Slow Ride

     Dog fur on your clothes can be awesome, when you rarely get the opportunity to be around dogs. Cat spit on your open palm from licking you, as they condescend to lay half on your lap is an accomplishment, too.

     But a goat nibbling on your jeans hem? That’s the best! 

                             

                 

    When one doesn’t have the means to maintain a menagerie that would make Dr. Dolittle proud, you go where you can enjoy such spoils.

     Add a niece’s birthday to the blender, a little energy drink contraband, a complete lack of watching one’s caloric intake for an entire weekend, and a fun time will always be had---especially when you spoil the niece with flan, churros, and cash.

     A road-trip, when traveled via two-car caravan, is also a wise move; it establishes sanity, stability, and removes all sense of disgruntlement, nae, tempestuousness, at the only one who can reduce my intelligence to flaming gas-balls of fury.  

     Close quarters for longer than an hour usually inspires my need for flight, as is the typical Gemini’s innate characteristic. Boredom, we will not tolerate.

     Painted faces, offerings of ersatz tea and cakes, bubble wands being waved while jumping on trampolines, canines competing for visitor’s affections, sinewy felines pretending they’re not, turkey burgers, and Mexican food that leaves you feeling bloated for having eaten far too much….

    Oh yah, that’s the life! 

The 'Sunscreen Speech.'

Disclaimer: Hey Readers! This is NOT my writing. This was a graduation speech written by Mary Schmich in 1997 for the Chicago Tribune. I remembered first reading it in an issue of Reader's Digest, and liked it so much that I gently tore the pages out and saved it. My copy is still filed away somewhere in the Black Hole of my storage area. But this is almost twenty years old, and I never forgot it. Gen-Xers and the older Millennials will remember it. Enjoy! 

Wear Sunscreen

By Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '98: Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blind side you at 4 PM on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.

Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

Fake it 'til you make it.

I've drunk the Kool-Aid.

The company I've been working for has found a better 'home' for me within their walls. 'Positional Redistribution,' I call it. Where I lack in one talent, I more than make up for in another. Or, as a previous employer once comically described, I "give good phone." And it seems to show up in a number of surveys; the scale on which staff-members futures lie.

Refining my talents (and time) to what's required still doesn't give me the full-on confidence that I'll make the grade; I'm still 'status: rookie,' so I have an excuse for not being up to par of what's mandatory. But I've always had the capacity to shoot myself in the foot, somehow. So, if I'm handed my walking papers, it won't be a surprise. ("Here's your hat, what's your hurry?")

If I even make it there a year, I'll be shocked. Truly shocked. Still, I'll have three pairs of souvenirs.

Fear and Loathing in Wilsonville

     How can you feel happily creative, or be optimistic about the near future, when everything seems to frequently fail around you? When you’ve had three jobs in two years? How can a person not feel like the gong of impending lay-off/termination isn’t about to be struck, when you show up to work everyday with that knowing that you’re in over your head?

     So is my reality. I absorb knowledge, hang on to what I’ve learned…and then the proverbial goalpost is moved further away. The phrase, ‘Fake it til you make it’ has kept me treading water for the last six weeks. My skill set has never been very impressive. Or, maybe it is, but just not weighed as useful.

     We’ve all known that feeling that, surely, everyone else in the room was smarter than us. We can even feel (or perhaps imagine) the sense of eye-rolling from others. When it’s confirmed by someone in the know, you’ll ask yourself why you even bother to keep showing up. (Also, what was the person’s agenda in revealing such info?)

     Well, this Gemini will tell you. Because fuck you, that’s why. I’m here for me. For myself, my future, my desire to learn, and to understand. It may take a little more time for me to ‘get it,’ but I will. I may be the astrological sign that gets bored easily, but I’ve also got a small stubborn streak that knows I will ‘get it’ eventually, given the opportunity. That stubborn streak is the pilot light in my soul. I know I’m worth the time and learning.

     Oh, sure, there’s been many a Friday feeling that I won’t even bother showing up on Monday. ‘Course, the paycheck keeps us going, right? Naturally! Yah, that putting ‘one foot in front of the other’ ain’t just a song. You really do have to do it. Ya fake it til ya make it.

     Most Geminis will concur that we have that tactical ping-pong game going on in our decision-making.  I’ve had several mornings that started in fear, anxiety, and low self-esteem, only to be left shining with confidence at the end of the day. Then, there are those days of complete reversal.

     I dread those days.

     But, I have to keep going. Otherwise, the time invested will all be for naught. I dread that thought more. 

A Recipe to Cure Depression

Ingredients:

Grandma’s kitchen

1 cup of flour

1 cup of sugar

1 tbs. of favorite cousin’s smile

2 bags of Nestle’s semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup of Grandpa’s familiar, rich pipe tobacco that permeated the house every Thanksgiving and Christmas.

2 tbs. of vanilla extract

1 cup of Mom’s congratulatory-hug on the ‘A’ you got on your essay the week before.

3 eggs

1 cup of Dad’s teaching you how to throw a Frisbee

½ cup canola oil

4 oz. of your big brother standing between you and the school-bully who pulled your hair when no one was looking.

1 4x6 picture of you and your best friend going out trick-or-treating by yourselves for the first time.

Combine ingredients in your late, great-grandmother’s chipped, antique mixing bowl with the family-crest on the bottom, and beat until you’re exhausted.

Pour in Mom’s old, blackened baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees until she sticks her head out the back-yard door, where you’re on the tire-swing, and yells, “It’s done!!”