Dan: “I found your glasses in the bushes yesterday.”

Becky: “Uh…”

Dan: “I’m not gonna even ask.”

Becky: “Wise move.”

Dan: “You look like you’re ready for school. You got your new laptop (thanks Staples!) in my old Army bag and your new kicks on.”

Becky: “I love these shoes. Sole Provisions rocks mah socks off.”

Dan: “You’re not wearing socks.”

Becky: “Good point. But if I were, they’d be knocked off.”

Dan: “I can’t help but laugh – you’re using my tactical Marines backpack for diet Coke and a laptop. That bag saw three tours of duty.”

Becky (laughs): “And now I’ve made it a yuppie backpack. I’m planning to add sparkles to it somehow.”

Dan (laughs): “Better make ’em pink sparkles.”

—————————

Becky: “Ugh. I think it’s gonna rain this weekend.”

Lauren: “Oh no! I’m going to a concert tomorrow!”

Becky: “Iron Maiden?”

Lauren (laughs): “No, Mindy McCready.”

Adam (walking by): “Who’s going to the Iron Maiden concert?”

Becky: “Apparently not Lauren.”

Lauren (laughs)

Adam: “I’m totally going. I’d bring you if I had an extra ticket.”

Becky: “You know what this place needs?”

Adam: “A souffle chef?”

Becky: “Ha. No. I’m thinking a ball pit.”

Adam: “Or a wrestling ring.”

Becky: “Only if it’s full of baked beans.”

Adam: “Point taken.”

Becky: “Also: we need a dodgeball team. I’m just saying.”

Adam: “I like the way you think.”

———————-

I think I’m going to be very, very happy here. Sparkly tactical backpack and all.

Benjamin Maxwell,

At the highly polite hour of 2:50 in the afternoon on August 20, 2001, my life was forever altered. Certainly, people say this sort of thing, attempting to make a situation sound that much more important than it was, but in this case it was true. Because it was at this extremely civilized hour that everything, every event, every decision, every m0ment, it all changed.

Forever.

Now, to be fair, I didn’t – I couldn’t – see the magnitude of the doctor yanking you from my wrecked girl bits with forceps with every fiber of his VERY tiny body. I didn’t understand parenthood. I didn’t know what being a mother was all about. Sure, I’d “Sure, I had the cute, adorable, and teeny, weeny baby clothes as I was Looking for the baby things at TradeTang.com I had a swing that squeaked loudly when wound (I did place a cat in there to test it out prior to your arrival), and I even had a stroller. I had stretch marks and feet so swollen in the hot August sun that they appeared to be over-cooked marshmallows, and I hadn’t seen my very own crotch in many moons.

But if I’d given birth to a basket of fluffy kittens or 8 pounds of ground beef, I wouldn’t have been surprised. I was, however, surprised to note that there had been a real, live baby inside me for all those months. And boy, Ben, were you pissed at me for yanking you unceremoniously from your comfy womb. I’ll hope you’ve forgiven me that, considering this world is a far more beautiful place than my womb (I assume).

That moment changed everything. While at that moment, I had nothing, save for the kindness of strangers and family, I knew I had to do better by you. I had to change everything.

I decided to become a nurse. To settle down and get married. To give you a brother and sister to romp around in. Your own backyard with a fancy swingset to explore and rooms to romp around in. I changed it all for you. Every decision, every move, everything I did, it was all based on the events of 2:50 in the very ordinary afternoon of August 20, 2001. I’ve never really told you that story and I don’t know that I will because that seems too heavy a burden for a child to carry.

That, everything we both knew, it all changed last year before your birthday. I know it did and I’m sorry for it. Change is hard, harder for some, like you and I, and I know that we both handled it as well as we could. Fences were made, walls were built, and bonds were strained. But somehow, we always find our way back to those who love us most.

What I want you to take away from this all is simple: when things change, the things – the people – who matter, that is what matters. Change is hard, but change is normal, and while it may break our hearts and leave us gasping for air, there’s some small part of that change that makes our heart of hearts grow stronger; tougher, mightier. It leaves us a better person than we previously were, even as our hearts shatter.

