tufts of childhood

Summer never fails to remind me of my own childhood, especially as I watch my brother and sister grow up. Lacey starts 7th grade come August and Gavin will be a hyper little 5th grader. It's amusing, to say the least, remembering how I used to do things, how I spent my summers, and how very different I am from my siblings, I who grew up in Orlando twelve some years ago.

I thought, as I am in this reminiscent mode, that I would share some of my own childhood/young adolescent memories with you on this gorgeous summer day. Here goes:

• Slurping orange juice out of freshly picked oranges behind the woods that sat in front of my house.
• Riding my first roller coaster at nine or ten with Aaron and practically having a heart attack while waiting in line, because surely I was about to die. Twice.
• Pretending to be asleep on Sunday mornings when my mom would come to wake me up for church and then giving in, sourly, and making my way out of bed.
• Sharing my first kiss on a dare, in a hot tub, with my next door neighbor.
• Shutting the front door on the first boy who ever asked me out, Kenny - who was two years older than me at the time, who wore square glasses, who smelled like freshly chopped wood.
• Crying in the car on the way to the grocery store when my mom decided to tell me she was pregnant, again, with my brother.
• Watching my friend Jordan puke every time he smelled dog poop. Specifically, watching him puke in the grass and knowing that I would never mix ketchup and macaroni and cheese, ever again.
• Thinking about how creepy the mouse band at Chuck E. Cheese is and getting lost in the tubes just so I wouldn't have to watch them play.
• Vacationing in Sedona, Arizona and seeing a Kokopelli for the first time.
• Realizing just how cruel girls (and boys) can be when you wear pigtails and braces in eighth grade.
• Going to Disney so often that I knew every nook and cranny of all four parks. My second home.
• Playing basketball in my driveway while Shaggy played on the boombox from the garage.
• Laying on my back in my fort on the hottest days of summer with a book in one hand and a notebook in the other.

I watch Lacey and Gavin grow up and I wonder what they will remember at 22, what they will deem important enough to recall at a moment's notice, what they will take away as good times. I wonder if their experiences will be anything like mine, or if childhood is not really as universal as we think.

From the mouth of my (nine year old) brother:

Mama and I are having an intelligent conversation in the bathroom. While doing so, she shows me her left foot, which is bruised and swollen.

Enter Gavin, who says, "Ew Mom. Your foot is as gross as Aeriale's sunburn."

Before I can open my mouth to give a snarky reply, Gavin smirks and says, "Simile, Aeriale, simile!" and promptly climbs up the stairs. Singing. About gross things.

My brother is going to be a literary freak someday if he can sit still for two seconds. I just know it.

hip-moving hysteria

I don't think I know how to dance. Like, I'm kind of stiff. And then when I think I'm dancing pretty decently, I catch myself in the mirror and turn ten shades of maroon.

See, I used to be able to dance. I used to bust a move (or so I thought) at all of the high school dances. And then when I could get into the 18 and over clubs, I'd bust a move there, too. In fact, this one time in Ocean City...well, that's another story.

But the point is I could dance. I've done it so many times. Slow dance. Fast dance. Freakin' electric slide and cha-cha and line dancing. I've got it all covered.

Right. So this morning I decide to walk into a zumba class. I've heard it's fun, way better than regular aerobics, so much so, that people who never work out otherwise swear by their zumba classes. Since I've been regularly working out every morning, I figured zumba couldn't be that hard.

It's not that zumba is hard, no, rather I just can't dance. After a full hour of failing to (accurately) move my hips, boobs, shoulders, and butt it's a good thing I wasn't being graded on how well I can salsa. Or tango. Or gangsta rap. Give me weights any day over watching myself flailing and failing to dance. Ugh.

Nevertheless, I may go back and humiliate myself further come next Tuesday. I may not be in South America but I might learn how to move my hips within the next few weeks. It's a valuable skill, fluidly moving one's hips. Or so the zumba instructor tells me.

thought for the day:

Bad decisions make good stories.

Saturday's Child

There's this nursery rhyme that used to hang in my bathroom when I lived in Florida. I've memorized it over thousands of teeth brushings and toilet runs and shower frenzies.

