When I was in college I met a lot of new people and connected with some I neither saw nor heard from for some time. Like when Bobby Soccer called me out of the blue and asked, “Are you the Kelly who went out with me in 4th grade?” and I snorted first because of the thought that I had, indeed, considered myself of dating age when I was 10. So, yes, we went out.

Our conversation had a strange tone to it as he had simply found my name in a phone book, but I knew it was him when he confirmed that while I was sitting in some playground equipment that we called The Hamburger (dome-shaped, you climbed up a ladder through the center, apparently passing the lower bun until you sat in the meat part - why are you judging me, I was 10. And dating.) I noticed that Bobby was leaning forward on The Hill where he played, you guessed it, soccer. There was blood coming from his face as his hands were covering it because he apparently took a soccer ball right to the nose and it broke his glasses which cut his face up.

Why am I telling you this? Why am I leaving that preposition at the end of that sentence?

Because I am a rebel, that’s why.

Not entirely, but bear with me.

Once, while vacationing in Washington, DC with my husband and children and in-laws I was walking down a busy street (Pennsylvania Avenue is busy, no?) and squealed with delight as Roger History and I were passing one another. It hadn’t quite been 10 years since high school where we sat in U.S. History (you didn’t suppose I named him that because we took French together, did you? I took Spanish anyway. I was trying to throw you off your game.) and acted like we knew more about American History than our teacher who kept trying to move us apart because we were such disruptions. Roger was quick-witted, punk-attired, and rather fluent in German as we were seniors and he’d been taking it all four years. That moment, when I had two kids in diapers and a precocious 10 year old (who wasn’t dating yet, as far as I know) I turned into a 17-year old again and we hugged and kissed until my family finally asked Who IS this strange man?

During a family vacation in Tennessee one year I never expected to hear the voice of a former student call out my name while we were waiting to ride go-carts, but I did. We were several hundred miles from home and I ran into someone, yet again, that I know. Even my friend Becky teases me about going anywhere with her because once at that enormous Ikea store in suburban Chicago she joked, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you ran into someone in this store that I get lost in every time.” and within 2 minutes I heard my maiden name called from across the pillow bin. I hadn’t seen her in 12 or so years, but there was Basketball Michelle standing there squinting at me still trying to guess if it really was me. (It was.)

This is all to illustrate the number of people I’ve come across so far in my life. One time I calculated that with the average number of students I have in a year and their parents whom I’ve met at Parent-Teacher conferences as well as their step-parents and siblings I know well over 5,000 people in an educational career spanning 14 short years. Currently, I am reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” and he makes mention of the types of people who connect others and connect TO others. There is something about relating to people on a daily basis that is necessary for me. When I meet people I never forget a face and I do very well at names. Mostly, however, I will recall incidents of occurrences to help me make those connections.

There was even a blogger meet-up where I only knew one person who connected me to other people and another blogger who came to the Chicago meet-up simply because I was attending and out of that came folks near and dear to my heart.

All that was to say that I like to connect, that’s all. I’m thinking so much more about how we connect with one another daily like the same people I see at the Farmer’s Market or the scruffy guy at the liquor store who knows I never use their bags (long, slim wine bags are not good for anything else and waste paper). It’s amusing to see these people elsewhere and watch their faces betray their brains which are trying to connect, “Where do I know that woman from?” Whether it’s the mani-pedi gal (Mary) or the kickboxing chica (I just call her StrongBad) or the older gentleman at the bookstore (Gordon), I enjoy my connections. They are familial reminders of who we put our energies into on this earth.

Even today, I got an email from a gal I’ll call Tattoo Seeker who wrote that she’d seen my daughter’s tattoo and wondered if I would write some lyrics on paper to send to her so she could get those lines tattooed on her body. See the amazing beauty in being connected? Someone, a person I’ve never met, wants to have MY WRITING ON HER BODY. Surreal. Not the prosaic requests one gets day to day.

In my effort to learn about my own connectedness I wonder, quite often, how people connect to places like this. What brought them here? Where they on a coffee break and walked by a co-worker reading this thing called a ‘blog’ and then happened to continue reading? Did someone send my writing as a link to someone else who gets this via an e-mail service like Feedblitz? Is my mother telling everyone she meets, “My daughter has a blog! Read it!”?

We connect, we link, we network, we build relationships, we support, we get fired up for indignant behavior, we search for a commonality, we seek invitations to be a part of something. This very moment I consider: Who is even still with me after this long posting? I marvel: How did this reader get here? I ponder: How did I?

For My Homo Homies

Sally Kern must have forgotten all the best movie quotes. As a representative out of Oklahoma, she’s clearly never seen An Officer And A Gentleman and heard this line:

The only two things from Oklahoma are steers and queers, and I don’t see no horns on you, boy.

Incontrovertibly, she does not purport to play for the other team, so she must be the devil. She did a nice job proving that. Somebody please check her head for hornlike projections.

I would think with all my connections out there SOMEone could do that for me.

As I steadily transition from Mom of Some Kids to a Mom of Teenagers I have to admit that uttering the words, “I have teenagers at home” makes me shake my head, look around for the person who should have said that, and then remembering that I did, in fact, just take a daily vitamin with my pooping yogurt so yes, I did really admit to having TEENS. Today my youngest turns 13.

That, in and of itself, made me calculate how many months my youngest has been on this planet. 156 months.

I’m training him to drink coffee at a cafe with a computer. (Don’t write to me and tell me not to give my kid coffee because FIRST OF ALL, I started drinking it when I read Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank and wanted to feel more “European” at age 13 and secondly, he’s really drinking hot chocolate. I’m not a terrible mom. I give him decaf. See? I’m also not a stupid mom.)

