Always Stories…

I’m too young for a mid-life crisis and too old for a quarter life crisis, hence “something-life crisis”. Basically I’m just tired of my career and want to make a change. Its sudden (or not really that sudden, if you read my post “over it” from a few weeks ago), and emotional, which is why I think it can be characterized as a life crisis. As a result, I have started taking on odd jobs, so I can avoid getting more clients, and one of those jobs is being a cater-waiter (being a waiter at cocktail parties, passing appetizers, making drinks etc). Last saturday was my first gig, and I have to say, it was fun. Serioulsy.

I showed up at 6pm. I lit some candles, arranged some chairs, fixed some table clothes. I stood with a plate of shrimp as people arrived. When more people arrived, I took plates of different finger foods through the crowds. The extent of my conversation was “shrimp? Roast beef on crostini with dressing? Crab cakes? Napkin?” as I approached each group. How hard is that? NOT HARD AT ALL! That’s why its awesome. It wasn’t my event. It wasn’t my food, it wasn’t my responsibility to do ANYTHING, or care about ANYTHING, except my ability to walk and climb stairs with a plate of food and repeat the same line over and over. What’s not to love?

I know some people find food service to be demeaning or humiliating because you are basically invisible. And I kinda get that. I don’t think I could be a full time waitress. But actually, i think the issue with that job would be the volume of people I’d be forced to interact with, not the fact that I’d be serving them food. But I digress. At anyrate, one of the things I like about being a cater-waiter is the invisible part and to be even more invisible than a regular waitress, b/c interaction is only required if the guests want to know what’s on my plate. If they don’t care, then they don’t even need to acknowledge me beyond subtle eye contact to let me know they want me to stop. Love it.  

Last saturday the event was an Obama fundraiser. This means lots of liberals. With lots of liberal guilt. Which means they kept wanting to talk to me, to “acknowledge me” and “treat me like an equal”. I tried to be accomodating, but really, if i wanted to make cute small talk and exchange cute quips about the food, I would be  guest and at least get to wear a better outfit. But as your cater-waiter, I don’t want your sympathy as to how heavy the plate is, I don’t want to chuckle gently when you observe that it must be boring to keep passing shrimp, and then be excited with you when I come by with crab cakes.

Their behavior was motivated by what I’ve called “liberal guilt” -which comes from two sources. 1) they are uncomfortable being served (despite the fact that they paid over $100/person to come to a fancy event, and would probably be appalled if they were faced with a buffet)  2)they are uncomfortable thinking that I might feel like they are judging me b/c I am serving them. They go out of their way to show me they see me as an equal, and they don’t look down on me. But the thing is, if they didn’t look down on me for my job, they wouldn’t need to go out of their way to treat me “like an equal”. If they really didn’t look down on me, they would simply accept and respect that my job is to serve food and their job is to eat food. Yin and Yang. No value assignments. No judgement on either side. But they can’t accept that, and they feel guilty about it. Which is fine. I know I do it too. Its the liberal burden.

And to be totally honest, its not as if i didn’t at times judge them. I’m sorry, but some of those people (mostly men) are absolute pigs. The hardest part of the evening was keeping my face neutral while this one guy took 6-7 attempts to pick up a slice of lemon (which was a GARNISH) from the shrimp plate, in the process getting his fingers all over the lemon, and then upon getting a grip on the lemon he squeezed lemon juice all over ALL of the shrimp on the plate, and then picked up a shrimp and proceeded to drag it through the cocktail sauce in a way that reminded me of dredging chicken through flour before putting it in the frying pan, thus making sure that the cocktail sauce was fully infected with his finger germ tainted lemon juice. AND THEN he sucked the shrimp out of the tail and dropped the tail back on the tray. SO gross. I may never eat passed appetizers again.

Oh and I was a little judgemental of the guy who took 8 pastries (seriously, I counted) off of EVERY pastry plate i passed. After the third plate, he started waiting for me outside the kitchen so he could get all the good ones before I got to the party. I could have said something about that not being fair, but that would imply I actually cared, which goes against the whole idea of being a cater-waiter as part of my something-life crisis.

