Spring Break '98

Okay, so this weekend my aunt and uncle were SO incredibly kind and drove a moving van full of my sister's stuff all the way from Michigan so she and her bf can move into their new apartment, and sleep on something other than an aerobed. What I didn't know was that tucked in between the tupperware and towels was a secret timecapsule back to 1998. (Thanks Mom!)

My mom had sent boxes of goodies with my photo albums, my high school diploma, and secret photos from spring break with my high school girlfriends that I thought had been (or SHOULD have been) lost forever. There were also my baby books, and some other dusty artifacts from the early 80's that I got a good laugh out of. I thought you would too. So on this snowy Tuesday, let this blast from the past warm your soul, and make you want to get out your scrunchies and put your hair in a side pony. You're all welcome.

My first Christmas, back in 1985... look at that tinsel!

To Santa Clas.

Drawing I sent to Santa. See, I was an artist even at 5.

First grade. Check out that hot pink side pony!

Eighth grade. I can't believe I'm even sharing this. The photographer made me laugh mid-shot, okay?

Dirty Xbox Hooker

This weekend, I did the unthinkable. I joined in a twisted threesome with K and his skankalicious mistress, Call of Duty. It felt wrong from the start, but after an hour of running into walls, getting shot repeatedly and clogging doorways with my clumsy inertia, I'm sad to admit that I actually got hooked on it.

I know, girls. I swore I'd never join in on this sort of lunacy. Call of Duty is a life ruiner. An Xbox hooker of the worst kind. But once you get that controller in your hands and you've actually played long enough to shoot a player or two, she sings her siren song, lures you to her lair, then turns you to stone like a modern day Medusa.

The real kicker is the feedback you receive over the headset from the other players who have shot you in the back, blown you up with grenades, and stabbed you with knives. It's what draws you in, keeps you in the game. The incessant harassing, sarcastic jabs and verbal abuse is just impossible to resist.

So maybe next time instead of initiating a verbal beatdown on my boyfriend for immersing himself in the world of his infidelity, I'll join in. Because nothing feels better than looking that hooker in the eye, hiding behind some sandbags and sniping out random strangers from three countries over.

Sinners

We are living in sin. It's true, we are sinners. On the plane to Michigan, I turned to K and asked: "whoooo's ready to play another game of we don't live togetherrrr!" We both laughed, then pored over every page of the SkyMiles magazine, picking out gifts for friends and family. My step grandmother doesn't know we live together. And she is a wonderful woman, but very strict in her beliefs. So we try to avoid giving her a heart attack at the ripe old age of seventy-four and keep the news to ourselves.

I have friends who are married, engaged, divorced, single, living with their significant others. I have friends who have kids, I have friends who never want kids, and I have friends who are trying for kids. I have friends who took jobs halfway around the world and get to travel to amazing exotic places, I have friends who are doctors, lawyers, work with celebrities, and I have friends who live in beautiful small towns with their boyfriends and three cats and write about them all. Oh wait, that's me.

Being in your twenties is incredibly unique. Everyone you know is at a different station in life, we've all had different life experiences that brought us to this point. And though we're all close to the same age, we're all going through different things.

I think it's natural to look around you and think, wow, I wish I had that. Or: damn, I REALLY don't want THAT. You compare yourself to the people around you, and because others do the same they expect certain things from you. They expect you to couple up, get married, have kids, and do everything the way that everybody else is doing them. But the truth is, who is everybody else? Not one person that I know has the same story as anybody else. I think we all WANT similar things, but the paths we choose are all very different.

Why is it that I always seem to find myself somewhere in between? I'm not married, I don't have kids. We want kids... someday. And we want to get married, before that. I think that's the "ideal" way to do it, right? But I know people who wind up having kids before they are married, and they turn out just fine. And the truth is that I'm honestly the happiest I've ever been, right here in the middle. With a wonderful man, not yet married, without kids. We want to do things like plan vacations together, travel, spend time with each other's families... we want to appreciate having this time to do what we would like without kids, just yet. And maybe that's okay. Maybe the whole point is creating your own path in life, learning from other people's experiences but doing what is right for you. And if we have to play a couple more rounds of "We Don't Live Together," then that's just fine with me.

