Summertime

I think we all have something that characterizes our summers growing up. Of course, lots of things happen during the summer that we probably always participated in- street festivals, county fairs, Fourth of July parties and parades- but I think everyone has that one special thing that they did every summer when they were kids that really stood out. Some went to summer camp and treasure the memories, as they went from campers to junior counselors to counselors. My mom, for instance, spent time every summer with her twin visiting her grandma. She cherishes those memories so much that I feel like I was right there with her after hearing the precious stories.

The highlight of my summer was getting a visit from my cousin Jessica. Everyone calls us twin cousins. Not because our family has some sort of questionable and illegal morals. But because she was born five days before me and we are really quite alike. The best compliment I get is when I hear that we look like sisters or someone (besides myself) mistakens a picture of her for me.

We got along great as kids. Neither of us was particularly a girly-girl, we both had wild imaginations that took us to the craziest places, and we just got each other in a way that no one else can. We have other best friends who mean the world to us, but we've both got a little bit of "cooky" in us that I think only we can get... and it is probably only brought out by the two of us being together. We'd have inside jokes within minutes and when one of us said one word, the other knew the rest of the thought and we'd burst into giggles that made the rest of the family think we were laughing about nothing. Really at that time, when we were together, we even forgot there was a rest of the family.

To this day, we still say the same absolutely random thing at the same time, one will start a thought and the other will finish it without thinking about it, and we still laugh until we're in pain at the mutter of one word because the other one knows exactly what the other is thinking. It used to make our mothers paranoid that we were laughing at them, but we never were. We just didn't have to complete our thoughts to get the point across.



It's an incredible bond that I imagine sisters have. I feel blessed to share that with her and make sure to make that as clear as possible.

So now that I've done my best to introduce Jessica, I'm trying to narrow this post down to just one of our many, many memories.

So when we were about 11-years-old, Jessica came up with her dad. We felt too cool for school because, even though I lived in the same town as our grandparents, I'd packed my stuff up and stay at their house with her during the visit. That way, I could feel like I was getting a mini-vacation, too. Plus, our grandparents and her dad spent the days golfing meaning the house was all ours. For the sake of our pride, though it is documented on tape, I won't go into much detail about what we did during the day. I'll just be vague and say we made skits. Other than that, I'm going to skip over to the part where I hated that Jessica loved soap operas, but somehow she managed to suggest that we have lunch during Days of Our Lives. This involved the two of us making sandwiches, finding chips and some sort of frozen treat deluxe, then taking it to the living room and eating them on TV trays from, like... 1801. This killed me. I'm still traumatized by this event. I wanted to look through photo albums instead. I think what killed me more was, no matter how many times we unfolded those trays in our lifetimes, we still struggle with putting them back. Totally don't get it.

So our grandparents and Jessica's dad spent their time during the day golfing for some tournament and at the end of the week, there was a fancy-shmancy dinner. That was our favorite night. We had the house to ourselves until way after dinner was over and that meant making pizza (and cutting it with scissors. Jessica could never get over that), watching our favorite movies (Baby Sitters Club by Disney, anyone? We mostly liked to put it on mute and insert our own words), dancing to whatever music we could find, most often Grease, and doing my big scheme.

I always thought it was so clever, remember I was only 10, although we did this a couple of times, for us to go curl up in Grampa's humongous bed when we were starting to get sleepy and expected them home. We watched Nick At Night, which had Dick Van Dyke and I Love Lucy and maybe Bewitched on it. We'd get all cozy, and the moment that we heard the door open, we'd shut our eyes and act like we'd been sleeping all night because I just thought that was the most hilarious scheme. I wanted to know what Grampa would do to kick us, his "Little Girls" (that was our official nickname) out. However, it usually ended up backfiring. Gramma would come swaying in, showing some after effects of her wine, and take her jewelry off (I saw this through my squinted eyes) and leave the room. Jessica and I would look at each other and smile, then close our eyes when we heard Grampa's feet heading for the door. It took all I had not to laugh. It was killing me to know what he might do. Turn off the TV? Turn on the alarm? Make Uncle Mel wake us up? Poke us in the faces? Talk loud like we aren't sleeping? Let us have his huge comfy bed?!? The possibilities!!

Well, I heard him stroll into his room. When I thought it was safe, I squinted my eyes and watched him take his cuff links off and noticed his evening jacket was already off. He sat down to take his socks off.... this was definitely not going to plan. He was preparing for bed as if his two Little Girls weren't already settled in it! He didn't bother us or anything!

