Journey to the Center of the Car

I do stupid things. Usually this is from either trying to do too many things at once or being flustered from trying to do too many things at once. One of the stupider things I’ve done recently is leave my giant purse open on the floor behind my driver’s seat. I hit the brakes on the way home from teaching a late class out in Prince William, so I figured that whatever the clacking sound that came after braking was Future Kelly’s problem and nothing I felt like dealing with that night.

The next morning, I was trying to find my cell, but gave up after it didn’t turn up in my purse, bedroom, home office, or any of the other levels in our house. I figured it was at work and stopped thinking about it. The phone didn’t end up being at work, so I was minorly concerned about having lost it. That night I figured I should search for it a little more. I eventually made my way out to the car, home phone in hand, to try calling it. Nothing. I went around the house again with the home phone. Nothing. I figured that every time I’ve lost something, it’s been under my driver’s seat. Even completely improbable things like hair brushes, jewelry, and spoons have made their way under the seat; which is really weird because I don’t store things in the car or have anything out of place in there.

I tried calling the phone and listening more carefully, contorting myself to fit squeeze down halfway under the driver’s seat. It was then that I heard a distant vibrating. Great, I left the phone on vibrate for class. Now it would take technology to try to find the phone.

After an hour of reaching, lifting, pushing, and getting bruised, I realized that I’d have to finally admit to someone that I had lost my phone…inside the car. As in deep in the bowels. I had learned enough on my recon mission to know that the phone had made its way into the iPhone-shaped hole that would have a one-in-a-million chance of swallowing a phone for anyone besides me. I figured my dad would be the best person to admit this to since he already bought a flexible, colonoscopy-type camera to shove into the depths of his car to find my mom’s wedding ring (that’s another story, indeed).

Dad and I aren’t known for elegant solutions. Vandersluises are fast and powerful kinds of people when we want to get a job done. For example, my dad bought a gigantic snow blower with a headlight that’s pretty much rated for Antarctic snow. He’s used it once for a legitimate reason, but otherwise uses it to clear the typical DC one inch of snow. So, anyway, we’re all about tools and impressive maneuvers for problem solving. We thought it was a brilliant idea to crow-bar up the carpet and then have me shove my arm down the vent. It didn’t work, and it hurt. We then tried driving up my parents’ steep hill and slamming the breaks to get the phone to move back toward the opening. None of this worked. That meant something worse than just getting a new phone – admitting what I (and my dad) had done.

When I got home, Eric spent three hours disassembling my seat and floor piece by piece in the garage. He then drilled a hole in the vent, narrowly missing the phone screen, pushed in a hanger, and propelled the phone out the vent surprisingly unscathed. He was sweaty, bruised, scratched, and displeased. And the driver’s side of my car was still all over the garage. The look he gave me after everything was back together and settled down was about equal to if he had found me at 30 years old with my head stuck in the stair railing. My husband thinks I’m an idiot, but at least he feels useful.

Attitude Adjustment

I was a pretty good kid growing up. I got in trouble in school a handful of times: (1) when I put cheese in the radiator in 1st grade to see what would happen, (2) when I wrote on the bathroom wall in 4th grade, and (3) when I laughed at the “Bridge of Puberty” in sex ed in 6th grade. Imagine my surprise at the end of 8th grade when out of nowhere the Teen Living teacher angrily pulled me aside while I was wrestling with stitching up my cow pillow and told me I needed an attitude adjustment. I was shocked – surely she couldn’t mean me. I tended to mind my own business and only do bad things on the sly. Teachers loved me. Her telling me I needed an attitude adjustment opened up a part of me that I’d never experienced before – pure, unadulterated surly teenage outrage. I’m not talking outrage like when my cousin peed on me for no good reason when I was five. This was a whole new kind of outrage that included distaste for authority. I became what she thought I was from that moment onward. I talked in class, I made terrible pancakes for our semester cooking project, and, honestly had an attitude adjustment.

Unfortunately, I adjusted my attitude in a way that left good, sweet Kelly far behind. Today, I’m a Kelly who isn’t very patient on the road, who is not particularly suited to difficult customer service activities, and who is easily irritated by people who try to create a disturbance in her perfectly orchestrated life.

The lesson here is that words can make a difference how we should be careful with those we influence. Mrs. Teen Living, forever on my blacklist, has influenced me in a negative way because she accused me, undermined my reputation, and put me on the defensive. Mentoring is serious business, whether you’re an official mentor, like a teacher or counselor, or an unofficial one where you have the ability to influence impressionable minds. For all you know, a poorly-thought-out comment to a nice little girl like I was could transform someone into a ragey little Chihuahua like I am today.

Legos and the Gestalt Adult

Eric and I were both huge fans of Legos when we were little. Eric made complicated RVs and I made cars for Teddy...mostly because I gave up on ever understanding how to make a house that was more than one level without having a balcony instead of a full second floor.  It's a fact that everyone who played with Legos had their pet projects that kept being remade bigger, better, and stronger each time. Honestly, what fun would Legos be if you couldn't break down masterpieces (and not-so-masterful pieces) and then make something newer and better?  How can you rebuild anything without first breaking it down to the pieces?

