Those weren't the best years

The most interesting thing about today happened when I was sitting in my car waiting for Jack's preschool to get out. Molly and Emma and I had spent the whole morning running around town - delivering food to a new mom, mailing packages, trolling the mall for junk jewelry (priorities!) - and we were a bit early for preschool pick up, but not early enough to go home. So I parked, took Emma out of the car seat to feed her, gave Molly my phone and prepared to just sit for 15 or 20 minutes. 

I'd noticed there were extra traffic cones set up in the parking lot (the morning drop off logistics are sort of nightmarish), but I easily maneuvered around them and I'd parked in an unusual spot for me - right in the middle of everything. So when a class of sixth or seventh graders started spilling out of one of the portables I had an excellent view. 

They were accompanied by a dude I instantly recognized as the PE teacher, on account of him being the only Dude Teacher in the school. He's youngish, maybe my age, and on this cold misty day he was dressed like a True Seattleite, by which I mean he looked like a walking REI ad. He's also kind of cute and I imagine the middle school girls don't particularly mind going to PE. 

Anyway, they all gathered in a spot directly in front of my car (but not so close that they noticed me) and I saw that the teacher had a stop watch. And yes, minutes later, half the group lined up on one of the painted parking lot lines. I heard the teacher say something about "seven times" and "let's DO this thing!" and then he exaggeratedly pressed the stop watch button. 

And WHOOSH! Those kids took off like someone was running after them with a bat. A short skinny boy easily bust out of the pack and was practically done with the first lap by the time I realized they were running the mile. Maybe for that Presidential Fitness Test thing - do they still have that? He was bright red after the first lap, but didn't slow down. He slapped hands with most of the boys standing around in the second group and kept going. 

There were a handful of boys and a few girls in a clump behind him. Then came the stragglers, the boys and girls who looked as though they might rather die, or at least be doing homework. At the very end of the pack was a Big Girl. You know the type. Heavier, taller than everyone else, but this girl was running. Like, actually running. Not shuffling along like some of the slackers in front of her, no, she was moving and huffing and trying. Really trying. 

Pretty soon the short skinny boy lapped her and my heart started to ache. I kept an eye on her, craning my neck around the parking lot to see if she stopped. She didn't - at least not for the first two laps. She was incredibly slow, but she was working. I started to feel oddly proud of her, especially when I noticed the teacher slapping hands with the faster boys and shouting encouragement at them, but always in conversation with one of the kids on the sidelines when a slower kid passed through. 

There was a girl with a clipboard watching the big girl, hollering at her. In a good way- the big girl had at least one cheerleader. The short skinny boy lapped her twice three times. He always held his fingers out when he crossed the starting line so I knew what lap he was on. The big girl was still dead last, but still powering through.

Every time she got close to the kids on the sidelines she started running full speed. I wanted to pull her over and be all, "HEY. Here are the things I've learned about running. Number One: PACE YOURSELF.

The short skinny boy finished his seven laps and threw himself dramatically against the side of the portable, sliding down against it and resting his head on his knees. A few other kids finished and my heart ached even more. I wasn't ever the biggest or most awkward girl in my grade, but I remember being the slowest - or at least feeling that way. The humiliations never end in middle school. IT GETS BETTER, 32-year-old me wanted to shout, the force of true empathy jolting me from my car and into the parking lot.

"Who's that old lady," the kids would ask themselves. "And why is she yelling at us?"

I was tensing up for big girl, prepared to think good thoughts for her position as the last one running in. I was so impressed with her, because she still tried to run where it seemed like a handful of kids had just given up and were strolling around the parking lot track talking to each other. Go big girl, go! I thought to myself...

...when she passed through the starting line and stopped, apparently finished. And I would bet barrels of money and my brand new couch that she wasn't. 

I watched her for a little bit, walking it off, her hands on her hips. I watched the other kids shuffle across the line. I watched the teacher gather them all up, then send the second batch of kids to the line and press the stop watch button again. I passed in between as I went to fetch Jack from his classroom, not one of them paying the least bit of attention to the grown up with the little girl and the little baby and the worried frown.  

 

Even you know how to give good gifts

I have this little Brush With Fame that I'm SURE I've told you about, but I am going to tell you all over again. So! In case you were unaware, I was a Budding Thespian in my youth. For reals! I can't really picture my parents doing this, but when I was five years old they let me try out for the Christmas play at the army base somewhat far away-ish from us. And I got a part! (My mother says this is because I was the most well-behaved child there, although I prefer to think it was because of my Budding Thespianism.) 

The play was an adaptation of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and I was "Juanita", AKA Baby Angel #3. Hello Stardom!

I have many clear memories of this experience, from drinking myself sick on Swiss Miss cocoa backstage, to crawling underneath the lobby Christmas tree and breaking a bunch of ornaments, to watching the mother of Alice Wendleken curl her gorgeous blond hair in her dressing room. For a five-year-old, it was a Blast And A Half.

Somewhat later - maybe that year? Maybe the next? - Barbara Robinson, the woman who wrote this GENIUS Christmas story, visited my elementary school. She was going to read to the sixth graders, but because I was a well-behaved child, not to mention totally utterly spoiled by every teacher and staff person at my elementary school (on account of all of them being on a first name basis with my parents who used to teach at the same school) I was pulled out of class all special-like to sit in on the reading. I remember sitting with a teacher or two, maybe the librarian, away from the sixth graders but with an excellent view of Ms. Robinson, a Real! Live! Author! (I was also, obvs, a Budding Author.) 

