Porphyrogene!

I’m really lucky.  Out of all the terrible things that have happened in this world, very few have truly touched me - I should be thankful.  I should be grateful that some of the hardest, most terrible things have been shouldered by others who are probably stronger than I am. 

For example, I can not comprehend losing a child.  I’m not even a parent yet, and losing a son or daughter is… unthinkable. 

About six months ago, I lost a friend.  Obviously he wasn’t just MY friend, and I wasn’t his closest friend either - I believe that particular distinction goes to two very cool, very pretty Amandas. It’s hard to think about it, the back of my throat closes up and still I’m grateful that my pain is less than that of so many other people, not the least of which includes his parents and sister. 

I was at work when I first read about the Virginia Tech shootings - the death count kept getting higher and while it was surreal and upsetting, I felt safe.  I wasn’t there, and I didn’t recall any friends who were.  We were okay.

My husband and I were playing host to two college friends who were in town for a conference.  They also happened to know Dan.  When I got home from work, we watched the news, awe-struck as bloody kids our age were carried from the buildings, and then one of our friends reminded me that Dan, after graduating from our Alma Mater, went on to Civil Engineering grad school at Virginia Tech.  And the shootings occurred in the engineering building.  

I’m not sure I’ll ever feel an adrenaline surge like that again, but it made me freeze, with every muscle tense.  I stared with renewed vigor at the TV, waiting for a hint about who was murdered and who was spared.  I tried to call mutual friends. I cried.

Kyle and I told each other that he had to be okay - I mean, what are the odds, seriously.  He might not have had class that day! Or he might have skipped class to go on a Dunkin’ Donuts run or a bike ride… even though he wasn’t really the skipping class type… Or he might have been on a different floor…  There were so many ways he could have been safe.  Kyle and I went to bed reassuring each other that our friend was okay. 

In the morning at around 8:30 a.m., we got a call from our friends who were in town at the conference.  They had just heard that Dan was killed. Shot to death.

Dan had been my husband’s roommate for a year and a half.  They were housemates when they went abroad to Belgium for 4 months.  They travelled all over Europe together.  Dan was Emcee-ing at the concert where Kyle proposed to me.  Dan came to our wedding. 

Over the last few years, Kyle has lost 3 friends his age.  One to a motorcycle accident, one to a car accident, and now, one to a senseless act of violence.  Dan had been in one of the smallest classrooms.  His story isn’t talked about much because there were no survivors in that room so there are no heartwarming stories of heroism or escape.

Kyle does not cry often.  I knew Dan was gone because while Kyle was on the phone - he started to weep.  We both stayed home from work that day.  Kyle needed me badly, and I needed him, and for the first day or so we just sat and held each other. 

Eventually, we were both filled with an intense desire to do SOMETHING, to do ANYTHING, even though there was nothing to do in addition to a fog of despairing lethargy penetrating our physical shells.  We settled on a trip to a Big Home Improvement store to purchase a tree.  We thought Dan would get a kick out of the funny little plums, so we picked a plum tree, took it home, named it Dan and planted it in our backyard.   We found and bought a fraggle - one of Dan’s favorite shows - and packaged it up and sent it to Dan’s Family.

I tried going in to work, but when my boss started to talk to me about what happened I started to cry and I couldn’t stop.  She sent me home.

Kyle and I made plans to go to the wake and funeral.  We drove 10+ hours to get there and I had one of the hardest experiences of my life and one of the best.

Walking into the high school gym where his wake was being held and having to walk past a coffin with pictures of Dan and his friends in high school and college in collages all around was tough.  Walking up to his mom and dad was tortuous.  I was trying so hard not to cry because geez - how selfish am I? My pain can’t be nearly as bad as theirs, and here are these broken parents standing next to their son’s coffin, hugging people as they walk past in a steady stream.  I get there and I’m just short of bawling and Dan’s mom gave me the sweetest little hug, held on to me and told me it would be okay.  SHE told ME it would be okay.  She also thanked me for the Fraggle… told me it was sitting on her mantle and that it makes her smile every time she sees it. 

I don’t have physical proof yet, but I think she’s some kind of wonder woman.

The rest of my night was, oddly, one of the best in my life.  Dan had three sets of friends, you see.  He had high school friends - a small group that he was extraordinarily close to; so close that they had matching t-shirts with nick names and a special hang out called "The Barn".  He had college friends - a group of Theatre dorks, a cappella singers, art society groupies and engineers.  And he had Virginia Tech grad school friends.  We went out to a casual sort of dinner all together at a local chinese food restaurant with 30 people or more after the wake.  And then we met up at "The Barn" which was a barn-like structure behind someone’s house.  We all went up to the second floor of the Barn in a big open space, sat down with guitars, played music, joked around, sang songs, and told stories.  It was extraordinarily precious.  The three separate groups of friends who had NOT met each other previously got along perfectly as though even without having this really cool guy in common, we could have all been the best of buddies.