He’s enormous. But still tries to fit into my lap crushing me under his weight. He has that bluish fleshy skin inherited from my own mother. Most importantly, he has a great sense of humor as we giggled wickedly as we used the book What’s Your Poo Telling You? as our bedtime story last night. I’m pretty sure that “deja poo”, “turd tea”, and “deuce juice” will now be a part of the birthday dinner talk tonight.

Happy Birthday, you cool kid, you!

Primero… it concerns me that birth control pill commercials are using Twisted Sister music in the background. Sure, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” is the chant I use myself during my monthly cramping. I sing myself to sweet with it’s deeply haunting lullaby whilst pressing a heating pad so far into my gut that my lower back has a temperature.

Segundo… on a regular basis some random song is stuck into the cobwebs of my brain. For three straight weeks it’s been a song by Gilbert and Sullivan. I am the very model of a modern general. Why, God? I honestly wish I could make up some clever lyrics to it and change it. All I could come up with was the very un-iambic pentameterish I am the very model of a modern mocha momma-ma. It’s got all the beats when I sing it, that’s for sure.

Tercero… this goes without saying and I’m certain it’s not the first time I’ve ever mentioned it, but after the week I’ve had I would like to publicly state: NOT FOR ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD WOULD I WANT TO BE A 15 YEAR OLD GIRL AGAIN.

There. I feel better. Still humming, though…

There are two things I need to write about soon or I will EXPLODE. There will be particles of my body and brain all over the floor requiring an entire cleaning crew. One of them is about being a card carrying member of Minorities R Us (and don’t, just don’t call me a Tragic Mulatto because I can tell you there will be bits of you all over the floor, too) and the other is about how I’m going green. Really. It’s always been a Thing I’ll Do Someday that I’m really embracing. I got to do an interview of someone who operates a Green site and I need to get on that.

Right after I explode and get it all cleaned up.

But first!

I thoughts about doing some serious re-design around here and since I can’t come to a consensus about how it should look or what a theme should be, I shall covet. Openly. With abandon. Here’s some stuff I would like to have.

These are outrageously expensive especially when one considers that the bottom can simply be “cut” to the desired length. If I’m paying more than $75 for pants I’d better have a personal seamstress come to my home and measure me and make it work. Still, for the tall gal, these are a happy dance waiting to happen. Made by Earth And Sky whose website is currently under construction.

Made out of potato chip wrappers (I could keep them in business - kettle chips make me drool and profess my undying love to them) this little trash basket is cute. Can be found at BTCElements. Cute and crunchy.

It’s white. Donna Karan, yes, but it’s white. WHITE. I don’t do well with white either in my career or my home life. Too many greasy potato chips and cups of coffee. No, no, no. White wouldn’t do at all unless I had several because my coffee would probably jump out of the mug and attack it for being so pretty.

This is the only thing I’ve had a picture of for so long that I can’t recall what site I saw it on first. Possibly PiperLime.com or maybe Zappos. Two places I frequent far too much. Not that I ever buy anything. But, if I had a million dollars… and maybe that minority card. In platinum.

During the holiday season my grandmother took a nasty spill and hurt her knee something awful. It was swollen and purple and pretty scary looking. Battle axe that she is, she was quite feisty in the emergency room telling everyone that she was NOT going to stay here and did they used to live in South Dakota. Like all the women in my line, she tends to get along better with men than women and she was given a male nurse. Sometimes she squints at me and wonders who I am and the first three times I say, “Gramma. I‘m one of Patty’s girls.” it doesn’t really register. After that, she is the spitfire I know, love, and will probably emulate someday.

So long as I don’t emulate some of her roomates at her assisted living center.

Actually, she hasn’t been back to that place since the spill and it’s difficult to admit, but she’ll be in the long term care much longer. She’s been there ever since and my mom knows she’s got to arrange to get it cleaned out and deal with her mother’s things. It’s been a struggle for her and I know I don’t support her as much as I should. But yesterday she asked for help in moving things out and she, Morgan and I loaded up two cars full of stuff to take to my mom’s house so she could begin sorting through it. It’s nasty necessary work and we were all business.

Some of the people who live there tend to hang out in the lobby wondering if guests are there for them and can talk your ear off. Amusing little people, for sure. Once, for example, when mom was wheeling out a cart an older gentleman in a wheelchair (not really a wheelchair, but those motorized carts of terror that make me think they’re not going to make that turn..oh, no…you’re not gonna…oh! whew! you made it!) pretended like she ran over his foot.

“Ouch! OH! AAAARRGGGHH!”

“I didn’t get you. You’re teasing me.” mom called his bluff and we all laughed.

After moving several loads out to the car we saw another lady sitting in a cart of terror at the end of the long hallway to my gramma’s room and mom broke some of the tension of the day by whispering to me.

“See that lady in the cart right there? Earlier when I came up and unlocked the door she was in her room as I walked by and she didn’t have any pants on. Nothin’, and I mean NOTHIN’, on her nether regions.”

We laughed perhaps a little uncontrollably before reality hit me and I groaned, “So that’s what we have to look forward to, is it? Someday I’ll be sitting in my room at a home like this and a total stranger will see my lower half exposed and tell their friends about the naked 90-year old and they’ll giggle about it. Great.”

“That’ll be kind of fun, won’t it?”

“Actually, yes.”

Wherever you are, future person I will flash, I hope you are as amused by it as I currently am.