Monday's child is fair of face

Tuesday's child is full of grace

Wednesday's child is full of woe

Thursday's child has far to go

Friday's child is loving and giving

Saturday's child must work hard for a living

But the child that's born on the sabbath day,

Is fair and wise and good and gay.

The only part that really stuck out to me, of course, is that being a Saturday's child sucks. I was born on a Saturday and all I get out of this poem is that I must work hard for a living? If I would have popped out of the womb a day earlier, my character would have been ideal and I wouldn't have had to worry about my future. But since I was born mid-afternoon on a Saturday, that line has haunted me for years.

Post-graduation. It's been exactly one week since I left Erie and unloaded my belongings in my room at home. It's been a week since I've seen any friends. It's been one long week since I've written anything worthwhile. Right now, one week ago, I was standing in a parking garage, drowning in navy, running my fingers anxiously through a white tassel.

I'm going to get a planner today so I can map out my life. I need a schedule. I need to be productive. I need to, apparently, work hard for my living.

But I'm not particularly ready to fulfill my nursery rhyme prophecy yet. Before I start digging toes-first into the working world, I still need to have my Grandiose Shebang, my All-In-Aeriale's Hardcore Adventure, my This-Is-It-And-Now-I'm-Ready-To....Whatever. Do Whatever. Be Whatever. As a college graduate, as holder of a BFA, I would like to treat myself to a trip. My feet are itching. My body is restless. My bones are ready to go. go. go. go. go.

Right now, I am no Saturday's child. I'm a Thursday's child. And as a Thursday's child, there is no time to waste.

thought for the day:

Laying out my intimacy issues in essay form is more problematic than I thought it would be. I don't have intimacy issues. That's what I should have written. I am a human being capable of letting someone in. That's what I should have written.

Or better yet? I am a human being capable of loving another human being whole-heartedly without wanting to run away when things get too...when things falter or get weird or whatever.

Or what about, I am not a machine.

Yeah, that gets right to the heart of everything.

Ideals (or, a poem that's supposed to follow the triadic line)

O, try and tame this
Wild heart, but I
Don't mean it.

Let me be, let me
Be, but what I mean
Is catch me.

Bold, your actions are,
Steel yourself from me,
Rock solid.

Necessary you,
Quintessential I,
All we ever do is disappoint.

Survival Honeymoon

Remember in seventh grade when you made that list with your friends, the list that named all the qualities you would want in a potential husband (mind you, not boyfriend, but husband)? My list in seventh grade might have included something like tallish and rides BMX bikes and must be named Jesse Berrier. You know, the usual. I read an essay tonight by one of my favorite authors, Amanda Eyre Ward. She writes about her honeymoon in Belize and how she and her husband are both complete adventure junkies. Basically, after reading her essay, I've come to terms with what kind of qualities I'd like my husband (not boyfriend) to present. My list (as of right now, senior in college, twenty-something) is as follows:

1. Must be willing to admit that he's lost and enjoys being lost. With me.


2. Must be willing to travel to places we can't pronounce the names of and stay in hostiles. Not five-star, elaborate hotels.


3. Must be adventurous but not so extreme that we cannot stop hiking/scuba diving/hitchhiking when I say that I am hungry. Food always comes first. Especially if we are scaling Mount Vesuvius in Italy.


4. Cannot snore.


5. Must be a reader. Because I need down-time. And in my down-time, I like to read. Therefore, he should probably grab a novel and snuggle up next to me and we can pretend that reading is an enjoyable two-person activity, when really, I'm escaping and forgetting and being alone.


6. Must like all foods. Cannot be picky.


7. Must be semi-outgoing, probably more outgoing than me. Because I will not tolerate standing around, staring at each other all the time. We should probably enjoy talking to each other, to some extent.


8. Must be willing to kill spiders. Even the smallest ones. And especially daddy long legs.


9. Must have faith.


10. Must love rollercoasters. And plane rides. And it might be an added bonus if he owned a boat.

In a nutshell, I'm looking for the male version of me. Then again, this is my 20-something, college student, I'm picky and that's cool version of this list. It's bound to change. It's bound to be completely inaccurate.

Maybe I'll stick with Jesse Berrier and BMX bikes. Maybe, by this point, he'll be tallish.

