My Blah-Blah-Blog

Yeah, it’s hard to do. I mentioned that in my last post. I’ve been listening to break-up songs all morning and I’m finding that I relate to a lot of the emotions and feelings written into the songs, but not always the situation behind the meaning of the song. In other words, many of those tortured-souls wrote about the loss of love usually because someone cheated or left them or just went plumb-crazy.

My situation is different. I *love* my newly “ex” ex-boyfriend. As in, a lot. And unfortunately for both of us, he still loves me too.

You know that Shakespearean phrase “star-crossed lovers”??? Look it up in the dictionary, our picture is there next to it.

Let me tell you a little about this awesome ex of mine: he’s awesome. He’s adorable. He’s thoughtful and romantic and damn funny. I’ve dated him longer than I’ve dated anyone else in my life, and I’ve had beautiful, wonderful experiences with him that I’ve not had with anyone else. Ever.

You’re probably wondering “What the heck! Don’t break up! True love is hard to find! Make it work! Sacrifice for it! Do anything for it! Too many people are lonely and looking for love and you found the real deal!? You are an idiot to walk away!!!”

I’m thinking the same thing, trust me. But don’t forget that star-crossed thingie. The cheated by the cosmos, God played a cruel trick on us realization that we’ve both had on-and-off the past few months.

See, this awesome guy is quite a bit younger than me (hold off on the cougar jokes. I’m sensitive right now). He’s not been married before and is currently enjoying his life as a successful entrepreneur working on his own terms, going out when he wants, where he wants, spending money on what he wants, when he wants.

Me? Single mom of two. That should stir up enough stereotypes for you to now say “Oh, I get it.” Don’t get me wrong, my kids are GOOD KIDS. They’re well behaved, respectful, empathetic and good kids. But they’re still kids which means they demand a lot of energy, attention and focus. So when an awesome guy is dating an awesome gal who is also a mom, he’s gotta be ready and willing to share the attention, love and focus.

Awesome ex guy has done a great job of that, really. Especially since he’s never really hung out around kids. He’s been open and honest with me at every step of the way and we’ve worked so hard to tweak things here and there to make sure everyone all around is happy and feeling like they’re getting their fair share of the mom/girlfriend attention.

But it all comes down to this: I don’t want to just date people for the next (insert unknown number of weeks, months or years here).  While I’m not looking for a new dad for my kids (Lord knows I’ve spend their entire lives caring for them solo, and I can do it all by myself tyvm) I do want someone who at least GETS kids, and is okay that sometimes I can’t be available to them because I have a kid puking on me or needing help with homework or just needs some extra mom time because of a bad day.

We went into this relationship knowing what each other wanted: me, to settle down at some point, maybe have one more little bundle of joy in a loving, caring, secure relationship and experience parenting with a partner. Him: well those sorts of things aren’t out of the question, but they aren’t something he wants to happen in the next 5-10 years.

I sort of realized that things needed to come to a halt sooner rather than later this past Superbowl Sunday. It was a catastrophe of the most uncomfortable proportions that made me realize that I can’t always be me and the kids and my guy, that I have to (more often than not) put them in the background, or the bottom of the totem pole, to give 100% to this relationship. It made me feel like I had to be two people: Victoria the girlfriend and Victoria the mom.

Don’t get me wrong: us women SHOULD keep that separate ‘identity’ for times we’re with our spouses or partners otherwise we may as well wipe their bottoms, too. What I’m talking about here is being TWO different people and the two aren’t allowed to mingle or meet. It’s hard enough to switch gears after a day of working, mothering, cooking and cleaning and then be cute and energetic in a relationship. It’s not just single moms that struggle with burnout at the end of the day, my married gal-pals do, too.

Anyhoo. it’s an impossible situation. One of us has to give up and sacrifice BIG time: he’d have to give up his single carefree days of bachelorhood. Me: I’d have to wait 5-10 years to get married or maybe have a baby IF we stayed together that long, and by that time I don’t know that I’d be able to or want to anymore.