While I don’t have a huge yard and a swingset any longer, while I don’t have an extra bedroom or your siblings every second of the day, I carry you each with me wherever I go.

This year, I want to remind you of a simple truth: the people who we meet, the lives who we touch, those who we help and those who we hurt, we’re all connected. It may sound silly or trite or too new-agey for you, but it’s the truth. Everything matters and we are all connected in the infinitesimally tiny moments of our lives, which is why you must make each of them count. Make them matter. I hope that you can see that some day.

For some day, you may be in the shoes I wore the day I bore you. Finding that one moment; that one inexplicable moment that changes everything to come.

That moment for me; that was you. And nothing can change that.

Ever.

Happy Twelve, Benny.

Love,

Mom

P.S. This is your song. Always has been:

So, Pranksters, brace yourself. I have an announcement:

I have, once again, decided to leave the nursing field.

(if any one of you is surprised, you should probably take off your sweat pants – there will be no leg humping from Your Aunt Becky).

Okay, so that’s not entirely true (the leg humping bit maybe a little), but it became entirely obvious to me during my stint at both Not-Chicago and Almost-Chicago that being the Director of Nursing isn’t really what it’s cracked up to be. Between the 24/7 calls and the management politics, I remember why I chose not to pursue my nursing career.

So it’s time for something entirely different.

Okay, it’s not really any different than the work I do for The Band Back Together Project, which is my non-profit organization dedicated to reducing the stigma of mental illness and traumas while providing educational resources to help people learn and heal /end elevator speech. Oh, and if you want to write for us, we’re ALWAYS looking for writers and volunteers (email bandbacktogether@gmail.com if’n you want to volunteer), but that’s a totally different story.

(sidebar: I love what I do for The Band. Always have. In the same way I love other non-profit organizations, like SoapBoxSoaps, which is a nifty non-profit that does almost nothing like what we do.)

With the help of my team, we’ve created nearly 600 resource pages, which has, for the first time in my life, become a plus. See, Pranksters, I’ve taken a job IN Chicago working for a massive healthcare conglomerate* to do exactly what I’ve been doing for nearly four years: write medical research. This will allow me to continue to blog and do my own thing on my own time, which makes me almost as happy in the pants as a stick of butter.

I’ll be working full-time as a writer.

In Chicago.

I start September 2.

*gulp*

*which, when you put those words together, sounds like a particularly nasty case of crotch cooties, which I can almost assure you is not the case. Almost.

St. Charles, IL – an area woman often known as “Aunt Becky,” although she is, at time of print, not an actual aunt to anyone at all, claims that “the only thing worse than having an iPhone 4S is not having an iPhone 4S.” Aunt Becky, more commonly known as Becky Sherrick Harks, makes it a point to state, “my last name is not hyphenated,” even without being asked, sits in her apartment drinking one of many diet Coke bottles lying her tiny apartment.

“It’s like this,” Harks states, “my iPhone couldn’t really make phone calls, which is why I got a landline,” and “It made me really mad at my iPhone.” Upon catching her breath she informs us that, “it was kinda a piece of shit, for an Apple product. I mean what fucking phone can’t make a call?” She then adds that while she was often frustrated by her “inability to use the ‘phone’ part of the iPhone 4S,” she did like to use it to play Angry Birds. “I mean,” says Harks, “the birds are so cute when they’re mad,” and when this writer agreed, she replied with, “Fucking-a, right” after offering a hot dog to the writer.

“It goes like this,” Harks said, getting visibly choked up. “I had this piece of shit phone that can’t make a fucking call to save itself, even though it says right on the box “PHONE.” I kept threatening the damn thing with a NOT-Smart phone, but those things don’t have those cute fucking angry birds on them.” She dabbed her eyes on her shirt and resumed, “but I didn’t really mean it. I mean, yeah, the damn thing couldn’t cure cancer, but I sorta kinda liked it, like a little bit.”

