i am liberated by a lie

On Monday at approximately 5:14 p.m., I told a deliberate and premeditated lie.

I don't normally lie. At all. Actually I'm a pretty terrible liar. There was this one time when I was like six and three quarters and I knew mom had a birthday present under the seat of the blue mini-van, and so I went outside and I peeked. It was the box set of Little House on the Prairie. I felt this tiny thrill course through my body and I went back inside and mom was like, where were you, and I was like, there was....a really big star.

And that's pretty much how bad I've always been at lying. Until Monday.

I was walking out of the Columbia campus after a solid eight hours of orientation. It was good and all, but after like eight hours of hearing that the journey I am about to embark upon will be the most gut wrenching and difficult thing in like the history of the world, I was ready for some Chinese food and Judge Judy reruns. So, not so much feeling like talking to people.

There's this hair salon a few blocks south of the campus, and sometimes they send out little perky, highlighted minions to drum up business. So I wasn't too surprised when the perky redhead bounded up to me and asked if she could ask me a question.

I said yes. Why do I always say yes? I could say no, I guess. It's just that being nice is way more socially acceptable. It's probably Donna Reed's fault. So she was like, how much do you pay for a haircut, and then something miraculous happened.

I lied.

It was like some switch went off in my brain and my brain was like, hey Andrea, she's just trying to get your hard earned money which is actually Paul's hard earned money but still it's the principle of the thing, and then my brain was like just tell her some price that's so low she won't be able to beat it, and so I told her....

Fifteen dollars.

She looked at me, surprised. Wow, she said. It looks....really cute. I grinned at her. Thanks, I said. Then she was like, can I ask you just one more question?

Sure, I said. I mean, I was ready for anything.

How do you feel about facials, manicures, and pedicures? She looked at me all triumphant, like she'd just offered a junkie some crack.

I looked earnestly, directly, into her eyes.

I don't really like touching, I said.

And she sprang back with a look of supreme pity and bounded away.

And I stood there, enjoying a lightness of soul only experienced by those expert in rejecting solicitation.

It was a new world. A beautiful, new world.

don't judge me

Hey, so want to know something that's delicious and that your mom might totally not approve of you eating?

Pretzels dipped in frosting.

I know you might be all, that's disgusting, but really it's so, so good.

Salty and sweet.

Mmmmmmmmm........

I think I shall have me some right this instant.

the mug and the spoon lie in wait

I woke up hungry.

Paul's phone was beeping, which is why I was awake. So I picked up his phone and saw that Jeff from work had called. I figured it must be important for Jeff from work to call so early and so I woke Paul up and then stumbled back into the kitchen for food.

And I mixed myself some instant breakfast which I love because it's like getting to drink chocolate milk for breakfast and you also get vitamins and who doesn't love vitamins, and that's when I noticed something:

A white ceramic mug and a spoon sitting on a place mat. They looked like they were waiting for something, and while of course it is not at all unusual for one of my very own mugs to be hobnobbing with one of my very own spoons on one of my very own place mats, I felt sort of funny, like I was returning to the scene of a crime.

And then I remembered. Vaguely floating around in a fuzzy puddle of memory, there it was, this picture of me waking up in the middle of the night and making my way to the kitchen where I pulled from the refrigerator the mixing bowl of cookie dough and poured myself a glass of 1% milk and ate what I can only assume was a massive quantity of cookie dough before carefully recovering the mixing bowl and returning the milk carton to its home, leaving the mug and spoon behind.

They had waited for me, the only remaining co-conspirator, and I had returned to the scene of the crime, just as they knew I would.

i find myself stumped by a t-shirt

I consider myself to be a reasonably witty person.

You know, more so than some, far less than others. Reasonable. Except for maybe I'm not so witty, because the other day I was totally, completely, utterly and in all ways possible, stumped by a T-shirt.

So I'm riding the subway, see? And I'm about to get off, and this dude is about to get on, and I see his shirt as I pass. It has a picture of a busty lady pushing a baby carriage, and a caption reading Junk in the trunk.

I don't get it.

I ponder this all the way home.

What does it mean?

Does the mom have junk in her trunk? Is this a misogynistic statement about attractive females? But what about the baby carriage? Is the baby the junk in the trunk? Is this a rallying cry for single fathers wishing to skip out on child support and thus ditch the junk in the trunk?