So you see, it’s just not gonna work out without some major undertakings that neither of us are 100% sold on doing. While I’d do just about anything for the awesome ex, I don’t know if I could give up ME. And I don’t want to ask him to give up, well, HIM.

Sucks.

So, let’s say you are dating someone who you’ve been with for almost a year. And one sad day you both realize that while you truly and honestly love each other, your relationship just won’t work out and you both decide to call it quits.

But breaking up IS hard to do you know – they write songs about it all the time – and you’re no exception to the rule. It seems silly to break up JUST because things won’t work out in the next year or two for you (because you are in different stages of life and you aren’t both going in the same direction) but the sacrifice either one of you would have to make to keep it together would just be hurtful in the long-run.

Do you cut it off cold turkey? Wean off your relationship (especially if you are used to hanging out every single day/night!) or just push through until someone else comes along?
Help a friend out. What’s your advice?

The mention of NASCAR has always brought images to my mind of overweight wearing jeans and cut-off flannel shirts over white wife-beater shirts, and bleached-blonde chicks in cut-off shorts and cut-off shirts. And they are all wearing beer-hats. And drinking beer with a wad of chewing tobacco between their lower lip and gums while discussing what to eat for dinner at “mom’n ‘em’s” tonight.

However, Mr. Man is a big fanboy of cars – especially the shiny fast ones. Hey, he owns a hot red Lotus, what can I say? He definitely isn’t the beer-swigging red-neck I associate with NASCAR, so when he mentioned he was watching a race and invited me to watch it on his big screen, I thought maybe it would be something akin to the Formula One race in Monaco.  Nope. It was NASCAR.

I gave it a fair shot though, and soon found myself rooting for the adorable Joey Logano, 19-year old racer from North Carolina. I was thrilled that at such a young age, he found himself living out his dream and competing with the likes of the Petty and Busch families.

But back to Target.

Watching a NASCAR race became a bit of a routine for us and we’d get together, turn the volume up loud so we could hear the revving of the engines, and we’d hope for a good crash – one in which nobody was hurt of course.

Eventually I got my kids in on the action and, much to my surprise, my 10-year old daughter was an instant fan. She picked Jimmy Johnson to be the winner in the race we were watching and sure enough: Johnson won. He won every race she watched as a matter-of-fact. (Next season I may have her watch again while we place bets online for her winning pics.)(If you want insider information contact me and we’ll work out a little $$ deal.)

But disaster struck and some sort of drama started up between the driver of the Target car, Juan Pablo Montoya. Now, I didn’t follow it closely enough to know, but according to Miss NASCAR herself, Montoya ran several drivers off the road including my precious Joey and her precious Jimmy.

So we’re driving to school this morning, talking about what to do in the summertime when vacation hits. We thought it would be fun to see a NASCAR race. Our conversation took a quick turn and went something like this:

Mom (that’s me): Oh, hey, I need to stop and get you a tri-fold board for your science fair project. I tried Wal-Mart but they didn’t have it, so I’ll try another store today.

Miss NASCAR (10-year old daugther): Oh thank you mommy! You can find one anywhere. Try Office Depot or Office Max (apparently she has insider information on office supplies, too). Oh, just DO NOT SHOP AT TARGET! NO! NOT AT ALL!

Mom: No Target? Why? I like Target! What is wrong with Target?

Miss NASCAR: (hissing dramatically) Montoya!

I pondered telling her the evils of Wal-Mart that lots of people use as their reasoning to boycott the store, but we shop there often for some things we just know are much cheaper. Surely those reasons are way more legit than someone bumping the back of your car while going 200+ MPH on a tight-cornered racetrack.

Miss NASCAR: (hissing again with much more dramatic flair, even better than Shatner’s performance in Star Trek when shouting “KAHN!!”: MONTOYAAAAAAH!

