Well, there's this: I read the book and I am sure that whoever bought the movie rights made a sound investment. This book will be a fabulous movie. And young people may even enjoy the read.
Actually, there was a whole lot more, but if you didn't get here in a timely fashion, well, there's a whole lot less now. You'll get the gist from the comments. Which I may delete later. We'll see.
I never thought experienced mattered worth a nickel until I got some. I mean, I'm smart. I know I'm smart. And I'm conscientious and hardworking.
Well, I used to be conscientious and hardworking.
Anyway.
I figured I was as capable as the next person because what I didn't know I could be taught. Quickly. So what difference did experience make, right? Not much.
I had half a point there, people. The other half I missed. But the part I had, well, I was right about the experience not mattering to my potential employer. I'd manage just fine. Better than fine. I'd be the best little worker bee in the hive.
The part I missed wasn't how experience would benefit my employer. I might have been young, arrogant, and overly confident, but that confidence wasn't misplaced. I could do whatever the job required, come hell or high water--as my Nana used to say. The part I missed was that I have no particular affinity for hell or high water.
If there's going to be hell or high water, people, I prefer to not know about it. I don't just mean watch it from a safe distance, I mean truly-ignorance-is-"let-them-eat-cake"-bliss. If my neck is going to be on the chopping block for it someday, well, fair enough. But why meet misery halfway?
In any case, experience is a handy thing for a person who hates surprises, likes to plan, and would really rather not have to wonder what is going to happen. Experience is the difference between a gasp and a sigh. If you haven't got it, you're going to spend a lot of time gasping.
Sigh.
Moving on. The thing is that now that I have experience, I can anticipate life and people and how those two things happen together with such ease that occasionally I appear clairvoyant. Only I'm not. Really. It's more like I remembered to wear my glasses to the train station and everyone else maybe forgot theirs at home. I'm just looking up at the big schedule and clock on the wall and matching the numbers to the trains, not conjuring spirits.
If only the trains never broke down. If only there were no operator errors. If only--if only a lot of things, people, because here's where experience breaks down for me: having the schedule is no guarantee. I can still end up stranded in East Nowhere, just like anybody else. In the meantime, someone who never even glanced at the schedule, just boarded a train completely at random, can find themselves transported to a free outdoor concert, hosted by their favorite performers, on a sunny summer day.
Not entirely likely, but not entirely impossible either.
And here's where experience picks up for me again, people: so long as a person has money, one can always just rent a car. One with GPS.
You know how I love GPS.
GPS is better than experience, it's guidance. Oh, now that I have experience, how I do covet me some guidance. I want to be guided, people. Lead by divine wisdom. Preferably not off the side of a mountain, but lead never-the-less.
Sheesh.
None of it is enough, people--not intelligence, not work ethic, not conscientiousness, not experience, not guidance. None of it is enough. None of it is a promise that everything happens in a way that makes sense, that everyone gets what they deserve, and all things begun are neatly and satisfyingly ended.
But it's a place to start,
I figure most people who find themselves in the business of procreating--you know, making babies--don't stop until they're in over their heads. In other words, they stop just after one kid too many. So long as the number of kids people have is manageable and fun, they just keep going because hey, this is great.
Until it's not so great.
So if you see someone really struggling with two, three, or even six kids, there's a good chance that they had a handle on the situation just one kid prior. It's the last kid that did them in. Up until then, they could keep up.
Now, as you know, I only have one kid: Secret Lulu.
I like to say that Secret Lulu was born an only child. I always knew I wasn't cut out for more than one kid. Other people might not approve of my having just the one--and believe me, many didn't--but I was determined to be honest with myself.
Maybe not completely honest. Because I once mentioned the thing about me only being cut out to have one kid to Mr. Poppins and he said, "don't take this the wrong way, honey, but I'm not sure you were cut out for having any kids."
Right.
So I stopped after one. Which, in keeping with my hypothesis, is just one kid more than I could really conveniently manage. Not counting my imaginary kid, James. I could manage him no problem. He was really surprisingly easy.
Anyway.
One kid. And I totally adore her of course. Because not only was she born an only child, she was also born a godchild. As in she doesn't actually, so far as anyone can tell, have a legitimate eat-your-vegetables mother. Just a godmother.
Namely me.
Sure, I gave birth to Secret Lulu and all, but you wouldn't know it from watching us together. Seriously. You'd think that I was her childless aunt and today was the kid's birthday.
Every day.
Secret Lulu doesn't know any different. She thinks that's the way things are meant to be. Actually, she's really quite sure of it.
My mother likes to remind me that she always told me that one day my kids would walk all over me. And she did always tell me that. It's true. But it's not particularly helpful to bring it up now, is it? I mean, how about a little less gloating and a little more sympathy, right?
The upshot is that, while Secret Lulu does occasionally (name the occasion, any occasion) take me for granted, she also adores me with all of her little Secret Lulu heart. Sometimes, her adoration crosses the line into stalking, but on the whole it's quite nice. And while she won't share her candy with me, she is more than happy to let me eat her broccoli.
I take what I can get.
So this is the dream: one day Secret Lulu will be a lovely adult. Absolutely lovely. And she will think I was a wonderful mother and did an amazing job raising her and, really, have just not a single bad thing to say about me in therapy.
Ha!
I said it was a dream, people. But why not? I mean, it's the new year and time for self-evaluation and the compiling of the resolution list that, if adhered to, will bridge the gap between who I am and my realization of myself as perfected and awe-inspiring being. Because, let's face it, if I lost fifteen pounds and started running every day and sending out timely correspondence, I really will disappear into a silver glow of light and become one with the universe.
For real.
In the meantime, it's New Year's Eve and I plan to party like it's 1999. Which was--and I firmly believe this is so obscene that, ACLU be hanged, it should be outlawed--over a decade ago. Truly indecent. I don't know how we can go on in light of such disturbing information.
But in spite of the perverse and unchangeable fact that I am no longer twenty-four, I persist. With dazzle. I do. Because Secret Lulu needs someone, namely me, to provide a stellar example of what it means to live and love, to do and be. I want to be that example. I really do.
I resolve to be that example.
So that some day, when Secret Lulu is dancing around in a tank top and a feather boa, sipping wine and eating gourmet cupcakes with her best and favorite most-fabulous friends, she can say that she is living a dream come true because she always wanted to grow up to be just like her mama and her mama's friends.
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