Yesterday, one of my girls who is typically one of my great advocates, was giving me a snarky lip and major attitude. “What’s wrong, C?” I asked. “Why are you being such a teenager?”

“Ms. Eby, when you get older, why do your emotions change?” she asked back. For her utter self awareness and admission that she was being different, I wanted to shake her hand, to pick her up and swing her around, give her a gold star. Instead I said, “Well, C, those are your hormones that are making you feel differently. It’ll all be okay, though. I promise.”

But really, do I promise? Is it going to be okay? Being an adult is a whole different beast. I don’t know if I ever figured out how to be a good teenager and I’m constantly questioning my ability to be an adult.

Yesterday one of my best and oldest friends turned 30. Sarah and I met when we were 5 years old in Ms. Vivirito’s room (see also: https://writingamandy.com/2017/10/06/whats-your-deal/). All bangs and baby teeth and lacy white socks rising up from brown bucks from Van Dyke and Bacon. I have literal decades of memories with Sarah. Now, she’s about to become a mother. Just a couple moths ago, we were riding in my mom’s Honda Civic hatchback, nicknamed The Marshmallow, to Girl Scout camping trips gushing about Jonathan Taylor Thomas. And now she’s 30 and I am exactly 2 months away? And JTT, well he’s 36.

It’s almost cliche to even say that this is cliche but where the holy heck does the time go? Now that my crew are mostly teenagers and I am suddenly the enemy, Lucifer, and the erkiest (sic) all wrapped up in one, I am having a eureka moment. I was a mean teenager too. I remember practicing driving with my dad and just screaming at him for existing and for the van not doing what I wanted it to do. I shudder to remember yelling at my mom for not ordering the graduation announcement cards–who the fuck cares about those cards? If they’re getting the graduation photo, they know you graduated. Ugh. I sucked.

But I am not a child anymore. I am a real adult. Well, somewhat real–let’s not get carried away. I pay my bills on time, have a pot-filler in my kitchen (yes a faucet just to fill pots–hold your applause), and I can use Drano in our tub when it gets clogged without poisoning myself. But Chas and I still argue daily about who farted. I still request “Apple Bottom Jeans” at every DJ-run event I attend and dance like a hooker who owns the place. I will never stop calling my dad in a crisis and I can nap like a kindergartner.

But I am an adult. I guess. Thank god I found a husband who is on my level.

 

Lately another member of my crew has been telling me that I “create my own gray hairs” because I “do too much.” What an astute observation?! What she meant was that I say too much, I care too much, I think she matters too much. Yea, yea, I’m used to that, though. Sometimes I’m told that I am “doing the most.” Whew.

The thing is I got to thinking about how much I do do. With Lillie May, yoga side gig, yoga teacher training, this blog, freelance tutoring (shameless plug: seeking clients remote and in person), basketball, football, my burgeoning singing career (that one is a joke), and so many other things I just love to do, I maybe do too much, like she says. I remember Father Bob, the priest who baptized me and married us, said once that being “busy” is a luxury. It’s a cop out. People love to run around saying, “Oh I am so busy.” We love to use “busy” as the trump card (ugh, can we all come up for another term for this in Hearts and in life) to get out of things. Sometimes saying we are busy, is just an excuse we use to say we are not accountable. The spiritual perspective on being busy can be found here. And while I do agree with the writer of spiritual perspective article and I do believe I and we all could stop and examine more often, I am more of the mindset that we are choosing this life. If you’re busy, you probably chose that route. I know I did. Father Bob said that we shouldn’t say we are busy, but we are “involved.” Maybe some of us are “heavily involved.” Busy is often code for “I can’t.” And who wants to have “I can’t” as his or her mantra? Shivers. I am involved and I choose to be involved because I love being involved. Last night I went to The Stoop and in the program one of the speakers had the following written in her bio: “She lives in Towson with her husband and son, who remind her when she complains of chronic sleep-deprivation that it’s her own fault.” Yep.

