I gave my first speech today. I mean my first speech in this business class I’m taking. It was an “icebreaker” speech. Basically a quick thirty second speech where you talk about yourself. Sounds easy enough. Well easy if you’re not a bumbling idiot when you get in front of fifty people. I think we all know what category I fit in to. Need I tell you that my speech sucked? With a capital SUCKED!

I had many strikes against me.

First, I didn’t eat all day. Unless you call two bottles of Mt. Dew nourishment. I was getting so good about eating breakfast every morning and almost always eating lunch. But this week I’ve been failing at both. So no food what so ever today. I really consider myself lucky that I didn’t just pass out in front of 50 twenty year olds.

Second, our teacher didn’t put the five topics up on the overhead like she did the previous weeks. I have been practicing those five questions for two weeks.

(1) Your name
(2) Where are you from?
(3) What is your ideal job?
(4) Why did you decide to enter the College of Business?
(5) Tell something unique or funny about yourself

I knew the questions. I know them now. I know them vividly. I could repeat them in my sleep. But as soon as I stepped up in front of the kiddies the questions were gone. Umm….what?…my name….uahmph….shit.

Ok, so I didn’t say shit. But I was on the verge.

I made it through my name. I even did the little pause between my first and last name like the teacher told us to do “for dramatic effect.” I was on a roll.

I tried to funny on where I was from and about tripped over my tongue. Lesson learned. No funny. Especially not in front of children. Funny doesn’t come off as funny when you are shaking like a leaf and praying your knees don’t lock up sending you crashing in to the table.

Ideal job? Damn! What’s my ideal job? What’s a job? Oh God, please strike me dead.

I actually made it through the “why I’m in the College of Business” part with only a little bit of a stumble.

And then I realized I had my hands in my pocket. Get your damn hands out of your pocket. Teacher said it makes you look like your in a straight jacket. Why are your hands in your pocket? Get them out. Get them out now!

Panic took over. I lost my place. Shit, where was I?

And what’s unique about me? “Probably the most unique thing about me is that I have five kids.” I heard gasps. One kid in back sputtered, “holy shit.”

People are usually shocked when I tell them I have so many kids. But when you tell a group of twenty year olds that you have five kids the shit hits the fan. A twenty year old’s biggest obstacles is how he/she can get through five nights of partying without puking and still get that term paper written to at least get a “C” on it. They can’t even fathom one kid, let alone five. So now I’m sure there will be some pointing and whispering. “There goes that freak with the five kids. Psycho.”

But in the end I survived. I didn’t even need stitches. And I didn’t even end up face first in the carpet. I gave a speech and I lived to tell about it.

Now I need some wine.

Tonight we attended a “very important meeting regarding 9th grade course registration.” I’m still trying to deal with the fact that Justis is now a teenager and no longer a toddler and here the school is discussing class registration for high school.

Where did all the time go?

Apparently it’s been quite some time since I was in high school. When I was in high school we got to chose between about three different English classes, none of which sounded even remotely fun. We had a keyboarding class…where we typed on a typewriter. It was an electric typewriter, but a typewriter nonetheless. We did have Yearbook and a school newspaper [neither of which I participated in], but that was about it for the “fun” classes.

It’s totally different now. Now it’s more like college courses. They even have “pathways” where the kids can kind of choose a “major” and take classes on that path. Kids can, of course, take classes from many different pathways if they choose. They can also change pathways whenever they’d like. Justis is currently undecided [aren't we all? ].

They choose classes from pathways such as Agriscience & Natural Resources, Arts & Communications, Business, IT, Marketing, Family & Human Services and Engineering.

They have art classes that range from pencil drawing to ceramics, photograpy to digital drawing. And there are classes on Illustrator and Photoshop too.

There are business classes like accounting, personal finance and entrepreneurship.

Industrial Technology classes include Introduction to Engineering Design, Drawing/CAD, Automotive Technology, Home Construction and Manufacturing.

And there are tons of IT classes. I remember when I was in elementary school we had our first experience with a computer. We created a “Hello World” program in Basic. In DOS. Now kids can take Web Design, Oracle Databse Programming, PC Hardware, Networking, Video Production and Broadcasting.

Plus many of these classe are dual credit classes. That means the kids will get high school credit and college credit. In fact some of the classes are taken at the community college. Successfully completing the networking classes in the IT program satisfies some of the requirements for the LAN Management degree that Lee is working towards. There is a Creative Foods course that satisfies a requirement in the Culinary Arts program at the community college.

We never had choices like this when I was in high school.

I, of course, am way more excited about these opportunities then Justis is. He just has no idea how great this is. These aren’t your basic “how will this stupid class help me in the future” classes. These classes really will teach them real life skills that they will use every day in the real world.

