Being a Millennial

Not Your Mother’s Makeup

/ Missy Goodnight / Leave a comment

Did you know makeup has an expiration date? I did not. Or rather I figured it did but never bothered to check until yesterday. I don’t even know what made me curious. I was looking for something in the bathroom and I stumbled across my CoverGirl foundation and I noticed a date stamped on it. It was expired. It wasn’t VERY expired, but still. I wondered how long ago I had bought it and shook my head from the intense workout I was giving my brain and I threw it in the trash. It’s no secret, if you’ve ever met me IRL, that I’m not a big makeup user. I go through phases. In my twenties I wore makeup pretty regularly, then after Jackson was born I gave up on that shit. Being a stay-at-home-mom will do that to ya. Then in my thirties I was back at it, then I stopped. Now I wear it sparingly, but as of late I have so many appointments and meetings and, because I’m a Band Booster Mom, I’ve had to talk in front of large groups of people, so I’m starting to think I might get back on the makeup bandwagon. But I need to ease in. So I went to Target last night for some foundation and that’s when my life fell apart.

Listen, it’s possible what I’m about to tell you is not surprising, but to me it was, how should I put this? Fucking nuts. I can’t begin to tell you the last time I was in a makeup store, or stopped at a makeup counter, or even meandered down the makeup aisle in a place like Target, but I did last night and what the hell?! Someone could have warned me! Although I suppose I should have known, considering there are entire YouTube channels devoted to learning how to apply foundation. What are those little sponge things? What’s a contour? Why wasn’t I taught this in Seventeen Magazine in 1996? Or was I and I just skipped right over it to take the “Which Seinfeld Character Are You?” quiz?

The aisle was not what I was accustomed to. I’ll admit that over the last few months I had noticed that Target was moving things, putting in brighter lights, gussying up that section, but I paid little mind since I rarely went in there. But on a Sunday night at 8:00 pm the lights from the makeup section were so bright! Who needs shit that bright? The answer is me. My old-ass eyes had a hard time trying to navigate through the foundation tints, for one. The last time I routinely bought foundation was probably 15 years ago and shit was not like this. Now I’ve bought foundation in the last fifteen years, but it’s usually when I’m on vacation and realize I don’t have any and my face is red and I run into Walgreens and grab some “Light” foundation and Tylenol PM for good measure. This shit. This shit. I dunno, it was different.

First of all, where is the CoverGirl? And I’m gonna stop right here and say that I use CoverGirl solely because I’ve always used CoverGirl. There’s no other explanation. My mom used it and when I bought my first foundation at the Leavenworth Wal-mart that’s what she told me to buy. Plus, they have this foundation with Olay in it and they are cruelty-free. Probably most of the makeup companies are nowadays, but back then that was way important to me and they were proudly touting it and 16-year-old Missy was all, “Hell yeah, cruelty-free!” Plus, there just weren’t a lot of make-up options for a girl like me in the late 90s in small-town Kansas. Everyone wore CoverGirl makeup and did their nails with Wet ‘n’ Wild. End of story.

That is not the case now.

Now as a grown-ass adult I have been inside Ulta and Sephora. I have lingered at the makeup counter at Macy’s and Nordstrom’s. I once even walked, on accident, into a high-end makeup store in New York City mistaking it for a candy store. I blamed it on Jackson once we got inside. I was all, “Oh, I’m sorry, my son thought this was a candy store (fake laugh, fake laugh).” And he side-eyed me fully knowing that I was the one who yelled, “I think that’s a candy store!” when we were walking past. The point is, I know that other brands exist. I know that they are probably magical and can treat your skin way better than CoverGirl, but creature, meet habit.

