Nancy Caroline: A Timeline 1979-1998

Here it is, either my ultimate narcissistic gesture, or something I had to do to be able to see what others see in me. I started writing my timeline on the eve of my birthday, last Tuesday. Birthdays always offer an opportunity to reflect. Funny how that is. How, before, it was a celebration of milestones, and now, it's a time to look back and let go, to remember and look forward. Great time to do mushrooms or something, so if anyone's selling, I'm looking to buy.

Once I started, and the years began to reveal themselves to me, I realized how much fun it was, to look back over my life and condense it to fit a timeline of events. Each bullet point could fill an entire chapter of a book, and each time period, a volume, and that is the gift I have been receiving since I wished for it years ago, to own my life.

We begin with the beginning, my formative years, as a little girl in the world, connected to the ground through roots that grew out of my velcro tennis shoes, sent shoots out from my fingertips, and bloomed at my lips.

• Birth, Hickory, NC to James Anthony Allen and Martha Lois Nevills. Cesarean section. Explains how ravishing I am.
• Moved to Memphis, TN in a really cool 70s car so that my dad could go to school for Theology. I ate ice cream for the first time, I hear.
• I make countless cassette tapes of myself hosting some sort of talk show. I never listened to the tapes because I always always always hated the sound of my own voice.
• I have vague memories of dirty knees, spider webs, Christmas lights, and kittens. Also countless hours digging holes in the back yard or on the playground and searching patches of clover for one with four leaves.

• I sprained my ankle on my tenth birthday when I jumped off this Hamburgler on a playground at McDonald’s that you climbed up into like a hamburger jail mouth thing. My parents regaled me with stories of the day I was born to help keep my mind off how bad my ankle hurt that night.
• Mom and Dad used to wake me on Saturday mornings by “sneaking” into my room on their hands and knees, but I always heard them coming because they couldn’t stop giggling.
• I kissed a boy for the first time in the back yard of a house in Memphis after we jumped on a trampoline and drank orange-tangerine Mystic Waters until we almost threw up. It felt rushed and close. I said, “Orange-Tangerine,” when it was over. That was pretty much it.
• I took piano lessons, sculpting classes, art classes, and drama classes because my parents were pretty intent on making me into a complete and interesting human being.
• I got my period!
• I played the flute, and I loved it. You might say, she was my first great love. In those moments I spent alone in a soundproof practice room, I learned how to be honest and open, how to think and how to feel, how to sit with myself. Then, I got scared that I would stop impressing people, and the more frightened I got, the less I wanted to play my flute, until I stopped altogether (but only after more than ten years).

  

  Prom '98

• I discovered the Theater, my second love. I’m not 100% sure who, my mother or father, gave me my keen distaste for dishonesty, but the only real gift you need to be able to enjoy theatre is the ability to look life in the face and not back down from what you see. We back down from life in a lot of ways, take the easy way out, wonder what that ache is, even though we know. I felt like I could be myself in the theatre crowd. And then, for some reason, probably anxiety, I felt like an outsider, but that was much later.
• I graduated from High School.

Through the Mountain

I'm not looking back at 2015. I refuse. I lived 2015 in a dizzy, present, terrified state. I let the winter, incidents of perceived failure, and regret lure me into a tunnel of depression I hope never to see again. It's a tall order. I know. But that is my resolution for 2016. Let me explain.

We can probably all agree that caves are really cool. I remember properly learning of the existence of caves in Coach Dixon's Earth Science class in 8th grade; although, I was always aware of their existence. We watched a National Geographic video in class (a pretty typical occurrence) that presented not only the scientific information but also the historical information on caves in America.

Long after I passed Coach Dixon's class with flying colors, I went caving in Cumberland Caverns with some friends. We ate pot brownies and made shadow puppets on the stone walls after crawling through the cave's hidden tunnels and rooms. For one minute as I lay on my back looking up at the rocks above me, I was seized with the terror that the rocks might come crashing down upon us at any slight movement of the earth we rested upon (paranoia, a pesky side effect of brownies). My brain jumped in quickly and reminded me that, "no, these thoughts are useless," and I let the terror float off into the cavernous darkness. I slept on the floor of the cave that night, dreaming of pink clouds and snoring like a rhinoceros...or an adorable pug.

