Leave the worrying to me -- I'm a professional

I’m a worrier. If there’s something that needs to be worried about, well, you’ve come to the right place. If there’s something that doesn’t need worrying about, well, I’m your girl.

I’m not sure why I’m like this. I didn’t have a hard life as a kid and I’ve never had to worry about things like school or money or anything serious, really. Things come pretty easily to me and so the amount of worrying I do has no basis in reality.

The things I worry most about are people. When I was little, I couldn’t go to bed at night without telling my parents that I loved them, because what if they died in the night and never knew that I loved them? Yes, that was my thinking at age 5. I am petrified of losing my parents. Petrified. I am really close to them – I was an only child for many years until my brother came along, and my parents spent LOTS of time with me. I live a mile away from them. We’re a tight family. And I am scared to death of losing that. I am not afraid of dying myself – not in the least. But I worry about my family dying. I worry that my kids will never know their grandparents and know how phenomenal they are. I worry that my parents will never know their grandkids, or get the chance to be the phenomenal grandparents I know they’ll be.

Ever since Vannie died, I’ve worried about losing my brother. Not for any reason other than when you’re faced with the sudden death of someone young, you can’t help but think “what if.” Well, maybe you can, but I can’t. Especially because I took care of him all the time. He was MY baby. I carried him around and played with him and fed him and mothered him practically to death until he was 18. I let him go finally, but I still worry.

I worry about my friends. I worry that one day, we’ll finally reach the point where we’ve grown apart. I worry that we’ll stop talking to each other and never start again. I see statistics about how one in 5 women will get breast cancer, and I think “there are five of us – will one of us get that?” I know, it’s morbid. It’s not like I think about it all the time, but it’s there.

I worry about my youth group kids. I worry that they’ll make an irreversible bad decision. I worry that something will happen to one of them. I worry that my girl M, who’s at college in Greeley will come home after one year and back into the clutches of her overbearing, CRAZY father (I know you’re reading this M – I worry about that, ok?). Don’t come home! I miss you, but don’t come home! I worry that my boy D will get jaded by the way silly, stupid high school girls treat him and turn into a jerk. I worry that he’ll give in to the large amount of peer pressure that kids face. I worry that one day, he’ll stop telling me things because he’s scared that I’ll be disappointed. I’m scared that when I find out what he ISN’T telling me, it’ll be too late.

I worry about being alone. I worry that I’ll be alone forever. I worry that I’ll never have kids. I worry that I’ll have kids and then be so worried about them that I’ll have some sort of ridiculous breakdown. Oh the things I can find to worry about. I even worry about the cats. I know -- stupid. And the stupidest part is that they’re all purely hypothetical scenarios and also? I couldn’t stop them from happening no matter how much I wanted to.

But don’t YOU worry. I don’t worry all the time. I also obsess. And when I’m not doing either of those things, well, I’m probably making fun of people. I have to balance out my CLEARLY DUBIOUS mental health SOMEHOW, right?

Creepy Situation: Averted. Thanks Mom!

The United States has an early alert system for terrorism. Terror levels are denoted by color – red is the highest, and on down from there. Towns have tornado sirens to let people know that a tornado is coming so they can prepare. My disaster alert? My mom.

Example. The other night when I was driving home, my mom called to tell me something, and as we were getting off the phone, she’s like “Don’t stop for any weirdos!” And I was like “Uh, okaaaaay.” So she tells me that apparently there’s a guy posing as a cop and pulling over young women (which I would know if I watched the news, but who needs it when I can just get the highlights from my mom, right?). So I said “Ok, mom. I won’t pull over for any cops. Only hobos.” And she’s like “What?” And I said “Hobos! Can I stop for hobos?” So she’s cracking up and is like “No. Don’t stop for anyone.” I said “What? What? I’m getting to a place where I’m going to lose you. I have to go – there’s a hobo I have to pick up.” I hung up as she was still laughing – it’s a good thing my mom understands me.