Heart Happy

Instead of writing an essay that's due Monday and studying for my psych exam that's coming up, I'm going to share with you all what makes my heart happy because M shared with me and now I'm going to pass it onto my blog. Why? BECAUSE I FINISHED MY SENIOR THESIS AND...well, that's reason enough to rant about what makes me happy, don't ya think?

1. Rainy days and tin roofs. But since I can hardly ever have both, I'll stick with rain so loud that it pounds against the windows. Thunderstorms. Lightning. Reading during all of this.


2. The month of October. It's fresh, October. It's scary movies and the color orange and corn mazes and pumpkin carving and beautiful leaves that crunch under my feet.


3. Laughing so hard that I can't remember how to breathe.


4. When someone just gets it.


5. My pets. Not just any pets, but Jack. He basically makes my world when I come home.


6. The smell of clean, warm laundry.


7. The night before Christmas.


8. Being alone in a bookstore/library where I drown out time and people and simply scan row after row of bookshelves.


9. Driving the Beast. Even better? When I can drive with both windows down.


10. And last but never least, having grown-up conversations with my sister. We talked about learning Arabic together the other day. Arabic. My sister is eleven. If that doesn't make my heart happy, I don't know what does.

Billy.

Slow down, you're doing fine - you can't be everything you want to be before your time, although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight.

plans schmans

Plan 1: Apply for grad school and get accepted. Plan 2: Apply for jobs. Plan 8: Apply for Peace Corps as volunteer. Plan 83: Apply for jobs. Plan 147: Backpack through Europe. Then, you know, apply for more jobs. Or. Just stay in Europe.

Moratorium

Moratorium; it's another word for exploration, for scouting out meaning in our messy, delicately-painted lives. It's one of Erik Erikson's stages of identity development.

I'm taking an adolescent psychology class this semester and it's teaching me more about myself than any other psych course has thus far. It's surprising to find out that even though I'm able to drink legally and vote for President and drive a car across the country and heck, live outside of this country on my own free will, that I am, technically speaking, still going through adolescence.

Weird, right? I can get a tattoo, I can get married, have a baby, and live in Africa. I can hold a job and smoke a cigarette and say unruly things when I get angry. I don't technically have to listen to my parent's advice, but anymore, it's an old, welcome friend.

I can do whatever I please, essentially. But I'm still an adolescent. It's not like I'm still going through puberty - at 21, however, I still hone some traits of the adolescent, as does every 21 year old, and every single one of my friends.

Moratorium. Identity Foreclosure. Identity Diffusion. Identity Achieved. Right now, out of those four lovely categories Erikson decides to place people in, I am in Moratorium. I am in search of. I am in contrast to. I am looking for.

Decisions are hard for me right now. Committment is even worse. I don't want to settle for anything. I don't want to settle down. I don't know anything, I realize. So, I'm searching.

I have two months, I tell myself, to figure things out. Things like which state I'd like to search for a job in. Things like if I really want to move so far away from my family that I won't be able to make it home for holidays. Things like, what in the world am I supposed to do if I don't find a job when I graduate? You know, simple things.

I'm not quite panicking, not yet. Just searching, sniffing out options, keeping my mind open and attuned to everything.

Often, I still feel like a toddler playing dress up in my mom's clothes. The heels are three sizes too big, I'm swimming in the business suit, and the lipstick that was supposed to apply nicely to my lips has also landed on my cheeks and chin. I applied bronzer instead of blush. My mistake.

Is it bad that while everything else is happening around me, all I can think about is getting a dog? Because I do. It's on my mind 24/7. I dream about a dog. A dog is stable. A dog seems definite amongst these upcoming major life decisions that I'm hesitant to face.

So, call me a single-minded adolescent. Moratorium is safe, until I have to move. Until I have to move.

Sometimes all a person really needs is shared understanding from another person, and everything is okay again.

Helium.

It's like sticking your bare feet out of the car window and porch-sitting as the last bit of sun goes down over the hill. It's like sleeping on a good friend's lumpy couch and sipping coconut cocoa in February.

It's like saying goodbye in a parking lot or a stairwell or between the dusty volumes in a library. It's like not saying it at all and wishing you had. It's like saying it wholly and wishing you hadn't.

It's kind of like traveling across Europe. No, it's more like traveling across small-town America, across every cow-country, past every leather-skinned man.

It's like this:

Sitting across the way from someone and realizing.

