Things I’ve Never Done

I’m almost twenty-seven years old and I’ve never:

1. Been on a “real” rollercoaster (those at indoor Malls not counting)

2. Flown a kite

3. Ridden on a motorcycle

4. Eaten clams

5. Been to Asia

6. Been on a cruise (those at Navy Pier not counting)

7. Ridden in a helicopter

8. Seen the Princess Bride (despite my friends knowing all the words)

9. Water Skied (though I did try and fail once)

10. Drank Black Coffee

11. Tried a hallucinogen

12. Had anything other than my eyebrows waxed

13.  Crowdsurfed at a concert

14. Had sex in the shower

15.  Intentionally broken a dish

16.  Had a proper threesome (mine was half assed)

17. Orgasmed on my own (apparently I don’t know what I’m doing)

18. Walked a tightrope

19. Ridden an elephant (though I had the option at the circus once and The H wouldn’t let me!)

20. Egged/TP’d someone’s house

21.  Made out in a movie theater (I paid $10, I’m seeing the movie)

22. Held a grudge

One thing I realized while writing this is just how difficult it was. How have I done so many things?

Some things I have done in my 26 years:

1. Climbed the Dunn’s waterfall in Jamaica

2. Been hugged by Eddie Vedder backstage at a Pearl Jam concert

3. Streaked

4. Breaking and Entering (though we didn’t take anything! We just went to an abandoned movie theater…)

5. Been to Europe (well I was also born there)

6. Stayed at an NBA Player’s house in Santa Monica on vacation

7. Danced on top of a bar (many in fact)

8. Kissed many a girls

9. Been in a beauty pageant (as a child, and I didn’t win)

10. Gotten a tattoo (two in fact)

11. Ridden a mechanical bull

12. Been to an Oprah Show (in high school, I have no idea why we went.)

13. Gone to work under the influence (it was in college)

14. Eaten caviar (it was alright, I prefer escargot in general)

15. Been a part of a half assed threesome

16. Been stung by a bee seven different times (I have a mortal fear of them now)

17. Sang karaoke despite the fact I cannot carry a tune to save my life (or to keep a swarm of bees away)

18. Been in the backseat of a police car (I wasn’t being arrested. I don’t recall what I was doing, I think asking directions)

19. Had a really awful memory thus incapable of thinking of things I have and haven’t done that aren’t repetitive.

20. Gone Skinny Dipping

21. Played strip poker in an elevator (and lost)

22. Had two beautiful children

 

Written for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop

Solve This Problem: Internet or TV

This prompt from Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop is actually quite timely as the H and I are currently in dispute about something.

We pay an outlandish amount a month for our TV and Internet thru Comcast ($145 to be exact) and well since I didn’t get this job we can’t really afford that any longer. However, we disagree about what we should cut.

No TV:

I can’t imagine not having cable, on demand or DVR access. It’s slightly sad how much television I watch, but I’ve grown to not care. I really enjoy watching TV. I really enjoy discussing it on twitter and with friends. What would E and I talk about if we didn’t have TV? What would Bear do while we were trying to sleep in the mornings if he couldn’t watch Bakugan, Ben 10 or Generator Rex On Demand? I would be completely out of the loop if I couldn’t see what antics those crazy Housewives were up to. TV for me is an amazing release like escaping to the pages of a favorite book.

No Internet:

We both have smartphones. I use my iphone for 95% of all my at home internet needs. I rarely actually go downstairs to the basement to use the internet. And I’m online for 40 hours a week at work. To me it would be completely unnoticeable. The H’s argument is that he’s the commissioner of his fantasy league and thus needs internet access to do things related to that as well as music demo stuff for his band.

So what do we do? Cut out internet? TV? Neither? Both?

Note: I’m also looking into Century Link/Direct TV for cheaper prices.

The More Complicated Ship: Friendship

I have this string of thoughts that has been floating around my head, pulling at me. There was a writer’s workshop at Mama Kat’s that I missed awhile ago that asked the question of what 10 lessons your child would teach you. One came to mind, instantaneously, I wish I could make friends easily. Kids just see someone in a vague age range as themselves and they just start talking, start playing and suddenly they’re friends no questions asked. I can’t do that. I’ve never been able to just do that.

I make friends so easily, in my mind. In my mind I haven’t escalated far beyond an initial childhood reaction of you seem nice, we have something in common, let’s be friends. However, I am acutely aware of the fact that the feeling is almost never mutual. Most people take time to make friends. They are guarded. Unwilling to reveal. Their time is precious and difficult to penetrate.  I hate this.

I make friends by telling. Perhaps, usually, too much. I reveal from the get go. It’s a good thing I never dated because I’m sure this earnestness wouldn’t work well.

