For the new version of SOS, check out Brillig’s blog and her guest host Thalia’s Child.

All of us have roads. Some roads we took, others we passed on. Some took a left when the right looked better. I traveled one road while running parallel to another, just a stone’s throw away. At one point those two paths crossed, and I had a choice between finishing on one road, or continuing on the road I was on. The road I was on was warm and sunny, full of passion and laughter. It smelled of damp fall leaves and the end of the road was nowhere in sight. The road I ran parallel to was dark, unsure, and didn’t offer much, but in my young mind, it’s mystery provided immediate gratification. So when those two paths intersected, I took a long look at the seeming happiness that lay ahead and skipped over to the other path. What I couldn’t know was that the path would lead me to amazing happiness in the form of two beautiful girls, and utter despair and misery in the form of an abusive husband and an awful relationship. As I ran from that path and found another, heaven waited for me and my path was once again sunny, warm, full of life, with only an occasional thunderstorm. It is only every so often, as if looking through an aquarium where the images are distorted and warped, that I remember that first path. It is in these moments, where there is physical evidence in the form of correspondence, of that first path that I read and laugh from somewhere outside of myself. I watch the movie play over in my mind, or in front of my eyes, and laugh with my husband at the beauty of life and the wonder of looking back at the maze of roads that has lead me here. And so, just a touch of that first path–because I don’t care who or where you are, this stuff is good.

“To you, because you make a peasant feel like a prince, a coward into a cavalier, and a poet out of an ineloquent man…(Body of letter)…Chipping away my rough parts to give you a smooth surface to lean on should you become weary on your way, all my love.”

“To She for whom I give my thanks, even without turkey or pumpkin pie, my dearest…(Body of Letter)…Because you make a thankful heart want to be bigger so that it might be even more thankful, All my love.”

“To my new day, shortly dawning: My Dearest…(Body of Letter)…Where X-Files, mexican food, movies, hours of shopping, moonlight, pictures, and stories, and spring, and summer, and fall, and winter, are just some of the things on my Christmas List.”

“To the End of my Rainbow, My Dearest….Enough love to turn even the creepiest creep or the ghouliest ghoul into a soft-hearted sweet spirit.”

“To the ever-constant guiding star, giving courage and hope to a poor, storm-battered seaman on this tempestuous voyage over the sea of life, Dearest…The love of freedom after years of captivity, The love of sunshine after being lost in darkness, The love of water to an arid desert, Do not compare to all my love for you.”

“To She who introduced the smile to heaven, my Dearest…Enough love to make a ripple in the water all the way across this vast ocean and up the great river until it arrives at your shore and causes the morning sun to glint in your eye and remind you that I am thinking of you.”

“Dearest — For whom I would climb the highest precipice simply to pick one wild rose that I might bring it back and present it to you, all for the price of a smile…For taking this grain of sand and smoothing and dressing it into a pearl, with all my heart, and all my love.”

Thanks to Kate and Brillig, y’all get to read more of this jazz!!

I moved a lot growing up. I went to four elementary schools, one middle school, and three high schools…one of them twice at two different times. This made for interesting friend situations, and interesting dating situations being the new girl a lot. Typically, I was cool with the guys that found the new girl fascinating, and avoided the girls that felt threatened by new meat. My junior year found me in Texas halfway through the school year. I was pissed about having to move away from my friends…again. That Spring, I got asked to Prom three times…cause I was the new girl…and said no three times because I didn’t KNOW ANY OF THE GUYS! I decided to go stag to a party with a bunch of my guy friends and have a good time there instead. Deep down I wanted my friend to ask me. He was the bishop’s son, a slight rebel with dark curly hair, kind of the cool guy at school, and he drove a ‘66 Mustang. We had been hanging out a lot since I had moved in, but everything was very platonic. We were comfortable with each other and that was my main reason for wanting to go with him…alas, he asked some popular girl and I kept saying no to the poor guys who had asked me. That year ended and we hung out all summer playing frisbee golf, driving around in the Mustang, playing WWF in the rain in the muddied grassy area by his house, swimming in his pool, hanging out with the other LDS kids, and not so much as holding hands. It was nice to have a friend with no expectations.

