The Only Thing Better Than You Is Me

My best guy friend in the whole world is a Sag.

That's us on the left. I can't even talk about the kid with the shirt stains!

It's both a blessing and a curse. I love him so deeply because all of my good qualities reflect right back at me. And I could slap the shit out of him at any moment because he always follows up the right thing to say with something completely ridiculous and outlandish.

Example: "J-Bird, I don't know why you don't have a boyfriend. I mean, you're so pretty, you can lose the weight!".

Do you see it? The place where he should have stopped. I see it. He's the Santino of my life. And I've stopped glazing over every time he goes too far because I realize that even though he said exactly what he meant, he didn't mean it the way I heard it. In the example above, when I asked him for clarification he said, "Just thank God you're not ugly! We can't fix that. Like if you were hit in the face? Nothing we could do".

Now, I laugh when he gets word vomit because it's hella funny. Plus, I'm one of three people that gets his jokes. I know when he's sad and make sure to say just enough to nudge him out of his funk. I mean, he's a Sag so I know he'll come out eventually but it always helps to know you've got support in your latest excursion.

He's also my travel buddy. We hit a rough patch when he went to Mykonos 5 months early and without me. I jumped so far up his ass he tasted my toe jam for a week! But then I realized that he'd just gotten the bug and he had the funds and most importantly, I probably would've done the same thing to him. It's not like Greece is going anywhere, right? So we had lunch and I paid and he knew I was sorry and I knew he was sorry and we went right back to the way things were.

That's the other thing. He totally gets my need for space. He's never hurt (for long) when I don't want to do something or go somewhere. He knows when to keep his mouth shut about my boys. And he's never yelled at me for chasing away his girls. Probably because he knows, deep down, that if she were meant to stay I wouldn't be able to scare her away so easily.

And I'm pretty sure that ALL OF THAT is why Nat thinks we'd be so perfect for each other. She's been pressing me for years to get with The Sag. And by "pressing", I mean that once a year, usually around our birthdays (because I'm 4 days older than him) she'll say, "So what are you and The Sag doing to celebrate?". I'll tell her our plans and she gets this shit-eating grin on her face that exudes the confidence that this will be the year that her big sis gets her mind right and marries the man that's just like her so she can be the cool Aunt already. But she's always wrong.

The love I have for The Sag is completely platonic. We met in a call center during the time in my life when I worked two jobs and went to school part time. He sat a whole two rows over, by himself, everyday, because he was the last from the mid-shift to leave. So for two hours after I'd get to work, he'd be in a row all alone staring out the window. And he's too fine for that. I held a mini-summit with my row and we decided to invite him over but I had to be the one to do it. It went like this:

Me: "Hey."
The Sag: "Hey."
Me: "D in my row wants to know if you date black women."
The Sag: "What?"
Me: "She thinks you're cute and if you promise not to make this awkward you can sit with us instead of by yourself for two hours every night."
The Sag: "But only because she thinks I'm cute?"
Me: "Well, it's not like we know you! You could have a horrible personality!"
The Sag: ...
Me: "Are you coming or not?"
The Sag: "Yeah. Just let me take this call."
Me: "Cool."
The Sag: "Hey?"
Me: "Yeah?"
The Sag: "I don't like D, I like L"
Me: "Whuh? Ew! You don't want her! She's hott and all but her boyfriend's a douche and she's gonna marry him anyway because he's rich. I already know you're better than that."
The Sag: "Damn."
Me: "You still coming over?"
The Sag: "Yeah." *kanye shrug* "Why not?"

See? It's a beautiful story. I will say that they year we turned 23, Nat had gotten all in my head and tequila was all in my blood stream so I thought maybe, juuuust maybe, The Sag and I could make this work. I was drunk, he was drunk, and my room was clean so I said "Let's do this!". And then he responded, "Do what?". And I was all drunk sexy and he took his shirt off and I was like "You have a fur coat! Bahahahahahhaa!". Which by the way, did you know that men with body hair are totally self-concious about it?

Anyway, he admitted that he was a virgin, I buckled under that kind of pressure, and we fell asleep laying the wrong way across my bed, over the covers, with him rubbing my back while I dry heaved. No one should start a romantic relationship on that kind of romance so we just let it be. We've never actually talked about that night and I think it's better that way. There's no underlying tensionn from it because we didn't make what would have been a major mistake.

We get to love each other in our own way and it's working for us. At least until he asked me to dinner, took me to my favorite restaurant, and said he wanted to talk...