This Saturday is a 500 person party in an art gallery. I’m betting those people know how to properly ignore their cater-waiters. Here’s hoping.

I’m sitting in a coffee shop, just working on my lap top (ok, i’m blogging more than working, but whatever). I’m sitting in one of the arm chairs and shortly after I sat down, a little over an hour ago, these two hispanic men sat down at the table near me. In the back of my mind I assumed they were construction workers on lunch break, NOT because I’m judging, but because there was a table of exactly that on the other side of me when they sat down. I didn’t pay enough attention to notice that they weren’t in cement and paint splattered clothes. After about 20 minutes, it slowly invades my consciousness that the tone and pace of their conversation is very different than raucous exchanges at the table of construction workers. Their conversation is all in spanish, so I don’t know what they are saying, but its has a more gentle tone and rhythm. When the table of construction workers leaves, I become even more aware of these two guys, and I realize that their body language and tone are not at all typical for two men having lunch.

I finally succumb to my curiosity and take a good look at them. The first thing I notice is that the guy facing me looks to be in his late 40’s and the other guy, though his back is to me, seems to be in his 30’s. They are both leaning toward each other with elbows on the table, and I realize that they are probably not heterosexual.

Then I notice this look in the eyes of the older guy, its that look, the look that every person gets when they have discovered something unexpected and wonderful.  

I decide that this is a first date from an internet hook up, and I think its going well. At least from the perspective of the guy facing me. Now i’m hooked and wishing desperately that I understood Spanish so I can have my theory confirmed. I keep looking over at them, pretending to be studying the pedestrians on the street outside the window they are sitting next to, but it doesn’t matter, because I don’t think they are aware of anything other than each other.

I wish I could see the face of the other guy, to see if he feels the same way. I hope desperately that he does, because I’m now fully on the side of the older guy. I’m rooting for him to get a second date with the hot young guy. I’m listening carefully to their conversation and trying to glean as much information from the tone and rhythm as i possibly can. They seem to have a lot in common, there is laughing, and lots of back and forth. I think this looks good.

I’m wishing I could say something to them, like “good luck”, or “I’m so happy for you.” But I’m also  starting to get worried that its not mutual, and my heart aches just a little for the older guy because he’s my buddy now and I want to protect him.

They just left. It seemed like the younger guy ended the meeting abruptly, but without knowing what he said and relying only on body language I can’t say for sure. They walked out together still talking, but then I lost track of them… I want to know if they made a second date. I want to talk to my buddy and see how he thinks it went…

Damn coffee shop eavesdropping. There is never any resolution.

I totally forgot to tell this story from my afternoon of voter registration two weeks ago.

So I’m at the international grocery store working away on behalf of Obama. And this young transgendered person walks by. I believe it was a man who was dressing as a woman…but not cross dressing exactly.  I think he was going for more of a gender blurring effect. It was very obvious he had no breasts, and yet was wearing a tight fitting woman’s shirt, non-gender specific jewlery (heavy chains and beaded necklaces and bracelets that I’ve seen on alternative dressing men), nail polish, women’s jeans and men’s sneakers.

He stops at our table and announces that he wants to register to vote because he just turned 18. I say “great!” and hand him a clipboard. As he is filling the form out he says “I don’t know my address because I’ve only lived there for 3 days.” So I say “You can take the form home and finish filling it out there,” and he says “well, my sister will come out of the store in a minute and she’ll know the address.”

I say great, and encourage him to step off to the side to work on the rest of the form. About 3 minutes later, two very tall people walk out of the store and I note in passing that they seem to be men dressed very distinctly like women and think how interesting that is to see 3 such individuals in one day. Just as they are about to pass the table, the kid at our table says “Hey – [name, which i can't remember], what’s our address?” And I think “duh, that makes more sense .”(statistically speaking)

She comes over to the table and recites the address without asking why he wants it, or acknowledging any of us. Her friend continued walked out into the parking lot. As she is standing there, one of my fellow volunteers asks her if she would like to register. She says “no, i don’t believe in it. Bush steals votes.” We sort of laugh a little because…well, we aren’t sure what an appropriate response to that statement would be. She then says “no, i’m serious. I used to live in Arkansas, and all of the democratic votes were lost. And Bush won, even though noone voted for him. I went back after election day to track my vote and it was gone, no one could tell me where it was. Bush is a criminal.”

