Year of Firsts: Piercings

I did this at the beginning of November, but it was a secret from the family until last week.  No one in my family has pierced ears. Not my sister, not my mother, not my grandmother, not my aunt, not anyone. Growing up, anytime anyone in or out of the family mentioned ear piercings my mother would take the opportunity to tell me and my sister exactly how terrible getting your ears pierced was, using words like "mutilation," "puss," "infection," and "agony." Then she would reach over and pinch our ears with her nails.  Sometimes if no one had mentioned piercings for a long time she would randomly just pinch us and remind us of the horror that awaited us if we tried to pierce our ears. And that was just for ears.  Nose rings would ruin your future and belly button rings would kill you outright.

She started this with us young enough that it actually worked.  No matter how many friends and strangers I saw walking around with beautiful earrings and perfectly un-diseased ears, I still had no desire to do it after I turned 18.  Or after 21.  Or 25.  I was pretty convinced I would die with un-mutilated ears.

But then the Year of Firsts came, and FriendJ was getting her nose pierced, and it seemed like a logical step.

I made the decision extremely last minute so as not to have time to back out of it. FriendJ had picked out a tattoo/piercing shop in Virginia (uuuuuuuugh VIRGINIA) and we went on a Friday evening just before closing and had a nice, long consultation with a patient  boy named Peter whose face was made 50% out of metal.  He spent a good amount of time reassuring me that Death was a negligible risk of ear piercings.  He was very kind.  He even gave me a small, round, pink stuffed creature to hold during the ordeal like a small child and he did not have a trace of mockery on his face.  Though any mocking looks could have been concealed by all the glinting metals.

Everyone had told me it hardly hurt at all, but I don't like seeing needles if they are about to go into my skin so I told Peter I would just keep my eyes shut while he made all his preparations.  This means I missed seeing what the needle looked like, which is best, because afterwards my friends told me that it was a hollow needle, and the largest they had seen.  I yelled a terrible word when the needle went through.  If the creature had been live instead of stuffed, I would have killed it brutally and barbarically. But I did not cry!  Even though it hurt worse than the worst I had ever imagined and continued to be agony filled as Peter said, "Okay! Now the other one!"

I want everyone to take a moment to think about how proud they are of me that I let him do the other one.

I continued to be in terrible pain for days, but I had completed a pretty big First! I had Overcome Fears! I had Defied Authority!

Things went remarkably well for 7 weeks, right up until I saw the Authority whose name is Mother, last week for our family vacation.  She took the initial news moderately well, although she did spent the next 5 days pinching my sister's ears at a new high rate.

I was pretty pleased with myself for proving her wrong.  Nothing terrible had happened! Everything was JUST FINE.

Until 5 days into the vacation at which point we were in the middle of the Caribbean Sea with no land in sight for two days, no internet and no phone, when my left ear began to swell grotesquely and hurt as though someone with strong fingers was pinching my ear.

The irony.

I kept it quiet for a few days instead of going to the ship doctor, because my favorite way of handling medical situations is to pretend they are not happening and assume they will go away. Of course, it did not go away. It continued to get worse and worse until I finally decided to take the earring out to clean and replace it and discovered that I could not get the earring out.  This was panic inducing and involved me locked in a hotel bathroom yelling incoherently for a few hours. The Authority had such a fit that my little sister ran away from the hotel.  She forgot her shoes, however, so she didn't make it especially far.

Eventually though, the earrings came out, gold set ones went in, and I am now mutilated just like everyone else normal.

Year of Firsts: Recap

December! The Year of Firsts is coming to an end.  Very few of them actually made it to blog posts, so I thought I'd share some of the list here, categorized.  This is not the full list.
It's been a damn good year.

DANCING:
Waltz
Contra
Square
Country line
Two stepping
Zumba

SPORTS (this word is interpreted VERY loosely for purposes of this list):
Bocce
Flip cup and beer pong (very very very loosely)
Pool team tryout
45 minutes of medieval European MMA
Paintball
Yoga

FOOD:
Rattlesnake
Antelope
Alligator

ADVENTURE:
Volcano hike
Seeing the rainforest
Camping
Treasure hunting
Flash mob
Mechanical bull riding

PLACES:
Dallas
Austin
Costa Rica
New Mexico
the National Arboretum
Central Park
The Renaissance Faire

Uncategorized: Finding a new and exciting job to be started in just one week, where for the First time, I will be a Director.

Also, one final secret, to be revealed at the end of the year.

I've got a few weeks left. Who knows what could happen.

Prepositions and Turkey Balls

Six years ago I was in France teaching French youth about the holiday and thought it would be fun to do with them the cute little hand turkey exercise we do here as children. I had them trace their hands and make it into a turkey drawing and have them write 5 things they were thankful for, one in each finger/feather. I had drawn my own example turkey and written a few things I was thankful for, like friends and family, and then some silly ones like Matt Damon and dessert. I passed it around as I explained the holiday, and the idea of "being thankful." For whatever reason though, it wasn't translating very well and there were a lot of confused whispers because my students preferred to whisper confusedly in French than ever ask me any direct questions. Eventually I heard a girl ask "Why is there a person named Dessert in her turkey?" It was at this point I realized we were confusing being thankful TO with being thankful FOR.

Damn prepositions.

We cleared it up and drew some turkeys, but I will always remember how the young ones thought I knew a person named Dessert.

Later I went home to my Welsh roommate who I discovered believed that all Americans celebrate Thanksgiving exactly how they do on Friends. I hadn't even seen Friends. We both learned a lot.
I explained that "turkey balls" is not a traditional dish.

Parallel Parking

In 2003, I finally got my driver’s license. I was 17 years old, I had a 1992 Honda Civic, and in 2003 three of the four doors still opened.  

It was summer, I’d had my license for two weeks, when I arrived at Rachael’s house in the afternoon.  It was one of those rare beautiful days, sunny, warm, not too hot for pants. In good spirits, I pulled onto the block.  I immediately noticed that the street was particularly parked up. There was exactly one spot available, in between two cars across the street from the house.  It wasn't huge, but it was just right for my Honda. All it took was a little parallel parking skill.

Which I did not have. But I had at least passed the test, so I knew I COULD do it. Maybe. I had plenty of time, and I couldn't see anyone around, so I pulled up alongside the first car and prepared to back up. 

I backed right in the curb.

So I pulled out, and backed up again. Hit the curb at a wide angle.

Frustrated, but not ready to give up, I prepared for another try.  And that’s when I noticed the neighbor standing on his lawn watching me, grinning. 

The neighbor was 16 years old, and his name was Adam.  He thought I was absolutely hilarious. I pointedly ignored him.

I backed into the curb.

“Getting closer!” Adam called out, pumping a fist in the air encouragingly. I did not answer.

I backed ONTO the curb.

“Turn it a little more to the left…no…right….yes….like that…hahaha!” said Adam. 

I prayed to God and asked that if only I could parallel park this car in only one more try I would never ask for help again.

It didn't work. But I couldn't give up at this point.  Especially since Adam had suddenly shut up and gone inside.

Left alone, my panic started to subside.  But only for a minute, because after a minute, Adam came out with a lawn chair, made a show of flopping down into it, and settled himself in to watch my performance. Occasionally he would clap, on every try he would shout directions and make judgments upon  my driving skills.

Somewhere around attempt #11, Adam realized something. His grin vanished, his eyes opened wide, he leaped from his lawn chair and started running straight at me, screaming, “THAT’S MY PORSCHE!!!!!!!!!”

I realized he wasn't running straight at me, but at the car just in front of me, which was, in fact, a Porsche, a fact that I had not noticed in my concentration, and which Adam had not noticed in his wicked glee. Adam was frantically jumping into his car trying to start the engine when I made my final back-up maneuver. I was sort of in—but my back wheel was up on the sidewalk.  I sighed, and was about to try again, when I heard an older male voice.