My memory says that I'd wait until he left the room for something and Jessica and I would realize the jig was up and leave so Grampa could have his bed. We had spent the whole evening expecting something great to happen, all we got was normalcy. However, when her dad realized we were awake, we were treated to 12" golf bags and golf clubs made entirely of chocolate. Now that was a pick-me-up!

My First Dance

I couldn't sleep a few nights ago. It was too quiet and I couldn't settle down. When I was young and this problem came about, I'd ask my mom to tell me stories from her childhood. I loved imagining her as a little girl, in the dresses that I saw her wearing in the black and white photos, acting out whatever story she shared.

So on this night, I asked Kevin to tell me a story to help me settle down. He couldn't think of anything to say since I put him on the spot, so I told him to tell me about his first dance and he spent some time reminiscing about all of the dances he went to until his last dance... the prom that I asked him to go to out of desperation... okay, and because I top secretly had a crush on him even though I hardly knew him.

Hearing his stories took me back to my first dance. I don't remember it in full, but I have flashes of memories. I'll get the embarrassing part out of the way right now. I was in sixth grade and had recently turned 11-years-old. I wasn't much for trends... um, or for fashion in general and though I liked boys, I dressed for myself. So my ensemble for the evening included black pinstripe pants, a red t-shirt, and I topped it off with a vest covered with Mickey Mouse's face. That vest was a favorite that year.

My school was just down the block, so I walked to the dance. I met with some friends whom I had known from fifth grade when I got there. We weren't allowed in the building, yet, so we eagerly waited out in the crisp fall air. Finally, they threw the doors open and we piled into the school gym where I'm sure they played 1993's greatest hits, like WHOOMP there it is! and Dreamlover by Mariah Carey and Cryin' by Aerosmith.

I wasn't really sure how the whole dance thing was supposed to go down, so I spent the first half as a wallflower, watching the grown up 8th grade girls towering over the boys who had asked them to dance. Then I saw one of my newer friends rush into the locker room in tears. Three girls followed her and I wanted to know what was wrong. When I got there, she was going on and on about her boyfriend who had just broken up with her and danced with another girl. One of the 7th graders wiped her tears away and sighed, "Well, that's what you can expect from men." And I rolled my eyes and said, "Uh, you mean boys." Meaning that only an immature boy would do something so hurtful. A mature man would know how to treat a lady. However, the 7th grader didn't get what I meant and turned to me and said, "Honey, in middle school, we call them men."

She certainly thought she taught me something. But I knew what I meant.

When our friend collected herself, we went back to the dance. This is when something interesting happened. Some song, we'll say Baby Got Back, started rockin' the gym and the DJ put strobe lights on. First, I thought it was really cool. Who doesn't like strobe lights? Everything looks all silly. But then, I started to feel really weird. Totally disconnected from my body and like I might faint or something. It's really hard to describe and I didn't know what was happening back then. Ten years later, I figured out that it was a seizure.

Because I felt so strange, I stepped out of the gym, grabbed some water and sat down on a chair in the hallway, next to the concession stand. I stayed there for a long time. Long enough to notice that a boy from my class in a polo shirt tucked too tightly in his jeans (like I had room to talk about fashion) kept buying suckers and wandering the hall. I guess he didn't really know what to do at dances, either.

I didn't think I should go back to the dance after the sensations that I felt, so I just stayed in the hall and listened to music when I tiny little girl sat next to me. She was excited because a family friend was going to adopt a baby soon. So we spent the rest of the dance becoming friends while we talked in the hallway. We left the dancing up to the tall 8th grade girls and their tiny 8th grade boy dance partners.

Me? An adult?

So I'm excited about my evening plans. I will be going out for coffee with a new friend that I made at the television station. She's easy-going, intelligent, and best of all, really funny. I have a great time talking to her.

What I find hard to grasp is that I am her "adult escape" from her three children, ages 1-7. I totally get what she means, because I've heard all moms talk about reaching that point where their social life ranges from their 12-year-old babysitter to any quick conversation they can manage to exchange with other busy moms while sleepy children tug at their shirts when they pick them up from friends' homes.

