This Thing I Did

I did this thing. It was for Art+Copy Club of Kansas City (AAFKC).

I can't watch it. Because watching yourself in a video is like being able to hear yourself when you're talking to someone on the phone and the reception is bad, only worse. ("Is that what I sound like?!" PLUS "Is that what I look like?!")

Anyway, I thought I'd share because I have this weird competitive issue where I think it will matter how many views it gets (it won't). And for those of you who read this blog despite having never met me (what's wrong with you?), now you have a better idea of what I'm like in-person...awkward.


Art+Copy Presents BULLETPROOF 2011 // Quinn Katherman from AAF - Kansas City on Vimeo.

Neighborly-Schmeighborly

Here we are. A seemingly nice, young couple with a hyper dog that recently moved into the neighborhood. We are polite, cordial, we keep our yard tidy and we don’t leave our trashcans out for weeks at a time. To me, that’s being a good neighbor.

I met our neighbors the day we moved in. For the purposes of being discrete, we will call them Schmave and Schmancy. I had just convinced Steve that we didn’t need to keep a decade-old recliner our dog tore the seat out of or the beer pong table from college, so he left to take the chair, table, and some other crap I had to beg him to part with, to the dump. I was elbow-deep in bubble wrap, unpacking broken plates and cursing like a sailor when I heard a knock on the door.

Before I could even make it around the corner to see who it was, I heard the door open and someone shout, “Hello!” Um, hello, strange old man who is now standing in my house because apparently waiting for me to let you in wasn’t necessary…

“Hi there, neighbor! I’m Schmave. My wife Schmancy and I live next door,” he said.

“Well, it’s, uh, nice to meet you. My name is Quinn, my boyfriend Steve and I just moved in,” I said.

“Yep, this is a good house," he said as he walked through the living room I didn’t invite him into. He seemed to be inspecting the molding and the walls as if he would find a fault to make him retract that statement.

“Yes, we are pretty excited,” I said, unsure if I was about to get raped or killed or both because that’s what would happen next if this was a horror movie.

“Your boyfriend, you said? That fellow’s not your husband?”

“That’s right,” I said. This is the kind of question that usually prompts me to make a joke about living in sin but I wanted to reframe from anything that could potentially be interpreted as camaraderie or taking pleasure in this experience.

“Well, that’s all right…” Thanks for your approval, dude. “Okay, well, I brought these beers over because I saw some sweaty men moving big boxes in.” I hadn’t even noticed the beer. Sweaty men? That’s a weird thing to say, I thought.

“Oh, that’s so nice of you! Here, let me put these plates down and I’ll take them from you,” I said. I suddenly hated him less for letting himself into my home unannounced and uninvited. Beer is a peace offering. I like peace offerings.

“No, it’s okay. I’ll just go put them in the fridge.” He walked past me and around the corner. I heard bubble wrap popping between his steps and heavy breathing. I decided to stay at the door, seeing as how I didn’t invite him in, I would at least see him out.

“Okay, uh, thanks,” I said, flipping my hate switch back on—fuck the peace offering.

“All right. Well you let me know how those guys like the beer,” he said as he walked out of my kitchen. Does he think women don’t like beer?

“Well we’ve never met a beer we didn’t like!” I said, gesturing him towards the door.

“Good. Hey, if you guys need anything, just knock on our door. We’re always around!”

“Yes, I will be sure to knock.”

“Nice to meet you!” he said and showed himself out.

“You too, Schmave! Thanks for the beer!” I closed the door behind him and locked it.

I stood there, wondering what had just happened. Strange old man walks into my house through the guise of a half-knock and proceeds to walk around inside without even the slightest inclination from me that such a thing was welcome…weird. When Steve returned I relayed the story.

“Great. Well I guess we’re going to have to keep the door locked,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s like that. I think it’s more like…we need to be mean to them so they’ll leave us alone,” I said.

“But they’re old!”

“Wait a minute…You’ve already met them, haven’t you? You’ve already talked to them and made friends with them and oh god—”

“Relax. I didn’t make friends with anyone. I just talked to them a little about the fence we want to put in and other stuff—you know, neighbor-talk,” he said.

“DAMNIT, STEVE! That’s why Schmave just walked into our house—because he probably thought you were his new bestie after whatever conversation you had!”

The problem is, Steve and I have a very different philosophy about neighbor relationships. I believe that living within a few feet of each other does not mean we need to be best friends or even talk to each other, ever. Steve, however, is Mister freaking Rogers and always happy to strike up a conversation about the weather or how good so and so’s hostas look. It’s not that I’m unfriendly or mean, I just believe that befriending your neighbor is a way of condoning their nosiness, and keeping them at arms-length is best, at least at first.

“No way! I mean, he seemed a little weird, but he’s, like, 60-something. And his wife is really nice,” Steve said.

“His wife? So you met both of them?”

“Yeah, Schmave and Schmancy. They’ve lived here for 25 years and they have two cats and they just bought a new car and they like to vacation in Santa Fe and—”

“Wow, what’s left to know about them? Their bowel movements?” I opened a beer and threw it back in a single gulp.

“Hey! Did you buy beer?”

“No, Schmave brought it over for ‘all the sweaty men moving big boxes.’ And he put it in the fridge while I stood at the front door wondering why the hell he was in my house,” I said.

“Wait, he actually said ‘sweaty men’? That’s weird.”

“I KNOW! You can’t be so nice,” I said.

“But you’re so mean. We balance each other out! Besides, we have to be nice to them, at least for now…after all, we are putting that fence in,” he said.

A few weeks after Schmave’s home intrusion, we got a survey done – a necessary step any good homeowner takes prior to putting in something that defines property lines, such as a fence. Turns out, Schmave and Schmancy had stolen about eight feet of our property.

“They didn’t steal it, Quinn. They were just…taking care of it,” Steve said.

“Sure, that’s why they put down that row of bricks, as if that would be the new property line, and then invested in a bunch of expensive landscaping.”

“I can see you’re angry about this, so why don’t you let me handle it.”

“Well, it all makes sense now. Schmave’s intrusion, the forced friendliness, Schmancy’s constant questions about when a fence would be going in and what kind of fence it would be…”

“I know. We will work it out. I’ll talk to them.”

“No. I’m going to talk to them.”

I calmly explained to Schmancy that property lines were property lines and that I was very sorry about her garden, which was about to have a four-foot fence running through it, but we have a dog, and even though she’s losing some of the property she stole, at least our dog wouldn’t dig up her plants and shit on her patio. Things seemed to go okay. Then she attacked Steve.

“So Schmancy just said she was going to call a lawyer about the survey we had done,” Steve said.

“That’s adorable. Let her do it.”

“Stop. We don’t need enemies.”

“Seriously? It’s not our problem. The fencers are coming tomorrow.”

“Yeah, about that...I called them and rescheduled for next weekend.”

“WHAT?”

“Well, we had to compromise. I told Schmancy we’d give her another week to move her plants…”

“She’s already had a week!”

“…and I told her we would help her.”

“!@#$%^&**&^%$#@!”

