But, I am truly exhausted and the taxation of a week of traveling, shmoozing, canoodling and networking has left me a wreck. I can be such a puss sometimes. So, I will give you another teaser of my wit and charm, all the while possibly alienating my new bestest friend in the whole wide world. (Not to replace ANY of my current bestest friends in the whole wide world-because, like in college when I needed multiple drinking buddies to keep up with me, I now need multiple bestest friends, because I am so adorably needy.)
Day 1
I get to my training. I, being a high-maintenance Diva, have special food needs. The ever-lovely Kay, purveyor of all that is edible, wants to touch base with me regarding MY special needs (irony NOT lost-turns out, this is the first of many lessons of the week about how
Kay comes up to me, as I am adjusting my name tag. This name tag is my key to the week: it hangs around my neck, complete with elastic cord. My name is on it, with my first name large so that it is as easy as staring at my tits to figure out who I am. Which is awkward enough in a field dominated by large older women, but that's another post for another, drunker, time. There it is:
Aimee
Walker
Also on my name tag is my city of origin. On the back, I can slip in my room key. Also, there is a slot to insert my special food needs, complete with color-coding-orange for NO DAIRY-NO GLUTEN. It's all very pre-school, which I appreciate. It would be even cooler if we could add scratch 'n sniff stickers. I would choose skunk. And vanilla. Damn, I already turned in my evaluation. Maybe I should email that.
Where was I? Oh yes. So Kay comes up and says, "Amy! Amy Webber!" I say, "YES!". "Wait, no. Aimee WALKER. Not Webber." I should have noticed she spelled it wrong when she said it the first time.
We had our conversation about my neediness, and for a fleeting moment, I wondered who this "Amy Webber" was. Do you do that? Concern yourself with other people with your name, wondering if they give you a bad rap? Me too.
There is one other Aimee Walker. She is a gymnast that is deaf. She has also been on TV shows. Then there is Amy Smart, Aimee Mann, Amy Adams (LOVE her!), Amy Grant. All upstanding Amy's. Amy Winehouse? Well, while drug-addled, she was amazingly talented, so she gets a "pass". So, all in all, pretty good.
I was super-bummed with the whole "Joey Buttefucco-Amy Fisher" mess, ESPECIALLY when she had her car custom-painted with MY spelling-AIMEE. Don't think I didn't notice. I was pissed-I took it personally.
Anywho...
So when I got to the conference and saw there was another Amy, I was intrigued. I was thrilled she was in Child Development, which meant she was borderline-awesome already. But. But what if she loved Circletime, the bane of all true child-developmentalists? What if she liked worksheets? Or, :::gasp::: desks lined in a row in order to encourage quiet acquiescence in young children because, well, they had to learn it someday. :::shudder:::
I forgot about these thoughts as the day went by. Why? Because I have problems with memory, don't you people pay attention!?!?!?
Day 2 was unremarkable, as it only contains stories about one Amy-me. I will bother you with those stories later.
Day 3
As is customary at these trainings, we had been shuffled into smaller groups. I schlepped my amazing, but VERY heavy, materials to the next room. I wandered up to the front. I plopped down, and proceeded to unpack. Pen, highlighter, mints, glasses, paper for notes. The chick to my left had removed her rings, and was putting lotion on her hands. This reminded me that MY hands were also parched, and remarked, "Oh, that's right! Lotion!" She offered me some of hers, and I said no thank you, whipping out a plastic to-go container of white goo, saying, "I have mayo. Much better for my hands". She said, "Awesome!" or something else equally *understanding. This was my first hint that she was cool.
*Sometimes, I say things that are slightly off, like putting mayo on my hands as a moisturizer, just to test the waters. If they do the eye brow raise with the eye roll and avoid contact the rest of the time, they are NOT my people.
Then, I see that she is left-handed. I am left-handed. Hmmmm. This means she's cool, just like me. Then, I see her name tag:
Amy
Webber
:::Gasp:::
I found her! I sneak peeks out of the corner of my eye, trying to judge how really cool she is.
Then, the most amazing thing happened:
We were chatting in small groups and we all had to share something personal, and something having to do with diagnoses came up for me. We got brought back to the larger group and Amy leans over, "What do YOU got?"
I proceed to write down my diagnoses, she looks at the list, points to herself, and whispers, "MS".
OMG. Ohmygawd
Anyways, we got together on the break, and at lunch. All of a sudden, I was a part of a two-person secret club. These are the kinds of convos we had:
New BFF:And don't you hate it when you are picking something up, like, hot coffee, and all of a sudden, your hand stops working, and you drop the whole thing, breaking your favorite mug?
Me:Yes! Or, you are filling your weekly pill dispenser, and your fine motor skills fail, and the pills fly everywhere!
NBFF: Yes, and then you realize you...
Me, and NBFF, in unison: NEED A BIGGER WEEKLY PILL DISPENSER!!!!
We laughed like old friends. We found many more similarities, including our love of twisted humor. This got us on the subject of blogging, and we swapped our faves. At this point, I tell her about my almost-inappropriate girl crush on Jenny Lawson, from The Bloggess. Amy has not heard of her. I say, You mean you have never heard of The Bloggess, and the 6 foot metal chicken, Beyonce'???
Amy's response? She texts me this:
This is her (obviously patient and loving) husband, with a 12 foot metal cock.
The obvious fate of the universe cannot be ignored any longer.
We then pledge our undying desire to keep connected through Facebook, and proceed to bond further over large amounts of pills chugged with cantaloupe martinis. Okay, she only had water with lemon, so I drank the martinis in her honor.
Best friends are awesome like that.
Oh, and we established a great new coalition to put an end to useless Circletimes, once and for all:
Women Invested in Non-Traditional Education, W.I.N.E. for short.
I can't wait until our first meeting.
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