And now a message that came to me via telegram...

Boy or girl, I don't care, I'm naming my first born

"Patsy Cline."

...methinks the second born shall be called "Carol Channing."

I've found my calling...it paged me on my beeper.

Dear World,

I've just discovered that my destiny dream job is writing captions for the dating reality show "Blind Date." Please send any show connections/networking opportunities/time portals to the 1990s my way.

Love,
Me

My Mother, the Buzz Kill

(starring a young Katherine Heigl)

Sometimes when I find something funny or I'm very happy about something (read: there's a big smile on my face) and I tell it to my mom, she interrupts me mid-topic-sentence and says, "wear your retainers!" and shakes her finger at me. She really does shake her finger; I'm not making that part up.

Suddenly, I'm not so tickled to tell my story anymore.

BEFORE

AFTER

The biggest downer is that I know she's right. Those retainers kill me.

So, what have we learned from this?

Mother knows best.

It takes pains to be comely.

Two clichés in one post. And they say I'm not productive.

Golden Memories and Platinum Prophecies

As a member of the lower school community service club, I spent my Friday lunch periods in seventh and eighth grade socializing with the residents of Mount Pleasant, a nursing home located five minutes from my school.

Despite the frequency of my visits, breaking the ice was always nerve-racking for me. Conversation was a gamble. I never knew whether the people at my table would even want to talk, and during conversations I feared I’d stumble into an awkward or painful subject.

During one memorable visit, I greeted the woman to my left by asking her whether she was enjoying the nice spring weather we'd been having.

Without lifting her eyes from the untouched fish in front of her, she sighed and said,

“I’m just waiting for the day they tell me I can leave this place.”

Still optimistic, I tried to rebound by asking her what her favorite season was.

This question prompted the woman to look up from her plate and stare at me, perhaps to verify that she was not speaking to a four-year-old. The look she gave me indicated that now she was waiting for someone to tell her that at least I would leave soon.

Slightly discouraged, I turned to the man on my right and asked him whether he was enjoying his lunch. The topic seemed safe enough, considering he was licking some stray breadcrumbs stuck to the back of his fork.

“I remember you,” he said with a smile.

“You’re Jewish. We talked a couple of weeks ago.”

This was the first time someone at Mount Pleasant remembered me, or at least thought they did, and I didn't want to contradict him.

After all, I was an eighth grader whose social life was experienced vicariously through the characters of TGIF sitcoms. The idea of getting to be someone else, even if only through the eyes of a bald octogenarian, had its appeal. So I murmured an "uh huh," and made sure that my gold cross necklace was tucked underneath my shirt.

When asked, I told him honestly that no, I had not had my bat mitzvah yet. I felt guilty that he was making such an effort to remember things about the girl he thought I was, so I shifted the focus of the conversation onto him.

Soon, he was telling me about how different life was when he was growing up. Some of his friends had faced a lot of discrimination.

"One man was a Jew, such as yourself.”

He leaned in as he said this and gestured toward me with his open palm.

"Yes, jewish..." I dopily replied, bobbing my head.

However, he went on to tell me, his true passion was dancing. Deep wrinkles formed in his cheeks as he asked me whether I knew who Ann Miller was. Not wanting to disappoint him, I told him that her name sounded familiar.

“I danced with her,” he told me proudly.

Once I had learned a little more about Ann Miller, I was able to appreciate the significance of that man's treasured memory.
Dancing was what he loved most, and he was able to do it with one of the best dancers of his time.

My own life isn't devoid of celebrity encounters: I've shaken hands with Jimmy Carter. My friend's aunt was a bond girl. Heck, once I hung out with two kids from ZOOM.

I've flaunted all of these encounters before, but I aspire to have my own "Ann Miller" experience, something I'll still be bragging about sixty years from now.

I can picture myself as an eighty-two year-old somewhere like "Space Mount Pleasant," talking to a nice catholic boy who visits me weekly. I'll admire his yamaka as I ask him if he's ever heard of William Hung. He'll lie and tell me that he thinks the name rings a bell, and I'll boast that we once sang a karaoke duet together.

Then, drifting away from reality, I'll smugly reflect on my proudest memories. Lost in my thoughts, I'll lift my glass of prune juice and say with sincerest gratitude,

"L'Chaim."

The Tracks of My Years

One of my family's favorite home videos is of me when I was about three years old. The video starts out just like many others with my father, the interviewer, asking me what I had done that day. I wobble in front of the camera, scratching the underside of my chin with the back of my hand as I contemplate his question.

"Iiiyuhh…"

I look up to the ceiling, find my answer, and gaze back into the camera.

"…peed in my underpants."

My blank stare tells him I'm ready for the next question. My father delves deeper into the topic, posing his second question, and I nail the answer: peeing in my underpants was "a bad thing."

I then open up about the rest of my day, revealing that subsequent events included wanting to play "Candy Land," playing ball, napping, "having another accident," and finally participating in the interview at hand.

In case you missed it, I'll recap: by three o'clock in the afternoon, I had already peed in my pants twice.

To me it had been just another day in my (supposedly) potty-trained life. To my parents, however, it was cause for concern, or at least further investigation.

