Quotes you regret

When I was a lass I spent a lot of time being interviewed for things. Lots of volunteer projects, lots of fancy school commendations, lots of awards for theater and writing.

Having spent a lot of time talking with reporters (and unfortunately being the daughter of a well-known one) allowed me the chance to learn the hard way that you need to make sure you don't say something that can be edited down to the lowest denominator of dumb.

My biggest interview goof was a spot on television covering young local writers at a writing convention. In amongst my many comments on the lectures I mentioned that one of the speakers had mentioned that in modern writing "adjectives are useless."

Of course that's the one quote they kept in the whole spot.

However, I was 14 at the time. I'm often surprised that people my age now (ten years later) still come out with those kinds of quotes. Much less people far, far older than me, with much more experience - and in the New York Times.

My favorite from today's edition was found in the article Passing Down the Legacy of Conservatism:


"He [Donald Devine, lecturer and former head of government personnel in the Reagan Administration] lamented the prosecution of Kenneth Lay, the late Enron executive convicted of fraud, by asking, "Do you think it's possible for a rich person to get justice in the U.S. today?"


One can only hope that was taken out of context.

Philosophy

Perhaps it's age, or it could be residue from "The Navy", maybe it's that marriage thing; regardless - you start to forget. You forget you existed anywhere other than where you are. Oh you remember where you were. Tiny apartment in San Diego, tiny scrap of corner in New York, strange smelling hotel rooms, long car trips, long flights. You can remember running around in your underwear down 5th street and getting drunk night after night at McGuire's. But do you really remember where you started?

I forget. And then someone from a past life finds their way in - or I find them. Emails from the blue, sparks of recognition, vague memories long since fogged over by...

Hmm by what?

Probably that 20th beer at McGuires to be honest.

People my age tend to complain a lot about not getting enough information about people from high school and college. I wouldn't know. I don't keep in touch with people. I guess that's not true. There are people I've emailed monthly for years and years. But they are the people who aren't interested in passing on "Christmas Card" letters. We don't talk about what we've been doing or where we're going. We exchange fantasy lives, stories, pieces of our imagination that needs to be let out - "Today I killed a bug, let me expound on the subject of insect-cide for five paragraphs"

I like that. Screw exposition and openings and closings. Free exchange of ideas...puzzling paragraphs to chew on. I talk with these people all the time...I have no idea what the hell they are doing with their life.

And then you go and get crazy and start looking up the names you can remember from high school on MySpace. It's weird, looking at profiles of people you used to know. You know you used to know them, but now they have new friends and have cut their hair. Now they have new inside jokes with their roommates and boyfriends. It feels like they've become famous. And you can jump up and down and say "I knew them when!"

Of course they aren't famous (well some of them are) but it's because someone else has claimed them as a friend...and they aren't in the circle. The outer world has invaded my memories - foggy as they are - and now what I owned is public property. This girl who for years after high school was mine, my memory, my idea, my revisionism. And she went ahead and kept living...cut her hair...grew up.

It's surreal. Which is real, which is true? My memory of us trading juice boxes or her newest blog post about the lawn service?

See, it's easier just to forget. I didn't exist before, I just am. Here I sit, in my little space, and here I always was. At least I know that's real.

StatCounter

And now for another installment of "How did you get here?"

I just did a quick gander at my StatCounter "Came From" stats again - nothing incredibly strange this time. But it's odd that I've been popping out a lot of mundane posts about shopping and home life and somehow google seems to think I am a pornstar.

Search Query's that led here:

Google UK Search for "Big Boobs" (Well, we already know what I think about those

More UK people searching for "Orange Cichlid" (Mine was named Pumpkin and she died last August.)

Blogger Search for "Women looking for men who score" (Everyone loves a winner.)

Google Blog Search for "Bra" (Not weird, but seriously...you were looking for blog posts about bras?)

Also blog searches for "Big Bra" and "My boobs have grown." (And I thought I was the only one who worried about this stuff.)

Google for "Hair Scissors Snip"

Blogger search for "Sexy high school girlie" AND "drunk out girls" (You are very, very dirty.)