So we helped Schmancy move her stupid plants. We put the fence in. And we haven’t heard much from either of them save for the occasional Saturday when we’re doing yardwork and Schmave will stumble over with gin and tonics in hand to tell us the latest horribly offensive joke he’s heard. Everything is good. And even though Steve’s neighborliness is annoying, it makes me less…what’s that word…bitchy? We do balance each other out. I run into the house with my head down as fast as I possibly can to avoid interaction, and he saunters over to say hello, strike up conversation about road conditions and tell them that we’re getting married.

Yeah.

Like how I saved that for the very end?

MARRIED!

I’m so lucky.

Home Sweet Home

All right, I’m just going to skip all the usual, “Sorry I’ve been away, blah, blah, blah” bullshit and get straight to it…I BOUGHT A HOUSE! Well, we, my boyfriend Steve and I, bought a house. Together. To live in for, like, longer than a year. I KNOW! I crapped my big girl pants, too!

It all happened really fast in the slowest way possible. One day we were carefree renters and the next we were homeowners, give or take a few months. The process of searching for a house was not what I expected. It was a lot like shopping for jeans, you think it’s going to be fun because it’s shopping, but somewhere around the tenth pair of muffin top-inducing denim and the salesperson’s rude “Can I get you another size, ma’am?” questions that sound like, “Can I get you another doughnut, fatty?” you decide to boycott jeans and invest in more pants with elastic waistbands. Every house we looked at I found a problem with, whether it was location, size or the way the air inside made my skin feel weird and jumpy. People kept telling us, “Don’t worry, you’ll know it when you find it.” Know what? I wondered. “You’ll just walk in, and you’ll know that it’s the one,” they said. Once this was in my head it made things even harder. I walked into every house we looked at expecting to have an epiphany, but I never did. In the end, the house we bought was the one with the least problems, the best neighborhood, the greatest value, and the fewest weird smells.

Once we put an offer down and signed the contract, we spent two months wondering if we had made the right decision; I still didn’t have that feeling, I didn’t know if it was “the one.” We moved in on the hottest weekend in June. After a day of hauling boxes and sweating on everything we owned, Steve and I took a break and stood in the front yard, looking our new home in the face. It had been sunny all day but suddenly the sky was tornado green and the temperature felt different at my knees than it did at my shoulders. Steve grabbed my hand.

“This is our house,” he said.
“I know. It’s so…adulty,” I said.
“Yeah, but, adulty in a good way, right?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I hate it when you say “sure.” “Sure” never means sure when you say it.”
“Sure?”
“Look, we can put a beer pong table in the front yard…and Bob Marley posters on the walls…and never do the dishes…will that make it less adulty for you?”
“I don't know. I feel like the owners of this house should wear snazzy pantsuits and carry briefcases and play in the stock market and have well-trained dogs,” I said, glancing at the front window where I could see our dog Bear chewing on the curtains.
“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said,” he said.
“Well, don’t you kind of feel like we don’t go with this house?”
“I think it’s our job to make this house go with us,” he said. In that moment I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to smack him or kiss him, but that’s usually how I feel when I know he’s right.
“Good. I hate snazzy pantsuits,” I said.
“Me too. Let’s go inside before it rains on us.”

What followed was a week of torrential downpours. Streets were running rivers, yards were flooded pools and everyone with a basement had water or sewage coming in, everyone except us. Since the house we rented last had a lot of basement issues, we were keeping a close eye on ours, going down there every day to check for leaks, but despite the record amount of rainfall it remained dry. That’s when we heard it…drip…drop…drip, drip, drip…drop.

“I think it’s coming from the attic,” Steve said. We grabbed a flashlight and opened the secret passageway-like door that’s in the back of a closet and climbed into the attic. The dripping noises got louder, I held my breath and Steve held the flashlight.

“What. The. Hell. Is. THAT!” I said, pointing to a dark, spreading puddle where the roof meets the ground.
“Shit! Okay, no big deal, no big deal. We can handle this,” Steve said.
“By handle, you mean call someone to fix it, right?”
“Well, yeah. But for now we are going to have to fix it ourselves. Go get me some pots and pans. And some towels. And a hammer—no, a screwdriver, Phillips!”
“I hate everything about what you just said.”
“I’m not going to do anything major—I’m just going to try to keep it from leaking through ceiling,” he said.
“IT CAN LEAK THROUGH THE CEILING?!”

We’ve called roofers and contractors and they all say the same thing: we need a new ruff. I don’t know what the hell a “ruff” is, but apparently it’s going to cost us our savings. We’ve had other disasters pop up along the way, but that's all part of what makes being a homeowner "fun," according to the sarcastic assholes we call friends and family. Sometimes I think of it as getting to know a new person who has a lot of weird quirks, but sometimes I’m sober and I think of it as a monster trying to eat us. One of my friends said, “buying a house is like marrying a pickpocket,” which seems pretty accurate. Although, in our case, I think it’s more like Steve and I married a golddigger that just happens to be a 1,400-square foot Cape Cod.

It's no secret that becoming homeowners has been most gratifying for our parents, who, after years of not knowing or understanding anything, suddenly have all the answers. When something goes wrong, they are the first people we call.

Voicemail 1:
Hey, Dad! It's me...listen, when you get a chance, give me a call. We have these holes all over our yard...like, crittery rodent holes. Anyway, yeah, I don't know what they're from, but when you get a chance just call me. Okay, bye!

Voicemail 2:
Hi, Dad, it's me again. Just wondering if you got my last message. Oh, also, our kitchen sink is leaking. Should we just get down there and tighten some pipes, I mean, can you even tighten pipes? I don't get it. Okay, call me!

Voicemail 3:
Dad, it's me, where are you? I've found, like, ten spiders INSIDE today! What do I do? Exterminators are too expensive and all those sprays are toxic. So, yeah, I don't know where you are, but call your daughter back!

Voicemail 4:
DAD! We bought a desk and it won't fit through the door! Should we try to put it through the window? It looks bigger than the doorway but it's really heavy—oh, CRAP! Got to go! Call me!

Voicemail 5:
ARGHHHHHHH!

"Hello?"
"FINALLY! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? DID YOU GET MY MESSAGES? WHY HAVEN'T YOU RETURNED MY CALLS?!"
"Quinn, I was in a meeting. My phone was off for an hour, you left five messages. What's wrong?"
"Oh, an hour? Huh, well it felt like a lot longer than that. Anyway, I need your help..."

I wasn't prepared for this sudden role reversal. Now they are the ones avoiding our calls and coming up with excuses as to why they didn't call us back. Sometimes my dad even does the whole hanging up while saying goodbye thing because he can’t get me off the phone: “Yeah, okay, yep, right…okay, got to go, yeah, love you too, okay, really have to go now, uh-huh, all right…bye!” But that’s usually only after the tenth or eleventh time I've called him that day, or hour, whatever.