We are who we are today because after every hurt, failure, and flop in our pasts, we were reduced to pieces and forced to rebuild. When you have everything in pieces, you can combine the good and the bad into new, stronger forms. If I hadn't had my heart broken many times and had to keep coming back together with new knowledge of what to do or not to do, I never would have gotten to the point when I was ready to meet Eric. I would have simply told him I had already met my lifetime engineer quota and to move along. The experience that we gain through much effort and anguish is what makes us so wise and capable - and greater than simply a sum of our pieces. 

When you have all of those pieces after being broken, you can recreate, reorganize, remake yourself into someone who has more wisdom and experience and a pathway forward.  The catch in this is that we have to have access to all of those pieces to be able to rebuild.  If you've left part of yourself in the hands of the person/thing/circumstance that broke you, there's no hope of fully rebuilding. When you give an outside force the power to keep you from rebuilding, how can you possibly clean up the mess? That force may be some remote possibility of a defunct relationship ever starting up again, the constant reliving of a mistake or bad experience, or even a constant physical reminder of that broken moment. Or, you may not be letting yourself have access to all of the pieces.  You have to have those pieces in front of you to even know what the possibilities for rebuilding can be.

And, when you get yourself mostly together and the moment is right, you find friends and partners who let you combine all of your pieces with all of theirs to create a bond that is hard to break when tough times come along.  Using everyone's strengths and lessons learned compliments the collection of weaknesses that the group may have.  When, someday, Eric and I finally combine our Lego collections, we'll be able to build bigger and better RVs and maybe a house with a full second (or third, fourth, fifth...) floor. After all, sometimes it's hard to let go of your pieces and be open to giving them to others - as well as accepting theirs.

I've found that the individual pieces of my past and even somewhat present can be an asset.  Knowing what you're made of and what the possibilities are with those pieces makes you a more effective compliment to those friends and family who are there with you.  For example, I've conceded that Eric has most of the logic on our team, and that he knows how to deal with things calmly and linearly.  Case in point, Eric had a nightmare the other night that he was being chased by a giant Lego Man (the guy who comes with Legos, not a man made o' Legos). Even in his sleep, he knew that he could get away from Lego Man by going upstairs because Lego Man doesn't have knees.  Without understanding what you and others can bring to the table to create a better, faster, stronger entity, no one would know how to outrun Lego Man...or how to navigate life with the benefit of the whole, rather than dealing only with the pieces.

"Can't is the cancer of happening"

My dad and I are both impulsive overachievers.  To the point where it drives my mom crazy since we're always coming up with half-baked schemes for weird certifications, degrees, and qualifications.  My mom just doesn't get us...she tells me that all she ever wanted was for me to be "normal" and not go about trying to do anything extra or out of the ordinary.  What fun would it be if I didn't sign up for strange things on a whim?  Also, being able to get Mom riled up and spittin' tacks about how ridiculous I am is a big part of the fun.

In the summer of 2009, I pulled an Elle Woods and woke up one day and said, "I think I'll get a Ph.D."  I did a quick Google before work to find an English Lit doctoral program, realized that the school that I wanted to go to didn't have a program higher than Master's for that, I decided to find the closest thing, and, therefore, landed on Communication.  I applied that morning to start the program on temporary non-degree status (since it was a month before I wanted to start and 7 months after the application deadline) and suddenly, I was starting a Ph.D. program before I had lunch.  I'm impulsive, if nothing else.  Mom thought I'd lost my mind that day.  Dad was all like, "Yaaaaay! That's totally normal."

Fast forward two years.  Yesterday I advanced to Ph.D. candidacy, and since Eric is out of town, my parents and I went out to celebrate at the Olive Garden (don't judge).  My dad had two Xanexes before we left, so he started to let out secrets by the end of dinner.  He spilled that he was thinking about getting his pilot's license, because, why not, right? Since Dad paved the way and Mom had already used up some of her trademark logic and energy, I took that opportunity to announce that I've applied to the community college to start taking French classes next semester.  I'll only be writing my dissertation and teaching one class after work then, so I'm pretty free. My mom stopped mid pilot rant to cough out, "What is wrong with you?!"  Of course, that only made us talk about all of the Associate's degrees we could add on to our doctor titles, which also made Mom madder.  We got all the way to planning how we're going to get our pilot's licenses, boating licenses, CDLs, scuba certifications, certificates in phlebotomy, and Associates' in radiology, construction management, emergency medical services (since Dad already has a book), and welding. 

You'll be glad to know that I got my acceptance letter from the community college today, so the world is my oyster.  I called my mom and told her that I had earth shattering news.  She's still not speaking to me, although it was tough for her not to comment on shirtless Derek Hough on Dancing with the Stars tonight.  She's a woman of willpower.  Someone has to be "normal," here right?