Afterwards there was an opportunity to have Ms. Robinson sign our books. I have no idea if I actually owned the book or if someone bought me a copy or what, but growing up I had, on my personal bookshelf, an autographed paperback copy of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I remember watching her sign it, and feeling a tiny bit foolish when I told her I played "Juanita" and she laughed, since there is no "Juanita" in the book. 

I don't have this book anymore. I SUSPECT I left it at my parents' house when I moved away to college. I don't remember taking many books with me when I moved back to the states, at least. And now that my parents live here I haven't seen it in any of their bookshelves. It's lost, misplaced, given away. It's certainly not the biggest deal in the world, but it DOES bum me out when I think about it, and I DO mention it when I refer to my Budding Thespianism, or any conversation about meeting your favorite authors. 

I was having such a conversation with a friend a few months back. A simple, silly, "ha ha, I was a BABY ANGEL", blah blah blah, "sure wish I still had that book" story that eventually moved on to things like "is there any more wine" and "how do we get our kids to listen to us, FTLOG!" You know, the normal stuff. And then last week I opened my mailbox and there was a small package inside: a used book from a used bookseller, a hardcover copy of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, with the original illustrations, and autographed by Barbara Robinson. 

My heart, it grew so many sizes. 

This friend knows how to give good gifts. This was not the first good gift I've received from her, not the first gift where she remembered a conversation or something I mentioned admiring or something I longed for. These aren't expensive flashy gifts, they're thoughtful. Gifts that show that you are known - those are the best kind. 

I, on the other hand, am a terrible gift giver. Oh, I have my moments. Sometimes I can come up with some pretty great ideas for other people's gift giving dilemmas. Every once in a while I, too, will remember The Thing that will make the perfect gift. Months before her birthday I made a mental note of the moment my sister said something about wishing she had a "From The Library of Ms. Lastname" stamp for her classroom books. I was RATHER proud of myself. But just as often I buy my mother a sweater than doesn't fit, a friend a random string of jewelry I'm just hoping she likes. Worse yet I don't remember to GIVE gifts. How many new babies have I neglected? Even when their mothers have showered me with out-of-the-blue treats and gifts. And how many just-thinking-of-you packages have I thought of to send, and never got around to it? (SO, SO MANY. Sorry, Internet Friends.) 

I worry, because I know for a lot of people, Presents are how they know they are loved and remembered. But we are not all fabulous gift givers. I have one friend who - I'm just going to say it! - is quite possibly a worse gift giver than me. But you know, she is super fabulous, the best I know, at taking care of you when you're down. Cleaning your messy spaces, feeding you, entertaining you, watching your kids, giving of her time and energy to physically help you out of your funk. It's a HUGE gift, and yet another kind that I am terrible at giving. But it does give me hope that I am giving as well, in my own way. 

I wish I was the aunt who sends silly holiday-themed treats in the mail. I would love to be the friend who spies the perfect Etsy birthday gift. I wish I could MAKE things, I wish I could bring delicious dinners, I wish I was even halfway AWARE of what other people are needing at whatever point in their lives. 

Instead I love - I know how - to write to you, to tell you how much I love and appreciate you, to make sure that you know that I know you, and I feel as much as you wanted me to feel about your gift. I love to write an embarrassingly mushy card, an email that perhaps betrays too much, a line in an instant message conversation that solemnly declares that I love that I know you, that I'm so thankful just for that.

Revenge

Well, I don't know about you but I'm about ready to toss this week in the garbage. There were a handful of bright spots, notably the smashing success that was preschool orientation and Phillip's birthday dinner and, hmm, I think I bought something on Etsy. But other than that it's been one mess of cranky, sassy, food-wasty, grumpypants. With a lot of comfort carb-loading in the evenings because dude, I deserve it. 

These days have been the kind of days where I'm totally doing okay, I really am, I am making dinner and using my pleasant Mommy voice and fulfilling twenty-seventh requests for snacks and drinks and toys and books and help with the potty. And I am doing those things EVEN THOUGH they're doing their whole Selectively Deaf charade and embarrassing me in front of friends and throwing freaky deaky tantrums in the car (MOLLY) and responding to my every instruction with "No! I just BLAH BLAH BLAH" (JACK) and people I should be on my second bottle of wine by 5pm not making dinner. 

BUT I DO. And I haven't been drinking the wine! (Partly because - news flash - the cheapest wine at the grocery store ($3.99!) tastes like pavement!) 

BUT THEN. Then! Each day has contained A Straw. The straws are USUALLY food-related, though not always. Yesterday's straw was when both kids asked for yogurt, then, when said yogurts were placed in front of them, stared at the yogurts as though they had never SEEN yogurt before, what IS this disgusting substance doing anywhere near them, do we need to call hazmat? The day before that had something to do with picking up toys. The day before that? Someone's insistence on "do it myself!" and whatever we were doing taking nine hundred years longer. I'm not - news flash - terribly patient. 

TODAY'S straw was when I attempted to implement the New Dinnertime Policy which I stole directly from the comments, lest anyone accuse me of ignoring the comments or not responding to them or, say, writing them myself under different accounts. AHEM. The New Dinnertime Policy is as follows: You Must Eat At Least One Of Everything On Your Plate. aka You Must Try Everything On Your Plate. aka You Must Have At Least One Bite Of Everything On Your Plate. HOWEVER IT GETS UNDERSTOOD. This satisfies 1) Phillip's compulsion desire that the children eat their vegetables and 2) my desperate prayer desire not to turn every meal into a "Just have one more bite of this!" "One more bite and you can do this!" "Eat this and you can have dessert!" "Let's have just one! more! bite!" AD NAUSEUM. 

