Please help me celebrate (even if you’re reading this post in 2015) by either telling me what you were doing when you were 28 or telling me what you hope you’ll be doing. I was thinking last night that I had no idea where I would be at this age, but I’m pretty damn happy where I am.

I am grateful for:

The people who started as my coworkers and became some of my closest friends.

Homemade whipped cream.

Flowers, all sorts.

Family members who know me so well, sometimes I don’t even have to use words to describe my feelings to them.

Baking.

Jeans that fit well.

Songs that cause me to sing out loud and stay in the car after I’ve already parked.

My “college friends” who I wasn’t friends with in college, but who mean the world to me.

Sunny days that make me feel like I’m glowing.

Christmas lights.

My boyfriend, whose love is always with me, even if he can’t be.

Craft projects.

Aunts, uncles, cousins and baby cousins.

Traditions, memories and sentimental values.

Galen’s family, who always make me feel welcome.

Ebenezer Ale.

Sudoku.

Boots with the fur.

The wonderful people in my life who are patient with me as I try to understand the uncertainty that surrounds me and try to remember not to judge others too harshly.

Although I understand where so much of the stereotypes and criticism of cheerleaders comes from, I still think this is an awesome concept.  Jezebel.com covered the topic, saying, “Science shouldn’t have to be sexed-up to make it an acceptable career choice for women, but hopefully the message girls take from the Science Cheerleaders is that your attractiveness is not a reflection on your intelligence.”  I agree with them, but as a girl who has always been good at math and science, I think there’s another important part to this message, which is that you can excel in “nerdy” subjects and still be girly.  You don’t have to be, obviously, but sometimes, as female nerds, we don’t realize we have a choice.  Sometimes in middle school and high school we feel pigeonholed.  Everyone is given a label (nerd, football player, cheerleader, druggie, hippie) and then expected to play their part.  It took me a long time to figure out that I could pick and choose from various stereotypes, INCLUDING the “girly” one without accepting the whole package.  There were a few years in college when I had acrylic nails and got them “done” regularly, not because I was a super girly-girl overly-concerned with my appearance, but because I wasn’t really girly and having fancy nails made me feel good and a little rebellious.  I liked that I could rock my naturally curly hair and hooded sweatshirts every day but still have some feminine touches like manicures and matching accessories that made me feel good.  To this day, I sort of like the way people react when I tell them I majored in math.  I like defying their stereotypes.  And I really wish someone had told me when I was thirteen that I could spend time on my hair and dance and do neurology research, without having to choose.

Now I’m just hoping they start some sort of program for science professionals who want to be BlazerDancers.

Her second greatest fear was that someone would dive into the shallow end of the pool and end up paralyzed. According to Kallyn, she and her sister have both internalized these fears. In fact, I think this whole thing came up when some of our friends were throwing food into each other’s mouths from long distances and Kallyn covered her eyes.  I believe we were even poolside.  I’m sure she’s shuddering just thinking about it now.

This made me think of the bizarre fears I’ve “inherited” from my mom:

1. Losing people in crowds.  Whenever we would go somewhere crowded (the fair, the mall, New York City), my mom would tell my brother and me exactly what we were supposed to do if we ever got separated.  There were also overarching rules (in case you hadn’t received specific instructions), like if you lost someone, you were always supposed to go back to the last place you saw them.  Then they would look for you there, too, and you would find each other.

Once when Pete and I were maybe 10 and 12, we were planning a family trip to New York City because my dad was going to a conference there.  My mom grew up in Upstate New York and has lots of memories (both positive and negative) of trips to the city with her family.  I think it’s safe to say that she was terrified of losing us the city, because she informed us that she would be looking into purchasing a couple of those plastic leashes parents used for their toddlers that looked like brightly colored telephone cords.  Does anyone else remember those?  I’m so glad the internet didn’t exist then, because that link was REALLY easy to find.  Anyway, Pete and I were obviously way too old to wear anything like that, and we told her so.  Although I think the real reason we didn’t end up wearing them was because she couldn’t find any.  Probably because they only sold them at STORES FOR PARENTS OF TODDLERS.

