My Favorite Memory of My Mama (It Is That One Holiday After All)

After my freshman year of high school, I went away to camp for seven weeks. Largely, I do not miss things. I was homesick for maybe two minutes of the entire summer.

The second to last night of camp there is this Final Council Fire that...I won't explain because it sounds lame--especially because the culmination of the evening for all ten summers I went to camp was me sobbing over a pile of pine needles. Moving on.

The second to last day of camp, I got this really bad headache. I was packing all my stuff up, and I just felt horrible. Then, it was Beach Period. I asked to be excused, to stay in the cabin packing because I was ill, but I was reminded it was my last chance to enjoy the lake etc. etc. so I begrudgingly shuffled down to the shore. And, boy, a dehydrated teenager + major headache + burning sun + screaming children + sadness about leaving summer camp = Crazy Sickness--edging on hallucinatory.

That night there was a free-for-all cookout type thing, and it's co-ed kind of, and there are parents kindof, and, well, to make a long story short, my counselors and my cabinmates didn't realize I never went to dinner. I didn't realize I didn't go to dinner because I was actually out of my gourd and didn't know where I was, let alone that it was dinnertime. All I knew was that I was throwing up a lot in a bathroom. And, I really didn't know where I was, but my hair was covered in puke, and I was alone, and I remember thinking, "I just really want my mom." And then POOF. Someone was holding my hair back and gently led me to bed! And I was like, "Whoa--is this one of those Divine experiences where I realize that the concept of Mother is universal?" No. It wasn't. It was my real mom.

I was so sick I didn't even think to think that my parents would be coming to the cook-out function, and apparently they got there, and asked a couple people, and quickly realized I wasn't there, and my mom had this sense I was back in camp in the bathroom. So, she went to the bathhouse, and, lo and behold, there I was in all my vomiting glory.

And so I woke up in this very quiet loving atmosphere with my very own mama who I hadn't seen in about fifty days looking so sweetly at me. And I felt completely healed, and I didn't even have to miss the evening's special ceremony.

So, moms can be pretty great.


Mama's Day Dinner today!

Or What About Flying Into the Blue Sky?

Most of the time, I am actively trying to ignore life as I drive. I use driving time to sing and ponder. I don't know where this habit came from, but I don't care about anything around me when I'm behind the wheel.

But, sometimes, on particularly beautiful days, I am suddenly keenly aware that I am driving on a twisting concrete bridge overpass, and it looks like I am jetting into the sky! Driving directly into clouds! This is the stuff 18th Century dreams are made of! Isn't that nuts? I soar in my whizzing metallic box closer and closer to the moon!

Shameless

I'm glad that I am still at the point in my life where I can (and should) have little to no shame.

Before the finale, Shwartzy, MM, Coney, and I were reminiscing on our previous food service jobs. The T-Bell. The BK. The Slab. Shwartzy lit up talking about her plans to work the graveyard drive-thru shift at McDonalds to afford her rent this summer. She'll spend her days doing theatre. She mimicked herself two months from now, "What's that, drunk dude at 3 AM? You want ten ice cream cones? You got it!"

And we all agreed we actually quite enjoyed food service jobs. Not waitressing and being a chef and all that, and not as a career maybe, but yeah. I do like mixing expresso shots, chopping strawberries, opening the salsa jugs.

And it occurs to me that I've got at least another good seven years before it becomes even remotely weird for me to work in food service. I don't have any immediate plans to. Yet, at the same time, I feel like it could be a career. I mean, not at Wendy's. But, at like, classier places--like Noodles and Co.

That was a joke.

Kind of.

ANYWAY, I'm also happy I have a successful but quirky resume to my name. Over lunch, I watched ESPN's best of the National Spelling Bee. (Whatever.) And, of course, I googled my fave winners to see if they are cool or just peaked at the Bee. And, one went to Harvard and has a fancy job, and the others were lost to cyberspace. I mean, I'm not that creepy--I didn't look THAT hard. But, like, if I had gone to Harvard, I would have so much shame about food service, right? I'd feel dumb for wasting a ton of money on my degree that landed me a spot at Smoothie King, and that's very sad, because if you knew me at all, you'd know I would be quite thrilled to work at Smoothie King. More proof that doing the "best" thing doesn't always mean it's the best thing.

I cannot name this.
I cannot explain this,
and I really don't want to.
Just call me shameless.

Bossy Pants

Trelly wrote our group of summer camp lady pals about how she is reading Tina Fey's Bossy Pants and can't stop hearing my voice. This is a blessing and a curse. What a compliment! But, also...how annoying. People frequently tell me how I remind them of Tina. I lamented back to my pals: You guys! What if I want to write a book someday, but my sense of humor just comes across as Fey-wannabe! When really it's always been me! Heck, I even look like her!

