Mama Arms.

[I am the tan one on the right. My sister is the pale one on the left.]

When I was in high school, I had a teacher named Mrs. Keating. She was a math teacher. I hated math. She was the hardest teacher in the school. The students that didn't like her always talked about her arms. She was skinny, but her arms shook when she wrote on the board. We'd sit there, transfixed, as Mrs. Keating's arms wrote equations on the board. And for the first seven months of school, that is how I thought of her. Wiggly Arms... Mom Arms as some people called them. 

The last two months of school I came down with Mono. The kissing disease struck me so badly that I could not go to school for over a month. The school district gave me a home teacher, and I did my work at home. Most of my teachers ignored the home teacher's requests to help me with my schooling. Especially my "cool" teachers. Mrs. Keating did not. She sent home all my homework, and called periodically to check on me. She was fabulously nice, and she probably does not even remember it. I learned that there was a lot more to my teacher than red hair and wiggly arms. She actually cared about her students. Sadly, the kids in my class probably never realized this. Some of them still talk about the way her arms shook.

I thought this was a once in a lifetime thing. I did not know that Mom Arms were a common syndrome. I was wrong. I hear them referred to on TV shows, in movies, in books, and in everyday conversations. In fact, as I just sat coloring a card for my friend's birthday, I felt a little wiggle to my side. I looked over. And there they were: Mama Arms. Mama Arms on ME.

Author Bio

            I was born in a tall, white hospital in downtown Mobile, Alabama. My twenty-six year old mother was rushed to the hospital by my twenty-six year old father in the same fashion many first-time mothers are. Only my mother was not a first-time mother; she already had two rambunctious boys, both under the age of four. As she lay there under fluorescent lighting, the nurse informed her that the doctor was missing in action. He had gone to the wrong hospital. They reassured her that he would be back within the hour. She did not doubt them, and the doctor came quick… but I came quicker. So I was born. I was born without a doctor. I was born to my mother with my father on one side and the nurse on the other.

            At the age of thirteen, my parents finally consented to buy me contacts. I had just started junior high and I was thrilled. I was sure contacts would bring me all kinds of luxuries: more room for eye makeup, a first kiss, maybe even a new reputation. I walked into the store to pick up my contacts the day they arrived. My parents let me go in by myself. I wore black pedal pushers and a blue sweater and I knew that my life was going to change.

            When I started wearing contacts, I started wearing blue eye shadow. I started wearing pink eye shadow. I started wearing purple eye shadow. I even started wearing glitter on my eyelids. I did not listen to my mother when she warned me that too much glitter was too much glitter. I did not listen to her when she told me that a fleck of glitter could slide off my eyelid, cutting my cornea, turning me permanently blind. I did not care. I was a new person. I was a slave to fashion.

            When I sixteen, I went to a party with a boy I had toyed with since the age of fifteen. When I turned my back, a girl with nappy blonde hair tried to seduce him. She asked him to dance; she tilted back her head and laughed at his lame jokes. Before I knew it, the fear that she would replace my spot on his lap overwhelmed me so much that I quit talking. I didn’t talk to him for the rest of the night until our long drive home. A few weeks later, I still held a grudge about the girl with blonde hair. For his eighteenth birthday, we went to see a movie and I punished him. He bought me a blue Icee and I let it melt in the armrest between us. He told me I should eat it before it turned into liquid. I shoved my hands in my pockets and turned my head to the screen.

            Finally, I turned old enough to go to college. I told my parents I could not and would not go anywhere in Utah. I went to the University of Missouri instead. I lied to my parents and told them that there were only co-ed dorms so that I could live with men. I went to classes bright and early, left my dorm at eleven thirty at night, and showered at three in the morning. I started wearing my glasses again because I wanted to look different than the other freshmen. I wanted to be studious, but I wanted to be wild. I wanted to be everything. I wanted to live my life at my own schedule.

            I did not stay in Missouri. By my twentieth birthday, I moved myself into a Salt Lake City apartment where I had no friends or family. I started working at a shoe boutique and I traded my ripped skinny jeans and colorful wristbands in for five-inch stilettos and dresses. I tamed my wild hair and laughed when I was supposed to. I made friends and stayed out until two standing ankle deep in snow. I took art classes and drew with charcoal until four in the morning. I ate cereal for dinner and argued with my roommate. I parked on the street and wrecked my car. The next week I hit a motorcycle whose headlights were not on. I gave him forty bucks and never heard from him again. Then I moved to Provo and started school at Brigham Young University.

