I wasn’t really that popular throughout my school career. In fact, I spent much of my life from pretty much Kindergarten onwards wondering what made me so different from the girls who were more popular than I was. You know the girls. Maybe you were even one of them. I started the extreme scrutiny in grade 7. Grade 7 is when some other kids joined our school because their school didn’t have grade 7. We all moved to a different (And larger) school for 8-9 and then another across a walkway for 10-12. The popular girls from the new schools in grade 7 seem to sense who was already cool and they amalgamated into one cool entity. Those of us who were lesser called them the “fakies”. As if being popular make them insincere. I would occasionally try to worm my way into the cool group, only to be subtly or even not to subtly dismissed. Carolyn M. telling me I smell via a note passed in Math class for instance.
I remember crying at the end of grade 7 knowing that we were moving to a bigger school with even more kids who made up this invisible and impenetrable group of cool. I examined every detail of myself by the time I went to Junior High in grade 8. I spent a lot of the summer between seven and eight memorizing Seventeen magazine in the hopes that my fabulous wardrobe would be my “in” for being popular. I wanted to be in the upper echelons of Junior High cliquedom so badly. The new threads did not help. At one point I was called a “fucking punker” (1982) while wearing purple and grey striped pants. I did meet some friends that I hung around with, I sort of bounced around a bit from best friend to best friend, but I finally met Pam. Pam also owned striped pants and was beautiful. If she wasn’t in the popular group, surely something was amiss. Pam was my maid of honour at my wedding.
Things went on this way. I would occasionally ask others what they thought the big deal was with Laurie or Lisa or Sammi. No one could concretely tell me why they were so “it”. I mean Laurie even cheated in French all the time and never got caught. Surely someone so dumb shouldn’t be so popular. Plus, she still had mall bangs when they were clearly on the way out.
In the summer between grade 10 and 11 I got a part-time job at a clothing store. Despite the lack of success with infiltrating the group, I ended up defining who I was by what I wore and how many different outfits I had. Don’t even get me started by how many fabulously large pairs of earrings I owned. I came back to grade 11 with the nicest leather jacket anyone had ever seen. I saved for it and got it with my staff discount. It was stunning, amazing. How could I own such a jacket and not be totally cool? Apparently it was possible. I slumped along grade 11 much the same way as ever. The difference was my anxiety disorder was at full-tilt and my close friend Pam had been hospitalized several times for depression. Being popular didn’t have the same cache as in previous years.
In grade 12 I was just glad that it was almost over. A girl who had tormented me from grade 7-10 had left and things didn’t seem so bad. I still had excruciating anxiety, but University was next and that seemed like an endless opportunity to be popular in some way or another. I could join clubs or run for student council or take Drama classes. I could meet new people, people who didn’t know me.
Near the end of grade 12 when we were planning our “Grad” the graduating class had to vote on a class historian. Someone who could provide an overview of our high school experience. I ran, I won. Me, not the popular girls who ran, but me. There were actually two class historians, me and a popular guy. What luck. I could brush elbows with cool while writing a speech. Check out here for a funny story about him. So, the speech was a big hit and I felt slightly vindicated for the years of sub par-popularity.
With high school over, I went to the local university, which is huge. It’s even larger now, but in 1987, they had a population of about 27,000 full-time undergraduate students. I think that is even large-ish by American standards. I over estimated my ability to mix and mingle in such a huge situation. I did meet some new people, some of whom I am still friends with. The anxiety disorder also played a large roll again in University. I was scared and nervous and anxious about going out with large groups of people. My friend Pam didn’t join me at University and I ended up feeling more isolated in my first year than ever.
In my second year of University my anxiety peaked. I admitted myself into the outpatient hospital at the University Hospital and was treated there both in individual and group therapy from October to April of that year. Truthfully, the therapy did little for me. I was too young for the group setting and too functional. I did manage to fail calculus twice that year while maintaining an almost full course load and for 4 months I was at the hospital everyday for 4 hours a day. The turning point was drugs. The legal kind. I saw a psychiatrist who put me on some fabulous anti-anxiety medication.
But really, this is a post about being popular. I took the next semester off and went to Hawaii for 3 weeks with Pam. The following semester I volunteered for University Peer Counselling and some excellent people who I am still very close to today. But, the biggest step of all was going more than half way across the country to finish my Bachelor’s Degree. The anxiety had gotten so bad that I wasn’t even sleeping away from my parents house near its peak, and now here I was moving far far away where I knew NOBODY. I started at the University of Windsor the following September.
University of Windsor sits like a toque on Detroit. Campus is located under the Ambassador Bridge connecting the two cities and I had to walk through a graveyard to get to classes from my residence. A bit of a rocky drunk filled start in Windsor, but I was finally something I always wanted to be: popular. I lived in “mature” student residence and met some great people. They liked me. Sure, I drank a lot, so I could be remembering it a bit differently, but people really liked me. I ended up making friends with the two coolest girls in all my residence as well as the coolest girl in my classes and we all lived together the next year. Campus was small and I knew people whenever I went somewhere. The bouncer at our favourite pub loved my tall gorgeous roommate and we never waited in line. I was homesick at first, but it was a great experience. There was nothing wrong with me anymore. I wasn’t too fat, too loud, too quiet, my hair wasn’t too curly, and my pants weren’t too striped.
It was a sense of acceptance that enabled me to live my 20s feeling much better and self-assured. I was able to function in the workplace without feeling left out and isolated. There was no longer something instrinsically wrong with me that prevented people from liking me enough.
When I composed this entry (in my head), while lying in bed the other night I wasn’t sure why. I thought, yeah, I could ramble on about not being cool, but why? Why? Because this is why I have a blog I think. Not necessarily to be cool or popular. But because my blog is my mirror. Somewhat in traffic and comments, but also because it exists. Its mere existence makes me visible after feeling invisible and unimportant for so long. It is sometimes easier to know that someone is reading than listening. I can’t see your blank faces and wonder what you are really thinking about while I tell you some story about stealing Virgin Mary statues off of people’s lawns while drunk.

