Some of the Best Times You'll Never Remember

Life is complicated right now. (Could you vague that up for me?)

At any rate...

I wonder what it's like to wake up one morning and realize, "I'm fifty years old. I had one chance to live my life, and I blew it. I didn't get a damn thing right. I completely, utterly blew it."

They Did Not Shoot the Deputy

The last three meteors I have seen were all witnessed along the same stretch of road, Highway 14 off Western Avenue. It is an odd thing, and I have come to think of that nondescript corner as very lucky.

February 15

Well, I've upgraded. Last year's theme for my birthday was "Birthday Princess," but this year, it was "Birthday Fairy Princess Ballerina." I pick the themes; for some reason, birthdays turn me into a five-year-old. (In my defense, on my 17th birthday I did normal teenager stuff and had a house party full of people I only sometimes knew and a bonfire and such.)

It was thoroughly enjoyable. Joseph made me a very elaborate teddy bear at Build-a-Bear (Moxie Crimefighter, a fairy princess ballerina bear) and bought me bubble wands, which resulted in me blowing bubbles in the car all day long. He also orchestrated a ridiculously sweet surprise involving me arriving at his house, him still asleep, a sign with an arrow, his laptop, and a downloaded version of the video of Bright Eyes' "First Day of My Life." (It's the most adorable video ever, and the song is very sentimental to me.) He wrote me a birthday letter that made me cry, and then I woke him up and made him eat cake for breakfast. (He bought me the cake, too.) Then he took me to the zoo, and after that, he bought me Katamari Damacy, which we played for an hour or so.

We headed to Applebee's to meet my parents and brother, ate steak, and made the poor waits sing me the birthday song. (There is nothing that makes you feel more insanely powerful than forcing somebody to sing you the birthday song and give you free chocolate.) My parentgs bought me this beautiful original pencil drawing of the four main characters from The Wizard of Oz (with which I have long been obsessed), done by a local artist of extreme talent and extreme talent-suppressing alcoholism. They had it framed under archive glass. You should see the thing. It's gorgeous. Definitely heirloom quality.

I'm tired of talking about my birthday, and I bet you're tired of reading about it.

A Funeral and an Empty Fridge

So far, this birthday kind of sucks...

I woke up in the middle of an awful nightmare in which I had died. That wasn't the bad part. During my funeral (which I was somehow watching), nobody could think of anything to say--no shared memories, no eulogy, nothing. They just came and left.

Hey, at least they came.

Then I woke up, went downstairs, and found no Diet Dr Pepper in the fridge (which I am useless without in the morning). No one was home. So I borrowed my little brother's car, went to the gas station, bought two cans, got home, exited the car, and promptly dropped one on the pavement. On the plus side, it didn't break.

I started one can, decided to take a shower, and stuck it (still mostly full) in the fridge. After I had showered and dressed, I came back for my soda, and, as I was walking out the kitchen, tripped over the cat and dropped the mostly full can.

Grr. And it's only 10:30 in the morning.

In Vietnam, They Were 19

Today is the last day I will be 18.

The little old lady sits on the top step of her front porch, eyes not seeing, ears not hearing, consumed by snoop tendencies that linger even now. When my mom pulls into the driveway, I watch from the second-story western window as Ina drags herself to her feet and hobbles back inside, never saying a word.

She used to always holler at us when we came home if she was outside. Always wanted something, it seemed. Fix my weather windows, bring my laundry off the line, read this housing assistance letter to me.

Hello, nineteen!