I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re doing a disservice to our future selves.

Last weekend, I was at a family gathering and my aunt brought out some old family photos from a trip to Disney World in 1991. These photos brought a smile to my face — not necessarily because of the memories — but rather the clothing choices my family made back then.

For some reason, I wore hot pink shorts that ended about four inches above my 6-year-old knees. My cousins both wore fanny packs, which because of the angle/lighting and tightness of the pants, made it look like they had diapers on the outside of their pants. My sister wore tight jean shorts that went below her knees. They were not long enough to be capris and just short enough to be called shorts. My mom had an odd-looking perm*, my Uncle Skip a thick mustache and all of the grownups looked equally as ridiculous.

*I remember when my mom left the 1980s behind and changed her hairstyle. I was about 8, and I was pissed. Probably the first example of how I really didn’t like change.

Looking back on these photos and thinking back on the times, I’m concerned that we’ve become too ordinary. I just don’t see myself looking back on 2009 photo albums 20 or 30 years from now and laughing at how ridiculous we all looked. Maybe people thought the same in 1991, but I think we’ve become too practical in our clothing choices.

Sure, there’s still some groups that have come up with new, ridiculous looks. The hip-hop culture has the over-sized white T-shirt. The mohawk has made a triumphant return. You’ve got the kids who hate their parents — Emo, I believe they’re called, or is that the little red sesame street character? — and they wear tight clothing or way too much black. There’s still cowboys out there wearing big belt buckles.

But the people I know — and maybe I just need to branch out — they’re wearing clothes and hairstyles that I don’t foresee looking back on and laughing so hard that tears well up in my eyes.

Our parents can look back on the 1960s and 70s and bell-bottoms and big hair and polyester shirts, and they can laugh at themselves. My generation can look back on the 1980s and early 90s and say, “What the hell were we thinking?”

We wore acid wash jeans (guilty) and guys shaved lines in their head (guilty) and girls wore their bangs long. I went through a stage where I tight-rolled my jeans (thank you New Kids on the Block). And my favorite attire from the early 1990s: Zumba pants. Remember zumba pants? They were baggy pants that bunched at the bottom and came in bright colors in a camouflage pattern. I rocked the Kansas City Chiefs zumba pants.

If I wanted to wear zumba pants now, I wouldn’t even know where to buy them. And the 6-year-old me, who had the confidence to rock the hot pink shorts, is gone. I’d be hesitant to even wear a pink polo now.

But I’m starting a campaign to start our own new, ridiculous clothing trends. If not for us, do it for our future kids. What are they going to make fun of us for in 2030? Other than, “You guys listened to music on something called an iPod?” Lame.

Being Becca’s older sister hasn’t always been easy. Since she was three years old she has been able to beat me up — despite the fact that she is three years younger than me. Being thrown down the stairs a time or two was difficult, as was surviving a blow to the head thanks to Becca and an aluminum baseball bat. Still, the hardest thing about being Becca’s sister has always been watching her achieve things I could only dream about.

Since, I am the oldest daughter, I always thought that Becca would be forced to live in my shadow. Boy, was I wrong. See, I’m a quiet person. Most of my life I hated the word “shy”. It was never said in a positive light and I wondered for years what was wrong with me. In fact, it wasn’t until recently that I realized it’s not a bad thing that I’m quiet; it’s just who I am. Becca isn’t quiet. Like my mother and older brother, Rick, Becca can make friends anywhere. Her voice rises above everyone else’s and she seems to have no problem standing up in front of a crowded room and speaking. Public speaking is my idea of hell.

So naturally middle school, high school and college were much easier for her. She was on Student Council and was the President of Spirit Club in high school. She even gave a speech at her graduation. I was nervous just having to walk across the stage. She’s always had more friends than people I’ve actually spoken too.

Unlike myself, she had her pick of the best sororities in college. Meeting people wasn’t an issue for her. At one point I was pretty sure she was in charge of every organization on campus. Meanwhile, I stood back in awe of everything she did. Sometimes, the Jealousy Monster got the best of me. I’d be mean to her or make fun of her lifestyle while wishing I was more like her. She always forgave me, which was nice because she easily could have cast me off and only spoken to me at family gatherings. Although, I kind of owed her for all those bruises she gave me when we were kids.

I often wonder if we’d ever have found ourselves in the same crowd had we not been born to the same parents. I doubt we would have. That’s where I’m lucky. Because even though sometimes it’s hard to watch my little sister accomplish things I never will, it’s even harder to imagine life without her. I love our dinners out in Lawrence, our random shopping trips and especially her support.