After a nasty battle between iPhone 4S and the washing machine, Harks knew it was the end of her iPhone. First, she cheered, “finally, I can get another phone!” then immediately lamented, “but I miss my iPhone 4S already.” When questioned regarding the duality of her statement, Harks simply stated, “Android sucks. Sure I couldn’t call anyone from my iPhone, but at least I could find Angry Birds without having to flip through 736 screens.” “Although,” she continued, “I do like that little monster guy icon. He’s pretty cute.”

Harks states that she will probably return to get another iPhone the moment her contract is up with her mobile carrier, even though she may be unable to use it to call for help if there is an actual emergency, unlike the previous 3,483 times Harks has called 911 when McDonald’s forgot to give her extra BBQ sauce.

When asked for comment, Sprint, her mobile carrier, simply stated, “That girl is a dumb bitch.”

The Android phone, in a rare moment of Smart Phone clarity, agreed.

1) Order sweet potato fries for the whole table, then, rather than share, grab the basket and lick each fry, claiming them as your own.

2) Order – and drink – Appletini’s. For real.

3) Inform everyone from the guy down the street selling papers to the barista at Stardollars how much better Breaking Bad is than The Wire. If they disagree, begin to speak in a loud voice using small words to provide a moment-by-moment breakdown of each scene for the past four seasons. When they finally agree, just to shut you the fuck up, then admit, “Hey, but it’s not as good as Lost.”

4) Whistle badly, tunelessly, at all points in which your mouth is not defending The Lost Conspiracy.*

5) Casually mention that you’ve “discovered” the most amazing (insert store/bar/restaurant here) even though all of them are easily found in the phone book or on Yelp.

6) End every conversation with, “Yes, but what would FREUD say about that?”

7) Insist upon chewing at least three pieces of gum at all points while away and rather than chew quietly, smack your mouth open and closed as loudly as possible so as to mimic a cow eating grass.

8) Quote Scarface often in the worst possible accent you can muster; inserting it into conversations in which it has no bearing.

9) Drink beverages with a straw and spend at least ten minutes after the liquid has been ingested making that horrifying sucking noise, trying to ensure that every single molecule is inside your mouth.

10) Brush off every single one of the accomplishments of other children by saying breezily, “Yeah, well, Little Jimmy was doing THAT at age four. Do you think something’s wrong with (insert name of other child here) to be doing this so BEHIND?”

11. Aimee says: Talk on the phone while in the bathroom. Loudly. And be sure to choose the only stall next to another person.

12. Stacey Says: Never let anyone finish a story. ALWAYS leap in with yours before they get to teh end. Bonus asshole points if it isn’t just a similar story but tops theirs significantly.

13) Luna Says: Ask them if they’ve found Jesus yet. If they say “Yes”, ask “Was he under the couch?” If they say no, invite them to read from the Bible with you.

14) Luna Says: Fart. Loudly. Then chide them loudly for farting.

15) Luna Says: Stand the wrong way in the elevator.

16) Luna Says: Start selling a MLM scheme.

17) Luna Says: Demand that you split the restaurant bill evenly (5 people, check split evenly 5 ways), but order 3 times as much as everyone else. Do not share under any circumstances.

18) Cindy Says: show them all the pictures of your kids/dogs/boat collection. (yes, I just had someone show me pictures of his boat collection.)

19) Sandy Says: Put an “Out of Order” sign on the door of the restroom at work and see how long it takes for maintenance to take it down.

20) Anonymous Says: Invite yourself to move in with your best friend, decide to stay indefinitely, talk about inappropriate subjects in front of their children, be late with rent, and just generally overstay your welcome.

21) Luna Says: TMI. Always tell people about your bowel movements and your menstrual flow. Words like “clots” and “squirt” are particularly useful.

22) Luna Says: Make a great big screaming deal out of your birthday. Refuse to acknowledge anyone else’s.

23) Luna Says: Make food for your friends with food allergies. INSIST that the food is safe. Refuse to let up until they try it. When they get sick, say, “Well, I tried my best! I didn’t think a LITTLE would hurt!”

