Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

It’s 3:15am late Sunday night. I’m supposed to be sleeping. Although as I tell everyone, I don’t sleep. It’s sort of true. Sort of. Lots going on, and blogging and being a good correspondent have fallen by the wayside. Hopefully, things will change soon, but in the meantime, I’m really trying to take care of business.

First, the crazy good news: I’m licensed! Yes, I FINALLY got that done. I received my test results from the state exam on Saturday on my way out to the Durham Flickr Shoot. Now I’m allowed to actually apply for jobs again, and tomorrow, it all re-begins. Lots of letters to write and contacts to make.

My birthday is in 4 (well, 3 now) days. What I’ve been wanting more than anything is a camera, but of course, I’m not exactly feeling great asking for anything given the fact that my parents have been supporting me. I’m VERY pleased to report that I have remembered something VERY convenient, and that’s that my ex-husband owed me a little money and is very willing to send me some when he has it, so I’ve contacted him, and between his payment to me and my parents’ kindness, there is a good change I will have a better camera by the end of the year. I have finally settled on the Canon PowerShot G9. Everyone around me is shocked I’m not going straight to a DSLR, but the thing is, I’m a gearhead. If I get a DSLR, then I’ll want the lenses, the tripod, the flash accessories, a bag, etc. This is a habit I don’t want to tiptoe into. I only want to start at the point where I can participate properly. In the meantime, the G9 shoots raw, 12 megapixels, 6x optical lens, and even at ISO 1600, there is very little noise. The images are crisp and lovely. I finally got my hands on one in Circuit City today. The nice man said he could give me a line of credit with no interest until 2009. My response? “Get away from me, Devil Man!” Luckily, he laughed. I was glad I had Shannon (voice of reason) with me, because on this topic, I’m a weak, weak woman!

I’m REALLY loving this picture Oliver took of me the other day at Helios when I was taking pictures with my current camera (A Canon PowerShot A540 with 3 broken pixels and a flash that only works sometimes!). He titled it “But she really wishes she had a G9.” Yeah, that’s exactly right. Good call!

There’s a great play going on in Durham right now called Holding Pattern at Manbites Dog theater. There are four more performances. Answering the question of what it’s about is hard, but in short, it’s about telling your own story, getting stuck, life speeding past, getting unstuck. Check out the link to learn more.

One sharpened pencil, 100 tiny troll men, and a whole sack of nuts conspire to stop The Girl Who Blows Bubbles in her tracks: a fantastical tale of the astonishingly difficult endeavor to tell one’s own story.

Go see Darjeeling Limited, too. So extraordinary and perfect in every way! Lalitree went with me, and I pretty much agree with everything she said in her review/photo description.

There’s really just too much to say about my high school reunion. It was overwhelming and wonderful in countless ways. As my friend Lesley kept saying, “We went to high school at a really special place.” I couldn’t agree with her more. Northside was part of the Atlanta Public Schools. It was the magnet for Performing Arts (yes, like “Fame”!), yet it was located in one of the richest parts of the city. We also had the only German and Russian classes in the school system so some kids came for that. As a result, we had kids from every part of the city. Some were in the performing arts program. Some weren’t. When kids got kicked out of the fancy private schools of Northwest Atlanta, they went to their home school, which was my school. We had extreme diversity in every way you can imagine. We had people from every part of the city, every income bracket, and racially, I recall that we were around 50/50 black/white. I’ve heard other figures, but for all intents and purposes, that’s about how it felt. At the time, there wasn’t much conflict between black and white, but there was division. The football team was mostly black, as were the cheerleaders. The Latin club and the soccer teams were more white. These are just examples, but it was true in many ways. The only exception to this was the School of Performing Arts. I think that because we were engaged in cooperative activities, we knew each other better there. Still, at both this reunion and the one I went to 10 years ago, we all talked about how that kind of diversity changed us. Pretty Kumbaya experiences, and I mean that in the best way.

One thing that was really special about this weekend was that I had a chance to spend a lot of time with both Lesley (my best friend in high school, even though she didn’t arrive until senior year) and Tristan (my high school boyfriend). While I have been in touch with Lesley since high school, Tristan reminded me that we hadn’t seen each other since early 1991! I couldn’t believe it had been that long. In retrospect, looking back at both my high school experience and at the weekend, I think that my relationships with these two people made me who I am today. First love is expected to do that, and Tristan and I were together for about three and a half years. We had some turbulence at the end of that relationship and got a chance to talk about some of those things. I wouldn’t have guessed I needed it, but now that it’s happened, I’m so glad it did.

There were some things I learned about Lesley that I never knew, even though we’ve always been close. She said that before she moved to Atlanta, she hardly ever went out. She didn’t have many friends because she was expected to babysit for her much younger brother, and she had an after-school job. For her, moving to Atlanta was a real blossoming period for her. That time was the same for me. She assumed I’d always been one to have lots of adventures. I assumed she always had. I think at the time there was some perception among others that we were being party girls, but knowing what was actually going on, that wasn’t true at all. I still got straight A’s that year. I probably smoked more cigarettes than before, but I wasn’t drinking or doing drugs or getting into any real trouble. I was just having a whole lot of fun. I also think people didn’t know how bright Lesley was. She was never as into academics as me (although I’m sure her grades were fine), but she is smart as a tack. Ask her anything. ANYTHING! If she doesn’t know, she will be an expert by the end of the day. I’m so glad she’s moving back to Atlanta, because that means I will see her more. Excellent news for me!

