Twas Brillig

Four years and a little bit ago, I was massively pregnant.

At my 36 week check-up (four weeks before my due date), I was already dilated to a 4. This baby was coming any second now, or so I was told.

He was going to be born at home, in a birthing pool, with the world’s most amazing midwife. She sent the birthing tub home with us for Hubby to set up, because I was about to have that baby.

At the time, we were living in my Grandma’s basement. Perhaps it should be noted here that my grandma was evil. Okay, perhaps “evil” is a bit strong, but she was really really awful to me. But she had a fully finished basement and the rent was free (though if I’d had a credit card for blood, sweat, and tears, I’d have been maxed out). Grandma insisted that my baby would be born on her birthday–April 30. She would be 100 years old that day. It was the middle of March when I was told that I’d have the baby any second now, so I knew that Grandma would have to be wrong, and I was not the least bit interested in having my baby that day–not just because it was too far away, but also because I wanted my baby to have his own birthday and not have to share it with my psychotic evil Grandma.

But labor eluded me. Not even the twingiest twinge of a contraction.

And so we waited for weeks, keeping the birthing tub all set up, ready to be filled with water at a moment’s notice, and constantly fighting with our then 16-month-old Fluffy–a very curious toddler with the need to explore anything and everything–trying to keep her out of the birthing tub.

Hubby would be graduating from college on April 25. I was certain we’d never make it.

But make it we did. I was 5 days past my due date at Hubby’s graduation. For some reason, I donned a massive white maternity blouse that day and there are a million photos of me looking like a great white whale. So lovely. I looked ALMOST as horrendously uncomfortable as I was.

I was beginning to feel desperate. I was so pregnant, so dilated, so READY to have a baby, but NOTHING WAS HAPPENING!!

On April 29, (9 days beyond my due date) I went in for a prenatal exam. When my midwife checked me, she was utterly astonished that I hadn’t gone into labor yet. The baby was SO LOW and I was SO DILATED. She looked at me and said, “You don’t even have to go into labor. This baby is already practically crowning. If you sat on a birthing stool, you could give birth to him within half an hour, without ever going into labor.” I considered it for a moment, but decided that there’s more to having a baby than just pushing the baby out. There were other things (I’m trying VERY hard not to be too graphic here) that needed to come out too, and they required a contracting uterus. I already had a history (with Fluffy) of placental retention and severe hemorrhage, so it was best to do these things the way nature intended.

The next day would be Grandma’s birthday. I think we all knew that the baby was going to be born that day, so I came to terms with it. I even decided that it was actually pretty dang cool that my son would be born on her 100th birthday, right there in her home.

And sure enough. On April 30, 2003, after going to bed at midnight, I woke up an hour later with one giant contraction. 2 minutes later, there was another one. There was no gearing up, no practice labor, just one giant contraction and I was in full-blown “call the midwife, fill the birthing tub” labor.

Hubby called the midwife and then got to work on the tub. I called my mom, who came racing down to be with us. This was the first (and to this date the only) one of her 16 grandchildren whose birth she was around for. Having her there was amazing. As she held my hand and witnessed the birth of her baby’s baby, so many of our own issues were healed.

Exactly four hours after that first contraction, my tiny little Bubba was born–with the bag of waters surrounding him still in tact. Ancient civilizations consider an in-tact bag of waters to be a sign that the baby would be an extremely noble person–a great warrior, a King, a Prophet.

Once he was born, I was told to get out of the tub immediately. I was bleeding to death. I lay on the plastic-draped floor as midwives and back-up midwives poked and pushed and prodded and injected me with this and that. Hubby was terrified I wouldn’t make it. He handed the baby off to my mother in order to give me his full attention, and as I lay on the floor I watched her, singing and cooing at her newest link in the posterity chain.

Obviously, I pulled through, though the first few days of his little life were spent with me battling anemia and infections, including placental retention and mastitis.

A local news station heard the story of this baby born on his great-grandma’s 100th birthday and came over a few days later to film a special Mother’s Day segment about us. There we sat, on my grandma’s couch–My Grandma, my Father (her son), me, and my baby. It was an amazing moment, those four generations, united finally by love and miracles, holding each other, laughing and weeping with each other, feeling like the world was a lot bigger than us and that families really are eternal. Bubba had performed his first outstanding feats–he’d united people who never thought they had any hope for unity.

And today my sweet little boy is four years old.