So, there I am last night, confused, looking all over like I’ve found myself at a rave and someone has just offered me a pill and I’m wondering if it’s worth it, when it occurs to me that they probably have cameras all over this bitch because of shoplifting and there is possibly some woman sitting in a backroom somewhere laughing at me trying to match skin tones with some brand called “Wiki Pixie Velour.” I was a mess. I was going back and forth between two sections for a good ten minutes trying to figure out why I couldn’t find my “match” when I realized those two brands weren’t even made for me, they were made specifically for woman who have way more melanin than I do. (Hand to head)

I was just so confused. So overwhelmed. Not only were there so many brands, but in each brand were so many different kinds of foundations. Then I started to panic. Do I need this primer? What’s a primer? I used a primer when I painted the wall in the guest room. Does my face need a primer?! So I put a primer in the cart, one that supposedly helps control red, which I suffer from. Then there was the actual foundation and all I kept thinking was, “WHERE IS THE COVERGIRL AGELESS WITH OLAY?” And then I had a thought: What if they don’t sell it anymore?! So I panicked even harder.

It was about this time that another desperate woman walked into the aisle. She was scanning, scanning, scanning. I could see it in her eyes. She was in scrubs. A nurse or a doctor from Emory. She has a mask on so I could only see her eyes, but I knew she felt the same. She was looking for a foundation and she didn’t know if they had it. I nervously reached for a lipgloss and turned the box over and over in my hands, while I watched her from the corner of my eye. She kept picking up bottles of foundation and putting them down. I wanted to scream, “STOP! You won’t find it! You’ll never find what you’re looking for and we are both going to die here in the makeup section at the Northlake Target! It’s over!” But she did find it. She found what she was looking for and she sped off and I looked down at the lipgloss in my hand and for the first time I read the box. It said, “For lips and cheeks” and I threw the devil lipgloss/blush back onto the shelf.

Was I in the twilight zone?

I walked then, into aisle after aisle. I’d been in all of them before. I’d lost track of time. I worried about Jackson and Jerimiah. I told them I was running to Target for foundation and almond milk. What had become of them? There were just so many options.

Pixie.

W3LL People

Arches and Halos

Honest Beauty

Tarte

The Lip Bar

Olive and June

Loveseen

Blk/Opl

Makeup Revolution

PYT beauty

This is not an exhaustive list of makeup sold at Target, but holy hell! Then, in the aisle that’s so far away it looked like it belonged with Epsom salts and adult diapers, I saw it: Drugstore Makeup! And there on the shelf was all of my familiar CoverGirl Ageless Foundation! And all the familiar suspects. Whew. Crisis averted.

BEHOLD!

Okay, sure, I was probably overreacting. But that’s what I do. And truth be told, I still walked out of Target with about $100 in makeup because I gave into the contouring blush and the eyebrow pencil and that damn primer, which was actually more money than a gallon of Sherwin-Williams primer, but I digress. The point is sometimes when we are forced to look change directly in the eyes, we wonder if we would look good with lash extensions or not. Then we overcome the Target makeup aisle.

Here’s to overcoming. I hope you overcome whatever your makeup aisle looks like today.

M.

Therapy

/ Missy Goodnight / Leave a comment

I’ve had no time, I’ve had no time, I’ve had no time! That’s what I keep chanting over and over again whenever I start to think about this here blog. And while it’s the truth, I also have a a tendency to get all caught up in my head, unable to share my thoughts with people, and that brings me here to the blog to share with you all, but lately my support system has been on point. Like my fellow PTO moms have been struggling along with me and listening to me vent. I unexpectedly got some time with my sister and best friend last week, and well, Jerimiah listens to me whenever I need him to and I’ve been leaning on him a lot lately. So I don’t want to say that I don’t need y’all right now, but if the shoe fits ya dig?

That got me thinking about how I also haven’t seen my therapist lately. Y’all know Patsy the Great, right? I haven’t seen her in like a month because I’ve been so busy that I haven’t even called to schedule my appointments. I schedule like three at at time and when they are over I forget to call to get back on a schedule and really I should just commit to a day and a time like they want me to, but I have to be difficult. Y’all know I am difficult right? You know I’m going to go ahead and do that now.

Okay, appointments made. For real. I just logged off and called and made my next three appointments. Thanks for pushing me to do that y’all.

How is therapy going for you? Do you stay on top of it or forget like me? I do Friday mornings because I always feel a little sad afterward, relieved, but also sad, you know how it is, and I like to rest a bit before Jackson gets home. Therapy is the hardest, bravest thing I’ve ever done and I’m sure it is for you too, so you know what, go ahead and pat yourself on your back right now! You are doing it, friend!

