cindy's world

The other day, Mr. W was driving us home when my cell phone rang and caller ID revealed it was Lily, whom I hadn’t spoken to for…gosh. A year? She doesn’t have a blog and she doesn’t do the online social networking thing, so the only information I get about her life is if/when she emails. She and her husband Arnold do a holiday newsletter so all the most recent updates I have are from that. I was curious and a little concerned to hear from her out of the blue. The conversation started with the usual exchange, “So what’s new with you?” I told her what’s newest with me, she told me what her work and her husband’s work recently has been like, she told me about their split times between various hospitals (she’s a radiologist and he’s a cardiologist), their recent goals… and I was on the verge a couple times of asking her, “So, what’s up?” to get to the point of why she called. About half an hour into letting the conversation go in its natural meandering course, she told me she had now arrived at her destination and would call me maybe next week to chat some more and catch up.

She only called me to chat because she had free time on her drive to talk? *blink blink* So…there WAS no point to the talk, she had nothing important to tell me, no disaster to seek consolation about, no request to make of me?

And then I remembered how things USED to be. In high school and into college, we used to call each other just cuz we’re bored and wanted to talk. There wasn’t always a point to the call, but we figured we’d collect lots of points along the route of our conversations, and we always did. She wasn’t the only one, I did this with lots of friends. It was how we bonded, hung out when we couldn’t physically hang out. My parents never understood it and thought it a huge waste of time (thank goodness they were mostly local calls so they couldn’t kill me for wasting money, too). They would say that the point of a phone call is to convey a message, and when that task was done, then it was time to hang up and go about the rest of the day. I’d roll my eyes and think about how parents don’t understand anything and how we NEEDED these talks, these bonding times.

I guess I’m in my parents’ shoes, now. Instead of being excited when the phone rings like I used to be, I get annoyed and wonder who is interrupting whatever I was doing. Seeing the caller ID would sometimes mitigate the annoyance, i.e. “Oh, it’s ___. I’m sure it’s important.” “Good, it’s ___ calling me back about our weekend plans.” “Hey, ___’s calling! We like ___!” Not that I want to discourage my friends from calling, it’s just that it’s so RARE these days. We mostly touch base by email or text or social networking; phone calls seem reserved for urgent-response-required matters. Sometimes I’d be texting or online chatting with a friend (which seems less intrusive to their day), and there’d be something they want to relay but would take too long to type out, so they say they’ll call me right then, so I get a heads-up.

I wonder what changed. Have WE changed, by way of getting adult responsibilities, so that we have less time to “waste” on socializing on the phone? Has social communication etiquette changed with the new forms of available communication, such that we’d rather leave non-emergent messages for each other via email (if unimportant) or text (if a little more immediate) so we don’t impose and interrupt our friends’ day, letting them get back to us at their convenience? Have we lost the need for human interaction so it simply doesn’t occur to us to bother with keeping in touch with friends personally, as long as we can laugh at someone’s status message online once in awhile? Is “lol” what passes for “KIT” these days?

I recall having known “about” Santa Claus since immigrating here at age 6, but as my family wasn’t Christian, Christmas was more or less an excuse to have festive group gatherings with friends and family for dinner. The host family would decorate their house with a tree, people would bring presents for each other, but we still all ate homecooked Chinese food. It wasn’t any different from any other get-together, except for the presents and the decorations.