“Oh no, sweetheart. That’s good enough. Leave it there.”

I stuck my head through the window to see a man holding a dog on a leash, standing and watching.  I heard Adam’s car start. “I can just leave the car like this?” I asked the man.

“I would,” he said.

I sighed, and turned off my engine. Relieved, Adam turned off his car as well.  I grabbed my belongings and bolted into Rachael’s house without looking back.

Despite all the time I spent at Rachael’s house that summer and the summers to come, I never saw Adam again.

UNTIL ONE DAY 8 YEARS LATER I WAS IN A BAR with Rachael and upon walking in, she said, “Oh hey, I know that guy!!” and made a beeline for a guy about our own age sitting at a table with a friend.  I followed her, because I always follow her, and we pulled up some chairs and sat with this guy and his friends.  We were all introduced, the guy’s name was Adam, his friend’s name has been forgotten in the pages of my memory.  Rachael soon became engrossed in conversation with his friend, and I felt obligated to start talking.  I asked him how he knew Rachael.  He told me he’d been her neighbor growing up.  I said that was very nice.

Then I said, “YOUR NAME IS ADAM AND YOU GREW UP AS RACHAEL’S NEIGHBOR????”

At my shouting, Rachael turned around. “What is going on?”

I said, “THIS IS YOUR NEIGHBOR. ADAM.”

She said, “Yeah, so?”

I said nothing.

She said, “AAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Adam said, “Uh……what?”

Rachael said, “She tried to parallel park in front of your house once.”

Adam said, “YOU’RE THE GIRL WITH THE BLUE HONDA CIVIC!!!”

I died of shame. 

Year of Firsts: Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels

Next on the list of Firsts was to learn to shoot a gun.  Until Sunday, I had never touched a gun. In fact, I had never seen a gun in the real world apart from the handguns police officers keep holstered on their belts and the military weaponry carried around by soldiers I’ve run into in other countries. However, since we all know now that exactly NO  ONE is coming for me in the event of the zombie apocalypse, I decided to take matters into my own hands and learn some vital skills that may someday help me survive in the hostile decimated world.

Two kind hearted gun-owning friends and one non-gun-owning-yet-gun-enthusiast friend agreed to assist me in my First.  Since we don’t know if these friends want their names on the internet, we will call them Friend1, Friend2, and Friend3 (the numbers do not indicate order of importance, so please do not write in with complaints).  Sunday morning, filled with trepidation, I put on a white sweatshirt and wrapped a brilliantly pink scarf around my neck to be sure I was not mistaken for a tree, a deer, a duck, or a target board.  Anyone who has been to a shooting range versus the woods on the first day of hunting season probably realizes that this was stupid and pointless. But as we know, the whole point of the First exercise is to tread beyond the line of ignorance drawn where I was born.  

The drive was long, the weather was rainy, and my head was filled with daydreams of getting accidentally shot in the face by a normally mild-mannered gun-owner seized by a fit of insanity, or by myself seized in a fit of total incompetence. When we arrived, Friend1 removed several shotguns from the trunk of the car and handed one to me. Struck with the horror of suddenly for the first time in my life holding an actual, real, un-plastic, un-water-filled gun, I couldn’t figure out how to hold it while also keeping it as far away from me as possible but then not wanting to admit to wanting to keep it as far away as possible so also holding it nonchalantly in a discreet yet totally cool manner.

“Stop holding it like a purse,” instructed Friend1.

I made my best attempt.

We walked into the store.  Immediately on my left was a door covered in photos of men next to large dead creatures. Immediately in front of me were lots of guns. Lots and lots and lots of guns.  Within half  a second I went from a person who had never seen a gun to someone who has seen eight billion guns in very close quarters.  One of them was pink.  One of them was monstrously large and had a notecard on it that read “This is not a real gun.”  It was the most comforting notecard I have ever read, even after the Women’s Studies Notecard Incident of 2003.  

“Hey!” said Friend3, pointing. I looked, and discovered a paper target of a zombie with little red capsules that burst like blood when you hit them. Practical application learning device!

We went to the counter to fill out paperwork. I had to write my driver’s license on a paper stating I was mentally sound and not about to sue anyone and then sign it. Friend1 asked for bullets for the shotguns.

“We don’t have any left,” the employee told him.  “There’s been a real shortage of that type of ammunition since the 2008 election.  Mysterious.  The companies are all still producing it, they keep making it, but where is it going? No one can find it to buy it.  Could be a conspiracy…”

If only I could remember everything he said. He did implicate Obama in the plot to ruin gun owners’ lives.  I was super pleased. What could be a better part of my gun experience than a gun owner spouting conspiracy theories with Obama at the heart of the nefarious cloud of mystery?

Yet, EVEN BETTER was the conversation between a second employee and a customer I caught the tiniest bit of on the way out. The employee was explaining the best way to shoot a groundhog in the garden. 

Oh yeah.

That happened.

When we had collected everything we needed (bullets, clay pigeons, ear protection, eye protection) we headed out into the rain to begin shooting. I am not exactly sure what I expected. It’s not that I didn’t expect what I saw, but I also didn’t not expect it either. In any event, there was no way I was in any danger of being mistaken for a deer, or anything other than a confused liberal who had wandered across the Virginia border.  There was a defined area where shooters stood all  in a line, shooting straight ahead at targets located at various distances. This greatly lessened the chances of getting shot, making my pink scarf unnecessary.  

 Friend1 showed me how to load the shotgun (which life has taught us is also known by some as a "boomstick") and how to load the clay pigeon launcher. Both were of equal difficulty. I learned that pumping the gun causes the useful result of actually moving the bullet into the chamber from which it is fired, and is not, in fact, simply an action used by men in movies to make themselves look really cool while making a dramatic sound.  I learned to brace the gun against my body for the kick back, which turned out to be significantly less than I feared.  I had envisioned myself being knocked over violently into the mud.  While I did feel it, it did not affect my balance or cause me any concern. This was pretty exciting.

But not as exciting as my 8^th or 9^th try at the flying orange discs when I actually shot one in the air.

“Holy shit!” said Friend3. “You hit it!!”

“Did I?” I said, confused.  “I did???”

“Yes…you did,” said Friend3

“THAT’S AMAZING!!”  I got quite excited for myself.

From there we moved over a few yards to shoot a handgun.  I am pretty sure I did manage to hit the paper the target was printed on, which is probably enough accuracy to at least slow down an advancing zombie. Looking three targets over to the right, I saw that instead of the traditional circular target someone had affixed a sketch of what appeared to be a zombie Osama Bin Laden.  At least, we are assuming it was supposed to be specifically Bin Laden.

After we had all shot many rounds into an unsuspecting paper, a voice on a microphone explained that everyone should finish their round, cease shooting, and when everyone had ceased, a red late came on over each station and everyone was safe to inspect or change their targets.  During this time, Friend1 suggested I take a little walk down the line to see the guns being used by others.  I wandered off, hands in my pockets, trying to look natural, and hide my total horror and terror at the sight of some of the weaponry others so very near me were using for their target practice.

After 1.5 hours I needed to head back to the safety of the North, so we packed up and drove out into the continual rain. Verdict? I still don’t believe people should be keeping the types of weaponry so many Americans keep in their homes. That shit’s ridiculous.  What we need in this country are high powered taser guns.  I say let every American home have one or ten of those.  Taser the crap out of intruders and the children and neighbors you mistake for intruders.  Enough to knock them unconscious for a good ten hours. I can totally get behind that.  However, I do now see the appeal of sport shooting in places like gun ranges and I also believe in hunters being able to have certain types of guns for hunting purposes.

