Clareified

In December I spent a couple of days with my friends and their two kids: the oldest, Princess Leia, is a six year old girl, who I have known since she was six months old.

Now, I have always been impressed with how brilliant Princess Leia is — when she was a wee baby, I was playing a game with her where I would roll a ball to her and she would roll it back to me. In the midst of one of these fascinating bouts, her mother called me away, when I returned, the baby had figured out how to pull the ball to herself using her feet!

At 18 months, she visited my house and figured out how to switch the song on my ipod – which was docked and on a shelf. To which her father replied, “see, even Leia knows Nsync sucks.”

Grrrr.

Anyway, so now she’s six and is totally verbal and rational and real person like, so we were playing a board game on Sunday morning — something about a ladybug. I dunno, it was “invented” by a 12-year-old, which I found offensive in itself. The game basically operates like Candyland, you pick cards and move pieces along a twisty line. There are squares that send you back and some that let you skip ahead and whoever gets to the end first wins. Simple.

Princess Leia explained the “rules” to me but none seemed to allow me to move my piece at all. After she was halfway through the line, I asked if she was *SURE* that I couldn’t pick a card yet. She looked at the board, decided she had a sufficient enough lead, squinted and said “okay, you can go now.” To her chagrin, I drew a six paces card, which made up a lot of ground right away. So on her turn, she starts rifling through the deck to find a six paces card of her own. She’d pick a card, look at it, go “no that one is ripped.” Then draw again. “Oh, no, I wasn’t supposed to take that one.” She’d pick again.

I laughed and contemplated my options.

See, I don’t mind the cheating, necessarily. But it was the TERRIBLE cheating that was driving me nuts. But is it really proper for me to teach a six year old how to cheat *better*?

I shall leave the story there… cause I’m curious about your thoughts and don’t want them influenced with what actually happened. Or judginess.

It’s a common joke among my friends that I’m roughly fourteen years old. Which, is appropriate in its own way since when I was actually fourteen, I was totally thirty.

I had a job in my high school’s alumni office — which paid nothing, but since I was there on scholarship… yeah, I know, assholes.

I worried about bills and getting into college. I never took crazy risks like jumping off high places or trying drugs or drinking alcohol. I took extra care with my books and my clothes because I knew they were expensive to replace. I raised my eyebrow at the kids who were all excited because their parents were going out and they would be left home alone.

Uh huh.

I call that “a weekday.”

The vast majority of my friends in high school were similarly “serious minded.” I wouldn’t say “mature” exactly — we would hang chess pieces in effigy after we took them from our opponent and have epic water fights on behalf of Oliver Cromwell against the tyranically king — but yeah, that was our teenage fun: Chess and world domination.

I can still remember the 11th grade dean shaking his head when he caught a bunch of us in an empty classroom after school and was like “what are you guys doing in here?”

“Um… trying to teach ourselves German. We’re sorry about being in here, but they wouldn’t let us talk in the library.”

He didn’t exactly say “looo–zzerrrrsss,” as he backed out of the room…

Of course, what he didn’t know was we were teaching ourselves German so we would be poised to take over the world! MUAHAHAHAAHAHA (In retrospect, we should have been teaching ourselves Chinese. Stupid kids!)

Ah…good times. Good times. I’ve been a bit google obsessed lately — for obvious reasons — and it’s weird how few of those guys have any internet presence at all. None have an abundant one. I doubt we’ll ever see each other again, but we’ll always have Paris, as they say.

Mostly because the French are weak and surrender quickly.

I don’t know why all the trees change in the fall
I know you’re not scared of anything at all
Don’t know if Snow White’s house is near or far away
But I know I had the best day
With you today

I don’t know who I’m gonna talk to
Now at school
I know I’m laughing on the car ride home with you
Don’t know how long it’s gonna take to feel okay
But I know I had the best day
With you today

VinNay is a awesome HATER awesome.

I think normal people have internal monologues.

I love that I thought I would cry for a few days, write something thoughtful and reasonable and that would be the end of it. I threw myself on the floor and threw a tantrum for a week and a half when I blew out the tires on my car. Granted, my car was only seven months old, I had, at the last minute, declined tire coverage, AND I BLEW TWO IN ONE DAY ON THE SAME STUPID POTHOLE!!! ARRRGGHHHH!!! Wait, where was I? Oh, right. So… eight days later, I’m still not anywhere near over it.

I sit around thinking that I’m such a terrible person, followed by thinking no I’m not, he is! Was.