First we went to the pediatrician, whose only suggestion that I can remember was that I try going to the bathroom backwards. This helped start a day-long trend among my fellow preschoolers who, thanks to our door-less bathrooms, were inspired by my backwards squat and decided to adopt my experimental peeing pose.

Although I may have gained cool points for my bathroom creativity, I gained nothing in terms of bladder control, and the next step was to have my kidneys tested.

The kidney scan was my first hospital experience since birth. I lay down while a machine with a ninja turtle sticker on it moved above my body, and then I peed when instructed to do so. Afterwards, I got pizza. The result of the scan showed that nothing was wrong with my kidneys, I just didn't like using the bathroom.

What finally got me off accidents and onto the toilet was the looming threat that if I didn’t improve, I’d have to wear diapers.

My parents had told me about these "cool underpants" I could wear while I slept so that I wouldn’t make a mess if I accidentally wet the bed. Excited, I had imagined an undergarment made out of bathing-cap material. Instead, I woke up and found that I was wearing a pair of Huggies “Pull-Ups” training pants. Talk about a horrifying wake-up call.

I’m still just as candid today about my past of peeing in my pants as I was in that home video. My friends tell me that I should consider being less open about that part of my childhood, but I don't see their reasoning.

“What?” I say, “It’s not like I had to wear diapers.”

Fun with Family: A Touchy Topic

Happy December, Blog!

Oh gosh. I feel like I have some ‘splaining to do because I’ve been away for a bit of a while. But, as someone once said, “excuses are like [mom won't let me type this part]: everyone’s got one and they all stink.”

So ta-dah. No excuses here. I lazy. I so lazy, verbs not typed. (“typed” is  a passive past participle. Did I have to specify that I meant action verbs? Damn you, grammar nerdzis….)

So, let’s catch-up. A lot has happened since last post. Several days, one holiday (two if you count Eid), and at least two family gatherings. Most notably, I’ve become a game inventor.

The idea came to me on Thanksgiving day, post meal. My family and I were all crowded into our family room, which was awkward, because normal post-feast protocol is that the grown-ups (my parents, my great uncle and his girlfriend, my dad’s cousin and his wife) go into the living room and do whatever it is middle aged people do (drink? sleep? break dance?) and we kids (my three siblings and three second-cousins) hang out in the family room, where we watch silly television and laugh at how Caroline and Brian fall asleep after two minutes. (Whew, run-on sentence. How do you like me now, nerds?)

Back to this year. Something in my dad’s brain must have short-circuited because he led the adults into the family room to (literally) rub elbows with we childrenfolk. Both my brother and I subtly and politely tried to alert him of his faux pas, Excuse me, old man, are you lost? but he brushed off our hints, mumbling something about letting old people lie.

Regardless of their additional company, Caroline and Brian quickly fell into their ritual stupors. With football as the only source of TV “entertainment,” I soon shifted my focus from the television to the most interesting spectacle in the room: my sleeping sister. What a monumental shift that turned out to be. One glance at Caroline, and I found myself eyes-to-nostrils with an opportunity to unleash my creative genius.

I’m no artist.  I want to show you what I saw, but my passion and desire to share my gift with the world are the only things (note lack of artistic training) that guided my hand as I attempted to recreate the blank canvas that lay before me.

Don't be scared. It's just a drawing. 

I called my vision "CGGenga" (pronounced C-G-Jenga) as an homage to both my subject and the classic family game "Jenga."

My siblings and I started the first round, taking turns touching Caroline's nostril. If someone woke her up, all players would exclaim "Jenga!" and the offending toucher would be declared the loser of that round.

         

After the popularity of the preliminary rounds, cousins Olivia and Matt soon joined in on the fun, and my Great Uncle's 80-something-year-old girlfriend, Elaine, thought the game was a laugh riot. (Ah, Elaine. I knew I liked her.)

Unfortunately, Caroline didn't "get" the brilliance we had created, and deemed the game "disrespectful." Because of her pivotal role in the game, her disapproval has put any future rounds on hold. I've offered her a 20% cut of the profits, but she remains obstinate.

I'll get her one day, though.

Right now she is a sturdy tower, but I have the patience and strategy to win her over. I am Joshua, and she is my Jericho. Brick by brick, I shall work on her resistance, dreaming of the day when her walls shall come tumbling down, and my army and I shall exclaim triumphantly, "Jenga!"

It's the Most Wonderful Time for Some Tears

Oh my eggnog, how I love this photo.

I don't know if it's Griffin's look of stupefied shock as I bitterly clutch his hand and give Lydia one heck of a side-eye, or Caroline's perversely pleased expression as she watches her baby sister (seemingly) eat her own hand in horror. I can't pick.

Aahh, (sigh or scream? Your guess is as good as mine.) the holidays.

This reminds me, I hope I don't cry (like I did last year) when we attempt to take the family photo. It really throws off my 'smile for the camera.'

(Can't say my dad's "Margaret, stop looking so dopey" helped much either.)

Mo Mo Mo, How do you like it?

"Fun" Fact: The title of this post is what I wrote on the shirt I designed and wore to Mo's basketball game freshman year, aka the only Penn sporting event I attended during my entire college experience.

        Late Mid-Movember means one thing: it's pluggin' time, y'alls.