So tonight I gave them ravioli, bread, watermelon and peas. Ravioli with RED sauce, I should say. Not as common as white sauce in our house, but I've had fairly good success with filled pasta (we call tortellini doughnut noodles, FYI) and Molly, at least, and if she's in The Right Mood, will eat almost anything. Oh! AND! I let them eat at the little table in front of the TV because 1) Phillip was out and therefore I am Allowed To Be Lazy and 2) they almost always eat better if they're watching TV. SUE ME. 

Molly takes one bite of ravioli, then decides she is no longer a fan, then sucks up the watermelon and peas (which are frozen, the preferred style) and the bread and demands more of each.

Jack sloooooooowly eats his bread. Then he sloooooooowly puts one ravioli on his fork, but the ravioli with the least amount of sauce. He does not touch the watermelon, which I know he at least likes. He does not go anywhere near the peas. Surprise! 

Fine, fine, but after a while I decide it's time to implement the At Least One Of Everything Rule and that means One Pea. ONE PEA. After multiple suggestions, some coaxing, some stern wording and finally a Time Out threat, Jack says, quite like he's referring to Disneyland, "I want to go sit in Time Out!" 

That was THE STRAW. 

Okay, so the end of the story is that I won, he eventually came back to the table and ate, get this, FIVE PEAS, but I had to go get the frozen ones because by this time his peas were "soft". And then at 8pm he ate all the leftover ravioli, but only with butter and cheese because he didn't want "ketchup". 

Which, okay, I hate it, it's so much work, it feels like everyone else's kid eats FOOD why won't my kid eat FOOD. And I look at Molly, who is getting pickier about eating, but in strange and varied ways, like the other night at my in-laws' she ate ONLY broccoli for dinner. And I give them the same food, the same amounts of food, etc. SO WHAT'S UP?

And then today, as I watched my kid eat his plain ravioli, sans ketchup, I thought about how my mother and grandmother would reserve a bowl of plain spaghetti for me before they smothered the rest with tomato sauce, and how I would dress my bowl with melted butter and Parmesan and how I did this until I was in college. How I never ate a tomato. How I was scared to move to Italy because all I knew about Italian food was tomato sauce. How totally grossed out I was when my dad forced us to go to a Chinese restaurant every summer. How salad meant lettuce and Ranch dressing. How much time I spent picking things like peas and carrots and other random green things out of whatever I was served. How I am still pretty picky - carrots, goat cheese, cilantro, onions, slimy seafood, and MOST tomato sauces are on My List - but how now I LOVE Chinese food and CRAVE dim sum and GROW vegetables in my YARD and not just for FUN. 

I remember sitting at the dinner table, age eleven, and my father informing my sisters and me that we would not be allowed to leave the table until we ate a green bean. One. Green. Bean. I believe I eventually swallowed mine with milk. I'm pretty sure one of my sisters sat at that table until it was time to go to bed. 

So I look at my kid and think, maybe I'm not necessarily doing it wrong, maybe there's no Answer. Maybe this is just what my dad meant when he said, in that menacing tone of his, that One Day I'd Have Children Of My Own. 

Have you hugged your best friend today?

I am not the best friend. 

I'm not very good at helping, for one thing. You know those people who bring meals or clean up the dishes or watch kids? They suggest they do these things before you even hope that they'll offer? Yeah, I'm not one of those. I will bring you lasagna, but more like a month or two after you've had your baby, and chances are it won't be very good, because I'm talentless in the kitchen. 

I hardly ever know the right thing to say. I know people who do. They're amazing. When they listen it's like they're tuned into the right station, the one where you are saying exactly what you mean and everyone understands you. They hear what you mean for for them to hear, and the things they say are the things you need. I'm the one who listens, who listens hard, but who can't figure out which of the nine thousand things I'm thinking and feeling is the one that needs to come out. So most of the time I say nothing. Or I murmur sympathetically. I'm pretty good at that.

I'm selfish with my time. Sometimes I'm available, but I don't want to go anywhere. Or talk to anyone. I'm an introvert, albeit a pretty social one (it's possible!), and I'm hardly ever unhappy with my own company. I can find a million things to do on my own and it's a long time before I miss the sound of someone else's voice. I jealously guard my free hours. I'm discerning with my weekends. I love you, but I don't need to hang out with you all the time. 

I'm awkward in groups. I would rather - SO much rather - hang out with Just You, than you and other people. I can't compete with them. I know I'm not the best friend, so I need to maximize my opportunities. That's really all it is, you know. I'm at my best with Just You. I can sit and talk to Just You for hours, honestly. But when there are others around, I get anxious. Sometimes it's really fun, so I keep trying. But sometimes it's exhausting. Sometimes I come home feeling so out of sorts, so disappointed, so confused about how it all worked out. 

I'm a dork, too. Everyone has their dork subjects, I know, but I tend to think mine are dorkier than yours. Practically no one I know blogs, yet I can wax rhapsodic on Blogs, my Blog Friends, my Favorite Reads, and The Latest Blogging Gossip until your ears bleed. I'm sorry. It's awful. Same goes for whatever stupid thing I'm currently hooked on, like the enneagram or that article in the New Yorker or that new thing I learned how to do with CSS or that earthshakingly important revelation I had while packing up my grandmother's china. Sometimes I'm trying to find out if you're a dork too and sometimes you are and that is a happy moment indeed. Other times I just feel like a... dork. 

I am, I know, all sorts of other things I don't even know to name. 