Tonight we will ring it in in true four-year-old fashion–chocolate birthday cake with Cars decorations, a new Thomas the Tank Train Table, and a pile of Hotwheels. Various grandparents and cousins will bring him clothes and books and silly things to entertain him endlessly. He’s just as normal as can be.

But I, his adoring mother, see so much more: I see him changing the world. After all, he’s already managed to change us.

Happy Birthday, my darling boy.

(Okay, so not at ALL the Thornbirds. But still, a story about religious obligations leaving you unavailable for romance…)

And so I take us back to Argentina now.

My mom and I were giggling together one day. Once I reached a certain age, I did a lot of giggling with my mom. I was about 19 when I realized that I was no longer just her daughter, but her best friend. And we talked like silly girls talk.

I had sworn off romance of any kind at this point, just for my own sanity. My mom knew that very well, and so she was “warning” me about someone–an American who I “was forbidden to meet”–all very teasingly. She described this young man that she’d gotten to know–his name was Aaron and he was about a year older than me. He was interested in all of the same things that I was and was talented and very charming. I kinda rolled my eyes, I think, because my mom had not always been right on these things. Still, I tucked his name into a safe place in my brain and thought I’d find a way to meet him.

Probably about a week later, I was sitting in a church meeting where there was a musical number sung by a gorgeous young man. I couldn’t help but stare–GAWK–at his gorgeousness. And I don’t think my eyes ever left him. After the meeting, I had to meet him. So much for swearing off romance, right?

Oddly enough, he actually sought me out. He came over to where I was standing and struck up a conversation. When he introduced himself, it turned out that he was this “Aaron” that my mom had already warned me about. I actually caught my mom making faces at us while we were talking, and she shook her head and acted like “the world was coming to an end” and so on.

There was just one wee little problem. Aaron was a Mormon Missionary. For those of you who may not know much about mormon missionaries, they are just regular members of the LDS church who, for two years out of their lives, volunteer to leave their homes and schools and jobs and go to wherever the church sends them to teach the Gospel and do a variety of humanitarian services.

They are also strictly forbidden from having any kind of romantic contact with anyone whatsoever during that two year time. That includes even flirting. And so, the most intimate gesture allowed to them is a simple handshake.

Once they are finished with their missions, they go back to “regular life”–dating, working, schooling, etc.

And I actually admired Aaron a lot for what he was doing and I wasn’t interested in ruining it for him or coercing him into breaking any rules, so I just left it alone. But I still found every excuse to run into him. And every time I saw him, I just liked him more and more.

I wasn’t actually going to be in Mendoza for very long anyway. I was on my way to Buenos Aires for a year and a half. But, in my very over-dramatic way, I felt like fate had brought me and Aaron together, though not “together.” And I hated to leave without saying “goodbye”–even though I had no indication whatsoever that he would be sorry to see me go.

Oddly enough, a few nights before I was about to leave, Aaron called. He wasn’t actually calling me because that too was against the rules. He was calling for my dad. But my dad was out of town, so we chatted for a second. My brother was sending me a CD that, randomly, Aaron had sung back-up on. He wanted me to let him know what I thought of it when it arrived. “I’ll write you from Buenos Aires and let you know.” Pause. “Please do, Brillig.” Pause. AAAAKKKHH!! WE WERE HAVING A MOMENT. And upon realizing it, we scrambed to get off the phone. No “moments” allowed.

And so we did write. Stupid, empty letters that said nothing about feelings or delved anywhere below the most superificial of small talk. But seven month later, his 2-year mission was over and he was back in the United States. And suddenly with that religious mantle lifted, his letters took on a very, VERY different tone. He went from, “the weather was nice in Mendoza today” to “I’m hopelessy, haplessly, and helplessly in love with you. I think about you constantly. I can’t even look at other girls because I’m waiting for you to get home.”

And so this went on for another year. I received piles of love letters from him–including some that would indicate that upon my arrival home, he fully expected to be asking me to marry him. I thought it was just possible that I was in love with him too–though I realized that I didn’t really know him. But what little I did know about him indicated pure perfection.

And then, just a month or so before I would be coming home, he wrote, “Brillig. I have to tell you that I’m seeing someone. I don’t yet know where it’s going, but I thought it was only fair to be honest. But I want to keep writing you and I hope you’ll keep writing too.” Well, I wrote him back and told him I understood and that of course he should be dating and seeing other people and that I would be home soon and we’d just evaluate things and go from there.

