Shoelaces for Josie

Sometimes 25 things is a little. Like 25 feathers. 25 strands of hair. 25 kernels of corn. 25 pieces of dirt. What can you build with 25 pieces of dirt?

And sometimes 25 things just feel weird. Like wearing 25 pairs of long johns at once. Dating 25 guys at the same time. Blowing your nose with 25 tissues in your hand. 25 years of living and breathing and being.

Yep, today I turned 25 years old – celebrating a quarter century of redheaded Erica-ness swirled down the drain. And it feels weird, watching the last bits of number 24 slip down the drain with number 25 taking its place. It’s weird that 25 should be any different than 24, but it is. All my high school classmates are getting married and having kids, advancing their careers and buying homes. It’s weird that, as kids in high school and just out of college, we set goals and milestones. Why do we do that? Life is going to step in and have its way with those milestones and goals, to heck with all your carefully laid plans. It’s weird, 25 is just weird.

It doesn’t help that I think birthdays are kinda dumb. They set you up for failure. No matter how old we get, it’s ingrained in us – at least at some very small level – that something special is supposed to happen on this day. But every year older we get, the more likely something special is not going to happen. Indeed, the likelihood of something unspecial happening hikes its pants up to Steve Urkel heights.

Without even trying, we set ourselves up for disappointment at the very best and hurt, pain and sadness at the worst. It’s why I don’t like expectations. Far too often, they end in a puddle of crap on the floor.

*I should maybe take this moment to say I’m not a very big birthday person. Maybe I was born that way, although I suspect there’s a very healthy dose of upbringing thrown into this particular equation.*

In the absence of having anything else to say, I’ll leave you with my favorite birthday quote of the quarter century:

But you don’t want the movie either, because when you bought it, you purchased it with some vague, shadowy person to be gifted in mind instead of yourself. So right, after I got past that, I walked back through the movies to find one or eight for myself because I need entertainment in the evenings. And, dude, like, totally not that type of entertainment. Just some good old Swiss Family Robinson and Little House on the Prairie home-style fun.

And then I’m just standing there in the middle of the aisle, because I see other people that stand in the middle of aisles all the time. So I think maybe there’s something to being in everyone else’s way and that maybe I ought to give it a try. Right when I’m in the middle of being in everyone else’s way, some lady’s voice comes over the intercom and flatly says, “Cancel Christmas.”

That’s it. Just…”Cancel Christmas” like she was canceling an extra order of underwear because she found the package she bought three years ago that got shoved to the back of the drawer. Seriously. I mean, who did she think she was anyway? It’s not like she killed the dream of Santa Claus. Canceling Christmas is so much bigger than that. It’s killing the dream of Santy, all the reindeer and the elves. And the Abominable Snowman. And the entire North Pole melting in three hours, and who can handle the shock of that? The entire slate of our world’s “leaders” can’t figure out how to handle the polar caps melting at the rate of what, like, eight chunks of ice per 9.2347 days? It would take a lot more than two weeks of meetings in a place that makes me think of round tins and spittoons if the North Pole melted in three hours.

But you know what the real blow was? I always thought Scrooge was a man. My whole life, I thought the ultimate canceler of Christmas was like, you know, a man with all the man parts and a man voice and a pair of man shoes.

Honorable Mentionables: Eat an entire package of oreos in one day. Dress completely in the same color for all articles of clothing once a month. Play shuffleboard. Buy all the toilet paper in a store and then watch everyone’s reaction when they find that section empty. Learn to speak dog. Lengthen my wingspan by two inches. Meet a sumo wrestler. Make a cardboard cut-out of John Wayne and take him clubbin’ at Applebee’s.

10. Spend my doll-hairs wisely. It’s funny to me that people think the recession is over. Like it’s a bad toothache and the Novocain made all the pain disappear. Even if it is over, inflation will be hot on its heels. I’m good with my doll-hairs, but I think sometimes I can get a little lax with where I’m putting my spending power. That’s kind of a grown-up thing to say. It’s a stodgy, curtain-print old-lady dress type of grown-up thing to say, but this year, I want to make sure I’m not being a floozy with my pennies.

9. Visit seven places I’ve never been. I like to see new places and experience new things. Something about stepping into a different vehicle or a different town or a different mountain satisfies the wanderlust in me. It forces me to adapt, to think on my feet. It allows me to drink in all the new sounds and sights, broadening my view just a few inches more. I don’t know where I’ll go, who I’ll meet or what I’ll see. Maybe it’ll be something like Alaska or maybe if I think really big, it’ll be Ireland or Australia. But it could be something commonly ordinary like shopping at a different grocery store, stepping into that corner pub or hiking a new trail. This year, I want to see something new, hear something new, feel something new.