We’ve been living in our house for a little over a month now, and sure, sometimes it’s a monster, but everyday it becomes a little bit more our monster than it was the day before and there’s something endlessly satisfying about that. I spent eight hours working in the yard yesterday; by the end of it I was covered in scratches and bite marks, so I guess it’s debatable who worked whom, but the important point is: progress was made. At first I was trying to figure out what every plant was before I did anything but then I just decided that if I didn’t like it, I was going to pull it out, because it's my house and I can do whatever I want! Six huge bags of yard debris later, our front yard looks…clean—okay, maybe I got a little carried away and now there are some bald spots, but no big deal, I’m totally going to plant some new stuff that will look WAY better than that stupid, fancy, sharp, spiky grass that was popping out everywhere. Besides, this homeowner thing is a learning process, and sometimes I just have to figure it out as I go along. Of course, “reorganizing” $3,000 worth of landscaping the previous owner did was an expensive lesson but at least I learned something...like, that I'm still definitely allergic to poison ivy.

She take our money, well we’re in need
Yeah she's a triflin' house indeed
Oh she's a gold digger way over time
That digs on me…

I'm Super Busy and Important...

This title is true if it is opposite day, which it is not.

I know that the 25 people following this blog, and the three people who actually read it, have been tossing and turning because I have been seemingly absent from my blog for quite awhile now.

It's been 20 days. That's almost three weeks.

Given these numbers, I understand why you might be mad at me, why you might decide to give up on this blog, and why you might want to send me hate mail (I've never received hate mail before, but it seems like something important people tend to get - so, naturally, I'm expecting some very soon.). But before you start fashioning grammatically incorrect protest signs about Quinnterruption, please know that I have every intention to turn this blog around. No, it will not be a 'glob', but it will be more regular, kind of like a bowel movement, only prettier, and less...er, um...smelly.

This new promise of regularity should be taken as seriously as all of my other promises, which I have upheld completely to not at all. So, if you gave up on me, please, come back. If you feel as though I no longer deserve your loyalty as a reader, then I urge you to reconsider your obviously stupid feeling. You can't quit me. You can try, but you won't be able to because that will just make you a quitter at quitting and nobody likes a quitting quitter.

In an effort to suck empathy from you via distraction, I'm sharing a few of the things that have been occupying my productive time over the last 20 days:

1. By browsing this site, I've become an expert in the field of child psychological by identifying why some people (read: serial killers) grow up to hate their parents:

2. I've been attempting to contact my long-lost group of BFFs after finding this picture of our last reunion:
Needless to say, we had a falling out over what constituted as "liquor." Of course, it might have also had something to do with the fact that I was always drunk - but, hey, hindsight is 20/20, am I right?

3. As usual, I'm always busy learning about how to call on magical unicorn powers:

4. This sentence: "My passion for you grows like mold: unavoidable due to exposure and neglect."

5. I've been rejoicing over the fact that someone has finally sought revenge on Subway's "Five. Five Dollar. Five Dollar Foot Long." campaign from hell. (Whether it was intentional or not hardly matters.)

6. I'm also very busy increasing my hair-esteem on daily basis:

7. I can't stop listening to people sing the dirty words I type. So neato! (Beware: You may lose hours of your life to this website.)

8. Also cutting into my productive time: Regularly giving into my very large Etsy obsession.

9. Okay, I'll admit it - my latest career kick has also contributed to my lack of posts. Here's the deal: I think I should get a second job as an official wedding guest. Oh come on, not an escort - get your mind out of the gutter! - I'm talking about something I could actually make money doing, like, entertainment in the form of unintentional comedic relief. I've attended nearly a dozen weddings this year and managed to embarrass myself in one way or another at all of them. This usually works in the favor of the bride and groom (I'm like the free side-show circus that came with the band). But last weekend a wedding in Santa Fe proved once again that yes, I can injure myself by tripping on flat surfaces and red wine does in fact stain white wedding dresses. But seriously, most of the time, I'm a big hit at weddings - invite me to yours and I promise I won't bring a gift, but I will embarrass myself for the sake of your entertainment.

10. My camera broke and it wasn't my fault. WIN!

11. I had to stop everything I was doing and read this beautiful insomniac rant.

12. If you want to know the real reason why I haven't blogged, see #13.

13. Made you look. See #14.

14. Ugh. I guess you really want to know. Fine. Let's just say someone built a damn in my writing brain and broke my funny bone. I'm still in the ICU, but the doctors have high hopes and expect me to fully recover in no time, which is really good news considering how I've had my head up my ass for three weeks.


There you have it. All 14 excuses, I mean, valid reasons, for my blogony. I should be a politician; or maybe I should just be David Letterman. Anyway, I hope you'll understand, and stay tuned for more Quinnterruptions.

WWYCD?

My dad, never a man of few words, has several phrases that he keeps in his back pocket and likes to use at the most infuriating moments. One of these phrases is, “be the bigger person,” which I know I heard at least a million times growing up because he found a way to work it into almost every tear-filled, dramatic moment I presented him with.

At age five:
Me: Daaaa-aaaad! Tori pushed me down and now I’m bleeding!
Dad: Why is your sister crying if she’s the one that pushed you down?
Me: Because I pushed her back.
Dad: That’s not what big sisters do, Quinn. You have to learn to be the bigger person.


For the longest time I’m pretty sure I believed that being physically larger than the other person in question counted as “being the bigger person.”

At age 13:
Dad: How was school today?
Me: Terrible. I hate it. I’m never going back.
Dad: Oh really, why is that?
Me: Because—because there’s this really popular girl and she’s mean to me.
Dad: She’s probably just jealous of you.
Me: Ugh! Dad! Not-uh! No one is jealous of me, stop saying that!
Dad: Well what did this popular girl do?
Me: She wrote mean things about me in like this like notebook thingy she shares with other popular girls.
Dad: Well, all you have to do is ignore it and just be the bigger person, Quinn.
Me: No! I don’t want to be the bigger person!

My dad began substituting “be the bigger person” with “take the high road” sometime after my agonizing adolescence when it had lost some, if not all, of its influence. But I hated “take the high road” even more. Where the hell is the high road? Did I miss the exit for this elusive high road? And, damnit, why is my road automatically the ‘low road’?

At age 19:
Me: I don’t know, dad. The T.A. is just a big jerkface.
Dad: What the hell is a T.A.?
Me: Teacher’s Assistant, duh.
Dad: Okay. So, basically you’re not getting a good grade because you never go to class?
Me: No! I go to class! But he’s trying to say I didn’t turn in this assignment but I totally did! I showed him the paper, it was dated and everything and he refused to believe me. I think he’s out to get me...
Dad: Well, obviously, you need to talk to your professor about this and not this P.A. or T.E. or A.T.—whatever the hell their name is—and get this cleared up. But, just remember, take the high road—no need to make any enemies.
Me: Oh my god, dad. It’s not like I’m going to go all "Jerry Springer" on him, but this is really, really, super unfair. He should be the one to take the high road, not me!
Dad: Whatever the case—you take the high road, Quinn…

At age 24:
Me: We keep getting in petty arguments.
Dad: Right, well that sometimes happens when you’ve been together for a long time.
Me: It’s so stupid, dad! We fight about doing the dishes, how to pay the bills, letting the dog out, buying groceries—crap like that.
Dad: I know it’s frustrating, but you know what…?
Me: Yes, I know, I know—be the bigger person, take the high road—I KNOW!
Dad: Exactly.
Me: Right...

