Category: NMSU

Returning to the old ways

Back in college, I took my studying rather seriously.

More seriously than my various roommates, my suitemates and pretty much everyone in the dorms where I lived.

I might have been a dork. Not sure….

Anyhow, when I was a kid, I had been lucky enough to have my own room, so I could study in there, door closed, and be most effective.

College was a whole crazy world of living with strangers. After lamenting my issues to my mom, she suggested I try the library on campus.

This sounded awful. I like being in my own space to study. To have my own comforts around.

But desperate for a solution, I packed up a backpack full of books and things, and walked over to the imposing building.

I was just a lowly freshman, and that library was intimidating!

But, as I looked around for a place that might work for good solid studying, I discovered this fabulous feature called a study carrel.

Oh yes.

I could sit in one of these bad boys with the high walls and block out the rest of the world. I could unload my backpack of all my things, set them around me, and create a personal space where I didn’t have to see or hear anyone.

In fact, over waaaay in the back, by the microfiche readers, where it was kind of dark, there was one lowly study carrel that was *mine*.

No one else liked it and hardly anyone came over that way. If they did, it was only briefly to read something on microfilm or microfiche, so it was blissfully quiet and I was mostly alone.

I got some really, really good studying done there. I spent HOURS in that carrel…while my friends, uh, had, you know…fun.

Good times, yes.

So, here it was, this past Saturday. The date was the 28th and I was still 5,000 words from the end of this year’s National Novel Writing Month challenge of 50,000 words.

The Good Man had to work on Saturday and so I was alone with my imposing battle.

I was really at a standstill on the writing. I hadn’t written a word in three days, and it looked like I was not going to make it to the finish line this year.

So, in a bid to change my scenery and thus get the ol’ Muse working again, I decided to go to the local library. The went to the one near where The Good Man works so we could meet later for a break.

In I go and I stalked around the place, looking for a good spot. It is a pretty ancient library, so not every table space has a power supply.

My antique Mac needs constant power feed.

So I trudged up to the third floor. I liked it because that floor was behind a closed door. That keeps it nice and quiet.

And lo and behold! They had study carrels. WITH POWER!

Ok! I’m in.

I even found one waaaaay toward the back, where no one else would go, plugged in my power supply, dipped my head behind the walls and got to work.

And who knew, all these many years later, the study carrel still works?

I banged out 4,000 words in about three hours, and would have finished to the end, but had to go meet the in-laws for dinner.

Later that night, after a margarita and some soothing Mexican food, I wrote the final 1,000 words and crossed the finish line of my fifth NaNoWriMo event.

I owe it all to that beautiful, wonderful, magical study carrel!

(terrible iPhone photo, but you can see how sunny and nice it is. I may go there again just because!)

Uh oh

She’s borrowing from the random idea generator again.

Herewith, my list of my ten favorite quotes, in no particular order.

“Life is too important to be taken seriously.” – Oscar Wilde

I don’t actually read Oscar, or know much about him. This quote was told to me when I was in high school looking for a quote to go with my senior picture.

You know the drill, we all had to have a quote, our defining statement. I liked the sentiment, so I went with it. My alternate was something about describing the taste of an olive, it was a weird quote. So of course they used that one.

But the Oscar quote has stuck with me.

“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture” – generally attributed to Martin Mull, but source is unclear.

First heard this quote in the little known and way under appreciated movie “Playing by Heart“.

This was before Angelina Jolie was, well, what she is now. She was only sort of known back then and is adorable in this movie. Her character is wacky and everything I wish I could be (including six feet tall and drop dead gorgeous), and she talks about this quote (attributing it to a musician friend), then subs in that “talking about love” is definitely like dancing about architecture.

I don’t know, it’s a quirky line. I like it.

“This is a simple game. You throw the ball. You hit the ball. You catch the ball. You got it?!?” – the Skip in Bull Durham.

How many times, as a manager, have I wanted to throw a sack of bats at the feet of my employees and holler at them about being lollygaggers?

The answer is: a lot

There are a lot of life lessons to be learned from the game of baseball. This is a fave quote I remember when I tend to overcomplicate things that should be simply elegant. Like the game of baseball.

“…and when we win this game, we’ll buy a keg of booze, and we’ll drink it to the Aggies ’til we wobble in our shoes…”

That is actually the actual words from the NMSU fight song. It always appealed to me greatly that at an institution of higher education, we were encouraged to, you know, drink.

Our forefathers from 1888 saw the future. They saw it clear. They knew exactly what my alma mater would be.

Makes me proud. : sniff, wipes a tear away :

“Hey, minion! Bring me a beer! And don’t lollygag!”

And by minion, of course, I mean The Good Man. (juuuuuust kidding!)

Speaking of those college days….how about:

“It’s only love when you’re loved in return.”

Ok, sure, it’s a quote from a Steve Wariner song.

But it was said with *meaning* by my best friend, back in college, when I discovered that the guy I’d been dating was cheating on me. It was my first taste of heartache. The guy was truly a cad.

