Two things I didn't expect to talk about

Monday, 30 March 2009

After church yesterday we went to the nice little place by the airport for brunch (pancakes-- it's Lent) and by the time we got home it was like 75 degrees and sunny and beautiful. Jessy and Lisa were Lisa's room playing (Barbies) till they heard Daddy start up the boat in the garage. Both of them went down there. Neither of them was fully dressed... which is only typical when the weather is like this.

I lay up here on top of my bed cutting out pictures and articles for the poster board part of this very ridiculous job-hunting project on 2-ft-by-3-ft poster board that we're supposed to have done for history class. I had been procrastinating this for about two weeks because I thought it is idiotic. Most people have done theirs on things like nursing and culinary arts and even farming-- and those things are easy to depict in pictures. I mean for nursing, you just go on any careers web site and they will have a picture of some woman in scrubs. How do I depict a teacher? --just some person standing there talking. I did get a little far-reaching about it by using a picture of the school board office-- in Ship Bottom, just down the Island from where we used to live, where I would most want to teach. When I took it in today no one knew where it was.

After I got done with that I went online and sat at my little round table in my panties telling people about my panties (red-and-white floral print, cotton blend, low-rise bikini... cute, yes). It was that warm. At supper time I put on my cover-up shirt. Jessy did the same thing. Lisa had on a t-shirt. In the middle of supper a little thunderstorm hit. It actually turned to hail, prompting Daddy to get up for a 'window check' to see if it was hard enough to break glass. (Sometimes it can. It happened to us when we were at Lewes.) But that passed into a strong rain, then a lighter rain, finally a drizzle, leaving a pure, clean sky out above the ocean. I was at my round table by the window till it was fully dark, just gazing out at it.

The result is that it got cold... really cold. This morning was nothing like spring. I wore a skirt and warm tights and my leather patchwork jacket, and Roger drove us in so I could carry my stupid career project. It was windy and for a moment I almost lost it. Mother insisted I wrap it in a big green bin liner which fluttered and finally tore in the short walk in to the building. Then I had to carry it round with me till fourth period. People kept asking what it was. It was awkward and embarrassing.

When it came to fourth period, the teacher had each of us stand up and say a few words about what we had chosen to put on the board and what it meant... naturally. I found that many people had not got their projects done. (Why could I not have been one of them?) I was surprised-- actually stunned-- to find how many people liked mine. For something I waited 12 days to start and then finished in less than three hours it was pretty well put together. They all went 'Oooo' and 'Ahhh' and everything. I used coloured paper as background and used bold fonts and big letters, very simple really, but sensible and eye-catching and clear, which are the main virtues of a successful poster-board project. The teacher hung it up in the room... in the front of the room, where we can continue to look at it during future classes. Well-- other people can. I have done with it.

Over lunch I sat with Jessy and her 10th-grade posse and also Petrel who is in my history class. When the others were talking about what they did yesterday Petrel asked me about my project. (Really.) She said, 'Some of us thought you were going to have some cool thing about singing and going on concert tours in foreign places.'

I looked at her. 'Really?'

She shrugged, now feeling a little silly. 'Well-- I did. Other people did. We thought it would be something about going back to England.'

I shrugged then too. Jessy was looking across the table at me. 'I don't know,' I said. 'Actually, I was only thinking that I would....'

Jessy smiled at me as I didn't know how to put it. 'She's going to move back into our old house on the beach in New Jersey and be a spinster who teaches little kids how to... what is it? --play their instruments very ill.'

I laughed-- she was paraphrasing 'Pride and Prejudice'. But she was right. 'Something like that,' I said, now feeling a little ashamed of it.

'Oh, no,' Petrel said then. 'You have to go away and do something really exciting, and romantic. You just--'

Then she realised we were all gazing at her like she had just figured out there is no Easter Bunny. Rita smiled at her. 'I know what you mean,' she said softly, putting her hand on Petrel's then. (I do not know that Petrel is that affectionate with her friends, as the other girls at the table have all become from hanging out with Jessy and me. But she probably will be more so from now on.) 'We all expect great things of Janine. She's kind of a heroine to all of us.'

I got red then. When the topic turned to what we all did yesterday during the hail storm, I was able to say I was lying round my room all day in my red-and-white floral-print panties and so felt a little less embarrassed.

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