Getting to Know My Daughter

Over the weekend, my husband and son attended roll-out parties for Dark Ascension, which is some new thing for the Magic game that they enjoy/obsess over. This meant they both stood in front of me over the past two weeks at varying intervals and talked and all I heard was "NERD NERD NERD NERD NERD." I could tell you more about it, I suppose, had I listened without my eyes glazing over. Since the boys were otherwise engaged, the girls and I spent Friday evening and Saturday going out to eat, going to the mall, and listening to really bad pop music in the car. It was GLORIOUS.

One thing about having three kids is that you get to know your kids in terms of the others. You see the way they interact with one another, the way they handle situations differently than their siblings, the differing ways they communicate. You start thinking in terms of "X is more sensitive than Y" or "Y has a shorter temper than X." And even though it sounds paradoxical, this kind of parenting helps you to tailor your parenting to fit the needs of each individual child--you know what methods work for one and are too much for another because you can see the way the whole thing works. I try to spend as much time as possible just being solo with one kid or another, but a lot of times those times feel "functional"--I am taking them somewhere or another, they are just left at home with me while the other does something else, that kind of thing.

Being around Gabby this last weekend showed me how much she has changed. Last school year, I have to say, was a bit of a struggle for us. Gabby was moody, surly, and very nearly overcome with drama at school. It was hard to talk to her at all, much less have any type of meaningful conversation. Any time we had together was a lot of me giving her stern talks about one thing or another. This year she has been phenomenally better--we have all noticed just how much easier daily life is. The best thing is, though, that she really seems to be getting a handle on "who" she is and what she wants her life to be like. This is perhaps one of my favorite things about being a parent so far--seeing this kind of knowledge bloom in a child and watching what she does with it.

Watching her this weekend though, I realized one thing: Gabby is kickass. She is someone that had I known at her age, I would have been completely in awe of. For one thing, when I was in seventh grade, I had no handle on what I was, what I wanted, or what I could be. I was an awkward kid with braces who did much, much better with books than with actual, living people. I had friends, but none that were into the same things as me. To remedy this, I mostly just tried to hide what I was really into, and to be honest, that is something I struggle with even now. Not Gabby. She likes what she likes, and doesn't really care what you think about that. She makes no bones about the fact that no one at her school understands her music, her jokes, the internet memes she is shameless in guffawing at. And she is ok with that. Why wouldn't she be?

Her fashion is also strictly her own. She has a closet full of t-shirts and skinny jeans, mostly all in bright colors. Where she goes crazily off the chain, though, is the accessories. For instance, today I sent her to school wearing a headband that had a Koosh ball attached to it and a pair of orange Dr. Seuss Chuck Taylors. She delights in getting up in the morning and putting together these things. While shopping on Saturday, I asked her if she knew anyone who dressed like her. She just gave me this look, this "God, MOM" look that I know very well because it is my look that I still give to my mom on the regular. And I'm glad she shot me that look too, because I was needed to be reminded that she was in fact mine, and not, say, the love child of Kathleen Hanna and Betsey Johnson.

I have racked my brain all weekend, wondering what I did to make her so awesome, so different from the buck-toothed girl hiding in her huge pants and ratty sweaters. And I don't know. I wish I did. I wish I could write it all here and give you all the secrets, or maybe write a book to be handed out in maternity wards: "How NOT To Have One of Those Kids From the Mall That You Hate." I think I just got really, exorbitantly lucky.

Or maybe it was the internet's doing. For once, THANKS AL GORE!

I am wearing bright blue eye shadow as I write this, so taking my advice on fashion is purely at your own risk.

I think I forgot to mention in my slurry of Jamaica posts that our bags were lost on the way home. And not just "Oh, it's on the next flight up here, we'll bring it to you shortly" lost. Like "HOLY FUCK WE HAVE NO RECORD OF YOUR BAGS EXISTING LIKE EVER" lost. Once we came through customs in Boston, we brought our bags to be checked right back in so we didn't have to tote them to our hotel and then they entered some kind of nega-universe, time warp thing. And I'm not going to bore you here with the drama of us calling US Airways 15 times or checking the internet site 47 million times or Matt's pure anguish in realizing that his FAVORITE Einstein shirt was in that bag ("THOSE MAGNIFICENT BASTARDS BETTER NOT LOSE MY SHIRT!"). What is really important to know is that my make-up was in that bag, and on Monday I had to go to work with no make up.

HOLY.

SHIT BALLS.

In my family, going to work with no make-up is akin to walking to work in your underwear whilst carrying a nice juicy rib-eye for the neighborhood dogs. YOU JUST DON'T DO IT. Which explains why, with all the drama that was going on, I was sending Facebook messages to my Mary Kay consultant, imploring her for samples. And, because she is amazingly awesome, she came through. The next morning, her mom showed up to my office with a bag piled full of samples and one perfectly wonderful Lindor truffle. And the world continued spinning and I didn't have to call in a bomb threat to US Airways. Not that I thought of doing that at all.

(Yes, we finally got our bags back.)

So, I have used all those samples, constructing a different look everyday. Today, I was feeling spry, so I stuck my hand down in the still-full bag, closed my eyes, and pulled out shadow in Azure, which at first glance, I was like, "That is the same color as the water in Jamaica! It should be called Caribbean Blue." And while it should, that's a pretty douchey thing to think, don't you think? THERE ARE STARVING BABIES IN THE WORLD AND WOMEN WHO NEED MAMMOGRAMS. Now I know the self-loathing Mitt Romney must feel on a day to day basis, and it almost makes me feel something for the man. Ok. No, it doesn't.

ANYWAY, I have it on today, and yeah, it is bright, and when I put it on for the first time, I was like "WOAH NELLY." But now, I have to say, I kinda love it. And I kinda want it to be mine. I feel like if anyone notices or asks today, I can just say I am paying homage to Superbowl Halftime Performer, Madonna. TOPICAL. (I want to add here that I took a picture of my eye with my cell phone, but I didn't share it because it looked creepy, like a picture you might see on the killer's wall in a bad Criminal Minds episode. Just say no to eye photos.)

And I guess the bright eye shadow has me feeling an 80's vibe, because today since I am starting a new Friday tradition that will soon rule ALL our lives (Fashion and Beauty Friday--HOLLA AT YOUR GIRL), I am talking about NEON. And not Fleming-Neon, which is a high school marching band in Kentucky that is near where I grew up and who wore uniforms the same color as our marching band uniforms, and really, where do they get off doing that, and seriously, this is what I think of every time I say or think of the word "neon." Rather, neon clothing and accessories, which are having a bit of a moment this spring. While there is a huge "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" feel to say, a neon yellow bag, I have to say, I kinda like the trend. Maybe because I am just more prone to color when this time of year comes around. ANY COLOR. And because it is 60 degrees outside in February, and so I've just decided that it is time for spring, no matter what the calendar tells me.

But, there is a big disconnect between "liking" a trend on racks or on others, and actually wearing it. I find myself gravitating, more and more, to blacks and grays and some purples. So would I really wear a neon pair of pants? Hmmm. Even more problematic is a neon purse, like the one I saw at Target the other day. How weird would that look with the things that are already in my wardrobe? Let's see: PRETTY WEIRD. And even if it didn't, even if it looked cute with a black dress, how comfortable would I be with how the look influenced my own personal style? Is that worth whatever money I put down on it? Maybe not.

But then I saw this sweater, and I thought that perhaps this could be the marijuana to the rest of the trend's collective crack:

I adore the brightness of this sweater, the sunny feel. Yellow is a hard color to wear, granted, but how good would it feel to have this in your closet on a gray day? And, the good thing about it, is that it is not full-on acid yellow. Believe me--I have a 12 year old daughter who has been rocking the neon trend for a couple of years now. I KNOW ACID YELLOW. This is a gateway drug. You could wear this with black pants or denim trousers and fun jewelry or you could colorblock it with a bright pencil (or even more fun--a skirt in a fun print), and belt it with a turquoise or orange skinny belt. You could put your feelers out for more bright colors and see what else feels good. Who knows? Before long, you could be picking up that neon messenger bag at Target and knowing full-well what you are going to pair with it.

I don't know if I would wear it with the blue eye shadow.

So, before closing, I have to share a Great Neon Moment from the late 80's/early 90's. When I was a kid, my Granddaddy Jack would often give my cousin Amanda and me each a dollar and let us walk to the store about half a mile from his house. He would follow us a few minutes later in his awesome Oldsmobile and buy us a box of cookies and cream ice cream. The store was made of metal and smelled like Pall Malls and feed, which is the only thing that it really sold. Amanda and I would get there and look through the dusty candy and soda bottles and pick out something really awesome to buy. Usually for me, it was Cry Baby Tears, the sour hard candy, which did really, really weird things to your saliva. (Note: If anyone knows where I can buy this candy now, I'd love you forever.) One day, we went down there, and low and behold, they had this pair of neon green shoe laces. They were 99 cents. SCORE. I picked them up and told Amanda I was forgoing the candy and getting the shoe laces instead. Fashion to the core, you see. She informed me that I couldn't, and that I'd need extra money for tax. I hated the US government so much in that moment that it is a wonder that I haven't joined a militia group. I kept them in my hand, though, and followed Amanda around the store, basically begging here for the extra four cents. My grandfather showed up about that time and saw what I wanted, and said he'd buy them for me, "because with those things on your feet, I'd always see you comin.' "

Moral of the story: 1) I am an awful cousin, 2) My grandfather was great, and 3) Neon brings families together.