            I turned twenty-two the twelfth of September and my mother still laughs that I have not changed since the first day of my life. I like what I like and I make my own decisions and I show up when I want to and do what I want when I want to. Sometimes I love to be a hermit, but other times there is not stopping me. I’m passionate about faith, about photography, about history, about writing, about literature, about laughing, about music, and about finding the inner spark within everything. I love people and I love stories—all kinds of stories because each one makes me understand something new each and every time. I like to paint my fingernails and I like to feel free and quote song lyrics.

            Call me an idealist. Call me a dreamer. Call me funny. Call me a romantic. Call me hazy eyed. I’ll call myself Elisabeth… or Lissa.

I Never by Rilo Kiley

Surveys like these always always always pop up.

And more often than not, a question or two changes between passings.

Facebook, Email, Blogs... all the same. Observe:

1. Put your iTunes on shuffle

2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.

3. You must write that song title down, no matter how silly it sounds!

4. Tag TEN friends who might enjoy doing the same, as well as the person who went this to you.

If someone says, "is this okay?" you say...

If I Am by Nine Days

What would best describe your personality?

American Pie by Don McLean

What do you like in a guy or girl?

Standard Lines by Dashboard

How do you feel today?

A Plain Morning by Dashboard

What's your life's purpose?

Holding Nothing Back by Copeland

What is your motto?

You'll Think of Me by Keith Urban

What do your friends think of you?

Everytime I Look For you by Blink

What do you think about very often?

Us by Regina Spektor

What is 2 + 2?

We Will Become Silhouettes by The Postal Service

What do you think of your best friend?

Make It Up by Ben Kweller

What do you think of the person you like?

Life is a Highway by Rascal Flatts

What is your life story?

Black Bird by the Beatles

What is your soulmate thinking?

Way Out by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Living in Twilight by the Weepies

What do you think when see the person you like?

I Am Understood? Relient K

What do your parents think of you?

Exhale (Shoop Shoop) by Whitney Houston

What will you dance to at your wedding?

The Damage In Your Heart by Weezer 

What will they play at your wedding?

Oh! Darling by the Beatles

What is your hobby/interest?

Dreams by The Cranberries

What is your destiny?

If You C Jordan by Something Corporate

What is your biggest secret?

Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield

What do you think of your friends?

Pitseleh by Elliott Smith

What does your best friend think of you?

Faces by Under the Influence of Giants

What does your ex think of you?

Flat On the Floor by Carrie Underwood

What is the worst thing that could happen?

You Can't Break A Broken Heart by Kate Voegele

How will you die?

Sticky Teenage Twin by Snow Patrol

What do you regret?

Santa Baby by Eartha Kitt

What makes you laugh?

Change Your Mind by the Killers

What makes you cry?

Energy by Apples in Stereo

Will you get married?

What A Beautiful Day by Chris Cagle

What scares you the most?

Don't Come Around Again by Rooney

Does anyone have a crush on you?

My Favorite Color by Backseat Goodbye

If you could go back in time, what would you change?

Meant to Live by Switchfoot (Does that mean I wouldn't have seen them in concert back in high school?)

What hurts right now?

Everything's Just Wonderful by Lily Allen

What will you post this as?

I Never by Rilo Kiley

This one's a variation of a radio game. The "What should I do with my life?", "What is he thinking of? game. My friends play it, and there's an episode of One Tree Hill where the girls play it too. That means many people have played it. So play on, playa.

Break Ups

Disclaimer: I am not a psycho ex.

In high school and college (and probably after), one of the most discussed topics is simple: relationships. Breaking up.