Mo, one of my dearest friends and fellow pennguists, has jumped onto the blogwagon. [Insert lame(ish) interjection like 'huzzah!' here]

Her posts will be a delightful combination of her two collegiate concentrations, Linguistics and Anthropology, not to mention her slammin' personality.

mo'phology = mo' fun

So check it/her out if ya' nasty.

The Foot, The Mouth, and The Apex

I have this habit, when my mind revisits past embarrassing moments, to uncontrollably mutter one or two words out loud to myself. Today I stood in the shower, trying to wash away who knows what, when out popped “crazy.” And with that, I was one word closer to becoming all the more so.

I think these involuntary verbal sputters are my mind's makeshift attempt to distance my present self from the unreasonable statements and butt-clench moments of my past. Some part of me figures that if time won’t do the trick fast enough, at least I’ll benefit from being [x] many more words away from a choice sentence’o’shame.

Of course, my logical side says sarcastically. Because talking is clearly the solution for your problem. You should really do more talking. 

Yet my optimistically verbose subconscious—a side of me that would probably describe Tourette’s syndrome as “cathartic”— somehow continues to prevail. At twenty-two years of age I’m rattling off interjections more than ever, as if my new words will one day bury all my regrettable past utterances.

So I let myself sputter, because if a word falls from my mouth but no one else is around to hear it, can it really do any damage?

As for the damage that’s already been done, I've noticed that most of my clench-inducing memories must wax humiliating until they reach an apex. After this apex, which is determined by some incalculable ratio of time elapsed to personal abandon, comes the point at which I can begin to forget the memory, or at least start to laugh.

But for certain memories, the apex feels like it’s located somewhere between Jupiter and Uranus. On rough days, muttering a thousand shower-time ‘crazy’s won’t render even a millimeter of space between me and the memory from which I flee.

In such cases, the best I can do is pretend that I don't mind the big toe that's gently pressing on my gag reflex, and hope that the embarrassments that hold my mind captive (or is it the other way around?) aren’t quite as memorable to any of the other people who witnessed them.

Mirror, Mirror on the screen

I worry I am just one bad face-day away from this moment:

High School TicTactics

When I was a senior in high school, the end of first semester was a time of high anxiety. Early application decisions were rolling in, and people like me ('the deferr-ed') were facing the final exam period of our high school careers that still potentially mattered for college.

I sought fun anywhere I could find it, provided it didn't distract my already attention-challenged mind. My solution? Little pellets of sugar.

Armed with my dad's label maker and bulk packs of tictacs, I made little boxes of "medicine" for each subject I had to study (as well as one for break time, for the sake of using all six flavors.)

I coordinated colors and subjects based on my flavor preferences and studying priority; my weakest subjects were paired with my favorite flavors, and "break" was given my least favorite flavor. However, I will admit that the flavors for U.S. History and Irish Literature weren't exactly in accordance with this system, and based on patriotism more than anything else.

Silly? Sure. Tacky? Maybe so. A waste of time? Possibly.
But for all I can tell, it worked.

Two Cents & Three Words

An assignment from a college writing class: create and define three words. Please feel free (encouraged) to submit any of your own.

Tempmature (tεmp mə tʃər) adj. At the point in one's life where one has completed one's education but has yet to attain or pursue their dream profession, e.g. working for a temp agency.

“Although Ryan’s rented apartment was sparsely decorated and several miles outside of Boston, his ideal location, it didn’t cost much and thus suited his tempmature lifestyle.”

Impalsiveness (ɪmˈ pæl sɪv nεs) n. A rash tendency to cling to one's comrades, often in an intense and possessive manner and regardless of whether one has only known the target friend for a short period of time.

“Two weeks into their friendship, Jennifer impalsively grabbed Linda’s elbow and said with a puppyish half-frown, ‘You’re like, my best friend.’”

Pennsimistic (pεn səˈ mɪs tɪk) adj. A Penn student's view of the collegiate and academic world, marked by a wariness of competition from and inferiority to other Ivy Leaguers. A perspective characterized by a continuous resentment of being "second (or seventh) best."

“Alan didn’t want to get his hopes up about the scholarship. Despite his 4.0 GPA, he remained pennsimistic. He was up against eight other students, half of whom went to Princeton.”

You ain't never caught a rabbit, but you are a friend of mine.

Left: My muse. Right: Claude Monet by John Singer Sargent

Ho ho...my. 'Tis the first post of November. Why? Well, because it's time to put something-- anything--down here, and I'm tired of a cats video being top dog on this site. I hate looking at my archives and seeing months during which I only eked out a measly 3 or 4 entries (yeah, I'm calling you out, June and September.)

So here I type without much of a plan, just a vague two-thirds-hearted desire to write, to verify that my head is full of thoughts instead of gas, to see what my fingers can pull from my messy mind.

I've been wondering lately how many words I say each day, or at least how much less (much less? Does that work?) speaking I do now than I did this time last year. My daytime involves minimal verbal interaction with others, as my sister is at school and my parents are busy working. I'll run errands and attend the occasional yoga class, but even then my talking just covers manners and conversational necessities. You know, "please, thank you, excuse me, debit, it's just a rash, hope you have a good day," the basics.

