Today I wore a sweater that was not form fitting. It’s one of those flare-at-the-hip-to-either-look-cute-and/or-hide-a-girl’s-muffin-top deals.   Seeing as form-fitting and I don’t usually hang out in the same sentence, this is not really that unusual.  I sort of like some things about this trend with clothing that allows me to move without flashing people.  Does that make me old?  Well, it sure feels like it.  And you know what else feels awesome?  Three people asked me if I was pregnant today.  All strangers, which I find particularly odd, but that’s probably just because all the people I know are aware that asking me that question is asking to be punched without warning.  So, three strangers asked me if I was pregnant today.

I told them all no, of course, but after the third one considered just stuffing a throw pillow under my shirt and calling it good. Because whatever, people need to start holding doors for all women, not just the waddling ones. I have little tolerance lately and while I’m still not okay with going into it I will say that for 8-10  hours a day it is really difficult to be in a good mood.  So, add that to being congratulated on “growing a life in your body” and you can pretty much see where this is leading.

After drinking a lot (kidding, Mom) I now have a ridiculous need to prove that I am, in fact, young and cool and completely not pregnant.  For reasons I may not have realized until this very second, I have made comments and/or had conversations with people about 50 Cent.  The rapper.  And that is all I know about him.  That and once, in 2003, I was jetskiing off the island of Oahu with some friends and 50 Cent (and yes, I must type it that way because I honestly have no idea how to spell 50 the 50 Cent way) and his entourage or whatevertheheck come over to our party barge on this power boat and ask if they can jet ski with us.  We are four women and one drunk Hawaiian guy and all a year or less out of college so we say sure.  We had no clue who he was. We spent four hours on the party barge with 50 (seriously, is it Fiddy?) and two very large body guard-looking men and a couple very nice women before the youngest friend among us says “oh my God, THAT’S WHO YOU ARE.”  And the magic was pretty much lost after that.

I have no idea where I was going with this, as it appears that I wasn’t always old and clueless, I was young and clueless, too.

Three weeks ago I had dinner next to a man called Timbaland (again, no idea) in downtown Denver.  My friend and I talked with the table next to us as we were all close enough to reach into one another’s plates and complained about the slow service and the weak drinks. And then they left and then our waiter told us who it was.

So, no, I am not pregnant, I am still very cool, and I hang out with rappers more than any other type of celebrity. I think this is where it’s appropriate to insert the words you’d better recognize, fool.

I spent yesterday in the fog of a head cold. Let me tell you, there has never been a more more powerful message than when all the forces of nature work together to bring me satellite television the very same weekend I end up on the couch for more than twenty-four hours straight. The stars, people, were aligned.

Other than that, this seems to be no more than a status report as I’m still sick but somehow can find it in me to post about it all the while convincing anyone and everyone that I’m not trying to garner sympathy. Oh, no, not for a head cold because then people assume that I think it’s the worst thing in the world when, obviously, that’s not the case.

Moreover, to prove that, I will also tell you that I recently lost a toenail to running. There, that should make us all feel better. At least it’s in time for winter. (I cannot believe I just typed that word. Winter. UGH.)

So yesterday when I was making my one trip out of the house for cold medicine and back-up boxes of kleenex, I decided that having something cold to eat or drink might actually make my head feel better. Maybe, like when you ice an injury, it would manage to shrink my head down a little to something that felt more the size and weight of a head and less that of a naval submarine. It’s so great to think about food when you’re sick because everything tastes like cardboard and if you were blindfolded you could be fed jello and as far as you know, it’s creme brulee. Which is just a long way of saying (or not really) that I decided to have a frappacino.

I walk into Starbucks and, I kid you not, there are two guys discussing ninjas with the guy behind the counter. I give them a minute, assuming they’re going to make some kind of order and then move on. I continue to listen to their conversation and realize that this is no casual conversation and that this ninja talk is serious. And I’m not trying to judge but let me just say that my three friends here appeared to be quite distant from actual ninja material. I glance up at them, hoping to give them that look that says “looking at you right now is a woman who could easily kill for a frappacino and some Tylenol Cold. Kindly, move.”

