the SECRET.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to be some kind of aesthetician or cosmetologist or hair wizard, but then I remember that I have no patience so I throw that idea out the window pretty quickly. I do believe the people in these professions have a distinct advantage over the common man in some areas, though: for instance, they are kind of like therapists who get paid to do your hair.

I don't really like small talk so sometimes I just pretend to fall asleep in the chair while someone is doing my hair. But a lot of times, I feel really badly that someone has to spend an hour and a half on my hair because that must be a very boring task, so I endeavor to make small talk...which inevitably comes out like, "Hey my grandpa just died yesterday and also I'm pretty sure I have malaria, do you like to cook?"

So usually it's just better when I can find a stylist who is a chatty person because then she can do all the talking and I can just insert words here and there. Sometimes, the hair wizard even leaves me thinking deep thoughts, and that was the case with a woman we'll call Carla.

Carla's the one who told me about the book The Secret. Have you ever read that? I have not. It's one of those books that I always see at Goodwill, but I know if I bought it, I would give it away without having read beyond page 1. However, I was very intrigued by Carla's explanation of The Secret. She said it's all about putting truths out into the universe and then living in hopeful expectation of those things being fulfilled.

She could have been totally been pulling my leg. For all I know, The Secret is an Italian cookbook, but I was taken by the whole premise, whether it was actually from that book or just part of the whole Joel Osteen (or whatever his name is) prosperity preaching bunk. Anyway, Carla told me about all this several years ago and it was always just in the back of my mind. I didn't really see it in action until last spring. That was when I reached my breaking point at work.

For some reason, we kept losing power that year and the whole building was repeatedly plunged into darkness. At one point, I remember standing in the hallway and listening to the kids' screams reverberating throughout the dark and thinking, "This is like being on the Titanic. I am sinking here."

That spring, I went to Schnucks and got a million apple crates and hauled them all into my classroom. I packed up my massive library and labeled all the boxes "Books purchased by district" and "Books purchased by ME." I lined them all up against the wall...23 boxes. Then I went through all my cabinets... I threw away everything! Every copy of every handout that I had amassed in the last several years of teaching there. The custodian yelled at me for throwing away so much crap that she hurt her back hauling it all away.

When all was said and done, I had 1 box left of lesson plan copies. Other teachers who stopped into my classroom looked at my wall of boxes in wonderment. I explained to them that I was not returning -- this, despite all evidence to the contrary (that is, that I had already signed a contract to return).

And, long story short, I didn't return. At the eleventh hour, a job opened up at a different district, I paid the ridiculous fine to break my contract, and I left. THE SECRET.

So thinking back on this experience makes me wonder if The Secret has some merit to it. Maybe if you want things badly enough, you just kind of make them happen by the sheer force of your will and your inability to accept anything else.

And THAT makes me wonder if I could will a tiny house into being??

I've been trying to buy a house for 9 years. The first one, I reneged on the contract after a failed relationship. I didn't want to live in a house we had picked out together! Then I switched jobs and had to look for houses in a totally different place. Then I got a one-year work contract and couldn't afford any houses. Then I got another job and tried to buy some more houses. One, the seller changed his mind. Another went to a higher bidder. And on and on...

I feel like a very unsuccessful adult living in an apartment with sketchy management. It might be nice to have a place where I belonged. But at this point, owning a house feels like owning a unicorn that poops Skittles...apart from the history of failed attempts to own a home, there is now the added factor that I would rather shoot myself in the foot than live anywhere near the area in which I work.

I wonder if home ownership is one of those things that I can just WISH into being? I mean, obviously The Secret doesn't work with everything or I would own book shop in England by now...

Mr. Personality

You know how sometimes when your friend is trying to set you up on a blind date, you ask all the appropriate questions and then "Is he cute?" And the response comes back: "...he has such a great personality!!!!" And you know immediately that he is Not Cute and that his great personality is supposed to make up for this?

 But really, the great personality is a commodity that is extremely under-rated. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have one. I myself have a horrible personality. I rub people the wrong way all the time. 

My friend Stratski said that now I have to do damage-control at my new job. I have to make a list of all the people I could have potentially offended and start going around and apologizing to all of them "just in case." This upsets me enormously but Stratski said it is necessary and that neither of us can show our true, real personalities at our new jobs because people wouldn't understand them. We are too brusque.

I just finished reading this book called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which was a national bestseller when it was first published (around 2003, I think?)

The main character and narrator is Christopher, a 15-year-old autistic boy who can't look people in the eye, can't stand to be touched, can't eat foods that are yellow or brown, and is something of a math genius. Because he loves prime numbers and the story is told from his perspective, the chapters are ordered 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, etc.

Anyways, in chapter 181, Christopher explains why he hates France. This is where his parents used to take him on holiday.  He notes that most people, when they visit the French countryside, will have thoughts like, “Oh it is nice here. There is a field. There are some cows. There is a village in the distance. There are some clouds and flowers.”

But when Christopher sees the field, he thinks this:

1.     There are 19 cows in the field, 15 of which are black and white and 4 of which are brown and white.

2.    There is a village in the distance, which has 31 visible houses and a church with a square tower and not a spire.

3.    There are ridges in the field, which means that in medieval times it was what was called a ridge and furrow field…

4.    There is a plastic bag from Asda in the hedge, and a squashed Coca-Cola can with a snail on it, and a long piece of orange string.

5.    The northeast corner of the field is the highest and the southwest corner is the lowest…

6.    I can see 3 different types of grass and 2 colors of flowers.

7.    The cows are mostly facing uphill.

Christopher can list 31 more things about this field, which is why he hates France and also new places in general. His mind just goes into overdrive trying to process everything new, so he “freezes up” like a computer. That’s when he puts his hands over his ears and lies down on the ground and starts groaning loudly.

When I read Christopher’s story, it resonated with me deeply because I understood that feeling of not wanting to look at people and interact with them sometimes. It seemed to me that personalities don't fit into neat boxes: "normal," Aspberger's, Autistic. It seems like they are all just a part of one big spectrum and we are all somewhere on it. I got one of the personalities that doesn't find it particularly easy to interact with people, make small talk, or dissemble. Unfortunately, all of these skills are necessary parts of the professional world. 

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actress. I ultimately decided not to do this because sometimes I had the feeling of getting lost inside a character and I was afraid that one day I wouldn't be able to find myself and get back out. But now it occurs to me that maybe, if I can't enjoy small talk and niceties and being full of sugar and spice, perhaps I could just pretend to be like that. I would be the only one who knows that I am merely pretending to have a great personality.