Old, old wooden ship

So it’s official.

I’m old.

I knew 27 was going to be borderline… I mean, I’m now in my late twenties. It’s funny how that works. 20-23, you are in your early twenties. 24-26 are mid and then starting with 27… you’re in your late twenties. There is no MID about 27. I mean, we might as well just round-up and call ourselves pre-thirty.

To be honest, although I joke that I’m getting old, I hadn’t really given it TOO much thought until the world started throwing it in my face! All of the sudden it’s as if the world is telling me to run inside and get a face lift! I mean, lately I’m hung over no matter what I do. I get tired before 2am. I find myself in pj’s on Saturday nights. I hardly make any reckless decisions… it’s just like “ok world… I see what you’re trying to say!”

But before I go into that, I have to say that there is one un-ignorable ‘clock’ that has been ticking away, louder and louder each year, since about age 24, but I am hoping to quite that down here soon enough. And yet something tells me, even when I do become a mother… I’m not going to feel any younger.

But regardless…

The first time I knew I was officially getting old was back in Texas. I kind of talked about this in my Sept. 11th blog but it bares repeating. When Burny was in tech school in San Angelo, you can imagine that it was flooded with 18-year-old kids, fresh out of high school. Burny and I were in our mid twenties still at that point, so we were the old kids on the block. I mean, it was really a struggle to think of what to do with people who couldn’t go to bars. What did I used to do? I couldn’t think of a single thing!

It was during a conversation with these underage kids that I realized, they were in 6th grade when Sept. 11th happened. They could hardly remember it! I was in college. If that doesn’t make you feel like you are in a whole different generation, I don’t know what will.

A while after we moved home from Texas, I performed in the musical: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I was actually asked to join the chorus after casting because they were short on voices so when I went to the first reading, I was painfully aware of that fact that I was going to fall into a weird age bracket.

There were the 15-year-old, high school kids playing Tom Sawyer, and his friends. There were the adults in their 50’s cast to play the parents of said kids… and then there was me. The twenty something who didn’t fit in either group. Too old to be a kid… to young to be old.

I sat down next to a girl who seemed to have found herself in the same predicament. She was quietly sitting on her own and she looked to be about my same age. I was relieved to see that I wouldn’t be the only one feeling out of place.

As we began to read through the script, I struck up a bit of a whispered conversation between myself and the twenty something next to me. We were both chorus so we didn’t have any lines. We were just there for looks basically.

About half way through the reading I realized that the story line in the play was strikingly similar to the movie plot of the 1990’s film: Tom and Huck.

I leaned over to share my findings with my new, twenty something friend. I said, “This play is exactly like the movie ‘Tom and Huck’.”

“What movie?” she asked.

Clearly she just hadn’t heard me. ‘Tom and Huck’ was a pretty well-known movie when I was in jr. high school. Namely because of its leading actor: Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

I leaned back into her and said, “‘Tom and Huck’ with JTT!”

And then she said something that just BRANDED my age so plainly across my forehead that I could feel the burn…

“Who is JTT?”

Say WHAT?

Who is JTT??? Come on! I mean, how do you describe who JTT is without a BOP magazine for evidence. I have to admit that it did occur to me at that point that BOP magazine likely no longer existed, and that didn’t help my cause much.

I said his full name to her in one final hope for recognition but it was clear to me. She wasn’t my age at all. There was just no possible way.

“He was in Home Improvement,” I tried…

Still nothing. Not one ounce of recognition in her face. Not even for ‘Tim the Tool Man Taylor.’

Finally, after a few minutes of consideration she came back and slapped me in the face again…

“I think I’ve seen re-runs of that show. Which one is JTT?”

I just left it alone. I couldn’t explain it. There was no point. I asked her age. 17. Sigh. She looked so mature…

The final blow came just the other night. I mean, there have been several ‘you’re getting old’ moments in my life since turning 25, but this one the other night really sealed the deal. I believe it’s official now and I’m not quite sure what to do with it.

I’m 27 now, obviously. I went to a Halloween party on Friday dressed as a Red Headed Slut. Burny went as Mike’s Hard Lemonade:

I have to tell you that when discussing costumes with my 23-year-old friend she said: “I’m too old to be slutty for Halloween.”

Hmm… perhaps I should have reconsidered my costume at that point, but instead I decided that I looked dang good! Not just for 27 but for any age! I was going to celebrate that! I was going to be slutty! I was going to wear my boots and show cleavage and I was going to rock it out! And that is just what I did.