24) Brenay Says: Call/ text/ email obsessively to confirm a date to spend time with your friend. Cancel five minutes before you are supposed to meet, using the worst excuse you can think of. For example, you can say you totally forgot about the lunch date because you had to go get a gallon of milk. (You are lactose intolerant.)

25) Lovelyn Says: Call your friends regularly at ungodly hours. When they answer ask, “Where you sleeping?” When they say yes, ignore them and start giving them a minute by minute account of your day.

26) Ryen Says: Step into a busy elevator, press every button, then turn around to face your now angry audience and clasp your hands together and say, “I’ve gathered you all here today to”……and then finish with the most awesome, bizarre thing you can think of.

27) Meg Says: Don’t flipping tell me to have a BLESSED day. I’ll go see  a priest if I need to get fucking blessed.

*I do not know what this means either.

—————-

When most people consider moving from a house to an apartment, they see it as a step down. Like ordering creme brulee and getting a dish of plain vanilla soft-serve (WITHOUT the all-important sprinkles) or something.

I won’t lie: I felt the same way. In October I moved from a three-floor house with a yard full of my roses into the FBI Surveillance Van where I shared all walls with other individuals whom I figured were always up to some nefarious hijinks. I even thought of getting a black light to ascertain if there had been any semen stains on the walls from previous tenants.

(Lazy + too – even for Your Aunt Becky – creepy = not gonna happen)

But I didn’t know quite what to expect beyond dorm living, which had been my only real experience living outside of a single home, and we ALL know the hilarious hijinks that go on in those dorms.

It took a bit to warm to the idea – being reprimanded by the self-appointed friendly neighborhood garbage police for not properly breaking down my boxes after moving in did NOT help in any way to reduce my paranoia – (personal motto: just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you) but slowly I did. And my neighbors? Well, they’re FULL of the awesome.

(pointless sidebar: not NEARLY as full of the awesome as YOU, Pranksters)

Kitchen sink busted? Call maintenance.

Car battery dead? Ask aforementioned maintenance guy to give you a jump.

Need counseling? Talk to The Twitter.

Slowly, I got into the groove of living life in the FBI Surveillance Van, even if it did mean I shared my bed with children who, despite their relatively diminutive size, managed to abscond with both space on the mattress and all of the covers. The mornings I’d wake up shivering cold and half on the floor I dubbed “cozy,” rather than “dude, where’s my sleep?”

Things took a turn for the better once the pool opened. The home previously known as mine didn’t have a pool, unless you counted the three inch plastic baby pool, which I, of course, did not. Even if I’d wanted a pool, I knew better than to actually have one constructed – growing up with an in-ground pool is enough to scare you out of your mind. I saw more dead animals each spring than I ever dissected in my biology classes, which is saying a LOT.

I’d not given the FBI Surveillance Van’s pool much thought at all – I hadn’t really wanted to take a dip on my own without my kids (who really wants to feel like the creep by the pool?), and as there was only one of me and three of them (two of whom couldn’t swim), I didn’t feel entirely safe bringing them, either. But once the weather warmed up, the chants of “MAMA, CAN WE GET SOME CANDY? IT’S CANDY DAY, MAMA!” turned into “MAMA, CAN WE GO TO THE POOL? I READ THE SIGN, IT’S OPEN.”

Then I cursed the public school system for teaching my child how to read and tried to recall where, exactly, one purchases a swimming suit and those floaty things for kids.

With great trepidation, I filled my ugly-ass beach bag (which has been around the world to various and sundry disgusting beaches) with towels, goggles, floaty things, and sunscreen and decided that it was high time to work on my tan and teach the kids to swim, which is no easy feat considering I’m not a swim instructor and I don’t even play one on television.

The kids bounded on ahead, ring things around their waists, trying to avoid the red-wing blackbirds dive-bombing their sweet heads while I trudged behind them, lugging approximately 847464 metric fucktons of pool shit.