The Holy Order of Crayola

I've mentioned before that I have a strong sense of order.  Some, like me, might find that to be a good thing, but others, like Eric, apparently don't.  When our company was on another floor, I had a multi-month silent battle with an unknown floormate with a contradictory, but equally strong, sense of coffee counter order.  Cups should go in two neat stacks, Sweet 'n Low is not the same thing as Splenda, and there is no need to take things out of their line up longer than when you're using them.  My parents tell me that I'm clearly the abnormal one, since no one else they've encountered feels compelled to line up french fries on a McDonald's tray or restaurant plate before eating them (horizontally not vertically, because that would be crazy).

I'd like to say that I've grown to be a more precise person as I've matured, but that's not quite true.  In second grade, I had the mega stand-up display of 72 Crayolas that was my pride and joy.  It was awesome - it had a portable case, a built-in sharpener, and did I mention SEVENTY-TWO COLORS? For those who are from a different time, that was the Holy Grail of crayon collections.  That was the biggest one, and my mom, obviously knowing what's up, got it for me at the beginning of the school year knowing that it would be the envy of Mrs. Wright's class. I loved and cherished these crayons, keeping them sharp, but most of all, keeping them in the "correct" order.

Everyone knows that Burnt Sienna is the ugliest color in the Crayola family. It had its place in the corner, next to the florescents (known as Ultra Pink, Ultra Blue, and so on rather than "florescents" back then).  Despite being the second grade queen of the fluorescent short and tee sets, when it came to the fluorescent crayons, as my grandma would say, I just couldn't go it.  They were garish, too...well, too, and they just weren't, you know, Carnation Pink.  Also in the banished corner were White (useless unless you have black construction paper, and the school only gave us manilla), Maize, and Orange-Red.  These undesirables were not to be mingled with the remaining 60 colors, but they couldn't be thrown away because that would have thrown off the balance of the Crayola ecosystem since some colors have to be undesirables.  It's a fact of life.

I've never been much of a sharer, especially good stuff like the Crayola 72er.  But, if someone asks nicely to use my stuff, that's cool.  What was decidedly not cool was when an unnamed classmate used one of my crayons and then peeled down the wrapper without permission, which she never would have gotten anyway.  I don't care if that's how some people think you should do shading on a picture. That is not how I do it.  It's not so much the non-regulation shading or the act of peeling my crayon wrapper, but more that the crayon now would not match its brothers.  I went all kinds of Linda Blair on this kid, going from quiet to head spinning crayon police. 

Sensing my need for order and school and office supplies, my dad gave me something even better than the crayons: a Dymo label maker.  Now, this wasn't one of those new-fangled ones that is electronic and will smoothly print out a flat label - this one squished each letter into the rubbery tape in a satisfying way.  *Shiver*  It was the best.  I labeled everything in my room.  In fact, I wish I had one now so I could label my things that Eric isn't allowed to touch.  I should probably do that now while he's away at a conference, right?  Off to eBay.

Halloweeping

For the first time in the history of Kelly, I'm putting on my big girl pants and skipping Halloween. This is monumental.  Halloween is my Christmas - I look forward to it all year long, I plan ahead for the perfect costume, and I would have a mix tape of spooky sounds like chains, howling wolves, and maniacal laughs on repeat if I knew where to find one of those (besides 1985).  After soul searching and gnashing of teeth, I've made the mature decision not to go out and mingle with the ghouls and slutty pirates/Care Bears/cats/etc. but to stay at home and prepare for the oral defense portion of my exams. 

But what if something happens between now and next year, and I'm suddenly too mature to go out for Halloween? What if I'm overcome with adulthood and can't manage to put on my costume and party face to celebrate? That would be like finding out that Santa isn't real all over again. Then all I'd have to hope for is being the mom (or creepy childless lady on the street) who peels grapes to pass off as eyeballs.

Back in the day, I used to be ready at 4:00 on Halloween in my yellow crayon suit, eyeliner cat whiskers, or Olympic ice skater outfit just waiting to go out with the hundreds of other kids in the neighborhood to be the first to hit the house where the guy who owned the Shell station gave out king-size candy bars.  His contribution was balanced out on the parent scale because the orthodontist a few houses down always gave out toothbrushes and those tablets that turned the gunk on your teeth pink.  Then, after a long night of trekking around our neighborhood, my favorite part of Halloween happened - candy sorting.  I've always been one who appreciates a sense of order.  Making micro piles of candy brands, then macro piles of types, then super macro piles for "yuck" and "yum" entertained me until bedtime.  I had a childlike sense of benevolence too, since I would gather up the yuck pile of Charleston Chews, Mary Janes, and Peanut Clusters and be all, "Here, Daddy, I saved these just for you because I love you."