Dan was a really good looking guy.  He was smart, and witty, and he could be obsessively passionate and quirky about all sorts of things.  He played the guitar very well, and he sang with a lot of heart — if not always in tune.  He could be moody sometimes - Kyle has more than one story about how down Dan could get on long Train rides across Europe or how negative his attitude could be when caught in a downpour.  But he could also be as light as feather and happy as a clam and usually it was either or. He didn’t really drink alcohol although he developed an appreciation for Belgian beer after his trip. 

After Kyle proposed to me, Dan’s first words on the mic were "So… uh… how ’bout that?"  

He had a funny giggle. His favorite fraggle was Wembley.  He auditioned for the A cappella groups on campus almost every year, but he never got in. 

He was a talented engineer, he did extremely well in his classes and he wanted to build bridges for a living.

And I miss him.

That night before his funeral where all three groups of his friends sat in one room and sang together to the tune of 3 or 4 guitars, loads of sadness, and a great deal of appreciation for the respect and support we were receiving from each other - we ALL smiled at the vision of Dan in the back our minds and how he would have acted had he also been physically present.  He would have been bouncing off the WALLS dude.  He would have been skipping from person to person.  He would have been playing the guitar and singing at the top of his lungs.  He would have been laughing till he cried tears of joy and hilarity.  He would have been ecstatic to have all of his friends together in one place.  It would have been perfect.   As it is, it was the closest to perfect we could get.

In general, I would not consider myself a girly-girl.  I like jeans, I like comfyness, I don’t spend more than 2 minutes in the morning on my hair. 

However, if you were to view my shoe closet, you might think differently.  You might venture to stamp a big "STILETTO WEARING GIRLY GIRLY" tattoo on my forehead. However, that’s not the worst of it.  I’m about to confess to you a secret, not-so-secret, obsessive passion of mine. 

Tulle.

It started to take a definitive shape sometime in college.  I am an avid Thrift store peruser.  I love a good bargain, and whilst still in College, I made it one of my missions to collect as many knee length tiered skirts as possible.  Then I would painstakingly sew 6 inch (or more) lengths of tulle to the inside of the skirts to "poof" them out.  Then, I started exploring harder things like lace and ribbon flowers.  I was soon a junky and what started out as an innocent past time has now left me with over 20 skirts, "poofed" out with tulle, lace all over them and many hours of my life defined in my memory as only hand-sewing black out periods.  I can’t recall exact details after getting into the swing of pinning and sewing… but when I would wake up I would be stiff, there would be stray pins on the floor (super fun!), and before me would lay a lacey, tulle-y confection of deliciousness.

The peak of my Tulle delight was obviously my wedding gown.  I felt enveloped by a cloud, it was exquisite. 

Now I’ve been married for over a year and my wedding gown is hermetically sealed in a box so that when I offer it to my future-daughter, 80 bajillion years from now, she can tell me she thinks it’s lame. 

What I realized last night as I looked upon my most recent obsessive craft idea (Tutus), is that I think I have outgrown tulle. In my mind I would LOVE to flounce around in tulle skirts all day… but actually, that probably wouldn’t look good at ALL on me now.  In fact, it would probably look sad.  And I don’t want to look sad! I want to look JOYFUL! Tulle! Yay! 

Alas I think it is time to start to pass tulle strewn objects on to the next generation… Reluctantly.  Slowly and with a great deal of grumbling I think I might start to possibly consider maybe giving away (or maybe selling?) some of my tulle confections of the future because - *sob* - I can no longer pull them off myself.

So, what’s next? I grow out of light up sneakers or something? Dude. That will be a sad day as well.

Kyle and I wandered into Le Big-Home-Improvement-Store the other day and after finding everything on our list and then some, I had to body slam and karate chop my man into making steady progress toward the check out registers rather than veering towards wreaths, enormous blow up snowmen, christmas tree door mats, and twinkle lights.  I don’t know why twinkle lights are Kyle’s kryptonite - I, typically, am the one attracted to shiny or glowy objects [as evidenced by the two instructions I was ordered to follow when looking for and purchasing a bridesmaid dress for an upcoming wedding that I’m honored to be a part of: 1. Get it in David’s Bridal Cornflower Blue, 2. Do not buy anything that will make you resemble a disco ball.     I’m fairly certain I was the only one given the second instruction.] 

We already own about 30 strings of white lights that we purchased cheap and in bulk to decorate the reception hall for our wedding — Translate this to mean we could pull a Chevy Chase.  I was not expecting to require the strength to pull a grown man away from said twinkle lights aka kryptonite of the wallet…  I should start working out or something.   After all, I thought the Christmas displays didn’t start until Early November… and here we are, weeks early, being bombarded with reindeer and tinsel.

Not that I’m enormously complaining… even though it may sound like it, it’s all just an illusion.  I’m a big fan of Christmas - both types.  I love the celebration of the Saviour and I love the mistletoe draped in red ribbon.  As I previously mentioned, I am a craftsy type - so last year I made our stockings, a Stable for our manger scene, and more than half of our tree decorations.  I’m excited for the winter season to begin.  But the true purpose of this post is to share with you a flashback I had of Kyle and my first married Christmas Eve/Day together. 

