Saturday, February 16, 2008

Puritan Day

The following is an actual e-mail I sent to my actual mother on December 18, 2007 describing a less than perfect morning. Maybe some of you can relate. Sorry for the bad grammar, but I’m a teacher and I was trying to write the e-mail during passing periods because I thought my mom would find it amusing. She did. She proceeded to forward it to several people who also thought it was funny, so here it is…

my snooze didn't go off this morning so i was scrambling. i look like a puritan. didn't have time to shave and my legs are all dry and scaly so i needed something long. i wore my brown pants yesterday and my black ones have to be washed and i'm afraid to wear jeans lest my boss should see me so i found a long black skirt that probably hasn't been worn in years. i'm not the biggest fan of long skirts, but desperate times... that brought up the issue of footwear. i was going to wear some slip on shoes but felt going sockless in this weather didn't look quite right. i wore hose last week and won't be making that mistake again any time soon. then i remembered thigh highs! but, apparently i threw all of mine away. that left knee highs which is fine because the split in the back of the skirt doesn’t go up to the knee area. of course my good black ones are dirty, so i found another pair at the bottom of the drawer. i was going to wear some heeled loafers but when i put them on they were UGLY. i was forced to turn to boots, and my black ones only go up to the ankle and they look like little witch boots. when i stand up i have to tug the damn skirt down to cover the tops of the pilgrimy little things and they just barely stay covered. so i get to school and on the walk to my classroom i realize why these socks were at the bottom of the drawer, they fell down. so now i've got my knee highs being held up with rubber bands. how sexy is that? so i have on an old ugly long skirt, boots that were en vogue at the salem witch trial, and rubber bands around my damn knees.

Why Start a Blog?

While I was in college majoring in history and political science I discovered I really liked writing papers on the subjects that interested me. I liked playing with the words and putting thoughts together in a way that made sense. As luck would have it, my professors seemed to think I did this pretty well and gave me good grades on my papers. In a letter of recommendation one professor said, "...her writing stands out in stark contrast to the tortured prose of her peers." That may not be an exact quote, but I am positive the prose of my peers was tortured and mine was not. I am not saying this to brag, but I mention it because it was the first time anyone told me I was good at writing and this was not normal for everyone. In the eight years that followed that encouraging letter other people have made mention of this fact on various occasions in response to various things I have written (often times e-mails). Make no mistake; I am no writer of fiction. I have an imagination the equivalent of dry toast when it comes to spinning stories. The things I write that get positive feedback are usually recountings of seemingly mundane events that happen to me or around me that get funnier in the retelling.

Why is this important? Well, I find myself approaching a crossroads in my life, specifically in my career. As I have been looking for direction in the past few months I keep coming back to the positive comments I have gotten about my writing and I am wondering if it is something I could do seriously. I started doing a little research into freelance writing and was struck right off the bat by this advice: If you want to be a writer you have to write! Seems simple enough I guess. So, over the coming months as I tend to my current professional and personal obligations, I thought I would start posting things for my friends, family, and total strangers to read and comment on so that I can improve my skills and see if there is any possibility of this leading anywhere. I am very curious to find out if people who do not know me will find these postings as humorous as the people who do know me seem to find them.

If the title of my blog sounds a bit odd, let me explain. I have a Boston Terrier named Sadie who has been the one constant in my life through a couple of moves, a trip to grad school, some interesting dating experiences, and a few jobs over the past seven years. She is a continuous source of entertainment and she sheds all over everything, especially in the summer. One day when I pulled out my wallet to buy something and had dog hair on my debit card I thought to myself, "My life is covered in dog hair." Mind you, I am a very clean person and I take good care of my dog, so this dog hair is shiny, well-conditioned, coconut-scented, very clean dog hair. Anyway, I thought it would be a good title for a blog that is essentially about little things, like finding dog hair in places you were not expecting it...