Cedar Point

Yesterday, I took a mental vacation... to Cedar Point! Whoot! (insert photo of entrance gate that I forgot to take).

The day started off simple enough. We were running late. Me by just 12 minutes but when you're wrangling three kids, 12 minutes easily turns into 86 and thus we hit the road when theoretically we should have been half way there. A quick breakfast stop at Burger King resulted in Mom offending the cashier,

Uppity Mom voice: "What township are we in?"
Cashier: "You're in the city of B-ville."

3 little people taking four days to try to pee, 2 cups of coffee for Mom (one with a gnat on the inside of the lid), and more hashbrowns than a 5-lb bag of potatoes could make.

Once on the road again, the boredom set in for the Three Musketeers:

Ms. Gotoh
April

Rebecca


But we made it there without incident; you can't ask for more than that.

At first, there would be no riding of anything that contained:

1. heights
2. upside-down
3. loop-dee-loops
4. or dangling feet

I was exhausted with urging them to get on something so I ran to the Wicked Twister and boy was it worth it! After seeing me have so much fun (and nearly lose my weave) they decided to try the Troika. From there they were hooked.

By the time the sun began to set, Mom and I were simply there to hold their stuff while they rode everything they were tall enough to get on. We had to impose a rule that they could only get on each ride three times before we would move on to something new. It was fun to watch them grow in courage. Because when I tried to convince them to get on this

I was rebuffed with how "babyish" that ride was. It only goes 2 miles an hour, for goodness sake!

To end the day, we all had these Big Ol' Sno Cones

(Mom will kill me for posting this, but it's too funny not to!)

and mine ended up in a cup.

All in all, I wouldn't have traded yesterday for all the money in the world.

My advice to all of you thrill seekers:

Saturdays are for suckers; Wednesday is where its at!

Sharing vs. Gloating: Where's the Line?

Over the past few years that I've been reconnecting with my father, I never truly opened up to him. I talked to him about inane things like work, boys, Mom, but never anything that matters. And so on his visit here last week, I took the opportunity that fate had provided me. I showed him everything. *

*Except for my cheerleading video and the 6th grade school picture. Those have been mysteriously misplaced.

It wasn't something that I wanted to do; it's something Mom wanted to do. (Dad and I were bored to tears one day and it turns out Mom was off work and I did what I always do... go to her house).

The three of us are sitting in her basement and then she just bolts up and away up the stairs. When she came back with three humongous photo albums and a box of miscellaneous items, I knew I was in trouble. She laid the first book on his lap and that's when the memories started pouring out.

It was weird having to tell my dad about my life.

I felt like he was supposed to know that my cheer squad went to Nationals, that I was such a bad volleyball player that I was the only Junior on the JV team, and that soccer was more of a chore than a hobby. I couldn't help myself from grabbing the 24" x 36" portrait of my Senior photo. That picture is my pride and joy. It's the prettiest I've ever felt and I wanted him to see me that way.

I couldn't stop rambling about my debate and speech trophies. Or showing him the trips I went on with the OFEA (Ohio Future Educators of America) and the Recycling Club (I'm such a dork!). Or how I was an editor of "The Matrix" a.k.a. The Coolest High School Literary Magazine This Side of the Mississippi, Sucka!

It wasn't until we got to the bottom of the box of trophies that I realized that he hadn't made a sound. Not one.

He didn't ask one question.

He didn't comment on one picture.

And even though Mom didn't say anything either, I knew she had picked up on it, too.

I was disheartened to say the least. I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted him to fawn over my accomplishments. I wanted him to look into the face of a Salutatorian who was granted a Presidential Scholarship and tell her that he was proud. I wanted him to at least pretend like he gave a damn.

The realization that his approval was not forthcoming hurt me to the core.
I didn't do these things for him, I did them for me. But what would it hurt for him to notice, right?

This is where I have trouble drawing the line. Because even though I knew I wasn't getting a reaction from him, I didn't stop. I kept telling him about my adventures to other countries and my dreams for bigger places. The verbal diarrhea was overwhelming but I didn't care.

It stopped being about sharing my past with him and started being about every father-daughter dance, every boy who broke my heart, every argument I had with Mom, every game he didn't attend, every phone call he didn't make, and the day I finally called him. I had turned it into a contrived effort to force him in to wanting to stick around for my future. Even when I could see the sadness in his face I didn't stop. I didn't stop because I didn't care.

I love my dad. I really do. But there are some deep-seated issues that need to be resolved and until they are, I'm not sure I'll ever give a damn about how he feels because for so many years, he didn't give a damn about me.