Small world

Lately my social media networks can't get enough of girls who are boys now.

Everyone wants to say how they feel about kids deciding whether they're boys or girls, kids being told whether they’re boys or girls, parents listening to kids about whether they’re boys or girls, whatever,

It just seems like a lot of yelling and not a lot of people asking why there are only two things you can be.

It seems like a sad and small world if it is a world where you can make a human being (you can make a human being!) and then all you can give it is GIRL. And if the girl says “I don’t like girl” the biggest thing you can say back is “Oh no problem - here is BOY. That will be what you like.” 

Two is just not a lot of options. 

If I went too a Kiefer Nissan dealership and all they had was two cars to choose from, I would take my business elsewhere. Even if they let me pick either car. And I think any three-year old would agree with me. 

Guys I know this is real pixilated but it's worth it because click on it it's a link to a factory where you can order slides.

This Maja Angelou Sesame Street song doesn't seem relevant but it is the best video in the world so I'm putting it here anyway. I would do karaoke a lot more often if this song were available.

Write me a rap song

I run almost every day, but never in shorts.

I always wear running tights. I like running tights because they look like what a superhero would wear but mostly I wear them because I'm a girl and it's 2014 and so, I hate my legs. That's what girls do in 2014.

Boooo, legs, right? Hate 'em. I have the worst legs.

But then a few weeks ago all my running tights were all in the wash and so instead I put on shorts and, you guys. I was completely wrong. It turns out I actually have amazing legs.

There are some things words can't describe but there are other things that inspire millions of words, that deserve thousands of volumes of literature describing them and my legs are that second type of thing.

If I were a poet I would write poems about these legs. I'm not great at poetry but you know what I am great at? Legs. I have the best legs.

So now it's weeks later and I wear shorts every day and sometimes when I run past a bus stop or restaurant or dog-walker someone will yell "I love your legs!" and I keep running even though I want so badly to stop and talk to them because we have so many similar interests: I also love my legs.

High five me if you love bloody hands

My friend Krissy loaned me her bike and promised me that no matter what I did it would be impossible to hurt it.

I wasn’t thinking about that while we were biking this weekend, and I also wasn’t thinking about looking both ways so I didn’t notice a truck coming toward me until it was so late that I had to pull the brakes very fast, and the bike flipped over and I flew over the handlebars and landed in the street, just to the side of the truck.

I’ve been skinning my knees a lot lately and I am very into it. Skinning your knees is like a facial for your legs - the skin grows back brand new and glowing and fresh. But this fall was a lot worse and I skinned most of my leg, and somehow my palms AND the outside of my wrists and shoulders, which seems like it would have required some acrobatics and I'm barely capable of biking let alone acrobatics.

While I was lying in the street sort of enjoying the gravel and getting my bearings a camp of people who had established permanent residence in the bushes a few feet away from the road started panicking and going on about the little girl in a bike accident and a woman whose hair, skin and clothes were all the same blonde color yelled out “Honey are you ok?” and “That guy is lucky I don’t have a crowbar on me.” I’ve only been called “honey” maybe ten times in my life and all of them have been bad times. This is the sort of thing the honey industry or the national bee-keepers association needs to be worrying about. 

I was too shaken up but if I had been able to talk I would have first wanted to talk about how much I was bleeding, and then I would have wanted to ask her what she would have done with a crowbar. Wikipedia says they’re used to pry open wooden crates but apparently they can also do damage to trucks or truck drivers who are just minding their own business.

All I know for sure is they can’t do any damage to Krissy’s bike, because I have really been pretty aggressive with that thing and it is still in amazing shape.

Guess my favorite word

If you had asked me a month ago to describe the world I would have needed a minute. Maybe my answer would have to do with people, or families, or traveling, or owning the right number of socks or being surprised or getting old, or animals. I would have said it was about a lot of things.

Now if you ask me to describe the world I can answer immediately HILLS. The world is about hills.

