When I was in high school my parents decreed that I could not have a job. They wanted me to focus on my studies, and we all know that having a after school job hinders your studies. (Actually, decreeing that I not have a boyfriend might have been a better way to keep me focused on school.) My boyfriend also agreed with this rule. He had a job and liked that I was available for him when he got off work.

I wasn’t a bad kid in high school. Really, I wasn’t. I never sluffed school. I always did my homework. I got decent grades. I never mouthed off in class. Really, I was a pretty decent kid. I just wasn’t allowed to get a job.

The problem with not being allowed to have a job meant that I also didn’t have the disposable income that my friends had due to their own after school jobs. Sure I got a nominal amount from my parents each month for babysitting my younger siblings. But it really didn’t amount to enough to keep me in movie tickets and sodas. By the time my senior year rolled around I wanted more money. I needed more money.

I just needed to figure out how to get around the no job rule my parents had put in place for me.

My older brother Biff had been allowed to have a job when he was in high school. Of course Biff always got away with way more then I ever did. Biff wasn’t a cool kid, by any stretch of the imagination. And that’s why nobody was surprised that he worked at a janitor at our high school. Everyday after the last class Biff would put his books away in his locket and meet the other janitors at the janitor closet and pick up their supplies for the day.

Biff spent his entire high school career working Monday through Friday cleaning up after the other kids in our school. The school employed regular adult janitors during normal business hours, but student typically worked after school. I only went to school with Biff his senior year (and my sophomore year), but seeing him pushing around a garbage can that year was enough to embarrass me. I didn’t understand how he could feed into his already horrible reputation as a geek. He never seemed to mind.

In an attempt to figure out how I was going to get a job without my parents finding out I decided that I wasn’t going to be able to get a job that required me to work that many hours. I wouldn’t be able to work late at night and definitely not on the weekends. This ruled out all your typical high school jobs like working fast food or working at the grocery store.

Right about this time one of the janitors and I were talking. (I know that most high school students didn’t make it a habit to converse with the lowly janitors, but you must remember that my dad also taught at my high school so I knew all these people a little more casually then most students did.) This janitor was saying they needed to hire a new after school janitor. Someone to work one hour everyday after school. She thought it would be a perfect job for me.

Unfortunately she was right.

I could start right away. I would begin my workday as soon as school was over. I would be in charge of cleaning the girls locker room. All I had to do was mop the floor, empty the trash cans and clean the toilets. It would only take an hour. I would be home before my parents or my boyfriend would even notice I was late getting home from school. The plan seemed perfect.

You know except for the part where I would be a janitor at my own high school.

I didn’t care. The money was too much of a draw. And so I did it. I met the other janitors at the closet at the start of every shift. I picked up my mop bucket and garbage bags and headed to the girls locker room. I tried to do it with my head held high.

Thankfully there was never anybody in the locker room after hours. And let’s be honest, girls rarely shower after gym class, so the locker room was surprisingly clean. I only had to mop often enough to keep the dust away. There were only 3 toilets and they weren’t used that often. I never had to clean up anything that was just too much.

After a while I got pretty good at cleaning the locker room. What was supposed to take me an hour usually only took me 15 minutes. I started to bring my headphones and a book and spend the last 45 minutes just enjoying the alone time. I was literally getting paid to read novels and listen to music. It was a dream job.

It didn’t take too long until my parents found out. Since I had shown that I could maintain this little job and keep up with my other responsibilities they were happy to let me continue on being a janitor. My mom used it as a tool to remind me that I wanted to go to college and didn’t want to spend the rest of my life as a janitor (not that there is anything wrong with that).

Believe me, I knew this.

I found this out pretty soon after I started working there. I was sitting in the janitor’s closet one afternoon talking with my (adult) supervisor about the upcoming tasks. I really liked this guy and enjoyed working with him. He showed me a list of things that had come down from his boss of items that needed to be done. He asked me to read the list to him.

I realized he couldn’t read.

