The possibility that I will turn 26 is at an all time high.

drop shadow  

I went through this same thing about a year ago.  In fact, each year after my 21st birthday I have had an annual freak out prior to my date of birth.

This year was no different. My quiet moments are now filled with the following thoughts:

"It's coming, you are going to be 26, the apex of your twenties is coming to a close, only 4 more years until you're 30."  

I have accumulated a list of things that I have read about ageing and looks, and I recite them in a Rolodex like fashion when I am sitting on the train being jostled to and fro. "I still have almost 10 years before I really start to look bad though, there was an article that says your looks begin to fade at 35." Then I think about what the hell my life will be like after I turn 35, and I cringe in the horror.

When I was 12ish I used to lay in bed and think about being 25, where I would be, and what my life would be like.  I used to calculate my parents ages and attempt to discern if they would still be alive or not.  I was kinda morbid. 

I am afraid of standing underneath a light and of the shadows that will play cruel tricks on the lines of my face. I am afraid of coloring my hair, and after only a week the grey piercing as sharp reminders that I am kidding myself.  As the day wears on, my make-up will fill the creases of my face, and people will notice, and they will think less of me for it.

I fear being invisible. I don't mean to say that people notice me now.  There are those women, I see them on the train. They are in their mid-thirties to mid-forties, they wear a button up shirt and work pants.  They have two bags, one of them filled with work things (including a lap top), the other is smaller and has a make-up bag and cell phone inside. They put each of these bags at their feet in a last-ditch attempt to save space for other riders. Yet, somehow the bags appear to grow in volume, cramping their legs and annoying the passenger next to them.

There is always a book in one of the bags, if not a physical book there is definitely a Kindle.  They haven't purchased a new spring coat in 5-7 years, it is outdated and stained from years of use. Their hair is short, if it isn't short it is up in a messy pony-tail, an afterthought. These women, they wear lattice work loafers that they bought from Payless years ago.

If they are sitting next to a friend on the train all they talk about are petty work things:

"I sent her an e-mail, and I just couldn't believe she didn't respond, you know Karyn from accounting says she does that to her all the time, and I just don't get why people put up with it, you know?"

...or petty home things . . .

"I'm thinking about changing out the wallpaper in the bathroom, I am going to go for a more spa like theme, but I can't decide between a smooth satin finish, or a straw weave finish..."

The ones that smoke, smell of the four to seven cigarettes they have had that day, including the one they hastily inhaled prior to boarding the train.

They will call their husbands to make sure that everyone was picked up and deposited at after school sports/ dance practices okay.  They will think about what to make for dinner, how to prepare for their evening, how to eke out thirty minutes to do the laundry or clean the cabinets. 

The men on the train don't pay any attention to them, no one pays attention to them, but I watch them knowing that one day I will be like them.  Girls younger than me get on the train, each of them are impossibly pretty, which just leads me to believe that they will always be impossibly pretty.

As the army of middle-aged women collect their belongings to deboard the train. They look down at their feet and shuffle along to finish another day of doing the same thing, to go to sleep, to do the exact same thing tomorrow. The days will melt into one another, and time will pass by too fast, and they will realize that there isn't enough time to do everything they wanted. 

That is what I fear the most, the monotony of it all.  Maybe this is just something that occurs in the suburbs? This is my hope.

As someone who is not a mother, and who has trouble conceptualizing motherhood, it frightens me to think that I would have to give up on my aspirations to provide for others.  I have no desire to stay home all day, I feel like if I did, I would end up resenting my children. I think about everything my Mom sacrificed to stay home with us.  I am sure she had dreams at some point, I am sure she wanted more for herself than to work in retail for thirty years.

There are women who are older that I think are beautiful, but I bet when people talk about them they say "She looks really good for her age." I can't think of a phrase I would rather hear less. I contemplate how much time we spend being 'middle-aged' and how our looks get progressively worse. 

I consider these things at least once a week. I know it makes me petty,  immature, thoughtless, and inconsiderate to the things that really matter in life. These moments of self-doubt, of worry, accumulate, and account for wasted time that I know I could have spent doing more constructive things.  

