All through elementary school, junior high, and high school, I was friends with this one girl, Jen.  I’ll be honest, what attracted me to Jen initially was purely physical: she had THE most amazingly long blonde hair I’d ever seen.  I don’t mean that in like a lez way.  I’m just saying, Jen’s (Jenni, then) hair was the envy of everyone at Oscar Hinger Elementary.  Jen was (is) the opposite of me: sweet, kind, compassionate, smart, beautiful on the inside and out, and soft-spoken to the general masses.  I LOVED HER.  We literally grew up together, we had the same teachers through elementary school, we did cheerleading in junior high together (well, I was the mascot…), we were doubles partners all through high school in tennis, as well as theatre.  I have more stories about Jen because we just spent so much time together.  There were a few other people that I loved as much as Jen, but no one for as long.

Like this one time, we had this club called the Kids Kare Klub.  Now, there are immediately two things that are wrong in this story.  One, if you know me, you know my incessant and unrelenting hatred of cutesy misspellings.  Maybe that hatred stems from this story, I don’t know.  Two, the Kids Kare Klub is abbreviated with 3K’s.  Clearly, we had not reached the point in American History where we learned the role of the Klansmen.  At least, I hope.  Either way, the Klub’s mission statement was something to the effect of, “We want to care about people.”  I don’t think we ever actually did anything (might have something to do with the big KKK on our stationery), but we met nonetheless.

Anyway, I (of course) had somehow muscled my way into being the President of the KKK.  I was usually the President of all our club endevaours, mostly because we took a “Which Baby-Sitter Club Member Are You?” quiz and I was Kristi (the bossy, tomboy, ugly one), and she was President of the BSC, therefore, I would be President for all eternity.  I know it’s hard to believe now, but I was an incredibly bossy child.  Jen was the Secretary (I believe), because of her excellent penmanship and likeness to Mary Anne (from the BSC).  I honestly do not remember the names or positions of anyone else involved, but I have ideas of who they might be.  Either way, there were lots of them.  DROVES, my mind recalls.

Being the President of something like the KKK is very difficult.  It’s lonely at the top, and no one understands all the hard decisions you have to make.  I don’t remember the exact sequence of events, but the KKK had had enough of me.  I had pushed them too hard.  I had forced them to kare too much.  And they were gonna make me pay.

I guess I had to go to the bathroom or something during recess (our meeting time), and so I left the klub in the kapable hands of Jen and whoever else was an officer.  When I got back, the mutinous forces had joined together to kreate a cheer for their leader.  I think the conversation went something like this:

Mutinous Force Member: Hey Erin.  We kame up with a kheer while you were gone.

Erin (sniveling): Oh.  That’s kute.

MFM: Kan we show it to you?

E (sighing overdramatically): Yes, yes.  Fine.  Let’s see it.

It seems to my young mind that every girl on the playground stops whatever they are doing to either watch or participate in this cheer.  There are rows upon rows of young, Girbaud-wearing almost teens lined up, facing me, waiting to drop the bomb on my sweet & (a little bossy) self.  The cheer went like this:

“Open up the barnyard, kick out the Erin!  We’re the girls from the Kids Kare Klub!  Turn on the radio and who do you hear?  Erin bossing everyone around…”

This story is, by far, one of my favorite childhood stories.  We’ve been telling it for years, and it’s gained epic proportions, sort of like when you try to explain how awesome LOST is to people who don’t watch it and you end up making a fool of yourself.

That’s how I feel right now.  I just thought you should know.

Anyway, I had a crush on Sam.  He was older, had a girlfriend, and you can be more than sure that he was not at all interested in me.  He suffered my presence.  But I was convinced that he would fall in love with me and we would be married.  CONVINCED.  In a very creepy way.  I journaled about him.  I wrote him letters I never gave him.  I planned my walking schedule to each class based on where I might see him.  I was a creepy, creepy 6th grader.

The fact that Sam did not love me back was heartbreaking to me.  I neglected my personal appearance (as if it could be more neglected).  I refused to brush my hair.  I walked the halls in a coma, drawing on the walls with my finger.  I kept my head down, looking at my Birkenstocks wondering what I could do to make Sam love me.  I mean, life got weird.

