Dark and Mysteriousness: Dedicated to My Big Brother

My older brother knows me best as my 15-year-old self. He remembers the hours I spent locked in my room listening to Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" over and over.* He remembers the guilt I felt when Kurt Cobain died because I knew if I had just somehow been able to meet him and talk to him, I could have convinced him not to do it.* He remembers the hours I spent writing in notebooks and journals musings that were promptly destroyed, to be read by no one.

As he tells his wife, what he remembers is "Kelly always wanted to be dark and mysterious."

This weekend he told her he is disappointed that between my two blogs, I haven't written anything dark and mysterious yet. Probably he's realizing that he doesn't really know me after all. Probably he was hoping I would do something creative and lucrative with my darkness and mysteriousness. Probably he doesn't realize how hard it is to be dark and mysterious when you spend your days wiping poopy butts and trying to remove spit-up from your clothes.

So though I don't think I have it in me to be the dark and mysterious blogger my brother is hoping for, I do think I have some morbid in me. So just for my big brother, I present "Eulogy." That's right. I'm writing his eulogy for him....what I would say at his wake were he to die tomorrow. How's that for morbid? He has a birthday coming up in a few weeks. Maybe I'll frame it for his present.

My earliest memories of my big brother are bittersweet; we always had that kind of relationship. When I was 5, when we had gotten into trouble for something or other (hanging out with Jason always resulted in getting in trouble), he told me we were going to run away together. He had it all planned out, he informed me, but he didn't quite have enough money for both of us yet. So he decided to let me go first--very generous soul that he was--and he would come as soon as he had enough money. But I should go ahead and leave. He'd find me and take care of me. Really.

When I was around 8, he recruited me to help him with a project. I was ecstatic to be included in anything my older brother was doing, and as I was angry at my sister at the time, I was especially excited about the project itself: mutilating her favorite Marie-doll. We burned her little dolly butt. We stabbed her with kitchen knives....repeatedly. We tied a noose around her neck and hung her from the garage ceiling. We beheaded her and put her decapitated head in our unsuspecting sister's underwear drawer. And to make sure she was aware of everything her precious doll had suffered, we documented it all with Jason's flash-cube camera. Of course, when I say "we," I mean "Jason." All I really did was watch. And hold the doll for the camera. So that all the pictures just showed me holding the tortured mass of well-loved fabric and plastic. So that all the evidence pointed to me. This was about the time he really got the reputation of being the "bad kid" in the family (did he really think my mom wouldn't notice that the pictures were developed off his camera, or that someone had to actually be the one to hold the camera?).

But the same year he offered to run away with me, he revealed the secret of the Arby's wrapper to my sister and I...that if you found a star on your Arby's wrapper (there was an odd repeating pattern on their wrappers back then that resulted in a star only showing up occasionally), you could put it under your pillow, and the Arby's pirates (whoever they were) would replace it with a prize. The first time I found a star wrapper, I was ecstatic. I excitedly put it under my pillow after bragging profusely to my siblings about being the first to receive a pirate prize. I fell asleep dreaming of the dime I may find there in the morning. And when I woke, I tore the pillow off my bed to see what I had been left.

I know what you're thinking. I had been fooled again, because I was the gullible little sister and he was the prankster brother.

But when I threw my pillow to the floor that morning, I found a toy resting on my bed where the long-awaited star wrapper had been the night before. I don't remember what the toy was, because that wasn't what was worth remembering. What I remember is knowing as I stared at my trinket that it was Jason's toy. He had given it to me so I wouldn't be disappointed. And I never told him that I knew. Maybe I should have...maybe when he hit his troubled times in his teens (and didn't we all?) it would have helped to know that not everyone thought he was a bad kid. That I knew the compassion he was capable of. But I never told him that I knew.

And I never thanked him for the times when we were both teenagers and I snuck out...and helped me to do it, but then checked up on me. Or for how he threatened every guy I ever dated, but never told my mom what I was up to. Or for telling my mom what I was up to but making her let him handle it...by teaching me to drive his car when I was 14 and using the time to talk to me about boys.