I'm not as unhelpful and silent and withdrawn and awkward and dorky as I used to be. I feel like I know what people mean, now, about getting to know yourself. There's a difference now, there is. I'm no longer afraid to show myself. I can handle it. And I don't worry about that label 'best friend'. I don't have to figure out which friend is my best one. I don't have to figure out which friend thinks I'm her best. Honestly, the last time I had a best friend was three schools ago. 

But I have best friends. I do. I have this group of women who - and I honestly and truly believe this - God was saving up for me way back when I was a lonely unhappy fifteen-year-old kid, with plenty of friends, none of them good, sitting in her bedroom closet praying for a real friend. A best friend.

If only I'd known that on my third day on campus I'd get a knock on my door inviting me to a new student barbecue and twelve years later we'd be driving somewhere and she'd say, "When we're old, we should totally get rooms next to each other in the nursing home." That when my first child is born and my mom is halfway across the world, my dishes get done, my refrigerator gets filled, I'll shower and nap without even noticing how it happened, certainly without having asked for help. That we'll almost miss our flight because we're so busy talking. That when she moves back home I'll feel like my arm is chopped off, and I'll cry like it too. That there will be a wedding I can't even imagine not attending.

These people help. They know the right thing to say. I am not afraid of being the third wheel, because there's no such thing. They bring me out of my awkwardness. They tolerate and even engage the dorkness. They are nicer and better people, more likeable and friendlier and, let's face it, so much better looking than I am. So yeah, I am not a best friend, but I am inexplicably blessed to know people who are. 

I hope you have a few of these in your life too. Bonus points if they are the types to not pass judgment if you spend every hour of your 48-hour girls' weekend away stuffing your face with assorted baked goods.  

I wanted a better story

I've been writing a lot, which is good, since I certainly haven't been doing laundry or vacuuming or working out. I have this whole Anniversary of Hot By Thirty post floating in my head and I do fear it's not going to be as flattering and laudatory of my cumulative efforts as I'd like. But I've been writing and spending a bit more thinking time in my made up world and I tell you that to maybe help explain the rest of this post, to which you will surely respond with loud snorts and giant eye rolls. 

I wasn't going to write about it, but the day sort of demands it, I think. Or tomorrow night, rather, which is the night my First Real Boyfriend will be in town playing a show at some local bar, to which I was invited. VIA FACEBOOK. 

Most of us have First Real Boyfriends, right? And we are all allowed some amount of irrational and semi-ridiculous angst about these first boyfriends, right? I mean, if we HAVE irrational and semi-ridiculous angst. Some of us are above these things, I know, but I will just tell you right now: I AM NOT. 

So First Real Boyfriend was this exceedingly cocky and confident 16-year-old guy and why he wanted to date my exceedingly insecure and naive 14-year-old self remains a mystery. He made me incredibly nervous, but he was persistent and a lot more honest, forthright and in possession of a larger vocabulary than any other guy I knew, so, well, you know. Barf. I know. Right now my mother is reading this and wondering how she raised a daughter who writes about this on the INTERNET. Have I no SHAME?

ANYWAY. I started dating this guy in, like, February or something and as soon as school was out my family was moving. So the whole "relationship" was Fraught With Angst from the get go. I have no idea where my journals are from those years but I bet they are full of excellent material. All sorts of blissful and terrible and ultimately unimportant things happened during those months, and then I moved. CUE THE DRAMA!

Okay! So! It is well documented here that the year we moved was The Worst Year Ever and I'm not PROUD but neither am I ASHAMED to say that was in part because I missed First Real Boyfriend a whole bunch. I think we wrote a letter or two, but other than that, this extremely horribly embarrassingly significant event in my life was KAPUT. 

OH THE WOE.

Now! When you go to school on American military bases overseas, NO ONE GOES HOME AGAIN. Everyone is from everywhere else and everyone's parents move on or move home and when you go home for Christmas break? NO ONE ELSE IS THERE. So I knew the chances of seeing this guy again (and anyone else I hoped to reunite with) were nil. My parents, being teachers and civilians, stayed where I went to high school about ninety-seven times longer than anyone else, and the only people I saw again after graduating were other teachers' kids. Who weren't even really my friends, but BECAME my friends for a week or two every year out of convenience. You just don't see people again. They disappear. You are left with Wondering. 

And I wondered a lot. 

He wasn't the only person I wondered about, but he was one of the big ones, and OH YES I took to Googling when Googling became a thing that you could do. And this is how I found out that First Real Boyfriend LIVED IN SEATTLE OMG. 

AND he was in a band. AND I knew where his band was playing. Which meant (OBVS) I COULD GO SEE HIM. And you KNOW I considered this. Some of these venues were places I'd actually been to. I could just show up. I could pretend to not have any idea he was there! IT COULD HAPPEN!

But it didn't, because even I am not that ridiculous. 

After a while it just became a Thing That I Knew. First Real Boyfriend lived in Seattle, played in a band, blah blah blah. Maybe I would run into him on the street or in a restaurant or whatever, maybe not. I was extremely proud of myself for this grown up behavior, you guys. No more high schoolish pining and daydreaming, not even any for-curiosity's-sake wondering. Honest! And one day I Googled again (do not tell me you do not use Google for nefarious purposes, I won't believe you anyway) and found out he'd moved away. Astoundingly enough, this did not disappoint me in the least. Tra la la!

But then. THEN. 

A few weeks ago. Out of the deep, vast, giant blue. I open up Facebook, which I am trying to use more often (WHY? I DON'T KNOW). I notice I have a friend request and a little part of me dies inside, because lately all my friend requests are from high school and while it's wicked fun to find THEM, I don't really want them to find ME. But this friend request is not just from high school, it's from WAY BACK in high school. It's First Real Boyfriend. 