Now those of you who are still dragging your feet, my question is: What are you so afraid of? Is it looking into your actual self and not liking what you see? If that’s the case you can probably already name plenty of times you do that to yourself everyday. Having a therapist walk you through those feelings is really helpful. Or is it the stigma that comes with therapy? Then you’re certainly either over the age of 40 (my generation is making therapy real cool and will only judge you if you say you don’t go) and/or you have some childhood trauma you aren’t ready to touch. Or both. Hint: It’s usually both. And I understand. That’s tough stuff. I’m proud of you for naming it though, that’s the first step. When you’re ready for the next let me know.

Whew. Therapy. AmIRight?

I had no idea what this blog was going to be about today, but there it is. Get y’all an appointment post haste so I don’t’ have to judge you anymore.

Take care of yourself, in all the ways.

M.

For Posterity

/ Missy Goodnight / Leave a comment

I’m in kindergarten and I’m hunkered behind our living room chair, my back against the wood paneling of our living room, and I have my sister’s portable cassette player. No idea where my sister is. There’s a faint sound of the mower in the background. My mother was probably out mowing the front lawn. I’m eating slices of cheese, the Kraft singles kind, only it’s not really Kraft because we couldn’t afford that kind. It’s an off brand yellow cheese and I’m pulling the piece into smaller pieces and sitting them around a plastic Tupperware plate, while the sound of some newsman blares through the recorded cassette tape I am listening to. The back of the chair has a large piece of wood running along it and I have my feet up against that piece of wood.

So there I am, eating my cheese, my back against wood, my feet on wood, listening to a recording that my mother made five years before. It’s a recording of the news from January 20, 1980. An hour after Reagan is inaugurated. It is a recording of the moment Ayatollah released the 52 American hostages from Iran. I am smitten with this recording and listen to it often.

Today, nearly 35 years after my mom made that recording in her small living room apartment on State Street, I have some questions. How did I get my hands on that tape? Did she want me to hear it? Why was I obsessed with a recording of hostages being released at six years old? Why did my mother feel the need to record that in the first place? She was barely pregnant with me the day the American diplomats were flown to Germany to the welcoming embrace of President Jimmy Carter, who had worked for over a year to free them, but just lost the general election and was robbed of the last heroic act of his presidency. What compelled her? Was it the state of the country at the time? Was everyone gathered around their television screens that afternoon, waiting, anticipating, feeling it was their patriotic duty to listen, to record history unfolding, with their American flag newspapers Scotch-taped into their wooden window frames? I can’t be sure. I just don’t know that country. That world. My mother, at that time.

I do know the feeling though. The feeling that what is happening, right now, in the present moment, feels in some way so important that we have to record it, write it, etch it into our collective memory for future generations to dust off and read, listen to, with their cheesy fingers sliding between pause and play, while the voices of those long gone cry and scream in release.

M.

When in Doubt, Laugh It Out

/ Missy Goodnight / 5 Comments

I got an email from Delta yesterday, and I sucked in my breath because I have a flight scheduled for Friday morning, and I was like, “Shiiiit.” But it was cool. It was just telling me all the precautions they were taking in light of this here pandemic, and that they have a Command Station set up in Atlanta to combat any signs or symptoms of travelers. They didn’t tell me not to fly (that wouldn’t be a best business practice) but they did tell me that any and all change fees are waived right now, and that I can use my credits any other time if I do decide to cancel my flight. No harm, no foul. Thanks, Delta. But I’m flying out on Friday because my nephew is getting married on Saturday in Kansas City, and there’s just some things you don’t miss. But, I am a little nervous because Hartsfield-Jackson has had confirmed cases come through there, they are the busiest airport in all the land, and there are no instances of Covid-19 in KC, which means I may be bringing them gifts unbeknownst to them.