The first year my older cousin Olivia came to the country, we had such a Christmas gathering at my Aunt Jessica’s house. 7 or 8 elementary school kids (myself included) ran around playing in the living room, parents sat and conversed at the dinner table, and my cousin Olivia was the in-between teenager without a peer group. She kept busy, however. After dinner, I soon heard rumors from my cousins Diana and Jennifer (whose house we were at) that Olivia was, right then, undergoing a transformation in their parents’ bedroom to become Santa Claus. I had never seen Santa before. I mean, aside from the two-dimensional depictions on TV, greeting cards, and picture books. I’m not sure it even occurred to me that Santa was supposed to be male. But I was sworn to secrecy and I awaited “Santa”‘s arrival as people started gathering in the living room for present-time. Soon, the doorbell rang. “Eh?” Aunt Jessica said in dramatic mock surprise (in Mandarin). “Who could that be? I’m not expecting anyone else.” Someone got the door, and a huge commotion was heard. My aunt exclaimed “WOW! You all look who’s here!” just as a bearded Olivia in a red suit sauntered into the room. I watched the jaw of one boy in particular hit the carpet.

My first time meeting him, Santa was enthusiastic, knew things about all of us, had great skin, and spoke Chinese. He didn’t stay long, and I played along. When he stood to leave, he explained that he has many many other boys and girls to deliver presents to, admonished us little ones to be good and listen to our parents, and walked out the front door as jollyish as he’d walked in. The stunned little boy was still quiet, in awe. He walked a few steps up to the tree, and reached up to a branch. “Santa’s beard is in the tree,” he said, still seemingly unable to blink.
“What?” Aunt Jessica asked, walking over to him as the room recovered.
He pulled a little piece of cotton (yes, as from cottonballs) off the tree, showing it to my aunt, mouth still agape.
“Oh, Santa’s beard,” Aunt Jessica said nonchalantly. “You can keep that for him and give it back to him next year.”
The boy stared at the beard in his hand, evidence that something magical had happened. “Okay,” he whispered, very very carefully putting it in his pocket.

We finished opening our presents. All the kids got a Snoopy pencil box that was rounded and looked like a giant crayon, and the top unscrewed and tons of cute pencils, erasers, sharpeners, etc. poured out. I also got a little stationery notepad with a faded photo of a green blade of grass as the background, drops of liquid round and glistening on the blade’s surface. A haiku was written in small print on the bottom corner:
Dewdrop, let me cleanse
In your brief, sweet waters
These dark hands of life. (c) Peyo
(Years later, I would be frustrated and befuddled that the middle line is missing a syllable. It seems like it’d be so easy to fix; “In your brief AND sweet waters,” for example. I still have most of the items, buried somewhere in a box perhaps at my parents’ house. I no longer have the pale green notepad, but I had long since memorized the haiku as I slowly learned English.)

Suddenly, the doorbell rang again and some moments later in came my cousin Olivia, beardless, stomach-pillow-less. “I heard Santa was just here!” The kids and some adults confirmed this. “I can’t believe I missed Santa! I only went out for a few moments! I must be the most unlucky girl in the world! Why am I so unlucky?” she griped convincingly. “You must tell me about him!” So the younger kids, plus the boy, filled her in on what she missed as the adults smiled at each other, a trick successfully pulled off.

My cousin Olivia remembers that night as a fun time, and was incredulous when I brought it up a last week. She was amazed I remembered so much detail, as she didn’t. Looking back, I don’t think I appreciated how much work she put into being there for us. Even that day alone, the costume must’ve taken quite a bit of preparation.
Olivia: I am never ready for Christmas! We do not celebrate Christmas; My mom used to tell me that we are Chinese so we do not care for Christmas……also she does not celebrate Chinese New Year, because we are consider as “Americans” now…………..I realize that I do love her idea for that because I am a mom now…HeeHeeeeee!
Me: There’s a constant battle in our household because I say I don’t want to lie to my kids so I’m not going to tell them that Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, etc. are “real,” I’ll just let them believe what they want from what they learn in school or on their own. [Mr. W] thinks I’m evil. And this kid doesn’t even exist yet!
Although, I can tell my kid that YOU are Santa Claus because when I was 6, you WERE. I still remember that day well. And Santa Claus spoke Chinese, left a piece of cotton beard on the Christmas tree, and you came running in late to find that you had just missed Santa Claus so you must be the unluckiest girl in the world. Haha!
Olivia: You amaze me for remember all that! We had so much fun that year! I really think I am so lucky to have you,Jen, and Diana. You are closer to me than Oliver. So matter what ; I know I can count on you and you can count on me. Love you so much… Dear Cindy!
Me: Before you could say that, we all counted on you first, for the trips to the swap meets, the trips to Disneyland, Knott’s, Magic Mountain, for thinking of us when you travel and see interesting little souvenirs, for taking me to Cal Poly to class one day to make college “real” for me (I still remember the professor’s lecture about a Jesus story, I must’ve been 12), so much that there’s no room here to list them all. Thanks for being our big sister all those years.
Olivia: My eyes are wet! You touch my heart! How come that I do not remember taking you to Cal Poly? All I can say is that I am so proud to have you as my beautiful sister!

