A better person would enjoy meeting new people. I would rather they shut up and let me sleep.

I looked away for a minute and now January is nearly gone. I flew out to Washington DC/Maryland to visit my brother and his fiancé, as well as my uncle and aunt last week. It was an awesome trip, a great time relaxing and drinking good wine and playing with their puppies. But I’m sort of an awful traveler. I spend the duration of my flights reading and sleeping, but those long minutes when the flight is left sitting at the gate, waiting to take off or waiting to deplane, I spend that time making fun of those around me. Because have you heard? I’m totally better than everyone else. Like, duh.

There was a girl sitting a few rows back from me on my first flight, obviously a fairly new professional. And I’m not talking about prostitution, although she never made direct reference to her job, so anything is possible. She was one of those loud “I’m very important and I need to make this business call while we wait to take off” types. As near as I could figure, she was some sort of sales person whose superior had just backed out of attending a presentation. But that’s not the important part. The important part is that the thesaurus she got for her college graduation must have been missing a few pages. I started counting the number of times she said “potentially” in her short 5 minute conversation but I had to quit because I can’t count past 40 without an abacus. She was also of the “shoot me an email” school. When she started telling her (apparently very inexperienced) assistant that she would just teach her how to do a mail merge when she got back in town and they could “potentially” contact customers that way, I started imagining some sort of start-up business with its offices in her childhood bedroom at Mom and Dad’s house. A true Babysitters Club scenario.

The rest of my flights (I forgot to mention it takes about 100 flights to get anywhere from here because they’re rarely direct. And that’s after driving 4 hours to the nearest big airport.) were similarly, if slightly less aggravating until my very last flight from Chicago to St. Louis. It started out on a bad foot when I got to my row while boarding the plane and found a teenage boy sitting there, obviously nervous. It wasn’t until the second time the flight attendant asked him to turn off his mp3 player that I began to think maybe he hadn’t flown much before. When he turned it back on 30 seconds later I started reassuring myself that surely one little prohibited electronic device would probably not send our plane careening into the side of a building. When he started using his long fingernails to pick at his face and hair and then examine his findings, I started reassuring myself that he probably didn’t have lice. I could not have gotten closer to my window if I liquefied my body and sprayed it onto the side of the plane.

The real story of that flight, or rather my longest fixation, was the young girl and older lady behind me. This girl had just come from the Today show after watching her dad be interviewed about the book he just wrote. Something about networking. That part was fairly interesting until she mentioned she hadn’t even read her own father’s book until she “skimmed” it on her flight to New York. This girl had big plans for herself and I admire that. But when she followed up her talk about wanting to do marketing for the PGA this summer with the fact that she changed her mind because Kate Hudson is now dating the golfer she thought was cute (she is also in this golfer’s fan club) and intended to woo. Honestly, she had a cool life and seemed smart and together but I just don’t get the urge to share all of these details with a stranger. Did I mention she wants to be a teacher in the long run because she’s an advertising TA now and the students all love her? And that she and her college friends plan on having a reunion every year after they graduate? And that she’s never been to Chicago? And that her sister is in LA pursuing a singing career? And she’s really really talented? At what point does it start to sound like her life is made up? Also, her dad is friends with the commissioner or something of New York and his friend is friends with Oprah so he’s going to send the dad’s book to Oprah because his dream is to go on her show and talk about his book.

Shit, I just looked up his book on Amazon and it totally exists. Better set the DVR to record all future Oprah’s.

At least the mini beer fridge in the living room has been replaced with a nice wine fridge in the kitchen.

I've been back living with my parents full-time for the past 8 months (let's note here that as I was typing that my Dad walked by the couch where I'm sitting and zoomed his hand in front of my face making airplane noises) and I've just realized why it's all so familiar.  It's not the 18 years I spent in their care before leaving for college and the month-long winter breaks and long summers at home.  The reason it feels so familiar is because of the past 4 years living with roommates, and especially the last two years of college spent living with 5 other girls, no air conditioning and no dishwasher.  And few mutual interests that weren't of a boozy nature.