Christmas Hangover

Well we made it home alive. We JUST missed the crazy snowstorm that has ravaged the northeast, and I woke up this morning to a winter wonderland. It has been a long week of Christmas events and activities, visiting and catching up with everyone. It's an exhausting week every year, but I'll tell you this--when I get home, I find myself thinking about how lucky I am to have such wonderful family and friends.

Every year is a bit of a cluster-F, I'll be honest. It started the night before we left, with a bit more than a slow panic when I realized I had not finished my shopping. (I actually still went home with less than I anticipated, but wound up finding even better gifts there.) K and I trekked out into the wilderness that is the Friday night before Christmas shopping, elbowed our way through the crowds and made it out with minor cuts and scratches. When we returned home, I realized that I hadn't packed my bags yet, and even though I desperately needed sleep, I had to get that done first. I am SO crazy about flying that I NEED to be prepared hours (or days) in advance so that I don't have a full-on breakdown when we get up in the morning. K knows this, and though he is a bit of a procrastinator normally, he eagerly packs his bags no matter how crazy early it is, just so that he doesn't have to deal with the aftermath of my panic in the morning. (It usually involves screaming, sometimes crying, and him consoling me.)

The next day went fine, we made it to the airport and home to the mitten in plenty of time. We had my Dad's party the first night, and we got to see many friends and family members that we hadn't spent time with in quite awhile. It was really wonderful. We wound up staying until around 4am, talking with my cousin who we hadn't spoken to in many years because of the family rift. And I will tell you that it was one of the most wonderful Christmas gifts I think we could have given my Dad. He sat in the chair listening to my sister, my cousin, K and I talking, and positively glowed watching us catch up.

After spending time with my Dad's side of the family, we spent the next few days with my stepbrother, stepdad and Mom. We got to see my brother's new apartment and oogle his new TV (he just moved back to the mitten from TX). It was great to see he and his girlfriend, who is such a sweetheart. We laughed, karate-chopped and punched each other, with the occasional hug slipped in. He's a total goof, and we always have a good time when he's around. We spent the night laughing and talking with our parents and enjoying all being in the same state, it was awesome.

We did lunch with my aunt and uncle, a night at the bar with some of our best friends, and ended the week with a wonderful Christmas dinner with family and friends. It was so great to see everyone, and though we were ready to collapse when we got home yesterday, I look back and think how lucky we are to have been able to spend the week with so many wonderful people. I hope you all had a wonderful time with your families too!

Blowfish Terrorist

T minus four days, and I'm preparing myself. I am terrified of flying. Just the thought of packing my bag makes me start sweating. On the car ride to the airport, I am a joking machine, using sarcasm as my weapon against fear. By the time I get on that plane, I am clutching my HP like it's my job (my childhood pink gingham pillow that I can't be without), and mentally preparing my will.

I've had some pretty traumatic airport experiences. In May, I flew home to see my sister get her master's degree. It was Mother's Day, and the airport was nearly empty. It sounds like that would be a good thing, little traffic and shorter lines. Quite the contrary. Instead, it provides the security people more time to rifle through your belongings and examine your tampons. Don't get me wrong, I think it's necessary to have extensive and careful security checks. But it feels pretty invasive to strip in front of them and watch the feverish dissection of your suitcase.

I took off my shoes, placed all of my items in the bins as instructed, and walked through the metal detector... undetected. I came out on the other side after the security agent fondled my aura with the magic wand, and began to collect my belongings from the bins. I saw the woman operating the conveyor belt send my purse through twice, frown, and motion for another security agent to join her. I stood patiently, wondering what the fuss was all about. I just KNOW I left my crackpipe at home, what could the problem be?