We started our Senior year that Fall and Homecoming was the buzz. It was a huge deal at that school and especially in Texas where football is more important than school itself. In the South they have this CRAZY tradition where the guy who asks a girl to Homecoming gives her a GIANT silk mum with a ton of ribbons and dingle-hoppery things hanging down to mid-thigh or knee. She attaches this somehow to her shirt and wears it to school on Homecoming day. It is a status symbol if there ever was one in High School. The girls who didn’t have mums would have rather stayed home from school that day than be seen without one. In return, the girls made arm garters for the guy who asked them and the guy wore his. Much to my relief, my buddy asked me one afternoon while we talked on the phone. It went something like this:

J : “So, my mom’s making you a mum right now.”

MVD: silence

J: “So, would you wear it if I gave it you?”

MVD: “Um,”

J: “Are you gonna go with me to Homecoming or what?”

MVD: trying to sound calm, “Sure, whatever. That’s cool.”

I gotta say, I couldn’t stop smiling that day. He picked me up as usual that morning and we did the pinning ceremony at my place. We drove to school and I tried to act cool, but man, I couldn’t stop smiling. I walked the halls that day with my head held a little too high while my GIANT mum tickled my face and the hundreds of ribbons swung around my legs. Later that night at the football game, while I sat in the stands with some of the girls who had been decently friendly to me, J waved me down to the field so we could hang out while he took the game photos. I was shocked because the WHOLE school saw him and saw me walk down there and it was the first time I felt like he didn’t care if people saw me with him. I was beginning to think that he might actually LIKE me, as a GIRL, not just as his frisbee golf buddy. I don’t know why I cared, but maybe I was just desperate for a friend and a family like his, and I didn’t want all of it to go away.

The next day was the dance. My mom was crazy about modesty and the only dress I could pick was a black velvet number that went to my ankles. It had a high neck and wide shoulder straps, but she insisted I wear the matching shrug that went with it. I knew that the rest of the girls would be wearing strappy, sparkley numbers and I was not looking forward to being the one going to a funeral. She insisted on doing my hair and it was huge. I was kind of embarrassed, but couldn’t argue with her about it. J came to pick me up for dinner and we traded corsages, took the necessary pictures and left. He didn’t say a word to me as we got in the car and immediately my self-consciousness started to set in. We got to dinner, met up with our group, and no sooner had we sat down than the waitress came up and took our drink orders. J whistled loudly at her and winked, elbowed me and told me she was hot. My face felt like it was on fire as the rest of our group looked at him in shock. One of the little hoochies in our ward, (tiny, blond, and tiny, used to date J) made sure she sat next to us, and he turned to her and said, “Gosh Bri, you’re looking totally hot tonight.” Queue me wanting to walk home. I somehow finished dinner without punching him and we headed to the dance. He immediately made his way to the top of the bleachers with his friends and I wandered out to the dance floor to hang out with the colorful-sparkly- strappy-dress-wearing girls. J and I didn’t dance once. After the dance we headed back to his house with the group and settled in to watch a movie. I was fuming still and seconds away from calling my mom to come get me. If he didn’t want to go with me, WHY DID HE ASK, I kept saying to myself. Just then, Bri came in the room, walked right up to the couch we were sitting on, and skwiggled herself right in between J and I. He threw his arm over her shoulders and my fist twitched. I got up, went to the other side of the room, sat on the floor, watched the movie, and saw only RED. FINALLY the night ended, he drove me home, and I walked in pretty much without saying goodbye. My heart was broken. I was so confused. But mostly devastated at losing my best and only friend. We didn’t speak for weeks, and finally when my mom went and talked to his dad and told him the story, we sat on his front porch and talked. I cried. I told him that he had been a total jerk, and that I missed my friend. Under his breath, he said he missed me too. After an hour or so, we hugged and I walked home. We spent a memorable Senior year hanging out like nothing had happened. January came and he told me he was thinking of graduating early and heading out to BYU for Spring semester. In true Platonic buddy fashion, I went to my school counselor that very day and told her I wanted to graduate too. Together we said goodbye to high school and began our college days living 30 seconds away from each other in the dorms and making fun of each other’s dating escapades. One early morning, I stood in the airport with his family and we cried, not being able to hug, but heartily shaking hands because he was leaving on a mission to Italy for the LDS church . I didn’t feel a bit ashamed as I told him I loved him in the only two Italian words I knew. He smiled and nodded back knowing what I meant and that humiliating Homecoming date soon became a thing of our long-forgotten platonic past.