Though, I’m having increasingly strange — probably inappropriate thoughts about it now — like… so… does the salutatorian become the valedictorian in the event the valedictorian dies at 34? Um…asking for a friend.

I’ve also convinced myself that I have psychic powers. That whole doomswitch winter of 2010, I knew something terrible was wrong. I thought it was endless stream of bad beats I was suffering in my nascent poker pro career or the whole cancer scare, but I had clearly tapped into something greater. So, now I’m trying to figure out how to get a job as psychic to some low level CW star… Like leighton meester.

Oh, yeah and my football team is going to be playing in a little thing called the Superbowl. I can’t really say anymore right now (spit spit fingers crossed throws salt over both shoulders) but the journey so far as been so unlikely… I’m just closing my eyes real tight and believing as hard as my can. . (I may or may not have booed Father Robert on Sunday, when he said “Mass has ended, go in peace and Go Giants.”

(Even funnier, for the last few weeks I’ve been sharing a pew with a teenage boy in a Manning jersey. (I’ve been wearing my Patriots’ sweatshirt every week lately.) The first week, the Riots were on bye, so when we had to shake hands during mass, no biggie. The following week, the Riots had already won, and the Giants still had to play Green Bay, so I smiled at him when I shook his hand. However, LAST WEEK, there was this palpable tension in our handshake, like we KNEW!

I’ve been giggling thinking about mass on the fifth – the super day, for those of you not in the know!

A few days before the new year, @Batesline tweeted “@jimmiebjr There’s an apt quote from @realdawnsummers : “I was there when we became friends, where was I when we became strangers?”

I smiled because, well, I’m shamelessly vain and love being quoted! Coupled with the fact that line was from a post I published in 2004, so I was quoted AND remembered! Double bonus points! Well, of course, that post was written about “Don”. (I’ve decided I don’t want this post gooleable.)

As I thought about what I wanted to say, I kept going further and further back, “oh wait, I forgot…no, actually, what happened was…okay, well, first…” Somehow when I was at the part where I was thirteen walking down the stairs from… I knew I had completely lost my way with this.

I came across the news of his death in the most random way. I was finally clearing out the junk from my guest bedroom and there was a handwritten card with the return address of a teacher from my high school. I knew she had been diagnosed with skin cancer some years back and I feared it was an invitation to a memorial or something for her. I knew the mail was years old, so I was like I should just toss it.

Bah.

I tore it open, and just like in those movies where war widows get a telegram from the army, as I read the words “I just heard the news about Don. I’m so sorry, I know how close you two were,” the note fell from my hands back onto the pile of unopened mail.

I grabbed my laptop and opened a browser to google. I was stunned, but not sad at all. I kept cleaning, but that didn’t seem right. I posted about it, in those starkest terms because I felt I needed to see it written out, in print. He was not only dead, BUT TWO YEARS DEAD.

From what I gathered, the cancer he had as a baby, returned. He briefly went into remission in ’08, but a more aggressive form returned in ’09. They had to remove a lung, but he thought he would beat it again. He didn’t. (Actually, I found a post written by this girl Jenny, who said that he was her best friend from childhood. I SO SIDEEYED the HELL outta of that! DUDE! I ain’t never heard of you “JEN-KNEE”, if that IS YOUR REAL NAME! HMPH!) I poured through all the stuff I could find about his death online and I was still pretty okay.

Frankly, I had done all the sad, weepy mourning for this relationship back in 2003. I read in our high school newsletter that he had been honored at Homecoming and I e-mailed him asking why he didn’t tell me so I could have gone? And he replied something along the lines of “I thought you’d be mad that it wasn’t you.” And I was all “OF COURSE, I’M MAD IT WASN’T ME! But right below that, I’m happy it was you.” To that, he just sent back a smiley face: this one: : ) He thought that one was cuter than : – ) cause the latter looked like a potato. #truestory. Then, I sent him a happy new year’s email and it bounced back to me.

That was that.

We were done and I didn’t care anymore. As I told @Vinnay, the day before I had thrown out a bunch of postcards and letters from him because “he was dead to me… I just didn’t know he was dead to EVERYBODY! Waa!!”

Which is totally ridiculous, isn’t it? Father Robert saw me sorta sobbing through mass and he was all “what’s wrong?” And I ran through my possible “uhh, this guy I used to know died. Um…two years ago” answer and settled on “nothing, allergies.”

