January 12, 2004

11:07 a.m.

Breakfast Chat

Mmm... mm... (munch munch) That "flat as a pancake" phrase last night reminded me that I had two rather large, leftover multigrain oat pecan pancakes in the freezer from the last time I got a Pancake Jones. I mix maple syrup and southern cane syrup from Savannah (a taste inherited from mom), and top the whole thing with yogurt. It's important to pool the syrup around the pancake's periphery, so you can scoop as you go.

So I'm not REALLY scared of going out into the world. It's only a reluctance to leave the house, especially in the winter. It would be so much easier to stay home and do nothing; that is, until I got evicted and had to live in the dumpster. I was such a shy kid, I couldn't talk to people loudly enough for them to hear me, and forget ordering in restaurants (and we went out a LOT). It seemed like everyone was always staring at me (as I was, no doubt, hanging on for dear life to my mother's legs) and it made me so self conscious. So of course I chose a career in the performing arts which demanded that people stare at me. It gave me license to speak, in addition to a life of glamour, wealth, and fame.

And I just can't keep the boyz away. Or the girlz.

I think sometimes about nature vs. nurture, and how drastic a difference environment makes in one's evolution. Air Force schools are (or were), by and large, halls of towering inadequacy, especially for artistic kids. My fifth grade teacher was a Nazi who played favorites and, I think, resented me because my father was Base Commander. This teacher probably wasn't doing what he wanted to do in life. Unhappy people take it out on others, and I was of course too young to know that, so all I sensed was that he didn't like me, made me feel unworthy, and I did very poorly in his class. The following year we were transferred to another base, and in sixth grade I was a straight A student. (My teacher was a dream. What a surprise.)

It wasn't until I was a sophomore that I went to a civilian school, and life changed completely after that anyway.

A few years ago I took a certified IQ test and came out with a score of 162. I then blew my nose in my fifth grade teacher's general direction.

I also think about past lives and wonder what I must have been the last time, to have arrived here in this condition. I wish I trusted past life regression. It's like hypnotism; I'm sure it works for other people, but I think it would be hard to let go of the helm enough to go in and trust what I see. But there's always that pull of success - failure - success - failure that challenges me every single time I leave the house, and there must be a reason for that other than my ass teacher from fifth grade.

Despite whatever ambivalence I may observe, though, in four days I'll be in Florida! We got snow last night again, and I hear the sounds of shovelling out my window. Way too much to get done today; rehearsal the next two days, then one day to organize and pack, then an early flight with Rose. I'll have my computer in FL but don't know how often I'll be able to diarize. That'll be weird at this point.