Laundry Room Cat Fight

I don’t know about you, but to me laundry is personal. I don’t even like to mess with my sister’s clothing much less a complete stranger. So when I walked downstairs to find my whites sitting on top of the washing machine, I was no happy camper.  Evidently there’s a resident here in my complex with the self-title of Laundry Police.  Not only did she remove my clothes from the wash after me being 15 minutes late to pick them up, she denied my access to the two open dryers by blocking the coin machines with her wrinkly pale skin – just as I reached to place my coins in.  Of course, I told her she was being unreasonably unfair and another resident used a few choice words with her for being so…so, ugh.  She kept repeating, “I’ve lived here for 6 years” as though those were the credentials that landed her the position as Complex Chief of the Laundry Watch.  She decided to waste even more time by calling security, the very woman physically interfering with my access to the machine. How’s that for insane?  Luckily the security guard was smart enough to recognize this woman was crazy, and he didn’t do much of anything.

I’m so going to be a High School Counselor

Since forever, I’ve been writing.  My mom would crack the door open to my room just after bedtime and catch me dreaming up stories on yellow notepads, while sitting under the Minnie Mouse nightlight in my room.

I love it though.  No, this post is not going to end with an announcement that I’m leaving the study of law and signing up with HISD, RRISD, or any other secondary education system.  It’s just not my nature to get obsessed over things to the extent that I can’t help others.  And well, academic advising requests seem to be my thing.

Just the other night, my childhood next door neighbor gave me a call for help on writing admissions essays.  He’s really wanting to get in to the University of Texas, and wasn’t sure how to approach the essay writing process.  I guess despite my not-so-impressive LSAT scores since I was blessed with acceptance to UT Law School (turned it down for an alleged “dream job” in icky Houston), he came to me for a boost in the right direction.  

Tofu Nightmare

The time is 1990-something.  My location, a desk in Ms. Shell’s fifth grade classroom.  Just weeks ago I’d met the faces of my first Texas public school classroom, and today we are discussing healthy food.  “Has anyone ever tasted tofu before?” My hand shoots up in response to the teacher’s question.  As I glance behind me, I can see that I’m the only person in the classroom and my elevated hand slowly inches its way back beneath my desk.  In an excited voice she continues, “Well, guess what?! Tomorrow, we are going to get to taste a meat substitute made from soy beans called tofu!”

As if being the new kid to the class and the one chocolate chip in the vanilla bean ice cream batch