Mom: I’ll skip Target, but just for today. That’ll show them.

She seemed satisfied and started chatting about some boy in her class that she has a crush on. Funny girl.

I’m doing it again. I’m jumping on the bandwagon of the latest trending topic on Twitter: Pat Robertson. I should know better than to talk politics or religion, but I’m impacted by this story in two ways: one, I’ve been to Haiti and found the people there lovely and enchanting although living in extreme poverty. Two, I’m a Christian.

Let me stop there to say I am embarrassed by Robertson’s comments regarding Haiti. You know, if he’d been giving a history lesson and telling the story of this dude who wanted to save Haiti from Napoleon so he sold his soul to the devil and just left it at that, I’d be okay. I thought it was a rather interesting story, one akin to Icharus wanting wings or Zeus sleeping around on Hera. Well, wrong era wrong continent but go with me here. While he didn’t right out say it, it appears he’s intimating that Haiti is cursed (by God I’m guessing) and that this earthquake is a result of said curse.

Having been to Haiti, I can say that it would indeed be easy to say the country is “cursed” (and by that I do not mean on God’s list of countries to smite in 2010). The people are incredibly poor there. Poor isn’t even a good word to use! The country is brown and dusty – animals roam the streets, dirty water puddles on the corners tainted by urine and feces, and children play right.there. There’s no topsoil in Haiti, no system for water (it’s caught in cisterns when (if) it rains) and when we were there, electricity only existed for about two hours a day, IF you were lucky.

And, sure enough, an hour crossing the Haitian border to the Dominican Republic is like stepping through the looking-glass: suddenly there’s lush green foliage, plants, flowers, grass, waterfalls, it’s a veritable land of plenty.

But back to Robertson.

I’m a Christian. Have been my whole life. I remember my mom watching Robertson when I was younger. I never minded him much until my adult life when many Christian leaders had their own failings as humans: affairs, homosexual relationships, embezzelment, etc. Wow, these are people just like me, making mistakes. These same people who represented Christianity to the world because of their far reaching programs and television shows.

Here’s what it comes down to for ME, in my OWN personal opinion.

Pat Robertson should have used his airtime to encourage Christians, Bhuddists, Muslims, Athiests humans to pray for, help, donate, send aid to Haiti.

If Pat Robertson wants this earthquake to truly be a “blessing in disguise” then he needs to not make harsh comments.

Cause hey, I’m just SURE that the people of Haiti will be LINING UP and coming in DROVES to turn Christian and follow this God who smited them, killing men women and little babies. After all, who doesn’t want to follow THAT God?

*hem*

Dear Haitians et. al:

I’m sorry that Pat Robertson made comments that make the rest of us Christians appear to be simple-minded, hateful witch hunters. Apparently he forgot the words “God is loving, gracious, kind, slow to anger, patient, forgiving…” I’ll stop there cause you get the point. Please don’t judge the rest of us based on his personal opinions.  I’m pretty sure this earthquake was caused by this thing called a fault line.

So tired of people using religion to make other people feel bad about themselves, to scare others into believing in God. I get that we Christians beleive if you don’t believe in Jesus then you’re condemned to eternal damnation in hell (insert warm fuzzy feelings here)  but for the love of God – really – knock it the hell off. If we’d spend half the time helping others, showing true love and concern for our fellow humans then maybe people would think “Hey, Christians are pretty cool. They aren’t stuffy at all!”

I’m hoping to go on a mission trip to Haiti this summer, returning to the city I visited back in ’95 or ’96. I’m not going to do dramas in the street or preach to thousands hoping they will turn or burn.

Instead, I’m going to really do what Jesus would likely have done: get in with the people, the outcasts, the downtrodden, the hurting, the homeless, the orphaned, and I’m going to love them. Yep. Love love. Like, ooh here’s a hug. Or, hey, let me make dinner for this displaced family. How ’bout that?