Now that my job is essentially to prepare kids to be adults, I’m amused by the things I still can’t “adult” with. Comedian John Mulaney said, “It’s tough to know what to do with your money these days. A few days ago, the Dow Jones dropped another 240 points. And I can’t tell you how frustrating it is [DRAMATIC PAUSE] to not know what that means.” I hear you John. Two years ago, I sat with a woman from VALIC named Stacey. Stacey said the phrase “aggressive investing” several times. We made a lot of decisions. I chose this, poo-pooed that. I selected amounts. I picked companies. To this day, I have absolutely no idea what VALIC is, what VALIC does, nor where that money exists. The entire time we were talking, I was chanting in my head “Be AGGRESSIVE! A-G-G-R-E-SS-I-V-E!” She had me at “aggressive.” And by had me, I mean she lost me.

Reader’s note: please don’t explain VALIC to me. I will deal with it when it becomes a problem. Until then, I am just too busy.

The other day my principal asked me to feed the school tarantula, Scarlett. I had bought crickets two weeks prior for Scarlett’s meals. On the first day, I happily fed her singing, bouncing crickets. But two weeks later, when I opened the cabinet where the crickets were, I smelled the worst smell I’ve ever smelled. I dumped the cricket carcasses toward Scarlett and watched as maggots crawled all over them. For real though, where do maggots come from? Do they just smell out stink and find it? Do they appear out of nowhere? That was about as much as I could take. I hope Scarlett’s okay. But tarantula care is not on my list of skills. This was one of those I’m-dodging-the-problem situations. I jolted back to my office to find hand sanitizer. I owe Scarlett a true adult effort on Monday–I’m still working on it.

One of the most dichotomous things about becoming an adult is knowing the urgency of our world’s problems. It’s amazing to feel empowered and knowledgeable and powerful enough to do something about them but also nearly crippling to realize the gravity of the state we’re in. More on this in another blog.

Overall, adulting is hard. And spending my days with children, it is not lost on me that youth is wasted on the young. I can hear my Aunt Kathy saying, though, that becoming an adult is certainly better than the alternative.

So here I am. On the crest of 30. I’ve learned that being an adult does not require one to totally “grow up.” I’m denying my farts, dropping it low to “Apple Bottom Jeans,” and pondering everything, except VALIC. I’m heavily involved. I’m doing the most. And I’m still learning. It’ll be okay.

 

Anachronisms are polarizing. Some horrify us. Others make us smile, reminisce, and daydream. Our visions of the past are on two different ends of a spectrum. We yearn for a simpler time yet not for simpler minds. We wish we could go back to less complications but are glad to be free of so many barriers. In case you’re about to google anachronism: a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned.

Spotting anachronisms is a great pastime, typically. I love seeing the Arabbers strut down Baltimore streets and hearing their loud calls. You could close your eyes, listen to the clip clop under the hollers, and really imagine it’s 1922. I can’t imagine the traffic and noise if all of our produce were sold this way. Although I don’t think they use the horses anymore, I think they’re still noisy.

I stare at old cars and imagine my grandparents driving them around with the prototypes of aviator sunglasses strapped to their faces, scarves trailing behind them like the dust that old Mustang kicked up. The metal, chic designs, the sea foam green, I don’t really care about cars but I get how people are into old ones. And if you’ve managed to maintain a 1967 Chevy Impala for all these years, you deserve our praise.

Cursive crafted by elderly people is another archaic gem. They learned from the old school nuns–nuns who imposed corporal punishment you if you didn’t form your letters correctly. Now that is pretty damn cruel but elderly script is gorgeous. I’m looking at you, Freida–yes, I know you were raised Baptist, so no nuns.

If there’s a decades-old yearbook in the room, I can only focus on that–no conversing, no hugs or niceties–I only want to pour over the old-timey people and their old-timey quotes and their old-timey hair. On Christmas Day, Aubrey and I came across a set that included the addresses of the classes of 1934, 1935, 1936, and 1937. Their home addresses! Can you imagine? For at least an hour, we talked only to each other and only to share the street names and house numbers that are oh-so-different now.