The most recent example was this morning at church. Here’s the thing – churches attract quite a cross-section of people, people who are educated, uneducated, wealthy, poor, EVERYONE is at a church. They’re there for a reason, and so it makes it difficult from the standpoint of dealing with them socially. Since I work there, it makes it even MORE difficult, because it would look so bad if one of the staff was rude or unkind to a church member.

So there’s this guy there. He’s the parent of one of the youth group kids, and he’s kind of a loner. Like I said, every church has it’s oddballs – ours is no different, and you just deal with them. But this guy? This guy creeps me out to no end. He’s one of those who doesn’t have a great amount of social skills, and is maybe not aware of the, um, level of appropriateness of certain comments. I’ll just say it – he hits on me and it freaks me out. Usually I can deal with the weirdos just fine, but there’s something about this guy that gives me the heebie jeebies. Plus, the rest of the weirdos don’t hit on me. It started about a month ago and I’ve avoided him ever since. He doesn’t seem to get it though. He hovers around outside my office, and if I’m somewhere talking to someone, he keeps walking by, trying to catch my eye. I pretend not to notice. So far, it’s worked great, especially since there is rarely a time when I’m by myself – I’m either talking to people or I have my posse of youth group kids with me. I’ve told my pastor (since she’s also my boss and I figured I should let her know) and I told my mom, since she’s there every Sunday as well. And because did I mention I’m so creeped out? Anyway.

This morning, I was sitting in my office talking to one of my girls, and my mom came in to say hi. As she was leaving, she walked through the outer office to the hallway, and I hear her say REALLY LOUDLY “HI (creepy guy’s name)! How ARE you?” I kicked my door shut, and me and my girl kept talking. Way to be mom. Thanks for the warning.

I’m not sure how long I’ll have to avoid this guy before he gets the picture. But as long as I have my protective kid force field and my early warning mom, well, I think I’ll be just fine.

I Like Pelicans.

So here’s a little bit of insight into something that started out as a simple comic that made me laugh and has evolved into a way of life.

The above comic is “Robotman” (now “Monty”) and it is circa 1994. I’m not sure how I got a hold of it, because it wasn’t published in the paper that I got at home. I was probably reading this other newspaper during class. I mean I was LEARNING. LEARNING. I was probably perusing the NEWS and accidentally glanced at the comics section. Oh no I wasn’t perusing the news. I was totally reading the comics -- I never read the news, especially not as a senior in high school, which is when this was.

Anyway. For some reason, this struck me as hilarious. HI-LARIOUS. Seriously – who hasn’t been in a situation where there was an awkward silence and in your desperation to think of something to say, something totally ridiculous comes out? Don’t lie – you know it’s totally happened to you. Hope and Alice -- I know you've got something for me here.

So I showed the comic to my girls, and they also thought it was funny. And so was born one of our “timeless catch phrases.” Whenever there was a long silence, someone would say “I like pelicans.” Whenever someone would say something random or out of the blue, the other ones would look at them and say “…and you like pelicans?” I get that a lot, which may come as a surprise to all of you, since I am always so LOGICAL and SENSIBLE. And not at all random.

My parents caught on to my amusement by this comic, mostly because they kept hearing “I like pelicans,” followed by loud laughter, and so a few years ago, they started buying me pelican paraphernalia. It got off to kind of a rocky start when they went to Mexico and brought me back a bracelet that was all penguins. I didn’t get the significance, which must have showed plainly on my face, because my mom said “it’s penguins. Because you always say ‘I like penguins.’” And I started laughing and said “It’s PELICANS, mom. I like PELICANS.” Oh mom, you're always good for a laugh since you usually only half listen to me. Anyway, so once my parents got it straight and my firends caught on, the pelican stuff started to filter in, because, lets face it, there isn’t a lot of demand for pelican merchandise in a landlocked state such as this one. But then we went on a family vacation to Virginia Beach 3 years ago. We always do the touristy shopping thing (and we did a lot that week because it rained the whole damn time) and since it IS a beach town, there were a LOT of pelican items to be had. Thanks to my dad, I’m pretty sure that I left with one of each of them. And what I didn’t get in VA, I got the next year when we went to Florida. Thanks, dad!

