What this girl puts up with . . .

One time I got a new shower curtain liner but before I hung it up I wrapped myself in it mummy-style and staggered into the living room giggling, "Gretchen, Gretchen! What movie am I from?!" (stagger, stagger)

Gretchen sighs and looks up. "I don't know, Kim." 

"Nightmare on Elm Street!" (cue my maniacal laughter, Gretchen looks back to her computer without a word)

Then I went upstairs to hang it and I fell into the tub.

I was trying to be quiet because let's not make things worse but there are some things that cannot be done quietly and falling into the tub is one of them.



And that's pretty much what it's like to live with me. 

And now for something serious. Ha! Just kidding! This one is ridiculous, too.

I usually make it a point not to talk about gentlemen friends* here because that's kind of personal and I never overshare on the blog.


(crickets)


Um, yeah, except there's this boy, you know what I'm saying? And I, well folks, I got it bad for this boy. Because this boy is a dreamboat. A real-life Adonis.

 (Not appropriate, Kim.)



But you want to know something mind-boggling? He is a grown-up. Not like a should-be-grown-up-by-now-and-therefore-does-marginally-adultlike-things-occasionally grown-up (and we don't know anyone like that, do we?), but like a real, live grown-up. He's got prospects. He's bona fide.**


And guess what you do when you're in a Grown-Up Relationship?
-talk about stuff
-share a donut
-smooch
-never, ever tell him that you think sandwiches are "fancy food"
-hit him with a pillow
-embarrass him in front of his step-mom
-other stuff too


Also, did I tell you that he pinched my bottom the other day?

(That's how you know it's true love.)
 
And then I giggled like a madwoman because, I mean, what would you have done?



(Yes, that is an example of an overshare. Thank you for playing.)


The end.

---

*Unless it is hysterical.

**Please tell me you get that reference. (You have to imagine me saying it in a Southern accent.)

Making Connections

Sometimes when I'm reading in the Book of Mormon, I say to myself “Oh! I remember this part from Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites!”


And all I'm wondering is, well, is that bad?

Deeply Embarrassing Confession #61

I saw Moulin Rouge seven times in theaters. Seven.

I've been holding onto this information for a decade.


 
I feel like we've accomplished something important here today.

Yes, I *am* getting older. Thanks for pointing it out, June. Thanks a lot.

So, it's my birthday again. And I had a post all ready about how I'm getting old, and how this birthday is one I've been dreading for a while, and then I was going to link this song and talk about how I'm pretty much elderly and decrepit now and I'm probably going to die alone.

But then perspective came along and I realized I'm young and hot and awesome.

At least that's what I thought until I examined the receipt after I bought some dry ice the other day.

Oh hell no you did not just age verification bypass me.

And don't you argue with me.

I'm going to believe that all those people staring at me in the grocery store today couldn't take their eyes off me because of my breathtaking beauty, easy elegance and general hotness.

I don't think they even noticed the smear of toddler snot on my shirt.



That's what I'm going to believe.

Mawage, that bwessed awangment.

We live in a strange world. A world where it's fashionable to be cynical and pessimistic. A world where everyone always expects the worst, where trying really hard to make something work is laughable.

But the truth is sometimes nice guys finish first, and sometimes it all works out in the end, and sometimes people do the right thing.

And you know what else?

Sometimes true love really does last forever.

Happy 30th Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

I love you.

That song remains my power, my pleasure, my pain.

No matter how many times I've heard it, every time "Kiss From a Rose" plays on the radio I am instantly 14 years old and swaying awkwardly with a sweaty boy in the school gym.


Man, I love that song.


Also, let's explore the radio presets I have in my car, shall we?

1) 89.1: classical station
2) 90.1: NPR
3) 94.1: oldies station
4) 100.3: soft hits station
5) 101.5: country station
6) 106.5: lite rock station

So the question is, am I a billion years old?

(And, yes, the stations are set in increasing numerical order. Everybody does it like that. Right? Right?)