Now, I was kinda with her until she mentioned the part about going back to track her vote. Then I knew she was a little off. But while she was talking I was watching her and trying to confirm my initial impression that this was a man dressed as a woman, much more deliberately so than the kid. She is aproximately 6 ft tall, wearing a long hot pink kimono style dress over jeans, has long blond hair tied into a pony tail, eye makeup, extremely masculine facial features, an adams apple and a 5 o’clock shadow.

I’m wondering if the 5 o’clock shadow is deliberate or laziness, and what her relationship with the kid is, since I seriously doubt she’s actually his sister. I start imagining a little transgendered commune somewhere in the area, and am fighting the urge to ask when she says to me “You have the most beautiful eyes.” I am immediately embarassed, as I always am when someone says that to me, and I smile and immediately look away. But as I’m looking down at the table I suddenly think “What if she thinks I’m uncomfortable because she’s…her. What if she thinks I’m judging her?!” I’m immediately seized with guilt, and so I look back up at her, and find she is still staring intently at me. I smile nervously, but refuse to break eye contact, for fear of appearing judgmental.

She says “Seriously, your eyes are such a vibrant blue!” And she’s leaning toward me, and I am, as always, uncomfortable under such intense scrutiny. So I look away and make a joke about it being my contacts. Then I’m again worried she’ll think i’m judging her because I looked away.

So I look back at her. And she’s still staring, and is now reaching a hand out slowly toward my face as she says “its contacts? Really? But that’s your natural color isn’t it?”

I laugh nervously and say “its my natural color, but the contacts make them brighter.” I’m watching her as she shifts ever so slightly toward me, and I begin to panic that she’s going to touch me. Which has nothing to do with antying about her specifically, and everything to do with the fact that she’s a stranger and I’m phobic about being touched. And I know that if she does touch me, I’ll totally freak out, and then she WILL think I’m judging her, even though I’m not. And I’m feeling the burden of my need to appear open minded press down on me as I watch her hand coming closer and closer to my face. I’m wondering why no one is helping me, and I realize they are all liberals too, so THEY don’t want to appear judgemental anymore than I do, and so they are just going to leave me to fend for myself. I feel words bubbling to the surface and realize that in an attempt to save myself I’m dangerously close to shouting “I’m not judging you, but please don’t touch me!”

Instead, I suddenly turn and give my full attention to the kid and the short form that he has still not completed. When I look up again a few minutes later she has drifted outside into the parking lot.

I resist the urge to reassure her and the kid (still at the table) that I think their lifestyle choices are just great. But I don’t. I take his form and put it with the rest and spend the rest of the afternoon contemplating what levels of personal peril I could get myself into with my need to appear non-judgemental.

Update to “Rules” post: This update will not surprise many people, but I’m a little bit insane. My freak out about not hearing back from the latest E-harmony guy was…over blown I think. Because he emailed me on sunday afternoon with a very valid excuse and appropriate amount of apologies. But at the same time, I don’t necessarily retract anything I said, because all my thoughts/points on rules in society and with regard to dating are still valid. I just wanted to acknowledge for the record that what sparked the post was an overreaction to a situation.