A few years later, I stumbled upon a cave in the woods in Dahlonega, Georgia (over by the old distillery, you know the one if you live there). I want to know how many terrifying stories one needs to hear about the dangers of going into a cave alone to remove the inherent desire to do just that when one finds a cave in real life. This cave wasn't exactly uncharted or anything, but I did not have the right shoes for the kind of wading an exploration would have required. I still thought about it for a moment.

Floyd Collins

The National Geographic video we watched in Coach Dixon's class featured a brief summary of the story of Floyd Collins through narration, old newspapers, photographs, and sketches of the drama of his imprisonment and death at the hands of our cavernous earth. I hate sketches of past events. Sketch artists are always given license to intensify the drama of situations...especially in National Geographic movies. I saw the terrified face of Floyd Collins intricately sketched every night when I closed my eyes. That's all I knew of Collins, that he explored the darkest corners of earth and that he died, terrified, at the hands of his own lust for a full and glorious life.

While living in Dahlonega and teaching at the university, I tried to convince my theatre students to do the musical version of Floyd Collins' story because it would be an easy set and gorgeous music. It wasn't exactly a known show, however, and putting together a straight play seemed a lot easier and less horrifying than trying to throw together a musically complicated show with myself as the only paid member of the ensemble. Plus, there's a lot of really weird yodeling pieces in that musical.

The tragic outcome

I suppose I wanted to do the show because I was obsessed with the idea that this blank faced historic figure who died so tragically inspired someone else to write such beautiful songs of redemption. With the commemoration of his life in musical form, the image I had of Floyd Collins' contorted and frightened face could relax into peace and beauty.

When I walked into the darkness of depression, I knew I shouldn't have, but I wanted to see where it would lead...at least a very small part of me did, like that flicker of intense curiosity that I always feel at the mouth of a cave. Floyd Collins worked alone. I worked alone, but for far too long. Floyd Collins was trying to find a new entrance to the cave, and I too have been searching for another path...through my life (ooooooooh sparkles of dreamy realization).

I walked through the mountain of my life, surrounded by the demons of my own darkness and searched the images of my past for clues as to which tunnel to climb through to find the way out all while the terror that the earth above me could come crashing down and bury me alive continued to grow to the point at which I could barely stand on my own.

Then, with a lantern, my mother and my father came after me, found me, and began the task of helping me find a way out. They always do that because that's what parents do. They showed me the light at the end.

The nation watched the story of Floyd Collins, as best they could at the time, and an army of locals dug furiously to try to get him out. So too did my chosen family, my friends, notice my drowning and reach out to remind me that I'm not alone, that I'm never alone.

Thus, for 2016, I'm going to focus on that light, and I'm not going to look back without a rope around my waste and someone to talk me and walk me through the darkness. It's not because I'm not afraid any more. I'm terrified. But I don't want to be afraid any more.

I'll never forget crawling through a tunnel in the cave back in Tennessee with my head lamp scraping the rocky floor, and coming to a small opening large enough for one person to stand up at a time. I cast my light along the shimmering walls around me. Rock formations, dripping from the ceiling of the opening shone like diamonds.

I want to see further. I want to see what's in the light, and I want to share it.

Hi, Anxiety

It seems people are speaking more openly about mental health these days, and I am, of course, a devoted proponent of that, but sometimes I don't fully connect with everyone's talking. I know. It's because I am a unique individual with a life that is all my own, full of riDICulous baggage that is all my own.

I've said before, via this forum, that I have been diagnosed with moderate major depressive disorder...which I think is hiLARious (I'm experimenting with using caps lock as a grammatical tool to help you read my work as it sounds in my head, let me know what you think). However, it has recently, yes...only very recently, come to my attention that I may be just another ol' anxiety disorder sufferer. I had a doctor once tell me that he thought I was borderline personality disorder. YEAH. ME?

