drawback to living in the midwest

I'm not one to speak against the Midwest.  I'm more the ever-ready cheerleader for this woefully misunderstood part of the country.

Heck, part of my senior thesis was on the Midwest:  representations of the Midwest in the musical, if you want to know the whole, not just the part.

{And coming up soon, right in this space, my entire thesis, in 500 word chunks.  Who says you have to post new stuff that you write?  And publishing on your blog counts as publishing, right?  Oh my word, I'm kidding.  I wouldn't actually make anyone read that whole thing, but I will, if you want, call you and sing songs from musicals about the Midwest.}

But today, I have identified a drawback to living in the Midwest.  In August, you do not feel like drinking red wine.

This is only a drawback if you prefer red wine, like I do.  August is probably the best possible time to drink white wine:  it's chilled and it pairs well with things that come out of a garden, such as zucchini.

I am a red girl, and when the August weather gives me the mean reds {thank you, Holly Golightly, for that just-right description of how it feels when you can't let go of anger or frustration}, there is nothing I would like more than to sit still on my balcony with a glass of Medoc.

However.

The humidity.

The mosquitoes.

The sweating even while sitting still.

When it's hot, the last thing I want to do is drink something warm, something that will make me a little flushed.  No matter how good that Medoc is, one step outside and I'm thinking of pink lemonade.

Not that that's a bad thing.  It's just that no one unwinds from a twisted day in the cubicle with pink lemonade.  For that, I want red wine, and I want to drink it outside.

I know.  Such demands.  Such ideas of how things should be.  But August humidity makes me a more demanding person than I normally am.  Weather has bizarre effects on me.  Some people feel rain in their arthritic knees; I feel humidity in my cranky soul as it threatens to take down my Pollyanna spirit.

To redeem the Midwest {I'm telling you, ever-ready cheerleader}, I should point out that it isn't just the Midwest that becomes nothing more than a ball of humidity in August. The South, I hear, is no peach, and humidity is probably why they invented sweet tea.

But I live in the Midwest and so I want to honestly say:  there might be this one drawback to living here. Just one.  And it's one I'm working to overcome.

lois & clark

My sister and brother-in-law got me a Netflix subscription for Christmas.  Their rationale was that:

a1a.  I like old TV shows, and Netflix has what they should call the Nick at Nite library.  When I saw that The Mary Tyler Moore Show Seasons 5 and 6 was on Netflix, I immediately declared Oesa and Sid's present the best present ever.  It's the gift that keeps on giving; when MTM Season 6 arrived last week, it was Christmas all over again and it's cooling to think of snow in August.

b2b.  I like getting mail.  This is very, very true.  Email, voicemail, real mail.  I am enthralled by all of it, but I am mostly enthralled with real mail.  I love that slice of a moment before you open the mailbox.  That moment also exists with email, but the length of that moment is more determined by your connection speed.

Opening your mailbox, though, is all up to you, just to see if someone was thinking about you a few days before and took the time to tell you that, perhaps on stationery.  {Credit card companies of course don't count in this anticipation; they're always thinking of you and wanting to do something to your APR.}

What I'm hoping for here is that with all this talk of mail and stationery and how much I love opening my mailbox, someone will be inspired to sit right down and write me a letter.

I don't want to come off desperate, though, so I won't tell you how the last few weeks have been nothing but flyers and credit card offers and bills.  I won't describe my face when I open the mailbox and see all of that.  But you know what a puppy looks like when you accidentally step on its little paw?  Maybe my face is something like that.

Yeah, I'm going to need to distract you from my desperation {in relation to my mail situation}.  Um...quick!  Look down here!  At this story about my recent Netflix adventures!

I got Lois & Clark:  The New Adventures of Superman, a show that I adored when I was in middle school.  Last Tuesday night, I sat down with my middle school self right beside me {figuratively speaking} and watched two episodes.

No matter how grown up I become, I will always have a 12-year-old hanging out in my head.  She's the part of me that's worried about fitting in, the part that isn't sure about how to get through small talk, and the part that gets antsy for attention and starts taking stock of who's getting what and how I'm missing out.

Sometimes, you need to take a break from being a grown up so that you can take care of the 12-year-old inside.

Maybe you have a 6-year-old inside, or maybe a 15-year-old.  I'm not talking about the whole "inner child" concept, because that phrase sounds so...catch phrasey and like we should be doing yoga in a field of sunflowers.

I'm just saying that I bet {or at least really hope} that other people have these younger versions of themselves scooting around inside and that they can  help us keep that child-like wonder thing at life, even when your computer crashes and you don't get anything but bills in the mail and no one calls all week to see how you are.

But you have to take good care of the kid.  I did just that by watching Lois & Clark.  I gave myself a night off {of feeling responsible and like I have to be doing something useful every moment} to watch this show that made me want to be just like Lois Lane when I grew up.

When I was 12, I wanted Lois' spunk, her drive, her intelligence, her sharp sense of humor, her wittiness.

It didn't hurt that Superman was in love with her, of course.  The quip-filled, flirty, slightly antagonistic relationship she had with Clark:  I was sure at age 12 that that was a worthwhile model of how to interact with boys.  Keep them guessing and keep them cognizant that you've got a lot of vim, vigor, and verve.

Watching Lois & Clark on Tuesday night, I had this tumble-me-upside-down realization:  on that show, Lois is probably 28 years old.  Aka, my age.  

More often than not, I don't feel like Lois Lane; I still feel like the 12-year-old who wanted to be her.  There are moments when I still feel like I'm playing dress-up, although thankfully not with Lois' early 90s wardrobe.

So I won't hide it:  I panicked slightly.  It's not that I don't have my life figured out {for right now} or that believe I should be a star reporter for a newspaper and be in love with a man who can fly.

It's just that I am officially the age of grown-up, as determined when I was 12.  This is the same type of panic that takes over when I see that someone my age has published a book.  I suddenly think, 'Wait, what am I doing?!?!'

I won't hide this, either: the other night, before I could trip on that pothole of panic, my 12-year-old self told my 28-year-old self to shut up and enjoy the show.

Panic attacks over Lois & Clark are not worth it.  Neither is comparing yourself to someone else {um, especially someone fictitious}.

But Netflix is worth it, and so is taking care of the kid inside you.