Quelf

My favorite board game is called Quelf. No one has ever asked me why it is called Quelf, and I don't want to start contemplating it now - it would ruin the spontaneity that draws me. Once a year, during my birthday season, I whine and complain until reluctantly, my parents put aside their land-owning games about 18th century France and sit down to be my pawns for an hour or so. They always forget how much they love every part of it - the hilarious routines, the outrageous quiz questions, and the mindbending rules that pile up in little blue card stacks. Sometimes they suggest I play it with friends - R, maybe, or K3? But I shy away from the idea. After all, what fun is losing your dignity if it's so hard to find afterwards?

Here I Am

Okay, okay, disclaimer: I can only do the daily blog thing during the year. All the pieces get jumbled up in summer, and I always start a puzzle at the corners. That said, let me continue with today's musing.

Yesterday during a lovely dinner at a family favorite restaurant that remembers us by unusual birthday songs and rewards us with free squash blossoms and sorbet, I awaited the moment I became a teenager apprehensively. 7:23 p.m. ticked closer and closer as we devoured salads and risotto, and I silently expected a fairy to burst from the bread bowl and wave a wand to change me, make me more mature, more responsible, OLDER. Five minutes. We ordered dessert. Three minutes. I refilled my typical house-fizzed seltzer glass. One minute. I didn't have time to keep time, counting seconds, as I was far to busy punching a hole in the universe with my finger, grinding into my napkin anxiously.

Just as I was about to grab my mother's injured wrist to examine her watch, the chefs appeared at our table holding my dessert on a large plate with "Happy Birthday" drizzled in swirly chocolate script. At the top of his lungs, the male chef bellowed, "Now listen up!" A hush fell over the restaurant, and my parents looked at each other with dazzled eyebrows; this had never, in 10 years, happened to us. "These people," the man continued, "are going to sing a birthday song you've never heard before. It's amazing."

Lightning speed! "Round?" "We need Chloe." "I take second part." And we were off. The lyrics are: We wish you a happy birthday, a joyous and celebrated birthday, to our dear Chloe, we wish you a long long life. After the crowd returned cheerily to their complimentary soup, I realized it 7:25 and no one had noticed. Exhaling, I let the mutterings that I must have missed something be drowned in chocolate syrup, and dug in.

Confession

I can't promise anything. Look at the way I've treated this blog. It's my last day of relative innocence - before to me every tire swing looks like a way to mess up my hair, every water park a need for cute swimwear. Teenage years are upon me and I can't promise that I'm going to be responsible. All I can promise is that when I become an adult in five years, I'll own a pair of high heels. What's that for a future, expectations you either crush under your feet or accelerate until someone's planning your campaign for president and/or Miss America? Narcissistic country of mine, congratulations - I've fallen into your trap.

Sleep

I've stopped dreaming. And, apparently, blogging, as I forgot last night. How can I show my virtual face? If I have stopped dreaming, there's nothing to look forward to when I close my eyes, but yet when it's warm and the covers are up to my nose I compulsively float away and force myself to subconsciously eliminate the possibility of finishing my chores. (Not that writing this is a chore... Exactly.) Anyway, I pray to any god that will hear me: Please let them forgive me and await today's blog.

Test

Pardon this, I am testing the blog.

Return/Looking Up

Here I am. And was, as of Sunday, so why have I been absentee? I'm watching with my cyberspace binoculars, and pageviews have been climbing. You knew I was back, and I was by no means busy. But there are so many things on my mind, and blogging (for me) is about narrowing down everything to what's important. But the missing DVD of my latest show, the first in which I had a lead? Devastating. The freak-out when a friend stayed at camp longer than expected? Humiliating. The excitement over the impending free summer? Astounding. But I think I know what I want to talk about.

I'm muddling my way through the remaining few days of not being a teenager. All my friends have immigrated over the border, I can pop a PG-13 movie in the machine - that's not the issue. The issue is this: Why, just as I'm about to get more responsibility, am I just freaking everyone out? My mother is currently hiding in her bedroom because we had a fight about where the paper towels were. Frankly, I think I stopped growing at 10. But like a building after construction finishes, there will always be new people, and new paint jobs (maybe I'll die my hair), and everything is going to get taller around me.