He and I had lunch yesterday. A 3.5 hour lunch. It was awesome. We’re going out again in 2 days. I’m excited. And freaked out. I don’t really know how to process good dates… I’m sure there will be more over dramatic and nutball posts to come if this continues to progress…

Update to “Stalker”: I was at my favorite coffee shop yesterday around 5:30pm, and my little stalker buddy was there. I was sitting in the window facing the parking lot and he saw me as he was getting something out of his car and he stopped and stood looking at me through the window for a few minutes but I refused to look up, and he eventually sat down. (I also refused to open up my blog and start writing about the interaction, because I had work that HAD to get done. I’m impressed at my self-control). After a few minutes he came back to the window, and I was waiting for something load on my laptop, so I looked up and saw him, and he got really excited and started waving, and I couldn’t help it but I smiled and then immediately regretted it and bent back to my computer. So then he came inside. Because I was at the counter in the window I was in line with the door and it wasn’t hard for me to not look up. So he came in the door and stopped next to me.

Him: “HI!”

Me: mumbled version of “hey”

Him: “How ya doin? Great to see you!”

Me: not looking up from my computer, “uh huh,”

Him: stands uncertainly for a minute then “Ok. Haha, Ok. See you!”

So I definitely think he’s working the program. I was waiting for him to comment on my laptop, or to ask me if i could get stock quotes on it. If he had, work would have been abandoned for a real time blog post

Update to The Smell: I’m really starting to believe its wood rot. And I’m also starting to suspect it’s outside, not inside. We had hurricane Hannah rains on saturday, and I kept the window in my bedroom open (although I continually made sure no rain was coming in), and Sunday morning I noticed the smell, and it was intense, and yet intermittent. Later on sunday I smelled a whole different, new smell, and it too was gone in a few hours. Monday the smell was back in the early evening, but was gone again when I went to bed although during the night I occasionally had whiffs… it remains to be vexing. OH – but one upside is that the spiders that once constantly invaded my room have left and not returned since the AC unit was replaced. So the nest seems to have been in there, which is cool. Its the first time in years that I haven’t had to keep the vacuum in my bedroom so I could vacuum the spiders several times a week.

I spent the afternoon today registering voters outside of an international grocery store. It was my first time doing anything like this, and I was doing it through the Obama campaign, although we were willing (and obligated) to register anyone who wanted to register, regardless of party affiliation.

Because we were at an international grocery store it was somewhat fascinating to see the different reactions we got from different ethnic groups. We were warned that very few of the Korean and Vietnamese people would speak English, and that seemed to hold up, even though we had a sign in Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese. Mostly they just gave us blank stares as they walked by. We had a lot of middle eastern and Indian people who would call out that they were already registered as they walked past us, often with huge smiles and fists raised in the air. I choose to believe that their reaction was not about recognizing fellow Obama supporters (although I hope they are), but because they appreciated that they had the right to vote.

Also interesting was that we had many people, from all backgrounds, show surprise at how easy it was to register (its a 7 box form takes 5 minutes at the most to fill out), and we had a lot of foreign people stop to lament that they were not yet citizens and couldn’t vote, but wished they could. We were there for about 2 hours and we collected 9 forms and sent around a dozen forms home with people who either didn’t want us to mail it in for them, or were bringing them to husbands and adult children.

It was really a great feeling to know that I was helping people get registered to vote. Because aside from my political affiliation, I really do believe that people should exercise their right to vote (even republicans). There are people all over the world and throughout history who have died for the right to vote, and yet in this country we are excited if we get 60% turnout. Its appalling.

It was also a really great feeling when people walked by and said “I’m registered and I’m voting for Obama!” Or “Thanks for doing this! Go Obama!” or similar statements that let us know they were with us. Its a great feeling of community, especially in an area that is characterized for being fairly conservative (although it is changing rapidly).

We had 2 or 3 people who made a comment about how we were supporting the wrong candidate, but that was fine, I respect their opinion. I don’t understand or agree with it, but I respect it. And I would hope that they would be respectful of my opinion. But not everyone was.

At one point, a man came by with his teenage son. We did the usual “Anyone need to register to vote?” And I saw the guy roll his eyes and snicker and I thought “well that’s an odd reaction, but whatever.” He and his son walked out and then he came back in and took one of the pamphlets outlining Obama’s energy plan and left with it. I thought “Oh, i must have misunderstood his eye rolling.” Then I saw him call his son over, laughing saying “come here, come here, watch watch,” like a 13 year old about to do something juvenile. And he blew his nose into the flyer. He thought he was HILLARIOUS. He was laughing so hard he couldn’t catch is breath for a few minutes.

