The Life of a Mediocre Juggler

I'm not a terrible metaphorical juggler.

(I'm an awful literal one, but it's not a skill set I'm all that sorry to miss out on.)

But as a word picture to describe how I am at keeping all the proverbial balls in the air? I don't stink. I'm not exceptional, like most of my friends appear to be - I can't, say, juggle flaming batons while riding a unicycle across a tightrope (this is how I see anyone who has more than one child or works a full-time job or has a clean house not just when they're expecting company*). I don't do swords and I don't do any kind of fancy behind-the-back-under-the-leg tricks. I can't even juggle more than two or three balls at a time, if I'm being honest - but I feel like I'm consistently trying, consistently doing the basic throw-catch-throw-catch-throw-catch...

This week, I dropped all the balls. All of them. I lost my debit card, first of all, and in looking for it discovered that I'd also lost Sullivan's health card. This made me extremely anxious - what other cards were in my wallet that aren't anymore? And where did they go?

And then I locked myself out of my car, downtown, with Sullivan in my arms, five minutes before nap time, only a few hours before we were supposed to leave town for a funeral. I was supposed to be down there getting my debit card replaced (I forgot to, in the end, and went a solid week without any money). And then I tried to call Barclay for help and my phone ran out of batteries before I could tell him where I was (other than "downtown"). Upon arriving back in town after an exhausting weekend, I completely forgot about an important commitment and a coffee date. My kitchen piled up with plates and pots and pans and mixing bowls, and dust bunnies began to burst forth from every nook and cranny - the large, cranky kind of dust bunny, the kind with teeth and claws. They did not come bearing chocolate eggs in pretty pastel baskets. Suddenly, I discovered that we owned all of the clothes in the world and they were all dirty, overflowing from laundry hampers I didn't even know existed. All the weeds in the yard began to rally together in an attempt to overthrow me and, indoors, Sullivan's toys did the same. I suspect there may have been some communication between the two, an alliance, if you will. That's what I get for opening the windows to let some fresh air in.

To top it all off? I had a book deadline on Friday, but in my head it was Sunday. I got a text from my boss (heyyyy, Ashlee) on Friday night at 10 pm, all like, "Hey, Suzy, where are all these thousands of words you said you'd send me?"

I was like, "What day is it, even?" She was super kind about it, and I made it by the skin of my teeth (ew, what a terrible expression), but still. It was dumb of me.

Such is the life of a mediocre juggler, I guess. Picture it with me: We're some kind of street troupe, all busking together on a sidewalk. My friends are throwing swords and kittens and full glass jugs of milk in the air while simultaneously standing on their heads and jumping rope and eating breakfast. And then I'm there with three squishy red balls on the ground in front of me, looking terribly confused. That's the state of things right now.

And now you may be asking yourself, "What is the point of this blog post other than a shameless cry for pity?"

There is none. Please pity me. That's all.


* This week, I asked Sullivan to help me clean the living room and he said, "Why? Are we having company?"

The Gardener

My father-in-law came over this morning and mowed our lawn. I didn't ask him to, he just did. He may have been feeling some second-hand embarrassment for us (our lawn-mower is busted and our yard looked like the one in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids), but I know he mostly just did it out of the goodness of his heart. He's one of those people.

So then Sullivan and I spent our morning out there; he sat in his sandbox and rode his tricycle while I read a book. It was so relaxing not having to worry about losing him in a clump of grass or having him eaten by a lioness who could conceivably be lurking nearby in that jungle of a backyard. Bless you, Marty.

So then, I was looking around myself at all of the dirt and empty space where the previous owners had probably planted things and I thought, "I should be a gardener." I pictured myself picking stuff and eating it, not having to make so many trips to the grocery store, having people walk through my yard and say, "You have such a green thumb, Suzy!" It was a great daydream.

I would go to the store! I would buy seeds and gardening tools! I would have a bountiful feast on the supper table by the time Barclay arrived home from work tonight and I'd say to him, "Look at the fruits of my labour! I grew this all myself!"

And he'd say, "Even the spaghetti?"

And I'd say, "Yeah!"

So I got out my phone and started Googling. It was exactly like the time I wanted to make croissants from scratch and Googled croissant recipes.

This one looks decent. What does this entail? Hm... Wait, why do I have to leave the dough in the fridge overnight? I want croissants today. New recipe. Seriously? This one too? Okay, what do they mean, "laminate the dough"? What do they mean, "pliable but not cold"? Why is this recipe fifty-four pages long? New recipe. Why are they all like this? Different Google search: Easy, fast croissants. Nothing. New Google Search: Croissant hacks. Nothing. 

I never ended up making my own croissants, by the way. I went to the grocery store and got those canned Pillsbury ones. They're delicious anyway, and take approximately twenty minutes from start to finish, grocery trip included. Someone else does all the work, I do all the eating.

...Much like vegetables.

Maybe I'll plant some tulips and call it a day.

High School and Large Groups of New People

Two things that terrify me: high school and meeting large groups of new people all at once. Or at all.

Two things I did this weekend: revisited high school and met a large group of new people all at once - and when I say 'large group,' I'm talking relative to meeting, say, one new person. It was at least twice that. (It was two people.) It was even a blind date-type of situation, which is even more daunting. More on that in a moment.

