Yet, here I am, waiting for my sandless refinishing guy to call me back because last night I got a text from Erin saying that I could be her plus one to the Duran Duran show on Wednesday if I could get to California quickly.

I can.

I remember one summer (and Alison can confirm this) back in the days when we still held the tape recorder up to the radio to record music where I made an entire tape that consisted of the same two songs over and over. Those songs were “Our House” by Madness and “Is There Something I Should Know” by Duran Duran.

When we had to pick an instrument in 5th grade for band I chose the saxophone because of “Rio”.

In 6th grade, my friend Angela and I would buy Teen Beat and Tiger beat and Bop magazine and I plastered my bedroom walls with pictures of Duran Duran. I even wrote out every lyric to every one of their songs on pink construction paper (they only had three albums out at the time) and posted those above my window. No other bands were represented. Duran Duran was the only band that mattered.

Even in high school when most of the magazine pictures were replaced with Mötley Crüe and Ratt posters (shut up Ben) I still kept one John Taylor cut out  (in his Antony Price suit and fedora) on the wall.

But somehow I never got to see Duran Duran live.

There are a couple of bands that I really regret not seeing. Nirvana, Paul McCartney, The Police, Iron Maiden and of course Duran Duran. When Duran Duran announced this latest tour I was really bummed that there was no D.C. date. I was beginning to resign myself to the fact that maybe it just wasn’t going to happen.

This blogging thing has presented me with some truly amazing opportunities. If it weren’t for Sarah and the Goon Squad I never would have driven across the country, attended the WNBA Draft, been in the photo pit at a music festival, done charity work with Top Chef contestants or ridden in the Weinermobile. Now I get to see Duran Duran.

Photo by Laurie White

It is, after all, my year of jubilee.

I have this very vivid memory of standing in the parking lot with my friend Melissa and she was complaining about how she couldn’t quite sing this particular passage as well as the woman on the CD. She was really frustrated. She was one of the best singers at our university and she just couldn’t get the breath control or the tone that she was hearing. I looked at her CD (yeah, this was way back in the 90s when we actually bought compact discs and carried them around with us.) and I said “Well maybe the problem is that the woman on this recording is Kiri Te Kanawa. Nobody can sing like her.”

At some point we had stopped comparing ourselves to other 19 year olds and started comparing ourselves to a 45-year-old professional opera singer who had been knighted (or damed, or whatever you call it when it happens to a woman) for exceptional singing. Melissa was trying to figure out why she, at 19 years old, could not make the same music as a woman who sang at Prince Charles and Lady Diana’s wedding.

If you ever studied vocal pedagogy you know that a woman’s voice does not hit full maturity until she is in her thirties or sometimes even her forties, and don’t even start with me about that little girl from Pittsburgh. What is her name? Jackie Evancho? Yeah, that just isn’t right. She shouldn’t be able to sing like that at 10. Something is wrong there, and I don’t mean she is a savant, I mean she needs to see a doctor because she should not medically be able to make those sounds at her age. Her vocal chords should not be able to do that yet.

Thinking about what you are actually putting yourself up against can really help put some things in perspective.

I was thinking about that because I read this and this.

It was based on the same writing prompt as I had when I buried a paragraph about hating my belly in another post.

I have been taking my 30 days of truth and writing 10th grade essays about what I need to forgive myself for and other people – my friends! – are writing stories. They are creating art.

I started to feel bad about myself and my skill or lack thereof when I remembered that day in the parking lot. Maybe it isn’t that I’m not good. Maybe it is that I have reached a new place, the level where I am holding myself to a higher standard. Maybe it is that I am finally confident enough to think that I should be able to do what I do that well.  Yes, Laurie and Christine are better writers than I am, but I can legitimately call them my peers. Five years ago I could never have done that.

Melissa couldn’t sing like Kiri then, but today she is 36 and you should hear her now. She is a professional opera singer.

And I am a writer.

[photo by Laurie White]

Even if you don’t like sports, this site will crack you up.

Please do yourself (and me) a favor and go check it out.

My other friend Jean, you might know her as Stimey, had a fabulous idea. We all want to support Susan, but we don’t want to dwell on her illness. Since Susan is a scientist, Jean thought that we should have a virtual science fair in her honor.

I jumped at the chance to honor Susan, then in typical Sarah fashion I procrastinated all week, then panicked because science is not my strong suit.

I am a writer and a musician for a reason, people.

But! It turns out that we did science accidentally. It wasn’t so much a science project, as our hypothesis would have to be something like “Tomatoes and peppers may grow in our side yard if we plant them.” but it was an experiment as we’ve never tried to grow anything in this particular flower bed before.

Behold:

My kids told their grandparents that we are farmers.

And of course these three did most of the dirty work.

What? Somebody had to take pictures with their cell phone. (Did I tell you that Nikon finally made me return Precious?)

Science is all fun and games until somebody gets very tired and her Dad touches her with his dirty hand.