Now that cad has been married to another friend of ours for the better part of twenty years. Proves that sometimes it’s not the boy, it’s just the wrong boy for you.

My bestest friend and I had occasion to recall this conversation recently, with a laugh. This was while recounting the story to my husband.

So all’s well that ends well, I believe.

And speaking of The Good Man…

“To my heart you have the key/It you who set me free/And time will surely show/That our love will grow and grow.” Lyrics from “Positively Meant to Be” by Jimmie Vaughan

The words on the page don’t really have the same impact as they do when heard on top of the low and slow blues guitar sound from Mr. Vaughan (brother of Stevie Ray, totally different style).

It’s a song I sing to my sweetie. I know, I know…too goopy for words. But it’s my song for, or rather about, him.

Ok, let’s ungoop this thing…

“No matter where you go in life after this, it will always be better than Tucson.” – From the movie “Hamlet 2”

Ok, apologies in advance to anyone from Tucson or anyone who actually *likes* Tucson.

I have had several occasions to spend time in Tucson. Not the least of which is that the Colorado Rockies have their Spring Training facility there. In the City of Tucson, I’ve been treated bad, eaten awful food, my friend had her car towed (from an unmarked area) and been lost in muther f-word “downtown” Tuscon with confusing highway markers.

And when, while watching Hamlet 2, they said that line, the beverage I was enjoying came rocketing out of my nose like Ol’ Faithful.

Well said, sir. Well said.

And just to prove I can be fair, I’ll also include:

“Even for Albuquerque, this is pretty Albuquerque.”

Also a nose geyser line, spoken seriously and rather snidely by Kirk Douglas in the movie Ace in the Hole.

An utterly forgettable movie with an unforgettable line.

Ya gotta be from ABQ to understand it. But you know, there is a lot about Albuquerque that is just soooooooo Albuquerque.

‘Nuff said.

“May the bird of paradise fly up your nose.”

If Little Jimmy Dickens wasn’t a poet, I don’t know who is. In fact, country music is ripe with quotable quotes. Country living and cowboys tend to have some colorful descriptors, but that’s a whole other post for another day.

Ok, ok, I’ll end on an inspirational note…or something…

Seems fitting, uplifting. Don’t let those bastards getcha down!

“Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?” – Frida Kahlo

Beautifully painful and erudite, all at once.

I’m sure I’m forgetting quotes I adore, but can’t quite access in the ol’ brain matter today.

It happens.

Maybe I need to go out and flap my yapper and make some quotable quotes of my own…..

You are the sum of all your learning

Back in my college days, I lived for a couple years in a sorority house. There were twenty-eight girls, a house mom and a cook. All of that living with a bunch of strangers was quite a life lesson for a nineteen-year-old girl, I assure you.

Those twenty-eight girls came from a variety of different backgrounds, with different values and talents.

Much of what I know and much of who I am can be traced to those days.

Recently, I’ve had a real dearth of creativity. Like a desert in a drought. My creative mind is dusty. The Muse, she’s out to lunch. A two martini lunch.

I’m learning, with the help of my extraordinarily talented and creative cousin, not to worry so much when the creative well has run dry. Be confident, he tells me, and The Muse will find her way home.

I’ve also gotten suggestions that creating something, anything, can also kick loose that block, get the gravel out, and let the magic happen. (this the basic tenet of the good folks at NaNoWriMo)

And so, when I get all creatively clamped down like this, I often go back to something I learned back in those sorority days.

This great girl from Roswell and I made fast friends (we’d both had to endure the same crazy roommate in separate semesters. This sort of experience bonds people). She’d grown up showing pigs and living on a ranch and was a much more creative person than I was at the time.

Not to be all stereotypical, but those ranch woman can out cook, out craft and out wrassle any of their town raised counterparts.

Anyhoo, I don’t really remember the events that lead up to it, but this friend of mine, at my request, taught me how to do a counted cross-stitch kit. It was a simple pattern, but when I was done, I was so pleased. It was a nice distraction during those long days of studying.

Doing cross-stitch is not especially hard, but can be time consuming, and there are certain stitches for certain patterns.

My friend very patiently showed me how to sort the threads, how to tape the sides of the aida cloth to keep them from unraveling, how not to pull the stitches too tight, how to fix mistakes, how the back of the cloth should look as clean as the front. All of that.

And so, over the weekend, I had a coupon for Michaels, and yearning to create, I picked out a very simple kit. A “learn a craft” kit that I think is made for kids.

But that doesn’t matter.

Today, I very carefully applied tape to the aida cloth. I sorted the threads and counted to be sure they were there. I folded the cloth and marked the center lightly with a pencil, and I got out my highlighter to mark off my progress, all the way my friend taught me lo’ these almost twenty years ago.

Whenever I start a new cross-stitch, I always think of my friend. She is with me, guiding my progress the whole way. She is forever a part of me. That’s a happy feeling. That’s the family you make over the course of your life.