For that brief moment I felt so uncomfortable. I felt like me, a dorky 17 year old, was smarter more educated then this adult. This man who had a wife. And kids. And a mortgage. But he couldn’t read. It broke my heart. I read him the list and just acted like I hadn’t figured out his secret. I decided that would make things easier for the both of us.

I made $75 every month working as a janitor that year. It was all I needed. I got all the school holidays off. I never had to work on a weekend. And the day before I graduated from high school was my last day on the job. I moved away to college a few months later.

I don’t ever miss my days of working as a janitor. But I’ll tell you what, I still try to pick up the floor around my desk here at work. Because, even to this day, I remember what it’s like to clean up after a stranger. And it ain’t fun.

So tell me, what was your after school job in high school? I can’t imagine that there is anything worse then being a janitor at your high school.

The guys in my team at work travel. They travel a lot. Every other week two groups of two guys board a plane and head to one of the same midwestern states they’ve been a dozen other times. They do a lot of driving while on these little trips, which means they get to see a lot of these same midwestern states. Over and over again. Nothing against places like Nebraska and Iowa, but I hear there isn’t too much to see there time and time again.

In an effort to spice their travels up a bit the guys have started little games with each other. They keep spreadsheets to see how many frequent fryer miles they can amass and where they could go with all of their miles (which, of course, they never do). They see who can stay in the nicest Hampton Inn. They see who can eat the most unusual food item. They try to visit wacky places and take picture proof to share with the rest of the team. Or they visit places that most of us may never get a chance to see in our lifetime.

(The Oklahoma City Memorial, picture taken last week by my coworker.)

The last few years they’ve taken it up a notch. Instead of just trying to get over 200,000 frequent flier miles they decided to see who could visit the most states. And since that wasn’t enough, they’ve also taken to visiting each state’s capital and taking pictures in the capital’s rotunda. Each team will come back from a trip and force ask me to look at their pictures of the capital and choose which one I think is the best for the yearly powerpoint presentation. (Oh, you think I’m kidding. But I am not.)

These guys are very specific on what it takes to check a state off the list. You can’t check it of if you’ve only visited it via an airport. There is even a gray area if you’ve only driven through the state. Even if you’ve stopped to get gas and have lunch, they might not let you count it. It just depends.

They take this very seriously.

Since I don’t travel to the extent that they do, I’m a little more lax on my interpretation on the rules.

Before The King and I got together I had only been in a plane two times. Once when I was too young to remember and once when my first husband and I went to Disneyland. When my ex and I went to Disneyland, we had to change planes in San Francisco. If anyone ever asked me if I had been to San Francisco, I totally told them I had been. I mean, technically I had. (I’ve since been on vacation twice to San Fransisco, so there is no more gray area on San Francisco.)

I’m always giving my coworkers a hard time and telling them it totally counts if you’ve only been to the airport in a state. I mean, technically you’ve been there. I truly believe that. Of course they get all defensive and tell me how lame I’m being and that no, you can’t count it. Loser.

The King knows all about this little game my coworkers play. While on our latest vacation, when we had some down time, we tried to decide how many states we had visited in our lives.

And that’s when we had to make a final call on whether or not we would let these gray areas into our lists. Even though The King has never really been to Pennsylvania, he’s had a layover there. Will he count it? What about the time my family drove to Yellowstone National Park? We drove through a number of states to get there, but didn’t actually stop in any of them.

And what about train rides?

On our train ride from Washington D.C. to New York City last week we went through four states (and one Federal District). While we have visited some of those states before, Delaware was a new one. So do we count it?

I brought this up with my coworkers today. They just laughed and said that train rides are just like airport visit; they don’t count!

I begged to differ stating that at least on the train we could see the state’s landscape, the people outside the window, and cars driving on the street. It was much more personal then being in an airport. While my feet weren’t actually touching the state, I was there. I was a part of it.

I thought surely they would see my side of things.