The irrational part of my brain, the part of myself that is vein, the narcissist, doesn't care about rationality.  I know that realistically the best is yet to come, but I spent decades telling myself that the best part of life was looking good and having people notice how good you look. 

I still hope for many more birthday's, and for the wisdom to see past this nonsense. 

That being said, I am still accepting gifts on my birthday.

My Mom Argues Like a Fox News Analyst

The Players:

Heather (sister)

Alana (twin)

Mom (mom)

Me (me)

My mom was supposed to go to an aerobics class today with my twin sister and older sister. 

Instead, she came home from work. While she didn't have time to get home and go to her aerobics class, she apparently did have time to stop at dunkin doughnuts for a bagel with cream cheese and chocolate cream filled doughnut.

I pointed out that perhaps the solution to not going to aerobics class was not in a doughnut.

She rebutted with a, "I deserve a treat."

I reminded her that she has been having a lot of treats lately (including an entire bag of hershey's fun size bars and a jumbo bag of reese's hearts). Which is fine, I mean I get insatiable desires for chocolate goodness as well, but I try to keep it to a once-a-month type thing. 

This was argument number one, soon we branched off into another argument but it was related to the first argument.

Alana went grocery shopping for my mom today with Heather at Costco. It's part of Heather's and Alana's plan to get my mom back in budget and back to where she doesn't need to go to the store so much. At the very least, to prevent my mother from going to the store 2 times a day.

Instead of saying 'WOW this is so great, now I won't have to go to the store.'

She starts bitching about all the pasta, and everything else. 

'There is too much of this, there isn't enough of this, what am I gunna do with all this food?' That was a legitimate complaint that issued from her mouth hole. I was flabbergasted. 

SO I may have lost my cooool.

I said "Mom what are you talking abouttt?!"

She said "This kind of pasta isn't that good for you"

I responded with "So says the person that just served it the last four nights for dinner..."

She yelled: "IT WAS NOT THE LAST FOUR NIGHTS, AND ANYWAY IT WAS WHEAT PASTA"

(let the record show it was 4 nights of pasta related food items.)

I pulled out the wheat pasta and the other pasta and read to her the calorie and carbohydrate content.  The health benefits of wheat pasta are nominal at best. I feel like it exists to make people feel better about eating pasta.

Upon hearing this she exclaimed:

"It wasn't that pasta it was the wheat durum pasta"

Now, I don't know what you all know about pasta but all of it is durum. IT IS GENERALLY THE KIND OF WHEAT USED TO MAKE PASTA.

I didn't want to get started on a durum wheat argument at this particular point because frankly, I was fearful for my mental well being.

Instead I informed her that it did not matter what kind of pasta it is, they shouldn't be having that much of it. It is meant as a side, not an entire meal. .  blah blah unhealthy eating habits, blah blah.

She then called me a NAZI !!!

I then decided to go upstairs.

The end.

My Vagina is More Important Than Yours

I have not always been what some would call a "good friend" to the women in my life.  This is mostly due to what one would expect the root causes to be 1. insecurity, okay so that's really the only reason. I viewed the world as me....and then all other females on some sort of other invisible side of an arbitrary line.

When I went into a classroom, I quickly surveyed the room, ranking myself in the predetermined lists I had compiled in my brain. This was to solidify proper decision making in respect to seating arrangements "Nope, can't sit next to them, their hair is too long."  I had a lot of rankings in my head in high school the following is a short list of some of them:

1. waist size
2. jean size
3. hair color
4. popularity
5. bra size
6. how many friends they had
7. lunch table positioning

No matter how I diced it I never really came in "first" in any of these scenarios.  I would be satisfied, however, if I didn't come in dead last.  That always made me feel better.

After high school I decided that I didn't really need friends, or anyone, so I was by myself a lot.  That was cool, I had a car, an mp3 player, and I listened to a lot of soundtrack music.

One day at the College of Du Page as I was sitting there listening to United States History Post-Reconstruction,  I was asked if I wanted to participate in a wizarding live-action role playing game.  I wore a lot of velvets at this point in my life, so that probably attributed to the overall impression that I would be interested in that sort of thing.  I am not casting aspersions on anyone who does this, it just isn't for me as it would require my interacting with strangers on a social level.  At the time, my exceptionally busy on-line forum posting career was burgeoning and I just didn't have the hours in the day for anything else.

