My Weird Education, Part 1....

Loved all the comments last post and all the new Friends! 102 comments???? Wonderfully done!!!!!!!! I'll let you know what Kitty thinks, but I already know she is going to feel so loved. I liked all the places our chatting went too, gave me a lot of things to look up, as in -I- had never heard of a lot of those forms of poetry and different literature styles. SO much to learn...

Speaking of which, you asked for the story of My Weird Education, so we will start with that and leave Bonnie Raitt for another day....

Just before I started Kindergarten, my parents told me the school had sent a letter saying they were going to teach me to read using a wonderful new method. I mentioned, somewhat indigently, as I recall, that I could already read. We know, they told me but they are doing it this way now...(And so begins a public education saga that does not spiral upward)

What They had developed was something called ITA, which meant that They used a sort of different alphabet aand symblos and everything was spelled phonetically. (This is a real thing, click Here to see it..) This would mess anyone up, but for a kid who could already read it was disastrous. Boss once saw one of my early papers and remarked that the wonder wasn't that I could not (to this day) spell well, but that I could at all. Here is an example sentence....And remember a lot of these letters, were symbols, like AE, TH, UE, SH etc....

"An inishul teeching alfubet maeks thu task uv lerning tue reed eezeeer and mor enjjoiubul"

(No, sadly, I am not making this up, taken from the ITA website)

They abandoned it the next year. For somewhat obvious reasons. I remember being incredibly bored all thru elementary school, except for music. That teacher was great, music class was the best, and he collected fossils, same as me. (I was nuts for fossils, still am)

The school decided what would be best was for me to skip a grade, go from 3rd to 5th, which my parents told me, they had declined, saying it would be better to stay with my age group. Right. When I did get to 5th grade, I thought things were getting exciting, as NOW one could learn to play an instrument. Except my parents said no, and told me that we had taken a Music Aptitude Test on 4th grade, and the school had sent a letter home saying I was not Apt and should not be encouraged to play music.

Thwarted.

In middle school, I got excited again, as one could take French and German and Spanish. Sign me the heck UP says I!!! I will speak them all! (I already had a private tutor in Swedish, due to an ABBA obsession, and the fact that all their early music was in Swedish) No, said the school. ONE language. You can't learn more than one at a time. You will fail. It's too hard. And if you took more than one, you would miss pottery class.

Now, I am NOT dissing pottery, at all, my sister is a potter, but we do not share this talent. The only time I felt good about anything in art class was this hooked rug thing we had to design and , uh, hook. I worked SO long and hard, it was going to be the best rug ever and hang on my wall! I painstakingly drew out my design, a skating blade (I was a figure skater) suffered thru the hooking of it and proudly turned it in.

Only to be hauled up and in front of the whole class told how bad it was. (I am sure it was, but that is not the point) We don't forget these things that happen when we are young.

Re-visiting the topic of two languages the next semester, I was told again NO. I would miss Gym and fitness was important. I explained that I was a competitive figure skater who rose at 5:30 every morning for practice 5 days a week, and often went back after school. That's nice, they said, but you need to learn gymnastics. Being 5'5 and 130 pounds of solid muscle one does not excel at gymnastics, as you can imagine. I actually FAILED the class. My first F. The un-even parallel bars scared the HECK out of me. And any of the kids who were still un-developed and twigs could manage it, and you know what girls can be like. Total public humiliation.

I did discover Shakespeare, which everyone else in 7th grade hated, and found a lifelong love. I learned to hate Dickens. I learned you could skip classes and hide in the library and that the notices sent home could easily be nabbed from the mailbox and I learned how to forge the Parents signature on the reply form.

( I may be getting more good out of this re-telling than I ever did with either of the Therapists I tried to go to, they seemed to think if only I would journal, everything would be fine, and then move onto how exciting my job must be and did I actually get on stage and play music???)

Tomorrow you will get the exciting tale of my Non-High School experience, and my attempt to go to college, and where it all ended up. Well, you kind of KNOW that, but it's a fine look at the American educational system and how badly it deals with students who are not, for lack of a better word, the norm.

That is my Story. So Far.

And THANK YOU for all the comments, you are truly the best. I love it here.

Love and not so much school,
Lorraine

Has Anyone Seen My Brain?

Too hot, too Tired.
How 'bout Haiku For Kitty?
You Can do Better...