Google for "Britishisms Bloody Fag" (Because bleeding over cigarettes is a big problem.)

Google again for "Hands grow bigger" (Which would be helpful, considering I now have more than a handful.)

Google again for "Writing a letter to your xboss after a long time" (My mother always told me that if you didn't have anything nice to say...say it in the car when your husband can't hear.)

Great one from Google on "I had a penis, I was a man"

Blogger search for "Tattoo Katy" (I got nothing...)

More UK Google for "Merekats sales" (I wouldn't...they make horrible salesmen...and they keep digging holes in the carpet.)

Blogger again on "Show me sexy girls" followed by a Blogger search for "Bad girls" (Yes I am, so spank me :P)

And finally, to link the bottom of this post to the top a Google search for "Pornstar"

Guess I really am more interesting than I thought...

Hmph.

This post sucks

"Like with all fieldtrips, we ended up being there about an hour too long." I summed up after detailing my weekend activities to Cary (not her real name - thank you) at work.

"You always do interesting things." She said. "My whole story was about the dogs fighting and reading a book."

"Sounds like a good weekend to me. You're plan was to relax."

"Yeah, but you guys always do something different and exciting. I'd never think to do that."

This statement isn't all that new to me. Before the great purging of our office our weekend update pow-wow's were more than just two women, and usually at the end of it my stories were met with shock and a little admiration. However, it was mostly women who were decades older than me and had children my age. Me being prone to indulge in some stereo-types when it fits my mood expect older suburban Marylanders to have boring weekends.

But Cary is 27 and single and drop-dead gorgeous. She's one of those girls I tend to fantasize about being. The perfect blonde who kept her looks and her popularity long after high school. Followed the straight and narrow, has a college degree and you know a job despite layoffs.

And she thinks my life is exciting. After I detailed a bus trip where we went around Pennsylvania drinking beer. Good beer, but still. It was beer on a bus, that's all.

It's odd feeling like I am somehow the bad girl amongst my fellow East Coasters. Growing up on a little island, with a father everyone knew, I rarely got into trouble. Actually I never got into trouble. During my prom I was invited to the infamous "after-party". But my date was gay and we both had to wake up early the next morning to do a mime show (I kid you not). Now as an adult a typical night for me is still staying home and watching t.v. Or playing on the internet. I do get drunk in public often. Usually the drunk in public thing is followed by flirting. That's about it. Oh, and dirty jokes, and swearing. But all and all it's tame. I'm really a pretty normal good girl.

Debauchery is such a word that deserves a little more...sin. Wild parties where you drink unidentifiable liquid in opaque cups and take unidentifiable pills from the sleazy guy with the silk shirt. Go home with an equally unidentifiable man or woman (or both) and wake up blissfully ignorant of why there is a picture of Hecate painted in red nail polish on your wall. That's debauchery. That's interesting. A story about how you found your underwear in the back of a white hummer limousine - now that's exciting.

Not a Thursday night spent at the pub.

So my status as the Bettie Page is completely unwarranted. I not only feel bored, I feel boring. My stripper exercise classes and my yoga just feel like normal things to me. Even dare I say a bit fad-ish. It smacks of suburban boringness dressed up. Like a housewife wearing heels. Ain't nothing to write home about.

Or write in a blog about.

Except that somehow all my friends tend to want to live vicariously through me. They want to hear all my dumb little stories. I guess when all their stories are about how they took out the garbage a day early and the racoon got it, my story about how we watched a spontaneous Argentine parade after the World Cup game seems somehow cool. At least to them.

Cary, who I secretly envy, envies me. And I think I'm boring. I think she's boring too, but at least she's blonde and boring.

Are my expectations too high or are the communities expectations too low? Do I just live in a boring place where anything out of the ordinary is strange and exciting or am I really the bad girl I've secretly always wanted to be?

Does this post sound too much like Sex and the City?

Maybe, instead of me actually being interesting and intriguing I'm the ordinary girl who is pegged as different because I am quiet and have red curly hair. Will the admiration and compliments slowly wear off and eventually turn into mob cries of "Burn the Witch!"?

At least then I'll have a really exciting story.