When I’m driving through one of Baltimore’s less savory neighborhoods, I cannot fight away the melancholy thought that “these houses mattered to someone at some point.” They may have mattered to members of the classes of 1934, 1935, 1936, or 1937. Maybe I’ve talked about this in my blog before but in a way, these dilapidated rowhomes are just damaged anachronisms, standing (some barely) here in our modern world, crying for a time when they were important to someone. If I were at all handy, I’d pick one with a lot of old stuff in it and do Vacants to Value–mostly for the uninterrupted exploration of a really old home. I’d trace my fingers along the mantle, explore the ornate design of the banister. I’d check for the original wall color on the door hinges and examine the floors for telling stains.

Our house was built in the 1920s. Our hardwood floors have perspective. I cannot imagine that a builder these days would think that much. We can see the original kitchen floor in the bottom of our cabinets. It’s hideous, but I love that it’s there. The best things about our house are the tiny intricacies derived from the days of yore. I feel lucky to live in a place cared for by several families over 100 years and its anachronisms are its strengths.

The movie Midnight in Paris is about a man, played by Owen Wilson, who longs to live in the past. Without giving too much away, he does get to travel back and meet some of history’s greatest writers. I totally would take that character’s place, go back and look around, talk with Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. While I’m not as head-in-cloudsy as Wilson’s character is, I understand his love of the past, its people, and its feel. I think I just see it most in objects.

Essentially, my love of anachronisms is why I love museums. History museums, many cultural museums, and I guess art museums too, are just giant collections of anachronisms. One of my favorites in Baltimore is the Baltimore Museum of Industry. Old machines, factory equipment from over 100 years ago, outdated appliances and games, it’s an anachronist’s (just made that up) playground! I like to picture the old-timeys standing around me like I am one of them. (In this scenario, I am considered “tall” because they were victims of malnutrition.) We are all canning oysters or putting out a fire or working the factory floor. I don’t think I’d actually like to do any of those things but man, if I could go back in time and look around a bit, chat a little, I absolutely would.

Hipsters really love their anachronisms. And NPR loves to make fun of hipsters loving their anachronisms. They’ve brought back typewriters, record players, slow food, and all things artisan. I think for most of this, I’m grateful. I will not be typing this blog on a typewriter any time soon but I love me some crunchy granola, artisan goods and foods. Listen to Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me on the weekends for some anachronism/hipster humor.

In the Boston Globe’s article about Generation Y, I found this quote: “I think a lot of this is a reaction to the hyper-capitalist, sped-up 21st century,” says Emily Matchar, author of “Homeward Bound: Why Women Embrace the New Domesticity.” “I think the pendulum swings back and forth when it comes to what’s fashionable. What our parents liked is uncool, what our grandparents did is cool.”

Other than the fact that I think my parents are actually pretty awesome, I couldn’t agree more. My grandmothers are the two coolest people in their old photos. I think I would’ve been fast friends with both of them had we been contemporaries.

For all of the positive anachronisms out there, we’ve got some negative ones making a resurgence. And that’s where the polarization enters. When people wave the Confederate flag in defense of their “history” or their “heritage,” they’re bastardizing my beloved anachronisms. When men dress up in KKK costumes, light torches, and march around in the name of…I don’t know what it’s in the name of…white rights? It’s like Halloween gone terribly wrong. It’s like LARPing for evil. It’s like bringing back an anachronism that yes, we should remember but never commemorate. 

