Stephanie Says.. Take a walk inside my head

I realized that I’m still a big kid some time ago.  However, when I caught myself excited about a new episode of Hannah Montana this weekend, I began to think that maybe I have a problem.

I can’t help it.  I like kids’ shows.   I don’t watch very many cartoons (although if Daria is on, I try and catch it and I’ll still buy an edition of Betty and Veronica every now and then) but I’ll flip through just about anything on the Disney Channel and yes, I did watch both High School Musical and Camp Rock, thank you very much.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’ll be going to see The Dark Knight and any new James Bond film just as soon as my little feet can take me there.  There’s just something about not having to worry about language and nudity and convoluted plots revolving around revenge and murder that is like a mini oasis for me. 

Sure, you sacrifice any real story when you watch things designed for the pre teen set (I admit, there are often plot holes big enough to fit an elephant through). And the acting often leaves something to be desired (overdone double takes, anyone?).

Still, when I managed to talk Kenny into a trip to the mall for my birthday this year, I began to look at the release dates of the summer movies.  Wanted is out, as is Hancock and Hulk.  I’m sure we’ll see them all.  But it was little Miss Kitt Kittredge, based on the American Girl doll of the same name, that drew me this time.

She was spunky.  She was sweet.  She didn’t require any convoluted thought circles or deep understanding.

She was just on my wavelength.  And when they decide which “Girl” to profile next, I’ll be right there in line. 

Me and my eleven year old self, together again.

 

I’m at work, creating election cards.  I’m having fun telling people I can’t vote for them because I live in Kentucky!

I was sitting in the Blazer Sunday afternoon after the morning worship service when Ben pulled up beside us.  “So you’re here”, he asked, “So you’re feeling well enough to come tonight?”

I was, but he had a point.  My mornings have become a game of “Will she or won’t she get out of bed?” and it’s anybody’s guess anymore whether or not I’ll show up to church.

It’s not that I don’t like work, although some days are more fun than others.  It’s not that I don’t like church, although sometimes I go out of duty, not desire.  It’s just that the clouds are hanging around again and it’s so much easier to stay in bed and not move than it is to get up and think and breathe and try and do something…anything until I can sink into my pillow again.

I wasn’t always this way.  Apparently I was a pretty happy child.  I remember eating ice cream, climbing trees, turning my bookshelf into a Barbie castle (which I misspelled as “catsle”).  I would sing any song from the Annie soundtrack at the drop of a hat and I just knew that I was going to grow up to be a princess.

Then came the ’90’s.  Then came depression.  My kind is hard to explain to people.  I’m getting more honest about things, such as the fact that I’m not always in bed with a migraine, but it’s still hard for my sphere to understand.

I read.  I go out to eat.  I teach a class of bright, squirmy kids.  I love my husband and I still tend to burst into song at the drop of a hat.

I should be happy.

And I am, most of the time.

But every now and then, the clouds come back.  My freshman year of college was a hard one for me.  I spent most of the first semester in a daze.  Depression can make it hard to think, you know.  Still, I got good enough grades and had good enough friends.

By the last semester of my senior year, I was leaving work early to go back to the dorm and sleep.  I was responsible enough.  I made up the hours that I missed, but the clouds were still there.

And they are here now.  I’ve done the reading.  I know the causes.  But knowing and doing are, in my case at least, two different things.  Still, it’s hard for people to understand.  This isn’t something I can just overcome by willpower.  Getting out of bed and going to work is helpful, yes, but it’s only a step.  By the time the UPS truck arrives and it’s time to close up, I’m often so tired I’m grateful for the chance to sleep on the hour ride home.

And yes, I’ve read the articles extoling a “Fake it ’til you make it” philosophy.  I believe in that mindset to a certain extent.  Why be a rude nasty person when it is so much nicer to greet people with a smile and a “Have a nice day”?

So I smile.  And (for the most part) I remember to shower.  And I play with my nieces and cuddle my cats and sing in the choir.

