In the musicals

Loving this song:



In the Musicals - Björk


So this post isn't a huge deal or anything, but I wanted to write it down someplace just... I don't know, for posterity, or something. It will more than likely be one of those blogs (ooo! Blog from elsewhere...) that will make me feel silly when I read it later, but oh well. Like I said, I just wanted to write it.



I was NOT, however, going to just put it where anyone can see it! If you want to read it, I'll gladly give you the password. Just email me at tracyneproski (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll be more than happy to send the password your way. :)





Click on the dots to read the post (after you get the password from me, of course): ***

Now that I know how this works,
I may be using it more often. Hmm....

Not so nice

As tends to happen, I started to write a comment back to GingerMandy and it turned into a whole blog post.

When I was first dating the ex-fiancé, we had a conversation about how mean I was am and that I needed to change myself fix it.

ex-f: When I tell people I'm dating you, they are always surprised. I never knew why until I saw the way you acted at {whatever function we were attending}. You turn into this mean, sarcastic person and that's unacceptable (He may or may not have said "unacceptable," but it was pretty close).

me: Well... yeah. That's just how I am. I've always been like that.

ex-f: No you're not. Not when it's just you and me. I've seen how you are when you're with your family or just with me, and that sarcastic, mean person isn't you (Read: It isn't what I want you to be).

me: Oh.

ex-f: I used to be like you (Did I mention that he was a bit holier than thou?), and what my {dad, minister, mother, coach (I don't remember)} told me to do was that before I said anything, I should think, "Could this possibly hurt anyone?" and if it would, or you're not sure, don't say it. Whatever it was. And you might miss out on some good comments or jabs, but it will be better in the long run.

So in the name of keeping a boyfriend, I did. Everything out of my mouth was moderated and filtered. And you know what? People liked me. It was astounding. That was the only year I was elected Band Sweetheart (That's nerdtalk for I was the popular-est that year) and that has never happened before or again. You know what else? I was totally miserable. I felt like a different person, but not in a "I'm changed! I love it!" sort of way. The following fall semester, I worked with a dear friend of mine in the band office and she fixed me. She was is smart, gorgeous and mean. I LOVED working with her because I could be myself!! I hadn't been able to voice all these nasty, horrible, mean, sarcastic, judgy and wonderful comments to anyone because I was too busy trying to not "hurt anybody."

So as I write this, I am wondering: was it better to be nice to everyone or be myself? I'm a mean and sarcastic person, and ... ha, well, I was going to say "it's usually all in fun," but that's a lie. I'm mean, and it's mean, and I am not messing around. But at the same time, is that really a way to be? I see where you're going with this, GingerSweetPie, I really do. I'm just warning you, being nice is really hard work. However, if you're willing to put in the work, it legitimately yields results. It also makes you nice. I'll still love you, MandyPants, but as a rule, nice people make me ill.

I guess that's my answer. I honestly just like mean, sarcastic people better than nice, smiley ones. Maybe it's because it's just easier to be mean, but I'd like to think it's because it takes a honed intelligence to be mean. Anyone can be nice. It takes a special kind of person to be mean and sarcastic, but still lovable. Don't take this the wrong way, but if we're friends, it's probably because you're mean. And lovable. So... kisses to you all!

BOO!

When I was a little kid, my dad used to scare me. What am I saying.... he STILL scares me. If he's walking ahead of me and turns a corner before I get there, odds are pretty good that he's stopped and waiting for me to get there so he can say "AGGH!" and make me jump. Because I will. About 98% of the time I will jump and scream and then go, "You turd!!" and he just laughs because it is endlessly funny to him. This is a long-standing thing for Dad. Throughout our childhood, he has moved our stuffed animals and hidden in our beds at night, sat in the bottom of the dark closet, hidden behind the door to our room... Once, all of us came home and Dad's car was there, but we couldn't find him. We probably looked for 10 minutes, and when we finally found him, he was behind the lower rack of clothes in HIS closet. Good one, Dad. Another useful tidbit in this whole thing is that all of the eyesight in our family is baaaaad, which only aided his mischief. So not only was it usually dark when he was laying in wait, it was also usually time for bed, so we've all got our glasses off or contacts out or whatever and no one can see anything anyway.