Alas, they did not and I was not allowed to check it off my list of states visited.

So tell me, do you think I should get to count a state that I only traveled through via a train? And if not, how can I convince my coworkers that I’m still cooler then they are?

The King woke up this morning and walked into the kitchen, where I was frantically cutting up peaches for Babboo’s breakfast. I asked him how he slept. He asked me if I had a list of things I wanted to do before I died.

Huh?

That’s the start to a pretty deep conversation before 7am on a Monday morning. I just looked up at him and told him that no such list for me existed.

He questioned why I hadn’t thought about a list. I questioned why a person would need such a list. Do you really need to put pen to paper and make a list. Or are those the type of things that you just know.

To be completely honest, I’m not ever sure I have a mental list of things I want to do before I die. I’ve never really thought about it. I’m sure that when I was 12 I probably made up a list in some writing class, right after I made my list of Things I Want in a Husband.

(I wish I could find the “husband” list. I’m sure it’s in my journal. Which is in storage. I know it says things like must make me laugh and must like kids. Gag.)

The King then asked me again about this list. He wanted to know what might be on my list, if such a list existed. He asked if maybe I wanted to travel more. And if so, where might I want to travel. I was trying to get out the door and get to work, so I didn’t have time to discuss it much.

On my walk into the office I kept thinking about this. What do I want to do before I die? Do I have goals that will span my lifetime? Are there places I’d like to visit? I think that 14 year old Isabel would have only said she’d like to visit Paris before she died. 32 year old Isabel has been to Paris twice. The only other place that 14 year old Isabel would have wanted to visit was Washington DC. And we all I know I just crossed that off my (non existent) list this month.

I e-mailed The King this morning and asked him why he wanted to know if I had a list. He responded by saying this:

“I was reading somewhere or heard someone talking about it and started thinking about mine, since I never really had one. I guess mine would say: go to Greece. Learn to draw people. Ride my bike from Seattle to Portland. Travel all the way around the world. Run a small business. Get into a sport for a season. I wanted to learn to play poker, and I kinda did that one I guess. Be with you forever.”

Wow, his list is very specific. I’ve never thought in terms of goals this specific. Really, I’ve never had specific goals and dreams. I just sort of let life take it’s course. And I go on the path I want and leave the other paths behind. Easy, breezy.

Yesterday at church they were talking about having goals and working towards them.

Crap.

I really don’t have specific goals or things I’d like to do before I die. At least not any that I could think of this morning. And maybe I should. Maybe I should make a list of things I’d like to do before I die. And another list of things I’d like to do within the next year. Maybe it should even be in spreadsheet form and color coded so I know whether it’s a career goal, a personal goal, a family goal, a spiritual goal, or even a blog goal.

Maybe I’m thinking too much about this too much.

So tell me, do you have a list of things you like to do before you die? Do you have goals and dreams and aspirations? And if so, what are some of them?

Maybe I can use some of yours as a starting off point for my list.

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Want to read about my latest New Thing? Head over and read, and see pictures, of something new I did while in Chicago at BlogHer.

You know how some mornings you wake up and you look over at your sleeping husband and you hope he isn’t awake because you’re pretty sure you might scream if you have to hear his voice? And then you see your baby asleep in his crib and you say a quick prayer to the Baby Jesus that he’ll stay sleeping just a little longer so you don’t have to get him breakfast and fight with him over throwing his sippy cup of milk down on the carpet one.more.damn.time.

I’m so over my carpet smelling like spoiled milk.

Can’t a lady just blow dry her hair in peace, and maybe even put make-up on without having to pause to pick the sippy cut up off the floor?

Then you hurry and get ready for the day and you cut your fresh peaches for your breakfast (that you’ll be enjoying at your desk at work), grab your bag, your purse and sneak out before anyone has time to put any demands on you.

Yep, this is my day.

The only good thing was the ABBA I listened to on my walk into the office.