But every now and then the circle rolls back around to “time for clouds”.  I can’t explain what I’m thinking when that happens.  I can’t tell you why I’m experiencing more than just “the blues” or why I want to rip all the well meaning tongues out of well meaning heads and set fire to every self help book I see.  I can’t tell you why the migraines get worse (they are real…I’m not devious enough to make them up, though sometimes I do exaggerate their severity) or why every time someone extols me to just “get over it” I want to bash their head in with a hammer (did I mention that sometimes depression straddles a line into quick flashes of anger?).

All I can tell you is to hold on.  I’m cyclical.  It will pass and I will be back to church, back to class, back to work.  I’ll be smiling.  I’ll be singing.  I’ll be grateful to you for loving me, warts and all.

But right now, in this moment, I can’t do any of those things.  And if I cling to my pillow in the morning or fall asleep in the car on the way to work, I beg your indulgence.  I’m trying.  I know it’s not my best.  I know I’m not there yet.

But I also know that some day–I will be.

Posterboard at our shop is fifty nine cents.

I know this.

There is a sign that says “Poster Board $.59 each”.

I know this also.

So why do I keep on charging people a dollar extra???

I read a lot.  All the time.  Everywhere.  If I’m not carrying a book with me, it’s either because Kenny didn’t think the drive to be long enough to get any reading done or because I’m really dressed up and want to impress someone.  But I more than usually have a book.  (And yes, I bring them to church sometimes too.  I can’t help it.  I grew up being called “Amy Carter, Jr.”)

I’ll read just about anything as long as it’s fiction.  However, I have been more and more drawn to mysteries and police dramas.  You know the kind.  Wounded people, broken dreams, shattered lives.

As you can imagine, I can get pretty cranky on a steady diet of death and mayhem.  That is when I pull out Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog or Cheaper By the Dozen  which is, if you will forgive the cliche, an oldie but goodie.

There is one more character who consistantly makes me smile.  Her name is Stephanie Plum and she is from The Burg in New Jersey.  Stephanie works for her cousin Vinnie, the sleezeball, as a bail bondsperson.  She hauls bail jumpers back to jail by any means at her disposal.  The fact that she is more lucky than skilled at her job adds to her charm.

 The idea to make the series into a movie has apparently been kicking around Hollywood for a while.  Every once in a while, lists will appear on the Web as to who should play whom.  Sandra Bullock is favored to play Stephanie, but I don’t like that idea.  I don’t know why I don’t like that idea, but I don’t.

So, I got to thinking about whom I would cast and here is my partial list:

I would go with Evangeline Lilly for Stephanie.  Maybe Lauren Graham  but I’m still mourning Gilmore Girls, so I don’t think so.

Matthew McConaughey has the wrong color hair for Joe, but I’d go with him anyway.

I really didn’t like the suggestion of The Rock for Ranger (I couldn’t see him with long hair, for one thing) until I saw the commercials for Get Smart.  Now I’m less on the fence than I used to be.

I’ve been watching a lot of Friends lately and I think that Jane Sibbett (Ross’ ex wife Carol) would make a good Valerie.  I could see her being the Virgin Mary type.

I was thinking Kathy Griffin for Joyce, but that may be a bit too over the top.

What do ya’ll think about Caroline Rhea for Connie.  It may be an unorthodox choice, but I think it would work.  Or how about Amy Pietz?

I decided that Mo’Nique would make a good Lula after seeing her on Ugly Betty.

And oh my gosh Steve Busemi has to play Vinnie.  The part is taylor made for him.

As for Grandma Mazur, the woman I want to be when I grow up?  I’m thinking Ann Morgan Guilbert.  Sure, she was crazy on The Nanny but I’ve seen her on other things and liked her.  Now if I can just stop calling her “Millie”.

 

I’ve been thinking about Beau a lot lately. 