This has been good practice, it seems, as I have been watching around corners and in closets and behind doors the whole time I've been in Albuquerque. Joel seems to get immense satisfaction from seeing me jump and then me telling him he's a jerk (hahaha). Like how I'm brushing my teeth last night, and when I turn the light off on the way out of the bathroom, every light in the apartment is off. So what do I do? Say, "Oh! Good grief... You jerk!" and turn the bathroom light back on. I didn't have to go very far before he said "AGGH!!" from his hiding place on the ground in the hallway just outside the door. Or this morning, on the way to the bedroom, I look in the office and there is a figure standing there that looks like a Death Eater.



Death Eater.

Ironically, this didn't scare me. It was morning though, and that possibly had something to do with it, but it did at least make me do a double take. He was disappointed in my reaction, and said he was going to take a shower. I sat reading for a good few minutes and wondered why the water hadn't started yet. When I walked past the office, HE was there instead... as in, wearing the coat (apparently, in the office and coming out of the bathroom are the most popular locales for this behavior). Again, for whatever reason, this didn't scare me, but I applauded the effort.

Clearly, one is more apt to make me jump and scream with less prep work. Just sitting watching TV for long enough without moving and then making a loud noise will get me, seriously, every time. What can I say? I'm an easy mark.

Still, my favorite time he tried to scare me was once over 4th of July weekend. I was walking past the office and caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I walked into the office and he is standing on the chair by the door, in a psycho-killer type position holding... a feather duster. We just look at each other and since I'm obviously not scared, and also I have no idea what he was going for with that approach, he just goes,


"Hmm... it appears I may have over-planned this..."

Yeah...
you may have...

The cutest thing!!

OK, so I'm driving home on a pretty busy street (think 3 lanes either way) and I get to a cross street that has a stoplight and there's some commotion. As in, the traffic isn't moving, but there are a bunch of bikers in the middle of the road. I'm going one direction and in the median next to me is a motorcycle and standing in the street with his arms up stopping traffic is a big ol' biker dude. As I'm trying to figure out what that guy is doing, I see two other biker folks actually crossing the street. What are they doing?








Yep. Several good Samaritan bikers stopped traffic to help a momma duck and her 7 (from what I can count) baby duckies cross the busy street.

cutest. ever.

Sorry the picture quality stinks; it was my cell phone camera.

Change will do you good

So, it's been a morning. Like, an actual full on morning. I woke up at 6am (I have no idea why) and went to Walmart to buy groceries. New low: I had to actually put back some RAMEN (of all of the random foodstuffs) to ensure my ability to purchase with the amount of dollars I had. Sad? A little. It will be a funny story later in life... like one I tell my kids about how they need to go to college so they can get jobs and not live their lives putting back Ramen out of frickin' necessity.

So now I am at work, and there is the usual amount of work to be done (read: I am reading blogs, Gchatting and listening to music. Tough life.) and what am I doing? I brought a bucket of change in from my apartment, my car, and my purse so I can perhaps scrounge up enough money to put some more gas in my car (Thank GOD my work(s) and my apartment are close to each other) and maybe... well, no. Probably not a whole lot else.

I'm kind of afraid every time my boss comes in that he's going to make a joke about being at the end of my cash or something... 'cause then I'll feel bad. I also kind of don't want it to seem like I'm just rolling in dough here. Also: I can't decide if this is the best or worst time to bring up those extra hours he was going to see about getting me a couple of weeks ago...

I am going to chronicle this event for your amusement.




Bucket.
Me: Hey! There are a lot more quarters here than I originally thought. Yay!!



Full separation.



Quarters=sorted.
Sidenote: I have a special affection for dimes. I have no idea why.



Almost done!
and the desk is happy! Look!



Grand Total: $24.78 (Otherwise known as almost DOUBLE what I got for hocking some DVDs this morning...)

::ahem::

It's Father's Day!!!

...and I don't get to go see my dad, which is kind of crappy. We may use the wonders of technology and video chat or something later, but actually, I'll probably call him and tell him "Happy Father's Day!" and that will be it. I think that'll be fine, though, and he should be rolling through OKC on his way back from somewhere else in the relatively near future, so we're all good.

My dad is the best kind of dad I could have ever asked for. He was (in my little kid mind) mean and deserving of my fear when I was doing crap I wasn't supposed to be doing (Hell, now, too), but that's the way it's supposed to be. He also tempered being mean (which wasn't really mean, it was just him being a parent and disciplining his child when she was being a brat, which I very much appreciate NOW) with much love and stories told by my stuffed animals about Barfy the Beaver (played by a bear that was a hand puppet) that barfed when he ate Dogwood trees, but not when he ate Birdwood trees (no, those do not exist). It actually may have been the other way around, but none of us, Seester included, remember.



