Things That Are Neat

Co-worker says, "I won tickets to the Celtic Women concert this weekend!"

I say, "Oh, that's pretty neat."

It is the third time I've said that today. Darn that crazy Lenny Pepperbottom and his hilarious "Neature Walk." 

I sound like a fool.

Bathtubs and Bossypants

There are few material things I really long for in life. Not just desire on a passing whim when I see it in an ad--but really, truly want to complete my life. One is a dishwasher.

The second is this bathtub:

I've stopped writing funny things. I don't know when exactly that happened, or why. I think it's because I try to write like someone I'm not. Someone who oozes poetry from their fingertips. I'm not that girl. Never have been.

In college, I had a professor who noted I only wrote humorous short stories and personal essays. So the next thing I turned in was a dramatic mess about my senior year of high school. In red, she scripted across the top, "I was wrong. Stick to funny."

When I was younger, in my heart of hearts, my deepest desire (maybe even more so than owning that bathtub), was to write for SNL. I didn't want to be poet laureate, I wanted to be Tina Fey.

But at some point in the last few months (years maybe?) I've sort of resigned my writing life to press releases and fact sheets. I've been content that I have a "writing job." It's not the dream writing job, but it's close. And it's got incredible perks.

It's still not well accepted for women to be funny. Despite the valiant efforts of Tiny Fey, Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, Maya Rudolph, and Kristen Wiig. My own husband believes that women are never funny. I've felt very much like my writing has no place in this world. I hate writing anything over a few pages. I'm not meant to write a book. But maybe, just maybe I could string together a few disjointed short stories.

All of this to say, I loved Tina Fey's book. She is who I want to write like--she's already who I write like. Her book was random stories, some specific, some general. Some funny, some messy. The final chapter about her decision to have a second child was like an unedited, raw journal entry--a bit all over the place, yet feeling just right. The prayer for her daughter: gold. She gives me hope for the weird girl with no place for her writing.

I only wish I could have read it while sitting in the aforementioned bathtub.

Home Invasion

I think I became a grown up last night. 

I woke up around 1 a.m., parched and needing a drink. I keep a water bottle on my nightstand for this very purpose. It's one of those 32-ounce bottles with a large, open top and screw-on lid, so I have to sit up to drink it (or else I pour the whole thing down my front). 

I took a few drinks, and then something horrible happened. I am so, so very thankful that my mouth was closed, and I was breathing through my nose, because at that moment, something brushed my lips. Something solid. Something that did not belong in a bottle full of water. Something, that even though I didn't thoroughly inspect the situation, I know was an insect. A boxelder bug, to be exact, because they have infested our house. 

Jerking the water bottle away from my mouth, I set it back down on my nightstand. I closed my eyes and tried to stifle my rapid breathing. I was about to hyperventilate. I rocked back and forth on the edge of my bed like a crazy person. Brett was snoring peacefully, and though I wanted to scream and tear my lips off my face, I did neither. Slowing my rapid heart rate back to a manageable count, I resisted the urge to shake him violently awake, so he could fix the situation. The situation being THAT A BUG JUST TOUCHED MY LIPS. I didn't wake him. He blissfully slept through the bug kissing, and full-blown panic attack, and near heart explosion his wife had just experienced.

I lay back down in bed, pulling the covers up over my chin, and tried to think cleansing thoughts. Eventually, by some miracle, I stopped imagining bugs invading my mouth and fell back asleep. 

My water bottle--housing that horrible insect--is still on my nightstand. I will be throwing away the entire thing tonight. And then perhaps lighting the garbage can on fire.

The Funny Thing About A Ponytail

On Sunday evening, Brett and I were preparing to go over to a friends' house for a night of NCAA basketball watching. As it was Sunday, of course I had spent most of the afternoon napping on the couch and woke up with some extreme nap hair. Since it was a static mess and I had been wearing it in a low messy bun all morning, I pulled the whole wad of hair—which desperately needs to be trimmed—into a high ponytail. 

I reapplied some concealer to cover my nap eyes and shrugged at the disheveled girl in the mirror. 

Back in the living room, I told Brett I was ready to go. He gave me a double take. 

“You look good. That is a really good ponytail.” 

I couldn’t have looked more like High School Lindsay if I had tried. The jeans, t-shirt and zip-up hoodie was classic. Many of my closest friends had never even seen me without my hair in a ponytail. I looked 16 again—and told Brett as much.

“You forget—that’s the girl I fell in love with.” 

I was recently shopping at Sears and absentmindedly picked up a bottle of Adidas Moves cologne. A smile twitched on my lips—I miss Brett wearing that rich scent. We’re seventeen and still getting to know each others' hearts. We're on a coach bus traveling after a basketball game, or in a hotel room in Kansas City with our high school choir. And he smelled so good. 

It's funny what reminds us of the time when we fell in love—ponytails or good cologne.

Extra Ordinary

She wasn't beautiful in the traditional sense. In fact, "plain" was the perfect adjective to describe nearly everything about her. Maybe "average" would do.

She was a blue-eyed blonde, but not in a sexy lifeguard kind of way. More like a trim librarian. She fit squarely in the middle of height and weight, exactly average for her age. A middle child with no distinguishing traits--no birthmarks, no exotic features, no dimples.

The only remarkable thing about Jane was just how incredibly ordinary she was. She often received comments on her appearance--not catcalls from men in passing vehicles or the offer to buy her drinks--just simple comments telling her how much she looked like a stranger's cousin, or childhood best friend, or college roommate. She received these comments so often that Jane was convinced she must have hundreds of doppelgangers spread across the world. And she continually pitied these stranger's cousins, childhood best friends, and college roommates for how ordinary their appearance--and life--must be.

