Much Madness is Divinest Sense

Think back over your years at school, over the good and bad. Then tell me about your favorite year in school. Why is it your favorite? Because it was the easiest? Or because it was the most fun? Tell me why you picked it, then don’t forget to give us the rest of the details. Just because it was an excellent year, doesn’t mean nothing bad happened, right? Did you break an arm the year you were voted Class Clown? Maybe failed Algebra the week before you started going steady the first time? As always, I want you to think, revel in your memories, and share every last detail with us. And have fun with it!

Easy. Third grade. Hands down. No contest. In third grade, I was in Mrs. Elliott’s class. The first day of school started off in a grand fashion. She had already made a seating chart for us. On each of the desks was a little slate made from black construction paper, popsicle sticks, and white paint. The slates had our names on them, along with the school year and Mrs. Elliott’s name. She also painted a little apple on each slate. I was so touched. No teacher had ever made anything like that for me. I’m sure making one for each student required a great deal of time. I kept it for years and years. Eventually, I told myself it was silly to keep it, and I threw it away. I’m so sorry I did that.

In third grade, I learned I was the best speller in my class. As a girl who always got picked last for athletic activities, it was a real boost to my self-confidence to be picked first for spelling bee teams each time. I earned my reputation when Mrs. Elliott asked me to spell “giraffe,” and I did it! The kids in my class were in awe. I missed one word on a spelling test the whole year. It was “receive.” I never spelled it wrong again. Mrs. Elliott used to call out the scores on our spelling tests. She would say, “Dana], minus zero,” as she gave me back my test. I will never forget the collective shock as the class recited with her one time: “Dana,” she began… “minus zero,” the class groaned the way kids groan at smart kids who blow the curve (not that Mrs. Elliott had a curve). She smiled and said, “Minus one.” The entire class gasped. My own jaw dropped.

In third grade, I also learned to write in cursive, to multiply, and to divide. I learned about the Living Desert and got to observe the Gila monster who lived in a terrarium in our classroom. I learned about rocks – sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic. When we were assigned to go out and collect rocks of different types, my friend Danny was the only one who knew what Mrs. Elliott meant when she said to find a rock with something growing on it. How could something grow on a rock? I wondered. So I learned about lichen.

I think it was in the third grade that I gained my deep appreciation for books. I certainly read a great deal before third grade, but it wasn’t until third grade that I discovered the joys of chapter books. Through Mrs. Elliott, I was introduced to the wonders of Superfudge, The Boxcar Children, and Shel Silvertein. I tried to check out Superfudge from our library for months after she read it to us. Everyone else in my class must have been trying to do the same thing. A few years ago when I saw a copy of The Boxcar Children in a store, I had to buy it. I remembered with perfect clarity how Mrs. Elliott read it to us, and how we cheered out loud as Henry was running the race. We were ecstatic when Henry won. Talk about getting kids involved in books.

The year wasn’t all moonlight and magnolias. My beloved cat Princess died that year. That was very hard. I’d never lost a pet before. She had feline leukemia. It was only about two days from her diagnosis to her death. She died on my grandmother’s couch. She let out a cry, seized up, and then went limp. And my dad cried. I don’t think I had ever seen him cry before. I cried for days. I visited her grave in my grandparents’ backyard for a long time.

On the plus side, I became friends with the best girlfriend I ever had while I was in the third grade. She’s rotten at keeping in touch, so we have lost each other over the years. But from third grade until eighth grade (when I moved), we were inseparable. We played lots of games together. She told me what I needed to do when I kissed a boy (years later), but didn’t offer to demonstrate on me, thank you very much. She taught me how to put on lipstick by holding the tube in my bra à la Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club (that too was years later). She is a very special person. I love her very much.

And lastly, one of the most important things that happened to me in the third grade is that I was encouraged to write. Mrs. Elliott wrote on my report card, “Please encourage Dana to write. She has a gift…” Those words are stamped on my heart. In the third grade, I was given a plastic stencil toy. I made up a book about a little bug named Herman who was balding and lived in a mushroom. I made the drawings with the stencil toy. I shared the book for show and tell. I tried to give it to Mrs. Elliott, but she could not accept it. She told me one day I would want to have it. I believe my grandmother has it, but I’m not really sure what ultimately happened to it.