We decided, the week before Christmas, to drive to visit family.  First we drove 4 hours to visit HIS family and spent a day and a night with them.  It is pure joy and sunshine to visit with my in-laws.  I call them in-laws only to avoid confusion as I write this because the truth is that they feel like family, no ‘in-laws’ about it.  Then we drove 4 more hours to visit MY family, meet my brother’s girlfriend, go into NYC, celebrate the holiday, and then we packed up and drove home to the ‘burgh on Christmas Eve’s Day. 

We had lofty plans.  You see, for months we’d been eating healthily and avoiding certain favorite, particularly delicious foods such as donuts or cinnamon buns, or fondue.   Prior to our road trip we made a list of all the foods we would buy, splurge on, to have and share on Christmas day.  Kyle was going to make me Souffle! and Quiche!  I was going to open a role of Pillsbury cinnamon buns and pop ‘em in the oven! It was going to be spectacular!

Did you know all grocery stores (even the ‘24 hour’ ones) close early on Christmas Eve?

We got back to Pittsburgh at around 7:00 p.m. I think, maybe a little later.  We stopped at 3 different Giant Eagles, we stopped at a 24 hour Walmart, we stopped at a Shop and Save.  After driving 6+ hours to get home to Pittsburgh the last thing we wanted to be doing was to be driving around to 80 different grocery stores trying to find 4 different kinds of cheese, eggs, and maybe some milk.  Genius that I am, we decided to save our grocery shopping (ON PURPOSE) for Christmas Eve so that none of our food spoiled while we were away. 

There were several different phases of our mood:  Relief to be back in Pittsburgh, Annoyance that the first store was closed, disbelief that the second store was closed, Freaking-out when the third store was closed, Anger and general snappish-ness as we drove half an hour to get to a CLOSED 24-hour Walmart, unending giggling and silliness as we pulled up to an open gas station and combed all food products for ANYTHING Christmas eve/day worthy.  We came out with some milk, a container of eggs, a block of Velveeta cheese, a pre-made calzone and some donut holes.  Have I mentioned that, at this point, we still had not eaten dinner and it was about 10:00 p.m.?

We went home, defeated and punch drunk.  We ate our food, ignored our stomach aches from the who-knows-how-old calzone, and went to bed — happy.

In the morning, my dream of a husband made me a velveeta cheese souffle (for real) and cinnamon buns from scratch (without oil, or sugar … or flour I think).  As a culinary tradition, I wouldn’t recommend either one.   Then again, the overwhelming love I felt for him as we, giggling, dug into the oddly fluffy-topped, brick bottomed souffle was delicious.

I’m not sure we could have had a better first Christmas.

I am going to jump out of my skin if I don’t express this to SOMEONE. 

First let me qualify what I’m about to say by stating that I like and respect ALL people involved in this quandary, the following is just a matter of inherent differences and is being expressed at a moment of peak frustration.

I have been married for a year and… 4 months or so. Wow… actually, a year and four months today! Anyway - A lot of seasoned married folks note my marriage clocked in at 1 year and 4 months with scoffs of "You’re still Newlyweds!!".  Sure, fine - that bugged me at first, but I don’t so much mind it anymore.  However, I’m coming to realize something that’s actually very different about my relationship with my husband than alot of other marriages or long term relationships - including those of some friends.  Kyle and I are husband and wife AND we are best friends. 

I didn’t think this was extraordinarily significant because - of COURSE we’re best friends, shouldn’t your soulmate be your best friend? Of COURSE we like to hang out, I married him cause I wanted to spend my life with him for goodness sake - not hang out with other people as often as possible or do separate activities.  The best phrase to describe us is probably "attached at the hip".  And maybe it will wear off and maybe it won’t.  Maybe you’re jealous, maybe you’re gagging.  Maybe you think that kind of desire for constant companionship from ONE person may be unhealthy, maybe you’re pumping your fist in the air yelling "MORE POWER TO YOU!" at your computer monitor.  None of it will change the fact that if I could be anywhere in the world with anyone in the world - I would be with Kyle, chillin’.  I am covetous of his time, and he is covetous of mine.

This coming weekend (T-2 days) we’re headed to Kyle’s Family’s Cabin in the mountains.  We’ve invited along four of our friends Maria, Nolan, Maylee, and Taylor.  Maria and Nolan are engaged, Maylee and Taylor are Married and have been for upwards of 4 or 5 years now.  We’ve known both couples for about a year now but could probably be considered closer to Maria and Nolan.   These four people are our ONLY friends in Pittsburgh.  We have alot in common with them, though DEFINITELY not everything, and we typically have alot of fun when we get together with them.  We even went on Vacation to Disney World with Maria and Nolan this past spring - although tiring, it was certainly a blast. 