So, I’m anxious now. I wasn’t before, but now I am. I’m scared, and sad about all the deaths. I can’t imagine what China and Italy are going through right now, and I don’t want to know. I don’t want my fellow STUPID Americans (and our government) to muck this up and cause us to end up in bad shape, and worse yet, unable to help other countries who may desperately need our help. It’s bad enough that humans (and some dogs) are combatting this nasty virus, and dying from it, but why do we have to keep pretending like we don’t need to worry about it? We do. But… I deflect my emotions with humor. Which is what I’m fittin’ to do. And I get it, I know. You might find memes about a virus killing people repulsive. Then I’d just skip on down to the bottom where I fill you in on the important stuff. Cause these memes are all I have right now to keep me smiling. (Also, you’re probably not of my generation, and that is cool, it’s just that, well, we deal with things differently.)

Okay, we’ve had our fun, now let’s get real. Here is the most important site to keep updated in your browser:

Center for Disease Control and Prevention

The CDC is still learning how Covid-19 spreads, but they know it is not airborne. Which means masks don’t help that much. If you just keep your distance (about six feet), don’t touch people, and wash your hands frequently you should be okay. It can spread through sneezing and coughing, but that doesn’t mean it just lives in the air. It means that an infected person, who may not know they are infected, can sneeze or cough and the droplets of their sneeze or cough can land near/on you and you can touch them, then touch your face, which is bad news bears.

The people actually showing the symptoms are the most contagious though. So think the sickest, the people in quarantine or those with really high fevers who just don’t look great, those are the people to stay away from. The rest of the people who have mild symptoms or are not exhibiting symptoms yet are least likely to infect others. Which is good, because if you’re still well enough to say, travel, then you are probably on the lower end of the contagion.

Community spreads are the most common as of now. That’s why whole provinces of China had it spread so easily. So it’s actually unlikely that I would bring the disease to KC, but you know, there’s a chance. It’s more likely that a student at a school gets sick, then the school has an outbreak. Which is why as I write this, the whole Fulton Country school district is out of school for the day. Fulton County is one of the Atlanta counties, and a teacher tested positive for Covid-19 this week, so everyone was out one day to clean the schools. It’s a process, y’all. And thankfully our backwoods-ass, horrible, pro-life governor is taking it seriously. You know, doing something good for once. Though to be fair, it’s the local officials who are handling things smoothly round here. And the big businesses like Delta. And thank the Baby Jesus for the CDC. Did I mention that? Cause if you’re still getting your news from our president, then, umm, I have no words for you. Stop. Just stop.

Okay, hope this helped in some way. It helped me laugh, cry, freak out, then laugh again. Stay safe out there, y’all.

M.

Here’s a great, short video on Coronavirus, how it spread, and how we can help stop it.

Tuesdays

/ Missy Goodnight / Leave a comment

Tuesdays kind of suck. Tuesdays are like that girl you knew in college. Her name was Amber. She had large, robust breasts. The kind you’d catch yourself staring at, wondering why yours weren’t that nice, and also wondering how soft they were. She was always a bit high, but she didn’t work. Her parents paid for her apartment, and she made her weed money by selling plasma on the weekends. Sometimes she’d show up at the same party as you, and she’d saunter over, a little drunk on flavored vodka, a Marlboro Light hanging from her mouth, Ani DiFranco on the CD player, and she’d ask your name, even though you two had known each other since 6th grade. You’d just look down at her vast cleavage, wonder what it felt like inside that space, and say, “You know me, dude.” And she’d be all, “Really?! OMIGOD!”

Tuesdays are annoying. They make me think about all the shit I didn’t get done on Monday, that I was planning on getting done on Sunday, because I knew it actually needed to get done on Saturday, because I thought to get it done on Friday, but who gets shit done on Friday? Amber. She sells plasma on Fridays.

It rains on Tuesdays. Maybe not every Tuesday, but when it’s raining it always feels like a Tuesday.

Tuesdays suck the creativity out of me. They block me from the motivation that it takes to take that first step. Write that first line. Knit that first stitch.

But every so often a Tuesday will surprise me. Yesterday I had a nice, long chat over coffee with a new friend. I thought, “Well Tuesday, what have we done here? This was lovely.” But as I was leaving the coffee shop it started to rain. I was carefully walking back to my car when I suddenly remembered touching Amber’s breasts, in a friend’s apartment, the smell of vanilla vodka on our lips. It wasn’t a Tuesday. Couldn’t have been. Her breasts were soft, her skin warm.

Then I stepped into a puddle.