Then I spent the day trying to think of awesome Don stories and looking at pictures of us from friendster.

Seconds before this picture was taking at our high school graduation party someone said "pretend it's a wedding cake."

(YES, talk about a way back machine!)

I hadn’t really thought about him in so long, that it was hard to remember him at first, but random things started popping in my head: when I got my first car, when I graduated from law school, I told him I’d come pick him up (he was the first of my friends in high school to get a car and would drive me EVERYWHERE, so I figured it’d be a funny turn about for him to be the passenger.) About ten minutes after we were on the highway, he kind of clears his throat and says “so, you know what I find helpful? Before switching lanes, just kinda glance through the back window here (he taps on the window on the backseat passenger side) to make sure you’re not running a car off the road.” I laughed so hard.

Or in junior year when I decided glasses would make me look smart, so I bought these clear glass ones and I had braided my hair over the summer, so I called him the night before the first day of school and was like “dude, I look totally different now, you might not recognize me, so just giving you the heads up that I wear glasses and braided my hair.” So the next day, I see him and he doesn’t say anything and I’m all “DUDE! HELLO!” And he goes “Dawn? OH MY GOD! IS THAT YOU??” Jackass.

And that lead to one of the funniest things I remembered, I used to call him at like 2 in the morning from Yale because I didn’t want to “disturb his fancy Princeton life.” And we’d talk till like 6 in the morning — on one of these marathon calls where I was probably bitching about my crazy freshman year roommates, he goes “You are SO MELODRAMATIC!” Without hesitation OR a shred of self awareness or irony I respond “WHAT? HOW DARE YOU?!” and hang up. He calls me back, I pick up and hang up. He calls me back again and I answer “you take that back.” He goes “Fine. You’re not melodramatic. At all.” #RRUUUDDDEEE

I remembered going to his Princeton graduation and his mom feeding me the most delicious strawberries I’d ever eaten! Like maybe the first strawberries I’d ever eaten EVER! And I kept dipping them in the powdered sugar, so the lower half of my face was practically white… actually, that memory is mortifying.

Then those memories gave way to the less happy ones of broken promises and unreturned calls. Days of silence between us turning into weeks turning into months turning into years turning into forever.

And so I’ve spent the last few days alternating between an inconsolable teenage me, who can’t believe her other half is gone and the petulant twenty something me who pointedly insists she doesn’t care.

In the end, the thirty-something me is grateful that for those turbulent high school years and the scary first-time-away-from-home college years, though I was often alone, I was never lonely. I had a partner in crime, a literal and figurative wheel man. Every club I started, I was President; he was Vice President. Even in college, if I joined a club at Yale, he had to join the same one at Princeton, so we’d “have stuff to talk about!” I called him by his last name all the time, so everyone in school did too — but I didn’t like that, so I made up a nickname for him one day.
“Why are you calling me that?”
“So that years from now, after we’ve grown up and I see you on the street, I can call you that and you’ll know it’s me!”
“Huh. Well, then you can stop calling me that, I’ll know.”
I never did see him on the street all grown up…but I think he was probably right. He would have known.
Heck, he was probably right about the melodramatic thing too.

1975-2010

R.I.P

So, I got home today to the happy sound of  “I have package for you Miss Dawn,” from my stereotypical Mexican doorman, who, frankly, might not be Mexican at all.

“Hooray for packages,” say I in my perfectly normal not-at-all weird way.

I open the first one and I’m all “YAY!! This is awesome!”

Tom Brady doll

Tom Brady AND Dr. Who candy!

I read the note in the box and it’s from none other than Clareified’s 2011 International person of the year: At Ah-stin-toe!

Wow, I think to myself, what an awesome person @astinto is! So not like those other mean White House burning Canadians who run around burning people’s white houses all willy nilly!

This train of thought is interrupted by another train of thought: ooh, I have two more packages!

I open the next one and it’s my value pack of Nyquil, not as exciting, but still pretty good if you’re sneezing, coughing, stuffy… Why am I running free adverts for Nyquil on my blog? Moving on.

So, I open the third package and immediately I boo and hiss:

Alack! This is not awesome and great and now I have grammatically incorrect hockey team cooties on my hands! It will take hours of staring at the NHL League standings to erase the horrors of this moment! What villain would subject me to such an indignity… Albeit an indignity accompanied by delicious candies?

Well, wouldn’t you know, it was Chinese Pete! No, I’m kidding, it was also @astinto! That bastard!