When I got back to the United States, I had lots of things and people to worry about and while I expected him to call, I wasn’t really waiting by the phone. About a week after I got home, I ran into an older woman from the neighborhood I’d grown up in. She asked me how Argentina had been and so on. Then she asked me, “did you by any chance know Aaron ____ ?” I probably lit up like a lightbulb and said, “YEAH! I DID know him!”

“He’s marrying my daughter next week.”

Gasp.

Good thing I was a theater major, right? I quickly recovered from my gasping, so I could pretend like that was such great news, and how wonderful, and all that good stuff. But I did say, “do you see Aaron a lot, then?” “Yes,” she answered. “Super. Would you tell him that you told me all of this and give him my warmest congratulations?”

The next morning the phone rang. A very sheepish Aaron was calling to say that he was sorry I’d had to find out that way and so on. He was actually really great about it, and so was I. And really, upon self-examination I learned that he hadn’t broken my heart. It was just a funny way to end things. As it turned out, we’d never kissed (though, believe me, I’d thought A LOT about kissing him!!!), we’d never held hands, we were never even alone together in person. But it had been, up to that point, the longest “relationship” I’d ever had with a guy.

Sadly, I recently found out that Aaron and his wife were divorced after she was caught engaging in multiple affairs. I’ve never talked to him, but from all accounts he was utterly devastated. I hope that somehow he can find peace and happiness–maybe by now he already has.

And there it is, folks! Another Soap Opera Sunday!

In my google ads right now, it says, “FREE CHRISTIAN BALE.” And then in the text it says, “sign up now for your free Christian Bale.”

Mmmmmm, OKAY!

Oh, goodness. Today’s Flashback Friday is slightly different in nature. Inspired by Fluffy, though it really has nothing to do with her.

You see, this morning I told the kids that they could watch a movie. So they started going through the video selection, and Fluffy pulled out… NEWSIES.

And suddenly the memories came a-flooding. Because, see, I was 14 when Newsies came out. And like ANY 14-year-old worth her salt, I saw Newsies FIFTEEN times in the theater. (This is not an exaggeration. I really saw it fifteen times in the theater. And I was not a wealthy kid by any means. I just set my priorities. And Newsies was a priority.)

And no, gentle readers, it wasn’t for the story line.

I knew every moment, every look, every sigh, every smile. I knew him so well. I read everything I could find, I knew all sorts of random personal details about him (I STILL think of him on his birthday. HAHAHAHAHA.) Dear Christian Bale. Dear, dear Christian Bale.

I even signed my name with his last name. A lot. My journal is FULL of Brillig Bale. Sigh. Swoon.

Perhaps the funniest part of these memories is that Matt was always with me when I went to Newsies. Always. He, uh, wasn’t “out of the closet” yet, so I didn’t get it. I just thought he really liked to be with me. And so he would therefore sacrifice himself and go to Newsies with me.

(Years later, after the closet-exit, I looked at Matt and said, “Holy Crap. I totally get why you used to go to Newsies with me.” We both died laughing. How it took me so long to realize that whole GAY thing, I’ll never know. But that’s a whole nother story…)

And now I’m 28. And I can’t exactly say that I’m “over” Mr. Bale…

Fluffy started watching Newsies today, but she didn’t really like it much. Give her a few years and then she’ll like it. Oh yes, she will like it very very much. And then I will very likely sit down and watch it with her and we will both swoon incessantly.

Many of you have asked just what life is like with four children ages five and under. I thought I’d tell you about today–a typical day in the life of a mother of many small ones. Well, the first half of the day, anyway. And what makes any story better? Pictures, of course.

This morning I got up early because I needed to go to Walmart. It takes me so freaking long to get anywhere because everyone has to bathed and changed and fed. When I went to wake up Lil’s Dude, I found that sometime during the night he’s broken the cheap ol’ crib we’re using here at my in-laws, squeezed his way out of the broken side, and rolled around a bit on the floor. Naturally, after removing the plastic bag that had been right next to his face and getting the USED BANDAID out of his MOUTH, I took a picture. (His older brother, Scooby, whose leg you see off to the side, shares the room with him and has “decorated” it with some interesting foam things…)

Sigh. Well, I got everyone fed and then put them all in the bath. Fluffy is perhaps getting a bit too old to have to share the bath with her little brothers, but she sure does help me a lot when she’s in there with them!