More recently, I exercised my Halloween spirit by forcing my best friend in college to go out for Halloween with me dressed as Playboy Bunnies without any irony, despite it being Parents' Weekend.  That turned out unfortunately, because for some reason, all Halloween parties were put on hold for that weekend and we didn't get the memo.  So, there we were, inappropriately bunnied, Elle Woods style, walking around in the freezing cold.  Even that didn't break my Hallo-will to party in costume.

I feel like I should be proud of myself for making a mature decision this year, but it's hard.  This will be yet another year where Eric and I can't be a monkey and organ grinder pair.  Though, logistically speaking, an adult would say that being a monkey on roller skates while drinking would be a bad idea anyway.  Speaking of viewing Halloween through adult eyes, today Eric ruined my fond memories of the king-size candy house by realistically stating that the guy gave those out because he bought them in bulk for the gas station and got a deal.  So, he wasn't that cool after all. Engineer logic ruins all of my good memories.

So what should I do this year when I'm at home by myself studying, with Eric at a trade show and all of my friends being normal people and going out?  I'm thinking of sharing my bitterness with all of the little children and only giving out Charleston Chews, Peanut Clusters, and Mary Janes.  I would obviously reserve some of these for Dad because I love him.  Or, maybe I'll just turn out all the lights and tell kids to get off my lawn.

Team Butter

Food is not only an expression of culture, but also of upbringing. I'm pretty self-centered, so I had no idea that there was any debate on food preferences or names of dishes (see the Great Tortilla and Cheese vs. Quesadilla Debate of 2006) until Eric and I got serious enough to cook anything together or combine grocery lists.  Let's just say that's pretty serious with me.


Not only does Eric favor cheesefoods, such as the orange power found in Kraft Mac & Cheese, but he eats margarine.  Like, he'd choose margarine if given a choice.  Now, my mother taught me that "margarine is for poor people" and the "no one actually eats Kraft Mac & Cheese, it's just for the church food bank bin," so imagine my surprise when long after Eric and I got married he bought both margarine and a box of Kraft.  He then dropped more bombshells, like he craves SpaghettiOs and he has been known to kill a bag of beef jerky in one sitting.  So, bottom line, he could do all of his shopping at the gas station if need be. Okay, Eric's low maintenance, cool.  Gross, but at least he's practical.

To be fair, misguided food naming and preferences are not limited to Eric.  I have a habit of calling all members of the soda universe "Cokes" and I think MoonPies are a legitimate food group. As much as I stick my nose up at Eric's Mac & Cheese made with margarine, he doesn't even begin to appreciate the world of ersatz flavoring quite like I do.  "Banana" Twinkie? Yes, please!

That said, I'm a health food kind of girl most of the time, and I like to think I prefer real food - like butter, produce, whole grains - to gas station food.  I also think that meat is yucky and we should eat a balanced vegetarian diet.  But let's be honest here, a least a portion of the produce I buy is guaranteed to go bad every time, but I've never let a Peep even try to expire.  Further, my soy nuggets have at least as much processed goodness as a Tyson's chicken nuggets.

Perhaps Eric and I have more in common than I give us credit for - our diets follow the "better living through chemistry" method and we're darn happy (and potentially diseased) because of it.

The Seven Year [Sw]itch

I began this blog as a grad school project about seven years ago, and within the first few weeks, I wrote a post lamenting over being 23 and entering into total crisis mode because of my advanced age.  I turned 30 two weeks ago, and it would have been more traumatic if I hadn't been completely distracted by the closed-book comprehensive exams I scheduled for my birthday.  Genius?  Masochistic?  Mature?  Actually, it was a combination of all three, because now I'm so old and boring that it meant more to me to advance to Ph.D. candidacy quickly than it did to go drinking and smear birthday cake all over my face like I would any other year.  There's always 31.

Bless my little heart, back in 2005 when I wrote about my so-called Quarter Life Crisis, I was adamant about not having marriage in my five-year plan.  Would you believe that mere months after writing that, I met my future husband at a party and then ended up married two years before any five-year plan set back then would have expired?  I think what was most important to me back then was that doing life my own way was far more important than following some socially-imposed time line. I'm still the hard-headed sass bucket that I was back in 2005, but now the subject is fighting everyone's expectation of me producing chil'ens to carry on my chihuahua-like personality and pointy elbows.

I've made a lot of progress since 23. I'm capable of stopping at a gas station before running out of gas about 90% of the time (up from 40%), I can open a can using a manual can opener, I've successfully used a power drill, and I've made progress on kicking my (Diet) Coke habit. So I haven't learned to parallel park, get things from the top shelf, or squish my own bugs. I have to leave something to accomplish before 40.

