"Oh that's right, she's your invisible girlfriend."

On the May 11th episode of David Letterman, Tom Hanks spoke about braving the cold DC weather along with a kajillion other people to witness Barack Obama’s historical January inauguration. He laughed as he showed the audience photos of his view of the swearing in, which consisted of a guy’s hat and not Obama at all. He admits to freezing his ass off and wondering, if only for a moment, if going from sunny and warm California to gloomy, wet, and cold DC had been a mistake. I remember thinking as I watched an inaugural close up of Obama in HD via CNN from my living room couch while still in my pajamas, “There’s no way in hell that -20 degree wind-chill is worth it. What am I? Some left over Mayflower pilgrim braving the cold winter?” Then I laughed and took another spoonful of Life cereal, which they totally didn’t have around the time John Winthrop wrote his “City Upon a Hill” sermon, but man, those pilgrims were missing out.

While I wasn’t exactly braving the harsh back east winter as a strong-willed Pilgrim might, I obviously did still have a drop of that left-over American Exceptionalism we’ve all come to love and accept like our gothic cousins we have to be nice to at Thanksgiving even though they have that giant ear gage our parents abhor. I was almost too busy thinking, Me, risking flu to watch American history when I can just watch it from TV? Isn’t a forty-two inch HD TV hooked up to a TiVo what God was talking about to the pilgrims when he said America was going to be the New Eden? It surely wasn’t port-a-potties or The View.

Now, with winter long gone, I have this amazing opportunity to see the president speak live, in person, and he's probably going to bring his teleprompter, too, and I am going to pay for laughing in the face of east coast frostbite. Pay for it in sweat, God help us all. I'm going to try not to think about how my house has central air.

Don’t get me wrong. Obama is my new bicycle and my new president and my current crush, but when it comes down to venturing out in extreme conditions for a guy, I get iffy. In March, when it was seventy degrees and I got my ticket for the Obama commencement speech, this seemed like a good idea. But, now it is the middle of May and as the weather man explains that the heat index in Arizona is going to be roughly the same as it actually is on the surface of the sun, I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t just watch the speech at home on my couch in my pajamas, if I’m so inclined, where I won't get burnt to a crisp, while simultaneously updating my Twitter with comparisons of Obama to Lincoln. (Example tweet: “Is it just me or does Obama have Lincoln’s chin?”)

"Don't thank me. Thank John Winthrope."

So, I think I have some explaining to do.



I haven't been writing as I ought, but hey, times, they are a changin'. I was always choosing between writing in here or writing an essay that I could get a grade for and well, I guess you know the rest.



Nobody's perfect.

I'll try my best to post something again within the month, I swear.

"I hear they have more fun."

It's midterm season.



This means I've been dividing my time between studying and panicking.



Seems to be working out for me.




I'm trying to change up my life. Like, yesterday, I took a walk. You know, instead of riding my bike.



(Which, was stolen last Spring like my heart by Lee Pace.)



So I'm walking along having a fabulously good time singing She & Him to myself, pretending it's 1963 (or that I know what that looks like) and skipping practically because I am so excited about this weather, when I come face to face with a coyote.

Not of the cartoon variety.



Needless to say, I had to decide if I should fight or flight.

I done did flight. Fast. In tights and flats yet.

(Stephanie Sparer, after flighting)

Today I spent the day cooped up and studying. I came out only to tinkle and watch the debates.

Yeah, that's right. I'm political.



But, it's OK that today was spent remembering dates and places I won't go to and names I don't care about because my English workshop teacher came down with Chicken Pox (she's only six), so my English Workshop piece isn't due for another week. Jesus loves me!


Jealous?



Until next time.

"Damn."

I didn't go away. I didn't disappear. I didn't get married. I didn't run off with Benjamin Braddock. Though, looking back, I probably should have.

I've been living life. "Finding myself" or whatever the hell you're supposed to do when you're in college. If finding yourself means sitting around waiting for 30 Rock to premiere, than yeah. I've been finding myself real good.

The truth is, I've been writing a lot. I just haven't been posting it. There are a slew of reasons for this. I'll give you a couple.

