I Am The Queen Of Pckrats

It's like 3 am and I am boxing up some old journals to be stored in my parents basement until I can find some efficient way to destroy them. I stumbled across a certifcate I received in the 5th Grade for being a, um, "Star Student." I have no idea what this entailed, but I sure didn't get one in high school. You know, when it actually might have, I don't know, MATTERED.

Anyway, I'm thinking that after I have my corner power-office at the top of some New York office building I should have it professionally framed and I should hang it next to my various degrees from assorted ivy-league universities.

It would be charming. There is a dog in a drum major's outfit marching behind a police dog in apolice car in the border. Also some dogs on a tandem bike. It's pretty classy. Also, I have apparently held onto it since June of 1999. Somehow it escaped the all-encompassing Mom Box of Grade School Treasures.

Speaking of these, I found boxes in our basement from kindergarten through like the third grade. Apparently whenever I finished a year she would tape them shut with packing tape. None of them have ever been opened. I like to imagine the poster-painted pictures of Mommy and Daddy and the clay "dinosaurs' have all melted into some kind of noxious gas and it's just waiting to kill us all.

Image Captions When Doing A Google Images Search for "Koalas" And How I Imagine Them to be Finished

Koalas aren't bears but very realistic and cuddly robots.
Baby koalas produced by artificial flavoring.
Koalas To Gaze Upon and possibly ponder.
Beware of koalas as they are fanged and dangerous.
Koalas live in social groups determined by their salaries, who they know, and where they vacation.
Shy baby koalas live in trees, not basements.
Even Koalas enjoy the beach. Especially shy baby koalas.
A truly wonderful holiday experience at the beach with koalas.
Koalas can't bear being sent to bed with no dessert.
Sleepy Koalas probably shouldn't drive.
Koalas have sharp claws for defense and would probably make terrible pets, especially if you have small children or other pets in your home.
Did you know that koalas live in my dresser?
Three of the eight koalas went on to ivy-league universities to pursue degrees in Law, English, and European Literature.
If it seems I use koalas very much it is probably because they are kind of adorable and furry.
Gum Trees n' Koalas: A Seminar on Tax Laws
Koalas are solitary animals so don't plan on inviting them to your New Year's Eve party unless awkward silence is your type of thing.
Koalas Are Clinically Depressed and should be treated for this crippling disease at once before it becomes something much worse.

Things College Has Already Taught Me

1. From now on, silverware is on your school supply list.
2. PB Teen is not an acceptable website to use when making your shopping lists because that little table? THAT IS FOOD FOR LIKE TEN YEARS. Also: whose dorm has large leaded glass windows that look like something out of a castle?
3. No matter how much you whine, extra-long twin silk sheets are not a necessity.
4. The phrase "But it will remind me of you!" wears out right around the time you use it to try to convince them that you will need a $41 set of silverware.*
5. Googling the phrase "dorm room" at 3 am will only make you more nervous because it will convince you 100% that it will be like living in a closet with a stranger.
6. Your room will looking NOTHING like the dorm room in that one Ikea ad.
7. Probably you do not need to drag along your 6' CD tower. Probably. Since as it is, at home, you are using a total of 6" of it.
8. Also you do not need 8 separate lists with a stunning variety of things on them. Condense!!!

I have exactly 5 days to pack. I have not started yet. Instead, I make lists on the Internet because clearly, it is productive.

*This excuse actually ran out a long time before then, but like that has ever stopped me before.

Dear College:

I realize that my goal of getting a full ride scholarship to Columbia after I am finished with you seems lofty and unlikely, given my cumulative GPA of 2.1 in high school. I get that, okay. But you are not exactly helping me. Everyone says that extracurriculars are important in these kinds of processes. So...when you decided that the only clubs/organizations you would offer would be chess club and billiards club, were you high? I mean there is not even a student newspaper that I can find anywhere. And I do not think that Columbia is going to look t my application and see that I was president of the POOL CLUB and think, Oh, man! Let's definitely offer a scholarship with a value of like a million dollars a year at the most amazing university in the world to this person who can play awesome bar games really well.

At this point, College, I would settle for, like, an embroidery club. At least that is something I would not have to go out of my way to learn and then ultimately fail at.

Megan

Fights!

You'd think, living in a house with two teenage boys, that I would witness a lot of fights. But I don't. So when it happens, instead of charging at them, arms outstretched to wrestle one of them away from the other like my dad does, I flop down in the nearest chair (a safe distance away) and watch and yell things like 'KICK HIM IN THE GROIN!!!"

I get lots of dirty looks from my mom. But it's okay, because it only happens like once every two months.

Hello world!

I am in a fantastic mood today! For no real reason, I guess, considering I encountered no less than three sobbing people at work today. Perhaps it's because all the people I ran into and was forced to make small talk with today made me feel so tall and skinny and svelte and blond and...tanned! If you know me, you know what a magnificent accomplishment making me feel like that is. Because I'm pretty much none of those things, except maybe I'm kind of close to tall.

Anyway, one of these people was one of the, um, cooler girls in my group in middle school, and I always wanted to be so cool like her. And to this day, she looks the exact same, and I can honestly say thank you powers tat be for not making that particular wish come true. If I became a pretentious, upper-middle-class poli-sci major at Loyola University* I would shoot myself in the head. Except that I would be so spineless I would maybe only think about it and maybe think about hiring someone else to do it.

So: to anyone who stumbles across this, have a fantastic day/evening/whatever! I will be making up errands so that I can go sit in Starbucks and enjoy the secret stares from the hot dude I went to high school with!

*If you are a poli-sci major at Loyola, I probably don't hate you. Just, you know, every kid I hated in high school (because they were, um, pretentious, out-spoken, hippy-dippy teenagers) went on into poli-sci programs at pretentious universities across the nation. I am somewhat content with going to a school that is essentially an out-of-state, private community college to get my general transfer degree and then head off to a pretentious university of my very own to get my pretentious English degree so I can one day hope to have the pretentious title of Editor-In-Chief of something or other.**

**I make no excuses for my hypocrisy. I embrace it. As should you. Your own hypocrisy, I mean, not mine. That would be weird.

A Word To the Wise

When you have a custody issue and an elusive lawyer, and you are on the phone with his receptionist, do not EVER, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, begin sobbing into the phone. My first reaction is to hang up on you. Lucky for you, I realize the unprofessionalness of that, and will wait in silence for you to hang up first. There is absolutely nothing I can do to get him on the phone from where he is at his remote, out-of-service cabin, and, quite frankly, I am not even going to try.