By the time you read this, I’ll be an official junior in high school. I’ll have finished all of my exams and put sophomore year on my list of accomplishments. Its a bit odd when I think about it, and it makes me feel old.

I can remember being in elementary school and seeing the juniors and seniors as being big and scary. Now, I’m one of the big kids.

There’s a lot to look forward to: prom, my license, college tours…but it scares me, also. I’ve got two more years. Two more years of high school. Two more years until adulthood. Two more years until I’m out on my own. I know my family will always be there to support me, but there’s something that happens once you walk across that stage and get your diploma. Something happens when you turn eighteen and instantly become “legal.”

Exactly what happens, I guess I’ll just have to wait and find out.

About the Writer
Jazz is your typical fifteen year old who enjoys reading, pineapples, and Coldplay. She spends most of her evenings curled up with her cat “Sugar” watching Korean dramas. She is currently seeking help for her chapstick addiction. You can find her at Drinking Alone Under the Moon. Drinking sweet tea, that is.

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If you’re lucky, you’ve only had to visit crotch docs for your yearly visits or during pregnancy. But if you’ve had to do any battling with infertility, you get to see an extra-credit doctor called a reproductive endocrinologist. Basically, they are gynecological wizards who wield the mighty ultrasound vagi-wands more often than they touch their own private parts.

I overcame my own dose of infertility to have my own kids, and then I was a gestational surrogate to help others build their families. (I’m a black chick who was pregnant with and delivered a white boy. I’m magic). Needless to say, I’ve had way more fingers all up in my ladybiz than your average woman.

Stripping down and being prodded time after time is a necessary, but redundant evil. If your uterus and ovaries are constantly on display because you’re trying to have a baby, it is stressful, too. One day when I was on my back in the middle of a wanding, I thought it might be fun to think of ways to reduce some stress by adding a bit of comic relief to the next probing. This list is what I came up with. You should try one or two of them the next time you’re on the table with your knees apart:

1. Say, “Peekaboo!” just as he lifts the paper sheet.
2. Write “THIS WAY” on the inside of one thigh and “INSERT HERE” on the inside of the other. Draw arrows pointing to your vag.
3. Spray your pubes a snazzy color like hot pink or neon green.
4. Just before he checks your breasts for lumps, tell him it will cost $5 per boob for him to cop a feel.
5. Make your nether regions extra-pretty with a spritz of scented glittery body spray.
6. Wear crotchless panties and say, “Easy access. I’m helpful like that.”
7. Don’t move when your OB/GYN tells you to scoot down. Just when he or she gets frustrated, flutter your eyelids innocently and say, “But you didn’t say ‘Simon Says.’”
8. Hand over a bottle of K-Y Intense arousal gel and say, “Squirt some of this stuff on your fingertips so that I can get at least something good from you fiddling around with my girl parts.”
9. When he or she is finished down there (whether you get the K-Y treatment or not), say, “Was it as good for you as it was for me?”
10. For bonus points, you can stick Tap Lights to the insides of your thighs. Squeeze your legs together to turn them on, then shout, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

The next time you take a ride in the stirrups, I double dog dare you to attempt one of these pranks. Do you have some others to add to the list? I have an appointment in a couple of weeks and I need some new material.

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You said it, Life & Style!

So I was on the way to the orthodontist with my almost-15-year-old son when I felt a pit of excitement churning in my stomach.

He’s about to be in pain, I thought. What’s with the joy?

Okay, joy might be an exaggeration. But as we trekked across town toward our local dental offices, I’ll admit to a distinct tickle of anticipation. Usually such a signal means I have to pee and won’t make it to a bathroom in time. But on this occasion I recognized it as The Good Tickle.

Why?

Because a trip to the orthodontist means guilt-free reading of US Weekly, duh. And if the doctor has to get up in my kid’s mouth really tight with his wires and wrenches, sometimes there’s even time for a People. You know. Since I’m classy.

(What. You’re sitting down with the New Yorker? Yeah. I thought so.)

Anyway.

I relaxed in the office thinking about the many unexpected benefits of bearing children. Besides of course the beauty of creating other human beings who share your crooked teeth and deep appreciation of irony. So. I made a list. Because I had time. In between learning about Beyoncé’s IV tattoo and the cup size of some Kardashian whose name starts with a K but ohmygodwhogivesashit?

Anyway.

