You Know You're Going to Have an Interesting Night When

You know you're going to have an interesting night when...you leave your ID at home.

Tonight we were headed downtown for an event and Daniel casually asked me as we pulled up, "You have your ID right?" I answered, "Of course." When I went to grab my wallet out of the console, I realized that no, I actually did not have my ID. I ended up dropping Daniel off with the intention to go home, grab my wallet, and return. However, by the time I got home at 11, I had lost most of my motivation for the night and only returned a few hours later to pick him up since we had taken one car.

So I guess I need to revise my thought to: you know you're going to have a boring night when you leave your ID at home.

Toby at the Airport

This little guy was at baggage claim picking up his dad from New York.

If You Really Knew Me

If You Really Knew Me - MTV Shows

I stumbled across (Pause for sidenote: I just discovered thanks to automatic spell check that "acrossed" is not a word. I googled it just to make sure because I've been using "acrossed" as the past tense of "across" for as long as I can remember. Here's what urban dictionary says, "acrossed: an agonizing ignorant mispronunciation wildly popular all across the Midwest". Geez that's harsh, but oh so sadly true as I can attest obviously. Thought I would share my embarrassment along with my surprise.) Moving on...

Tonight I stumbled across the MTV show "If You Really Knew Me". It documents Challenge Day workshops hosted at high schools across the country. During a Challenge Day students and teachers of different races, backgrounds, and social groups share experiences to show that despite their differences they share common pain (and maybe some other things as well, but it was the pain that struck me- I believe it was the pain that I was drawn into since that is the shared experienced that seems to have bonded me most to people this past year since cancer entered our family.) They sit knee to knee with a partner and start with the phrase, "If you really knew me you would know that _____". The blank is often filled with things like "my dad died when I was little but I don't like to talk about it" or "everyone thinks I'm fine but I don't feel like I really have any friends". The groups merge into larger circles and the exercise is completed again with more and more kids connecting knee to knee as they open up about things they've maybe never said out loud before. One of the final exercises has everyone line up side by side and they are told to cross to the other side of the room and look at the remaining group if a particular statement is true of them. The leader announces, "Cross the room if you've ever thought about or attempted suicide". Half the room switched sides. "Cross the room if you've ever felt alone or afraid." The entire room moved.

One young man shared that he was the valedictorian but that not many people knew that he was gay. He crossed the room on the suicide question. My heart broke. Another young man whose own father was there participating in the Challenge Day as well shared that he felt a ton of pressure from his dad, like he had to perform and always be the best in order for his dad to be proud of him. His dad later shared that day in front of the entire room. He called his son over, and with microphone in hand so everyone could hear him, announced, "I know you might feel pressure from me, but I want you to know that I love you. Some days you might make good choices and some days you might make mistakes, but I will never stop loving you." Woah. The son looked on restraining his teenage tears as best he could, but was visibly shaken by his father's words. I sat there on my couch wishing every father and son, shoot every mother and daughter, father and daughter, mother and son could have an exchange like this. From 11 years working with high school kids and being a daughter myself, I've seen this pressure to perform, to be good enough, to make your parents proud in almost every (if not all) kid I've worked with. If only we could have this conversation at age 16 and just be reassured right then and there that of course they are proud, of course we are loved and always will be. Instead most of us simply work until adulthood to earn a seal of approval that was there all along. If only kids could hear that they don't need to be good enough for their parents because I also know that the reality for some kids is that the pressure is not always self-imposed. I am lucky to be in the family I am in, but for some kids they haven't heard that their parents are proud of them because their parents are still gauging each step their child takes, lost so much in making sure their child makes the right choices that they forget to tell them they are loved and accepted despite some of the dumb stuff they may do. What's funny is that I find kids who feel safe and secure at home usually go on to make better decisions anyway. (I'll hop down off my soapbox now seeing as how I am not a parent and don't want it to seem as though I am judging parents. God knows I'm terrified of screwing up any kids I may have someday. I fully recognize that parenthood is the hardest endeavor one can ever embark on. I'm only speaking to the hurt I've encountered over and over again, year after year.)

The first half of Challenge Day's mantra is "Imagine a world where every child feels safe, loved, and celebrated." Amen. I can get behind that.

channel 1 news-2007 from Rodrigo Torres on Vimeo.

Running Out of Gas and Other Non-Adventures

My friend Greg started a blog and I'm already quoting his first post in a post of my own. That's success if you ask me. He's unemployed as well and commented about how as a result he has loads of time to post, but little content to post about. I fear this predicament myself. In fact I think I'm already experiencing this conversational dilemma in my marriage. Par exemple: Daniel and I were hanging out and he asked me what was wrong because I was so quiet. I told him that I was fine and that I simply just didn't have anything to talk about. Unless he wanted to hear about the day time sleeping habits of the dogs, I had no news to report.

