Throwback Thursday: High School Mo Showed a Lot of Skin

The other night, my friend and I took a little journey down memory lane and pored through our senior yearbook.

Big mistake.

Apparently, I had forgotten that I had some serious sartorial crises in my teens — virtually every photo of me had us cackling while I cried, “what am I wearing?!” And I’m not just talking about your run-of-the-mill embarrassing teenaged fashion choices here, kids. My problem wasn’t wearing too much flannel or one too many pairs of overalls; no, my fashion crime was shopping exclusively in the slut section of Forever 21. According to the photo evidence, between the ages of 15 and 18 I found anything that covered up more than 15% of my body to be completely unacceptable. My midriff was constantly exposed. My necklines were so low no bra could possibly be contained. There were spaghetti straps at every turn. HELP!

The really baffling thing is that despite the skank-tastic wardrobe, High School Mo was a total square. I never went to parties, was shocked and scandalized at the thought of people my age having sex, and I most certainly did not have an endless string of potential suitors chasing after me. So what the hell was I doing dressing like 2007 Nicole Richie?!

Enjoy, for example, this backless little number that amounted to little more than a handkerchief and a couple of shoestrings:

I believe this photo was taken at a Souplantation, which makes it all the more cringe-worthy. Who wears club-wear to eat unlimited salad and chili?! Sixteen-year-olds who spend too much money at Forever 21, that’s who.

At least I didn’t wear that top to school, I suppose. Of course, my schoolwear wasn’t much better:

Not only is that a cropped turtleneck (who knew those existed?!), but it appears that I determined those ill-fitting jeans to be too high-waisted for my tastes, because I cut off the waistband. God forbid there be an extra inch of fabric in the 12″ expanse between my pants and my shirt — that would be hideous!

This next photo was technically taken sometime during my first year of college, but I most definitely wore this very outfit back in high school, so I am including it:

Is that a four-year-old’s shirt I’m wearing? Or the top half of a bathing suit, maybe? I’m pretty punk rock with that studded belt, at least.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this gem — my senior prom dress:

It’s backless (sadly not visible from this angle), there’s a slit practically up to my waist, and it cost me $17 at Charlotte Russe. I wore it to prom. Beat that, bitches.

Throwback Thursday: Junior High Mo Had Some Hair Problems

In all my thirty years, I think I’ve had about six truly good hair days. When I was young, my hair wasn’t too troublesome, but there was an awful lot of it and the waviness had a tendency to cross over into frizz-ball territory on occasion. Until I was in 7th grade, my hair pretty much looked like this all the time:

Sure, I wasn’t a Pantene model, but I didn’t look like a freakshow or anything (multi-colored braces aside).

And then one day in seventh grade, literally overnight, my hair changed and my previously slightly-frizzy waves became a mess of super-tight ringlet curls. The bad news is, I did not know what one was supposed to do with curly hair, and neither did anyone else in my family (either that or they DID know and were just super-cruel and liked to watch me suffer), so I did what I’d always done with my hair:

I BRUSHED IT.

Did you know that you are not, under any circumstances, supposed to brush curly hair? Especially if the curly hair in question is the thickest, most voluminous hair on the planet?

This is what happens when you brush out thick, curly hair:

(FYI, I wasn’t exaggerating when I said that my hair changed overnight. The above photo was taken just weeks after the photo at the top in which my hair looks semi-normal!)

You guys, it was bad. How did my mother let me out of the house?! And why didn’t anyone help me? I think we have to place some blame on my friends and family, right? On a related note, how did I even manage to make any friends looking like that¹?

I wish I could say that I quickly figured out how to deal with my curly mane, but that would be a lie. Here I am an entire year later, still not knowing what to do (and apparently still oblivious to how ridiculous I looked — I look totally happy and not at all embarrassed to be photographed like I should have been!):

This nonsense lasted all the way through 8th grade. Here I am again with my dear friend Caitlin on the day of our 8th grade graduation:

To make matters worse, as you can see above, at some point in 8th grade I used what appears to be a gallon of Sun-In to lighten my hair. It totally improved the situation, right?

