Striving for Mediocrity?

I've spent my entire life on borderlines. I have an unreasonable liking of borders, even though they're uncomfortable places. I'm constantly undercutting my own efforts so I can stay on the border, stay away from the edge, not be as successful or as big a failure as I could be.

For instance:

• "Honorable mention" material. I never quite get the big award. I turn out enough material to be noticeable, but every piece contains flaws, usually flaws that could be fixed with a little effort.
• Wonderful ideas, but no follow-through. The consignment store, the video game classes, the new faculty trainer initiative . . . perfect paradigm-shifting ideas, but I can't manage to shift my own paradigm let alone anyone else's.
• I brush right up against deadlines, meandering back and forth between a little early and a little late. It doesn't matter if it's meeting a friend for movies or preparing a degree plan for the state board or grading papers. I'm never quite on time.
• Can't keep my spending in check. I don't overdraft my account all that often, but I don't save a damn thing either. I'm living on the brink of financial disaster.
• Don't always react when I should. I'm excellent at not showing emotion until I'm in a safe zone. I don't cry until after the argument, I don't usually get mad the second I'm insulted, and instead of a witty comeback I usually find a way to ignore whatever painful thing was just said.
• Somewhat attractive, but I never wear makeup or curl my hair or pay much attention to my clothing. And I hide behind my weight. I'm afraid, honestly, of how my life would change if I started living up to my potential.
• Instead of having a relationship (however good or bad) I stay in the middle by having no relationships at all.
• I have never been married or engaged or even in love enough to share a home with someone.
• The men I do occasionally fall for don't want anything to do with me.
• My job is a very cushy job requiring a little work in return for a decent salary and tons of job security. Of course there are also people who work their hearts out making the world a better place. I'd like to be one of those people, but think I realistically belong to the first group.
• I don't really touch anyone's life. I do make a bunch of very small inroads, but (family aside) I don't matter. No one counts on me or depends on me or even looks forward to seeing me.

I'm not sure what I should do with all this information. Ignore it? Cry about it? Laugh over it? Change it?

Fourteen months ago I was exactly the same, but I was happy. Now I'm not, and I don't know what to do to be happy again.

Preparing for Mind Numbing

Preparing for the most boring day of the year -- District Conference Day. I wish, sometimes, that I had more of a cheerleader mentality. It would certainly help in rah-rah situations like this.

Last year wasn't too bad -- I went to the most BS sessions I could find, including one on face reading. After the conference everyone in my division was talking about what they learned in a session on security while I talked about what the dean's nose signified. I spent $15 on a face-reading book, and tried to use my newfound knowledge as a flirt tool, but made the mistake of trying it out on the least frivolous man I've ever met. Sold the book on half.com for a little more than I paid for it, and considered the entire event a reminder of just how stupid I can be when it comes to men.

Anyway, tomorrow starting at the criminal hour of 8:00 AM I'm doing storytelling, stress relief, and writing your personal philosophy. Fun stuff, huh? Maybe I can find a way to use the philosophy stuff as an ad for match.com so I at least get something out of the day.

I've loaded my iPod and my ebook reader. I think I'm ready.

Green Eyes

One of my favorite students is moving out-of-state in the middle of the semester. She's dropping all her classes, leaving her family, and making a new life for herself. I can't get over how happy she looked.

I'm jealous.

Way to go, A!

Servings

Three Godzilla plates on eBay in the past two weeks. I'm running a risk here -- I bought all the African Queen plates Amazon had in stock as a quick way to double my money, but I made the mistake of taking free shipping. They should just call it "slow shipping." I ordered in early February, but the dishes aren't due at my home until March 15 - 30 -- six to eight weeks after I ordered!

I know it's all a gimick to sell me Amazon Prime, their no-fee express shipping service. It's a dirty scam.

Costco, it seems, has a memory foam mattress for $549.00, about what I would pay for a conventional innerspring mattress. Must find time this week to go try one out.

Plans

The bedroom floor is still not completed, due to a cold snap. I just can't bring myself to paint a floor that's this cold to the touch. By Thursday we should be back up in the high 60s, so Thursday night I'll put down the first-of-the-last-coats of poly.

I'm spending the night at Mom and Dad's tonight because I came over for dinner and just don't want to get back out into the cold. They don't seem to mind me hanging out, eating the Tostitos, and hogging the Internet, and just this minute I'd rather be here than alone. I bought some origami paper and have downloaded some diagrams off the Internet, so hopefully I can make a few additions for my origami canopy while wasting time here. I know the canopy sounds like the stupidest decorating idea ever, but my sisters like it, and the kids love it. Their faces lit up when they walked into my living room and saw it for the first time.