The American Spoon

For a writing assignment, I had to find a quintessentially American artifact and write about it from an objective, outsider's point of view. I chose the spoon.

The metal spoon is considered a common item in the average American household. Its dipped, round-edged beginning is the part that touches the inside of the mouth, and the long handle is held lightly in the hand. Spoons, as witnessed of the American mealtime experience, are collectors of sorts; they splash into a bowl of morning cereal, or perhaps a plate of mashed potatoes at dinner, and scoop the food into the mouth with a swooping gesture of the hand. There are some Americans, however, that fail to understand the ritual eating technique of the spoon and lack control over moving the spoon into the mouth. Children, for instance, often lack control of the spoon and misplace the food supposedly headed for the mouth. It takes a certain amount of skill, then, to safely navigate the head of the spoon to the entrance of the mouth.

The term "spoon" is used lightly in America. Although the most common usage of the spoon is as a kitchen utensil, that which sits between the forks (pronged, picker-uppers) and the knives (stabbing devices used for slicing and threatening), the American spoon is, in a word, versatile. For instance, at a certain fast food restaurant that serves fried chicken with every dish, the spoon is no longer a spoon; rather, it is a spoon masquerading as a fork, or a fork pretending to be a spoon. Either way, the "spork" is the lovechild of the spoon and the fork. It is not a pretty sight.

Spoons in America, not so much nowadays, but often when grandmothers share the stories of their youth, were often used as devices of punishment. To whip a child's behind with a wooden (as opposed to the ever-popular metal) spoon meant that the child needed correcting. It might be interesting to see if those grandmothers are half-afraid to use wooden spoons in the kitchen nowadays, seeing as how it was once a favored intstrument of torture.

Although the term spoon is a noun, a describer of All-American utensil(ry), the term can also turn into a verb, as needed.To "spoon" is to cuddle. After the average American eats her dinner with a spoon, there is nothing more relaxing than spooning with a loved one, or a loved-one-for-the-night. Spooning often leads to forking, but that's another subject.

The spoon illustrates that Americans would rather dig into their mealtime pleasures with a metal instrument than with their fingers, as some countries prefer. The spoon is a changeable object that sometimes masquerades as other kitchen utensils, and because Americans are Americans, they do not mind the mingling of these items. They accept it and eat. The spoon is also a relic of sorts, a device to be feared and mottled and used on the behind, not simply in the kitchen. Although many Americans would rather leave the the spoon a noun, for those who decide to take the next leap and change it into a verb, it is malleable and willing to be dealt with accordingly.

transformation of the...

When I was twelve, I wrote my first "novel". It was somewhere between 40-50 pages (no joke!) and it followed the lives of four best friends who were also (alas!) twelve years old. It was my masterpiece - and it was so easy to write. I came home from school everyday and sat down at my mom's computer and wrote and wrote and wrote until dinner.

I'm almost positive I didn't have a social life when I was twelve.

Anyway, I began to write numerous novels throughout middle and high school, and all of them except the first one remain unfinished.

What's my point?

I aspired to write novels when I was twelve, and thirteen, and basically up until I finished my senior year in high school. I most likely didn't even know what a short story was - Andre Dubus, who? I read R.L Stein, and Judy Blume, and eventually shifted my taste, as I got older, to Jodi Picoult and Ray Bradbury (Dandelion Wine still makes my childhood come back to life). I read fiction. I read novelists.

So, college rolls around. BAM. I'm introduced to forms of non-fiction and prose writers seem to come out of the woodwork, writers that I'd never heard of, let alone ever picked up off a bookshelf. I'm introduced to short story writers - and short stories that have made an impact, such an impact, that I no longer write novels. I write what I read, what I'm taught, what I'm allowed to turn in for a grade.

My thesis revolves around the short story and my capabilities within the realm of 10-12 page pieces. In a meager four years, I've managed to forget about my aspiration to write novels. I no longer "start novels" - I finish short stories. It's a whole new mindset. Not a bad one, by any means, but a different one.

The thing is, I want to be a novelist, and I have no idea how to go about being one anymore. I read novels and am instantly amazed. How is that plot drawn out for so long? Look at these characters! They're still in the game after more than 15 pages! Look, there's 300 pages and the conflict is still going!