And I’m not going to mention that these souls that they are cursed. I’m instead going to look at them like the people who were wonderfully and fearfully made. By God.

Now, make a comment, but BE NICE! If ya’ll start hatin then I’ma delete your comment. Or put a curse on you.

If you noticed that my blog title is a line from 2001: A Space Odyssey, chances are you’re probably a sci-fi fan, movie trivia buff, or a space fan. Or maybe you just have a really good memory. Anyhoo, it doesn’t really matter since I’m not talking about movies or 2001 or if you can recall what you had for lunch on Tuesday six weeks ago.

I’m talking about outer space today. After a few weeks of following @flyingjenny on Twitter, I’ve become reacquainted with that bigger-than-life world that is outer space and the magic that was “maybe one day I can go to space” that all children seem to have at one point in life.

I know I did. I don’t know when it started, but I’d guess it was when I was about 5 and used to stare up at the night sky while driving home in the evening. I loved to look at the moon and the stars and was frequently disappointed when we arrived home and it was time to go in to bed. I wished on stars ALL THE TIME, and one wish (for a dog) was actually granted. I used to imagine the twinkling of those stars was really a message to me, blinking and flashing in a secret code, whispering to me how great my life could be and all of the wonderful things that were in store for me.

My mother was very imaginative and when my brother and I were younger, we were often treated to a game of make-believe play acting. We loved pretending and sometimes our acting seemed real enough that if we lived in CS Lewis’ books, we definitely would have made it through the wardrobe.

My mom read to us for hours on end, introducing us to The Hobbit and classics by Austen when we were still not of school age. She’d give us little buttons or other trinkets to leave on the windowsill for a magical princess who rode on the back of birds. In exchange for our little gifts, she’d leave a nickel or dime. It was wondrous!

Now toss in some good churching: the kind that makes God seem as big as eternity and just as wonderful and bright as those tiny twinkling stars, send us off to school to learn about the world around us, and you have two kids who believe anything is possible in the great big world!

But back to outer space. I mentioned following @flyingjenny. (If you don’t, you should!) She posed the question: “What “engages” you and keeps you interested in space?” I knew what it was for me: it was the magic of kinderhood that keeps me interested in space: it’s still a great big old mystery, filled with all the exciting possibilities one could ever imagine. My reply to her: “The magic that was space as a child! Wondering if someday *I* could look down at earth from the stars! Still feel that way. =)”

Why that is was her response, and what got me thinking today. Why is it some of us grown-ups are still enchanted by space and others could care less? When I heard NASA would be stopping the shuttle program, I felt incredibly sad! It was my parent’s generation who experienced the first shuttle missions, the first landing on the moon, the first tragedies of space travel. It was my generation that experienced more shuttle missions, the heartache that was the Challenger and Columbia. I remember the space station news and all of the launches into space for more exploration, and that pesky Hubble telescope that cost SO MUCH money.

When I was about 10 or 11, I saw the movie Space Camp. Oh, how I wanted to go to space and look down upon my planet! I wanted to fly to the moon and back, and zoom to stars and distant galaxies. When I was 20, I spent my evenings in Haiti gazing up at the sky, a sky so clear that ‘shooting stars’ flew overhead like ducks on a cold winter day and you could see satellites cross the sky.

But wait! I can’t forget the space movies and television shows! The encounters had by Kirk and Spock! The evil empire of Darth Vader and the dashing Han Solo! What about space is there for a girl not to love!?

I don’t know what the future holds for space exploration (heavens, many will say it isn’t important enough because we can’t take care of our issues here on our own planet, much less outer space). I don’t know if the economy will bounce back and there will yet again be money for NASA to blast off into the undiscovered vastness of space. I doubt I’ll ever be in a space shuttle or on a space mission, or be a space tourist before I die. Heck, the one time I wanted to see the shuttle take off when we lived in Florida it was canceled. Some hurricane or rain storm or something. So I may not even hear the thunder that is the rocket booster thingamajigs, and feel the powerful shaking of the land as the shuttle takes off.

