Best snippets of recent conversations:

Talking with my friend about her recent very-long bike ride down in Southern Illinois:

“Yeah, well after 33 miles on my bike my butt hurts. My butt and my bike seat need to have a conversation about that.”

Talking to the barista through the drive-up window during torrential rains:

“Illinois is one big bowl of nasty.”

Talking with Mallory after she had a job interview during yesterday’s flash flood storm:

“So we had to go in the basement toward the end of the interview because of the tornado.”

Later on I was discussing this with Mallory’s boyfriend by telling him that I hadn’t even known we had a tornado in the morning.

“Kelly. We didn’t. What’s today? It’s the first Tuesday of the month. It was at 10 am.”

“Oh, Jeebus. She hid out during the MONTHLY DRILL? We are going to crucify her for doing that.”

After that Mallory tried defending her position to me.

“What was I supposed to do? Everyone else went to the basement! I had to do it!”

“That’s true. If you had refused you wouldn’t want them to write on your interview sheet ‘Hmmm…does not exercise caution. MAY NOT WANT TO HIRE THIS ONE.’”

Talking with some girlfriends:

Finally, I was enjoying some excellent beverages with some girlfriends and the Inevitable Vajayjay Talk came up as we discussed ob/gyn visits, Brazilian waxes, and sex. When we started to do our own Vagina Monologues one of them said:

“My vagina is a book. Read by a lot, but never quite on the bestseller list, ya know? In fact, it’s getting to the point where no one is reading it anymore. It’s just getting all dusty and the jacket’s worn down.”

Before jumping in to my post about my very-much-needed weekend with my girlfriends, I pause here to celebrate the genius that is Tina Fey and 30 Rock:

Jack (Head of Network): Let me ask you a question, Kenneth. If Mr. Bright here told you to vote Republican, would you do it?

Kenneth (The NBC Page): Oh, no, sir. I don’t vote Republican or Democrat. Choosing is a sin. So I always just write in the Lord’s name.

Jack: That’s Republican. We count those.

Since my Thursdays are always raped by those in power required of me to be on the administrative team for our district, I miss 30 Rock so I have to watch online episodes and mostly do so right before going to sleep. This means I want something subdued and I don’t normally guffaw while watching it, but that little exchange made me pause for breath because I laughed so hard.

I shouldn’t joke about what’s been asked of me during our restructuring, but it sure is making me miss seeing my boys on those nights and at first I was Noble Employee full of Yes! I’d love to do my part! and now I’m getting a little weary, but I need to put on my big girl panties. It’s the first time in a long time that I’m counting down the weeks. (The mantra just changes in my head from 9 weeks left, Kelly. 9 weeks left. to 6 weeks left, Kelly. 6 blessed weeks left.) This is the hard part of being an educator because I can spot those kids whose wheels are falling off toward the end of the school year because they so hate being unstructured during the summer months and not getting daily affirmations from those special teachers who change lives. I know they don’t want to go away from their daily school routine, but I have to help keep them focused to press on.

Do you see how unfocused I currently am behaving? I haven’t even gotten to the Spa Day yet. Slap me, please.

Every year my teacher girlfriends and I try to get together for something. At first, we did scrapbooking (I’m entirely lazy to it now and have about $50,000 worth of stickers and supplies) and then we had parties (Pampered Chef, Tastefully Simple, etc…) and then we played bunco and then we said, “Screw this! We want our nails done!” so the plan was hatched.

First, we get together for Friday night dinner (which I couldn’t attend because we had to crash a party and go to Mallory’s show) and spend the night at Krista’s house. She has a cat and since I’m allergic she patiently de-cat-furs the house including her bed which she lets me sleep in except I pooped out in St. Louis and had to meet them on Saturday for the incredible brunch she provided. She even sets the table with personalized napkin rings.

When I got there she immediately said, “I’ll have you know that bed is CAT FUR FREE just for you and you missed it! Now get your butt up there and roll around on my bed.”

Next, all seven of us go to a spa where we have picked out two services and intermittently meet in this relaxing room with a chocolate fountain and LOTSA WINE, which we bring ourselves. In fact, I’m not allowed to name the spa because they’d get in trouble. They bring us a tray with wine glasses and a bottle opener and whisper clandestinely, “We don’t know you have this.” and it’s all very hush-hush wink-wink.

