Graves and Birthdays

The end of August through the end of September is a weird time of the years for me. Fall was always my favorite time - I love Fall holidays and I loved school starting and my birthday is at the end of September.
My best friend in middle school was Marshall Estes. In 6th grade we were both outsiders and are names were next to each other, so we sat together and had touching lockers. Plus we were born 24 hours apart, so we celebrated together. We stopped speaking in 8th grade and I never really saw him after that. He called sometimes and we would talk a little - but we had grown up and were different.
August 16th 2005 Marshall overdosed and died. His funeral was freshman move-in day so I didn't go. I didn't know what I would have said - he had other friends by then.
My birthday is always sad now. I love fall but I hate it. It brings memories of middle school when Marshall locked me in his locker and the janitor had to get me out and our joint birthdays - he gave me a Betty Boop clock that finally broke 2 years ago. I only have 2 pictures of us. One is a polaroid that you can barely see and the other is of Marshall spinning me at our first dance.
He was the first person who didn't think I was weird for having such a dirty sense of humor or for just doing weird things all the time. He thought it was great.
I wish I'd said goodbye.
I was feeling super morbid I guess and went internet stalking my grandfather last week. No one in my family talks about him or has pictures of him. Last week my Aunt finally found 3 pictures in her wedding album that my grandmother didn't burn. I'd never seen him before. He looks different than I thought he would.
I've been bugging my family for years to find out where he was buried. Not one person in my family went to the funeral or read his obituary. I finally found a record of his 2nd wife's death and found the cemetery. Part of me wants to see it - but what would I do with a gravestone of a man I never knew? I'd rather go see Marshall.
I hate this time of year - it make me think about death - I swear I'm not usually this morbid. At least I hope I'm not because it's kind of creepy.

Why I will force my kids to watch 90's Nickelodeon

I grew up watching the basics - Rugrats, Doug, Salute Your Shorts, Clarissa Explains It All, Ahh Real Monsters, Pete and Pete, Secret World of Alex Mack, Are You Afraid of the Dark, Rocko's Modern Life, and Hey Arnold.

After school we had Nick at Nite - which was the old classics like I Love Lucy and The Munsters. While I was visiting my cousins ( ages 3, 5, 7 and 7 ) I had the chance to watch an hour of the worst TV I have ever seen. All the characters are pop stars or have models for moms or live in giant hotels. Rugrats had totally normal middle-class parents with bad accents. I didn't have to worry about buying whatever Angelica was wearing. There was no pressure to be made up like Clarissa. And at night I did not watch ABC Fam shows about pregnant teens. Is this really the best thing for kids to watch?

So here is my plan = I will buy every season of every great TV show and will program my TV to play them instead of the crap that's on. They will never know they difference. No creepy doll commercials and no mini-skirts on 10 year olds.


I will do everything in my power to make sure they will be NO Miley Cyrus posters in my house - I shudder at the thougt.

The first day of school (for everyone else)

Tomorrow is the first day for the school across the street. I, however, have no plans. I spent 12 years in school then 4 years in college and in all that time, no one taught me how to be an adult. It's a little like that overly told story where the bird pushes her chicks out of the nest to make them fly. Well I don't fly really well without lessons.

You'd think that colleges would have a class in life skills - like how to buy health insurance and what all that crap on car commercials mean. I have no idea how to file a tax return or even what all my car needs to have done every 3000 miles. How can someone go for 16 years, learn 2 languages, read hundreds of books and never learn what all the buttons on the washing machine do?

The worst part is that for the first time in 16 years, I didn't go back to school shopping. No new folders, no new pen colors to try, not even new fall shoes. I was always ready a full week before with my outfit carefully chosen and my backpack stuffed with everything on my list. Even after the time when school was exciting, at least the first week was worth the effort. I may not have read my summer reading, but I had every gel pen made and all my folders were color coded. I was really the queen of the locker signs because I had the most complete collection of pens and markers to choose from. If someone needed to write a note and wanted glitter purple with blue highlights, I was their girl.

I loved to make friends with the new people too. I think it was a mix of understanding from being new so often and wanting to know them first so I could have the good gossip to share. When I was the new person I made friends fast. Not because I was particularly awesome, but I was loud and not at all shy. I was pretty obnoxious for a while actually. I like to think the horrors of high school knocked most of it out of me, however.

Tomorrow hundreds of kids will walk across my yard to the school across the street with new backpacks and shiny shoes. They'll have rounded scissors and 24 pack crayons, 2 glue sticks and a pack of #2 pencils. I wonder if any of the kids will have crazy parents who found some way to accidentally buy #3 pencils.