Happy Seventh Birthday!

I’ve done it again. I have waited until the last possible minute to write the annual Happy Birthday State of the Blog post and it is causing me serious PTSD on account of this is exactly how I acted from the third through the twelfth grade. It always started with research books, note cards and a pile of good intentions and always ended with a typewriter, a pile of research books and me, typing directly from head to paper the first and final draft of some paper that was worth half of the term grade. It is no wonder that one of my recurring stress dreams revolves around a paper that is due tomorrow for which I have not even begun the research.

Procrastinating is a habit I have been fine-tuning for over 60 years and I can promise you it is true that old habits die hard. Why do we procrastinate? Obviously we put off things we don’t want to do. But I have such a long list of things I don’t want to do that I have to prioritize and do the least heinous tasks first. I still have an email from 2016 at the bottom of my inbox that I keep putting off answering. It’s from an attorney requesting more information so that we can update my will, which is ironic because that is a task that will be done over my dead body.

My early school years have been on my mind more than usual recently because the school I attended for essentially all of the years during which I was a careless and thoughtless ne’er-do-well celebrated a 50th anniversary a couple of weeks ago. My middle sister Norah came to stay with me for two nights, so I had to be careful not to hum, whistle or scuff my heels for three days so that she wouldn’t yell at me. And yet it was delightful to have her come to stay.

It is not completely unexpected that being in a setting from many years ago, along with the people I knew all those years ago, would cause a regression. Norah and I went on a school tour during which we hung out with Norah’s friend Lizzie, who is also a middle sister, and their classmate Billy, who surely must go by “Bill” by now, but calling him that would feel super weird, so we still call him Billy. They all read this blog and will probably enjoy reminiscing over these pictures. They are all grownups. In that environment, I was anything but.

Lizzie, Norah and Billy posing with the “Learning Village” sign. When we went there it was called a “School.” P.S. it was a very windy day. Norah can look much better than that.

These open air huts are where they teach the little children so I guess that’s why they call it a “Learning Village.” I think the truth is that they built these during COVID so that the kids could go back to school and then couldn’t figure out what to do with them so they decided to teach out there and act like it is some back-to-nature creative nurturing thing. Lizzie said, “They are raising free-range children,” and I was so jealous because I didn’t think of it first. That is very rare but it occasionally does happen.

Me posing on the lower school choo choo. Excuse me, the Learning Village choo choo.

Me hiking the football to Norah. Oy. Again with the hair. I have no idea how I was able to coerce her to do it. What a good sport. (I mean Norah - not football).

Photo by Lizzie.

About halfway through the tour I discovered that the two older men who were also on the tour had been my teachers during the worst of the worst years. I struggled with whether I should speak to them, fearing I might ruin what was an otherwise pleasant day for them, but eventually I got up the courage and introduced myself. First I spoke to my 6th grade Geography and 7th grade History teacher, Mr. Chambers. Honestly, all I remembered about him was that he was a dapper dresser who always wore very nice tassel loafers with a high shine. Obviously I paid much more attention to his shoes than anything else, as evidenced by the fact that I got D’s in both of his classes.

Me with Mr. Carlisle Chambers, my Geography and History teacher. It takes a special kind of person to want to teach Geography and History to 6th and 7th graders. I doubt if he felt very special.

Billy called him “Carlisle” which is something I could never do because that would be even weirder than calling Billy “Bill.”

Here is what Mr. Chambers thought of my performance in his 6th grade Geography class. I have to admit it saddened me a bit to see that he gave me a D, yet said he was “much more pleased with my apparent interest and effort.” That is private school speak for, “Your child is dumb as a post, and a pain in the ass to teach but you pay tuition so I have to think of something nice to say and this is the best I can do.” It’s probably just as well that I do not have a copy of the previous report card.

“All of us have problems - and for her it is geography.” Soon he would find out geography wasn’t my only problem. Check out the history report…

Did I have the sense to point out to my parents that he said my project was excellent? It was a paper mache diorama of the moving of Abu Simbel which was relocated in its entirety in 1968 because it was going to be consumed by rising waters caused by the building of the Aswan Dam. See? I did actually learn something, albeit, just one thing. Did my parents appreciate the “A budding Picasso, perhaps” remark? As I recall, they did not.

Next I ran into Mr. Allen, who taught me Geometry and Algebra. I obviously learned very little from him because last week when I was in the grocery store and was trying to calculate the circumference of a can of black beans, I was unable to do so. Later, when trying to solve for x to determine what I should pay for how many rolls of toilet paper, I discovered I could not. Everyone knows what important skills these are when you are grocery shopping and playing golf so my feelings of remorse and embarrassment over my lack of recall are often quite debilitating.

With all of the internet and artificial intelligence options we have today, do children even have to learn all that stuff anymore? When I think of how much time I spent reading Cliff Notes instead of the book, it’s hard to imagine how much better I could have performed in school if there had been an internet back then. Then again, I probably would have been kicked out for handing in a paper that was written, beginning to end, by ChatGPT which, loyal readers will recall, is how I wrote last year’s Happy Birthday blog post.

Me with Mr. Allen. I was WAY more frightened asking to have my picture taken with him than I was asking Norah to let me hike the football to her. But he turned out to be harmless and did not look at me like I had two heads so I am quite sure he had no memory of me whatsoever.