I think almost all problems begin with expecations.  My expectations for this coming weekend at my Husband’s Family’s cabin with our Pittsburgh Friends have been the following: Finally a chance to relax and chill out - play games, indulge in delicious food, talk, watch movies, laugh.  Kyle has been working 12 hour days five days a week and 5 hours on saturdays for the last month - I had a huge deadline recently and we’ve spent alot of time missing each other.  This will be the first weekend in a long time that I could potentially be with him from Friday at 5:30 pm till Sunday when we go to sleep - Exciting, no?

My problem is that this is fast becoming less of a 3 adult couples who are friends going to a cabin to have a good time and more of a boys club vs. girls club thing.  Maria and Maylee are best friends from Highschool - they grew up many states away from here and just so happened to both move to Pittsburgh with their significant others at about the same exact time in a similar situation to myself.  We, all three, became friends but they are significantly closer because of their hometown ties and the amount of time they’ve known each other.  They are the ones who suggested that instead of splitting the cars up by couples - 1 in 1 and 2 in the other, that we should split up by sex - girls in one car, boys in the other, "Because that way, Taylor won’t have to listen to Rent twice through".  Okay - I can see the logic in that.  And despite being denied four hours of uninterrupted conversation with MY best friend… I can see the merits of a girls car and boys car.

Then Nolan decided a couple weeks ago that going fishing with the guys on Saturday morning is a BRILLIANT idea.   In preparation he purchased 3 fly fishing poles and kits and got the guys together to do a test/teach run this past weekend on Sunday.  They left at 7:30 in the morning - I was told when they left that they would be back at Noon.  Kyle called at One o’clock and revealed that unfortunately they would not be back for another hour.  They returned at 2:40 p.m.   This caused tension between me and my spouse because, after promising to spend the whole afternoon and evening with me - it felt like he left me hanging and lonely.  We vehemently discussed the situation, came to terms with the failed expectations of the day and then tried to make the best of it.

Suffice to say I do not have warm fuzzy feelings about breaking up the group so the guys can disappear for "5" {read  8} hours on saturday morning to stand in a creek and throw hooks at trout that we aren’t going to cook up anyway.   All this aside from the fact that I’m Jealous. OF THE FISHING.  Why is it that only the men are allowed to go fishing?  I have extremely fond memories of going fishing with my grandfather as a kid - I also have extremely fond memories of fishing at camp and crabbing at the ocean.  Baiting the hook isn’t my favorite thing to do, but then again - is it anyone’s?  And besides! There’s no hook baiting in fly fishing! I’m interested - why can’t I go too?  Because I have a vajayjay that’s why. 

No no.  The womenfolk are to stay behind in the safety of the cabin to do our "crafts".  This I resent for all of the above reasons.  I am, for now, (probably irrationally) ignoring the fact that I love to do crafts from knitting and crocheting to quilting to creating discoballs, painting canvases, sculpting clay, and…. oh did I mention I was a studio art major?  So I’m crafty.  This has now turned out to be a characteristic that dooms me to cabin confinement while others get go go out and psycologically abuse wild fish.

Don’t even get me started on the whispered musings having to do with rooms to sleep in … (Single sex sleep over style? Any takers? Any one?)

I think the main points here are that A) This is not going the way I EXPECTED, B) we will probably have fun anyway, C) I’m missing my husband already and I feel very sad at the thought of being separated so much when we COULD be spending time together so easily, D) I’m just cranky.

My last point comes to you via epiphany.  SO although Maria and Nolan are engaged and obviously love each other and Maylee and Taylor are married and obviously love each other… their "significant other" is NOT their best friend.  Maria and Maylee are best friends.  So they probably spend the majority of their every day lives A) Working (or Student-ing) B) With their significant other C) with their best friend and for them, these are distinctly separate activities.  My significant other IS my best friend as we previously discussed… So I could EASILY enjoy twice as much time with him as I do doing anything else.  They enjoy the thought of driving to the cabin together because they’re best friends… but I am put in a place, once again, because I’m a woman when I would probably rather be with my best friend. They enjoy the thought of the guys leaving to do fishing, because they’re best friends and they get to spend the morning together,  I once again feel left behind and separated from MY best friend. My problem with this is that when I mention to either Maria or Maylee that Kyle is my best bud - they look at me as if I have two heads.  I could be imagining it - and I have a specTACular imagination - but I always feel like they view us as either circus freaks or a few cards short of a full deck as in ‘How can your HUSBAND/BOYFRIEND/FIANCE be your best friend?’ And then I vaguely feel like I have to justify my friendship with Kyle… that it is not co-dependant and is in fact a healthy best-friend-ship plus a few marriage vows.

Now we’re all adults here, and let’s face it - this trip will probably go exactly as they want it to go and not as my expectations expect and it’ll be fine - it’ll be fun, even. 

But boy can I work myself into a good imitation of an anxiety attack with a pinch of righteous indignation.

As found in this article on MSN… Everything that I have done in the last (little over a) year was wrong to do in the span of time I did it and will apparently lead to divorce or forever-debt. 