Friday Mom and I had our usual shopping day. Thrift Town didn't give me that much entertainment -- just an unpainted Paint-by-Number I can try out (I want to add one of my own to my collection) and a pair of cute shoes. But the Salvation Army had a wonderful abstract painting for a mere .99 cents, a high-quality tripod for $7.00, two Target Swell trays for $1, and (best of all) a heavy handblown yellow glass vase for $12.99. The painting and the vase were meant to be together. I put them on top of my buffet table (aka 60s dresser) and suddenly all the reasons I bought that piece came into focus. Sheer magic.

Starting to seriously think about the bathroom. I know I want it to look like the bathroom in Michael Graves' home, really not much more than a walk-in shower lined with a luxe expanse of blue glass tile. In order to afford this "dream bathroom" I'm going to have to start hunting for tile now. Mix and match is more than OK with me, but it will take several years to find the right tiles at the right price. This means I'll have to start paying regular visits to the building liquidators and Habitat for the Humanities. How sad.

I'm about to paint the entry way, as soon as I choose between light pink or citrus yellow. The walls are all spackled and taped. I even managed to do something about the totally ugly stained and grouted-into-place baseboards. They were in horrible condition. Dirty, dirty, dirty, and even stained ORANGE in places from the paint remover I used on the tile. I scraped at one of the orange places, and found the baseboards were actually painted MDF -- pure pristine white through and through. I gave a shout of joy, and ran for the paint remover and a paintbrush. One coat and thirty minutes later the baseboards looked wonderful.

Also feeling an urge to have something recovered. I have exactly five pieces of furniture I bought especially to have re-covered, and so far I haven't done anything with any of them. Too bad I don't have any money. The furniture will just have to wait until this summer. My next big purchases are a mattress, a light for the entry way, lights for the studio, and a new ceiling fans for the studio and bedroom.

The mattress will be the most difficult thing to purchase. I want a memory foam mattress, which hopefully won't crater under my weight the way a normal mattress does. They're an arm and a leg, though, which means I'll have to purchase it on credit when I'm already deeper in debt than I'm comfortable with.

The B family will come over the first or second week of March to help me again. If we can get the fans hung, the electricity sorted out, and me moved into the bedroom I'll be a very happy camper. (Only not camping -- I'll be back in my bedroom for the first time in over a year!!!)

Too Much Time

I'm on a committee that I love. Really. I like and respect and enjoy working with every single person on the committee. But they're driving me crazy.

I wrote a proposal two weeks ago. It was an initial draft, and I honestly thought it was pretty good. I knew the group would want to tweak it, but I really thought I had done the lion's share of the work. Imagine my dismay when the group, in a mammoth four-hour meeting, re-wrote almost every word.

I knew this was coming down the pipe, and I tried to prevent it a little, but no one paid much attention (except Jim!) because everyone on the committee mistakenly assumed I was upset about loosing my work. I had ego issues, right? Only natural.

No, sweethearts. This wasn't about a loss of face. This is about a loss of TIME.

Our goal was to get our idea approved by administration. My proposal did that. We could have made a few minor tweaks and then moved on to something else. Don't get me wrong, the paper wasn't perfect, but it was damn sure good enough to get a resounding "Yes." Or at least good enough to get a face-to-face to further develop the idea. (Which gives admin a chance to establish ownership, never a bad thing.)

But instead of running with it we spent HOURS re-writing every last sentence to make sure every nuance deemed important by every team member was included.

There are so many important things this group needs to tackle. So many projects, so many ideas, so many other proposals to write. I hate that this group spent four freaking hours polishing a "yes."

Why do we do that? Is it a need for ownership? For collaboration and consensus? Ivory-tower-perfectionisim? Whatever it is it's about to drive me up the wall.

We need to get our head out of our asses NOW, before the mess known as evaluating the core cirriculumn gets dumped on our heads.

Sucks

VDay sucks, it really does. Bought Firefly on DVD instead of watching Kill Bill. I've eaten half a pizza and some cheese crackers and some chocolate, but this just isn't working. Passive entertainment (even good entertainment) isn't enough. Food never has been enough.

I want to be shy, and tentative and awkward. I want the start of a relationship, where you're still not sure quite how your lips best fit with his. I want to wonder if it's OK to hold hands. I want to get butterflies in my stomach without feeling guilty.

Valentine's day sucks.

D. said last night that I'm not flirtatious enough. I don't remember how to bat my eyeballs, ask all the audacious questions, or giggle. Gods, I can't see myself giggling at all. Did I ever giggle? She said my clothing is wrong -- it's all too professional. Funny, I didn't think that short denim skirt or that flirty pink skirt were all that serious. I must be getting old.

Old and dry and alone. Is this really what I have to look forward to? A career and a cold bed?

FIVE - GOLDEN - MEDALLIONS!!!!

Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves . . .

