I was listening to Simon and Garfunkel on the way home from work last night. When Mrs. Robinson came on, one of my old childhood questions came flooding back. Namely, if you want to hide something in a hiding place where no one ever goes, why on earth would you put it near the cupcakes? In my mind, involving cupcakes has never helped keep a secret. Wouldn’t you expect everyone to go to where the cupcakes are? I know you can at least expect me to be there; however, you can also be sure that I would try to keep the location of the cupcakes quiet in hopes of not having to share. Really, my logic says that at least one person is bound to find your hiding place in search of a good dessert. What am I missing?

I was going to mark my college graduation anniversary with a post celebrating the major changes that have occurred the past year. However, work has once again gotten the best of me and so far I’ve only written about 1/12 of my year. But I think it’s okay because you’d probably kill me if I crammed the other 11/12 into one post anyway. So without further ado, here’s part 1 of my reminiscent series documenting my first year out of school.

May 2007:

Elation and and overpowering sense of loss dominate the days.  You turn 22 on the day of your last college final.  You laugh and cry and celebrate all at once because you have never been very good at change.  You are especially bad at leaving things behind.

And that’s what graduating is.  It’s leaving behind friends and roommates and those random kids from class that you don’t actually talk to but you’ve heard them ask enough dumb questions to feel like you know them.  It’s parting ways with droning professors that taught you to love crosswords and with amazing professors that taught you to love so many different subjects simply because of the passion that comes from learning interesting new things.  It’s saying goodbye to long days on campus, moving from class to class, job to job, building to building.  You used to dread these long days, but nostalgia at the end makes you realize that there are fewer places more beautiful to spend an endless day.  Graduation also marks the end of your three day weekends, you late morning classes and even later nights, and the last time until 65 that you can legitimately consider going on The Price Is Right.  It’s the end of the way of life you’ve known for the past 16 years: school.  And as the big day approaches, you think that maybe you should get a second major and start all over because you’re really not ready to graduate.

It’s scary, but it’s exciting.  Because you are also saying goodbye to tests and textbooks and all-night cram sessions and procrastinated papers.  Your family comes in from around the country to celebrate with you.  There are dinners and awards banquets and more pictures than you could imagine.  And you realize that maybe this dreaded graduation is actually a big accomplishment.  And you smile though you fear the unknown. It starts to feel like the world is at your fingertips, and you hope that perhaps someone out in that waiting world wants to give you a job.

Since sharing my ‘idiosyncracy’ yesterday, I’ve been thinking about offering a more complete selection of the things in life that irritate me. Here’s a quick list - please keep in mind that I’m particular, stubborn, and somewhat judgmental usually quite nice and agreeable.

In no particular order:

1. Visibly dirty ears. (I Q-Tip compulsively, which I know is not normal or even particularly healthy, but man! ear wax grosses me out. I blame this on being forced to sit alphabetically at lunch in elementary school. The specimens I imagined to be growing in John T.’s ears still make me shudder.)
2. 24-hour news networks. If I wanted to hear the same irritating babble played over and over in a endless loop, I would listen to techno.
3. When your cell phone screen gets all smudgy from touching your face.
4. People who use the panic button to remember where they parked. There’s a saying that if you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Similarly, if you can’t find your nondescript SUV, stay out of the mall parking lot.
5. When the toilet paper rolls from under - it feeds from over the top or it’s wrong.
6. Having to pay in cash for parking. Or ever, really.
7. Sharing the elevator with one person. alone = great. group = expected. one other person = pretending that being in a confined space equates to wanting to engage in polite small talk = no good.
8. When my iPod shuffles to a song that really must be heard as part of an album. For example, I actually didn’t even know that Golden Slumbers and Carry That Weight were separate songs until my iPod shuffled through just one of them and left me wondering what happened to the rest. There are just some cases when One and Done just isn’t going to cut it.
9. Use of the words ‘crotchety,’ ‘weep,’ and ‘gay’ as an insult. Also, the pronunciation of mature as “muh-tyoor.” Every time I hear that it takes me back to 7th grade keyboarding class. First, I cringe. Then, I laugh when remembering the lecture we got when some less-than-’muh-tyoor’ person kept putting condoms over the door knob. Even funnier now that I know they weren’t balloons…

When I go to Starbucks, I refuse to drink until I have the circular logo on the sleeve lined up with the circular logo on the cup and the hole in the lid aligned over the center of said circles. It’s not that I’m compulsive, it’s just that that’s the only way I like it and it drives me crazy when it’s not right.

Okay, it’s just that I’m compulsive.

This morning, I went to an office team meeting. We had a relatively quick conference call followed by a lengthy discussion as to how to improve the Denver office. Things like integration and culture were discussed, all of which seemed like good plans. That is, until it was decided that we should work on the team building that morning by having the “new hires” share something about themselves that no one else knew about them. I panicked. In my heart of hearts, I knew that I would still be considered a new hire. I considered running for the door while I still had a shot. While I was formulating my exit strategy, the director called my name as someone who was so graciously granted time on the agenda. I was too late.

The first person told an amazing story about being an artist. I mean, she literally included a philosophical discussion about being connected to her work and had this amazing talent to share with the group and spoke about how she worked on the side. I sat, trying to listen and seem engaged but mostly having a semi-heart attack while hoping against hope that they moved around the room clockwise instead of counterclockwise.

I prayed that I would develop a cool hobby in those 45 seconds. How awesome would it be to say, “You probably weren’t aware of this, but I am a world champion bobsledder on the weekends”? Surprisingly, no new talents emerged. What could I possibly share about myself that would be something I want people in the office to know about me? All I could think of were inane facts that no one would want to know and I DEFINITELY didn’t want to share.

“I can sing the jingles of numerous childhood commercials at the drop of a hat. Skip-It, Yo-Yo Ball, Fruit Stripe Gum, KFC’s All-You-Can-Eat Buffet, Jenny Craig, Blow Pops…what do you want to hear?”
“My favorite kind of M&Ms are Peanut M&Ms. I love almonds regularly, but strangely enough the Almond M&Ms just don’t do it for me.”
“I made it all the way to Sid’s house when playing Toy Story on Sega, back before the days of memory cards and extra lives. I do best at SuperSmash Brothers when I’m Kirby. And I beat Guitar Hero II on medium.”
“On average, I press the snooze button at least 3 times before I get up. Sometimes more. And by ’sometimes’ I mean ‘usually’ because I used the word ‘average’ incorrectly in the first sentence.”

Seriously, I had nothing.

They went counterclockwise.

I was up. I froze - I turned red and I had nothing to say. Finally, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind: “My life’s ambition is to bench press my body weight.” Everyone gasped and laughed and said “Really? You can’t be serious.” I was. Kind of. And if I only weighed 40 pounds, I’d already be there.

I left the meeting vowing to get some new hobbies.