While graduating from College and finishing up an Honor’s Thesis, I planned my wedding.  My Husband-to-be also wrote an Honor’s Thesis, then we both graduated.  A month later, we got married, went on our honeymoon, closed on a house, and moved 4-6 hours away from our families to a city I had only visited once before so that he could enter a 5 year PhD program.   We moved in to a beat up old house that (of COURSE) had a lot of problems we hadn’t anticipated, with one car - stick shift - that I can’t drive, and no human support system.  Kyle started school - I stayed home… for months… looking for a job (No internet, No cable, No phone).  To speed through this saga — I got a temp job, and then a permanent position, Kyle decided to leave the PhD program.  Now I was working and he was home looking for a job.  He got a job a heartbeat after the ‘Nick of Time’ would have occurred and we had to temporarily borrow money to make ends meet.  At this point, we’ve recovered and we’re on our way to saving and paying off his student loans.

But it probably wouldn’t be fair to gloss over the 7 gas leaks, the broken refridgerator, the screw in Kyle’s leg, the bird in our ceiling, the demolition and reconstruction of our bathroom by us, and the despair that accompanied the loss of a good friend (one of Kyle’s roommate’s in College) on a cool April day while he was attending a Civil Engineering Grad School class at Virginia Tech.

I’ll probably address all these little topics in future entries.  But truly, I think the main point is that the only thing missing in our lives is me being pregnant.  In an ‘Ironic’, ‘I-feel-on-the-edge-with-my-eyes-rolling-back-to-show-too-much-white’ sort of way, it would just be ‘Perfect’ to find out something will be ‘Comin round the mountain’ in the next 9 months.

Heavenly Father, please do not take this as a Dare.

So, when I was little, I lived in central New Jersey.   My brother is 3 years younger than me, and when he turned 3 we moved to a different house in a better location for my dad’s office commute. 

I’m sure the move made a lot of financial and practical sense, it was a bigger house and much closer to Dad’s work, but looking back now - I realize we left behind several very cool people. 

First of all - there was Jaime-Lee, my best friend from up the street.  I cried the whole day we were moving except for the 5 minutes when Jaime-Lee came over to say goodbye and gave me a my little pony whose tail swung in a circle if you wound it up.  It was the sweetest going away present, ever.  I visited her once or twice after we moved, but we were no longer geographically close… so we drifted apart quickly.  I am currently convinced that if I could only find her on Myspace or Facebook or some other social networking website that we would be the best of friends.  The trouble is that the majority of girls named ‘Jaime-Lee’ are blond, and who KNOWS if they wore glasses when they were six, so I let the urge to find her slide until I remember it one day and furiously search the internet for her, reluctantly give up again and allow the process to cycle once more.

Second of all, but probably best, is Fay.  There was this magical spectacular Mary Poppins of a woman who would help my mom out with babysitting and general stuff around the house.  She lived a couple of doors down, she was retired and a cute little grandma, and she would watch a lot of the neighborhood kids.  I don’t remember a whole lot of specifics, but what I envision now is my mom looking back on those times with a warm smile and a longing that tells me Fay was a gift from the Heavens.  Apparently one of my first phrases ever was "Boops on, walk fay!" which meant "Please, ma’am, put my boots on and take me for a walk at your nearest possible convenience."  I don’t actually remember every saying that, but I do remember one very specific, very special outing.  One of the things Fay talked about when I was little, was taking me on a shopping trip where I could buy ANYTHING I wanted - Anything at all!  It was a mind-boggling concept to me at the time… I would get glassy eyed and space out, my mind reeling at the possibilities!  So one day she told me I was finally enough of a big girl that we were going to go on that trip.  I think the timing also happened to coincide with packing up the house and getting ready to move and was probably a bid to keep me otherwise occupied while they unceremoniously shoved my stuffed animals into suffocatingly small cardboard boxes… and thus ending the era of Fay.  Nevertheless, I was extremely excited.  We took the bus to a mall and walked around.  We had Roy Rogers fast food.  And, I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but in one of the department stores, in a bin that was near to the ground, I found a plastic hair comb that had a rainbow in the plastic with glittery sparkle goodness all baked in.  When I picked it up and looked at Fay, she didn’t even hesitate.  We went directly to the counter, and she bought it for me.  I couldn’t even believe my good fortune.  It was the only thing I asked for that day.  On the day when I was offered anything my heart desired, told that she would buy for me anything I wanted… All I wanted was this little plastic comb with a glitter rainbow on the handle and I stared at it all the way home thinking it was the most beautiful thing I would ever own.

I was married about a year and a half ago.  About six months before I got married I went to try on wedding dresses and I went to a store, with my mom, that was very close to where we used to live - where fay (somewhere in her late 80’s) still hangs out.  My mom called her up and invited her to join us.  My last clear memory of her was that shopping trip, and here I was, all grown up, engaged, and trying on wedding gowns.  She was not the tall, radiant angel I remembered.  She was older and much shorter than me now, but she was so sharp and so with it!  It was a little awkward, and a little weird, but all I really felt was love for her.  I wish I had been able to express it more clearly. I wish I hadn’t thought it would be too… stupid or out of the blue to bring up a little white comb with a glitter rainbow.