For one, it's hard to write things and then post them and then submit them to a class. Turns out, that's counted as plagiarism. Self plagiarism. The masturbation of the writing world.

Two is that I am having somewhat of an existential John Keats Crisis Moment where I don't know if I should be sitting at home writing and being really proactive with my very liberal totally for Obama art, or if I should be out and about picking up interesting things I can incorporate into my essays. I am, in all honesty, having a very difficult time figuring out if I should make art or live art.

I've also really gotten into poetry lately. I don't really look good in berets (head's too big), but I am thinking of changing my major. Again. This time to poetry. How much more pretentious can I get? Well, I'm taking a Shakespeare class this semester, so we'll see.

Stay turned, you nerds. I'll be here and there. After this semester is over you'll get a couple of new postings because I'll have nowhere else to post my creations after they are graded and stamped with a Bullshit University Seal of Approval. AKA, the condensation from the bottom of a Corona beer bottle.

"We are just friends, Philip Seymour Hoffman!"

The smell of failure smells a lot like my university bookstore. The smell of all the things you didn't do over the summer smells like books that were used as sponges when the beer spilled and fear in the sweat from the Freshman and those really expensive calculators.

'Musky' isn't the right word to describe all of these things, but it'll do in a pinch.

The stuff you were totally gonna do this summer seems pointless now; the brunching, the movies, that podcast- It got sucked into the black hole of TiVo and the balmy, hot evenings spent fantasizing about what it would be like to be hanging out somewhere -anywhere- other than a Starbucks or a really crumby bar or, in recent months, a yogurt shop.

Oh, PS all that yogurt? Never ever listen to Jamie Leigh Curtis.


I secluded myself this summer. I took a break from everything and everyone. I had to. I had it coming from all sides. People sometimes cling to me, begging me to coddle them. They want me to swaddle their trembling, fragile codependent brains and I can’t even pretend to care anymore. Well, for my friends I can. Instead, this summer I socialized less, but with better quality people and sat around trying to find a little perspective (which also looked a lot like I was just watching syndicated The Nanny episodes) and trying to grow a little. It was all very French, except less pretentious and less stylish and less sexy by all means. Also, there was a lot more Fran Drescher involved in the process.

Now my professors are e-mailing me to remind me it's time to get into learning mode again; to 'put on my thinking cap' and 'put my brain in gear' and all that crap that teachers really like to say to get their students going. Things they got off of posters with cats or an eagle or a little puppy on them. Ripped straight from their favorite, old professor's office walls from about eighty years ago. Back when being an English major meant you may as well be studying Philosophy because what the fuck do you do with an English major besides become the next Salinger, I mean, Jesus.

School is starting in just a few days and I feel all of this potential in the air. More boys to meet. More things to learn. A new personality just waiting to bombard the people in my writing classes. I want to be the girl who dresses like Zooey Deschanel, speaks like she's a Joss Whedon creation, and ultimately doesn't look Jewish at all. "You're Jewish?" I want people to ask, "But you're so skinny! (this is my dream after all) And your nose is so small!" I will reply with a shrug and a nod and say, "What can ya do?"

Last year, I had the same plan, but it didn't really go well. I only found out about that when Josh, my sometimes boyfriend who likes other boys, calmly told me that some girl he worked with happened to be talking about me in the break room one day before summer break. "She didn't know I knew you," he explains. "I told her to shut her mouth. She was just jealous that you wrote decent things, but she was mad that you won some contest or whatever at the school because she thought your essay sucked."
"Haters better eff off!" I declare raising my latte to him and he toasts with me, "'Cause I'm gon' be famous soon-ish." I accidentally kick him in the foot as I cross my legs under the table.
"What? You playing footsie with me?" We both ask at the same time.
"Wanna hold hands, too?" Josh wants to know.
"No," I say embarrassed, then I extend my hand, "Well, maybe..."
Josh ignores me and carries on the conversation, " I'll always stick up for you," he says. "Well, s'long as you keep dressing like you do."
"You're more fun than a real boyfriend," I say. "Wanna make out?"
"Maybe later," he replies.