Here’s my Top Ten Unexpected Benefits of Childbearing:

1. Your definition of The Good Tickle becomes somewhat broader.
2. When you mention dieting, people say, “It took nine months to make that baby; it’ll take at least as long to lose the weight.” (How about 72 months? Is that cool?)
3. Your loose pelvic wall will shoulder the blame for all incidents of future pants-wetting. (Sing it, sister!)
4. When an undesirable engagement arises, you simply claim your sitter canceled. (This is harder to pull off when your son is almost 15.)
5. You can frustrate annoying relatives by requesting a quiet room in which to breastfeed. (This is also harder to pull off when your son is almost 15.)
6. The lyrics to the theme songs on Disney Channel will repeatedly play through your head instead of the chorus of “Copacabana.” (Or is that only me?)
7. Tequila never tasted so delicious.
8. You find beauty in uninterrupted time on the toilet. Which is only slightly easier to arrange than Date Night.
9. Tankinis. Without apology.
10. No one ever thinks the smell is coming from you.

So.

At the end of each day, I may not have an IV tattoo or a franchise of abysmal reality TV shows, but I do know all the words to the title sequence for Phineas and Ferb.

Maybe someday Kim Kardashian will experience that kind of richness.

About the Writer

Julie C. Gardner is a former English teacher (no, she wasn’t fired. probably) and aspiring author who regularly embarrasses herself, her long-suffering husband and her two teenagers on Twitter and at her blog, By Any Other Name. In addition to writing for Aiming Low, Julie spends her vast amounts of spare time Googling the ages of former child-television stars and weeping when she realizes she’s older than they are.

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I think it was Oscar Wilde. Or Freddie Mercury. Whatever. Someone fabulous.

Speaking of Freddie Mercury, anything worth singing has already been sung, too. I just don’t know how to break it to these kids today, but it’s just that most of those songs they’re listening to have been sung already.

Some of them are exactly the same.

“Love Song” by Adele? The Cure.

“Smooth Criminal.” Yeah, that was Michael Jackson, not that band that sounds suspiciously like Blink 182, but is not.

It’s not new phenomenon, either, so don’t get all self righteous, 30- and 40-somethings.

Remember that song “Killing Me Softly” by The Fugees?

Roberta Flack. Or “Big Yellow Taxi” by Counting Crows? Joni Mitchell.

Joni. Mitchell. People.

Some of them are slightly different.

LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It,” for example, is eerily similar to that 90s hit “Rump Shaker.” While the tune is different, I offer that whether one is wiggling or shaking, they are both, in essence, the same exact thing.

All these covers got me thinking that we need to create some rules and bylaws about remaking songs. Let’s face it, my fellow Generation X-ers, there’s a good chance that some of these whippersnappers are going to start sifting through “tapes” of all of those songs we were listening to in middle school.

Rules about songs that cannot be covered either because they are so awesome that it would be offensive or because they were so bad that we cannot be subjected to that kind of auditory violation ever again must be outlined. It is of critical importance to create a Sacred Bubble of Un-Coverable Songs.

Feel free to add to your hits or misses in the comments.

Journey: Separate Ways

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TOO AWESOME. Sure, everyone loves Glee. But I will never forgive them for doing a cover of "Don't Stop Believin'." Never. The only way they could make me hate them more is by doing a cover of "Separate Ways."

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Slideshow photo credits: Photo 1;  Photo 2; Photo 3; Photo 4; Photo 5; Photo 6; Photo 7

One would think after a dozen years of togetherness he would figure out my disinterested head nods and stock answers of “Huh,” “What did you say?” and “You know I’m not watching this, right?” actually means “I’d rather watch Lawrence Welk’s floating bubbles, kindly shut the fuck up.”

The other night, though, I heard something from the television that distracted me completely from my keyboard. I couldn’t tell if it was a Saturday Night Live skit on the wrong day or an actual commercial. The 30 second spot for the Farmers Only dating service, Farmersonly.com, was so poorly produced I had to visit the site to verify its validity.

For the rest of the night, I was as useless as teats on a bull. But I did learn about them. Along with alpacas, chickens, hogs, and compostable toilets by perusing through all of the profiles on the dating website posted within a 100 mile radius.

Currently I am married to the best husband I’ve had so far, so my two hours spent trolling for farmers was spent just being nosy, not creating a profile. Lonely rural men and women boasting “some high school” and “hell ya, I’m a drinker” seemed to be a dominant theme. As much as I would like a cowboy to ride me home to, I know A River Runs Through It was just a movie and Brad Pitt prefers leggy brunettes dripping with children.

Admittedly, I haven’t spent a lot of time on dating sites, but I really was surprised by the number of adults willing to be photographed stroking their ponies in the hopes of finding soul mates. The trademarked tagline for the site is “City folks just don’t get it.” I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure posting unflattering pictures in awkward positions is not helping anyone get “it” or “any” in the near future.

I live rural, tend a small flock of chickens, and sew a few seeds (real, not love!) in the ground every year. I don’t identify as a farmer or rancher who would be qualified to post on the site, but I need an intervention for my voyeurism. It is only a matter of time before I discover someone I know looking for agricultural-minded love, which would officially make the site more entertaining than my husband’s favorite show, “Swamp People.”