I'm on the left, and my sister is on the right


Haha, this is after the opera at OCU (He looks goofy! Love you, Dad!)


All of us in Arkansas visiting grandparents




So, here's to you, Dad!
I love you and Happy Father's Day!!

My bestest friend

So, I may have cried a little this morning when Kate and Andrew left. She called me earlier this evening and told me that they were on their way back from a wedding, so they detoured through OKC to have breakfast/coffee/pit stop.

She and I have been BFFs (hahaha) since I was a sophomore and she was a freshman in high school. We were both in band and in choir and there was just one day at an after school rehearsal that I just decided that we were going to be friends. Apparently, that was all I had to do, because she was pretty quiet and, (obviously) I am the opposite of quiet, so it worked out. We sang together with her mother at, of all things, a cafeteria workers end of the year banquet. We sang "I'll Fly Away" but with the words "I'll Walk in May" and another song with new words that I don't remember, and this:


Tonight - Patience and Prudence


I was a bitch in high school. I can admit it. I can own up to it. And Kate was my best friend through all of it; my only true friend, really. I had other good friends, but Kate is the one I can call at any time ever ever, even if we haven't talked in months, and we'll talk for 2 hours catching up (we have done this). She and her fiancé (who is GREAT, by the way) and I just sat at IHOP for an hour talking about wedding stuff and boy stuff and just stuff stuff and man, I need to go see them. Maybe I'll get to make a trip of it, though I'm kind of running out of summer. In any case, she's one of those life friends that will be around for the duration.



Valentine's Day (we were hot stuff)



Prom (so classy)



Kate and Andrew (SO cute!)

I can't WAIT for your wedding!

I chose music.

- - This post is forever long; fair warning for you there. But it's one of the most defining parts of my life thus far, so... why wouldn't it be a long post, you know? - -

I have never actually written down an account of what happened to make me decide to go to grad school. I haven't for various reasons, but I feel like it all happened long enough ago that I can talk about it now.

To be quite honest, I had just planned to get married right out of college, move away from my little hometown and pop out some babies. The truth is that I really only went to grad school because I didn't have any other plans, and without any plans, it just seemed like the next logical thing to do.

Let me back up.


Ok... confession:

This isn't really the story of why I went to grad school. This is the story of why I didn't get married. They just happen to be the same story.

I met the man who was to become my ex-fiancé my freshman year in college. Our relationship appropriately started with him meeting my dad, shaking his hand and introducing himself. We were speaking at the high school where my dad taught, but in that moment, it felt like a first date, and it pretty much went from there. I barely knew him and he barely knew me, but that ended up being really beneficial for the longevity of the relationship. What I knew of him was that he was everything I thought I wanted in a husband: tall, Southern, conservative, Baptist, man's man kind of guy. He was also from a big family that I fell in love with upon first meeting. What he knew of me was that I was attracted to him. What he didn't know was that I was so glad to have found what I thought I wanted, that I would pretty much be whatever he wanted me to be to keep it. Tragically, I think that at the time, that's what I thought was supposed to happen.

Over the course of three years, he molded me into exactly what he wanted me to be: a quiet, submissive, nice, sweet, prim and proper woman. If you know nothing of me, let me let you know that I am loud, mean, cynical and have been known to curse like a sailor on occasion. Those three years of my life were so unlike my actual personality, that Seester once said, "You were not you during that time. I kind of liked you better, but you weren't you." (I have yet to understand the full implications of THAT statement, but I digress) I may tell some of the "wife-grooming" stories later. They're pretty interesting on their own.

Please hear me when I say that the whole stripping of my actual personality from me wasn't malicious on his part. And actually, it turned out to be vital in the figuring myself out process, as giving up everything about what made me me helped me to find out just what that was.

So from the tail end of my freshman year right up until I graduated, he and I were dating. We were dating and visiting his family and talking about getting married and how wonderful our little small town life would be. This wonderful life where he would go to work and I would stay home and clean the house and take care of the kiddies and all that. And it made me happy. It really did.

However, every one of the four years of my undergrad, I was also heavily involved in the opera in the spring. It was crazy. For the entirety of the fall, I was completely content with the housewife/mommy life that was ahead of me. But without fail, spring would roll around and that meant opera season. I would get so immersed in learning the music and staging and everything the production entailed, and a part of me would say, "You want to do this. You can do this." I just told that part of me to shut up and that I would be perfectly content and happy being a mommy and a stay at home housewife.