So finally we make it out the door. Seriously, this is a huge production. Four kids, four carseats with tricky buckles, etc. And we get to Walmart. Getting everyone loaded into the cart is almost as amazing a feat as getting them into the car is. And I’m never sure where to put the groceries, because I have absolutely no space whatsoever. (Bubba and Fluffy are required to hold on to the cart at all times, but they don’t have to sit in it. Good thing, cuz I don’t think they make a cart big enough)

After our walmart trip, we came home and I threw a pizza in the oven. A couple minutes later, I could smell it burning, so I ran back to the oven to see how it could possibly be burning. Ahhh. Bubba thought that if he turned the oven up to 500, his pizza would be done sooner. Yum.

So after making a pile of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I went into the bathroom and found this:

Yes, that’s my toothbrush. Yes, that’s the toilet.

And so now I’m trying very hard not to contemplate whether or not my toothbrush has been in the toilet before–and I just hadn’t ever known about it. I’d really, really rather not know.

And that brings you up until noon, at which point I put the camera away, but the craziness never ends. Many days are worse than this. I’m pretty sure that none are better. It is always, ALWAYS madness around here.

***By the way, stay tuned for Flashback Friday tomorrow! I won’t be around until quite a bit later than normal. But I’ll try to make it worth your time to check back throughout the day.

“The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.” - Oliver Wendell Homes

For the last five months, we’ve been building a house. And not just any house–our dream house. How I have loved this house. I have poured over every detail and lovingly handpicked everything from carpet to cabinets to hardware to light fixtures. It will be complete in ten days.

And yesterday, we walked away from it.

It almost hurts to say it out loud! I still can hardly believe it!

The reason that we’re giving our builder: Our old house hasn’t sold yet. We haven’t had one person express the least bit of interest in it and we’ve dropped the price as low as we can possibly go. So the builder can keep our earnest money and sell our dream home to the next customer.

All of that is true, but it’s not the reason that we’re walking away. We knew that our house might not sell, and so we’ve been saving our money accordingly. We really won’t have any trouble carrying two mortgages for a while (But sheesh, who wants to carry two mortgages!? What a waste!!!) But the real reason is that as we were preparing to put all that money down on the new house (the down payment needed to be deposited yesterday), our gut said no. Somehow and for some reason, this is not what we are supposed to be doing right now. It’s that unmistakable gut wrenching that you just can’t ignore–and you just have to obey. It’s scary and bewildering, but ever since we decided to follow our gut, we have been at peace.

So what now? We are certainly not going back to our old house. We both feel completely and totally DONE with it and the neighborhood. It wasn’t a bad house and it wasn’t a bad neighborhood, it just isn’t right for us anymore.

And so we’re scouring the internet and the real estate world and spending all our time going through houses and neighborhoods, searching our guts to discover “is this the right one?” And in the meantime, I’m sitting here in the basement of my in-law’s house with no end in sight. (My in-laws have been AMAZINGLY gracious. I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful they’ve been. Still, I’m ready to be matron of my own home and chef in my own kitchen and so on. And wouldn’t it be cool to have a place for all my junk?)

But finally, I’m at peace. The right thing for us is going to come along. And I just know that I’ll be so glad I waited.

I’m in an old abandoned warehouse with leaky pipes and the occasional rat. I’m in a hard metal chair and my arms and feet are tied. A wicked voice cackles and says, “Welcome to Jurgen Nation. We have some questions for you.”

“No!!!” I scream. “No! You can’t make me talk! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME TALK!!!!!” But suddenly Stacy shines a bright white light in my face, cackles again, and bribes me with chocolate.

“Fine,” I whimper, defeated. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

(Okay, maybe it didn’t QUITE happen like that. But I’m pretty sure there was chocolate involved, right Stacy?)

“Here are your questions. AHEM.”

1. So, your blog is a month old! If you were a baby, you’d be walking now! Or…wait. Whatever. Bad metaphor. What, in this past month, is your favorite post that you really worked hard on and of which you’re most proud? Cut and paste, please. (Only don’t use real glue.)

