Step 44: My Life, The Ben Folds Musical

It's no secret that I am a huge Ben Folds/Ben Folds Five fan, have been since I was a kid. My sisters are pretty big fans as well, and we always marvel at his vast array of discography. A while back, it was mentioned amongst us that a musical of anyone's life could be made with only Ben Folds or Ben Folds Five music. On my flight from Salt Lake to Pittsburgh this Christmas, I decided to use my spare time to write my very own Ben Folds musical of my life. I decided which songs would go for which year of my life. Here it is:

1 -5 years old: Gracie and Philosophy and For All the Pretty People
6 - 10 years old: Kate and She Don't Use Jelly and Bastard
11 years old: Jane
12 years old: Alice Childress
13 years old: Air
14 years old: Underground
15 years old: Best Imitation of Myself and Rockin' the Suburbs
16 years old: Not the Same
17 years old: Julianne and Song for the Dumped

Intermission: Mitchell Lane and Steven's Last Night in Town and Fred Jones Pt 2 and Magic

18 years old: Your Redneck Past and Army
19 years old: Wandering and Jackson Cannery
20 years old: Zak and Sara and Still Fighting It
21 years old: Landed and Regrets
22 years old: Annie Waits and Don't Change Your Plans and Evaporated
23 years old: Late and Video

....choreography to follow.

Step 43: Accomplish Great Things

I have been trying to apply to graduate school over the past few weeks. It has been a totally irritating process, and I really have got nothing done so far which is so typical of me. While filling out applications, I keep running across the same question: What is one of your greatest accomplishments (or something to that tune). It's pretty standard, I know, but always a difficult question for me. You see, I am excellent at being a face in the crowd and making snide comments under my breath, not for being captain of the whatever or leader of the X. And besides, shouldn't it be obvious what my greatest accomplishment is? I'm applying for graduate school which means I GRADUATED...but I feel like I can't write that. Every time I read this question, I start to zone out because it makes me feel like nothing is enough for these people.

While quietly zoning out the other day, one of my favorite childhood accomplishments came flooding back to me...

I was at my neighbor's house, Stephanie. She had this fancy basement with a laser-disk player that we would watch Tom and Jerry on all the time (and later in life we would switch out Tom and Jerry for Spice World...but that's another story). Her basement also had an awesome sound system hooked up with the laser-disk. I guess this was sort of lost on us since we only used it to watch cartoons, but her brother was very aware of the basement's capabilities.

Some how, a game got started with Steph and I and her brother who was five or six years older than us. The game was that we would each pick a song from his CD collection and make a dance routine to it. Her brother would then watch the dances and judge them.

Naturally, we would mostly pick No Doubt and Ace of Base songs, but there was one song we always wanted to pick but were too afraid: Janet Jackson - If. We had both tried dancing to the song before. For whatever reason, the beats of Janet Jackson proved to be far too superior for our elementary dance moves. Dancing to that song always meant a losing score. It was dance competition death to choose that song.

Well, after drinking a lot of Juicy-Juice and eating a bowl of Spaghettios, I felt like I was on-top of the world, and then we decided to play dance competition. I chose "If." Her brother kept warning me, begging me not to throw away the competition, not to seal my own fate. Stephanie hungrily licked her lips at what was turning out to be an easy win. "No," I told them both, "I want to do it."

I stuck to my instincts and danced to "If." When it was my turn to dance, I moved like I was on fire. Flailing about and doing cartwheel after cartwheel. I was going to win this dance to "If" no matter what. I wanted it so bad. All I really remember is thinking that I had to go faster.

My speed and effort paid off. When Steph and I both stood before our judge, I received a 9.5 (or something like that...I don't remember exactly). He said it was the highest score ever awarded for an "If" routine. I swelled with pride. I had decided what I wanted, went after it, and got it. A true Neeley- hard worker by day, dancer by night.

I know that most of you will read this and chuckle or, even better, roll your eyes, but I think it was my first sign of greatness. And I just can't stop thinking about a graduate board reading this story and thinking that I am insane which for some reason gives me a little bit of a smile. Plus, they already know my most recent greatest accomplishment- graduating - so why not give them my first as well?