Some slightly more light-hearted but maybe not when you know some of their histories. “Rule of thumb” refers to the width of a stick…for which a man can beat his wife. Yes. So, no beating with anything larger than the width of a thumb. Let’s all agree not to say that one anymore. To feel “under the weather” refers to a time when people got sick often and easily. On ships, the list of sick sailors was often longer than the space given to write them down. When this occurred, they’d use the space designated for the weather in ye old log book, to write down the names of the sick. And there ya go, under the weather. To refer to something as being “a piece of cake,” according to this site comes from the following: “It’s thought that this phrase originates from the 1870s; in some parts of the USA at the time, slaves would participate in a game where couples would perform a dance imitating the mannerisms of their masters. The most graceful couple would receive cake as a prize.” Maybe we should check out the origins of our idioms before we go spouting them off.

I’m glad I live in an old city and an old home where anachronisms show up all the time. I think it’s also great for me as I tend to be very future-minded. Anachronisms give me a great reason and way to appreciate the past. They’re amusing, enlightening, and make my brain stretch to imagine other generations of people. Start your own anachronism journey. Anachronize, away, anachronists.

 

 

When I was a kid, fall was the end of August, it was Sunday night at 9. Fall was time’s up, fun’s over, school’s back, tan’s fading, summer reading is due. Everything is the worst. The only saving grace were any Lisa Frank school supplies I could convince Mom to buy for me from Caldor’s.

 

These days, fall has gone through a major resurgence of popularity. Is it adulthood that makes us stop hating fall and start embracing it? I am currently on a flight to my third wedding in four weeks. Fall is queen/king. According to this article from MSN, September and October have taken June’s title as most popular wedding months with a tie of 16% of American weddings occurring in September and 16% in October. Former chart-topper, June, had a lowly 13%.

The 2002 Old Farmer’s Almanac held that “June is the most popular month to marry, followed by August, July, May, and September.” Traditions that date back to Roman times credit this to the goddess Juno, a protector of women, especially in marriage and childbearing. As a June bride myself, it’s nice to know I’ve got Juno on my side.

However, autumn has taken Juno’s crown and maybe her peacock, with 40% of weddings scheduled for the fall. Maybe it was the 2003 invention of the Pumpkin Spice Latte–more on that later.

I think fall has become “cool” (pun very much intended) because of a few factors: most big-girl jobs are year-round, comfier clothes, boots, scarves, and of course, pumpkin spice.

Now that we don’t have a giant break of time in our year like we did when we were kids, we can love fall. We couldn’t love fall when it meant school was about to start. Now that “school nights” are year-round, we can embrace it. This pent up energy of loving the leaves, the chill air, and the smell of a fire was stored in school-aged people for years. Now that we can let it out, everyone loves fall. It’s like we’re backlogged with appreciation. And we’re letting it all out now.

Hoodies are another reason we love fall. Hoodies, sweats, and snuggly clothes are just comfier and more forgiving than summertime daisy dukes and crop tops. Am I wearing daisy dukes and crop tops? No. But I do love a good sweatshirt. We are happier because we’re in more relaxed duds.

With the boot-takeover of the past 10 years, fall has found a new favorite item. Honestly, I think it’s a bit much. Boots are great for many fall activities like jumping in puddles, riding horses, and kicking mud. Just kidding. They’re completely impractical. But boots are cute–within limits. Remember college students: if you are no longer in Catholic school, you don’t have to wear a uniform anymore. You can choose your own clothes. College campuses give me the heebie-jeebies for this reason. It’s like everyone might suddenly turn into a robot and start attacking.

I’m not saying I’m anti-boot. I’m not. But let’s welcome the variety that’s out there. Fall should not turn us in to annual sheeple.

Scarves, I think, are another reason fall has become so hip. Scarves look great on everyone. They improve outfits. They warm necks. They’re a wardrobe MVP. Who doesn’t love a good scarf? Even Bachelorette contestants are pro-scarf. And they’re manly men (who must have something deeply wrong with them since they are on the show, except for Peter, who is perfect).