It took them awhile to warm up to it – and by “them,” I mean “Alex,” who is ALWAYS hesitant to try new things – but slowly, they inched their way into the water with Dan and I keeping an obnoxiously close eye on them. Eventually, the sun decided that it was high time for me to take a rest on one of the germ-laden pool chairs and so I did.

It was then that I saw him.

Leather man.

Not an unattractive guy by any stretch of the imagination, somewhere in his mid-to-late sixties, he was simply sitting and drinking with his buddy on the other side of the pool fence, trying to catch some rays. Which wasn’t too far from what I was doing, excepting that I had a swimsuit on and wasn’t drinking alcohol.

The problem was, I couldn’t honestly ascertain whether or not he was wearing clothing or not. His shorts very nearly matched his torso, which meant that he could have easily been wearing a shirt. In fact, I figured he was. No one has skin quite that color. No one.

Or so I thought.

I was, I admit, intrigued by how closely his body resembled one of those brown body suits that fancy-pants surfers wear, and wondered why on earth he was wearing it not on the beach, but on the banks of the gnarly Fox River. I shrugged it off, thinking of sprinkles and cuppity-cakes and went back to resting quietly.

Just nearing that sort-of slumber brought on by intense sunbeams, it smacked me upside the face in a nice, neat mushroom print:

He had puffy nipples.

If he had puffy nipples hanging out, then he wasn’t wearing a bodysuit.

That was his skin.

“Dan,” I whispered frantically as I dipped my legs into the water. “I think that guy is wearing a skin shirt.”

“Where?” he asked.

“Over outside the pool area. DON’T BE OBVIOUS!” I replied.

He pretended to be checking out something in that general direction for a few moments before returning to face me.

“Babe,” Dan said. “I don’t think that’s a shirt.”

Half the pool turned around at the audible SMACK that my jaw made when it hit the concrete.

“That’s his… skin?” I asked.

Dan nodded and chuckled at my reaction.

“He’s like a walking poster boy for skin cancer,” I said, awed.

Dan laughed.

“When I grow up, I want to be JUST LIKE HIM.” I stated firmly.

“Tanned like a leather hide?” Dan asked, eyes still smiling.

“YES. I’ll be too old to give a fuck.”

“It’s good to have goals, Becky. I think you should put that on your bucket list, alongside “tango with Elvis impersonator,” Dan snorted.

“Already done.”

“You’re so weird,” Dan laughed. “Now get in here so we can have a proper squirt gun fight.”

So, first things first. I know most of you read my blog in a reader *waves at reader people* which is all good, because I would too*.

Today, however, you need to pop through. No, seriously, get your ass over here and be amazed at it’s awesomeness. Now, when people ask about web designers, I have two in mah back pocket. Princess Jenn (who did the coding but ALSO does WordPress blog designs) and Lindsay Goldner (who did the blog design itself).

Now you know who can make your blog FULL of the awesome.

—————-

So there’s this GIGANTIC blogging conference in a couple weeks, right? I haven’t seen the ZOMGBBQFAQ posts on The Twitter or The Facebook, mostly because I’m ignoring them. There’s only so much of that I can handle.

Having been now, to two BlogHer conferences, I feel I can share my wisdom with you. And by “wisdom,” I mean, “bullshit.”

0) Um. Chill the fuck out about it all of you type-A people. You’re making me nervous.

1) No one but you is going to give a shit about your shoes. By all means, by new ones if it makes you happy, but don’t make it into a ‘ZOMG IF I DON’T PEOPLE WILL SHUN ME.’

1) The conference is intimidating. That’s okay. After your first time, it won’t seem overwhelming. Heh. Kinda like The Sex.

2) Introduce yourself to other people. Why? Why NOT?

3) Remember that for some people, thanks to gaps in geography, this is the only time they’re seeing each other all year. They’re hanging with their online besties and may seem hard to infiltrate, but seriously, most people are kind.

5) If they’re assbags? Fuck ’em. You don’t need ’em. Come find me. We’ll hang.

