odd

So, Facebook is kind of a weird thing, right? I mean, you find people that you haven't seen/heard from/talked to in ages, add them to your list of friends, and then after a few small opening pleasantries, you don't really talk to them any more than you did before you found them on Facebook.

It's like you're keeping them in your back pocket, just in case you want to say hi, or see what's going on in their lives.

Of course, this isn't the only use of Facebook. I have plenty of friends that I do see on a regular basis that are also Facebook friends...and there's Word Twist. (Which, by the way, needs some sort of 12-step program add-on app.)

But back to that first use...you see, I was checking my Facebook, as I so often do, when I saw that my good friend in high school and her husband (a guy I had dated for about 2 weeks back in high school), just had a baby boy. I am incredibly happy for them. Absolutely so.

However, it was also kind of weird. Probably because I've technically lost touch with them. But also because I'm beginning to feel how much time has passed since I was a teenager and we just talked about these kinds of things in our futures. Now, those things are actually happening.

Well, sort of. I mean, yes, I have a son. (An 8-year-old son...holy cat turds...eight?! Wow.) And yes, I was married...once...a long time ago...for a short time. But those things happened in my life when my friends were still just predicting those things in their futures.

I kind of feel like I'm in this odd place. Here I am, a pretty seasoned parenting veteran...at least in terms of baby and toddlerhood...those teenager years scare the shit out of me more and more as they draw nearer...

but I have no close friends getting married, already married, with kids, expecting kids. Heck, I don't even understand that crazy mom-talk when I attend a party with other moms who've been leading, say, a more traditional life. It's like, I'm one half mommy and one half cosmopolitan. And I actually like that. You will never find me huddled in the kitchen with the other hens, talking about curtains, casseroles, or cat litter.

But at the same time, I guess I have this curiosity about what it's like to have friends my age with families. I mean, I have great friends and I love all of them. And this is not some sort of strange plea for them to all get hitched and pop out a couple of loin-fruits A.S.A.P.

Not at all. But when I see an old high school friend and her husband taking that next step in their lives, I find myself one part choked up, one part happy for them, and one part completely confused and weirded out.

Also, have I mentioned that I turn 28 next week? I feel like this could be the root of this particular issue...

...like, am I where I'm supposed to be at 2 years til 30?

I guess so, because if not, then I'd be somewhere else...right?

Right.

$25 for 3 shrimp and 1 tbsp. of (mediocre) crab dip

So, my 10-year high school reunion was this past Saturday. I didn't post a picture because, well I didn't actually take any.

That's right. No pictures of my 10-year reunion. Why?

Well, although the effort was there, and I did have a nice conversation with one girl in my class, in all, the gig was lame. L-A-M-E.

Put it this way: Instead of wanting to find out how we all spent this past decade, the cliques of high-school past returned, successfully clustering together and not talking to anyone else.

It was brilliant. But I didn't feel bad. Quite the contrary, really. I was willing and eager to talk to everyone. I mean, 10 years is a long time, and it would have been nice to see what everyone's been up to. I said hello to everyone, tried to engage in small talk. Smiled. Laughed. Etc.

And when the responses weren't returned, I just sat back and watched the room. I didn't feel like I was the bigger person, or that I had matured more. What I did realize was that I have reached a point in my life where I know that I can't control the behavior of others, and that I can't hold it against them either. They are who they are. I am who I am. (That's very Popeye-esque, am I right?)

I left at a little after 10PM and headed elsewhere.

And, by the way, can I just say? The gas station attendant at the BP where I stopped to get a Red Bull was taken aback by the fact that I was attending my 10-year reunion.

"You're kidding me, he said. "Let me see your I.D."

I obliged.

"Wow. You look too young to be 10 years out of high school," he said.

"That's awesome of you to say that," I replied.

"It's awesome of you to look so young," he said.

(Okay, so I realize that last response was more awkward than flattering...but I digress.)

Regardless of the perviness factor in the attendant's amazement, it was nice to think that after 10 years I'm not showing my age.

Not so nice to think that I might have left the guy with a boner.

Hey, I'm just sayin'...

nostalgia

I took this picture 3 years ago in Green Bay, Wisconsin on a road trip with Angela. I could go into all the gory details, but I won't. In short, it was quite the "break out of the mold and find yourself" summer.

I was 24, single for the first time in a long time, and I was pretty darned fearless actually.

I was also really skinny...but I digress.

I guess I'm just feeling a little nostalgic as of late. I think it's because I'm still adjusting to things in my life. I'm also coming up on 28, which still seems weird to me.

Sometimes I feel much older. Sometimes I feel much younger. But usually, I feel like I don't know what I'm supposed to feel like at 28. Does that even make sense? I guess it's a matter of coming to grips with the way you imagined your life, and the way it's actually turned out.

And actually? I wouldn't change a thing.

colorful language

After an intense day of Back-to-School-the-Day-Before-School-Starts school shopping, I was exhausted, to say the very least.

Max had tried on at least 20 pairs of shoes before I convinced him to go with the Vans on clearance for $15. Apparently, even he knows a bargain when he sees one...which is great.

After pulling in the driveway and carrying 5 bags, my purse, and a travel coffee mug up the back stairs, I used the pinkie finger from my left hand and the middle finger from my right to fumble for the house key. Unfortunately all of that awkward fumbling caused my car key to break loose from its ring and hit the deck.