And, the semester before that, I specifically sat next to the most decent looking kid in the history class (I wouldn't exactly call him good looking, but he won the vote in a class full of Fogels and Seth Rogans) and in the end, Thorton, or Courtland, or Kirklandbrand- I've forgotten already, disliked me so much for getting an A on a test he received an F on, that he chose to speak to the fifty year old transgendered southern "woman" on the other side of him instead of me. I didn't care because after overhearing him explain to he/she/it that he hadn't 'shot anything that weekend but really wants to get back to hunting,' I automatically crossed him off of my list of potentials. I know a begger (me) shouldn't really be a chooser, but I am more into people who don't shoot shit. Also, if we mated, our children would probably end up boring and republican (also known as my worst nightmare). Instead, Ally –Matt to my Ben- and I, take turns mocking him to each other and then explode into fits of silent hysteria. Our inside jokes and ongoing game of Marry, Boff, Kill are the only things that kept us awake during our Bullshit 203 class.

Well, that and the fact that Thorton -or whatever's- phone vibrated so loudly at least once every two minutes that it completely defeated the purpose of keeping the phone on vibrate in the first place. Since our class was at eight in the morning, practically the middle of the night, I can only assume the early morning texts were from the girl he's sleeping with who thinks she's his girlfriend.

I want to believe this upcoming year will be different. Less not getting asked out by normal guys and more being asked out by guys who look sort of Jewish-y, but less hairy. I'm hairy enough, after all. This summer, I found out that in order to be able to go swimming I basically have to shave myself down like an Olympic swimmer. The hair that gets left behind in the drain can be made into a wig for those cancer kids. I'm not even kidding.

Everybody is kind of hopeful for the upcoming season and semester, which I think, at least when you're in my age group (unless you're just completely chemically imbalanced), is the only thing you can be. I can hear the buzz of this latent energy. There is so much possibility unless you're already pregnant and married or engaged or living on a Mormon compound and pretty much have your entire life set. It's exciting in a really corny way. It makes me happy that I live in the era I do now. You know, the era that lets women go to school and have a career.

"If this were 1960," I announce to almost everyone I come into contact with who berates me for not being finished with my schooling yet, "I wouldn't even be in school. I'd be on the phone to my best friend as I vacuumed, nearly choking myself with the phone cord and saying, 'I have a really great idea for a story, but, Noah (that's my son. I already had a baby) hasn't slept in a week, and well, neither have I. Oh, Jim is home. I better hang up and start dinner.' " My friend Ally is the only person I know who sighs after I speak like this. She replies almost dreamily, "If your husband looked like Don Drapper, wouldn't that be great?"
"For reals," I say. "That'd be just swell."

"I think they heard me."

Doogie Howser M.D. holds a very special place in my heart. Not just because he was, in my book, the first official ‘blogger’, but because unlike Doogie, the little prodigy who loved school so much he finished medical school by age fourteen, I loved not going to school so much that I could sometimes convince my mother to let me stay home and watch Doogie reruns at eleven in the morning on TBS. The show, centering on Neil Patrick Harris as a teen doctor, was so the opposite of my life as a fourth grade nothing, that it captivated me. I could never win a spelling bee; much less treat some hypoglycemic kid who passed out at one. At fourteen, I couldn’t even spell hypoglycemic. Also, I never got to say things to sick kids my age like, “Dude, getting a new heart will be so prime!”

But, I wish I did.

All my life, my lack of interest in getting up early-ish to obtain an education has been a chronic problem. I lived two minutes from my elementary school, but that didn’t stop me from running in late nearly every day to class. By sixth grade, I didn’t even bother to stop in at the front desk of the school anymore to announce my lateness and have the secretary sign me in. After six years of being late, I figured the office had already invested in a rubber stamp with my name on it like our princi-"PAL" had for signing the perfect attendance certificates I never received.