Beau Edward Hart was my first real semi requited love.  He wasn’t my first kiss or even my first date, but I walked into English class the first day of senior year and *boom*.  I instantly became a cliche-ridden teenager.  The only way he could have been more attractive to me is if his name had happened to be Rhett.

Newspaper assignments threw us together, as I was one of the reporters and he was the photographer.  A drama club trip to Memphis during which we stayed up all night half watching Heathers and half pretending not to be as sleepy as we actually were led to an entire semester of antics worthy of outakes from Grease.  And Graduation Day, during which he didn’t speak to me at all, broke my heart.

In a year of playing Scarlett O’Hara, Beau was my hero.  Quirky, rebellious, edgy and sarcastic, he was ripe for a starring role in my seventeen year old dreams.

Almost fifteen years later, I find myself thinking of high school again.  There will never be another year of Beauty and the Beast, of Nikki playing “Open Arms” on the piano, of putting a bowling ball between my legs and rolling it down the lane for a strike.  There will never be another year of watching football players dress in tights and prance around as faries in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  There will never be another year of making up word searches for the Children’s page, of wearing blue and gold ribbons in my hair, of picking up The Once and Future King and actually discussing Lancelot and Guinevere in class.

And there will never be another Beau.

Seventeen feels like another life ago.  A week after graduation, I met the man who is now my husband.  We have a slightly messy house and a slightly chaotic life in a wonderful little town that I love very much.  And when Kenny hands me a dark chocolate candy bar that he bought just because he knew I would like it or one of my church kids stands up from circle time and embraces me, I know I really am where I belong.

But somewhere, a tiny corner of my heart is still in a Memphis hotel room watching a very weird movie in the middle of the night with a boy who was the first person to call me “beautiful”.

And every now and then, I go back to seventeen.

Kenny and I are spending our car time listening to Brian at www.dailyaudiobible.com

It’s a great way to listen to the Bible with music and emotion.  It really makes things real.  So, we’re finishing up Genesis and Brian is getting to Joseph (who looks Egyptian) revealing his true identity to his brothers (who are so -not- Egyptian).  I was in Joseph in high school and have been in church since my sixth week (I was born on a Sunday, so I really was six weeks old).  I know Genesis pretty well.  But I did not know that Joseph and his brothers got smashed after their big reunion/hug and cryfest.  I can’t find it in my Bible (New International Version) but Brian read it (“got drunk” was how he put it), so it must be in there somewhere.

Now I knew that Esther’s Xerxes was a lush (he’s the guy who, if making a decision while accidentally sober would get drunk just to make the decision again).  But Joseph?  Come on.

Can anyone confirm this for me?

Like most girls, I cut my hair and then wish for it to be long again.  Currently it is (for me) pretty long.  I was going to cut it and color it blonde, but we took a family vote and my almost five year old niece says I can’t cut it.  So…Jennifer took pictures of me to put up so ya’ll can see it in its current state.  I may yet cut it, but here it is at present.

 

If you steal the “this is your life” themed video that my sister-in-law made for my brother, you can see him as a ten year old with a huge Alyssa Milano poster in his closet.  I was about thirteen or so at the time and didn’t have posters.  I did, however, have crushes.  And I still do.

Beyond my current “Everybody should look like Johnny Depp no matter how strange it would be to see Kenny with long hair and eyeliner” phase, there are three people I’m fascinated with.  Sort of…

See, I want to marry Bill Gates.  I know, I know, who wants to marry Bill Gates besides Melinda?  Well, I do.

Kenny’s not worried though.   Kenny knows that it’s his own fault for me wanting to live with Microsoft’s Head Honcho (soon to be stepping down.)  I want to marry Bill Gates for his house.  Kenny described it to me and I soooooooo want a house with personalized music that can follow you from room to room as you walk around.  Plus I want a TV you can hang on the wall.  And don’t you guys start telling me that if my rich uncle gets out of the poorhouse, I can have all kinds of neat things in my own house.  To me, personalized music that tracks your movements is still just about the neatest thing ever.  I wouldn’t want any kind of house that is totally controlled by a computer though, despite -Eureka-‘s Sara that can cook dinner for you. I read about that once and the computer ended up kidnapping a lady and trying to make a baby.  That’s just too weird.

