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When I was little, I wanted to be Whitney Houston. I doubt that I’ve mentioned that on here before. I may have, though, but when I was young, I dreamed of becoming Whitney Houston when I grew up. I wanted to be her, with the ability to dance of Michael Jackson, as well as my own book deal, the ability to do hair, and a degree in teaching. Of course, this was an illogical thing to wish for since I was (well, still am) a redhead with those strange little turquoisey blue eyes with different colors in ‘em (love that heterochromia). It was also illogical because apparently a combination of weight and funny genes (not quite funny syphillis funny, though) determined that I couldn’t go around dancing anymore after my mid-teens. (I tried to get around this by dancing to a Britney Spears video in 2000. This resulted in a broken foot.) I also am still suffering from the Bellatrix hair that I mentioned in my Tumblr last week and featured as my Facebook profile picture for Doppleganger week. As for the degree in teaching, I’m fairly certain that we can all agree that I should not be allowed near small children. That might lead to dangerous fuzzy liberal thinking and stuff…I don’t know what part of that is worse, the thinking or the fuzzy liberalness of it.

I didn’t become Whitney, despite my wishing and hoping and thinking and praying. That kind of bummed me out for a while, until I learned of her marriage to Bobby Brown and, what I hope was, her subsequent downfall into drugs and happy-hippie-dipping-in-the-Jordan-River. Of course, she redeemed herself.

I didn’t become a lot of the things that I set out to become in my life. I wanted to be a singer, but for about 3 years, my voice wouldn’t do anything other than talk. I wanted to be a dancer, so my body played the arthritis-fibromyalgia-autoimmune card on me. I wanted to do hair for a living, so I was reminded that I loathed how people touched my “beautiful red hair” and how that made me feel used and cheap. (I may be cheap, but I shall never be forced to feel used!) I didn’t become a teacher, because I determined in 8th grade after being turned over for truancy to a pre-court thing that I absolutely loathed school. (For the record, I was not actually truant. I had gotten a letter from my doctor in 2nd or 3rd grade that said that sometimes I would get so sick that I would just be out of school for a month at a time. This letter, which was 100% legit, had worked for 6 years before anyone challenged it. That year, of course, my gallbladder had failed and no one believed me for 2 months while I was getting all kinds of tests, then I hurt my knees and foot, and finally ended up with the flu, asthma problems, bronchitis, and a boocoodle of other problems.) I didn’t become a music producer, which was an unofficial major for me. I didn’t even get to try to become a doctor because my mom said I couldn’t handle the staying up for days on end…um, that’s not necessarily true. (I can sometimes go days without sleeping at all!) I decided after I entered the Social Work program that Social Work was teh suck when it came to majors for me, but before I got to the point where I nearly finished and got kicked out for being teh crazy. I have yet to get a degree, and don’t know if and when I ever will. At this point, I think I should be given an honorary doctorate. (I’m not kidding, since I’ve been in and out [mainly in] of college since August of 2001.)

Of course, going back to school might entail going to UAH again, which I’m not that scared of. Typically, shootings don’t occur in the same place twice, right? So, I should be safe. Of course, Amy Bishop isn’t the first professor who has allegedly killed people. (A physics professor was convicted of killing his wife, who also worked for UAH, a couple of years ago.) But, as far as I know, the liberal arts department hasn’t had any killing teachers yet. Besides, given my ability to not get all scared when the knife got pulled on me during my interview for Social Work (it was part of a role-playing thing, and yes it was an actual knife), I think I might be able to handle it. Of course, that was a little different, since I was in no danger.

Oh, I’ve figured out that I’m a bad luck charm. When I was a little kid, a relative of mine wanted to meet me before she died. She had been saying that for months. She died right after she met me, like the next day. (She was 99.) A semi-distant cousin had her home, as well as her mother’s home, struck by a tornado. Her husband was killed in the tornado, leaving her daughter and her unborn son without a father. A dance teacher I had as a child was killed on a rainy road in 1995 or 1996. In 1998, the day after my mom and I dropped off a refund of the payment that the parents of my friend Sara had paid for her to go to Chicago on a choir trip, her brother (who had had the same Algebra book that I had that year) decided to go after the family with various sharp weaponry. (If you want to look it up, search google for Jeffrey Franklin Huntsville.) That same year, there was a school shooting in Jonesboro, Arkansas. It was at a school that my parents had considered sending me to if we had moved to Jonesboro the year before. (I had insisted that we not move there.) In 1999, Patrick, the kid that I sat next to in my 8th grade homeroom, was killed by his father, as was his younger sister, before the father killed himself. The dorm that I stayed in in 2005 had a girl whose room was set on fire and she had to jump from the window. I had a friend killed in a drunk driving crash last year. And now the school that currently holds my transcripts has had a “school shooting”. (BTW – it was a workplace shooting that happened at a school.)