Review: Beaches Negril

Pictured: The beach in front of Beaches Negril.

As promised, here is a review of the resort we stayed at while in Jamaica. I thought it would be helpful to others who may be like me and never considered going to an all-inclusive resort before. Plus, it makes me feel all important to be "reviewing" something. I'll try to break it down between pro's and con's and then "things to know." Onward!

Pro's

1. It's all-inclusive, bitches. When my family and I normally take trips, we try to pay for things as much as we can beforehand so we can keep our budget from skyrocketing. It takes a lot of planning. Plus, you can never prepay meals or anything like that when traveling to other locales. Even if it is not a budget you are worried about, it can be cumbersome and annoying to travel with money/cash. My husband has developed several amazingly intricate ways to keep money on hand and convenient in places like amusement parks, water parks, and beaches over the years. And even with his systems in place, it is always something he is thinking about during the trip. Not at Beaches. As at any all-inclusive resort, the place is totally cashless. We put our wallets and cell phones in the in-room safe when we got there and didn't pull them out until we left. Even if you buy something at the resort, like a scuba class or a bottle of sunblock at the resort store, you just charge it to your room and settle up when you leave. Easy peasy. And we had a zero balance when we left, and not due to penny-pinching. Before arriving at Beaches, the kids had wanted to take some of the classes offered (DJ Academy in particular), but once they saw all of the other things going on, decided not to.

2. It is freaking gorgeous. The resort itself was amazing to behold, with great looking pools, a nice, wide beach, and comfy and nice common areas. I thought our room was very well appointed and comfortable. This was the view from outside the room:

Everything was also amazingly clean and smelled nice. I point this out even though it is kind of a "Nah duh" moment (What? You mean a beach in Jamaica is pretty? YOU DON'T SAY.) because I have heard about other resorts not being super clean. And I have to say, from the time I spent up the beach at Sandals, I found the rooms at Beaches Negril to be much, much nicer and the beach to be wider.

3. There is truly something for everyone. I am the mother to three very different kids who are at very different ages. It takes something pretty special to appeal to all of them, as well as appeal to my husband and myself. Beaches did that. My oldest daughter liked the independence of being able to walk around the resort safely and be able to experience things in a more "grown up" fashion. My son loved the Xbox Game Garage, the floats in the pool, and the fact that Matt would/could go out and get him some chicken tenders at midnight. And Alice of course loved the Sesame Street characters walking about in costume, the various Sesame Street shows and ohmylordinheaven she loved the water park. From the time her little eyes popped up in the morning to the time when she collapsed in an exhausted heap, she was saying "I GO WATER PARK????" And because everything is a walkable distance apart and there are lots of friendly faces along the way, you can feasibly do everyone's favorite thing at one time.

4. Everyone is really friendly. Every person we met at Beaches was super friendly. I mentioned yesterday that at first I was squicked about the whole thing, but made my peace with it by talking to everyone and enjoying their company and help. And if you get started talking to anyone at the resort, you might find yourself in a 15 minute conversation. I learned about my brother in law's butler's twin 2 year old girls, a waitress's 12 year old daughter named Abby, and several other fun kids going through a lot of the same stuff my own are. Although there does seem to be a little script of stuff that the resort wants them to say to guests that might feel a little disingenuous, we didn't meet one person who wasn't really, super friendly despite it.

Cons

1. All-inclusive doesn't include everything. Yeah, we knew we'd have to pay extra for things like classes, and we imagined there would be small fees for other things. There are large fees, my friend. Wi-fi is $14.99 per day. We were planning on using our phones to email my father in law at the other resort to set up times for meeting and stuff like that, but decided not to, once we found out the price. Texting was just $.50 per sent message through Verizon, which I didn't think was bad at all, but my father in law absolutely refused to try it, afraid he would get slapped with additional fees. So we did it up 1985 style by calling the landlines in each other's rooms and leaving messages. More disgusting is the laundry situation. There was a guest laundry across from our room. Now, I totally didn't want to do laundry on my trip, but after finding out that the rehearsal dinner was in fact a snorkeling adventure, I had to find a way to dry some bathing suits and cover ups. I figured I would pay a small price to use the dryer. Turns out is $6 a load to wash, $6 to dry, and if you are require detergent, you're out another $6 per load for that. Um, no thanks. And, I should note that if you find that to be reasonable, let me know and I'll send you my address where you can send all the money that you plan to ritualistically set on fire this month. We ended up doing our drying with the room's blow dryer. Also note that any time you step off the property, you are incurring fees which vary from reasonable to just plain strange. We had to use a taxi to get back and forth from Beaches to Sandals and it was a different charge every time, going from $5 to $15 one way depending on who the cab driver was (it should be noted that this was about a 2 mile drive). Also, the guy who loads your bags into the bus at the airport does not work for the resort, even though he kind of acts like he does. He expects $1 per bag plus tip. The more you know!!! Finally, make sure you are loaded up on things like sunscreen and cover ups before you get there. One bottle of spray sunscreen at the resort store was $26. We were glad we came prepared.

2. The food. Now, I'm not going to say that I didn't like the food, because I had things that I definitely enjoyed. However, I don't think I could go a week on just the resort's offerings, and really, the quality varied A LOT from place to place and meal to meal. Our first meal at the resort, for instance, was just odd. My husband and son got jerk chicken and pork which was actually pretty good and came in a huge serving. I got a buffalo chicken burger, which I thought sounded great on the menu. It was in fact a frozen chicken patty like you used to get in elementary school bathed in some buffalo sauce and topped with a very sad looking nickel sized dollop of blue cheese dressing. Moreover, the bun was stale and the fries had probably been there a while. It got a little tastier when I had another rum punch. If you are someone who knows even a tiny bit about food, you'll be able to see a lot of convenience products being used. Tiramisu, for instance, was tasty after a LOT of wine, but was made with Dream Whip and absolutely no mascarpone whatsoever. Even the mashed potatoes at the wedding reception were instant, and I shudder to think what the parents of the bride paid for that spread. ME NO LIKEY INSTANT POTATOES. Even looking past all that, if you are used to just cooking/buying what you want at any time, you might just get tired of the food offerings. Like I said, 3-4 days on the food front were fine with me, but I don't think I could do a whole week. If I were staying that length of time, I'd make sure to go off the resort and try some local restaurants at least once or twice. And it is good to know that you can go to the other resorts owned by Beaches/Sandals for food if you want and not have to pay anything extra--just make sure you catch the resort shuttle or be ready to pay cab fare. And I should note in conclusion, that this is not just me being a food snob--this was absolutely the only complaint I heard anyone have while at the resort, and I sat in the hot tub and listened to people A LOT.

Things to know and other minutiae:

1. For some reason, the beach/pool towels run out by 10:00 in the morning. Either someone is a huge towel hoarder or they just don't have enough to meet demand. If you haven't gotten one by that time, good luck. We looked for towels in vain for a good while the first afternoon we were there. If you haven't gotten one by that time, just use the ones in your room and request more later.

2. There are a lot of vendors walking up and down the beach trying to sell you stuff. Mostly it is guys pressing jet ski rides, but you also see people selling jewelry and conch shells. They are not that pushy, really, if you are friendly and they can see that you have no cash on you. After the first couple of days, they remembered us and didn't really ask anymore. Any that seem pushy or especially inebriated are escorted off by security.

3. You can check your kids into day care if you so desire. Just putting that out there. We didn't, but the facilities where they hold the day care things look nice and well tended.

4. Ladies need not bring anything other than comfortable cotton jersey dresses. These were appropriate for everything on the trip, and in fact, anything other than that felt oppressive and thick on the skin (namely, the white jeans I thought would be so nice to wear at night at the resort). If you intend on going to the fine dining restaurant, these kind of dresses are totally fine--I wore a black matte jersey maxi dress from Gap and gold gladiator sandals. Men will need to bring a shirt with a collar--I think Matt wore a linen button down and a pair of linen Armani pants he found on ebay for a song. Other than that, there are no dress code requirements, and really, I'm telling you, don't take anything but dresses. You'll be happy with that information.

5. On that same token, I found Beaches to be a great place, body image wise. I know that I have been some places over the years where I've felt uncomfortable wearing a swimsuit since I am short, pasty, and not a size 2. I didn't get that vibe there. It is probably due to the family feel of the resort, but the groups of singles we met and saw were friendly and also very "come what may." If you are in the market for a swimsuit for the trip, I would recommend a tankini with a skirted bottom like you can get from Land's End if for no other reason than the fact that you can wear that around the resort sans cover up without feeling weird. I brought two one piece 50's inspired suits I got from Lands End and Land's End Canvas, and got a lot of compliments on them, even one from my own 12 year old (GASP).

6. If you can swing it, get a junior suite or higher. Not only do you get a bigger room, but you get the suite concierge service which means that you get a faster check-in, a quick tour from the concierge, and you have the concierge service which will bring you anything you want to the room to replenish your mini bar at any time before 10:00 p.m. And you get spa robes! That is great. I will point out, though, that they usually have only person staffing the concierge center in the later hours, so you might call a few times without a response. However, if you can speak to them, they'll have you a bottle of champagne down there PDQ, and one guy just came by with his cart one morning, and let Matt just take off all the Cokes, Diet Cokes, waters and beers he would carry. Also of note is the dressing area in the junior suite. I don't think I have a picture of it, which was weird since that was my favorite thing. It was huge, with a curved double sink and built in closet stuff to hold all your luggage and things. Really, really cool, and very convenient when you have to get a whole basketball starting lineup ready to go to a wedding. And really, it is much, MUCH cheaper than getting two rooms, which is what we would have had to have done with our size family.