That's it. Just a friend request. No note. No email. No "Hey, what's up!" No "Great to find you!" Definitely no "I've been wondering what happened to you for fifteen years, I missed you so much after you moved, LIFE WAS NEVER THE SAME!" 

So I just sat there and stared at it for a Good Long While. And then I shut the computer and ignored it for several days. And then I decided to be a Grown Up and hit 'Confirm'. The End. 

Maybe it's just me, but how anti-climactic. How depressing. How absolutely devoid of romance, in every sense of the word. Of all the ways I imagined reconnecting with First Real Boyfriend, freaking FACEBOOK wasn't one of them. I mean, I knew he was on there (EVERYONE IS ON FACEBOOK) but no way was I going to FRIEND him. Well, for one thing, I don't friend anybody (SNOB!) but it's just so... MUNDANE. And you guys, I HATE mundane. 

Perhaps it's just the aspiring YA novelist talking. Perhaps I really AM that ridiculous. Perhaps you are all unsubscribing as I type. 

It's just one of the ways I find Facebook odd and mysterious. I love how I can post pictures and have my mom's friends in Italy see them two seconds later. On that note it's kind of awesome. But what did First Real Boyfriend have to gain by friending me? Sure, he can see my less than riveting updates, but if he can hunt me down on Facebook he can find the blog (I just did this as an experiment, OMG HOLD ME) and surely that's a better way to stalk me AND I wouldn't know. It's not like he's communicated with me since, other than the mass invite to the show. Or is it just me that wants to do all of this anonymously? And other people have less pride/fewer neuroses? That's probably it. 

Here's a potential kicker: 

A few months before I got married I was working downtown and running an errand at a local hotel. On my way out I made eye contact with the valet. I instantly looked away. It couldn't be. I walked faster, my head down. I did look back, just once, but he was looking right at me, which made me even more nervous, and I booked it all the way back to my office. 

It could have been, right? It'd be a much better story than FACEBOOK. 

Old enough to know

WELL. I just spent my evening well and truly delving into My Personal History Via Facebook and now I'm feeling all shmaltzy and drunken-toast-ish. Although I haven't drunk anything and I've never particularly cared to know what these people were doing before tonight and I am weirding my own self out. 

A few months ago I was friended by someone from high school, which I realize is a Non-Event to most of you, but as I made it pretty difficult for anyone from high school to find my profile, it was something of an Event for me. I think I've told you before that I didn't particularly like high school and high school didn't seem to like me, so I'm resistant to being Found. (I say this as if people are looking for me, which: doubtful!) I mentioned this to the girl who found me, who actually WAS my friend, and she said something to the effect of, "But you were so popular!" Oh, the LOLing I did when I read THAT! 

I think there is a difference between being Known and being Popular. I was definitely Known. I mean, it's hard to not be Known when there are 200 people in your entire school, and you happen to be one of five kids with a distinctive last name and get straight As and your teachers love you and you are involved in absolutely everything (without doing any of it particularly well) and everyone has an opinion about where you should go to college and the guidance counselor publicly dresses you down in the hallway that one time you skipped school - with your parents' PERMISSION - not because you weren't supposed to skip school but because all the other kids look up to you, and what have you done and now you have a giant red S on your chest for SKIPPER. (Perhaps I am not over that.) 

Popular, on the other hand: not so much. Show me a popular kid who stays home on Friday nights feeling anxious about the fact that she's staying home on a Friday night. And Saturday nights. And all the other nights that didn't involve a volleyball or basketball game.

I longed, oh how I longed, to LEAVE. Go somewhere else. Be someone else. I had this idea that everything would be better when I was 30. Seriously. Even in my first high school, where I was a heck of a lot more popular than I was in my second high school, I was overwhelmed with a sense of Not Belonging. And since all the grown ups (and even some of the older students, embarrassingly enough) were constantly telling me how MATURE and GROWN UP I was (BARRRRRF) it only made sense that I would Belong, somehow, when I was old. Like, 30. 

I think a lot of us must have felt this way. Even the truly popular kids. 

Our new house is close to the university. A bunch of college boys are renting a house down the street. (I know this because I got to hear their beer-fueled party antics the other night.) When I take the kids for walks I pass students. To get anywhere from my house I have to drive by the campus. I can see the dorms - MY old dorms - from our block. And Phillip is back in school, which means I've spent more time on campus this year than I have since the year when my youngest sister was still living in the dorms. I've taken my kids to all the good running-around places - the quad, the square, the fountain. And I watch college students. I look at what they're wearing, how they do their hair, how they walk, who they're talking to. I remember what it was like to be them. 

They look young. They look SO YOUNG. And suddenly I realize that I am old. Not OLD old, but old enough to know that they are young. Does that make any sense at all? I am feeling that so much this year, and I don't know if it's because I'm 30 or if it's because I'm suddenly surrounded by college students or what. My friend who talked me into all this enneagram stuff told me people shouldn't really try to type themselves until they're older (say, in their 30s) because you just don't know yourself well enough, you haven't had enough experiences. And I'm old enough now where I don't scoff at that, I don't roll my eyes at it, I NOD. Because I THINK IT'S TRUE. 

I am old enough to be older. It's... strange.

I flip through all those Facebook profiles with compassion - for them, and for myself. What a glorious and rotten time it was. How startling to know someone thought I was Popular, when really I was Miserable. How crazy to see that they are now grown ups, just like me. It's with delight and glee and profound relief that I can tell you I was right: at 30 things are better. At 30 I have, most days, found a way to Belong. And the 30-year-old in me can say, with detachment and charity and grace: it looks like they have too.