A recent-ish photo of Olivia (she’s the one in the middle, obviously):

This year, almost 3 decades later, I made contact with my second Santa:

I owled it again last nite. I guess I had too much tea at my parent’s house Monday evening after dinner. My dad serves up tea traditional Chinese style, and while chatting, you have no idea how much caffeine you’re sucking down when it comes in a one-ounce cup that constantly gets refilled. So I was awake till 5a, altho I went to bed before 2a.

One of the things swirling around my head while I was trying to get unconscious was a memory from back in ’95. It was my freshman year at UCLA. I didn’t have a car in college (cars were mostly unnecessary; we walked everywhere cuz parking’s too expensive and hard to find. My legs were awesome in college), so when I’d go home on weekends, either my mom would come pick me up after work on Friday or I’d hitch a ride from a friend going that way. I was sorta seeing (long story) an OC boy, and one weekend he offered to come by, visit, pick me up, and take me back for the weekend.

I realized when he got there Friday night that he hadn’t told his parents that he was staying over. I realized this because he borrowed my phone to call his mom fairly late that night. The conversation went something like this:
“Hey mom. Did I wake you up? …Oh, well don’t wait up, I’m not coming home tonight…. Because! I’m out! …I’m with Ryan…[I could hear his mom’s voice through the phone at this point, altho I couldn’t understand what she was saying. This is how I know he was cutting her off.] I had some beer, so I’m not gonna drive. Look, do you want me to get in my car and get pulled over on a DUI? Is that what you want? … Or do you want me to crash into someone get killed? …Well okay, then! No! I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll see you tomorrow!! BYE!!” He hung up on apparently an upset mother.

What blew me away listening to this is…
1.) We were not drinking. He did not have any beer.
2.) He LIED to his mom about drinking and about who he was with in order to stay over.
3.) I was 18 and he was 19. I certainly didn’t drink, knowing I’m underage. Did he?! Was this acceptable or normal to his parents that he would go out drinking with a buddy when he was underage?
4.) Lying about underage drinking is BETTER of an option for him than to tell his mom he’s hanging with a girl? Really???

At the time I figured it was just a white boy thing. I better not get a phone call like this one day.

I had an eventful weekend roadtripping up to NorCal, stopping by Sunnyvale to visit college roommie Diana and spending a few days in Napa for a meal and wine tasting, and Calistoga for Eddie & Michelle’s small private wedding ceremony. I’ll write about that when I’m able to get my photos together.