I think that is about all I can remember/need to tell. If you are planning a trip to this resort, and would like more info, feel free to comment or email me and I'll do my best to answer questions.

Jamaica Recap

I've debated how to go about talking about the trip, because really, a blog post about one's vacation is the 21st century equivalent to a slide show where some horrible friend drones on and on while the slides click, click, click into a disjointed and boring narrative. But, you know, there may be folks out there who have been waiting five days with bated breath, just salivating over themselves to hear how my trip went. SHUT UP. THERE TOTALLY COULD BE. And well, I guess I should put it all down for posterity, you know so that someday when I am suffering from some wretched Diet Coke abetted illness, I can look back on happier times. So here goes. For those of you bated breath people, I also plan to do a review of the resort so that those of you who want to plan trips of your own can hear some of my opinions and get a better idea of what you are getting yourself into.

Before I get started, I will give you a very brief background of what drew us to Jamaica. My husband's brother was getting married. My husband and is brother both grew up quite poor, I must say, and of course, have the gross fortune/misfortune to have grown up on this huge mountain in the APPA-LATCH-UNS. They also grew up very religious. Now, my husband, as many of you know, has kind of shucked that whole thing. He has a degree from Berkeley, which should tell you a little something. My husband's brother went to Liberty University, the college started by Jerry Falwell. That should tell you another. His bride also went there, and she grew up decidedly not poor and not in the mountains. I'm not going to go much more into this, but let's just say the dynamics in our traveling party were interesting to say the least.

We left very, very early Wednesday morning and arrived in Montego Bay around 12:00 that afternoon. After going through customs, we were taken to the Sandals/Beaches section in the airport and got ready to take our bus. Beaches Negril is about an hour and a half bus ride from the airport. And really, I'll just say that I was brimming with energy before we got on the bus, but that bus ride really took us all down a little. Not to say that it was bad or anything; the tiredness just all caught up with us--all of the kids fell asleep, and Matt and I were really flagging. The one good thing about the bus ride, though, is that you get to see the countryside and of course, there's all that blue-green water to fawn over. It is a bit sobering, though, to see all of the poverty around. And I mean this in a totally un-pretentious look-what-a-good-little-liberal-I-am way, but it really affected me. There was one image in particular, of a tiny shack about the size of my living room (and I live in a very small house) with a clothes line laden with tiny, tiny onesies extended from it, flapping in the wind. A teenage aged girl was standing in the door way wearing bright pink leggings and biting her fingernails. There was a terrible beauty there, to quote Eliot. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

We got to the resort and were immediately whisked away by the suites concierge folks. We got a suite, since as a five person family, a normal hotel room doesn't quite cut it for us anymore. At Beaches, this means you get a whole different team to check you in and do all of that. Our concierge gave me a rum punch as soon as I walked through the door. And yeah, that set the tone for the rest of the week. Our room was lovely, and the kids were excited by both it and the in-room XBox. Matt and I were excited about the minibar that was filled to our demands. We were both squicked out by the concierge guy insisting several times that he was there to "spoil us." I'm sorry, but as a white American person from the South, having a good looking dark skinned person treat you like you are somehow royal made me feel icky. There were lots of uneasy glances all around.

After this, we went out to enjoy the resort. The kids and I soaked in the main pool for a while and then we went out to the beach. My kids were happy to report sightings of "fat, drunk New Jersey-ites in their natural habitat" (Gabby's words, not mine). She is not allowed to watch Jersey Shore for very obvious reasons, but hears about it from friends whose parents are not Nazis. I think she was pleased by being so close to the real action.

Later that evening, my mother and father in law came down from Sandals to watch the kids so Matt and I could go out and enjoy our 14 year dating anniversary (!). We went to the fancier restaurant at the resort and got amazingly drunk. Like crazily so. We sobered up a bit by playing some lawn chess, then staggered home and got the kids in bed before splitting another bottle of champagne on the patio and having a loud, crazy and disjointed conversation about, among other things, Schrodinger and can you fucking believe we've been together 14 years!!!! Yeah. We're those people.

The next morning, we had to go to the rehearsal dinner, which turned out to be a snorkeling adventure. Here's the thing: I spent quite a bit of money and some time procuring outfits for my family to wear to what I thought was a rehearsal dinner on a boat. I bought things that matched, you guys. Everyone was wearing navy blue. And I'm not a matchy-matchy mom so I was VERY proud of myself. I've been talking about these outfits for a long-time now. But we were told, at the last minute, mind you, that this was a snorkeling trip, so to wear bathing suits. I'm not going to front: I was pissed. Plus, when we got to Sandals, where the boat was supposed to take off from, we were corralled on an out of the way couch until someone could locate another member of our party since Sandals does not allow children (note: it took a while). Finally, we go outside to do a quick run through of the wedding on the beach, and THEN, and oh my god, guys, this is where it gets interesting, my brother in law walked out into the ocean and baptized his bride to be. Ever been to a wedding where someone gets baptized? Cause I have NOW. And here's the really weird thing: people were all just sitting around us in their bikinis and beach chairs, watching a bunch of strangers go through some weird shit. One girl, who I think my husband was, um, let's say impressed with, got up and threw down her copy of Darkly Dreaming Dexter, huffily walking away to a place where there were no prayers. If you don't think this is weird, I implore you to tell me if this is "a thing," especially for a husband to be to do it to his wife to be.

Then we got on the catamaran for the rehearsal dinner. And as grouchy as I was, this ended up being my favorite part of the trip. We went snorkeling around a huge coral reef, and then got back on and listened to Shaggy whilst I downed about 10 vodka and cranberries. It should be noted at this point that my mother and father in law paid for this shindig, and they can neither swim nor drink. I was determined to make up for that. I also showed my daughter my amazing knowledge of the Notorious BIG tribute anthem "I'll Be Missing You" and put on a Bob Marley wig to inform several people that I "felt like P. Diddy." And if that sounds strange or embarassing, you didn't see what other people were doing, and folks, those people were straight up sober. Canadians, ya'll. An interesting group.

The rest of the day was spent on island time, which means that I don't really remember what all we did, but that it probably had something to do with the water park, the attraction my kids were the most into. Awesomely, Beaches has this little water park thing, and right behind it, a huge hot tub for the adults who are there "watching" their kids. Matt and I spent a lot of time there.

That night, we took Allie to a Sesame Street parade that she was simultaneously mesmerized by and complete scared shitless of. It was quite fun, especially when the guy dressed up as the Count started doing the Thriller dance. When one is a little buzzed from fruity drinks and a lot of sun, that shit is DOPE. Our older progeny walked around the resort and made sure to delineate themselves from the Sesame Street crowd. Gabby wore a monocle, which delineates her from any crowd really, except from those who shill peanuts and oligarchs who enjoy squeezing lemons as a visual reminder of what they like doing to the proletariat. Then we went to eat at the resort's Japanese steakhouse. The cook asked us where we were from and my husband said, "Virginia." Then the cook proceeded to sing (very loudly I might add) that song "Country Roads" which is about WEST Virginia for just about the rest of our meal. And that song remained in my head for at least two more days. I went home and crashed with Alice after that, and of course, Matt was unhappy because he wanted to sit up and drink and talk about philosophy which is what you do when you are on vacation. IF YOU ARE A NERD.

The next day was the wedding, so we did some fun resort stuff and then got ready for it. The wedding was a perfectly lovely seaside affair. The bride wore Monique Lhullier, and I spent an INORDINATE amount of time worrying about the sand mixing with the beading on the bottom because as SUPER ANXIETY GIRL, I will find SOMETHING to worry about. I wore a dress from Target. It was really pretty, I think, and I kind of rejoiced in sharing that I had gotten it at Tar-jay. (Full disclosure--I ordered another dress from Nordstrom that just didn't work, so ended up sending it back and ordering this on a whim.) I allowed Alice to roll in the sand during the wedding, which kept her quiet and gave me a lot of good pictures. After the wedding, we had a cocktail hour and the bride and groom did a very cute, very interestingly choreographed dance as their first dance. It defied explanation really, but I applaud their appropriate levels of crazy, as did the drunk people watching from their balconies.

And that is when I started drinking myself. We went to a very fancy dinner afterwards, all on the beach, and the champagne flowed. I felt a little weird after the first course, but didn't think much of it, because my eating habits were shit the whole time I was there and I figured it was just my stomach rejecting a proper vegetable. There was a fire-eater guy, and my son Sam did the limbo, which I gladly paid him five booster packs of Magic cards to do. And I kept feeling weird, and not in a good, "I'm drunk!" way. Then, at some point after the bride's father promised Matt and me tickets two rows back from the catcher for a series of our choice in Detroit, I really got sick. As in, I started puking. The alcohol and whatever else just really caught up with me. I made it to the bathroom, and I won't get into it really, but if you've ever read anything on Deadspin where people detail stomach maladies that are, um, explosive enough for discussion, you know what happened. And, being pretty wasted as well, I got this crazy idea that I had to clean the whole stall, so I used all of the toilet paper in both stalls of the bathroom trying to do that. ANXIETY GIRL AWAY. Matt came after me, and I kept trying to explain that I wasn't just drunk, that there was something else at play. I don't think he was really getting it, because, who would, coming from a girl covered in vomit who had just spent the previous 20 minutes catcalling to the fire-eater? I went home with some level of disgrace, but was redeemed when the resort nurse confirmed that I had a fever and that there was some stomach malady going around at the Beaches resort. I ended up making it to my room and literally passing out in the bathtub. The kids were shocked and upset, for obvious reasons, but at this point, Matt was able to explain that I really was sick and that I wasn't just a drunk. So, small miracles I guess? I am still working up the courage to call the bride's father and say, "Remember me? The puking girl from the party? Well, I wasn't really drunk, I was actually sick, confirmed by medical personnel. So how's about them tickets???" (If we can swing it, we are thinking about seeing the Cardinals during interleague play [that's for you, AKM] and our beloved Triple A's in September.)