Previously it has been my M.O. to every 2-3 years destroy every friendship and burn every bridge. There is a technical term for this called "self-sabotage."  I met a lot of really amazing females in my early twenties, none of whom I am still friends with.  Congratulations me.

My unyielding perception of the world from 20-23 precluded me from ever admitting I was wrong. I also would have been more than happy to share with you what a complete asshole I thought you were. Not so much in words, but by the ever popular passive-aggressive techniques.

After quite a few mistakes, after some disastrous life decisions, and alters to the course, I realized that I was a big part of the problem.  This really upset me.

One of the most painful aspects of growing up is understanding the role you play in the destruction of relationships, be they professional, friendship, or otherwise.  I am not sure if this is just a unique experience for me, but I really used to struggle with taking "ownership" of things that had/have gone wrong (I blame my mother.)

This takes us up, albeit haphazardly, to present day.

Lot's of people say things like "I hate fake people, they are so fake."

I understand the thinking behind saying things like that, but I don't understand the continual verbalization of that phrase.

Who likes fake people?  Has anyone ever come out and said "You know what, fake people are the bomb."
I thought that in order for something to be disliked, it would have to have been liked by a certain group of people in the first place?  I feel like we can stop saying things like "I don't like fake people." because no one does.

Women are often blamed for promoting this type of behavior, especially in the workplace. At the crux of it all, so many of us still feel like the 12 year old girl learning about vagina's for the first time. Instead of feeling like part of a real awesome club, I feel like we all got a different memo.

That memo would have said something like:
"My vagina is more important than yours." 

And then we all thought,
"Heck no it isn't, mine is super important and this person doesn't know what the hell they are talking about, I'm going to consult someone else regarding the content of this memo."

Then, before you know it, poor Harriet from accounting is getting fired because someone didn't like the leggings she wore that day and it's all because we thought our vagina's were more important.

In Summation:

1.  No one's vagina is more important than anyone else's.

2. Haters gonna hate all you can do is control your reaction and perception of the situation...bitches.

Close Your Legs and Where's The Tape

Those immortal words were uttered that fateful day in 7th grade during Ms. Larson's art class.

To understand those words we must first start at the beginning.

Cass Junior High 7th graders were privied to "Career Day" at the Technology Institute in Addison, Illinois.  We too could be dental hygienist or cosmetologists.  At the time, all I wanted to do was play with make-up, so this actually seemed like it was going to be an amazing day.

I had a special dress I was going to wear. It was black.  Black because I had always been told that black was slimming.  It was bias cut with an empire waist.  Which no woman, let alone one in the throngs of puberty, should ever wear. It hugged me in all the wrong places, but it was nothing that a pair of nylons couldn't smooth out. In my mind nylons had almost mystical slimming abilities and powers.  This lovely frock was paired with a pair of white shoes, it was after Labor day.  I purchased the shoes at Payless, they had an almost lattice work design on the toe.  I didn't mind that the reinforced toe of my pantyhose could be seen poking out of the shoe.  Nor did I seem to mind that I was the only thirteen-year old girl that wore nylons or even knew what they were.

My older sister Heather had some creamy powder blue eye-shadow that I abused with frequency during Junior High, today was no different.  I pressed my index finger into the familiar texture of silky powdery bliss. My ticket to beauty, I thought to myself as I put it all over my eyelids.  My friends and I had recently discovered the taste of bonniebells lip gloss.  We were obsessed with the cotton candy flavor, it had an almost white colored base to it.  The overall effect was not flattering.

"Dressed for Success", that was my overall mantra for the day.

We took the 40 or so minute bus ride to Addison. As we bumped and jostled along I sat there pondering  my future.  Surely I was destined for greatness, probably I was going to be a great artist, the best make-up artist the world has ever known.  All of life's most important questions would be answered on this day in 7th grade.

When we got there I was unimpressed by the building.  It was a large structure to be sure, industrial almost.  Not at all what I expected when I thought of a place of higher learning.