The phone call I got from The King as soon as I got settled into my desk didn’t help. Nor did the e-mail he sent me once he got to work. And let’s not mention the fact that Babboo has two doctor’s appointments later this afternoon. Which means I have to leave work early and walk like 18 miles to get him to the doctor’s office.

In heels.

While pushing a stroller, uphill.

(I’m not kidding. Seattle is actually quite hilly.)

I’m not sure what made me get into this little mood. I think it started last night when I fell asleep on the couch while trying to catch the season premier of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I hate falling asleep on the couch and then having to wake up and move into the bedroom later.

Or maybe it was trying to facilitate hooking up with my friend who was in the city for a few hours last night.

Or maybe it was trying to still catch up from our vacation five days after our plane landed.

It’s too bad I can’t just shut my office door and hang a sign up that says:

It’s too bad I don’t have an office. Or, more importantly, a door. Maybe I could fashion one for my cubicle out of all my extra sweaters and jackets and maybe this umbrella that I keep forgetting to take home.

Oh, and I also forgot to pack a lunch today. And I don’t have time to leave to to out get lunch. Nor do I have any money.

We broke, yo.

And now I must close. For I have about 10 hours of work to do in about 5 hours.

Think I can manage without completely losing it and telling one or more coworkers that they can suck it?

Step up and place your bets.

*I feel like I’ve used the phrase “suck it” quite a bit in my post titles. Does that mean something?

For as skinny as The King is, he can hold his own. I mean, look how effortlessly he can hold this 23 pound kid on his neck while at the Central Park Zoo.

The King knows how to do a lot of different things. I mean he doesn’t build houses for a living. He just builds houses for us. During the day he works in the ad business. Yes my husband is a Mad Men. (Only that he really isn’t. He just works in the industry.)

And since he works all around print ads and photos shots and commercials and copy, sometimes he ends up in those ads or on those commercials.

Print ads featuring The King used to wind up in our mail box weekly. Unfortunately I only had the insight to save two of them.

(Yes, he brought that metal water heater table home with him after the shoot. Yes, it’s our current coffee table. Yes, I know it’s tacky.)

While I like to say that The King is so hott that he’d modeled, the truth is that he was just at the right place at the right time. Meaning he worked at the photo studio and was much cheaper then a professional model. Free is always cheaper.

A few weeks ago The King was asked by a client to do some voice over work for one of their ads. They told him his voice may or may not end up on a real live commercial. He thought this was pretty cool. He brought his script home and practiced the copy. He ran it by me, but eventually made me leave the room after I started giving him suggestions. Apparently his doesn’t have enough professional license to change the wording, only the enunciation of what’s already written.

How was I supposed to know that?

We’ve been waiting patiently to be able to hear his final product, to hear his voice in action. Today he was given the link to his first ever (and let’s be honest, probably his last) voice ad. It doesn’t really sound like him. I can tell that he was forced to speak much slower then he does in real life. While I think the ad is a little silly, it’s still fun to hear.

Oh, do you guys want the link to his Horizon Air ad? Are you dying to hear The King pronounce words like badger and besieged? If so, go HERE and and click on Bridge of Heavy Sighs on the map. The King plays “Doug” and is the one writing the letter to “Larr-Dog”.

Now if we could only figure out how he could make money from doing this.

For most of my life I’ve felt like I just never fit in.

I was the girl that always sat outside the circle because my hair was wrong or my clothes were wrong. I was the girl that didn’t have the boyfriend or the date to prom. I was the girl that was just overweight enough that I was never one of the pretty girls. I was the girl with bad teeth, horrible hair, and hairy legs.

When I hear people laugh, I’m convinced they’re laughing at me. Not with me. I immediately look down to see if my fly is open or wonder if something is caught in my teeth. The King main purpose is to tell me if I have food in my teeth. Really, it’s why I got married.

I feel like those around me are very secure while I’m the only one that’s insecure. I see the girl, dressed in her sleek outfit and her perfect hair, laugh and smile while everyone pushes to get closer to her. I wonder what it’s like to be her. To be confident enough to just know that everyone likes me. To know that I’m funny, or smart, or pretty enough.

