Deep, Deep Thoughts

Yesterday J-Man showed me a video that he thought I would like. It was a fair assumption. The video was deep thoughts with Anna Kendrick, so what's not to like? Perhaps you've already seen it and really liked it and laughed out loud. I'm not really sure why I didn't.

I love Anna Kendrick. I love her movies. I laughed til I snorted at Pitch Perfect and even went to the theaters for Into the Woods. Don't even get me started on how I ugly cried my way through The Last Five Years at 6am while my family slept soundly one Saturday morning. It was just after a big fight J-Man and I had (which I refuse to detail here because a) you probably don't care, b) it's been resolved, and c) it's not really your business even though you hopefully know that we are human and have been married seven ((seven?!)) years and therefore occasionally find ways to drive each other beyond insane before forgiving one another and making up and remembering all the reasons we love each other) ... where was I?

Oh, right, AK's deep thoughts. Man, I got off track...

I think I didn't get all giggly because when you say the words "deep thoughts," only one image comes to mind: a college classmate's Jack Handey AIM away messages circa 2003.

I told J-Man this and he did a half smile, but I got temporarily transported back in time. I mean, I used to spend hours upon hours in front of my super heavy Thinkpad "studying" and "writing papers" while obsessively staring at people's away messages. Remember these?

I used to try to write clever ones. Sometimes a profound quote from something I was reading for class. Sometimes a deep pondering of my own. Often something weird and semi-salacious like "showering with KB" because I was nineteen and still awkwardly trying to learn how to be flirtatious. Anything was better than the generic message above. Seeing that exact font sends shivers of anxiety through my fingers. Short-lived crushes began and ended over AIM, and an away message managed to say more than the hundreds of status updates I scroll past on facebook these days.

When my friend started doing Jack Handey quotes, I actually thought he was brilliant, a comedic genius. Call me naive. I'd watched SNL less times than fingers on my hand. I didn't know Deep Thoughts were a thing. I figured he was more intelligent than I'd given him credit for as a football player and continued my spiral of everyone-here-is-so-much-freaking-smarter-than-me-and-prettier-and-funnier-and-I-hate-them-all. At nineteen that spiral was mad deep like a cyclone.

How relieved was I to find out that he was just like the rest of us, stealing ideas to keep people interested. Borrowing from others to start conversations. Hoping someone had something to say about the tiny bat signals of loneliness those AIM messages really could be.

My mind wandered down those paths while I listened to this new set of Thoughts. I considered what a kid I used to be. I considered how insecure I felt, waiting for messages, watching names shift from black, to idle gray, to black again, wondering if certain screen names would write, or if I should write first, or if anyone watched niloha05 as closely as I watched them.

Sometimes I wish I were a college kid still: young, free, inventive, with endless life potential. And then, sometimes, I'm really glad to be in my thirties, settled and routinized yet brave in surprising new ways, not giving nearly as much of a flying fig what the cool kids think.

Let's Do Lunch

I have a fabulous group of friends from high school and now and again we check in with each other via email.  We share the important updates: Family, Job, School, Boys/Girls, Fears about the Future.  Most often these emails come up a few weeks before the big events like Thanksgiving, Apple Blossom, Christmas, summer vacations.  It's great because for a couple days we get a series of reply-all's.  That's in addition to the emails with other individual friends that, when they appear in your inbox, always bring a smile and a "I wonder what's up with her" moment. I love real emails with substance!

Recently McG (we still need to work out a name for you, M) wrote a few of us ladies to tell us about a humorously odd experience in the elevator.  She told it best so I won't try to recreate the scenario.  Just know that her haircut is way different than in high school and she may have scared someone who may or may not be that awkward someone that we all uncomfortably learned about his sex life back when he and another friend were getting busy on Mrs. S's Williamsburg trip.  Yes that was a long sentence and yes these are the things I unfortunately remember about high school.

At any rate, the elevator exchange included a "we should do lunch."  This is most amusing to me because I ran into a less awkward but equally distanced high school classmate after work last week.  I was just hanging up from leaving a voicemail when a girl that I would call kb, except I already have KB, saw me. It went a little like this:

K: Nicole?

