Investing in the future

At this point in my life, I'm embarrassed to say (and yet not too embarrassed to reveal) that I no longer know how many times I've soiled my pants.  These incidents have become too numerous to count.

It started in 1991 when I was a girl of 15 shitting my pants on Easter.  I think it was the au gratin potatoes that did it, but who cares?  The only soundtrack to this day in history was the uproarious laughter of my cousins.  This streak (pun intended) continues to this very day wherein I shit my pants not 14 feet from the toilet in my own house (yes, Scott got out the measuring tape to get exact metrics on this).

The details, while hilarious, are not really appropriate for a public forum.  Suffice it to say that no one was more surprised that I was shitting my pants than yours truly.  Except maybe Scott, who was only a few feet away.  When I realized what happened, I turned around, mortified, to see old Count Scottula gazing at me with a mixture of shock and awe.  And by awe I mean horror.

Usually these kinds of incidents are preceded by a frantic retreat to our home.  A scurrying, if you will.  A race against time.  Not this time.  I was just mild-manneredly minding my own business, enjoying a game of online Scrabble, without the vaguest of inklings of what was to come when, KAPOW.

Friends, I am going to purchase stock in Depends forthwith.  For the future.  I may as well make money on this malady.

God bless America

The thing about planning a wedding - which, honestly, I'm hardly doing at this point - is that it makes a couple think of everyone they've ever known while deciding who exactly they'd like to witness their glorious union. A curious difference between two people can arise. For me, if I haven't had any meaningful communication with someone in a certain amount of time, I can't think of a good reason to invite them to my wedding. Conversely, Scott's got people from childhood summer camp that he wants to invite.

Part of it is that I did not go to childhood summer camp. Part of it is that Scott and I think about the past in different ways. And I guess that's the magic of marriage and couplehood and all that crap, what with everyone bringing something different to the table. Certainly.

I had a hard time breaking free of the bullshit of my growing-up years and, thanks to many years of therapy with a qualified professional, I've become an adult with a life that I like - love, in fact. And I'm just not, nor do I want to be, a backwards looker. I've got some pain in there, my friends. No need to go poking in there with a stick, you know?

I had an extremely uncomfortable run in with a woman I went to junior high and high school with last fall. She came to a show and I greeted her the way that humans do, you know, all friendly like. That wasn't the uncomfortable part. We had a few moments of casual chatting about junior high school. I was so miserable in junior high and high school that I really try to leave that all behind. The person I was then is not the person that I am now. I feel like the only way we're connected is that we have the same body. That's it. Anyway, this woman mentioned something that I used to say, which I guess was a sort of catchphrase, that I had totally forgotten about. It was nearly foreign to me, except for the part of me that I remembered it and grew suddenly red-hot and embarrassed. Who was expecting that? Certainly not me. I'm too embarrassed to tell you what it is, even now. Suffice it to say that it was a Midwestern-housewife-level non-expletive that I used to say instead of expletives.

She was juxtaposing my former catchphrase with my current sailor mouth. She was taken by surprise, see, on account that she didn't realize I would - or even could - have a sailor mouth because I had the opposite of a sailor mouth as a youth. I told her that I had a painfully religious growing-up time, lost religion and, around the same time, started working in food service, so was cured of bible breath (I just made that up; it's kind of funny). But I was super uncomfortable and, sensing my incredible discomfort, the woman also grew uncomfortable. Then there was apologizing and no-no-it's-okay-I've-been-through-lots-of-therapy-ing and carrying on in general.

I guess my point here is that even though I've moved past my olden times and am a totally happy adult, I'm still totally mortified by my olden times and -dare I say it - a little bit unhealed. The idea of revisiting that time on purpose just doesn't make sense to me.

I'm super jealous of Scott in this regard. He has all these people who he WANTS to see, who knew him when he was young - and he's not the least bit embarrassed or mortified to see them again. Is it Buddhist detachment or is it just a difference in outlook or is he more evolved or what? I would love to be that detached from my painful childhood. Uh oh, I'm crying by accident.

Of course, this is the part where we talk about how all the embarrassing and painful parts of our lives swirl around with the happy parts of our lives and turn us into the glorious tapestry of humanity that we are today. That's 100% true. Even so, I not going to go poking sticks around in there.

Also, I'm going to try to learn more about - and perhaps even try to adopt - Scott's outlook.

Making reparations: An update

So I was a total chicken shit and couldn't bring myself to apologize to the Dunkin' Donuts crew at first, but because I said publicly that I would apologize, before I left for the radio station on Saturday morning, I penned an apology note in a blank-inside card. When I got to the drive-through window, I gave it to the lady and asked her to pass it to the manager who I could see clearly behind her. She looked at me like I was a madman. I said to her, "I was in here a couple weeks ago and I acted like an asshole and I'm sorry. This is an apology note." And then she looked at me like I was crazier, and I drove away.

As I drove away, I cried a little bit, but then pulled myself together just fine.

I had a lot of mixed emotions about the whole thing. I was worried about embarrassing myself further by making a too-showy apology or accidentally crying in front of the crew. Passing a hand-written note with my name attached I think made a statement. I'm not quite sure how it went over, of course, because I didn't stick around to find out. But I feel better about the whole thing knowing I made it right.

The end.

ZZZzzzzz

Well, I've gone and done it again.

I'm not much for jazz, I admit. But when Scott's pal Doug invited us to a jazz show tonight to celebrate his birthday, I said, "Yes, sign me up!"

And then, while the Fred Anderson/Chad Taylor Duo were ripping it up on the stage, I was snnxxing it up in the audience.

Yes, I fell asleep.

Anyone who was there would ask, "Hey, how did you fall asleep!? Those guys were ripping it up!"

I have no idea. But I really fell asleep - I was having dreams and everything.

All I can say is that I'm powerfully tired out. Also, red with shame.