But I can tell my children about space, the planets, the possibilities of places far beyond human knowledge. I can tell them that Pluto is still a planet in my book, and maybe someday there will be hundreds more planets found and named. Maybe one day they will fly up to the stars and gaze down upon planet Earth.

One thing has to be certain: there isn’t a human who was or is or will be alive who hasn’t at some point stopped and stared up, wondering what is up there, what is out there, what kind of greatness would it be to *be* there.

Oh, for all my love of space and fantasy, I still can’t figure out the constellations. They NEVER look to me like the shapes they’re supposed to be. =)

What about you? What makes you a space lover either as a kid or an adult!?

Another update:

Well, sad news. It’s been confirmed by the Brevard County Sheriff’s office that this little guy did indeed pass away. So if you want to help/can help this family, check out twitter feeds for more info, or go to: http://ilikeitfrantic.net/2009/12/prayers-and-hugs-for-the-ross-family/

UPDATE

Yeah, don’t be hating. Nothing wrong with wanting to help someone but checking it out first…

There’s NO local police reports, no local news story. I work for the media industry and there’s no way a story like this would go unreported. Seriously: mom alone, hubby overseas, baby dies?

I’m concerned. Super concerned. Not just because people are giving money to what*could* be a hoax (hey, I could be wrong) but because if this never happened, then a mother is speaking as though her son is dead. That’s terribly troubling. From a psychological standpoint, what does that say???

Original post:

Yes, I’m jumping on the bandwagon.

A few minutes ago I read a tweet by a kind person wishing well to someone who’d apparently lost a loved one. I clicked on the @name and discovered a few tweets by a lady whose son apparently drowned in Florida about 16 hours ago. Very sad, tragic, shocking indeed. But wait…something isn’t sitting right.

Who tweets “Please pray, 2 year old fell in a pool” followed up by odd posts with pictures. She never really says the child died, but it’s assumed based on the comments (read here: http://twitter.com/military_mom). Plus it’s foggy out – likely chilly. I lived in Fort Myers: WE NEVER went swimming in December. But okay, maybe she lives farther south. Maybe it’s a heated pool. But what’s with the chickens?

Now mind you, if I was at the hospital and was trying to get some prayers, yeah I may twitter. There’s something about the camaraderie of your friends online – whether you’ve met face to face or not. I tweeted when a beloved friend died a few months ago. But my baby?

Fog rolls in. Hour later baby fell in pool. At what point between trying to get him out, calling 911, police, fire, medical rolling on scene, attempting CPR… at what point did she tweet this prayer request?

Something just doesn’t seem right. There are no news reports at all. The AP Florida Bureau has nothing. Google search has nothing with the mom’s name or the child’s name.

Here’s what I think. Sympathies to this mom if this happened. I hope she catches a break from the nasty comments putting blame on her. If tweeting brings you comfort and some therapeutic value, keep doing it.

However, as someone who has worked in Law Enforcement, I suggest someone pay this home a visit and check on mom and baby. It isn’t impossible that maybe she’s just overwhelmed and needs help (her hubby is deployed right now). This could be a little shout-out for someone to help her out. It may be a big fat red flag that something isn’t right.

Looks like this gal is heading up the research department: http://twitter.com/madisonmcgraw. She’s catching flack too, but she has a point: just verify the story. (Check out her blog here: http://girlarsonist.blogspot.com/ )

If it’s true, I’m sure LOADS of people will flock to assist this family right away.

Either way, this woman needs help pronto: either her son just died OR something else is going on and she feels the need to lie and say he did.

Comments welcome but BE NICE.

Every once in a while I get the urge to go into my spam box in my Gmail account and hit “select all” then “delete all.” Although Gmail is pretty good about catching spam and junk mail, I still want to have the satisfaction of hitting that delete button and sending all of these lame emails to email heaven.