The next morning, I was remarkably hangover free, which was the last sign we needed that I really had had sickness and wasn't just a degenerate. We had to check out, so we got up early and went to the beach and water park again while the concierge came and got our bags. Gabby and I witnessed two men fight over a beach chair, which was awesome in its own, Jerry Springer-esque way. Then we took the bus ride back to the airport, complete with a kid and his mom puking in the front seat, as they had gotten the bug too. LOVELY.

That is the trip in a nutshell, as best as I can recall. Having had a wonderful time, I would definitely do it all again, except this time, I might wear some sort of mask to keep myself from getting whatever it was that I got. However, there are two things that if I ever hear again, I'll cut my own ears off, Van Gogh style, and promptly airmail to Jamaica.

And those things are:

1) Any white person saying the word "mon" as in "IT'S JAMAICA, MON!!!"

2) Any song by the Black Eyed Peas, especially that one about tonight being a very good night. ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH.

On Weddings

As a kid, I went through this one phase where I really liked looking at bridal magazines. Someone my grandmother knew had gotten married and she had a bunch of those great big, thick phonebook type tomes that featured dresses and hairstyles and veils and such that somehow, got left at my grandmother's house. There was one summer in particular that I spent an inordinate amount of time perusing them. I would go out and play in the mornings while my mom worked, heady times when the dew was on the grass and summer was licking at the edges of the day like a cat. In the middle of the day, my paranoid grandmother would usher me inside and make me stay there for fear that I would have a heat stroke or get a sun burn or lyme disease or any number of awaiting summer ailments. Since she only got two channels on her tv (three when it rained) and I had been through all of the World Book Encyclopedias and a good bulk of the National Geographics at this point, I spent the hours of 11:00-2:00 curled up on the couch with the same three copies of Bride.

However, at the time, I wasn't planning my ideal wedding. It was the very early 90's, so if I had been, I would have been sorely unprepared for any type of occasion that did not involve yards and yards of shiny taffeta, puffy sleeves and a bow the size of a Prius on one's ass. Instead, I spent my time making up stories about the models featured. My favorite were these odd, high fashion shots where the bridesmaid dresses were all dark eggplants and hunter greens and the models had black hair piled in hasty, messy updos, dark lipstick, and stares of disdain. They were photographed next to a creek that reminded me of the one in Hanging Rock National Forest that my mom took me to for hiking. And let me just say--in my mind, those bitches got into SOME MISCHIEF. There were dead husbands (who all looked suspiciously like Bob Saget) and vampires and babies left on the steps of the hospital to be raised by nuns, a story line I was familiar with from reading the back of one of my aunt's True Confessions magazines. Those were the girls I wanted to hang out with, not the ladies in puffy white who looked joyful and wholesome and like someone who would attend the same white-bread Methodist church my mom and I went to every Sunday.

And I have to say, I never really considered marriage that much at all. At 13, I decided it was antiquated and horrible, and that I was destined to live in sin with a musician/poet and that we would do everything within our power just to piss everyone around us off. LIFE GOALS. Even after I met Matt and figured out that he was my guy, I didn't really think about getting married that much. We joked about eloping, we would say little things here and there about actually doing it, but well, I didn't really plan out anything.

And then, he proposed to me, on Valentine's Day, on a night when I drank too much cheap champagne. The next day I went to the college bookstore and got a few copies of those familiar Bride magazines. And yeah, you know me, Matt and I spent a good few days snarking on the puffy white ladies again, spicing up our normal talk of Tolstoy with the typical "Who buys this shit!?!" I ended up getting a perfectly lovely, plain, strapless dress at the same store that I got my prom gowns and that my mom got her prom gowns and yada yada yada. And I graduated from college and somehow planned a little throw together wedding two weeks later. We printed out our invitations on the Swem library printer. I think there were about 15-20 people there, at the actual wedding, in the college chapel. My best friend from high school showed up unexpectedly, and it made my day. We had barbecue pork before, and my mom and I made cupcakes with white chocolate M's on the top. We wrote our vows and Matt's vows to me included a reference to Law and Order. And that was that.

It was a great encapsulation of us, really, but as the years have gone by, and I've been to other weddings and seen shows on TV about weddings and thought about weddings and considered the fact that I really, really would have liked Wilson Phillips to sing at MY wedding, I have wondered if I had to do it over again, if I would have done anything differently. And you know, I wish there had been more time between my last semester of school and then getting married, but whatever. We were on a time table and had to be in CA by the end of the summer. So, in the moment, we did our best. And I like that about us--that we had life to get to, and couldn't really be hasseled by the huge event that a wedding can be.

There is a great passage in the book One Day by David Nicholls (which, really, is just a fabulously fun book to wile away a day with--I can't attest to the movie, as I haven't seen it) where the main character laments watching those around her get married. And I can't quote it exactly because I've read a bunch of stuff since I read this, and I'm not a superhuman, but she says (in a much more wonderful way than this) that when you get married while in college, it is kind of a joke, and everyone has fun and is almost apologetic in that the wedding has taken up other's time. She moves on to talk about weddings that occur after that, and that by the time the bride and groom reach their 30's, that weddings become a no-joke affair, with carriages being booked and huge reception halls and all of that. And while it is not true for everyone, I have noticed a trend of this as I've gotten older. The things I have heard of and seen people doing for weddings (and then later, the birth of a child, but let's not get started with that) border on the ridiculous. And I can imagine it getting more and more elaborate as the people I know embark on new lives with second spouses and such from there. It is dizzying in a way, and I am left kind of feeling glad that I have it over with. Is that weird? It probably is.

I'll just be honest and say that I feel really awkward about this wedding I am going to this week. There has been an atrocious amount of money spent by all involved to make sure this is "fun" and "pretty" and "memorable." And I look at things like Matt's big green bowtie (....AND FOR THE RIGHT....TUCKER CARLSON! [It just never gets old.]) and the cocktail parties and catamaran rides and such and I wonder how to even take it all in. To me, a wedding is, at its core, a deeply personal thing between two people. There is something voyeuristic in us all being down there, I think, chronicling the leading up to, and even worse, the post wedding morning. And I keep thinking, "What would I want?" and really I have no idea. "For everyone to go away" is the thought that most often enters my mind. "For nothing more than a bed, a view, a box of chocolates and my husband" is the next thought, but that is what I want nearly everyday. Nothing new there.

So I guess, in the end, I can add "weddings" to the things that make me uncomfortable and that everyone else seems to enjoy that I don't. I guess it is nice to discover that I really am a horrible, horrible person before I turn 30. Best to get it out of the way.

Someday, when I am old and gray, I think I will get a lot of friends together and ask them about their own weddings and if they regret anything about it or if dainty-doo and mango coulis is really all it is cracked up to be.

But did I mention I bought new shoes for this shindig? And some new dresses? That's something I'm totally comfortable with, 100% of the time.

Jamaican Me Crazy

On Wednesday of this week, my family and I are going to Jamaica, to the Beaches Resort in Negril. My brother in law is getting married there (or more aptly, at the adjacent Sandals Resort, which does not allow kids), and we are attending. Everyone in the family is in the wedding, except for myself and Alice. I get to see my husband in a tux, which will be a little bit o' awesome (especially since the tux features a BIG, green satin bow tie, and when he tried it on, I had to bite my tongue to keep from yelling, "And now the Guv-nah from the great state of South Carolina!"). My husband hasn't worn a tux since my junior prom. Also wearing a tux: my son, Sam, who looks appropriately miserable in it, but having served as a ring bearer before is more comfortable and more...let's say tactful about his lot in life than Matt is. AWESOME SAUCE.

Going to an all-inclusive resort of this kind is not something I think I ever would have done, had I not been invited, or needed a reason to get the hell out of Virginia in January which is, let's face it, a really sorry ass time to live in Virginia. For instance, when Matt told me about the wedding, my first response was, "Wait...they're getting married at the place where Michael Scott took Jan that time? Holy shit." That was my only frame of reference because I had never considered doing this kind of thing. I'm more of a "Let's fly to Edinburgh with really no plan at all, and just experience the country!" kinda girl. We are the people, after all, who turned a little four day trip across the country into a 10 day event just because we decided we wanted to go to Tombstone, Arizona. And when family vacation is involved, we're the educational parents, the ones waking our kids up at 7 to go to museums and eating at local food dives we find on the internet. For instance, my husband is planning a trip in 3 years (yes, we look out that far when it comes to travel) to Europe and he wants to spend half a day showing our kids the historic Parisian sewer system because an old professor told him that was "fun". OUR KIDS LOVE US.

People keep asking me if I am excited, and I guess I am. I am excited to start drinking all the watered down drinks some guy who made two whole dollars last year can shove down my throat. I am excited not to be at work, and to get to see my kids during the hours of 8 and 5. I am excited to go out to dinner with my husband, with whom I will have been with for 14 years on Wednesday and who shares my love for making really bad Jamaica jokes that end with the word "mon". I am excited to wear the new shoes I ordered from Lands End Canvas last week. But as far as being super excited about the trip, I'm not.