Blessedly, at some point in between 8th and 9th grade, my hair calmed down a tiny bit and I got in the habit of wearing ponytails all the time (why did I not think of that before?). I consider it a stroke of supreme good luck that my hair issues were at their worst at a time when I was immature enough to not give a shit about what I looked like — believe it or not, I never gave a second thought to my frightening appearance at the time! When I look back on these pictures, though, I kind of want to cry from retroactive shame². On the bright side, I suppose it’s nice that we can be certain that my friends liked me for my charming personality, because they definitely weren’t hanging around me in hopes that my coolness would rub off on them.

That said, I’m going to call Caitlin up right now and yell at her for not telling me to put my hair in a freakin’ ponytail in 7th grade. YOU CALL YOURSELF A FRIEND?!

…………………………………

Footnotes:

¹Perhaps they just wanted to hang out in my awesome bedroom. Please check out the SWEET 1989 Gameboy and note that my decor included a fried egg candle on the shelf behind me.

²I actually did cry at the sight of one of these photos once! When my little sisters turned 21, Jamie made a slideshow containing photos of the two of them throughout the years, and she included the photo of the three of us in overalls pictured above. When she played the slideshow at their party, I literally cried embarrassed-tears when it came up. In other news, I’m insane.

Throwback Thursday: Second Grade Survey

Like most trends, I’m about a year late to the “Throwback Thursday” party. The good news is that I’ve got a doozy here that totally makes up for the fact that I didn’t even put together why people were typing #TBT next to old photos of themselves until like a week ago.

What we have here is a questionnaire I filled out at the end of second grade, which was compiled in a cute little memory book along with surveys and photos from the rest of my class:

(Sorry about the wonkiness of the scan; the page is part of a spiral-bound book and I couldn’t be bothered to spend more than eight seconds setting it up in the scanner. Remember, this is a half-assed blog I’m running over here.)

Let’s dive in, shall we?

1) The best thing that happened during second grade was: The Get hoppin play

Solid answer, second grade Mo. Get Hoppin’ was an extremely professional theatrical production put on by our class in the school cafeteria. It enjoyed a run of precisely one performance, which I believe took place at 10am (which thespians everywhere know is the prime time for live theatre).

The plot surrounded an obnoxious little bunny named Bunny Sue who, for reasons unknown, refused to hop. Her bunny siblings were pissed at her bad attitude, and I can’t say I blame them. Get your shit together, Sue! I don’t remember the specifics, but after being yelled at by her siblings and coddled by her parents (on whom the blame for Sue’s spoiled antics should really lie), there was an encounter with a wise bird or something and eventually the little bitch started hopping.

I was Bunny Sue:

2) The worst thing was: waiting for our play

Obviously.

3) One of the funniest things that happened this year is: when Alberto threw up

I REMEMBER THIS VIVIDLY! Poor Alberto puked right on his desk in the middle of class. I can’t remember the name of the kid who was sitting next to him, but I do remember the priceless look on his face as he jumped up and tried to escape the onslaught.

The BEST part of this, though, is that almost every single other kid in the class also reported this as the funniest moment of the year! Even Alberto himself answered “when I threw up.” It’s the highlight of this memory book, no doubt.

4) One of the saddest things was: being sick and missing school.

Mo, you’re a loser.

5) My favorite subject was….because….: Math, becouse I like working with numbers.

Well, we can see that I did not like working with spelling.

6) The hardest thing that I had to do this year was: learning division

But it was very rewarding, apparently?

7) The easiest thing was: learning how to do sudtraction.

Suck it, division. And spelling.

8) I’ll never forget the time that: Alberto threw up

I haven’t!

9) Some advice I’d like to pass on to future second graders is: don’t get sick becouse you might miss something funny.

Who cares about all the learning you might miss, or your health, for that matter? No, the biggest problem with getting sick is that you might miss something funny, like Alberto throwing up again.

(And man, I really wanted “because” to be spelled with an “o”!)

10) What I am looking forward to in third grade is: doing million minuts of reading

All year long in second grade, I watched the third graders rack up stickers as part of this “Million Minutes of Reading” program. I was a big reader and I was certain that when my time to participate finally came, I could read more than any other third grader. There was a contest element to it (prizes were involved, I believe) and I literally looked forward to it all year, convinced I would be victorious.

I’m bitter to this day that I wound up finishing in second place by a margin of, like, three stickers (which represented the number of books read, or possibly the number of pages). IF ONLY I HAD MADE IT TO THE LIBRARY TO CHECK OUT BABYSITTERS CLUB BOOKS JUST ONE MORE TIME!!!!!