It's just... me? The adult escape? Would I have been The Chosen One if she knew that my favorite pajamas pants are scattered with Care Bears? Or that I was just cleaning my apartment... while performing Sarah Bareilles to my adoring fans of Logan the dog and framed photographs? That I traveled to St. Louis for my birthday with my husband... and my stuffed rabbit who has gone on every vacation but one since I was 7-years-old?

What, exactly, constitutes an adult, anyway? I did just turn 26, which I'm not very happy about, but at least I have that going for me if I need evidence that I'm an adult. When I think of an adult, I think of Barack Obama, for instance. I just don't think he sleeps in Care Bear pajama pants, performs Stevie Wonder to his photographs, and travels all over the country with his childhood toy. He lets loose, I'm sure, but in an adult-like way. Like, he relaxes in lounge pants, tells witty jokes and bobs his head to good music. That's letting loose like an adult.

Dictionary.com says that an adult is someone who is fully grown (um) or developed or of age. I guess that counts. But as an adjective, it says "having attained full size (um) and strength; grown up; mature." I'm just not so sure I fit the adjective. I guess my friend is willing to settle for the noun.

Why I need a pipe

I want a pipe.

You hardly even see pipes anymore. In my lifetime, I think I can name two times that I have seen someone with a pipe. One time, someone was driving and he had his pipe. The other time was last month. I was at one of my many favorite ice cream places with two of my many best friends. I was gleefully eating my orange cream ice cream cone, the way I do: *lick* "yum!" *lick* "yum!" *lick* "yum!" *lick* "yum!" For me, it's almost like by the time the ice cream goes down my throat and I prepare for my next lick, I've forgotten what it tastes like. So I take my next taste and am taken so much by surprise by the tastiness that I must exclaim, "Yum!" once again.

My friend, Luke, interrupted my heavenly world about two minutes into my practice by staring at me incredulously and asking, "Really?" Upon this interruption, I looked past Luke's head and saw it. A man looking distinguished with his pipe. That's when I knew that I wanted one. Without his pipe, he was just a man sitting at one of the best ice cream places in Iowa without an ice cream. With it, he was distinguished. I wanted to have educated discussions with him that involved words like, "preposterous" and, "By jove" and, like, "Socrates."

The Husband thinks this is ridiculous. For one, he points out, I don't smoke. Well of course not, and I don't see what having a pipe has to do with that. My pipe is going to be intended as an accessory. A conversation piece. I wear certain types of jewelry because they make me feel a certain way and they sometimes provoke conversation. Same with the pipe. It would make me feel distinguished and I think it might invite conversation. If anything, I've decided I would put coffee beans in it so if I were to suck on the stem of the pipe, I might taste some java. However, tobacco and I are enemies, so it is not involved with my fascination with pipes.

In his quest to prevent me from getting a pipe, my husband says that little girls look up to me. Now, I wouldn't want to encourage them to smoke, would I? Apparently, he hasn't been listening to my first argument. The pipe is not for smoking. Little girls will see me looking all intelligent with my pipe and see how creative I've been by not smoking, but holding it like the piece of art that it is. I've always made wise choices in life with the thought in my mind that a child might be looking up to me. My pipe won't be any different. In fact! In fact, I can even offer the child a swig of my coffee bean filled pipe. Maybe they shouldn't be drinking it, but they walk down the coffee aisle of the store all the time and inhale the fumes, so they can breathe it in from the stem of my pipe, right? I'm not a mom, but I think that's cool.

So, see? I'm still the good role model that I've always tried to be. Don't smoke that addictive tobaccy, kids, it'll hurt you. Instead, purchase this sweet pipe and fill it with coffee or cocoa beans! It'll make you look as cool as a pair of glasses and a scarf! Especially if you pair it with your glasses and scarf!

Kevin's initial reaction to my longing for a pipe was that women never have pipes. I realized that he was right. I've never seen a woman with a pipe. I don't know why that is, but I guess when I get a pipe, it is going to be my little ripple in the women's movement.

Geoff

I remember being little and being asked to tell a bit about myself and I'd say, "My name is Meghan, I'm 6-years-old and I have two big brothers." I felt very defined by having big brothers. Very proud that I was not only the youngest child, but the only girl, too. I never really craved a sister until I was a teenager, but really, I just consider my "twin cousin," Jessica my sister. What I mostly wished was that she lived closer so we could spend more time together. She gives me everything that I think a sister would give me. We'll get to that in another "memory post." Probably in lots of memory posts, because I don't think just one can cover everything she means to me.