Today I did just that. I went into my spam box and wondered WHO sends me this junk? There must have been about 500 emails in there. Do these people really make money with their misspelled words, strange links and odd products they are offering? If not, why do they waste their time? Are there really people who do nothing but send junk mail to the rest of the planet, hoping to infect us all with their little trojans, viruses and worms?

I’d just like to take a moment and mention a few things to all y’all spammers and phishers et. al.:

To all of the dating agencies: as if it’s not enough that you tell me daily, daily! that I’m a loser (can’t get lucky in love >insert email addy here<?), you keep sending me emails about WOMEN!!! For the love of Pete! Get up to speed with your marketing demographics! I’M A GIRL.

Using “Hot Single Asians Chicks” in the subject line does NOT get my attention.  If you really want to get my business, use something like “Meet a really great guy – and he’s not married OR gay!” Maybe then I’ll check it out. Maybe.

Condom people: How on earth do I manage to win a “lifetime supply of condoms” almost every month? Mathematically speaking, if I’d won a lifetime supply last month, I doubt I’ve used them all by THIS month. Besides, I’m a loser and need an online dating agency, therefore I really don’t have much use for condoms at the moment.

Come to think of it, the online dating service people should share their information with the free condom people: only send the condom emails to the people who are actually in a relationship.

And to all of my long lost relatives in Uganda, as well as friends the political outcasts of Nigeria: please, I’d love to make 15% of your $1,000,000,000,000 funds. If only I could help you, “beloved friend, dearest one.”  I’m just a little worried about my tax return. Maybe next year.

To Robert Allen, Russ Dalbey:  Tell you what, send me your bank account number and I’ll have my dearest beloved friends in Uganda and Nigeria transfer you some money.

I don’t need a lifetime supply of Viagra. I’m a girl. (See above).

I DON’T want a free giftcard to >Applebees, Red Lobster etc< after signing up for another great offer, which costs me about 5 times more than the gift card.

For you Phishers: I DO NOT HAVE AN ACCOUNT WITH WACHOVIA!!! I do NOT need to change my password or reset my accounts at Bank of America or CitiBank or Ebay.

I’m amazed that these keep making the rounds. Who, exactly, is encouraging these people!?!?

Oh, the days where “Spam” was only used in conversations  that went something like this:

“Would you like some fried Spam with that?”

“Ew gross! No!”

…and phishing was just a misspelling for an afternoon sports event with your uncle out on the lake. Simpler times, people. Simpler times.

If you receive emails requesting you log in with your account information, please do not follow the link. It is likely a phishing email. Contact your financial institution directly and help stop phishers from stealing personal and private information: visit the United States Computer Emergency Readiness site for more information or to report phishing.

Set spam filters on your email programs to help prevent and block bothersome spam from being delivered into your email inbox.

If you get an offer that seems too good to be true… yeah you guessed it: it IS. If you aren’t sure, do some research on the net. Snopes is a great site to use to help determine validity of claims, hoaxes and chain mail.

I admit it: I’m a bit of a grammar Nazi. It kicks in at its worst when I’m reading Facebook posts or Tweets and see the misuse of terms such as “your” and “you’re.”  I’m more forgiving with “its” and “it’s” because even I will type out a sentence quickly and use lowercase or no hyphens or punctuations. But to tell someone “You’re house is on fire” is pretty much unacceptable and makes my teeth hurt.

It wasn’t too long ago on a drive home from Indiana to North Carolina that I noticed a sign on the side of the highway that got the better of me: “Speed strictly enforced by aircraft.”

Now, it might just be me, but isn’t that a bit of an error in predication? I mean, does an aircraft really ENFORCE the speed limit?

I looked around to see if there was indeed an airplane following me (there wasn’t). I was pretty sure I didn’t see any air craft make use of Romulan cloaking technology, appearing out of nowhere to issue a citation or zap and beam up speeders who zoomed 80 in a 55 MPH work zone.

