“Sure, I like cheeseburgers,” the random hostess replied to my mother, smiling, as my mom exited the breakfast bar. .
This might have seemed the perfect, polite response to an inquiry if my mother had actually asked about her menu-choice preferences, but that wasn’t the case
If my affinity for the male “species” didn’t start at birth, it began soon thereafter. My mother loves to tell childhood stories about it.
While my sisters cried like banshees whenever my mom left the house, I pitched a fit until my father took me along with him to construction sites, my building blocks in tow.
Photo credit: Fabienne from morguefile.com
While my sisters joined my mother and other visiting wives in the kitchen during football season, I plunked myself down in the middle of the living room with the men, watched the games, and “sneaked” sips of my dad’s Budweiser. Continue reading
In my college years I met a wonderful man. We’ll call him James.
He struggled with drinking, as most college boys do, but he exemplified the smartest and sexiest man I’d ever known. My 20-something self wanted to marry him in spite of his drawbacks.
My mother and grandmother supported the coupling but for different reasons. For my mother, I feel it was a bit of a check mark – yes, I’ll finally get my youngest daughter married. For my grandmother it reflected a more romantic and basic idea. Continue reading
We’re all called to action at some point, right? Whether it be assisting someone with car trouble, helping an old lady cross the street, or performing the Heimlich maneuver on a stranger (e.g. Bill Murray Groundhog’s Day style), most of us hope to be ready to help when crises arise.
I call that “action-hero syndrome,” and boy, do I suffer from it.
Perhaps it’s because, as a child of the 80s, I watched too many movies (Cloak & Dagger and The Goonies) and TV shows (The Bionic Woman and Charlie’s Angels), or may be it’s just generational hubris? Continue reading
Several years back, I decided to date a younger man – and by younger I mean 10+ years my junior. Adding to the awkwardness of my could-be-boyfriend choice was the fact that I worked with him.
My friends and I dubbed him “New Kid on the Block” when he first caught my attention. For months, the two of us flirted, he poked and prodded around the dating edges, and I agonized over whether I should give him the signal to proceed. Continue reading
“Always do what you say you’re going to do!”
That’s what a good friend said to me in our undergrad college days, after I tried to back out of some activity that I can no longer remember. I’m sure it was something relatively silly, like go watch a movie or concert with him, but his words stuck with me.
“Always do what you say you’re going to do.”
“What are you looking at you, green-eyed heifer, you?”
That’s what my father asked me. He’d said similar things to my sisters but swapped green-eyed for blue-eyed, brown-eyed or the all-encompassing big-eyed heifer.
He conveyed those words with such loving affection that my sisters and I didn’t realize, until way too late in life, that he was actually calling us cows. Continue reading
Last night, in a sleep-deprived state of stupidity, I accidentally published a roughest of rough drafts of “Take the Leap: 30 30-Somethings.” Unfortunately, I didn’t discover my mistake until this morning, while I was traveling and didn’t have access to a computer. Continue reading
Picture this. I stood on the floor of the concert hall dancing along with The Avett Brothers as they performed on stage 30 feet in front of me. Surrounded by friends who love them as much as I do, I didn’t hesitate to sing butcher their songs like any good horrible guest band member would.
Continue reading
If bad blogging Karma exists, I’ve caught it.
Last month, I posted The Perils of Un-drunk Dialing, in which I poked fun at an ex-coworker for being less-than-adept in her use of voice mail and warned against misplaced drunk and sober texts, calls, etc.
Awkward Laughter 