banana clips

My timing is always off. Mrs. Vitt. my piano teacher in middle school made me play along to one of those awful metronomes so that I could improve my timing. The obnoxious ticking just frustrated me and I got worse. She said I had no concept of rhythm, that I just made up my own rhythm and it was never congruent with anything but the voices in my head. She didn't understand that there was a logic to my rhythm or lack thereof and it made perfect sense. I played every song as fast as I could so I could get the hell out of my piano lesson and go play outside. But of course I couldn't play everything super fast becuase some songs had more sharps than others (sharps were my nemesis) and I was forced to slow down. To make a long story short, I quit piano as soon as my mom gave up and realized she was wasting her money. She didn't let me quit without the "you're going to regret this when you're older" lecture. And of course, I do.

The piano was the first thing in my life to hint that there might be something wrong with my timing. Since then I've found other clues. You know, for instance, my hair looks really good in a banana clip. But unfortunately for me, I was born about a decade too late to sport banana clips while in my prime. I can't help it if I have this thick wavy hair, just coarse enough to hold a banana clip with no slippage for an entire day. And soft enough to resemble a serene yet stunning waterfall cascading down the back of my head when gathered with a banana clip.

And another thing, I'm always hitting or running the yellow light. It's the shortest of all three lights. If I were any good at calculating probability I could tell you how unlikely it is that someone who drives about 50 minutes a day would hit all yellow lights. Good thing I'm a pro at running them, or else I'd spend the majority of the day in my car running late and the rest of the day getting in trouble for being late.

I'm always getting all the good advice at the wrong times. My mom called the other day to tell me that she met a guy who registered for an Ironman Triathlon and then got injured or deployed or something and he asked for a rollover entry to the next year's race and it was granted because he took the time to call and ask a favor of a human being rather than reading the refund information on the website and concluding that he was screwed and had wasted lots of money. Why didn't anyone tell me this when I needed a refund from Ironman Couer d' Alene? And why did my mom bother telling me this story now that it's too late? Just so I could kick myself a little more? Who knows...

I meet the right people under the wrong circumstances and I encounter all the wrong circumstances when the timing is right. Does that make sense? I'll never be one of those people who miraculously evades a tragic plane crash because they missed their flight for one reason or another (traffic, family emergency, whatever...) and the plane they were supposed to be on blows up or is hijacked and they praise God thanking him for sparing thier perfect lives and count their lucky stars again. No, I'll be the girl who thinks she has come into a bit of good luck when she win's a all-expense paid trip that she doesn't need to go on but says "ah, what the hell," packs her bags and sets off for a vacation cut short by a plane crash....