i am now impressed

I have three things I want to talk about. I intend to do so in a witty and eloquent fashion, but I’m warning you right now, it’s another liquid-brain week for the Piehat, so there’s a very good chance all you’ll get is sloshing sounds. But let’s see, let’s see.

Item: I went skiing. In all honesty, I don’t think I can exactly claim to have skied, but I went skiing. I rented equipment. I put on ludicrous volumes of clothing, including but not limited to: long underwear; butt-ugly ski pants; sweatshirt; jacket; ski socks; ski boots (which, for a person philosophically committed to flip flops, was quite the traumatic experience); gloves; hat; goggle-like sunglasses. I was hot. It was impossible to walk in the ski boots. I rode up a hill on the shuttle, which was a trailer pulled by a bulldozer. I took off the gloves and the jacket and drank a shot. I didn’t take off the hat because of my truly awful haircut (about which more later). I rode down the hill on the shuttle. I ate some french fries. I rode back up the hill.

I put the gloves and the jacket back on and took a “lesson” from a certain “Heinz,” a first-class (German) bastard, during which I learned how to put the skis on and take them off. I failed absolutely to learn anything else, including how to stop myself from flying uncontrollably down the hill, leaving crushed children in my wake, by any means other than intentional grounding of my person. I became very good at getting back up after falling over. (I don’t count this as a skill I learned in the class, because I figured it out myself long before “Heinz” got around to showing us how to do it.) Finally, I was abandoned by the rest of the class when it became clear that the hour or so left in the lesson was not sufficient time for me to make my way to the foot of the hill so that I could learn how to ride the ski lift.

In fact, I never made it to the lift. I made it to the foot of the “magic carpet” (like the moving walkway at the airport, only, you know, on a snowy hill) at around the end of the second hour. My friend and I then proceeded into the lodge, where we consumed artichoke dip and soda pop and grunted unintelligibly at one other until the slopes closed.

That sounds all kinds of awful, doesn’t it? It wasn’t. It snowed for a few minutes. That was nice. And actually, the moments when I wasn’t rigid with fear were fun. Eventually, if you beg enough, I may post a picture of me lying sprawled on my back in the snow, legs askew, arms akimbo, laughing desperately, bad haircut hidden by stocking-cap.

Which brings me to my next item. Does anyone else remember, years ago, when at least one or two of you people used to joke about making action figures of me? Like, I don’t know, Kung Fu Fighting Piehat, or Twin Set Piehat. I’m guessing I might be the only person who found this interesting enough to remember. But anyway, I have a new one: Ugly Dyke Piehat. Alternately, Let-Her-Boyfriend-Talk-Her-Into-Cutting-Her-Hair-Too-Short Piehat. Yep. Sorry to use the term “dyke.” I have no issue with lesbians. This haircut? It’s freaking me out. I can’t be responsible for anything offensive I might say. I cried for an hour after. I’ve never had a haircut that I really hated before. It scares me a little that I hate this one so much, since I’m pretty sure the only reason I hate it is that I genuinely think people might mistake me for a lesbian. What’s the matter with me? What is so wrong with being thought a lesbian? I don’t know. I’m finding out distasteful things about myself all the time. Anyway, if you see me caked in pink glitter at any point during the next month or so, rest assured that I didn’t run over a passel of twelve-year-old girls, I’m just trying to fem it up.

Another thing? Every part of my hair is now my natural color. Who else is totally freaked out by that?

Last item: School. I’ve talked to everyone in the world about it at this point, but let me make the formal announcement: I AM GOING BACK TO COLLEGE. College! I’m working through my issues with this, all of which, if you’re reading this, there’s a pretty good chance I’ve already tried to get you to reassure me about. So let’s set all that aside for the moment. I’ll just say: I am decided. I am doing this thing. I am firm and committed. Which is a good thing, because if I wasn’t, I would have given up a week ago, when it first became clear that school doesn’t really want me back. Actually, now that I think about it, I’m persnickety enough that the difficulty may have been what resolved me once and for all. School is over me? Fuck that bitch, he’s taking me back whether he likes it or not.

The difficulty is that between the three colleges I’ve attended in the past 11 years (11 years, fuckfuckfuck) I have attempted something like 70 units, and have a GPA of, best guess, 1.80. In order for UCSB to guarantee admission — which at this point is my best option — I must have a GPA of at least 2.40, and I must have at least 60 but no more than 89.5 transferable units. And the last 30 units have to be from a California community college (currently: 19).

So far, I’ve had to jump through innumerable flaming goddamned hoops to figure out what classes will and won’t transfer to UCSB, and I still don’t have any real answers. Once I figure that out, I will have to get my high school transcript. (How could that possibly still be important at this stage?) I will also have to take a math assessment test, and worse, a math class. I took a sample math test and could barely do the first level, so I might have to take more than one math class. I will definitely have to take two semesters of Freshman Composition. In order to get my GPA up, I will have to re-take 4 or 5 classes I failed or nearly failed, including one class I’ll have to retake online from an old school because it’s not offered at Santa Barbara City College. And, if I want to start at UCSB before I turn 30, I have to do all this by the end of this year, while working full-time, without letting my employer find out that I’m taking any classes.

So far I’ve met with three counselors at SBCC and UCSB. I’ve applied to two different community colleges for Summer 2006, I’ve filled out a FAFSA, I’ve tracked down course descriptions back to 1995 at two different schools, and I’ve spent hours making Excel spreadsheets detailing every possible GPA scenario. If burning the old school records and starting over completely was an option, I’d do it in a hot minute. But I was told at my first counseling session that not disclosing previous classwork is considered fraud.

So I guess this is what they mean about the whole “permanent record” thing, huh?

From the At Least I'll Always Have This file: yesterday, someone found my blog through a search for the word "perverse."