My prediction is that we will grow tomatoes and they will taste better than the ones at the grocery store and I will save money on my salads and fajitas.

Ian’s prediction is that deer will come to our house and eat our vegetables.

Gabe’s prediction  is that Ian will sneak out in the middle of the night, eat all of the tomatoes and blame rogue deer.

Claudia was ignoring me when I asked for input.

* * *

We love you, Susan. Thanks for the inspiration.  I’ll bring you some beautiful bell peppers by the end of the summer.

Then he said that he knew he was a cool kid because he had a stuffed dragon.

I kind of wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t worry about the cool kids. The kids that are cool in high school usually have pretty mediocre lives by their mid 20s and nobody even remembers who the cool kids were in their Kindergarten class.

I wanted to tell him to be himself and to have fun. I wanted to tell him that if it made him happy to take his lunch in a hat then that is what he should do.

I wanted to tell him that the cool kids don’t matter.

Of course, I still care about the cool kids. Yes, I care about them much less than I did when I was in 8th grade, but a tiny little part of me will always want to part of the “in” crowd. I know it doesn’t matter. I know I am happy. I know my life is good and I have great friends, but this girl is still in there somewhere wanting to be friends with the most popular girl in school.

Now I’m just hoping that the cool kids have decided against bras to the grocery store because I accidentally left the house without mine on this morning and had to shop in my coat the entire time.

I’m also hoping that my daughter can somehow continue to avoid caring about what the other girls are doing. This might sound sexist but it always seemed like the popularity game affected the girls more than the boys. I would love it if my children could avoid the pain of insecurity.

This week I’ve heard some of the most amazing writers I know worrying about how much they suck. These are men and women in their 30s and 40s who astound me on a regular basis. These are published authors and A-List Bloggers and people whose words have made me cry or howl with laughter.

Maybe the insecurity never goes away. Hopefully it just gets easier. I feel bad for my kids because they still have to get through the worst of it, and they don’t even know it is coming.

And I can know what I know about growing up and still try not to worry about the shopping bags and dragons I can’t predict for them that I know will show up. And I can be glad that he says he knows he’s a cool kid, for now, for whatever random reason. It can’t hurt to store some of that up for the times when I know he won’t feel that way.

Maybe we will get lucky and all they will have to do to be cool is take their lunches to school in shopping bags. I have hundreds of those and I know where to get more when they run out. I bought the stuffed dragon on eBay so I can replace that too.

But the Kindergarten kid who decided on shopping bags owes me thirty bucks for the Bakugan lunch bag.

Gabe does most of the quality cooking in this joint, but I try to do at least half of the cooking.

This is why I was on the internet trying to figure out how to hard boil an egg.

I mean, yes, I know you boil eggs in a pan with water in it on the stove, but I was looking for cooking times. Hard boiled eggs always trip me up.

I went to my handy dandy search engine and I searched for “perfect hard boiled egg”.

And you want to hear something crazy? I chose the third entry because it looked the most promising and it just so happens that I personally knew the person who wrote the article.

I don’t mean that I met her at a book signing or we were introduced once at a cocktail party. I mean she used to be my boss.

I just took 40 minutes finding a picture of us together from BlogHer ’07 and it turns out I look like a crazy person with balloon head and so I won’t post it, but thanks to the glory that is Flickr (and the genius of Isabel via twitter):

Picture Courtesy  Mom2Summit flickr pool

We are the two in the middle. I am the pasty one. She is the one with the pretty hair.

My whole point is that what are the odds that I find a random recipe on the internet and it turns out to be written by someone I actually know? Maybe this web isn’t so wide after all.

And also, thanks, Stefania. My eggs were perfect.

This is not my point. What I was going to say is that I come by it honestly. My mother’s entire family are pretty solid drinkers. This tends to get me in trouble when I hang out with my cousins.

So one night I was drinking (heavily) with my cousins and we had to get up early the next morning. We had a pre-wedding get together. I wasn’t hungover exactly, but I certainly wasn’t at me best. When we got to the shower the hostess offered us a mimosa. Not to be the type of person to turn down such an offer I accepted.

Here is the thing with champagne in the morning after a long night of drinking: after about a half a glass I was buzzed again.

I need to give you this back story to justify my behavior.

This was the first time I had been to the house of these people. They are very nice upstanding people. The bride’s whole side of the family are lovely upstanding Christian people. Our side, not as much.***

I hope you understand that I have been forthcoming that I possess the maturity of a 12 year old boy when I tell you that when I saw this plaque hanging by their garage door I laughed until I was doubled over and crying.

It was the kind of laughter where no actual sound was coming out.

That is when my Dad walked into the kitchen.

I think he thought there was something wrong with me. Probably because I was weeping and gasping. When he asked me what was the matter all I could do was point was point and wheeze.

I believe his exact words were “Nice, Sarah”.

My parents are very proud of me.

