Pearls of Wisdom

I have a tattoo, when I wear a bathing suit people ask what the Chinese character on my back means. If they thought about it for a second they would know that it means I hit my rebellious period in 1998. I really don't know what it means, I don't speak, or read, Chinese. I imagine that the tattoo artist had a list of characters on the wall with words underneath saying things like "spirit" and "war" when in actuality they meant "spoiled white girl" and "drunk frat guy". He said mine meant "courage" but I think it shouts "dumbass" instead.


But for all of my tattoo regret I have been tempted once again. I think of all of the life lessons that have come to me in the last ten years and wish I could remember them at those crucial moments when they most want to go flying out of my brain. I want to get the best pieces of advice I have heard written on the inside of my forearm like crib notes that I can cheat my way through life with.


Here's the list so far;


You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life. This is maybe the most important concept, the most profound words I have ever heard in my life. Also Tootie is awesome. I have often fallen into the trap of believing that somewhere there is the Shangri La - the perfect choice that is devoid of all consequences. It doesn't exist, your choices will almost always be paired with either discipline or regret - choose which you would rather live with and keep truckin'.



Which brings me to Keep Truckin', some prefer to call this the "just keep swimming" philosophy. I prefer to keep truckin' because it is far more awesome. Constant motion - I refuse to say constant forward motion because sometimes backward motion is the most important. But Truck you must.


Que Se rah, Se rah whatever will be, will be, the future's not ours to see. Que Se rah, Se rah. (If you do not know that this song is from the Doris Day movie Glass Bottomed Boat then we have nothing more to discuss). Great things can happen through a lot of work and a lot of luck. Bad things can happen even when we do everything right. After we do our best we have to be recognize that we are not in control of this ride, so let go, raise your arms high and have fun, then maybe later you can barf - barf when you're dead. Hmmm, Barf when you're dead... nope, that's no good for me, I'm pregnant, must barf while living.



Finally, You're Traci, Damnit! It helps to remind myself of that, sometimes I forget. It also helps to put pressure on yourself to be you, if you don't contribute the qualities that make you special who will? That guy? He's not you. Asking that guy to bring some you to the table is like asking Kroger to make a delicious boxed mac and cheese, they aren't Kraft, it's never going to happen.



So I'm open to suggestions. Got any pearls for this swine?

Tricky Math

I turn 30 in May.

You know, they say thirty is the new twenty. The lesser known caveat to that is unless you have kids, then 50 will have to be your new twenty.

I was pregnant with Vivian when I was eighteen, so my late teens were actually my early thirties.

I still haven't gone to college. It looks like my forties are shaping up to be my early twenties. I have a feeling that they are not going to rock quite as hard for me as my early twenty peers.

I had braces when I was twenty five. I was too busy during Halloween making Tooth Fairy and Batman costumes, but I was going to go as a tween. I was also pregnant, so there was definite material for going as an after school special. In fact, Dave could have dressed as my nefarious teacher and we could have recruited someone to be my hot, worried mom... we could have been a Lifetime movie.

My jaw has started hurting recently. I'll tell you right now if I have to live through my tweens a third time a certain orthodontist better invest in a security system and a gun with six bullets, because five won't stop me.

My midlife crisis comes in six month intervals. I've confused my life-time continuum, and now everything is all messed up. I want to take gymnastics but I'm pregnant again (going for number four!). I want to go to college but I want to run away to a coconut island with my boyfriend (Dave). I want him to still be my boyfriend - to act surprised when I do things but I want him to already know that I want to eat at Pei Wei because we've been there a million times.

I've got to take this Delorian (brain) into the shop (psychiatrist).

Girlfriend

"Are you mean?"

"No."

"Oh, because I'm really nice."

"I'm a super funny guy!"

" I'm Maggie, this is my friend Ella. Do you want to play wolves?"

"Owwwooooohhh!!"

I miss the instant friendships of childhood. I wish I could just say, "I'm really nice" and have that be enough to play. Not secretly withholding my friendship based on a disagreement about something as profoundly stupid and transient as politics, or my style of discipline vs. hers.

I wish I could sit at a McDonald's Playland, turn to the mother next to me and say "would you like to be my friend?". I hate that we live in a world in which that woman would instantly think the words "restraining order".

Making girlfriends is hard. It's like dating only I'm not good at it. I was great at dating. I knew just what to do. I think dating is actually a lot more straight forward than friendship - throw your head back and laugh a lot - that's all you have to do. It shows off your hair and easy going personality at the same time. Boys like both of those things, girls less so. They want listening, and dependability, they're not as impressed with cleavage.

I have very few girl friends.

Rejection from boys never really bothered me (clearly, he was just intimidated). Rejection from girls is more difficult. That girl down the street doesn't prefer blondes to brunettes, she hates me for who I am. It's not that she wishes I were taller, it's more that she wishes my personality were better. I would rather get my legs repeatedly broken and spaced to give me height than examine and improve my personality - that would take real pain and work.

The good news is that I do have some girl friends, these are very nice women, tolerant. I love them. Some are my actual sisters, some feel like sisters. Some have seen what comes off of my nose when I have used a Biore strip. Some I wish knew me better and I wish I knew them better. Some I don't see often but my heart has made them a friend forever anyway.

Some of them have incredible bums - you know who you are... Melia.

Scrappy

When I was sixteen I was sitting in the foyer of our church with a friend when an old friend of the family walked by. This old friend of the family had a little of the weird uncle vibe, when I was eight he would turn me upside down in the church hallways and crack my toes while I howled in protest of both the toe cracking and panty flashing I was giving anyone who happened by.