And so it was, I learned a valuable lesson about being lulled into complacency by Canadians! I must warn President Obama to secure the White House! Alas, my mouth is too full of jellied beans to talk right now… Damn you, Astin, ddaaaaaammmnnnnn yyoooouuuuu!!!

This year has been amazing.

I’m not going to lie, with emergency surgery, during a blizzard, in the second week of January and another Patriots “one and done” in the playoffs, my hopes for the year were low. And yet, I survived the surgery (and the weeks of recovery in the ECB), was given the welcome “it wasn’t cancer,” diagnosis AND my BFF on alternate Tuesdays and Thursdays hooked me up with one of the most permanent jobs I’ve had in three years.

By February, 2011 was sunshine and lollipops — like the good kind: sour apple with gum inside.

My little sister Smokey got married in the Zona, so I got to enjoy 90 degree days in the middle of East Coast winter. Pearatty treated me to the fancy spa treatment and even though Wygant stole my nose and REFUSES to give it back, he was a joy to watch running around trying to mop.

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

Kaz and Tito tied the knot a month later and I had a mini law school reunion with some of my favoritest people on the planet. I even got my windows washed by a shirtless F-train wearing frayed acid wash jean shorts! Both weddings were amazing (Smokey totally handled an improbable flood, in Phoenix, of her garden wedding like a BOSS, while Kaz laughed in the face of Eygptian mummy curses at her cool museum wedding). I felt privileged to have been on hand for both.

I was sad that I wouldn’t be able to see my Riots play football live this year, first, because of the NFL lock-out and then because of the poverty, but after I entered AND won a fitness contest this fall, I had a surprise cash windfall! I took the money from that victory and saw Taylor Swift in concert, the Patriots notch their tenth regular season win AND paid for a trip out to Vegas where I came in fourth in a poker tournament! I also got glasses this year and although @petitedov HATES them and says they make me look stupid, I LOVE them and practice dramatically putting them on and taking them off in front of the mirror all day long. OMG, this whole post sounds like an end of the year newsletter now. Okay, back on track, sooooo…

I got to hang out with my DC niece and nephew, and those people they live with

– who very nicely let me take part in their Christmas tradition of hunting and killing a tree! Princess Leia declared “Auntie Dawn picks THE WORST trees!” Well, I NEVER. (Also, I said to her “when I was your age, Pluto was a planet.” She shakes her head slowly and offers to teach the planets to me — when she gets a chance (she was wrapping a present for a classmate’s birthday party.)

And little Emil decided he would rather use the ropes to make me his prisoner and take me to “the dungeon,” than tie the tree to the car.

Shoutout to all the cool people I met this year, but none can yet replace my redheaded New York crew…of two. Yo, how come Mary didn’t take any plane trips with me this year… if she’s flying around with a new black friend… *shakes fist*

And I think I’ve worn my Christmas present from Alceste/Dawn 2 every day since I opened it!

Thanks to Pi for hosting my whole birthday party at her house, Amanda for baking a cake:

Petitedov, @Starfishncoffee, Ugarles, Sidney, Mary, Pretty Numbers and the Cider Fraud for coming. And of course, props to Kaz and Tito for my birthday part Part Deux and hilarious t-shirt!

OH MY GOSH! In the new International Clareified Persons of the year category, @Astinto and M totally win for most awesome chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream caramel cake WITH A MINI DAWN TOPPER EVER MADE!! SO SO SO VERY COOL!

LIKE WOW!! How’d she DO THAT??

I’m totally spending the entire weekend in Toronto next year so I can eat my whole cake all by myself. Um… yeah, I just invited myself over to a party in Toronto that you guys are throwing… you’re welcome?!

Person of the year was a no brainer, but I did want to write about the co runners up.

I know lots of great, generous people — seriously, most days, I’m like why on earth do you people even talk to me, I’m THE WORST! There is no one that inspires that thought more frequently than my BFF on Mondays, Tuesdays and Sundays: This Is Not April.

Who really is… Spoiler Alert: Totally April!

DUDE! SHE IS SOOOOO NICE!! I mean seriously. Like even when discussing the most wretched horrible annoying people in the world (NOT ME, YOU JERKS) she has nothing but nice things to say AND she totally makes with the giving of the benefit of the doubt. JUST GIVES IT AWAY! She almost makes me feel guilty about the terrible things I text her on a near weekly basis. Almost. Maybe if I lived closer, her goodness would rub off. #noporno. Her birthday gift of Patriots’ jewelry has been flashed in the face of poker dealers who trash talk Tom Brady and waved at obnoxious Giants fans after they crapped the bed against Washington the very week New England clinched a playoff spot. I never take the earrings off! Tee hee.

