I am slow

Confession: When I drove my dad's van to the 'ham this weekend to pick up the furniture and whatnot (thanks, Rachel and Dave and Rachel's mom!), this song came on that I knew. So I looked down at the Sirius thing and it said the song was called Sweet Emotion. I can't even tell you how many times I watched Dazed and Confused when i was in high school, which is weird because I didn't even drink in high school, much less use illegal substances. But anyway, that song is in that movie and I really had no clue what they were saying. But now I know!

True story: When I was eight, I had a palate expander because I have the (apparently) dominant Benz trait of a narrow upper palate. It was nothing like the one Zoe had, or even the one Mark had a few years later. It was huge and cemented in and you had to turn the key every three days. I had this fear that whoever was turning the key would drop it down my throat, so I would only let my dad turn it and I made him wrap the string the key was on around his wrist. Even as a child I was weird. I remember the day one side of it came uncemented while I was brushing my teeth. It hurt because then the other side was digging into my gums. We beat the dentist to his office that day. He was just like, oh, I guess we are finished with this now. And that dentist now lives across from my grandma. Anyway, the thing is, I thought it was called a pallid expander, because it's not like anyone showed me any literature on it and I didn't know what the roof of my mouth was called. Also, people do not enunciate and I knew that pallid was a word. You couldn't Google stuff like that back then...

I showed the LDS men my underpants!

I know that I haven't conributed lately, but I felt compelled to share the latest humiliation from the paneled palace with everyone. Sunday evening while Andrea was attending church I took advantage of my alone time to take a bath and then lounge in my underpants and a wifebeater. Around seven I heard a tap on the door, assuming that it was Andrea arriving home I shouted over the Kanye West song blaring from my computer "Are you alone?" When I heard a tap in response I gathered that she had her hands full and bounded loudly to the door. Without looking out the curtain I pulled the door open to be met by two clean cut young gentlemen in suits wearing backpacks. My jaw dropped while I slammed the door and shouted, "SHIT" at the top of my lungs. I guess that now it would be pertinent to share that the aforementioned wife beater was fairly sheer and left little to the imagination.

I dashed to my room and threw on pants and a zip up hoodie that I heald together rather than fastening. I returned to the door praying that I would find myself alone on the front porch. No such luck, I was met with two shiny faced LDS missionaries with a copy of the Book of Mormon hoping to proselytize.

"Is Eric home?" asked the leader of the two not meeting my shameful gaze.

I responded that no one lived here by that name and proceeded to try to get rid of the uninvited guests. They had come over looking for a previous member of the local church while they were in the area but since they found me they figured they might as well try to get another convert under their belts. Being completely mortified I couldnt bring myself to be my usual charming self that normally sends LDS missionaries running for the street as quickly as possible. Ten minutes later the visitors left with our names in a little notebook and Saturday at 1:00 pencilled in as a time to come and visit.

This weekend Andrea and I are going to allow these gentlemen into our home, while fully dressed, and ask them questions. After reading Under the Banner of Heaven we are both brimming with questions about their faith. Should be a hoot.

True Confessions, Numero Tres

If I had a special gift, it would be my superb hearing. Really. Ask Mark. I used to freak him out with it (combined with my extra light sleeping skills). The other day, my phone volume was on one out of seven and I heard it ring in time to get to it even though I was two rooms away. That was a little freaky even to me. Also the fact that it was on one to begin with, which I'm still not sure how that happened.

True Confessions, Part Deux

I've been struggling with something personal for the past couple weeks and I don't really want to discuss it, but let's just say I need prayers for my state of mind. And no, it's not about what I'm about to bring up. Earlier I was reading an article about lies parents tell their kids, which was entertaining enough, although I've never heard of parents threatening to call the police if their kids won't go to bed. But anyway, I saw a link to this article, about a woman who fears she is passing her eating disorder on to her daughter. You guys, that totally made me cry. I do not have a daughter, obviously, but I had an eating disorder.

I was discussing it with a friend the other day and she says she likes to think of what we did when we were in college as 'competitive starvation' rather than anorexia. Which is kind of funny, but also true. We fed off each other as far as our neuroses about food, as well as our state of mind. I was fairly thin in high school and then in college, I got even thinner. I bought my first two-piece bathing suit when I was 18 and it was a child's size ten (or maybe it was twelve-I am old and forgetful, but either way, that's bad). I lived on pretty much nothing but those popsicles that are just kool-aid in a plastic sleeve that you have to freeze for a summer. It was probably the only time in my life until now that I was not dehydrated.

And in that article they say girls with 'cold' mothers are more likely to have eating disorders. Hello, I got all my 'mom' hugs from other peoples' mothers. I don't actually want to blame this on my mother, not entirely anyway. I was old enough when I started to be in control of my actions and aware of the reasoning behind them. My mother does have a strange preoccupation with weight, though. Not just hers or mine, but pretty much everyone's weight. I don't think I have that. I used to be able to guess people's weight within 5 pounds one way or the other, though. I only ever did that with guys-I'm not that stupid.

I'm not even going to get into how I went from one extreme to the other, but I'm working on that. I just really would never want to pass on my neuroses about my own person to any child I might have. I was talking to someone the other day about it and they were like, well, did you get counseling? Umm...no. I don't think it was ever even discussed with my doctor or parents or anything. It was just something I decided to stop doing, like when I decided to stop taking all the narcotics my neurologist offered. If you think I'm exaggerating or that I wasn't really, trust me, I have some pictures somewhere. I had a friend who was 9 inches taller than me and was double my weight. I bought half my clothes in the children's department (they were cheaper and I really like colors). It was just that it got easier to be that way in college because people weren't always in my face handing me food and asking me if I'd eaten. But that was then, and this is me being smarter. Although, in case you were wondering, if you are already hungry when you eat lunch, a banana and carrots will not suffice. I was running short on food and time yesterday and, dude, was I starving later. Anyway, I don't think I've ever really discussed this, except some with Rachel, so of course I would decide that perfect place to tell people would be the internet. Genius. Anyway, eating disorders are bad and not talking about things that hurt you and what motivated you to do them is also bad. Let's face it, I've done a lot of stupid things, it was just that no one noticed because Dave and Mark were so busy being the squeaky wheels. And I never wanted to talk about them because it's embarrassing. Whatever, I was stupid and got scary thin and now I'm not. I'm trying to be at peace, but it's hard. Salam.