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This year, I need to publicly thank you so that the world knows just how special and thoughtful the gifts from you, my husband and children, are.

Let’s begin with the youngest, shall we?

Oh, my dear youngest, my BABY BOY, the last one we squeezed in but barely. How you made me proud to have my OB/GYN file stamped with a big red AMA for Advanced Maternal Age, Check Blood Pressure! with each pregnancy office visit. How did you know that I wanted a Slushy Magic for Mother’s Day? Truly, they have never cut the cord between us and a Slushy Magic is certainly prize enough for my almost stroking out while pregnant with you.

I need to thank you, MY MIDDLEST, for the $5 Starbucks card. This is so sweet, and so hopeful. With you behind me, how can I not kick this $20 a day caffeine habit? $5, oh, you are so darling. I’ll go through that $5 before 7 a.m. I’d carry you all over again, my dear baby that made me put on 58 pounds.

Ah, my OLDEST: yes, an iTunes gift card. That I’ll leave on the kitchen island that will somehow disappear that will somehow end up on your iPod. It’s all good, bro, I sneak onto your iPod when I do my “Body by Bethenny” and so now you know why I know all the words to Flo Rida’s “Wild One.” Truly payment enough for what you did to this mama’s life with your colic and the way you would only nap for 20 minutes at a time, and only if you were facing an aquarium.

The best for last: my husband. Your gift, oh how I see your guiding hand with helping the children select their presents. Your lessons in generosity will live on forever in their spirit of giving. Have you ever seen a happier woman than me, opening up the complete 3 DVD set of “Beach Body Goddess”?

You must’ve heard me ask for that in my sleep.

Thank you, dear family: you raise the bar of gift giving every time, and I just can’t wait for Father’s Day and your birthdays; when you all receive gift certificates for manicures and pedicures. Because, you know, a man has to look good.

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Mini-skirts that my English bluey-white sausage legs look awful in, pants that don’t zip up, blouses and tees with holes in them. Clothes that have been bleached of color through years of over-washing and Spanish air drying.

Items in colors that highlight my constant sunburn or accentuate my eyes–oops, sorry, I mean accentuate the dark circles under my eyes.

Dresses for posh events that I’ll never attend, evening gowns for balls I’ll never be invited to. Patterns that are too big and loud for me. Patterns that are too girly and dainty for me.

Jeans that used to make my butt look good, but won’t budge past my thighs now. Office attire for an office I haven’t set foot in for over seven years, nor am I likely to anytime soon.

Fabrics that haven’t been used in fashion for over a decade–sometimes two.

Shoes that were on the tight side before I had two kids and gained 30lbs. Belts that I used to be able to buckle on the first hole, now I struggle to cinch in my waist enough to make the last hole.

There really is nothing like going through the contents of my closet to make me feel old, fat and frumpy. Oh! And poor.

Pantyhose with holes AND ladders. Socks that are threadbare and underwear that are a thousand shades of gray with stretched elastic. Running shoes that have never run anywhere, bags that are too small to carry life’s essentials pre-children, let alone after.  Sky-scraper heels that are redundant in a village that only wears flip flops or espadrilles.

Why, oh why, can’t I get rid of this stuff? What on earth possesses me to keep an array of items that serve no use except to depress and deject?

The honest answer is that… I’m not sure. Maybe I think I’ll suddenly wake up one morning two dress sizes smaller and a decade younger. Maybe everyone in my village will suddenly be wearing  hot pink miniskirts and I won’t want to feel left out.

Or maybe, because if I empty the contents of my closet I will be forced to go out and purchase new clothes, a prospect that quite frankly scares the living crap out of me.

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I find it interesting that all of the exam rooms at the medical facility I go to are very similar in appearance, yet so different with the propaganda messages that they bombard you with on every flat surface.

“Get outside and exercise!”

“You’re watching too much TV!”

“Smokers die of lung cancer!”

While this next sign isn’t in all of the rooms, I am pretty sure I have seen it before but never really noticed something key.

Notice a huge difference on how these antibiotics are armed?

Now I’m not going to argue about whether or not antibiotics kill viruses, because clearly they don’t. But maybe the reason they don’t is that those antibiotics are fundamentally ill-equipped to deal with the viruses. I mean, look at those trigger happy antibiotics on the right shooting bacteria with guns. I’m not expert in killing things, but I’m pretty sure that gun killing is a bit more effective than what the antibiotics on the left are doing, namely bouncing on something that clearly has some sort of force field around it.

It makes me wonder: Why are those poor antibiotics trying to kill the virus not armed like their friends armed with guns? Are they underage? Are they felons? Could they not save up enough for the right equipment?

Maybe this is why I’m sick.