Carol Bontekoe
This blog has been keeping track of my adventures since 2004. The stories and the adventures have come from my college dorm room to Uganda, Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan, learning Dutch in the Netherlands to living in the wilds of Homer, Alaska. I went back to school in Amsterdam to study Theaterwetenschap (Theatre Science) at University of Amsterdam. And now my adventures as a Fruit Fly, a Sexy Unicorn, and creating a movement with Team Sparkle in Chicago.
I always wanted to be a dancer. To be graceful and ellogant, and lets face it tutus are hot! I have always wanted to wear a tutu. But whenever I trip or stumble over something I think this would never happen if I had been allowed to become the great ballerina that is with in me. One time when I was in 9th grade after a particularly bad fall in a basketball game, it looked like I tripped over the half court line and Casey Garvey replayed that part of the game tape over and over and over..., I asked my mom how come both of my sisters had gotten to take dance class but I never got to. She looked at me and said straight up, "I didn't want to be embarressed. You are so clumpsy, tall, and ackward. IT would have been a complete mess." I wasn't hurt but stunned. Stunned that my career in dance was based on what I ended up because I didn't take dance. Maybe I would have ended up some tall graceful model for tutus, if only I had been able to take dance when I was six.
If I owned a book store I would name it Book Shelf. It would be a brilliant little book store where people take care of each other. I would know my regular customers and their style of books and would be able to tell them if a new book came in that they might enjoy. I would have the older divorcee woman who is bettering herself. She has moved past her self help book phase and has now gone back to the classic literature she should have read a long time ago and that she has been claiming to have read in college for years.The artsy college student who refuses to go to those chain bookstores because chain stores are the down fall of this country. He comes with his scarf, fair trade coffee, and his pen and notebook (lap tops take away from his love of words) to write out his future book that he always tells me about so I can get his book on my shelf before everyone else. Then there is the old man who loves books, always has. He makes sure to tell me my place isn’t as good as this used bookstore that used to be in the neighborhood, but since I was the closest store to him he was going to have to make himself enjoy my store. HE always takes two of the cookies that I set out instead of just a polite solitary one like everyone else does. I would be a great bookstore owner. Everyone would love me and confide in me. I would be like a bartender but with books instead of booze. I would find some witty anecdote for whatever problem they have from some book I read. I would wear black, drink too much coffee, and have black rimmed glasses. I would be awesome!
I like to validate my Existence by typing my name into Google and checcking something comes up. I realized that this past school year when I would get quoted in the State News(MSU's newspaper) I tended to come off like an asshole."I am one of the laziest people you'll ever meet," Bontekoe joked on stage. "I live on the third floor, but I take the elevator, and I won't walk up the stairs, but I'll sprint and dive to catch the elevator." -10/4/2004"If there's one experience in my life that beats going to Africa or studying abroad in Europe, it would be playing Plinko at UAB's Price is Right," Bontekoe said.3/21/2005ahhhhh well...... at least you can find something under my name when you google it!
I was driving the Skid Steer today and I noticed a sticker on it that simply said:DANGER!AVOID DEATH!no tips on how to achieve avoiding death. they aren't saying you aren't going to die they are just saying Avoid it for as long as possible. And they don't wanna be sued if you fuck up on that whole dieing thing. Isn't that the only time strangers care about someones death? If there is a possiblty of them getting sued. What am I doing right now? I'm Avoiding death.
Today while I was at the Store trying to buy some stationary I had wondered into the wrong paper aisle and found something that I was tempeted to buy for later. I found a do-it-yourself-kit called:GET A DIVORCE:The Do-It-Yourself-Kit.I thought hmmmmmm... Why shouldn't divorce be available in an aisle for the low cost of 20 dollars. It's perfect. It is so American. I really wanted to get it for my first marriage I want it to be quick and as painless as possible. So maybe I should buy it and save it. So when my first husband decides he won't put out one night I'll reach into my sock draw and pull out the Get a Divorce papers and be like alright you put on Conan I'll start filling these out. Because I am a woman of the 21st century and I can do it by myself. I didn't buy it, not enough money. But it is nice to know that it is there. So when I get married I don't have to be nervous because I know when divorce time comes I can do it myself.