I have a secret. I have contemplated this moment since installment #1 of Kateastrophe’s Summer of Love and Hate, and more as SOS continued, headed up by the marvelous Brillig! But the rest of my SOS’s are no good unless you know the truth, and for some reason, the fact that you will soon know that many of us bloggers are intertwined makes the SOS’s all the more interesting. You can’t make up some of the craaazy stories we have or the crazy things we’ve done. It was for this reason that I decided to reveal the true identity of MiniVan Diva.

I am Laine.

I welcome the stream of hate mail, but know that Kateastrophe and I have been through the best and the worst and fortunately, are at the best right now. Unfortunately, I can’t post a mugshot either because this blog is in fact, a secret identity for ANOTHER blog that my family reads and heaven only knows I don’t need to rehash all my deep dark secrets with them. So nasty emails aside, I had to begin with the very first Soap Opera of my dating life. Not only the first Soap Opera, but my first kiss, and the pre-cursor to the rest of the craziness that was my short but very crazy dating existence.

As I may have mentioned before, it took a while for me to grow into myself. I was at one point, lanky and skinny and awkward looking. I think the summer before my sophomore year in high school it all started to come together a bit. My mom had moved us 39 times since she got divorced and we were heading off to Oregon on another whim. After a few months there, and my head-spinning with depression or teenage angst, I asked my mom if I could move back and finish my sophomore year with my friends. We talked to Jewels and her parents and they agreed, since it was only for a few months.
One of my first days back we went over to Jewels’ boyfriend’s house. I’m sure she had told me about Matt (neither Kateastrophe’s Matt NOR Brillig’s Matt) while I was in Oregon, and I’m sure she had shown me pictures from when they first met (this was a little while later I recall), but upon entering his room, he was much cuter than the first pictures. We all hung out with Matt and his friend, whom Kateastrophe was “hanging out” with, a few times and my memory, thankfully, has spared me some of these early memories. I don’t even know HOW or WHEN I realized that he was kind of flirting with me, and I’m not sure I even know HOW to flirt because I distinctly remember asking one of my friends how to do it. As I was hashing out this story with Jewels, she reminded me of some random night hike we took with Matt up in the mountains and I think there was some significance to the story, but I have no idea what went on there. I think it was about this point that I started to like him, and he was thinking the same thing…despite having first dated my friend.

Being so new to all of this stuff, and flabbergasted that a boy liked me, it honestly didn’t occur to me that it was not a good thing to like him back considering I WAS LIVING with my best friend and he was dating HER. To this day, I don’t know how this moment came about, but Jewels and I drove over to his house and I sat out in the backyard while he chatted with her in his room and told her that he liked me, and not her anymore. His excuse? Jewels was too young for him…not realizing that I was a good six months younger than her. She had the most noble of replies…Sure, you guys have fun with that. Matt summoned me from the back yard after the news was broken, and we all kind of hugged and that was the start of my boyfriend-stealing. The next few months were a whirlwind of weird things. He would call Jewels’ house and ask for me without even saying hi to her. He took me to the Symphony for our first real date and two weeks before my 16^th birthday when I was allowed to date. I got permission from my mom and Jewels’ parents and the awkwardness was palpable when he picked me up…after all, they knew he had been dating their daughter only weeks before. To top off my nervousness, it was my first date! I had no idea what to do. We sat during the entire symphony with our hands on our knees and our pinkies touching but never held hands. I invited him to a girl’s choice dance the next month at our high school (he had already graduated!!) and Jewels was in our group! That night when we dropped him off, on the doorstep, with a car full of people watching, he gave me my first kiss. The tiniest of kisses, the first of only two the whole time we dated, but a sweet kiss that left my legs shaking and my head pounding with questions about how on earth one was supposed to know how to kiss if one had never done it before. We went country dancing every Thursday night and I swooned as we danced. He took me to my one and only Prom and afterwards I doodled fake wedding invitations with our names on them during boring classes. Jewels was the one who had a car and more than once, shuttled me back and forth between her house and his. She was incredibly gracious during this period of time and I give her credit, as I give Kateastrophe credit, for us still being friends.