Anyway, now I know how to shoot a gun (or some kinds of guns) should the apocalypse come.  Take that, ExBoyfriend1. I may survive for 24 hours after all. Provided someone happens to drop a shotgun immediately in my vicinity along with the proper ammunition. And I have at least an hour between each set of 3 zombies in which to load new ammo. Whatever. I’m working on it.

Riding in Cars With Boys

I made a lot of poor decisions while living in small town France. There's not much to do there besides make terrible decisions. 

My small town had exactly one bar, and this bar was usually mainly populated with my own high school students. However, one night, my roommate and I met two handsome Algerian/French guys of more or less our own age and drank and talked in the bar until a little past midnight at which point the roommate and I started complaining about how there was so little to do at night in our town. The boys exchanged looks, downed their beers, and told us they had something to show us. We just had to get in their car and they would take us somewhere magical. 

I don't know about the rest you of you, but to me, right now, this sounds like code for WE ARE GOING TO DRIVE YOU INTO THE WOODS TO RAPE AND MURDER YOU AND NO ONE WILL COME FOR YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE SILLY FOREIGNERS.

In fact, even at the time it sounded a little like that. But the roommate and I left the bar with them, got in their car, and let them drive us off through town....

....AND INTO THE WOODS. Yes, that's right, they drove us right into the night black woods and I suddenly realized exactly how idiotic I had just been. We drove through the woods for maybe 5 minutes, which, if you are a 22 year old female in the backseat of a car driven by two strange men in the middle of the night, is a really long time. 

But when we came out of the trees, an absolutely beautiful sight awaited. They drove a few hundred yards and parked the car near the edge of the hill we had come out on, got out of the car, and gestured down below. It was amazingly beautiful. Magical, even. You could see miles and miles and miles of French countryside lit up in clusters as each little town revealed itself in street lamps and house lights. The moon was full and glowing and left a swath of light over the whole countryside like a fairy path. The air was light and a tiny breeze picked up the sound of leaves--the only sound. 

We watched for a few minutes, and then one of the guys turned on the car radio, opened all the doors, and we spent until dawn dancing just the four of us, the whole world sleeping below. It was one of the best nights I have ever spent. There was no one around, the music kept playing, we never got tired, the lights moved and blinked below us.  The guys were perfect gentlemen--never made a single effort at inappropriate touching, never made us feel uncomfortable, and, and at dawn drove us back to our door and said goodbye and we slept until 2 in the afternoon. It was one of those nights you remember for your whole life, the way it looked and sounded and felt perfect, all the planes of existence coming together to make you feel perfectly solid and completely surreal all at once. 

So the moral of the story? Trust strangers, take risks, don't live your life in a bubble?

NO! Are you stupid? Are you high? NEVER GET IN CARS WITH STRANGE MEN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. What is wrong with you????

Easy Bake, Easy Break

The other night I was sitting on the metro after an hour of zumba (another First!) following a night of yoga (I had to leave halfway through), when I found myself sitting in a near empty car with four teenagers, two girls and two boys. The girls were American, but the boys turned out to be foreign exchange students, one from Russia, one from...possibly also Russia, but he sounded different. Maybe Nordic. At one point in their conversation about America, Easy Bake Ovens came up and one girl found herself in the position of having to explain the concept to someone who had never heard mention of such a thing.

"It's this oven....box...plastic box, and inside is a light bulb and you have packets of powder that you mix with water and you put them in little pans and you put the pans in the...oven, and you cook them...the light bulb inside bakes them...and...stuff."

Very accurate, but the exchange students were baffled. It really is a baffling concept. and it brought me back to a tumultuous time in my childhood....

The year was 1993, the year after my new sister was born, a year I was spending trying out new life choices and career ideas, the year after I realized I would never be a veterinarian after all.  I was looking for a niche, and at some point I realized that this, for me, was baking. I was going to be amazing at baking. But I wasn't allowed to touch the stove, or the oven, or really even the microwave.  This was when the Easy Bake Oven appeared on the periphery of my awareness. It was the solution to everything--an oven I would be allowed to touch, with items that were easy to bake (even then, in the throes of my baking phase, I think I knew deep in my core that at my center I was lazy and filled with hate for food-making) and looked AMAZING on the television.  Everyone was SO HAPPY eating these very small and fantastically decorated cakes.  If only I could make my parents very small cakes they would be proud of me! And then I could eat cake whenever I wanted!

I knew I had to have one.

I went to my parents, who, at the time, were still struggling with the aftermath of both having only just finished their PhDs and needing to pay everything off, having bought their very first house and having just borne a second child....so they were not super into the idea of buying me what they referred to as "stupid crap" for the astronomical price of 29.99. 

They said, "Danielle, if you want that stupid thing, you can save your money and buy it for yourself."

In 1993, to a girl with a 25 cent allowance per week and who had already started displaying what would turn out to be a life long spending-in-the-search-for-immediate-gratification problem, $29.99 sounded  back then more or less what $100,000 sounds like to me right now. Quite out of reach.

I was a dreamer, though, and once I had something like that in my head, it was impossible to shake. So for exactly one year, I saved every single cent of my allowance, conned my parents out of quarters for picking up sticks and leaves, hoarded my birthday money, and I seriously wouldn't have put it past myself to start stealing nickels from my 2 year old sister towards the end.

I clawed my way up to $30 and when I finally had it triumphant in my neon green plastic wallet, my mother agreed to take me to Toys R Us, where I bought my long awaited prize and learned some valuable lessons about what it feels like to work towards something and achieve your goals.

For a few amazing weeks, I baked many tiny cakes and covered them in sprinkles and fed all of them to my parents. By which I mean my father, who told me they were indeed the most incredible desserts he had ever come across in his years of cake eating. I could not have been happier.

Then my grandparents came to visit, and my grandmother, in an attempt to bond with me I imagine, wanted to play with me and my Easy Bake Oven and managed to melt the plastic panhandle right in the center of my oven, jamming up the entire thing and destroying it beyond repair.

I learned a valuable lesson about what it feels like to work towards something and achieve your goals and then have every moment of sweat and toil and despair thrown back at you in a feeling much like when someone throws a snowball at you and you discover the snowball had a rock inside, by using your deductive reasoning and your face.

It was a bitter, bitter blow, but I was a happy well raised child so I knew that justice would be done, everything would be righted, because no one could let such an atrocity actually take place and that my parents would buy me another one because they knew how hard I had worked, how much it had meant to me, and how unfair it would be to let my hard work go to waste. The world wasn't LIKE that. Right?

VALUABLE LESSONS WERE BEING LEARNED ALL OVER THE PLACE because no one replaced my Easy Bake Oven. No one. Not my grandmother, not my parents, and not even God. It was out of the question that I buy myself a new one, because coming up with ANOTHER $29.99 was not going to be possible. I'd lost everything. EVERYTHING.

So, I did the only thing I could do.

For THIRTEEN YEARS I brought up my Easy Bake Oven disaster at least three times a week to my parents, to my parents' friends, to our neighbors, to all of my friends, to everyone and anyone I met, I would tell them the story of heartbreak and injustice and my mother would roll her eyes and my father would not pay any attention and my sister would tell me to get over it.

But I would not get over it!!! FOR THIRTEEN YEARS.

Until one day, when I was 24 years old and living with my parents as everyone had expected, I came home annoyed at things from work and started to stomp up the stairs when I tripped over a large box.

"GODDAMN IT!" I said and glared down at the box and realized.....

"A MOTHER******* EASY BAKE OVEN??????!!!!"

My mother came out of the kitchen. "I was hoping now you'd shut up about the Easy Bake Oven."

THE LIFE LESSONS CONTINUED ALL OVER THE PLACE! It turns out, if you whine and complain for MORE THAN A DECADE and annoy EVERYONE YOU LOVE, eventually you get what you deserve!!

It was a joyous moment where the entire world righted.

I immediately baked a very small yellow cake and covered in sprinkles and took it with overflowing joy to my father, who was sitting in the computer room programming things with names like routers and nets.