So as I watch her graduate from the University of Kansas, I know that I won’t feel jealous or mad or even angry that she managed to do it in four years (something I was unable to do). Instead, I know I will only be incredibly proud and feel extremely lucky to call her my sister.

Congratulations, BC!

I have been thinking about siblings a lot lately. That’s because I am pregnant with a sibling for my son, I suppose, due in October (yay!). But it’s not only that – my impression is that having children of one’s own puts a different light on one’s original family, on one’s own relationships with siblings and parents.

When I was pregnant with my son, I was pretty naïve in thinking that having a baby would certainly change my husband’s and my life, but not those of our families. Why would it? Well, I couldn’t have been further off. While my parents turned into these (and I say this with much love) maniac buy-it-all super-involved grandparents, my sister — my only sibling — turned into the exact opposite. She wasn’t happy, as I had expected, she was sad and even angry. I was completely taken aback by her reaction.

It was hard for me to understand at first why she reacted the way she did. I was hurt, because as always I was expecting my family to applaud whatever decision I’d made. I didn’t know anything then about her wanting a baby but having no luck with it, because she wouldn’t talk about it for reasons buried deep in our family history. Part of this relates to me being the younger one, but nevertheless doing all the stuff that the first-born usually does first: I was the one who brought home a boyfriend for the first time, I got married first, and now I would have the first grandchild in the family. Even though (or because) my sister and I are only 13 months apart and basically grew up like twins, this particular moment revealed that a sister-sister-relationship is never easy, that love and jealousy are close companions and that I had been taking her support for granted.

I now understand that my sister must have felt betrayed in some way when I told her I was pregnant, and that at the same time, she hated herself for it. She was torn apart by grief about her own unfulfilled wishes and her genuine wish to be happy for me. It took me the better part of two years to come to grips with this, to accept it and, most importantly, to allow these wounds to heal.

Luckily, we have come through. She is the best aunt my son could wish for, and his godmother. I would trust her with my life — and my child’s, too. And I am certain I will never take this for granted again.

When I started at my first newspaper, I was a sophomore-to-be in high school. I was standing in the office of the school’s journalism adviser, an imposing woman whose unimpressed face verified my nerves. I was there because an English teacher recommended me, despite the “juniors and seniors only” requirement. Working at a newspaper had never crossed my mind previously; I was a strong writer with an active imagination and a quick wit that I used more for class-clown-type hijinx than providing any sort of academic insight. More than anything, I think the teacher was attempting to pawn me off onto someone else.

For whatever reason, it worked. I took to the adviser. She guided my initial attempts at journalism with a caring but stern hand, always assuring me that I was growing but never allowing me to see myself as anything more than a work in progress.

I didn’t have any way of knowing then that it was the beginning of something that would drive the next 10 years of my life.

I fell in love not only with the freedom of a loosely regulated class period, but also with the process of the newspaper. We printed our stories on 11×17 sheets, then cut and pasted them to fit the layout. The local newspaper took our finished product and printed it on newsprint. It was more Steve Jobs than Johannes Guttenberg, but I would later go back to this relatively rudimentary period as a defining factor in my pursuit of a career in journalism, because I had a respect for how it all came together. There was something about the teamwork needed to put together such a rough and basic product, a bi-weekly newspaper that I could point to and say, “I did that.”

A few years later, college was looming, and the one thing I was sure about in my life was that I wanted to write. The best way to do that, it seemed, was to become a newspaper reporter. And the best way to do that when you’re living in the Midwest and out-of-state education isn’t an option is to follow half of your friends across the state to a state institution. Once I got there, everything seemed to make sense. Here was this newspaper, this campus publication, with circulation numbers that put my own hometown newspaper to shame. I spent the first year in awe, not only at the sheer volume of the thing, but also at what I saw as quality. I wanted desperately to be a part of it.

Soon, I was. I took what I could get as a freshman: I wrote a terrible opinion column using opinions I didn’t have. I hung around the edge of the newsroom every chance I got, careful not to get close enough for anyone to notice (and therefore stomp the ever-living crap out of) me. It was beautiful, really. I don’t know how else to describe the wonder I had for this place where I could almost reach out and touch the presence of students learning the industry. Even from a distance, it felt pure and noble. At the same time, I was going to my journalism classes but leaving them mostly indifferent. It was the newsroom itself that convinced me: I wanted to be a journalist.

Before I knew it, I was far enough into my college newspaper career that I could actually look back and begin to take it in. There was the terrible opinion column; a semester of copy editing; my wildly unprepared-for time as assistant editor of the sports section; a pair of summers “managing” the newspaper’s day-to-day activity; a stint as a crime reporter, and two semesters of what they call “upper management” and I got through it all without ever believing that I knew what I was doing.