Jewels’ 17^th birthday party was spent with me pouting because Matt had asked me to go splunking (cave exploring) with him and I recall being threatened with best friend outcasting and certain death if I missed Jewels’ party to be with my boyfriend. So I went and scowled the whole time. Shortly thereafter, things started to dwindle as things do. He was getting ready to leave on a mission for the LDS church, and I was getting attention from an incredibly attractive senior that had graduated a year earlier from our high school whom I had crushed on for quite some time. One night, we all ended up over at Brillig’s house. We all fell asleep at Brillig’s house…well most of us. I woke up to concerned looks from Kateastrophe and Jewels as they told me, with much concern for my feelings, that Brillig and Matt had actually had a swell evening making out in his car. Brillig, in Brillig fashion at that time said, “He was ready to cheat.” I remember not being really upset at this, and somewhat relieved actually that I could move on to Older Hot Senior Guy…or Thor as we called him. Yes Thor. Another SOS altogether…

From TheBakersRock…I knew these folks as well, and her tribute is much better than mine could be.  He truly is one of those kind of guys that was as good as everyone says he was.  One of a kind family man, less than 24 hours from starting dental school when his life ended.  Still gets me…

These are some words my dad spoke at a funeral a while ago. Considering the events of the last week or so, remembering Clayton’s wife and kids, I want to share these words with you.

“There are two parts to the mystery of death. The first belongs to the person who crosses its boundary and makes the transition into another step of the eternal progression. For those of us who fear this journey, it is only because we don’t fully understand it. Once death becomes clear to us, it is as if the fear fades as do the shadows with the morning sun. The person who takes this glorious step is relieved from the burdens, trials, and the physical pain and suffering, which mortality deals us. No longer is there concern for the vain things of the world, no longer the fears, the hatred, the confusion, the human emotions which we battle on a daily basis. The spirit leaves the body and basically begins a learning process, a cleansing and a clarification in preparation for the wonderful judgment to befall all of us in due time: a judgment to determine how we live out our eternity. We are also given a most precious gift: our understanding of all the things we forgot when we came to this earth. In addition, we have the special opportunity to recollect all that we did in our mortal probation, all the good and the not so good, the pain and the joy, the events which made us and those which broke us. We behold what we did with ourselves and our tiny span of eternity as a human entity. Then at some time in our state after death, we receive the complete truth, if we didn’t already have it on the earth. Then a most wonderful thing takes place. The standard is given to us to measure how our life fit with the standard given to us by our Father. We compare and we, not doubting, compromising, or rationalizing, judge ourselves. Our judgment is clear and undisputed. Then with that judgment, we take our place in the eternities. And whatever we see is fit for us, we feel comfortable there and will remain there forever. What a marvelous thing. And death is a part of it.

The other part of the mystery lies in those whom the departed one leaves behind. We have the toughest part, because we still have to hang around in this mortal sphere and with all the frailties and weaknesses that accompany it.

Death is a powerful tool for looking inward at ourselves. Once a loved one dies, we begin to ask ourselves: Am I ready? Have I done what I should? When is it my turn? Death is an excellent evaluator. And despite the pain, that’s a good thing. If we never stop and look at where we are, how will we ever know that we are going the way right and are doing the right thing?

We then begin to hug our friends and family a little more, because after we have looked inward, we begin to look outward. We wonder if the others are doing the right thing; we wonder when it is their turn, and cry because death will eventually take us all, and it never, ever gets easier. We choose to gather, to be close, to let down the walls of animosity, fear, hatred. We forgive and forget, because we just don’t want to lose another one of us living souls to this transition called death. We all want to stay around a little longer, to mend those broken fences, bridges, and hearts.

In addition to our introspection and hugging, we have the terrible sense of loss. Rightly so! We have one less person in our circle. The lucky one to go on is missing. We cry because that person is no longer here to make us smile, to make us better people, to help us and love us and nurture and care. No more calls on the phone or surprise visits or bearing glad tidings of some wonderful event. And the more that person affects us the more sadness we feel of the emptiness, the hole left in humanity. It’s like those fluorescent toys when held up to a brighter source of light, gives off more. When the light source is gone, the toy shines a brightness proportional to its donor. Keep in mind that the opposite is true. If we fail to cry when someone is gone, perhaps we did not love them enough. Let us all love one another enough to cry when they are gone.