I tucked my feet under the foyer couch as he said hello.

He told my friend that I had always been his favorite, he said "from the moment she walked in late to her first sacrament meeting here, with her hair all over the place and her socks not matching and a big smile, I thought to myself 'I like her, she's scrappy.'".

On the list of adjectives a sixteen year old girl wants to hear about herself scrappy is like, 1,946,373rd.

But damnitall, he was right.

I think half the fight of this life is to stop wishing about what you're not and to fully embrace what you are. I can't be Grace Kelly - Grace Kelly was Grace Kelly, and even if I tried people would be able to easily differentiate between us because one of us would have taken off our pantyhose after five seconds and the other would not.

I was looking through pictures with my sisters one day, one of them held up a picture, "Awe, it looks like a cute little family and their pet martian!". A family of little dark haired kids smiling sweetly and then me, looking like a poster child for Baby Meth, in my excersaucer - it also didn't help that my head was placed strategically in front of the rabbit ears on our television. I was the martian baby.

I am the scrappy martian. *sigh*

If you don't cry more than once while reading a book, but after you turn the last page you bawl, that's when you know you've read a good book.

I've always loved books like that, it's reflective of how life is. Alot of little, barely noteable nothings that when taken together, make something so big it sweeps right over you. I love that feeling.

OOh, the feeling of being swept up along with bobby bins and bits of paper, hands that scratch backs in church, moments of biting our tongues, beads and dust, passing the salt and walking to school.

The way that he congratulates himself first because he's scared you won't remember to.

How she rubs her eyes when she trying not to cry.

The way she does the dishes, even though you'd like her just as well sitting on the couch.

The way he gets gruff and sheepish at the same time.

How he looks down and nods while you're making a point.

Her hands.

Her bossing.

Jokes that aren't funny.

What we talk about when we're bored.

I think I can see why God loves us so much. I think that we aren't diamonds in the rough, or if we are , that's how we're meant to be. We have to be taken as a whole, strong and weak parts, big and little things, and together they make these wonderful, hilarious, kind, stupid people and isn't that just a wonder?

Boy I love a good book.

Why Ender's Game Sucks

I just read Ender's Game. I need someone to explain this one to me, is this like reading the Oddessy? Where you read it more to marvel at how ahead of it's time it was rather than how well it has stood up to the test of time?

Ender, or Baby Alex P. Keaton, is a genius six year old and the only hope for the future of civilization. His sister Valentine is empathy and compassion, Peter, his older brother, is the devil. They have all been groomed for their world-saving potential, but Ender is a stand out, just the right combination of his two polar opposite siblings.

And so they he must walk the lonely, apparently violent, Peter-like, road to leadership.

I certainly had my expectations for this book. I thought that in the end Valentine would be the one to save the world. I thought it would be a little bit of a morality tale about how being the alpha male is actually far less productive than we give it credit for. I was hoping that, in the end, humility and kindness would triumph over all, rather than manipulation and arrogance.

I was hoping Peter would get flung into outer darkness.

I really feel that I am missing something crucial about this book, because so many people like it. Not just like it. Love it. Want to marry it. Use it as an analogy for life and leadership. It's like the time when everyone was reading those Gerald Lund books that I hated. What's wrong with me?

I realize the guy is mormon, but just because we share the same religion doesn't mean I have to like what you do (I'm also talking to you, Steven Covey, what with your baldness and big smile and can-do attitude, you make me want to take a nap, and no, I didn't fill out the dream/goal section of my planner and you can't make me!)((I'm also talking to you, Stephanie Meyer, OK, I read all your books... (embarrassed shuffle)...and I liked them... nevermind.)). I realize that he predicted the internet, but even so, if I'm going to listen to a bunch of foul mouthed know it all kids I'll put down the book and hang out with my family.

Would someone please enlighten me? What is it? What exactly makes this self pitying, non-ending book so awesome?

FEED ME!

I have an eating disorder.

I'm not joking.

I cannot stop eating food. It is becoming a real problem. I don't know what led up to this moment but for at least the past three years I have become hyper aware of hunger, or even the feeling that I might, at some future date, feel hunger and I become ravenous.

It's really crossed the line over into abuse of my body. Which is awful, because I love my body, it's such a gift! It runs and jumps, mine came to me exceptionally bendy, it also came with moles all over my right shoulder. On top of that I have improved it with scars artfully placed up and down my left leg - almost like I planned it. I like it, it does things - and I am seriously concerned that if things don't change it will slowly stop doing things. That is a real problem.

I go to bed and it just lies there. I try to jostle it awake, perhaps we could have a pillow fight? But it doesn't want to. It wants to watch Biggest Loser while eating a chocolate root bear float. My body is becoming a real fuddy duddy, all it wants to do is eat. And it is horribly indiscriminate.

I mean old McDonald's french fries indiscriminate.

(If you have never known the humiliation of eating an old McDonald's french fry, I will tell you that it is right up there with going to sell your blood and finding that your ex is a phlebotomist)

I eat while wondering why, since I'm not hungry and cheeseburgers are gross.

I have to change. I have to reign this dang body in and show it who's boss. Come on, will! Where are you when I need you! We need to start a search party for my quads! Get your butt in the game! We can do this thing!

Will? self - wiiiillll? Where are you?

Oh crap, it's sitting here in it's ugly sweats blogging.