On The Fives

When I turned 15, it was a little lame.  My best friend’s birthday was the day after mine, and she was way more popular than me (it wasn’t her fault – it’s just the way it was) , so everyone decided to just celebrate her birthday, and throw me the occasional, “Oh yeah, and you too, Ginny.”  Plus, I had a chin zit.  For, like, 3 straight months.

When I turned 20, I wanted to cry.  Twenty seemed like a death.  When I played pretend games as a kid, my characters were never, ever, older than 19.  Why would they need to be?  Nineteen was old enough to vote and drink and own property.  Twenty was planting a foot squarely in adult territory.  A foot I couldn’t just pull out and then shake all about.

When I turned 25, it was kind of novel.  Quarter of a century.  Didn’t feel a whole lot different than 20.  I was married, but childless without any meaningful plans to be otherwise.  Plus, it had been a whole month since the Y2K bug failed to end it all, so we were all a little euphoric that a false crisis/bit of media tomfoolery had ended well.

When I turned 30, it felt surprisingly good.  Substantial.  Concrete.  I was a grown up, and I didn’t feel lame or old, fuddy or duddy.  I had a kid, but still, I just didn’t feel that old.  Maybe it was the shock that I wasn’t shriveled up and eating dinner at 4:30 that made 30 feel surprisingly good.

Today is 35.    Thirty five is a bit of a mash up.  I get zits next to my wrinkles.  I laugh at fart jokes on the way to very important press conferences.  My hairdresser found the first grays (that I was doggedly convinced would always be undetectable, if they ever appeared at all, due to my inherent blondeness).  My doctor not so gently reminded me that now is the time to start cramming in the calcium.  Despite the occasional misstep, I like myself, feel more at home in myself, generally got it going on, more so now than at any other point in my life.

Today, I will be at a conference, as part of a job I love.  Then, I will come home and see my babies, and they may or may not remember it’s my birthday, and it will be OK.  And I will end the day with people I love.  And like.  I might eat cake.  I will drink wine.

It will be a good day.

(Mosaic Images: 1. The Number Thirty-Five, 2. thirty five, 3. Thirty-five, 4. Thirty Five, 5. Cat Diesal Thirty Five, 6. Thirty-Five, 7. Thirty five script, 8. Catch Thirty Five, Chicago ——– CHI_DSCN9776, 9. thirty five)

Wherein I Sell My Inner Child Out

When I was a kid,

I knew pretty much everything about everything.  It was a sweet, sweet time.

Or, rather, it would have been, had I not been burdened with a brother and sisters.

Whenever I would misbehave, act selfishly, my parents would respond with an accusation:  “You always WANTED to be an only child!”  To which I would (mentally and silently) reply, “Duh!”

Those siblings cramped my style.  A lot.

Which is why I am absolutely flabbergasted, gobsmacked, stupefied, by a couple of things I’ve done, lately.  (OK, maybe not that surprised.   My childhood penchant for exaggeration?  Delightfully intact.)

I’m on the Twitter.  So is my sister.  As soon as I knew she was there, I promptly followed her.  (And not just because that’s what decent people do.  Ahem.)  And then I waited.

And waited.

Beeotch wouldn’t follow me back.

I watched her follow other people, gain more followers herself.  Still nothing.

I even publicly called her out.  Still, no follow.

After the fifth or sixth passive aggressive note/email/facebook message, she finally followed me.  After pointing out that, “I will follow you. But just remember,you used to give me shit for that.”

Consider me burned.

And when she wasn’t busy following the hell out of me when we were kids (to the point where I once jumped out a bedroom window to get away from her), she delighted in the occasional game of “Repeat”.

You know the one, where you just say everything that your older sibling says, right after they say it.  All 3 of them would do it to me.  Repeat what I said till it drove me around the fragging bend, forcing me into complete silence, waiting patiently to pounce on my first utterance.

Made me crazy.

So I’m tooling around the app store on my phone, when I come across Talking Carl.

He’s a little red dude, and is FREAKING ADORABLE.

He laughs when tickled, flinches when poked, yells indignantly when “hurt”.

And repeats everything you say.

Being parroted as a kid bugged the living shit out of me.  And last week, I paid $0.99 for the privilege.

I have SOOOO sold out my childhood self.

Breaking Up Is (Surprisingly, Not That) Hard to Do

The seasons passed. The calendar pages kept flipping. And soon, I could put it off no longer.