Then he came back in and walked past our table again and stopped about 10 feet from us and said “So let me get this straight: You’re registering voters, but you have an Obama sign up?” We said, “We will register anyone.” And he said “That’s not right. You can’t have party stuff up.” One of the other volunteers said calmly, “it’s perfectly legal and allowable,” and then went back to asking other people if they needed to register. The guy said “Its not right.” Then turned away. My friend said, more or less under her breath, “Take it up with the state legislature.” The guy heard her and said “I don’t need to lady.” And then he stalks right up to us, and I’m not gonna lie, my heart was pounding, my body tempture shot up and I knew my face turned red. And I know she was having a similar reaction, but neither of us moved. He got right in her face (he was a good foot taller than both of us) and said “You can’t do this.” And she looked him straight in the eye and said in an soft and calm voice, ”Its perfectly legal.” He said, “Oh really?” And i said, also looking him in the eye and also calm, “It is only at the polls that you aren’t allowed to display candidate information. We are absolutely within our rights here.” And he said again “oh really?” But I think something must have clicked in his mind that made him realize we were right because he just turned and walked away.

And then I started to shake. I wanted desperately to say “So disrespect is one of your family values? Its great how you’re passing that onto your son.” But I am not a confrontational person, and he was scary and so I didn’t say anything.

But what this interaction did for me was to remind me of why I was spending a beautiful sunday afternoon working for Obama, and why I’ll spend as many hours working for this campaign as I can between now and November 4. To me, this man was a perfect symbol of all that is wrong with the other side right now. The side that claims to be about “America”, but only the part of America that is exactly like them (rich, white, militaristic). They claim to support “family values” but include hate and disrespect at the top of the list. 

This man’s behavior was juvenile, pointless and utterly uncivilized. I may passionately disagree with the Republican platform, and I may wake up in the middle of the night terrified at the prospect of what will happen to this country if they will win again, but I would never deface a McCain pamphlet, nor would any of my liberal friends. But the fact that he went out of his way to model that behavior for his child is perhaps the most disturbing part of that entire encounter, b/c that is how that kind of behavior gets perpetuated. That’s how those kinds of “family values” become engrained.

I like rules. Especially social rules – rules of conduct, to be specific. I like knowing how I should act and how I can expect others to act in certain situations. I think that past generations had many more of these rules and they were understood and acknowledged by more people. Today, i think it might appear that we have fewer rules, but I think in reality we might have more, they are much less obvious, and far fewer people choose to acknowledge them.

This makes me crazy because that just creates one big opportunity for confusion, misteps and social disasters.

Because most rules aren’t obvious, they have to be disovered and discovery happens in response to unknowlingly breaking a rule. As we grow up, and bumble through enough situations and pay the consequences for that bumbling, we start to really look hard for the rules and then to decide to try to follow them.

For example: Inviting a man over to your house at 9:30 on a friday night to watch movies, implies that there is a better than average chance of some fooling around. I know that when I was younger, I often innocently extended such invitations to guys who I only wanted to be friends with. Eventually, after I had to explain, or reject, or fend off enough of those “friends” I recognized the rule and only made those invitations to men I wanted to fool around with. 

For example: If you discuss sex, in any context, but especially as it applies to you, with a man, he will think about having sex with you. In many cases he will also see it as either an invitation or an opening and he will try to act on it. You can choose to ignore this fact, but eventually when enough men mistakenly try to act on the invitation or move into the opening, you will stop discussing sex with men you don’t wish to sleep with.

For example: It’s appropriate to bring a bottle of wine or similar to a party. After you are the only one who doesn’t do this enough times, you learn to bring a bottle of wine to every party.

I could go on, but the point is, rules serve a purpose and the path toward choosing to acknowledge those rules is usually laid with awkwardness, miscommunications and a drive to avoid such outcomes. 

