another update...

CHEERLEADING

i won’t torture anyone reading this with a full account of the cheerleading events; i’m not the kind of person who eases her own pain by inflicting it upon others. suffice it to say i came home from nyc to a whole new world. my high school was hosting the league championships for competitive cheerleading this year. why would i have any interest in attending such an event? you may ask. because my sister, only three years my junior, is a competitive cheerleader. people line up hours before the competition starts. my sister had to sneak us in the back door so we could save ourselves seats. volunteers were stationed all over the school to be sure we weren’t trying to catch a glimpse of another school’s routine, because that would be a huge violation of competition rules. i wondered to my father at how i was able to enter without any makeup or ribbons.

the girls actually did very well, and i will admit the athleticism of tumbling and lifting people (despite the fact that many of these women appeared to be as breakable as toothpicks), but i have to say the obsession with hair, makeup, and, most of all, pep alludes me. but anyway, the event did not end with the award ceremony at 4 o’clock. oh no, i had to go to the reception after. with a salad. because my father was taking my mother to the airport. great. my mom’s on her way to florida for a nursing conference, and i, the one who’s never full, am on my way to play susie high school and toss a salad at what might as well be an anorexic’s convention. thankfully, people ate, although it certainly was not easy to fake socializing at an event centered around a world i had hoped to leave behind in my move to college.

in the end, i survived, i smiled and shook hands, i ate pasta on a white main line carpet without spilling or looking like a total glutton while watching guys i graduated with flirt with (even leer at) girls younger than my sister and pretended that there was no better way i’d rather spend my first sunday evening on spring break. overall, i’m quite proud of myself.