Anyhoo, that’s the story of how I started collecting pelican stuff. And also the story of the advent of one of the best catchphrases ever. In my opinion, that is. Feel free to use said catchphrase whenever the awkward situation warrants it.

Elevator Thinking

I thought maybe I'd regale you with my thoughts as I sat stuck in an elevator by myself for an hour one morning a couple of years ago. We had recently moved our office to the building we're in now, which is about one mile from our former building. I really loved our former building, because it had a little locker room in the bathroom, and I was pretty much the only person who ever used it. So one morning, I had just come from the gym and I decided that I would go to the old building and shower there, sharing the space with no one, rather than showering at the NEW building, where there were always other people. It sounded like the perfect plan. Until I got stuck in the elevator. Yes, on my way up to the 4th floor, the elevator just stopped. Ah yes, a smashing start to a Monday.

After I decided that abject panic and/or crying was not going to do any good, I rang the emergency elevator bell. Not without reluctance, because while I very much enjoy the spotlight, I would prefer it to be in a situation that isn’t embarrassing as all hell and also where I don’t look like something the cat dragged in. More on that later. "Help!" I said. "I'm stuck in the elevator!" Distant voices drifted down to me as the people who heard me sad that help was on the way. Super.

So I sat down, and I'm thinking to myself "Ok, what if the cable breaks and the elevator free falls to the bottom of the shaft??? What if there's sparks and it ignites and I'm trapped??? Oh wait, I'm in between the ground floor and the second floor, so I'm probably out of danger. Though I do bruise rather easily. Even so, I haven't heard a lot about those falling-half-a-floor elevator casualties, so I think I can breathe easy. Breathe easy?? Oh my god, is it me, or is the air getting thin in here? What if the elevator guy takes so long to get here that I suffocate because I only have this little box of air? I mean, how long can you go with only the air that is in this elevator RIGHT NOW -- oh yeah, and the air that I also noticed coming through the crack in the doors. Hmmm. I guess I'm doing ok in the oxygen department. I mean, if all else fails, I can put my mouth up to the door crack and breathe that way. Though that might look a little strange when whoever comes to rescue me gets here – ‘why no, I was NOT french kissing the elevator doors, I was simply trying to get some fresh air.’ Really, this situation just gets more and more humiliating by the minute.”

More thinking. “Ok, so if someone comes through the roof to rescue me, will he let me bring my boots? Those are my favorite boots. I guess I could put them on and leave behind my running shoes, but then again, those shoes were over $100. Oh wait. The elevator will eventually get fixed, whether I'm in it or not, so I think no matter what, I would get to keep both pairs of shoes. So what if the guy who comes to rescue me is like Mr. July in the firefighter calendar? That would be awesome. Wait, no, I haven't taken a shower yet and I just went running. And I slept on my hair funny and my mascara is at the bottom of my gym bag and I forgot to bring lip stuff. Plus, it's pretty dark. I don't know how it would turn out if I tried to apply any sort of makeup in this lighting. Probably not good. Not good at all. Here’s hoping for ugly and/or old and/or married firefighters. Or maybe one hot one who is enthralled by my natural beauty. Hmmm. No -- better stick to ugly/old/married.”

“Why oh why did I think this would be a good idea. This is what I get for being all high-maintenance and in the two years we were here before we moved our office, I've never talked to anyone else on the other floors of this building, and yet now they're all trying to be encouraging -- "hang in there!" and "you're ok!" Not to split hairs here, because I appreciate them not just leaving me here alone, but a) how do you KNOW I'm ok -- what if I had some horrible heart condition or I'm abnormally claustrophobic? I would be decidedly NOT ok if that were the case. And b) Hang in there? Really? Now I’m thinking of that poster of the cat hanging from the tree branch, and I’ve realized that my plight has been reduced to a punch line from a 1970s-era “humor” poster.”