My most consistent companion is Bailey, hands/paws down. He’s my little shadow, following me wherever I go, always trying to sneak his head underneath my hand.

I’ve never been one for pet (ha!) names, but lately I’ve been calling him “Baby.” It’s hard not to treat Bailey like a person sometimes. He has such a wide range of emotions, spanning from happy, to yearning, to begging, to sleepy. I have moments when I look at him and feel like I’m gazing into a mirror.

I love how, when he gets really excited, his tail wags so hard that his whole body shakes as he walks. Like the one time he crossed the forbidden line between the top of our staircase and the second floor, he was practically shimmying as he moved slowly toward us, so thrilled by the brave new world he had discovered (and from which he was immediately evicted.)

On the way to yoga the other day, I walked by a woman pushing two babies in a stroller. She noticed my yoga mat, and as she passed me I heard her say to her two pint-sized charges,

“Momma doesn’t do yoga, Momma does piiiih-laaah-teees.”

She sounded it out, like “pilates” might just be their first word, lest “antioxidant” or “jojoba” be too complicated. I almost wanted to catch up to her and say,

“Hey, loud lady. We’re not so different, you and I. You talk to these adorable bundles of drool, and I talk to my dog.”

But then I realized that one day her audience will respond with actual words. I, on the other hand, could talk to Bailey till I’m blue--nay, indigo--in the face and the best response I can ever hope for is his inquisitive head-cocked-to-the-side “is that food in your mouth?” look.

So I said nothing and kept walking. Someone else can bridge the gap between the Yogis and Pilatis(?) and until then, gangs will be gangs.

That night my dad and I were chatting while I got ready to go to a friend’s house. As our conversation wrapped up, he glanced at Bailey and asked me,

“What’s that black stuff on his face?”

I looked at the dog and saw nothing, but my father insisted.

“The black stuff! Right there.”

He flailed a hand in the dog’s general direction, then told me to "wash his face," and headed off to take a shower. I dismissed his command as silly old Dad ‘pretending to be crazy' again, chuckled, and started to say goodbye.

"Hold it!”

Dad paused in the doorway and explained (in so many words) that I was the only one in on the ‘crazy’ joke.

“Wash his face, then you can go.”

Slightly puzzled, I walked over to the sink with Bailey in tow. Wash his face. Like a human's?

As I knelt down and began to gently caress Bailey's face with a wet towel, he seemed confused at first, then slid his legs down to lie on the floor.

“Good boy,” I murmured. “Make yourself comfortable, Baby.”

Had I followed by flossing his teeth, he probably would’ve gone along with it.

However, I was sobered mid-stroke when I pictured how we might look to an outsider.

On the hardwood floor of a kitchen, a large blond dog lies in the lap of a twenty-two year-old woman. The two share a moment, the dog closing his eyes as the young woman coos to him, gently wiping away the invisible black marks that sully his face. 

He yawns loudly and she wonders, “did he just say 'Mom'?” He stares back at her then licks her hand, and she knows she must leave right away. 

Do you go to the cat scratch club?

I had to share this.

Oh, [I'm a] Dream Maker, You...

...Heartbreakers of my childhood got me thinking.

Maybe I can use my love of shoddily editing myself into photos (a love that I've actually kept hidden from this blog until now) to make some of my older sister's childhood dream (boats) come true. Yes. How productively unproductive.

You're welcome, Caroline.

Also, I had to fulfill one of my own dreams too.

Because Sex doesn't sell, Embarrassing does.

For many years now, I have classified certain instances as "butt clench moments" regardless of whether or not my partner(s) in conversation are familiar with my coined classification. Right now, I'm feeling considerate (or is that listlessness? eh.) so I'll be more thoughtful than usual and take the time to clarify.

butt clench moment, n. /bʌt klɛntʃ ˈmoʊmənt/
1. Occurrence when a person is embarrassed, either vicariously and/or personally, to the extent that he or she cringes so much that his or her butt clenches. (Toes might also curl, but not a requirement.)
Etymology: 2000, MHG coined the term to describe the way she felt when the boy cast as Joseph in that year's Christmas pageant started crying on stage after a failed attempt to warble his solo. 


Now that we're all the wiser, I'd like to share the source of some of my personal BCMs.
A list of my celebrity crushes throughout the years after the jump.

Autumn in New [England] (Brief Followup)

Mistakes were made.

There was a spill.

The candle threw up.

poor thing.

Autumn in New [England]

Yesterday and today I took afternoon walks ("constitutionals," as the old folks say these days) on the minuteman bike path that reopened my eyes to the beauty that is fall in New England. This isn't to say that I'm just one wood cabin away from writing Walden: The Sequel. Not at all. I still love you, television. But really, Autumn. It's never been my favorite season for reasons I can't justify. Something about this time of year has always put me in a funk. My dad says it might have something to do with a discordance between the lunar and solar calendars. Any explanation past that is over my head. (Actually, that explanation is already over my head.)

Funkiness aside, the beauty of the season is undeniable. Even the name, Autumn. It's like butterscotch. And I love how the stress shifts from the first syllable to the second when the noun becomes an adjective. Autumn to autumnal. Although, I feel like Will Ferrel in his "loovvaaas" character would say, "autumn" to refer to the season.