It must have worked because though they did not order they stepped out of the way, still carrying on some ninja-oriented conversation which is so funny, really, but at the time it was difficult for me to see the humor because, well, I could barely see at all. Then the kid behind the counter starts talking to them again and, behold, stops making my frappacino. At this point I’m seeing an equation in my head that looks like Frappacino = Lifeblood, so you can imagine my aggravation.

I take a deep breath and think of the couch and the roughly eight thousand channels waiting on my TV at home, hoping that this is just some kind of test. I am determined to pass it. But then kid behind the counter and our two other friends start talking about whose ass a ninja could kick and which of those asses would be more difficult than the others.  And, dare they say it, if there was possibly anyone that could kick a ninja’s ass.

I blew my figurative whistle right there, because we all know that is a conversation that could last years. Minutes of my life were ticking away and my patience was growing thinner by the second as I questioned how I could come so close to a frappacino and, yet, so far away.

“Um, how’s that drink coming?” I ask, and the kid looks at me like oh, you’re still here? He starts to get to work on the drink and the others keep talking their ninja talk. I think my head is going to explode, I cannot even breathe. They’re talking, he’s not watching what he’s doing, I’m about to breathe my last breath in a Starbucks. Finally, I had to say it: “Please, stop distracting him for just a minute.” They looked at me in shock. Then they both got this terrible, teenage attitude about them and, I swear, if they were girls they’d be rolling their eyes and flipping their hair. Then the kid behind the counter drops my drink on the floor.

If I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’, as they say, because who could even make this up?

So I take another deep breath as he apologizes half-heartedly. He makes my drink for the second time and the four of us are there in silence, save for your standard Starbucks Joni Mitchell music. He puts the lid on the drink, grabs a straw and slaps it down on the counter in front of me without a word. The patient person in me wants to just take it and walk away. The person in me whose head is about to fall off her neck from the weight, though, cannot hold it in.

“You know what, I’m sorry to interrupt your ninja talk here, but seriously? Don’t you have a job to do? If you would have just made the drink I would be out of here. But, no, you and your friends couldn’t wait two minutes to talk about ninjas, which, by the way, suck. And everyone knows it. And you know who can always kick a ninja’s ass? Pirates. That’s right, pirates. So now you know. Maybe now you can actually find time do your job.”

I am not proud.

A few days ago, another blogger and I were discussing things that haunt us from the past. Some of them good, some of them better forgotten, and some things that seemed good or bad at the time, but now seem quite the opposite. Without going into deep (read: boring) explanation of how this somehow got me thinking about these “haunting” things from all stages of my life, I will say that it prompted me to really think about these memories. What do I do with them? What happens when I think about them? And how do they control or influence what I do today?

So this week I’m going to spend some time thinking through the different stages in my life and pulling out a few memories of things I did and choices I made that still come back to me today. I really don’t know where this will go, so just go with it—if you want to, anyway.

Three: High School

- In school elections, even if someone I really liked was running, I’d vote for the underdog or the nerd or the person who was not likely to get elected due to whatever factor, likely one out of their control anyway. My thoughts on this were based on a fear I had (for another person) that they would not get one vote. And who wants to go home on election night thinking that not one person in the entire school likes them? Sure, they didn’t win, but at least they knew that someone out there was on their side. I know, I was/am such a bleeding heart.

- I t.p.’d houses. Some as pranks, some to be mean. My mother does not know this.

- I went an entire four years with a crush on a guy and not saying a word to anyone about it, including him. Then, on graduation night he talked to me in a corner of the house of a guy named Brian and said we should “hang out.” When I said okay and then suggested we go find something to drink, he said he’d rather not because he didn’t want anyone to see us and know we were talking. I have not seen him since, but I hear through the grapevine that he asks about me. Stupid small towns. Things like this are why I am not on Facebook. Is that okay?

- I was not graceful with, good at, or even right for any sport in school. I tried hard, but that didn’t matter, and, mostly, I was too shy and embarrassed to keep trying. I don’t know if this is a confession or a regret, but even now I think about how different things could have been if I’d kept going anyway. Instead, I just got really good grades.

- I was supposed to go to Senior Prom as friends (AS FRIENDS!) with a boy named Anthony. It was all fine and a good plan until one night when we were all at Anthony’s house watching a movie and he tried to hold my hand. It made me extremely uncomfortable, and I freaked out and broke our prom date the next day. Neither of us deserved that.

Three, done. Sheesh.