I can see an aircraft assisting law enforcement officers who are enforcing the speed limit, but still do we citizens REALLY pay to have an aircraft fly over the highway – using up all that fuel – just to catch a few speeders?

Okay, I won’t nitpick on verbiage. Even if the signs did say “assist” instead of “enforce” I’d still make some snarky comment about helicopters, prop planes and jumbo jets pulling me over. What I found after some interweb-research is that some law enforcement agencies do indeed use air command to monitor speed limits (you know those white lines that cut across the highway? Yeah, well that’s part of the plan. If you make it from line A to line B too soon, then you’re probably speeding. And then a very nice officer will likely pull you over somewhere up ahead). We may not see this happening all the time in Happy Town USA population 2,000, but on major highways and interstates it’s a likelihood that the your speed limit is indeed enforced snitched on by monitored by aircraft.

I think it would have done better if the signs said, “Your Momma Knows You’re Speeding” or “Speed Limit Strictly Enforced By Lightning Bolts From Zeus.” Mmmaybe.

The other day my brother and I were talking about our old High School back in Germany. We thought that the school had closed down along with the local military base, but it hadn’t. I found the website and then signed up for the “Alumni” society. Soon I was browsing through a bunch of names, of which some I remembered and others I didn’t.

Soon I came across one name in particular that sounded super familiar. Wow – talk about a blast from the past! I’d just located my very first true-love boyfriend. Aww, isn’t that sweet?

I really liked this guy in my 14 ½ / 15-year-old crush kind of way, but even more so because he was one of the ‘popular’ guys and he liked ME!  I’d kissed a few guys before (read: pecked on the cheek) and was hoping that he would kiss me soon after we’d passed the official note of “Do you want to go out with me? Yes, No, Maybe (pick one).”

One night, I had to babysit for a neighbor. My best friend went with me and we hung out for an hour or two when suddenly there was a knock at the door. Lo and behold, it was my ‘boyfriend’. Holy cow – good but not good. Apparently my friend had told him where we’d be for the night!

However, I was FORBIDDEN (under penalty of death) to invite guys over to any house where there was no adult supervision. The fact that he showed up at a house where I was babysitting was worse!

He left after a little bit, but the damage had been done. One of the little girls had seen him and proceeded to tell her parents that “the babysitter had a boyyy over.” Shortly after I returned home, the girls’ parents showed up at my door, demanding to know why I had a boy over. I did the only thing that 14 1/2- 15 year-olds do when they are in trouble, I lied. After all, I hadn’t really invited him over, and he only came in for about 10 minutes, honest!

My parents decided to hold a mini Spanish Inquisition and put me in one room, my BFF in another, and my boyfriend in the living room. In true FBI fashion they interrogated each of us. I was the only one who stuck to the story (thanks a lot, guys!). Long story short, I was grounded for weeks, wasn’t allowed to go to a concert that weekend, and I wasn’t allowed to talk to my boyfriend for daaayys. I don’t know how I survived.

I remember when he left that night – somehow I managed to walk him to the door. He stood there for a second and I knew, just knew, that this was it. Hopefully he’d lay a big one on me considering the fact I was facing lifetime incarceration. Perhaps he’d be moved by my pitiful and dejected look and figure a kiss was certainly in order.

In the awkward fashion that only 14 1/2 – 15 year-olds can pull off, he maneuvered himself to get a little closer. My heart was about to pound right out of my chest. I figured he must really like me if he was going to get some smootching action, which of course only solidifies the “going out” status. Oh, and he was sooo cute.

And then it happened. The worst thing that could ever happen to anyone about to be kissed.

I giggled.

And I couldn’t stop giggling. Not only did I feel suddenly very queer and very silly, but I suddenly realized that he had braces – the big gawky silver braces. Now, I’d heard stories of people getting stuck together while kissing with braces. I suppose at the time I should have realized that BOTH kissers had to have braces. But it never occurred to me that my naked pearly whites would definitely not become attached to his…

The visual I had in my mind of the two of us stuck suck-faced together, and my mother discovering us that way, well it was just too much. I tried my best to recover and stop laughing. But you KNOW when you try to stop laughing then it only gets worse. I still can’t control fits of unnecessary giggling.