 

And there you have it, folks: my seven-year-old self was a math-lovin’, poor-spellin’, book-readin’ nerd who enjoyed nothing more than laughing at people who throw up in public.

Just for good #TBT measure, here are two more photos from second grade to complete your visual:

Living Vicariously Is Still Living!

The other night, I had a dream about a friend I worked with in high school. In the dream, my old friend and I were at work and she was telling me a story about a friend of hers getting drunk before a school dance. That’s kind of a weird thing to dream about in the first place, but what’s more bizarre is that she really had told me that story in real life, thirteen years ago, and even though I hadn’t thought about that memory in well over a decade, the dream accurately recalled every goddamn detail of the story right down to where we were sitting when I first heard it.

When I woke up, I was so amused and perplexed by the fact that my brain had inexplicably remembered every minute detail of a decade-old story that hadn’t even happened to me that I immediately told TFW all about it.

This is where things took a turn.

While explaining the dream to my dear husband, I casually mentioned that I used to ask this friend to tell me stories all the time, specifically stories about her doing cool stuff I was far too lame to have experienced (see: going to a school dance with drunken friends). And yes, I mean exactly what I just said: I would literally sit there and make her tell me stories of her doing exciting things so I could live vicariously through her awesomeness. I was a rather reserved, nerdy teen, and hearing about people I actually knew doing crazy things I’d only seen on TV was incredibly fascinating to me.

Judging by TFW’s reaction, this is not a normal thing to do. The jackass nearly laughed aloud at this little peek into my teenaged nerdery, and I didn’t help my case when I added that I particularly enjoyed the stories about people getting into trouble, since I was such a goody two-shoes myself. It’s not like I was ever going to experience firsthand what it was like to get busted for spending the night at my boyfriend’s house, and I needed the scoop!

I suppose I may have seemed a wee bit strange, relishing these tales of the teenage awesomeness of others…but man, did I love hearing them. In fact, if you’re in the market for someone to listen to your personal stories about drunken high school shenanigans or pregnancy scares, please forward your resumes for my review. These days, the only stories I hear involve busses, cars, Bearski, and cupcakes:

Top Ten Tuesday: The Lame Old Lady At The Bachelorette Party

It’s no secret that I’m tragically un-cool. I wasn’t cool when I was a frizzy-haired over-sensitive child obsessed with The Babysitters Club, and I’m sorry to say that the situation hasn’t improved with age (neither my hair nor the hip-factor). I don’t know any current musicians, fashion trends elude me, and my sense of humor is more “Marge Simpson” than “Daniel Tosh*” (I love a joke where no one gets hurt!). I’m sort of like an octogenarian (albeit a totally hot one), or maybe a shut-in whose internet access has been cut off.

As a nearly 30-year-old married mother who works from home and rarely leaves the house, my lack of coolness isn’t usually a factor in my daily life. My son certainly doesn’t care what I wear or how corny my jokes are (yet — I assume I’ve got a few more precious years before I start embarrassing him with everything I do or say), and my darling husband is an even bigger nerd than I (Magic: The Gathering, anyone?). I steer clear of situations in which I’d be totally out of my element (no clubbing for me), and if a situation calls for more sophistication than I can muster, I call in reinforcements (e.g. forcing my fashion-expert friend to pick out a dress for me to wear to my sister’s wedding and then pestering her for hair, shoe, and jewelry advice until I am satisfied that I will look like a normal human and she probably wants to murder me for being so inept**). Despite my shortcomings in the suaveness department, I typically get by without looking or feeling like a complete goon.

Until someone invites me to a bachelorette party.

My little sister is getting married in less than two weeks, and she was kind enough to include me in her bachelorette festivities this weekend along with all of her young, hip friends. I did my best to keep up, but I was quickly (and repeatedly) reminded that I have absolutely no business pretending like I am on par with these girls. If you are afflicted with Chronic Lameness like yours truly and are presented with the opportunity to attend a social gathering with people who wear trendy clothes and know the lyrics to popular rap songs, I urge you to familiarize yourself with the below signs that may indicate that you should just stay home instead.

The top ten signs you are entirely too old and out of touch to go to a bachelorette party with a pack of 24-year-olds:

10) The day before the party, you text your sister for advice on what to wear and then promptly give up and ask her to just bring you something:

9) You put a great deal of thought and effort into properly chilling and transporting your cooler full of sodas and waters. Nothing says WILD PARTY like some ice cold sodas!