Cause and reaction are clear in the examples above: You invite a guy over for a movie, he tries to kiss you, you stop inviting men you don’t want to kiss to sit on your couch. Easy.

What makes me crazy is when you think you are experiencing the consequences but haven’t figured out the cause. Like when you know you’ve offended a room full of people, but don’t know why. Or when men who seem interested suddenly disapear or seem to change their minds for no reason. 

For example: a few weeks ago, I had an e-harmony guy that I was getting along with fairly well over email. I gave him my number, he said he’d call and then immediately disapeared. Yesterday, I had an e-harmony guy with whom things were going extremely well, we jumped through all the hoops in record time and on to direct email within a day, and then exchanged several very funny emails. He suggested meeting up, I agreed and gave him my number. I have not heard from him since. It hasn’t been that long in the grand scheme of things, but given that we were emailing basically every hour yesterday and now its been almost 24 hours since his last email, and 12 hours since my reply to that email,  it seems weird. So two guys, things seem to be going well, both disapear with no warning. Commonality? I gave them my phone number. But how can that be a rule that i’ve broken? It doesn’t make any sense.

So maybe it was something else in the email. But that could be anything, and to try to figure out woudl make me go insane – especially since I don’t think it was any different than any of the other emails.

Maybe its not a rule of conduct, but a rule of the chase, that I broke. Maybe giving out the phone number takes a little of the excitement out of it, the catch being so near now, and they simply fall back and forget to follow up.

Maybe they think they don’t need to reply to the email b/c they are going to call, and then don’t call immediately and then don’t call b/c now its weird because they waited too long to call… In that scenario, assuming they have good intentions to call, I guess it would be they who broke the rule…

But this is what’s maddening about dating. There aren’t enough clear rules. Once upon a time the “courtship” process was very controlled, a series of carefully coreographed moves, and while there were many drawbacks to that system, not least among them the frequent absence of choice, at least everyone knew what the rules were, and knew what to expect.

Today, everyone understands the rules differently: “women should be aggressive” “men like the chase” “be yourself” “make him work for it”… There are piles of books, and hours of talk shows devoted to this topic, and none of it is conclusive. Everyone who is in a relationship believes the way they found their partner is the way it will/should happen for everyone else, that what works in their relationship is what will work in everyone’s relationship.  And somethings are universal, but not everything and what it amounts to is just a bunch of ideas, with no clear rules.

I bet you think that what comes next in this blog is a call for more rules, for making the process clear again. You’d be wrong. I’m not going to advocate that, mainly b/c it wouldn’t work, and the only thing worse than no clear rules are rules that aren’t followed, THAT is the official recipe for total chaos.

There is no option for controlling the behavior of others. The rule I’ve heard from my mom my whole life and that has always proven true, is “you can only control your own behavior and emotions.” So applying that to dating, in the best light it means I should stay true to my personality, act on my instincts and eventually someone will come along who doesn’t disapear. But that’s really hard to do. Because that means setting myself up for disapointment over and over again. I’ve tried crafting my own mini-rules to try to control the disappointment “don’t get excited too soon”, “don’t expect anything more than what’s infront of you”. But those rules actually get in the way of the main rule – b/c to not get excited, to not think about what if, to avoid trusting anything that seems good, is to not be myself. But to not attempt to self-protect, is like having a river run through a town without levees. Everytime it rains, a little bit of the bank gets washed away, the river gets closer to the top and eventually there’s a day when there is too much  rain and the river overflows its bank and takes out the town.

And that’s what me crazy- not the frustrations and disapointments in dating, but the fact that I’m powerless to control any of it.

And now that I think about it, I think a lack of clear rules is also one of the causes of stalking. I’ve started to suspect that a new business associate is possibly stalking me…but it could be that he is just unclear of the rules of conduct that govern the line between business and personal. I don’t want to jump the gun and call this guy a stalker, if he’s just socially awkward, but I also don’t want to totally ignore the signs, pretend like he’s not creeping me out and end up handcuffed in the basement of his mother’s house.

See? Its all about the rules.