I think these phrases were so ubiquitous throughout my childhood that I failed to ever think about the meaning and find a way to apply it to my own life. You can only hear “be the bigger person” and “take the high road” so many times before you start tuning it out as one of those antagonizing things your parents will inevitably say whenever you have a crisis. But the good news is that I get it now, and it’s only taken 24 years! (Ah, youth, there was so much I didn’t understand then. Luckily, I’m brilliant and know everything now…)

I’ve never been one of those overly optimistic people; I prefer to see my glasses as half empty because that leads to a quicker refill. This being said, the last six months were particularly rough. I lost my job, and then some sanity, respect and dignity. Of course, I was never that attached to the last three, but when it all hits at once and you find yourself wearing the same pajamas you spent the last three days and nights in because you haven’t left the house in a week, you start searching for a new outlook on life before your friends start planning an intervention.

After searching for inspiration in all of the places one might normally find it—nature, books, love, friendship, art—I gave up and threw myself on the couch for what I planned on being a day of utter nothingness and self loathing. With a coffee table full of candy, chips, soda and gossip magazines, I started surfing the channels for some cheesy movies I could let my brain zone out on, and that’s when it hit me as if I was the target in a particularly cruel game of dodge ball: If I was watching the movie of my life, is this really how I would want my character to act? No! The main character in the movie of my life is a badass—she’d never let herself wallow like a sloth until reaching new levels of low self-esteem, or if she did, she would have an epiphany like this and put a stop to her pathetic parade immediately so that she could get on with being as awesome as possible.

Of course, in real life, I proceeded with my day as planned because it was too inconvenient to try to change things up when I had nestled nicely into a little couch fort, but it wasn’t a day of utter nothingness as I continued to ponder this thought. Later, Tori called and was talking to me about the drama in her life—a particularly enjoyable form of entertainment to me which always wins out over anything else—and as she got to the part in the story where our dad would typically regurgitate one of his favorite phrases, I had something incredible to say.

“Well, think about it like this: what would you want your character to do if you were watching this scene in the movie of your life?” I said.

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone and for a brief second I began to doubt my wonderful epiphany.

“Wow. That’s a really good way to think of it—yeah! I like that!” she said.

From there we devised a solution based on her character in the movie of her life, which is far more fun than listing, and then stressing out about, the negative ways you’re afraid you might react while handling the various hypothetical situations you’ve created in your head.

Now I know what my dad really meant when he said “be the bigger person” and “take the high road.” When I talked to him the other day and I told him about my new phrase, WWYCD (What Would Your Character Do?), he was flushed with pride (or maybe it was disappointment, I’m not quite sure)—this was evidence that something he tried my whole life to teach me had finally stuck. Of course, I would have internalized the meaning much sooner had he explained it to me using a movie analogy…(I’m just saying, dad).

Haven’t you ever watched a movie or read a book and wished you could change the character’s path or their reaction? Haven’t you ever looked back at a situation and wished you behaved differently or that you could take back the bad things you said? I hate that feeling; it’s a dangerous combination of regret and dissolution that often leads to miserable passivity. But I have more faith in my opinions and decisions as a subjective audience member watching the movie of my life play out than I do as the main character—from my view as an audience member, I can see how to be the bigger person and I know how to get to the high road.

Now when I am faced with a situation I don’t know how to handle, or when I’m nervous, or worried, or anxious about whatever issue I’ve built up to be a monster taking over my mind, I think about watching my movie and what I would want my character to do (WWYCD?), and then I do it. Of course, real life presents limits that don’t exist in movies, so when I want my character to roundhouse ninja kick someone in the face, I have to think twice before acting it out...or so I’ve learned.

Important Re-Memories

As I approach my 25th anniversary of being alive, I find myself nostalgic. I now start sentences with phrases such as, "Back when I was a kid..." and, "Kids today..." There's something about 25 that just feels old. I feel like there should be some sort of milestone, acknowledgment, right of passage or something to signify the fact that you're exiting the early twenties where immaturity and lack of responsibility are expected, and entering the late-twenties where there's no excuse for your failure to be an adult. (On a side note, I think I need to find more friends that are older than me as a favor to my self-esteem.)

What’s cool about turning 25? I can legally rent a car in most states now…my driver’s license expired…I’m half way to 50...? Neat. Throughout high school and the beginning of college, I used to think of 25 as that time when everything would make sense, or even if nothing made sense, at least I would feel like an established person. Now that I have reached this age, it’s hard to determine whether my thoughts about being 25 were wrong or if I’m failing at being 25.

Maybe part of the reason I feel old is because the past decade has really kind of sucked compared to the other decades I’ve lived through. Or maybe I just think this decade sucks because I’m an adult now and the 1980s and 1990s were awesome because I was a carefree kid. Either way, I think it's safe to say that we are digressing in terms of cool and it will have a negative impact on the children of this nation. So, forget about the recession, forget about the rapidly rising unemployment rate, and forget about the health care debate because all of your energy should be put towards making sure the children in your life become familiar with more important things, like Fruit Stripe Gum, lasers and the original versions of timeless classics.

So, below you'll find hearty helping of nostalgia, as well as a few things that make me yearn for a time that wasn’t so…dumb. I suppose these are also things that make me feel really old, which is how I felt when I tried to explain who Jem was to my 12-year old sister. Anyway, let’s hold hands as we Skip-It down memory lane…

Note: There is a good chance that this list might make you feel extra old if you are older than 25...just a warning.

Polly Pocket
My sister and I went through phase where we were obsessed with Polly Pocket. I think it was the challenge of actually playing with the ridiculously miniature Polly and all her accessories that made it fun…for a minute. Either way, I’ll take Polly Pocket over Da Bratz any day.

Polly Pocket = Awesome; Da Bratz = Scary

Pog
Whether you were six or 16 years old, if you didn’t have a sweet slammer and a solid collection of pogs during their brief reign in the 90s then you were probably also best friends with the lunch lady. Unless you went to one of those really lame schools that considered Pog a form of gambling, in which case you should have started an underground pogger operation during recess like the rest of us.



Fruit Stripe Gum
The most delicious gum ever created. The taste reminds me of summer and the linoleum kitchen floor Tori and I would spread our candy collections out on before making trades. It was like the NBA draft for candy, and it all started with the red and pink Fruit Stripe Gum flavors.




Land Before Time
Prepare yourself. This movie came out 21 years ago. I KNOW! This is one of my favorite movies of all-time because it was the first movie that ever made me cry; I was four years old. Oh, Littlefoot…




Skip-Its
Yes, I have a scar from falling while Skip-It-running up our asphalt driveway, but I was about to break my record number!



TMNT
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Heroes in a half shell, Turtle power!” Oh man, if you grew up in the late 1980s to early 1990s and you didn’t love TMNT then I don’t want to know you. I remember playing Ninja Turtles on the playground when I was seven years old and the best part was arguing about which Ninja Turtle character you were most like—I always wanted to be Donatello or Michelangelo because they had the coolest weapons. But my love for TMNT was continuous—in college I spent an entire summer reaching the highest level of the TMNT Nintendo game. My character of choice? Donatello, duh, the bō is unbeatable!