Because a month ago I started biking and guys, hills are everywhere. Hills are all that matters to me now. Does that road have hills? How many bike pedal rotations would the hill take to bike up? Are there downhills? Please describe the downhills.

I only think in hill metaphors now. Long line at the checkout is a hill. Someone smiling at me: short downhill. Learning Spanish: too hilly. Not even worth it. 

Most days are a mix of uphill and downhill and some days are a slow uphill then a downhill, and some days are just straight uphill which is the worst because where am I going, why do I need to get up there?

Every shape looks like a hill to me. Eyebrows. The letter n. Sandwiches are a good food because they're flat. And pizza because I love pizza.

Idioms with the word "hill" in them make me go insane. If I hear someone at a table next to me in a restaurant say "It's all downhill from here" it takes all the self-control I have to not turn around and scream HOORAY DOWNHILL IS THE BEST and high-five all of them because they get it. It's about hills.

This is what karma looks like

A year ago I wrote a story about injuries I was jealous of and a day later I ran into a wall and my chin was navy for a month. Here's the story anyway because now I have the world's healthiest chin again.

Things I'm jealous of:

SCARS.

I wish I scarred easier. Nothing makes me more jealous than someone pointing casually to a part of their body that tells more of a story than the kind of stories my body tells: “Good morning I am a shoulder.”

My sister has a scar on her forehead because she ran into a kitchen chair as a child. And a few years ago I had to have a test done where a doctor pulled a slice of bone out of my back through a giant syringe and I have no physical proof to back up this story besides a hospital bill, because the cut disappeared hours later.

Some people walk into chairs and get to celebrate it for the rest of their lives, I could spend a year juggling chainsaws in South Asia and no one would believe it, maybe even someday I would forget it had happened. “South Asia,” I would say, “Now there’s a place I’ve always wanted to go.” I wish I scarred easier.

SUNBURNS.

I wish I sunburned easier. Nothing makes me more jealous than people who get to enjoy the memory of sunlight days after they return indoors, peeling off pieces of their skin in long, clear strips like pubescent snakes.

One summer when he was little my brother spent too much time outdoors with no UV protection and for days he couldn’t wear a shirt and would sit on a stool in the kitchen, feverish and hunched over from pain. His skin was bright red and shiny from the aloe vera and his bones poked out and he looked like an injured demon playing Gameboy and eating corn chips.

Once I thought I had a freckle but it was actually a speck of chocolate. The only time my skin has changed color was when I forgot to wash my new dark-wash jeans, and my legs turned navy from the dye. I wish I sunburned easier.

BLUSHING.

I wish I blushed easier. Nothing makes me more jealous than people whose faces glow when they exercise, like lightbulbs powered only by soccer, tennis, and chasing the bus.

My friend Katie can’t keep any secrets because she turns bright pink whenever you ask her anything. In high school we always knew who Katie had a crush on and who was having a surprise party and what was for lunch because her face would switch from peach to apple to cherry; she was like a 14-year-old lie-detector test. If Katie were a lie-detector test I would be every machine besides a lie-detector test, never changing, always giving the same non-blushing answer. I am an electric sandwich maker, a can opener, a broken alarm clock.

Once I bought a brand of blush so expensive it was like applying quarters to my face every morning, but my cheeks still look less like roses and more like rug burns and no one was fooled. I wish I blushed easier.

BRUISES.

I wish I bruised easier. Nothing makes me more jealous than someone rolling up their jeans and showing off a giant swollen mark on their shin “Look what happened on my bus ride yesterday.”

Last week while getting off the bus I yelled “THANKS!” to the driver because I’m working on being polite when I feel shy and then, once I had all eyes on me, I stepped off the bus, misjudged the distance to the ground and fell shoulders-first into a puddle while three tied-up dogs watched. It hurt a lot, and I can roll up my jeans and talk about it, but there’s nothing to show. I wish I bruised easier.