The truth is, everyone has anxiety about anything and everything. Life is anxiety. The difference with me is, and don't misunderstand me, I AM THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE.

How do I know? Well, my dad told me, and my mom told me, and they didn't tell that to anyone else...especially not each other (loveyouguys!). Then my teachers told me, and other people told me, and one day I realized: everyone is paying attention to me all the time and everyone will be mad at me if I fail.

I feel like that's normal for everyone...right?

And then I failed. And I failed again, and again, and again, and again, until suddenly everyone in the entire world hated me, and I lived like that, for a long time.

There are things I like to do a certain way, the exact same way all the time. It gives me a sense of calm, ok? I wouldn't call myself OCD, but my anxiety levels do require a bit of coping. I like having a schedule that's fairly similar from day to day. I like making plans to have fun, rather than flying by the seat of my pants, and I need a good balance of alone AND social time.

Sound familiar? Yeah. I basically just described a grown up. 

And there it is friends, the plight of every human: we grow up sometimes, and it's usually, forgive me, a mind fuck. 

One day you realize that everything you've been told has been...kind of...basically....a little bit...bullshit. Some people catch on really quick, and settle into being an adult a little bit more easily. I was not such an easy case. 

I was weird in high school. I was weird in junior high school. I was weird in every school, but at some point I got a glimpse of what life could be like if I were "normal," and for some reason, I wanted it...so bad. 

I wanted it all. I wanted marriage, family, church, babies, puppies, back yard, SUV (yep). The only thing I didn't want was a job I hated and a republican in the white house. That's pretty much all from my real brain that I held onto. 

I can tell you now, as someone that craved the "good life," for a good chunk of her own life, I am so happy that I failed at that. In fact, I might even go so far as to call that the biggest failure of my life. I failed at escaping my true nature. I failed to break the bonds of being the sole inhabitant of my own incredible planet. 

When I'm not on my planet, I'm traveling through space and time with this guy. 

You can't escape who you are (and with The Doctor's help, you realize you don't want to). You can't escape what you want in life. You can't make it something else. The only real way to move forward is to move forward...

...and seek out the truth.

My truth is that I'm afraid people hate me most of the time, but I've recently learned that I am not the center of the universe, so that truth is changing. Why? Because I'm free now.

Do I still fail? OH YES. I just failed in a big way recently. And it sucks. But I have friends, and arms, and legs, and eyes, and a nose, and the ability to taste and enjoy the flavor of ice cream. I also have wine. So, if anyone wants to come over...and watch Doctor Who. The new season just started.

End of Part One

Every time I start to think that life makes any kind of sense, I'm reminded of that time I saw that Hobbit movie...two?...years ago. I was arguing with my dad before seeing it about whether or not it was going to be one movie or three movies. "There's no way that book fits three really long movies," I laughed at my dad's obvious naiveté. I mean, it's the smallest book in the series.

I graduated from the conservatory at Second City a little over a week ago, and holy hell has this year been a year. I moved to Chicago the day of new student orientation on June 23, 2013, and I finished my last show in the conservatory on July 21, 2014.

The year was long (I'm still suffering from PTSD because of the polar vortex), but not nearly as long as the years leading up to this exact moment. My road to my...life...has taken more twists and turns than I ever thought possible...when I graduated from college. That's a good thing, you know, because I've really been striving for a while to live the life of an autobiographer.

I used to tell my college boyfriend how I dreamed of going to Second City. The mere notion that people like Gilda Radner (who taught me that I wasn't the only weirdo), Mike Myers (who basically wrote my 90s experience), and the Ghostbusters (the Ghostbusters!) had studied at this institution in Chicago, made it essential on my list of places to be, if only for a moment, before I die.

He bought me a coffee table book about Second City from the bargain book table at Barnes and Noble. My first teacher at the conservatory is in that book.

Skip ahead to another chapter. I was a few weeks away from defending my Master's thesis and moving to England indefinitely (and what a fun turn that was), when my mom asked me, "what would you do if you weren't moving to England?" "I guess I would go to Second City and audition for the conservatory."

That was 2007.