I bent awkwardly to put my shoes back on, trying not to knock anyone over in the process. A third security agent asked me to stand where I was. I complied, and other passengers filtered around me with their stupid happy, non-criminal families while I stood sheepishly with my dunce cap on. I assumed I was the lucky winner of a random search, and stood patiently while they pulled my purse off of the belt and notified me that they wanted to rifle through it. I watched as the contents of my lady bag were strewn about the table, like being shook upside down by a school bully. I wondered if the swirly was next.

The woman pulled out of my bag a gift I had purchased for my mom: a glass blowfish decoration, wrapped in bubble wrap so it wouldn't break in my bag. She looked at me and frowned, examining the fish. I smirked a bit, knowing what was in the package, waiting for her to join in my laughter. The feeling wasn't mutual. She asked me to go sit down while they rifled through the rest of my bag, and I sat and watched as the items scattered on the table one by one. To top it off, I was seated in the middle of the security station, forced to face all oncoming passengers with their smug, disapproving expressions coming through the line.

They held me at the security desk for over a half hour while they unwrapped my carefully packaged present. Like a group of gorillas over a wounded animal, they squaked and squeaked, frowned and wrinkled their brows, until they realized what they were looking at. As I suspected, they wrapped the present back up (not NEARLY as nicely as I had it packaged in the first place), and informed me that I could reassemble my bag. Seriously, do they have ANY idea how long we spend packing those bags? Stuffing and sitting and squishing the bag until you can JUST pull the zipper shut? I guess not. I reassembled my bag and was on my way, feeling slightly traumatized and a bit vulnerable as I made my way to the gate. I just hope that four days from now, the TSA agents are a little nicer to my purse when they send it through that x-ray machine.

Home Sweet Michigan

Every year at Christmas, as my plane descends on Detroit Metro airport and the houses and tips of the trees begin to take shape, I can feel my chest tighten and my heart well up, as warm tears spring to the corners of my eyes. I'm home.

To be honest, I don't think I fully realized how much I love Michigan until I left. With the job market as it was when I graduated from Michigan State, I was forced to take a job out of state. But it wasn't until I had been gone for a few years that I realized how much I truly love it.

I grew up in Livonia, in the Metro Detroit area, where most of my friends and family are from. As a child, my parents would take my sister and I to our cottage in Silver Lake, near Lake Michigan. We spent every summer there as far back as I can remember. There are photos of my sister and I as babies, bundled up in the boat, playing on the Sand Dunes, (even eating the sand at times, a fact that I don't like to admit.) We lived and breathed Silver Lake; it shaped who we are.

We spent our days beached at the Dunes, water skiing, playing volleyball, and making sandcastles. Once we were a bit older, a group of us even hiked over the Dunes from Silver Lake to Lake Michigan, far on the other side. I remember what an enormous adventure it felt like, making the long hike in the heat, especially when you had walked far enough away from Silver Lake that you couldn't see our parents, or even the lake. We walked in the heat, trying to avoid the sharp dune grass, making up stories along the way of how we had run away. When we ascended that final hill, you could just barely see Lake Michigan, a beautiful mirage in the distance. The sand was coarser on that side of the Dunes; I still remember the swishing sound it made between our toes as we walked carefully around the lighthouses.

After a few minutes of playing in Lake Michigan, we would make the long journey back to our parents, the adventures of the day tucked deep in our minds. They would always ask how the walk was, but they would never know the impact it really had on us.

Spending summers at Silver Lake brought us kids closer together. We weren't family, but we became as close as brothers and sisters. Now years have gone by, and we’re mostly grown. Some of us are married, some of us have children of our own, and some of us live out of state, but all of us have started our own traditions of returning to Silver Lake in one way or another. New York has taken me in as one of its own now, but Michigan will always be my home.


My sister and I at the Silver Lake Sand Dunes :)