“I wish my cell phone worked, because I’m getting pretty bored in here. Plus, I need to call work and explain to them why not only am I going to be late, but also why I’m going to have to be even later because I still have to take a shower. I’m thinking my boss is going to sigh and roll her eyes when she hears my excuse. Like a couple of weeks ago when I called to say I’d be late because I got lost on the way to the office. That’s right – lost. Granted, our office is in a new place, but it’s practically in the backyard of the old office that I’ve been coming to every day for the past TWO YEARS. And I got lost. See, what happened was I thought I’d miss this one traffic backup and take a detour, only it wasn’t as much of a straight shot as I thought, and well, I drove around for a while until finally I was like ‘AH HA! I know where I am now.’ I was like an hour late. I think everyone just smiles, shakes their head and says ‘it could only happen to Amber.’”

“Ok so what if I have to climb out of the elevator through the roof? And what if while I'm doing that (ever so gracefully, I’m sure), I fall? The paramedics would have to come and again, I hate calling attention to myself for stupid stuff. I swear, going to the gym today has just totally worked me over. Speaking of being worked over, remember in 'Silence of the Lambs' when Hannibal Lecter kills that guy and takes his face and puts his dead body on the roof of the elevator? Oh my god, what if the guy who comes through the roof is a psychotic killer who loves that movie? What if this isn't just an ordinary power outage? What if this is like some sort of plot concocted by someone who loves action and/or horror and/or psychological thriller-type movies involving elevator mishaps? Crap. I'd be screwed then.”

“Hey -- is this thing moving?”

Things that rhyme with "writer's block"

Lots of things rhyme with block. I won’t go into what they are right now, but lots of things do.

First of all, I’d like to show some love to the BRAND NEW EVEN MORE HIGH TECH ergonomic wireless keyboard. I don’t quite know how to work all of your bells and whistles yet, o keyboard my keyboard, but I will learn. Oh yes, I will learn.

Here’s something that I’m having a hard time with, though – this fancy new keyboard curves differently than my other one, and so until I get used to it, it’s typo city around here. I’m going to attempt to type the rest of this post and leave it just the way it is so that you too can enjoy the typing related hijinks. Chances are though, the Word OCD will kick in and I’ll have to change all the misspellings and weird punctuation because I just can’t stand it.

And now that I said that, I can’t think of anything else to write. Actually, I think I’m getting sick, and so Marlene gave me some Advil cold and sinus medicine and I now feel a little silly and probably even more random than usual. I’m warning you of that in advance as well. I’m just full of disclaimers today. Sorry. In advance.

Christmas is coming. I know that for those of you who live under rocks, this is going to come as a great shock, because apparently you didn’t walk into the aisle next to the Halloween costumes back in October and suddenly become confused because it was 70 degrees outside, yet Aisle 7 had already become a veritable winter wonderland. I was somewhere this weekend (yes, I know – that narrows it RIGHT down) and I all of the sudden had the urge to get out all my Christmas decorations. Marlene and I were somewhere recently (again, the specifics are mind-boggling) and I was saying how I was thinking about getting a Christmas tree again this year and she looked at me and said “Oh how quickly the memory fades.” She’s referring to the fact that last year I waged a full-on war against the pine needles in my house. They were EVERYWHERE. I came into work every day with an update of the odd places in which I found pine needles. The last straw (or needle, if you will. And I will) was one day after I had gotten rid of the tree. I was rejoicing over the fall of the pine needle regime, and part of the rejoicing involved taking a shower. I went to turn on the water, and lo and behold, in the bottom of my big bathtub, was one lone pine needle. Laying there, taunting me. Anyway, when Marlene reminded me of the pine needle debacle of ’04, I was like “sure, but this year I have a vacuum that actually WORKS.” What can I say. I’m a sucker for Christmas.

Ok, I’m going to leave you with a shout out to my girls Karen and Kendra – we had dinner with Kendra’s mom on Saturday night and as a result, I think Kendra has a future either as a mime (but I hope not because mimes are scary) or as one of those people who translate for the deaf. Could be either, but whatever it was, it was funny as hell. Even though the rocket scientist at the restaurant wouldn’t give us an ETA on those awesome smelling cinnamon rolls. Jerk.

And yes, no typos = Word OCD. I’m sorry, I just can’t do it.