You’d stay home from school a lot too if you had my sixth grade teacher. Mrs. Lipton was horrible in a way that only teachers can be. She looked like Old Mother Hubbard and she smelt like the old woman who lived in her shoe. She had so many children in her class, she didn’t know what to do. Originally, a kindergarten teacher, she was made into a sixth grade teacher when there was a shortage of fat women to teach the multiplication table to kids who’d rather be playing soccer (soccer was huge at my school), and she had absolutely no patience for anyone over four feet, especially me, it seemed.

I’d stumble into my classroom, if I ended up going to school at all, right about the time our vice principal would be leading the student body in the pledge over the load speaker and Mrs. Lipton would shake her head at me, “Late again, Princess?” This was her ‘pet name’ for me. I also overheard her call me a JAP once to another teacher; that’s “Jewish American Princess” to all you goys out there. On the playground, ‘bitch’ was my pet name for her. “You won’t be able to do this in middle school,” she’d mutter.

She was wrong. I could, and more importantly, did, do it in middle school and again in high school. I just needed a note from my doctor to do it. Or rather, I made stationary on my computer, printed it out and had my mother sign it illegibly. Look, unless Ty Pennington is slurring outside my window into a megaphone that my house has won an Extreme Home Make-over, I just do not see the point in getting up early. Not even for finals. Twice in high school I slept through final exams, so twice my Aunt Lydia died. She died once when I slept through my math final and once again three years later when I slept through my English final my Senior year. In reality, I didn’t even have an Aunt Lydia, but my English teacher sent a really lovely sympathy card in which she quoted Shakespeare because she really wanted to believe I did.

If you look in my yearbooks, no matter what grade I was in, and ignore all the ‘have a kick ass summer’s and the ‘you’re awesome, never change!’s, you’re bound to find an entry from a teacher that says something like, ‘You were a wonderful student! I only wish I had seen you in class more often!’ The teachers seemed to like me even though some of them may have thought I was a figment of their imagination.

This is no exception in college.

I realize its my own fault that my professors, like the one I have for my Lesbian 100 course (which is actually a Women’s Studies course, but my teacher is gay and only talks about her relationship with her girlfriend who looks like a boyfriend- we saw photos) even notice in a class of five-hundred, that I am missing in action on a regular basis. It’s because I’m a big class participator. I don’t mean to be! I just love voicing my opinion so damn much. I like to think I add a certain je ne sais quoi to the mix. I’m one of the good vocal people, though. I’m not like “Chrissy with two esses like in ‘senioritis’.” I didn’t use my hands to speak to distract my professor from the fact that I didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about in our Women’s Studies class and I didn’t think I was The Office’s Dwight to our professor’s Michael. I said witty things that were on topic and usually included a pop-culture reference, I was intelligent, and I was cute. These were all things Chrissy-With-Two-Esses-Like-In-‘Senioritis’ did not have going for her.

Chrissy-With-Two-Esses-Like-In-‘Senioritis’ is the kind of student who thinks they’re clever and witty, except they are not. When our Lesbian 100 professor, Jill Novak (a lesbian-y-er name there never was) said she would probably have trouble remembering how to spell Chrissy properly, Chrissy-With-Two-Esses-Like-In-‘Senioritis’ said, “Remember it because it has two esses. Like in ‘senioritis’!”
I turn to Ally, “More like Schutzstaffel!”
Ally’s eyes go wide and she nods, agreeing with me, then whispers, “Also, she has bad hair.”

Ally is the Ashley to my Mary-Kate and a fellow student of the Regis and Kelly is on at Nine in the Morning and Even That’s so Much Better Than Learning Crap School of Thought. We’re just two years away from graduating with our degrees in Pop Culture with an emphasis in Starbucks. Technically, we’ve known each other since high school, but only because we met each other outside the nurse’s office briefly before either of us had cell phones and had to fake sick in order to gain access to a phone with which we could call our mother’s to come pick us up from third hour. She told me she liked my Audrey Hepburn bag. I told her I liked her hair. Now that we are in college together, we have taken our habit of ditching class to the university.

On days when we don’t want to go to class, Ally usually texts me just early enough in the morning that its still a little too early. “I’m not going to class today,” her text say simply. The short, shrill beeps of the phone greet me at that brief moment between wake and sleep where blowing off your future seems like the perfect companion to your five-dollar latte.