Mutant

I guess I should have seen it coming. There were plenty of signs. The way my bras were digging into my skin. The strange indentations on my chest at the end of the day. The bad looks I got at the gym. I know those looks. I've given them before. That look that oozes venom. The pointed stare at the bouncing girls that just screams disgust. It's like being in high school...only worse.

But I couldn't help it - I thought - I'm trying to run.

Of course the kicker should have been when my friend yelled in the middle of the office "How do you fit those watermelons in a size small?!?!"

Regardless, I didn't pick up on the signals. I didn't listen to the murmurs (though apparently it was quite the topic among the men) and I didn't see the stares. So when I walked into Victoria Secret I wasn't prepared.

I was in a strange mood for Katy. I wanted to go shopping. I felt like looking at stuff and trying things on. This is rare and it was exciting to go off on my own and indulge in pure girly-ness. Victoria Secret is my favorite. It smells good in there and everything feels nice. I like running around and coo-ing over the latest cute set. The fun and flirty thongs. The new corsets. I like being in a store that screams curves and sexy and flirt. I flutter from rack to rack, looking at the mannequins and drooling over the lace and sequins. FUN!

I went in armed with push-ups and push-togethers. Side straps and tube straps. Convertibles, invisibles, demi, full. Silky, lacy, skin. I had my favorites picked out and was ready to finally face the mirror - sure that one of them would give me the exact shape I like. Round, but perky. And all in a size 36C.

But something was wrong. For some reason instead of round I was getting slightly oblong. Instead of full and perky, my breasts looked strangled. Smushed. Like they were trying to escape.

No girls, we have to wear a bra...it's the 21st century...we can't get away with that free-hanging stuff anymore.

But try as I might. Adjusting and pulling and prodding, they would not stay in the cup. Help!

I bit my lip as the very tiny girl measured me. It'll be okay I thought. So what if I've gained an inch or two. I'll get a few 38's and then hit the row-machine. Back to 36 in no time. It's perfectly normal to grow a little.

"36!" She counted the inches. "Oh but you definitely need to be in a D cup."

"A what cup?"

"You're definitely a D. Want to try something with a little more support?" She asked helpfully. I personally think she sounded a little too cheery.

I tried it on anyway. It fit. It was perfect in fact. Full, round, comfortable. And big. Seriously...all I could see were the twins. Nothing else. I ceased to have a body or a head, I was just a inconsequential transport for two big boobs. I felt like a boob.

But I was game. I went out looking for all those cute things I liked before in my new size. I mean why not? Everyone wants big breasts right? Plastic surgeons make millions every year by giving women larger sizes. I got mine naturally. I'm lucky right?

I was until I noticed that I couldn't find D's in any of the styles I liked. No bra-tops in D's. No Ipex, no second skin.

"Do you need some help finding something?" "Oh, you have to look in the drawers for that size." The drawers? Previously the drawers in Victoria Secret were only needed to find the odd colors. Like passion-berry and hot-green. I didn't need a hot-green bra. Not that I wouldn't mind it. But still...it's hot green.

"Right, we don't have D's in this style. Are you sure you want a demi?" "So which color did you need...flesh or black?" I looked around. Everywhere the mannequins were covered in fun colors and flirty lace. Pink and red and purple. Colors I love. Colors I like to put on under boring work clothes and know to myself that I am wearing a purple and pink lace bra underneath...and it's my little secret. Then I looked at the small drawer of D's...in styles I used to see my mother wear...and colors that were as boring as my husbands underwear.

It was all I could do not to burst into tears.

Overdramatic? Maybe. But this idea that society puts pressure on women to be big-breasted is a bunch of bullshit. Show me the store where the mannequins are a full C-cup? Show me where in the mall a woman with full breasts and full hips can by a t-shirt that doesn't stretch to bursting over her boobs. Show me the non-maternity wear dresses that don't either smush or bunch over a round front. Show me all that and I'll show you a bridge I have for sale.

Gone are the fun colors and the flirty sets. Gone are the cute t-shirts and fun tops. Gone gone gone.

But I have plenty of breast to spare.