Is he saying he is attracted to women who have given birth? Is he making a statement about post baby bodies? Because if he is I would like to soundly kick his trash and then shove a watermelon up his nostril to see how he likes it. Or does he like the post baby body, in which case I will recant my previous watermelon shoving wishes but still give him a stern lecture about society's objectification of women.

As Paul and I walk home, I ask him. You're a dude, I say. What does it mean? The junk in the trunk phraseology combined with the mom pushing a baby carriage?

Paul doesn't get it, either.

BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?????????

I mean, whatever it means, T-shirts are just not the place for those sly, wink-over-your-shoulder nods to some private joke you have with your buddy Wallace. T-shirts are the place for obvious humor. You know, snarky stuff like "I'm busy you're ugly have a nice day", and "Trust me, I'm a doctor". Stuff that kinda makes you want to smack the wearer of the shirt, but at least you know what it means and you don't spend like a whole week trying to figure it out, calling into question your very abilities to recognize wit and asking everyone qualifying as a male because apparently they have a secret club where they come up with T-shirt ideas that make no sense whatsoever.

Not cool, man. Not cool.

Seriously, though. WHAT DOES IT MEAN????

I mean, I've already asked all the guys I know. Maybe I'll go ask the super. Yeah, Plinio might know.

I just don't get it.

my journal is a portal to the outside world

Okay, so guess what I just found.

Go ahead, guess.

Okay, I'll tell you:

I just found, lurking on a closet shelf behind my wedding veil (which I refuse to get rid of because of the completely awesome Halloween costume potential), my old junior high journal.

Uh huh.

Hilarious. Painful. Embarrassing. Melodramatic.

Awesome.

Just in case you didn't believe me when I told you how delightfully geeky I was (and continue to be), here's a little taste.

My friend Meridth gave me the journal at my twelfth birthday party. She wrote my name in fancy calligraphy: Andrea Gale, 11/15/91. Your my bestest friend, your very special to me! Love, Meridth. And she drew a little paw print next to her name.

Nice, right? Yeah, except for it's scratched out. And then I've copied the same wording above the scratched out part, and at the bottom I wrote: I crossed it out when I was mad at Meridth. I'm not anymore. Sorry, Meridth.

So, I guess I must have thought my journal was some sort of portal to the outside world accessible to all those close to me, and that's why I needed to right the cosmic wrong I had committed by scribbling out Meridth's well wishes. Go figure.

This journal also marks my first attempts at free thinking, as evidenced by my first entry: Since this is a diary and not a journal, I will write when I feel like it.

I mean, that's something, right? I didn't even date it. What a rebel. The next few entries also lack dates, like that somehow reinforced the whole "diary and not a journal" idea. Also I'm pretty sure that doesn't make any sense. Whatever. I was twelve.

The last entry on the page pretty much sums up my adolescence:

I am feeling better today. I have made up my mind to be very (as) glamorous as possible. I plan to grow my hair long- real long. I found a cute hairstyle today.

And that, too, is scribbled out. I have this vague memory of reading that paragraph and being horrified. I even have a vague memory of scribbling it out.

I love it.

I love that at the age of twelve, when I weighed maybe eighty five pounds soaking wet and had braces and had to wear neck gear, that I had this unconquerable desire for glamour. It just seems really Don Quixote of me. And I love that at some point, I re-read that entry and was horrified.

I mean, it is pretty awful. Right there, in black and white, in the cursive writing that I used in junior high and only in junior high, the uncensored longing of my past, and the hilariously unsuccessful attempt to erase it.

It's like seeing two versions of myself at once. And then, I turn the page:

I am going to write a sequel to "The Music Man". Nobody must know about it, and Stephanie must promise to keep my secret. It may take years, but i will finish it. It is to be called "Marian". I feel good and warm and happy. O, it might have been!

Yep.

Whatever. I was twelve.

in which i reject ed asner

Last night I had a dream that Ed Asner asked me out on a date.

I said no.

He's not really my type.

paul boerem issues a formal statement

I, Paul David Boerem, would like to issue a formal apology to any babies who may have read the previous post.

I may have forgotten my own past obsession with plastic honking spinney things. Also as Andrea and I have no parenting experience whatsoever, it is highly likely that when we discover that the plastic honking spinney things are what keep our children from screaming at abnormally high decibels, we will have our own collection of said items.

Also I don't think babies are Neanderthals. Not that there's anything wrong with Neanderthals.

Thank you.