blood is thicker than water, but peanut butter is thicker than blood

Since I emotionally don't have the tools to deal with the fact that the sky is snowing its balls off right now, ON MARCH 30TH, I'm taking a walk down the sunny side of memory lane, where the temperature mostly stays above 65 degrees and I don't have to deal with minor annoyances like wind-shield wipers and wearing socks.


I've mentioned my love of summer camp before and I think it's safe to say that it effectively made me into a geeky, 'girl power,' tie-dye loving freak. Amazingly, I still have a successful social life and due to my extreme awkwardness, vastly competitive nature, and fairly strict social upbringing, I'm sometimes told I come off as intimidating and unapproachable, which couldn't be further from my own actual perception of things, but hey-o, I don't hate it.


My sister, nearly three years younger than I, is similarly blessed with these qualities. Minus the tye-die loving freak part, that's all mine. Although, just to be clear I'll have you know that I actually work the power-suit and pumps look and I like to keep drum-circle Sara limited to certain area of my life, if you know what I mean.




When I was a senior in high school, my sister, Beth, was a freshman. PSH, more like FRESH MEAT. Bahaha.  Okay that wasn't funny. Anyway, we were both on the Cross Country team. Except, I was like, a senior, and like, totally varsity, and she was significantly lower on the totem pole, because duh, FROSH. It's kind of a tough thing to build up your image or popularity level or status or whatever bizarre pissing contest it is in high school and beyond for three years and then have a family member who actually knows you and the fact that you cry during the fucking movie previews and also uses the bathroom after you at home where all the number twos go down. It's an intrusion. Or, it can  feel like one.

There's no mystery.


 It was high school, it was cross country, in Indiana. This wasn't exactly Laguna Beach or 90210 or Gossip Girl. Again, cross country. Not a headline sport. But whatever, I had the team of girl and guy runners and we all sat around together on Friday nights and ate carrot sticks and watched Forrest Gump or Sandlot if we were in season, while the rest of our fellow student body was robotripping or getting busted for throwing corn husks at semis from the overpass.  It was vaguely cult-like, as most sports with semi-talented athletes are.


And boy, did we have some hot ticket events of which to look forward. One particularly exciting highlight was TEAM CAMP. Team camp was when we stayed IN THE DORMS of a college campus twenty miles away from our hometown for three nights and basically gorged ourselves on each other... and running three times a day. And sometimes swimming. And playing ultimate frisbee. And having ping-pong and basketball tournaments in which everyone, even the most uncoordinated, were required to participate. ALSO, the talent show.

Oh, the talent show.

Senior year summer team camp talent show, it was the 'cool' thing to be in as many skits as possible, or maybe that was just me. I'm not sure on that, I just know I was in several talent show acts, but that was maybe just because of my compulsion to win and so I felt being in as many of the acts as possible would up my chances.  The senior ladies coreographed a dance WITH PROPS and MATCHING OUTFITS to the tune of Video Killed the Radio Star. Style, bitches. Also particularly memorable is the skit I'm about to share with you and the reason for this post.

It's called Peanut Butter and Jelly.

And if I may say so myself, it was a crowd favorite. Even if we were scammed out of the highest honors.


Right, so Peanut Butter and Jelly.



The premise of this skit is to act completely stoic the entire time. It's to be treated with a sense of gravity and artsy pretentiousness to the crowd, who is hopefully losing their shit and laughing their asses off. One person is Peanut Butter and the other is Jelly. Essentially, you just go back and forth smearing the ingredient you're assigned on the other person, naming the part as you do it, taking turns until you're both miserable, sticky, messes. We used entire over-sized jars of each on one another, and if we're being honest, I wouln't have hated having two a piece.