An odd memory played itself in my head this morning on the drive to work. I was 19, with my first boyfriend in the passenger seat of his mom’s Mercedes, which he was driving. We were on a main street in the Monterey Park area. We stopped at a red light. I looked left at opposing traffic, which was also stopped at their own light. I noticed a guy driving a pickup truck and stared at him because he looked exactly like an older grownup version of my then-boyfriend (whom we’ll call Jerome). This is unusual because Jerome is very unusual-looking, to put it euphemistically. I was just blown away that they looked this similar. That pickup driver, within the first seconds of my stare, looked up and weirdly turned to his left, looked across multiple lanes of stopped cars between us, and made direct solemn eye contact with me. That lasted 4-5 more seconds as I gawked at who appeared to be Jerome in the future. It took this long for Jerome to turn to his left. He didn’t see me staring, but he sure noticed that pickup guy staring, because he said irritably, “What the hell is THAT guy staring at?!” as the light turned and we started to move forward again. I didn’t say anything, and he thankfully didn’t turn to look at me. It seemed odd and ironic that he didn’t realize he was staring at himself. How many people in the world looked like that?! I was lost in thought for a few minutes after that. What is this, a wrinkle in time? I thought. Did the space-time continuum fold back on itself and give us a glimpse of the two juxtaposed realities? And if that’s the future, I thought with horror, Where was I? And what’s with the beat-up pickup truck? I also wondered whether the future Jerome, when enough time passed and he became the guy in the pickup staring at the younger version of himself with the girlfriend in the front seat, would remember that he was on the other side of the stare back decades ago. The stunned look of the pickup driver certainly suggested he made such a connection.

This morning, I thought with amusement about young love. We really thought we’d be together forever in our early relationships. I never told Jerome about this because it was creepy to me at the time and he scared easy anyway, so I didn’t want him to freak out that I was missing from his future AND he did not appear to be as affluent in his adulthood as his parents made him in his youth (something very important to him). I wondered if now is the time of the pickup driver’s present. Of course, knowing now what I didn’t know then, it makes more sense. Where was I, why wasn’t I in the pickup next to him? I was (am) having the time of my life with my handsome husband taking trips and goofing off at home and having fun with friends both in traveling and in home get-togethers. I happen to know that Jerome, after we broke up, rebounded to his best friend’s big sister and ended up knocking her up. I heard something about her telling him that precautions weren’t necessary because it was “medically impossible” for her to get pregnant. She explained the pregnancy by telling him that he must have some seriously lethal sperm so he walked around proudly saying, “Yeah, I’m the man! I’m the man!” (Typical him.) They got married in a small ceremony in his parents’ church when their daughter was very young, and then lightning struck in the same place twice as she once again got pregnant. The lie must’ve been apparent THEN, cuz she got her tubes tied after the second one. His parents didn’t like the union, didn’t like the age difference (she is older), didn’t like the racial difference (he’s Chinese; she’s Honduran), didn’t like the fact that they clearly had premarital sex (the parents are very religious and always preached to him about keeping his hands to himself), didn’t like that she was big, wasn’t college-educated, didn’t have a lucrative or prestigious career, didn’t come from a well-off family. They also didn’t like ME cuz I wasn’t good enough for their son, despite the fact that I straightened him out, got him to stop smoking and drinking (he was underage) and helped get him transferred into UCLA, where I was a student at the time. I reviewed his admission essay, application, hooked him up with the right people for recommendation letters, etc. But as soon as he got with the big sister, they partied together, drank, he picked up smoking again, because she made it a point that she was going to be exactly the opposite type of girlfriend that I was. And of course, she got pregnant (whereas I left him a virgin). She also made up a bunch of lies about me and talked crap about me with Jerome, wanting him to hate me, because in their early dating stage he’d broken things off with her and tried to get back with me (I’d ignored his attempts, which you’d think she’d be grateful for, but it apparently gave her a complex). His mom also treated me like crap. I remember, toward the end of our relationship, my driving Jerome back to their home after a day of my showing him around UCLA so he could buy the proper books and things to begin school there, and seeing his mother on the porch. I walked up and greeted her VERY politely in Mandarin. She completely ignored me, looked the other way, and called out to someone on the other side of her, thereby dismissing me. I left very quickly after that despite Jerome’s begging me to stay awhile. She had a large part of why I ultimately broke up with him; I didn’t think their own parenting failures should’ve been my problem, especially when I was not being appreciated for all the efforts I had put into their son. And he had serious issues.