Life with roommates involves a lot of frustration, at least in my experience.  A lot of finger pointing and fervored, whispered conversations over those dishes covered in hardened, moldy food that appeared in the freshly emptied sink overnight.  And lots of passive-aggressive notes left on the fridge and shut bedroom doors with waves of anger leaking out from under the gap between the door and the carpet. that hasn't been vacuumed in months.  And while I'm not comparing that roommate experience directly to life with my parents, it holds its similarities to be sure.   Mostly in the arena of annoyance and trash talk.

Things have been tense at my house.  This past week has seen two family members hospitalized, work worries and dozens of boxes that remain unpacked from the move.  There is a neverending list of things that need finished and I'll be the first to admit that when I'm home, chores and housework are the last thing on my mind.  I think growing up with a mother who could never sit down because something may need to be dusted and who even watched tv standing up because she was always on the way to clean another room made me realize quickly that I didn't want to never be able to enjoy life at home.  As a result, I'm super good at being a couch potato.  This means that my long sessions of instant messaging and playing Wii Mario Kart while mine are the only boxes still unpacked are not flying super well.  This is in addition to my parents each having their own issues to pick with one another over the move.  The punch list isn't done, we still don't have a mail box, we need to order the rest of the cabinet hardware, blah blah blah.

And that's where the similarities lie between life with roommates and life with your parents post-college.  Not that you were necessarily held real responsible for much of anything in college.  No one cared if you didn't go to class, if you slept all day or never got off the computer or wasted a Sunday watching a Law and Order:SVU 10 hour marathon, all episodes you'd seen during the last marathon.  But there were a lot of whispered complaints and unspoken tension.  As the neutral party, I hear each parent's tiny irritations and criticisms about the other and I can usually chime in because I know! It is annoying when he talks to us like we're passengers on the slow bus!  And it is irritating when she buys another package of tortilla shells even though we already have 6 unopened packages in the fridge!  (What just occurred to me as I write this is that my parents also probably have bitch sessions with each other about me.  When you live with catty girls, it's a given that as many times as you're a co-conspiritor in the bitch sessions, you're also the frequent subject of complaint, justified or not.) 

I'm lucky, in a sense, though.  My parents are very laid back as parents go.  It's fine if I don't come home at night, it's fine if my room is a mess, hell they'll even pick me up at 1 in the morning if I need a ride home.  I'm lucky they treat me like a roommate and not a daughter, in many ways.  But I never, never anticipated the shared gossip sessions about one another in an attempt to vent frustrations without confrontation.

Life back home after college?  Well, the floor has been vacuumed and there are 18 packages of tortilla shells in the fridge.  And I'm no longer responsible for 1/6th of the bills.  But the bitch sessions have maybe only decreased by a 1/3.  But at least the malice is gone.

Those plastic robot babies you get in sex ed are misleading with their self-supporting heads and lack of vomit

I never babysat when I was younger.  I don't really know how I managed that but it probably has quite a bit to do with living in the pseudo-country and my parents not having a lot of friends with kids younger than me, or at least with kids younger than me and no kid my age to take care of the babysitting.  So I managed to live 22 years and have virtually no experience caring for anyone younger than 4 or 5.  Kids tend to like me, probably because I don't mind turning the music up loud and dancing around the room with them and because I answer their questions honestly.  And because I create games like Dead Baby Bowling (this basically involves throwing a doll down a long hallway.) 

A year or two ago I started babysitting the toddler daughter of a couple I know.  I think she was 2 when I started and she turns 4 tomorrow.  We've always gotten along well, once I figured out how to get her to take a bath without fighting me too much.  It was a good deal, she was out of diapers, smart, talkative, liked to sing and dance and read books.  The pay wasn't bad either.  In October, her parents had another baby girl.  The first time I went to babysit after the baby was born, Molly was only about 6 or 7 weeks old.  Decidedly not out of diapers, fresh from a round of shots, small and lacking the ability to support her own head. 

I love kids.  I even want a couple eventually.  But I seriously have no fucking idea how to take care of an infant.  In fact, I will most definitely hold fussy babies who have just been fed a little awkwardly in effort to preserve my brand new white sweater.  I think (I hope) it's harder when it's not your kid and you're worried about messing with the parents' protocol.  But I never had younger siblings and the cousins I'm closest to were born when I was 5 and 10 years old so I didn't pick up a lot of tips from their babyhood.  So the parents leave me alone with a 3 year old and their tiny new baby and a feeding scheduled at 7 pm.  The first time wasn't too bad, baby Molly was conked out after a long day of shots and pretty much slept and ate the whole time.  No big deal, I thought as I picked the sleeping baby up from her bouncy seat.  I had this infant thing down, as long as said infant was under influence of baby Benadryl.  I've watched the girls a few times since, including today for a short hour.