"DAD DAD DAD DAD LOOK WHAT I MADE YOU!! A TINY CAKE! JUST LIKE YOU LOVE!"

My father visibly turned ashen and scooted his wheeled chair away from me. "OH NO. NO NO NO NO. NO. Please do not do this to me. I cannot eat that."

"What? But you LOVED my tiny yellow sprinkle cakes!"

"No, Danielle. I loved you.  Those cakes are disgusting. Truly disgusting. They are possibly the worst tasting things in the world."

"That is ridiculous," I said. "I ate them too and I remember they were amazing. Watch." I took a forkfull of my tiny yellow cake. "MY GOD," I said, choking on horror, "THIS IS THE MOST DISGUSTING THING I HAVE EVER EATEN."

"Yes," said my father.

I started to see why my parents did not buy me a replacement when I was 9.

So I guess the final lesson of the Easy Bake Oven is, sometimes, even if you can't see it, terrible events happen for a reason. The waxy death of my Easy Bake Oven may have broken my 9 year old heart, but it surely saved my parents'.  And because they were not forced to eat tiny cakes cooked by light bulb for more than a few weeks, they didn't grow to resent and hate me and so my childhood continued on, more or less happy.

To this day, every time I see $30 in my wallet (which is most days, because I'm a baller--and thanks to Rachael I know what that word means), I think about how I could buy myself an Easy Bake Oven any time I want. And that feeling gives me confidence and power. Easy 

Internet Strangers

We got The Internet when I was twelve years old. It came on a gigantic square computer and it made all the exciting beeping sounds. AOL was Supreme Ruler, and chatrooms were the thing to do if you were young and bored and left in the house for a few hours with your 1 year old sister who would spend those hours trying to eat the ear off a stuffed rabbit.

"DO NOT TALK TO INTERNET STRANGERS," cautioned my parents, 80 times a day for 3-4 years of my life. "There are some terrible people out there," said my father. "40 year old men masquerading as 15 year old boys will lure you into coffee shops, kidnap you in a van, rape you,  murder you, hack off your limbs and store your body in pieces in a freezer in their basements," said my mother. "Or they will show you photographs of their penises," said the world in general. I was given the general understanding that pretty much every middle aged man in the world was on the internet pretending to be a 15 year old boy, just waiting to show off a a photo of his genitals.

At 27, having now seen more photographs of penises than necessary, I do wonder how on Earth anyone expects those to lure any young girl anywhere. But parents were worried.

"DO NOT LOG INTO INTERNET CHATROOMS!" They would repeat at intervals. "INTERNET STRANGERS ABOUND. THEY WILL TELL YOU THEY ARE 15 YEAR OLD BOYS."

The very first thing I did when I was left alone with the internet was take the 20 minutes to dial up AOL and log directly into chatrooms where I soon met someone who told me he was a 15 year old boy.

This is it! I thought. What intrigue! We discussed all kinds of things, our little sisters, our schools, our interests, and eventually, our travels. I enjoyed talking to this "kid" whose screen name is long forgotten, though I'm sure it was terrific.  I was NiteshadeD. Or maybe Juniper25. Names fraught with meaning from fantasy novels which made me pretty awesome.

In any case, we were probably talking every few days for about two weeks, for an hour or two at a time and I felt dangerous, living life on the edge, entering a tangled web of lies. I obviously had no intention of ever meeting this potential penis photographer, but the rebellion made me feel interesting and exciting. And finally, one day, it happened for me.

"my famly took a trip 2 ireland last summer that was definitaly the most beautiful place ive ever been," he wrote me. Middle aged internet predators can't be expected to have much care for spelling or capitalization. 

"I've never been to Ireland," I wrote back. 

"ill send u a pic," he wrote, and started to load a picture.

IT'S HAPPENING! I thought. I WILL EXPOSE HIM FOR THE MIDDLE AGED INTERNET GIRLSTALKER HE IS! I WILL HAVE THE BEST STORIES AT SCHOOL TOMORROW.

But what ACTUALLY loaded on the screen was a photo of a 15 year old boy with a red face next to a little sister in what I can now tell you did indeed look exactly like Ireland.

He clearly was just a 15 year old boy with no sketchy motives and I lost interest and that was the end of our internet relationship.

I had completely forgotten about this until a recent conversation with my mother.

"You need to sign up for JDate. Your father and I agree. Your grandmother too. We'll pay for it. You need to do this. This is where everyone finds people."

"What if....no."

"Yes. I will give you my credit card."

"How about....no."

"Yes. This is happening."

"I've been down this road.  There are WEIRDOS on the internet. You have no idea."

"There are plenty of nice men on the internet! My friend's husband's sister's second oldest daughter met her fiance on this site! So did....all of these other people I've heard of."

"There are not as many nice men on the internet as you think. They all just send me photos of their penises."

"Oh Danielle, what? You are probably putting something weird in your profile information. You always attract the crazies. There are plenty of nice men on there, all the other women see to find them."

"You say that because you're not the one with the inbox filled with really strange sexual propositions."

"You just need to revise your profile. I'll take a look."

So basically my parents have gone from NEVER TALK TO INTERNET STRANGERS EVER to WE DEMAND THAT YOU TALK TO INTERNET STRANGERS AND WE WILL EVEN PAY FOR IT. And I have gone from never receiving any sketchy photos to finding nothing but.

This is growing up.  What was once new and exciting and edgy is now old and dull and painful.

What the Zombie Apocalypse Means to Me

Please read:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/06/24/195235537/how-to-love-the-zombie-apocalypse

My very first love, several years ago, put the zombie apocalypse on my radar. It had never crossed my mind before, I’d never heard anyone discussing it, but he was into having a plan.  One evening, cuddled together, well past the first “I love you,” he started detailing his survival plan to me. At first I didn't pay too much attention, but as he continued through the plan, which I don’t remember especially well but involved his best friend (who as far as I could tell fervently wished my head would be eaten by zombies sooner rather than later), I realized that at no point in this plan did my love ever come to find me. I pointed this out, jokingly, because after all, it was a discussion about the zombie apocalypse. It was ridiculous. I expected him to say something silly like, “Of course I would come for you! I just….forgot to say that part.” Or really, ANYTHING but what he actually said, which was, “You’re weak. You’d be dead before I could get to you, so there’s no point.” 

The fact that I still bring this up in conversation 4 years later should tell you exactly how deep the wound to my soul went. He saw my devastated face and tried to make it better. “But if I saw you later, and you were a zombie, I would shoot you in the face to put you out of your misery.”

I’m not sure about other girls, but this didn't exactly strike me as a super romantic concession.

After we broke up (not over zombie issues), the first guy I went out with afterwards was beautiful and muscular and drove a little red sports car and took me out for a lovely dinner and I started to believe maybe things would someday be okay again. Just before our second date, we stopped at his apartment and while he was in another room I scanned his bookshelf and discovered that he owned How to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse, displayed right there front and center on his book shelf.

It was our last date. Not actually because of the zombie book so much as the fact that he was an ass during dinner, but still! I felt followed by zombies.

In 2011 I met my next Love and, after a time, when I was sure we were so very much in love, that this was It, that this was The One, I decided to ask the most important question I knew:

“In the case of the zombie apocalypse, would you come for me?”

Because this was It, because he was The One, because it was a STUPID QUESTION, I expected him to say, “Of COURSE I would come for you,” and heal all of my old soulwounds.

What he ACTUALLY said, after a distressingly long pause, was, “I need more information.”

I flew into a rage. “You need more INFORMATION? You need MORE information? You NEED more INForMAtion?!!”

He remained calm. “Well, yes. Where are you? Where am I? Do I have weapons?”

“This is a SILLY question. It does not require serious thought of any kind! You just have to SAY you would come for me.”

