My Life

MacKenzie always gets mad at me for telling her she smells like a kid. The other day I texted her and told her that I missed kid smell, and I could feel her sticking her tongue out at me and wrinkling her nose up like she always does. When she is old in a wheelchair and her tongue is perpetually sticking out of her mouth because her muscles have memorized that expression, I will be looking down from heaven and laughing at her. Of course my heaven will be very different from the textbook version. I have been thinking lately that heaven should be personality appropriate, much like our lives are assigned to us and have very different contexts and experiences, why on earth (or not) would heaven be universal for everyone. It's kind of like assuming that god is only expressed in one likeness, one religion, one style of people. How silly. My heaven will consist of big beds with lots of pillows, dogs with wrinkly faces and little girls fighting over tutus and plastic kazoos. I fully expected to be missing my kids in a week or so, but four days? This is ridiculous. I am turning into a, a, well, a mother. WTH?

I do miss my kids. I miss quirky Northport. I don't miss smelly Bob and dirty Bob and Larry and Daniel who should have been related but weren't. I don't miss Paula Fowler and her intimidated tentativeness that made her really creepy, as well as the smell of booze saturated flesh that she and a broad spectrum of other regulars wafted around town. I miss Jennifer and Dan and Karen and Troy and Margaret, even Zach and his perpetual fake storming around town in a huff. I miss Sarah, predictable Sarah, and Steve and Andrea and the beers that I knew I shouldn't drink and the chili I knew I shouldn't eat but couldn't even begin to resist. I miss Justin. And I really miss Calvin.

I am nervous about starting work. Like real official work, where once again I am the small fish in the big pond and I have all of the nights this week to have bad dreams about how I screw it up. I can't afford to screw it up. So I have to be successful. And when I look back on my most successful moments, they were the times that I pushed through even the hardest or most awkward situations with blustery confidence, convincing everyone around me I knew what I was doing when really I was terrified of letting my clumsy nerd show. I know it will go well. I know it will be great. If I can figure out what the hell to wear the first day. Yes, right now, that is my hugest stress. Not the pending overdrawn bank account or the bad credit that will prevent me from finding a  place to rent. Not the fact that I have no food to eat and no money to buy food, or to pay the rent that I owe my roommate. No, I am stressed out about which jeans I have that are work/field appropriate, and what kind of impression I need to make out of the gate. Hey, there's a lot riding on this. It's a fashion emergency. I will lose many hours of sleep over the next few nights trying to figure this out.

Last night I saw a band called Diego's Umbrella. They refer to themselves as "Mexi-Cali gypsy pirate reggae" music. If you ever have a chance to see them, you must. There really is no good way to encapsulate the experience, except to say I am fairly certain I will see them in their red caped costumes in my own personal heaven. Probably opening up for the Avett Brothers. The night before that I saw Sally Ford and the Sound Outside. Also a band I strongly require anyone who has the chance to go see. (yes, require.) Even though I haven't had money for beer, and I have maybe mooched a pint or two off of the roommate whom is still owed rent, it has been a glorious conformation that I have come to the right place. It's funny that I stood in front of the stage at the bar last night, wishing it was an all ages show and I could have my kids there dancing with me. I am excited for them to grow up in a town like this. Excited for them to be 21 and able to experience these things with me. There are a lot of all ages shows here from what I gather. We will find them. Especially the free ones. Tomorrow Ricker and I get to tour the Deschutes Brewery. This has been a lifelong (well, adult-lifelong) desire of mine. And I am hoping they give out samples, again, since I lack beer funds. Either way I will get to smell the hops and maybe taste the malted barley, and hear the whole process one more time. It never really gets old, especially coming from some dreamy hunk of a brewmeister, which I am sure Bend will not fail to produce. Every fellow here seems better looking than the last. It's as though I moved to stage one of my personal heaven. Live music, good looking guys and beer. The only thing missing is the smell of kids.