Hmmmm. This is tricky. But I think the one that I’m most “proud of” is the one called “This Hate Cycle.” The blog was pretty new (okay, it’s still new) and while I’m generally a happy and silly kind of gal, there were stories that I was dying to tell that didn’t fit into the happy and silly-ness. It took some courage to write it, because I wasn’t sure what kind of audience it might appeal to and I wasn’t sure I wanted to open up some of the darker memories. It’s not that I wanted my whole blog to become dark and dreary, though, and I wasn’t sure if I could have multiple personalities here. But somehow it’s worked out all right. I know that some of my silliness will put some readers off, while some of the more serious stuff will not be interesting to others. And that’s okay! Anyway, Stacy’s instructions were to copy/paste, and on this I’m going to disobey… But if you wanna read it, just click here.

2. I love your stories and memories about you and your BFF, the lovely Kate of Kateastrophe. Maintaining a BFFship is so incredibly hard. What is the secret to your and Kate’s success? I know, of course, that one never really knows why something works - it just does - but what traits do you think you two share that just make you two fit?

It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it? I’m not sure what one thing has caused it to work for so long. Kate and I are actually extremely different people. And maybe that’s what makes it work–we get that we’re different, and we’re okay with that. We’ve also survived a lot of catfighting, a lot of stupidness, and even that one time she made out with my boyfriend and then got me thrown out of BYU (Sorry, Katie, I had to bring it up, didn’t I?) But there’s been a lot of forgiveness on BOTH sides (cuz she’s definitely got a list of the ways I screwed her over too…) and that’s another key. One other thing that has really worked is that when one of us needs space, it’s granted. I’m not always a terribly social person and once I got married and had kids, my social life pretty much came to a screeching halt because it just wasn’t where my priorities were. She got that, and wasn’t offended by it, and would still drop me a note or a call, but wouldn’t make me feel like I had to call her back or anything. We also each have a TON of friends, some mutual, some not. That has helped us so that our friendship isn’t “needy”–we don’t depend entirely upon each other. That may sound dumb, but it’s actually a really important part. If she thought that she was the only person I ever talked to and the only person I liked and the person I needed to dump all my issues on, I think she’d get burned out real fast (and vice versa, of course.)

Mostly, though, I think I just kinda lucked out with her. She’s just cool, yo.

3. Think of all the boyfriends (using the term loosely) you have had in your life. Identify the third and tell us about it. Your answer should contain the following five wordish things: “philharmonic,” “frozen chicken breasts,” “vomit,” “Electric Youth perfume,” and “fishnet stockings.”

Haha. I’m trying to decide how “loosely” to use the term. Instead, though, I think I’ll use the term very literally–the third boy that I was officially boyfriend and girlfriend with. There were many, many boys before him, but he was the third OFFICIAL boyfriend. Anyway, his name was Todd. He was incredibly hot. We were both going to school in Southern Utah, but we both came from up north. I wanted to go home for a weekend, and he had a car and was already heading north, so our roommates set it up. That’s really how we got to know each other in the first place. Anyway, we started hanging out, and he was fun, though he had about the brain capacity of frozen chicken breasts. One day we just sorta made it “official” that I was his girlfriend–but he hadn’t even kissed me yet. Weird. I’m still trying to figure out exactly how that happened–I mean, while I’m not the kind of girl who went traipsing around in leather mini-skirts and fishnet stockings, I still generally at least made out with a guy a few times before signing up to be his girlfriend. But that same night, after I’d somewhat committed myself to him, he finally kissed me. And for me, in that moment, it was over. Somehow I’d imagined that kissing him would be amazing, blissful, philharmonic. But no. It was the worst kiss ever. EVER!!! I realized that I would rather drink a gallon of Electric Youth perfume than have him or his lips ever come near me again. Even so, I stuck it out for a whole two weeks and finally dumped him. He was actually really cool about it–it was the best dump-session I’d ever had! My roommates and TWO guys I’d lined up for after the “break up” (oh my gosh, that’s so embarrassing) were standing outside my door trying to listen in as I was dumping him. Hahaha. All they heard was laughter and friendship, cuz that’s really how the whole thing ended. I never did tell him, though, that the main reason we needed to break up was that his kisses made me want to vomit into the empty cavity of his skull where his brain should have been.

(Okay, so I had to reach a little bit to get the words in. Sigh. I’m not quite as good at this stuff as you are, Stacy.)

4. Your a mother, three times over! Which one is your favorite? JUST KIDDING. What was your favorite part about being pregnant, as well as your least favorite?