By far, the biggest change since 23 has been learning how to share my life and space with my husband, Eric. He's a kind, patient, and tall man who manages to do and reach the things I can't (or won't).  Back when I started this blog, my primary directive was complaining about the many men I met and dated. Okay, "men" is a strong word. Guys. I'm now glad that I was so judgmental and analytical, despite the angst it caused me all of those years of dating.  Without holding out for what I actually wanted and needed, I would have ended up stiffed and perpetually annoyed with whoever that poor guy would be.
I'd like to say that the old adage of meeting the right person when you least expect it is true, but it's really not quite like that.  I met Eric after step two of the Three Bears Process.  The guy I dated at the beginning of the year before Eric was cheap and more rugged than my taste.  The one after him was extravagant and prettier than I was comfortable with.  Eric was just right - no weird money habits and traditionally handsome.  But it didn't end there.  I quickly understood what it meant to find the right person, because everything was natural.  I won't deceive you and say it was easy, but it wasn't hard to have a relationship.  Perhaps I wasn't ready for that before meeting Eric, because it was a lot of fun to tell crazy dating stories with my friends and strangers in the blogosphere.

Though a lot has changed since starting this blog, and I'm being a sentimental old lady now, some things haven't changed.  I feel like I've just evolved and taken in a wealth of experience.  I'm almost secure in my age, even though the best I'll ever get is, "Yeah, Kelly's not bad for 30 [40, 50...]" or the dreaded, "I bet Kelly was pretty hot back in her day." Maybe it's alright to have had my day.  It's not like I wasted my youth sitting at home and eating Peppermint Patties in front of Teen Nick...every night.  I took lots of pictures and am still friends with the same people, so at least we can enjoy the good old days together.  Someday I'll long for the new version of the good old days of when I was 30, so now it's all about making the most of whatever stage of life I'm in so that older me can reminisce effectively.

Virginian by Birth, Northern Virginian by the Grace of God

Living on the edge (in the geographical/sociological sense, not the Aerosmith sense) creates a strange tension between customs, loyalties, traditions, and what we feel is proper.  Those of us who are Northern Virginia natives exist in the Great In-between, nestled in a cradle of sophistication between the Old South and Just Geographically South, between DC and BFE, between rural and urban life, and between Southern charm and big city arrogance.

For example, as a Virginian, I'm well-versed in horse races and the art of tailgating at them. As a Northern Virginian, I firmly believe that tailgating at a horse race includes Whole Foods catering and real china, and should never involve a literal tailgate off of a pickup.  As a Virginian, I'm a very active member of the Junior League, sugah, but as a Northern Virginian, it's about hard work and resume building rather than gossip and silent auctions (total lie, we have that too).  Finally, as a Virginian, I love and cherish my pearls, but as a Northern Virginian...well, shoot, pearls are the great equalizer.

People who aren't natural-born Northern Virginians call this place NoVa (as opposed to RoVa, or "rest of Virginia"), and they are beligerantly ignorant of the delicate balance in which we natives exist.  But if one were to really think about it, we're a prime example of an identity crisis.  Eric and I live between Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway and Lee Highway, and every day I pass by a sign that touts that point in Fairfax City as the birthplace of the Confederate Battle Flag.  Sure, we appreciate the historical significance of "The War of Northern Aggression" (just kidding!), but we don't labor over the South rising again or fly the Confederate flag like those in RoVa might do with pride.

I find that I will tell someone not from 'round here that I'm from DC rather than Virginia.  It feels a little disloyal to the Commonwealth, but those outside of the region don't get that we're different from the stereotypical gun-toting yokel they think lives in Virginia. All in all, I'm blessed to call myself a native Northern Virginian because of the opportunity to to live in one of the best places in the North, South, East, or West and the freedom to be an amalgamation of our wonderful cultures.

A Berry Smurffy Rant

I'm old enough now that nostalgia from my childhood isn't just fun and memory-jogging, but it's become profitable for Hollywood to try again.  Case in point, The Smurfs. Of course, I could harp on The Chipmunks too, but I really love me a boyband.  Back to my point, why can't Hollywood remake something useful, like Jem or She-Ra? Now those were some strong cartoon women, living their double lives and all like 80s Hannah Montanas. 

Maybe I should back up a little and explain my distaste for The Smurfs a bit more.  In 1986, my family went to Kings Dominion, which is an amusement park a little outside of Richmond.  Considering I was 4 years old, there wasn't much that I was thrilled by there, so, my parents thought Smurf Mountain would be my bag.  No, it wasn't.  I was 4.  I didn't even know who the Smurfs were.  However, the very blue Smurfberry ice cream they served outside of Smurf Mountain was a winner.

After our fun day at Kings Dominion, I was all "la la lalalala la lalalala" skipping off to the bathroom when something catastrophic happened.  I shrieked and ran into my parents' bedroom, romper around my ankles shouting, "I'M DYING!"  I made them come into the bathroom to look at the horror.  I had pooped blue.  Not like a slight tinge of blue, but full-on, metabolized, processed, yet still vibrant Smurf blue.

After the blue incident, I investigated those Smurfs a little further.  I was a pretty logical 4 year old (I knew that poop shouldn't be blue in a healthy person, after all), so after watching the show, I firehosed my mom with questions like:

"Mommy, what's with the hats?"
"It's their look, Kelly."