I've struggled with that a bit, and I've come to the conclusion that I am just a curmudgeonly old woman. And I wonder a lot about this, if I'm so different from other people my age around the country (PLEASE SAY I'M NOT--I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE ON THE ISLAND OF UNDERWHELMED). I see people who get so excited about stuff--going to Disney World seems to be a popular one, or eating bacon--and I feel pretty disconnected. Sure, I get inordinately happy about things--the start of baseball season, for instance, or 40% sales at J.Crew (HELLO, JARDIN SKIRT)--but I don't get wildly, haphazardly excited about stuff anymore. I am pretty neutral all the time. And I'm not medicated, if that's what you are thinking. For better or worse.

I wonder when I left all that behind, when I became this way. I also wonder if it is not necessarily a bad thing. Like I said, I am pretty neutral, so just as I am not excitable all the time, I'm not oscillating into wild, self-flagellating depression either. YEA. Here's to not locking myself in a room to listen to Nirvana's Unplugged album for a day, while I write really bad poetry, weep, and try to "feel!"

And since this a Debby Downer post in a way, I'll just declare a short intermission say this: BALLS.

Yeah.

You think about balls and try not to be happy. Doesn't matter what kind of balls are bouncing through your mind right now (and I think we all know what kind are floating through mine), you're smiling.

BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED ENNUI AND SELF REVELATION.

Shockingly, I feel the same way about Pinterest, I have come to find out. When Pinterest first started, I really liked it. I am the type of girl who sits at the computer with a legal pad beside of me, where I write down things I see that I like, be they recipes or dresses or whatever. Here was an online board where I could keep all those things together. And the pictures are pretty. SCORE. But now, when I look at it, I realize that what Pinterest is really used for is just porn for girls who don't like porn. It's is furniture porn, food porn, BOOT porn (which I'm pretty guilty of myself). It is "Here's a brownie, with a layer of fucking cookie dough on top of that and then because I really, really hate my arteries, the little fuckers, I'm going to pour hot fudge on top of that and call it a recipe. BOO YAH." It is someone's dream world, set to pictures, and given a jar of Nutella. But it ain't my dream world, really. Since I am old, and crochetty and given to melancholy and black coffee, I look at that stuff, and I file it away in "No one really makes that," or "That would kill you," or "How to turn a kid into a sociopath in 5 easy steps!" or "IN THIS ECONOMY?!?!" I keep going there, thinking it will change, but it doesn't, and my pins are halfhearted, and I just know you can tell. So really, what I'm saying is, I suck at Pinterest.

And at going on vacation.

Sorry.

Did the internet do this to me? Divorced parents? Being an only child? Television?

Let's go with the internet. Thanks, Al Gore.

On Marriage

I read last night that Dooce blogger Heather Armstrong and her husband have split. Well, I guess, "trial separation" is the more appropriate wording. I read Dooce pretty religiously when I was living in CA--her style really appealed to me as an ex-southerner living smack dab on the other side of the country. I stopped reading about the time of the "washing machine incident" which was about the time that the Armstrongs started getting fancy. It just wasn't palatable to me anymore and led to me feeling more pissed off after I read each post. I didn't need that in my life. But, still, I totally dig Armstrong's style with words.

I guess that is why this news struck me so strangely. I was up last night thinking about this shit, ya'll. And while my anxiety ridden mind will often find really odd things to get fixated on at 4:00 in the morning, I think there are other reasons why I'm sitting here at my desk, listening to Ryan Adams's Cry on Demand and feeling all together like a sadsack 14 year old. I know it sounds odd, but I have a strange idea (especially strange, since I am a child of divorced parents) that marriages, when they are entered into by smart, caring, modern people like myself and Armstrong and all three of you readers, are infallible. Love, as it is, will find a way and if you are quirky enough to accept the fact that the other person is wackily, oddly adorable and their faults similar, you are more than ready to accept the mantle of that lifetime commitment. So basically, to put it simply, marriage in my mind is a Zooey Deschanel movie. Sure, it can be irritating, but in the end, it is too wonderfully dorky to step away from. Seriously! Look at those eyes and walk away!

Of course, that is not true at all, and despite my heart's protestations, my brain knows better. People get divorced all the time, even if they are bright and spend their days looking at Tumblr blogs and clips from The Daily Show. Matt and I have had our rough patches, and none of them were caused by anything cerebral. They were all caused by complete and utter shit, the daily minutiae of life that eats at you like a bedbug. Take, for instance, last night. Alice is going through an especially trying sleep time right now, a problem that has caused me much (yes, even more) sleeplessness and has really threatened my sanity (for reals, ya'll). I couldn't get her to sleep last night, just couldn't do it, and Matt and I were both pissed at her for it. Yeah, we were pissed at a 2 year old. But she is an especially adorable little thing, and well, you shouldn't be pissed off at something that really can't control anything in it's life, even it's own bodily functions. So we took it out on each other. Finally, Matt took Alice and a stack of books off to the bedroom, and I sulked on the couch and thought mean thoughts about him until I fell asleep. Maturity, ya'll. I HAZ IT.

This kind of crap, day in and day out, that's what does it. Tears the adorable Zooeys into screaming Kris Kardashians. And people tell you all this stuff about marriage, that you have to work at it, that you shouldn't go to bed mad and all of that. And it is all true, I suppose, for someone's marriage. Not necessarily mine. In my mind, saying I have to "work at" something, means that I won't do it, just like I won't work at learning math or developing a decent skin care routine. So I don't think about marriage in those terms. And if I couldn't go to bed mad at something, nothing would ever get solved. I will stay up and argue until I am blue in the face--if I can just go to bed, get some sleep, however short it may be, when I get up, I will be much more pleasant, and probably, have forgotten what pissed me off in the first place.

So I don't know the answers. I don't even have a decent, funny platitude to write on the "Recipe for a Successful Marriage" card for my brother-in-law's wedding reception next week. But what I keep thinking about is this moment, right after my actual wedding. Matt and I ditched the hokey recessional and walked out of the Wren Chapel (like bosses, I might add) to Heroes by David Bowie. And there was this moment, when we were standing in the back in front of the big double doors, and no one from the rest of the wedding had moved yet, and we just stood there together with these big goofy grins on our faces and I can only describe the feeling going through my mind as "LOOK AT WHAT WE JUST DONE DID." It was definitely one of the happiest, most sublime, almost otherworldly moments of my life. And I guess, if I had to write a tip for marriage, if I had to boil it down to what I want and what everyone deserves to have, it would be to always be with the only other person in the world who remembers that moment. The only other person who was there, and who was there all those other times and has the same screwed up memories that I do. I want to be in my 80's and be able to look at the other person at the kitchen table and say "Remember when Alice was a newborn and she had a green tint to her butt-crack?" or "Remember that time we took the kids to New York and got Sam's stroller (with Sam in it) caught in a subway turnstile?"

So I guess that is why I am sad. I want that, and I want for everybody to have that, and the fact that Heather Armstrong, a person who I have never met and will probably never meet and will probably not really remember in 10 years might not have that, well, it fucks with me. I am not the most sane person on the block.

Marriage will make you that way, I suppose.

New Clothes Can Save the World

This past weekend, I had the joy of visiting my cousins and their lovely families, two groups of people that I don't get to spend nearly enough time with. The reason I went, however, was not a pleasant one. My cousin's wife, a beautiful, strong mother and all around cool lady, has cancer, and the outlook is not great. And really, I'm not getting into that, because really, it is between them: my cousin, his wife, and their kids. It is not a good situation, but they are all pretty amazing people who are dealing with it with more grace and love than I could even muster in my finest moments.

But here's the thing that no one realizes: when a person gets sick, things suck, yes. But shit keeps on happening. Your bills are still due, you still have to eat a dinner that can't wholly consist of cookies and ranch dip, the kids don't stop their growing until the drama subsides. So when we arrived at my cousin's house on Saturday, one thing that needed to be done was for us to go to the nearest mall and buy my cousin's kids some clothes. Money was not an issue, none of that. My cousin just had not had time to turn around, much less go to the mall and buy jeans for a pre-teen girl. And let me tell you folks who don't have preteen girls: buying jeans for them is kind of like buying jeans for a baby elephant. Nothing you are going to find will fit on the first try. I refuse to believe that there is a preteen girl alive who fits in the standard size--this is where you get into slim sizes and half sizes and moving up to juniors and all of that. And the baby elephant that you are trying to dress? It is going to continue getting surlier and surlier the more jeans you have to try on it. You are going to spend a good long time trying to placate the baby elephant while finding it jeans, caving and also purchasing a feather headband and then drowning your sorrows at Cold Stone Creamery. So THAT's the battle my cousin was facing, and he was coming into that battle war wounded and without a gun.

I had my daughter with me, in fact, one of the very reasons we had traversed across the state was so that Gabby could spend some time with her cousin. So, with two preteens in tow, my mom and I set out for the mall. We fought the baby elephant, and we got it into new jeans, four pairs even (!) along with sweaters and t-shirts and camisoles and what have you. And we had a jolly, wonderful good time on top of it all. For the hours we were out, my daughter and her cousin were just two girls in a mall, having a wonderful time, with no worries or sickness or strife to bring them down. We came home laden with packages and headbands and bags and stories about an unfortunate lunch lady affectionately named "One Tooth Wonder". And when we got back, both of her parents had smiles on their faces. Their minds were at peace on this one tiny detail, able to put that small bit of minutiae behind them.

