Brianne McDonald

I present you with this: The Really Cool, Not at All Dorky, Fantasy Summer Reading List. Seriously, try to contain your excitement.

1. You learn pretty quickly that nobody wants to hear about how awesome the two of you are together. And I mean nobody. Noooooobody.

10. You probably used words like ‘fudge,’ ‘freak,’ ‘crap,’ ‘dang,’ or more creative terms like ‘shiitake mushrooms,’ or ‘what a batch!.

Sometimes the past feels heavy.

1. Your alarm is more like a guideline than a rule; one which you will repeatedly ignore.

5. That moment when you finally achieve something you feel that you’ve been working your whole life for.

8. He informs you that your promotion at work is only because your boss wants to ‘bang you.’ In the words of Ryan Gosling … Who still says bang?

There is a pervasive notion that by admitting to being ‘average’ you are somehow settling. That you’ve accepted the drudgery of life and have no drive or will to press forward, to grow, to be better.

I don’t want to constantly be surrounded by people who agree with everything I say and do. How boring. How mindless.

It’s not easy, we’re not perfect, but here are a few things I’ve learned when it comes to handling the less than ideal situation.

5. In some ways (many ways maybe) you’d really rather not be ‘one of the guys.’

The highway spreads out beneath my truck like a black, pulsing vein. I can feel it shifting under the racing tires, alive and restless, as the sun sets violently in the rearview mirror painting the inside of the cab in shades of rose.

3. Bust size… eh? Huuuum, let’s just ease this bar all the way to the right. There we go, perfect. No one will suspect I’m compensating… right? Am I a bad feminist now?

I, like most parents, have this vague philosophy by which I’m attempting to raise the product of my uterus. Currently, it amounts to something like this: I don’t want to merely protect my daughter from the world; I want to prepare her for it.

The Language Police Mom

14. You have no idea why anyone would want to wear fake glasses. What is with this pervasive misconception that you have to have poor vision to be nerdy?

What was it like growing up with a mentally ill mother? In a word?

If they needed me, I would be there, but I often worry if they know that, if they understand, and whose fault it is if they don’t.