I have one eye open when I text Ally back with one hand, “me either.” No caps. Simple. Just right. It conveys my laziness on this Tuesday morning. Then I drop my phone onto my side table and turn off my alarm so I can sleep the next couple of hours. Just like a real college student.

I know Ally’s method all too well. It’s the same fool-proof one I used on my mother when I was ten and didn’t want to go to Hebrew school on a Sunday; I’d wake her up just before she actually had to get up and tell her I didn’t want to go to Hebrew school. “Fine,” she’d grumble in her sleep, “But you’re going next week.”

Today however, I texted her about ten minutes before I was supposed to actually pick her up on our way to school, “I just woke up. JUST WOKE UP!” I write.
She texts me back almost instantly, “Haha that’s fine! I didn’t really want to go to class anyway.”

We hardly ever do.

The rare day when Ally and I actually do roll into class relatively on time, it means we have to drive past our old high school on the way to The University of Lesbian Town. At a red light, the two of us stare at the acned boys in their bright purple and white school pride colors, running like Juno’s Paulie Bleeker around the track.
“Oh, that is one place I’d never want to go back to,” I shudder.
“Can you imagine seven hours of school? Every day? Even Fridays?” Ally shakes her head dramatically.
“Not if you’re us,” I answer, as the light turns green.
“How we passed high school without actually going more than one full day a month is beyond me,” Ally sighs.

I’m not really sure either. I was hardly ever there. When you add up all the days and classes I’ve skipped, it probably would total about a full year of schooling that I’m missing. This is the completely opposite of my former classmate Jessica Oilandey, who never missed a day of classes in her entire life; from our first day of kindergarten to our last day of high school. Obviously, she’s not Jewish so she never had to miss because she was busy fasting and obviously, her mother doesn’t love her enough to pluck her out of advanced chem class just to go shopping. And, apparently, she must be a morning person. Something I never was really and probably never will be.

I have to believe its genetic, since my mother isn’t a morning person either and back when she used to have to drive me to school, I can recall early mornings where she’d slap herself to keep awake while going forty miles per hour on a main road or when she forgot to stop for a red light until she was halfway through the intersection so cars had to maneuver around us to get by. My fear of death is why I don’t take a class before nine AM now. I have a feeling I’d fall back asleep and end up like Mary Jo Kopechne in the Chappaquiddick incident.

My Women’s Studies course starts at nine thirty in the morning though, so I don’t have a lot of room to make excuses. I just hate going to this class. In short, I took this class thinking I’d get to read a lot about Anne Sexton and Gloria Steinem, but all my professor seems to cover is the history of her own lesbian affairs. If I wanted to learn about lesbians, I would watch The L Word, but I could never get into it. Nothing against lesbians or Jennifer Beals, I love Ellen and plaid, but it just wasn’t my thing. So I stopped TiVoing the show, and Ally and I stopped going to class, pretty much.

“Nice of you to show up!” our professor shouts at us when we walk in, late, and take a seat after not showing up to class for two sessions in a row. The first time we skipped purposely, the second I had a horrible period cramp that I figured only a Midol spiked tall sugar free half caf vanilla latte could fix.
“Us?” I point to Ally, then to myself.
“Yes,” Jill, as she let us call her, folds her thick as tree trunk arms in front of her big as a house chest while she sits on her huge ass. “I like it when you guys come to class. You always participate.”
Later, Ally tells me she must think of us as one person because she never participated, explaining that I may as well have been Penn and she Teller, because she did nothing but nod as I spoke.
“Come to class more often,” Jill says, “You are averaging about once a week.”
“Hey, when you only go twice a week, that’s not bad…” I mumble under my breath.
“Can you be here more often?” She asks.
Ally and I are silent.
“Um, I think that’s a no,” Chrissy-With-Two-Esses-Like-In-‘Senioritis’ says from across the room.
I fucking hate Chrissy-With-Two-Esses-Like-In-‘Senioritis’.
“In all honesty,” I say, “On Tuesday, We had food poisoning.”
Ally sits fuck faced: totally and completely blank. She doesn’t even shudder at the ludicrousness of my lying. We both try to will our blood to the center of our stomach, so we look even paler than we really already are from our lack of sun exposure. We’re too busy shopping online to go anywhere and get our vitamin D.
“We were sick,” I say again for good measure. “Bad chicken. In all honesty.”
Jill looks to Ally who should change her name to Stone Wall Jackson and sighs, “OK.”
Later, as we’re leaving, I turn to Ally and ask, “Did you believe me in there, because, I didn’t.”
Ally shakes her head no.