I'm not going to lie and say we made it all better. We didn't. This whole thing is a wound that can't be tidily covered with a bandage, forgotten with retail therapy. And driving home yesterday, I struggled with it a little bit. Would it have been better to leave the daughter at home, to ride out more time with her mom before there is no time left? Why are clothes so important? Was this just me forcing my own little bit of crazy on my unsuspecting cousin and his daughter?

But here's the thing. First off, he asked us to do it. Second off, clothes help. In a mad, mad world, full of crazy and pain and things that just should never happen to anyone ever, the clothes you put on can give you a bit of control. In the small act of getting dressed in the morning, you control how the world sees you. And the right clothes give you a bit more, an armor almost. Bad stuff will still happen to you, yes. Things that suck will hit you like a barrage. But the right jeans can help. It is one less thing to worry about, one more thing to have in your arsenal, one more line of defense in a world that refuses to be understood or contained.

The coming days and weeks and months and years will be hard for my cousin, for all of us as a family for we are a close knit group. My cousin's daughter is one of my own daughter's best friends and they text each other daily, along with trips and family events they plan and drag their hapless parents along with. I hope that I can help in some small way. My cousin has been there for me--it was his face that I so happily saw standing outside the hospital room when my son was laying in the in the pediatric ICU, taking Gabby to his house so that I wouldn't have to worry about her, he and his wife who showed up after Gabby was born to goo and gah appropriately when I felt sad and like a total fuck up. I'd do anything for him. And if that means shopping, if that is the little gift I can give to him in thanks, then by all means, I'm thrilled to do it.

The A to Z of Me

What was a CRAYzy morning has given way to a nice, settled Monday afternoon. I've gotten work done, I've stopped sneezing, and life is generally a bit brighter than it seemed in the harsh light of 9:00 a.m.

So, on that note, I am doing this meme. Why? Well, the office is quiet, and it is one way of putting off actually doing the corrections I worked on last night on my (very depressing, sadsack McGee type) novel. I have located a reader, so that means two things: 1) This thing is getting real, and 2) I'm about to ramp up my procrastinating web usage about 200 fold.

A. Age: 28. And I don't know quite how to feel about that.

B. Bed size: Queen. I have always had a queen bed, even as a toddler. I don't see myself moving into a different size anytime soon.

C. Chore that you hate: Washing dishes. I would rather have my toenails ripped out than spend a day washing dishes. Which sucks because my dishwasher is dying a slow death of something horrible and antiquated like TB or something. Something that I can't cure by cleaning it, whispering lullabies to it or kicking the absolute shit out of it. Because I've tried all those.

D. Dogs: I'll just say that I don't like dogs. Not really. I don't like cats either--I'm allergic. I'm not much of a pet person. My daughter has a miniature schnauzer named Hinkleton (if I were to say it belongs to our family, I would risk her wrath, which is not something I am willing to do), and I like him fine, but as far as actually wanting to spend time in the company of pets, no thanks. I especially do not like big dogs. If you have a big dog at your house and it stays indoors, I will not visit you. Period. I know that sounds mean, but I really don't like them or the smell they bring to a house.

So now that I've pissed off dog lovers everywhere, I'll move on.

E. Essential start to your day: A shower and then a little rest to enjoy the silence of my house. I usually go and sit on the couch for about 5-10 minutes apres shower. Sometimes I read a magazine, but most times, I just sit there. It is the only time that our house is quiet for any extended period of time.

F. Favorite color: It has always been purple. Really dark, rich purple, though, none of this namby-pamby lavender stuff.

G. Gold or Silver: I wear mostly silver, but lately have been feeling a bit of gold. I think I'll always be a silver girl at heart though.

H. Height: 5’3”

I. Instruments you play: I took piano lessons as a kid. My mom is a pianist--a damn good one--and she really thought I had some natural talent. I don't. I also played clarinet in the band for about 2 years. I did this mostly as a way to meet cute and nerdy boys but they were too busy playing Dungeons and Dragons to notice.

J. Job title: I recently changed jobs, and to be honest, I have no idea. I work for a small firm and we all just pitch in and do whatever needs to be done. If I were to put it on a resume, I'd probably put something like Researcher/Case Assistant. I like to call myself the Legal Beagle, because I spend a lot of time looking at law.

K. Kids: I have three. Gabby is 12 and she has started wearing high top converses that fold down to reveal a plaid lining and big, puffy headphones around her neck like she is one of the Quad City DJ's. I don't know quite what to say about that. Sam is 7 and is the youngest kid in our area on the Magic card game circuit. He is a self-proclaimed nerd (I don't fight him on that). Alice is 2, loves bling and is a ball of fire. That kid will either rule the world or end up in jail. I'm hoping for the first.

L. Live: I live in the fucking boonies where I grew up. Our town has 1,007 residents. Hopefully, this will not be the case for long because I really do.not.know.how.much.more.I.can.take.

M. Mother’s name: My mom's name is Irana. It is said "I-RAIN-A." My grandparents got it off of a soap opera.

N. Nicknames: My mom used to call me Morgie, and I hated it, so she quit. My oldest daughter calls me MoMo.

O. Overnight hospital stays: Just when my kids were born. I hope that is the very last time. If I ever have another kid, I am doin' it at the house!

P. Pet peeves: Number one is being late or people who are late. I think it shows a total disrespect for yourself and everyone else involved. Also: people who wear pajamas in public. People who don't discipline or watch their children in public places. The word "muggy." Body lotions and candles that are very sweet smelling (namely that Warm Vanilla Sugar stuff from Bath and Body Works. If I wanted to smell a cookie, I'd bake one, ya'll.) The grocery store on the first of the month.

Q. Quote from a movie: I wish I had something really intelligent to put here, and I probably should, given the sheer number of film classes I took in college. Ask me about "quote from a book" and I'll give you some obscure Romanian play quote that I read in college that will make you think twice about our friendship. But movie? Anything from Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Growing up, my dad owned and worked on the crew for several stock cars at local tracks. He also watched the race every Sunday. I hate Nascar and will probably never watch another race as long as I live, but I do love me some Ricky Bobby. There's a definite familiarity there. My favorite scene is here. Pick any of those quotes. I also just SQUEE at any mention of the name "Mike Honcho."

R. Right or left handed: LEFT. When I was a kid, my mom would take me to this place in Atlanta's Underground Atlanta shopping complex that sold notebooks for lefties and t-shirts and things like that. It was a real-life Leftorium. I had a shirt that said "Left handers: Only ones in our right minds!"

S. Siblings: I ain't got any. I'm an only child. I used to love it, but I've had my issues with it lately. But then again, if I had a sibling and they were a real jerk, I suppose I'd want to be an only child. Grass is greener and such...

T: Time you wake up: Usually about 5:30 on weekdays. Trouble is, Alice has been getting up around then too, so I end up laying back down with her to get her back to sleep (she will say "Nuggle and nigh nigh, Mommy" and I have to relent to that). That means it is sometimes 6:00 or 6:15 before I get up again which is as grand excuse as any not to exercise. I have to get a handle on this. On weekends, I sleep in until about 7:30 or 8:00.

U. Underwear: My mom got me started on these Gilligan O'Malley bikinis from Target. They are uberthin--I don't know what material they are. They are very comfy, and no VPL. I also like all the underwear from Aerie, although it makes me feel like a dirty old woman to be shopping in there.

V. Vegetable you hate: BEETS. Beets can die in a fire. Matt made borscht once, and just the smell was enough to make me puke. At one of my former jobs, I used to know this woman who ate a pickled beet with her lunch everyday. Just the thought makes me wretch.

W. What makes you run late: I don't like being late (see pet peeves) so I very rarely am. If I am, it is because of some very unforeseen event (like crazy traffic or extreme sickness). Or because Matt or Gabby is involved. You can bet that if that is the case, I am fuming in the background with unmistakable rage on my face.

X. X-Rays you’ve had: I used to get bronchitis as a kid a lot, so my lungs quite a few times. I think I had my ankle x-rayed once when I was a kid and did something weird to my achilles tendon in ballet class. My grandfather and his boy scout troop built the x-ray room at the clinic where I went as a kid, so every time I had to get it done, someone told me about that. That's what I remember--not the actual procedures.

Y. Yummy food that you make: I can bake pretty well. Amongst my dad's family, I am the pie girl. My daughter is always very proud of my cupcakes and her friends ask for those quite a bit. My son is a big fan of my mashed potatoes, and I have to admit, they are pretty bomb diggity. There is a secret ingredient, and I ain't a tellin'.

Z. Zoo animal: I really like hippos. And I like walruses. These are pretty rare things to see at a zoo, believe it or not. Probably because they are so big. I have been to a freaking ton of zoos, and have only seen hippos in San Francisco (and one died while I was living there) and in Memphis. Walruses I have only seen at Six Flags in Vallejo, CA. My kids think that my love of these two animals is amazingly hilarious. They like to buy me hippo and walrus things or send me pictures of them. I have a little plastic walrus I carry around as a good luck talisman. His name is the Walrus of Plenty or WoP. Don't ask.

September 11

I'll just be honest and say I've never really observed September 11. I've never paid attention to the specials on TV or watched the various memorials. The date served as a small reminder of the day, but nothing more.

This year has been different. My kids have shown a real interest in it, as they are both at the age to where things like this are questionable. They both like history, and because of that, both like the History Channel. And the History Channel shows a lot of September 11 documentaries and things like that. We watched a couple of them as a family, and I answered the precipitating questions about each. In doing so, I thought a lot more about the event than I have since it happened.