Then we must stop the tears and the sadness and reflect upon the new state of our departed brother or sister, son or daughter, or friend. They are well taken care of and are not alone. They are in the company of loved ones and friends and lots of new people who are willing to teach them and help them through the next part of their journey. They have left us behind and are looking forward. So we should rejoice for them, show forth our smiles and look forward also. They want that for us too. The veil between our world and theirs is so thin. Although they share a different sphere of existence, they are close to us. That should make us happy and feel good. They never really left, they just moved closer to the “head of the class”.

Death is only a mystery to those who have no vision beyond its threshold. Once the mind is allowed to be controlled by the spirit in each of us, we begin to see something beyond. Our fear is gone and we look forward to it ourselves as long we as have prepared ourselves properly. Carol Lynne Pearson wrote a poem about death. It is called:

God Speaks
Death is ugly? Oh, my children. No.
If only you knew the beauty that begins where your sight fails,
You would run, run, run, and leap into the open arms of eternity.
But sad is a harvest of green wheat.
And, so you would feverishly cling to earth and finish your mortal task,
I merely gave death an ugly mask.

I LOVE how we post SOS on Saturday. Oh well, gotta get a jump on it eh, thanks to Kate and Brillig the FOUNDERS of this glorious tell-all! Here we go with Installment #2. Or Installment #1 if you’re just tuning in…

Fast forward a few years. College. First day of acting class. Not a single cute boy in the bunch. But wait, the door is opening, the girls heads turn to see if it might be someone who would make the semester worthwhile…Perfect. We’ll call him Nate…

I don’t remember him exactly, but he was quite handsome. He had short kept hair, a muscular build and blue eyes. The muscles I could see quite clearly as he had burst in the door out of breath, wearing a white tank top, having just run from another class somewhere on campus. I caught his eye, smiled, and turned my attention towards the teacher. We found excuses to do acting exercises together, but I had just broken up with the guy I thought I was going to marry, who I’d been in love with for two years, (another SOS all together), and didn’t really want to date per se. But hey, a little nookie wouldn’t hurt, right? Finally one day he asked me out. We were both poor students, so we grabbed a bite to eat and drove around for a while, finally stopping at a local elementary school to play in the dark. We scrambled over the jungle gyms, jumped out of the swings as far as we could, laid on the grass looking at stars and then, he kissed me. This time my stomach jumped. It was cute and perfect. We hung out a lot more after that night. He was funny and handsome and we got along famously. So much for not wanting to date. I was always a sucker for good company. He knew how to make me laugh and I was sucker for that too. One time he burst into class with a pitiful look on his face and after a quick hug and a What’s the Matter? He blurted out, “I watched a movie last night and ate a whole Ben & Jerry’s and now I feel like a heifer. By the way, it smells like rear in here.” Queue me laughing really hard.

At some point, he started to get a little serious on me and I realized that perhaps he was into this more than I was…a situation I would get myself into quite often in following years. One evening, with the best sad face I could muster, I told him that I was still having a hard time with the previous break up and that I needed to be on my own for a while. His face dropped and so did my stomach. A feeling I would get too often in the following years. As much as I liked him, and as much fun as we’d had together, it couldn’t go anywhere.

We went our separate ways, ran into each other now and again, and a while later, I laughed out loud when I heard he had won a brand new Corvette on the Price Is Right…right after he did a back flip or a Spread Eagle or something in unadulterated excitement on national television. I laughed out loud even harder when I heard it through the grapevine that my summer fling Nate had decided he too was gay. My friends had a hay day with me. TWO in one lifetime they said. How is it possible that I turned TWO guys gay. Well, my theory remained intact…it was just good for a laugh. Suddenly many of his quirks came back to me. The repeated reference to “feeling like heifer,” the numerous dance classes, the fact that I kept telling myself that it always felt like I was hanging out with one of my girlfriends in a man’s body. One balmy afternoon, we ran into each other at 7-11. He pulled up in his silver ‘Vette, leapt out of the car, embraced me with a squeal, promptly lifted up his shirt to show me his new abs, placed his hands on my shoulders and with the most earnest face said, “MVD. I decided that I’m Bi. I really did have feelings for you. You were pretty much the only girl I would have been straight for.” Ah ha! Theory proven!!