I see what you did there Tuesday. I won’t fall for it again.

M.

New Year’s Resolution

/ Missy Goodnight / Leave a comment

I was back to see Patsy today (for the new people hiding in the back, Patsy is my awesome therapist). She was either booked solid, or away the whole month of December so I had A LOT to talk to her about. There was the pretty low spot I found myself in right after Thanksgiving. There was a whole month of guilt trips from family about coming home for Christmas, there was even the “Toaster” story that I had been saving up for her because I knew how she would react (jaw drop, head shake, a “What the actual hell?”) Oh man, it was good. But before I went back for my hour of emotional torment, I noticed an interesting thing in the waiting room. Lots of people I don’t normally see on my biweekly Tuesday or Thursday morning vists. Like, mainly mature, white men. I was sort of surprised. The five or so minutes I waited I also heard the office staff book three or four evaluations, which made me very happy because mental health is very important and I get the sense, over the last few years, more and more people have realized that.

I know what you are thinking. It’s probably the same thing I thought as I sat there watching people uncomfortably fill out paperwork in the first week of January, maybe they made this a New Year’s resolution? Maybe so. Hopefully. But who cares?! Listen, I know the general feeling nowadays, particularly from my generation, toward setting a New Year’s Resolution. Let’s call it, umm, jaded. And I gotta be honest, I just don’t get it.

What is so wrong with taking a clean, fresh start on a day that literally gives us a clean, fresh start? Maybe I don’t get it because I am a grade A, low-life, procrastinator who has said, “Oh, I’ll just do it on Monday” before. Because Monday is a clean, fresh day. Monday hasn’t been tampered with like Saturday has. Monday has so much potential. Monday will be better.

This got me thinking about the day I was baptized. I was baptized as an adult. I was 30 years old in fact, and it was after a particularly difficult point in my life and I needed direction. And faith. And cleansed. Looking back I should have made a therapist appointment instead of a sitting in a pool of my own filth in a white gown, but you live, you learn. The point is, I felt cleansed. I felt fresh. I felt like I could start over. So I did.

That’s what the new year does for some people. It allows them to shake off the negative shit they endured the year before. It allows them to start over. No one is trying to reinvent themselves from December 31st to January 1st, but they are trying to change their mindset. And what is so wrong with that? Why the jokes about gyms getting hit hard this time of year? Why belittle people for taking a difficult step? Maybe it makes you feel better, and if so may I recommend you get yourself a Patsy?

Because you posting on Facebook how you aren’t “dumb enough to make a resolution” isn’t helping your third cousin, once removed who is battling mental illness make that eval call. It isn’t helping your aunt who has decided 2020 is a year of change and she’s going to join Silver Sneakers. Your jaded opinions on New Year’s Resolutions aren’t helping anyone, unless to serve a few laughs, or help you commiserate with all the other haters. And again, I can give you Patsy’s number. You’ll love her, she’s great.

Here’s all I’m asking, and I’m asking it nicely the first time around: Can you spare a little more kindness? Can you think for an extra second before you share a meme about how the gym is crowded, or the health food store is crowded, or the therapist office is crowded this time of year? Because there are some of us out there who just need a definitive line. A point of no return. A cleanse, before we can take a leap. And yeah, maybe it won’t stick. Maybe by the first week of February my therapist’s office will be empty again, but maybe it won’t. There’s always that.

I didn’t set a resolution this year because I didn’t have a clear one to set, but maybe next Monday I will have one. Until then, I’m hopeful for all of you who did! This is your year!

M.

Ok, Boomer

/ Missy Goodnight / Leave a comment

I’m not going to pretend to know what started this #OkBoomer hashtag, mainly because I have been trying not to watch news, or stay abreast on current events as of late because well, shitbag, dumpster fire world, and all, but every once in a while something comes across my social media bubble and pulls me into it. And today it is this #OkBoomer thing. And from what I have gathered it’s a slight, a knock at, a diss to, the Baby Boomers because they have a lot to say about the things Millennials and all the rest of the younger generations are doing, a lot of negative things, and if we really step back and observe, we can see that the Boomers are responsible for a lot of what is happening now. Because it takes literal decades to fuck shit up this bad. Yet, here they are, talking ’bout “Make America Great Again,” but that’s not even what I’m upset about.