In case you are not familiar:

Here sit the lovvaas in the hottub

Something about the imminent cold and blusteries outside seems to awaken my inner warm and fuzzies. I want to spend a day in Concord or go reaal crazy and hike out to Salem for a scare or kiss Plymouth Rock (oh, wait. I was thinking of the Blarney Stone. Common Mistake.) Maybe I'll even take a weekend trip to Sturbridge Village. Okay, no I probably won't. But maybe I'll talk about it as a possibility if someone asks me what my weekend plans are.

The advent of Halloween makes me want to go somewhere where I can pretend that the times we're living in aren't nuclear or digital, they're colonial. (So types the girl on her laptop as she microwaves a bag of popcorn.)

Unfortunately, I think this sudden seasonal enthusiasm and desire for simpler times seeped into my baking this evening. I lit a "pumpkin spice" candle and  decided I was going to make pumpkin sugar cookies from scratch. "I'll just eye it, like I did in highschool," I said foolishly.

Whoever said that baking is a science might be right. Whoever said that eggs are a necessary ingredient in cookies is definitely correct. Whoops. The cookies were on minute 4 of 15 when I had my epiphany. I was about to warn my sister about eating the raw left over dough because of the salmonella and then I realized, warning not necessary. Whoops. The result was like a crunchy, sugary, butter. (If you must know, I ate three.)

Like a rock.

Happy autumny'all. I don't care if that doesn't work.
(I'm too busy still trying to make "fetch" happen.)

It's Trippy (Memory Lane)

Oh. Muh. Gaaah.
I can't describe how amazing I feel when I look at this picture.
It's like...sparkle meth.

This sensation isn't just visual. I take just one cuh-suh-ree glance and my mouth fills with the hint of a cherry-flavored plastic, like I'm trying once again to eat Caroline's Cherry Merry Muffin doll, or sucking on a "Nurse Barbie" prop lozenge. My olfactory memory whiffs back to birthday celebrations of yore, to those party supply stores and goody bags that smelled like smarties candy and conical cardboard hats.

WIZARD.

When I was a wee lass of four years, my two best friends (Mariah and Elizabeth) and I were obsessed with The Wizard of Oz. It was cooler than milk-water. We each had our own pair(s) of Ruby Red Slippers,* and discussed at length--well, as lengthily as our cavemannish vocabularies would allow--the perfect way to coiffe Dorothy pigtails. The verdict? Begin two side french braid pigtails, ending each right as you tuck under the ear lobe, then curl the free flowing 'tails into spirals. (You're welcome, lazy 'trix or tease'ers. Oh, and respect Dot, won't you please? Put a shirt underneath that gingham apron-dress-hybrid.)

*I know the original shoes were silver, but I think your average four-year-old girl would take Judy Garland's fashion advice over Frank Baum's. Ignore the fact that they're both dead, please.

During my very first sleepover, held chez Elizabeth, she and I decided to watch the Wizard of Oz. Well, I don't know if "decided" is the right word. It was more of a ritualistic act, a shared practice of a beloved and never-questioned Saturday night custom.

"Blessed be thou, O Wizard of Oz,

who gives us the yellow brick road."

...you know, that sort of thing.

As the movie started, we began to bicker about who got to wear her Dorthy shoes. Hellooo, I was the guest. (And, yeah, I had left mine at home--I know: iiiiiiiiidiot.) When our fighting took a turn for the nasty Elizabeth's mother had to intervene, and eventually we came to the agreement that we two gollum-itas would take turns wearing the preciouses.

Me or Elizabeth. (Okay, probably just me.)

So throughout the screening Elizabeth's mother would set the kitchen timer for 15 minute increments and we'd watch the movie, pausing every so often to pass the sweaty little slippers off to the other person. The arrangement seemed perfectly level-headed to me at the time, but I understand now why Elizabeth's mother looked like she was hiding a smirk.

  LET ME TAKE YOU 
DOWN

I think that part of the reason people enjoy drugs (specifically everyone's favorite leafy gateway) is because drugs make you stupider--stupider, like when you were young. When I was little and my brain was still developing, I would get lost in anything that sparkled or contained a wide array of colors. (Hence my smeaghoulish lust for ruby slippers.)

For example: I hated going to the dentist (I was such a unique little girl) but every year the dentist's office would send us this reminder postcard that had seven toothbrushes fanned out against a black background. Each toothbrush was a different color of the rainbow, and each toothbrush head had a perfect 'S' of toothpaste squirted on it whose shade matched the color of the given toothbrush exactly.
You follow? I'll try to illustrate.

+
SSSSSSS 
Bah. This hardly compares to the original.

Oh my heavens, it was amazing. My parents would see me studying the postcard and say something to the extent of,

"Aha, Marg. Hyuk hyuk, You know what this means..."

Then they'd look down at me and promptly try to shake me out of my trance. Heck, they probably could have spanked my bare baby bottom and I wouldn't have noticed, provided they didn't break my gaze in the process.

When I finally did connect the dots between 'pretty postcard' and 'drill-in-mouth-is-gagging-me time,'  I'd whimper and steep in my self-pity until the hypnotic missive worked its magic once more and soothed me back into a pseudo-psychedelic stupor.

...aand that's how kids got high off household objects
when I was growing up.