The first rule of Math Club is you do not talk about Math Club.

You know that one moment right after your plane takes off when you look out the window and see the city spreading out and you can see all the roads and the miniature houses and the tiny cars scooting around?

I hate that moment.

Well, I don’t hate that moment but it makes me very anxious. I see the houses and then more houses and more houses and I think, “Holy cow! How many houses are there in the world?” and then I start to think about how all those houses have people in them. People who have pots and kitchen tables and hand towels and forks and I think, “And how many forks are there in the world?!” And that’s the moment I hate: trying to comprehend how many forks are in the world. Because big numbers make me anxious. And really big numbers make me really anxious. And I’ll bet the amount of forks in the world is a very, very big number.

I’ve never been able to handle numbers well. In first grade when we started doing math using abstract numbers rather than counters (as in 2+2 instead of 2 apples+2 apples) I got most overwhelmed. I would look at a worksheet covered with numbers and see nonsense. In order to stave off my math-induced anxiety I began seeing numbers as living things. They’re numbers, not people, but they have specific genders, personalities and relationships. For example, 6 is a very kind female who 5, a male, looks up to enormously but 7, a male and 6’s boyfriend, is savagely protective of 6 and keeps her isolated from 5 and 8, another male who is extremely well liked by all the others. 1 is a gender-neutral baby, 2 is male, 3 is male, 4 is female and 9 is also female and a bit of a bossy jerk. 2 is nice, 3 is terrible, 4 wishes to be more popular and her desperation is off-putting to the others. I can’t remember exactly when I started thinking this way because, to me, 2 has always been and will always be male. I didn’t make up the 5-6-7 story, that’s just how it’s always been.

I read in a book a few years back there is a name for seeing numbers as genders or colors and it’s actually fairly common. That’s really irritating. I’ve spent my whole life thinking I was some remarkable child and turns out I’m just a big nobody.

With all their drama, each number has a specific value. When I see 6, I see "6-the-kind-female" and remember she equals 6 units. And knowing that "2-the-kind-male" equals two units, I can see 6+2=8. But I don’t see in my head “six plus two equals eight,” I see, “six-the-female brings six units and two-the-male brings two units and their units together make eight units.” To this day, I don’t see abstract numbers in my head. I see each number bringing their units which are, as I picture them, horizontal red ovals. The picture in my head of each number and its value is so instant that I can see the number 10 and visualize ten equaling ten red ovals and say, “Oh, that’s ten,” as fast as other people can see a 10 and think “That’s ten.” But I wasn’t always so fast at figuring out numbers and I spent much of my elementary school days re-teaching myself math using concrete units rather than numbers. I’m pretty good at visualizing even large numbers, probably up to about 4,000. Anything more than that is too high for me to visualize and if I can’t see it, I get anxious.

Junior high and high school had ever-harder math classes and  I had to spend even more late nights at the kitchen table pouring over numbers and reviewing lessons. Then, my junior year, I decided to join Math Club. Why? Heaven only knows. I had to get a recommendation from my math teacher who eyed me warily when I asked for it as she saw me in tutoring at least weekly.  I went to my first meeting, recommendation in hand,  and guess what they do in Math Club?

LOTS OF MATH.

I also learned that Math Club meets to practice high-level math to prepare for the end-of-the-year Math Competition and the famous Math-Off against other schools. Also, they went to Math Camp.

Math-Off?  Math Camp?

My first Math Club meeting was also my last Math Club meeting and my math teacher, bless her heart, never mentioned it again.



And that's why it bothers me to think about how many forks there are in the world. Because I couldn't go to Math Camp.

I have officially run out of interesting things to talk about.

Everyone who has vanity plates should be required to also have a bumper sticker on the back of the car explaining what the vanity plate means.  Because I spend entirely too much time driving around going, "Batbul? BAT-bul? Bat-BUL? Buh-AT-buh-UL? Be-at-be-you-ell? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?"


Also, can we talk about how I yelled at my date the other night? Because that's what people do, right?