metanoia's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Public Speaking and Me The clock on my VCR says 6:15 am, but I know it is really 7:15 am. I have �sprung ahead� all my clocks except for this VCR one because it is a bitch to change. I wonder if I will take the time to go ahead and change it before it is time to let it �fall back�? I�m pretty sure I will. It is just one of those things that takes a bit of thought and time to do, neither of which I have, so it just stays the same and I make a mental accounting of it. I know I will get around to it pretty soon. I just know I will. If it bothers me enough to write about it, I�ll get to it. I will. I will. My atomic clock changes itself. My atomic clock has a back up battery. My atomic clock does not ring on the weekend because it just KNOWS. I love my atomic clock. It is one of my favorite small appliances. Hah. Like I have a list somewhere. My favorite small appliances, by Metanoia, listed from 1 to 10. All kidding aside, I love that clock. For someone who is as deathly afraid of public speaking as I am, I sure have been doing a lot of it lately. Well, only twice this year, but it isn�t even May, yet! That�s a lot to me. Take last year, I didn�t do it at all. It is one of the things I avoid doing, like killing myself, for example. It is anathema to me. Anathema, I say. It sounds like an event, �She had an anathema, and then she died.� Like that. But, anyway, twice already this year�. and I am still alive� Once at the Burns Supper in January, and yesterday at church. After each of them people came up to me and said what a wonderful job I did. How could they not hear the quiver in my voice, or see all the blood in my body rushing to my face or see the shaking, sweaty hands grip my paper like it was my last Hershey�s Special Dark snack size? They had no idea! Flashback alert. In 1963 a little girl, we�ll call her Metanoia, was in school and the teacher said something like this, �We will be memorizing the Gettysburg Address and then we will stand in front of the class and recite it, just like Abrafuckingham Lincoln.� Poor little Metanoia froze. Stand in front of the class? Nooooooooooooooooooo! So Metanoia went along with the pretending to memorize the damn thing and then came the dreaded time when we all would stand up individually in front of the class and recite the damn thing. �A few students per day will recite for about a week until we have all recited this lovely piece of crap�, the teacher said. Metanoia lucked out and was not included in the first day�s people, some of whom, I remember, actually VOLUNTEERED to get up and do it. Gah. What to do, what to do? The next morning Metanoia was very sick. MUCH too sick to go to school. She told her mom, who took her temperature. Caring, loving mother put the thermometer in Metanoia�s mouth and Metanoia said, could I have a drink of water? Mother started for the bathroom. �Not bathroom water, please�, Metanoia wailed pathetically, because she was weak from fever and so very sick. So mother went to the kitchen which gave me, I mean Metanoia, enough time to rub the business end of the thermometer across the sheets to create heat and make her have a fever. (Metanoia had recently learned of the old friction creates heat theory.) She quickly stuck it back in her mouth just in time for dear mother to return with kitchen water. Heh. Mother removed the thermometer and oh shit, oh dear! It was over 104 degrees!!!!! Well, of course you will not go to school, being so sick, and all�. Metanoia made a mental note to check the temperature next time so it would be a more believable number. Funny thing about this mysterious illness, the fever was gone by the afternoon�. High in the morning but then fine as frogs hair in the afternoon. Huh. Go figure. Poor Metanoia couldn�t go to school! Metanoia continued with this ruse for over a week. Mother was beside herself with worry, brother began using words like �malingering� (hey, Metanoia learned a new word! She is so smart!) and Metanoia was taken to UCLA Medical Center to get to the bottom of this strange disease. She waited a long time to see the special doctor, who asked for a moment alone with Metanoia. Just like a movie, he looked over the top of his glasses deeply and directly into Metanoia�s beady little non-fevery eyes and said, �We�re not going to do this anymore, are we?� So busted. So very busted. Doctor told Mother that Metanoia was just fine and he was certain that it would no longer occur. If it did, he said looking significantly at Metanoia, be sure to bring her back. No charge. Metanoia made a miraculous recovery!!! Nothing was ever said about this. I wonder if Doc ever told mother, or what? So, returning to school after being so sick, and finding that (Lucky you Metanoia!) it was the very last day and hey, let�s have Metanoia stand up here and say that old Gettysburg Address that she did not bother to learn because she figured she wouldn�t ever have to do it. So poor little malingering Metanoia stood up in front of the class and began, �Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation. Conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.� Pause because that is all she knew. With a little coaching from friends in the front row, �something, something great battlefield of that war. Something, something, died here.� The rest is just a blur. Metanoia stayed in front of the class stammering through the damn Gettysburg Address for something like 95 hours. She has no memory of that day, after �died here�. It was such a fucked up day, that day. But I did better this year. Two times in front of the �class� and they think I did a swell job. Metanoia is growing up! 3:06 p.m. - 2005-04-18 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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