Reunited

It feels like I was at college 5 minutes ago, and also a lifetime ago. Which I guess is what twenty years is. Someone's lifetime. Someone could be reading this who was born the year I graduated from college. Crazy!

Listen, twenty-year-old: in the years since you were born, my friends Tasha and Pat did not age even one little bit. I think they have a couple of portraits tucked away in their respective attics. I'm not going to look into it too deeply.

I wandered some of the hallowed academic halls with Tasha, as we tried to remember where our Italian class was. It was not where we thought. Then I broke my hip! I walked it off.

Here's my friend Amy showing us her old photo album that contained all manner of light-rinse denim and permed hair. The perms were all mine, sadly.

My friend Irene (you'd remember her as my shower-obsessed friend) informed me on Saturday afternoon that we were going to sing. In a semi-circle. Because that's what we did in college (as the Wellesley Widows, dear lord) and that's what we were going to do now. Also, people would be watching. I attempted to protest, but you just can't argue with Irene. Maybe it's because of how good she smells.

We rehearsed for all of five minutes, like so:

And then:

People came (I bet Irene ordered them to! It's like she's MAGIC!):

Nothing will cause me to break out in hives more than the phrase "impromptu a cappella," but this was fun and not even a little bit humiliating.

I miss singing with people I love.

Below is Pamela Daniels, who was our class dean. She retired a while back, and when she did, I wrote her a letter to thank her for saving my life. Which she did. I had a challenging sophomore year, and she met me, every day, just to talk, for weeks. Maybe months. She wrote me back such an amazing letter that I almost wanted to send her a thank-you note to her thank-you note. She is an extraordinary human being, and I am so fortunate to know her.

I had no idea she would be at the reunion. Then she strode in, all stately and regal, and I walked up to her kind of tentatively and she looked at my name tag and said, "You wrote me that letter!" That was ELEVEN YEARS AGO, you guys. She gave me a huge hug and oh, I cried.

Scott took this picture (and all the others, by the way), and while he was futzing with the camera she whispered to me, "He's in the arts, I hope? Tell me he's in the arts," and I said yes, Dean Daniels (I can't call her Pamela), he's in the arts. Doesn't the beard give it away? No?

Here we are, walking through what was, when we were at school, a parking lot. Now it's wetlands? I was very confused.

You couldn't pay me to go back to 1991, but then again, maybe you could pay me to go back to 1991, maybe just for a little while. If I could bypass the fashion mistakes and just hang out with my friends.

Don’t get too excited

My friend was telling me about this great job she’s being considered for, and while describing how fantastic it sounds, she cut herself off by saying, “I know, I shouldn’t get too excited, it might not happen.” Which prompted me to ask, why couldn't she get excited? What’s “too” excited, anyway? She wasn’t wetting herself (I don’t think). And what’s so dangerous about excitement? She’s not insane; it’s not like she’s going to run out and buy herself engraved business cards with the new position she may or may not have.  If she doesn’t get the job, her disappointment will not be lessened by the knowledge that at least she didn’t let herself get excited. (How unseemly that would have been!)
 
Sort of related: one day when I was around six, I was holding hands with my friend and skipping around like a goof, laughing uproariously, when I tripped and bonked my mouth on the gravel. As my mom mopped up my tears and bandaged my chin, I clearly remember her telling me this: “Laughter always leads to tears.” I told my friends this years later, and it became a running joke whenever we laughed at anything: “We should stop,” one of my friends would solemnly declare, “before the tears come.”
 
Now, I may have misheard my mom; she may have meant “laughter while hopping up and down with your similarly uncoordinated friend will always lead to tears,” but either way I think part of me believed the original statement, and still does, a little.  I’m often concerned that I’ll look foolish being happy and excited, because there’s probably bad news lurking just around the corner. And I don’t think I’m alone in that. I think many of us suspect that the Universe is going to see us feeling happy and confident and boldly carrying forth and it’s going to be all, “Ah, good, now I know whom to take down a peg.”  And then everyone will laugh when we think we see a bee in the bathroom stall and run out screaming with our skirt hiked up to our waist. For instance.
 
It’s all fantasy, of course. The Universe is busy with other things, like birthing galaxies and expanding. It’s not looking askance at anyone for thinking too much of themselves.  So why not be exactly as excited or pleased or hopeful as we’re feeling? Just let ourselves be, for once? Cut ourselves a huge goddamn break? The disappointments and bad news will come no matter what we do, but meanwhile, keeping yourself in check in anticipation of that moment is just a terrible shame.

