Follow-Ups

I had a dream last night that I was test-driving a pink moped for a mystery shopping assignment. It was a bad assignment to take in the first place since car dealers will not leave you alone until you give them your first child and buy a car from them, so in the dream, I was kicking myself for having taken the assignment. An eerie feeling came over me that the guy knew I was just there to spy on him and I came to believe, in the dream, that he was going to try and kill me on the pink moped. I know, it sounds like I may have some unresolved guilt issues here. So the guy tells me to get on the moped and take it down the street. It was a moped of the future where you stood on it and kept your balance to make it run; I was terrible. The road was not really a road, it was a highway, and cars were honking at me, and a cop pulled up behind me as I was falling off and turned his horrible siren on and it blared over and over again.

5:51 am
It was my cell phone. We were supposed to leave for the airport at 5:30 am. Our alarm clock had not gone off; the cop’s siren in my dream was in fact one of the guys calling trying to wake us up, Ryan’s phone was off. We had not just overslept; we were twenty minutes late. While this sort of thing is adventurous for me, I have a husband who hates being late, rushed, or feeling like we might otherwise throw a strand of chaos into our perfectly planned day. He also hates leaving the house with the bed unmade. And brushing our teeth at the airport? That was his suggestion, but I will tell you, I will willingly go days or even weeks before I brush my teeth in a public restroom at an airport. Disgusting. So we left. Unmade bed. Frazzled.

5:54 am
In the van…waiting on the other two guys who had an alarm clock go off but accidentally kept pressing the snooze button. It was the first time in band history that anyone was late for a trip departure, and it all happened on the same day. Ironic.

6:45 am
Walk into an empty airport. Breeze through security. And we even have time for Starbucks before we board the flight.

10:24 am
I am in Charlotte, North Carolina. No, I have not brushed my teeth. No, I do not have make-up on. Yes, I still think this morning was fun and adventurous, but I am trying not to be too happy about it because it could have quite literally given Ryan a heart attack. My fun was his morning disaster. Funny how people can be so different. All I can think about is how much later we could possibly leave from now on and push the envelope when we are trying to catch flights. More time to sleep and more adventurous; thank God Ryan is responsible.

So I hate to say it, but I told you so. I knew sleeping in yesterday would mean I would not wake up today. I could’ve slept for hours, way through the first flight and the second and the third flight, maybe through the weekend. I figured you deserved a follow-up. I thought about you last night. Whoever you are reading this blog and I decided that we have come to an agreement you and I. I agree to tell you about my life, my random and unimportant thoughts, my stories, my experiences, and you agree to read, and it both feeds some weird thing inside of us. Almost like our own form of reality TV. You come back to find out what is happening, and I write because I have some strange desire to let you know what is happening. As such, you deserve follow-ups.

I slept in. My dad called and said he couldn’t believe I was wearing a shirt from a thrift store that had not been washed, and that he was really disturbed by this, and my friend loved her cupcake.

And, at the start of another Planet Wisdom weekend, my voice is doing well. I went back to my drama queen doctor who said I would simply have to live a little different to protect my voice and to ultimately avoid throat surgery. He said this as if I could expect to have surgery one way or the other it was just a matter of time. I think ultimately what he meant was this…you hit a certain age where you realize you cannot do the same things you have always done.

For example, I can no longer really eat a triple cheeseburger, onion rings, and chocolate milk shake from sonic, though I did this for a year straight my junior year of high school. Not only does it make me fatter pretty much overnight, but my body just can’t handle it. It’s like eating at Pancho’s Mexican Buffet or the KFC buffet, at a certain time in life your body cannot take in junky crap food…and if you try to, your body retaliates with Montezuma’s revenge or the likes. At a certain age you can’t drop to the ground and bend your knees like you use to. I have not reached that age yet, but once when I was in Wal-Mart and dropped to the ground to get medicine on the bottom shelf, the 86 year old man next to me looked at me and said…”man I wish I could get on my knees that fast. Actually if I ever get on my knees like that again, I won’t get back up, I’ll just die down there.” Ever since this horrifying encounter I have dreaded the morning I wake up to find that my knees no longer bend to the ground.

All that said, I guess my voice is the same. I have hit the time in my life and career where I can no longer do the things I used to do with my voice. This includes whistling until I am out of air, dizzy, and about to pass out, singing Mariah Carey in the shower, rolling down the windows and singing at the top of my lungs to the radio, being around smoke, even talking too much or meeting too many people and staying up until the wee hours of the morning chatting away. I actually have to use my voice sparingly, I guess the way you use your knees sparingly, or you eat the triple cheeseburger sparingly…it is not something to just do for a week or two, it is a complete life change.

So, I guess I am learning now how to grow up and be willing to make that change. I could keep eating cheeseburgers, but eventually I would wake up weighing in at 300 hundred pounds and going in for gastric and a heart valve replacement. Likewise, I could keep singing and talking non stop all the time, or I could give my voice, and the world, a break and learn to be a little more quiet, a little more discreet, a little more careful. All of which sound anti-Jenny, but I am sure I will learn.

On a lighter and brighter note you should know that Starbucks started using their holiday cups today. This always makes me happy. It’s a clear sign that Christmas is near, a holiday tradition, a much-anticipated day when Starbucks finally brings out those red cups and red sprinkles for the peppermint mochas. You should also know that North Carolina, unlike Texas, is doing well and experiencing seasons. There are actual trees here and they are all different colors and it is beautiful. It is going to be a good weekend, I can tell.

So whoever you are and wherever you find yourself this weekend…make it a good one!