Or for continuing that legacy of protection with my little girl.

So, Jason, wherever you are, thank you. And I promise to be as much a jerk to your little girl as you were to me...because everyone needs someone like that when they are growing up.

Hmmm....definitely not dark and mysterious. Sorry to burst your bubble bro. And thank you. Don't make me say what for...we never were the "share your emotions" members of the family. Just thank you.

*Hey readers...feel free to make fun of my profusely for this in the comments box below. I would if I were you.

I'll Run Spellcheck, You Pass the Soap

How come no one has invented the waterproof computer yet? Because I really need a waterproof computer. Not because I want to check my email from the bottom of the pool. Nor do I want to video chat out in the rain or blog from the depths of the ocean. I just want to be able to write in the shower.

I can compose the most amazing compositions in the shower. Every day as I shampoo my hair, I am mentally drafting a novel. This blog post was conceived as I shaved my legs. And the prose in my shower is always beautiful, impeccable, intriguing…and it is always lost in translation when I try to re-create it once dried and dressed.

I am not a draft writer. Although I will (occasionally) proofread my work after writing, I rarely do any actual editing. What comes of me first is often what comes out of me best. So when I develop these earth-shattering pieces of literature while soaping up my loofah, I’m actually wasting my best work. And that sucks.

So all you technically-minded engineer types out there, this is your mission: invent for me a shower computer. And I will write for you the Great American Novel. Or at least a more comprehensible blog post.

Of course, it’s possible that I’m deluding myself; that what sounds great in my head would never translate properly into the keyboard, no matter how quickly I got it down. Rather like the story dreams I have where everyone is just a character, and I wake up realizing that I have just come up with the best idea for a book…only to realize ten minutes later that what so entertained me in my sleep actually has no real plot line and nothing of interest for anyone who is actually awake.

But I prefer to believe that the only thing stopping me from expressing my true inner genius is the gross oversight of computer manufacturers in not developing this desperately needed technology.

Please Don't Fart on My Spoon

Spooning. The perfect cuddle position. No awkward head angles while you try to lay on his chest. Or smooshed boobs when you try to lay on hers. No worries about waking up breathing in morning breath, or spewing yours in your partner's face. No knocking knees or trapped thighs. Positioned properly, with the larger person behind and slightly raised, hair is easily kept out of mouths. Like I said, the perfect cuddle position.

Except.

When you're the spoonee (spooned? spoonipient?), you do have one major disadvantage. Yes, you get to arrange your body comfortably and let your partner create a human mold to your body. You are also less likely to end up with a sleepy elbow in the ribs, and your bottom has a nice warm pocket to snooze in. But...

You can't fart when spooning.

It's not something you think about when you snuggle into that position. It's not something you think about at all. Until you realize you really need to let one go. And then you're trapped.

You can spend most of your relationship being discreet. I've been married 8 years, and as far as my husband knows I only fart about once a month. Which is ironic because I'm one of the gassiest people you will ever meet. It runs in my family. It cannot be helped by diet or Bean-o. My sister starts letting them rip on the second date to rule out those potential mates who won't be able to handle it down the road.

But I didn't start that precedent when I should have, so now the only time I do it in his presence is when it's an emergency. When we're in the car and I can't hold it in. When that little one that I thought was going to be quiet and odorless turns out to be louder or smellier than expected. Or when he walks in the room 2 minute too soon, before things have dissipated.

But for the most part, I wait until we arrive at our destination, until he leaves the room, until he falls asleep. Or I leave the room for a moment to check on the kids, close the garage, get a drink of water. But once you're settled in for sleep, successfully and comfortably spooned up, you're trapped.