I'll collect them and e-mail them to her, she can get them on her Blackberry, and read them to the Jonas Brothers as Bedtime Stories...Danguy, can you make yours truly Evil??? In a Take Over The Workd sort of way? No limits on the numbers submitted. There will be a Grand Prize awarded the best. Second place, two Grand Prizes!

Love, Lorraine
(who is again wearing her skirt as a dress....)

Storms, Laundry and Too Tired toThink....

I think Weather Girl is going to be happy this week. I have been watching the Weather Channel, (hey, I am REALLY tired tonight, anything deeper is beyond me) and it seems we are going to have storms every day for a week, with the word "Severe" popping up a lot for tomorrow.

Excellent, we really need the rain. It's so hot here, I am wearing my skirt as a dress. A Fashion Moment that is best not remembered in pictures.

I think the strangest thing that happened today, besides the Pack of 100 tee-shirts manifesting themselves in the kitchen was that earlier today, remember when Phiala was grumbling that she couldn't get the dog to vacuum?

(what the heck kind of sentence WAS that??)

Well, when I got home tonight, I found that Venus had decided to help with the laundry. As in she had BROUGHT UP from the basement 4 hand towels and a pair of PJ pants. No mean feat that, the laundry is DOWN there because I can't motivate myself to bring it all up and it is easier just to KEEP it there and get things as I need them.

She hadn't folded it, or put it away, but I have hopes. And yes, I do know it was Venus, Mim is sweet and lovely and adventuresome but hasn't the brains Fod gave a goat. But she is young yet. Venus is the one who comes up with this stuff.

(I might be miss-saying Mim tho, remember she did get out the window WITH a toy..)

I read Diablo Cody's book this week, wonderful. Talk about a way to seriously change your life! Spending a year as a stripper may not work for everyone, but it seems to have worked out just fine for her. The more I see of her work, and read her in interviews, the more I like this women. She can write, and has a great sense of humour.

I'll leave you with a picture of Miss Kitty, on one of our shopping trips. Remember, we are sending her LOTS of love for the next 5 weeks or so.



Love and Laundry,
Lorraine

Gnawing Her Leg Off

It seems fitting that since tonight's post is the start of The We Support Kitty on Tour blogging, that I got a package in the mail from her today, with my NIN cd!

Kitty, as most of you know, is stuck in a trap, gnawing her leg off, desperately trying to free herself and come back to the real world. Yes, she is on tour with the Jonas Brothers, who by her accounts are really nice kids, and she has no complaints there, but being on the road with a huge band is brutal for the crew. (and the performers for that matter)

I started adding up once, all the things that would need to happen, and mentioned to her that I thought I had this wrong as it would seem that she might only get 4 or 5 hours of sleep at night, and that on a bus.

Yes, she said. You are correct.

So I thought since she certainly won't be blogging much, I could do it for her, and we could all offer words of support for her to read in her, uh, down time.

Today, as I said, I got the NIN cd and am looking forward to becoming one with the NIN. I also, with the Bosses help, learned all about Last.fm. Found out I had an account (he was my only friend) but I had five other impending friends, including Aleta and Spacelaw. Now I have 6 friends.

I could send all day there! ALL the music of the world is there! Heck, MY music is there (who knew??) It seems terrible unfair that what I am meant to be doing is listening to 9 hours of live Paul and Lorraine and culling the best hour for the cd. Hmmph.

It's odd listening to yourself, live. I am learning a lot. I have learned that I rock,( who knew I was GOOD??) that I am very funny, that I make a LOT of questionable musical choices (meaning SUCK!) and that I am a dork (as in I can't believe I SAID that). All in all tho, wonderful fun! Reminds me of that Clint Eastwood line

"Sometimes the magic works and sometimes is doesn't"

(Wait, that wasn't Clint Eastwood. What movie was that from???)

I think tho, we will have enough great music for a really fine cd. We are still deciding about format, but it will be available online for downloading, and you will be the first to hear when it is ready. I wish I could put all nine hours up and have you all pick the songs for us, but raw un-mixed tape (as it were) is, like the road, brutal.

So in conclusion (always wanted to say that, no idea why..) Kitty is out there on the road for the next 40 or so days. Let's send her all the love and support we can, yes????? I'll be telling Kitty Stories every post (HA! Kitty, and I do have some rare ones!) and hopefully she will read them and feel loved.

And come home soon!

Love and Kitty,
Lorraine