You always hear about the special relationships that sisters have. You go to Hallmark and there are special Sister plaques, special Sister cards, special Sister necklaces, special Sister poems on special Sister bookmarks. But what about brothers and sisters? We have pretty great relationships, too. Sure, my mom didn't dress us alike and we didn't stay up late talking about cute boys, I guess because he doesn't happen to be gay. But I don't think that's what makes sisters any more special than having a big brother instead.

I feel particularly close to my brother Geoff. I have a short list of "real-life" heros (people I actually know, opposed to, say, Rosa Parks) and Geoff is on that list. The quick list of reasons why is because he is incredibly intelligent without rubbing it in your face and being obnoxious about it, he is so giving that he joined the Peace Corp, plus he does little everyday sweet things, he is hilarious, but not in-your-face look at me, I'm know I'm funny! hilarious, a rare type of Funny found in a small breed of people that I hope includes me, and he has an undefinable strength in him that I can only wish to have.

Being one of three children poses its challenge. Generally, as youngsters, instead of everyone grouping together, we usually joined into teams: two versus one. The only time this rule is broken is on vacation, when we all usually behaved (yes, unlike most family vacation stories that I've heard, we behaved on vacations as children). At this vital time, when the unknown laid before us, we grouped together, our big brown eyes peering out at the rest of the world, me grabbing onto whichever brother was closer, when a parent was unavailable for the grabbing. Otherwise, in my everyday life, I chose one brother to prefer based, usually, on who was being nicer to me. And you knew who I preferred that week based on if I liked the Bears and LA Lakers or the Cowboys and Chicago Bulls. If I liked the Bears and Lakers, then I was on Geoff's side. If I liked the Cowboys and Bulls, I was on Eric's side. But if Eric turned on me or said something mean about Geoff, then I liked the Bears and Lakers again. I liked the Cubs year round, because both of the brothers liked the Cubs. This is getting complicated, I know. But it made sense to me. It was a system that worked, and I felt that it must brutally hurt each brother if he turned on me when I switched which team I liked better.

Whether I liked the Bears and Lakers or not, I recall looking up to Geoff as soon as he frowned at me in the hospital when we met. He was frowning because it was the first time my mom had been away from him and he wanted her back at home, not because he didn't like me. In fact, he had been wishing for a sister ever since he heard that I was on my way to the world. He even picked out my plaid blue diaper bag that I still have. I appreciate that he didn't pick out a pink one. It's like he understood me before I was even born.

When he was about 8-years-old and I was 3, he would play our Atari in the basement playroom. He always sat with his legs side-by-side, straight out in front of him. I wanted to do whatever Geoff did, however Geoff did. So on many occasions, I sat right smack next to him as he played Frogger, my legs side-by-side, straight out, toes pointed up and wagging side to side, just like his toes. Even though you would think I'd be very limber at this age, within about 3 minutes, my little legs would be in so much pain that I had to give up on this sitting position. He sat like that the whole time he played his video games, but I never did know how he found that so comfortable. Not even at my limber state.

My goal in my young life was to keep my brothers impressed. While my best friend was at her house up the street playing Barbies with her sister, I sat in the room that my brothers shared, next to Geoff on his bed. On their walls hung the pendents of the Big 10 and Big 12 team flags. He spent one morning teaching me the school names and mascots of the Big 10 and 12 universities. I thought it was a big enough accomplishment that I could count the 22 pendents (at the time Penn State was not the 11th school in the Big 10), but I was very proud to memorize the names and mascots and recognize the pendants for Geoff and show it off for Eric and my mom (who, really, couldn't care all that much, but tried).

The one thing that Geoff could do to make my eyes go from shining at him brightly to glaring at him angrily was make up stories about my bunny. It was my most favorite stuffed animal that my dad gave to me from a trip to Minnesota. She still travels with me. Her name was Fuzzy and my imagination had made her so, very real to me. In my mind, I was very much her caretaker, and she was very much a happy, innocent little girl bunny with a speech impediment. The poor thing couldn't say her R's, dear soul. That's gotta be hard for a rabbit. But then Geoff would come and interrupt our happy little lives and make up harsh stories about Fuzzy's life on the streets. She road motorcycles, he said, and had tattoos. She had a secret French lover named Fred, he persisted. He painted stories of their affair. It made me angry, as I described back exactly how very innocent she was. She was only a little girl. With a theme song that I made up on our dad's piano. What kind of hussy would have a sweet little theme song that I created?! On our trip to France, Geoff even tossed her out of our hotel room and into the hallway, suggesting that she had plans to run off with Fred. The nerve.