On one hand I’m scared about some of the decisions Justis will make as an “almost” adult. I still remember my high school years pretty well. And I remember some of the decisions I made that I thought were such good, grown up decisions then that I wish I could just slap my sixteen year old self about now. I’m a little worried about being on the parent side of this relationship.

Then on the other hand I’m so excited about the possiblities. Justis has the opportunity to have some really great experiences. Make some really great friends. Learn so much. And really prepare himself for living on his own.

During the meeting I told Justis there were some really cute girls in his class. He agreed.

He pointed out one girl and I said “yeah she’s really cute. You should ask her out.” He said, “Yeah, right. She’s like the most popular girl in school.”

And then I actually heard myself turn in to an old person. I heard the cracking of my bones, the chatter of my old lady teeth and I could feel the gray hairs growing. I actually said, “So. You should give it a try. You never know until you try.”

I knew I had overstepped my cool mom boundries with that comment. With that one statement I made it blatantly obvious that I have completely forgotten all about my two years of middle school and four years of high school teenage angst. I had just removed my cute hip teenager facade and put on my old lady mom cap.

I needed to cover quickly. “Quick! Look over there. Pretty girl.”

Luckily boys are easily thrown off by the sight of a pretty girl.

The Tooth Fairy’s on strike. Either that or she’s getting old and senile. Those are the only explanations I could come up with she forgot to visit Skyler THREE NIGHTS IN A ROW.

Yes, it’s true. The Tooth Fairy is a huge slacker. And very forgetful. But in her defense, Skyler is not a very good sleeper. She doesn’t like to go to bed that early. She is a very light sleeper. And sometimes in the middle of the night she wakes up because she’s “not tired anymore.” I have no clue where this child came from. I could sleep all day if you’d let me.

Skyler’s tooth [her second lost baby tooth] fell out at school on Thursday. School gave her a cute little green treasure box to hold her tooth.

On Thursday night, Skyler put her tooth in a little Mickey Mouse paper cup on her night stand because the Tooth Fairy likes it better in a cup on the side of the bed. The Tooth Fairy is a very busy woman and sometimes it’s hard for her to search for the tooth under a very active sleeper’s pillow [read tosser and turner who sometimes throws the tooth off the bed on to the carpet where it's impossible to find in the dark even with magical see in the dark fairy dust].

Skyler woke up on Friday morning and immediately looked in her cup. And there it was. Her tooth. No money. Just her old baby tooth. She was disappointed to say the least.

So the Tooth Fairy was going to be so much better the next night. Friday night. Only we all completely forgot about it. Skyler had taken her tooth downstairs during the day on Friday to show Dad what a rotten beotch the Tooth Fairy was for forgetting to take her tooth and leave her “one thousand dollars” [that's what Skyler was requesting for payment for her tooth]. Before bed we forgot to take the tooth back upstairs and put it in her room. So that night the Tooth Fairy didn’t come because she didn’t know where the tooth was.

Then Saturday night came. Surely the Tooth Fairy would remember this night. After forgetting two previous nights, she must have a very guilty conscious.

But apparently the Tooth Fairy has no conscious. Because…..SHE FORGOT AGAIN!

Skyler put the tooth back in the green treasure chest and placed it under her pillow on Saturday night. Screw this cup on the side of the bed crap. I guess Skyler was thinking she needed to be a little more traditional for the Tooth Fairy.

Around 8am Sunday morning Skyler came in to my room. “The Tooth Fairy didn’t leave me any money. But MY TOOTH IS GONE.”

Oh shit.

I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and told Skyler that the Tooth Fairy must have misplaced it and I’d help her find it in an hour when my alarm went off. Skyler said ok and then went to watch cartoons.

However, I couldn’t sleep. Damn Tooth Fairy. Freaking senile woman. Forgetting again. How could you?

So I dragged my butt out of bed. Made my way to my desk to check my purse. Then I went up to Skyler room. I checked under the pillow. I checked under the covers. Then I crawled under her bed. I finally found the green treasure chest. I placed the treasure chest [sans tooth] under Skyler’s pillow along with a trinket from my purse and went back to bed.

About 45 minutes later [still before my alarm went off for church], Skyler came running to my room. “She came. The Tooth Fairy came….But she only gave me a dollar.”

Well honey, the Tooth Fairy’s on a budget. Big business is working it’s way in to her tooth business and times are tight. Put your dollar in your piggy bank and go watch cartoons. Mommy’s sleeping.

I just watched yesterday’s episode of Oprah. [Here I am blogging about Oprah two times in a week. What's up with that?] Oprah opened up a can of whoop ass on James Frey.

