I keep changing my tagline because I still don’t know what I’m doing with this blog and because I like to pretend that anyone other than me might actually care. Also on the list of bloggy-things-that-only-I-care-about, I redesigned the page now that I have this supremely amazing-but-not-really new tagline that I will change nineteen times in my head in the next eight days but not actually execute any of these changes, so that I can grumble about how desperately it needs to be changed each time I see it.

Anyway, to go with this new tagline I am going to shoddily string together a sampling of a few low level experiences with public humiliation because I can’t go giving everything away that quickly/easily/otherily. After I do this, you are going to pretend that I have written a clever and cohesive post, all right? Or at least smile and nod and give me a gold star. That works too.

Last week I won the random-number-lottery for the Karaoke Ring of Death because I was assigned the privilege of hosting Sara, but she’s getting married soon so she’s got this real life that keeps her busy. That must suck.

However, as part of the purpose of a blog ring is to say “HEY GO CHECK OUT THIS PERSON’S BLOG,” I ought to thank Tabs and tell you to check out Geeky Ambiguous Me. Or you can cut straight to me dancing around my bedroom like an idiot and looking at my imaginary friend. Last week’s post about my best friend was written mostly as a prologue to this little gem. You’re welcome. The full list with all of the amazing videos (and the forseriouslyforserious amazing video Jas did) can be found on Sara’s blog.

In other blog-related things, the snark squad has some fun new posts and while googling “Toddlers & Tiaras” for this week’s BSC post, I realized that this blog has yet to include any of my stories from my days as a pageant child.

Yes, that’s right, I was — briefly — a pageant child. Everyone likes to blame the media or Britney Spears or Barbie for their issues. I blame pageants. Specifically, I blame this girl from the ballet class I took in kindergarten. I don’t remember her name, I just know she had really big hair, so we’ll call her Savannah. I blame Savannah for taking my dance class because it was her mother (who I also hold accountable) who first mentioned this idea to us. That bitch.

If we’re friends, I have probably made some sort of passing reference to this without including any sort of back story or explanation. You would be surprised how often this comes up. Not just because my propensity for glitter and sequins has never left me or because there is any other natural reason one would converse about the sick practice of parading small girls around in makeup designed to make them look like grown women. It comes up often because my friends are twisted individuals and somehow the show Toddlers & Tiaras comes up often in conversation.

One of many reasons this confuses people is that I obviously lack the grace and poise those creepy little toddlers demonstrate. I admit it. Every toddler on that show is more graceful than I will ever be. I have come to terms with my failures.

Another significant reason this confuses people who know me is that my mother does not strike anyone as the sort of person who would make a good stage mother. These people are right. I say this fully to my mother’s credit. Her policy on parenting has always been that if we wanted to do something and it wasn’t illegal or dangerous, we could. And “dangerous” and “illegal” really just meant it might be negotiable. She was always very involved but gave us plenty of room to make our mistakes.

If you have ever seen Toddlers & Tiaras, you are getting a pretty accurate picture. The company that organized most of the pageants I participated in has been on the show. Pageant moms are cray-cray. These women use the word “we” an awful lot. “We weren’t prepared.” / “We need to perfect our baton twirling!” This is how they talk about their child’s performance. It’s about nineteen thousand kinds of ridiculous. You are talking about a three-year-old walking up and down a stage in a tacky dress and gaudy makeup, you know that, right? You realize that you are a grown-ass woman living vicariously through said three-year-old, right? Oh you do? Just checking.

My mom, on the other hand, didn’t care that much. I wanted to run around on stage in a dress with lots of sparkly shit and put on makeup and there was a talent competition where I could wear my tap shoes and make loud noises. MOST. FUN. EVER. Add a few pre-stage shots to this equation and it still sounds like a damn good time.

However, the judges did not seem to appreciate my quirky approach to pageantry as much as they clearly should have. Now, I wasn’t Little Miss Sunshine ridiculous, although I wish I could say that I had been because that would make this post so much more interesting and I wouldn’t be grasping so desperately at these straws. Can you see the desperation?

It didn’t seem to matter if there were eleven girls in my age group or three, I was always First Runner Up. Speaking of “Things That Gave Me A Complex Or Two Or Ninety” … I have never been a gracious loser and I was not fooled by their stupid crown and trophy. I knew it was the pity crown.

I vividly recall the one time that my mother tried to intervene and make the hair and makeup more like what all the other little girls did and I was pissed. The experience reaffirmed her “pick your battles” approach to parenting. In her defense, she was trying to keep me from being sad when I inevitably didn’t win. In a way, we all won, because this picture happened: I wasted an hour of free time I did not have trying to track down this picture, to no avail. I found pictures from the same day, but the one in which I am angrily pouting in my frilly little dress (hey Nugs: it’s the original “petulant-child-Nicole”) was nowhere to be found. Instead you get this, taken moments later when little me unsuccessfully tried to put her game face on:

I think that was my Love Me Please face.

A poor replacement. First Runner Up all over again. Sorry kid.

But I do have a millionty trophies for the various superlatives — eyes, hair, smile! How’s that for sending young girls good messages about their self worth? You have very pretty hair, here’s a trophy! Don’t do anything that might get that dress dirty, though! No trophies for little girls who get their dresses dirty.

It is inevitable that a decade later I would attempt to protest this injustice by becoming a fifteen year old who wore stupid looking clothing covered in safety pins and had long bright purple hair (Which remained my high school identifier long after the purple was gone. “Oh, you know, The Girl With The Purple Hair.”)

Eventually my mom had to put her foot down and tell me that if I wanted to run around in sparkly dresses, I’d have to do that at home. Even she had to admit that no matter how much I claimed to want to do this, it was pretty clear that something was not good about that situation. Fortunately, I now had a collection of crowns to go with my sparkly dresses and enough younger siblings and cousins to goad into performing in plays that I wrote, directed, and starred in. The fact that I was that kid should not surprise anyone. Maybe my new tagline should be “Realizing What An Asshole I Have Been In Life” or something like that.

Clearly, so much has changed since then. (This is the end. The part where you give me those gold stars.)