As a girl of 13 I was both obsessed and terrified with the possibility of attracting attention.  I wanted it, but only if it was the good kind, and only if I could quickly fade back into the shadows. I was convinced I was going to turn heads in my maternity-like dress.  As I walked down the hallway to one of the sessions we had that told us all about the wild and fantastic opportunities available to us in the area of HVAC systems, the light shown in through the windows.  I felt glorious.  That sun was clearly shining for me.

My friends had gone off to various other sessions, child rearing, basic computing skills and the like.  I couldn't find them anywhere, I felt very uncomfortable with being in groups where I didn't know anyone.  Okay, I knew my classmates, but they didn't know me or talk to me. I was the twin of that one girl. That was pretty much the extent of knowledge people had about me growing up.

Whenever I got to a new session, I would try to find someone that I had exchanged  words with at some point in my life.  I would then plant myself firmly next to them, and hope that I might be able to make a witty remark at some point during the thirty-minutes.  Sometimes the instructor would ask us questions, in which case I would hide.  Over the years I have become quite adept at hiding myself in a crowd. It's really a complex method of shifting repeatedly while moving farther to the back.  My best chances at hiding were behind some sort of object, if I could be obstructed in any way, all the better for me.

At first arrival to a session I would take note of the topic, and quickly think of  things I could say on that topic if I was forced to speak.

Childcare: "Oh man ....kids huh?  They sure do like to play."

Hair Stylistt: "One time, I cut all the hair of my Barbie's head, this would not be a good career choice for me!"

Computers: "I have a computer, I like to play games on it."

These statements assured that I would not be asked another question.  I could then be left to sit alone in silence doodling on sheets of paper.

In the childcare class people talked about their successful babysitting ventures, almost everywhere I went that day people seemed to know exactly what it was they wanted to do.  I had no idea what I wanted to do, or if I was even capable of doing anything that people needed, let alone would pay me for.

I left the Addison Technology Center feeling dejected.  On the bus ride home, I felt more dejected. Sadly, there would still be time last for our last class of the day.

Ashley P. and I were sitting in Ms. Larson's art class. The sink was behind us, we were at the front of the class sitting at our octagon shaped art tables.  The popular group consisted of about 4-5 people, they sat at an octagon table on the far right side of the class.

We were drawing god knows what, and Ashley and I were laughing about something and I was starting to feel better about myself.  That is until about four minutes later.

As I was furiously cutting out shapes and sketching a masterpiece that has yet to be discovered by the Louvre, a boy named Matt came up to me.

He leaned down to my level, elbows on the table, his face not more than a foot from mine.  He half-whispered half-spoke:

"Close your legs and where's the tape?"

The entire popular kid table erupted in raucous laughter.

It was at that precise moment that my life ended.

I am fairly sure that the all the blood in my body rushed to my face resulting in a facial temperature of about 120 degrees Celsius.  I looked at Ashley with my teeth clenched and eyes as wide as a person about to get hit by a tractor, I asked her "Why he wanted the tape?"

During the chaos of those first seconds and minutes after that initial comment, I thought he had implied that he wanted to tape my legs shut.  Apparently, he actually just wanted to use the tape on an art project.

Ashley was laughing, hell I was even laughing.  Laughing in the sort of way a person laughs when everyone else is laughing at them.

My core temperature was clearly at an unhealthy level, vital bodily organs would soon begin to shut down.  I got up from the table and pretended that I needed to clean something in the corner over by the sink.  When all else fails, retreat.

I got the black dustpan from the wall and began sweeping stuff up on the floor.  I have no idea why I decided to do this, but once I started I couldn't stop.  I swept the same corner for about ten minutes.  The class period had evidently been lengthened by 2 hours.

My hearing is not exceptionally great, but when people are talking about me, I am like a mighty hawk, or some other animal with super hearing.  I heard what the popular table was saying, I wanted to explain to them that I was wearing pantyhose and that technically they could not see anything.

Nylons come with a sort of white "security patch" maybe it might even be called a "chaste cloth".  I don't know what exactly it is called, I just know that they assumed that I wore big white granny panties, and that mortified me even more.

This was the last thing social life needed.

