Dear September

Dear September, 

Before we officially welcome you to 2020, I thought maybe I'd give you a heads up on what exactly you are walking into. In case you've missed the headlines.

2020 has been a year. And then some. And there's still more of it to come. We've had pandemics, and there have been protests, and all sorts of political shenanigans (with more to come in November, so don't feel like you need to cover that). There have been fires and hurricanes and earthquakes and killer bees and locust infestations and the plague and I don't even know what else. Basically, January through August have covered the gloom and doom stuff.

What hasn't been covered is plain old, everyday normalcy. Run of the mill, "nothing to see here"-ness. So, my advice to you is, if you really want to make an impression on the world this year? Keep it simple. Give us some nice weather (minus any disasters). Maybe throw in a patch of world peace somewhere if you really want to get extravagant--Syria wouldn't mind, neither would Yemen. Want to be really memorable? Maybe magically make money appear in everyone's bank account. I'm sure there are some leprechauns who'd be happy to help with that. Or add an hour to every night so we can all rest up, if you are more into subtlety. 

Whatever you do, don't feel like you have to one up the months we've had so far. I promise, you can show up and do absolutely nothing and you will get the gold medal for best month of 2020. 

Anyway, just some friendly advice on how you can win some like points. Now, go out there and win us over. 

Harry Potter would be a very different series if I was the main character

 A few weeks ago, I read a book where adult characters were doing magical mischief and causing problems, and the 12-year old heroine, despite being encouraged to leave it to the adults, didn't have any confidence in the adults and of course solved all the problems on her own.

A few days later, I watched a few episodes of the show Holly Hobby, because Holly Hobby was totally a thing from my childhood. We had a Holly Hobby record player--that's how classic I am.* So, yeah, let's watch the TV show! 

For the record, the TV show is not the Holly Hobby of my youth. Which is fine--they've modernized Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, Legos, and dozens of other things, and kept them alive for the younger generation so we can share that connection. And it's a great family show. But here's my thing. Why on earth is a 13-year old in charge of the town's open mic night, including catering, scheduling performers, etc.? Basically, this 13-year old is running the town, because the adults are incompetent, I guess? 

I'm not sure if this is just a "let's empower young girls" thing--which if it is, it's a fail for me. I can't relate to that at all, and I'm too tired to even want to be the 13-year old running the town. 

Maybe it's just a storytelling device, though. I mean, take Harry Potter. If the hero in that book was based on me, as soon as I found out that there was a troll in the building and a girl was in the bathroom where the troll was likely to be, I would have told a teacher and gotten out of there. That is the whole point of adults--they have to deal with the hard problems. A prisoner who broke out of wizard jail and is lurking around the school? I definitely wouldn't be searching him out.** Which would make for a very boring (and probably much shorter) series. Who would want to read the series about the girl who lived a normal life and didn't save the world because she was just a kid?

Well, me, maybe. It would be nice to see myself represented in literature. Thank goodness for Beverly Cleary's Ramona series, Lois Lowry's Anastasia Krupnik, and all the other ordinary characters out there!***

*I think it was actually my sister's record player. But, it's been a few decades, so now it can be claimed by "we". 

**Basically, I am one of the hundreds of other students who don't even get a name in the Harry Potter series because they are doing what normal kids do, which is leaving adult problems to the adults. Which is why Harry is the chosen one, and not me. 

***I would still love to see a book where there is magical mischief and mayhem and the main character is just like, "Not my problem. I'm a kid." And they keep coming to the main character, and they just keep saying, "For reals? What don't you get about this? I'm twelve! Seriously! What can I do that you can't?" It could be hilarious.

Never have I ever

 Things that will get me out in a game of "Never Have I Ever":