Not only am I expected to be a normal conversationalist in my marriage, but I've committed to doing daily blog posts (what kind of crazy person decides to do that?) . I began thinking this evening about what to write about tonight and was coming up empty. I had a lovely day with some lovely interactions with some lovely ladies, but I already mentioned my plans for today in yesterday's post. My content is a little lack luster. The only thing slightly funny or unusual event of the day was running out of gas while driving some YL girls home. I had been buzzing around town all afternoon carpooling and shuttling the girls from their homes to the movie and back to their homes again. My gas light was on the whole time, but as I was running late (as usual), I seemed to lose track of my mileage. We approached a very busy intersection right off the highway and I felt the Volvo begin to jump a little under me. I turned off the radio and heard her sputter. Panic washed over my entire body and I had a flashback of me at age 16 the last time this happened. Sitting in my silver blue 1985 Toyota Cressida on Barry Road in the middle of July on my way to my first job as a hostess at Chili's, I pressed unrelenting against the gas pedal to no avail. She wouldn't move. I was stranded. That could not happen to me again today. I held my breath for the next few minutes chanting prayers and expletives simultaneously waiting for the stoplight to turn green so I could see if I could make a rolling entrance into the gas station in time. She made it through the intersection. If we had to push at least we'd be a little less conspicuous at this place, but not by much. I lowered my foot slowly onto the pedal harder and harder urging her to make her way completely into the station. As I approached the far pump (the only one available) she turned off completely and I allowed our momentum to roll us into place beside the nozzle. A close call. Relief and embarrassment filled my nervous laughter as I filled her up thanking God for dodging the bullet of complete humiliation.

Now I've just told you a story that hopefully humored you a little but is by no means life changing or profound. I ran out of gas today just as I'm running out of gas in the content department. But obviously if you are seeing these words you read it. Why? I was catching up on the happenings of my beautiful friend Sara via her blog. She wrote a post about adding the phrase "not that you care" to part of the title of her blog. She discussed all the little everyday things that she thinks are remarkable but not necessarily blog-worthy. This is a game I play with myself a lot throughout my day. For me everything is good material. Mundane maybe, but the lives most of us live are filled more by the mundane than the extraordinary. Call me boring or a stalker, but I enjoy reading about the everyday-ness of others. It makes me feel normal. Heck some people's stories make me feel downright interesting in comparison. I think there are ways of writing, speaking, and telling stories in a manner that is entertaining, beautiful, and fascinating. I truly believe that it's not necessarily the circumstances of one's life that makes a person significant but rather the way in which one lives that brings significance. My car running out of gas today could have been a non-event. But having my YL girls present to watch my panic and embarrassment, to wonder about God's thoughts on my simultaneous prayers and expletives, to remember the last time it happened 12 years ago...I think we really lived that moment to its fullest, sucking (as they say) the marrow out of life. We laughed, I cried (inside), we filled up my tank and started all over again.

I have very talented friends who have blogs about fashion, sewing, creative house-making what-cha-call-it cool project stuff, and intellectual topics. That was one of the things that made me hesitate in starting a blog. What would it be about? Because surely no one would want to read just a bunch of random thoughts I'd written. But they do, because that's also what I like to read. So Greg and Sara, I don't think folks like us will ever run out of content. For one thing Sara, half of your posts are not random daily observations but full on house-making what-cha-call-it tutorials between your sewing projects, cooking recipes, and house decor, so your blog falls into one of the I'm-actually-offering-something-to-the-blogosphere categories. But for the same reason we like to read people's facebook statuses and twitter notifications, people will continue to read the blogs of even the most everyday of us. So here's to sharing the little moments with one another. Greg, just tell a story about Suze the greatest mother of all time and your readership will go through the roof.

Living Single Sucks

Daniel is in NYC for work...ugh jealous. One of my dreams is to spend a summer in the city (even in spite of the heat) and even if he's only there for 4 days, that's still 4 days more than I will spend there. I told him to scope out real estate and pick a neighborhood for us to move into. Hey I'm unemployed and untethered...let's move!

Being at home by myself royally sucks. At about 10:30 tonight I started to get really antsy. One might think, "Well it's late. Just go to bed." Sure that would be great except that our household consists of night owls, so my internal clock has bedtime set for around 1:30 or 2am. And to think that I proclaimed at dinner with my family tonight, "I've got no husband and no job! This is going to be fun!" I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I was just focusing on the fun I had planned for myself at home tonight which included watching RPattz in Remember Me. I was only 10 minutes into the movie until I realized how much it sucks. (I enjoyed it in the theater, but that's probably because it was a novelty...something new...unseen footage of Pattinson acting without the yellow contacts and white face paint.) I kept it playing in the background as I killed time on facebook. I even fast forwarded the scene where the little sister gets her hair cut at the slumber party and when the 9/11 ending happened I was emotionless and relieved to have it finally be over.

I have no idea how Daniel lived as a bachelor for 5 weeks. I can't even stand one night of the summer doldrums. I plan on filling my social calendar over the next few days to maintain some sanity. I have a date with my YL girls tomorrow afternoon to see Eclipse (apparently the yellow contacts and white makeup aren't as painful for me to watch a second time compared to Remember Me.) Tomorrow night Kate is coming over for The Bachelorette. I can't wait to scream and scold Frank for rejecting Aly for an old girlfriend. It's going to be a train wreck/awesome.

So the moral of the story is 1. "man was not meant to live alone" and 2. when the absence occurs, treat with generous amounts of girl time, bad movies, and trash TV.