A few days ago, another blogger and I were discussing things that haunt us from the past. Some of them good, some of them better forgotten, and some things that seemed good or bad at the time, but now seem quite the opposite. Without going into deep (read: boring) explanation of how this somehow got me thinking about these “haunting” things from all stages of my life, I will say that it prompted me to really think about these memories. What do I do with them? What happens when I think about them? And how do they control or influence what I do today?

So this week I’m going to spend some time thinking through the different stages in my life and pulling out a few memories of things I did and choices I made that still come back to me today. I really don’t know where this will go, so just go with it—if you want to, anyway.

Two: Pre-teenhood… is that what it’s called?

- In seventh grade I followed some friends to the shed behind our junior high school, which was on the other side of the track, which was in the back of the school. It all backed up to a gradual grassy hill, opening to the parking lot and front doors of a church. But no one seemed to notice this, and when I ventured behind the shed that first time, I would learn what marijuana smelled like. No, I didn’t try any. It’s important to remember that I spent most of my younger years in fear of a lot of things, so smoking anything, much less something I’d never seen before, was pretty much out of the question.

I didn’t leave immediately either, though, and when the entire seventh grade class was called to the office and questioned over the next three days on what we knew, I knew nothing. And when our art teacher told us he didn’t care if we came to his class high as long as our art was good, I became a little less fearful that day.

- In junior high, I was primarily concerned with three things: hairspray, my leather jacket, and a boy named Chad. I haven’t used hairspray like that ever again, thank God. It is killing me now that I cannot seem to remember Chad’s last name. And that brown leather bomber jacket? Well, let’s face it, that was and still is very cool. The best thing about it was it had an interior breast pocket which would fit a Walkman perfectly. If you removed the earpieces from the headset, you could then run the wire up your sleeve, hold the ear piece in your hand, lean your head on your hand, and listen to the radio in class. We were so slick.

- I went on my first diet in eighth grade, from what I can remember. My best friend in the world, Tracy, had just moved to England and I felt very alone. Without my best friend, I started feeling the pressure of fitting in and started to notice what other girls looked like. None of them had hips, and mine had magically appeared three days after my thirteenth birthday the year before. I ate nothing but apples and Capri Sun drinks in my lunch for a week. Then I awkwardly went out for the volleyball team, which I had no business doing, but figured playing a sport would allow me to blame my bulk on muscle, not fat. Or at least that’s what I’d tell people, mostly myself.

And there’s stage two.

A few days ago, another blogger and I were discussing things that haunt us from the past. Some of them good, some of them better forgotten, and some things that seemed good or bad at the time, but now seem quite the opposite. Without going into deep (read: boring) explanation of how this somehow got me thinking about these “haunting” things from all stages of my life, I will say that it prompted me to really think about these memories. What do I do with them? What happens when I think about them? And how do they control or influence what I do today?

So this week I’m going to spend some time thinking through the different stages in my life and pulling out a few memories of things I did and choices I made that still come back to me today. I really don’t know where this will go, so just go with it—if you want to, anyway.

First Stage: Early childhood

- My earliest memory in life is being three-years-old and crying on the front porch of our house because I didn’t want to get into the car of a family member. I don’t know why I minded, I just know I didn’t want to go and recall screaming, crying, and generally just embarrassing my mother by holding onto her leg for dear life.

The only way I can think of that this incident might haunt me today is that when I think of it, I feel guilty for my throwing a fit being my first memory. I have a lot of other memories, but this one seems to stand out most.

- Later, in Third Grade, I spent a good eight weeks copying Megan Madril’s math work. It was long division and I hated it with the passion of, well, a lot. I don’t feel guilty about this because a) no one uses long division, and b) NO ONE USES LONG DIVISION. Also, I helped Megan with her English homework every day before school. Megan was really good at math, and I hope she’s a very successful accountant or something somewhere.

- I went through a phase in Fifth Grade where I’d pretend to be sick in hopes of going home and eating cereal in front of the TV. This would, incredibly, happen on those weeks when I’d broken my mother down that Sunday afternoon at the grocery store and convinced her to buy cereal with sugar in it. I don’t know how I feel about this as it happens to be something that has all the likelihood in the world of happening this week, too. Cereal’s power over me has never ceased.

Stage One complete.