Did I mention the chocolate fountain where we sit in our white spa robes and try to lick the dripping chocolate after having too much wine?

This time I opted for an intense focal Swedish massage and a pedicure. Actually, I think everyone got the pedicure.

Inadvertently, we all steal the same OPI nail color (Royal Rajah Ruby) and then gush, “Oh, that looks good on you!” to replies of “NO. That looks good on YOU.”

Since we’re all relaxed by this point we opt to do some shopping and have vowed to always tell the truth even if it is YES, YOUR ASS IS ENORMOUSLY FLAT AND AWFUL LOOKING IN THOSE PANTS. That’s true friendship. I never want them to lie to me. We have also vowed to tell one another if there is something stuck in teeth, if toilet paper is hanging from a shoe, or if we’re just too dang old to wear something. It’s refreshing to have honest, caring friends because junior high friends? I’m so over that.

We ate dinner at Granite City Food and Brewery where I got a sample platter of many beers. The darkest one on the far right tasted like chocolate and coffee called the Broad Axe Stout but my favorite was “The Bennie” because it made my lips tingly and my tongue happy and that’s pretty much the only requirement for good beer in my opinion.

Our hostess, Krista, has the most patient husband in the world and he showed up toward the end of the evening and we got free chocolate cake after six of us got served and the poor seventh gal had to wait. When the manager brought it out and offered it free she politely refused (where the hell do I get polite friends? when did that happen!?) so I coughed “Free dessert!” only 5 times before he said, “I think your friend wants some dessert.” Clearly, the chocolate fountain and chocolate beer WAS NOT ENOUGH FOR ME.

I passed my camera to an amateur who shot this picture to which I instantly said, “Nice. It looks like the cake is posing as his penis.” Her husband isn’t really shocked to hear this fall from my lips. I previously rolled around on his bed at the request of his wife, so I’m sure he expected that.

So I had to take another picture of this divine creation.

The obligatory Everyone In The Photo shot.

Also? My arms are huge and I haven’t even been lifting weights. Perhaps it’s from LIFTING BEER AND CHOCOLATE? I’d like to say that my girlfriends are just tiny and fit into my pocket, but I’ll just say here that I love them dearly and they make me laugh until my cheeks are sore and my stomach muscles ache.

Letting me roll around on their beds doesn’t hurt either.

*the Tastefully Simple link takes you to my favorite product of theirs - Beer Bread. DUH. BIG, FLABBY ARMS, YOU MORON.

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.

I need new jeans and I hate jean shopping with the heat of a thousand suns from the movie Dune.

God, if you were just a tad more literate you would know that was a book first.

Movies are my books. Especially when there are subtitles.

That doesn’t count. How are we friends again?

The point is this. I need jeans and I need an honest girlfriend to tell me how my ass looks in jeans.

I’m your girl.

I know this. That’s why I’m talking to you.

Deal. But then you help me shop for a purse. I hate purse shopping with the heat of a thousand suns from Stars Wars. Those are movies based on screenplays that weren’t made into “books” with Quotation Marks, you asshat. In case you were wondering.

Why are we friends again? You give me such shit.

Right. Here’s the deal. I need help because I’m purse deficient and don’t have a clue what’s “in” or “hot” and Mallory, The Purse Queen is back at college. That’s where you come into play.

I’m honored to have a purpose in your life, you Tactless Tart.

I only have one requirement for a purse. It is part of the Purse Pact I made with myself long ago. There are only two rules to the Purse Pact. One, they can’t be too expensive. In fact, no purse should cost more than the cash I would carry around in it. I don’t want to be more pissed off that the purse is missing and not my driver’s license or debit card.

That’s a good rule.

This I know. That’s why I’m always carrying Mallory’s hand-me-downs. Except that cool one she had made for me.

Rule Two, then?

Rule Two of the Purse Pact states that I am able to stuff all my shit into it.

That’s my only rule for jeans shopping. Huh. How about that.

And I’m reminded once again why we are friends.

