It is What it Is

In Which Laurel Refuses to Leave the Baby Pool

I was not a child who wanted to learn how to swim.

In the first swimming classes my mother ever took me to, every time they made us put our heads under the water, I would go under for about a second, immediately raise my head back up, climb out of the pool and rush towards the nearest dry towel to wipe all of the water off of my face.

(If I had grown up in a time like today when they toss two-year-olds into the pool assuming their natural instincts will take over and cause them to swim or at least dog paddle, I probably would have sunk, at best, and drowned, at worst. Nothing about me was interested in swimming.)

This isn't to say that I didn't like the pool. I just preferred the baby pool, water wings, floaties and any other space in which my feet could be placed firmly on the ground while my head remained free to breathe as much oxygen as I pleased.

Truthfully, I didn't even like the ball pit at Showbiz because I was always a little afraid I might be able to drown in that, too. (What if I became trapped under all those colorful balls and no one could hear my cries for help?) I would walk the perimeter of the ball pit to get to the slide rather than going straight through. On the day I did finally fall in, there were a few minutes of flailing until I realized that I could touch the bottom of that space, too. I calmed down and eventually started to act like something of a normal kid in that token and ticket extravaganza. (You can only imagine what a growing up moment that was for me.)

Nothing my parents could say would get me in the big pool.

More on Me and the Pole

For those of you anxiously awaiting an update on the Pole Yourself Thin/Stripper Aerobics class, here it comes:

1. I cannot wear shorts or skirts because there are bruises that run from my feet all the way up my thighs. I have bruises on my biceps and forearms. If the SO didn't look like such a sweetheart, I worry people would assume he's been beating me. Maybe the near-translucently-pale aren't meant for this line of work. Maybe someone should invent a foam floor. It could be like that memory foam mattress stuff. I'm just saying ... I'd want one even if I wasn't into pole dancing. It just sounds so pleasant.

2. My upper body has no desire to support the weight of my lower body whatsoever. There's a move called the "cartwheel" in which you use your arms to pull your legs up and over to the other side of the pole. My feet want to stay planted just where they are, and my arms want it that way, too. Neither half is willing to give, and neither half listens to a single message sent by my brain.

The True Spirit of Easter

The Mills are a competitive bunch.

We pull out rule books when there's a question of awarding points in board games, we do not believe in do-overs and we never, ever let anyone win. In general, it makes us a tough, formidable lot when it comes to a game of Balderdash or charades. It does not, however, always make it fun to be a kid in our family.

When I say that we don't let anyone win, I really mean anyone. It does not matter if you are three or thirty, if there's a chance to take you in tic-tac-toe, Scrabble or even Candy Land, we seize it. Once during a game of bocce on my great aunt's lawn, I thought that maybe I should change my throws a little so one of the children could win. (I was twenty-eight to their five, six and eight after all. And, yes, they all probably could have taken me on their own, since this particular game did involve throwing and sports stuff, but let's leave that off the table for now.) Then I looked over and realized that my cousin had just knocked his own son's ball out of the competition, and I figured it was our usual "no holds barred" approach to all gaming.  

Dubious Origins

I know many writers who seemed to show two primary interests as children -- reading and lying. (It makes perfect sense after all, even though I'm sure a parent's first thought when his or her child tells a bold-faced lie isn't, "Maybe I'm raising the next Hemingway!")

While I had no interest in lying, I did like to tell stories. I often wrote plays for my sisters and I to perform in. Of course, being a little control freak as well, I liked to write, direct and star in my plays. And, when my sisters gave what I deemed to be unsatisfactory performances or refused to learn their lines verbatim, I would take on their roles as well. By premiere time, I was usually performing all of the roles except for brief cameos by Snuggles the bear. I'm sure it was not the easiest story for my audience, a.k.a. Mom and Dad, to follow. 

And while many older sisters like to torture their younger siblings with tales of how they were actually adopted, I had something else in mind.

"You know you're not one of us," I told my youngest sister while we were at the beach for a family vacation. I think we were having breakfast. She was three to my wise and mature nine, and I'm guessing she'd either gotten on my nerves, or I was bored. (I was so loving at that age.)

A Little Girl's Dream

This past weekend, I went to two days of Davis Cup matches held here in Birmingham. I'm not necessarily the biggest tennis fan, but I like to experience new things, and I thought I shouldn't pass up the chance to watch some professional tennis played live. And I may or may not have wanted to see Andy Roddick, but let's not rate my motivations here.

Watching so much tennis reminded me of one of my rather odd childhood dreams: to be a ball girl.

For some reason or other, I really wanted to be one of the people that runs out on the court to grab stray tennis balls.

I imagine that a large part of my motivation was the outfit. Like most activities, including ice skating and tap dance, I was mainly in it for the clothes. As a girl who refused to wear pants as a child ("because ladies didn't do that") and often sported a tiara to school (like that one should really come as a surprise), I would do a lot for sequins or cute skirts. It must have been the skirt because as much as I remember loving tennis skirts, I also remember loathing the one tennis lesson my mom made me take.

Wrestling Rules

My friend Chris had a dream and that dream was to attend a professional wrestling match. So, last night, being the incredibly responsible student that I am, I blew off my fiction workshop, and what I'm sure was a scintillating discussion of Joyce Carol Oates, for an evening of WWE Monday Night Raw.

Now, I knew nothing about wrestling before I went other than, of course, that wrestling events are staged. I spent most of the first part of the evening listening to one friend give the sexual position counterpart to every wrestling move (i.e. the wheelbarrow -- don't ask, I don't know what it means). Incidentally, this also gave a whole new meaning to the crowd's chant to "stand there and take it" as well as another friend's comment that she'd "been there before."

I also tried to figure out how they did the sound effects and contemplated why so many grown men would want to wear speedos in public.

On another side note, the similarities between wrestling and porn were made all the more blatant later in the evening when a clip was shown of all the wrestlers doing a parody of Basic Instinct. At one point, Triple H, as I believe he's known, asked the female wrestler if she had ever done "mixed tag team," if she was "into girl on girl" and if she "liked sado-masochism." And, oh yes, there were children there ...

Anyways, after about an hour I had to find a hot dog, more nachos and beer. Apparently, while I was away, they brought out the Muslim character -- Muhammad Hassan. He was the only wrestler with a manager accompanying him (as we all know Muslims only travel in small, conspiratorial groups.) And before they brought him out, they showed pictures of the White House, the Pentagon and the Statue of Liberty.

I re-entered the arena to a "USA" chant and kids with signs that said, "Muhammad Hassan -- You Stole My Tablecloth." The evil Muslim then proceeded to body slam what I assume must have been a proud American in a unitard. And all of this was, of course -- yes, you guessed it -- the lead-in to the singing of the national anthem by a woman in knee high boots, a denim mini-skirt and a backless top.

I wasn't too sure how I felt about racism/propaganda and overt sexuality as supposedly harmless family entertainment. 

The evening only got better from there when a wrestler known as the Legend Killer came out, made out with someone named Tracy and then proceeded to drop kick her to demonstrate how ruthless he was going to be against The Undertaker. While a team of faux paramedics came into the ring to clear away the unconscious, and, at first, supposedly dead, Tracy, some friends and I decided that we were ready to go home.

Fake domestic violence is usually my cue to leave.