First, high school:

On Friday night, I went to a Yearbook Party. I capitalized that as though Yearbook Parties are a common thing that most people know about and go to regularly. I don't think this is true. I think we even invented it, kind of (probably not). Everyone had to dress as their high school selves and bring whatever yearbooks they still had in their possession, and then we listened to Big Shiny Tunes and applied Lip Smackers and laughed at each others' teenager-ness. It was a super vulnerable exercise. I don't love my teenager-ness, but I also feel fiercely protective of it. Like, "Don't laugh at her; she was so young. She didn't know what she was doing/wearing/saying/thinking." I generally would like for the people I know now to not even come into contact with the people I knew then. I'd like for people to pretend Me Now is Me Always and not do any kind of dangerous delving.

But we delved. We read valedictorian speeches (not mine, duh) and pointed out funny haircuts and a thing I discovered is that no one Now is them Always. And I need to cut Me Then some slack because she was living in the 90s and everyone was just kind of ridiculous in the 90s. Poor Me Then. Poor all of us Then. Besides, in the 2030s, Me Then is going to think Me Now is a lamewad. I'm going to be all embarrassed about my skinny jeans and bad sense of humour. Plus, I'll have this online record of me from this entire decade of my life that anyone will be able to access whenever they want (THANK GOODNESS BLOGS WERE NOT AROUND FOR HIGH SCHOOL ME -- CAPS LOCK WARRANTED). (Related: is blogging maybe a terrible idea?)

This is convoluted. Not a good lead-in to the other thing I did this weekend.

Speaking of the other thing I did this weekend: do you remember in the fall when I did that Writer-in-Residence thing? Well she, the aforementioned Writer, emailed a couple of weeks ago to suggest I meet up with a few other local women who had gone to see her. She was like, "Here are some email addresses. You guys should all hang. Be friends. Write together. Whatever whatever." Like a teenage girl who's been in a committed relationship for three months and is anxious for her single friends to join her in Dating Land. A literary matchmaker.

Most of us bit.

So today, I went to a coffee shop to meet up with these women, and I didn't even realize until I got there that I had no idea what they looked like. I should've said I was going to be holding a red rose or wearing a hat with a feather or something. I had a friend with me, another victim of Dr. Nilofar's matchmaking scheme, and we picked a table at the very back of the cafe and assessed every single person who walked through the doors.

"Do you think she looks like a writer?"

"Oh, no, see? She's with that guy."

"Right. How about her?"

"Nah. She looks like she's been playing sports."

"Right. Writers don't play sports?"

"I don't think so. Do you play sports?"

"No."

A few of the women didn't even show up, which was kind of a relief for my frazzled nerves. Meeting people has gotten hard in recent years. I used to love it, but now it's a whole big Thing. I blame it on the Internet, because I think that's what my generation blames everything on. I'm not sure how, but the Internet has made me afraid of people. It might have something to do with YouTube comments sections, or it might have something to do with avatars being so much smaller than actual people. I mean, if you look at tiny little people all day long, real, actual-sized people are kind of startling.

So anyway, the women came into the shop and seemed to find us with no problem, and I didn't spontaneously combust when we shook hands. They were really nice, which was helpful, and smart, and, like, legit writer-types. It was the kind of blind date where you go hoping the other person doesn't turn out to be a dud and then, after you meet them, you realize that you're actually the dud. And then you're like, "Rats. I hope there's going to be a second date even though I'm the dud."

But we made a second date. I think we're officially a club or something. It was really exciting, but I'm already nervous for that one. I think I laughed too loud and agreed with everyone too quickly today. I worry that my smile looked pained or that I made too much or too little eye contact. I'm trying to imagine that they're all introverted and ultra-shy too, to make myself feel better. Do I feel better? I don't think so. I can't tell. My stomach feels like it's full of lightbulbs.

Lightbulbs! Can you imagine?

Rex

Hey! Remember that time I made up an app and called it Recs and entered it into a contest and it got second place (that is to say, it lost and was never heard of again)? You can read all about it here if you've forgotten.

Anyway, this morning I saw on Twitter that Jimmy Fallon was raving about this new app called Rex, which is exactly the same as my app in every possible way. Like, I had drawn up prospective screen shots for that app for the contest, and this app has all of the same features in all of the same places and the exact same overall concept and design. I'm not exaggerating; it was eerie. It was like that moment in It Takes Two (you know? The one with the Olsen twins?) when they see each other for the first time and they're so shocked to find out they have a look-alike. It was exactly like that, except I think somebody faints in that scene, and I didn't. I just gasped and yelled, "Jimmy Fallon! No! Mine!" I even pointed at myself as though he could see me. That was kind of silly. I should've just fainted.

Anyway.

It's so close that a couple of my friends have already texted this morning to say that they think I was unlawfully relieved of my intellectual property. I, however, am of the belief that everyone on the internet is good and trustworthy, and that no one steals anything from anybody. Hahaha.

But seriously, I do believe that there are a lot of people on the internet and sometimes two of them might have the exact same idea with the exact same name, layout, and design. It does happen. Somewhere out there is a guy with the same exact brain as me - isn't that terrifying?

In any case, I'm just glad this app exists now - that was the point in the beginning anyway. I wanted an app like this to exist and I couldn't find one like it, and I couldn't get anyone to build it for me, and now, here it is. And it's exactly what I wanted it to be, down to the name and design (though, I do like Recs better than Rex, if I'm being honest). This is a stroke of luck, I think.

ANYWAY. You should download Rex and find me on there (suzykrause). It's free. We can recommend stuff to each other. It's everything I ever wanted. Plus I didn't have to fund it.