During this time of introspection, I attended a Math and Science Meet for 6th graders.  This is laughable to most, because it for sure took me four tries to pass Algebra 099 in college.  How I got signed up for this trip, I have no idea.  Either way, the trip insured that we would get to eat at either McDonald’s or Pizza Hut.  I was (and still am) a fast food guilty pleasurer, so as the prospect of McDonald’s was, quite frankly, too good of a deal to pass up.  My friends, who had every right to be on this trip, chose Pizza Hut.  Just another in the long line of poor decisions I would make during the course of my young life.

I wore a large coat, more than likely my father’s, and started out to Mickey Dee’s.  I’m sure I purchased a Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal (including Dr. Pepper), because that is the only thing I ever get at McDonald’s.  I started back, planning to meet my friends at Pizza Hut and eat with them.  It was cold.  I had on denim shorts and a huge jacket.  I had poor posture, which is to say, Quasimodo taught me how to sit in a chair.  As I schlumped past the Pizza Hut, readying myself to cross the street, I was oblivious to the compassionate stares of my friends as they surveyed me walking towards Pizza Hut.  I was later told that the conversation went something like this:

Meaghan: Oh my gosh.  Is that a homeless person?

Jennifer: Oh my gosh.

Terra: Yeah.

Jennifer: Should we give him some food.

Terra: I think he’s got a McDonald’s bag.

Meaghan: Oh yeah.  I see it now.

Jennifer: Wait, he’s coming in here.

Erin: Hey guys.

Terra: Holy crap.  We thought you were a homeless guy.

Meaghan: We almost gave you pizza.

*****

This has been installment 1 of “Awkward Stories from My Childhood.”

What a fun idea.

I think this exercise says a lot about where we grew up and how we grew up.  So I’m gonna share my songs.  And you share yours.  At least a couple.  Either in a blog post, or in the comments, but I think this will be fun.

Here are a few of mine:

1. I listened to a GREAT DEAL of Caedmon’s Call in high school.  I would’ve drank their bath water.  So they’re on here a few times actually.  In fact, the whole 40 Acres album probably deserves to be on this list, but it’s not a list of albums, it’s a list of songs.  The title song to 40 Acres is the perfect song to play on the last stretch of road to my grandparent’s ranch.  And also, Back Where I Began off that same album reminds me of sitting outside FBC Canyon during the summer, waiting for our parents to pick us up after Wednesday night Priority.  Good times.

2. George Strait’s The Fireman was my little brother’s favorite song, bar none.  He would sing it all the time and knew every word.  My mother even misplaced him in Michael’s one day and tracked him down by following the sound of him singing The Fireman.  Ironically, the Fireman is not about an actual firefighter, but a guy who runs around town making out with hot women.

3. TLC’s Waterfalls.  I distinctly remember this being the last dance at the 8th grade Valentine’s Dance.  I had a boyfriend at this dance, and his little brother was born that night.  In case you were wondering, sadly, this is what I looked like in the 8th grade:

I know.  Could I be more lovely?  Truly, no.

Ok.  I’ve shared some of my home songs.  Your turn.  Don’t let me down.

“Confession: Half the time, if not more than half, I am full of bullshit. I share what will make me look good. If I am vulnerable, I share just enough vulnerability to be perceived as vulnerable, rather than to actually humiliate myself so that others can talk more openly about their own insecurities. I also leak in my accomplishments, and I’ve become a master at it. I don’t even know I am doing it half the time, and the other half I strategically list my accomplishments so that they come off as dismissive or “in passing.”

Gah, if that didn’t cut me to the bone, I don’t know what could.  First of all, it’s incredibly refreshing to hear someone say that they are, in fact, full of BS.  Because, let’s be frank with one another, we all are.  Especially as believers.  I am so worried about coming off as (insert postmodern adjective here), that I’ve missed, oh, the whole point.  And hearing Don Miller, best-selling author who loves Jesus and whom I happen to admire both as a writer and a person, say that HE is full of BS is freeing to me.  Oh, he’s full of it, too? Huh.  How about that? Even when I am trying not be full of BS and be real, I’m only being real for the sake of hoping people will look at me and think, wow, Erin is so real. And now I’m sure you’re all thinking, yeah, dummy, no kidding.  You aren’t fooling anyone.

