My Girl got a girlfriend

Yes, the graduation. Look, I’ve got to be honest here. I hate graduation ceremonies. I hated my older sister’s graduation ceremony, I hated my high school and college graduation ceremonies, and now I hated my little sister’s graduation ceremony. I just hate the self-serving administration speeches; the over-the-top/badly amplified musical numbers; the trite, cliché and completely generic student speeches; this whole belief that THIS is the greatest moment of these kids’ lives. Dear lord, I hope that graduating high school isn’t the only good thing these kids ever do. Since, these days, you basically show up 2/3 of the time and get to graduate.

And for schools with more than 300 kids graduating, it’s just an assembly line. You barely have time to register the kids’ names before three more kids have walked across the stage. Not a single person on that stage knows the names of more than a handful of students. There’s absolutely no character or personality to it at all.

This class had the added built-in emotional manipulation of having had a student die earlier that year. He was a great kid, a friend of my sister’s and everyone else. It was sad and tragic and needed to be addressed. And I’m glad they presented the parents with an honorary diploma and let them speak for a bit. But I really took offense to the principal (who is an unrivaled douche bag) giving a “tearful” talk about this kid, whose name he’d never have known without his death. Discussing this kid took up more than ½ the ceremony. Which, I felt, kind of screwed over the other kids who were deserving of some recognition.

(I will put a caveat in here though; my brother went to an alternative high school for all the “fucked up kids/criminals.” THAT was the best ceremony ever. Only about 30 kids graduated, and every kid had been given up on by everyone else in the world, so when these teachers, who teach the fucked up kids for a living, are moved to tears by the kids’ accomplishments, how does that not rock your socks off? I still get weepy thinking about those kids and those amazing teachers and principals, who knew every single kid personally.)

So, yeah, as a rule graduation ceremonies are pretty weak. But, it was great to be there for my sister, see the family, and have a few stress free days to enjoy. My family got to experience some full-on Step Grandma Bull Shit in action, so that was kind of funny for me. She, evidently, has panic attacks in the car when anyone EXCEPT for HER drives. Now, this issue could be easily remedied by just having her drive as often as possible. But she insists that other people drive. Her doctor has tried to put her on Valium for this issue, but she “doesn’t want to take a *gasp* drug.” (I’ve tried explaining that sometimes, the medication isn’t for you, so much as the people around you. No dice.) I guess my family didn’t know about that, so were completely puzzled by the moaning, crying, whimpering and eventual shrieking. The weird thing though, is that when her freak outs were at their worst, we were traveling at a moderate speed, and the closest car was about a quarter mile away. Just classic. Fuck, dude, if I had to live with this woman, I’d have poisoned her food YEARS ago.

Have I mentioned that I like cupcakes? Because I really like cupcakes.

Our satellite dish was installed yesterday, and I think I may have a problem. I don’t ever want to leave the house again. The dish, she is glorious. I’m embarrassed at how excited I am at this. I mean, especially since we only got it so we could watch the new season of Big Love without giving Comcast one more chance to screw me out of watching one of the few shows I give a shit about. (Funny how every time I call to complain about the shitty reception and the fact that half the channels I pay for are dead, shortly thereafter, my cable would go out completely. Coincidence? I think not.) So, yes. That’s it, I’ve bought into the consumerism and materialism of it all. *sigh*

But, screw it. I’m going to enjoy my several hundred channels of fabulousness.