I’m upset with the way they have this attitude about how “we,” as in the generations after them, can’t just work hard, pull up our bootstraps when times are hard, make more money, and “get it done” like they did. It’s as if they are so out of touch with reality that they honestly, hand-to-God, believe that’s still a thing that can happen. Uh, no. Times have changed, Boomers. This isn’t 1958. A dollar isn’t what a dollar was. You can’t work a part-time job and pay your way through college. You can’t make $8/hr and raise a family. You can’t have Union jobs now and expect to be taken care of, to not be made to fight for better wages and healthcare.

And a majority of us who are trying to get us out of the mess we are in, don’t remember a world even remotely resembling the one you had. Our childhood is marred with mass shootings in our schools, terrorists attacks, and war. Jesus, our friends are always at war. We all know someone who has been to Iraq, or Afghanistan, at one time or another. And we all know some who never came back. Meanwhile, I saw where that Disney woman, the heiress to the Disney fortune, asked what Millennials have accomplished in their life. What have we done? Um, survived? Is that not enough for you?

My personal favorite is the Boomers whacked-out advice like, “The problem is no one wants to work 70 hours a week anymore,” and “College isn’t for everyone, stop trying to push college on people.” Two things: 1. No college isn’t for everyone, but if you want to be able to survive, and not live paycheck to paycheck, and you don’t want to be in constant fear of losing your job, or going broke if you get sick, then you have to have a salaried gig with benefits, and guess who gets those jobs? College-educated people. And you know how I feel about higher education and critical thinking, you can’t have one without the other… 2. You are right, we DO NOT want to work 70 hours a week, and for the love of all that is holy, if you are working 70 hours a week, you are doing something very wrong. No one needs to work that much anymore. Technology has made our work lives easier, which has allowed us to be home with our families more, which has helped the economy, helped our parenting, helped our marriages, even helped equal out the roles in the home. (Seriously, if you’re working that much you are probably pretty ineffective at your job.) But guess what the Boomers don’t like: Equality. Being at home with family. Men in parenting roles. Because that isn’t how it was done back then, because they still are living in the “way back then.”

I saw this meme the other day that had an older gentleman, a Boomer, and it said, “Back in my day we didn’t get offended so easily…” and at the bottom it said, “Back in his day, they drained a whole pool if a black person stuck a toe in.” And yeah, it made a stunningly great point. But still, that’s not what I’m upset with. Boomers have never claimed to be self-aware, and we know they aren’t, Jesus, they wouldn’t go to a therapist if it meant saving their lives, let alone saving the lives of their children! What makes me upset is this form of nostalgia. That “Back in my day” bullshit. It’s fun for you to sit around in your underwear and yell, “Back at my day” at Fox News, but when it comes up in my newsfeed, you can bet your ass I will have some stuff to say about it.

Whew. I think I flipped my shit, y’all.

Sorry about that.

Actually, no, I’m not sorry.

I’m just a woman, stuck somewhere between a Millennial and who knows what or where else, trying to make my world better, my community better, my family better, by doing what I think is right. Every generation has had its breaking point, and I guess, I hope, this is ours. I hope we can push the Boomers aside (and the rest of the people who have no fucking clue) and actually get shit done. Get our climate straightened out. Get our oceans clean again. Save the damn bees. Elect representation that actually represents us. Educate all the people who want to be educated. Get all kids a hot meal everyday. Raise minimum wage. Lower higher education, prescription drug, and healthcare costs. Pass sensible gun laws. Jesus, there is so much more we want to do, and you know what, we might just do it.

And yes, I know the rhetoric, the discourse on the “Us v. Them” bullshit, unfortunately, that’s what it’s boiled down to. Either you are with us. With this planet, with the younger generations, and making this world better for ALL people, or you are against us. Time to make a choice. As my Boomer mom would say, “It’s time to shit or get off the pot.” Maybe you can relate to that.

M.