He wouldn't do it. The question plagued us for months, for the rest of the relationship even. He started asking his friends, strangers at parties, and every single person, to a MAN (and woman) with only ONE exception EVER said, “I need more information.”  Strategies were relayed, weapons were discussed. It became a whole thing. I hated it. All I wanted was for someone to love me enough to agree to come for me if the zombie apocalypse were to happen WHICH IT WON’T.  The person doesn't even have to ACTUALLY come for me, he just has to SAY he will.  IS THAT SO HARD?

I should have known then that he was neither It nor the One, but I persisted in delusions for awhile longer until we too broke up (also not zombie issues).  I went immediately for some of the usual dating sites and had soon set up some absolutely terrible dates with some absolutely terrible people, one of whom stands out because once again, the zombie apocalypse was brought up. I don’t remember why exactly, but since he started it, I decided to retell the story of my first boyfriend because at this point, it’s a just a funny story to tell during zombie apocalypse discussions.

But this guy did not think it was funny.  Instead of laughing, or smiling, or even acting awkward to my awkward story, he studied me seriously for a moment before saying, “I wouldn't shoot you.” Before I could even say “thank you?” he continued, “I wouldn't waste a bullet on you.”

I was stunned.  This really didn't seem like a great first date statement. I tried to make a joke out of it. “Ha! How kind of you to let me live in zombie form!”

“I said I wouldn't shoot you. I can think of a number of other ways to kill you.”

Maybe I’m a nervous type, but perhaps some of you others out there also feel it is a TERRIBLE IDEA to say something like to a woman you met on the internet on a first meeting.

Also a last meeting.

Despite the fact that I think the zombie apocalypse is STUPID, it has really become a force in my life, to the point that I have decided if I were to ever marry, I would only marry if we wrote our vows to say, “I would come for you in the zombie apocalypse.” And when I find someone willing to say it to me, I’ll know I've found REAL love. Or at least a man with enough brain power to understand the concept of rhetorical questions.

Guest Poster, Code Name "Becky"

Becky is the second guest poster this blog has ever had! How exciting. Below is Becky's contribution to the chronicle of the world's poor decisions:

(Becky planned to be a guest contributor so she could write about her many bad decisions. However, she's decided that she would rather remain in denial about her bad decisions-- at least for the time being--and write about the bad decisions of others instead.)

“America Fuck Yea!!”

Driving a Corvette around town so you can rev up real fast and blast pimpin’ music... this is the dream of many teenage boys, although hopefully by the time most of them grow up they realize that this makes them douchebags. Several of them don't, inevitably. But something all men should be aware of: if you live in Berkeley, California, the tree-hugging capitol of the nation, being a grown man burning rubber in a Corvette is a Very Bad Idea. You could risk losing clients, your reputation, or possibly more.

My friend Todd did precisely this, however. Todd is not the type of person one would expect to do this. Todd is a liberal, feminist UC Berkeley graduate who listens to emo music. He did not even own a car for several years, as he thought it would be fun to bike everywhere. After a while, however, he realized that being car-less might be messing up his game with the ladies. Even women who were car-less and claimed to love that sort of thing often ended up leaving Todd for men with cars. So when Todd's friend who worked at Google was moving to Africa and offered to sell Todd his Corvette for a few thousand dollars, Todd took him up on the offer.

At first Todd was weirded out by the idea of driving a Corvette around Berkeley. What if his client saw him; what if he ended up attracting like a magnet the few gold-diggers who must lurk the streets of the Berkeley? But eventually Todd got used to driving the Corvette, and even started to blast rap music while revving up on occasion. He claimed that he was doing these things "ironically," in hipster fashion (which makes it so much better, of course).
One day, however, Todd took the irony factor a little too far. While in the dollar store, he happened upon some American flags. "Wouldn't it be funny," Todd thought naively, "to buy some American flags to put in the window of my Corvette?" Tickled pink with himself and his hipster irony, Todd began cruising around Berkeley in his American flag decorated Corvette. He might have even yelled "America Fuck Yea!!!" out the window once or twice.

Todd's little "joke" lasted about one hour. He claimed, of course, he only planned on doing it for a couple days. He had no desire to pretend to be a douchebag any more than that. I could stop here, to leave you wondering what happened to Todd and just what price he had to pay for his foolishness. We know he at least made it out alive, for he lived to tell the tale.

I should also mention that all this was happening at the time of the Occupy Protests, which caused revolutionary sentiment in Berkeley to rise to a fervor comparable to the 1970s. Todd had not thought of this.

Instead, Todd made the mistake of leaving the American flags up in his window when he went food shopping. As he was stocking his cart with organic vegetarian food and reverting to his regular persona, protesters were making their way through the parking lot. Although we can't say for sure, my guess is that the protesters were not looking to make trouble. But probably the sight of an impeccable Corvette with American flags in the window was more than they can handle. And so when Todd returned to the parking lot, eager once again to play the role of a meathead and scream "America Fuck Yea!!!" as he cruised around town, he found himself in for a surprise. His beautiful Corvette had been keyed across the front, scratching the paint and probably reducing the value of the car by a couple thousand dollars.

As one might conclude, Todd no longer drives around Berkeley with American flags in his window. Nor does he rev up like a douchebag (except for a few rare occasions). Who knows who else might have happened if Todd were to have continued on his rampage unheeded? He is probably lucky his car is only scratched. So the moral of this story, for those of you who are considering putting American flags in the windows of your nice new car as a joke: Don't do it, unless you live somewhere like Kansas or you're prepared to pay the price.

Year of Firsts: Ziplining

Many of you have already heard this story, but others of you are not privileged enough to be on my exclusive email chains. If you are among the privileged, you can ignore this one.

One of my fears is a fear of heights. This is one of about four reasons I am the worst climber ever. I am also terrified of things that go fast. This is one of three reasons I do not ride roller coasters. I have a very hefty fear of sudden death. Also prolonged death.

In any case, when Alexa and I planned our trip to Costa Rica this past spring, and she said, "CAN WE GO ZIPLINING??!!!" my initial instinct was to say, "Hell no. What's the matter with you?" I am sure she expected me to answer that way, but couldn't resist asking. But when I thought about it, I realized it was another perfect First for the list, that would push past my fears and test my resolve. So I agreed. 

The day arrived when we were in Monteverde and it was time to leave the hostel and climb into a van filled with strangers including a 10 year old boy who was SO EXCITED ABOUT ZIPLINING OMG SO EXCITED. I was not so excited. I was terrified. It's all well and good to make sweeping declarations about becoming a better person and surmounting your fears but when it comes down to it, a moderate resolve doesn't make the fears suddenly vanish. 

"Why is that girl crying?" the little boy asked his mother.
"Sssshhhhh," his mother said.
"She's just a little scared," said Alexa.
"Why is she scared?" asked the boy.
"Sssssshhhhhh," said his mother.
"Grrrgllllpffft," I said, fighting the hysteria.
"Pull yourself together," said Alexa. "HE'S excited. And he's ten."
"Yup! I am!" said the boy.
"Ssssshhh," said the boy's mother.

We drove forth, and I continued to cry quietly while the boy bounced around in the backseat SO EXCITED OMG SO EXCITED.

We were herded into an area where several very attractive young Costa Rican men invaded all of our personal space and hooked us up into terrifying looking harnesses.  We were pushed out very quickly and practically ran through this new forest and up, up, up, up until we reached the first platform.  I expected some kind of orientation, but instead we were simply told, "Left hand here, right hand here, right hand far back, don't brake until we tell you. Okay, who's first?"

And then they hooked up the first person and pushed him off. 

"OH MY GOD," I said, choking on terror. 

"IS IT MY TURN YET?? IS IT? CAN I GO?" said the 10 year old boy.

"YES IS IT HIS TURN, CAN HE GO?" I said, choking on shame.

