I Kinda Wish I Were in a Chicken Suit

Today is a momentous occasion; I am hosting my very first solo yard sale.  I'm a little nervous since I've never had a yard sale on my own, but if I remember everything I've been taught about the art of the yard sale, I should do just fine.  After all, I learned from the best. 

My grandmother was the Yard Sale Queen, the Garage Sale Guru, the Ultimate Authority on tag sales, rummage sales, whatever you choose to call them.  She had the biggest and best yard sales, and practically made her living selling things on her front lawn.  The woman was a born salesman...er woman.  She knew how to advertise, promote, display, price, and haggle.  Her advertisements and promotions usually involved me dressing in some kind of costume, yelling at passing cars.  She once dressed me in a bunny costume and instructed me to yell, "Hop on down to a yard sale!" at everyone going by.  Another time I was dressed as a clown and my cry was something along the lines of, "Stop clowning around and come to a yard sale!"  As humiliating as that was, I was always paid for my trouble.  Maybe I should have used my wages to pay for some therapy.

My grandmother could sell anything.  She just had a knack for making people believe that they really couldn't live without a set of mismatched spoons, or a non-working toaster, or a pair of pants that were way too small.  She once sold a sweater of mine that had an A (for Amy) embroidered on it by telling a lady the A stood for Alabama.  Never mind that the sweater was pink. 

The best part of her sales strategy had to be her stories.  She came up with wild tales to accompany her assortment of items to make them irresistible to customers.  She would say things like, "This little china cup was my great-great-grandmother's.  It was her only possession when she came to America from the Old Country."  Of course, the reality was something more like she paid 50 cents for the cup at a Goodwill store and brought it home and stuck a $5 price tag on it.  People consistently fell for it and bought her stuff, and she would laugh all the way to her little cash bag!

Of course, she met her share of tough customers.  She usually proved tougher, though.  If someone thought an item was marked too high and tried to get her to come down on the price, she would look them in the eye and say, "It don't eat a thing at my house."  In other words, I'm not that attached to it, and I don't care what you think, that's my price. 

She also had plenty of superstitions and rituals for her yard sales.  The biggest and most important one was that you did not count your money until the yard sale was over.  If you did, you would not make another dime.  My mother said she did it once, and didn't have another customer the entire day.  It became a firm rule, no matter how tempting it was to count that stack of cash, it must NOT be done until the end of the sale day.

My grandmother passed away several years ago, and I miss her terribly, especially today.  I wish she were here to great customers with her usual, "Come on up, I've got a little bit of everything."  She would probably have me dressed up as a monkey or a chicken, but I suppose that would be okay.  We could sit on the steps and play cards and drink Diet Pepsi, and if we didn't have a single customer, it would still be a great day.

*RIP Sara Kathleen (Yancy) Theys*

The Bennett Family Edu-cation

What does a family of nerds do during Spring Break?  They go on an edu-cation.  That's right.  This week Don and I took the kiddos on a nerdly adventure through Atlanta.  We started at The Varsity, feeding trough for all the Georgia Tech geeks.  After feasting on chili dogs and onion rings, we went to Fernbank Museum of Natural History where we got our geek on in an exhibit of mythical creatures.  Later that evening we checked out the Book Nook, a nerd paradise of used books, comic books, and sci-fi collectibles. 

Wednesday we got our hair cut, let the nerdlings go crazy in Toys R' Us, and did some shopping.  We went to R. Thomas for dinner where I discovered the sinus cleansing powers of wasabi.  Ahhhhh...!

Thursday was gorgeous, so we went to the zoo.  I tried to give the boys back to them, but they didn't seem that interested.  Hmmmm...
I geeked out over the pandas.  The new baby panda, Po (his name is Po!) was out on display and I oohed and ahhed and snapped lots of pictures.  I even bought another stuffed panda to add to my collection.  Timothy and I checked out the reptile house.  Super cool.  Paul was more interested in riding the train, which happened to be in repairs.  We all rode the carousel instead.

After the zoo, we indulged our inner food nerds at Harry's in Marietta.  I bought cheese and scones and a huge bottle of olive oil.  I couldn't help buying a big tub of delicious (if not over-priced) mozzarella pasta salad too.  Yum! 

We were all thoroughly tired when we finally got home, but we had a great time.  We ate lots of great food, learned a bit, bought some cool stuff, and relished every nerdy second of our time together.  Like the old saying goes, the family who nerds together...well, you get the idea.

The Big Bad F-Word

No, not that one.  Failure.  My greatest fear.  I've never had many phobias.  Heights don't bother me.  Crowds don't ruffle me.  I don't mind tiny spaces, or bridges, or snakes.  And unlike my husband, I'm pretty comfortable around clowns.  (Don't judge, it's a common fear.)  But failure?  Yikes.  I'm terrified of it.

I suppose it comes from being a bit of a perfectionist.  I like things done right, and done right the first time.  To fail means that I've done something wrong, and I hate to do something wrong.  It gnaws at me.  It makes me uncomfortable.  I hate that feeling.  So whenever I find myself standing on the threshold of some potentially life-changing decision, there's always that nagging doubt in the back of my mind. 