So yeah, karma did her thing. I know about his lifestyle from mutual friends, and I’m happy I’m not still there. But I kinda wish I could be there when future Jerome drives his pickup one day and stares across a crowded street at past Jerome, makes eye contact with past Cindy, and realizes that she knew then who he was.

I was in my dark place this morning driving to work, as the various demises of relationships past played in my head. It seems the beginning of the end consistently had the factor of disappointment in it. By that I mean, disappointment becomes predictable, then expected, then proven true. The issues were different, of course. To oversimplify, one lied about everything, where he was, what he did, his past (issue=integrity); another always threw me aside for his friends (issue=priority); a third did a combination of the last two but took it up a level as the lies were covering up extremely hurtful things he did while with his friends (issues=integrity, priority, morality); a fourth flaked on me all the time, both in calls and activities (issues=consideration, priority).

My relationship bible for a period was Greg Behrendt’s book “He’s Just Not That Into You.” I’ve quoted from it to girlfriends often, when they go through their relationship crap. “He’s just not that into you if he doesn’t call,” one chapter explained. In this world of electronic leashes, each person has various means of accessibility at virtually any given time in the day. Right now, for example, you’d get a hold of me if you comment on this blog, call my desk phone, call my cell phone, email me through my work, email me through my personal email, text message me. I’d also get automatic email notification if you write a message to me through any of three social networking websites. In this day and age, people have so much access to communication tools that their asses accidentally call other people while sitting on their cell phones. So don’t tell me you had zero time in a 4-day period to make one phone call if you gave a shit about me and meant it when you said you want a relationship to work, because all I know is that despite being accused of not trying, my efforts had been met with slaps and denials, and one tiny small effort on the other side that could have been taken, was not. It’d been previously discussed, it would’ve cost nothing, taken up almost no time, and it would have meant everything. (issues=effort, communication, connectivity)

Running off for 4 days and not calling is not the same severity as lying, cheating or even flaking but I crumpled just the same because all of these things trace back to the same state of mind. That is, I am not important enough to be afforded the courtesy of connectivity, even when things are on the brink of collapse.

And, he does not miss me.

In keeping with my now crappy mood and old diary-reading, here’s something raw from several years ago. I haven’t had writing like this for a long time. That’s a testament to the wonderfulness of Mr. Wonderful. But JUST IN CASE you “don’t care to know” what’s in my past writings, you don’t have to click on the “more” below. (I’m not bitter.)
(more…)

I dug out my old handwritten diaries from back in the day. It’s weird cuz just this week alone, I’d thought back to certain things that happened decades ago, and wondered why they happened. For example, I remembered a high school crush hanging out with bridesmaid Vicky and me at this guy Pete’s apartment our freshman year in college, and I’d wondered why he was with us since he didn’t know Pete. I also wondered whether he’d sat in the front seat or the back seat as I’m sure I drove to Pete’s house. (Pete, btw, is its own drama that became something of a triangle involving Vicky. I’d also thought about him recently. My proudest sting operation involving three-way calling and call-waiting was in exposing Pete.) In randomly flipping in this diary, I read about that exact incident. And it was way more embarrassing than I’d expected. I cringed reading it and remembered that Dwaine had said we’re programmed to forget things for our own psychological protection. To show that I am a good sport, I’m gonna let you guys in on what a spazz I used to be back in the day. Some background; the crush and I were insanely close at that time, we’d talk for hours on end on a nightly basis. Vicky had met him a couple of times through me, but as far as I knew they barely qualified as acquaintances. Usually they did not say kind things about each other to me.

“…After this, Vicky and I went to Burger King. Sitting there, I got a page from [crush], ‘hi-sis’. I was all excited, then I thought, ‘What’d he MEAN, “sis”?!’ Then I got sad. Immediately after Vicky’s pager went off. [Crush] paged her ‘miss-you.’ I got really upset. She later went to a pay phone and called him. I threw an attitude and refused to talk to him tho he kept asking for me. I just stood and watched Vicky flirt w/him. I was really sad, yet I stubbornly refused to talk to him. She said [to him as a suggestion that] he could page me w/a buncha’ sorries, but I turned off my pager on the spot. And he never knew why I was upset @ him.”