Let me pause briefly to say that the actual mommy/housewife life was NOT, I repeat, NOT the problem. I would still enjoy that, I'm sure, just as I would have then. The difference is that he thought opera was immoral or... well, actually, there's no telling what he really thought about it because, as he later showed me (and just in time, too), he would say anything to get what he wanted. He wanted me to be a stay at home housewife/mommy and wanted me to do so to the exclusion of anything else, probably because that is what a woman "should" do. Again, don't even get me started on gender roles and what is "appropriate" for a woman, because I'm actually kind of backward. I grew up in a conservative household and I still hold to most of those beliefs, so it's not some sort of feminist empowerment kick that made me resent his assignment of me to the role of housewife, either. It was his presumption that he knew what was best for me, and my erringly allowing him to exercise that control over me. I apologize, I'm rambling... back to the tale at hand.

I'll save the "How I Got Engaged, and Why It Still Sort of Irritates Me" story for another time, but suffice to say that we got engaged over Spring Break my senior year with plans to get married the following August (if you're counting, that's 5 months from engagement to wedding. Yikes). Then a funny thing happened: I learned how to sing. I know, I know... What the crap does that mean? It means that I subconsciously knew that I wouldn't have been able to really succeed the way I wanted to singing the way I had before Saturday, May 6, 2006 (totally crazy that I know the date, huh? Perhaps yet another story for another time). It also meant that until that time, I really had no concrete arguments against my assignment to housewife (arguments for myself, really). In any case, after the performance the next day, my voice teacher that I had been studying with for 7 years by that time came up to me and said, "Well, you finally learned how to sing!" So what did I do? I called the man (since he hadn't come into town to see me sing. Not bitter).

Me: I want to sing opera professionally.

Then-Fiancé: Well, you've never wanted to do that before!

Me (In my head): What the heck? Where have you BEEN the last three years? Remember all those times that I was all "Maybe I want to do opera... no, just kidding. I want to live in a tiny town and have a lot of babies."? Yeah, me neither...

Me (out loud): I just want to try it. And if I fall on my face, at least I will have tried and then I can get it out of my brain.

Then-Fiancé: Well, I hate to tell you this, but you'd never make it anyway.

Me: [...shocked silence...] I must have made some sort of disbelieving noise at this point, but it wasn't words

Then-Fiancé: Oh! No no, not talent-wise. You're just too lazy.

I think it was at that moment that I knew that it was never going to work with him. He was, and still is to this day, literally the only person in my entire life that has not endorsed the idea of me pursuing this singing thing. There was no way in hell I was going to marry the person in my life with that particular distinction. So I took a drive and gave him back the ring and ended it. We haven't spoken in several years (I am not really a person who stays friends with my exes, as a rule). He married about a year later and I wish him well. (Seriously. Why not? He didn't do anything but push me to do what I do now.)


The End





Just kidding. There is one other little thing. About a month after I ended it, I wasn't dating anyone (obviously) and was all lonely and sad (even though I did the breaking. It's still not fun, you know?) and so I started wearing the gold band that was originally intended to be his wedding ring. I know, it's a little (read: whoa...) weird. But I had already bought it and pawning it wasn't even close to worth it, so in the creepy and moderately pathetic haze that was that summer, I wore it on my thumb.

Then something snapped a little. It wasn't a big dramatic thing, but one day I just looked at that ring and all it represented with a sense of empowerment (and a healthy amount of cynicism) and reclaimed it. How? I had it engraved. I still wear it pretty much every day as sort of a memorial to that life and a constant reminder of the decisions I made that have brought me to where I am.
Wanna know what it says? Of course you do. It says:


I chose music.


**Edit: You know, after having re-read this just now, I realize that I didn't actually state what the biggest problem was. I have since discovered, through much hashing with best friends and living through other failed relationships, that the reason it wouldn't have worked was NOT because he didn't support my decision to pursue opera (though that certainly didn't help) or anything related to opera at all. It was a much, much bigger issue than that. He couldn't talk about anything. If he had a problem with something, opera for example, he really didn't know how to just say, "You know, for whatever reason, I don't like the idea of you pursuing this. Let's talk about it." After examining much of the rest of our relationship, it was truly this wonky aspect of the whole thing that broke the coffin. Or put the nail in the camel's back. Or something. Just to clarify a bit what was already a very long, slightly rambly and ranty tale.

Surprise Wedding Reception!!

Wow. This story is SO fabulous!

Ok, Improv Everywhere is a group out of NYC that organizes pranks and funny group activities that require the "agents," or participants to "improv" what they would do in the situation to make everything go like it should.