• been on an island with an active volcano (Tanna, Vanuatu)
• won an award for writing
• read The Lord of the Rings (and/or The Hobbit)/read either of them in another language(Spanish if you need to be specific)
• seen the Sydney Opera House in person
• celebrated Australia Day (no, it was not in conjunction with seeing the Opera House)
• stolen a truck (it was an act of, guys)
• lived in another country (4 months in the Dominican Republic)
• been able to read and walk
• eaten cake for breakfast
• owned a Nerf Gun (I currently own three)
• played a musical instrument (or 2 or 3 or 4)
• driven a stick-shift
• seen all five of the Great Lakes
• had waffles with ice cream 
• had a photograph published* (at least 5 times, never once with a credit. Although, my good friends did credit me with all the photos they used on their blog.)
• met a famous actor (SAA 2017, Portland, 3 cast members of The Librarians)
• had lost luggage when I traveled (Vanuatu. It was found, though)
• decapitated a chicken (technically, I didn't do the decapitation, I just held the feet. But I did help de-feather them afterwards)
• been to the National Archives in Washington D.C. 
• flown in a 12-seater plane (Yes, that was in Vanuatu. We had to get to the volcano island.)
• taken calculus (sadly, I couldn't do it now. But I really liked calculus)
• had a water fight in the bathroom (cleaning checks, freshman year of college. Good times)
• made a cassette tape recording (you're SO young)
• played Ticket to Ride [could add Asia, Africa, Europe, if needed](what is wrong with you?! Let's fix this!) [Could also swap out Ticket to Ride for a bunch of other games, which I won't list here because there are seriously too many]
• read L.M. Montgomery or Jane Austen (men--this is a great way to get the ladies out)
• had surgery (appendix--hilarious story. Also, gum grafts, which has another kind of hilarious story, although it is a bit gruesome)
• experienced an earthquake (if you need to be more specific, experienced an earthquake during a pandemic)
• gone horseback riding (a couple of different times)
• participated in an organized sport (it was cross country, one year)
• caught a frog (in my apartment. Twice. Nowhere near as bad as the bats, though)

*published here does not include you and/or friends and family putting it on social media

Fashion forward?

 This week I wore dress pants for the first time in 4-ish months. For a meeting. With another person, in the same room, at work. All very remarkable.

Anyway, I've been thinking about this clothes thing a lot, because I have a closet full of work clothes (business dress--tops, pants) and dresses that I'm not wearing at all. I don't go into work, I don't go to church, so I don't need to wear them. And shoes. I have basically 2 pairs I've worn in the last 4 months, because why wear shoes if you don't leave the house? Even when I do laundry or something, I go barefoot, because the grass is nice and lovely.

But it's not just not wearing the dress clothes. It's the fact that I have a wardrobe of dress pants, and then I have tops to go with them, but I have winter tops (long sleeves) and summer tops (short sleeves). And same for casual wear. There are jeans and long sleeves for winter, shorts and short sleeves for summer. And pajamas--winter pajamas, summer pajamas. On top of that, the laundromat at my place gives you 4 options for washing clothes: gentle/cold, normal/warm, permanent press/warm, and something or other on hot. I can't choose the size, so I'm using the same amount of water no matter what, so I try to have enough clothing to make the best use of the machines every time I do laundry. Partly to make it worth the money I'm spending and partly to be environmentally friendly, both of which seem like worthy causes. 

But, honestly. That is SO MUCH CLOTHING. It's madness! Back in the day, people owned what, 3-4 outfits? Maybe? I'm not saying I want to live back in the day, because they also didn't have a washing machine, but why do we have to have so many clothes? I feel overwhelmed by it. And guilty. And fed up, especially when I realize that I'm wearing maybe 1/4 of the clothes I own. Some of it is a geographical thing, obviously, because I live in a place where there are 4 seasons. But do I really need to own that much clothing? It's crazy! Another part of it is my place of employment. I used to be able to dress more casual, so a pair of jeans and a dressier shirt, which definitely kept the number of pants I needed down. I can probably also get rid of a few pairs of pants without hurting my laundry budget or the environment too much, too. And maybe tops. But I don't know for sure, because things aren't normal right now, so I don't know what I'd be wearing if I were going into the office like the world used to do. 

Either way, it's a lot of clothes. Excessive, I dare say. I'm not saying let's go back to 3-4 outfits total. But I do think I, and maybe all of us, could get by on fewer clothes. And shoes. And maybe not worry about what other people think of us when we wear the same things more than once in 2 weeks. And hopefully that won't put people in Bangladesh out of work. 

Aargh! Sometimes, the 21st century is way too complicated. 

The minisculest silver lining

I am not at all saying that this makes our current pandemic worth it at all, but I do want to say that there is a teeny, tiny silver lining for me. As a result of the pandemic and the subsequent coin shortage*, my apartment complex's laundromat has finally moved to an electronic payment system! [Insert jumping up and down for joy, cheering, and applause.] 

No more having to count corners! No more stopping by the bank on my lunch break for laundry money! And for the current moment, no having to figure out how to get quarters from the bank. YAY!!!

So, I know it doesn't even come close to making up for all the misery of this stupid pandemic. It's a drop in the ocean. But it's a definite improvement. 

*How is that a thing? No one has yet been able to explain it satisfactorily.