Sometimes I wonder how do these things happen to me? Kinda like that time in high school, it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day and we were having these workshops in our school auditorium, you know the ones that inform you about racism, civil rights, our country's most influential leaders in social change and how they risked their lives for the opportunities our generation today can enjoy. Well there I was 16 year old Meddy day dreaming about Bernard Schwartz my most recent heartache who had now moved on to Sarah Tovey… I mean he walked me home and held my hand!! I thought we were like totally together!
“Isn’t that right Meddy?.... Meddy? Meddy?” that was when our teacher Ms. Franklin who was leading the “Attitude over Aptitude” discussion had apparently used me as an example in relating work ethic with my lacrosse skill (essentially giving me a compliment) and my friend Weston chimed in with “well apparently Meddy doesn’t have to work hard!” and I instinctively just yelled out “SHUT UP BERNARD”.. mind you Bernard was not even in the room…. nor part of this discussion.. it just simply flew from my thoughts to the silent room only to be met by confused stares and then some hushed laughter. CRINGE.
Then there was that time I was in biology class when I was participating in a cloning debate and referenced that sheep, "The Dolly" and instead referred to it as the Dalai Lama.. can you imagine.. them cloning the Dalai Lama?!
Or even that time when my mom wrote out directions for me and she wrote "the house with the red Cherokee in the driveway" and the whole time I was looking for some Native American lawn ornament.. like some gnome or something!?
This is just part of my nature I suppose, so I should not have been so shocked this past Tuesday morning when an event equally as embarrassing occurred.
In an effort to shake myself from my vacation withdrawal blues I walked to the subway with a refreshing new playlist on my ipod. It was a beautiful morning, people sprawled out in the park, horns beeping, sun shining, cars rushing, beautiful skyline, and I just realized, “WOW, I live in New York City.. New York City!!” This is one of the most amazing places in the world! People dream about living here, I even flashed a smile to the miserable man who sells me my kombucha. So as I swiped my unlimited metro like an old pro, I waltzed down the steps to a train that had conveniently just arrived kinda like it new I was coming.. it all felt so routine.. dare I say I was becoming a native or at least adapting?
But just as I got to the train the doors started closing and as I hesitated getting on I stepped back and my leg went down the space between the platform and the train the thing that those annoying recordings warn you about “MIND THE GAP WHEN ENTERING THE TRAIN” but no one ever actually thinks their own leg will slip between that space. So I had one leg in the train (doors closing) one leg down the space between the train and the platform and Im like SCREAMING the train is about to take off and this man thankfully heaves me out and onto the floor of the train. I peeled myself off the floor and reluctantly looked around at a silent traincar of people with their jaws dropped and shaking their heads I even heard one woman mutter “idiot”. Welcome home.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Growing Pains
With all the tweeting, facebooking, instant status updating, Gchatting and texting of todays cyber obsession I thought it might be a bit vain to join the masses in the thought that everyone or anyone really cares about anything and everything you are doing every moment. Nonetheless I am here and I have so vainly created this blog with the hope that everyone and anyone will care what I have to say. While it may be hard to believe anyone takes time for personal interaction with all this new technology which allows you to talk and video and text and teleport I am actually on my way to a family reunion in the sticks of Phippsburg, Maine. My family only recently put cable and internet in our home, and considering cell service is only available if you climb the tallest nearby tree, stand on your head and click your ruby red slippers three times, it is safe to say I will be fully immersed in family.
Every year growing up my family would take 2 weeks vacation in St. Augustine Fl, 3 families of 5 plus my grandfather. It was a typical Gauld gathering, consisting of beach days, Disney, mini golf trips, sibling "talent shows", cook outs, melt downs, my cousin Harrison running around the pool asking inappropriate questions usually involving a new phrase he overheard and was then told not to say ("do you have a penis", "shut the Huck up" which was later corrected and then reprimanded), mandatory family seminars that involved me on more than one occasion refusing to participate (which did not last long when my uncle called me a baby) again typical standard reunion. Back then I had this image of all my relatives and that liking and loving them were synonymous. However, similar to the day I graduated from the kids table to the grown up table at Thanksgiving dinner I am seeing perhaps liking and loving can be separate when it comes to family, and I can only imagine this family reunion being quite interesting as we have all grown up so much since our last Florida excursion nearly 7 years ago.
That famous question, "what do you want to be when you grow up" echoes in my ears at age 23 similar to the way I would ask “are we there yet” every five minutes in our annual car rides from Maine to Virginia. Both of these questions summon an uncomfortable silence. What the hell do I want to be when I "grow up"? If you had asked me at age 5 I would have responded "a ballerina" but I can assure you that was mainly because of the amazing pink tutu which I coveted so much, only to attend one class and wear the tutu to school. Thus began my series of summer camps in Williamsburg, Virginia which I was enrolled in weekly by my grandparents, Mimi and Granky. Marine Biology camp I thought would be a sure thing as I loved swimming in the ocean. I lost interest the first day I realized swimming in the ocean was not on the activity list.
