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The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?

10/30/2014

I remember hitting him in the face with my elbow. I remember cradling his face, apologizing, laughing. I remember the buttons on the back of my dress coming apart, the two of us conspiring to hide the holes. I remember him asking me to choreograph something, I remember my refusal, because it would make it unnatural, unreal.

Since then he's reminded me that everything is unreal, and nothing is unreal. Since then I've learned that everything is what we make it. If we keep trying, we can't fail. And planned or not, it's real.

(Happy anniversary, dear!)

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See You Soon . . . On Some Planet or Moon!

10/23/2014

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Skip to 1:49, go until 2:52.

So any time someone says, "See you soon," my automatic response is, "On some planet or moon!"

If you have ever said "see you soon" to me, you know what I'm talking about. If you've ever wondered why, here's the reason:

My mother is an excellent mom. I know this because she only bought me educational computer games. These games included such classics as "Oregon Trail," reading games like "A Day at the Beach," and basically anything by Knowledge Adventure. And at the top of that list in terms of things that have stayed with me over the years is "The Magic School Bus Explores the Solar System."

I pretty much learned nothing about the solar system that I didn't learn again a few years later from "Interplanet Janet." I did fall in love with Pluto, which then inevitably broke my heart later. But above everything, I remember the empty space. The stars, the blinded blackness. And Miss Frizzle's voice.

Of course, it's only fitting that all these years later I work at a NASA center.

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Kerri Strug, Pancakes, and Six-Year-Olds

10/16/2014

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Kerri Strug's 1996 Olympic second vault. Probably the most badass vault in Olympic history (the only other one that comes close is Mikayla Maroney's in the 2012 Olympic trials). I get so excited talking about this vault because every time I watch it I feel like I was actually there, even though I certainly wasn't. I was about 6 years old at the point, and my favorite book was Teddy Slater's Junior Gymnasts: Katie's Big Move, and I knew virtually nothing about the Olympics except that I liked to watch the gymnastics and ice skating.

This was probably around the same time that I had this dream that still sticks with me today: I call it "The Last Pancake and the Icy Floor" (yes, I titled my dream--partially because I tried to turn it into a play and put it on with my friends at school and church, most of whom were reluctantly recruited by overexcited six-year-old aspiring-playwright me--but also because this is me and I title my dreams, apparently). I start off on a raised platform at the top of a dark warehouse-like room with animatronic porcelain clowns everywhere and nowhere to go but down. Somehow, I swung across and managed to get to the open door across the room, finally dropping to the ground in relief, shutting the door and the clowns behind me.

But then there was a new challenge, possibly even more significant than the last: a single pancake on a plate.

Yes, folks. A pancake.

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The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?

See You Soon . . . On Some Planet or Moon!

Kerri Strug, Pancakes, and Six-Year-Olds

PART OF THIS COMPLETE BREAKFAST

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