My open LetterWriting about camp would take too long for me to do again so I just am putting in the email I sent my sister about it.Hola Hermana!Girl I'm glad you got to Ecuador safe and everything, and I'm glad that mom's fears about you being brought to Ecuador as a slave to some Ecuadorian family as been abated, but girl you told me like nothing about la Jungla! What is the low down Double D? Any cool birds or monkeys?Well that Camp I went to was awesome! I think you should do it next year. I had prepared myself for the absolute worst but it was so cool. Like everyday we would learn a lesson from the Bible and then we would try to apply that lesson while we played volleyball. Of course my volleyball team lost ALL of our games the first day, so my uber competive nature had trouble remembering the principles I just cursed the fact that I had never been a good volleyball player because I wanted to WIN!!! We evetually did start winning but it was after a long time. We even had to play one game in complete silence! No clapping even. That was frickin' intense.We got to go white water rafting! They weren't very big rapids but it was fun, it was rainy so the water was pretty fast and choppy. And even though these weren't big rapids, one guy on my boat fell out! His name is Dan and he fell out because of his own stupidity. He of course acted like he was the best rafter in the group and would never listen. So he fell out and it took forever(!) to get him back in the boat. Because it took so long to get him in the boat we got derailed and ended up in an Eddy, which is suppose to be the safe area. Well in the midsts of pulling Dan's dumbass back in the boat the other fat kid Max and I ended up on the same side of the boat. SO while we were in the Eddy we ended up High Siding with no warning. It didn't high side on the fat kid side! So the boat is up on one side and we were all scrambling to get to the high side, I honestly thought the boat was going to flip but I was still fighting it. But I couldn't really hold on so i grabbed Max's life Jacket and he broke me off of him and I WENT IN THE WATER!!!! AHHHH!!!! SO COLD! And the problem with falling in where I did is it was so freakin' shallow, I probablly just could have stood up and gotten back in. But in the panic of Carol has fallen out of the boat, They wouldn't let me go and I was being dragged on top of rocks, Hit my knee! And I had the world's smallest life jacket so my back was getting beat up.But my boat had the most interesting journey so it's all good in the end and I wasn't seiriously hurt. Another night we went to this place called Fort Fun which had laser tag and these girls Ali and Molly kept pretending to be nice to me and then would kill me. So I did terribly but I had fun. HAHAHAHA I have been putting off telling you about what you wanna hear about. THE SPECIAL! That 24 hour work out thing that you wanted me to go into training for. I prolly should have trained but I don't think there is anything I could have really done to train for it. I did finish! I did fine actually. And like cuz I'm fat they kept thinking I couldn't do anything. We like started out with Volleyball where my team sucked, then ultimate frisbee where my team sucked, then tug of war where my team actually did alright, then push-ups where I feel like we weren't the worst team, then Swimming where may I say I kicked ass, Then Basketball. That was the first day. I kept getting frustrated cuz seriously every five seconds they were like Carol you need a break? I'm like I'm freakin' fine. They even were like checking on me during swimming, when I was doing well. We did get like 2 hours sleep after all that before having to get up at 4 for an obsticle course. It was insane. That is when I was breaking down cuz I'm so tired. We had to make free throws in the dark, hit tennis balls in the dark, do the army crawl, up downs, go around a track, and then push a car. All that while carrying a board with a tire around it. It sucked ass! We ran like 3 miles! after that I passed out for a little bit and ya know how I sleep with my eyes open, one girl thought my I was dead! hahahaha.Then we played Kick Ball(where I was still asked if I was alright) and then we did relays where I had to do crab crawl cuz one girls arms were tired and it took me like a half hour to do the crab crawl. After that is when I had to run up the mountain with a board on my back. It was so hard and I wasn't running so much as walking, BUT I FINISHED!!! WHAT?! WHAT?! I'm really glad I did it though!I even found some good chrstian songs for ya cuz I know how much ya like them ;) My favorite was called Prince of Peace. Saaaaaaaa Good. ALright I'm going to go rake leaves!!!!! NEVER ENDS DOES IT?! Holla back at me girl and have fun!From here to the moon this is CAROL BONTEKOE signing out
Have you ever had one of those moments in life where you thought to yourself. Man My life did not turn out the way I thought it would. I seem to have those alot. But this morning I had a big one of those realizations. I was tailing a cow this morning, that is when you hold up the cow's tail because it makes them more complacent and makes it so they can't kick. Well if you can't already visualize it, if I'm having to fight a cow to keeps it's tail up that means that I'm lookin' her straight in the ass. So when one of these lovely ladies decided to crap on my face,I thought Man my life did not turn out how I thought it would. If you had told me growing up or even in high school that in the summer of my 21st year I would be having a cow crap on my face at 7 in the morning I would have laughed at you. But here we are and I sure enough got crapped on my face. So I'm going to stop thinking my life is going to be so grand, cuz then the next time I'm standing there with crap on my face I won't be so suprised. Maybe I should expect bad things because then life will give me good. So if I expect to die young I'll live til I'm old. If I expect to never find the love of my life he will come a knockin' on my door. And if I expect to be poor I'll end up with Bill Gates kind of money honey. So that is the plan from now on I'm going to absolutely be a pessimist, so I'm always delightfully suprised. I'll Never think about my future because then I will never have to think about how my life didn't turn out as planned. I will NEVER be suprised ever again by having my face crapped on.
