Back in 3rd grade, they made us do the dreaded Mile Run in school as part of physical training.

Do they still make kids do The Mile?  Or has that gone the way of Red Rover and those plastic things we used to use to corral our giant t-shirts into a fashionable dangling cloth tail on the side of our hip?

Source

Anyway.  They made us run a mile, then they would herd us back inside the school and make us stand in those double lines — do you remember the double lines?  I guess they did that because single lines were too long, and they worried kids might start falling off the back or that the end would get pinched off like the tail of a lizard and then they’d have to explain to parents that their children are missing because line length got way out of control and no one wants that job, so it was best to double up the lines to keep everyone together yet still encourage a little healthy competition and line placement envy among classmates.

For example.

My BFFTTILIM (Best Friend For The Time I Lived In Minnesota) ended up in line A, while I was in line B.  And, via careful eye judgment (I was so good, I didn’t even have to count to measure someone’s line placement), I could tell that she was effectively 2 spots ahead of me.

Not cool.

It was a known fact that ideally, BFs would be in the exact same spot if they found themselves in separate lines, so they could walk directly next to each other down the hallway.

No hierarchy in a healthy friendship, nosiree.

But, if they were in the same line, then one needed to be directly in front of the other.  There could be no intruders between them in the friendship bubble.

So the fact that I was in a separate line and approximately 2 spaces back served up a bit of a predicament.  In third grade, this was the kind of thing that could ruin a whole day.  Something had to be done.

I decided to employ Heads or Tails.

In case you’re unfamiliar, this isn’t the heads or tails of a coin flip.  No, it’s much more elementary with a decidedly higher risk factor because the outcome is not based on chance, but on a person’s decision.  See, any good kid knew that  you couldn’t just cut in line.  But, if you had the permission of the person in front of whom you wanted to cut, it was acceptable.  The rest of the line just had to deal with it.

Pensively, I glanced over at my BFFTTILIM.  She knew what I was thinking.  I smiled, knowingly, and asked, “Heads?” just loud enough for the students in close proximity to hear.  The girl behind me perked up, knowing this could potentially lead to a line promotion for her.

My BFFTTILIM thought for a second, then, to my slight dismay and embarrassment, smiled and said, “Tails.”

I sighed.  Tails was acceptable, meaning I could come over and stand behind her, rather than in front, but the public slight introduced that hierarchy thing back into the sitch, and no one is comfortable when that happens.  Everyone knew that Heads was better, because it showed true faith in the friendship.  Heads was about loyalty.  Heads was about trust.

A boy named Jason was standing behind my BF, and he did not look pleased about the fact that I would be cutting in front of him.  But them’s the rules in Heads or Tails, and there was no logic in arguing with that.

He had a slight frown, and looked a little upset.  I shot him a sheepish smile and sauntered over to the spot directly behind my friend.  “Everyone face forward!” directed the teacher, and that we did, but not before exchanging a quick BF high-five.

Then it hit me.

Quite literally.

A powerful blow of projectile vomit all over my back and in my hair and down my shirt.

It was red.

The smell was not pleasant.

I was right.  Jason had been upset.  But not about me cutting in line.  More likely, he was regretting the apparent gallon of Kool-aid he’d decided to drink before running the mile.  So he expelled it.

A small drop got onto BF’s shirt, and she was quite distraught.

I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I ever wanted to punch someone in the face.

I don’t remember much of what happened after that — riding home in a garbage bag, a very long shower, then cheerily walking back to school with BF and homemade ice-tray popsicles.

They were orange.

Not red.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I had learned 2 valuable lessons that day:

Heads isn’t better because it represents loyalty and trust.  Heads is better because you know the person standing behind you.

Also, if you’re going to screw someone over, make sure that what you get out of the deal is worth it.

In most cases, it’s probably not.

P.S. My first post got published on Re-Nest — check it out!

I think I want to talk about ugly people this morning.

Not “ugly” as in physically unattractive, but people who are coarse and calloused.  Like unpedicured skin under a big toe.

Abrasive.

Sandpaper.

Fortunately for me, it’s rare that I’ve encountered these people in my life.  The ones who are genuinely mean.  The ones who take pleasure in causing others pain.  And especially the ones who know it.