The next day:
“This afternoon @ 12:48p, [crush] paged me, ‘5748801217.’ Then @ 12:56p, ‘1-177155-400.’ [I miss you] I couldn’t figure out what the 1st one was, so when I got it (@ 1:30 or so cuz I was at L.A. Fitness w/o my pager), I called and asked what it said. He said it said ‘stubborn.’ That was dating back to yesterday when I refused to talk to him. I kinda gave him the cold shoulder in the 3 mins I talked. He said he didn’t go to church today (yesterday Vicky tried to get him to go out w/us today, and he kept saying he has church till 3,no promises, he’ll ‘try’ to call, page, etc.) I called him back later and told him to come over. He kept asking why, I said no reason. He wouldn’t believe me, saying I always have a reason for everything, and I said I just wanted to see him. He came over. We sat around as I finished the last of my packing, and Vicky talked to Pete on the phone. [Crush] said he was gonna bring me a pic, but forgot it @ home. After awhile, we all went down to Pete’s apartment in Pomona and kicked it there for like 2 1/2, 3 hrs. At first, [crush] seemed kinda bored, but he loosened up and told some of his adventurous stories & everyone loved him (except Vicky, who flirts w/him in person but disses him behind his back). Then when we parted, he gave me a hug in front of Pete (Pete looked really surprised) and went to his car. My mom said to leave for LA today @ 5-6p, and we were giving Henry a ride, so I told him that, too. But since I didn’t want to leave (leave [crush], perhaps), I didn’t say anything and we didn’t leave Pete’s till 6p. [Crush] had an engagement too, he was supposed to take some Vivian Choe [a popular Chinese singer at the time] look-alike out for ice cream, and @ first, he kept looking @ his pager for time, and he sat, then stood, then sat, and didn’t leave either till she paged him again. Pete asked if he wanted to use the phone to call her, and he said ‘No, it’s all right.’ Heehee. Anyway, @ 7:32p, I was in the car on the way to LA, and I got this page: ‘44177-177155-400-999.’ I couldn’t read it, and Henry read it. It’s ‘will miss you-[crush].’ Then when I started writing this entry, he paged ‘Ring me’ @ 10:10p. I happily obliged and we talked till now, about 1 hour…”

This entire diary is scandalous with the different guys I gushed about on every page. And the way I behaved around these guys!!! I do remember the incident described in the diary entry above, and some years later I’d gotten back in touch with then-crush, and we’d caught up on people we knew in common, and then Vicky’s name came up. He said, “That girl never liked me. Hmmph.” But I had TOTALLY forgotten that APPARENTLY, they were FRIENDLY and it appears, even PAGED each other little affectionate pages! I should call him now and demand what the hell had been going on between him and Vicky.

But that’d be the old Cindy.

When I was a junior in high school, my English class crush told me, “I wish I were depressed.”
“Why?!”
“Because. It’s so artistic.”

Okay, so Sylvia Plath in her emotional cage and John Keats in his widower mourning wrote some pretty amazing stuff. Even my own poetry that bled out during the periods of deepest adolescent gloom were the most poignant and raw. But to wish for depression for the sake of artistic creation? Even if you’re getting a B in English, that’s not a worthwhile cause. B-, maybe. Depending on how Asian you and your parents are. Har.

Of the many voices I write with, two that I think are very prominent on this blog are 1) goofy tongue-in-cheek bordering on absurdity, and 2) a sort of struggling pain, a muffled cry trying to make sense of events and recover. In looking back I find that in 2005, I tried to stay optimistic while I struggled, then I went through a phase of euphoria when I broke free of previous emotional shackles, and then there was Mr. W whose appearance in my life added a calm stability that made most of my posts either dully reporting or if you’re lucky, somewhat anecdotally amusing.