So, once at the party I quickly realized that married couples must not regularly go out. Everyone was asking me if Burny was my boyfriend…

“You could say that.”

We’ve been married for 2 1/2 years… it’s just not something I’ve been asked in a while. And then the real kicker happened…

I was talking with this girl about make up. I had never met her before and I guessed (correctly this time) that she was probably in her early twenties. She mentioned college and I said something back about ‘when I was in college’ and then she looked at me very strangely…

“How old are you?” She asked appalled. I mean, it wasn’t like she was a young guy I was trying to deceive into thinking I was some hot young thing… it was a girl and we were talking about make up. I wasn’t aware I should have said my age before sitting down.

“I’m 27… can I still sit and chat??”

“Seat’s taken!”

So I answered her: “I’m 27.”

Her eyes widened, she tossed her head back in surprise (and a little bit of disgust I have to admit… like she could catch the late twenties) and she said:

“Wow… you look great! What do you use?”

Really?

I mean… really??

First of all… how old am I supposed to look by now?

What product do I use?

I was really thrown by that one. I didn’t know what to say. I felt like I should have given her the card of my plastic surgeon. It was the weirdest comment. And I can’t say that it felt good… Even though she really meant it as a complement, and I’m glad that I don’t look like I am really the ripe old age of pre-thirty, but still… the idea that I was old enough to have to use product to look this good… it hurt.

Perhaps I am too old to be slutty for Halloween.

Perhaps I’m too old to be going to parties…

But maybe… perhaps not too.

And by the way… if you’re wondering… I use Arbonne of course!

It was a Tuesday…

I won’t be able to blog tomorrow… it’s my cousin’s wedding. But I can’t let September 11th go by without a story. I know everyone has one and I’m sure they are a dime a dozen, but at the same time, I think there is something really important about remembering where you were on that day… what you were doing, what you were thinking. God knows I will never forget.

You know, it’s funny… I remember wondering years ago, before Sept 11th happened, about what my generation’s ‘Thing’ was going to be.

For my Grandmother is was Pearl Harbor. Everyone knew where they were and what they were doing when that happened. My grandma was on the beach in California and the cops swarmed the coast telling everyone to get  off the beach. Of course they thought the Japanese were on their way inland…

For my Mom’s generation it was Kennedy’s assassination. She was in school. They turned on the radio in class to listen in to the broadcast.

For a while there I thought that for our generation it was going to be the OJ Simpson verdict. I mean, it seems really ridiculous to have a murder trial define us, but at the same time… with our celebrity obsessed culture, that almost seemed fitting.

But of course when Sept 11th happened… I didn’t have to wonder anymore. That was going to be our ‘thing.’ That was going to be our “Where were you?” moment…

We will never forget. We promised. Remember?

Only a few years after it happened I overheard a guy ask another guy:

“What day of the week did that happen?”

It was a Tuesday.

We have to remember that. If we stop remembering, it becomes history and history repeats itself…

9 years  ago tomorrow…

Wow, that seems crazy.

I remember a year and a half ago, while my husband and I lived in Texas, we got to talking with some friends about Sept 11th. It comes up from time to time of course… and being that my husband had just graduated boot camp at the time, it was a little bit more in the forefront of our minds. So we were talking about Sept 11th and one of the other Airmen said that he remembered school being closed for the day. Of course school was closed for me as well, but for me, that mean college.

I had a feeling this kid wasn’t talking about college…

I asked him how old he was when Sept 11th happened…

He said 5th grade.

Now he is an Airman in the US Air Force being trained to go fight the war that started back when he was in 5th grade…

9 years…

A lot can happen in 9 years.

But I remember. It’s not history to me. And it’s certainly not history to that 5th grader…

It was a Tuesday morning. I woke up to the phone ringing in my dorm room. I was 17 and I had only just had my first day of college the Tuesday before. I had just moved away from home; Sacramento valley to San Diego. I was still trying to adjust to that.

I was already scared of life. This didn’t help.

My boyfriend at the time, LemonBass, who was still back in Nor Cal was on the other end of that phone call. He was up getting ready for work. He told me to turn on the news. He said that something crazy was going on in New York.

“What channel?” I asked.

He didn’t have to answer… it was on every channel.

At that point, only one of the towers had been hit. However, the news was already speculating about whether or not this had happened on accident. It was around that time that my roommate came back in from the shower. Of course she didn’t know anything about what was going on but was suddenly just as enthralled as I was. I hung up the phone with LemonBass when one of our hallmates knocked on our door. She wanted to know if we had a tv… she had family in New York.