Of course it was wonderful to see Caitlin, Renee, Tatyana, Eric, Todd, and so many other great friends from back in the day, but I felt that I needed a bit of an ode to the two biggies: the two that made me me and with whom I’d somewhat fallen out of close touch. I will always be grateful to them both. There may be times I feel frustrated that I am single right now, but I never go a day where I don’t feel loved by my friends.

Soon, I’m going to write about my evening with Todd and Shannon… another complete treat that I wasn’t at all expecting.

Since receiving my national exam results, I’ve been plotting the best next steps. I have been working on a generic letter to send out with cover letters to agencies serving children in the area. After discussing things with my parents and my friend Kathryn, I have decided to wait until my state exam results arrive to send these letters off. The statemement “I am fully licensed” carries much more weight than “I expect to be fully licensed soon”. The wait should not be more than another few weeks at the most. I had already called one place before making this decision, and they have requested a CV, which I have sent over to them.

At this point, I am not being picky. As long as there is a job that is at least part time and is anywhere in the Triangle, I am willing to apply for it. The one thing I HAVE decided is that I am no longer (at least for now) going to send my CV off to group practices that do not have specific job openings. While an agency – like a school or a United Way non-profit – without a specific listing is OK, I have learned the hard way that in group practices, they are very tempted by someone with my experience, but that adding another partner to a practice that they hadn’t planned on adding is very unlikely. It is so diheartening to interview repeatedly with a place, only to find that they can not actually hire anyone at all. They just really, really liked the idea of hiring someone like me. it’s flattering, but it builds my hopes up a lot for a job that doesn’t really exist.

One thing I’ve learned is that my daily energy is so much more important when unemployed than when employed. If I’m feeling sluggish on a given day when I’m employed, I am carried through by the tasks awaiting me. As an unemployed person who must wake up each day and orchstrate my activities in a vacuum (so to speak), a headache or bad allergies can really do me in. When I was working, I’d have a client who was meeting me at the office at 9am for an assessment or something. And so I’d have to be there, and I’d have someone counting on me. Today, I didn’t feel well, and after half a day of trying desperately to get up enough energy to think about making a plan… I decided to accept defeat, take a few ibuprofen, and rest.

In a few days, I’m heading to Hotlanta, where I grew up, for my 20th high school reunion. Back in the day, I was voted “Most Likely to Succeed.” Right now, I’m not feeling all that successful. I’ve had this script in my head for it for a while, as my friends will tell you. Here it is: “Yes, I may be divorced, childless, unemployed, and living off my parents at age 37, but on the flipside, I have a Ph.D., and I didn’t get fat.” Yeah, I know. Tacky, tacky, tacky, and pretty much the worst way possible to present myself, but it sort of makes me laugh. And I’ve never been a fan of sugar-coating.

I know that I’m in a transitional period right now. I know it will pass. I know that I have done the best I can in the face of an unexpected divorce at age 32. I understand why the professional transition from Boston to Raleigh has been so difficult and drawn out. I’ll get there. I’ve somehow emerged from everything with good self-esteem, good friends, and virtually no regrets, resentments, or grudges. I’d say that’s a success. Sure, I’d really like to meet someone nice and still have the opportunity to have a raise a child, but I won’t compromise my standards to make that happen. I won’t settle for less than what I deserve. I still have this crazy idea that it will all work out. I hope I’m right.

Hey, at least I have a cute outfit to wear. After much searching, I found a nice dress while out and about with Katy a few weeks ago.

Other important things going on in my life right now:

• My parents left for Africa today. They are going to be “off the grid,” which will be weird. I don’t see them (with my eyes) all that much, but I am usually very in touch with them. Hope they have a grand adventure.
• I’m thinking a lot about my friend Poornima. She has just flown home to India to be with her father, who has been taken ill.

OMG, it’s all the Harkness nutjobs! Gotta love ’em! (And I mean that quite sincerely. Was that Dane on the balcony?) This, my friends, is where I went to college. I know a bunch of the people in this video. I didn’t know Mark Paddy won. That was his name, right? And Dave… dude didn’t remember me at all when I saw him at the 10th reunion. Loser! Pam is badass. Oh, and this was when Howard had finally found his mojo. God, I love this! This was filmed the Spring of 1992. That’s the year I graduated. I was probably in the conservatory a block over, practicing my ass off for my senior recital. Man, this is excellent:

Want more? here’s Part 2.

Thanks to Tim for linking me to this. I have some pretty choice Oberlin video myself. Gotta find it and share it with the world. It’s very worth viewing.

They apparently forgot to include the “you passed” enclosure in a letter they mailed out on September 21st!!! But it’s good news, people. I passed!