That week, I learned a little something that Ally apparently knew for a while… I am the worst liar around. We also decided that even though that class might be horrible, at least we have class. Next semester, we promise to make more of an effort to learn stuff… Maybe.

"That's cutting your nose to spite your face."

Hi. Can we talk?


I'm turning twenty-one soon, and I'm having a bit of an early twenties existential who-am-I-does-my-life-matter-crisis.




I'm just a little worried about my future.


I seem to be taking turning twenty-one like most women take turning fifty. I had a motherfucking hot flash today. I am not even kidding.



The intense sweating got so bad, I finally just had to own up to it.



Yep. That stinky, wet girl is me!



Oh well, I am looking forward to the future! A future where Frangelicca is legal for me!




Who am I kidding? I'm probably gonna sit home and get my book on.



But lord knows, I should take my shirt's advice. Because sometimes you should just say, "what the fuck."


P.S. Brian made this for me and it is amazing.

"I think I hurt my sweet tooth."

All my life, all 20.11 ¾ years of it, all I’ve wanted to be is older. In pre-school I was pretending my cubby was a locker. In first grade I made my own paper “schedule”, being sure to block out when we had “sustained silent reading”, mathematics, social studies, lunch, and free time. In high school I day dreamed in English class about being somewhere far away and Ivy League-y where I could wear plaid sweaters and loafers every day un-ironically, and now in college I fantasize about already being a famous author and no where near any place that revolves around a Greek system and fancy Latin words like “Magna cum Laude” that sound kinda dirty and ultimately get turned into an innuendo by some (fat and hairy) frat asshole alluding to wanting to get into my pants.

Don’t get me wrong, college is fun(ish). There are a few aspects of college life I wouldn’t trade for all the Miller Light in the world: the one class a day option, all the free time, the pretentious label that comes with my soon-to-be English degree, that whole the world is my oyster thing. That stuff, as my friend Robyn would say, is freakin’ rad. But there are a few things I miss about pre-college life.

“Want to go grab coffee?” I ask a friend of mine who has already been twenty-one for a few months now.
“Uh,” he hesitates. “Man, I wish you were old enough to go to a bar or something. I barely even drink coffee anymore. I haven’t had coffee since like Freshman year of college.”
“What? Are you Mormon now or something?” I ask.
“No,” he shrugs, “I just go to bars now instead of Starbucks to pick up girls.”

What happened to trying to find the shitty house-party that resulted in an endless drive, a fabulous soundtrack, and an epic adventure of some sort nearly every time? What happened to just seeing a movie with a friend without having to go get drunk afterward? I would like to go back to a time where I wasn’t seen as a loser just because I was home in time to see the new Saturday Night Live. It makes me kind of miss the days when sitting at home or at a Starbucks drinking coffee all night and just talking was fine.

Almost.

Because, if that were totally true, I guess I’d be saying that I miss high school, and let me assure you that that is most certainly a false statement.

When I was in high school, which seems like forever ago already, I was seriously confused about what kind of person I was. I would like to say that I always spoke with this Juno McGuff lilt and my hair always looked grand, but I was a hot mess who lifted lines from Scrubs back before the Zach Braff backlash and no matter how I threw myself at guys, just couldn’t seem to get any of the straight ones to date me. It probably had something to do with this little Jerry McGuire-esque manifesto I printed in our school newspaper about how I was going to “Jessica Simpson my way through high school” and keep my virginity. And for four years I had to wonder why I, self-proclaimed professional virgin, couldn’t seem to get a date from a guy who wasn’t in the closet.