8 ) There will be a hell of a lot of sponsors. Just accept it and move on.

13) Most of the swag you get is bullshit. Unless you need 9573636 flash drives, in which case, well, you’ll be in luck. But there is NO REASON to interrupt a perfectly good conversation with someone to make a mad dash for a swag bag.

21) There will be drama. Stay out of it.

34) If someone introduces themselves to you, be kind.

55) Be very, very wary of the drive-by social networker.

89) Actually attend the sessions. Your fellow bloggers work hard as hell to put ’em together.

144) I wasn’t invited to a single party, either. *shrugs* More time to get liquored up and do something I regret in the morning.

233) Unless you’re me, you DON’T want to be debaucherous in front of a zillion people who can live-blog it.

377) You’ll walk a hell of a lot more than you’d think.

610) For the name of all that’s holy, if you want to be recognized, do NOT do what I did my first year and use this as your avatar:

when you look more like this:

because no one will know you.

987) Send your swag home via UPS. You can thank me in gifts and/or cash later.

1597) COME HANG OUT WITH ME. No, I’m serious. We should hang, get liquored up and make asses of ourselves ALL OVER San Diego.

What am I missing, fellow BlogHer veterans?

*If I subscribed to myself, which I don’t think I do, because that’s kinda weird.

“Think of all the FREE TIME you’ll have,” my well-meaning friends assured me when I confessed that I was devastated by moving out of my home.

Free time, I mused (while probably pooping). What a novel concept. Those two words fit together in my brain about as well as “Tom Greene” and “thong bikini.” While I’d heard about this “free time,” in the same way I’d heard about “anal sex” and “fun,” neither made any sense. Sure, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been able to take a pee without the company of at least two humans and several cats vying for my attention and/or lap. Bathroom time was Happy Hour in my house and while it was somewhat awkward when there were guests afoot (who really wants to have to listen to someone else pee while a small child yells, “MOMMY FARTED?”)(Answer: not most people)(I assume), I’d grown so accustomed to it that whenever I stayed in a hotel, I needed some drab talk radio on to actually take care of business.

(what, me neurotic?)

So the nebulous concept of this “free time” didn’t really sink in as something someone would actually strive for.

And for months following my departure from Casa de la Sausage and my arrival at the FBI Surveillance Van, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Certainly, I had scads of time with which I could watch Mad Men reruns and fantasize about wrestling Don Draper in a vat of lime Jello, but it didn’t feel particularly… freeing. Instead (cue violins) it felt quite lonesome.

Starting over after a divorce – much like using the microwave – it seemed, was not, no matter how simple it looked on television, an easy process. In fact, I’d happily have shoved a porcupine up my snatch rather than start over.

Slowly, though, things, as they always do, began to change. I found a job. Then another. Then another still. Work kept me occupied and reminded me that while I may have felt like a steaming pile of dog vom, I had skills and I had the ability to take care of myself – two things I’d forgotten I possessed.

I began to reform old friendships and sought new ones. The times in which I was neither working nor taking care of crotch parasites began to fill. The formerly nebulous concept of “free time” became time in which I was able to do as I pleased with whomever I pleased – no one needed to know where I was or what I was doing at any given time.

My apartment, which had, in months prior, felt so empty without the giggles of my children, began to fill with laughter and love. I found myself laughing and smiling without the aid of a stunt double. My heart, once defeated, filled slowly with light.

Life, I finally was able to say (without fingers crossed behind my back), was going to be okay – no, it was better than okay. My life was finally becoming something I’d be proud to live.

And I am.

One year after my world fell apart, I’m still standing. The life I’d been so terrified to leave behind pales in comparison to the vibrant days I now live. Getting from there to here was, at many points, something I’d never thought I’d be able to do. So many days in between I didn’t believe worth breathing – dark, dark days, followed by even darker nights.

But now, today, my days and nights, they’re filled with laughter and love.

And my heart, well, it soars.

