To the beat of my own drummer

According to my sister, this is how I dance:

Can't say I disagree with her.

THE STEPS

graciously provided for anyone up to the challenge 

(of looking challenged)

Goodbye, old friend.

My dad took these pictures yesterday after he sold our 12 year-old mini-van. It kind of feels like we just sent a cranky, half-there uncle to a home with no visiting hours. 

If sentiment weren't a factor, we wouldn't miss the old guy. Though its exterior survived relatively unscratched, the van's age was obvious to anyone lucky enough to be a passenger. By year six, among its numerous charms, the van boasted a broken radio and a ride so turbulent that we kids nick-named it "Rickety."

More recently, however, my dad—out of some unexplained sense of solidarity—has insisted on calling him "Ricky."

Despite our many disputes regarding the correct nomenclature, one designation we could all agree on was that the van was undeniably "the Bailey car."

Goodbye, Rickety.

...or as my dad put it,

Life in a Mouth

I have this memory from when I was three or four: I'm painting a picture of a dreidel (we'll get into my WASP rebellion another time) at an art table with my two best friends, Mariah Pepper and Elizabeth Baker-Jennings, whose sing-songy names I point to as evidence that life will never seem as perfect as it did in preschool. Conversation is at a lull, so I share with them a desire that I've been harboring for what feels like decades (given my age at the time, this probably translates to about one and a half weeks).

"I wish I could live in my mouth"

Elizabeth agrees, she too wants to live in her mouth--or did she mean my mouth? Either way, I brush off her attempt at support. She doesn't get it, I think to myself. She can't envision the dream like I do. 

Clearly, I had yet to learn about some important life topics, such as: flossing, laziness, cause and effect, how my laziness causes poor flossing habits, real estate, the importance of location, odor, etc. 

Thanks to the wisdom I've acquired, I've since abandoned the dream. However, I'm much slower to let go of the memory. It's not that I think it makes me special. I know this anecdote is just one of many products available from the "kids have the darnest thoughts" brand line. 

But this one is my creation, and mine alone. No one else can envision that nightmarish dream quite like I did (that past tense almost make me sad), so--with the help of photoshop--I'm going to pin it down here, in case it escapes from my memory when I start my descent into life's second type of age-induced dementia. 

So why did I write this? What's the lesson in all of it? Ehhhhh. Let's see what I can pull out of my...mouth.

Okay, here:

Even though I've stopped believin', I've got other reasons to keep on brushing.

Eh? Ughh.

Update: I remember what got me started on this! I was looking through some photos I took last summer, and when I stumbled across this one I thought to myself, "gee, I wish I could take a nap there."