The most obvious question that anyone asks is the ubiquitous "Where were you?" kind of thing. I was 18. It was my freshman year of college at The College of William and Mary; I had been at college for just a few weeks. I was living on my own for the first time, such as it was--interestingly, I was living in a hotel room as the dorm I had been assigned to was being ripped apart because they had found asbestos in it. I was taking English 203, Calculus, Biological Anthropology, and a freshman seminar called Indian Fiction. I had a crush on the professor of that one.

On September 11, I got up early and went to my 9:30 Biological Anthropology class. I rode a bus from the hotel, and I remember being the only one on it. I was the kind of kid, at least during my freshman year, that showed up early for class so that she could review her reading and make extra notes and generally just be ready. I got to the room where the class was held, Washington 201, which is one of the biggest rooms on Old Campus--one of the only ones that can fit over 100 students. I took a seat in the middle of the right side even though I was the only one there. A guy who was a real gunner--my God this guy was annoying, which means that he's probably a doctor now--showed up. We had never talked before, but all of a sudden, there he was, right beside my seat. He asked me if I knew what was going on, and I told him that I didn't. He told me about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. I don't really remember having a reaction. I remember thinking that it must have been a horrible accident. We talked for a bit, then he went to his seat, and then he got up and started walking around. Again, I didn't think anything of it. Nervous guy--nervous energy.

Matt was taking the same class that semester. We had planned to take a class together, even though at the beginning of that semester, we were not really getting along. We did enjoy the class though--well, I take that back. We both hated the class, thought the professor was arrogant and a little weird. But it was fun having someone in there who rolled their eyes at all the same times. We generally sat together and commiserated for an hour and a half and then went our separate ways for the day.

Matt came in around the same time that lots of other people were coming in, which is unusual since he was usually late. He said that he had been brushing his teeth back in the French house and had seen the second plane hit. It was about that time that people started realizing what was happening. We talked quietly until the professor came in. She was weirder than usual and we spent the first part of class with just everyone comparing notes on what they had seen or heard. At some point, her teaching assistant came in and whispered that a plane had hit the Pentagon. The professor told us, and all Hell broke loose. Most kids who go to W&M have some relationship with the D.C. area: either they live there themselves or they are a diplobrat or have a family member working in the government. People started getting up and running out. A few people screamed. I remember a girl standing in the hallway, crying and punching numbers on her cellphone. Matt and I left, but didn't really know where to go. We walked together to the University Center, more following the crowd than anything. I remember laughing uneasily on the way there--I had not seen any footage yet, and nothing felt really "real." I remember thinking that this all could be some elaborate joke.

When we got to the U.C., we watched the towers fall on the big screen TV there. People cried and hugged each other. I remember being really numb about the whole thing. I guess I was scared. I felt strange and out of it--unlike most of my classmates, I didn't know anyone in D.C. or New York. I had been to both cities--had a picture of myself on a ferry with the World Trade Center in the background hanging in my dorm room. But I had no idea how to feel. I bought myself a peanut butter mocha frappuccino thing from the college coffee house and walked to Calculus, thinking I'd get out of that and go home. The professor, a very strange Canadian man who just may have been a sociopath, told us that he didn't understand what the big deal was and made us do a bunch of problems that none of us understood. What a douche. But what can you expect from the country that gave us Nickelback?

It wasn't until I got back to my hotel room and started watching TV that the whole gravity of the situation hit me. I started to get scared, watching the military units from around Newport News and Norfolk starting to go into threat stage. I finally got a hold of my mom, who begged me to go to stay with my uncle in Richmond. Why? I have no idea. I sent an especially fraught email to the professor I had a crush on, who advised me to come to his office the next day and gave me some Buddhist texts to read before I came. Like a boss.

And then Matt came over to my room. We watched the footage for a while, and then decided we had to get away from it. Since I was living off-campus, I had my car, so we went out to eat at Ruby Tuesday. I have no idea how we picked it--a lot of places were closed, but Ruby Tuesday was open. We were the only people in the restaurant. We went to Target and then came back to campus. I did some homework, talked with my roommate, and went to bed. Matt and I promised to see each other the next day, and I was fine with that. We saw each other for every day after that, as I'm sure you know.

And I still didn't know what to think or how to feel.

A few days following the attack, classes were dismissed for the day. I went to the campus's memorial, and finally, the waves of grief and sadness started hitting me. On my way back to my room, I picked up a copy of our college's newspaper. On the front, I saw the shining eyes of a girl, much like myself. She was an alumna, had graduated the year before and she had died when the plane hit World Trade Center 1.

I read enough to find out that like me, she was a mother. She had balanced having a child (born before her senior year at W&M) with getting her degree. She was married to another W&M alum. She was from VA. She was beautiful and full of life and resilient and intelligent. And now, she was gone.

Seeing that face is what brought it home to me. Just what we had lost. I think of her every year, wonder what her life would have been like if she had been late for work that morning. Every year, I think about her in relation to my own life--Would she have moved? Left NY? Would she worry about her daughter growing up too fast, the same as me?

The year I've thought about her the most. Her daughter and my oldest daughter are the same ages, and I have started to wonder if they will ever meet--if they will both follow the route of their parents and go to W&M. I wonder if she would message her daughter on Facebook like I do, even when that daughter is just a room away, if she would send her daughter funny pictures of dogs in bathing suits. And my youngest is two now, the same age as that daughter on 9/11/01. What would it be like to leave her now?

Gabby has asked me lots of questions this last week. Where was I? What did I do? Was I scared? I have answered truthfully. She asked me how I felt that day. And I am truthful there to. I told her that I didn't know how to feel. And that that didn't change, until I met someone who I wish I had known earlier, who I think of every year, who I would give lots of things just to buy a coffee for one day and share memories about pushing a stroller around the Sunken Gardens.

Rest in peace, Alysia.

DIY Can SUCK IT

This is going to come off a bit ranty. Fair warning, ya'll. This has been brewing in my psyche, worming its way around my brain through vacations and sleep and Pinterest sessions. And especially on Facebook. Facebook can just suck it.

Here's the thing. I am not crafty. Nor am I artsy. The lowest grade I ever made in high school (and no, I'm not shitting you) was in Home Ec, most notably, the sewing section. I made this absolutely atrocious pillow with a bunny on the front that I gave to my grandmother (aka, the sweetest woman on earth) for Christmas, and even she was like, "Um....thanks?" I have been tempted throughout the years to take up knitting or crocheting or something else equally as benign and then found myself cursing wildly within the first five minutes OF READING THE INSTRUCTION BOOKLET. It is just not in me. Just as it is not in me to understand science, science fiction or any of the Lord of the Rings novels.

So I guess I'm coming at this whole thing already at an 0-2 count. I know I can't do it, so subconsciously, maybe that is what is fueling my rage. Take it with a grain of salt, I guess.

But, I can't help but get a little, well, perturbed, when I see all this DIY stuff floating around on the interwebz. Like I am supposed to, as a woman, have this huge desire to make my own glue for my kids and sew their clothes and make little envelopes out of fabric for them so that when they get up each day, they can read a little inspirational note from me (an example I've thought of: "Gabby, If you don't pick up your laundry, I am going to staple it to your face. LOVE YA! MOM"). Yeah, I'm not going to do that. If you want to, whatever, I don't care. If you want to do it while naked, while smoking a bong, while listening to George Jones' Greatest Hits, I still don't care. Live and let live, ya'll. What I do, in fact, care about is the prevailing thought amongst many DIY-er's that I have encountered that you HAVE to do it. That it is not optional. That if you don't, it is tantamount to giving your kid a bottle full of Mountain Dew and a straight razor and saying "HAVE AT IT. Call me if you bleed or something."

This, I think, is just one more thing that we women have to struggle with in this endless battle of trying to be perfect. Or rather, to appear as though perfect. At last count, I figure that we all have to be doing the following on a daily basis:
1. Get up. Look perfect. Exercise. Put on a face full of make-up and blow out your hair every day to perfection. Be careful to not look "too" good though, because people might think you are having an affair if you do. Wear heels, but not really high heels, because really high heels mean that you are a slut and that you don't care about your children.
2. Fix a perfect breakfast buffet (with options for picky eaters!) for your children. Eat a banana and drink black coffee and call it a morning. In the middle of this, pack lunches that you have homemade, preferably of ethnic foods so that child does not become a bad eater.
3. Get everyone to school while quizzing kids with homework trivia on the way.
4. Go to work. Do perfectly. Smile a lot.
5. Come home to clean home. Clean it some more.
6. Make child a dress and supervise a craft project using homemade glue and a castle made out of an old pool noodle.
7. Prepare a lovely dinner. Not too much sugar! Go easy on the butter, FATTY!
8. Shuffle everyone to bed. Make sure no one has spent more than two hours looking at a screen of any kind. Wash behind everyone's ears.
9. Have amazing, glorious sex with husband, preferably utilizing three different positions, a feather, and a garter belt. Don't want anyone to get bored!
10. Go to sleep for 8 wonderful hours.