I’m so excited to be part of her wedding to @jnassi, even if I will be all sleeveless. I did get a dress with pockets though, which will be stuffed with snacks as I’m taking my job as Vice President in Charge of Bride Feeding very seriously. Like, it’s on my resume and I’ll be asking for references later, seriously. (Oh, did I mention making her wake up at the crack of Dawn on a Vegas Friday to go dress shopping with me because I wanted to see the Pinball museum?! And instead of telling me to go kick rocks, SHE DID IT!)

Also, April is my mom’s favorite person who she’s never met because I’m like “April’s wedding in April” and my mom completely cracks up. Every. Time. Yes, that’s where I get it from.

Second runner up was also Clareified’s 2007 person of the year, Fisch. When not seen wearing a blanket, like a superhero cape, and throwing trash bags of soiled diapers into the street, The artist now known as Fuelsellage, is all running around around being mister guy. When I got back from Arizona, there were randomly all these packages waiting for me. I assumed, obviously, that they were explosives. But no! They were “no reason whatsoever” presents from Fisch! (My doorman, who spent all February telling me that if I *had* gotten a package, he would have *given* me said package, was very happy for me. Jerkface.) Then, this summer, Fuelsellage did one of the nicest things EVER AND he didn’t even tell me about it till months afterward!

I always bug him with mine (and my mother’s) computer problems, and even though he was all suffering from pneumonia, he let me bring my crapbox Dell over to try to see if he could make it work less badly. And when he couldn’t save it, he PAID someone to fix it for me. Just all around totally sweet and makes me feel fortunate to know him. Plus, now I know that when young 18-year-old Maximus has to call home for his dad to pick him up from Tropicana’s security office, after being caught playing high stakes hold ‘em with a fake ID, he will be in good hands. Though, young 15-year-old Maximus should probably call his fake Aunt Dawn to pick him up from Borgata’s security when *he’s* caught. Oh, I should probably also take this opportunity to confess to cheating in a good 80% of our Words with Friends games. As penance, I will let you beat me the next time we play face to face Scrabble. *whistles*

But now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…. Clareified’s 2011 Person of the Year IISSSSS….

My Chinese Nephew Alexander! “Nobody can get mad at you for picking a baby” – Pearatty

How cute is his witty bitty Chinese eyes! Honestly, this kid’s face is so cute I could just keep it in a jar on my coffee table. Except that would be weird… and probably illegal…

Alex was bornded in 2011, so that totally makes it his year AND he’s the youngest person I ever met and I met him in 2011.

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

After a rocky start where he would scream bloody murder whenever I got within two inches of him, we have developed quite the bond.

I taught him how to wave when he was four weeks, and I taught him how to walk at two months and now we have highly competitive “peekaboo” matches. I have a 3-1 lead in the series. But he plays me tough. I love how he laughs and laughs and then that makes his mom laugh and within minutes the whole room is just giggling. Good times, indeed.

To all my readers, commenters, lurkers, to everyone who checked up on me after the earthquake and hurricane (THE HELL, NEW YORK? WHY SO SERIOUS?!), my twitter followers and twitter followed, I hope this year treated you well and hope next year treats you better and you catch ten times more touchdown passes in the next two months -okay, that last part is a tad specific.

To those I don’t see or talk to as much as I used to: “Hope it’s nice where you are. And I hope the sun shines and it’s a beautiful day and something reminds you…”

Here’s to 2012 and may it bring more laughter and love for all! (And of course, the epic end to my friendship with F-train. N.B. Anyone who sides with him over me is racist! Though, I suppose anyone who sides with me over him hates the gays? This’ll be tough for the liberals, but I predict I get all the Republicans!)

Peace ‘n’ Chickengrease

Tee hee.

At As-tin-toe  got it for me for my bithday.

Hope you all have a happy, healthy and safe one!

UPDATE:

Thanks to Alceste (and Dawn 2) and the Jakes for their AWESOME presents! Another year of one Dawn J. Summers slipping through that “naughty/nice” checklist system!

but my mom was totally right. I never bothered to reschedule my appointment and that doctor totally turned out to be every bit the incompetent cunt whore bitch my mother warned me she’d be. Le Sigh.