Mrs. Elliott made me feel good about myself. She told me, in her indirect ways, that I was talented and smart. She was loving and nurturing. She was the best teacher I ever had.

Third grade was the grade when I showed my peers I had value. Second grade for me was hell on earth – I was teased mercilessly by my peers, my parents separated in a very nasty way, and it was my first year at a new school. But third grade… third grade was when I came into myself.

Mrs. Elliott, wherever you are, God bless you. I love you.

I feel better today. I got a bite from one place I sent my résumé. I am, after all, going to three interviews (of sorts – two of them are really tests of my ability to write and edit) this week, and I am cautiously optimistic about my chances with all three. Make that four, once I get to talk to the other person who responded to my résumé. Ahhhh… I feel myself relaxing a bit.

I played around at Warner Brothers’ Harry Potter website. I was totally psyched that the Sorting Hat put me in Gryffindor! I was just like Harry, sitting there going, “Please put me Gryffindor, please put me in Gryffindor…” Although Harry was really just hoping not to wind up in Slytherin. If you haven’t read the books, you have no clue what I’m blathering on about, but it’s my diary, so deal with it.

While I was there, I went shopping in Ollivander’s Wand Shop, and I found the perfect wand: Phoenix Feather, Redwood, 8 ¾ inches.

Finally, I practiced Quidditch. I sucked at being a Keeper and a Beater. As a Keeper, I kept letting the other team score. As a Beater, I ran into my player twice and hit the Bludger right into his head three times. I couldn’t get my computer to run the Chaser practice. But guess what… I totally KICKED ASS at being a Seeker, just like Harry Potter. I’m not usually good at sports, and I know it was just the computer, but it still kind of made me feel good. I’ll take it where I can get it, you know? Anyway, I am going to join the Quidditch diaryring to celebrate my extreme Seeker talents.

Anyway, the site is really cool, and I’m a dork. So what.

So I talked with Sarah’s father, and he says she tells him she really likes it here. She likes her school. She is making friends. She told me today she was making up a song about her new home.

She’s such a sweet kid. I was upset the other day (over everything), and she asked me what was wrong. I said I didn’t feel well. She asked me if I had eaten. How’s that for a little mother hen? I said yes. She asked if I’d eaten dinner. I said no. She concluded that was the problem and promptly made me one of her peanut butter/graham cracker sandwiches. How could I not feel better after that?

Speaking of these sandwiches, she “invented” them the other day, and she is very proud. She even submitted her “recipe” to the Zoom show on PBS. She came out of the back bedroom asking how to spell “cracker.” I told her, and she went trotting off. Then she reappeared wanting to know how to spell “squish.” I followed her back, as my curiosity was piqued. She had signed on AOL, found the Zoom website, figured out how to submit a recipe, and was in the process of doing so. All by herself. Pretty soon, she’s going to be smart enough to figure out how to get around the parental controls I put on her Internet access.

Okay, everyone, wish me luck. I went on a job interview today. And it is a writing job. I really, really, really want to get it. Did I mention I really want to get it? Or that I really want to get it? I should know by tomorrow. Yikes, I hate waiting.

I tried to call Steve on the cell driving home from Athens (interview was at my alma mater UGA), and he didn’t answer. I came home and he and baby Maggie are napping. I can’t call my mom because she is en route to Texas to go to my cousin’s wedding. So I can’t tell anyone about it right now, and it’s driving me frickin’ crazy!

I think I made a pretty good impression. I was supposed to bring samples of my writing, so I brought the first draft of that study guide I wrote and the chapter of my book that I put in my diary the other day. That was really just for fun, because I would be writing magazine articles, newspaper articles, columns, brochures and the like. But the lady who interviewed me did appear to be *ahem* rather engrossed in the chapter.

I was interviewed by three people. Don’t you hate it when they panel you like that? I hate answering the questions “What are your strengths?” and “What are your weaknesses?” Ugh. Well, I hope that they hire me, because we need money. Plus, it is part time, so I wouldn’t have to put Maggie or Sarah in day care. Not that it is bad — they were in day care when I was teaching. But now I’ve gotten used to being home with Maggie and being there to pick up Sarah from the school bus in the afternoon. I’d miss it. At the same time, I need to work, or we’ll be up a creek. And I think you know what kind of creek.

Thanks for listening to my nervous job-interview rambling. And back to Harry Potter I go.