I’ve read posts of others who are struggling, bleeding artists. The writing is beautiful and inspires me to want to write with the same honest emotion. But I don’t have any of those emotions and most of my prior wounds have healed. I *almost* want a little turmoil to add some flavor to my writing, except that I also recall a time when I’d thought all my posts were too depressing and wished for the emotional soundness to write the happy-go-lucky feel-good posts I’d read on other blogs at the time.

I think the moral is to embrace whatever state of mind you’re currently in, because it is human and beautiful in its own way. But I bet you’re thinking that the real moral is, I’m never satisfied, though I try. What color is YOUR grass?

*peeking over the fence into your yard*

I was processing divorce cases last week when I came across three files in a row where the couple was married for 19 years and now requesting divorce. “What is this? They were married for 19 years and then suddenly realized that the marriage was sooo bad that they HAVE to be divorced before their 20th anniversary?”
My courtroom assistant said simply, “Their kids are grown.”
Oh! I’d never thought about that, and that makes perfect sense. They probably had a kid within a year of the wedding and 19 years later, when the child is now a legal adult at age 18, divorce is simple without issues of child support, legal and physical custody, and visitation.

Since I don’t have kids, I didn’t think about it in that kind of perspective, the whole counting backwards to see when the kid was born thing. I remember the first time it occurred to me to count backwards with respect to other child things. It was 1999 and I was in a computer lab as part of my training for this job. I was chatting with a big butch lesbian, another member of my class, about how growing up, all my friends and cousins with siblings had birthdays really close to their siblings. For example, my cousins Diana and Jennifer have a 3 year age difference, but their birthdays are about 2 weeks apart. MOH Vicky’s sister Karen is 3 years younger, but their birthdays are about a week apart in the same month. When I met a girl in grade school whose birthday was 3-4 months away from her younger sister’s, I refused to believe that they were sisters because their birthdays were too far apart. I laughed at the conclusions my childhood self drew at all the coincidental close birthdays of siblings. The classmate said, “It’s probably not a coincidence. It means that your friends’ parents kept having sex at the same time in the years.” I remember going quiet as I processed this new thought. Imagining friends’ parents having sex was new to me, even in such practical parameters. I only mention this classmate’s sexual orientation because it discredits me to not have thought of this obvious explanation before, when someone who wouldn’t be having child-making sex with a spouse was aware of this like it was nothing.

So of course now I always count backwards 9 months. My cousins were both born in late October/early November? What’s so special about 9 months before that spurred the sexual celebration? (ew.) Maybe Valentine’s Day. Maybe cold weather. MOH Vicky and her sister were both born in May? What was 9 months ago? (ew.) August. I don’t know of any special holidays in August. Maybe it was a wedding anniversary. (ew.) I was born at the end of June. What was 9 months before that? My parents’ October honeymoon. (ew ew ew!) This might be a curse.

I have to say that when I started blogging, I did not foresee the day that I would write an entire long post about a visit to the dentist. But here I am, writing my second dental post of the week. I think I’m just really boring right now. Sorry.

When I was a little girl, I would flip through Best Department Store catalogs frothing at the mouth for the toy section. Then, looking at all the pictures of all the great toys, I’d imagine which toy I’d select if a fairy godmother appeared and told me I can have any toy on a page, and then I’d imagine how I’d play with the toy and make my neighbors and cousins jealous. Sometimes I’d accidentally land on a furniture or bedding section while searching for the toy section, and I’d make a face and quickly turn past those photos, thinking, “Who’d LOOK at this stuff?!” I could not imagine that I would one day not only love going through Bed, Bath & Beyond flyers getting decorating ideas and wistfully wishing for various expensive furnishing items in them, but I’d share my oral cavity events with strangers on the internet.