It was time for the Yearly Violation. (Go ahead, call it a “complete physical”. Semantics will not diminish the horror.)

I wasn’t looking forward to it, beyond the obvious reasons.

Because lately, I’ve felt like my doctor just isn’t that into me. At first, it was little things. One hand on the doorknob, in a subtle “wrap it up” gesture. The eye contact was next to go, with him preferring to look at my file on the computer screen than talk to me. But it was when he quit laughing at my jokes that I knew the end was nigh. Because god dammit, I produce some of my best humor in awkward and drafty situations. And if he couldn’t pick up what I was putting down, clearly it was time to move on.

Our last time together was on a chilly Thursday morning. I have to admit, my heart wasn’t in it anymore. I knew this was The Big Appointment. And yet, I failed to do the necessary, um, maintenance. Didn’t even bother shaving my legs. Dispensed with small talk during the breast exam. Barely winced at the unwarmed instruments. Just generally phoned it in.

I think he sensed I was pulling away, that there was no saving “us”.  I can only assume that’s why when I told him I’d been having chest pains, he shrugged.

That’s it.  Shrugged.

If we were a couple breaking up, I’m pretty sure that would have been where he told me I was lousy in bed and that he’d always liked my friend better.

So this is how we end, Dr. C.  Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

And this?  Take a good look, because you won’t get to see this on a yearly basis, anymore:

(I’m actually surprised we lasted as long as we did.  Cheap bastard never did spring for the one-piece gowns.)

Me & the Boys

Just because I’m not making eye contact doesn’t mean I don’t see you.

I see you.

I’ve been seeing you since I walked in, and my heart gave an involuntary lurch when I realized we were seated near you.

You and all your ball cap, spray tan, white sneaker friends. I’m not old enough to be any of your mothers, barring a freak-of-nature situation. But I could have been your babysitter. Your older sister’s friend. Your camp counsellor.

One of you is wearing Ed Hardy, so I’m going to assume he’s the Captain of this Douche Platoon. I think there’s five of you, I don’t want to look at you long enough to count. Don’t want to encourage you; don’t want you to think I care. Because I don’t. And because if I don’t care, you can’t reject. Plus, I don’t care.

My table fills up. You notice. You want us to notice you. The laughs get louder, deeper, shifting from funny to dirty joke funny. Elbows in your friends ribs, and what you can get girls to do with you funny. The kind of laughs that start with silence then explode, and make me nervous, made me nervous before I knew what they meant. Pack of hyena laughs. Laughs of beasts who anticipate tearing apart fresh meat.

I give my head an internal, imperceptible shake. I am thirty fucking four. I have ten years on the oldest of you. I have seen enough, been through enough, lost enough, found enough, cried enough and risen above enough that you and your oozing testosterone should mean sweet bugger all to me.

And yet…

There is a piece. A small, insecure, half a lifetime ago piece of me, who wants to know. How I measure up. If I measure up. How far short I fall. Could the blue eyes, the smile, the laughter that shows I’m funny and carefree, and that I am surrounded by people who find me that way, could these things make you consider me? If I sit up straight enough, will you notice the lumpy stomach (the result of 2 huge babies and a 90 pound weight loss, but you won’t care about that)? What about the bags under my eyes, my I-give-up ponytail? The uber-sensible, opposite of sexy shoes?

And an even smaller piece is scared you won’t notice any of it, won’t notice me at all. That I missed my time to get noticed.

Then I hear the quiet, and realize you’ve gone. I pay real and good attention to my group, not the one ear, one eye stuff I’ve been giving them all evening. I relax.

I kind of hate you. It’s nothing personal. Really, it’s not you, it’s me. It’s the effect your presence, your existence, the idea of you has on me. It’s the feeling that time is sliding away, doors are closing. It’s the fact that sometimes, I’m failing to transcend.

Excuses, excuses…

In the last couple of days I have:

Taken photos of a toilet for the express purpose of emailing them to a stranger.

Mistaken my soup bowl for a rice bowl at a restaurant, then pretended like I totally meant to do that.

Solicited dental advice from a British person.

Tried, in vain, to remove all traces of navy blue eyeshadow from a 3 year old’s eyebrows.

Written a guest review at Ask & Ye Shall Receive.

And what, may I ask, were you doing?