N: Hey!  Wow, I wasn't expecting to see anyone I knew here

K: Well I wasn't expecting to see you. Aren't you across the country

N: Woman, read my facebook page. (just kidding, I didn't say that, I really said "no, we've been back a few months now")

[insert one of those barely touching hugs, the kind you do when you're sweating or don't like the other person]

K: Do you work near here?

N: Yeah, just a couple blocks


K: Me too.  We should do lunch

N: Uh, yeah, um, maybe sometime

K: It looks like you're on the phone though, I'll let you go. 

N: (glancing at my glorious, phone no longer connected to anyone) Right, yeah, [into phone:] sorry there

K: I'll facebook you

N:...Ok

She did, in fact, facebook me.  I also, by guilt, facebooked her back.  So far, nothing.

Perhaps, "we should do lunch" isn't the most terrifying thing an old classmate can say to you?  Perhaps it is?  Time will tell.  And likely, many more faux hugs are in store at next week's pink and green extravaganza.

Shower the People with... Advice?

The thing about bridal showers is...

Ok, I didn't have a good way to finish that.  But I went to one this weekend.

KB and I are friends with a girl we'll call Erica.  (I love making fake names on here.  It's like naming a new doll or something!)

Erica and her fiance have known each other only a year and are getting married next week.  And no, they're not Mormon too.  They are in love and happy and take risks beyond my imagination, but that's for another post altogether.

So Erica's bridal shower has a theme: time of day.  Which is most ironic because Erica showed up to her own bridal shower one hour and seven minutes after the time on the invitation.  Taking CP time to another level.  But hey, it's' her day.  So we lightly teased and moved right along.

The shower was pretty traditional.  Salads and cupcakes and chocolate covered strawberries.  Games that require you to dig in your purses (did you know most of us still carry checkbooks?!?) and unscramble words like garter, groom, and clergyman.  Awkward comments about sex while the bride's mom is in the room.  Judging one another on how well you know the bride, or the groom or both.

It was the last staple of the day, however, that has kept me talking all weekend.  We got to the point I like: parting advice.  What can we encourage or share from our own experience before this momentous day?

I know I spent a good 22 years of my life not really believing the whole marriage/love/happiness deal was real... but the last years with my J-Man seem to have turned me into a sap.  I thought about the things I think when I look at my rings and conjured up something sweet and awww-worthy.  I was totally prepared, and nervous in that way you get when everyone is introducing themselves - as if I might forget my own name or something- and waiting for it to be my turn.

But two people before me, this chick (you know I only say 'this chick' when I don't like someone) points her finger at Erica and says "Do NOT be jealous"

Hold up!

Wait a minute!

You can probably imagine that J-Man laughed when I told this story.  Because if someone had tried to give me that advice I might've said "them's some fightin words."  I'm totally jealous.  In fact, yes, too jealous.  I can read into anything.  And I do read anything.  Whatevs.  J-Man has my passwords too.  The thing is, I don't read much, I just like him to know I could.  But if this chick is trying to say that I can't be a little crazy, I am not ready for that.

Crazy is part of being married, right?  You decide to live the rest of your life with someone, they've gotta give you something now and again.  I don't take out the trash.  I don't let him do my laundry.  I get a little crazy when he's around shady women.  I trust him.  I don't trust them.

I trust him also because we have an arrangement.  Yep, an arrangement.  It goes like this.  He can cheat on me once.

And I can cut his...

Oh wait, I think I was going to keep this post clean and sweet.

So anyway, the room started to erupt.  What about if he's looking at other women?  When he's holding Erica's hand?  What about if he's watching a 'movie' when she's sleeping?  What about magazines?  Oh man, it got nutty in there.  Phrases like "men will be men" and "treat him like a king" and "don't treat him like a king" were flying around the air.  KB and I were just waiting our turn to give our advice. Doodling on our game-sheets.  Elbowing each other to say "did you hear that?" Suddenly this sweet, common bridal rite of passage was a mini-war between the jealousy-is-normal and the men-are-dogs-so-kick-their-butts teams.

At some point I got to say my piece and get my aww but man oh man was it a doozy.