My Sister and I attended the same summer camp, albeit at different points in the summer, as children. We'd both witnessed said skit, and been amazed by it as wee lasses. So, in an effort to be less of a bitch to my little sister, the newbie on the team trying to gain some notoriety,  I decided good old Beth and I should perform this together. It's kind of the perfect skit for sisters to do, because nobody knows how to be malicious like closely-aged sisters know how to be malicious to one another.



Our version when something like this:

Me: (Smearing peanut butter on Beth's pig-tailed locks) Peanut Butter hair gel!

Beth: (Playfully ringing my neck with jelly) Grape Jelly necklace!

Me: Peanut butter tube socks!!

Beth: Grape Jelly Sleeves!!

Me: Peanut butter lip gloss!!.

Beth: Grape Jelly blush!!

Me: Peanut butter eyeshadow!!

Beth: Grape Jelly underwear!!!!!


Grape jelly underwear. ON STAGE. It was totally on after that. I'm not kidding, we had an all-out war. The camp counselors we'd seen perform this skit as children were friends, so they hugged it out at the end. A third counselor had run out and rapidly threw a loaf of bread, slice, by slice on them and proclaimed 'Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich!!!!!!!' And they bowed it out and it was met by overwhelming applause, by the fourteen and under crowd.


We were NOT met by overwhelming applause right away. We were sisters, and shit was getting serious, seriously out of hand.  The other high-school aged members of the team had NO idea how to react. Perhaps it was weridly erotic for the male members and we didn't really think it through. My coach nearly LOST. HIS. SHIT. about the mess we made, us failing to realize just how fucking sticky everything was to become around us. Plus, we started getting legitimately pissed at each other and my friend Jessica ended up akwardly running out with the loaf of bread and kind of breaking up our shoving and condiment flinging as she doused us with bread.


In the end, we gave each other the one-stage hug, but like, the kind where you squeeze so hard that you're actually trying to hurt the other person without making it super obvious.



Crickets.



AND THEN, WAIT FOR IT.


The ROAR of applause. Weird, confused, oh-shit-what-just-went-down, 'that was fucking awesome,' applause.


God, do I love the sound of applause.


In the end, our coach was seriously furious about the skit and how we weren't *exactly* forthcoming with details prior to performance (um, we knew he was going to say no, and it's obviously better to beg for forgiveness.) and purposely didn't include us in the applause level judging to determine a winner. AND we had to scrub a nasty dorm common-area for a unreasonably long time. However, the clean-up did allow us time to make ammends and bond over the fact that we just made total fools did the most badass skit ever, together.



Beth and I already knew we were the real winners. You know, sisterly bonding and blood being thicker than water and stuff.


I think there may actually be some pictures of this circulating around still, so I'll see what I can do in the means of evidence. Oh, shit.


Xo Sare

i'm ACTUALLY invincible, thanks for asking.

I've been thinking about invincibility lately.

And yes, I basically just made that word up. What can I say? It's my blog and I'll take certain liberties if I so choose.

Anyway, I can be rather.... arrogant... about my actions and the consequences that will come with them at times. AKA I fully submit to the idea that there usually won't  be (m)any consequences, at least for me, and I can pretty much get away with/ live through anything I set my mind to.

I SHALL PREVAIL!

Mostly because IT'S TRUE.

And until I'm proven wrong, I'm going to keep on believing that I'm invincible.

I've put myself into, and thoroughly enjoyed, numerous situations that others may refer to as "downright reckless" or "wicked stupid." Whatever. Now that Manfriend is in my life, I've toned down my exploits significantly because he is a worrier. When I say worrier, I really mean it, too. And trust me, there's a difference between untrusting-stalker-boyfriends and crippled-with-concern boyfriends, and Manfriend is the latter. Which, it is somewhat heartwarming to know that someone worries that you will get home safely and rest your little head on your little pillow and peacefully drift off into a slumber filled with dreams of rainbows and unicorns and other peaceful and happy landscapes............

BUT sometimes it fucking drives me up the wall and it's actually responsible for at least 85% of all the fights that Manfriend and I have had since we began our glorious union-of-hearts.