The Importance of Being Egotistic

Today I found myself stuck watching some morning "news" show while I waited in the lobby of my car dealer. The claim of the rental car girl that "They're bringing a lot of cars around front right now, " was slowly turning into "They're bringing a lot of cars around front sometime before noon." So I was sitting and dividing my time between Miss Mary Sunshine and her semi-attractive middle-aged co-star and the toy model of a BMW X5.

Some guy with a newspaper of some sort was watching with me, and snorting in derision while Mary talked about some potbelly pigs somewhere in Chicago.

"They really don't have a lot of news do they?" The woman who was sitting opposite newspaper guy said.

"I'm waiting for them to start talking about what's really important!" Newspaper guy cried. "This here will be the end of oil in America, they're taxing terrorists..." I only heard about half of his blather, I was too busy trying to crane my neck far enough to see the headline on his rag. And it was a rag...it even had glossy paper...no newsprint in sight.

This is about the time I started dividing my attention between the toy X5, the potbelly pigs, and my new found need to classify reading material by their actual material. It's not really and newspaper unless it leaves dirty black ink all over your hands and is too cumbersome to read comfortably. Somehow my own personal fantasy about newspapers and the mess they make took enough time that I found myself suddenly alone with Newspaper guy in the lobby.

He looked at me. I stared at the pigs. He looked at me again. I glared at the pigs. He scooted closer to me.

I moved my purse to sit between us.

He got the message and moved back to his other chair.

Then he looked at me some more. "You're not really watching this are you?"

"Nope, they're just pigs."

He nodded and mumbled about needing to see the "real" news. He kept on about the end of oil in America and terrorists. His snorts were much louder and somehow much more pompous now that he was in control of the fancy remote control. He waved the news-thing around to make a point about how American news doesn't talk about the real important stuff. I caught stuff like "ignorant" and "biased" and "monkey" Meanwhile I watched to see what he thought was real news. CNN? Fox? MSNBC? CSPAN? Was he conservative? Liberal? Libertarian? Did he want world news or domestic? Was he a pure story guy or someone who only watched analysts? Did he enjoy John Stewart?

Probably not, he was wearing a polo shirt after all.

Instead he stopped on a channel with old pictures of Britney Spears dancing in various states of undress.

Which is obviously more important than the end of oil in America and terrorism put together. And way real.

Related

So with Independence Day once more upon us here in the U.S.A. there have of course been a plethora of documentaries, movies, plays and books about our Revolution and our Founding Fathers.

I love these stories. I get chills thinking about the rag-tag group of soldiers sitting in the cold, hungry, tired, defeated - listening to the words of Thomas Paine and Common Sense before they fight the dreaded Red Coats again. I always feel my shoulders rise a little straighter and my skin prickle when I hear the words of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Patrick Henry repeated over and over.

And of course:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Wow. Just wow. Maybe it's the way I was raised, or the things I've seen and people I've met growing up. No matter. Those words still cut straight to my heart.

This year, though, I've been struck with an whole different idea.

These men were the Founding Fathers.

These men were my Founding Fathers.

It is a humbling and strangely uplifting thought to know that more than 200 years ago a few men risked their lives to create a country that one day would afford me so many things that so many people around the world do not have.

These men didn't just give life to a new country with new ideals, they gave birth to a new kind of person. Great people who've followed of course. People who changed the world. But people like me too. And people like my husband. And that's something. Because maybe we aren't changing the world in a single deed, or even a single lifetime. But if I've learned anything from my family and ancestors, it's that it's not the huge things that matter - it's the footprints we leave.

Our Founding Fathers left a lot of footprints to follow. And a lot of room for us to find our own path. They are big shoes to fill. But the cool thing I realize now is that the shoes aren't meant to be filled by one or two men. But by all of us. Because we're Americans, linked inexplicably to heroes from centuries ago by a simple pledge, declaration, of allegiance. I'm in a way related to Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock.

And in that way I'm also related to anyone who believes themselves an American. Being American isn't about blood or heritage or parentage. It's about allegiance, in any form, to the same ideas that were put forth in the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution.

And that's a really awesome feeling.