I made a list (nothing unusual) of things I know I want to blog about. But I didn't think about where I was going to start. I've got quite a list here, but there's where it ends.

Here's the basic list, not detailed, out of order.

Minolta

Ideas

Complaints

Old friends

Makeup

Salsa

Curves

Most of the list items have several bullet points, especially complaints.

Let's start with... something I have pictures for. My eye makeup!

So I recently decided that I don't like mascara any more, because I have a bald spot (due to a chronic, nervous picking habit) in my eyelashes. And applying mascara is the most frustrating thing because I can't get my lashes to fall or stand up like I need them to when there is a bald spot. That's like petting a dog that's standing on the other, unreachable, side of the room.

Now, I just wear eyeliner to make up for it. Get it, make up for it. 

One topic down, six more to cover. Next is salsa dancing.

In April, a far, far away month, The girls spanish class is going to have lunch with the boys, then head over to a dance studio and learn salsa for a day. According to what I understand.

This is one of the best ideas my spanish teacher has ever had.

Here is a list of reasons, off of the top of my head, why I love this idea:

- I like to dance, never mind I can't dance

- I like to learn new things

- I like food, particularly of the lunch sort (and breakfast sort, but this is irrelevant)

- I love a good bus ride

- I get out of some classes

- Boys tehe 

I can't wait. I think about it every day. And I wonder if the boys and other girls think about it, too, or if I'm the real dorky kid who sits up front that would do anything to learn new spanish, and experience spanish in anyway. 

I don't have a picture. Next topic... old friends.

If you know nothing about me but my name, you know by default I lived in a trailer park for the better years during elementary school. We moved there in the middle of third grade, and moved out a few weeks before the end of the fifth grade. It may not seem like a long time, but it was a long enough time to affect me dearly. 

Off the bat, I'm going to tell you that through the whole time I lived there, I felt that I didn't have a best friend. I felt no one talked to me enough to like me, no one confided in me enough to trust me, and no one stood with me in line long enough to get to know me. 

I guess my standards for friendship were set too high. I read too many books beyond my age group, about middle school students with secrets and boyfriends and best friends and teacher-crushes. 

Comparing now to back then, I had more friends in elementary than I can shake a stick at. 

(Mom says that if you can't shake a stick at it, there must be a lot. It's a funny saying I grew up around.)

I would ask anyone for a pencil, I would start a conversation with the small second grader sitting next to me on the bus about anything, I would partner up with the shyest boy, I would show any girl who asked what color under wear I was wearing. (You know you did it too. Don't judge me.) 

If everyone you ever interacted with, even just hi in the hallways, was your friend... Imagine that.

Tangent. The point of all of this, is that with some Facebook connections, I found an old friend who lived at the trailer park when I lived there. He tells me he's the only one along with one other person who still lives there that lived there when I lived there. 

And we're talking and it's amazing and I miss him and I want to see him again and tell him in real life that I miss him and jump around like a dork and hug the earth that holds the trailer park up and kiss the mailboxes.

Like a friend, like a friend. 

I would also enjoy playing in the mud again. It's been six years since I've had a good, wormy, mud bath.

No picture! Next topic. 

I really only have one complaint, that breaks off into other complaints. 

A long time ago, my friend who sits next to me in photography lost her sd card in her Mac computer. On the newer computers in the room, there are two slots in the side. One for cd, the other for an sd card. They're the same width. It's too easy to make the mistake and braindeadingly (not a word... yet) slip your sd card in the cd slot. 

She was the first. When she did it, it was the first time it ever happened, so I guess our photography teacher thought that would set the example not to do that. 

Because my photography teacher deserves no dignity, his real name is Mister Kocks. I'm not lying. His name is accurate, as well. I might just be saying this because I'm still mad. But we're getting to that so I can get un-mad. 

He joyfully handed my friend her lost sd card the next day, and she rejoiced for the rest of the day. We laughed when it happened, and we still laugh about it. 

Today, I braindeadingly slipped my sd card into the cd slot. Ohno hey mister Kocks. He says what, and I explain what happened through half-contained giggles. So he gives me the ugliest look, like all of his loved ones just died and I'm laughing at their death. 

He tells me it isn't funny, and I'm having a humor about it. Living up to my nicknames, while he continues to tell me it's not funny. 

What's not funny? If you think it's not funny that you have to claw it out, then show me how it's done, mister know-it-all. 

So he got tired of my giggling, and sent me out to the hallway where I giggled loud enough to let him know I'm not thinking about what I'd done. 

I wonder what emotional states he goes through when he makes simple mistakes. He probably digs himself a hole to die in when he misspells a word. He has no sense of laughing little things off and getting over them.

Of all the mean things you can call people, I was taught (by my brother Nicky, the funniest, smartest, and greatest sibling alive) to believe fun-sucker is the worst. If you're sucking the fun out of a situation, no one likes you, and you probably don't like yourself. So I suppose dying in a hole isn't too far from the right idea, mister Kocks.

I have other bullet points of complaints that relate to him.

I'm a strict, hard-core perfectionist. Hardly any misplaced pixel gets by me, and it makes me nervous to think I've made imperfections on something that has the potential to be so beautiful.

Mister Kocks, on the other hand, is a simple-minded guess-work monkey. He nudges layers over with the arrow keys, he crops without setting a ratio, and he has no realistic sense for layout. 

I have to use numbers to do all of these things. If I nudge something over with the arrow keys, I count how many times and take note, so if I'm ever in the same situation, I can use the same amount of nudging. With cropping, I use three standard ratios: one to one, four to three, and sixteen to nine. I lay my designs out on graph paper before even thinking about opening up Photoshop. 

I don't ask him for help any more, because when I do, he changes everything that had integrity and messes it up with guess-work. I undo what he does to my images and designs and turn in my original edit because his is not perfect. It's sloppy and gross.

My other two complaints are how unsanitary he is, and how loud he is. But I don't feel like getting into that.

You know what, beautiful people who read my blog?

I don't feel like typing any more. I'll type the rest of my list another time.

I love you.