I now realize that she wasn’t rich and if my 6-year-old self had demanded a 50" TV or a pony, she wouldn’t have been able to afford it.  But somehow the only thing in the world I desired was this rainbow glitter plastic comb… and that incredible indulgence is one of my sweetest, coolest childhood memories.

Thank you Fay.

I had a great childhood.  My mom stayed home with my brother and I, at least till we went to school - and even then she only worked during school hours.  Through the hazy veil that is time, when I look back I remember good feelings, good times… However, when I examine the past more closely I start to have a minor panicky feeling -

Will I be as good a mother as my mom?

Now, my mom was not perfect - we certainly had our differences and our all out battles.  I know she made mistakes.  I know she stuck me with a pin when changing a diaper in church and she didn’t catch me when I rolled off the changing table - but I only know those things because she felt so guilty she just had to tell me about them in that joking yet serious "Please forgive me for being a horrible person - I feel so guilty about this I must confess all!" sort of way.  And in our fights I said some nasty things and she said some nasty things.  And I’m sure we still have our fair share of fights.

But I remember… The paper that ALWAYS covered the coffee table and the crayons that were ALWAYS available and the exciting moments when a piece of paper that had been worn thin by my genius scribblings would be stripped away and a new blank piece of beauty would be taped down.  I remember the big plastic box full of dresses - My mom’s old dresses - for dress up.  I remember the costumes she would sew me - a Unicorn, a princess.  I remember the window paint… and after covering the glass doors in the kitchen with a satisfying black, purple and orange smear resembling a pumpkin and a witch… watching her as she scraped it all away after halloween.  I remember dye-ing eggs.  I remember birthday parties.  They paid for me to go to camp, and to take flute lessons and piano lessons.  They bought me a dog "to help me through adolescence" [my reasoning].

I love kids and I intend to have a few, but I’m still a few years away from making the active decision to procreate.  So, if God doesn’t decide to play a practical joke, I’m still a few years away from finding out the answer to the above question.  But in the interest of striving to be the kind of mother that my future child will worry about topping - Here’s a list of things I will do.  This list is not meant to have practicality written all over it - it is meant to be seen through the rose-colored glasses of a woman on the edge of contemplating a baby.  I am distinctly blocking out any and all birth recovery time, the lack of sleep, the battles of will, the self-doubt, and the world-renowned guilt.

1) I will have a dress up box and henceforth I will save any and all sparkly clothes I own to put into it.
2) I will paint a mural on my child’s bedroom wall
3) I will make them play outside and I will join them - despite the icky bugs.
4) I will try not to pass on my fear and loathing of icky bugs
5) I will have extra cool bandaids available at all times (Princess? Pirate? Thomas the Train?)
6) I will try to make a significant number of toys rather than buy them.
7) I will make sure they can read music and play music
8) I will try to get them interested in a sport, but if they overly resist I will not force it.
9) I will not get angry when she cuts her own hair at age 3.
10) I will encourage her to paint my husband’s toenails
11) I will never be upset when he spends 90% of his allowance every week on books.
12) I will always let them do homework on the kitchen table if they want to.
13) I will let them wear whatever they want (except for extremely special occasions) so long as the proper body parts are covered.
14) I will resist the urge to set up posed photographs with my kids in matching outfits for Christmas Cards.
15) If I buy a puppy because of their pleading - I will blame no one but myself when I am outside, at 3:00 am, in the rain with a dog that won’t pee outdoors but will unleash it’s bladder of terror as soon as we step back into the warmth and comfort of the house.
16) I will bribe my child into potty training with dollar store items
17) I will make them halloween costumes rather than buy them
18) I will NOT make a habit of letting my children sleep with me.
19) I will sleep beside them on the floor whenever/if ever they are sick
20) I will pray everyday henceforth that they will NOT inherit my feet/tendons/ligaments/sciatica.
21) I will let them paint my windows for halloween.
22) I will make a tradition out of decorating for holidays.
23) I will decorate for holidays
24) I will not make them make their beds if they keep their rooms clean otherwise.
25) I will read to them. Alot. And I will savor their discovery of all the different literary escapes of my own childhood.
26) I will not freak out when they have imaginary friends.
27) I will not give them whatever they want whenever they want whatever they want. I will teach them patience at the cost of whining and screaming in present if need be.
28) I will not see my child as Infallible, but I will make sure they know I think they are perfect the way they are.
29) I will tell them I love them.
30) I will never turn down a hug

Smile and nod at my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed notions - correct them if you will. But don’t violently burst my bubble… okay?

I have a compulsion to do with curly hair.  I. Must. Have. It.

It is difficult to put into words the base desire I have to be toting a noggin of ringlets - but I shall try.