Gee. I wonder.

The lack of straight guys professing their love to me convinced me I should secure a gay escort to my prom. From what I recall, my date only went with me because I wore a designer dress that I am pretty sure he wanted to try on, but regardless, I had fun, and I think he did, too. We did all the things regular prom dates do, except for that whole American Pie getting laid thing. But what he lacked in straight-boy love for me he made up for in dancing ability. Basically, we rocked it on the makeshift dance floor that Student Government set up on the dirt at the zoo where our prom was held. Also, my hair looked fantastic, and that’s all that really matters.

Prom seemed like a distant memory, though, one I’d pleasantly surrendered to my subconscious, never to recall again, until when at Safeway one early Saturday morning, the overly pierced, early-twenties, and overweight cashier asked me if I was excited for Prom.
I slid my debit card in the reader to pay for my Cheerios, Elle, and gum. I chew gum like Paulie Bleeker eats Tic-Tacs. “Pardon?” I ask.
“For prom,” he repeats. “You excited?”
“I’m almost twenty-one,” I answer.
The cashier squints at me, “You don’t look a day over sixteen.”

I suppose I should have been pleased, happy to have young features since I already scrutinize myself in front of the mirror looking for crows feet and laugh lines and other things I want Botoxed, but it just brought up all of the mixed feelings I have about turning twenty-one.

It’s just that I’m just getting worried. I’m turning twenty-one soon. Really soon. Like in less than a week soon, and this shit is on. This is the real deal you know? Screw Bat mitzvahs. Barack Obama Adoni, I am Twenty-one. And that’s the day I become a woman. Its the day my acne becomes "adult acne", the day my parents stop getting a tax refund for me, the day my insurance is lowered. It’s the age when random hook-ups should not just be an odd occurrence, they should be the norm, or at least this is what MTV tells me. Oh yeah, all this plus, the added bonus of being able to get my drink on legally. Not that I will. I've jokingly told everyone that my birthday will have the theme of "sobriety" because, chances are, even with my sparkling new adult status I will probably still be hanging out at home watching the TiVo and drinking Vitamin Water instead of going out on the town.

“Come hang out with some friends and me on my birthday!” I invite my friend David. “You’ll get to see me totally fucking sober at a classy restaurant.”
“Oh,” he snorts, “That’ll be a nice change. Hey, maybe one day do you want to act your age?”
“Maybe,” I reply. But let’s be honest, probably not.

"Its like Switzerland if Switzerland was cheaply made out of particle board."

“She’s buff,” Rich, -or maybe he said Mitch?- notes, pointing to my friend Robyn who is helping her boyfriend, Brian, load up the back of his Toyota truck with band equipment after his concert for his (good) band The Twilight Showdown. I have helped a little by picking up a few mats and looking like a groupie. I had already told Brian that I was wearing white and I was a girl so therefore unable to help. Plus, I’m not his girlfriend, Robyn is. Helping is her job, not mine.

“Yeah, well, she works out a lot,” I lie to Rich(Mitch?). “Plus, those two,” I point to Robyn and Brian who sneak a kiss in between equipment loads, “are so into S&M its ridiculous.”
Brian and Robyn are about as into S&M as Mickey and Minnie Mouse are, by the way. The notion itself is absurd, and Rich can tell I am clearly joking.
“Oh yeah?” he laughs as Robyn lugs a heavy cymbal into the bed of the truck. My arms ache just looking at her.
“Yes,” I say, “And their safe-word is couch.” In actuality, 'couch' is my go-to safe-word; the one I decided I would use if I ever needed it.
“That must make things awkward when she comes over.”
“It does,” I nod, “I say, ‘Robyn, go ahead, make yourself at home! Take a seat on the… co-sofa…’ I try never to say couch.”
“Reminds her too much of the good times?” Mitch asks.
“Yeah,” I sigh, “And then I lose her. She goes off into her own little world.”
“And then it is dark,” he says and I am practically giddy that he’s quoting Dennis Hopper from Blue Velvet. We’re silent a moment after that.