What Ever Happened?

Maybe I'm just clinging to the past, but things seemed simpler then.

Stories didn't need sensationalism to be great.

Whose culture is this and does anybody know?

That's an ending that I can't write, 'cause I've got you to let me down.

Do you hear what I hear?

said the shepherd Boy to the mighty King

'Teen buzz,' aka 'the mosquito ringtone,' is a high-pitched sound effect that teenagers can use on their cell phones to alert them of incoming calls and texts. Young ears are able to detect the ringtone while the high-frequency noise usually goes unnoticed by their adult teachers and parents. However, this is not the alarm's only purpose. In fact, it was originally used by a store in Britain to ward off teenage loiterers.


Over breakfast the other day, my father and I reminisced about a family dinner a couple years ago during which he had told us about the invention and played a clip (similar to the one above) that featured the sound. All the kids heard it right away. My mother, who is already hard of hearing, shook her head unsurprised: she heard nothing. My dad squinted his eyes and tried to tune in, to no avail.

The mosquito ringtone seems to me like a high-tech version of the bell from The Polar Express. As we shift from adolescence to adulthood, the peal weakens with each additional year, until one day we don't hear it at all.

Soon we are middle-aged and resentful of teenagers, who linger around like they have nothing better to do with their young healthy legs.

"Not on our watch," we spitefully say,
and turn up the volume, repelling the pubescent pests with a silent roar.

Then we watch the youths scatter away, pesky little reminders of our past-selves and the vitality that time continues to suck from our bodies.

Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?

As this past summer wound down, my younger sister Lydia and I did some unwinding of our own. It was ugly. Our daily routines paralleled those of the housewives featured on Intervention. (Well, ours excluded the substance abuse, but only if you rule out Pirate’s Booty and television as abusable substances.)

I don’t know exactly what made my father snap. Maybe our body odor gave him headaches. Maybe he was offended by our brazen renunciation of his Tele-ban practices. Maybe old man was just jealous that we’d been spending most our time living in a languor paradise. He never even thanked us for the many gifts we left for him around the house (including but not limited to: sneakers, DVD cases, and string cheese wrappers).

Bottom line, he snapped. Unfortunately so did his logic. I guess we drove him to an unreasonable state of mind, because his chosen method for curtailing our free-spirited ways was to hold the car keys hostage.

I've often wondered how he arrived at this decision. Perhaps the thought came to him when he was holed-up in his sanctuary, a square home office approximately the size of two tollbooths. Comfortably surrounded by his political biographies and jazz records, he’d rub his hands together and imagine the fruits of his genius.

“They won’t be able to leave! Bwah! Those lazy daughters of Susan have probably forgotten how to walk! And then they’ll have to be productive, or else they’ll never earn their freedom!!!” 

...then he would maniacally laugh. (That, or just go back to programming software.)

The next afternoon when Lydia and I came downstairs for breakfast, Dad watched with smug anticipation as we padded around the kitchen, his two little trolls scavenging for grub.

After a couple minutes, he realized he couldn't wait for us to notice the empty key rack on our own because, knowing us, that could’ve meant days, or whenever we ran out of cereal.

Just as Lydia and I began to settle into our regular couch positions, Dad cleared his throat to make an announcement. He started his speech, using pauses rather than volume for dramatic effect.

“Ugh. Get on with it, Lord Jim…”

“Tell me about it, sister. Booo.”

Lydia and I were using our secret eye-rolling code language to communicate with each other.

Soon, a familiar bark interrupted our exchange.

“Hey! Did you girls hear what I said?” 

We looked up and he repeated himself.

"I've taken away the car keys."

*            *           * 

Mere days before this lecture, I had seen the movie 500 Days of Summer. In one of the scenes, the ideal and the real unfold simultaneously on a split-screen. On the left half of the screen we see how the protagonist had imagined a party was going to go, and cringe as it increasingly veers from the night’s actual course of events on the right.

I believe my father had a similar experience when he delivered that lecture. To illustrate:

However, [500 Days of Summer split screen + my dad's backfired plan] does not merit the conclusion that all planning or optimism leads to inevitable disappointment. In fact, I know I could greatly benefit by having more of both in my daily life.

Sometimes I let plans scare me because I think that I'm committing to an exit-less path, but that's not true. I can always turn back. I can't necessarily make a perfect U-turn, but I can always choose a new route.

Equally true is the fact that some paths will end before I want them to.
Part of growing up is getting dumped, graduated, fired. They're all moments in life when someone tells me that I have to move on before I feel ready or want to do so.

When these moments come around I don't exactly freeze so much as I move at an immeasurably slow pace. In the face of uncertainty I don't know what to do, so I do very little at all. I say I'm in shock; anyone else would say I'm a mess.

However, I have confidence in my baby steps during this unfamiliar stage of my life thanks to support from familiar people. I rely on my siblings to make me laugh and tell me that I'll figure stuff out. My mom, the CEO of our family, helps me determine what I need to do next and makes sure that I follow through with it. And then of course there's Dad, the molder of my (sometimes too) wacky sense of humor and keeper of our house.