It's weird, how college transforms the mind. It makes me anxious to graduate and see what I write when I'm not in a classroom. Who will I pick up off the bookshelf? What will hold my interest when I don't have to write an essay about it?

A brief and wonderous description of how chocolate cake turned into Mr. Pool boy turned into working out

I'm going to become a body-builder. You know, one of those beefy women who can grow muscle as fast as she grows facial hair?

Gross.

But really. I've been working out every single day for the past two weeks (and no, M, this is not simply a phase). I woke up two Sunday's ago and decided that it's time to get myself in shape, so as not to embarrass myself in front of fit students while trying to crawl up hills and stairs (of which we do not lack on this campus).

Right. So, I start off at home going to the YMCA (where my family has a familyplan something or other membership). I bring Moni with me and pretend I'm not out of breath as I master the treadmill on manual settings. Then I move onto 'hill', and kill some serious calories. Like, a hundred calories. I think it's a good start.

Then, it's off to the bike. At this point (what, day 3 of the YMCA maybe?), Tyler starts meeting me at the gym. I pedal my way to oblivion, up the rockies and down along the ocean floors (because, clearly, my legs feel like jell-o, so the only explanation is that I must be pedaling under water). We pretend to like being at the gym, and we talk about Harry Potter (Book one, I've just started!) and about chocolate cake and basking in the sun and visiting Italy and eating a million and one pizzas from Naples and Venice and meeting beautiful men....or maybe we weren't talking about any of that. Exercising, I've learned, causes tantalizing hallucinations, all of which portray me eating copious amounts of chocolate cake...

So then there are the machines. THE MACHINES. Right. I start out by sitting on them all, feeling them out, getting a sense of where, exactly, I need to put my legs and arms and how in the world do I use this thing? Oh yes. There are instructions. It says that I'm going to be working some muscles in my back, but my legs hurt, and then there's the pain in my abdominals that keeps shooting, or maybe I'm just hungry? I can't tell anymore. Is Tyler still talking about Harry Potter?

Right. So that was last week. This week, I arrive to campus and immediately want to work-out, because, you know, I'm in the mode. Of working out, that is. So Maya and I walk briskly to the gym on Monday. The gym on campus is lacking only room to move. There are girls in tank tops and shorts that look like they may be cutting off their circulation, although, I can't be certain. Maybe all the blood from their legs rushes to their head and they see themselves eating chocolate cake, too?

The guys are beautiful at the gym on campus. Okay. See, you can't tell if they are socially awkward or not because no one talks - they all squint their eyes in UTTER PAIN and beads of sweat form on their foreheads, and everyone looks beautiful when they are hot and sweaty and clearly in pain. So, I try to mimic their excruciating gorgeous looks.

I squint at the guy next to me (who happens to be running hardcore on the treadmill) and I grab my water and plunge the liquid down my throat. I choke, squint involuntarily, and decide that I am not nearly as sexy as all of these people while working out. And then...Mr. Pool Boy comes out in a speedo. Did I mention that all of the treadmills face our swimming pool? I immediately collect myself, stop choking and hacking, and am mesmerized. These people in the gym are not beautiful. But that boy in the speedo down there? Mmmmmm. This is what? Day 8 or 9 of my routine? I am no longer thinking about chocolate cake.

So, I decide the next day that I do not like the gym on campus. It's crowded and crowded and crowded and crowded. And Mr. Pool Boy is probably a freshman.

Maya and I, in turn, discover Planet Fitness two days later. The Judgment-Free Zone, it's called. I. Love. It. Faithfully, I've driven myself to this gym every day now and am an official member of a gym with a thousand and one treadmills (or maybe 30?) and everything is open all of the time and no longer am I fantasizing about chocolate cake or Mr. Pool Boy, but rather...going to the gym. I know, boring, boring, boring, but I had to set my sights somewhere virtuous, and this takes the cake (no pun intended).

Nevermind that my body is battered and sore and I can barely turn to look at someone with wanting a full body massage, but it's going to be worth it. It is worth it. Mmmmmmmm.

Stranger Compliment

Today, I was told by a complete stranger that I have a great phone voice.

I swallowed my laughter until the person hung up, then cackled until my stomach hurt. This is, perhaps, the most unusual, ironic compliment I have ever received.