As he grew into his teen years and I was a preteen, he didn't turn away from me, like teenagers can do. He wasn't annoyed by how dorky I was, how strange I dressed (suspenders? really?), how funny my retainer made my speech, how strange my haircut was, or everything else that's awkward for preteens... he actually seemed to just like me for me. I wasn't tempted to be an annoying little sister and bother him for the sake of being younger and annoying and try to get a rise out of him. We never had that sort of relationship where I had the temptation to annoy him just for the fun of it. I just wanted to hang out with him and he let me. And if his friends were around, he let me hang out with them, but even when I was 13 and they were 18, he scolded them when they cussed around me. I laughed, then. It's not like my classmates at that age didn't have a hay day cussing whenever they had the chance. But my mom taught Geoff that swearing in front of a lady isn't right and he didn't want his friends swearing in front of me, either.

This blog seems to be all over the place, and it's because I can't think of just one favorite memory with Geoff. There were road trips, days spent lounging in the pool, vacations, feeling cool running errands with just him, going to Forrest Gump with him at the old movie theater, his high school and college graduations, saying goodbye after moving him to college, saying goodbye each time he left for the Peace Corp, Christmas memories....

The main thing is that it doesn't matter if I'm 3 and trying to sit the way he does when he's playing Atari or if I'm 26 and thinking about him... he's made an impression on me and I'll always look up to him and want to be like him.

What's your favorite memory?

Whenever I'm asked to name my favorite memory, my answer is always, "Oh, but I have too many! I can't name just one!" And it's true. I've lived a blessed life with so many friends, so many loving family members, so many great experiences, and a great sense of humor (some of the memories were bad experiences appreciated with a great sense of humor)... I wish I could have captured everything on film so I could just show everyone all of the memories with all their details. I've decided that maybe I could tighten up my writing and keep this blog alive by writing about favorite memories whenever I'm lost for an idea.

My parents are now happily divorced and have been since I was about 5-years-old. Everyone else's memory of their marriage are probably accurate memories of an empty, sad marriage that needed to end in order for our family to be happy. Mine, though, is a little girl's memory of a Mommy and Daddy who loved her. I only have glimpses of memories of having a mommy and daddy in the same house and it's cozy.

One of my favorite memories of our lives back then must have happened when I was 3-years-old. We lived in a relatively small blue house, dubbed The Blue House when my brothers and I look back to reminisce about it. I don't remember this part, but apparently my brothers shared a bedroom upstairs and that was all that was up there. I do remember that my parents' bedroom was on one side of the house across the hall from my bedroom, separated by the house's only bathroom. Unless the random toilet in the basement counts.

Unfortunately for me, my bedroom was my least favorite color of all. A bright, sunny yellow. A pretty yellow comforter on my huge double bed. Yellow wallpaper. Yellow, yellow, yellow. I couldn't escape it and I hated that color. The only thing worse, in my eyes at the time, would have been if my mom had made it pink. Even at 3, I was a tiny feminist and didn't know why only girls had to wear pink and I just hated that color. So I guess my 3-year-old self worked with yellow because it was better than pink.

Each night, I was tucked in to my yellow bed by my parents at 8 o'clock sharp. We would say our prayers, but the thing is, even to this day, I don't know where to stop blessing people. We'd get to "Bless Mommy and Daddy and Eric and Geoff and Teddy (the dog) and Gramma and Grampa and the bad people in jail and crickets and grasshoppers and..." when I paused to take a breath and think of who I might have missed, my parents would jumped in with, "Amen." They'd tuck me in comfortably. You know how parents do. The sheets are so tight and crisp around your little body, all the way up to your chin, the pillow so fluffy behind your head. They switched the light off and shut the door as close as they could without shutting it completely.

And this was when the trouble began. I was never, ever tired at 8 o'clock. It didn't matter that my mom had been putting me to sleep at that time ever since I slept through the night in order to make it a routine. I was born to be a night owl. So I had created a little nightly ritual to sneak out of bed and head to a window on the other side of my bed. Even at 3-years-old, I was a contemplative person. I liked looking out the night sky and thinking about my day. I liked gazing at the brightness of the moon, then down in my backyard and seeing the shadows that it cast. I got lost in my little 3-year-old thoughts, and then, I realized the light inside my room was getting brighter.