So here we go! Let the creation begin!

Oh, wait. Well. There is one change. One update that will take place this go ’round. A necessary adjustment, if you will.

Yeah. My lighted magnifying class. Sadly, I don’t have twenty-year-old eyes anymore. *cranky*

Oh. And getting to work on my cute frog cross-stitch isn’t the only bit of using my hands that I got up to today.

I also got busy on these:

Ooh, I feel The Muse on her way back already! Here Musey, Musey, Musey!! Want a cookie?

Another time, another place

: Cue the wavy lines : Today we’re headed down memory lane.

The year was 1988. Hmm…I believe we’re talking Fall semester of school? My memory is often weak. If so, then the month would have been August, or maybe September.

It was warm, I remember that. Then again, it’s always warm in Las Cruces.

I was a student at New Mexico State University. Enrolled in the College of Business.

I was also a member of a social sorority. Yes, now it can be told. Me, I was a sorority girl. Though it didn’t mean what you think of when you think of that stereotype.

NMSU is a different sort of college and the group I belonged to wasn’t your typical sort of sorority. But yes, it can’t be denied. I’m a sorority girl. My husband never thought he’d end up with a sorority girl. I never thought I’d end up with an ROTC guy. Things change…

I had only joined the group just the semester before. It was all pretty new to me. But summer was ending and it was time to engage in “rush”, that every semester ritual whereby you try to convince new people to join (new members, the lifeblood of any organization).

We had to practice for days. Learning songs, doing skits, working on conversation skills, coming up with party theme ideas. Figuring out how to be little drone salespeople, I realize now, in my later years.

So we’d line up, white Keds sparkling in the New Mexico sunshine, shorts perfectly creased, hair teased impossibly high. We were a’twitter with anticipation about meeting the new young ladies who would come to our house to learn about us, and our particular sorority.

They would gather on the front walk and we’d run out, do some awkward singing on the lawn, then select one of the girls, cut her from the herd and bring her inside.

From there, we’d engage in some banal conversation for about ten minutes. Then with the subtle cue, we’d “switch partners” and go on to the next girl, engage is similar inane conversation, and on and on. So it went.

At the end of the day, we’d compare notes and decide who we wanted to invite back the next day.

So on that fateful day back in 1988, the theme of the party was somehow something Jamaican. We’d adapted the words to Bob Marley’s “One Love” to fit in things about our sorority (a travesty, if there ever was one).

For reasons I can’t explain, yards and yards of camouflage netting had been hung from the ceilings in the house…to really bring in that tropical feel?

Being the well-behaved drone, I lined up, I ran outside, I sang, I selected, and dragged this poor young lady into the house.

Her name was Kathleen.

She was extraordinarily tall, dark hair, face full of charming freckles, and the brightest blue eyes in the world.

At six feet all, she had to spend the day ducked under that low hanging camo net, but was a good sport about it. She was a little shy, but we hit it off. We saw the world in a similar way, and I really thought she was cool. Her mom had been a member of the same sorority, what they call “a legacy,” so she was pretty odds on to make the cut.

Ten minutes passed fast, and I moved on, reluctantly. Later, in the voting round, I gave her a big thumbs up, as did all the others.

She soon joined, became “a pledge” and I got to know her more. We became distant friends, she ran pretty thick with the girl who was my roommate. They did everything together. But we were friends and always got along.

The story goes on at some length from here. Too much to tell, really.

I’ll fast forward a bit. A couple years later, some adversity hit Kathleen’s life. Hard. Big. Overwhelming. In a bid to deal with a pending breakdown, she did some stuff that made sense in the mind of youth. Some crazy sh*t that seemed like a big deal at the time, but in my now grown up eyes, looks incredibly not even noteworthy.

Because of all of that, she lost a lot of friends back then. People with small minds who didn’t want to understand. People who maybe weren’t really friends to begin with.

But through all that, she didn’t lose me.

In fact, that adversity she struggled through moved us from being pretty good friends to rock solid life-long best friends. 99.999% of the fun I’ve had up until I met The Good Man is directly attributable to her. Pretty much every wayback machine moment I have written about on this site, she was either there or more likely was the catalyst.

A lot has gone on in the twenty-plus years since. We both graduated, grew up, became actual adults, all against our will.

Tomorrow evening, I have the honor of driving to the airport to pick up my best good friend of now some unbelievable twenty years. She will be here for a weekend that likely will move way too fast.

Attached is a very small photo (sorry about the size, I don’t have the original handy) of my best friend and me on my wedding day. I wouldn’t have anyone else at my side. She’s just said something that has cracked. me. up.

You don’t laugh that hard with someone who you kind of feel fond about…you laugh that hard with someone who is family.

I love that girl. I can hardly wait to see her!

P.S. Not to be all selfish, but to have both my best girlfriend and The Good Man together this weekend, two people who are always in my court, it’s kind of all about me, and…well, hell, it’s *good* to be me!