In that time, I met some of the most creative, talented and driven people I’ve ever known. I picked up some actual usable skills, I suppose, but the people were what kept me coming back. We all fed off one another’s abilities, struggled through our deficiencies and always bailed out the lazy, the stressed, the sick, the powerless and the powerful among us. Each morning, no matter the trials that the previous day brought, we put the paper out on the stands and nobody ever knew the wiser. I could tell you days of stories about what happened behind closed doors, but it wouldn’t interest anyone except the people who were there. And even they would likely rather forget. The point is, somewhere along that line, news and journalism (I lost the ability to tell the difference between the two) stopped being something that I wanted to do with my life; it became something that was in my life. We were connected — the people, the memories, the stories, the laughter, the anxiety — and it wasn’t something that any of us who made it all the way through would leave behind.

Of course, we all had to leave it behind to a degree. People graduated. They moved out of town, across the state, across the country, around the globe. I, too, left one day, and I wondered if I would ever be back. I went out looking for the career I had wanted since the day I stood in front of that newspaper adviser, but I didn’t know if the industry had one to give me. That was a scary time.

When the dust settled, I had a job, with thanks to at least one of my college newspaper connections. It was modest and nearby, but on my first day in my first professional (and eerily quiet) newsroom, I wanted to stand up and yell at everyone around me, “Look! I’m a journalist! I’m doing it!”

I didn’t do that, of course, and the delirium wore off quickly. I hadn’t been on the job for three months when they called us in for a staff meeting to tell us that change was coming. It wasn’t the end of the world, my first publisher in my first career stop told me, but things were going to be different. It wasn’t an emergency, he said, it was an opportunity. I believed it. Did I have any choice? I put on a smile and walked the company line. I told everyone, myself included, that this was for the best.

I wasn’t stupid, by the way. I wasn’t stupid and I wasn’t blind. I want to be able to tell my kids and grandkids this story, and I don’t want them to see the giant elephant in the room. I want to tell them, “I knew. We all knew. We didn’t want it to be true, so it was as if it weren’t.”
And that will be the truth.

It never felt the same after that. Oh, things changed, they were right about that. There was pep in our collective step, if only for a few weeks. It became pretty clear pretty quickly that this wasn’t an opportunity, it was an emergency. And I’ll also tell my kids and grandkids, if they care enough to ask, that I never felt lied to or betrayed by the publisher who told us that. I believed then and I believe now that the people in charge forced themselves to see the same false rainbows that we ourselves saw. They’re the ones who created the rainbows, if you ask me.

A hell of a lot quicker than I got my start, I got a box for my belongings. After six years of work to get in the door, it took them six months to kick me out. But I’ve written that story before. I don’t feel like writing that again. This is about the news, and what it does to people.
This is about the juniors and seniors who didn’t laugh when a sophomore turned in a story about the soccer team that was twice as long as the entire sports page. This is about an adviser who signed a permission slip and carefully helped that sophomore cut that soccer story that nobody would read anyway down to the proper size. It’s about the spirit of a newsroom that envelops the people who want to be there and comforts them when they don’t.
It’s about losing a best friend or a family member and having a place to turn to for a few hours of escape. It’s about the job I got a few weeks after I was laid off; not a job in newspaper or journalism, but a job that utilizes those skills on a daily basis. This is about the best people you’ll ever meet, all on a newspaper staff. It’s about memories that won’t go away no matter how embarrassing, and memories that start to fade no matter how much you want to hold on. It’s about a chance to do the thing you love, even if it’s not convenient or it’s not forever.

All around me, I see the results of what happens when a generation of people falls in love with an industry that’s either changing or ending (nobody seems sure at the moment). Within all the heartache, I see perseverance and a refusal to quit. I’m watching as friends make sacrifices to stay in the business and others make sacrifices just to stay afloat. There was a time when I felt like a traitor for taking my one pink slip and cutting bait on the whole thing. Now, though, I feel as much a part of it as ever. I don’t have to work for a newspaper to be proud of my background, to enjoy what I do, to accomplish profound things or to seek truth in the world. I can do those things from where I am, with the support of the people I met along the way. They inspire me, they really do.

In some weird way, I think that’s what made me fall in love years ago during the “good times” and it’s why I’ll never give it up entirely, even now.

I am not happy that I am home right now. It is 8:30 a.m. Saturday and I should be in Central Park warming up for a 10K race that starts in 30 minutes. I should be leaning against a tree for support while I stretch my calves, having an internal debate about whether I should just try to use the port-a-potties so I don’t get caught in an awkward situation later on in the course. I have been drinking a lot of water the past two days, so I’d likely convince myself to just try even though they really gross me out. Initially I was hydrating myself for the race, but now I’m practically hooked up to an IV of Vitamin Water because I’m sick.