"Mommy, why's there only one girl?"
"She's lucky."

"Hey, Mommy, what's a Gargamel?"
"It's a...a what?  Can't you and Teddy go watch something else?"

"Mommy. Mommy! Why are Smurfs blue?"
"So you can have blue ice cream and think you're dying.  I don't know, Kelly!"

With none of my questions answered and an inability to understand The Smurfs on my own, my little brain was on overload.  I just...I just couldn't.  The Smurfs and their related marketing and merchandise did not compute.  In fact, I still don't get the whole deal, and now they're back.  What if I had a 4 year old, which I theoretically could, and I had to answer questions about Smurfs.  I'd be even more unequipped for motherhood.  Why can't Hollywood just make cartoon characters that make total sense, like crime fighting cat-humans or  young animals with half of a nanny?

There are plenty of things I get irrationally angry about, like people who spell ridiculous "rediculous," the way Eric feels the need to drink his yogurt, and the whole concept of mayonnaise, but the return of The Smurfs is working its way onto my list.  So, no, Hollywood.  No.

Adventures in Googling

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Premature Eulogies

A beloved member of our former church died this past week, and my mom went to his memorial service on Monday.  The parking lot and church were at capacity with people who loved him and wanted to share their memories of him.  His family members told stories that were a beautiful tribute to the caring, loving person he was. Thinking about his service, I realized that the real tragedy is that people have to wait until they're dead to hear about how much they mean to others and what memories are the strongest.  Considering that people should be honored and highlighted before they die, I'd like to tell you all little about my parents. Don't worry, though my parents likely to game the senior citizen discount at the movie theater, they aren't going anywhere for at least 30 years.  

To say the least, I have incredibly cool parents, and not in the "my parents bought us beer in high school" or the "my mom roams Georgetown in Juicy track suits " try-hard kind of way, but in that enduring, real way.  I've been in awe of my mother for as long as I can remember.  For example, back in the 80s, my parents were freaking fabulous. My mom looked straight out of Dallas or Dynasty with her wardrobe, jewels, and fur coat.  My dad was always whisking her off to fancy dinners and lovely evenings. I would sit at home with my babysitter Nancy, making her listen to my play-by-play recap of mom getting ready to go out, with all of her make up, clothes, jewelry, and tray of perfumes. My mom has a no-nonsense way of handling things, so not only was she glamorous, but she was strong and in control at all times too.

It took me longer to realize that my dad was cool.  All of my friends thought he was the best, but since he was my dad, I obviously thought he was embarrassing since kids rarely see the value of their own "funny" dad. He did things like cause an error on his car phone (yeah, car phone, it was the 80s) that made it go "wee ooh wee ooh" to turn on the pee siren when someone in the car had a pee emergency. He also brought home green bread and dyed my milk green on St. Patrick's Day because, you know, why not?

The truth is, I wish I could go back in time and appreciate my dad like I do now. My dear ol' dad is wild, creative, and a genius. He knows everyone in a 15 mile radius of their house--he's even been invited over for dinner by the guy working at his 7-11. He's manly enough to demolish an entire bathroom (never admitting it was a bad idea) and awesome enough to openly admit that his favorite color is purple.

After I went to college, my parents became reality show worthy with their antics.  Honestly, my family is nutty as all get out now. Since I left home, my mother flew off the back of the treadmill and got her foot stuck in the wall; my dad has made big-ticket purchases in the middle of the night while on Ambien; and my parents went exploring one night, only to drive their car halfway off of a cliff and have to call the police and a tow truck for help (they were fine, but the car almost went over with Dad in it)--and that is just a small sampling of what they've been up to.

Despite their recent tomfoolery, there's no two ways about it--I grew up privileged. My parents anticipated my needs and wants before I even knew what they could possibly be. Everything I have now and have had for all of these years is a direct result of my dad's hard work and my mom's saint-like patience. As a semi-adult, I now understand what effort they went to to make my life absolutely trouble-free and perfect. My parents will continue to be two of the most important people in my life and my best friends.

I Took Muscle Relaxers Before Writing This, So No Guarantees

Normally, I'm deliberate and put together in a way that borders on rigid obsession. I value being on time, prepared, and composed.  And that's all well and good when I'm not stressed or on horse-tranquilizer-grade muscle relaxers, or in the current situation, both of those.

Stress alone makes me do weird things, like wake up in the middle of the night and cold cock Eric with a pretty sweet right hook for something he did in my dream, or leave my car (a manual) without putting on the parking brake. But the combination of stress and muscle relaxers is pretty epic. Especially when my medicated sleep is interrupted and I get all out of whack. Eric tends to talk in his sleep, and while he usually tells me important things like how "Batman doesn't need to work out because he fights bad guys all day," sometimes it's just incoherent Shamu-like "woooo woooo woooooo"-ing that almost sounds like English. So, then I sit there half awake trying to figure out what he's saying until I shove him and he stops. My sleep pattern is then interrupted completely because I try to insert logic into the whole episode, and I end up waking up all the way.