My favorites that they do are the Mp3 Experiments where everyone who wants to participate downloads an mp3 from their website and puts it on their iPod or whatever, does NOT listen to it, and at a predetermined time and place, pushes play and follows the instructions. The results are brilliant.

The one from today is a Surprise Wedding Reception where the IE people chose a couple getting married at the City Clerk's office and gave them a reception in the middle of New York City. Aside from the couple and the immediate family that was there with them, the whole reception- planner, waiters and everything- were total strangers. Genius.

100th Post!!

Wow! I can't believe I've already posted 100 times. Geez.


Well, to celebrate this occasion, I feel I should blog about something that means a lot to me. Something that changed my life forever.


a potato.


Not just any potato, friends. This was a life altering spud of epic proportions. I'm not kidding when I say that for weeks after this potato incident, I couldn't go more than 3 days without mentioning it. People, this tuber consumed my thoughts. It's story time:



Over Thanksgiving, my Li'l Brudder and Seester and I went to southish Texas to see my Dad. Not ON Thanksgiving, but the day before, we went to this small town eatery for lunch. It was some manner of barbecue place and so they obviously had baked potatoes. They had something I had officially never seen before, but I was so intrigued, and it sounded so delicious that I ordered it. (Looking back, I am SO glad I did and yet I also have a healthy {ha, healthy} amount of regret tied to the experience. Mainly because after I ate it, I wanted to die. So much potato... anyway, back to the story.)

The potato I ordered ended up being about the size of a softball and a half. That is not remotely a small potato, or even a medium one. This potato meant business. It had my standard potato trappings of butter, cheese and sour cream, but here's where the magic happened: There was a chicken fried steak on, nay, in this potato. A whole chicken fried steak. On/In this mammoth potato. And white gravy, because you can't eat a chicken fried steak without white gravy.

That's the part that I look upon fondly. The actual potato. Eating the whole thing? I don't exactly look upon that with the same sense of nostalgia and general happiness associated with good food memories. *whew*

Anyway, to you who read this and see my delightful potato as an abomination to food everywhere, I am sad for you. Maybe it's just my general Southern upbringing that makes me particularly susceptible to the wiles of foods of this nature, but either way... that potato affected my life more than some people, and for that, it gets its own commemorative blog post.




And now a picture of a lizard on a chaise lounge (because this is what I found when I was trying to find a graphic of the number 100):




hahahahahahahaha


Hiliarious. Explanation here.

Story Time!

OK, I do not have the energy right now to talk about the competition two days ago (I didn't advance to finals, in case you were wondering, but it's totally alright) so I'm going to tell a story, albeit belatedly, in honor of 4/20. This is the story of the time my sister and I got high.


Ok, those of you that are freaking out can calm down. We didn't do it on purpose, and it was only through examination years later that we decided that was what actually happened.


We were youngish, probably high school. I get this strange cosmotological urge to do a manicure and tell Seester that if she'd let me, I'd do her nails. She's game, so we get a set at Walgreen's or someplace and go in her room (or was it our room? Depends on how young we were) and start playing beauty shop.

The way you used the particular type of acrylic nail set we got was that there was a gel you put on the fingernail, and then poured this powdery stuff on it to "activate" it. I'm pretty sure (read: it was all over the box) that the room was supposed to be well ventilated. I don't remember why we needed to shut her door (loud music, perhaps? Probably so we wouldn't kill the parrot in the living room) but we did and since the whole process was centered around a powder, we couldn't really turn a fan on, either. Basically, we were huffing and had no idea. Some rebels, eh?

I don't remember much about the whole experience except that we were listening to Cake and at one point, the lyrics are "Fawn, Jo and Tootsie are out on a wire" (OH MY GOSH! I never actually knew what the lyrics were there! Ha!) and we, at the time (and me up until about literally five seconds ago), thought it was "Fonzo and Tootsie," which, admittedly, makes no sense. We, at the same time, realized that we had both occasionally gotten mixed up at that part and said "Fonzie" (like Happy Days) but then remembered "Tootso" isn't anything, so that was obviously wrong. We laughed really hard about that, but only after we were done being slightly weirded out that we had been thinking the exact same thing about this goofy song.


Oh, that and we did a trial run of the acrylic stuff on a Sharpie, so for a while this Sharpie in our house had a creepy fingernail on the end of it. We painted it red, which just made it weirder. Damn, I wish I had a photo of that marker. Instead, a photo of weirded out.