Either way, I wonder if you can even get past this.  Can you ever be real because you are real and not because you want people to think you are?  Can you ever be vulnerable because you want to help others and not because you want to show everyone how vulnerable you are?  Maybe it’s just me, but I wonder if I can.  I don’t think I can.  It’s like this one time at the Robinson’s house, we told the stories of the Worst Thing We’ve Ever Done.  And I told this story about how I joined in with a group of my peers in elementary school and tricked a retarded boy into sitting on a brownie.  And if you can believe it, that’s not actually the worst thing I’ve ever done (hard to swallow, but it’s true).  I’m sitting here, right now, thinking of the actual worst thing I’ve ever done and there’s NO WAY I’d share that on this blog or on the Robinson’s back deck or want to relive it in my head.  So now I’m even BS-ing myself.

So I had this conversation with my friend Jon today.  Jon and I are basically the same person in two different genders.  He is, undoubtedly, one of the coolest people I know, an excellent writer, and my only regret is that I didn’t meet him earlier so we could be better friends when we lived in the same town. Anyway, I feel God calling me to work with people who have AIDS.  Or something.  I have NO idea what that even looks like.  Does that mean I take meals to people who can’t because they have AIDS?  Does that mean Ben and I adopt an AIDS orphan?  Does that mean I need to clean bathrooms at Birmingham AIDS Outreach so someone else can be equipped to love?  I don’t know.  I really don’t.  But either way, I feel this call to do something with people who are dying or have been affected by the AIDS epidemic.  Anyway, Jon was asking me about that, because, incidentally, he’s sort of been approached by some people to get involved in that way as well (because we are the same person).  And I started thinking about why I feel God’s called me to this.  Why don’t I care about old people?  Or people with diabetes?  I need to be doing something with a cause that is socially relevant so I can be compassionately hip?  Is it because I’m bored?  Because I feel like I NEED to do something or Jesus won’t love me?  What is my motive?  Are they even in the same country as “pure”?  And should I even been THINKING about this crap, because people just need to be loved and cared for and my motives should be secondary to someone getting sponsored by Compassion or getting a meal because their son just had brain surgery.  Shouldn’t it?  Wasn’t it Paul that said I don’t care what your motives are for preaching the gospel, I’m just glad the gospel getting preached (I’m clearly paraphrasing)?

I would never (in a million years) reveal my flaws unless they were going to make you like me more.  WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT I’M DOING NOW.  IT CAN’T BE STOPPED.  Because what would you think of me?  Did I reveal too much?  Was I inappropriate?  More than likely, yes.  Which would cause you to feel uncomfortable around me and dislike me.  And I so desperately need you to like me.

This is all really convoluted and I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say, other than I identify with Mr. Miller in that I’m full of BS.  And I don’t want to be.  It’s sort of like your wedding day.  I have pictures of my wedding up all over my house.  And I look awesome in them.  A real makeup artist did my makeup.  Friends that know their way around a straightening iron did my hair.  It’s shockingly not in a ponytail.  I’m about 45 pounds lighter and am wearing some gravity-defying undergarments.  I’m wearing high heels, for crying out loud.  But that’s not what I look like.  That was the best version of myself.   And I even had a little moment of “Oh, Erin.  She keeps it real” when I took OFF my high heels and put on my flip-flops during the reception.  What a kook!  I spent the day BS-ing.  Actually, I spent about 6 hours BS-ing.  By the time Ben and I got to the hotel room, I’d already spilled sweet potatoes on my wedding dress.  Just goes to show you can’t keep BS-ing for that long.

I guess the moral is that just like I have an amazing husband who can somehow connect the dots from the day we got married to the nightmare that he awakens to every morning, I am also surrounded by people and a Savior who can look through my BS and still see me, crappy me, that is incredibly insecure about…oh…everything, and care about me and love me in spite of myself.  And there is grace for me, even in my incredibly selfish inner turmoil-ish monologue about how stupid and ridiculous I am.  I know there are people out there who are not BS-ers (I know a few of them) and I salute you.

Now tell me your secret.

The site is back up and running, thanks to a literal team of people who are way smarter than I am.  I’m still working out some of the kinks, so your patience is appreciated.  Hopefully, we’ll be back up and running by the beginning of next week, but I make no promises.

Have a great weekend!

Thanks, previous Mormon owners!