Drama camp I must admit I didn't dive right into with much enthusiasm as I had been plagued by the unfortunate experience at age 6 being cast as the littlest elephant in our towns production of “The Jungle Book” and my sister got to be the Princess (every little girls nightmare of your sister upstaging you with the cutest Arabian outfit and you are left to trip over your own trunk). Nonetheless, I was cast in “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” as Pucks sidekick “Hugo” a character they had to "create" whom was some form of an elf from what I remember (not sure Shakespeare would have been too appreciative of their creative modifications and I certainly can’t say their reassurance that in the Shakespearean era females were typically portrayed by male actors so in actuality I was just keeping the historical integrity by being a girl with the part of a boy.. not very convincing.) I was ultimately cut to "set design". And.. Scene.
Spending most of my childhood summers in Williamsburg, home of the first colony I was absolutely in love with history, milked my Native American roots for all they were worth after visiting Jamestown (I may have even tried to pass myself off as one of Pocahontas's last remaining ancestors) and spent multiple Christmas's with my sister walking around in our capes and bonnets pretending we were part of the re-enactment, posing for photos with tourists.. oh god. Recounting these events is actually cringe worthy. So when my grandmother enrolled me in Archaeological dig camp I was thrilled to say the least. However, on my first day it was over 100 degrees and the perspiration from my Hi-C and 3 water bottles in my unnecessarily over stuffed lunch box (which was actually similar to a cooler a family might bring to the beach… packed by my grandma Mimi) my salami sandwich was soggy and goopy. To make matters worse after lunch I had broken out in a horrible rash across my stomach from the heat and had to go home, it was an absolutely scarring experience.
I really had a lot to complain about during these summers with my Mimi and Granky. When my biggest worry was whether I wanted Ginger Ale or Dr. Pepper for my dinner beverage, the question of whipped cream or ice cream on my dessert really left me reeling... seriously it’s a wonder I wasn’t rolled home after these summers of indulgence with my Mimi and Granky (my brother Zach on the other hand unfortunately didn’t have a metabolism until he was 16; cue chunky stage).
Mimi enrolled me in the local Library Summer Read-A-Thon which don't get me wrong I was quite the reader but when I was introduced to the idea of prizes for reading... let’s just say I started listing books I didn't technically read that summer.. so thats not technically lying is it? It was for a free Parletts ice cream!! And Parletts ice cream was only like the BEST thing ever!! Next to my Mimi’s servings of pie the size of your face. Needless to say, I read a lot of books that summer and ate a lot of ice cream. It was this enthusiasm (in reading) that inspired Mimi to sign me up for ... another camp.. Creative writing camp! which I loved but that couldn't be a career.. I mean the woman who taught the class was actually the size of a house.. she sweat profusely and made us rub her feet.. ok so we didn't actually rub her feet, but to me writing didn't look like the most glamorous aspiration, afterall this teacher was spending her summer with 20 sweaty kids in a non-air-conditioned room of the YMCA, wearing a flashing snowman pin in the middle of July! In my ignorant adolescent mind this "hobby" didn't quite match up to the dreams all my friends were talking about; astronauts, NBA players, movie stars and electric guitars... so I decided to continue this privately keeping a journal since the age of 5. Last year I came across my first Minney Mouse diary when i was going through some old boxes. The first entry read "March 5. Dear Diary, Georgia is such a boob." (oh the days of pre-profanity in sibling rivalry).
So, when do we really "grow up"? At what age can you finally say.. "when I grew up"? I thought I was getting closer now that I get all dressed up for my Internship and get off at the Grand Central stop with all the men in business suits, although everyone in the office asks me what I want to do when I’m older so I guess I’m not an official grown up yet... But when I walk by the woman with the corner office who wears a really nice suit everyday and has a picture frame on her desk with two kids, and a dog I always see her youtubing Twilight and google-imaging that shirtless werewolf or plucking her eyebrows? So is she a grown up? The verdict is still out.
Every year growing up my family would take 2 weeks vacation in St. Augustine Fl, 3 families of 5 plus my grandfather. It was a typical Gauld gathering, consisting of beach days, Disney, mini golf trips, sibling "talent shows", cook outs, melt downs, my cousin Harrison running around the pool asking inappropriate questions usually involving a new phrase he overheard and was then told not to say ("do you have a penis", "shut the Huck up" which was later corrected and then reprimanded), mandatory family seminars that involved me on more than one occasion refusing to participate (which did not last long when my uncle called me a baby) again typical standard reunion. Back then I had this image of all my relatives and that liking and loving them were synonymous. However, similar to the day I graduated from the kids table to the grown up table at Thanksgiving dinner I am seeing perhaps liking and loving can be separate when it comes to family, and I can only imagine this family reunion being quite interesting as we have all grown up so much since our last Florida excursion nearly 7 years ago.