8) While others are wearing sexy scrunch-butt bikinis or stylish vintage one-pieces, you’re rocking a matronly skirted suit from Target:

7) The lack of recycling bins near the pool alarms you. THOSE AFOREMENTIONED WATER BOTTLES AND SODA CANS SHOULDN’T GO IN THE TRASH, PEOPLE!

6) You apply sunscreen no fewer than five times in three hours, even though you’re in a shaded cabana.

5) When the waiter brings out a penis-shaped cake for the bride, you nervously look around the restaurant and hope no children or delicate elderly individuals are present***:

4) You can’t believe they scheduled an activity that starts at 10pm. That’s ten o’clock AT NIGHT, a time better known as “bedtime.”

3) When you learn that said 10pm activity is a Passion Party, you spend the weeks leading up to the event obsessing over the potential awkwardness and high likelihood of excessive blushing****.

2) You are surprised to discover that crop tops are indeed a legitimate trend, as not one but TWO of the girls are wearing them to dinner. You are then even more grateful that your sister brought you something cute and current to wear, since if you had been left to your own devices you would be wearing a skirt purchased in 2010:

1) Making a two-hour drive home at midnight so you can sleep in your own bed and be there when your son wakes up in the morning sounds better than sleeping in a nice hotel room.

It’s exhausting being so lame. I had a great time, though!

*Does it make me more or less pathetic that I got really excited to reference Daniel Tosh? He’s cool, right? And I’m aware of him!

**Said friend claimed that our dress shopping expedition was “fun” — I plan to put her to the test by asking for her help picking out jeans next; we’ll see if she still thinks helping me is fun after being subjected to my denim-related fashion inquiries, including “is this how these are supposed to look?”, “what kind of shoes do I wear with these?”, and “why is everything so expensive — can’t we just go to Target?”

***The cake was delicious, however.

****It wasn’t that bad. I may or may not have discussed the pros and cons of full-body stockings.

How To Buy a “Mom” Bikini

Even though I’ve lived in LA for years (and San Diego before that), I am not a frequent bathing suit-wearer. We don’t have a pool and I’m not a huge fan of the ocean (fish are gross), so there’s simply very rarely any need for me to wear one — I have worn a bathing suit fewer than ten times in the last five years, and approximately eight of those occasions were on my honeymoon four years ago. Unfortunately for me, I now have a toddler who loves the water and would surely love to visit a pool or the beach, and worse yet, my sister’s bachelorette party is coming up this summer and the plan is to remain poolside for about 12 straight hours. As a result, I realized this weekend that I have no choice but to get myself a new bathing suit.

Now, bathing suit shopping is never particularly fun — you’re essentially trying on underwear and trying to convince yourself that since the underwear is marketed as swimwear it’s perfectly acceptable to wear in public — but it’s a whole different ballgame when you have a toddler. Not only has your body changed since the pre-baby days, but you now have to factor the suit’s functionality into your choice since you’ll be lugging a squirming kid around and bending down to help with sandcastles and whatnot. On the other hand, you might not be ready to dive into full “mom” territory with a conservative one-piece suit. It’s not easy, but as usual, I’m here to help you with yet another one of life’s challenges!

Maureen Wachter’s 11-step guide to buying a bathing suit suitable for a 30-year-old mother:

Step 1: Try on all of the bathing suits you currently own. Laugh at how ridiculous you look in each one, either because it’s completely outdated, simply does not fit at all, or involves so many precariously placed strings your toddler is sure to accidentally disrobe you within moments of arriving at the beach or pool.

Step 2: Immediately disabuse yourself of any notion that you may still be able to get some use out of those old “hot young thang” suits and toss them into the Goodwill pile.

Step 3: Google “modest bikinis” and feel equally distressed by the hideousness of the options you’re presented with and by the fact that they still all appear to be extremely skimpy. Admit and accept that you are officially an old prude.

Step 4: Forget about the online shopping (how can you trust that those scraps of fabric will really cover your ass based on photos alone?) and go to Target.

Step 5: Do a few laps around Target looking for the collection of bathing suits meant for adult women. Realize in horror that the racks of tiny child-sized spandex panties in the juniors department are the ones you’re supposed to be looking at.