When you're snuggling any other way, you can make it quiet and under the covers and hope your partner is none the wiser. You can blame the dog, or the sewer, or the dirty diaper you forgot to throw out. But even a silent fart cannot go unnoticed when you're being spooned. There's no denying the sudden burst of hot air into a tightly snuggled tummy. Even if you think your partner's asleep, there's no way to know for sure that he or she is in that deep a sleep. It's the one and only flaw that prevents the attainment of the perfect snuggle.

This is supposed to be the part where I give the solution to the problem. How to achieve the best of both worlds. But I don't have one. You may say "well, just do it anyway. Quit trying to hide it. It's human." But let's face it. When are you most likely to be feeling snuggly? After being intimate, right? And when's the worst time to reveal your baser human side? That's right. When you are most vulnerable--after being intimate. So that's not really a solution after all.

It's a flaw in the construction of the universe, and there's no way around it.

You can't fart when spooning.

Backward Technology

Am I the only one who's noticed that music-listening technology has taken a decided step backward in the last 10 years?

Sure, you now hold 676,345,223.4 songs in the palm of your hand and shuffle them so you never hear the same song twice. You can instantly download any song you want to hear wirelessly. You can easily store your music and back it up 50 times and only take up the space of a spindle of DVD-Rs.

But I still say cassette tapes knew what they were doing.

Remember when you didn't have to be rolling in disposable income to update your music library? $.99 a song? $1.29???? (Seriously, iTunes??) How about $3.99 for 270 minutes of "Today's Hottest Music"? Because back when technology knew what it was doing, that's what it cost for a 3-pack of blank 90-minute tapes, and that and an entire weekend was all you needed. Walk with me a moment...

You set the boombox on the floor, fast forward the tape a few seconds so you don't miss anything on those few blank seconds before the real tape starts, tune to your favorite station, and wait for the hunt to begin. And it is a hunt, which makes the victory of that free music even sweeter. Wait, what did the DJ just say? That's right, "Runaway Train" is coming up after this commercial break. Get your finger poised over the REC and PLAY buttons (don't forget to push both, or you'll lose valuable intro time correcting) and wait for it.....wait for it.....THERE, GO!

Four hours later, you still haven't heard the song you want? That's okay. Because Request Hour is coming up and you've got your Mickey Mouse phone ready to go, the first 6 digits already punched in. When they open up those phone lines, all you have to do is hit that last button and yours will be the first song played. Just keep those fingers poised over REC and PLAY.

Sure, half your songs include the weather and the call letters from the local radio station over the instrumental intro. But they also have the name of the song and the artist, announced for you....unlike today's music where you have to actually look down at the screen to see what song is coming. And oooh the satisfaction when the DJ doesn't intro the song, and you have a good-as-store-bought version of the song!

And by the end of the weekend, you have your mix tape, full of almost-free music. And let's face it, if you were so broke you couldn't buy a new tape, you still had options. Either tape over the one from a month ago (those songs are so old now anyway), or steal one of the soft-rock crap mixes from your sister's tape box, peel off the label, and put a new sticker on it. Good as new.

And that wasn't the limit of cassette tapes' free music glory. Your friend who gets more allowance than you just bought the new Nirvana tape? You want it too? Two options: If you are one of those unlucky chumps who just have a single cassette deck in your boom box, you simply ask your friend to bring hers over too, face them toward each other, press PLAY on the Nirvana tape and REC and PLAY on the tape you stole from your sister, and voila! Just don't sing along while it's recording, or your crappy off-tune voice and half-wrong lyrics will be on your new tape. Of course, if you are lucky enough to have a boom box with two tape decks and and DUB feature (as I was, best birthday present EVER, MOM!), you just put both tapes in and record ambient-sound free.

Sure, there are a lot of advantages to today's music technology. Your songs don't start to warp when you play them over and over 238 times trying to memorize the lyrics. The music quality is certainly superior. But today's music players are missing that one crucial feature that make cassette tapes rule in my universe: Apple, put an FM tuner on your iPods and include a record function. Is that too much to ask?