For some reason, “high school” invokes dark flashes of fangs, horns, claws and nameless dread.
Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I remember. I do seem to live in an alternate reality much of the time.
I mean, everyone rewrites history a little.
For instance, when you’re divorced, there is rarely anything nice to say about your estranged partner, although you’re sure that at some point you must have liked them enough to get married and even possibly spawn.
Alternately, if you’re infatuated with someone, you don’t see their flaws as plainly and in such stark detail as someone who despises them would.
But when I think of high school, I think 4 YEARS OF HELL.
Couldn’t have been that bad. Couldn’t have possibly been as bad as what high school today is like for our own teens. They seem to have so much more to worry about than we did. Somehow, they often have fewer responsibilities, but more stress. (How did that happen?)
Did I hate everyone? No. I was, I suppose, the typical outcast. I worried too much about who liked who, and who liked me. If I fit in, and how I could.
I lacked the self-esteem to not care what others thought.
I lacked the guts to make new friends, and barely spoke to people outside of my tiny group.
I was certain that everyone judged me, hated me, talked about me behind my back. More likely, I was simply ignored most of the time, and my overactive imagination made it much more.
Was high school truly Hell on Earth? Nah. But I somehow convinced myself otherwise.
Right around that 5 year reunion time, I was working for a rock star and had borrowed balls. I was as adamant about going as the trailer-trash-turned-trashy-lingerie-model on Jerry Springer, “Ya’ll jes lookit me NOW!” But the invitation never came, and that immature young adult attitude faded.
By the time the 10 year reunion rolled around, I was resolved that I had kept in touch with everyone that mattered and there was nothing to be gained by paying to have dinner with a bunch of people that didn’t talk to me then, so why would they now? (I was also suffering from a rapidly imploding life and nearly a total hermit, raising a family of 4 on about $20K a year.)
My life changed radically soon after. In 2001, I reunited with my first real high school boyfriend. I was able to overcome lifelong phobias and break free of crippling depression. Together we’ve traveled and had grand adventures. I broke free of my former self, like a butterfly emerging.
But I’ve made only the tiniest steps in being able to reach out to people without fear of rejection, and that much only by the relative safety of the internet. I’m still an absolute social retard in person. But put me in front of a keyboard and monitor with no pressure, and I’m free.
But if you’re going UNDER the speed limit in the left lane, making no attempt to get out of the way—yeah, it’s gonna happen.
…
But that’s not why I’m here to vent today.
Twice in the past two days, on a fairly deserted stretch of rural divided highway, I’ve been tailgated.
What is important to note, is that there was NO REASON for these people to ride my ass.
There wasn’t heavy traffic.
The road conditions weren’t bad.
I wasn’t going too slow.
I set the cruise at about 4 MPH over the speed limit and relax, because failure to utilize aforementioned cruise control usually condemns me to expensive speeding tickets.
Yet, there she is. For miles.
Not even pulling my hair.
So I courteously and with all due caution and proper signal usage change to the left lane, not disengaging cruise. Violator slingshots past me like they’ve just been blown from a cannon. I change back over to the right lane, boring angry holes into the back of her headrest.
WTH?!
She wasn’t even on a cell phone. Not screaming at kids bouncing around in the back seat. Not chatting excitedly with a girlfriend. Just driving alone, staring forward like a zombie robot student driver. Apparently completely distracted.
That was yesterday’s violator. This morning’s I could not identify because I’d been blinded by their headlights for miles before I moved left and they shot past. I’m not the type to sacrifice the rear end of my car by slamming on my brakes, and I had absolutely no reason to go any faster on this stretch of road in the pre-dawn dark… suicidal deer give precious little advance warning as it is.
One word. Why?
Why. Not. Just. Freaking. PASS?!
Some days I hate my 35 mile commute.
Mostly only those days I have to share the road with stupid.
I created this somewhat crude text design early in my love/hate relationship with Adobe Illustrator, as a newly divorced community college art student.
It later occurred to me that I could raise funds for local domestic violence shelters by offering the design on merch at CafePress. But I didn’t think many people would respond to it.
To my surprise, one person recently bought hundreds of these stickers. I can only guess it was to hand out to survivors and others who might help spread awareness of the key message: verbal abuse is still abuse.
Due to this person’s generosity, I will have a check ready for the SIREN shelter right after the holidays. Just about the same time 8 years ago when I would have needed their help had I not had family to turn to.
You can open a Basic Shop on CafePress in about 8 minutes.
If your idea is good, people will buy merch with your design on it!
Here’s a step-by-step for your first Basic Shop.
First, sign up for CafePress. (If you want to use me as your referrer, my ID is freelief.)
Next, you’ll upload your art (2000 pixels high and/or wide fits most items) and give it some tags that will help customers find it. If you don’t tag it, it won’t show up in the Marketplace search, so don’t skip that step!
Then, click on Open a New Shop.
We’ll look at Premium Shops later. For now, click on FREE Basic Shop.
Simple enough. Choose your URL, name your shop, and if desired send your customers back to your Web site when they have completed their order.
You might be tempted to click on Add Products right away, but DON’T!! First, go to Storefront Info. This will save you a lot of time, and make choosing the right products for your shop easier.
By filling in the default settings, you will be able to see what this design looks like on different merch and won’t have to go back and set pricing or add descriptions later.
Now you’re ready to choose products. The easiest way to go about this, is to click the Make Selections link under All Products (next to the New Products box near the top left of this page) and preview items in the pop-up window that will open.
Your design may not appear to fit on some items, but you can fix that soon. First, click to choose the items you want to sell in your store. It is not necessary to add every item, but you’ll want to give your customers plenty of choices. Don’t choose certain products if your design looks really bad on them.
Once you have selected the items you want, click the Add Selections button and the pop-up window will disappear. Scroll down to the bottom of the main page to add the products.
You’re getting close! Time to fix those items that need the design resized on them to be appealing. Click on the first item you want to change to enter the Product Designer.
From here, you can use the drop down menu under Select Image Height to get your design to look right.
Repeat with other items that need to be amended. Also on this page, you can change the name, description or price markup on all or on just selected items, or remove any items with the Bulk Change tool near the top.
You clicked done, and you are! You’re ready to start making money with CafePress. Share the URL of your store with your friends. I’ve found that regardless of my self-promotion or lack of it, the well-known CafePress and excellent Google search rankings do most of my marketing for me.
Here’s what your new store looks like. Since it is a Basic Shop, there are limitations in the amount of customizing you can do. However, you can open an unlimited number of free Basic Shops and good designs will still compete in the Marketplace.
These are real check amounts from the OOPTEE account, the store that is run by three young entrepreneurs who do virtually NO advertising and have mostly simple text art.
If you decide to get serious with CafePress, you’ll definitely see the advantage of having a Premium Shop. I will discuss some of the perks in another post.