Lastly, pumpkin fucking spice. I’m sorry. I have to say it that way. This shit is absolutely out of control. I love pumpkin pie, pumpkin roll, I even enjoy a grande PSL here and there. But let’s everybody just calm down about the pumpkin spice. The PSL at Starbucks is celebrating its 14th anniversary this season. Its return has become the harbinger of autumn. But the rest of the food industry won’t miss out on its cut. The displays of pumpkin spice flavored items at Giant are downright ridiculous.

It doesn’t stop with food, though. I visited a school last week for my job, a Catholic school in Baltimore City. The day before I was there they had a full evacuation. Why? You ask. Because of a pumpkin spice air freshener. There was a hazmat team. The roads surrounding the school were blocked. And kids had to sit stoop-side for hours. Are we at the tipping point where pumpkin spice turns evil? 

The other side of this argument is essentially the catchphrase for Apple Jacks. “We eat what we like!” I found an article that literally argues the opposite of mine. Mind you, I concocted this idea myself and only found this afterward. This article also includes the following photo as a “mean” example of her point.

That’s fine. “Eat what you like” and that is kind of mean BUT there is a whole world of variety out there. I love all seasons at the start. By the third month, I’m totally done. So right now, fall is fine by me. I’ll play the game, eat the pumpkin roll, take out the boots, snuggle into my hoodies. But I kind of miss my end-of-the-world view of fall. It was fun to have a season as an enemy. And I definitely miss Lisa Frank.

 

I love how honest plants are. When they need something, they tell you. Two of my houseplants right now are visual reminders that I’m a neglectful indoor gardener. They are at my mercy. It’s up to me to save them. And they quietly tell me that by lying down and shriveling. They deal with their thirst in a reliable, predictable way.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we humans “deal” with things. There is such a wide spectrum of ways that people react to challenges in their lives. You can tell a lot about someone by the way she deals with stress, grief, anger, annoyance, and even victory. Some cry, some yell, others turn inward. Some people fall silent. Lately, I’ve noticed that I need to get my reactions, my “deal,” in check and part of that has got to be slowing down a bit so that I can actually process before reacting. At the same time, because of yoga, I am more in tune with my emotions than I have ever been in my life. Maybe this has always been an issue and I am only just realizing it now.

In first grade my teacher was Mrs. Vivirito. She was a tall, thin blonde woman with a pointed nose an angular face. She wore wire-rimmed glasses and called us “boys and girls” in a prison warden’s tone. She had a tight-lipped face she’d make after she delivered a direction. I had never seen anything so terrifying in all my five years on earth. If she ever smiled, I must’ve been absent that day. To me, she was Cruella Deville without the coat.

My crunchy granola kindergarten had referred to us as “friends” and now we were “boys and girls”? Problem number one. Problem number two was that the Catholics were a bit much for this tiny product of Nancy and Dick. I cried every day for weeks? months? when my dad dropped me off. One day, I brought in my best multicolored slap bracelet–I had to try to make friends somehow. By the time we got to math, I was slapping and smacking and strutting my fashion sense. And then I slapped my eye with my new friend-magnet.

Real tears.

When I told Mrs. Vivirito what had happened she said I shouldn’t have brought the bracelet to school.

More real tears.

I said I missed my mom and I took my handy picture of her out of my pencil case to stare at it through the waterworks. Mrs. Vivirito said that computer class was next and if I didn’t stop crying, I’d ruin the computer with my tears. (An indestructible 1993 Mac the size of a small refrigerator being destroyed by a 47-pound child’s tears–pah!)

Yet more real tears.

The Viv and I eventually smoothed things out, I guess. Though honestly one of my only other memories of her is the time that she discovered a smell emitting from my desk. She looked in my desk, dumped out its contents and went through my pencil case. There, she found weeks of dried fruit my mom had packed for lunches that I didn’t eat. I guess I figured: out of sight, out of existence. Nope. Not the way to deal with dried apricots. The Viv sniffed me out with that pointed nose and I sobbed my shame out the best way I knew how. I’ve always been pretty reactive, especially in the tear ducts.

