I’d give it a 10, but your bra strap was showing
I shipped the babies off to their grandmother’s for a few hours, which left me free to catch up on my SONA case studies and watch one of my favorite movies ever:
STICK IT!
The beauty of STICK IT! is that you don’t have to be a fan of women’s gymnastics or teen movies to appreciate its content (though I will admit, it does help). Because at its core, STICK IT! is all about being alienated in a world where it’s less about who you are and what you know, and more about who you know and what you are.
Like when Haley gets a low score on floor not because of how she executed her routine, but because the judges are still annoyed with her for walking out on Worlds two years ago. Or when Mina gets blasted on vault because her bra strap was showing (allegedly), even though we all know it was because Burt Vickerman was her coach, and the judges are annoyed with him, too, for going rogue.
I guess this is something you can chalk up to life not being fair, but this past week it’s really gotten to me in a way I haven’t felt since that time in fifth grade, when Sarah Williams got chosen for the smart class and I didn’t, even though she totally plagiarized her scary story assignment and I made mine up from scratch. Then when I told Mrs. Sade what she had done and asked why – WHY? – I couldn’t go learn French and Latin and algebra like they did in the smart class, she wrote my name up on the board and told me I was being a sore loser, and it wasn’t Sarah’s fault I was stupid…that’s just how God made me.
Talk about devastating. I went through the rest of my grade school experience thinking, God made me stupid AND fat, and Sarah smart AND skinny? How the hell is THAT fair?
And after last week, that’s how I’m feeling again – stupid and fat. And stupid. Like it’s not bad enough that my hormones are so screwed up that my chin looks like a losing Bingo scorecard. That’s too easy. Let’s throw on a heaping helping of toxic advice and a double dose of kitten diarrhea!
YEAH!!
I realize at this point I’m being vague in an annoying sort of way, and I would elaborate if I knew how. Truth is, it’s not just any one thing that’s put me in a funk. It’s all the little things piled up on top of one another that do it: a critique that borders on condescending, a rejection (or two), a frustrating psychology professor, a history exam disaster, a kitten who won’t stop crying, the drink machine that won’t take my dollar…the list goes on and on.
It’s silly to be overcome by those kinds of things, because if you zoom out and look at them individually, they’re insignificant, like grains of sand compared to the entire freaking universe. But right now, they look big. And what’s more, they make me feel small. Like I can’t do anything right. Like everything I do is wrong. Like there’s no point in even trying anymore.
Like I’m stupid and fat.
And sometimes it’s hard to not throw in the towel, or worse, conform to what everyone else is saying is good, even though I can tell that it sucks. Big time.
Then I think about how at one point someone told a pre-Gaga Lady Gaga that she would never be Norah Jones, and I wonder if it was as funny then as it is now, because I doubt it was. Probably it hurt. A lot. Like she was doing everything wrong, just by being different.
And that makes me feel a little better, like maybe I’m not wrong at all. Maybe I’m just different, and someday other people will see that, too.
As for Sarah, I later found out that she wasn’t really as smart as she wanted people to think she was, and that her parents had donated a shitload of money to the school to secure her spot in the smart class. A few weekends ago, I saw her working the till at the Dollar Tree in Dandridge, and let me tell you, she looked more confused by the numbers on her screen than I did looking at my history exam this morning.
So now I’m thinking, maybe God has a sense of humor after all.
I love Stick It! I am a fan of women’s gymnastics (SO much better than men’s) but I also really enjoyed the message in it, too.
Dude, I was in the smart people class when I was in 4th-6th grade, and let me tell you, I LOOKED like I was in the smart people class. I had unflattering glasses, frizzy hair, wore really funny looking sweaters, and when the other girls started to develop into… well… girls, I remained flat-chested and narrow-hipped. Then in 6th grade I got braces and that sealed my fate as a loser throughout high school, even though the glasses and braces disappeared and I bought a hair straightener. But the smart people class really wasn’t that great anyway.
Plus, Lady Gaga is SO much better than Norah Jones (who doesn’t even write her own songs!)
Love the entry, even though it involves a lot of preteen pain.
November 2, 2010 at 9:13 AM