I have been told a million times that curly hair = a lot of work.  I do NOT believe you. I think you are lying to try to make me feel better about having stick straight hair and to keep me out of your curly haired club.  I resent it.  Okay, so maybe when you roll out of bed in the morning, your curls look a little mussed. Mussed curls are romantic.  Mussed curls will give you flyaways that will dazzle as it will look like a halo surrounding your springy hair.   Do you know what mussed straight hair looks like? Mussy badness. Curled tendril-like face framing IS the essence of romance.  If I was a guy, I would ONLY be attracted to curly haired women.  The moment in movies when the guy slides his hand behind the heroine’s neck and through the back of her hair drawing her in for a kiss is ALWAYS made better when said hair is curly.

This urge started young and has carried me through hundreds of tactics for getting my hair to obey, some can be likened to the approach of a super suave secret agent, and some can be compared to trying to make icecream out of octopus parts [just a bad idea].

1) Hot rollers:

These have NEVER worked for me.  I have very little patience for singed fingers and burns on my scalp - but even if these injuries can be avoided or at least tolerated - I always get wimpy curls that turn my hair into something that looks like it COULD have been curly, but someone crapped out half way through straightening it - EVEN when I use heavy duty cementing products.

2) Foam curlers:

These work for me, to a point.  I don’t know how I do it, but every time, before I set my hair, I envision a mane full of glistening curls and psych myself up for an hour of pruney spray gel fingers and neck cricks. I then spend the night tossing and turning while sleeping on them, trying to convince myself that Foam curlers are just as comfortable as my pillow, even though it feels like they’re becoming embedded in my scalp.  Then I wake up as eagerly as if it were Christmas Morning and I carefully unleash… Shirley Temple Curls… on crack.

 She’s cute right? She’s also like… 5 years old. I’m 23.  If I wanted to be the spitting image of Shirley Temple post sticking her finger in an electrical socket, I would find a more interesting way to do it than sleeping on sharp rectangles of plastic disguised as innocent foam cylinders.

 3) Plastic Curlers with scary claw holders:

Barring sticking my head into a microwave, these babies did nothing beyond marginally DENT my hair.

4) Plastic Curlers with not-so-scary holders:

These, although worlds more comfortable than the last type of curler, were extremely hard, and much like sleeping with a pillow stuffed with saplings.  I do not have time to walk around during the day wearing curlers until, 12 hours later, my hair decides to conform.  I do have time to spend an hour setting my hair the night before, and sleeping on them for <8 hrs. and discovering what the Curls Fairy hath wrought.  This system relies upon the idea that I can actually sleep for up to 8 hours.  The whole  sapling pillow thing prevents that from happening.

5) Long Foam curlers:

These bendable foam curlers were going to be my salvation - they look perfect for creating spiral madness, do they not? However… my expectations were not met when, after setting my hair with them, I discovered that not only do all of them make my head feel like someone tied iron weights to my hair, but they also do not have any sort of fastening device.  If you do not wrap the hair JUST so… it will unravel, or partially unravel and then you will have pieces of hair half curled, and long strings of hair that are simply straight and it will come out lookling like this:

6) Vintage-esque curlers:

These were easy to set and not too bad to sleep on.  Now, if you can ignore the fact that your hair will look like a poodle perm that a poodle then chewed on… you’re stronger than I am, my friend.

I also tried the above in the variety with plastic arms. They didn’t fasten as easily or permanently as the rubber fastening version.  So the result was the same, but the process included bonus frustration.

7) Self-proclaimed Spiral Curlers

These, I recall, were like trying to sleep on the Devil’s fingers. Suffice to say… awkward and unpleasant. They also damaged my self-esteem.  As you can see, they come with a predefined spiral - Supposedly to make it easier for you to figure out how to wrap your hair around in a spiral, right? Wrong. It’s more to point out that your fat hair and your fat fingers can’t possibly handle the delicacy of spiral curls so GIVE UP NOW!!!

8) Plastic Rods: There were also these hard pink plastic rods that were about 5 inches long each that I had that I tried to use several times, and they always stuck out of my head like mini tree-branches.  It was like trying to sleep with a sea urchin for hair — also very unsuccessful.

9) Straws:

Using straws as curlers has facilitated one of my most successful curling attempts EVER.  It was a lengthy setting process - but I watched Gilmore Girls, so not so bad. It was SUPER easy to sleep on them and they were VERY light weight.  The actual curlers (the straws) were cheap - also a plus.  They barely shifted over the night, and when I took them out in the morning I had a bajillion tiny perfect spiral curls.  They were very tiny curls… which is why next time I want to try Jumbo straws, but it was an amazing experiene, and one I definitely intend to repeat.

10)  Perm-for-a-day

Perm for a day are these fantastic U shaped curlers.  I have had them since I was in 5th grade - so they have pretty good staying power.  They are also easy to set, light weight, and fairly easy to sleep on - though the older I get, the more difficult it is to have a good night’s sleep while where these honeys. Instead of a traditional round curl, your perseverance with these will award you with zig-zag curls.  They are quite 80’s/early 90’s… however I love them dearly.  They have a special spot in my heart.  And despite the fact that the queer eye guys would probably chastise me for still using them… I do - and I LOVE them.  Problem? one at time they have walked away over the years, and currently I am only left with BARELY enough to set my hair in BIG chunks.  Second Problem? They don’t sell them anymore!!!!! I KNOW!!!!!!!!! What the WORLD!

