Since the spring I have been taking a marketing class in order to learn how to best use the Internet to support my business. As a result of that class I have been slowly increasing my computer knowledge and abilities, and often my husband helps me expand what I’m learning by sitting down with me and showing me even more things I can do with my website.

So the other day we sat down together just like we’ve always done so he could teach me how to do something new. But this time it was like I was suddenly abducted by aliens and then put back into a parallel world where everything appeared to be the same, but in reality, everyone except for me spoke some sort of alien language. This is an an attempt to recreate how our conversation went.

My husband (or so I thought): “OK, first you need to click on the ‘MYSQLVBC+DOSRAMSAPLINUXBYTEREMPDQASAP’. Then it will take you to the ‘135791113171923313741′. So then you will need to ‘whirl-beep-beep-creak-clang-crash!’ and then it will always ‘we-are-the-borg-you-will-be-assimilated-resistance-is-futile’.”

“Are you writing this down?”

Clearly, I was not. Clearly, all of my available mental faculties were tied up in planning my escape back to my home planet.

It’s not as if I expect to just automatically understand everything in life. As a matter of fact, there are lots of times when I go into a situation knowing that I will not have the foggiest idea what is going on, such as any time I try and understand what my brother, a Ph.D. candidate in organic chemistry, actually does.

For example, last month he gave a big presentation at a national gathering of his peers and my mom sent me the title and abstract from his presentation. Out of 97 words, here are the parts I understood: ” to be used in the”, and “naturally occurring substance.” That’s it. And I’m totally fine with that. I actually kind of like the fact that I can’t even understand the layperson’s version of his work because there isn‘t a layperson’s version. I enjoy just begin able to appreciate his brilliance without actually having to understand it. It’s just the times when a seemingly familiar situation gets turned upside down that throw me off.

I’m not really sure what to do about those times, but I have my tinfoil hat ready…just in case.

The fewer the minutes you have left to get to work the more your creativity will rise, as you discover new and descriptive epitaphs to bestow upon the cats who, sometime during the night, chewed off, digested, and threw back up the laces from one of your work shoes.

…gives me a headache.

Usually I am pretty good at getting in the last word. Words are what I was trained in, and now words are my business. But yesterday I met my match.

I was working with a tutoring client and trying to elicit some information from him in a process which, incidentally, has given me entirely new insights into the phrase, “blood from a stone.”

I asked him if he was this difficult in all of his conversations with others, and he said that he liked to present people with a challenge.

Me: Well, that’s just like waving a red flag in front of a bull (I love a good challenge).
Him: Yes, but then it’s just like in the cartoons when I pull the flag away, and there’s an anvil there instead.

He won.

I had an interesting experience the other day, and I can’t decide whether it makes me feel old or young.

Last week I had to go to the dentist for my 6-month cleaning and checkup. There are very few things that cause me greater discomfort than getting my teeth cleaned. (Pretty much all that’s coming to mind right now is anything involving snakes and creatures that sting.) You know that feeling you can get if someone scrapes their fingernails down a chalkboard? That is exactly how I feel when they are scraping my teeth. (Interestingly enough, I also get that feeling whenever I have to touch any kind of fabric with a nap-velvet, silk, suede, velour, etc. But I digress).

So as I was sitting in the chair, enduring, my dental hygienist said, “Today is my anniversary.” Always ready to celebrate longevity in marriage, and always ready to put off more teeth scraping, I was about to ask her how long she’d been married when she said, “Thirty-three years ago today I came to work here.”

Now, leaving aside for the moment the question of why anyone would want to choose a career that involved dealing with people’s insides, much less stay in that same career for thirty-three years, here was my quandry. Next month I will be turning thirty-three and so as I told her, “You came to work here the same year that I was born.” So, does this fact make me feel really old, or really young?

It certainly made her feel old, and while that wasn’t my intention, it was a nice change from the conversations I usually have with my new tutoring clients.

Me: So, what year were you born?
Tutoring Client: 1990 (and sometimes even later than that).
Me: Hm. That’s the year I graduated from high school.
Me: Wow, I’m old.
Tutoring Client (silently): Wow! You’re old!

How did this happen?! I became an adult in the 1990’s, and the ’90’s were on the leading edge of everything. We were the ones with advanced technology. We were the ones with advanced degrees. We were the ones who elected the president who would take us into the 21st century. We were on the cusp of everything.

And now the cusp has passed me by, and it is time for my 15-year high school reunion.

So now as I sit in the suburbs, writing the check to pay the mortgage, listening to the music of the 80’s and 90’s being referred to as “oldies” or “classics”, watching shows like “Veronica Mars” satirize every single aspect of my high school experience, and seeing my tutoring students show up in their flip-flops, and their pants with the waistband down at their knees, and their backwards-turned tennis visors, and their attitude of complete self-assured coolness, I hold onto this hope: one day, someone will be laughing at them, too. Possibly even today.

…you “seed” your screened-in porch with pine cones and sweetgum balls from your front yard in order to give your three indoor cats “treasures” to discover.

…you actually consider the possibility of buying special pet stairs so that your cats are able to jump up on top of the really tall filing cabinet.

…it’s 2 a.m., and the cats have taken over all of your pillow and most of your side of the bed. But instead of kicking them out you go and sleep on the couch, because you don’t want to disturb them.

Each year as fall rolls around I find myself becoming very quiet and reflective. I think it’s a combination of the beginning of a new school year, as well as the fact that my birthday occurs in the fall. These two events seem to invite reflection on the past year, as well as a sort of mental decluttering in preparation for the year to come.

My coach told me something this week that rang very true for me. She said that our 20’s are all about accumulating mental and emotional baggage, and our 30’s are all about going through our bags and deciding what to throw away, and what to keep. I realized as I was “lightening my load”, that I have been spending a great deal of energy trying to pretend that certain things about myself were not true, when this energy really could be better used elsewhere. So in hopes that “the truth really shall set me free”, I offer here the following naked truths about me.

1. I have lived in either Virginia, North Carolina, or Georgia for my whole life and I do not like iced tea.

2. If I order Coke in a restaurant it is not OK if you bring me Pepsi instead.

3. I am 32 years old, and if I don’t want to sleep outside in a tent, then by golly I don’t have to.

4. There is a chance that I might be a crazy cat lady.

5. Despite all the advances in technology, nothing will ever impress or entertain me more than Ms. Pac Man.

6. My husband is a way better cook than I will ever be, and that’s actually a relief.

7. The very first thing I do whenever I get a new book or magazine is to smell it, even if I’m out in public or around other people; I just can’t help it.

8. Pantyhose are evil and you cannot, under any circumstances, make me wear them, so don’t even try.

9. My mother is a math teacher, my father is a CPA, my brother is a chemist, and I cannot do simple arithmetic without using my fingers.

10. Deep down in my soul I don’t actually believe it’s possible for planes to fly.

OK, you can uncover your eyes now; the scary part’s over. And now that the truth is out there, here’s to a great new year.