Although I haven’t had kids yet, I definitely worry about losing people in crowds.  I can think of two times I’ve gone absolutely ballistic when my friends didn’t have the same understanding of exactly what you’re supposed to do if you get separated in an unfamiliar place.  Once was on a school trip to Washington, D.C. in High School, before cell phones were part of our lives.  The worst, though, was when I went to Cabo San Lucas with a couple girl friends for Spring Break my senior year of college and lost my friend Casey in a huge bar full of people.  She had run into a guy that worked at our hotel who we had befriended and stopped to chat with him.  When we finally reconnected, I was so shaken I had tears in my eyes and Casey couldn’t figure out what was going on.  She must have thought I was absolutely nuts – we were probably only separated for a minute or two – but in my mind, it had been forever.  I was so upset I thought about going home for the night, but luckily she convinced me to stay.

2. Strangers who don’t know the password.  I don’t know how else to sum this one up in a sentence.  We always had a password that could be used in lots of ways.  If a stranger knocked on the door and we were home alone, we could ask them for the password.  If they didn’t know it, we didn’t have to answer the door.  If someone offered us a ride home from school and they didn’t know the password, we wouldn’t get in their car.  Of course, I can’t remember using this password in a circumstance like this, ever.  But it was a comforting thing to have.  Eventually the password was extended to mean “I want to tell you something but I can’t talk about it right now.”  For instance, if I was at a friend’s house and that friend asked me to spend the night, I could call my mom and ask if I could stay, then say the password* on the phone.  That way my mom would know that I had been invited but I didn’t really want to stay, so she would make up an excuse or a fake reason that I needed to come home.  Now that I think about this, I really need to make some more passwords with my friends.  I take it back.  You had this one right, mom.

3. Driving behind logging trucks.  One time, my mom told me she’d always hated driving behind logging trucks because she imagined the logs sliding off the back and hitting her car.  Just by telling me this fact, she instilled in me the same terror.  Galen has even explained to me all the different ways the logs are secured and strapped down on a truck and I’ll still change lanes as fast as I possibly can if I’m stuck behind one.

So, if the pattern continues, my kids will probably be afraid of all these things, plus spiders and going fast in boats.  Heaven help them.

*And no, I will not publish the password online.  Are you nuts?

Things they’ve probably heard from my apartment in the past week:

• NPR from the shower radio at different times every day, depending on my class (and shower) schedule.
• What can only be described as “psyching myself up” in the morning.  It has come to my attention that I say things like, “Okay, here we go.” and “C’mon Megan, get in the shower.” and “well, I guess I’m not wearing that” as I’m getting ready in the morning, by myself.
• Really bizarre musical choices.  Sunday it was musical soundtracks, today it was Usher’s My Way album (circa 1998).  Who knows what’s next?  Also, I sing along.
• I never realized until this week that I have a tendency to finish thoughts out loud.  I will have entire conversations with myself in my head (silently) and then at the end say (out loud), “Well, there you have it.”  Or I’ll search my apartment up and down for the shoes I want to wear and then when I find them but they have a bunch of mud on the bottom I’ll say, “OR… not.” out loud.
• Lots of laughing at the TV or the internet.

And I thought the guy on the other side of me who vacuums every day was weird.

However, sometimes I just can’t keep a lid on it. When politicians make up words or a coworker says “Me and Leah went to lunch,” I cringe.

The other thing is that certain parts of language tend to evolve “incorrectly.” For instance, I’ve always been kind of a nazi about the word “recur.” Whenever someone says “It’s a reoccurring theme…” it takes everything in me not to jump up and yell “RECURRING! It’s a recurring theme!” But recently, I’ve noticed that the word “reoccurring” is in the Microsoft Word dictionary. If you type it in a Word doc, that damn paperclip won’t say a single thing – it just sits there, blinking at you. I can only assume that the word has been used so many times in speech, it’s become acceptable. Similarly, I saw a credit card ad online a year or two ago that actually used the word “alot” and I almost fell off my chair. (On that note, everyone should go check out this rad cartoon about alots).

