Wayback Wednesday: Kindergarten

If you're stopping by from the Ultimate Blog Party 2010, here's my party post!

Tomorrow is Kindergarten Round-Up for my lil' fella. He also got his first invitation to a classmate's birthday party. And he thinks one of his teeth is a wee bit wiggly. Yeah, that screech was the sound of my heart stopping a bit when I realized that my baby ain't no baby any more...

Which brings me to my kindergarten year. Sigh... I'm going to go ahead and admit that I was a precocious little snot who didn't play well with others. At all.

In fact, once I realized that none of them could read, I was pretty much done with them. Why waste my time on those immature, stupid little booger-eating Neanderthals?

For the life of me, I cannot figure out how I thought knowing how to read was a prerequisite for Kindergarten. And telling time, doing basic math, writing and all the stuff kids learn AT school. But that's what I thought, and because I thought that, I just knew my classmates were all dumb.

Apparently the teacher called my mother for a conference when she realized that it wasn't that I was too shy to talk to my peers, it was that I was simply too stuck-up. Bet that was a fun phone call...

This was pretty much the beginning of my whole good-girl/teacher's pet thing. I never really tried to be that, in fact, in college, I would slump in the back row of a 35 student class, trying to hide behind some tall guy, pretending to not listen. But it never failed, the instructor would say something that sparked my interest and I'd make eye contact and BAM! That was the end of anonymity. Every darn class. My papers and tests would come back with "Insightful" or "Great image" or "I think you would be a brilliant English scholar!"

The problem? I was still that little girl in kindergarten, still unsure around my classmates, still awkward and sensitive, and keenly aware of the daggers they would stare into my back when I set the curve on an exam for which I didn't study -- although, by the time I got to college I at least knew not to admit that. Even when I was trying to underachieve, to slack off, to just be average I was unsuccessful.

This is the baggage I carry with me into Kindergarten Round-Up tomorrow. I am trying desperately to not let my anxiety spill into Milo -- he is perceptive and intuitive, too. Sometimes I see so much of me in him... I just hope he has an easier time of it, that's all. That he makes friends and enjoys school. That he leads with his kind heart and sweet nature. That when the classwork is too easy, he doesn't complain -- at least not as loudly as I did.

Wayback Wednesday: Confessions of a Reformed Disco Vampire

I don't know why this popped into my head this morning as I was driving my kids to daycare, but I have been in two movies.  Not REAL released (even straight to video) movies.  And, no, not porn (who would want to see me in porn?  Ick!).  No, two movies filmed when I was in college by college students who had no budget, but manage to fund a steady-cam by scraping together every penny they found, whether it was discovered in the couch cushions, stuck to the sidewalk, or borrowed from mom.

Amazingly, I do not have an IMDb credit.  What, you mean you haven't seen the indelible works of art The Vampire Human Wars and Saturday Night Fever 3?  For shame...

To tell you the truth, I can't remember the plots of either of these movies.  I just know that I did have the female lead in SNF3.  Sure, I was dating the director, but I was dating him before he started filming, so I don't know that our "relationship" had anything to do with the casting.  I do remember the costume I wore for many of the scenes: a green long-sleeved t-shirt, ivory leggings, and ivory pumps.  Hey, it was 1992 and I was 18 and was wearing a size that is approximately half my dress size now.  And to think I complained about being fat then... sigh... 

Anyway, the big dance scene was filmed in a bar.  In, like, two takes.  They had to film during the daytime because I wasn't even old enough to get into the bar.  They guy in the John Travolta role was a really funny fella -- and kinda on the round-ish side.  This is the scene where he finally wins me over, we all dance together, and the film ends in one of those kisses where the camera circles the couple about 20 times.  I remember this mostly because after the dancing, the male lead was so sweaty that I kept sliding off his face.  Ah, good times...

I had a much smaller role in TVHW.  But I was a vampire before it was cool to be a vampire.  How many moms can claim that?

My big scene involved me trapping the protagonists and laughing an evil laugh.  The evil laugh that went on forever.  I asked the director (whom I was not dating -- he was gay and I wasn't and am not a guy) how long I should laugh.  He said, "As long as you can."  So I took the kind of breath you take when you realize your ship is sinking and you're about to go under and I started laughing.

And laughing.

And laughing.

And laughing.

Apparently, I can suck up as much air as a whale because I was still laughing 45 seconds later.

This costume was simple -- goth before goth was goth -- black, black, black and a billion layers.  Sheena Easton eye make-up.  And a push-up bra which was entirely unnecessary.  The other two vampiresses (is that a word?) were nearly A cups and I was an overflowing C, so with the bra I was wearing, the movie could very accurately have been called The Vampire Boob Human Wars.  Hmmm.... now that I think about this, it might have been porn after all...  No wonder I don't show up in IMDb.