Sorry -- I'm in an incredibly good mood. Blew through everything on my to-do list today, developed a game plan combating V-Day blues, and (drum roll, please)

I've almost finished the floor. Really.

I have five medallions to stencil tonight, and then three days for three protective coats of poly. I'll be finished with the floor by SUNDAY counting dry time. Wow. I'm actually accomplishing something instead of sitting around hating my life. Progress is being made.

And I'm not letting VDay stop me, either. I have to teach all day, but after class I'm going home and watching Kill Bill 2 while eating pizza and chocolate.

Two years ago Valentine's day was a nice holiday, but nothing I personally participated in, aside from wishing goodwill on lovers. Last year I stupidly started thinking things could change. This year I'm trying very hard to swing the pendulum back to neutral, but I don't think I'll be able to without a struggle. My head knows I wasn't designed for romance, but my spirit has trouble with that fact.

Career Re-Direction

I've been coordinating the web design program for over ten years. I've written materials for over fifteen courses, I've consistently upgraded my skills, and I've mostly enjoyed what I've done.

But now it's a little stale. I'm not teaching as well as I should, mainly because the subjects are starting to bore me solid. Flash, for instance -- I can teach it with my eyes shut, and I'm sad to say that's basically what I've been doing this semester. And I hate grading. I really, really do. And my Inbox is piled with stuff right now. Web design was "hot stuff" at one time, but it's been pretty much sidelined by other programs. I'll never have the numbers I had in the early 90s, and I'll never convince my boss of that fact.

There are so many things I'm tired of. This might sound like a bitch session, but it isn't. I'm trying to pinpoint exactly what I dislike about my job so I can figure out what needs to change.

• Seven class preparations a semester. Ugh.
• Unappreciative supervisor who doesn't know how to manage me
• Feeling that my classes aren't making a difference in people's lives, that I'm not making a difference in people's lives
• Feeling unconnected to the material and to the students
• Feel little need to be creative on the job since my suprervisor doesn't appreciate or even know what I'm doing.
• Feel very unenthusiastic. Very hard to get out of bed in the morning. It wasn't like this five years ago.

So those are the problems. I have a lot of ideas for change:

• Initiate the developmental computer literacy program we keep talking about
• Make the eBay store a reality
• Grow the Video Game program
• Work more on Teaching/Learning Committee assignments

Now I need to decide if these changes will remedy the problems I'm facing. I just don't really know at this point.

I want to give away web design, starting in Fall. Let another faculty member have it. We have two who aren't coordinating much of anything. Let one of them have it. Let me move on to something new.

Busy Weekend

Very full weekend, despite a horrible head cold. Saturday was pretty quiet, but on Sunday my sister C's family descended on my house. C and R Sr. installed my garbage disposal, replaced my kitchen faucet, hung my paint-by-number, and moved the extra-heavy lime green desk into the garage.

This last move left the hallway empty so now I can paint. Trying to decide which color to go with. I had originally planned on a pale, dusky pink, but now I'm thinking lemon yellow might be better.

While the family was working, niece R ran across my stenciled floor in socks. I didn't think that was a big deal, but the paint (which had been on the floor for 24 hours) smeared everywhere. I'm currently in the process of removing the paint. A little bit of Murphy's Oil Soap and an old electric toothbrush clean the gold up in seconds. Thankfully I had only finished 1/3 of the room. After I remove all the gold I'll re-tape & re-stencil, this time using a water-based paint instead of an oil-based paint.

I took a sick day on Monday and spent the day at Mom's being ill. When I'm at Mom's house I let myself browse eBay, and this time I also played on Amazon trying to track down my china pattern, 222 5th's "Slice of Life." It's a fun pattern -- every piece is different.

Monday I found five pieces that I've never even seen before, and four more that were on my want list. All with free shipping. I'm a sucker for free shipping. So far by my count the collection is up to nineteen dinner plates and mugs, and eighteen salad plates. It's reasonable to assume there are twenty of each. After this latest purchase I'll still be missing about ten pieces.

Here is the new Jungle Queen plate (looks sepia but is actually B/W) and the Wagon Train platter, both new to me after three years of collecting this pattern. Amazon also had a never-before-seen Army Men mug, Air Ships mug, and a Godzilla plate.

222 5th actually has a website for Slice of Life dishes now. It tells me some patterns are to be discontinued. I wonder if these are the new pieces? The whole "discontinued" thing bothers me. Are they going the commemorative route, like Hallmark ornaments and everything ever made by the Franklin mint? I don't like things that are manufactured as collectibles. That trend sucks a lot of the joy out of collecting. Next thing you know we'll have an Official Collector's Price Guide (with Official Prices) and an Official Conference and nothing unofficial or fun will be left for collectors to discover on their own.