I'm losing status at the high school

I've been prompted by the blog carnival to write something about high school, and I've also had this idea percolating in my mind for a while since Dirty Gale at work suggested it.

I'm something of a music snob, I know you're shocked, and so people seem to think that I've always been 'cool' and 'hip'. Neither of which I am now nor have I ever been. In high school I was a stoner. I listened to some of the worst crap that came out in the 80's. Dio. Helix. Twisted Sister. Racer X. Accept. Quiet Riot. Krokus. Autograph. And *shudder* Stryper. Sure, there were bands that I liked that were actually good. But I didn't really develop taste in music until I started working in a music store.

In high school I was looking to define myself. I was a 'rebel'. Without, as it were, a cause. I latched on to metal because it was something that was bound to bother the whitebread neighborhood I grew up in. Except for all the other kids my age who were going through the same thing and listening to the same bands. And I embraced the culture wholeheartedly. Studded leather armbands, lots of skulls and black clothes, bandanas, torn jeans, denim jacket with all my favorite band logos all over it. When glam started making waves in the mid-80's with Ratt and Motley Crue I started wearing mascara and got my ear pierced and wore upside down cross earrings with snakes wrapped around them. I was That Guy.

I thought that being part of a group was good. It made me matter in some way. A part of something. An 'outsider' group was even better. I'd tried to fit in the other groups in high school and failed miserably. I was no good at sports. I wasn't geeky enough for Chess Squad (though I was a member for a while). I got bored with Dungeons and Dragons pretty quickly. I had no discernable talent so I didn't really fit in with the theatre crowd, even though they were nice enough to let me hang out with them in spite of thinking I was a bit weird. Note that the theatre crowd thought I was weird. So I went down the social pecking order to the stoners. And I thought that here was a group that wouldn't have rigid standards of what was and was not 'cool' to do and would allow me to just be me without worrying about wearing the right clothes or having the right hair. I was of course completely wrong. As Jello Biafra famously noted "No high school gym coach could get so many kids to dress exactly alike".

I think that's when I started becoming cynical.

It dawned on me in my Junior year that the entire social world of high school was ridiculous and that ...

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Just outside the spotlight there's a big net

Things I learned as a theatre tech that apply to being a parent. Particularly a parent of a sleeping infant.

1. Walk quietly, noise from backstage will break suspension of disbelief
2. Talk quietly, see above
3. Light is bad
4. Dark clothes help you stay out of sight
5. Look carefully before picking something up or trying to move anything, will this make noise?
6. If you have an opportunity to eat, do so. The chance may not come again for a long time
7. Same with using the bathroom
8. Caffeine is your friend
9. Jeans are quieter than Dockers.
10. Soft soled shoes are better, if they are sturdy enough to be safe
11. Sometimes you have to crawl to avoid being seen
12. mini mag lites are discreet enough if you absolutely must have light
13. Know where the set pieces are, so you don't bump into them in the dark, thus making noise and/or injuring yourself
14. Props are to be put away when not in use. This avoids them being broken and people being injured by tripping over them. Usually in the dark.
15. Costume changes are frequent and inevitable. Get good at doing them fast.
16. The drama queen will almost always ultimately get her way. Strive to minimize the perceived value of throwing tantrums.
17. You are not the reason for the show. You are there to facilitate the show. People will pay to see performers on a bare stage with house lights on. They will not pay to see scene changes and light cues being run. Techies shouldn't have egos.
18. Be aware of the environment, watch for potential hazards that the talent may not notice.
19. Your workday starts before the talent wakes up, and ends long after they have finished their day.
20. If anything is making noise that shouldn't, apply duct tape as necessary. This includes cats.

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Might as well go for a soda

Here's something that our trip to China cured me of: drinking soda. I drank it constantly in China. It tasted wonderful. I couldn't get enough of it. Because it's made with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. I tried a coke on Friday after we got back. Awful. Undrinkable. I didn't even take a second sip.

So now I will join those searching for soda made with sugar. There is a bottling plant in Texas that makes Dr. Pepper with sugar, I'm thinking of ordering a case. And there are rumors that Costco is trying out Coke imported from Mexico that is made with sugar.

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All I want is the key to your Ferrari

When did backing into parking spaces become de riguer? Backing in tells me one thing about you as a person: you're an idiot. I can tell easily that you have a lot of trouble with basic maths and sciences, in particular geometry, spatial relations, and the vehicle dynamics field of physics.

Over the years I've sat impatiently and watched morons trying to maneuver into parking spaces backwards. Here's a tip: Driving backwards is harder to navigate than driving forwards. You have much more available arc when leaving a parking space than when entering one. So you go forward into the space where you can navigte between the lines easily, and back out where precision is less of an issue.

I routinely see people take 4-5 minutes and at least 3 tries to back into a space, in order to save themselves 30 seconds when they leave. Idiots.

On a totally unrelated note, Cybrpunk has a great meme going. You should comment on it.

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Sleep is just a gateway drug to being awake

Travel days suck. Recovering from them isn't much better. But I'm so glad to be back with my girls, I missed them a ton. I sat on the couch with Boo this morning before anyone else woke up and just held her while she watched tv. She missed us too.

China was amazing. I will be posting my trip summaries over the next few days as I get time, though I expect that to be a rare commodity for the forseeable future. Getting Boo 3 onto a good schedule is going to be job #1.

I already miss the food in China, but I love having a kitchen again.

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