I’m also fascinated by my own personalized imagining of Hank Williams, Jr.  It seems that my mom had a cousin who was engaged to him.  Now, keep in mind that a) My mom’s cousin is much younger than she is so there is an “ick” factor there b) My mom’s cousin never ended up actually marrying Hank Williams, Jr, so he was never in any way a part of our family c) I’ve never met either said cousin or the man himself and d) My branch of the family is conservative–very conservative–and would not have condoned any kind of rock star behaviour on the part of our members whether said member was an actual rock star or not.

Nonetheless, about the time I began discovering that not everyone who says they are your friend actually -is-, Hank Williams, Jr became my imaginary godfather.  And by this, I do not mean to imply that I actually have a godfather.  I’m Baptist.  I’m not sure that’s in our Creed.  Nor do I mean to imply that my imaginary godfather was like my last imaginary friend, who happened to be a little green man from outer space.  No, much like I make up living in Bill Gates’ house…the coolest house on the planet…so did I escape on Hank Williams, Jr’s bus.  In said bus, I could go anywhere.  Or nowhere.  Sometimes when I was sad, I would imagine him driving into town and just buying me an ice cream.  When my nightmare cycles began my freshman year of college, I would picture myself out…and away.  I have no idea how far a bus ride, even a luxary bus ride, from Kentucky to New York City is, but I took it once or twice.  And, of course, though I have no idea if Hank Williams, Jr can actually sing something that isn’t played very very loudly at the kareoke bar my best friend took me to last year, my imaginary godfather would sing to me.

It’s okay.  I know that if you’re anything like the ilk I grew up around, you can’t believe that my imaginary godfather wasn’t someone more…refined.  You picture me picturing myself as…Belle with her Prince or at least with some kind of Pat Boone figure who has…oh, what’s the word?  Values.  The truth is, just like crushing on Bill Gates’ house could turn into disappointment (even billionares have leaky roofs, right?), imagining the man who wrote “Family Tradition” as some kind of rescue figure couldn’t possible match up to my family’s clean cut expectations.  But at the time, he met mine.  At least imaginary him did.  Though I’m out of college now and probably glad we’ve never actually met.

Still with me?  Hang on, I’m almost done.

The person who currently fascinates me is Paul Thurrott.  At least his voice does.  It’s kind of deep but with a little bit of a twang sometimes.  Paul does a podcast called Windows Weekly (http://www.twit.tv/ww) .  I know this because Kenny dislikes much of commercial radio anymore and downloads as much of Leo Laporte’s stuff as he can for our commutes back and forth to the shop. (Okay, now I have the Amber song in my head.)  Leo’s like this tech guru who does a bunch of shows about things I don’t understand.  Frankly, I don’t pay much attention to them (have book, will travel remember?)

I do, however, listen to Leo’s show with Paul.  I listen because a) he’s funny. He told a story about trying to get his son to play hooky from school so they could finish their exploration of the latest, greatest video game. b) he goes to France a lot and I like hearing stories of technology on airplanes.  But the greatest reason that I listen is because I love his voice.  He’s got the best radio voice ever.

So I’ve decided that when I’m restless and can’t sleep, I want the Dixie Chix to come over and sing that song that Radney Foster wrote for his son (“…Godspeed, little man/sweet dreams little man/oh my love will fly to you each night on angels’ wings/Godspeed/sweet dreams”) and I want Paul to come read to me.  It doesn’t matter what he reads.   Though a little -Wuthering Heights- might be nice. 

Hmm…it would, of course, be crowded with five people and five cats in my room.

Maybe we can all move in with Bill Gates.