She and her roommate came in just as the second plane hit.

I’ll never forget the feeling in that tiny, little, brick room on that Tuesday morning.

No one spoke. There was a gasp and then silence. The silence felt like it lasted the rest of the day.

I remember looking around the room at these people I didn’t know. I had just met them only a few days before. And I knew that I would never forget their faces. Mouths open. Eyes unblinking. It was so surreal. I couldn’t believe it. I just knew… this was the moment. This was going to be that moment we would never forget. This was it.

And then the phone rang again.

It was LemonBass again and he was in a panic. He was CERTAIN that there would be a draft. He just kept saying:

“I’m going to war. I’m going to war.” Over and over again.

Was he? I couldn’t even imagine what was going to happen next. I mean, I was supposed to go to class in a few hours…

Should I go?

Would it be disrespectful to go on with my life when other people had just lost theirs?

Was life even going to go on? Was school going to be canceled? Should I go back home? Was my boyfriend going to war? Was I already in a war??? Was there more to come? What should I do??

It was very confusing. It was very overwhelming.

I propped open my door and turned up the tv to alert to anyone else in the halls that I had a tv. I realized really quickly that most of the girls didn’t. The room filled up quickly. And yet, the more the people, the quieter it seemed. No one spoke but I was pretty sure that we were all thinking the same thing.

As the morning progressed the girls came and went. Some got phone calls on their cell phones, some where trying to make calls unsuccessfully. We heard that a girl down the hall was from New York and couldn’t reach her mom. I tried to reach my mom and couldn’t. Was she okay?

The news was reporting that many planes were still missing and that more attacks were probable.

Where?

Here?

The Pentagon. More silence. It wasn’t over…

The girls continued to come and go. I sat on my bed most of the morning. I couldn’t bring myself to shower and start my day. It seemed wrong; rude. It just felt like the only thing left to do was watch the tv. And I just knew that the entire world was doing the exact same thing.

After a while we started talking. Everyone knew someone in New York. If it wasn’t family, it was a close friend. For me, it was a family friend who had just moved out there for college. I just couldn’t imagine. For some reason I knew in my heart that she was fine… but there was no way of confirming that. I just couldn’t even begin to imagine how afraid she must have been. I was horrified having just moved away from home, having to deal with this on my own, and knowing full well that I wasn’t in any real danger. I just couldn’t imagine feeling the same way and knowing exactly the opposite. She was in danger.

When the first tower fell it was just like when the second tower was hit… silence and shock. My little dorm room just went quiet. One joint gasp and then nothing. More hands to the mouths. More tears. More disbelief. And that’s what it was: Disbelief.

Who?

Why?

We just couldn’t believe that this was happening. I never imagined, when I used to wonder about what moment would be our generations moment, that it would be something like this. I don’t think anyone, even in their wildest dreams could have imagined it.

I take that back.

Clearly, someone had imagined it. Someone had dreamed about it. Someone had DIED to make sure that it happened.

Who would do something like that?

If you believe in good, you have to believe in evil and this was evil. This was unimaginable evil.

When the second tower fell, we were still surprised. We all still gasped. Even though two towers were hit, and one had already fallen, we still kept expecting it to be over. We still kept expecting things to stop. We still expected to walk away a little bit intact.

We were wrong.

I remember the  news footage of both towers going and then of the skyline afterwards.

I had not yet been to New York at that point and I felt cheated. I felt  like I had been robbed. I felt like I was never going to be able to see the top of the world…

But a lot of people will never see anything else ever again.

I can count myself very lucky. I know that.

I did go to school that morning. And again, I will never forget it. I didn’t want to be absent on my third day of school and since I had already been watching the news for nearly 5 hours, I figured I could use a break. What else could happen?

The class of over 100 was only half full. Apparently not everyone could tear themselves away. My professor was Dr. Martin Katz. I won’t give him a blog name because he deserves the recognition. The class was Theatre 100. I was a theater major but this class was considered general ed so we had a very diverse group… all ages, all races. We had the sports guys who were told this class was easy, and we had the lit majors who were eager to learn about Shakespeare. It was pretty much across the board.

I sat down amongst a few of the girls I had sat next to the first two days of school. Of course we began talking about who knew who  in New York. I had a flight scheduled for September 13th that year. My birthday is the 15th… I was turning 18 and I had planned on going home. One of the girls in class told me that all air traffic was being grounded. My flight would probably be canceled.