“I can’t believe we just had an entire conversation about Brian and Robyn dabbling in S&M,” I say.
Rich nods, “It’s kind of a strange first conversation to have, I’ll admit.”
“It’s kind of my fault,” I say.
“I don’t even know your name. I’m Rich (Mitch?) by the way,” he tells me and extends his hand. I notice now for the first time that he looks like E from Entourage. I decide this is fine with me.

“I’m Stephanie,” I extend my hand as well and we shake. Instantly I want hand sanitizer. Not because he’s dirty, but because I have OCD. I dig around in my bag for it, but then realize that’d probably offend him, since he doesn’t know me and how crazy I am. I pull out lip balm instead, like I had been looking for it the entire time. Oh, here this is! In the darkness, outside of The Dumpiest Club in Tempe, Mitch can’t tell I have just reapplied my lip gloss and that my lips aren’t really chapped at all. “So you know Brian?” I question.
“Uh, no, I don’t, but I know Jesse, his band's drummer,” Rich says. “I’m actually Jesse’s drum instructor, well, no, well, I teach the kids he teaches at the high school, drums."
“Oh!” I say, “You’re a music teacher?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he nods.
“That’s really awesome!” I say, and I mean it. I am so over the moon with the whole teacher thing because it means he actually went to school or goes to school and thinks that getting an education is important. It means when we have babies, our kids will be smart and musically talented. “I always wanted to play the drums,” I say wistfully, "But my mom said I had to play the flute.”
Mitch laughs, “If I had to guess what instrument you played, I’d guess flute.”
I fake offense, “Ugh, God, really?” I had always associated flautists to be a sort of WASP-y, personality-free kind of girl, but I could never get the fingerings down, much less any sound to come out of the instrument, so I never really thought of myself as a flute player at all.
“Yeah," He gives me a sly grin, "I’m really good at being able to tell what instrument people play, if any at all.”
“I played another, too,” I say. “Three points if you can guess it.”
“Did you stick to woodwinds or…?”
“I can’t tell you! That’s cheating!” I explain.
Rich thinks for a moment, “French horn?”
“Jesus, seriously?” This time I really am offended. All the French horns I knew were fat girls who didn’t even have a pretty face. “I look like French horn to you?”
Mitch looks sort of like I just slapped him, “I don’t know? A lot of flautists stick to the wind instruments!” He justifies his answer.
“Violin,” I correct him.
He looks defeated, “Ugh, yeah, I should have seen that. Every little girl plays the violin.”
“Played," I correct him. "And, I played pretty badly, if that makes you feel better?” I offer. “I was the only kid in my elementary school orchestra who didn’t get a solo at the winter concert. Also, I was the only non-Asian.” My phone vibrates then, indicating a text message, and I jump about ninety feet in the air. I’ve had a cell phone nearly eight years now, but I will never get used to the feeling of my ass vibrating. I fish it out and flip it open to the big screen to see the message. “Hey!" It reads, "Didn’t want 2 cockblock U or NEthing, but Brian’s 'rents asked me to grab a beer w/ them, but I’ll stay here with U, k?” The text is from Robyn who is standing about a yard away from me, talking to Brian and Rich can read it clearly from where he’s standing by my side. I laugh uncomfortably, my specialty, while Mitch shifts from one foot to the other.
“Cockblock?” he asks quietly.
“Robyn,” I shout out to her, “Its only cockblocking if you’re stealing the guy from me.”
“You’re not cockblocking! You’re not cockblocking!” Rich says over me.
Robyn saunters over to us, “Oh. I just. Oh, I. Hmm. I didn’t know, you guys looked like you were having some good conversation so I just didn’t want to interrupt?”
“We did have some decent banter going back and forth. It was reminiscent of the Algonquin round table discussions,” I say.
“The what? OK,” Robyn says, not really interested in having me go into further detail on a reference she didn’t care to understand.
“Hey, Robyn?” I ask.
“Yeah?” her eyebrows rise.
I whisper softly, “Couch.”