So I went to this reading and came home with a stomachache

I went to Anne Lamott's reading tonight (at the bookstore down the hill from my house, I walked, not that I'm, you know, BRAGGING or anything). I almost didn't go, though, because I couldn't find anyone to go with me. All the people who'd want to go to that sort of thing were regrettably out of town (how dare you, Friends Of Me) and I couldn't con anyone else into it and I just didn't WANT to go by myself. There's the whole "ooh, I don't know how readings WORK at this bookstore, what if I go to the wrong SECTION, what if I stand there looking STUPID, what if everyone knows what's going on except for ME, how come I SUCK SO MUCH" issue. And then there was the fact that I knew I would be Impacted Somehow and I wouldn't be able to talk about it because no one else would have experienced it and that is just a big fat bummer. 

But then I was all, "Come on Self. Bird By Bird is what made you think you could pull of NaNoWriMo and YOU DID and you also think Anne Lamott says things in ways that no one else says them and you will kick yourself for God knows how long if you stay home because you're feeling lame and loserish. Also, you can WALK THERE. For shame!"

So I went. But not without a lot of, "Are you SURE you're okay with the kids? Because I can TOTALLY stay home." 

Of course none of the lame and loserish things happened, although what I thought was early enough CLEARLY wasn't early enough and I was stuck standing way far in the back. And I knew absolutely nothing about her new book and now I know too much because Anne Lamott stood up there leading a group conversation about destructive teenage behavior, namely drug use and hooking up. 

SHUDDER. 

So part of me was all, "Oh dear God. Hello nightmares!" But then I also felt sort of... I don't know. Privileged somehow. Because I think this woman is terribly gifted in talking about things most people don't talk about with giant groups of strangers, or even faceless swaths of anonymous readers. I wanted so badly to hear her say something about writing, but she didn't, not really. She mostly talked about being a good person. Being the kind of grown up your kids wouldn't mind being themselves one day. Living authentically. Knowing your own truths. A lot of blah blah whateverness that sounds like blah blah whateverness coming from other people, but coming from her it just sounds like what she's meant to tell us. 

When someone asked her about her response to a certain group of people with, shall we say, some rigid thinking and principles, she just sighed. She said that she has a lot of opinions, opinions she knows are RIGHT. She's right about everything! Trust her! But as you get older you realize: no one cares what you think. People are going to believe what they're going to believe. People are ENTITLED to believe what they want to believe. And you can talk about it and argue about it and almost always lose, or you can be happy. And I was all, "Yes! This is why I don't like to write about Controversial Things on my BLAWG! Ooh, I want to know what Anne Lamott thinks about BLAWWWGS!"

Anyway. I walked home, my head full of writerly thoughts, mostly woe about the cartoonish simpleness of MY teenage characters, who are not doing ANY drugs or ANY hooking up and oh no, if that's what I have to write about if I'm writing about teenagers then I am DOOOOOOMED.

By the way, I was not one of those teenagers. I think there must be some of us out there. I mean, some of my friends were total potheads, but I pretended not to know about any of that, I mean, HAVE YOU MET MY PARENTS? and I think this what Anne Lamott meant when she said you can't be friends with your kids. I also finally understand why my dad drove us to (at midnight) and from (three in the morning, usually) the discos, quite possibly his LEAST favorite way to spend a Saturday night, with nary a complaint. Well, not that going to an Anne Lamott reading taught me that, I'm just bringing it up. Oh man, you know this Adjusting To The Move thing is killing me with the kids, but maybe someone could hurry up on that Age Preservation thing so I can have an almost-three-year-old forever and never ever have to think about "pharm parties" OMG.

I need some cake. MEDICINAL cake. Later dudes. 

A song in my honor

I'm sitting here on the couch with my laptop, earphones jammed in because Phillip is watching a TV show I cannot abide (I'm not even going to tell you what it is, THAT is how much I cannot abide it, you will just have to GUESS). And for a while I was writing the longest boringest post ever about my stupid NaNo novel but THEN. This song called 'Ramona', by Guster, popped up on my Pandora station (Carbon Leaf, if you must know.) And of COURSE I had to Direct Tweet Mona because a song! A song I like! With her name! Swoon! 

And then I thought I would delete the longest boringest writing post and tell you about a song written for ME. 

No. I am not talking about 'Maggie May', which I've never liked, and OMG people, in the Wikipedia entry it says, and I quote, "...Stewart recalled: "Maggie May was more or less a true story, about the first woman I had sex with..." and EW EW EW. I mean, ROD STEWART. ICK. DO NOT WANT TO KNOW. 

There is also a Bob Dylan song about a Maggie, which is marginally more acceptable. I don't know of any others. Fin! 

EXCEPT. When I was fourteen I was going out with this boy, my first REAL BOYFRIEND OMG, and he fancied himself a musician. (He IS a musician now, a fact I have gleaned from my only-to-be-used-for-good combined Google/Facebooky Powers. He, like, TOURS and everything and I suppose I must find some small amount of impressiveness in this, right? Granted.) 

Okay, so First Real Boyfriend was a bit of a tool. I know that now. But at the time? HE HUNG THE MOON. He was older and smarter and more popular and he had a CAR and he played the saxaphone (so does the boy I married, btw, am sucker for Musicians) and was everything from Football Captain to Student Council President to Lead In The School Play. (It helps when you go to a school with, like, MAYBE 100 people in grades seven through twelve and NO I AM NOT KIDDING.) 