OMIGAWD #1

Mallory has had a friend she has known since Kindergarten with whom she is still very close and who lives two hours away from us. We moved away when Mallory was in third grade, but she and L (I didn’t get permission to use her name) still visit when L’s mom and sisters come here to see us or when we go back there to see them. They are like extended family for us and we spend a great deal of time with them.

Even when the girls were in high school, Mallory would drive there to spend the weekend with her and once, just for fun, they double-dated to go to Homecoming at L’s school where Mallory had known a great deal of students. They have been very close and never lost touch and for that I’m grateful.

L has attended a college close to her home while Mallory attends one over an hour from hers, but in many ways they are “college friends” and commit to spending time catching up and giggling like they are still 4 years old and taking the same ballet class, or throwing water balloons at passing boys on their bikes, or reading the required Judy Blume books that young girls cherish like a Secret Rite of Passage.

Last week L’s mom, also my good friend, called to say that L is expecting a baby and would be getting married to the father of the baby sometime in November.

I must pause here to reflect that I am the mother of a 20 year old and while that’s all fine and dandy, L’s mom is over 50 and quite ready to be a grandmother. It’s obvious that my thoughts on this are: no fucking way not in a million years is this something I am prepared for at this time in my life.

Mallory is going to be a bridesmaid.

I attempted to relate this story to a classmate of mine.

Me: So. Mallory’s got a friend from her youth who is pregnant. She’s getting married in two months.

Classmate: Wow. That’s pretty cool. Is she happy? The girl… who is pregnant?

Me: I’m not sure if you heard me. MALLORY’S GOT A FRIEND WHO IS PREGNANT.

Classmate: No. I heard you. I just want to know if this is a good thing or a bad thing for the girl. She’s what… 20?

Me: Excuse me, but you are sooooo missing the point here. My daughter? My 20 year old? My college kid has a friend WHO. IS. PREGNANT.

At this time, Tammy, who is with us and listening to me relate this story, breaks in to help me out.

Tammy: What’s she is saying is that it could be her daughter who is pregnant and she could be a gran…

Me: SHUT UP. DON’T FINISH THAT SENTENCE. DON’T. SAY IT.

OMIGAWD #2
In other news, Mason has begun his freshman year of high school where he has been secretive and clandestine in just about all his affairs lately. However, he opened up long enough to ask me for a cell phone right after asking my advice on how to ask a girl to his own Homecoming Dance next month. Like any good mom, I don’t want him to get turned down his first try, but it is a possibility, so I offered unsolicited advice though I really must ask: is there any other kind?

Me: Here’s what you say. You say, “How would you feel about going to the dance with me?” so that way she can answer you with a “Well, I don’t feel so good about it” or with a “Oh, I’d feel great!” and you kind of give her an “out”.

Mason: Mom. (He looks at me with that perfected look of You Are SO Stupid that he’s been working on for the better part of a year.) That’s the dumbest thing ever.

Right after this conversation I dropped him off at a Spirit Night event at the high school and when he came home he said he had a date for the dance.

Me: Did you take my advice? HUH?

Mason: No. I did what I wanted. It worked anyway. (He looked quite smug after he said that. When did he start working on Smug?)

Stupid kids. What do they know? He won’t even tell me her last name. He’s afraid I’m going to call her up and talk to her. The first person I did call was Mallory who couldn’t believe her younger brother is ready to go to a dance.

Mallory: Omigawd! WHAT? When is it? Who is she?

Me: Some girl. He won’t tell me her last name. Can you come home that weekend?

Mallory: I’ll be home the weekend before, but I’ll try to come back for the dance.

Me: Good. Maybe you can take him shopping. I’ve never shopped for boy clothes for a dance before.

Mallory: Well, neither have I! I don’t know what to get. What do boys wear? A pair of nice slacks?

Me: Omigawd. Don’t say “slacks”, honey. No one says “slacks” anymore. Do they?

Mallory: What? I say “slacks” when it fits. That’s the WORD for it, Mom.

When did my daughter start saying “slacks”? Mallory and Mason are both growing up so fast. I want to stop this clock and make them stay young and fresh and funny and playful, but they are growing up anyway. Maybe I am ready to be a gran…

Nah.