Actually, I’m a mother FOUR times over–but I get that you were kinda drunk when you were writing these questions, so it’s all good (and, for the record, my favorite kid is whichever one you forgot when you wrote “three” :D). My favorite part about being pregnant is the part where I’m GETTING pregnant. (Once again, Brillig is blushing…) It’s really the only good part. Pregnancy and I don’t really get along very well, but the very worst part for me was in subsequent pregnancies where I was puking my brains out and exhausted with that pregnancy exhaustion that nothing else seems to compare to, but as a mom you don’t get to take time off. My kids are super young and close together (four in four and a half years and none are even old enough for school yet) so the older ones were still incredibly young and super needy while I was pregnant with the younger ones. I still had toddlers to chase, food to cook, poop to scrub out of the carpet, and so on. It was all worth it though–honestly! I’m not just saying that! I love being a mom and have a blast with my kids. They’re so freaking awesome. But yeah. In my cases, pregnancy sucks.

5. You just received the death sentence (for being so gorgeous, natch). What would you choose as your last meal? The taxpayers are paying for it, so go buck nuts and describe in delicious detail, for I am hungry.

I KNEW things were screwy in Jurgen Nation! First of all, they’re calling me gorgeous, and secondly they’re killing me for it? Dude, I gotta get out of this place. Anyway, I’m SO BORING when it comes to food! Seriously! You’re going to cry when I tell you that all I want is some really great penne pasta with a fabulous marinara sauce (all directly from Italy, please, and not too heavy on the seasoning–and NO MEAT BECAUSE THE MEAT JUST RUINS IT) with endless Dr. Pepper to drink and a huge variety of chocolate desserts. And, okay, a salad too. That’s it. I know. Lame.

*********************

And now, gentle readers, as is the fashion with these things, I bestow upon you the opportunity to be interrogated by the lovely and fabulous ME. However, I don’t quite have as much time as Stacy does (haha, Stacy, I’m just kidding. But really, I do have those four kids and all…) so how ’bout I interview the first three people who want one? And I’ll try to be as thoughtful as Stacy was, but I do not promise to be as clever!

Okay–quick note. If you’re here looking for Stacy’s (of Jurgen Nation fame) interview for me, please check back tomorrow. The questions require a lot more brain cells than I currently have at my disposal…

So! Another week, another Soap Opera Sunday!

I was going to pick up where I left off last time–in Argentina. The next Argentine story is a pretty dang good one. But I can’t pass up the opportunity to explain one more little tiny detail of the dreaded Christmas Formal, featured in my last Flashback Friday post. You’ve seen the pic before, but you’re gonna need it again for the full effect of this Soap Opera.

Okay, you already know about Satan, my date. And you’ve heard a bit about Kate’s date too. But there’s one more person you need (and I use the word “need” VERY loosely) to know about. He’s the OTHER guy on the back row. Ahahahaha. And his presence in our “date group” made that night, oh, just SO much more interesting than it would have been if it were just Kate’s psycho date and, well, Satan.

Because, you see, that guy and I had gone to the exact dance (the Christmas Formal) the year before.

He and I had actually flirted with each other for pretty much 3 years straight by this point. Why it took us so long to actually go out and do something together, I’ll never know. But what you need to know about me was that I was extremely innocent. And I was a very good girl, so while there was flirting a-plenty, I hadn’t actually had a real boyfriend or (and now I’m really blushing) even kissed a boy for real. I was 16, by the way.

The guy, however, wasn’t innocent… or what you might call a good boy. Not that he was terrible, or anything. He just didn’t fit into the bubble of prudishness that I lived in.

My parents, however, almost had a total heart attack when this boy showed up at my house, scruffy-faced and earring-ed. Hahaha. I never even thought about how they might react to him! I just thought he was hot.

Anyway, date goes fine. We actually had a really good time. He was on his best behavior. And towards the end of the night, he was actually bold enough to put his arm around me, which I found kinda sweet. And I was totally into him. And while I knew he was into me too, he was keeping more distance than I’d expected–or wanted. (Though, looking back, I think he was afraid of ruining things, because I think he really did like me, and I was, as I said, rather a prude.)

So then he dropped me off at my house, and walked me to my door, and, well, I kissed him. I kissed him. I think that that was very unexpected… Anyway, it turned into an all-out make-out session, right there on my front porch. This was my first kiss…

(What I DIDN’T know was that my mother was waiting up for me and was incredibly worried about me.)

