All my life, I've wanted to be a grownup.
Now I don't want you to think I'm the sort of single minded person who had but one ambition and sacrificed everything to achieve it. Not only do I have serious doubts that I have achieved it, but I've had any number of other hopes, dreams, and aspirations. In chronological order, I also wanted to be a cowgirl, a writer, a movie star, a Great Film Director, and Queen Of The Universe.
Notice how the older I got, the greater the need for capital letters.
From my earliest days, I knew the advantages of being a grownup. No school. No homework. No mandatory bedtime. And my ultimate hope/dream/aspiration- my own bathroom.
In spite of my "I wanna be a grownup" ambition, I ended up in a field where my job was to entertain kids. There were any number of reasons for it. I outgrew my cowgirl outfit and my mother saw no reason to replace it. I never got discovered by a Hollywood producer (their loss). I barely passed my film classes at NYU. As far as Queen Of The Universe goes, well I'm still waiting.
In addition, writing for kids worked nicely with my personal limitations. A vocabulary level that ends at 5.6 on a good day? Perfect for writing for kids. An attention span that lasts at longest a month? Kid books are short. No interest or ability to write descriptions? Less stuff for the kids to read.
The other day in my obsessive googling, I found a newspaper that listed upcoming library events, and it said a certain library had scheduled an adult book discussion of Life As We Knew It.
Adult! Adult=Grownup.
Naturally I dug further to locate this incredibly sophisticated and lovable library. I located it, in a state ending in the letter "A." I then searched its calendar of upcoming events. And searched. And searched. Maybe, although my memory is as shaky as Our Attorney General, I may have searched again.
The library had no such book discussion group scheduled.
You'd think I'd be disappointed, but pathological optimist that I am, I just figure the newspaper got the date wrong. The Adult Book Discussion isn't scheduled for August 2007, but August 2008. After all, it takes adults a long time to read, mull over, reread, and remull any masterpiece, except maybe The Dream Life Of Balso Snell, which can be read and mulled in an hour, and 45 minutes of that is for mulling.
Le sigh. Being a grownup is clearly going to have to wait. In the meantime I'm off tomorrow to the Flying Pig Bookstore, in Shelburne, Vt. (I sure hope cat burglars don't read this blog), where I'm going to read the first day of school section of LAWKI, followed by the gruesome Yankee Stadium scene in the dead & the gone.
I'll let you know if any grownups show up If nobody shows up, always a possibility, I'm not going to tell you a thing.
And while I'm gone, if TPTB of the Universe are interested in offering me the Queenhood, my e-mail address is to the left. My only requirement is that I have my own bathroom.
8 comments:
I was reading this, excited that I'd gotten here quickly enough to make the first, lauded mention of chocolate on this comment page, when I noticed that some robot computer spam machine jerk beat me to the poll position. Still, she forgot to ask everyone to buy more chocolate.
As a PS, good use of bold tags in your post! Now, you may want to go to your blog "settings" and highlight the "yes" button beside "show word verification for comments?" or even "enable comment moderation." Either will help cut down on unwanted traffic like the first post, above (or even this one, here, if you hate me).
Thank you Mr. Cavin!
I am now so powerful not only did I delete that first nasty post, but my very own post.
No doubt I'll use this power a little more wisely when I get more experienced.
In the meantime, this is excellent practice for my future career as Queen Of The Universe.
We can't wait to have you here! However, don't expect us to be grownups. Or mature.
: )
Elizabeth from the Flying Pig Bookstore
P.S. Drive safely!
Goodness, I never thought about blog spam.
We are all waiting to hear about the reading and autograph session at The Flying Pig Book Store and life as you found it in Vermont.
We are definitely in the dog days of summer now. Woof!
Susan-
I just finished reading "Life As We Knew It" and can't stop thinking about it. I'm teaching an adolescent lit. course at the college level this fall, so I've been doing as much reading as possible this summer. The librarian at our local library recommended it, so I took it along on vacation. Wow!! What a great read! I couldn't put it down. Loved the mom and dad's relationship (refreshing to know that divorced parents can be civil to each other), the caring respect they all had for Mrs. Nesbitt, the maturing insights of Miranda, and the question that keeps surfacing-what would I do in that situation? I'd like to think that I would be as brave and committed as they all were.
Just thought you might want to know that I am going to require it for reading in my class this fall! Should be an increase in sales in Ohio!!
Thank you Barb for your kind comments.
I hope you'll let us (i.e. me) know how the classroom discussions go.
And if your students want for any reason to contact me, I'd be delighted to respond to their questions.
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