Ya'll, I'm just going to honest here, which is not something you see on the internet that often. This was my day yesterday.
1. Get up. Try not to wake baby who is saying "MOMMY" in her sleep. Turn on shower so that I can't hear her anymore.
2. Put dry shampoo on my hair since I'm too lazy to wash it. Hot roller the heck out of that crap. Curse loudly when I realize I'm out of Bumble and Bumble Setting Spray. Baby, who had gone back to sleep, rustles around. Say "FML" under my breath.
3. Strap on a pair of leopard print heels that are high enough to warrant future back surgery on my part. They are comfy though, and I like them.
4. Walk out through overgrown yard that my husband and I neglected to pay $80 to have mowed while we were gone on vacation. Be vaguely worried that neighbor will come out and give me a glare.
5. Drive to work with the gas light on. Drive to McDonald's to buy some oatmeal, but realize the line is too long and I'm a tad late. Go without breakfast. Remember to call the water company about the bill I totally forgot to pay before we left for our trips and blame them for my own forgetfulness since they are too stupid to automatically withdraw like every other company in the whole damn world.
6. Get to work. Wait until everyone is gone to meetings and curse at the typewriter for being a bitch. Forget to call someone about a meeting. Hang out on Facebook until I get mad at all the people posting how many miles they ran the night before while I was eating a strawberry shortcake at TGI Friday's.
7. Have a busy day and end up not eating lunch, but I did manage to solve some printing issues and get a shit ton of work done. Be happy with myself. Husband calls and tells me to pick up some butter on the way home. Curse husband.
8. Leave work. Buy gas and butter and get mildly happy when a weird kid checks me out at the gas station. Go to Pal's and buy a humongous tea and a large order of french fries.
9. Get home to messy house with the still overgrown lawn. Pick up baby who is wearing mismatched winter pajamas (that's on Matt, though). Sit down on couch with several catalogs and a big pen. Mark "must have" and "dream" purchases while baby watches Olivia. Pretend that I'm watching as well.
10. Remember that I have to do laundry from the trip. Start it. Moan a lot about it.
11. Remember that I have two other children. Go see them in their rooms. Child 1 is both texting a cousin in Richmond, while using her DS to talk to the same cousin. That's two screens. Child 2 is playing Magic on the Playstation and starts harassing me about buying him some more cards. Tell him I'll do it Wednesday. Make no plans to actually do that on Wednesday.
12. Fix mashed potatoes with lots of butter and honey glazed carrots with extra honey for supper while husband grills steaks. Delight in the unhealthiness of my contributions.
13. Clean off table but leave dishes dirty in the kitchen because we are out of dishwasher tabs and both of us forgot to buy them, and I did enough dishes for one day while I was making supper.
14. Play with youngest kids on the floor. Find a half eaten banana laying on top of the TiVo.
15. Leave husband in the living room with Child 2, still playing Magic. Check on Child 1 who is now watching something on TLC and still chatting on two devices with her cousin. Take Child 3 to bed. Find Java Chip Frappuccino ice cream in the freezer and decide that I love my husband again, despite the butter incident. Give him a hug, which he is surprised about.
16. Eat the whole single serving ice cream thingie and pass out in bed while watching Hoarders, leaving make-up on. Leave husband to put other children in bed.

Now, I have better days. I was insanely tired yesterday from our trips and having arrived home at 2:30 the night before. But still. That's a pretty accurate portrayal of hum-drum life. It is not perfect. I am not perfect.

But there is a lot of love in the imperfection. Last night, Alice fell asleep and I looked at her, the same chubby cheeked profile she's had since birth. She is happy and loved and fun. My son is the kindest, most sensitive soul that I know. And my oldest daughter is amazing and funny and wise. I love them, and while I don't show them that love with crafts and love notes, it is there, and it works for us.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I should get back to work. And quit being vaguely tempted to try to make Alice a pillowcase dress (I have the cutest pillowcases from my college apartment, ya'll. It would be so cool---um, NO.)

Futures I Thought I Might Have: Jonathan Taylor Thomas

I, like a good many women in their mid to late 20's, spent a good part of my adolescence embroiled in a passionate, one sided love affair with Jonathan Taylor Thomas. I liked to think that I had more of a right to him than other girls in that, I felt I had "discovered" him. While lots of other ladies were still tearing out the glossies of Jonathan Brandis (RIP) and watching Seaquest for their jollies, I had fully boarded the JTT train and was busy making my mom tape Home Improvement for me every week. By the time that the rest of my classmates had hopped on that train, I felt that I was the conductor. And that, yes, as a reward for sharing his unimaginable beauty with the world, he would be mine.

I did a lot of odd things for the love of one JTT. I made my mother search all over the greater Tri-Cities area for feta cheese, as I had read that was his favorite food and it, at that time, was not readily available in a rural VA grocery store (she found it, in a huge package, at a Sam's Club). It soon became my favorite too (and now, reading that, I want some). I purchased every Bop and Big Bopper and Tiger Beat imaginable in duo--one to leave together, to gaze at, dreamily, and the other to tear out the pictures to place inside of my Lisa Frank trapper keeper folders. Most funnily, when Man of the House (a movie starring Chevy Chase and JTT) came out, and I found out our local radio station was offering a Man of the House gift pack, I made my poor, embattled mother sit outside of my gymnastics class, frantically punching in the numbers on her new bag phone so that she could be caller number nine. She managed to win (probably because no one else wanted a prize pack that included a movie ticket and a Duck Head t-shirt from the Watson's sale rack), and she came running into my class excitedly, yelling, "I won it! I won it!" When we finally got to pick up the shirt, it was a copy of one that JTT wore in the movie. NOT THE ACTUAL SHIRT. However, I was convinced that it was still imbued with some indelible JTT-ness and decided to never wear it, and to let a large, forgotten teddy bear rock the look instead. I slept with that bear for a long time, and got pretty angry when my grandmother finally washed the shirt.

I imagined that JTT would find me utterly amazing. We were both smart, I figured, and I think I read somewhere that he liked to read. I imagined us reading together, and being very charming and eating a lot of feta cheese and shrimp pasta since that was my favorite dish. He also liked the outdoors, so we would hike some, and I would bring him to the falls that were close to my home and he would love it and we would kiss passionately on all of the bridges. We would snark a lot together about Jodie Sweetin, who I irrationally hated, so affeared was I that she and JTT might find a common thread of being on family centric ABC sitcoms and discover a hidden love. But mostly, I loved JTT with a love that can only be felt by pre-teen girls--shallow yet pure, adoring yet naive, happy yet frightened.

For some reason today, perhaps boredom, I got this hankering to see what old JTT is up to. IMDb and Wikipedia pages were startingly bare, with nothing doing since about 2005. A simple Google search brought up some pages, most of them linked to whether he is gay or not. Finally, I happened upon a page which says with absolutely no authority that he is now producing movies in Vacouver under another name. Since I'm not completely insane, and since I don't care that much, I decided to leave it at that.

But I like that idea of him, living (slightly) anonymously in Canada. Being old now, I can't imagine living with that kind of fame, of having your name permanently attached to another person living in a time long, long ago. I think of myself when I was younger, of my buck teeth and braces and head gear and fine dishwater blonde hair. Sure, he was a much cuter kid. But superficially perhaps, I don't think anyone really "likes" who they were at that point in their life, trying to sort it out what it means to be a grown up or a kid or whatever else you woke up feeling like this morning.

My daughter is now this age, this crazy knock-kneed age where nothing is what it seems. Yesterday, we took her and the other kids to see Cars II and to grab some sushi and ice cream. She came out of her room wearing a new tank top and a pair of (short!) plaid shorts we bought at Aeropostale over the weekend, size 0. Her hair was long and she had gotten it pin straight by some miracle (a real miracle since she doesn't have a straightening iron and her hair is difficult to put it mildly). She was wearing big, dark sunglasses. The only vestiges that belied her age were a tiny zebra pendant she bought at the zoo last week, and a pair of pink sequined Chuck Taylor-esque sneakers. I couldn't stop looking at her--there was a certain care she had taken with her looks, a certain je ne sais quoi, something that I don't think I fully got until I was out of college. She had tried to cultivate that look, worked to get it perfect. I kept telling her how amazing she looked, because really she did, and she just smiled at first, and then got sick of hearing it and shot me The Look.

But on the way home last night, I really got worried about this world in which we live. In my time, back when JTT reigned and there were no cell phones or Twitters or Rihanna's, being unperfect was some sort of a token, something that you couldn't escape, like Pogs or the flying toaster screensaver. For Gabby's generation, there is an emphasis on perfection at all costs, at all times. I was telling Matt last night, when we were kids, I felt music gave you an outlet--"You feel alienated? Awesome! So do we!" For Gabby, I feel the prevailing message is one of "You didn't look perfect when you rolled out of bed this morning? WELL FUCK YOU TOO!"

Now, I don't know if my daughter feels this pressure. We have talked about it some, in those roundabout Mommy/Daughter my-mom-sure-took-too-many-women's-studies-courses talks, and it is not something she owns up to, not to me, and probably not to herself. But seeing her yesterday being so perfectly lovely made me feel, yes, proud and happy in that Mom-ish kind of way (though not nearly as happy as when she brings home straight A's every quarter, or when she wins the school's Art Award), but also frightened. And worried. I want to take her aside, back to 1995, when everything was just a tad bit less plastic, when perfection was found in a Smashing Pumpkins chorus, not on the face of a 12 year old.

I don't wish that I was married to JTT or living with him or even knowing more about him. I am quite happy with my strange, nerdy husband, with his comic books and his glasses and his deft ability to make a reference to Russian literature and another to Spongebob in the same sentence. But I do wish for that innocent feeling of 1995, of that feeling of a world that is real and understandable, of 12 years old meaning blind crushes and the beginnings of bad skin, not a beginning of perfection.