Given that we're both currently "working" from home, we spend a lot of the day together. This intense proximity has strengthened both my love of and impatience for his idiosyncrasies. I have a knack for bringing the 'dis-' to his 'order,' and we both have a range of roles that we play whenever that cacophonous union occurs.

He's the man who makes sure to smile as he critiques my dishwasher-loading technique, and I'm the girl laughing his seriousness. He's the man who gets mad at me when I "forget" to pick up the dog's poop before the lawn is mown, and I'm the girl lying to his face, promising him that next time I'll remember.

He's the man who, in the midst of my summer of sloth, impounds my getaway ride and holds me hostage in a house that I already know basement-to-attic, on the same old road where I've lived for my entire life.

And to this man, a man who finds me irksome yet keeps me close, who ties me down when I am barely moving, I should not be the girl who rolls her eyes.

To this man, I should be the girl who smiles genuinely and tells him, "Thank you. I enjoy your company as well."

Airing out freshman memories before they go stale: Part 2

Of the ten people that did make 34^th street’s cut, one who was particularly relevant to my own Pennesis is the character that Street aptly dubbed The Awkward Sophomore. 

(No awkward sophomore pictured, just two awkward freshmen.)

Oh dear Graham Trewgarl*, my very own awkward sophomore, a poem for you:

Graham Trewgarl, Graham Trewgarl

How does your awkwardness grow? 

With goodbye notes 

Full of priceless quotes 

You tape to our doors when you go.

Sorry, I'm back. I promise I was not typing in tongues; I just jumped the poetry gun (which is no doubt a weapon made of wildflowers, English Breakfast tea, and latent sexual angst.) 

A little backstory: As I said, Graham Trewgarl was our hall's very own awkward sophomore. He had a pretty big room across from Mo's and kept to himself most of the semester, entertaining the occasional guest who would stop by to play video games and talk in muffled tones (or so I gathered from my post out in the hallway.)

However, as first semester began to wind down, Mo coaxed Graham Trewgarl out of his lair (ironic considering traditional hibernators' seasonal patterns.) 

I discovered their budding friendship one afternoon when I came to wake Mo up from her daily nap with the serene sound of my eating her goldfish (a beloved daily ritual for both of us, I'm sure) and found, much to my surprise, Mo already awake and chatting with Graham Trewgarl! It was awkward and somewhat unnerving. I probably lost at least 7 ounces during that period. 

The friendship got a bit weirder  remained the same when Graham confessed to Mo that he had slightly more-than-friendsy feelings for her. Although Mo didn't reciprocate his feelings, they continued to hang out, and we all got to know Graham Trewgarl a bit better.

However, sometime around winter break Graham Trewgarl announced that he was taking a semester off to work on various movie sets and would not be rejoining our hall second semester. We each said our awkward 'oh no's, and I'd like to think they were all heartfelt. Sure, he would avoid us sometimes, and yeah, he wasn't a champion chatter, but he was still a part of our breakfast-club-on-ritalin-and-sports-scholarships hall. We all thought we were sad to see him go...until we got the goodbye notes. 

Typed onto strips of paper that he taped to each of our doorknobs, Graham Trew's goodbye notes were kind of like a white man's fortune cookie. Except, instead of a fortune, these texts were either insults, compliments, insults veiled as compliments, stamps of approval, or messages to the extent of "Everyone else got a note, don't worry about it. Bye." And unlike a cookie, they almost always (see exception "Julie" below) left a bitter taste in their recipients' mouths.

The highlights that stand out in my mind are: 
(keep in mind these quotes are from memory)

Mo’s:
"So I told you I liked you. Way to avoid me for the rest of the semester."

Elise’s:
"You are so loud. Loud in the bathroom. Loud in the hall. Loud with your voice. Damn, girl. Why you so loud?"

Mine:
"You’re nice—almost too nice."

Tiffany's (my asian roommate):
"We both know there are too many white people on this hall."

(blogger's note: Dear Graham, You are white. You're white! Is that the real reason you're leaving? To reduce the number of white people on our hall? Because, um, you're white, Graham Cracka. It’s like those girls who say they “don’t like girls.” All those assumptions you make about/use against other people could just as easily be thrown back at you. Finally, and more to the point, you’re white.)

Julie’s:
"Wow, I really wish I could’ve spent more time getting into a deep conversation with you. You seem like a great person and I’d really like to make out with you once you and your long-distance boyfriend have broken up."

(okay, so maybe part of this quote is "subtext," but anybody at a 5th grade reading level could see what was written between those lines.)

Now, I realize that said notes were written almost four years ago, and Graham’s opinions may have changed considerably since then, but that does not make them any less hih-lar-iii-oooous. Especially given that said letters were distributed en masse and left like valentines (minus candy--boo) and call Elise "loud" and Julie "perfect" and me "too nice" with italics, which is a font detail that takes extra time, kind of like the extra time he's probably spent thinking about how he's going to knock Elise or me out because we're just a little too conscious for his liking. 


But it's cool because, as I mentioned in the previous post, earlier that semester (by the grace of Jordan's still-in-high-school girlfreak--I mean, girlfriend) my trusty little cell phone and I had already weathered brain assessments (a little too tumor-free), face makeover plans (a little too not-on-fire), and speculation about the size of my vagina (a little too not-little.) No comment on the validity of these claims. Especially the last one. Eyes up here.