This is all a shame because I have vivid, LSD-like dreams when I take my medicine and am allowed to sleep all night.  For example, I had a dream where I was riding to Six Flags in a limo with Snoop Dogg. We were braiding each others' hair and I was arguing that the explicit version of "Gin 'N Juice" is more poetic than the radio edit. Even if it was in my own imagination, that was one of the top ten nights of my life.

Last night, my beautiful muscle relaxer dreams were interrupted by a creeping, extreme heat. I woke up yelling, "OH MY GOD, ERIC. Why is it so hot in here?!" only to find that he had gone to sleep in the other room because I was acting out my dreams again. There also was an incessant beeping that I couldn't find the source of. Still in dream/waking hazy limbo, I made my way to Eric's office and shook his futon until he could wake up and find the beeping to make it stop and make it cooler. I was already a little tense worrying that I wouldn't get up in time to get to a super early morning customer meeting, but when we discovered the power (and my alarm clock) had gone out, I spent the rest of the night hot and worried that my cell phone clock I set after the outage wasn't on.

So extremely long story short, after a day full of odd behavior, forgetfulness, an outfit that barely worked, and hair that poked out in all directions, I hit my breaking point.  There I was tonight, driving to Wendy's barefoot, braless, and in sweats like some kind of DC Britney Spears to get a Frosty and giant Diet Coke for dinner when I decided that I'm not fit to be in public like this. Not just the immediate barefoot, braless "this," but in this overall state. My filters are completely gone, I look like a homeless person, and I'm rather aggressive. Clearly one needs to prioritize stress management, break the medication habit, and get it together...but my muscle relaxers...are kicking in...and I've stopped caring about being someone who...can be seen in public, fully dressed, without embarrassing my husband.

The Dumpster Scooter, or The Night My Dreams Came True

When Eric and I lived in an apartment, we had the most magical thing ever happen to us.  One of the reasons we got married was that we share the same hopes and dreams, one of those dreams being to own a Hoveround scooter.  We came home from dinner one evening and took a different way into the complex.  This was fortunate, because if we had gone the regular path, we wouldn't have seen the scooter someone left by the dumpster.  We both whispered, "Hoveround..." and practically abandoned the car to go see if our eyes were deceiving us. The scooter was actually not a genuine Hoveround, but rather a Zip'r Roo, which was a little disappointing.  E and I looked around to see if it was a joke, and then carried the scooter all the way across the parking lot and up the stairs to our 3rd floor apartment.

We circled the scooter in quiet awe, trying to decide what to wear when we tested it out.  We settled on knee socks, shorts, and (car) racing helmets.  Unfortunately, the battery was drained, but we found that we could buy an extra charger to get it all juiced up.  Before buying the charger, Eric made the stupid decision to call the leasing office to ask if anyone had reported the scooter missing, since we couldn't believe someone would actually throw it away when there were so many scooter adventures to be had.

It turns out that one of our handicapped neighbors had been tooling around in the scooter and had run out of power...right in front of the dumpster.  It's assumed in an apartment that anything left by the dumpster is fair game, if you're creepy enough to take things from the dumpster.  Which we are.  We worked through the ethical dilemma of "finders keepers" vs. "that guy is handicapped," and after much debate, decided to carry the scooter to his apartment and give it back.

I guess it was the right thing to do, but you only get one opportunity to find a dumpster scooter.  Upon further analysis, having scootered and lost was probably a karmic reaction to us filling the box from our enormous new TV with a 30-year-old crooked fake Christmas tree, sealing it up, putting it by the dumpster and writing "Free!!!" on it.

The good news in all of this is that we made the handicapped neighbor wait to get his scooter back until we had taken enough pictures to take our own trip to the Grand Canyon:

Why I Will Be a Terrible Mother

I'm approaching 30, and Eric and I are almost out of the newlywed grace period before people start to ask us when we're having children.  In fact, Big E is already speculating what the child may look like (the answer is very blond, pale, athletic, and blind).  Further, Eric is giving me the creeps because he's recently started smiling at other people's children and calling them cute.  Here are some things I'd like to remind him of:

• I consider a 100 calorie bag of popcorn and grapes a balanced dinner
• I name my [animal] children ridiculous things (e.g., Snippy, Googles, Googles Jr., Nugget, Tater, Tot, Niblet, Pee Wee, Jean-Bunnay)
• Kidz Bop gives me a visceral reaction
  
• I'm extremely susceptible to kid germs
• I'm a social scientist and believe it is my disciplinary and academic right to have both a control and a test child to run social experiments on, like teaching them the alphabet backwards or denying the existence of certain colors
• I prefer nighttime muscle relaxers to responsibility
• I'm the worst cutter ever
• My daddy still fixes my problems
• I allowed a hamster to fall down the stairs and get head trauma
• I kill plants and just about anything else in my care
• I've run out of gas on the highway twice
• I believe the difference between a playpen and a dog crate is purely semantic
• I have a history of attacking our house with my car and laughing afterward

Exhibit A:

Is there any hope for me?