8. Be a good dog mom. You know, I call Doc my kid a lot on here, and he is. But I’m not fanatical about him. He doesn’t wear sweaters or eat out of a porcelain dish or sleep on the bed – crikes, he doesn’t even sleep in the house! I like my dog, but he’s just a dog. He’s not a human kid or a gunnysack of gold or a year’s supply of homemade soap, just a dog. But even though he’s just a dog, I want him to be a happy dog. A dog who gets a lot of exercise both physically and mentally. A dog who is well trained, respects me and loves me. Dogs like that don’t just happen; they take work. This year, I want to be dedicated enough to my kid to be a good dog mom and help him become the dog I know he can be.

7. Chill. The. Heck. Out. My head gets crazy full what with all the thoughts mashed around the brain tissue and…the cerebrum. And sometimes I think too much, worry too much, feel too much…dude, I know. Totally annoying. And useless! All that brain power churning through cell after cell only to conclude that yes, I should indeed put the mixing bowls on the second shelf instead of the first. This year, I want to remember that this is life, chill the heck out and enjoy it.

6. Tick off the second anniversary at the ole jobsky. Partly because a steady paycheck makes paying bills a lot easier. Partly because I don’t know what I would do with myself if I didn’t have a job other than potentially pursue my childhood desire of becoming a cheese-maker. But mostly I’d like to mark off that date to prove to myself that I can stay in one place for more than a year and be okay.

5. Write. More. Lots more. I’m not sure I’m really all that gifted in writing or putting together words in a way that makes others want to read them. I’m not sure I’m really all that great at coming up with stories and funny quotes and breath-catching poems. But when I write, I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. And when I write something that I like, well, it makes me happy. Not the bubbly-three screams-extra cheese-double coupon type of happy, but…restful happy. Peaceful happy. The type of happy I think we all hope to find and hang on to. So this year, I want to write. More. Lots more.

4. Learn something new, step outside my comfort zone. I’m quick to dismiss something simply because I don’t know how to do it or how to handle it. Mostly that’s the result of my apathy towards stepping outside my comfort zone. A comfort zone is like going bowling with the gutter bumpers in place – you can’t fail. But when I’m learning something new, I feel stretched. I feel on the edge, because I’m headed into uncharted territory. It’s a mini Lewis and Clark expedition, and this year, I want to put on my coonskin cap and take a lot of mini expeditions into the wild frontier known as Things I Don’t Know But Am Willing To Try (TIDKBAWTT).

3. Less material more meaning. When I was a girl, mom tried to teach me to sew. Even back then I knew the less material, the less complicated it was going to be and I think the same thing goes for my life. Materialistic things – they are nice and I’m not against them. I certainly like my coffee pot and my computer. I’d enjoy the heck out of a new flat screen television, a pair of diamond earrings or something like, say, a truck. But these things, they are merely things and when I think about what makes me giddily happy inside, none of them can be bought with a dollar. Or a fist full of dollars. This year, I want to fill my hours with more meaning and less material.

2. Stop, drop and roll around in the flowers. I get a little crazy sometimes, a little nuts-o in the head. Sometimes, a lot of the time, I get so focused on the destination that I miss out on the journey. Like long road trips – it’s pedal to the floor and eyes on the horizon with stops allowed only for gas. If you’re going to ride with me, you better learn to either hold it, expand your bladder or get really good really quickly at peeing in a bottle. Roadtrips are supposed to be about seeing what’s out there. Is there really anything so terribly urgent that I can’t take 30 minutes to see something really cool? And I do that with more than just roadtrips. I do it with life too. So this year, I want to remember to take the time to stop, drop and roll around in the flowers and enjoy the journey.

13. Traveling to North Dakota. Twice. In two weeks. It’s not every day you get used in an illustration of getting snockered on jaeger within two minutes of meeting someone. In a business setting. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that 2009 was the only year in my life that ever happens to me.

12. The year I didn’t die from the swine flu. It was everywhere, this swine flu business – the great outbreak of H1N1 – and I survived 2009 without contracting the disease.

11. Gapingvoid.com. This website makes me laugh. Maybe it’s a little ridiculous that a website made my Baker’s Dozen, but I’m a bit of a ridiculous person. It’s three parts funny, seven parts politically incorrect and 18 parts really stinkin’ good. I love it. Even though I discovered it in 2009, I think it’ll still make me laugh in the years to come.

10. Life sans microwave. I don’t have a microwave. Well, I do, but it’s in the box in the center of my living room serving as a coffee table. I don’t have a microwave for the purpose that most people own a microwave. This is by choice. And you know what? I haven’t missed it. Not really. My counter is happier with the extra space. The very nearly buried health bugger dude way down deep inside of me is happy that I’m not eating over-processed, under-nutritional microwaveable food. And I’m happy that I have something to set my glass of water on in the living room, even if it is a microwave. In 2009, I fully came to appreciate the fact that things we view as necessities aren’t really, ya know, necessarily necessary.

9. Driving 28 hours straight. To Iowa. And then making the same 1,700 mile trek back a week later. This would go into the “ugly” category. I never want to drive it like that again. In fact, it’s going to be a few years before I can convince myself to drive it at all. Did you know? I almost turned around once on the drive to Iowa. I was in Lewiston – I’d gone a whole 40 minutes from my house. I wished every five minutes for the next 27 hours that I’d wimped out, but in 2009, White Flash and I outraced a big winter storm halfway across the United States.