In case you live in a cave, James Frey is an author. He wrote a book called A Million Little Pieces. This is [supposedly] a memoir of Mr. Frey’s life as an alcoholic, drug addicted, career criminal. Oprah found the book to be so compelling that she broke from tradition and made this her first [in quite some time] contemporary novel for her Oprah’s Book Club. This nomination, of course, found Mr. Frey at the top of the best sellers lists for quite some time and made him a very rich man.

In December, The Smoking Gun called James Frey out. Apparently they have found many discrepancies in his story. In fact James Frey [allegedly] was not an outcast as a child. Nor was he seen as big of a trouble maker as he makes himself out to be. He has never spent more than a few hours in jail. And he has a whole section of his book devoted to a “very good friend” of his who he “really loved” but she was killed in a train accident when they were children. His account of the story is quite different then what actually happened.

Oprah is angry. She went out on a limb for this book and this author. She fully believed in his story even after The Smoking Gun came out with this story. And she called in and made some comments on the Larry King show that she’s not very proud of. Mainly she was saying that whether or not his book is true is irrelevant. She is now eating those words and apologizing to her viewers and followers. And I don’t think she’s too thrilled with having to apologize to millions of people. She certainly let James Frey know that during her interview.

I have heard many people comment that they don’t understand why this is such a controversy. They say he wrote a good book and they like it whether it was true or not. So let me help explain it.

I must first put a little disclaimer. I have not read the book. So I can only go by what I’ve seen on Oprah, The Smoking Gun and other reputable news sources. But the gist of it is, it may be a good book. It may have a good message. But if it’s not true then it’s not a memoir. It’s fiction.

Yes, I understand that memoirs aren’t always traditional non-fiction in the sense that it may not be based on facts alone. Much of it is based on memories. And we all remember things differently. What I remember about my mom telling me my parents were separating when I was six years old may be totally different then what my mom remembers. It was a long time ago and a lot of details are sketchy. Plus James Frey was drunk or high through many of his experiences so his memories may be especially foggy.

But James Frey has now admitted that “most” of what The Smoking Gun has claimed is true. James Frey did embellish. He did change names. He did change some of the “facts” to make it a more dramatic story. He did not spend time in jail. And he did not know the girl that died in the train accident as well as he claims in his book. That’s lying. That’s not remembering it differently or with a bit of fog. That’s out right lying. That’s fiction. It may be fiction based on his true life, fiction based on a true story. But fiction nonetheless.

We were all outraged by the reporter who made up stories about Iraq. Why? Because we rely on our news to be true and factual. This is very similiar.

We group non-fiction books together as truthful because we use them to learn from. We use them as fact.

Many of us also love fiction. We love it because it’s not real. Because it allows us to curl up in our fluffy bunny slippers with a cup of milk and pretend we are somewhere else. We love it because we can take a few moments from the real world and live in our fiction world.

We do not, however, like to be duped and think we are learning facts when instead we are floating in fiction.

Many writers are outraged because this is a slap in the face of the writing profession. How can you take writers seriously when some writers write fiction and masquerade it as non-fiction? How will readers be able to believe “real” non-fiction writers? Won’t there always be a sort of “well what if this writer is a big fat liar like that James Frey guy” thoughts floating through the readers mind?

Plus James Frey defrauded us and made millions of dollars off of us. And all the while, we were feeling sorry for him. Sorry that he went through all of this. Happy that he survived it. Inspired by his story. If he can do it, we can do it. People, thought “I can get over my drug and alcohol problems because James Frey did it and he was worse of them me.” But in fact, he was not worse off then many Americans who are actually struggling with these problems.

I’m not disputing that he did have problems with drugs and alcohol. In fact it seems that he was actually truthful with that aspect of his life. But he didn’t experience many of the other things that low income, desperately sick addicts face. He did not experience the heartwrenching terror of being an outcast in high school. He did not spend time in jail or get assualted by cops or bludgeon by inmates. He does not have these experiences, but he wrote about them as if he had. That’s a lie. He’s a liar. And he’s spouting out about how AA’s twelve step program isn’t necessary and alcoholism isn’t a disease, when in fact he doesn’t have the expertise to make those claims.

If you want to write fiction, write fiction. More power to you. But don’t write fiction and call it a memoir.

And the whole hour that James Frey sat on Oprah’s couch he reminded me of one of my children. The look on his face. The tone in his voice. The stuttering. What he said as Oprah confronted him. It was just like a young child who just got caught in a lie. “But, umm…well.” Yeah, no. Stop lying. At least give us that much respect. You’ve been found out. Now stand up and take it like a man. I know I’d have a whole lot more respect for him if he would have just said, “You know what Oprah. I made a mistake. I made an ass out of you, out of my publisher, and myself. And I am truly sorry.” Done. I know it’s hard, but you are a 36 year old man. You made your mess. Now lie in it.