Some fifteen(ish) years later, I can’t help but hear the voice of my father screaming at me every time I use my turn signal, “SIGNAL YOUR INTENT, REBECCA” followed generally by some nonsense about “AND PUT ON A FUCKING PAIR OF PANTS, DAMMIT” because that’s the way my brain works: it remembers odd turns of phrase and holds them captive in some random corner of my mind that could be better used, oh, I don’t know, LEARNING HOW TO MAKE COFFEE?

But no.

Alas no.

Shamefully, no.

(stands up holding cup of lukewarm coffee in Styrofoam container and announces:)

(Hi Becky!)

However, I CAN remind you (loudly) to SIGNAL YOUR INTENT to other drivers, which has always made me giggle: what if my intent was to flash them or whip donuts at old people? Is there a special signal for THAT because my turn signal doesn’t seem to do much beyond blink stupidly.

Nevertheless, I DO signal my intent every fucking time I turn, which means that somewhere along those years in which my father remains convinced I didn’t listen to him, I actually DID listen to him.

Goes to show you never can tell.

A couple of weeks ago, when the rains came and the river engorged, I checked the forecast on my i(can’t)Phone as I was dressing for work, figuring we were probably due for a tsunami or something. I learned that while we were NOT experiencing an earthquake, fire, tornado, random flinging of fish or *waves hand* some OTHER horrible disaster, we WERE under a flash-flood warning.

Which, no shit, Sherlock. The river looks as pregnant as half my Facebook feed.

I continued reading what the National Weather Center had to say about this particular warning, wondering if this here part of the Fox River was to be submerged that day. Turns out, not that day, but it did give me a particular bit of wisdom I can’t get out of my head for the life of me.

This message informed me that in the event that I should encounter a standing body of water on the road, rather than say, “Wow, my car needed washing anyway!” and truck on through, I should instead “Turn around. Don’t drown.”

I can’t tell you why this stuck with me long enough to tell my coworkers about it a couple of hours later (and, I should add, not having encountered any bodies of water on the ground or elsewhere), but it did. It’s not a particularly funny statement – the idea of drowning in a car is fucking freaky as fuck – and it’s not even a particularly useful statement.

I mean, SIGNAL YOUR INTENT can be applied to just about everything you do, ever…

Wanna go on a date? SIGNAL YOUR INTENT.

Want to eat? SIGNAL YOUR INTENT.

Want to lounge around in your underwear? CLOSE THE BLINDS, THUS SIGNALLING YOUR INTENT.

…but “Turn Around. Don’t Drown?” I can’t come up with a single other instance in which those words, in that order, would tumble from my mouth.

My coworkers seemed similarly befuddled by the sentiment and I vowed to cross-stitch it on something, well, if I cross-stitched anything ever, which I am pleased to say that I do not. We also told one another as we passed in the halls, “Turn around. Don’t drown,” for no particular reason whatsoever.

This morning, one of my coworkers frantically ran into my office, and, not noticing that I was in the midst of a particularly important conference call, practically screamed, “THEY’VE EXTENDED THE THUNDERSTORM WARNING UNTIL 12:15!”

I craned my neck to look outside, thought, “yup, sure is dark out there,” before shrugging at her and returning to my call. It’s April in Illinois. Thunderstorms are as omnipresent as deep dish pizza and a deep abiding hatred of Wisconsin.

Once I hung up the phone, I decided that I probably SHOULD see what sort of weather I was going to have to deal with some 9.5 hours later when I decided to leave Not Chicago. The Weather Thingy told me that St. Charles DID have… not 4. Not 5. But SIX entire warnings and not a DAMN one of them about the fish.

 (won’t someone think of the fish?!?!)

I clicked on each of the six blinking advisories to see what would ACTUALLY apply to me and, upon scrolling down through the “you’re probably gonna wanna get the balls outta there,” I noted something. Something major.

“Hey Ames,” I said to my coworker who happens to have the misfortune of sharing an office with me.

She put down her paperwork and looked at me, “Yeah?”

“THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE THINGY DOESN’T TELL ME TO DO WHAT I’M SUPPOSED TO DO.”

