Good... And Good for You

a couple of weeks ago, i went to a football game with a friend and her family, including her 16 year old niece who quite obviously thinks i'm lame. which is totally fine because i am kind of lame and also she's 16, so the eye rolling and the cringing kind of just comes with the territory. i was thinking about how hard it is to be a teenage girl- how much time you spend worrying about embarrassing yourself, how HUGE the little embarrassments feel and how generally inhibited you have to become just to feel like you can survive. i really don't feel like i was ever myself with my friends until the summer after my freshman year of college because i was so terrified that they wouldn't like me.  and i was a pretty well-adjusted kid. as an adult, i have the opposite problem. i live alone and tend to go unchecked in a lot of ways and the challenge is to stay on the right side of social norms. here, i'll give you an example. halloween is coming and i freaking love hall...

the other day i was running late, as i am prone to do, and the traffic lights conspired against me despite how wildly i gesticulated at them. so after hitting, like, my 300th red light in a row, i let out an exasperated, "gaa!" and veered to turn right. only there was a guy on the corner who stepped into the intersection in front of me. so i hit him. just kidding. i hit my brakes and let out another "gaa!" which made the guy look at me like i was ridiculous. which i was. so i flashed him the peace sign because that's what i do when i'm in my car and i want people to forgive me for being ridiculous. but that just made the guy stop in front of my car and glare at me as though he thought i was doing a sarcastic peace sign. which i most definitely was not. my peace signs are always in earnest. so then i gestured at him to cross. kind of a, "no, seriously, sir. it's your right of way and i realize that. proceed." kind of a gesture. but th...