“Macarena”
The international dance sensation that was so popular 13 years ago it can still be experienced in the third hour of wedding receptions across the world. Relive it:


Child Stars Make Sad Grown Ups

We watched them go from this:


To this:


Same goes for Lindsay Lohan…Remember this double adorableness from her role in "The Parent Trap":


And flash forward to the present day disaster:


On a more positive child star note...Remember Jonathan Lipnicki? (“Do you know that the human head weighs eight pounds?”) He used to be my favorite little nugget ever 13 years ago when he looked like this:


But now even he is old:

(Okay, so he's not old, but he's older, or rather, old enough—and he's wearing a speedo. I'm just saying...)


Jurassic Park
Another dinosaur movie, but without the warm-fuzzy feeling of "Land Before Time." SIXTEEN years ago I remember going to see Jurassic Park in the theaters with my dad and sister. I was nine years old and Tori was probably seven. I think my dad thought it was just some kid movie about dinosaurs but about 45 minutes into the movie when people start dying, Tori got scared and starts crying so my dad had to take her outside and I was left to watch the rest of the scary movie by myself.




Jem and The Holograms
She was “truly outrageous.” When I was three years old I broke my arm because I thought that if I jumped off a building or a structure I would be able to dangle off the edge and hide from enemies, like Jem did. This is when I learned that I did not live in cartoon world.




Scrunchies
The coolest accessory to own circa 1994. You were even cooler if it matched your outfit in a nonchalant, but totally planned kind of way.






Care Bears
Originally created in 1981 for greeting cards, I was obsessed with Care Bears as a child. I loved that they had special powers that came out of their tummies (I always thought that if I ever had super powers they would come from my belly in the same manner). My sister and I used to run around the house screaming “Care Bear Stare!” while my dad chased us, pretending to be Professor Cold Heart. (And then they tried to remake it 2002 and ruin my memories.)


Umbros
All the cool kids had them, and if you didn’t have them you borrowed a pair from one of your friends who managed to have a rainbow collection of Umbros. These were seriously unflattering shorts though—they didn’t look good on anyone but soccer players. I never played soccer, but I had many pairs of Umbros.




Laser Portraits
We Have Lasers!!!!!!!!!! is a website that collects and posts various school photos from when a laser backdrop was the hottest way to capture your awkward youth. I remember that the photographer had several different laser backgrounds for you to choose from and I always wanted to do the crazy space lasers, but it never matched my outfit so I ended up with pink explosions or pastel wave lasers—lame.

Awesome. Awesomer. Awesomest.

Saved By the Bell
Only the best TV show ever created, Zack and the gang taught me important life lessons and that you can pause time by throwing up a quick “Time Out” (which I was very disappointed to learn was not actually true). If you ever to go to a trivia night at a bar somewhere and “Saved By the Bell” is one of the categories, call me on your giant cell phone and I’ll be there in 30 seconds flat to answer every question. And now, without further adieu, one of my favorite SBTB scenes:





And that concludes our trip down memory lane—pretty sure I got a higher Skip-It number than you, but whatever. I hope you enjoyed reliving some of the past and are ready to go out in public and have a conversation with a complete stranger about how "kids these days just don't understand..."

(If I left out anything totally rad, please use the comment feature below to express your anguish.)

Hate: A Strong Word I Don't Understand

Sometimes I have to roll around in an idea before it seems like something I should talk about. I need to let the juices marinate and wait until the idea is properly saturated with uncertainty, indecision and anxiety before I make anything happen with it. Of course, this should not lead you to believe that I think before I speak, because if I did then I wouldn’t feel constantly embarrassed about my recurrent verbal diarrhea. But despite this rolling around, marinating and saturating process that I’m accustomed to, I’m going to jump into this thought, perhaps prematurely.

This past weekend was a big weekend. It was my last weekend of being unemployed and it was the debut of BareTV, an improvised talk show that I helped write sketches for. This weekend I also relearned that there are some people out there that don’t like me and probably will never like me.

I know, what the hell, right? How can you not find me a.) hilarious, b.) endearing, and 3.) awesome? I realize that my inability to comprehend why someone may not like me makes me sound like I am the most egotistic person alive, but I just have an insatiable urge to please people, and thus have them like me. Needless to say, when I find out that someone does not like me, after extraordinary efforts on my part to appear worthy of their friendship, I am obviously stunned. It’s as if there must be something wrong with the world if someone doesn’t like me, so I go out on a search for the cause of this imbalance that has resulted in someone turning down membership to the Quinn Fan Club. Why do I think like this? Because I’m an insecure narcissist? Absolutely.

During this extremely long, unpaid sabbatical of mine, I have lived in what I like to refer to as a bubble of isolation—others might call it depression. I’m not ashamed to admit that there have been entire days in recent months where I did not leave the house, change out of my pajamas, let alone shower, or have face-to-face communication with a single person. However, now that I have found a job, and most importantly, someone to pay me for this thing I do with words, I have found myself standing outside of my cozy bubble of isolation and feeling somewhat exposed. Ultimately, I think unemployment caused me to digress socially, making me painfully awkward in social situations and oblivious to social cues, especially those that mean shut up. So when I found out this weekend that someone I had tried very hard to…impress (is that the right word?) didn’t like me—in fact, she hates me, and perhaps the only thing that would make her happier is if more people hated me too—I was irrationally devastated because if I had picked up on the cues, which I now realize were plentiful, perhaps I wouldn’t have been as shocked and upset. This person isn’t cruel about it, she’s older than I am so her hatred for me is on a much more mature level, which makes it less obvious to me and makes my reaction to her dislike even more pathetic and childish: “But why? I don’t get it. It’s not fair!”

I wish was brave enough to not care about what people thought of me and whether or not they liked me, but that’s not the case (although I am extremely good at pretending otherwise). I’m sure this all comes down to some inherent need for validation that stems from my childhood and the many times I was the last person picked for kickball, but whatever.

In a general sense, I am willing to accept and understand the fact that not everyone is going to like me. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say that in order to be successful, especially as a writer, pissing people off until they hate you seems to be a popular road to take. But writing words for people to read is different from being in a social situation with someone, bringing you’re A-game and finding out that someone still doesn’t like you.

The most disappointing part was that my reaction to finding out this person truly didn’t like me was to take one too many shots of Rumple Minze and proceed to make a fool out of myself for the rest of the night. Again, I blame unemployment for turning me into a lovable, pitied pariah for whom this type of reaction is expected and forgiven. But the next day, as I nursed the ‘I swear I’ll never drink again’ type of hangover, it made sense why this person might not like me, and also why I shouldn’t care (I know, a moment of unexpected clarity during what was otherwise a day full of agonizing brain fuzziness).

The important part is why I shouldn’t care, since the other part is obvious by now. I shouldn’t care whether or not this person likes me because lots of other people like me, I think. I shouldn’t care if this person dislikes me because their reasons for disliking me are not legitimate. I shouldn’t care because having them like me won’t make a difference at the end of any day ever. But still, I care—with every irrational, self-absorbed bone in my body, I care. And maybe I care because I’m starting a new job on Wednesday and I really want everyone to like me. Maybe I care because life would be easier if they liked me. Maybe I care because maybe I care about a lot of things that don’t matter.