This stems from the simple facts that:

1. I am an asshole .

2. I'm independent to a fault.

3. Girls just wanna have fun.

Anyway, this is sort of an ongoing battle between the two of us because my desire to do whatever I get my kicks out of at all costs is just as engrained into my person as Manfriend's hatred for swimming, an activity that I personally find extremely important, being that I grew up on a lake and would probably have developed gills and webbed feet by now if evolution wasn't so god-damned slow.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of situations that I avoid and that make me incredibly uncomfortable, ehhh hem, but for some reason, I seem to lack a basic fear of certain situations.

For instance, it's no secret that I spent my undergrad at this great university. I'm not proud, nor embarrassed, to say that during the time I spent at this school, it was a semi-frequent occurrence for me to find myself walking and/or skipping alone at four in the morning from various sketchy places around campus in various states of sobriety. It's just what I did. I never really thought to myself "Geez, Sara, there are bad guys that lurk at four am, maybe you should just hold tight until the sun peaks over the horizon and everything will be hunky-dory and able to provide you safe passage again. Because you know what? Fuck that. I get where I'm going, I get what I need. No one was ever creepy or weird to me, I often exchanged pleasantries with shady characters, I stepped lightly, I'd make a phone call. I never really felt that I was in harm's way.

Don't get me wrong, I know terrible things happen to very smart girls all the time, and perhaps my mentality is totally dangerous. But maybe I'm also right. I don't think I'm an idiot, but if believing I'm going to make it from point A to point B completely unscathed no matter what makes me one, then fine, I'd rather be that than scared all the time. Plus I honestly think that I'd be so downright offended if anyone tried to pull any shit with me that they'd probably end up seriously injured or terrified to the point of wondering if it was I that actually initiated the encounter.

I understand where Manfriend is coming from when he's worried about me getting home after I've been drinking with my girlfriends, but to a point I can't help but be exasperated by it too. I'm an adult, and I don't go out and get trashed that often compared to where I was before we started dating. I don't drive drunk, I'm not ambling along aimlessly, inviting harm into my path, but I'm also going to get where I need to go however I alone decide to do so, and there's really nothing anyone else can do about it.

I'm aware that not everyone, or really, not very many people in general share my philosophy on life and personal safety, and that's fine. I'll live. But this way works for me. And until it stops working for me, specifically, I'm going to continue to act like a wild and free, albeit incredibly faithful, spirit. Because as much as I lurve and appreciate Manfriend and the ulcer he's probably developing, he wouldn't, couldn't  love me the way he does if I wasn't exactly the way that I am.

I truly believe I'm invincible.

And I HATE HATE HATE being made to feel like a child, or at the very least like I haven't found a way to make life work for me for 24 years of trial and tribulation. I hate being made to feel selfish for an attitude that I've been perfecting for years. This is what works for me, and I can't, would never even dream of, changing it.

I like feeling fearless, unstoppable, who doesn't?? Don't try to bring me down from that with your reason and concern, because for all my wild and zany, I'm actually quite intelligent, and I can weigh risks (haphazardly) in my head just fine before I make a decision and act on it.

I need things to be this way, it's the only way I know how to be. And I'm not alone, I know and relish in that much.  

In high school my friends and I would drive around, just looking for a rush. That burst of fear and energy and release that only comes with doing something you know you probably shouldn't. What else could we do? We were restless, our town was boring, we hadn't delved into drugs or alcohol. So on the weekends we went in search of rebellion. We'd streak naked around neighborhoods, a single-file line of teenage girls, hearts in our throats, choking with silent laughter. We'd steal road signs and sneak into abandoned houses to explore and egg anything we could target at 25 mph. There were no consequences, nothing we couldn't talk our way out of, no rules that couldn't be smashed to smithereens if we willed it so. We were invincible.

And I won't let that go.

Now go out and stir things up.

XO Sara