I am familiar with the old 1990’s film that shows the life of a clueless Beverly Hills GIRL. But that is not fair. If you wanted to make a movie that truly could be called Clueless it would need to be about a BOY, not a girl.
The question on my mind is: WHY ARE BOYS SO CLUELESS? Why is it that they have the ability to crush your spirit, hurt your feelings, and in general make you feel over looked, and then can smile at you and start joking around about the latest movie (book, song, show, game, whatever is their thing)?
It is times like these that I curse God for making me absolutely not attracted to women. Life would be so much easier with women. Wait! Scratch that then I would have to put up with moods, Lilith fair, and the complete chaos of never being able to properly answer those double-edged questions such as “Do you think she is prettier than me?” as a blatantly better looking girl walks by. No, dating women would not be the answer.
But I still hate how completely oblivious boys are. Maybe since I am not willing to switch to the other metaphoric team I should just give up on being on a team all together. I could join plants, worms, and Paula Pondstone and become asexual. At 21 should I just turn in my gear and walk a way from “the game”? I know I had friends whose parents told them to stop playing if they weren’t having fun, that could be the answer. Or maybe I need to stick with how my mom raised me, you fall down, fail, everyone kicks you and you are suppose to stand up put on your best half-hearted smile and shake it off. Sometimes I wish I could return to the simplicity of a little league game instead of this grown up “game” of relationships.
V. Bad. Room is completely Trashed. So is life. I found that I like them that way though. There is always potential to fix them and make them better. They will get better when I make the desicion to fix them. But, if they are a mess and I have been trying to fix them than I'm just a failure. As long as I keep my room and my life a complete mess I still have time to fix them up and finsih on top. With a fantastic room and a terific life. :)
CMT celebrates Black History Month......
I was thinking about Crushes today. How we build our crushes up to become these super people. I mean isn't your crush always the smartest person you know. Oh and of course funny in this way that you totally get, even if other people don't. There is always just that something, that thing you can't describe about them that makes them so special to you. Then of course there is the issue of befriending your crush. Oh man don't even get me started(as Molly Shannon would say) That seems to be my hobby, either becoming their friend once I have a crush on them or crushing a friend and becoming an even better friend to them. I'm always that funny pal they can call if they need me but have a tendency to forget about til they really need something, even though you being the crusher(sounds more badass than pathetic) is always on time and very attentive. There is always that issue too of them not being interested in you. But an even more pressing and upsetting issue is when they like someone else and you have to hear about it. Because of course you hate the bitch(there is the random once in a while where they like someone who is actually nice and that can be much worse and hurt much more then when they like the crazy ass bitch) but you can never tell them that. You don't want to look like you like your crush and trash talking the bitch is the fast way to look like you do. You have to smile and say nice things about her and stuff. Where as when you don't like someone and they really are just your friend you can call his girlfriend a drunken slut all you want. I was thinking about my crush today. Alright I think about him everyday, get of my back!!!!! Well anyways Jenny Jo and I were watching Scrubs we both have a superficial crush on the character J.D., not Zach Braff he in real life seems weird. But I was hypothetically thinking that it is more likely that I have more of a chance of getting with J.D.(a made up character) then I do my crush. So it made me think should we never have crushes because of the CRUSHing pain it can cause? Or should we only like people that we can have? Or should I just give up and become a catholic and give up on men and become a nun?And then I realized even though nothing may come of them I actually enjoy having a crush. It leaves you something to hope for. And sometimes a little hope is what we need in our lives.