Molly feels a lot less fragile now and more humanlike.  She has expressions and smiles and can grab fingers and hair.  She's starting to become less of a sweet smelling blob and more of a sweet smelling little person with tears and spit up running smoothly out of her tiny mouth.  I feel a little more capable around her, except for the 45 minutes she spent in various levels of teary discontent.  Ended up the poor thing was tired and fell asleep in my arms after spitting up all down my hand.  I can handle tears, I've weathered my own enough times to be familiar.  But you better hope I never have to put a diaper on your child because I will definitely put it on backwards the first time and have to ask the 3 year old about the proper strategy.  Kids, they're easiest when they can answer your questions. 

Rabbit, Rabbit

I've been neglectful here for a little bit so here are some of the first things about the last week that pop into my head:

Years ago, I remember a classmate of mine telling me that in order to have good luck for the whole month, the first thing you should say when you wake up on the first is "Rabbit, rabbit."  The last time I saw him I mentioned this and he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.  So I guess I've been doing this month after month and it's all made up.  But when I woke up this morning these were still the first words out of my mouth.

I'm still sporting a gnarly bruise on my foot from where I slid into the corner of the stove Christmas night.  Note to self: cork floors are great for sliding but stay away from kitchen appliances.

My brother and his fiance were home for Christmas, with their 5 month old Golden Doodle.  Holy cuteness but I do not miss the unpotty-trained stage.  She also made my dog look super well behaved.

J Crew is totally the store that called wolf.  Last week I ordered a new purse from their sale section and two days later they emailed me to say it was out of stock and I wouldn't be getting it.  This is about the 3rd time they've done this to me and dammit, they need to work on their supply management.  I know nothing about this but I do know that it upsets me when they list something on the website and then don't have it.

I can make babies projectile vomit.  This is going to be the perfect tool to use against my enemies.  Here, hold this delicious baby!  And with one kiss on the forehead I make the tiny tot puke all over him.  It can never be traced back to me.

In the last three weeks of December I worked all but 3 days, weekends included.  Gag me.  Very happy I'm not working today.

Okay, consider this my promise for something better in the next day or two.

About my dad

People I have never met can pick me out of a crowd, identify me as my mother's daughter.  It happens nearly weekly.  My heart beats faster, my face warms, each time someone looks at me and asks, already knowing the answer "you're Shelly's daughter, aren't you?"  There is no question I have my mother's face.  Her dark hair and tiny mouth.  But my dad.  We are so much the same in ways not immediately visible, once you get past the height I had to take from him and not my mother's 5'3 genes. 

Dad's sort of loud sometimes and maddening at others.  He'll walk through the house saying nothing but a series of numbers, repeating a phrase over and over or asking us to call him Harrison, Marvin, Ichabod, anything but Dan or Dad.  My father has an imagination still as active as when he was 5 or 6 years old.  He  never grew up in that sense. 

Now that I'm back home full-time, we've settled into a sort of routine.  I think it drives Mom a little crazy, the way we pick at each other, chastise each other and generally let no mistake go unnoticed.  And we definitely cannot share food.  A long time ago I developed a sort of complex about good food.  My dad and brother both often ate all of the good food and leftovers before I had a chance to get any of it.  Not that there was ever a shortage of food, but they had a knack for finishing off whatever it was I was most looking forward to eating.  So early on I started writing threatening messages on any doggie bags I would bring home from restaurants.  While that's no longer a neccessity, except when Nick comes home for a visit, I am still very defensive about anyone eating something good before I can get there.  This drives my father absolutely.nuts.  We now buy our own separate containers of ice cream, and I don't even like ice cream all that much.

I can credit my interest in local and small label music to my father.  My interest in good books and NPR.  My sense of humor and slight aversion to large crowds.  My tendency to say the most inappropriate thing at the most inappropriate time and still have it go over well.  And I can credit him with the fact that I guard my food like a bear after a long winter of hibernation.