Directions for my Memorial Slideshow

Whereas your mother is of a sound mind on this day the 11th day of January in the year 2018, she will be henceforth referred to as the Deceased. The Deceased shall entrust members of family, namely her children and eventual publishers of her memoir(s) to handle the attendant Memorial Service Slideshow according to these irrevocable conditions:  

• Archival photos in which the Deceased appears to be volunteering in children’s school or at least has Eyebrows on Fleek shall be given preferential placement in the slideshow arrangement.

• Archival photos that feature the Deceased wearing mom jeans, other pleated slacks, or more than one chin should be used sparingly, if at all.

• Under no circumstances shall images in which the Deceased appears to be holding more than one beverage in more than one hand be used in the slideshow.

• All musical selections should be vetted against the Deceased’s playlists on Spotify. If Spotify ceases to exist, under no circumstances should any songs be drawn from the Bob Carlisle’s “Butterfly Kisses” album.

• Unattributable quotations, such as “Live, Laugh, Love” will cause the Deceased to rage from The Beyond and should be used under no circumstances.

• All text slides should utilize a sans serif font. Okay, just kidding. Don’t go getting crazy and using Curlz or Comic Sans or something totally insane, ya wingdings.

• Preludes to the slideshow should be limited to live duets by Lea Michele and Chris Colfer in the spirit of “Defying Gravity” as seen on “Glee” (Season 1, Episode 9). OBVI.  

• Postludes should be brief but meditative and probably entail a string instrument.

• It is the Deceased’s wish that you would find yourselves crying throughout the slideshow because you found a reason to miss her -- I mean, HOW MANY TIMES was Leroy the Elf not moved in the morning? -- and not because the slideshow was triggering in a certain kind of way.

• Length of entire slideshow should be appropriately long based on years Deceased was alive, and just awkward enough for any ex-boyfriends present.
• The Deceased wishes to vouchsafe the fact that there are fun-size packs of Goldfish crackers for each of you in the vault if you get hungry.

Zumba Diaries

The New Year's risk-it-for-the-biscuit mentality had not worn off yet so I walked into the Unknown Class last night at the gym. I might not have been so bold except that the other students in the class didn't appear to have any of that Fearful Equipment of Specialized Gym Classes whereby you're never quite sure what they do with those hot pink bars and purple elastic bands and bright blue balls? (Question, why are the accoutrements of ladies' gym classes always in the color palette of a Lisa Frank pencil case?) (Question the second: What if you think they're just going to use the pole to balance because you wrongly assume this is tightrope class only to discover within minutes that they do other things around the pole, things for which you are wholly unqualified, WHAT THEN?) (Even if you did own a Carmen Electra DVD once upon a time, which is neither here nor there.)

The teacher for this class queued up the samba music and that's how I knew this was Zumba. I've Zumba-ed before, but by all means, please make an example out of me, Zumba Guru, in front of the class of 45 female strangers. "WHERE'VE YOU TAKEN ZUMBA? OH! A DANCE STUDIO? WHERE? OH. NOT CLOSE TO HERE?" Like when did jazzercise get name-droppy?

This teacher was super body positive and had most likely snorted a long line of cocaine before class because I have never seen a body move like this, at least not a body that did not belong to Sonic the Hedgehog (after he did a long line of cocaine, obvi). This class was very, very fast-paced but the lights were kept low. I don't know if the romance lighting was to enhance the whole body positivity or just add to the samba ambience (sambience?) but it did not keep me from almost decking a group of middle schoolers. And not to be all Mean Girls but who let the middle schoolers in? I would prefer only to jiggle around in public with other women who tinkle a little bit when they laugh or women who own a whole drawer of product labeled "age-defying."

The class was an hour long which was good since if left to my own devices, I will Zumba for four minutes until I feel my deodorant start to work and then I'll sit down and start unfollowing all the youngsters on Instagram who don't own any age-defying products, all while keeping that Zumbatastic beat, of course.

After the hour, it was hard to decide what my favorite Zumba moves were. Was it when I accidentally punched myself in the face and my glasses proceeded to rest slightly askew on the bridge of my nose for the rest of class Now...Grapevine! or was it when I proceeded to do the hip thrust in the wrong direction every single time so that it looked like maybe I was trying to partner dance? Cumbia! Oh oh, I know. I think it was when I got a crick in my neck from whipping it so hard in the manner of Sonic the Hedgehog that I Zumba-limped my way right into a hot bath when I got home. Boom, Pop pop pop, wowww!

LinkedIn makes me itch, 2018 has that new car smell, and other thoughts

LinkedIn is still a boxy place full of bosses, former ones and prospective bosses, small boxes to check and boxes into which we must shoehorn our skillset and lop off the quirks that may make us incredibly valuable but may not necessarily be valued. I click and scroll and read and my shoulders feel freighted by the imaginary shoulder pads I should be wearing in my little box of a profile picture. I can never look proffy enough for LinkedIn.

Random gents from Nigeria attempt to add me to their LinkedIn networks. I receive invites at least daily from complete strangers from Lagos, people whose titles sound like they ripped them from the Lives of the Saints: God's Hands and Feet, Director. Do I want to add this person to my LinkedIn network? Is it my own hubris that I don't want to add someone with the hubris to place the hands and feet of the Almighty as his professional title?

I click on "ignore request" because it all makes me feel a bit icky. Then I am smacked by my own privilege. What licenses me to ignore? Where do I hop on my First World high horse, so jaunty as I wave away these requests for connection. Because I was born under a certain star? Because I stand on the shoulders of giants? Because I would struggle mightily to imagine what it's like to have queued up a website on an unstable internet connection in a place so desolate of opportunity that the only hope one holds is to make a connection, no matter how superficial, because that feels like progress? What is it like to log on to LinkedIn and not feel bewildered by the boxy bossiness, but rather to find endless sea at nighttime, small boats and buoys bobbing with their sails up, tomorrow replete with possibility albeit unknown?

Whereas I can log off and hope for something to work out.

The very fact that I can write this true sentence about my life is some privilege worth confronting: I took the fall off to help the kids transition. Meaning, I chose not to work for someone else but rather worked for myself. In the pajama pants of work-from-home mythology.I booked hair appointments in the middle of the day like a proper Betty Draper. I went to yoga when I wanted, ate snacks at my desk, picked my kids up from school every blessed day. I've enjoyed the leisure of negotiable deadlines and the thrill of hard deadlines and I've even prettied up my professional website so that if the freelance hustle wants to pick itself up? It can.

It is now time to reemerge and inhale that new car smell of 2018. Ironically it smells like a gritty public bus ride to somewhere, somewhere that I'll have the privilege to serve.