That famous question, "what do you want to be when you grow up" echoes in my ears at age 23 similar to the way I would ask “are we there yet” every five minutes in our annual car rides from Maine to Virginia. Both of these questions summon an uncomfortable silence. What the hell do I want to be when I "grow up"? If you had asked me at age 5 I would have responded "a ballerina" but I can assure you that was mainly because of the amazing pink tutu which I coveted so much, only to attend one class and wear the tutu to school. Thus began my series of summer camps in Williamsburg, Virginia which I was enrolled in weekly by my grandparents, Mimi and Granky. Marine Biology camp I thought would be a sure thing as I loved swimming in the ocean. I lost interest the first day I realized swimming in the ocean was not on the activity list.
Drama camp I must admit I didn't dive right into with much enthusiasm as I had been plagued by the unfortunate experience at age 6 being cast as the littlest elephant in our towns production of “The Jungle Book” and my sister got to be the Princess (every little girls nightmare of your sister upstaging you with the cutest Arabian outfit and you are left to trip over your own trunk). Nonetheless, I was cast in “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” as Pucks sidekick “Hugo” a character they had to "create" whom was some form of an elf from what I remember (not sure Shakespeare would have been too appreciative of their creative modifications and I certainly can’t say their reassurance that in the Shakespearean era females were typically portrayed by male actors so in actuality I was just keeping the historical integrity by being a girl with the part of a boy.. not very convincing.) I was ultimately cut to "set design". And.. Scene.
Spending most of my childhood summers in Williamsburg, home of the first colony I was absolutely in love with history, milked my Native American roots for all they were worth after visiting Jamestown (I may have even tried to pass myself off as one of Pocahontas's last remaining ancestors) and spent multiple Christmas's with my sister walking around in our capes and bonnets pretending we were part of the re-enactment, posing for photos with tourists.. oh god. Recounting these events is actually cringe worthy. So when my grandmother enrolled me in Archaeological dig camp I was thrilled to say the least. However, on my first day it was over 100 degrees and the perspiration from my Hi-C and 3 water bottles in my unnecessarily over stuffed lunch box (which was actually similar to a cooler a family might bring to the beach… packed by my grandma Mimi) my salami sandwich was soggy and goopy. To make matters worse after lunch I had broken out in a horrible rash across my stomach from the heat and had to go home, it was an absolutely scarring experience.
I really had a lot to complain about during these summers with my Mimi and Granky. When my biggest worry was whether I wanted Ginger Ale or Dr. Pepper for my dinner beverage, the question of whipped cream or ice cream on my dessert really left me reeling... seriously it’s a wonder I wasn’t rolled home after these summers of indulgence with my Mimi and Granky (my brother Zach on the other hand unfortunately didn’t have a metabolism until he was 16; cue chunky stage).
Mimi enrolled me in the local Library Summer Read-A-Thon which don't get me wrong I was quite the reader but when I was introduced to the idea of prizes for reading... let’s just say I started listing books I didn't technically read that summer.. so thats not technically lying is it? It was for a free Parletts ice cream!! And Parletts ice cream was only like the BEST thing ever!! Next to my Mimi’s servings of pie the size of your face. Needless to say, I read a lot of books that summer and ate a lot of ice cream. It was this enthusiasm (in reading) that inspired Mimi to sign me up for ... another camp.. Creative writing camp! which I loved but that couldn't be a career.. I mean the woman who taught the class was actually the size of a house.. she sweat profusely and made us rub her feet.. ok so we didn't actually rub her feet, but to me writing didn't look like the most glamorous aspiration, afterall this teacher was spending her summer with 20 sweaty kids in a non-air-conditioned room of the YMCA, wearing a flashing snowman pin in the middle of July! In my ignorant adolescent mind this "hobby" didn't quite match up to the dreams all my friends were talking about; astronauts, NBA players, movie stars and electric guitars... so I decided to continue this privately keeping a journal since the age of 5. Last year I came across my first Minney Mouse diary when i was going through some old boxes. The first entry read "March 5. Dear Diary, Georgia is such a boob." (oh the days of pre-profanity in sibling rivalry).
So, when do we really "grow up"? At what age can you finally say.. "when I grew up"? I thought I was getting closer now that I get all dressed up for my Internship and get off at the Grand Central stop with all the men in business suits, although everyone in the office asks me what I want to do when I’m older so I guess I’m not an official grown up yet... But when I walk by the woman with the corner office who wears a really nice suit everyday and has a picture frame on her desk with two kids, and a dog I always see her youtubing Twilight and google-imaging that shirtless werewolf or plucking her eyebrows? So is she a grown up? The verdict is still out.
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