8. Student loans DIE. I put together momma dollar and papa dollar and tried to make them have babies. I even gave them baby-making drugs and a nice bed. When that didn’t work, I decided to roll another year with White Flash and push my funds toward paying off my student loan debt. Now I can find something else to go into debt on, but in 2009 the evil money-sucking hair-clogged drain of cruddiness known as student loan debt lost the battle…hold on to your britches as I take my victory lap in White Flash.

7. Palouse Falls. I kept thinking I’d made a wrong turn when I was trying to find the Palouse Falls. The prairie looked just as flat as could be. But then a gorge opened up in front of me and what beautiful falls! And I’ve seen Niagra so I’m allowed to say that. I was impressed. Awed even. In 2009, I was struck to silence by the majesty of nature.

6. Hell’s Canyon. Twice – once in February and again in May. Glory be the beauty of that country! I wish I could describe the view looking out over Hell’s Canyon in the early morning sunshine. I wish I could paint a picture of words. I wish…and of course, it was the time of Gus, The Salesman and Carhartt. And, in 2009, I was reminded that sometimes strangers can be friends you just haven’t met yet.

5. Shoelaces moved to its own domain. The year 2009 was the third year Shoelaces had been in existence. It was also the year I decided it deserved its very own home so I bought it a domain and a hosted area on the BIL’s server. It was a move – a move that still isn’t complete since the entire 2008 archive still isn’t housed here, but it’s kind of like buying…shoes. Your feet need a home so you buy them shoes. Sometimes those shoes wear out, and you have to buy them a new pair. So in 2009, I bought Shoelaces a new pair of shoes.

4. Moving back to the country. I found a country rental in the spring of this year. Two weeks later, I moved in. It’s not a mansion. It’s not a textured walls, master bedroom, arched doorways or immaculate siding type of home. But it’s surrounded by fields and the hills. I can hear the birds early in the spring mornings and watch the sun rise over the butte. And the stars – I can throw my head back and watch the stars. I can grab an old quilt and hike up the hill to lie flat and stare at them for hours. This country rental – it is not a mansion, but it is in the country; I wouldn’t trade it for the classiest Victorian on the biggest corner lot. In 2009, I fell in love with the country all over again.

3. Nick’s book. Memorials are important to me. Sort of. They’re important to me when I make them that way, and Nick’s? His was important. So when the box filled with his book, Running with Nick, landed on my doorstep – well – it was a moment memorable enough to make the Baker’s Dozen. The moment I held that book in my hand I knew there couldn’t have been a better way to have such a man remembered; I was deeply honored to be a part of it even though 2009 marked the one year anniversary of his absence.

2. Cousin changed her last name. She put on a white dress, walked down an aisle and *gasp* held hands with a boy. When she walked back up the aisle she had a different last name and a really big smile on her face. And I was there. I carved out pumpkins and made cheesecake and said all the right things in all the right places. In 2009, I supported my best friend and helped her through the door into the next stage of her life.

I’d forgotten a little about ice. Not really, because it’s what I grew up with, but ice? Ice caused me to put the ditch in the car – rather the car in the ditch – for the very first time. Ice caused a lot of dark nights, walking around with candles. Ice caused a lot of butt-meets-ground episodes. Ice is a whole different animal from snow, and it’s an animal I don’t like very much. It also screws up the radio reception. What is a person supposed to do when you can’t huddle around the radio?

Alright then. I think I’m going to go…put on an apron and make some bread now or get out the washboard and scrub some clothes. Maybe I’ll even churn some butter or go shoot me a squirrel for supper with my dad’s muzzle-loader.

As for me? This Christmas I am in Iowa. Yes, the Iowa of the state fair. The Iowa of corn. The Iowa of hogs. The Iowa that is located smack dab in the middle of the United States. The Iowa of my childhood. Despite being the smallest in my family, I am managing to snag my fair share of the holiday goodies – mostly because I can talk fast. And because I have a wicked right hook.

But Christmas Eve? It’s the night before – well – Christmas, obviously. But it’s also the night that some people hold their Christmas celebrations, the night “Santa” supposedly drops the gifts off around the world (I’m really sorry if some small child is reading this, but the quotes around Santa mean “Santa” isn’t real. Seriously, anyone who supposedly lives on the North Pole is either fictionary or totally crazy.)

Christmas Eve is the night you make a mad dash to finish up your shopping, gift-making and gift-wrapping. It is the night kids have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. It is the night adults don’t get enough sleep. It is the night before a day of dinners and family gatherings and family disturbances. It is the night of Christmas Eve – where many businesses close early, even if they’re not supposed to. (Trust me, I know!) It is the night a lot of folks go to Christmas Eve services. It is the night of the 24th, right before the day of the 25th, as hard as that is to believe.