Photo by Lizzie

Anyway, I remember three things about Mr. Allen, and none have anything to do with solving for x or calculating the circumference of a circle. In sharp contrast to Mr. Chambers’ attire, Mr. Allen’s clothes were memorable because they were mismatched and always included a stained tie in which he looked very uncomfortable. The most memorable thing about Mr. Allen was that he would walk in the room and say, “C’mon y’all. Git quat.” Quat, if you do not speak fluent Southern, means quiet. The other thing I remember is that I frustrated him so profoundly with my inability to understand what he was trying to teach that he always looked at me like I had two heads. Like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, was a little repulsed, but couldn’t look away. I utilized these qualities when I played Mr. Allen on Skit Night for four consecutive years. It wasn’t because I was good at acting like him. It was because I had wild, uncontrollably curly hair that looked more like his than anyone else’s in my class.

Me on Skit Night playing Mr. Allen, far right with my foot up on the desk, which is also something he did. I mean, up on a desk with a really high top. It is honestly pretty eerie how much I really do look like he did.

Photo courtesy of Deborah

Following is evidence supporting why Mr. Allen looked at me like I had two heads. Unlike Mr. Chambers, he had no words. Couldn’t he have said something like, “She draws very neat circles” to soften the blow of the F on the final exam? How on earth do you get a D for the term, an F on the exam and a C- for the final grade? Must have something to do with the successful payment of tuition.

They say talking about your problems can release pent-up feelings, so I appreciate your indulgence in my memory dump. I doubt if it will help me, but it was worth a shot and I hope to sleep better tonight as a result. Meanwhile, if you have a child who brings home report cards as bad as these, try not to worry too much. They might not turn out as badly as you fear. Then again, they might. So much of life is a crap shoot.

THE FINANCIAL STUFF

Considering this blog is absolutely free, I think you are getting your money’s worth. The new Second Look emails in which I post a re-run with a quickly and thoughtlessly written update letter have been well-received. However, as easy as they are to put forth, I have been pretty lazy about publishing them as well. I think I like to play hard to get. I think putting oneself on a schedule where there is an expectation of a certain thing on a certain day is not a good idea when you have a life as busy as mine. I am writing this in between pickleball and personal training and will probably follow that with some golf practice after which I will go home and do some client work because a girl needs to eat.

Speaking of money, after seven years this blog has almost reached the threshold at which I will be allowed to collect money from ads you all click accidentally and then curse me for putting them there. I’m guessing that most of you don’t understand how that works and that I actually do not put them there. Many of you wonder how I could possibly know you are looking for new luggage or are in the market for a new car, since those are suddenly the only ads you are seeing. It’s not me. It’s Google, of course. Isn’t it always Google (that is, when it’s not Meta)? Google AdSense is an automatic thing that you sign up for then insert some code on the home page of your site and, Voila! Ads appear on your website that eerily have something to do with stuff you have been surfing the web for. So if you get ads for sex toys, that’s all on you.

Google AdSense requires one to have collected at least $100.00 in one’s account before one can begin to collect remuneration for the hours one has spent writing and researching the information that appears in one’s posts. Since each click generates one or two cents, it has taken seven years for this blog to almost be in the black. Since I started this blog on May 2, 2017, I have published 87 posts and have earned $99.73. So much for my retirement. That amounts to $1.15 per post, and I performed that calculation on my phone because I’ll be darned if I can remember how to do long division. I’m not kidding - just try it. Try to divide 99.73 by 87 with nothing but a piece of paper and a pencil. No cheating. You won’t be able to either unless you have only been out of high school for 4 years. I predict that, after reading all of this profound post, that is the thing most of you will email and DM and write comments about — the fact that YOU can still do long division. Good for you. I can still do a trick that makes it look like my little finger is up my nose past the second knuckle. So there.

THE STATE OF THE BLOG

I think the blog is in a pretty good place. I still re-read and re-post the old posts that seem relevant to me at the time. Some of those posts are really good and I have not the slightest memory of writing them, so you really should read them because you probably won’t see that high quality writing here again. I am still motivated to rant about things that really need ranting about, like the Reply All Debacle that many of you said you appreciated and thus forwarded more than any other post I have ever written. And yet there remains one member of the group of 54 women who, along with me, receive a weekly email asking if they would like to play golf next Friday, and imploring them not to Reply All. This woman, who clearly did not receive a forwarded copy of the post, never fails to send an email to the other 53 women declaring, “I’m in!” I roll my eyes, but it gives me a chuckle and, in the end, that’s what life is all about. At least for me it is.

So the State of the Blog is sound. But it would be a lot more sound if just one-tenth of you readers would click on one of those intrusive ads at the top or bottom of the page. (Right now I am seeing an ad that says, “Detect your level of childhood trauma - Take Test.” I am not making that up). You don’t have to buy anything, Sara. Just click. I’m only 27 cents away from the promised land, so show me some love and let me feel like the last seven years have not been for nothing.

I appreciate you all. Even the ones who yell at me for humming and whistling and scuffing my heels.

Happy Birthday Youngest Sister Blog. Happy Birthday to you.