It was from that moment on I knew one thing and one thing only, I was never going to be able to change lunch tables.  The strict lunch table hierarchy would remain in tact. Popular kids get the best table, and then each progressively lower table by social status until you got to the 5th grade kids who sat at the total opposite end of the lunch room.

I've never quite gotten over this day, I think about it still and cringe into my pillow at night.  The site of a roll of tape still brings back painful memories of that day.

Moments In Orthodontical History and The Science of Air Puffing.

From previous blogs, I am assuming you all know that my teeth have been jacked since the day I was born.  It's one of the many gifts my genetics have brought me, aside from the crippling neurosis.

For whatever reason in 4th grade I apparently needed braces, they were essential.  From 4th grade until 8th grade I had a lovely set of braces thanks to Dr. Wit. 

Hairy Arms.

Dr. Wit was a man with exceptionally hairy forearms.  I always found that to be quite curious, hairy forearms smooth shoulders?  I never saw his shoulders, but I'm assuming they were, he seems the type.

I believe there was a period of time in the 90's where everyone was told they needed braces, 

"Oh you have teeth? Okay, you're gunna need some braces."   

The first time you have your braces tightened you realize that really, this is about increasing pain tolerance in the children of America.  Making them into pain tolerant droids. This is why the series Jackass happened.  I am pretty sure it starts with braces, then skateboarding, drugs, and then you die. 

Also, the metal composition of braces is of questionable origin.  I have not done any laboratory tests yet, but if I did it would be 80 percent mercury and 20 percent lead. Obviously this contributed to my lacklustre development in the right hemisphere of my brain.  That is why if you ask me to do even the simplest algebraic equation I look at you as if you asked if "May I molest you this evening?" 

Back to the Pain:

The pain was so severe it felt as if someone was hammering my teeth.  They give you a thing of wax. I don't know why the fuck they give you wax.  It does nothing to ease the pain in your mouth.  You think "Oh great, this will help." So you put a ton of this real tasteless wax shit in your mouth, sitting there waiting for the calming agents to kick-in, I mean there have to be some right?  Relief, I need sweet, sweet relief.  But it never came.

Instead I relied on massive amounts of Advil and various ice creams. Mostly I had the ice cream because I have always believed in rewarding myself for doing any task, no matter its simplicity.  "Well Andrea, your breathing is really good today, time for a chocolate shake."

Wires.

Dr. Wit didn't believe in making sure that all of the wires that ran through my braces were properly snipped at the ends.  This resulted in them getting caught on my cheek flesh. CHEEK FLESH.

I would be sitting there, talking with my mother in one of our bi-weekly Walton Family like discussions, when all of a sudden it would happen, I would feel the meaty part of cheek wrap around the small razor sharp industrial grade wire. I lack common sense so I would open up my mouth thus ripping my inner cheek.  I would try to put water in my mouth and swish it around in there hoping the liquid would serve as some sort of lubricant, I made a lot of shit up in my head as a kid.  

Solutions to problems were not so much solutions, as they were imaginary things that made sense in my brain at the time. 

Sitting on the counter in my mom and dad's bathroom I would try to gauge the severity of the damage. My cheek  still caught in the wire, the halogen light from the vanity burning my face like a hot summer sun.  I'd turn my head to the right trying to will the light to shine enough on the inside of my mouth to see where exactly it was caught. That clearly never works.  No matter what way you generally turn to see the inside of your mouth, in a mirror it just becomes darker, it's almost like magic...almost.

When I couldn't get it uncaught via just looking at it, I would begin a complex series of air puffing. What's air puffing you ask?  I would start by leaning my head all the way back and then as fast as humanly possible I would force my head forward in a whiplash like movement attempting to force large amounts of air into my mouth, thus dislodging my cheek from the wire.  When that inevitably failed, I would bend over, puff my mouth up with air and  shake my head furiously from side-to-side.  

Despite the obvious genius behind these tactics, none of these things actually worked.  Eventually my cheek would just come loose of its own accord.  The next day I would go back to Dr. Wit and tell him my cheek was getting caught, again.  I was pretty sure he thought I was just making it up.  I, however, believed my cheek could just would grow randomly.  I used to picture myself sleeping at night, my face cheeks just getting bigger and bigger, my imagination is terrifying. 

Fond memories.  More on braces later.