Not sorry at all

Yeah, whatever, so I haven't been here all week. Pfft, like I even care.

Okay,  I DO care. Shut up. I can't even pretend with you guys. Getting back to work, and school, and HOMEWORK (growl smash rage), and other obligations that have forced me to get dressed and/or become more or less clean, has taxed my already-challenged brainsicle. But I've almost got this thing figured out! I'm dressed now and EVERYTHING. And it's four o'clock oh shit I was supposed to pick up Henry an hour ago.

Ha ha! He's at a playdate. I mean, I think. No one from the school or the department of child-maintenance or wherever has called me yet, so I assume everything's copasetic.

But look, there are three posts over at Redbook from me this week! I recommend that you read them. Thank you. I love you. Your hair smells like sunshine.

1. In which I write an angry letter to homework. And Homework writes back.

"I know that I can be a challenge! Did you know that the Lenape Indians faced hardships, too? Find 23 things in your home that remind you of the many challenges the Lenape Indians faced, then create physical representations of your feelings using the corn husks you gathered during your dinner which I hope included corn! Show your work!"

2. When your mom's a hoarder. For most of her life, Jessie Sholl hid a secret from almost everyone she knew: her mom is a compulsive hoarder. Her memoir, Dirty Secret, is about growing up with a mentally ill parent, and what it's like as an adult child of someone so troubled and erratic. It's a great book, and I'm not only saying that because Jessie is one of my favorite people in the universe.

3. Plastic surgery: would you consider it? In this post I sing the praises of Tina Rowley--hilarious blogger and noted Twitter personality--who, after the birth of her second child, beheld changes in her body of which she Did Not Approve. So she had a surgeon fix 'em. Because fuck it. As Tina would (and did, quite frequently!) say. Fuck it! I like the way she thinks.

UNCLEAN!

My friend Irene was here last week, visiting from her exotic homeland of London, England. We were at lunch, and then I confessed something, Something horrible.

Me: I have to say, I feel a little gross. I didn't shower for a few days, and then this morning I went to the gym and when I got back home, the water was shut off because they're doing some kind of plumbing work.

Irene: [Horrified stare]

Me: So then there wasn’t enough time to go back to the gym and shower and still meet you for lunch, but we have this kind of large Brita container, which holds a lot of water, but it was in the refrigerator, so I basically gave myself an icy sponge-bath. And then dumped the rest of the water over my head. Which was bracing, to say the least. It was like an ice-cream headache, only more so.



[Irene stares at me as if I had told her that I like to poop in the sink.]



Irene: But…why didn't you shower in—how many days, did you say?

Me: Um. A few? Maybe a couple. I kind of can't remember.

Irene: You can't remember the last time you showered?

Me: I can't say my showers are all that memorable. Don't look at me like that. You live in Europe! You should be comfortable with the unwashed!

Irene: You used to shower every day, in college!

Me: Are you saying you still shower every day?

Irene: …

Me: !



Then we agreed never to talk again.



Or rather, we made fun of each other for a while, then changed the topic. I may have made her smell me, at some point. (For the record, I smelled fine. Ice water and baby wipes can accomplish quite a bit.)



It should be said that Irene does not have kids. (And no disparaging Irene, please; she's one of my best friends and I will have to come to your house and give you a noogie if you do.) (Don't think I won't.) So I could say that she has all the time in the world to take daily showers. But my son is six. It's not like he's an infant. I have time. And yet I find myself forgetting to shower. Forgetting, or deciding there are better things to do, like, I don't know, read? You can't read in the shower, after all. Someone needs to fix that.



I ran into my other friend (I have more than one!) Jennifer today, and we were talking about this not-showering habit of the children-having. Jennifer has two kids, so she has more reason to not shower. "Not only do I not shower, but I forget to brush my hair," she said.

"I don't own a brush," I countered.

"I never look in the mirror," she said. "One day I got my hair wet in the outdoor sprinkler, and my hair was all plastered down on one side and it was like that all day. And I had no idea."

"Oh, I have to look in the mirror," I said, "because I usually have something crazy stuck in my hair. Like a cat toy, or a pack of gum. Seriously. Did I tell you about the time I walked around with a hanger hanging from the back of my coat? I never leave home without giving myself a once-over."

"I'm going to shower now," Jennifer said, "Since I just went to the gym. So that’s good, right?"

"I hope your water is on, but if it's not, may I recommend ice water and baby wipes?"

Somewhere in England, a glamorous, freshly showered woman wept for all of us.