That is when I met KayTown.

She was sitting in the row in front of me and she had overheard me telling the others about my plans to fly.

“You can’t fly in two days!”

That was it. Friends for life. We marvel about that, even now. In the midst of all that pain and terror and suffering… I found a best friend. I made a connection that has lasted and will always last. I think that is very ironic. And at the same time… sometimes in the face of true evil… you see God more clearly.

I think Kay and I were brought together that day on purpose. And as strange as it is to say… I can’t help but wonder if we would have become friends if it weren’t for the happenings of Sept 11th. I can’t be sure.

Dr. Katz quieted down the class and began to speak to us. Not as a teacher, but as a friend. As another member of the human race. He was so kind and so well spoken in that moment. He knew exactly what to say. He knew how to get us through it and he knew that that was why we had come to class. He just got it.

I heard later that some of the other classes that were attended that morning went on as usual. No mention of any world events. Just math. Just science. I think that is absurd.

But in Dr. Katz class,we talked. We discussed. After sharing his own brilliant thoughts about the morning, he  opened it up to the class. He asked who among us had someone in New York. He asked if we had reached those people. Had they survived? He asked us to talk about it. Again, it seemed like everyone knew someone who was there.

One guy had a family member who worked in the towers. He hadn’t reached them yet. No one had. And now the towers were on the ground and he was in a Theatre class.

What else was there to do?

Dr. Katz had us write in our journals after we had finished our discussion. I’m so glad he did. As a matter of fact, I need to go find that journal entry. I can’t imagine that I would have thrown it out. And what a crazy thing to read. It was such a catharsis. And again, the class was silent.

After the hour had passed and class was over, Kay and I walked out  into the sunny San Diego Tuesday. Campus was empty. It was noon and there was not a soul around. I decided to go back to the dorms. As I walked home I began to notice posters taped up on all the doors: Campus Closed.

I guess life wasn’t going to go on so easily after all.

At the dorms, we had to check in at the front desk. Usual protocol would suggest that we flash our ID card and walk on through, but not that day. We had to show our ID, sign in and then we were told not to leave unless it was an emergency. We were on what they were calling a ‘lock down’.

What now? It was only noon and I was sure that things just couldn’t get any worse!

When I got back to my room, there were still people there.  I hadn’t  kicked anyone out when I left for class and I certainly wasn’t going to ask then to leave then. There was literally no where left to go. The news was reporting that San Diego was a known target. We had a huge military base (that I had known nothing about) and the San Diego locals were CERTAIN that we would be next.

Way to start a panic.

I tried my mom again and still couldn’t reach her. I was starting to worry. She worked in downtown Sacramento. Was there something else I didn’t know about? The  news was still telling me that there were planes missing. While I was in class I missed a plane going down in a field somewhere. Crisis averted for someone, somewhere… but it was the end of the line for a lot of passengers.

I just couldn’t wrap my head around how many grave stones would read – Sept 11, 2001.

My phone died. I had to sign out of the dorms to go to my car in the parking lot to talk with  my car charger. I finally reached my step mom. She worked in downtown too. Everything there had been closed down but she assured me that everything was okay. It was nice to get ahold of someone. It was nice to hear that something was okay somewhere in the world…

That day was one of the longest days I can remember. I must have watched those planes hit and those towers fall 100 times before the days end. Over and over again. Every time it shocked me. Every time it sent chills down my spine.

It still does when I see that footage.

I talked to my sister later that night and she seemed to think that this wasn’t quite as big of a deal as I was making it. She, of course, had not been glued to the tv all day. She just couldn’t conceive of it yet. But she would come around.

I remember her specifically saying that Pearl Harbor had been way worse and I remember arguing about it with her. I was arguing about a death toll. I couldn’t believe it. I was actually fighting for Sept 11th to be the worst day in American history…

I didn’t have to fight for it. It just was.

It still is.

And God willing, it always will be. I don’t want to have to even imagine anything worse.

So here we are 9 years later.

More irony… I’m going to my cousin’s wedding tomorrow (Well, today since it’s 1am now…) He is getting married on Sept 11th. He is starting his life on the day that so many lost their own. Like I said… sometimes in the face of true evil… you see God.

I think it’s meant to be that way.

Just like KayTown and me…

This might be the best memorial yet.

It was a Tuesday…