And so this is what Wizzy responded:

"yeah palice, but, actually, you're nothing like her.

i mean, u're ten times funnier. and I know YOU personally. also you look nothing alike. this is what she looks like:



and this is what you look like:



see? nothing alike."

<3 Wizzy <3

Sunny Side Up

Part One

As soon as I saw it, I felt like the entire building was filled with gray clay. Thick, sad bubbles of muck. Two nights ago, somebody egged the beautiful and valuable painting that hangs in the campus concourse.

It made me sadder than if the eggs had been thrown at my own car, home, face. I understand aimed hatred. I don't like it, but I understand it. In fact, in a week in which our entire country felt it necessary to celebrate a murder, I don't blame someone for letting his rage get the best of him...but this? This was just senseless. Really senseless. All that happens: the Student Activities Fund is drained, everyone is sad, no one gets it.

To everyone passing the cherry picker of women scrubbing the yolk off, all we could ask was WHY? WHY? WHY? But, the truth is the answer could be, "Uh...I dunno."

Senselessness is big. It's poofs out sideways and slops over its waistline. We must live with complete alertness because these things MATTER. Yes, I'm a broken record, but choosing NOT to order the Meat Luvers Deluxe pizza is SENSE. Putting your gum in the trash is SENSE. Choosing to refrain from the mean gossip is SENSE.

It's little to us, but it explodes in pig guts, on someone's shoe, in someone's diary as she cries. Having a couple extra eggs and absentmindedly playing darts with a painted angel's wings is SENSELESS.

Part Two

I never look at the painting. But a FIRE within me sprang up yesterday. I noticed it. I pondered the rightness and wrongness of life, of crime and punishment, because of it. Probably given the option, the artist would have preferred her work be defaced in the name of rallying around Right instead of hanging stiffly for decades.

Like the tornado that wiped out the community theatre in one town over from my dad's--it reenergized the town into believing We Fight for Arts Here. And I was there last Saturday when on a new stage, the community players say "Let the Sunshine In."


The egged painting getting touched up today.

They caught the kid who did the egging. Don't know anything else.

Two castmates have just started dating. It's secret, I think. It's sly. I don't know when it happened. I want to think it was when he and I were talking when she walked by. I said, "She's so great at that part." And he said, "Yeah." He beamed like lilac soap and sunny side up in the pan.

Who died? Who made you king of anything?

Bye, Bin Laden

Face Chomping in 2010

On the second of May, I always listen to Brave Saint Saturn's "Independence Day."
My away message on iChat was, "I can think of better synonyms for fear."

ME: Do you know what my Away is from?
POOKIE: hmm
it sounds familiar
it feels like a musical
buuuut
also ani
dunno
what is it?
ME: Next line:
Hope your life is great, I hope its been a wonderful year.
Waiting everyday.
Staring at the phone.
POOKIE: jesus
christ
i feel so empty and alone
YEAH YEAH
INDEPENDENCE DAY
2ND OF MAY!
TODAYY!
ME: YAYYYYY!
POOLIE: ugh
i'm looking for a line from that song to post as my fb status
but they will all sound like political commentaries today
ME: I know!
I KNOW!
DON'T THINK IT WASN'T HARD.

Freedom never came for free.

Perfect Day

Today I asked my sister what he perfect day would look like--all bets off. Then, she asked me. Without thinking too much, just going with my gut, I thought of this. Now, several hours later, I stand by my gut answer.

-Wake up and pray/meditate outside as the sun rises.
-Go on a long relaxing run through the desert, listening to a mix of five-star music.
-Take a Japanese bath.
-Curl up in bed to watch a new episode of The Office or SNL while hair dries.
-Have breakfast at a restaurant with a couple/few very good friends. Order several dishes including (but not limited to) cinnamon french toast, chocolate chip muffins, avocado goat cheese eggs benedict, greek yogurt, fruit smoothies.
-Spend several hours on a beach with a group of high schoolers/college kiddos, answering all their life questions and encouraging them to make good choices.
-Rehearse for a musical theatre production. (A good one--obvi.)
-Enjoy a light meal (bagel? sushi roll? a little palak paneer?) and iced coffee while reading a novel.
-Perform in an improv show with a small and sincere cast.
-Go out for dessert with the cast of the show. While at the dessert find out one of my castmates is anti-gay rights and convince him/her to see the light.
-Sleep with windows open, able to see moon and stars.

This exercise filled me with gladness because all the elements of my perfect day are attainable to me, and probably will be, for the rest of my life. No parasailing or expensive restaurants, no work at a career I can't have--just helping kids, doing theatre, singing, dancing, eating breakfast. Life is really good! Perfection is within reach! The kingdom of iced coffee is upon us!