I started feeling icky Thursday night. My throat was scratchy and a coworker guessed allergies (which would make sense, as I’ve been outside a lot lately, running in the park to prepare for this race…which would have been my first 10K). I couldn’t sleep Thursday night, but I went to work on Friday because we were closing an issue and it’s one of those unspoken rules that you don’t miss work when we’re shipping. So I made tea and added honey. I drank free Diet Pepsi from our fridge. I ate a lot of carbs because that’s all I was craving. I warned people that I was cranky. I almost fell asleep at my desk. I actually asked to leave early, and I never ask to leave early when we’re shipping.

I thought that if I could just go to bed early Friday night, I’d be able to awake refreshed enough to still compete in the race. I even picked up some allergy meds — the drowsy kind, which always knocked me out as a child. In my head, everything would still work out. I would be hydrated. I’d be loaded with carbs. I would be refreshed. I’d ignore the sore throat and power through (I’d read an article a few months ago that exercising when you’re sick can actually be good for you).

But the whole refreshed part didn’t happen, thanks to all the hydrating and getting up every 90 minutes to pee. After I decided that I just needed to let it go and stay home, I looked at my phone only to realize that I had never actually set my alarm the night before. The world was obviously conspiring against me and this race.

So instead of my weekend filled with exercise and errands and productivity, I embraced that I needed to take it easy. I didn’t have the brain power to tie my shoe laces, not even the eye strength to watch a movie. I was in a vegetative limbo of contemplating how much of an incline I needed in order to breath against my ability to still be able to sleep. I even attempted willing myself to feel better, thinking in my head that I was fine. It works for a few seconds. After taking a nap shortly after waking up, I felt a little more coherent. I treated myself to new books (which is a big deal, as I am an avid New York Public Library user and my bookshelf is already overflowing). The rest of the day, I stayed in bed, devouring my new books, pausing only to e-mail my mom how much I loved The Middle Place (she was the one who’d introduced me to it by sending a video of the author reading an excerpt. We both want to be her friend).

No matter how logically and rationally I approached my health, my body had other plans. And instead of fighting what I was really feeling, I just gave in. Which didn’t turn out to be so bad. I’m not even sure any more what I was even fighting against.

I was reading the page of Parade magazine with the celebrity gossip Q&A. Someone asked about Britney Spears’ body, and the response referred to her then-newish video for Womanizer. Brit’s back, it said — check out her body in the steamy video. So I did.

Let me tell you – that video is hot. Hott. Hawt. It has great costumes, ridiculous wigs, sexy choreography and lyrics whose words don’t matter so much as the breathiness and hiccoughing of syllables. (Despite such sophisticated wordplay as “Lollipop/Must mistake me you’re the sucker/To think that I/Would be a victim not another.”)

That Sunday morning, before rushing off to another whirlwind week of work, I sat on the edge of my bed and watched video after video of Britney. It was really relaxing and fun, and made me feel like dancing around my room (which hasn’t happened since I was about 9) and I have since downloaded a few of the songs, which are terrific for working out.

When Britney Spears was exploding with fame in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, I was in high school, and thought myself way too much of an intellectual badass to support such pop culture drivel. My trying-to-be-cool abhorrence* for anything that skanky and sellout continued, until the last couple years, when a few critical things happened: 1) I got stupider 2) I got a core group of girlfriends 3) I took a much more tolerant attitude of fun for fun’s sake 4) I was humbled frequently and deeply. These life changes dovetailed nicely with the Comeback of the Decade. In the last few months, I:

• Gleefully texted gossip to my friend Fiona from the grocery store checkout line (we love Britney together);

• Had a scientific discussion about whether your hair holds a record of every drug you’ve done, and if that’s why Brit shaved her head — her custody case was coming up and she knew she’d be tested;

• Downloaded a Toxic ringtone.

My sisters and I have had spirited conversations about this video or that publicity stunt, and the hysterical “Leave Britney Alone!” video. My friends and I fantasized about winning tickets to the Circus concert at the MGM Grand in Vegas. My parents gave me their 9,903,458,049th reason for loving them when they speculated that if Britney had come to live at their house while she was in the peak of her craziness, they could have parented her back into good decisions and a respectable lifestyle. And when I had to make a late-night drive home from Los Angeles, blaring Toxic helped keep me awake — maybe even kept me alive.

So here and now, I’ll say it, and I am not ashamed: Thank you, Britney. You make my life better.