It's the same every time. No matter who I break up with, no matter why I break up with them, and no matter what the relationship constituted of (semi-serious, super-almost-marriage-serious, or flat out long and confusing... anything but a few week long fling), I do the same things. Or at least some of the same things. My sophomore year I started the process of throwing out clothes. Clothes I wore when we had our first kiss in, our first fight, our break up... sometimes just clothes they really like. My senior year of high school, I burned pictures and letters and emails. I burned them into flames. Still true to my latest breakup, I tear up pictures, I tear up letters, I write new letters I never intend to send, I throw out things they gave me, and if I'm really mad I break CDs they gave me or dump perfume...even squeeze out lotion. Sometimes I delete their phone numbers, their emails, and most of their pictures from my laptop.

Alright so now that I sound crazy...

It's a mourning process. I do it every time. But let me water it down: I have a lot of clothes, so throwing out (or pushing them into the back of my closet) really is not a big deal. The burning? I had backups of the emails, and doubles of some pictures. Tearing up of pictures? Most likely, they're stored to a CD somewhere or stuck in a collage on my wall. Deletion of phone number? No big. If you want it later, all you have to do is ask. You can even ask a mutual friend. They'll never need to know. And more than anything? It's fun.

Let's face it: Women love Carrie Underwood-esque "Before He Cheats" songs. We all want to key the car when we get cheated on, we want to egg their house, and we want to make out with their best friend. It's called revenge. And women love to do it, not only for the rush, but for the rush of it later. Then we talk smack on them. A lot of my ex's are known not by their names, but by nicknames. Names like "My dead-beat boyfriend," My "cheating but I still want to marry you boyfriend," My "funny and so hot-hot-hot boyfriend," The one with "the cool vibe". The "awkward one", The "What Was I thinking" one. They're all there. And I loved them. All of them... but some more than others.

Point? None of this "mourning process" really matters. 

In the end, I end up restoring the pictures on my laptop, I stop talking smack on them, I no longer want to egg their house (though I may date one of their friends), I put their phone number back on my phone, I put their email (that I had memorized all along) back in my address book, I say hi to them on campus, sometimes I even date them again. In the end, the mourning process doesn't matter. But we all have personal mourning processes. I like to tear things, and I like to cry. I like to do it and I know I do. It makes me free.

Sometimes I even prolong the system, simply because I don't want to date. I want to grieve. And the funniest part of this? I've never been the dumpee. Ever. I've always been the dumper (though many a time I've been the dumper after issues of cheating and lying). But what's a girl to do? I don't want to be calm when I break up. I want to be free. I want to tear that part of my heart out, and put it somewhere else. So I do. In art and tearing things up and music and school. That's how I do it each and every time since I was 15 years old... Only now I don't always listen to Toby Keith and Jessica Andrews to get the pain out of my system.

And I'm not the only one like this. Just ask your college aged friends, family members, or daughters. They'll be the same way, too. And that's why it's folklore. I'll never know why someone thought of burning pictures after a break up, but sometimes it feels good to see things go up in flames.

In the words of Rilo Kiley, "OOh! Ahh! Feels good to be FREE!"

 

Now I've Got My Tailypo

The story of Tailypo goes something like this: An old man is starving. He goes hunting with his beloved dogs. They don’t find anything. On their retreat home, they come across an odd looking animal with a long, furry tail. He tries to kill the animal, but misses the middle of its body. Instead, he severs the animal’s tail from the rest of his body. Overjoyed by the prospect of having a meal, the man runs home to stew the tail. He eats it, and stuffed to the brim, begins to fall asleep.

            But sleep doesn’t hold him for long. Outside of his house, he hears barking and whining from his dogs. He thinks he hears a voice say “Tailypo, Tailypo, all I want is my Tailypo!” The old man does not like this voice. He yells at his dogs to be quiet. They don’t obey. He hears scratching at the door. All the sudden everything is quiet. Baffled, the man goes to check on his bloodhounds. They are gone. The man goes back inside, stunned. His dogs have never run off before, and he does not know what to make of it.

Should he look for them? It’s dark outside, and the man does not want to get lost. As he debates what to do, he hears scratching from within his home. What could be scratching? He looks across the room and sees an odd looking animal, the same odd looking animal from before. The animal looks at him. “Tailypo, Tailypo, I’ve come to get my tailypo!” The old man is terrified. A battle ensues. In the morning, all that’s left of the old man’s house is the chimney. But when you go out to the old man’s property late at night, you can still hear a voice saying, “Tailypo, Tailypo, now I’ve got my Tailypo!”