I am a New Kids on the Block fan. Or I was. Err, I mean I am again. Or I am still… It’s all very confusing really.

I think I was around 11 years old when I became obsessed with New Kids. My friends and I talked about them incessantly, eating the details of their lives like vitamins and investing untold hours in concocting elaborate fantasies wherein we would somehow find them, and once we did, they woudl recognize us as their soul mates, and we’d live happily ever after.

Actually, to say that was a “fantasy” is to put too adult a spin on it. It was more like a little music video in my head… shy smiling (me), giggling (them), background music that said everything I couldn’t, and at the end we’d all walk off down the street into the early evening dusk as the camera pulled back – me, my best girlfriend, and the 5 of them. Heading off to…do…something… and it’s this blank spot in all the day dreams that most gets me now. Had I actually had the opportunity to meet them, I wouldn’t have had ANY idea of what to do with them. And when I look at them now, I get a little embarrassed on behalf of that naïve girl I was then.

I look at them today and I think “NOW, I would know what to do with them.” And I immediately get embarrassed on another level because I feel like I’m having lascivious thoughts about children. Of course, they aren’t children, nor were they children the first time around, but I was a child, and so I projected my child’s perspective and child-like fantasies onto them…

So now I don’t know how to relate to them. I don’t know what role they are to play in my life. I’m past the age of being obsessed with bands or movie stars. I don’t have “favorite” singers or bands, I am mostly just a slave to wha’ts on the radio. But that’s not how I understand New Kids on the Block. They aren’t just band responsible for that song on the radio. They were a movement, they were an obsession. The music was the vehicle for the empire that was New Kids on the Block.   

Having them back kinda fucks with my head. Part of me wants them to bring me back to that childhood state, a time where a boy band could easily be the center of my entire being. A time when I had ability to be happily entertained for hours by reading about them, listening to them, watching their videos, and day dreaming about meeting them.  

But I can’t go back, because its been more than 20 years. I’m all grown up and I see the world through grown up eyes.

Now, when I remember that music video inspired scene of us meeting in a pizza place and walking off into the sunset, it quickly transitions to something between a lifetime movie and a softcore porn in which a young girl learns what happens when you pick up 5 guys in a pizza place.

Now when I try to entertain myself with a fantasy about meeting them, I’m stopped by my grown up voice which says “this is a waste of time. You’ll never meet them. Instead, lets fantasize about this tax lawyer from E-harmony. He’s probably more attractive in person, and you’ll learn to love hearing about his passion for outdoor sports.”

When I look at New Kids on the Block today, (as am I am right now on The Today Show,) they are obscured by veils of what they were, and of what was.  

I am watching them in their coordinated outfits, doing their coordinated dance steps, and this little voice in my head says “they’re kinda lame,” and the disloyalty shocks me. I prayed at the alter of KNOTB for my entire adolescence, to not continue to do so now feels like the worst kind of treachery– to them, and to myself. To turn my back on them, would be to turn my back on myself.

But I’m just not the kinda girl who worships at the alters of famous people anymore.

To make it more confusing, I’m not the only one whose changed – they have too. 4 of the 5 have kids. 4 of the 5 have been, or are currently married. And they look older, better in some cases, but older nonetheless. They speak differently and carry themselves differently. So, if i try to relate to them as I did 20 years ago, I’m fantasizing about stealing someone’s husband…

But over analyzing aside, I do enjoy seeing them again. I enjoy the emotional reactions, disconcerting though they may be, that they evoke. Because let’s face it, not many things evoke those kinds of emotions these days. And maybe I should try to reconnect a little with that 13 year old girl who clipped every article about them and saved them in a scrapbook, rejoicing in each of their achievements as if they had something to do with me. Because that can be a fun way to live. And being a grown up can be kinda lonely and a little boring sometimes.

OMG –hang on - I just made the connection that the 1 member of the group who hasn’t been married, and doesn’t have kids, is Jon Knight. He was my favorite. You know what thought raced through my mind before I could stop it? “There’s still a chance.” J