In any case, news travel fast on a college campus, and soon there was talk of Nate and his dating escapades. Nate and So-and-so, So-and-So and Nate. And then one day the grapevine exploded in my ear as I heard these words creeping along it’s tangled mess…Nate and Peter. Peter and Nate. The two guys I had managed to “turn” gay had found each other. As the laughter of my friends rang in my ears, echoed with my own, I heard someone say, “Gee MVD, now you’re pillow talk.”

I wish I was going to proceed with a story about a snake or rat that had found its way inside my house. Well, you could say a snake or a rat found its way inside my house…though with our help and invitation.
A friend of my husband’s flew in last night from out of town to finish his divorce proceedings. He had asked us a while ago if he could stay with us the whole time he was here, but our house is not very guest friendly…unless you love sleeping on the couch. I told hubby that I didn’t think it was a good idea mostly because I. Can’t. Stand. this guy. I don’t say that about many people, but with him, no holds barred on my dislike. So he ended up saying he got a hotel, but accidentally forgot to book the hotel for the NIGHT HE ARRIVED and asked if he could stay with us just last night. Hubby said yes. I prepared myself for the extreme dislike I felt for this person and agreed…until I realized I would have to spend the morning alone with him since Hubby goes to work so early. Then he called and said he was picking up his 2-year old daughter and bringing her too. WHAT? Me thinks? She has nowhere to sleep either! Leave your kid with her mom so she has a bed to sleep in and pick her up in the morning! At that point, I packed up the kids and was leaving for my In-Laws home…citing the excuse that now this guy would have a place for his daughter to sleep…on my daughter’s bed. Hubby had serious guilt and said he’d call his friend and tell him not to come, but I didn’t want to put Hubby in an awkward position with his friend so I said goodbye, packed the kids in the car while Hubby stood looking incredulous. Then I broke down and told him why I disliked his pal so much…emotions that surprised me as well: The first time I met the friend we were in a big group of people I had never met and I basically went from person to person introducing myself and shaking hands. When I got to JerkFace, I held out my hand, he looked down at it with his hands still in his pocket, gave me a crusty, and turned around to talk to someone else. I stood there for a minute not willing to believe that had just happened. During dinner while inserting my wit and charm into the conversation, he repeatedly looked at me, despite having just addressed a question or comment to the table, as if I, a woman, should not be allowed to open my mouth unless it was to say, “Dinner’s ready,” or “Here are your freshly darned socks dear.” Instances like this happened every frackin’ time we got together with this group. I mentioned it to my husband a couple of times, but it always ended with the relief that he lived out of state and we wouldn’t have to see him much. When he called us and said he was getting divorced, I could barely act surprised. The more I found out about the behind-the-scenes JerkFace, I couldn’t hardly blame his poor wife.
Cut to last night, I left and told Hubby to make sure to tell JerkFace that he needed to be out of our house at a decent time this morning. I hung around at the In-Laws until 10:00am and figured he would be gone. Alas. He wasn’t. I didn’t want to see his face or say something to embarrass Hubby or myself so I parked around the corner and waited for him to leave. I called Hubby after 15 minutes and said he needed to call JerkFace and tell him to leave. Hubby called me back and said that his friend was on his way out and would be gone in 5 minutes. I entertained the girls in the car around the corner FROM MY OWN HOUSE until ELEVEN O’CLOCK when he finally decided to get the hank out of my house. Flustered, I hurried inside and went to jump in the shower so I could go to lunch with one of my friends. As I was hurrying along with normal shower routines, I noticed that my favorite body wash was gone…my brand new body wash Peppermint Menthol yummy stuff. I figured that Hubby had used it and taken it downstairs on accident or something. When I got out of the shower, and was getting dressed, I noticed that the hat I keep on my dresser full of spare change was moved…and all the spare change was gone except for a $1 bill and some pennies. No freakin’ way. I called my husband and asked if he had either A. Used my body wash and/or B. Take some spare change. He answered in the negative to BOTH questions and after searching my house for missing spare change and Body Wash with legs, made the startling conclusion that JerkFace had CLEPTO-ED my BODY WASH and MY SPARE CHANGE. Who does that??? And now the straw that broke the camel’s back? The girls came upstairs, rather disappointed because their desk, drawers, doll crib, and air purifier were covered in diaper rash cream and a bunch of pictures they had colored lay ripped to shreds all over their room and in the hallway. I understand that kids are kids. But I also understand that if you are staying at someone’s home and your kid smears diaper rash cream all over someone else’s stuff that you should probably clean it up. And even if your 2 year-old does rip up all of their guests special drawings, the least you could do is throw the shredded pieces away so the kids don’t notice when they get home.