I spent the better part of my high school career hiding behind fake confidences. I wore clothes that were a little odd and just acted like I meant to be kooky. I assumed I was the only one that did this. I felt like the only girl that didn’t have all the right clothes. I would have never admitted out loud that I felt like I never fitted in. And since nobody else ever admitted it, it just feed into me feeling more alone and out of place.

Any time I came home from being at a social function I would relive the entire event in my head and wonder why I made such an ass out of myself while everyone else seemed to be so confident and be having such a great time. I knew how I felt about it and I just assumed how everyone else must have felt. I assumed I was the only insecure one, the only one that ever felt this way.

And then I went to BlogHer and realized I wasn’t the only one.

The last night in Chicago was spent at a cocktail party. I remember distinctly standing behind a pillar with Carrisa and hearing her tell me how she felt out of place. I can’t be certain, but there might have even been tears in her eyes. I looked at her and told her that I felt out of place also. She seemed shocked to hear this. And I was shocked that she was shocked. Of course I felt out of place. I mean, of course I did! And as for Carrisa feeling out of place, I was shocked to hear that. To me Carrisa seemed cool and confident. She made everyone feel relaxed and kept us all laughing during the conference.

I couldn’t stop thinking about this brief, yet critical moment with Carrisa. This moment where I realized that I wasn’t alone in my feelings of imperfection. It wasn’t just me.

I got back from BlogHer and something else happened. Bloggers started to write about their feelings about BlogHer. For the first time in my life I was able to read exactly how other women felt at the same social function I was at. The interweb had introduced this whole new way to see inside a person’s heart.

What I read really surprised me. It amazed me. It stunned me.

I had never read or heard of Crystal before I saw her at BlogHer and witnessed Liz and Stacy freak out about meeting her. Just seeing how much they liked her cemented in my mind how cool she must be. I heard Crystal make educated statements in sessions, I witnessed how cute her and her husbands seemed together, I stood near her the first night and watched her laugh and have a good time with others. I never felt cool enough to spend quality time with her, although I wanted to.

I returned from Chicago and read Crystal’s post about her experiences at BlogHer. To say I was shocked to hear how out of place she felt would be a gross understatement. When I read that she cried and didn’t want to come back for the second day, I was horrified. I really had no idea she had felt this way. I felt horrible for being lame and not trying to spend more time with Crystal and her husband. I was ashamed for not including her more, when the reason I hadn’t was because I felt like she was too cool for me and my little group of friends.

Then I read Miss Zoot’s BlogHer recap post and was even more shocked to read that she felt excluded. How could this internet goddess ever feel excluded? In my mind Miss Zoot was the biggest blogger there. That first morning in Chicago Carrisa sent me a text message telling me she was sitting next to Zoot at breakfast and I about passed out. Zoot in the house? Dude, I wasn’t worthy (or prepared to meet her). And because of my own insecurities I didn’t glom on to her like I would have liked to.

While reading Zoot’s recap I was embarrassed and ashamed at myself. I had failed as a human being and I knew it. Because I read Zoot, I knew she had just gone through another horrible miscarriage. Since I’ve had a few of my own, I could relate. But instead of relating, instead of hugging her and telling her I’m sorry, I just ignored it. I read Zoot’s post after BlogHer and kicked myself for being a failure. For being the type of person I don’t want to be. For standing by the sidelines when I should have been in the game.

Ever since I’ve read these posts I’ve tried to remind myself that others are feeling out of place just like I am. I try to remember that the person sitting across from me fretted about wearing the right outfit just as much as I did. I remind myself to be more outgoing and to try harder to instigate a conversation with the person next to me.

Because, now I know, she may be feeling just as isolated as I am.

So tell me, how do social functions make you feel? And are there actually people out there that feel confident in these situations? And if so, please share your secrets.