Glitter, Glue, and Shame

I'm a huge champion of (non-court-appointed) community service, and especially service to those who will benefit from my time spent with them. Let's take a moment to reflect on how incredibly elitist that is. Okay, that's enough. So, considering the volunteer shifts I had taken over the last year included: attending and "working" at an American Girl doll fashion show in Potomac, smiling and eating mini cupcakes at the National Capital Area Cake Show in Fairfax, and collecting question cards for speakers at the Women's Conference in Tysons, I figured it was time to roll up my sleeves and go a little deeper into the volunteering wild.

I volunteered for a shift at the Capital Area Food Bank, which is in Northeast DC. While there, I  witnessed someone getting arrested for stealing a car (I pretended to get something out of my trunk for 10 minutes so I could observe this) and saw the immediate aftermath of either a shooting or stabbing at a gas station on the way home. After that experience, though it was rewarding to do actual service, I decided maybe I should do something less pearl-clutchingly frightening.

That all led me to an opportunity to help out at a local group's Christmas party for mentally handicapped adults. I started the evening thinking how delighted these people will be that I'm sharing my crafting talents with them and that I'm taking time to be there after work. I'm pretty self-centered, you know. While helping a small group make ornaments, one woman asked me to draw an angel. I finished, thinking it looked pretty good. She looked at it, then at me with a horrified look she shouted, "That's a terrible angel!" It totally stung, but I brushed the loud comment off and drew angels until she was able to choose the least terrible. She said she wasn't allowed to use scissors, so she wanted me to cut the backing for the angel ornament. Apparently I failed at that too because she turned to me, pointed accusingly, and bellowed, "You're the worst cutter EVER!"

So there I was, covered in glitter, glue, and shame, having been told what's up by someone who isn't allowed to use scissors. But I did make a terrible angel and I am the worst cutter ever, so can I really blame her for a little honesty? As I attempted to get glitter out of my hair and ears later that night, I realized that social interactions--whether they are with friends or with those you are attempting to serve--are really all about give, take, and mutual respect and love. Perhaps the idea of service is far less one-sided than I had previously assumed, and the real gift is in being able to have those interactions...no matter how humbling they may be.

Some Girls Wanted to be Ballerinas...

When I was little, my career aspirations were simple: I wanted to work at T.J. Maxx. No one is really sure where I got that, since my family was not one of T.J. Maxxing, but I was adamant about it. I mostly wanted to use a scanner, so my mom tried to twist that around into a more illustrious career. We compromised at me wanting to work at Hallmark, because then I could use a scanner and wrap things in tissue paper. I spent day after day in my room providing excellent customer service to Teddy, going "boop" as I scanned each of his items, and wrapping all of his purchases in tissue paper. He, of course, then came back to return the items because I had a limited number of tissue-paper-worthy possessions to play with. He was a pretty indecisive bear, so the process repeated itself over and over until Thundercats came on.

Everything was so simple when we were little and made life decisions based on what was fun. My first job out of college was decidedly not fun, and it didn't involve a scanner at all. I chose that job because it was a prestigious place to work and it had a sensible, clear, (eventually) lucrative career path associated with it. Each day I sat in terrible traffic, praying that the office building would implode before I got there so I would be spared a day at that job.

Finally, I listened to what remained of happy, little girl Kelly who just wanted to do something fun, and I found a job that is a joy to go to each day. Remembering that it is possible to make big life decisions based on what is fun changed my career path and attitude entirely. You know what? I even get to us a scanner every so often.

Letters from My Exes

Once upon a time, I was single and I only dated men who said ridiculous things. Being sentimental, I wrote some of these things down in case I ever got too big for my proverbial britches.

“I thought you were the one, but you’re not.”
“I was on the beach, talking to God, and He told me that you’re not good enough for me.”
“You’re a goddess, and I want to shield you in my embrace.”
“I hate you, but, on the other hand, you’re a cheerleader. I’m drunk.”
“If you don't hate me too much, I’d like to see you. I'm not going to bring my gun.”
“Did you just use me to help you move? I have feelings, bitch.”
“I know you said to stay away forever, but a call from you once in the last few days would have been nice.”
“I’m taking this girl to her semi-formal, so, rain check on your birthday?”
“Oh, you wanted to go to a bar on your 21st birthday?”
“By the way, I hope you had a wonderful 24th birthday. Sorry I stood you up.”
“Maybe I’d like to be the girl in the relationship sometimes.”
“[James] and I are moving to San Francisco...to, you know, be together.”
“The whole deal with the pregnant girlfriend I never knew about was all made up.”
“You’re a gem of an individual.”
“I can’t believe you’re dumping me while I’m on the toilet.”
“You grind my hopes into dust.”