The door was opening.

I didn't want to get in trouble for being out of my bed, so I ran to it, flopped on it, threw the covers on, and waited for my mom's gentle voice. "Meggie?" That's when I put my acting skills to work. I stretched and stretched. I tried out a yawn. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. I'm surprised I didn't throw in a, "Mommy? Is that you?" Instead, I said, "Oh, Mommy. You woke me up!!"

She just ignored what I said and took me to take a hot bath. At the time, I didn't realize it, but after years of reliving this memory, it has struck me that she was on to me. That whole Mom's Radar thing kicked in or something and she knew I wasn't settling down, so she thought a hot bath would calm me down so I could sleep.

After the bath, she let me curl up in their bed with my dad, who had the TV on at the foot of the bed and was reading the paper. Now, this was a treat. I remember leaning against him and looking at the black letters on the gray paper and explaining to him that I had been asleep, but then I woke up when Mommy opened the door, so she gave me a hot bath. "Oooh." He humored me.

That's where my memory ends. I just can't believe I was such a sneaky little liar! But I mostly like that memory because it was such a cozy night and I remember gazing out that window a few times while we lived there. It seems weird to do something like that at such a young age, but... no one said I was normal.

Love really is blind

I've had nosebleeds regularly my whole life. Well, actually, when I was a child, they came about in the summer and left me alone around October. We always assumed I'd outgrow them. Instead, with age, my nose has become less discriminatory and seems to enjoy springing up a disgusting nosebleed any time of the year. But that's besides the point, really, since this story takes place in the summer. All you really need to know is that I never outgrew it and I have regular nosebleeds. When I'm in the comfort of my home, I get lazy and most prefer to take care of these by rolling a tissue up and putting it in my nostril.

I realize this is gross, but that is the purpose of this story. I'm not here to impress you. I'm here to tell you how it is.

Another truth about me is that I am quite the site when I get ready for bed. It seems to me that most women can pull off quite the feminine look, even when they're getting ready for sleep. They may leave their hair down and put on a pretty nightgown. They may pull their hair back in a ponytail and slip into a tank top and colorful lounge pants and still keep a sort of prettiness about them as they pull the covers around them and read a book before turning the lights off.

Something about me is just off.

I'm learning how to dress fairly well during the day. I'm figuring out how to dress well for my figure. How to dress more feminine, how to dress like I'm in my mid-20s and how to dress like it's 2008. It's quite the task, but on a good day, I've got it down. Even my hair can look right on the best of days.

So on one of these good days, my husband had come home from work. After spending the evening together, he got on the phone and I decided I was getting sleepy and wanted to get ready for bed before my nightly ritual of watching Will and Grace.

This is when the transition to scary starts. I don't like to sleep with my hair down, but I also don't like to have it in a ponytail. Sleeping with the lump on the back of my head is uncomfortable. So I put my fine, limp hair in a little loop on the top of my head, the width of it about the size of one's pinky. On this night, I then put on my favorite pajama pants, which are... wait for it... Care Bear capri pj pants. I realize that these pants are disastrous. Not only are they Care Bears, but something about them makes my short legs look even more odd. I don't know what it is, but they make my shape look squat. But I can't help it. They're comfortable. A little big, but comfortable. To complete the ensemble, I put on a shirt that I stole from Kevin years ago. It makes me look as wide as I am tall, but that's where the comfort factor comes in.

As I was about to leave the restroom and get settled in the living room for Will and Grace, my nose decided to have its daily nosebleed. So to totally complete the look, I stuffed a roll of tissue up my nostril. Then, I strolled my squat, wide little self into our living room with my tuft of hair sitting on top of my head and tissue sticking out from my nose and curled up on the couch, my Care Bear-donned legs resting under my tent of a shirt. I realize that this does not shout "Supermodel!" Unfortunately, it does shout, "Meghan!"

Kevin was oblivious to my entrance (how, I do not know), as he spoke into the phone about roommates. A few minutes into this conversation, he said, "I, however, know how to choose the most perfect roommate of all." And he looked over at me the way Steve Urkel always looked at Laura on Family Matters.



He looked a little startled when he looked over at me, but who could blame him, what with the tissue shoved in my nostril, the tent I was wearing and the tuft of hair sitting like a small bird on top of my head and all. But he didn't retract what he said, like I expected. He just kept looking at me like he was Steve Urkel. I guess love really is blind.