There’s no resolution here, just the fact that there is someone new who openly dislikes me and I care enough to write about hating that I care about it.

On the upside, my self-esteem isn’t as bad as you, or I, thought it was because, as this experience has made clear, I apparently think I’m too awesome to hate.

Dead Ducklings and Memory Reconciliation

When I see Candy Buttons (the multi-colored dots on a strip of paper) I think of the Philadelphia Zoo and riding a train for the first time. When I taste blood I think of the time my dad pulled out my first loose tooth. Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Condensed Soup reminds me of the pork chops my dad used to make that were essentially drowning in an indescribable, chunky, gray sludge, which we subsequently ate every night for what felt like a year. The deafening sound of cicadas makes me think of the summer we visited our second cousins in Sioux City, Iowa. The sweet rubbery smell of a My Little Pony reminds me of birthdays and Christmases. Green ribbons remind me of summer camp. Oatmeal makes me think of chicken pox. Big Red gum reminds me of long car rides. And dry ice makes me think of all the times my sister and I pretended to be witches or mad scientists.

These are just brief instances, little snapshots of the past that pop into my head without warning. But none of the aforementioned memory triggers compare to the one I think of and recount most often.

(Note: The way I remember this happening might be different from what actually happened, so I guess you could say this is strictly from my seven-year-old point of view.)

It was newly summer, the end of the school year, and we were hosting a pool party for my second grade class. We lived in Powhatan, Virginia, a mostly rural (at the time) area, where it was headline news when the first stoplight was installed, and close encounters with wild animals and nature were pretty common. We also had a lot of animals of our own—or, as my dad would say, “it was a fucking zoo”—cats (which were endlessly fertile, thus a constant litter of kittens), pigeons, dogs, horses, rabbits, a couple goldfish, hamsters, guinea pigs, and ducklings were all part of our ever-growing brood. At the time of this pool party, the ducklings were the most new and exciting addition to our “zoo.” There were two ducklings, and during a forced break from swimming, I led a group of my classmates down to the ducklings’ cage, which was just beyond the pool, to show them these adorable, fuzzy, chirping creatures; however, when we reached our destination, there was nothing but an empty cage. I remember feeling panicked, thinking that it was my fault—had I irresponsibly left the door open? But, alas, this was not the case, for one of the ducklings lay dead on the ground—and it wasn’t in an ‘oops, it fell’ sort of way, it was in a ‘who done it’ sort of way.

I took off, searching for my dad, because surely he would know how to save the duckies. I ran up the side of our house screaming, “Daddy! Daaaad! DAAA-AAAD! HELP! SOMETHING’S HAPPENED TO THE DUCKS!” My dad, used to dramatic outbursts whether it was a dead baby duck or a dismembered Barbie, told me he would take care of it and to go back to the party. While he was problem-solving the duckling situation, I ran off to tell everyone about the tragedy unfolding, but I didn’t get far before I heard a few screams and my dad yelling. I ran around the pool and up to the side of the house where my dad had been, thinking someone must have found the missing duckling. But this was not the case, for there it was, the culprit of all evil, the monster, the murderer of my ducklings: a seven-foot long black snake with a large, duck-like lump just past its head (I’d say neck, but that doesn’t seem accurate). My dad was holding the monster by the tail as if it was a giant fish; he even had that proud predator smile, the one you see on fisherman in those 8” x 10” pictures encased in frames that have “Catch of the Day” engraved across the top. I was instantly horrified. I had seen, and likely tortured, many small garden snakes before, but I had never seen a snake as immense as the beast that ate my duckies. At this point my dad was too sick of the “zoo” to even entertain the idea of getting more ducks, and I don’t doubt that he experienced some sense of relief in their passing, but he still tried to make me feel better, telling me it was okay because the big, bad snake was dead now so I didn’t have to worry. He had to chop the snake into pieces with a shovel in order to fit it into the garbage. Then I ate a popsicle and went swimming.

Now my dead ducklings haunt me every time I go to a park with a pond, or when I walk my dog along the path in our neighborhood where ducks occasionally flutter in the puddles, or when duck is on the menu at a restaurant, or when someone mentions snakes. But sometimes it’s not even duck or snake-related, sometimes I’m folding laundry, or brushing my teeth, or writing a blog post. Perhaps it was the lack of resolution, the eagerness to move past the devastating murder of my ducklings, which has resulted in automatic playback of this memory. It was this weekend that I found out my dad’s version of this story is much different than my own, but that only seems to add to the trauma (I suppose it also confirms my ability to dramatize any event, as if I needed further proof).

Maybe resolution lies in the fact that my dad’s story is different than mine, even though in his version the ducklings are still murdered by a giant black snake, which he then killed (he confirms the whole chopping it up with a shovel part too), but he claims I wasn’t the one to discover the duckling homicide. Maybe the spirits of my duckies can’t rest until I do something to resolve their untimely deaths. Maybe I can’t rest until I do something to make myself feel better about their murders. I’ve considered a few options like, getting new ducklings and caring for them to adulthood (but that won’t work because my dog will surely eat them), or donating to a duck preservation society (but I’m practically a charity case myself so that seems unreasonable), or maybe I could buy a snake and turn it into a vegetarian before releasing it back into the wild so that it can teach other murderous snakes a lesson (but that seems to require a specific skill set, which I’m not really interested in acquiring).

I suppose a certain amount of unrest concerning this memory is inevitable. I guess I’ll just eat a popsicle and go swimming. Again.

Second City: The First Day

This week I am in the land of Midwest opportunity—Chicago—taking two classes at Second City. A few weeks ago, somewhat on an impulse, I decided to sign up for an Improv and Comedy Writing class, because this is what I should be doing during my required, unpaid sabbatical, right? So I found myself suddenly stunned and propelled to take action upon realizing that this might be the only time in my life when I can reasonably justify such an experience. Whether it was the minimal commitment of one week (as opposed to, oh say, a three-year graduate program), or finally listening to my gut instead of letting my brain get in the way (stupid brain), or maybe it took people telling me that I’m funny to realize that I want to make people laugh (at me or with me, whatever)—either way it felt, with invigorating certainty, like the right thing to do right now.

Yesterday was my first day of classes—three hours of improvisation in the morning and three hours of comedy writing in the afternoon. They call the course an “Immersion,” which sounds like they are going to hold our heads under water until we emerged as amazing talents. Nevertheless, I had a great first day. It was the kind of day I think you spend your naïve professional years dreaming of, where you feel like you are powered by a constant, flowing stream of inspiration, excitement, passion and hope. I know it sounds trite, but I had goose bumps all day, and not just because of the artic temperatures in the building (I learned that the air conditioning is kept at just above frostbite in order to maintain “electronic equipment,” which is, of course, more important than human comfort). Maybe it’s the buzz of the city in the summer, the way you can feel the energy of life and activity pulsating through your body as you walk down the street, but I wasn’t even deterred by the homeless man’s piss I accidentally walked through.