Step 6: Sift through the options until you find a style that looks like it provides more coverage than the average string bikini. Purchase it without trying it on because you have a toddler in tow and using those filthy fitting rooms is bad enough even when you don’t have a maniac companion picking disgusting crap off the floors and shouting “TRASH!”

Step 7: Get home and try it on. Realize you completely overestimated the modesty of your selection when you model it for your husband and he compliments you on your “sexy new lingerie.”

Step 8: Return to Target, this time without your trash-police child. Return the lingerie/bikini and take your sweet time scouring each and every rack looking for something more suitable. After 20 minutes, find one potential winner: a fuller-coverage bottom with some sort of a fringed skirt on it. Realize how heinous that sounds and engage in an internal debate about whether it’s even possible for a skirted bottom to be remotely fashionable, then decide you don’t care because it’s literally the only two-piece style you’ve seen that looks like it might cover you up enough to avoid a wardrobe malfunction. Purchase it without trying it on, because, seriously, trying stuff on sucks.

Step 9: Get home and try it on. Take a photo of yourself and text it to your little sisters to find out for certain if the skirt is acceptable:

Step 10: Stare at yourself for a few more minutes and decide you don’t believe your sister; there’s just no way a skirted bathing suit is OK.

Step 11: Return the skirted suit to Target. Give up and commit yourself to wearing denim shorts in the pool. You look great in denim shorts.

Happy summer!

---

Thanks to Mama Kat‘s writer’s workshop prompt (“Create a How-To post”) for the inspiration!

Rulebreaker

Despite what my tattoos and love of punk rock music might lead you to believe, I am not a rebel. In high school, I never drank or smoked or did anything cool like sneak out to go to a raging party (perhaps because I was never invited to such an event? Eh, minor details). I ditched class from time to time (ok, I ditched class all the time), but that hardly counts as teenaged rebellion since I always told my mom what I was up to. One time in sophomore year I lied to my mom about my plans with a super-hot 17-year-old (I wisely assumed she wasn’t likely to sign off on “we’re gonna drive around and then stop somewhere to make out in his Jeep”), but the deception stressed me out so much I wasn’t able to enjoy myself (the whole night I kept envisioning the two us getting murdered mid-smooch by a lunatic serial killer and my poor parents having to deal with not only a dead daughter, but a dead lying daughter; their angry-slash-heartbroken Dateline interviews would be so humiliating to my pathetic memory) and I stuck to the truth from then on.

(And I’m such a square that making out really was as far as things went in that Jeep. Hmm, I wonder why that budding romance fizzled out shortly thereafter?)

Even as an adult, I remain firmly in the goody-two-shoes camp. The thought of pirating music or software makes me nauseated (I can just picture my arraignment: “Mrs. Wachter, our agents found an illegally-procured Social Distortion album and three episodes of Secret Life of the American Teenager on your computer; what do you have to say for yourself?! Not just about the pirating, but about your decidedly bizarre entertainment choices?”), and you’ll never catch me parking in a loading zone or trying to sneak a 5oz bottle of contact lens solution onto an airplane. Bending the rules or breaking the law just seems so obnoxiously self-centered — who am I to think the speed limit applies to everyone but me?

(Wait a minute, psychological breakthrough pending: perhaps my lifetime of non-rebellion all stems from a fundamental lack of self-confidence! Maybe I just don’t think I’m worthy of breaking the rules! Someone call a therapist and arrange a consultation.)

Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that when I signed my son up for daycare, I read every word of the provider’s 10-page packet of rules and guidelines. I drop him off and pick him up right on time, I never forget to send extra clothes, and since they have a “no trash” lunch policy, I bought several tupperware lunch containers with dividers so I could neatly pack up all the components of his lunch without requiring ziplock baggies or foil. This makes packing lunch a bit of a hassle, since I have to do silly things like unwrap string cheese and peel bananas instead of just tossing the stupid things in the container like a normal human, but I never thought twice about it — rules are rules!

For over four months I packed his lunch this way, until one morning last week when I discovered I was completely out of fruit — not even an emergency can of peaches in the pantry. I wanted to send Bubba to school with more than crackers and a sandwich, so I decided to be rebellious by sending a “veggie pouch” (if you don’t have kids or if you are one of those insane moms who made all your own baby food, I’m referring to those little pouches of pureed fruits and/or veggies that the kid consumes by sucking on a spout-thingy; technically they’re for babies, but Bubba still loves them and it’s the easiest way to get him to eat fruits and veggies!). When TFW left to do the daycare drop-off, I gave him strict instructions to explain about the lack of fruit in the house and to apologize profusely for the pouch.