Why is it so challenging to be friends as adults? Have we been hurt too much? Scorned by childhood teasing and gossip? Why do we have a limit of how many friends we’ll have? At what point does someone transition from acquaintance to friend?

To me friendships are more complicated than relationships. Much more complicated. In a relationship to an extent you know where you stand. They are milestones that you complete. There are late night whisperings. When was the last time two friends sat together to discuss just what kind of friends they are?

I am loyal. To a fault. I will do anything and everything for my friends.

I forgive. Always. Often when I shouldn’t.

I am compassionate. My empathy is endless.

Perhaps because I give so much, always, that I never feel like I get what I give. I never feel equal. Like in a relationship where one loves more, deeper, stronger, there is that endless imbalance in my friendships. That endless doubt in my mind of where we stand.

On some level I’m always surprised when my friends are there for me. I am expecting them to disappoint me. I never feel worthy of their friendships, so I never trust it completely. So I give more and more to compensate for these feelings of inadequacy.

I have an arsenal of fear.

I’m often so disappointed in myself. Disappointed that I care so much, try so hard, and feel so terribly alone at the end of the day. I miss my friends from Chicago with a tremor that shakes my core. I know I idealize them, idealize a childhood friendship we once had for in reality the friends I’ve known the longest know me the least. They know my past though; they know what has shaped me. Molded me, broke me, put me back together. So I carry them with me. I find that the internet makes it all the more harder. These virtual relationships you’re building with people you’ve never met.

I miss the days when we all wore friendship bracelets and hearts torn in two.

 

 

 

Linked up with Shell’s Pour Your Heart Out and Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop: Disappointed

    

A Pool of Tears – The Poem

Written for Mama Kat’s Writers Workshop.

Write a poem about loss: Technically I wrote this poem in the aftermath of Orlando. But it is most certainly about loss, and that was only a week ago or so so it definitely counts.

 

A Pool of Tears

Sweet sticky air permeates

Heavy breath moist skin

A jump a splash a ripple effect

Breaking the surface a gasp

Salty granular water infiltrating

The sting the poison tumble over

 

Floating atop lighter than air

Wind flutters against skin

Every hair tingled with sensation

Weightless and soulful her body uncoils

Her mind drifts endlessly to nothingness

 

Water slowly rises above her eyes

Tears leak finding home in the solace of community

The weight of burden drags her deeper

Cracking splitting the seams of her heart unravel

 

Salt fills clasped sealed lips

The tip of her nose poised above the water

Clouds darken the sun flees

Her last piece of flesh sinks

 

Within a pool of tears lay

A smattering of blood

A drip red and congealed

The wounds dripped out

A swirling mass of pain and pity

You’re All Grown Up

Written for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop

Bear’s only 4.25 years old, but I already feel so many times that he’s getting so grown up. On a frequent basis I look at him and think to myself this is what you’re going to look like as a teenager. I can see it, I can see the adult in his face sometimes. Like when I snapped this picture of him with my cell while we were driving.  Picture how incredibly handsome he’s going to be. Moms of 4 year old’s lock up your daughters because my son is going to be a lady killer. I can just tell. Well and I secretly also quite hope so. He’s too cute for monogamy. Its crazy how quickly time has gone by, how is it that I can barely recall what he looked like as a baby without referencing a photo. Why is my memory so terrible? It happened so fast and yet so gradually that my little boy is getting so grown up.

We talk frequently of when he grows up. When he grows up he wants to work at the same place as Mommy (I discourage him vehemently). When he grows up he’s going to have his own money to go to Target to buy bakugans. When he grows up he’s going to be a Daddy. That’s what he usually says when we ask what he’s going to be as a grown up. I explained he needs to make money too, to go to Target and all. When he grows up he promises to love me still.

He hates it when I cry. He hates “Love you Forever” for that reason. Calls it the crying book. But it always makes me think of when he’s big and grown. Will he still take care of me? Still let me hug and kiss him? Will he still love my smuggles? I am so frightened of him growing up. Perhaps because I know my relationship with my parents as an adult and I only hope that he doesn’t feel the same way about me. But he couldn’t. I am nothing like them. He will love me, when he’s all grown he promises to still love me. (And spend Christmas with me, I told him he’s going to have to let his wife know from the beginning that he’s always coming home for Christmas and if need be, we’ll always pay for him and his whole family to come.)

My little boy, is not so little anymore. He takes care of his baby sister like the best big brother in the world. I am constantly so touched with how gentle and loving he is towards her. The way he kisses the top of her head, how sometimes when he thinks I’m not looking I see him reach out and hold her hand in the car seat as we drive to school. How he picks up her nuk off the floor and rinses it before he gives it back to her. He is so kind. How his favorite part of his fourth birthday was giving Bakugans to all his friends in their goody bags. How did he become so big? So aware of others?

I just hope he’s not like this as a teenager:

I’d rather he stay sleeping: