When it was my turn, I stood in the middle of the stage and began to sing, I might as well have been a high-school sophomore again. The notes climbing slowly, higher and higher.
But then I spotted an elderly woman with white hair sitting in the audience, and I noticed she was mouthing the words as I sang them.
Maybe this was her favorite song, too, loved for a lot longer than fifteen years.
And before I knew it, the B Flat was there, and it came out, clear as a bell.
The woman clasped her hands in front of her chest when I hit it.
It was my best performance for the best audience that fifteen-year-old me could have ever hoped for.
I’m not going to make some treacly point about how it was all the sweeter for the wait. It might have meant more to me when I was fifteen, when my world was smaller, and everything felt like a big deal.
But what took me by surprise was the sense of rediscovery, of connection, and of triumph. Resurrecting that old bogeyman, defeating it, and doing something just for the love of it was well worth feeling a little silly for caring a little too much.
Life changes us.
But not that much.
Collect Them All
Lisa
You’ve heard the expression, “Out with the old, in with the new.”
I’m not familiar.
I say that because I’m noticing lately that I’m doing a lot of “in with the new,” but not “out with the old.”
Maybe because I’m getting older.
Or because I’m getting wiser.
Either way, I have too many books.
I know, I don’t think it’s a problem, either.
The only thing is, they’re overtaking my house.
We begin a few years ago, when I notice that my books are piling up all over my dining table and I didn’t have any bookshelves for them. So I had some bookshelves installed, first one wall of them in the dining room, than a second wall, and a third, and over time, even those bookshelves got full. All these were books that I have read and loved, then I started collecting signed books, and so when one of my favorite authors would tour, I just called the store.
Who knew you could do that?
I did.
I started to get to the point where I shelved my signed books separately, in alphabetical order by author, and even had a little sign made for them.
The sign says, Signed.
Subtlety is not my strong suit.
You know this if you read my books.
Then my signed collection of books started growing, roughly at the same time as my TBR pile started growing. Hard-core readers know that a TBR pile means books To Be Read, but for me, it could easily mean books To Be Reshelved Without Being Read, because more and more, I am acquiring too many books.
Let’s assume for present purposes there is such a thing.
And so now I’m thinking about putting more bookshelves in my kitchen, of all places.
Why?
Because it’s the only room in the house that presently has no bookshelves.
I don’t know if you can put bookshelves in the kitchen, or if it’s against federal law, but the great thing about a middle-aged woman is that we make our own rules.
And also that we never throw anything away.
And now there are going to be bookshelves in my kitchen.
Because I can’t part with a single book.
I don’t even lend my books.
Why?
Because they’re mine, all mine. I treasure each one. I just love books.
The child in me will ask, if you love books so much, why don’t you marry them?
The answer, of course, is that I have.
I have books that lasted longer than both marriages combined, and somewhere along the line, I became a collector.
I always thought that the world divided up into people who collect things and people who don’t, with me being distinctly in the latter, but no longer.
I stopped being judgy.
And somehow the pleasure from collecting is different from everything else. Maybe it’s rooted in the childhood commercials, because I know I can recall them instantly, where they say, Collect Them All.
You can never have too many books!
And here I am, collecting them all, which is the worst kind of acquisitive urge because it’s one that can never be fulfilled.
I mean all?
It was one thing when there were three Barbies, but now there are 479 Barbies, and of course there are an endless number of books.
And I can’t seem to help myself, nor do I even want to try.
My name is Lisa and I’m a bookaholic.
Please tell me I’m not alone in this.
Are any of you collecting anything? Is it threatening to overtake you? Are you building more shelves, display cases, or signs that say Signed?
Have you lost your damn mind, too?
Or are we simply greedy?
I’m wondering what drives the urge to collect, and whether it’s just hoarding without a cable TV show.
What set am I trying to complete?
And don’t tell me it’s myself.
Because you might be right.
It’s a Boy!
Lisa
Did you hear they invented a birth control that men can use?
Just kidding.
Seriously.
By way of background, you may have heard the news that recently, there was a trial of 266 men who took hormonal birth control, in the form of an injection that mixed testosterone and progestogen. An article I read said that the idea was to “trick the testicles into reducing production of the highly concentrated testosterone they need to create sperm.”
Quite an idea.
Happily, my days of tricking testicles are over.
In fact, testicles might be the only thing about men I don’t miss.
I bet no women like testicles.
I bet men don’t like them, either.
I mean, really.
Do they own a mirror?
Anyway, to stay on point, the male hormone shots worked, because they produced a pregnancy rate of 1.57 per 100.
So apparently you can be half-pregnant.
Maybe even one-and-a half-pregnant.
This was great news for the people who ran the study, because it was the same level of effectiveness as the birth-control pill that women have been taking for decades.
So far, so good, right?
No.
The study was halted because of the side effects of the shots. I did some research into what the side effects were, and some of the men complained of moodiness and depression.
Just like female birth control.
But evidently we handle it better?
Or maybe we’re not used to complaining.
Or maybe nothing happens when we do?
Or maybe, just maybe, we’re more manly than the men getting testosterone shots.
Which is pretty damn manly.
But still, the news story didn’t make sense to me.
So I kept digging to see what other side effects the men reported, and apparently, another one was increased libido.
Hello.
I’ve never known a man to complain of increased libido. Though I have known of women to complain of a man’s increased libido.
Thanks, Viagra.
Since that side effect didn’t make sense to me either, I kept digging, and I learned that the final side effect reported was acne.
Hmm.
I’ve never known a man to care if he has a zit, especially if there was a possibility of sex.
Only women think that zits make sex more unlikely.
Either way, I have a cure.
Turn out the light.