She blinked at me.

“What do I do if I encounter still-standing water on the road? DOES THAT MEAN IT’S TIME TO WASH MY CAR AND/OR SHOW OFF MY MAD OFF-ROADING ABILITIES?”

She blinked again.

“Duh,” she said. “TURN AROUND, DON’T DROWN.”

And just like that, I lost my ability to retain any new phone numbers so that TURN AROUND, DON’T DROWN can forever live in my subconscious*.

That’s bullshit.

*And yours too!

It took me by surprise.

In part, I’m certain, because I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off for three months running (which, I should add, always gives me the delightful impression of a severed human torso running around with feathers stuck in it’s puckered pooper)(you’re welcome), and in part because I’m readjusting to my new life.

Lemmie back up, for those of you not playing along at home: the weather here in Chicago is one of two seasons:

1) Ass hot

2) Ass cold

3) Construction

(I wasn’t so good at mah maths)

Collectively, we refer to them as “ass” which, in a nutshell, is accurate but couldn’t be farther from the truth of what Chicago really is. We’re a great city, we love our cheeseburgers, passionately cheer for our favorite sports teams (North SIIIIIDDDDEEE) whether they’re winning or not, and we’re a loyal bunch. It may take time to win us over, but once you have, we’re yours for life.

Which is why we all still live here, despite the temperatures fluctuating from ass to, well, ass.

The winter had been mild, as far as Chicago winters go, until the endless snow began in January. And February. Then March, that wily whore, decided to get in on the snow action. In April, naturally, the rains came.

I should stop to mention that the only reason I noted the rain was because I have moved from higher ground to on the motherfucking river (not, I should clarify, to be confused with “Rolling on the River” because I’m pretty sure that the Fox River is not the river of which Ike and Tina sang), which, naturally, is in a valley, which means that when the river gets high, my pooper puckers alarmingly. In the six months I’ve lived here, I have to admit that I’ve grown quite fond of the FBI Surveillance Van and would, therefore, hate to see it underwater.

I should’ve been annoyed today. My i(can’t)Phone was broken, which meant that the fancy whoodilly on my dashboard that allows magical gnomes to play my digital music over my radio would not be working. Which left me with two radio stations: The Badger* and some SUPER Christian station that’s always damning someone or another to hell. While occasionally amusing, I was running late for therapy because while blogging is SORTA like therapy, therapy is pretty awesome and allows me to flex my narcissistic muscle for upwards of an hour.

It had been a long day in Not Chicago, and while it was a good one, I was annoyed that I’d let myself do “just ONE more thing” before realizing it was time to scoodledoo, and OMG if I’m late, I’ll probably FAIL or something *whines* and and and and…

That’s when it hit me.

Instead of being annoyed by the mountains of “white” snow, which I call “Chicago white” because they’re grungy and gross by April flanking the country road I take home, I was smacked in the face.

The world, well, it had woken up.

I cracked my window, preparing for some sort of weather incident in the car (I was imagining tornado, but it’d have probably been an ice storm, just for kicks), just because, well, obviously, and there it was. The wind blew into my car, smelling of fresh earth and new beginnings, reminding me, once again, why I pink puffy heart springtime in Chicago: the possibilities that yawn before us truly are endless.

The farmland that follows my merry way home had somehow transformed – where there had, just yesterday, been miles of yawning Chicago White sludge, I could see vast acres of green miles into the distance, peppered occasionally by crisp red barns. The robins, fluffy and fat on the earthworms the rains had dredged up looked fatter, more healthy and more determined than I’d seen them in many years.

An endless parade of people seemed to exit their homes to busy themselves, helping their bit of earth to wake up and coax their flowers into blooming, all of us pasty white from this unbearable, endless winter. They stood as I drove by, hands in the air, waving hello. I waved back like a lunatic, probably preventing them from ever attempting to wave at any stranger, ever, but I could tell they felt it, too.

The world was waking up.

The endless winter had, at long last, passed.

And the possibilities, well, they are endless.

*I can’t make this shit up.