Grouchy About TP

/ Missy Goodnight / Leave a comment

Why are there ads and commercials for toilet paper? Which adults out there do not have a favorite toilet paper? Why do people need convincing on this topic? Are there people who are still, I dunno in their thirties, and flipping between toilet paper brands? Is it the damn millienials? I can say that now, because apparently I am an Xennial (somewhere between a Gen X-er and a millennial) so I can blame them for things now. Those damn millennials!

As a grown-ass thirty-something adult, I know which brand of toilet paper I like, and I am not changing. I am not looking for coupons. I am not looking for sales or deals or BuY tHiS nOw ads! I am looking for comfort and plush 2-ply, and I have found it, and I don’t want to see bears wiping their asses anymore. Why Charmin? People are already buying you. Why bears wiping their asses?

And stop trying to come up with inventive ways to use toilet paper. Listen, it is for one thing and one thing only. It’s like how Q-tip prints all the ways you can use Q-tips on the back of their packaging. You can use it to clean your keyboard?! Really? Really, Q-tip? Yeah, I know the medical community came out and said, “Don’t stick things in your ears!” but something tells me they meant penis. Like, don’t stick penis in your ear. You know?

I’m sorry you guys.

It’s 7:30 am and I am already off the damn rails.

Maybe I should go back to bed.

Maybe I should roll out my bulk, two-ply and lay on top of it. Cover myself in it like a sleeping bag. Like a cozy, plush, sleeping bag. Until my husband comes home and finds me, takes one look at me, and mumbles something about buying Charmin.

M.

You Are What You Read

/ Missy Goodnight / 2 Comments

In elementary school I participated in the Book It! Program. If you don’t know Book It! it was a program designed by Pizza Hut in the early 1980s. The then-president of the company was called to action by President Reagan, who asked big business to find valuable ways to help with education in America. Pizza Hut stepped up to the plate, literally and figuratively, with the Book It! Program. Book It! awarded elementary school children the chance to read appropriate-level books, in exchange for stickers, buttons, and you guessed it, free pizza! I don’t know much more about the program from the business side, but I did find an informative and fun article here, if you are so inclined: http://mentalfloss.com/article/501605/12-cheesy-facts-about-pizza-huts-book-it-program.

What I remember about Book It! was the awesome personal pan pizzas that you got whenever you finished your “chart”, which was a brightly colored poster board with the names of everyone in your class, and stars representing how many books you had read. For each book you got a sticker. For every ten books you read, you received a coupon for a personal pan pizza. This was a great incentive to kids who were not planning on reading ten books a month, a fun bonus for those of us who were, and a smart marketing move on behalf of Pizza Hut. I mean, parents will do more with less, for an excuse to NOT cook and do the dishes on a Friday night. It was a win-win, and honestly, one of my favorite memories from elementary school. We were sorta poor, and Pizza Hut was not a place we frequented. My mom cooked food at home, so once a month I knew I would get to go out to dinner. It wasn’t anything fancy, but my mom would take me to Pizza Hut. She would get us a water and a Diet Coke, then she would order two personal pan pizzas and we got one of them free. It was a sweet deal, and a fun evening for us because the nearest Pizza Hut was at the mall of sorts, in Leavenworth, called The Plaza. It had some shops in it, an arcade, a book store, ice cream, etc. It was small, but always exciting to go look around with my tummy full of free pizza. Sometimes, if it were near payday, we would walk around and dream of the stuff we wanted, then hit Baskin Robbins just before we drove home.

The other thing I remember about Book It! was how unfair it suddenly seemed one day in fifth grade. I was a fairly smart kid. No rocket scientist, but I was an avid reader, a strong reader, and a lover of books. One day my class came back inside from recess and sat at our desks with the lights off. This was something we did everyday. It was a rest time that Mrs. Coughran, our very patient teacher, bestowed upon us. Mrs. Coughran took this time to turn off the lights and let us rest our minds and bodies before we stumbled into whatever was next on the agenda. Everyday she would read aloud during this time, from a book that we all voted on. We had three choices. We could either listen while we rested our eyes (think: trying to get a quick snooze) or we could color or draw, or we could read our own book silently at our desk. I usually chose to read silently, especially when I was close to completing my ten books for the month.