So it's cool. Our bridge is not burned so long as my facefire doesn't set it off and that's highly unlikely because I've placed the bridge across my giant vagina so that people don't fall in when they visit the area ("The Grammill Canyon," I think is what the locals call it) and even if our bridge does burn, the brain tumor is likely to wipe out any memory of why I might not want to be friends with him, so I think worst case scenario is that we, Mr.Trewgarl and I, have ourselves a fresh start.

Nice. Almost too nice.


*Name has been changed...ish

Airing out freshman memories before they go stale: Part 1

Penn’s weekly humor magazine, 34^th Street, recently published an article documenting the ten people you meet freshman year and, oh boy, did it bring back the mems. (What’s that? “mems” isn’t working? Oh, okay.) However, one character from my freshman year experience that did not make the list but definitely made my own "top 5 most emotional moments of freshman year" list (spoiler: the evoked emotion = fear) is a not-so-lady-like lady I'd like to classify as The Jealous High School Girlfriend. 

Jordan was a freshman football player in two of my first semester classes whom, I'll admit, I didn't find terribly hard to look at. However, I had my own long-distance thing going on--just your typical highschool relationship: expired by Thanksgiving, thrown out by Christmas--and I had already made the decision to save any infidelity for my 50s, when I'll go all Mrs. Robinson on some Benjamin Braddock of the future.

Jordan had his own long distance noise, a fact I learned when I suggested that we "study for the test together" and he responded with, "I have a girlfriend." His response struck me as a bit of a non-sequitur. (Let me clarify, I suggested this with my books held nerd-style against my chest, my finger no where near my mouth, and both eyes fully open--not even a squint going, let alone a wink.) 

At first I worried that eight years of all-girls school had impaired my proficiency in late-adolescent innuendos. But then I realized, nope. By saying, "I have a girlfriend," Jordan meant, "I have a batsh*t crazy girlfriend who probably verbally abuses me."

(Actual crazy not pictured)

Lesson learned...a little too late. 

One friday evening I texted Jordan about the homework for that weekend, and he texted back with a response and then some small talk. He suggested we go out to ice cream sometime (bogus for many reasons, one of which being the dearth of ice cream places on campus...unless he meant soft serve in the dining hall, which is tacky at first glance, but appeals to my frugal side.) 

Naturally, I asked him how he was okay with his proposed rendezvous, and yet my suggestion that we study together made him sweat. The next text he sent was something to the extent of "well, you've already turned me down for lunch twice, (sidenote: apparently saying goodbye after someone announces they're going to get lunch = rejected invitation) so I thought you might be more open to going out for ice cream." 

I wasn't exactly sure how to reply, so I sat on my thoughts and tried to shrink them down into 160 characters or less. However, before I could respond, I noticed that he was calling me. "That's funny," I thought. "Why would he be calling when we seem to have this texting thing down pat?" 

Turns out, he rang with somewhat urgent news. Evidently, he had accidentally sent that last message to his girlfriend, whose name also started with M (still, didn't he have a 'reply' option?) and so he was just "warning" me and was "sorry" if I "get some weird phone calls tomorrow," but not to worry because it was "just my girlfriend." Huh. 

Also, this means that when crazyGirlfriend called up Jordan, instead of being like, "woah crazy girl, calm down, it was just a friend...a guy friend...using my phone...to text another guy" Jordan was like, "oh, hey baby. Yeah, about that, here's her name and phone number. Okayloveyoubyyyye!!"

The first call came around four o'clock the next day (I guess that's the time when all the High School bars open) and the calls continued to come all through the night (like a Boyz II Men ballad, only terrifying.) Jordan's girlfriend and her band of cronies filled my voice mailbox with menacing messages that, if nothing else, deserve to be lauded for their creativity. 

A bouquet of some of my favorites, if you will: 

Set my face on fire, brain tumor, big vagina. That's a big pill to swallow, even on a Saturday.

Ah, young love. So passionate.

Although I tried, I couldn't save those messages. My friends and I talked about how hilaaarious they were, but listening to them still made me want to enter the witness protection program. Although those girls really could've used a thesaurus, I've got to hand it to them, their arguments were still persuasive enough to convince me to avoid Jordan for the rest of the year.

I hardly ever saw Jordan after freshman year. However, at graduation this past spring, I spotted him posing for a picture with his (I assume not crazy) Penn girlfriend. She looked friendly and warm as she smiled for the camera. I watched them, my mind blasting back to 3 years earlier, and marveled at how happy the two young adults seemed. 

As the picture-taking continued, Jordan moved his face closer to hers, which was tanned but free of burn wounds. Her mortarboard rested on her blonde head, which showed no signs of tumors or recent surgery, and her gown was average size, no longer or wider than those of her normal-vagina-sized peers. "Good for them," I thought, snapping back to the present. 

And if those two "f*cking get married someday," I can honestly say, good for them.

Why you think we need Amazing Grace just to tell it like it is?

A little early evening Dr. Dog:

This video, this song, this band, they all just make me so happy.

In the Ladies' Room

I spy a broken promise.

Lapping up the last days of Summer

Bailey on the Minute Man bike path in Lexington.

MORE PHOTOS AFTER THE JUMP