I can tell the real ones — the genuinely bad ones — apart from the ones who were just brought up rough, who don’t know how to handle themselves, who have issues deeper than the need to hurt, by the way they make me feel.  If I mostly just feel sorry for them, they’re the ones who can still be helped. Who probably aren’t really mean, but, for whatever reason, have a hard time with the world.  They’re fixable.  And one day, if someone is patient with them, they can find a way to be happy.

But the others?  The unfixable ones?  They make me feel frustrated.  Angry.  Sometimes hurt, if I forget myself and the fact that they don’t matter in the scheme of things.

And the bitch of it is, they’re relentless.  An air of nastiness precedes them when they walk into a room, and your muscles tense, and your jaw clenches, and you can feel the eggshells scatter across the floor like a flower girl tossing out so many petals.

How many times can a person not react when a rock is thrown?  A jibe is tossed?  A button is pushed?

The answer is, countless times.  Because as difficult as it is to not react to a person like this, the alternative feeds them.

It’s the oldest lesson in the book, but for some reason it’s one of the hardest to grasp.

Just ignore it.

It’s HARD because words do hurt.  But it’s important, my friends, to take into account where the words are coming from.  If they’re coming from an ugly person — a person who feeds from your pain — then their words have no meaning.  They’re just tools that person uses to get what she wants from you.

A reaction.

And if there’s anyone in this world who doesn’t deserve to get what she wants, it’s the calloused canker sore of a bitch who will never understand.  Who will never know what it’s like to have friends or people in her life who don’t tiptoe around her acidic aura.  And I’d pity her if it weren’t a waste of my time, because she likes how she is.

So.

It’s unfortunate that these people exist.  But they do.  And we can choose to let them affect us — to make us uglier, too, with our reactions.

Or we can let it slide.

I know which way I choose.

How about you?

I’ll admit it.  I was kind of spoiled for my birthday this year.

Apparently Justin was feeling generous.  Or he was in a rare shopping kind of mood.  Or he was worried that if I walked in on him hastily filling out my card at 6 p.m. on the day of for the 8th year in a row, that I’d be taking myself somewhere special for celebratory drinks.

Like Morocco.

Not only did he have my work breakfast all set up for me…

…but he also had a card with a note, part of which read, “I love you and hope to help make your 29’s special — no mater how many of them you want to have.”

Can I hear a collective awwwww?

And the card was about beer.

He knows me so well.

Speaking of knowing me well, he also bought me new wine glasses.

These.

I was down to 3 remaining cheapo glasses that would break if you looked at them too intensely, so these were perfect — especially if I ever want to, you know, share my wine with friends.

He also bought me this:

We spotted it at the Sanford Antique Mall a couple of months ago.  For some reason I’ve been wanting a retro desk fan, and this one had me at “I saw you on the floor in some forgotten corner, and I knew we were meant to be.”

But alas, the store proprietors wouldn’t satisfy my need to haggle, so we walked away empty-handed.

Justin, who’s never cared much for haggling, went back to get it to surprise me.  And apparently it doesn’t count if you didn’t get a bargain on your birthday.  Because it’s your birthday.

She’s a little scratched and dented.

Kind of like me.

But the best part?

I have to say the best part was the homemade cheesecake.

The homemade key lime cheesecake with black raspberry swirls.

Yep.

Spoiled, I was.

And this doesn’t even cover what we did this weekend.

And now, all I can say is, wow.

He really set the bar for my next 29th.

I’m feeling exceptionally poetic today.

Not particularly articulate, but poetic.

So here’s to the good stuff —

like screen porch naps on warm October afternoons…

(Cell phone pic)

like men with dogs…

like the word “persimmons”…

like sticking your hand in a colander full of cooked noodles…

like fuzzy bees…

like babies with cell phones…

like my office… wherever it happens to be.

I’m sitting in my backyard office and it smells like fall.

I think I’m starting to be okay with that.

And even if I’m not, I will deal because my office has wine.

Does anyone else like to stick their hands in colanders of cooked noodles, or is that just me?  What kind of stuff are you oding these days?

Well, it’s weird.

The earth has circled the sun exactly 29 times since the day I decided to grace all of you with my presence — not in the blog world, obviously, since I was old enough to remember my dad bringing home our very first Apple computer, complete with green screen and a joystick, of all the coolest things to get invented.

Next to jelly shoes and slap bracelets, of course.