One particular day I excused myself to the Book It! Chart to see how many books I had left. Mrs. Coughran or Mrs. Simmons, the school librarian, had to pick the books for us, as reading at your appropriate level was one of the requirements. On this day I meandered over to the chart to see which book I had next so I could decide if we had it in the classroom, or if I needed to go find it in the library. That is when the shock set in. My chart looked like this: Island of the Blue Dolphins, Indian in the Cupboard, Number the Stars, Anne Frank, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Giver, etc. etc. Meanwhile, a large number of the rest of the class were reading books like this: James and the Giant Peach, Sarah Plain and Tall, Little House in the Big Woods, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Superfudge, and Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing. See a pattern here? I was getting saddled with these “big” books, which is how I thought of them, when really they were just more advanced subject matter, while my classmates read what amounted, to me anyway, as Dr. Seuss. I was pissed.

I went home that night and told my mom, who really had no idea what I was bitching about. She was convinced my teachers knew which books I should be reading, and what the hell was a Superfudge, anyway? She told me stop complaining, but she did offer to run me down to the public library so I could pick out whatever I wanted. I took the bait.

The next day at silent reading, I looked around the room before I lifted up my desk and snuck out my brand new public library copy of Pippi Longstocking. Now I had read Pippi Longstocking before. In fact, I had read all of them and watched the movies back in, ohh, second grade? But it was funny and short and I didn’t need to look up words in secret in my bedroom at night. I spent the better part of our fifteen minutes trying to hide the cover from Mrs. Coughran, who seemed to be inching closer to my desk. I figured if I could get the book done quickly, I could just run over and jot the title down and have her give me a sticker without her even looking at the cover. It was a tense few minutes.

I was still reading happily along to Pippi’s antics when someone switched the lights on without my knowing. I was so engrossed, I didn’t look up until Mrs. Coughran’s hand touched my arm. I looked up at her, my eyes wide, I had been caught. She knelt down next to my desk and asked me what I was reading. I showed her the cover. That’s a good one, she said, not taking her eyes off of me. I think it is a movie now too. I shook my head and gulped. Are you going to count that as one of your books this week? The question sort of stayed out there, in the air between us. I wasn’t sure what to say. I found the nerve, maybe from Pippi, to say, I think so. Okay, she said with a smile. I think that’s a good idea. But don’t forget that Mrs. Simmons wants you to finish “Number the Stars” this week too. I shook my head. Yes. Yes. The holocaust book, I remembered quickly. She smiled and walked away.

That afternoon as the bell rang, and we all ran to the freedom of our parent’s cars, Mrs. Coughran called for me. I stopped in the doorway, a little bit scared. She put her arms out for a hug and I fell into her. I had been so afraid she was mad at me. Then she looked me in the eyes. Reminded me to look her in the eyes, something she had been working on with me since day one, and she said that she was proud of me for being a class leader in the Book It! Program. She confided that we were probably set up to receive the coveted pizza party at the end of the year because of our hard work, and that I had really helped bring the class reading up. I smiled a shameful smile. Then she said to me, Remember, Missy. You are what you read.

We did end up earning a Book It! Pizza Hut party on the last week of school. We read and ate until we were too sick to read anymore, then we watched old episodes of Bill Nye the Science Guy and ate some more. Someone’s mom brought in cupcakes, another brought juice boxes, and Pizza Hut brought boxes of piping hot pepperoni pizza. We felt like royalty.

M.


It is Never a Good Time for a Waterbed

/ Missy Goodnight / Leave a comment

We are renters. Meaning we choose to rent our houses, rather than buy our houses. Call us what you will: Rotten Millennials, Killers of the American Dream, Bad Economists, Stupid. Whatever, doesn’t hurt our feelings. We don’t mind paying a premium for a house in a neighborhood we couldn’t otherwise afford, that allows us to send our son to a top-tier school. We don’t mind paying a premium to live in a house with a pool, or a house with one of those fancy refrigerators that talks. Because we value things that might be different than what others value, or (gasp!) that might be different than the values of our parent’s generation. One of the things we value is proximity to “cool shit”. Cool shit here being, museums, festivals, children’s libraries, theater performances, amusement parks, easy and quick access to both major highways and a large, international airport for easy traveling, etc, etc.

Continue reading →