"What if you mess this up completely?"

Many times I've found myself backing away from the edge of opportunity for fear of mistakes I might make.  A couple of times, I've turned around and completely walked away.  Why?  I've been asking myself that for years.  I know in my heart that every failure is a learning opportunity.  Messing up is not the end of the world.  You get up, dust yourself off, and try again.  Some of my best successes have come from just letting go and jumping in over my head.  But the fear still lingers.

I told myself at the beginning of last month that this would be the Year of No Fear.  I would do all the things that I've always wanted to do without worrying about making mistakes.  I'm not talking about climbing Mt. Everest or anything, but just doing the unexplored things that I know I have a knack for.  I anticipate rejection letters, and I've told myself it's okay.  Everybody gets them, but the successful people don't let them get them down or make them quit. 

I have a choice.  I can live my life in security and look back with regret, or I can embrace the unknown, take some risks, and possibly find even greater happiness.  Am I going to let my life be ruled by fear?  Or am I going to live? 

I choose to LIVE.

*A special thanks to Hilary for the awesome quote this morning.  Rock on, creative chick!*

Dear Stupid People

To the Mother-of-the-Year in Walmart:
If you are bundled up in a heavy coat, your baby probably should be wearing more than a short-sleeved onesie.

To the Joe-Bob who thinks it's perfectly acceptable to display parts of the male anatomy on his truck's trailer hitch:
Insecure, are we?

To the lady reading a stack of legal documents while driving:
Pull over please.  If you die in a horrific car crash before those divorce papers are signed, that lousy, cheating scumbag and his floozy will get ALL of your stuff.

To the Lead-Foot behind me on the road:
Tail-gating me will not make me go faster.  In fact, I'm likely to slow down. 

To Sarah Palin:
Stop. Just stop. Please.

Most Sincerely,
Amy

Saturday Night (or Afternoon) Fever

Something happens to me on Saturday.  On other days I am a mild-mannered wife and mother.  I'm a bookish type who listens to NPR and watches History Channel.  I teach Voice and sing opera.  But not on Saturday.  On Saturday I become a screaming, snarling, crazed fanatic.  Football.

So what's a sci-fi-loving, Italian-art-song-singing, trivia-spouting nerd like me doing watching football?  I blame my dad.  He took me to my first game, a high school game, when I was a kid and I fell in love with football.  I started watching televised games with my dad, and over time learned the ins and outs of the game.  Unfortunately, my dad and I are no longer allowed to watch football together at my parents' house.  My mom seems to think we get too rowdy. 

Now, when I say that I love football I don't mean that I watch with mild interest.  I mean that I watch on the edge of my seat while screaming orders to players, coaches, and refs as if they can hear me.  I don't know what happens to me.  It's like I have some kind of Jekyll and Hyde transformation.  I go from non-confrontational choir girl to rabid, blood-thirsty super fan.  While I normally don't have the heart to smush a spider, on Saturdays I find myself screaming things like, "Crush his skull!" at my teams players.  I cackle with glee when an opposing team's player goes down.  I delight in the tears of grown men after a heartbreaking loss. 

What is it about this game that makes me turn into such a ruthless maniac?  Perhaps it's just the raw violence involved.  I mean, huge grown men are out on the field plowing each other down in order to get a little ball to the opposite end of the field.  They are smashing and crushing and knocking and dragging and pulling and pushing and beating each other senseless. That's not something I would normally be into. I do not advocate violence.  I don't like vicious maulings.

Except on Saturday.  On Saturday vicious maulings are awesome.




*RTR!*

Thanks for the Memories...and the Asbestos

My old dorm, Pfeiffer Hall, was torn down earlier this week, and it's made me a bit nostalgic.  I have a lot of good memories connected with that building.  It was the first place I ever lived completely on my own.  The first space that was ever truly just mine.

That space was a tiny room on the second floor of Pfeiffer.  My window looked out over the sprawling front lawn that was covered with magnolias and large pine trees.  The building itself was old and musty.  The stairs creaked and groaned, and it was dark and a bit drafty.  Pfeiffer Hall was the only dorm on the tiny campus, so it housed both the guys and the girls.  It was divided into two sections with the girls' hall to the left and the boys' hall to the right..  A large sitting area with chairs, couches, and a television was in the middle.

I remember my first night in Pfeiffer Hall.  My parents helped me lug my belongings up the rickety staircase, and then I went back out to the parking lot to tell them goodbye.  After hugs and well-wishes, I returned to my room to discover I had locked myself out.  The Dorm Mother unlocked my door for me, but the next morning as I was leaving for my first day of classes my doorknob fell off in my hand.  There was no way for me to open the door and I was locked in my room.  To further complicate matters, I had no way of letting anyone know I needed help.  I had no room phone, or pager, or cell phone.  So I started yelling.  One of the other girls on the hall heard my panicked cries for help and came and let me out.  I got a new doorknob later that day.  That evening I called my parents to let them know how I was doing and tell them about my adventures so far.  Now, let me explain the phone situation.  Since I had no personal phone I used the dorm phone which was a pay phone in a closet on the main hall. I finished my call to my parents and tried to open the door to leave the phone "booth" but it wouldn't budge.  The door was stuck.  Again I started yelling, and again the girl from down the hall came to my rescue.  I was more careful after that, but I had already become known as "the girl who gets locked in places."