Soon, though, it was clearly my turn.

"Go, go, go!" said one of the young men, whose name we think may be Lilo. Upon looking at him, I fell desperately in love with him. He was absolutely beautiful and I could tell he was the one for me.

"Go!" he said again.  I stood frozen, unable to move or respond in any way to this command.  Misunderstanding my fear for a lack of English speaking skills, Lilo said, "Venga venga venga!!" this snapped me out of the trance and I moved forward, and so it was that Lilo believed for awhile that I did not actually understand English.  For this reason all of our interactions hence forth took place in Spanish. 

As he hooked me up, I looked across at the next platform, which at least I could see. Then I looked down.  I was VERY HIGH.  If you have not been ziplining, and you are imagining right now how I high I was, I was FOUR TIMES AS HIGH AS THAT. 

I started to cry again.

"Don't cry!" said my Love. 
"I'm....not SNIFF...crying....I don't....AAAAH....cry....."
"Mmmmhmmm," he said, and pushed me off.
I screamed.

A little bit.

As we progressed, things got higher and longer, until we finally arrived at a platform where, looking across, you could not see the end of the line. It was on this platform that somehow I found myself the last person to go, and I was left alone in cool afternoon air with my TrueLove.  It certainly was a romantic spot.  The others were much too far away to hear, the breeze rustled the millions of leaves, the colors of the forest and the graying sky swirled around us, and the air smelled like dirt and green and rain. I wanted to take a moment to enjoy our alone time together and tried to stare deeply and soulfully into his eyes, but he was busy hooking me into the harness and preparing to launch me into the unknown.  Finally though, he looked up.  Before I could think of something impressively witty to say in Spanish, he spoke.

"Are you nervous?"

"Yes. I am very very nervous."

"Me too."
I stared at him.  "What.....why are YOU nervous?"

He looked me right in the eyes and said deadpan, "Today is my first day."

"WHAT?" I shrieked.  "That's a joke. Haha! No, seriously, Is that a joke??"

He still didn't smile. "Adios," he said, and he pushed me forcefully off the platform.

I zoomed along in terror for an hour, maybe eight, until I finally saw the end of the line, and arrived in safety at the next platform.  Lilo landed soon after.

"Don't cry!" he said.

"I'm not crying!" I said, crying.

After this though, I began to get the hang of things, but it continued to look like I was crying because of the wind in my eyes as I zipped along at 800 miles/second high above the tree tops.

"Don't cry!" said everyone.

"WIND!" I shouted in Spanish.

I think that I enjoyed ziplining. I'm not entirely sure.  I know that I would do it again if there was an opportunity, but I also know that I will not be going out LOOKING for opportunities. It is certainly an Experience, and way to view things you would never otherwise see, in a way you would never otherwise feel.

Eventually, though we came to the end of the lines, and discovered there was new terror in store.

"Tarzan jump!" said Lilo.  "Daniela you will be the first to jump!"

"Ha!" I said. "Haha! First! No. Maybe I will not jump at all."

Lilo looked at me with brown eyes and I knew I would jump off that platform, however high it was. 

Despite the lovemadness, I was unable to go first. "Take this one!" I said, and pushed Alexa in front of me. Lilo shrugged, and began hooking Alexa up.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh....." said Alexa, as she peered down at the ground far, far below. But she didn't have time to say much after that because she was immediately pushed forcefully off the edge.  I do not remember her screaming. But she went flying hard and fast. When the other adventure guides down below had slowed her wild back and forth swinging and unhooked her, she called up to me as I stared fretfully down. "THAT WAS MUCH WORSE THAN SKY DIVING, JUST SO YOU KNOW," she shouted up.  Because Alexa has sky dived.

"Come here Daniela," said Lilo with his heart breakingly beautiful Spanish.  "It is now your turn."

"Oh no no no no no no no no I can't do this no no no no."

So he shrugged and pulled the next guy up and pushed him off.

"Daniela now it's your turn!"

"No puedo no puedo no puedo...."

So he took the next one. We repeated this a few more times while he would interject with things like, "This is fun!" "Look how much fun the people are having!" "You can do this!"

Finally, it was the ten year old boy's turn.

"THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING THING I'VE EVER SEEN I CAN'T WAIT TO JUMP OFF MY TURN MY TURN MY TURN! I AM SO EXCITED."

I realized I could absolutely not let this small child jump in front of me while my TrueLove watched my shame.

"No!" I said "I will go!" and I pushed the ten year old child out of my way. He was disgruntled, but his mother shushed him.

"Okay," I said as Lilo attached my harness to a rope.  "Just don't push---"

And he pushed me hard, right off the edge, without any further words of encouragement.

I screamed like a small girl child as all of the adventure guides laughed. It would seem that Alexa filmed the whole ordeal. So now we can remember the small girl child shrieks forever.

"Don't look so scared!" you can hear one of them yell.

"She always looks like that! That is just her face!" you can hear Alexa respond.

I did not cry. Probably just because I was dehydrated.

That was basically the end of the whole business, we went back to return our equipment, I said a very brief goodbye to my TrueLove who didn't seem to notice, and we got back in the van to head to the hostel.

Another successful First! 

Year of Firsts: Yoga

I have long been against yoga. Why this is so, I'm not entirely sure. I guess I've just always been pretty anti exercise-for-the-sake-of-exercise. I mean, I think it's a fantastic IDEA, people SHOULD exercise, but I have never been able to handle things like exercise bikes or treadmills or weights or doing things to exercise that are nothing more than that--exercises.  I prefer to get exercise while doing something, like fencing or climbing. Although obviously I fail at doing either of those things with any kind of consistency so bottom line is I end up without exercise.

Yoga, though, has always seemed to me even more hateful than anything else. It's tied up in all the peace love bullshit, and seemed to involve a lot of sitting around and contorting and not accomplishing much of anything. 

In the summer, Lululemon (there you go, Lululemon, I'm paying you back in free advertising) hosts free yoga classes in the Dupont Circle, which is very near my office. Since this is my year of crossing boundaries and trying Firsts, I decided a free yoga class was an excellent next step. I figured it would be a good push on the physical capabilities front and the keeping an open mind front.

I went with one of the girls at work who has done yoga, and plays soccer, and eats well, and is generally physically superior to me in every way. She is kind hearted though, and one of the few people I trusted not to dissolve into total mockery. At least, not when it comes to me doing yoga.

I sauntered in with my new yoga mat and my workout pants and prepared to flop around uselessly so I could say that I had done it. What actually happened, though, was one of the most intense workouts I have ever undergone, outside of the medieval European martial art sword fighting introduction (please see appropriate blog entry if necessary).

The first ten minutes weren't too bad. Then I started to burn in most of my muscles. We were doing a lot of downward facing dog, which I feel is supposed to be the easy beginner pose but to me was the lowest level of hell.  I suspect I am simply doing it wrong, but in the meantime it is wreaking havoc on my wrists and my upper arms. My knees came down every 5 seconds.

"Bring your right foot slowly up to the edge of the mat," said the serene, petite instructor in an indoor voice.

My right foot lurched forward as my body lurched to the left.

"Stand in your warrior pose," she continued, voice like a low breeze.

I popped up, arms flailing as I teetered into warrior pose. I tried to bring my arms up gracefully, shifting balance to go from warrior to forward lunge, but I couldn't stretch them all the way and in the meantime my thighs were growing weak.

"Bring your leg up into your tree pose." The woman sounded like she had never been un-calm in her life.

I brought my leg up into tree pose and fell over.

There was a lot of this, over the hour, as my legs weakened and began to shake, as my arms began to burn, as every muscle stretched and strained and I became short of breath. I have never felt so worked out in my life.

I've done this twice now, and I'll be continuing through the summer, as it becomes hot yoga in the DC sun. Maybe by the end of it, downward facing dog won't make me cry. But we'll see. 