And in some cases, I’m totally on board with the evolutionary system. For instance, in What Color is Your Parachute, a book I’m embarrassed to say I read, the author has a section in the preface where he discusses the use of “apparently plural pronouns” such as “they,” “them” and “their” instead of the singular he/she. He gives the example of the sign at the beach that says, “Anyone using this beach after 5 p.m. does so at their own risk.” I think anyone would agree that replacing “their” with “his or her” is just awkward and clunky. He argues that in the history of the English language, there was a time when “they,” “them” and “their” could be used in both singular and plural situations, but that changed, “at a time in English history when agreement in number became more important than agreement as to sexual gender. Today however, our priorities have shifted once again. Now the distinguishing of sexual gender is considered by many to be more important than agreement in number.” I totally agree.

I also think words like “funner” and “fishes” should be allowed to pass. But then who’s to say “irregardless” shouldn’t? (Besides me?)

And I often end sentences with prepositions when it would only make me sound stuck up or ridiculous to change them. As Winston Churchill supposedly said, “This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.”

The point of all of this is that I can be a snob sometimes, even though I try hard not to be. And this will be one of those times.

THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

To Whom it May Concern;

1. Pulitzer was a man’s last name. That man pronounced it “PULL-it-sir.”
2. Nuclear refers to the nucleus of an atom. Say it with me, “NOO-klee-er” and “NOO-klee-us.”
3. The thing in your throat is called a larynx. “LAIR-inks.” It has a sibling, the pharynx (“FAIR-inks”) and a cousin named phalanx (“FAY-lanks”). Please note none of these rhyme with “Stevie Nicks.”

Also, Tupac is dead and Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

That is all.

That’s why these last few weeks and months have been particularly difficult for me – I’ve had Big News in my life that I couldn’t share on my blog. You may have noticed I haven’t been posting very often? It’s been really hard for me to write about things OTHER than the Big News that’s been on my mind.

So here it is: I’m quitting my job and going back to school.

After lots of soul-searching, trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, I discovered Speech Pathology. It incorporates so many things that interest me – working with kids, linguistics, early childhood development, foreign languages – and also offers lots of different career opportunities. I’m particularly interested in working at a school with young kids, which also means summers off!

I know that life seldom goes as planned, and I’m not saying that this is FOR SURE the thing I’m going to be doing for the rest of my life (because who knows anything for sure?), but it feels like the best thing for me to be doing right now. And any step in the right direction is positive. So why not go for something that I find so interesting and exciting?

There are prerequisites for the SLP master’s program that I don’t have, so I’ll be spending the next year working on those. And applying for grad school. And taking the GRE. And trying to figure out how to live off student loans.

And then I’ll get to be a graduate student!

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

The email then asked you to write your life story in six words and pass it on. At the time I figured mine would be something like, “I can’t say no to fun.” or “Life is fantastic. I’m loving it.”  I didn’t think about it long before deleting the email.

However, just now, approximately five-to-seven years later, I decided what mine would be:

“I was going to, but then…”

Editor’s note: If you are cranky right now and/or don’t want to hear me gush about my fabulous boyfriend and wonderful life, do not read on. Go here instead. (Not that I’m judging you. I’ve totally been there. I just wanted to give you a snarkier option). You’ve been warned.

Last weekend, my cousin Kevin, his wife Jen and their daughter Molly were in town (blog post coming soon). At dinner Saturday night, Kev said that he and Jen like to play this game where they imagine what they would do if they won $50 million (or some other astronomical amount of money). He asked me what I would do. I said I would buy a house in Missoula, buy a cabin at Flathead Lake, buy (or build) a house at Waterton big enough for my whole extended family to stay in, and quit my job. Not because I don’t want to work, but because I’d like to do something different and work less but pesky things like rent, bills, car payments, and health insurance keep me working full time.

Later on, after dinner, I asked Galen what he would do. And you know what he said? He wouldn’t really change a thing. How awesome is that? He is actually so happy with his life that he wouldn’t change anything if he had all the money in the world.

And although I am totally happy with my life, too, and wouldn’t change anything (unless I won $50 million), I still like to dream. So I said, “You wouldn’t even buy a jet to fly back and forth between Umatilla and Portland?” And he smiled.