ones after that aren't worth watching so I don't).  Remember?

What rolls down stairs alone or in pairs
Rolls over your neighbor's dog?
What's great for a snack and fits on your back?
It's Log, Log, Log!

It's Log, Log, it's big, it's heavy, it's wood.
It's Log, Log, it's better than bad, it's good!
Everyone wants a log! You're gonna love it, Log!
Come on and get your log! Everyone needs a Log!

Log, from Blammo

It kind of sounds like the Slinky song.  So, I taught it to the kids.  I am expecting a note home from the teacher after the kindergartener gives her rendition of it tomorrow at school.  I haven't looked yet, but I wonder if I can get that on my iPod. . .

Changing Spots

On Friday, I heard the song Achy Breaky Heart for the first time ever.  (Truthfully, I only heard the chorus and it was so bad that I pushed the Scan button on my car radio again so I wouldn't have to listen to any more of it.)  I do know who Billy Ray Cyrus is, as I've got a kid who watches Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel.  For those not in the know, Billy Ray Cyrus and his real life daughter star as father and daughter on the show.  I also remember seeing photos of Billy Ray and his really awful mullet during his heyday as a country star.  And that fits right in to my query about whether a leopard can really change its spots.

Pretty much everyone agrees that the Billy Ray Cyrus mullet was one of the ugliest, least flattering, most offensive hairstyles ever.  Almost any other hairstyle would be an improvement for Billy Ray.  And he managed to find himself something that is just about as awful looking.  Now he's got some sort of strange bob-like thing.  He looks a bit like a masculine middle aged woman, which I am pretty sure is not the effect he wanted.  Then again, who knows?  This is clearly a case of the leopard not changing its spots. 

Hairdos aside, can a leopard really change its spots?  I've had several conversations recently about this issue.  I have to say that I come out as a wait-and-see kind of person in this regard.  I've been surprised at the people I've talked to who are absolutely adamant that it can't be done.  We've been talking specifically about whether someone with a criminal record and/or an addiction problem can ever get over it.  I do think it's possible, given the right person in the right circumstances.  However, I've been talking to people who speak about these things as being integral facets of someone's personality, things that cannot be changed.  They believe that the person will always have a propensity toward sliding back into the unwanted behaviors.  Strangely, the people who believe this the most strongly are people who are active Christians.  What ever happened to turning the other cheek?  I know, you can find something in the Bible (or many other religious tracts for many other religions) that can justify almost anything.

I feel odd being the one who seems more optimistic about the chances someone has to change his or her life for the better.  I'm no stranger to cynicism and sarcasm.  I laughed my ass off during the episode of 30 Days where Morgan Spurlock went to jail.  Listening to him talk about how he really thought that some of his fellow inmates were really going to turn their lives around when they were released and not end up back in jail was hysterical.  It was so incredibly clear to me that it wasn't going to happen that way.  It was also surprising that someone like Morgan Spurlock, who seems pretty damn people-savvy to me, was so taken in by these men.  How did that happen?

How do we make decisions in our day to day lives when we're dealing with people who have undesirable behaviors that they say they want to change?  If you work with someone who has admitted to having money problems in the past, whether writing bad checks or stealing or going through personal bankruptcy, what do you then do when there's money missing?  Does the person with the troubled financial past become suspect number one?  In my experience, that person is usually not the one who did the stealing, but sometimes it is that person.  How do people get past that?

I don't have any answers.  It's difficult to find the balance between assuming that the leopard can't changes its spots and being naive enough to take everyone's words as being true.  Remember that story at the end of The Crying Game about the frog giving the scorpion a ride across some water so that the scorpion wouldn't drown and the scorpion rewarding him by fatally stinging the frog, causing them both to drown?  The scorpion said it was because it was in its nature, even though it had promised the frog not to sting it if the frog gave it the ride across the water.  If it's in one's nature to do things that are against one's interest, how can that change?  And how can people make the decision to be neither the frog nor the scorpion?