Year of Firsts: Country Music

Most people, when asked "What music do you like?" will answer "I'll listen to anything but country" (unless you are anyone I have ever dated because apparently I only date people who are super into music and have many specific opinions). I enjoy music well enough, but I've never had strong feelings on it except to say "I don't like country."

I have a friend here though who IS quite into the country music and this friend wanted very much to go to a big country music concert happening in Virginia.  Knowing I can be convinced to do pretty much anything, I was targeted for this venture. I decided it would be another excellent First--my first country music concert, and an opportunity to open my mind to something I had previously stereotyped and dismissed.  

In the weeks leading up to the concert, I was sent a variety of songs by Luke Bryan, Thompson Square, and, most importantly, Florida Georgia Line, who I have come to love. End result, by the time the concert came round I was pretty excited myself.  Turns out country music is AWESOME. Who knew?

The concert itself was quite fun (though it rained through nearly the entire thing, which was miserable for those of us on the lawn), but not an especially exciting tale. There were a lot of girls in cowboy boots, and everyone wore flannel. A fair number of trucks in the parking lot were covered in NRA stickers and I can't count the number of times I heard "God bless America! God bless our troops!" It was quite a different world. Also I was pretty sure Luke Bryan was going to get tackled by some of the more rabidly horny country girls threatening to swarm the stage and throw their undergarments at his face.  He did not help matters by taking some girl's cell phone and using it to take pictures of his crotch before handing it back to her.

The highlight though, for me, is this story I am about to share with you.

My friend and I pitched our water logged camp right in front of two sisters who were probably in their early and late 20s and immediately became friends with them.  It was they who shared some life changing knowledge with us about the existence of the "pee style." Look it up. The other thing they shared that evening was a story, told by the older girl.

"One morning when I was 11, I went out to the chicken coop to count the chickens. I was counting, one, two, three, four, possum, five, six.....possum?? There was a possum right there in the chicken coop! So I turned around and went back to the house to tell my grandfather and he handed me a rifle and told me, 'You know what to do.'"

At this point in the story, I expected her to say, "But I was 11 years old so obviously I did NOT know what to do so my grandfather took the gun back," but actually she continued thusly:

"So I took the gun and went back out to the chicken coop and pointed the gun at the possum.  But that possum just looked at me, and then turned his back on me! Can you believe it? I pressed the end of the gun right up to his butt."

Here in the story, I thought she would say, "But I couldn't do it, I just couldn't shoot a little creature with its back turned."

But what she actually said was:

"I shot that possum right in the ass and took it back to the house. My mother got out the camera and took photos, one of them is still hanging up somewhere."

My suburban girl heart was completely aghast at this story, and my face showed it I suppose because the girl telling the story turned to me and said, "What? Like you've never shot an animal before?"

I said, "NO! NO, of COURSE I have not SHOT AN ANIMAL BEFORE!"

She looked at me with pity. "Guess you're a city girl."

I guess I am. 

Year of Firsts: Paper Cranes

For those of you who are unaware, there is a Japanese legend that tells us if we fold 1,000 origami cranes, we will be granted one wish. Or good luck. Something good. Experience, however, tells us that this story is bullshit.

You can read more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_origami_cranes

The story has long been at the back of my mind. For years and years, I have always thought I should go ahead and fold the thousand cranes.  However, such a task requires several traits that are alien to my nature. Focus, for one. Patience, for another. Also follow through, commitment, fine motor skills, tranquility, and mostly, patience. Also patience. And more patience.

So when I was making my lists of Firsts to accomplish that are supposed to push my boundaries and teach me new skills, I thought this would be an excellent exercise.

But with a twist.

When I finish folding all 1,000 cranes, I am going to start giving them away to people I know and leaving them in places I go that are interesting or mean something.  Because really what I wish for is to know 1,000 interesting and meaningful people and places in my lifetime, and when all of the cranes are gone, I will know that I have succeeded. 

My dearest Kate was supportive enough of the endeavor to send me a block of 1,000 tiny colored origami papers last month and I have been working my way through them.  I probably have somewhere around 150 done at this point.  Hard to say. Instead of counting, I'm just going until all the paper is gone.  This also means there can be no mistakes.  A lot is at stake!

My goal is to be done the day of my birthday. 

Year of Firsts: Burlesque

Many of you are aware that I dedicated this year as my Year of Firsts in which I try to do as many things for the first time as possible, push my own boundaries, try new foods and activities, and see what comes.  I am going to dedicate the next several entries to a few of these firsts, none of which really count as especially poor decisions, at least so far, but this blog needs some new stories.

We will begin with burlesque.

This, mainly is the Adventure Friend's fault. At least at first.  She and I decided it would be fun to do the LivingSocial Bourbon and Burlesque.  It was a fun time, the instructors were a little wacky, but they were friendly and they were covered in glitter so I liked them immensely. At the end of the 2 hours, they handed out cards and told everyone they came from a group called the DC Gurly Show and that new members were welcome. The usual promotional stuff.

"We should BECOME BURLESQUE DANCERS!!" said the Adventure Friend, still basking in the adrenaline glow from our end performance.

"Sure," I said dismissively, not imagining she was serious or intending to follow through.

I make this mistake periodically with her.

A few weeks later she was sending me emails filled with information about the group, and it turned out their new member meeting was only a few days away. We decided to go.

The world of burlesque is glitter and sequin filled, and the women who make up the world are glitter and sequin covered. This is because they are always gluing glitter and sequins to things--bras, underwear, shoes, corsets, headpieces, pasties. Everything sparkles, everything is colorful. Even they are colorful--bright clothing, brighter lipstick, wigs, tattooed skin.  All spoke loudly, with energy,

It was quite a scene. One girl with white blond hair pinned elaborately sat on a cushion painstakingly gluing ribbons and tassels to a purple bra. Another sat on a couch attaching clear glinting rhinestones to a black corset. Girls were piled on top of each other on the small couches, crouched in front of chairs, standing behind plush seats. It was a bit overwhelming.

We signed some contracts, received a copy of the manual, and learned a little about the process of becoming a burlesque dancer with the group.  Firstly, we learned that we had stumbled upon what was billed as DC's only "queer" burlesque troupe. This didn't mean we HAVE to be lesbians, but I would say a good 60-70% appear to be. Burlesque seems to be about acceptance, comfort, body positivity, friendship, and a LOT of glitter. Like, more glitter than you are thinking right now. Nope, more than that. Okay, you're getting close.

Also, creativity. Every show has a theme that has a fair amount of thought, discussion, and argument put into it, and each dancer choreographs her own, original performance and creates her own costume. They all sew, cut, glue, hem, everything. Most of them tell some kind of story through each number. Burlesque is a lot of clever puns, and plays on words, and 

Besides the glitter, one of the concepts I like best about the whole thing is that it is not ABOUT stripping. It is about confidence, and comfort, and you can perform a whole dance and take off nothing more than your gloves.

That said, nearly everyone gets nearly naked. Just a warning, in case you decide to come to a show. Consider yourself disclaimed.

The process we are going through has several stages. The first step requires a new member to "kitten" at least once.  A kitten is basically a stagehand. But dressed in sexy clothing and covered head to toe in glitter. Once you've done that, you can become an AprenTit, which is like a beginner, and can perform her own dances but doesn't necessarily get first pick and gets paid less. After two performances and some marketing work, you can move up to Gurlie, which is when you know you've arrived.

As much fun as I've had learning about this fascinating subculture, and as cool as I think the other girls are, and as awesome as shows are, I'm not sure burlesque is the lifestyle for me. And it IS a lifestyle.  I'm not creative (at least not with anything but writing), I'm incredibly un-crafty (my big boundary-pushing project this weekend is to glue some rainbow rhinestones to a black and white dress), and it's too time consuming to fit into all of the other things I want to be doing.  But I set the goal for myself to participate in one show, as a kitten, and prove to myself that I can be up on a stage and show the confidence I've learned from being around such strong willed sparkly women.