Somehow I made it through first grade, elementary, middle school, high school, and college without getting beat up for being a whiny baby. Nevertheless my “deal” plan was still always, straight to tears.

When I first started teaching in Baltimore County, I had four observations per year. The first one went pretty well, didn’t think much of it. Then, they gave the feedback. I hadn’t even thought to notice all the things they noticed about me. By observation number two, my stomach was a pretzel and my psyche was the Tilt-a-Whirl. Again, it went well, was uneventful. However, this time when I went in for the meeting after the observation, I crossed over the threshold of the door into the principal’s office, I looked her in the eyes, and immediately began to sob. Unfortunately for all parties involved, this happened in every post-observation for the next two years. Something about the intense pressure and then the release of that pressure just sent me into a tizzy. It was significantly more embarrassing than it had been in first grade and I no longer had that photo of my mom in my pencil case to comfort me.

When we were in Athens this summer it was 108 degrees. No joke. 108. The Acropolis was closed because they didn’t want anyone to die in there. Unfortunately, I’d been in charge of the room-booking. I found a youth hostel in an inconvenient area and they found a little room for us on the top floor with a joke of an air conditioner. Chas was able to laugh it off but I felt downright angry with myself. Now, looking back I kind of kicked rocks and pouted while we were in an ancient and incredible city, even if it was a giant sauna. While our room was no less than 93 degrees by the time we went to sleep, we enjoyed the heavily air conditioned Acropolis Museum, had a great dinner with our friends Larry and Lauren, and the wall mural in our room offered a good joke.

My deal has pretty much always been tears. Last week though I noticed myself in an angry streak. I had a rough football game in which I got hit in the head with a shoulder, was tripped on a break-away, had my shirt ripped, and was poked in the eye. On the head-shoulder collision, I cried out of the shock. On the “trip n’ rip” (just made that up) I looked to the ref for a call and maybe threw in some theatrics. A girl on the other team called me a cry baby and then said, “Jesus fucking Christ!” at me. Unfortunately, although I’ve come up with several comebacks since Saturday (“The jerkstore called, they’re running out of you!”), I said “Jesus fucking Christ YOU!” back to her. Super pathetic. I have a sailor mouth but I don’t even say that. I left that field feeling disgusted with that girl, with football, and especially with myself. That night it was really hard to let the incident go. Even typing this I feel the heebie geebies creeping back in. The silver lining is that my jersey is now a very sexy belly shirt.

Another manifestation of my angry streak has been aimed at the apartment people across the street. I do often refer to them as my nemeses, which is not really fair because all they did was rent an overpriced, unoriginal apartment. (Also, their dogs typically have several raincoats, maybe fodder for distaste.) What I can’t stand is that they park on our block when they have a massive garage they can use–a garage that we have to stare at and a garage we had to hear being built for two and a half years. My retaliation is two-fold. I park really close to their cars and if it’s a fancy car, I sometimes leave a note that says, “Don’t you have a garage you can park in?” Again, I know. Pathetic. That’s why I am confessing. Remember how I said the Catholics turn me into a groveling idiot?

These angry behaviors coupled together with my omnipresent road rage and my THREE recent speed camera tickets, I’ve realized it’s time to chill out. I have got to stop this method of “dealing” with things and just send out positive energy. Maybe this is a huge “duh” but it’s pretty amazing how what you put out, you get back. I’ve been putting out negativity and getting it back. That changes now.

What won’t change is the crying. That’s just me. But when I want to be angry, I need to remember that peace just feels better.So I ask you, what’s your deal? Is it reasonable? Harmful? It is little passive aggressive notes on cars? Or is it love and laughter? I want to change my “deal” into a Frozen song. I don’t want to bottle it up or curse at strangers in or out of my Corolla, I just want to let it go. If someone yells “Jesus fucking Christ” at me in a co-ed beer league football game, that’s her problem. Not mine. And it’s time I realize that and just answer with peace and a good old sense of humor. I will still cry, but maybe I can laugh at the same time.