So anyway. Swoonworthy, most definitely. And not just because he was, as I detailed above, Excellent Boyfriend Material. He was... kind of a mushy romantic dork. I mean, as much as you can be at age sixteen. He wrote me notes and letters and illegally drove me (illegally meaning my parents would have killed both of us, HERE I AM 'FESSING UP, PARENTS! I'LL GROUND MYSELF!) to scenic spots and confessed all sorts of shmoopy feelings for me. BLISS!

And one day? He said, "I'm writing a song about you."

That may or may not have been the moment that sealed the deal on When Maggie Grows Up She Will Write Long, Boring, Angsty Blog Posts About Writing YA Novels (That She Will Subsequently Delete Because That's How Much She Loves Her Readers).

So of COURSE I was eagerly awaiting the day I would hear this song, which supposedly he was setting to music with a couple of his friends who "were in a band". And now that I am older I know what "in a band" means, oh yes I do. It means early Saturday morning practice in your friends' garage while your wife wanders around the newlywed apartment, aimlessly, wondering what she got married for if her new husband was going to spend all his free time "practicing" for "gigs" and LET THIS BE A LESSON, ALL YOU GIRLS DATING BOYS "IN A BAND". 

ANYWAY. 

I never got to hear this song. At least, I can't remember ever hearing it. What a disappointment! I have a vague memory of reading the lyrics, which is SO not the same thing, and then I MOVED. I moved to a much bigger (though still very small) school where NONE of the boys compared to First Real Boyfriend and this meant I slogged through the next three years in a permanent state of Emo Pout. (Maybe THAT'S what sealed the deal!) 

BUT! 

I can't say for SURE, because my memories of this are even VAGUER, and possibly I have tried very hard to BLOCK THEM OUT, but I am pretty sure I got a letter from First Real Boyfriend saying he had performed this song somewhere, but had CHANGED ALL THE WORDS. Meaning it was no longer about ME! Meaning THE OPPOSITE OF SWOONWORTHY. 

So. I am still waiting. I don't have the most mellifluous name out there, I am WELL AWARE, but someone somewhere must be desperately in love with a Maggie and writing beautiful songs for her and I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT. Also: since my husband can play guitar and saxaphone and piano and sight-sing and generally kick everyone's butt when it comes to knowing things like, how many sharps are in the key of Super Crazy Hard To Play On The Piano, maybe HE should take up the cause. 

Has anyone written a song for YOU? Go ahead, make me jealous. It'll just give me more evidence to pile in front of Phillip.

A stunning revelation

I went shopping tonight. 

Oh, first I should tell you that I am CRAZY EXHAUSTED and not from any particular physically strenuous task, but just the chaos that is my brain on wedding and holiday fumes, and also the FPC's car just up and stopped working tonight and could you please shoot up some Pink Swirly Thoughts for the beloved automobile of this extremely dated post? THANKS. Oh right, I'm telling you all that so that you won't expect anything coherent from this post, but maybe you've already figured that out. 

SO. I went shopping and it was bliss. Because when we picked Phillip up at work and I told him I wanted to try and get some stuff done tonight he said, "Well, why don't you go when we get home and I'll give the kids dinner and everything." AND THE WORLD STOOD STILL. I'm sorry, Internet, but the Devastatingly Handsome Chinese Man is MINE. 

I went, of course, although not without a lot of "are you SURE?" and "REALLY?" And the mall, as I'm sure a lot of you know, was kind of nuts on this mid-December evening, but you guys, I rocked the mall. I bought everything I needed to buy - presents, last minute wedding attire details, and, um, something for me to wear on Christmas. 

I have this very old Ann Taylor Loft sweater that I usually wear sometime around Christmas. It's the right kind of red with some inoffensive black velvet ribbon detailing. It's Christmassy without delving too far into Scary Third Grade Teacher Christmas Sweater territory. Anyway, I have nothing to wear with it since all my dress pants are too big and none of my skirts match. I was hunting for a shortish black skirt or maybe some nice black pants. Something classic, something appropriate, something that would probably hang out in my closet for years, long after I grow four sizes larger. 

But I, uh, came home with something else. For one thing, I bought another red sweater. The SAME RED. It's a little different in that it's long and tunic-ish, but you know, STILL A RED SWEATER. 

I also bought (I am turning red and you can't even see me) stretchy black skinny pants. SKINNY PANTS. And see how I've refrained from calling them leggings, though they are nearly as tight as leggings and you probably couldn't tell the difference. Even though they're heavy and have a zipper at the top and aren't, you know, LEGGINGS. 

Okay, so, back story: I tried on skinny jeans a few weeks ago with my sister. My sister IS skinny. I am not skinny, but I am also a lot less fat than I used to be. I thought: why not? Skinny jeans are The Thing, right? But both of us looked embarrassingly awful. Terrible. Unimaginably horrid. I am thinking it has something to do with the fact that neither of us look like tall runway models. I have seen other people who look half decent in skinny jeans, but most of them are tall runway models and I am about as far away from a tall runway model as you can be. I scraped those things off my legs and told myself, "Self? NEVER AGAIN!"

But I've been seeing women in what I will call skinny PANTS. Not jeans, but dark pants, too heavy to be leggings, but nearly as tight, and usually tucked into boots. I like this look. I like the long sweater thing over the tight pants and the boots. Are people wearing that where you live? I swear, all the cool shoe salesgirls and restaurant hostesses are wearing something like this. And even though I am not a cool salesgirl or hostess, I am a STAY AT HOME MOM, I have wondered if I could pull it off. And when I saw the black skinny pants on sale at Macy's I thought: why not? 

AND THEN I BOUGHT THEM. 