FURTHERMORE, I know that JerkFace’s now ex-wife has read the blog a time or two…so M.G. if you’re reading this now, YOU GO GIRL!

From the Bakers Rock…

“On a heavier note, one of Frank’s best friends died last night in a helicopter crash. He left behind a wife and four young children. My heart breaks for them because I cannot even imagine what that must feel like. It’s almost suffocating just thinking about it. Thankfully we have knowledge that helps us in times like these…as awful and sad as it is, we know there is life beyond this mortal realm. Keep them in your prayers and hug your loved ones a little tighter today…”

Our prayers are with this family…

The braces had been off for a few years. The bad perm had grown out. The bangs were gone. The shirts no longer buttoned all the way to the collar. And once or twice, I’m quite sure an actual boy looked in my direction…no longer chuckling. Once I realized this was the case, I kind of, well, enjoyed the attention…welcomed it, embraced it if you will. At some point, this attention became an innocent game. Kiss the Boy was recorded in chronological order on page something or other of my journal…just names. Though I did have a friend who had dates and a coding system for how many times a particular notch was repeated. There was no prize to be won, just notches on the belt. Many of the “notches” I really liked. Others were just, a notch. This particular Soap Opera begins there…with a notch. We’ll call this notch Peter Pan, ambiguously gay for enjoying his tights and tattered shirt dress a little too much. Wendy was a cover I swear.

Peter and I were hanging out with some mutual friends and if my memory serves me correctly, we were discussing romantic kiss scenarios. Cheesy right? It was kind of like playing Truth or Dare because you KNEW where that was going to go. So we discussed romantic kiss scenarios, and I, being the innocent 17 year-old that I was, hopelessly romantic in every way, looked outside and noticed how perfectly magical it was outside. A light rain was falling quietly in the dark, which made everything shimmery and reflective in the street lights. Peter must have seen my averted gaze and noticed the rain as well. Being older and much more experienced in these matters, he matter-of-factly suggested we go kiss in the rain. I jumped up a little too eagerly I’m sure, forgetting that this was Peter we were talking about. Charming, tall, elfishly cute, but ambiguously gay..not just effeminate. Oh well, his name would fit perfectly in the last bit of space at the bottom of my journal page…and, it would be kind of romantic to kiss in the rain. We ran across the street to an empty sidewalk, stepped underneath the glow of street lamp, he pulled me to him and we kissed. How unremarkable it was is evidenced by the fact that I have NO idea how it ended. I’m quite sure there were no butterflies in the belly, and I seem to recall my neck hurting. Perhaps a little shorter would have suited me.

Now friends, as anti-climatic as this is, it is not the end. Oh no. It is not necessarily the rain, or the street lamp, or the ambiguity of my friend’s orientation that makes this SOS worthy. Oh no. Part of the Soap Opera is in the fact that no more than two weeks later, he came out. No more ambiguity. He was quite ready to be gay. I was teased for quite some time as being the one who made Peter decide he liked boys better. I told myself in jest it was because he knew he would never find another girl like me and moved on to try out the other gender.

Whatever his reason, it didn’t matter. He was still funny and charming and elfishly cute and now on my List.

Fast forward a few years. College. First day of acting class. Not a single cute boy in the bunch. But wait, the door is opening, the girls heads turn to see if it might be someone who would make the semester worthwhile…Perfect. We’ll call him Nate…

Hi ya! I am NOT new to the blogging world, but most definitely new to having my own domain and figuring out how to use WordPress. I am certainly not proficient like Brillig, but hope to become so. Bear with me then, as my blog changes until I get it where I like it…and most definitely tune back in for Soap Opera Sundays!