Painting

So I'm down visiting my grandparents with my little brother, down in the Villages in Florida, a little working vacation. It's like the Disney World of retirement communities- they have their own golf course, you can drive your golf carts wherever, their pool has a waterfall (that's broken this week, sadly) and there's every kind of club you can imagine. I believe my grandmother helped start the genealogy club and like six Scrabble clubs, goodness knows. So I've been getting an education down here, learning about my great grandparents and my dad and watching movies (ironically, my grandfather, who is taller than my little brother [who is like 6'4"] and used to coach high school football, absolutely loves Mama Mia) and eating a ton. It's about ten times more food than I consumed in the whole of the two exam weeks. Lovely.

A couple of days ago, Jackson was watching The Office. Now, I'm not really one of those people who plans evenings off to watch TV shows. I gave up on Heroes in high school because it came on TV on a day of the week that I wasn't home (pick a day, really) so I'm not that devoted to my television. And people would always ask if I've seen such and such a show and I'd have to say no, because I don't really watch that much TV. When I relax, I watch reruns of TNG or SG-1 on Scyfy or Hulu. Yup, that upped my nerd quota considerably. (PS- If you're a friend of mine and you haven't seen Star Wars *coughcoughChristinecoughcough* we need to plan a Star Wars marathon, at least the classic 3.) So you've got to believe me when I say that I've seen at most a combined 3/4 of an episode of The Office (and that one was Jim and Pam's wedding, so I had no clue what's going on).

Well, with that in mind, knowing the ending before I start, I'm perfectly happy to become an Office addict. Since I know it's going to end happily, I love watching Jim and Pam flirt and swear that they're just friends (now, more and more I'm think that Harry from When Harry Met Sally is right) and I love watching the pranks they play on Dwight. I'm not so much a fan of Michael, just because awkward and almost assuredly inappropriate humor isn't my thing, but I think Jim makes up for that. Anyhoo, I'm kinda loving The Office and plan on getting through the rest of the season in my month off. I'm almost to the end of Season 2. It's getting to be a problem, really.

We also introduce my grandmother to Skype (which she attempted to call Scalp just now... scalp? Really? like Last of the Mohicans I'm going to take your hair as a battle prize for a form of communication? Pleasant) so we talked to my mother for a bit and scared the dog down here by showing her on the webcam the dogs up in North Carolina. Now my grandmother is all prepared to have around the world communication with her children and grandchildren of various locations. She's amazed that her laptop has a webcam and is convinced that mine must also have it, I just haven't found it. Meanwhile, my real computer is sitting up at ITS because they decided that a broken fan cover, a lost hard drive cover and an ill-attached screen required a longer stay and a warranty sign off. Should have just dealt with the helicopter. Anyway. So my computer's up at ITS and I have this old Dell that I got my senior year that has so many viruses on it, programs running in DOS could go faster. Definitely no webcam. No speaker, no microphone, nothing.

At the same time, I look like a total slob. I'm covered in paint (never get me to paint anything for you- I'll look like a reverse Dalmatian and you'll have pretty well covered walls... and floors, if we don't put down paper) and I lost my hair ties in the ocean two days ago, so my hair's up in the best messy bun that a rubber band can afford (note to self, carry around extra hair ties at all times), not to mention I've got a little Cruella de Ville going on with a streak yellow paint from yesterday stuck in my hair. I have one earring in and an awesome sun burn that's brilliantly displayed by my red painting shirt. Needless to say, I'm as far from cute as possible.

We're painting the walls in my grandparents' bedroom and since it's small and packed with furniture, we're doing one wall at a time. I'm doing the baseboard since I'm the shortest and I can bend down that far, so I get the privilege of feeling like Cinderella again as I bend down on my hands and my knees in my skirt (it's the only comfortable short thing I've got- I can't wear pants with the sun-poisoning I've got on my legs), cleaning the baseboard and painting the bottom part of the wall before slapping a coat on the bottom border of the wall. We're doing it in shifts- Pancakes is painting the top part of the walls with the roller (since he's tall and a man) and I'm going in after he's done. Then he comes back in and moves the furniture and starts again. I think we're headed home after we're done, so he's in a hurry to go.

I figure that my breaks are perfect times to watch The Office, since the rest of today I won't have any internets as we drive back up I-95. Since Jackson won't let me drive, I'll have to read. Ugh. And I finished Northanger Abbey (I swear, I am Catherin, Morland) so all I've got left are the semi-academic books that I carry around to look smart. Great. So I'm making my brain as much mush as I possibly can before subjecting it to thinking. It's gotta have something to beat into shape. So here I sit, watching The Office with one headphone in and the other out, listening for someone to yell for me to come help. Sure enough, my grandmother comes in and says, "It's ready for you, Addie Jo. So come in, but you can finish your conversation first."

My conversation? 'Scuse? I'm confused, what? And then I realize that the screen that the show is playing on is about the same size as the Skype window and that it's been on one of those documentary parts where people just stand in front of the camera for a bit and talk. So now my grandmother thinks that I'm Skyping Jim from The Office. And I'm not one to correct her. Forget the fact that I look terrible and don't actually have the capability to on my computer. If my grandmother thinks I'm attractive enough to be Skyping someone attractive enough to be on TV, I'm not going to take that delusion from her.

I guess I've got to get over this whole negative outlook on my appearance. It's just not good for confidence levels. But I don't want to go around with the knowledge that I'm pretty. That'll only end in disappointment. I'd much rather be pleasantly surprised when a guy likes the way I look. And believe you me, I'd be surprised. It's been a long year, with lomls and whatnot, and it's hard to build confidence when you're shooting for the impossible. I did learn something at the beach, though. 1) Never wear your sunglasses in the waves. 2) I don't tan the way I used to. 3) I always want to jump farther. And I don't mean that I always want more (even though I do; you can't take that back) but I mean that I always want to do more than I can. OK, I've mastered riding these tiny little close to shore waves. Let me please please go out among the big waves and see what I can do out there. I have the principles down, surely I can do that. Look, I can walk across the room. A marathon surely isn't out of reach.

And it isn't. Just not today. You know, I love watching guys who are already in love. The only reason I watch romantic comedies is to watch the guys and watch their facial expressions when the girl they love tears their heart up or makes them the happiest man in the world or the stolen glances or that stereotypical moment where one of them looks up and looks down and the other one looks up and looks down and you just wait for the second when they're both going to look up and then look down, super embarrassed. It's precious. I love it. So you can see why I love The Office, because Jim's already in love with Pam and it's kinda the most precious thing ever.

I won't need a musical number or just the right moment to know. I'm studying, you know. I'll know. It might never happen, but I'm prepared nonetheless. Who knows? Maybe someone will see me hanging out the window as I try desperately to keep the side mirror on the van because the duct tape's failing and the paint won't much matter to him. We'll see.