Those seven years between then and now were just as earth shattering. In fact, every minute of my life I spend moving forward tends to crush it. How weird is that?

I don't know when I decided that I wanted to stop waiting to arrive, but it was in between all these places and spaces.

My favorite book as a kid was The Monster at the End of this Book, starring Grover. If you're familiar, you know that the fun is in the title. As a kid, you can't wait to turn the page because every turn gets you one hilarious page closer to seeing the monster. Even though Grover is so cute and does such a silly fun job of trying to keep you from doing so, you eventually get to the end. Don't worry. I don't do spoilers.

GUYS! We know that there is a monster at the end of our book, and it's a scary monster. Nobody wants to die, but most of us turn the pages so damn fast, it seems like we have a death wish.

Who the hell invented "settling down?" It's a crock. Settling down is something I want to do when I'm six feet under.

As scary as it is to know that we are all moving as one towards a similar fate, the thought of stopping, or slowing down, is more terrifying than any inevitable outcome.

So I checked off a bucket on my list..or something, but I'm not anywhere near done, and coming to that realization is terrifying and wonderful.

My only problem now, is making my opening metaphor match my final message. You see, I was NOT happy when I came to the end of the first Hobbit movie to find that there were TWO more movies that were just as long to be released over the next two years. There's a monster at the end of that book too, but I know what it looks like, and I know how it all goes down. Maybe it's the fact that this installment in the Peter Jackson wheelhouse feels less like art and more like watching a bunch of nerds masturbate (and, friends, masturbation is a sin) that makes it tiresome, or, perhaps I just don't like having to wait to pee for that long multiple times in a series.

I'm excited about the end of this chapter of my life, however, because I know that it only means the beginning of another chapter, and I can only speculate about the outcome of this one. I've read the Hobbit and the other books. They're old news. The books are better, anyway...as is this guy's version of the book in question.

In my case, however, as a future autobiographer, my actual book will just make the (billions of) readers jealous. Take that little bit of advice for what it's worth. *wink

Totally unrelated side-note: If you are a fan of Sesame Street literature, may I also suggest this book:

Legitimately Legitimate

I know what you're thinking, "not another rehashing of the tragic events involving the defining of rape in 2012," and I know, it's hack. But this is seriously serious. I'm talking about rape. On a more specific, and nonetheless grave, note, I want to discuss sext rape. Rape sexting. Rapeting.

It may have happened to you, and you didn't even realize it.

Have you ever found yourself at home alone, just sitting on the couch, drinking a magnum of red wine, watching a marathon of America's Next Top Model? Then, suddenly, you receive a text message. You're excited, at first, because you don't normally get texts after...normally. But when you see the content of the text, you realize, it is anything but a pleasant surprise.

You've just received a text message from that guy to which you gave your number at that club that night when you were drunk. You gave him your number because you thought he seemed like a really nice guy. He seemed like the kind of guy that would totally call (or text) a girl that he met at a club, and maybe they would go on a date, and maybe they would go on a few more dates, and then maybe they would find themselves in love and in a relationship, and the wedding would be so much fun because your friends would love you and each other and barbecue and sunsets on the river and kegs of low gravity beer and at least two dogs with a house and a yard with a garden and Obama and a beautiful utopian socialist future.

Well, you were partially right. He TOTALLY WAS the kind of guy that would text. In fact, he just texted you a picture.

OF HIS PENIS.

Yes. I know. Your initial reaction is to laugh, and that's fine. For now.

You play coy, so as not to embarrass the poor guy, and respond with:

"who is this? ;)?"

He responds with another picture.

OF THE AREA BETWEEN HIS MOUTH AND HIS GROIN INCLUDING HIS ABS AND THAT LINE THAT FORMS, LIKE, A MUSCLE ARROW POINTING DIRECTLY TO HIS PENIS.

You continue to play coy:

"OH HI! I remember YOU! ;)"

He responds (how charming) with:

"Your turn."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That's you. Alone at home. You're laughing because you think it's hilarious, this guy's gumption. Like he's just so sure he can get you to send him an infamous "tit pic," or "snatch chat." How cute.