Even though I was terrified of the improv class, having always felt most comfortable scribbling on paper or hiding behind a computer screen, I must say, I enjoyed it more than the writing class. But the writing class did give me a chance to reflect as our teacher walked us through the first exercise, a favorite of mine that I am all too familiar with: “Write for 15 minutes and don’t stop. You won’t have to read what you write out loud, and I don’t care if you write the same sentence over and over again, just write for 15 minutes without stopping,” said Joe, our writing instructor. I love this exercise because it forces you to fight your way out of a block, which can happen every third word. It also helps me be less critical—when you only have 15 minutes and you can’t stop, you have to let go of the word you just wrote, the sentence you put it in, you have to reserve your criticism, avoid the urge to edit as you go and just let the words flow organically. Anyway, I’ll stop geeking-out now, below is what I wrote during this 15-minute free write.

The room we are in is divided, not in terms of people, but by paint. The lower half of the room is a sort of putrid brown, the kind of shit color you’d find in a baby’s diaper, or maybe in your grandparents’ outdated bathroom. There’s a poster on the wall that has the word CHOKING written in big red letters and even though my vision is too poor to know for sure, I assume that there are instructions on what to do when someone is choking and how to perform the hymlic maneuver. The poster is laminated and shiny, which gives it an official presence. The weird part is, I don’t see a candy machine anywhere, small objects, or even food, so it’s not like there’s anything you could even legitimately choke on. It’s as if someone decided to snag it from a doctor’s office to make up for the lack of decoration and poop-colored walls. I mean, I guess if someone chokes on a pen top, or their own saliva—both of which I’ve nearly done myself—then maybe the poster would come in handy, assuming you had time to read the fine print instructions and then apply them before the choker croaked. “Oh, what’s that you say?” [Making the universal choking gesture] “Oh, you’re choking? Okay, well can you hold on just minute while I read up on and practice the hymlic maneuver?” Unless, of course, I’m even blinder than I think and it’s not a choking poster at all…maybe “choking” is an improv thing that I don’t get yet…

The carpet is a drab navy with a weaving of gray thread throughout. The sporadic stains seem to tell stories of past clumsy students, wannabe comedians who spilt their sodas on the famed floors of Second City, not knowing at the time that this would be the only impression they would manage to leave.

The air is blowing directly on me, set to an unreasonably chilly temperature; I can feel myself shivering as I write this. I’m the only one wearing a skirt, which I now realize was a terrible choice because these people are really fond of sitting on the floor in circles. It’s odd how difficult it is to get a group of about 20 adults to stand, or sit, in a shape that even sort of resembles a circle.

The people in these classes are from everywhere. But I find it strangely comforting that at least two of the students aren’t American—one is from England and the other Australia, which must mean that these classes are a big damn deal because their investment in terms of travel is double, even quadruple, compared to everyone else. The instructors keep asking us why we are here, what made us take this class and what we hope to get out of it, but no one actually says the truth: “I’m here to be discovered.” But you hear it every time someone says, “I’m here because I want to broaden my skills” and “I’m here to see what it’s all about.” Lies, ALL LIES! If I think I am here for any other reason than the dimming hope of one day becoming famous for a talent I’m not entirely certain I possess (even as I write that I know it’s not true—I believe I do possess the talent—but perhaps it is the strength, endurance and luck that I lack…?) then I’d be kidding myself. It’s not that my goal is to be famous (that would be a shitty goal) it’s that fame just seems to be the only way success is ever measured in this field. It is validating though, surrounding yourself with people who are just as hungry as you are (seriously, I had no idea that there were people out there more desperate for attention than me).

The cold is getting me again, creeping in from all sides and wrapping around my toes like barbed wire. I wish I had a Snuggie.

That’s all I got to in 15 minutes, nothing more than a descriptive rant, which, I’ve learned, tends to be my consistent fallback in the write moment (something I plan to work on while I’m here). I'm off to my next class now and tonight I think I’m going to try to catch a few improv and comedy shows, assuming the public transit system doesn't "trick" me again. As of now, I’m feeling quite confident that what I’ll walk away with after this week will be better than any fame or discovery, instead, I think I’m going to walk away knowing what to do next, which is more than I could have ever hoped for.

I guess it's only been a day, so I should try to keep my expectations reasonable, in the event that it all of a sudden sucks.

Stay tuned...

Sisterly Love

Some of you might remember my sister, Tori (Torruption), from one of my earlier posts. Tori has a lot of opinions, and occasionally, when I have that unsure, yet still mostly excited, feeling about something I’ve written, I will ask her to read it before I post it. Of course, the fact that I continually do this in hopes of getting a positive response, despite how it usually makes me feel, might indicate an unhealthy obsession with harsh criticism and, maybe, insanity. Nevertheless, today I decided to share a post with her in which I wrote about the concept of saving. Below is the conversation that ensued on g-chat after she read it.

Tori: Do me a favor, write about something you absolutely love that doesn't have anything to do with you specifically.
Sent at 9:46 AM on Wednesday

Me: Do me a favor, and don't shoot it down when I do.
Tori: You know it’s naive so leave it alone.
Sent at 9:47 AM on Wednesday

Me: Yes, naive, but not everyone reading it has tunnel vision.
Tori: Of all the things that you would be ok with your writing being described as would you ever let it be naive?
Sent at 9:52 AM on Wednesday

Me: Yeah. I'm not so naive as to think my writing would be anything else at this point.
Sent at 9:53 AM on Wednesday

Tori: Please. Stop. Why does everything have to suck?
Me: Um. Did I say it sucked? I don't think being naive is entirely sucky. I think it's truthful, endearing, and will likely be comical at some point in the future.
Sent at 9:55 AM on Wednesday

Tori: No dude, that's just how you are these days. Stop doing that- it's like you’re on auto-suck where your automatic reaction and reasoning to everything is that you and everything you do just sucks. STOP! IT’S SO OBNOXIOUS! Don't willingly post something that you know makes you seem amateur and ignorant- it's really just that simple. Naive is only endearing when you're 12, not when your 25 talking about finances. Please, please, please for the love of god just write about something you like for once, no more self deprecation for a week alright, Sylvia Plath? Give it a rest. I want to read something that will make me laugh, and not at your expense for once.
Sent at 9:58 AM on Wednesday

Me: Ah, there it is. That wonderfully encouraging and always constructive feedback I've come to know and love.
I hope you never have children because they will die trying to live up to your impossible standards.
Tori: Well I'm glad that you aren't blowing this out of proportion and making it out to be something that it's not.
Me: Right, because that would be unreasonable.
Tori: Bringing up the ruined lives of my hypothetical children is not only relevant but totally constructive- bravo.
I'm trying to be honest with you - open your eyes.
Me: I’m just trying to spread the love.
Tori: Your blog is sinking because of this. Remember the dandelion post? Remember the Bear post? Bring me something original and light hearted- I have at least three more melancholic female literary references I can throw at you if not...
Just kidding- I can't read.