I spent the rest of the day obsessing over my lack of consideration for this simple rule, certain the daycare owner was going to hate me forever and probably complain about me to all the other moms. I truly felt bad about this, folks! I mean, really: how hard is it to follow the rules laid out by your child’s daycare provider? I thought about calling her to apologize but decided that might be just a tad overboard (plus, then she might hate me for bugging her and for breaking the no-trash rule!).

When I finally went to pick the dear boy up at the end of the day, I was ready to grovel. As the owner handed me Bubba’s things to head home, I apologized again for violating the no-trash rule and assured her I had gone to the store on my lunchbreak to stock up on real fruit for the rest of the week.

And she laughed and laughed.

“I think you’re the only parent that has ever read my rules….no one else follows that rule; don’t worry about it! You can send the pouches anytime, I don’t care.”

So you’re telling me I’ve been knocking myself out every morning for the past four months to make trash-free lunches when I could have just been throwing string cheese and veggie pouches in there and calling it a day?! And wait a minute, why do I feel like the fool for reading and adhering to the rules?

I think I need to listen to a little more early-80s punk rock; the messages clearly haven’t been sinking in for me. ANARCHY!!!

 exhibit A: contraband!

The Nicest Thing My Big Sister Ever Did

I’ve got a gaggle of sisters (3 older than me and the infamous twins, who are about six years my junior), and I could fill an entire blog with laudatory stories about each of their many fine qualities. Don’t worry — I have no intention of boring you all with endless tales about these lovely ladies; I just wanted to publicly state how awesome ALL my sisters are so four of them don’t get jealous right now when they discover that I’ve dedicated today’s post to just one of them.

Shannon is the next sister “up” from me, but we’re five and a half years apart (with the obvious exception of the twins, none of us girls are closer than four years apart; my mom had no interest in dealing with back-to-back babies and planned accordingly). Despite our age difference, we were very close growing up (she is the master Barbie-player); in fact, I believe the age difference allowed us to get along with each other even better than if we had been closer in age — we were always in totally different stages of life and thus really didn’t have anything about which to fight or compete. She was always far nicer to me than any big sister is required to be, even being so generous as to occasionally permit me to hang around when her friends were over (if you don’t have any older siblings yourself, allow me to assure you that this is an honor of the highest order).

Our age difference meant that when I was in 7th grade, Shannon was a senior in high school. This was a big boon to me, since in our town, the junior high and high school are grouped together on one big campus. Having my sister at the same school gave me a little extra confidence — I knew I wasn’t alone in that giant place, and I definitely knew more about the school and the teachers than most other 7th graders! Obviously we didn’t have any classes together, and we ate lunch at different times (not that we would have eaten together even if given the option — I said she was nice, not a weirdo or a saint), but just knowing she was there made the transition a little easier.

(Getting to ride home from school every day in her sweet ’86 VW Cabriolet convertible was pretty rad, too. No waiting for mom in the pick-up line like all the other losers!)

Even with my sister there, moving from the simplicity of elementary school to the complex world of junior high wasn’t easy for me. Navigating the changing social climate was the trickiest aspect. Several elementary schools fed into the junior high, so of course friendships were bound to change with so many new people to interact with. I made a few new friends myself, but I naively assumed that my friends from elementary school, most of whom I had known since kindergarten or even preschool, would continue to be my primary “group.” Unfortunately for me, this assumption proved false, as I quickly realized that I was being left behind while these girls joined forces with a variety of new pals from the other elementary schools to create some sort of obnoxious supergroup of popular people. By the end of the first month of school, I could tell that I was firmly on the periphery of the group. No one was mean or flat-out ignored me, but with every inside joke that went over my head it became more and more clear that I was not really a part of their newly expanded circle.

Still, I counted these girls as friends, and I figured they felt the same about me. The reality of the situation didn’t sink in until one day in October, when we had a half-day of school. I didn’t have any after-school plans and hoped to find someone to hang around with for the afternoon, but I didn’t see any of my friends after class. I gave up and began making my way towards Shannon’s car in the parking lot to head home, and there they were: fifteen girls walking in a pack, clearly heading off somewhere together. I caught up with them and asked the girl I felt closest to what she was up to, and she (nicely; there was no maliciousness involved) informed me that they were all going out to lunch.