"Yer aDORable."

"Srsly.

ANOTHER PICTURE OF HIS PENIS"

"I'm good."

"I'm not."

Wait a minute. You don't remember asking this guy to send you a picture of his genitalia. Why? Because you didn't. And now, all of a sudden, because he's "taken the initiative," you've got to reciprocate?

I. Don't. Think. So. And I'm a damn feminist, mother-fucker (had to be said).

So you ignore him.

But he doesn't stop asking. And when you finally ask him to leave you alone, he says,

"But I showed you mine! Don't be a tease!"

So, now, all of a sudden, you're a tease for sitting alone on your couch on a Friday night, drinking a magnum of wine, and watching ANTM?!?!

I know. I know. My tone is changing. It's changing because I'm not talking about you. I mean, I might be talking about you, but I'm mostly just talking about me.

I don't want to parse words.

I am who I am, not who anyone else wants me to be. I imagine it's just as hard for men as it is for women, so let's be real.

Nobody is required to do anything they don't want to do, even if it seems as benign as sending a picture of his schlong or her jugs via media message. That's it.

Also, let's stop making one label for that one thing and another for this other thing. Words are just words and very often insufficient. That's why people write songs and paint paintings.

Think of the idea of rape as the same things as the idea of porn.
Maybe you don't know what it is exactly, but you know it when you see it.

I just hope you don't have to see it in the form of a poorly lit penis, photographed from a suspicious angle so as to make it seem bigger, or thicker, or whatever. I also hope you don't have to see it in the form of smooshed-together hoo-haas and duck lips.

J'ai fini.

I love you. All of you.

The End of Innocence

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been trying the online dating thing these days, and, I must say, I've been semi-successful...and by “successful,” I mean, I’ve been on a lot of different dates with a lot of different guys. 

The thing about online dating, for…me, I guess….is that I could have the same luck if I walked into a bar and said, “Um, Hello! I am looking for someone to sleep with on a regular basis. Wah wah, wa wawawa. wa wa wawawawawa.” In other words, some in the online dating scene see no difference betwixt it and the bar scene. 

But I am not online to "get laid." I don't need online for that. I am a woman with a woman's body. It's SCIENCE. I'm online to seek out connections, to discover people in my area that are my age that I might actually be compatible with outside the confines of propagation. Am I getting too vocabulary happy with you? Should I include a glossary? 

With this is mind, one must first accept the truth that, when given the opportunity to “sell” themselves, SOMETIMES BOYS TELL LIES. 

Par Example. 

Photo Credit to these silly guys: http://www.rad-dudes.com/?m=200912

I was on a date with a super cute guy I met on OkCupid that was a pretty high match for me. We were both into a lot of the same things, shared a lot of the same philosophies, but most importantly, when asked by the robot on the website, “Do you prefer to give or receive massages,” he marked “give,” and I marked, “receive.” 

Are you kidding me? I just found hit the jackpot. If things work out with this guy, I could be looking at a future of free massages for the foreseeable future without any sort of compensation required...I thought.  

I like getting massages and he likes giving massages. 

So we were on a date, and by “on a date,” I mean, we were making out on his couch, and I suddenly realized that I had never actually given him the chance/offered to let him give me a massage. So I asked him in my sexy voice "Hey...I hear you like to give massages,” and he answered, “Yeah. I do....I also like to get them.” 

...I laughed. HAHAHA. “Well, you wanna give me a massage?” 

He replied, "Sure. You wanna give ME one?" 

...

...

"But…on okcupid, you said you liked giving massages, and I said I liked receiving them." 

"Well, yeah. I like to give them, but I also like getting them. Who doesn’t like getting a massage?"

...

"...But…I don’t LIKE giving them. I like getting them...and I said that on OkCupid." 

"Well, there wasn't an option for both, so I just figured I’d say I like to give them because...why not?" 

...