Me: Alright, Tori - back to you being the only audience that matters.
Tori: That was the most hurtful thing you've said to me on g-chat.
Me: Tell me you're kidding.
Tori: The serious joking is what makes it funny, dumbass - try to keep up!
Sent at 10:07 AM on Wednesday

Me: Right, lessons on how to be funny from the biggest bitch I know...where can I sign up?
Tori: You already have – ZING!
Okay, but really, making this about me isn't going to make that post any better so come off it…
Sent at 10:08 AM on Wednesday

Me: I just so happen to disagree with you.
Sent at 10:10 AM on Wednesday

Tori: I think you like fighting with me when you know something you write isn't very good because you know that whatever criticism you have to say about me is true and you just like being right about something.
Sent at 10:12 AM on Wednesday

Me: No, I thought that piece was good. I still think it's good. It might need a different context, and maybe a freshening of the jokes, but it's still good writing and concepting…that is, in my ever-humble opinion. But I appreciate your opinion, and I do plan to write more posts that have less to do with me…just to make you laugh.
Sent at 10:15 AM on Wednesday

Tori: Alright, let me read it again in a little bit.
Me: Yeah, I mean, I think you missed the point of the piece. It wasn't about finances.
Tori: So don’t talk about them.
Me: Um. You're not as smart as you say you are.
Tori: Neither are you- clearly
Me: Yes, clearly.
Sent at 10:21 AM on Wednesday

Tori: I gotta go run an errand. Sometimes I pretend like I'm a really cool investigative news reporter when I throw the bag you gave me over my shoulder.
Me: Okay. Have fun, News Reporter Barbie.

So now that my blog is apparently sinking under the weight of my self-deprecating words, I am going to try some new stuff over the next few weeks. Don’t worry, I’m not going go all perky-positive style on you and talk about smiles, sunshine and sparkles, but maybe I’ll try something like magic tricks—everyone loves a rabbit when it’s pulled out of a hat, right? In any case, I’ve started a list to help guide me.

Thing That Don’t Have To Do With Me [Sucking]:
1. Scrabble
2. Coasters
3. The Today Show
4. Throw Pillows
5. Pleather

And that’s as far as I’ve gotten with the list, but I’m confident (dare I say positive) that there is more to add.

On Being Gracefully Challenged

I’ve never been anything but clumsy. My childhood was spent with skinned knees, broken limbs and an occasionally obscure wound—like the time I scratched my cornea and had to wear an eye patch for the whole summer. I can recount 25 years of clumsiness by mapping out my scars: the one that looks like the state of Florida is from falling on a gravel playground when I was eight, the one next to it is from college when I tripped down the stairs at the The Wheel, the line across my index finger is from the time I sliced it while chopping vegetables, and the one on my hip that looks like a thumb is from an unfortunate incident involving a Slip ‘n Slide.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had to deal with any injuries as a result of my clumsiness. This might be because my level of activity has significantly decreased in recent months, so there are fewer opportunities for me to inadvertently hurt myself. But last Friday, in a rare moment of motivation, I decided to go for a long bike ride—the first of a new daily biking routine I planned to implement. Feeling confident despite looking like a complete dork in my helmet, bike shorts and fanny pack, I headed out, determined to get worthwhile exercise.

I followed the bike path near my house for a couple miles but I wanted to challenge myself with some hills, so I veered off the path when I spotted a narrow sidewalk that would lead me up a big hill. Huffing and puffing by the time I reached the top, I paused to make sure I didn't pop a lung, and to gaze at the down hill coast that would be my reward after climbing what felt like Mount Kilimanjaro. As I tried to catch my breath, I thought of the time my dad taught me to ride a bike without training wheels.

I was about six years old and as I watched my dad take the training wheels off of my purple polka-dot banana seat bike, I wondered if there was a way to take one off at a time because going from four wheels to two wheels seemed unreasonable in my opinion. Shaking and unbalanced, dad pushed me up our long, winding driveway. When we reached the top, I remember looking down the hill and thinking it would be easy—all I had to do was coast. “Ready?” dad asked me. He gave me a push and ran next to me, occasionally reaching out to grab the back of my bike and steady me. I heard him yelling, “Go, Quinnie, go! You got it—!” When I realized he was no longer behind me and I was riding my bike, with no training wheels, like a big girl, I got excited and lost control, which caused me to leap from my bike like it was on fire. It took awhile, several skinned knees and a few tears, but I eventually learned how to ride my bike without training wheels.

Once I was done reminiscing, I took a swig of water and started downhill, relishing the wind against my face. I spotted a large puddle ahead—a mix of water, grass, moss and algae—and I figured I could just coast right through it, as long as I didn’t hit my breaks it would be okay, I thought. But I was wrong. As soon as I hit the puddle my bike slipped out from under me and, lacking any real balance to begin with, I ended up skidding down the remainder of the hill on my knees. The moment between acknowledging the danger of falling and then actually falling always seems to happen in slow motion for me and I usually surrender to the fall instead of fighting it, resigning myself to injury. I stood up, covered in mossy, grassy, puddle poison and looked around to see if anyone saw me wipe out—there were a few people, but it didn't appear as though they saw me fall (or they did and were just pretending not to). So I brushed myself off and acted like nothing happened as I got back on my bike and rode the ten blocks home covered in puddle poison and blood.

When I got home I called Steve, my boyfriend, looking for sympathy.

“I fell off my bike and hurt myself!”
“What? Are you okay? Where are you?” Steve seemed flushed with concern, at first.
“I’m at home now but I am not okay. I think I’m going to have to amputate my knees…”
“Baby, it can’t be that bad.”
“It is! I can hardly move! And I fell in a puddle of crap that’s probably infecting my cuts now!”
“Hahahaha…I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh, it’s just that…well, the thought of you falling off your bike is funny.”
“I know. Shut up.”

I probably would have laughed at him if he fell off of his bike—falling is funny, I don’t care who you are, how you do it, or how hurt you get. And since I’m known for my clumsiness, I am used to being laughed at. You can always count on me to be the one to run into the sliding glass door because I didn’t realize it was closed, fall down the stairs while wearing a dress, or drop a tray full of drinks because my feet got in the way of my walking, again. On any given day, I have a fresh bump, bruise or cut to serve as evidence of my clumsiness and remind me of my painful lack of grace.

After the fall, I sent my sister this picture of myself to which her response was: “AHAHAHAHAHA! YOU ARE SO CLUMSY! YOU FELL OFF YOUR BIKE?! THAT’S HILARIOUS! HAHAHAHA!”

It’s been three days since my biking accident and I’m still hobbling around. I really can’t remember the last time I was in so much uncomfortable pain. Every time I bend my knees it feels like I’m falling all over again and I’m beginning to see the bruises under the cuts, which makes me look like the pariah of the produce aisle—the bad apple no one will buy because it’s bruised, discolored and covered in flesh wounds. As I said, I used to skin my knees all the time as a kid—sure, it hurt, but I would be picking at the scabs a few days later. Clearly my bounce-back ability is not what it used to be, which makes me feel old.

Perhaps there's a class, a pill or some sort of remedy for my inherent clumsiness that I just don't know about...? In any case, I need to look into it because I think I'm getting too old to be this damn clumsy. And at the rate I'm going, the inscription on my gravestone will read: "She could trip over flat surfaces."