It’s weird, because I don’t feel a day over 34.

Kidding.

I think it’s safe to say that I’m in a very different place from the one I was in at this same time last year.  Not just physically, since back then I was, as my dear friend Erin reminded me this morning, “sipping Imperials in grubby, worn-out flip-flops while sitting in an open-air restaurant that we had to walk 2 miles down a dirt road (and then scramble to somehow put together the 3 colones for the cab ride) to get to,” and tonight I’ll likely be sipping much-more-expensive mojitos with some fantastic girlfriends at a restaurant I drive to myself.

Morning view last year:

Morning view this year:

Sure, they both involve fog, but my, how times change.

Also, I’m different.

The quarter-life crisis (or maybe now it’s more accurately a third-life crisis) is still lurking, like a funky aftertaste or sticky morning mouth, but it’s less… potent.

And I think it’s because I’m finally starting to find my way.

Do you know that feeling, when you dive deep down into a murky lake, and somehow you become all discombobulated from turning and spinning and having a grand ol’ time, and then, out of nowhere, it gets scary because you realize you’re no longer sure which way is up?

Suddenly you’re terrified because there is a very real possibility that you’re swimming in the wrong direction, further away from the breathable clarity of the surface, until you find yourself face-planting into the sandy bottom.

Yep, I actually did that once.

But figuratively speaking, that’s me as well.  I’ve been face-planting for a while now, and it feels like maybe I’ve finally been able to gain some precarious footing and push off of the pliable sand.

I’m not sure where I’m going, but at least it’s somewhere.

And anywhere is better than hitting bottom.

I can already tell it’s going to be a good day, because I emerged from my steamy shower and padded into the kitchen to discover that Justin had left me this:

Coffee ready-to-go and a piece of bread in the toaster, just waiting to get crunchified and spread with peanut butter and jelly.

The perfect work morning breakfast.

And already I can see that the fog is starting to clear.

I was about to tell you about hot dogs.

I’ve told you about my love of hot dogs before, and my fondness hasn’t weakened since then.

In fact, my hot-dog tastin’ palette has probably become more refined.  More in touch with the beyond-ketchup-and-mustard possibilities that a hot dog can be.

This is why I was going to tell you about the hot dog Mecca my brother took us to on our visit to Cleveland.  I was going to tell you about it before Justin came back in the house after he’d supposedly left for work, sheepishly poking his head through the garage door to make sure I’d at least had a few sips of my coffee before sharing his news.

“Remember that trellis that used to surround the propane tank?” he asked.

“Yes…” I said.

“Remember how it fell off so I built a real gate with new trellis?” he asked.

“Yes…” I said.

“Remember how you made me put the old trellis away in the garage? he asked.

“Yes,” I said, “after you’d let it sit in the yard for a month?  That trellis?”

“Maybe.”  He said.  “Well.  It might have fallen over last night and it might have still had nails in it and I might have backed over it with the car on my way out this morning and I might now have 2 flat tires.”

“…”

“OkayILoveYouBye!”

Sigh.

I know there’s a bigger lesson here.  Some metaphor for life about rolling with the punches because that’s just the way it is or any number of country or pop song lyrics that fit the situation.

But most of the time, it’s true.  Shit just happens.

And I could be a Sad Dog.

I could get upset about it — overreact about something over which I have no earthly control — lose my temper and curse the trellis Gods and bitch about how we now have to fork over money to fix the tires or get whole new ones and why now, because it’s so not a good time, but of course it’s never a good time.

And I could cry.  I could cry because pretty much all of the money I made last week, which admittedly isn’t very much, could very likely go to fixing the trellis situation, and why does it seem like we can never get ahead and why even bother going to work if it’s just going to go to stupid shit like tires and it figures this would happen right after I ruined a perfectly good brisket because these things always happen in threes and wait that’s just two things so what’s next?

But really, I just breathe.

Because, while I try not to live life like one of those scared, timid people always waiting for the next iceberg, I expect them.  And it doesn’t make them so bad when they clear the horizon.  They’re not so daunting.  They just are.

I could be a Sad Dog and cry about scraped knees, or I could stand up, dust off, and move on with the good stuff.  The bad stuff — the little bad stuff — doesn’t deserve that kind of attention.

But the good stuff?

The good stuff deserves all kinds of attention.

So stay tuned.