I am not sure about this look, internet. (And I know what you are thinking and NO, I am NOT going to post a picture, this is what younger sisters are FOR.) I have to say, the long sweater over the tight pants was kind of flattering, or at least they fit pretty well. And while I didn't love the super tapered look I wanted to see what it would look like with boots. So I bought it. And then I carried it out of the store thinking, "Hmm, I have seen this look on someone other than the hot restaurant hostess."

So I've been thinking about it this whole time and Internet, I have DISCOVERED THE SOURCE. Hold on to your keyboards, now. The person I remember first wearing this sort of ensemble was DUN DUN DUN my high school Italian teacher. GAH!

My high school Italian teacher was ITALIAN. She was from the town and just happened to marry an American teacher eight frillion years previously, which is the only reason I can think of as to why she was allowed to show up in our high school and pretend she was teaching Italian. We mostly learned about how rude American children were and why it was very important to own a Trussardi brand bag and how well-connected Signora was in our little town and if we didn't settle down and do our translations she would tell the mayor on us. BUT I DIGRESS. 

Signora was MAYBE five feet tall. She wore, every single day, a longish sweater in a dark neutral color, and tight skinny pants in darker neutral colors, with an assortment of snazzy ankle boots. With her giant mass of reddish-purple hair and gold jewelry, she looked like every other Italian lady at the market or in the bar. It was the UNIFORM. And I remember silently deriding it my head, and not-so-silently deriding it in the girls' locker room before basketball practice. (Italian was my last class of the day, and she was not our favorite teacher.) 

Anyway, I'm now feeling pretty uncertain as to whether I should keep MY skinny pants. I mean, we've already discussed the fact that I need to start coloring my hair - what if it turns out reddish-purple? IS THIS KARMA? 

We're not the kids anymore

The first year Phillip and I were married was the first year I didn't spend Christmas at home. He couldn't get enough time off to make a trip to Italy worth it, so we hit up my grandma's Christmas Eve get together, and spent Christmas Day with his parents. It was a bummer, but I got over it. Sort of. 

I was ten years old when we moved overseas and it BLEW MY MIND that we were going to have actual holidays without my grandparents. I mean, was that ALLOWED? My mom's side of the family is large and loud and very much into turning holidays into parties and it was inconceivable to me that we could still have Christmas without them. And when my parents invited FRIENDS for Christmas, people who were NOT RELATED TO US, who probably had no IDEA about Very Important Traditions, like fried bread dough and the carefully organized present opening ritual and the fact that Santa is actually my Uncle Joe, I mean: EXCUSE ME? 

And now, even though I stopped "going home" for Christmas years ago, even though my parents don't even LIVE in Italy anymore, it's still kinda strange to me that we celebrate Christmas and other big family holidays with... family. We have a lot of friends without families nearby and I am always a little worried about them this time of year. What are they going to do? Do they have plans? Shouldn't we have a big party and invite everyone? Wouldn't Thanksgiving be awesome with all our friends around the table? Wouldn't Christmas Eve be a blast? 

Then I remind myself that I have family - LOTS of family - around and it would look sort of weird if I was all, "Actually, sorry, I'm hosting Thanksgiving this year and it's friends only. See ya!" 

Not that I really want to do this. I'm thankful my family IS nearby. We're in kind of a weird spot right now where my siblings and I are old enough to do our own thing, but the party is still at Grandma's house. It's fun, but also frustrating, to look around and think about what Phillip and I want to do with our own little family. Is this the year we do our own celebration? Is this the year we decide not to do every single family party? Is this the year we finally go to Christmas Eve Mass at our own church instead of at our parents'? 

Because of my sister's wedding, because of who will be in town and when they'll be leaving, my mom and dad are having Christmas several days before Actual Christmas. And in my family Actual Christmas is Christmas Eve - massive amounts of food and drink and presents and, this year, small children wreaking massive amounts of havoc. And because we'll be having our family Christmas a few days before Actual Christmas, it means we won't go directly to Grandma's house afterwards to continue the party with all my aunts and uncles. They'll be eating fried bread dough, as usual, on Christmas Eve, but this is the year we decided we won't be there. 

It's convenient, isn't it? The wedding, the fact that our kids are tiny, the fact that Grandma is an hour away - it all adds up to "Oh, it just doesn't make sense this year." We thought about skipping it last year, when it was scary snowy and we had, like, fourteen Christmas obligations in a row, but we didn't. We felt guilty, but we also wanted to be there. We have a fun time! The fried bread dough is THAT good. This year? I don't feel guilty. I'm a big girl now, I'm a mom. I've got two kids who, so far, are head over heels in love with Christmas (or, at least, their Advent calendars filled with chocolate) and we want to do it our way. 

So we'll do a Pre-Christmas Christmas with my brothers and sisters and all the friends who used to go to our Christmases in Italy, because they'll be here for the wedding. I'm really looking forward to it- I don't want to give THAT up. But then we're staying home. We'll go to Mass at our own church for the very first time since we've been going there (10 years!). We'll have our own Christmas Eve and maybe my sisters will be there, and really, whoever wants to hang out and eat too much at our house Christmas Eve is totally welcome. Because that's what we want our house to be: always available and full of good things to eat. 

People are always talking about creating traditions and while I love the idea, it's really hard in practice, especially when you are still so involved in your extended family. Not that that's a bad thing, but I do want Jack and Molly's Christmases to be theirs. If that makes sense. Right now I feel like we are a part of everyone else's Christmases - driving everywhere, not doing any of our normal things because we spend two or three days away from our own house. As much as I love everyone else's Christmases, and I really really do, this year I'm ready to let other people be a part of ours.