Fast forward about ten years. I am actually a grown up with my own house and children and a job and everything. I had just successfully convinced my kids to clean their rooms. I was feeling pretty good. My deadlines had been met, the house was clean (ish) and I was ready for my evening fantasy football draft and neighborhood birthday party. Then I heard knocking.

I went downstairs to the front door.

Nobody was there.

Yet, still there was knocking, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

I found the kids. They weren’t hitting anything. The cats were sleeping. I was starting to feel crazy and I asked the kids if they heard knocking.

“‘Tis some visitor,” I muttered.

And then I looked out my back door and it was no bird. It was my new neighbor. She is going into Kindergarten this week just like The Goon Squad and she was coming over to play.

About ten minutes later there was another knock, and this time I was prepared and I went to the kitchen door first.

It was the new neighbor mom and she was looking for her daughter.

I think I actually have my own back door friends.

And now I understand the sign.**

Back door friends really are best. I think it is the idea that there are no formalities.

Then my new neighbor brought me a beer. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

*In fact I once had a friend nickname me “Tip ‘Em Back Sarah”.  It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

** Not to infer that I really thought these people were advertising sodomy.

Also their sign said “Back door friends are the best kind” but I couldn’t find an image of one with the exact wording.

*** It was the same day my cousin set something on fire while changing a baby’s diaper and my Aunt said something about being a non-practicing Agnostic  just as the minister walked around the corner.

Really, we met in 10th grade.

Okay, I don’t really want to talk about the fact that 10th grade was actually 20 years ago, but what I do want to talk about it this – Lori is pregnant with her first child. 

I am giddy. I love babies. I don’t want any more of my own babies but I love other people’s babies. Especially the ones that I can buy weird stuff for without feeling creepy. 

As a bonus, Lori and her husband moved up to my neck of the woods so when the baby is born I will be able to go over to their house whenever I want and hold her, and sing to her, and cuddle her, and smell her little baby head and hand her to one of her parents when she is poopy and then I can go home and sleep for at least seven hours in a row.

Here comes the part I really, really want to tell you about. Even though we all live in the D.C suburbs now, our parents are all still in Florida. A couple of weeks ago Lori’s Mother-in-law threw her a baby shower when she was back home. I couldn’t be there, but since I was driving to Florida to see my parents and my mom was at Lori’s shower and I drove and Lori and Matt flew I brought back some of the bigger shower gifts in my car.

You know the thieving airlines would have charged them a fortune.

Did I mention Lori has a blog? Yes, it is called I’m Not Crazy, Just Well Mixed.

If she isn’t crazy then somebody is going to have to explain this card I got from her in the mail.

See? Crazy. I have been telling people she was nuts since 1989 and now I finally have my proof.

Then I had high school friends and college friends and work friends.

Then I had high school friends, college friends, work friends, neighborhood friends, friends from the twins club and eventually blog friends.

You get the picture.

Sometimes we would have a birthday party and your work friends would meet your regular friends and maybe a mom or two that I knew from twins club. It was okay. A little weird, but pretty normal.

Enter blog friends.

At one point in my life, my blog friends were pretty much contained on the internet. I would comment on their blogs, they would comment on my blog and occasionally there would be an e-mail exchange.

Then I moved.

When I moved here I only knew a handful of people that lived in the Washington DC area, but I knew that some of my blog friends lived here. Suddenly, some of my blog friends were real life friends.

It was sort of weird, but it still wasn’t a huge deal. Most of my regular friends knew that I was a blogger and internet dork and they didn’t make fun of me.

Well, they only made fun of me a little bit.

Then things started getting really weird. I made friends with my neighbors. The regular, Can you make sure nobody breaks into my house when I am out of town? Led to questions like Where are you going? And I had to answer with things like A women’s blogging convention in Chicago.

As a blogger, you understand that as mainstream as it seems, a lot of people have no idea what bloggers do.

If you tell a person who has never read a blog that no, you aren’t a political pundit, you write about your life and your kids and pop culture and sports, they will look at you like you have 10 heads.

Or they will laugh because they think you are joking.

But when an 18 wheeler drops an SUV off on your street and a news crew comes to film it you can’t just pass it off as a hobby anymore.

Then twitter comes along and things start getting really weird. I follow a mom from preschool. Sure, she is a friend, but I met her at preschool.

Then I friend her on Facebook. Suddenly, other moms from preschool start showing up in my “people you might know” section.

I like these people, so I friend them too.

But I often post links to my posts on Facebook. And links to my MamaPop posts.

Sometimes my links are harmless.

Other times they are not.

And now sometimes they come up in real life. Like at class coffee’s at preschool.

10 minutes ago I just friended a teacher from my kids school. Facebook has forever blurred the lines. I’m not even sure how to categorize my friends anymore. We are through the looking glass and I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.ps – Dear Word Press spell check.

Internet, blog and blogging are real words. They are spelled correctly. How could a blogging platform not understand that?

Love,

Sarah

I’ll be your best friend.

Plus then Mark will owe me and he will have to babysit for free.

Thanks!