Before, during and after all of these different purchases of curlers and attempts to break my hair and bend it to my will… I have also tried curling irons and perms. Curling irons are my friend, but I am not so much a patient person, so the whole "I’m going to go curl every hair on my head and then watch them individually deflate back into straightness while I’m only half way through" gets to me - but if I (or some very talented Hair stylist) takes the time and has the determination, it can turn out VERY VERY well.

Perms, on the other hand, are an entirely different matter.  Perhaps in a separate entry I will chronicle the entirety of my Perm experiences, but for now I will leave you with this:  I have "bangs" that are 2 inches long now.  This is a vast improvement upon the bangs that were a quarter of an inch long and growing since my last perm that went straight after an $80 bill and 60 minutes.  It was a scarring experience, and we’ll talk about it later when I don’t tear up at the thought of the mini-mohawk that occupied my natural part for the better part of five months.

Yesterday I rode the bus home.  I’ve been forced to solicit public transportation for the past couple of weeks because my husband and I only have one car, it is manual, he drives it to work, and he doesn’t get home [these days] till 8:30 p.m.   Unless I want to spend 13 hours a day in the office, I must succumb to the Pittsburgh Bus system.

Taking public transportation - and busses in particular - makes me anxious.  In fact, the whole idea of taking a bus makes me so antsy that, while riding home yesterday - standing, clinging to a pole that who KNOWS how many people have touched with who KNOWS what on their hands -  I considered the notion that I might have a complex about it.

Intrigued, I tried to recall when this anxiety started… while attempting to studiously ignore the undergraduate business major standing across from me who was trying to make dreaded eye contact. 
I think it may have started very early - 3rd grade is the earliest I can remember a date associated with a bus ride.  I remember it distinctly for two reasons: 1) It was the first day of school. 2) A pre-school aged girl who lived down the street from me punched me in the face.

I think that is the moment that any and all fondess I ever had for riding on busses leaked out of me with my tears of indignation and pain.

From then on I think I was always anxious about riding on busses - my mother was horrified at the idea that her daughter was punched in the face, and forever after decided to drive me to and from school.  If I ever did have to take a school bus home, I always had what felt like mutant carnivorous butterflies in my stomach the whole time.  I walked to school in high school, and I went to a small college with a small campus - no busses necessary.

Flash forward - Now they are necessary; necessary to my being able to get home, heat up some left over pizza, change into sweatpants in front of my voyeuristic cats, and fight the loneliness with yet another viewing of Gilmore Girls.

My bus comes at 5:26 p.m.  I head out to the stop at 5:10 and wait the 20 minutes just to be sure that I don’t miss the bus should it come 20 minutes early… which it never has.  Now, I’m a people person - I like to meet new people, I like to talk to new people, I like to make friends, and I consider myself fairly confidant.  However - there are times when I just want to reside in a personal bubble and standing at the bus stop, fighting back the feeling of mutant butterflies and nausea, is one of those times.  Then again, standing alone, staring down the street, willing the bus to come sooner makes me awkwardly conscious of the fact that I’m talking to no one, making no eye contact, and just generally being anti-social.  No one is making me feel guilty for not addressing them, it’s just a talent I seem to have for evoking self-addressed guilt.  However, on Tuesdays I’m verbally assaulted by a friendly, well-meaning, male, undergraduate business major who will NOT let our one-sided conversations drop.

Him: So… where are you from?
Me: Northern New Jersey
*awkward pause*
Him: So… do you go to school here?
Me: No
*awkward pause*
Him: Do you… work here?
Me: Yes
*ap*
Him: worked here for long?
Me: 7 months.
*ap*
Him: so not that long, huh?
Me: Nope.

This continues till the bus comes, and I rush on, and he follows (because of course he takes the same bus I do) and then I studiously avoid eye contact with him the whole way to my stop.  After relaying this conversation to friends, I’ve been told I’m too friendly - too nice.  I’ve been encouraged to give a "death stare" or pretend to be involved in a cell phone conversation, even if the cell phone is dead because I’ve forgotten to charge it for the last week, or listen to my ipod even if the ipod is dead because I’ve forgotten to charge it for the last week.  However, I can’t bring myself to be outright rude to this kid - afterall he’s not hurting anyone and I’m not exactly wearing a flashing neon sign that says "Bugger off! I’m tired. I’m grumpy. I just want to go home. And besides, I’m married so I’m freaking UNAVAILABLE. Go talk to that girl with the thong sticking out of the back of her pants." So I’m nice to him with my brilliant, engaging, one to two word answers. 

 So if you see a young woman with awkwardly short bangs standing a bit away from the crowd at the bus stop - don’t try to engage her in conversation. 

 
It’s not you, it’s me.
I just don’t like riding the bus.