Suddenly, in the middle of full make-out mode, MY MOTHER KNOCKS ON THE WINDOW RIGHT BY MY HEAD AND ORDERS ME INSIDE. And I went inside–didn’t even say goodnight to the poor guy.

I really don’t think I’ve ever been so embarrassed in my whole life.

And boy did my mother let me have it. She thought that I’d been keeping all sorts of secrets from her and that I was some sex-obsessed heathenistic mutant. Great. So now I had a curfew. Now she had to meet my friends. Now she was gonna be on my back all the time. (The reality was, I was actually a REALLY GOOD KID! I know I said that already, but holy crap! You would be hard-pressed to find a teenager more angelic than I was.) (Also, she was too busy to actually have any idea who I was, or to do the checking-up on me that she threatened to do.)

ANYWAY, when I went back to school on Monday, I walked passed him in our Honors English class (see? A badboy in Honors English? You see why I was interested, right?) and he didn’t look at me. Didn’t talk to me. Didn’t seem to notice me leaning towards his desk to say “hi.”

“Fine,” I thought. “Screw you.” And it was actually kind of a relief, because as much fun as I had with him, I knew that I didn’t really want to be his girlfriend or anything. So this saved me from having to have that particular talk with him.

The next thing I know, he’s told the whole world his version of the story which somehow boiled down to the fact that I broke his heart, and I was the “Ice Queen” (a nickname that an amazing amount of young men throughout the school called me, even when I was making out with them) and yadda yadda yadda. Uh… he’d never called me, he never spoke to me, and now I’d broken his heart? I felt like I missed a whole chapter in our book, because none of it ever made any sense to me! Anyway, he managed to get that story pretty well-told, and “rebounded” with a group of Freshmen girls who, because of his story, hated me. A lot. (Those girls are now some of my very bestest friends and we actually think it’s all pretty dang hilarious now, but at the time they made my life a living hell.)

Of course, since we were involved in all the same things in high school, life was pretty tricky. Even so, we both grew up a bit and got over the awkwardness and got on with life. But I did learn later that he had sorta kept pining for me throughout the rest of high school, but he couldn’t bring himself to mention it because he was certain that I was over him. And he was right. I was.

So, happy Soap Opera Sunday, friends! Stay tuned for next week’s installment, where I will once again tell you of my most awful and awkward moments, and you will laugh at me and my pain. That’s what I’m here for.

Oh my gosh! I just realized something! It’s our birthday here at ‘Twas Brillig! This blog has been around for EXACTLY ONE MONTH!!! I can’t believe what a whirlwind of a month it’s been! Thanks SO MUCH to those of you who have been here from the beginning–back when my blog was pretty much the standard issue “Blogger” blog. And thanks to everyone who has put up with my “Design A.D.D.” when in one week I changed the template forty or fifty times. Hey, I was just trying to find out who Brillig really was. And, as it turns out, Brillig is actually a lot more ME than that other blog that has my REAL name on it. Funny, huh? By creating an alias, I discovered myself. Or something.

When I started this blog, I gave the link to just a very few people (all of whom have been amazingly supportive!) Mostly, I just wanted to start from scratch and see what might happen. I can’t believe that in just a month’s time, I have met SO MANY PEOPLE!!! I’m always amazed to see “comments” here, because I’m always amazed that people are actually reading my blog! And my bloglist in my sidebar has quadrupled in size since I first started. And I need to stress that these are all blogs that I actually read every single day–written by people that, in most cases, I’ve never met in person but who I consider to be my very good friends.

One month can change your life!

So, yeah. Thanks for making me feel so welcome here in cyberland. I had NO IDEA what to expect when I started this, and it has been nothing but awesome. So thanks for commenting so that I see that I’m not all by myself here. And thanks for reading, even when you don’t comment.

(And thanks for searching for something on google and accidently ending up here and then reading a full paragraph before you leave and go back to finding what you were looking for in the first place. Cuz that’s cool too… you make me LOOK a lot more popular on my sitemeter than I really am… And I kinda need that, cuz I’m kinda needy.)

Point is, Happy Birthday, Dear Blog. You mean so much to me.

Welcome, gentle readers, to our second installment of Flashback Friday!!!