…….Because why not? Because I don’t want to give massages. I don’t like it. It requires a great deal of effort, and, unless I’m getting paid, or…no….you’d pretty much need to pay me, I don’t want to waste my time rubbing on people’s bodies. I mean…is there anything wrong with that? I don’t think that makes me a bad person, or a selfish person. I think that just makes me human…and I was honest about it on OkCupid. I wasn’t like, “HEY! Why not?” I was like, "No. I don’t like giving massages."

BUT YOU. YOU skirted around the issue, “Sure. I prefer giving massages. I PREFER.”  The word prefer suggests you have an affinity for one over another. Given the choice to give or receive a massage, by marking that you “prefer to give” you are expressing to interested individuals, me, that you, more often than not, choose to be the GIVER of massages, and that, I say, is a noble answer. 

If someone were to ask me, “would you prefer to die in a violent car accident or die in your sleep,” my answer would, unequivocally be, “I would prefer to die in my sleep.” I don’t want to die in a violent car accident. I don’t want to do it. The same is true with giving massages. I don’t want to do it. If the fact that I don’t like to give makes me ignoble, then the fact that I am completely honest about that fact should absolutely absolve me of that sin. Along the same lines, If I fart in a room full of people, I will immediately own up to it. That way everyone can relax and not worry about whether they are no longer aware of or even in control of when they fart. I do that as a service to humanity. I tell the TRUTH. I believe there is honor in that. 

But now, thanks to you, my innocence is lost. I am painfully aware of the simple fact that YOU, sir, and perhaps a lot of others like you, are A BUNCH OF LIARS! AND YOU SMELL WEIRD. AND I JUST FARTED! TAKE IT TO THE DAMN BANK, WHY DONTCHA!?!?

AMIRIGHT?!?! Where my girls at?!?!

This Post is NOT for Vegans

Single ladies in the house? Lemme hear ya!!

There is no such thing as simply being a woman. Think about it. One can be a young woman, but once she achieves adulthood around 21, she becomes a single woman. You'd think that around 30, she would finally achieve the status of "woman," but, alas, she is still clumped into the pile of "women" that are single.

A man can be a man. In fact, I bet upon hearing the term "single man," we all feel a little odd. It doesn't sound right. It's not something you hear often. It was the title of a movie. Special. Single men get their own special term: Bachelor. Bachelorette is a meager adoption of the term that barely broaches the topic of what it really means to be one.

A mother can also be a mother. We categorize our single mothers, but we do the same to single fathers. Even saying, "married mother," feels weird.

Mothers are mothers. Men are Men, but women are either single or married, Miss, Ms. or Mrs.

It implies that a woman hasn't really achieved personhood until she is either married or a mother. But I'm not going to knock either. I would like to experience both. I think.

That said, I am a single woman. I am in my thirties. I am not thirty. I am IN my thirties, and I am single.

I actually like it. It took a while. It took years of scrunching myself into a little ball and decrying my humanity without a partner. How can I live without a man?! I put things off (like learning how to pay bills on time) thinking someone would eventually take care of that for me. I did this. ME. Caroline.

I spent nights alone, wishing someone would just "get" me, convinced that no one would, while secretly hoping that by being convinced no one would, I would trick the universe into proving me wrong.

I waited and watched. Watched and waited. Secretly, because NO ONE will want you if they know you want them. NO ONE will love you if you need it too much. I held my breath. I pretended I was someone else. I even fancied myself a femme fatale at times. Followed by a trail of men, drooling, ready to jump into action when I snapped my fingers, but never able to hold the true essence of me: the Single Woman.

But I don't do that any more. I wrestle with dating (it is misery, but occasionally fun), and I wrestle with not dating. I see it as a whole, in its true state, as simply living.

I have found that if I avoid looking at fashion magazines, I feel much better about my body. The same is also true of ignoring the pictures of full and happy lives lived with a handsome man, a beautiful child or two, and fantastic fashion sense and consumer savvy. If I don't let society tell me what life is supposed to be, I get to define it in any way that I desire.

I am learning to be a whole person. I am not free of the longing for companionship, and I am not free of days when I wish the dishes would do themselves or a benefactor would wipe out my debt. We cling to what we know.