It was clear I was not invited. I wasn’t specifically being excluded — it’s not as if they pointed at me and taunted “ha ha, we’re all going somewhere without YOU!” — it was simply that I was not in their group, and thus was not involved in their plans. To be honest, that was almost worse. I couldn’t be mad at them — why would they invite someone with whom they were not close to hang out with them? — but I was humiliated and lonely and deeply ashamed. What was wrong with me that would make them see me as a complete nonentity as opposed to a friend? Had I done something wrong at some point, or was I just so inherently uncool that I never stood a chance?

Shockingly, I didn’t burst into tears (a fact I remain amazed by to this day, considering my proclivity towards over-sensitivity) — I think I was too shocked. I mumbled a goodbye and got in Shannon’s car. I relayed the upsetting turn of events to her, and without skipping a beat, she said “well, why don’t we go out to lunch? Where do you want to go?”

Now, remember that Shannon was a 17-year-old high school senior with a car, a job (and thus money), and plenty of friends; there is no doubt that she could have chosen any number of fun ways to spend her school-free afternoon that did not involve a frizzy-haired little sister. But she chose instead to drive around with me, singing along to Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots and the Pulp Fiction soundtrack and eating Taco Bell. She didn’t make a big deal about what had happened with my friends, nor did she badmouth them in an attempt to make me feel better. She just hung out with me as if there was nothing else she would have rather been doing. As if there was nothing wrong with me at all, and anyone would have fun with me. As if being left out of that group of girls wasn’t cause for concern at all, because everything was fine and normal and it was just anther day and I’d find some other people to hang out with soon enough.

That simple act of sisterly kindness changed my entire junior high life. I got over my disappointment of being left out remarkably quickly, accepting that friendships change and there were plenty of other people to be friends with, perhaps even people with whom I had more in common than simply having attended the same elementary school. I shed not a single tear over the situation! Not one. Beginning the very next day, I made a concerted effort to deepen the new friendships I had started forming with a few girls in my classes, and eventually I had my own new little group of friends. If not for my Taco Bell date with Shannon, I’m certain I would have gone home and sobbed over the humiliation, and I likely would have spent the next month sitting alone at lunch, convinced I was too much of a loser to find any other friends.

Growing up is hard, and I consider myself immensely lucky that I had someone so cool, confident, and capable to look up to. It’s just a shame she never got around to helping me with my hair:

Quote of the Day: Fancy Pants

The scene: It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m hanging out with my big sis. In a very rare move for me, I’m wearing something other than total crap purchased a half decade ago at Target or Forever 21. This is quite surprising; to say I am typically not fashion-savvy is an understatement. As evidence, this was the best thing I could scrounge together for Christmas:

I just don’t care about fashion. It’s too much effort, I don’t know what I’m doing, it costs money, you have to try things on…no thank you.

But a couple weeks ago, I passed by the Gap while at the mall for some delicious Fatburger (when you have a toddler, these are the kind of thrilling outings you concoct for yourselves since they can’t be trusted to behave in normal society) and I saw some printed skinny jeans in the window. Again, I really don’t care about clothes, but for some reason I was drawn to these stupid pants. They just seemed…cool. I had nothing to wear them with and really no idea whether they looked good or not, but I wanted them. Behold:

This is not my hot body nor are those my cute shoes. Regrettably.

My defenses were down because I was in a burger-induced coma, and they were 30% off, so I purchased them.

Anyway, back to the scene at hand.

Shannon takes note of my decidedly “not me” outfit and asks where I got my pants. I explain about the Fatburger coma and then say, “they’re a little too cool for me; if only I were one of the twins, I could totally pull them off!”

To which she replies with some sage older sister wisdom: “Well, no one knows who you are when you’re out in public…for all they know, you ARE cool and you DO pull them off!”

So if you see a tattooed chick with gray roots (and yes, that’s roots as in “hair that hasn’t been dyed,” not boots as in “cool shoes I do not own”) and AWESOME pants…I am pulling them off.