Today’s flashback was inspired by my mother- and father-in-law last night (who we are living with, remember?). Hubby and I went on a walk together, leaving my in-laws home with our sleeping kids. When we got home, we found them both on the phone. They were talking long-distance to their best friends, Spud and Cheryl. From what I understand, the four of them have been bestest buds for years and years. There was much heartbreak when Spud and Cheryl retired and moved to the northwest, but good thing they’ve all got good long-distance phone coverage, right? I thought it was so cute, to watch these 60-year-olds wandering around, each on their own cordless phone, talking to and giggling with their best buddies.

It reminded me of my own best friend, and how years from now I can picture this exact scene with us.

And so today’s Flashback Friday is dedicated to Kate*. You know her better as Walking Kateastrophe.

(*You could also consider it this way: If I’m going down, she’s going down with me.)

Kate and I met in high school. I was a senior and she was a sophomore (which was a little weird, because the people I latched on to had always been older than me). Somehow, despite lots of catfighting around us, we became bestest buds.

The unfortunate part here is that all the really incriminating pictures of her (and, I suppose, of me too) are in her possession, not mine. But! I DO have the date dance pictures.

And an explanation of date dances in our little community is given at Kate’s site, which I am hereby stealing, because I’m too lazy to write the darn thing myself:

You’ll need some background . . . on the planet I grew up in, date dances were much more than just the dance. We had to ask and answer each other in creative ways and we had day activities with our group. So let’s just say that if you didn’t like your date? You were in for a bad, bad day. With all of his or her friends. And it could possibly go on for 15 hours or so, because most people also planned something for AFTER the dance. Oh, and it was INCREDIBLY rude to say no. The first person who asked you was the person you went with. Those were the rules.

And so, I present you with exhibit number one.

(Kate is on the back row with the “red” hair. I’m in the front, sitting daintily upon my date.) What you need to know here is that in preparation for this magnificent date, all three of us girls dyed our hair red–sharing the SAME CHEAP BOTTLE FROM THE GROCERY STORE. Kate’s hair went good and red, the other girl’s hair had a reddish hew, and my black hair remained, well, black. I know. Shocker. And yet, I was early in my hair dying days and I was actually a bit surprised by this. Also interesting to note is that while my date was BY FAR the hottest, he was also about a whole foot shorter than me. Which is, I suppose, why I’m sitting upon him. (And YES my eyebrows were huge, and YES our fashion was freaky, and YES the hair is weird, and YES I’m sure you’ll come up with plenty of other unpleasant things to say…) (Oh, and NO I DON’T know what was up with Kate’s date’s pants. And I really, really, really don’t WANT to know…)

Let us now enter exhibit two:

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Kate is on the front row here (and no, I have NO idea what the crap she’s wearing…. you’ll have to take that up with her) and her date was a total and complete psycho. Seriously. He was completely nuts. And obsessed with Kate. And, well, CRAZY. You can tell by the weary expression on her face that this had been a very, very long day already. All she wanted was to go home.

And I am on the back row in the far right corner. DO YOU SEE MY DATE?? Does he remind you of someone? Someone named SATAN??? And, unfortunately, Satan-boy was thoroughly infatuated with me–something I never understood, but his infatuation almost defined my senior year of high school–and some bits of college too.

The moment we got home from that date, Kate and I called each other and talked on the phone for hours over them and their psychotic-ness, and how there really should have been a loop hole in the date dance rules: If a guy is psychotic, messed up, obsessed with you, or Satan, you should be able to refuse to date him, even if he’s the first person to ask you to the dance. Alas, there was no such rule.

But somehow we survived all the dating madness and moved on to the marriage stuff. Here she is as one of my bride’s maids 6 years ago (and 7 years after we first met). I’m obviously the one in the wedding dress and she’s the blondey (it’s not really a flattering angle for any of us, including Hubby who ALWAYS looks good. But my pic pickin’s are slim, okay?):

(Okay, ladies. We’ve had this discussion and some of you have already learned the hard way that drooling over my husband only leads to pain and misfortune and the shorting-out-of-your-computer. And we ALL know that NO ONE wants to blog with a shorting-out-computer.)

I was at her wedding too, of course, but I was massively and gigantically and so UN-gracefully pregnant with my third baby and so she let me be an “honorary” bride’s maid/matron thing. I pray that there are NO pictures of it…

And nowadays, we live very far away from each other. But we IM and call each other and keep tabs on each other pretty much constantly. And I FULLY expect to still be chatting and giggling with her when I’m sixty-four.