Therefore its not that hot that often. And when I complain about the heat, people who live in real heat like Styrokitty mock my complainin’. Yesterday it got to about 29C or about 84F for you non-metric types. That is hot for here ok! Without AC in an upstairs bedroom, so there. It rarely gets much hotter than this for very many days out of the summer. Yesterday the “heat” just made me cranky, on top of dealing with a teething screamapillar. I did just go to Safeway for groceries and it was freezing in there. See? Never happy.

I got nothing. It is hot here and I think Charlotte is cutting a tooth on the bottom of her mouth. Fussy baby. We also had a federal election here today. I don’t talk much politics on the blog, but I do think about it a lot. I took Charlotte to the polling station today for her first taste of “democracy”. Real democracy would be proportional representation, but I digress. The election turned out ok for my particular bent, the party a little left of centre is running the country still. The party on the right got more seats than I am comfortable with. All in all, it could have been way worse. Some close races. Mark called his parents, who are very conservative, to taunt our Liberal winnings. There was some good shouting at the TV. Lots of yelling, “suck it” at the big old white rednecks who look like they eat babies. Tomorrow I may head to the air-conditioned mall for a break.
Oh! I did get 340 of our digital pictures printed AND I got a new keyboard with a “:;” and “u” key that work properly. Yay me!

I am up too late. That

Biomom™ is here visiting. It is nice for the most part. She does little things that bug me though and I want to get over it. I want to slap myself and say that its not s big deal. She calls Charlotte Charlottee, which irritates me, although I know she means it endearingly. She also talks with her mouth full a lot of the time and it made me see red and pass out from lack of blood flow to my brain. She also says “pardon me?” or “what?” almost every time I say something. I know she can hear me, what

Mark, best daddy in the world
lucky wee baby
mom is most thankful of all
today your first fathers day
Charlotte your daughter
little hand holding finger
a diaper full of presents
hamsters pudding cheese
please change me daddy I stink

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My niece with rubber gloves on her feet being a “CRAZY CHICKEN”

Does TBS show Miss Congeniality every day? In fact, I think TBS has a repetoire of about 5 movies.

I am going to go up to bed now and read my murrrrder mystery book. It keeps me nice and distracted, but also up too late. Not that I am a stranger to not getting enough sleep.
I am a weee bit cranky tonight. Things I cannot really talk about on the blog. Lets just say that men can be dumb (not my husband), and family is a pain in the ass at times. I can tell you that while I am at home tending to my baby on maternity leave, my workplace moved me out of my current office. I was moved from a nice office with a window, to a pit of despair office down the hall, with no window and nowhere near my “team”. How handy for them that I am not there to complain. The silver lining is that I am even further away from my new (air quotes) supervisor (/air quotes), who for those not in the know, I refer to as the skanky bitch.
Tonight is just one of those times where I feel like I live in a parallel universe where I can be telling someone that the earth is not flat and there is nothing I can say to convince them. Like explaining to people why SUVs are bad, or why Survivor is a dumb show, or that there is nothing wrong with capri pants, or that Kraft Dinner is actually quite tasty, or to stop using “i am just so busy” as an excuse. Who lives in a parallel universe to yours and what are you trying to tell them?

But instead, I am here for your blogging pleasure.
Mark is playing some Xbox driving game right now. I wonder if he talks to the game this much when I am not in my little office nearby?
I have a pictorial blog entry tonight.

This is where Mark is right now. He is sitting on two beanbag chairs covered with my Grandmas afghan on it. My laundry is drying nearby. This is our glamorous basement. We have the baby monitor down here with us, but Charlotte is fast asleep. The cats are down here with us too. My office is a huge mess, but I give you no picture. I was rifling through my closet looking for wrapping paper and it looks like some sort of nuclear bomb when off in here.

This is our fridge. You would never know two adults live here by the crap on it. I will concede that it is mostly my crap. Homemade magnets, photos of babies, David Hasselhof, the city’s recycling schedule, important stuff.

Mark bought me these FLOWERS FOR NO REASON tonight. I love him so.

This is the fabulous monkey mobile (doesn’t monkey-mobile sound like a groovy super hero car?), that Mia sent. We plan to put it in Charlotte’s room, but right now it hangs in the kitchen.

This is a photo of the onesies that Cait made for the baby a hundred years ago and I don’t think I ever posted a pic before and they are so cute! Charlotte has actually almost outgrown them, but she has worn them tons!

This is the frontal view of the two onesies that Estella made for Charlotte. She just fits these now. They are a big hit.

This is the back of the pirate one. I am sure if Charlotte could read this would make her snort formula out her nose.

This is our new stripey duvet cover. For summer don’t you know.

This is a pic of my friend Janet on her birthday this past Saturday. Michelle is presenting her with her “29th” birthday cake. I will never tell.

This is a picture of Queen Elizabeth on her coronation. It was my Grandmother’s. It hangs outside our upstairs can.
See, no cat OR baby photos.
Now I have to go pump Charlotte

I will buy somebody something off of thier Amazon (or equivilent) wish list if they design me a groovy, yet simple template for the blog. I have no time to do it, but I can’t take the plainosity any longer. Is this a decent deal for anyone artsty with some free time? If you are interested, email me at jennifer@jennui.com
p.s. maybe not this though.