whitewash wednesday (with cream filling)

Irrelevant song quote of the day:

She can build a boat
and she can make it float
she can play my guitar note by note
she likes to stick her tongue right down my throat...
she's my baby...

"She's My Baby", performed by The Traveling Wilburys

I'm trying to get in the groove of writing every day like I was before, but to be honest, it isn't easy. Really...it's not.

I mean, you can only write so much about your monthly cycle, the cats get boring once in a while, and I've already established the fact that I'm not getting married.

So what else is there?

Well, let's start with Three Word Wednesday and see where it takes us...

Today's words are:

Background
Swings
Against

Well, hmmm...it seems to me I'm just as stuck as I was before. Oh well...that's life.

OK...DD/Skippy/whatever I nickname him and I talk about a great many things when we hang out together. One thing that stymies him (and myself when I really think about it)? Why I'm working as an admin when I have a college degree. He's just of the mindset that since my educational background includes a BA, I should be doing more with said degree.

I can't say he's wrong. I've thought about it many times myself.

Unfortunately, the answer isn't that simple.

I could say "If only..." in terms of preparing myself when I was a young impressionable thing. But I'd be doing it all day long and twice on Sunday at this rate. It doesn't solve anything anyway. That kind of activity works against me in the long run.

I could blame it on my BP and the mood swings therein, but that's also defeatist.

I used to be really hung up on my job status (or lack thereof). Then I looked around and saw what real life can be like for us early '90s college grads.

I've written about it before...my "oh-so-intelligent" old boyfriend (National Merit Scholar finalist, honor student) fouled up grad school beyond recognition and is now a humble BA holder with a wife, 3 kids, a mortgage and bourgeois concerns. Heck, even my best friend in college...who prepared for everything meticulously and got his masters...still struggled. He lived with his mom for a number of years while working part time, and then an assistant professor position opened up at a college in Chicago and he snapped it up. He's doing OK now as far as his career is concerned.

But I guess after all these years, I look at jobs in a different way than I used to.

I've FINALLY figured out that my job is only PART of who I am. Yeah, many people ask (DD/Skippy included) why I'm working as an admin when I've got a degree. But nobody can take away what I've learned in college. I treasure the fact that I went the distance and got that degree. I'm the first woman on either side of my family to do so. Yeah, the extra money would be nice with a more advanced job, but that means I'd have to EARN it and have extra responsibility...meaning putting the smackdown on someone else if they aren't performing where they should be. I've had it done to me enough that I don't want to do it to someone else. Yuk.

My education is only part of who I am as well. I learned the hard way that college can only prepare you for so much in life. I was undecided about my future JUST ENOUGH to screw me up. However, having everything planned with your career path doesn't guarantee diddly-squat. Sometimes, a new interest can fall in your lap and totally change where you go.

My parents had interesting paths. My dad started out as a farmer, while my mom was a secretary at a couple different loan companies as well as a law office.

My mom was told she'd never make it as a secretary because her shorthand speed wasn't fast enough. My dad was smart enough through high school, but back in their day (the 1950s) you didn't necessarily need college in order to succeed in the job market.

But through the years, they did different things. Dad farmed, worked as a welder, and finally was a postal worker and well as a member of the Army Reserve. Mom was a rural carrier. Both were "footwear maintenance engineers". All those experiences shaped them as people, and even though they groaned about the absurdities of employment, they didn't talk much about trading those experiences.

At this point, I'm kind of like them. Between working for "The Lizard", other secretarial exploits (both temp and perm), retail, music and even nursing home experience, it's transformed me into the Sudiegirl you know and love/loathe. I wouldn't be able to tell stories of crazy South Dakota customers that want to marry me, annoying clerical pitfalls, dim customers who don't know good music when they hear it...this blog would be really un-Sudiefied.

So there...

And now, I leave you with Beavis and Butthead trippin in the desert.