As the key thumped on the wood, I instinctively shouted, "Shit!"

Then I looked at Max.

"Sorry, Max. Mom shouldn't say things like that."

He looked up at me and gave me an understanding nod---and forgiveness for my foul mouth. I mean, it's rare I drop a curse word in front of him, but it happens. Heck, when we play video games, inevitably a "damn" or a "shit" will pop out, especially when Mario fails to make a jump for the 18379384th time.

That's when Max will say, "Mom! You're not supposed to say that word." And that's when I humbly apologize, and he says, "That's okay."

But it got me thinking. I remember the very first time I let the word "shit" slip from my juvenile mouth---right in front of my dad. We were in the 87 Dodge Caravan, driving up the street to somewhere I can't remember. I was probably 11 or so, and I remember being introduced to Razzles candies that day---you know, those candies that magically turn into gum?

I had been chewing on a few pieces that afternoon. So sure, they go from candy to gum, but what my friends failed to mention was that if you chew them for too long, they also magically disintegrate into stringy, lumpy, slime. And as we were going down the street, that's exactly what happened. One minute gum, and in a split second, a mouthful of fruit-flavored, rainbow-colored bird poop.

So, I quietly muttered, "Shit."

For a moment, the interior of the car started spinning, my face got hot, and my ears began to buzz.

Did I just cuss? In front of my dad?!?! Did he hear me? What the hell am I going to do with this mouthful of lumpy stew?

My dad kept on driving. He didn't say a word. But for the next few years, I didn't utter a bad word in front of my parents again.

But during that part of life, that part when there are words that you're not supposed to say and really aren't allowed to say? It's sort of breathtaking. Think about it. When you said them around your friends, out of ear shot of parents, teachers, or other adults, you felt sort of empowered. I mean, you could almost taste those words...and they were delicious.

And then, at some point, they became words that you still weren't supposed to say, but could say if and when you needed to.

At six, I was allowed to say "dang." (Turns out, I could have been saying it all along. But I'd heard my babysitter say it and just assumed it was a bad word...so one day, I just asked and ended up getting the go ahead.)

At twelve, I was allowed to say "crap" whenever I wanted.

At sixteen, I could get by with "hell", "damn", "piss", and the occasional "shit." I could even say "bitch" so long as it wasn't in reference to my mother.

And, even though my friends and I had been saying it for a few years already, by 18, I could drop the mother of all curse words--the F-bomb--in front of my parents. (But I gotta tell you, even though I was allowed to say it, it took a long time to not feel the way I did years before in the back of the family van that day my candy turned to troll snot.)

I guess it's sort of a coming of age thing. A rite of passage of sorts.

But sometimes I wish I could taste those words again, back when they were juicy, forbidden fruits still ripening on the vines of my vocabulary.

No shit.

again with the blast from the past...

I don't know what it is about this week but, damn have I been nostalgic. And it's not like on-purpose nostalgia. It's more like, things pop into my head or something comes up and BAM! I'm back 3, maybe 5, or even 10 - 15 years ago.

It happened again today. See that video up there? Michael Penn's "No Myth." Brilliant song. Well, I was listening to Last.fm again today, and all of a sudden it came on. And in an instant, there I was as the Roller Dome skating rink in north Hammond, holding hands with my very first boyfriend--we'll call him M.

Ah, puppy love. I mean, at the time it felt genuine. I was only 14, so in my adolescent mind M was 'The One." I imagined our lives together: house, white picket fence, a dog, and 2.5 strawberry-blonde-headed children. (I have always wanted to be a redhead, so the fact that M had a reddish tint to his coif pretty much sealed the deal for me back then.)

But when "No Myth" came on, for a moment, the memory of M and the Summer of 1995 (Holy cripes...13 years ago? Really? Wow. Hold on, I need to regroup for a minute.)...

...as I was saying, when "No Myth" came on today, it brought back that memory of me and M at the roller rink way back in 1995. This song was playing during a couple's skate when M skated me to a dark corner, and I had my first kiss under a shower of lights from the disco ball.

Of course, I make it sound so poetic now. In reality I had a mouth full of Bazooka bubble gum and I had no idea how to kiss.

Like, at all.
And the place smelled like hot dogs and nachos.

Anyways, M and I spent that entire summer together, making out on my front porch swing, (This was before the city decided to install landing-strip-intensity street lights on my street, making secret make-out sessions on the front porch virtually impossible.), talking on the phone for hours, and celebrating our month-a-versaries. Yes, I got flowers once a month every month for an entire summer.

But all this nostalgia I'm feeling, I guess it's not so much about missing M. I mean, he was sweet, but it's not about missing M at all. I think it's the innocence that I miss. When it was all foreign to me,and my heart (among other things) was experiencing all of these new feelings, and it didn't have any bad relationship experiences to reference yet. That naiveté is priceless, and when we are going through it, we don't notice it. And really, that's kind of sad.

I wish I could have found a way to bottle that precious innocence up and could have saved some of it, so that I could daub some on like fine perfume every now and again. Just let it wash over me like those orbs of white light from the Roller Dome's mirror ball back in 1995, all sparkly and new.