After, that, who knows what will come next! It's also been really great to spend time with a more diverse group.  My friends are nearly all white, straight, from a middle class background and holding/pursuing white color jobs. Which makes sense, but it's nice to get out of that bubble for a bit and meet some very different people for a change.

The Thrill of the Chase

First of all, I should point out that after the blog post about my knees I made a series of extra poor decisions that resulted in a near 2 month terrible injury that nearly ruined my Costa Rica trip and destroyed my life. Also my doctor called me weak legged. It was traumatic all around.

My next poor decision though, came after finding this:

http://www.oldsantafetradingco.com/the-thrill-resource-page

Probably most people would have said, aw, that's kind of neat, and moved on with their lives. I, however, chose to put together a crack team and head off into the mountains north of Santa Fe to get us all killed. Except for Julia. She'll probably survive. She's a hardy one.

This will be my first camping trip. Ever.

We set out in just under 48 hours. I hope this doesn't end in a mountain lion related death. If it doesn't, I'll have some much better posts coming in under a week.

Bus Running and Burlesque

Earlier this week I went to a burlesque troupe orientation with my Adventure Friend. We were not entirely sure what to expect from the evening, but came away (well, I did) completely intrigued by the whole fascinating subculture and eager to learn more.  These are the people I need to be making space for in my life. They remind me a lot of the people I knew in Pittsburgh, mainly because they remind me of roller derby people and Rachael (whose name is in this blog but hasn't written since 2010) is a roller derby person and collects like-minded people, all of whom made up the majority of the worthwhile people I know in the city. In any case, I felt quite at home with the loudness, the scatteredness, the constant crafting throughout the meeting, and the vivid personalities. There is a lot more to burlesque than dancing--it seems to be a lifestyle. I admit I am unlikely to be willing to take on a whole new lifestyle that involves glue guns and sewing and creating a stage persona with a clever pun, but I feel compelled to go at least a little further and find some way to fit into this seductive world. 

In any case, while burlesque COULD end up being a Poor Decision, so far everything is going well and I am not terribly concerned. The real poor decision in all this, is what happened AFTER the meeting. 

Originally, I had planned to stay the night with Adventure Friend, because the meeting was late and it is a long trajectory home complete with metro changes (OR SO I THOUGHT!) and we all know that at the end of the metro line, there is that bus I have to catch that I always say I'm going to stop running after. But it turned out, the middle of nowhere place we had our meeting was in fact on my metro line. And we left the meeting with JUST enough time that I thought, "I could probably make the last bus home....."  

I decided to go for it. 

I arrived at my metro stop at 10:33. The bus leaves at 10:35. I decided to make my last stand in the face of hopeless pointlessness and run for it.  Many of you are aware of the layout of my metro station, but for those of you who are not, it looks something like this:  there is a long platform along which the train stops. At the far end of the platform is a normal sized escalator that leads to an upper platform where the exit gate is. Once you exit, there is a short walk to a HUGE GIGANTIC TERRIBLE ESCALATOR OF DOOM that looms above your head and makes novices dizzy.  At the top of THAT escalator, there is another platform to cross, not TOO long but long enough if you are in a hurry, that leads to a THIRD escalator, which is a normal sized one.  That escalator leads you out into the night, and a short walk down the sidewalk leads you to the bus.

Unfortunately, I had not strategically positioned myself on the train properly so I had to sprint the length of the platform before sprinting up the first escalator, sprinting along the upper platform and then sprinting up the GIGANTIC escalator.

I am not a very physically fit person, I hadn't had a whole lot to eat, I don't sleep well, it was late, it was not a good time but I DID IT.  I sprinted hardcore up that entire escalator without looking back.  

 

Be amazed.

At some point I registered vaguely that there was a person following close behind me, but I did not have the time to stop and consider this. I was doing spectacularly. It was 10:34. I was a machine. I'd never felt so proud in my life. I arrived at the end of the escalator, adrenaline high, breathing heavily, and started the sprint up the third, final escalator. 

I nearly made it.

I was a little over halfway up when I tripped on my boots and took a hard fall on my right knee. I tried not to put my hands down because I didn't want my fingers getting sucked and squished in the moving crevices of the escalator. That's when I became more aware of the presence behind me.  

"ARE YOU OKAY???????" said an extremely concerned male voice.  But there was no time for niceties! The clock had just changed to 10:35! If I didn't make these FINAL FEW STEPS all would be in vain!!!!  "I'm FINE," I said, as I hauled myself up in great  pain using the banister. I took a step forward and my legs gave out from under me. The sprinting had made me too weak to even stand. I fell down even harder this time, on both knees, and in the shock of it all I lost total control and reeled sideways, smashing my face against the side of the escalator, knocking my glasses frames out of shape and off my face, and hurting my head.  

"OH MY GOD!" said the poor startled man behind me. Again, I just said, "I'M FINE!" even though I was not at ALL fine, I was in terrible agony in every part of my body and soul, AND on top of it all COMPLETELY humiliated.  I believe it is worth noting at this point, for reasons that will become more clear later, that the guy was was likely in his mid to late 20s, fairly attractive (the attractive part is irrelevant, but I will mention it anyway), and hispanic. 

I continued the race up the final two stairs, having gotten up JUST in time not to face disaster at the end of the escalator, and arrived in the night air to see the bus, lights on, doors opening, waiting. 

"THANK GOD!" I shouted aloud, not caring how insane I looked at this point. Dignity was already gone forever. 

At that moment, the bus closed its doors, turned off its lights, and drove away.

"FUCK EVERYTHING!!!!!!"" I shouted waving my fists.  I didn't think I had it in me to chase it, and I knew it was completely futile. 

BUT THEN

the stranger behind me TORE past me at a truly impressive pace, completely destroying my pride in my sprinting skills, and ran across the bus area, clearly intending to head the bus off as it rounded the far corner. In this pivotal moment, I was faced with a choice. Did I a) fuck it all and stay perfectly still and wait alone in the cold darkness for 30-45 minutes? or did I b) suck in a lungful of air, let two tears escape my watery eyes, and run as fast as I could after the stranger?

I ran.

I made it JUST behind the stranger, who got on the bus, but as I started to step forward, the bus driver shut his doors, nearly snapping my nose. I pounded on the door. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!! PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS TO ME!!!"  The stranger said something to the driver, who opened his doors.  "THANK YOU!!!!!"

I staggered erratically down the bus aisle and collapsed in a heap right behind the stranger, who asked again, "ARE YOU OKAY?????"
At this point I had time to be friendly, so I heaved, "Oh yes, perfectly all right! Completely humiliated! But that is not new!"
He laughed, hesitantly and concernedly. We sat quietly for a few minutes before he spoke again. 

"I am sorry I scared you!"
"Scared me? Oh no, it was great the way you ran for the bus! I would never have made it without you. And if I hadn't made it after all that....I would have just laid down and died."
"No, I mean in the metro. When you were running away from me."

The guy thought I'd been RUNNING AWAY FROM HIM that whole time!! I was struck with horror. 

"RUNNING AWAY FROM YOU???"
"Yes..."
"NO! I was running for this bus!!! Oh my god....I am so sorry! I just wanted to catch this bus!!"
"Oh! Good. I wanted to help you up when you fell but I was afraid if I touched you, you would think it was an attack."

I have never felt more horrible in my life. This poor guy was trying not to frighten me, but also couldn't stop running because he needed to catch the bus too!

We had a laugh and a chat, and eventually I had to admit that I didn't even take the bus very far, just a mile, and I got off and hobbled home and I am in copious amounts of pain.  

I really need to stop running after that goddamn bus.