My two years in Pfeiffer Hall were filled with plenty of other adventures.  I was appointed Dorm Monitor my second year and was given the job of locking and unlocking all the doors.  Ironic, isn't it?  I had to yell, "Girl on the hall!" whenever I went to to the boys' side to lock the doors.  It never failed that some genius guy would try to shock me by walking out into the hall in his undies.

As Dorm Monitor I had keys to everything but the Dorm Mother's apartment and the attic.  There was a small hole in the attic door that allowed me to peek at what was inside, and I could see that the attic was filled with all sorts of cool old stuff.  My friend Sheri and I tried several times to break in, but we never had any luck.

I have so many other great memories of life at Pfeiffer Hall.  There were the nights when everyone chipped in and rented a movie (usually Twister) to watch in the main TV room.  We would all bring out whatever snacks we had, and then we'd camp out in from of the television and nosh on stale Doritos and melted globs of gummy bears.

We had water battles in the hall and snowball fights on the front lawn.  We (even the guys!) watched soap operas together, and we were all there the day Stephano and Kristen's evil plan was uncovered on Days of Our Lives.

I think the one thing about Pfeiffer Hall that sticks out the most in my mind is the Flushing Ritual.  The pipes and plumbing in that old building had seen better days, and that caused some awkward moments in the communal bathrooms.  There were instructions taped to the doors of all the bathroom stalls that read something like If someone is in the shower, please yell FLUSHING before you flush!  This was done to ensure that you didn't scald the scalp off whoever was in the shower.  When you needed to flush you yelled, "Flushing!"  When the person in the shower stepped back and yelled "Okay," you were clear to flush the toilet.  Occasionally someone forgot, and if you didn't jump back quickly enough you were showered with water heated by the fires of Mount Doom.

I miss Pfeiffer Hall, my first home away from home.  I miss afternoons studying Music Theory under the pines.  I miss singing French art songs in front of my window.  I even miss the communal microwave that always smelled like burnt popcorn.

Farewell, Pfeiffer Hall.  You were the starting point of my journey to adulthood, and the birthplace of my independence.  You will be missed.

*Thank you to Johnny Brewer for posting the above photo.

I'm Coming Out

Before anyone gets too excited, let me assure you all that I'm as hetero as ever. I am however choosing at this point in time to acknowledge a long closeted part of myself, and there is something rather "rainbowy" about that.

For the largest part of my life I have believed myself to be a singer. Just a singer. What did I want to be when I grew up? A singer. Oh, there was that flirtation with the idea of becoming a missionary to Australia. I think perhaps that was a subconscious desire to be near a certain opera house in a certain harbor.

In my teens I discovered Broadway, and I became convinced that was my destiny. I would be an actress/singer on stage! The only problem with that was the fact that I knew nothing about music and even less about acting. So, off I went to college to study music.

All the while, from the time I was old enough to hold a pencil and scribble letters with it, I had been writing. Stories and songs and poetry... I told myself that it was just a hobby. I was a singer. My teachers had other thoughts. I remember my 10th grade English teacher taking me aside at the end of the year and telling me, "I hope you keep writing. You're born to be a writer." I laughed her off. Sure, I enjoyed writing. But it was just something I did to blow off steam or work through emotions. I never considered it, in the words of Little Bill, "my thiiiiiing."

That has changed. Singing and music take a back seat to what has always been a passion of mine. I truly love to sing. I thank God that He chose to bless me with some musical ability. However, there is a special kind of satisfaction in writing. When I sing I'm just performing. I'm singing someone else's words. In writing, the voice and the words are my own. There's something so beautiful and fulfilling in that. I love to look at a sheet of paper or a computer screen and see it filled with my words. I appreciate the applause of the stage, but it can't really compare to a favorable review of something I've created.

I am finally choosing now to acknowledge myself as a writer. I think I was afraid before. Maybe a little intimidated. I mean, anyone who knows me knows that I'm hopelessly devoted and obsessed with a long-dead genius poet and the mark he left on the world. How could I ever compete with that? I think initially, instead of inspiring me, he scared me to death! I've come to terms with dear Eddy now, and I'm ready to embrace my own style and my own voice and my own ideas.

I'm letting go of the past and all the garbage I came up with as an angsty teenager. I'm letting go of all the times I was told to stop "wasting paper." I'm letting go of the fear of failure that ironically serves as a security blanket at times. If I fail, and I already have, I will try again. I have and will continue to learn from my mistakes. I will scribble furiously, type until I'm satisfied, delete, delete, delete, delete.

I am a writer.