These are the aspects of life. These are the things that make life worth living: the uncertainties, the outlandish dreams, the faith that spring will come eventually (for the love of all that is holy), but most of all it is the love.

Love knows no bounds. It has little, if anything, to do with buying a home and having babies. Those things have more to do with the economy than love. If you look for love, you'll find it. I have friends that love me, family that loves me, but more importantly (and sentimentally) I have a me that loves me.

Mothers, go kiss your babies. Men, go kiss your ladies. Single women, go kiss your cats. We all have a great deal of love to share. Don't be defined by who loves you, rather, define yourself by who you love.

Tick Tock, It's My Biological Clock

I was riding on the top level of a double decker bus in London when I first heard any mention of my "time running out." I was twenty-eight, living in London with my boyfriend, with no idea what I REALLY wanted for my future. I turned to the girl who said to me, "Ahftuh you tuhn thuty five, your eggs staht to go bad," and asked, "where'd ya hear that?" 

"From my proffessahs at college."

"Were they old white dudes?"

"Yes..."

"Then, it's invalid."

I learned two years later, living in a small town in Georgia with my NEW boyfriend, and visiting the fancy popular gynecologist in town (who was against birth control because it was "un natural hormones," against anti-depressants because they were working too hard to make me happy, and happily shacked up with a cop with whom she shared a gorgeous incredible country home on the Ettowah river...with a jacuzzi) when I learned that I didn't need to be in any kind of hurry, "just don't get to 39 without knowing for sure that you want kids. It gets harder after forty." 

So I thought, SURE. Why not. I've got time. 

I then proceeded to break up with my boyfriend, adopt a puppy, and rent a cute house in the middle of the square of a town with perhaps 2 eligible single men. What's a few more years of singledom (That's a word...right)? 

It wasn't long after that, that I began to feel it. 

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. 

A friend had a baby, and would sit in the room with her and watch while she rocked her little one to sleep and just...I would just mouth breathe. 

I'd be lounging in the park every now and then and see this:

And just float off into dream land where I wore excessively low cut white dresses and packed elaborate picnic baskets with organic and gluten free food, and drank wine and ate strawberries while my beautiful daughter(?) did a million cute things that made me swoon, and I never got drunk on the wine, or got any of it on my white dress, and my boobs didn't almost fall out of the dress even once. And there was mist, and sparkles, and narwals, and Enya was playing in the background some song about the poetry of motherhood...in the desert or something. 

And then, snap, it would go away and I'd be back in my body, not too concerned with my impending menopause, and kinda terrified at the thought of actually having a baby.

But that was it. That was the extent to which my clock was ticking...until now. 

This time, it's different. I'm not swooning too much at seeing a mother and child together. No, this time it's carnal. Every boy is good and beautiful. Every boy that I see...of course, until I talk to them. I don't know if it's Chicago, or what, but I am out of my mind boy crazy and simultaneously out of my mind terrified of any sort of romantic encounter/endeavor. Everywhere I go, they walk past me with their beards, and their chest hair poking out of their collars, and I just want to grab em, and kiss em, and scream: 

WE WOULD MAKE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BABY DON'T YOU THINK?!?!

And it's more often now. Like...multiple times in a week...sometimes more than once a day. I mean, I always go back to being terrified at the thought of having kids. Don't worry. It's just that it never happened that often with the mommy baby wonderland world. 

Of course, it is now that my nature as a human being is becoming more and more apparent. It is now that I see just how much of an animal, at my roots, I am, which also accounts for the fact that I have never found a friend as good as my dog. I think.

My body wants to procreate. Despite my liberal political leanings and overpopulation mumbo jumbo nonsense, my body wants to continue the species. 

IT WANTS TO MULTIPLY. UGH. 

What happened to Ms. Independent? She got the mad baby fever and ran, foaming at the mouth, from her shell of independence, tearing at her clothes like one of those zombies that runs instead of limps towards you, except she's reaching for your OTHER brain. 

That said, if you're a dude, let me know if you'd like my number. I'm avaaaaaaaaaiiiiiilaaaaaable.