Things

If spring would finally show up in Minnesota, I think we would all be a little bit happier. I am very tired of getting stuck at the end of the driveway, scraping windows, and cold. I want to wear sundresses, open-toe shoes, and highlight my hair blonde. I’m bored with my winter clothes—if I were wearing any more brown and black today, I would actually be a tree.

Some things I’m loving:

> It’s play season. The kids are still excited, and I’m a happy director.
> Good nail polish. I rarely paint my nails because I’m a picker. It never stays on for more than a few days (okay, hours) before I cave and just pick it all off. But once every few years I rediscover this great deep pink color that’s just so perfect I leave it for a full week before picking it off.
> Day light savings time. Everyone has been complaining about the “spring ahead” this weekend, but my body was so ready. I’ve been so exhausted by 8:30 or 9 p.m. every night, and pretty wide awake (for me at least) by 6 or 7 a.m. I was ready for the shift. Even with a two and a half hour nap yesterday, I slept beautifully all night.

Some things I hate:

> I have literally had a cold for the last four months. It will not go away. My poor sinuses are exhausted and constantly in pain.

> Snow/cold. I probably covered this in the opening. But for real, I’m sick of it. I just want it to be summer. With popsicles and sunburn.

> Percy Harvin. Okay, I don’t actually hate him. But I’m annoyed with how his trade went down.

Some things I’ve been thinking about:

> How life works—the difference between nature/science and coincidence and God’s will. It’s a deep thought, something I will probably unravel a bit in a later post. But it’s so abstract and all-consuming right now that it needs some more pondering.

> Confidence—do you act a certain way (confident) or do certain things because you feel confident, or do you do certain things to force yourself to feel confident when you need to act that way? For instance, Tiger Woods says he wears red and black when he’s feeling confident—so when he’s not feeling confident, does he (or could he) wear red and black to help boost confidence?

> Blessings. This weekend Brett and I had a short but deep conversation over Arby’s curly fries about how blessed we are and our desire to give back.

And the big news of the week: I’ve convinced Brett to come with me to donate blood on Wednesday. It will be his first time donating, and I’ll be getting my gallon pin! I’m proud of him for finally facing his irrational fear about this, but a little sad because of the extenuating circumstances that finally pushed him to do it.

Share yours!

High School

I am a blog reader. There are about 15 blogs I check daily, others I try to keep up on when I remember they exist. It interests me to know what other people find important in their lives to write about. Many just report their day's activities. While I occasionally want to do that here (mostly so I can read this in the future and remember how I spent my time), I am often interested in the things people ponder daily. The things they find interesting enough to dissect and sculpt into a blog post.

One blogger I've found recently and enjoy reading is Jen ten Haaf. I don't remember how I found her exactly, but I've begun reading because I feel a connection with her. we are similar in age and life situation. She leads a much more interesting and adventurous life than my own, and I do enjoy living vicariously through others.

Her most recently blog entry held this gem that I felt needed repeating:

"One of the things that, if you step into a high school years after you stopped attending regularly, you notice immediately is the sameness of it all. the way there are those girls, tall, thin, and beautiful, who manage to find each other and become each others' best friends. The strange way that they scout each other out in second grade is incredible...and consistent. And there's the athletes. The guys who date the tall, thin, beautiful girls and they become best friends too. Then there are the kids who will grow up to be everyone's bosses."

This is the truth I've wanted to write about recently. I spend a lot of time with high school students, as their coach, their director, and as a coach's wife. I watch their interactions with each other and with me. Most of the students were in early elementary school when I attended their high school nearly a decade ago. They remember me (or a skewed version of me, as I was a senior and they were mere second graders). I try to be a good coach and mentor, remembering how powerful those influences were to me when I was 17.

I see myself in them, and they don't realize it. they never saw me insecure about my height. Or weight. Or hair. They didn't realize that, despite what they saw at school, I was anxious, self-conscious, and full of doubt about who I was and what I was doing. I agonized over my college applications, panicked about my ACTs. Brett and I struggled through our relationship in high school, through ugly fights and tears--just like every couple in high school. They never saw that--they only see us as a happy married couple, high school sweethearts who made it work.

High school just seems like a never-ending loop. Sure there are different students, teachers, fashion, and technology. But it's really all the same. It's the same type of kids--the pretty girls, the athletes, the nerds. The moments of blinding insecurity and the moments of glory.

I try to teach my kids to enjoy high school. That while it feels so all-consuming, so important, that it's fleeting. High school contained some of the best times of my life. And many of the worst. It's hard to tell them it gets better--in ways, it does. But in many ways, it stays the same.

In many ways, life is in the same loop as high school--the pretty girls, the athletes, the nerds--they're all still at your job, many in the same roles (although the nerd is definitely your boss. Or your IT guy. Either way, he's super important, so be nice to him).

I want to teach my girls that they are beautiful. Despite the days they hate their thighs, hate their hair, hate their nose--they are beautiful. Embrace it. In seven years, they will long for their athletic, volleyball body. I try to teach the boys to respect their girlfriends, and friends who are girls. Respect their boundaries, respect their bodies, and respect themselves.

There are so many things I wish I could tell my high school self (starting with lay off the eyeliner!). But since I can't, I try to tell these precious souls who are growing up now--dealing with the best of times and worst of times, that the scary loop of high school with both end and continue forever.