I never did regain my composure, and the only action I got was a quick kiss on the cheek. Sigh.

We broke up a few weeks later since I had to move back to the states.

I never have kissed anyone with braces (and I really don’t plan to since I’m an adult now).

Back to my story. Guess who emailed me the other day, having found out my email address from my old High School? Yep, Mr. Braceface. He said my name sounded really familiar. I wonder if I should tell him I’m the girl who laughed at his attempt to kiss me.

Nah.

I wouldn’t think it was that difficult to mark a highway as NORTH or SOUTH bound, or EAST or WEST bound. But the confounded nincompoops that designed the beltline here in NC… well, I don’t know WHAT they were thinking.

What direction ARE you traveling in, exactly, when you are driving in a big circle? Make that two circles.

Today I found out that in Raleigh,  you can go east and west and south all at the same time. Let me explain:

My directions to get to point “A” were to go SOUTH on the highway. Got that?

When I get to said highway, the only two options I have are East or West. NOT South.  Sigh. I decided to take the “East” on-ramp, since the “to” city was the same as the directions.

I get on the highway with my intended exit in mind: 298A.  However, I see that I’m at exit 15. Then 16. Then 17. Crapola. Does this mean I’m going the wrong way? I can’t imagine driving allll the way to exit 298! If the numbers had been counting down, I’d have been okay with it!

Just before I decided to get off of my East-bound path from exit 20-something, the upcoming exit number is suddenly 300. Then 299. I was excited. However, the highway sign now said that I was driving WEST. Wait, what? Wasn’t I just driving East!?!?!? At no time do I recall making a 180 turn in the middle of the highway to switch directions!!!

A little annoyed, I kept on going. If I could just get to exit 298A, I’d be happy.  Success! I made it to my destination.

Now to get back home. I figured that since the original directions, which said “Go South (which is really East) meant that to get home, I’d go North, which should logically be West. However, since the highway I exited said I was driving West, I wondered if I should go East. Anyone following me? Yeah, the confused feeling you have is the same one I had.

I decided to take my chances and got on the Eastbound highway, which is where I started off on this crazy trip to begin with so it really SHOULDN’T have been right, but remember East is West is South is North. After all, the place where I’d driven to was located southwest of where I live. Made sense to me.

Didn’t work. I got on the highway from exit 298A hoping to see 299. To my dismay I saw that the upcoming exit was 297…296. Grr. Wrong way again!

I hopped off at the next exit, which was really a roundabout to get onto another highway… this time going South of course. Grr again. I drove about 3 miles before I was able to get off and turn around, going North back to the beltway. Grumble. Now which way did I just come from, was it East or West?

It didn’t matter, the exit signs that were upcoming were only for the Inner or Outer beltline. Not North, South, East OR West. GAH!!!

“A man must have designed this system” was the first thing to pop into my head, followed by a panic as I had about 30 seconds to pick which lane to get in! Inner or Outer!?

One of my options runs clockwise, or south-to-west, and the other runs counter-clockwise, or north-to-east. Or something like that.

I’m confused.

I picked the Inner beltline – innies always sound better than outies. I’m just sayin.

About a mile later, the entire road split – I could again go either North-East or North-West… I wasn’t sure exactly where I was located. Considering the fact that I was supposed to be on the same road I came in on, I don’t remember the road splitting at all! Thankfully, I stuck to the get-over-to-the-far-left lane and stayed on my highway. I think the other highway went to Alaska or something.
I finally made it home and checked out a map to see exactly what I did wrong. As far as I can tell, the roads I drove on today don’t even exist in this reality but rather some alternate universe that sucks in motorists unaware.