Don’t Be a Jerkface

No matter how young a kid is, people love speculating about little ones’ futures. Baby likes throwing a plastic ball? Look, he’s a future quarterback! Toddler cradles a doll? Oh my god you guys, she’s such a caring little mommy already! A few weeks ago one of my aunts heard Bubba belt out one of his trademark ear-piercing squeals of joy and announced that he was surely destined to become a singer.

(And now every single goddamn time Bubba cries, yells, shouts, or emits pretty much any sound louder than a whisper, TFW hollers “LOOK HE’S A SINGER!!!!!” and I kind of want to strangle him; this man can drive a joke into the ground faster and more thoroughly than you would ever think possible and he absolutely revels in it.)

I’m mocking this silly behavior, and rightfully so because it’s ridiculous, but I must confess that I have found myself doing something similar. My darling child is a bit of a jerkface sometimes, albeit an adorable one. He pulls my hair. He hits (I blame TFW for this one, since it was his brilliant idea to play “everything can be a drum if you bang on it!” with him). He cries when he can’t have whatever it is he’s suddenly decided he wants. He throws his food (and his bear…and pretty much anything he can pick up). He’s decidedly obnoxious and not at all considerate of the feelings of others.

I know this is all normal toddler behavior and none of it is done with devious intentions (I hope), but I still worry sometimes. What if he grows up and actually is an asshole? Or a bully? Or just generally insensitive and rude? It’s one of my biggest fears, right after freak injuries, chronic or fatal health problems, kidnappings, and dingo attacks.

I really, really value niceness. Growing up, I wasn’t particularly talented, beautiful, or athletic. I wasn’t a frequent winner of awards and I certainly wasn’t cool or “popular” in the teenaged sense of the word. I was fairly average in most senses, but I was exceptionally nice. Allow me to share the two best compliments I’ve ever received in all my 29 years:

1) In junior high, I overheard two girls philosophizing about popularity and what made someone popular. They both agreed that they didn’t care for a number of the kids who were a part of “the popular group” and wagered a guess that no one else really did, either. The word “popular” was a misnomer and had lost its meaning, they decided — all those “cool” people weren’t even well-liked. At the end of their discussion, one of them said “you know, the only truly popular person I can think of is Mo Ryan [that’s my maiden name, by the way, and yes, I named my son after my maiden name; it has caused some funny looks when people who knew me by my maiden name forget that I have a different last name now and think I named my kid Ryan Ryan like some nutjob narcissist], because she’s nice and no one dislikes her.” Sure, they were basically saying I was totally uncool — the implication, of course, was that it was absurd to think of me as popular — but they were sincere in their assessment of me as a nice person, and I was filled with pride to know that I was thought of in a positive light.

2) The summer before sophomore year of high school, I joined my friend’s family on a two-week vacation (during which I pathetically cried homesick tears every single night — remember my former loserdom! — but that’s irrelevant to this tale). A few days into the trip, my friend’s 7-year-old cousin told me that I was the second-nicest person he had ever met. Ever, people! And the all-time nicest was reportedly his tap dance instructor, so I can’t feel too bad about being runner up in that competition.

I wasn’t perfect, of course, and I’m sure I did my share of stupid, hurtful things over the years. But I did my best to be a kind person, and while I sincerely doubt my classmate’s assessment that no one disliked me (seems doubtful; don’t forget about all that crying I did all the time), at least I wasn’t going out of my way to hurt other people or being insensitive to people’s feelings. Unless I’m repressing some memories, I’m pretty sure I’ve never made anyone say “that horrible bitch Maureen is just so cruel!” (former love interests notwithstanding, of course).

And that’s all I want for my son, folks. I don’t need him to be a star athlete or a world-renowned doctor or a famous singer (all of the above are laughable anyway considering his genetics). But I do want him to be a nice person that doesn’t piss people off. I do not want him to be the cause of another person’s pain, and I never want to get a phone call from another mom telling me that my kid hurt her kid’s feelings. It would be great if his teachers report that he’s the smartest kid in class, but I’ll be just as proud if they tell me he’s the nicest (or even the second-nicest, if any future tap dance instructors are around to take the crown) child in the bunch.

So you can understand why all this maniac toddler behavior is concerning me. I cannot and will not stand for a jerkface child. Bubba better shape up — good looks (and extraordinary artistic talent) can only take a person so far.

(PS: I feel I must defend my child by noting that he’s actually very well-behaved for a 14-month-old and is honestly quite delightful to be around 99% of the time. I swear.)