Today at my job we had an education day where a group of kindergartners came in to see a performance by a Korean drumming and dance ensemble. The kids were ecstatic. They were moved by the music and they got up and danced as they felt it. You could see the excitement in their eyes.

They danced like no one was watching. That is something we lose when we get older. As time goes on most of us go from being free spirited and uninhibited to self conscious, and worried about the perception of others.

I think we should keep our adult wisdom, but live like children.

A lot of etiquette tips tend to raise my hackles. It’s not because I like being rude or anything, but I feel like so much of the advice given is completely outdated and irrelevant to my life. For example, I suppose hostess gifts are a nice thing for older people who actually host dinner parties, but they don’t fit in at all with the ways I hang out with my friends.

One topic in particular always seems to elicit tips that are particularly unhelpful: dining out. Most of the etiquette classics recommend either rotating who picks up the check among friends, or, if you must split the check, split it evenly among the all the parties.  I’ve always been careful about what I order and don’t drink alcohol, so my portion of bills is always significantly less than everyone else’s. Following the classic rules would just negate my attempts to watch my budget. Not to mention it doesn’t seem fair to make me pay for someone else’s meal unless I want to, friend or not.

I’m lucky in that all my friends are in similar positions, so no one thinks it’s rude for me to suggest we only pay for what we actually order. But it’s made me wonder two things: Does anyone actually think it’s bad form these days to split a check? And would someone sacrifice their budget just to abide by rules of etiquette and avoid looking gauche? 

My guess was that most people would answer “No” to both of these questions these days, but I found some quotes online that have proven me wrong.

I know what you’re probably gonna do, those of you who happen to be in relationships this Valentines day, which is probably most of you.  You are going to wait until about two days before Valentines day, and then you’re gonna say to yourself “Gah, I ought to think of something!”  Then you will do what everyone else does, which is to go to Walgreens or the local grocery store, and pick up a card and either some flowers or some candy or a stuffed animal or some combination of all three…or maybe even a balloon and a bottle of wine.  Then, the two of you will go to dinner at Red Lobster and one of whatever movies is on that night.  Hey, I’m old, I know how these things work!  YAWN!

To that I say, wait just a second!  Isn’t that a little boring?  How about thinking about something unique or unusual, planned with their astrological sun sign in mind?  So here I have some of ol’ loonsounds astrohumor to offer you up some fambalicious suggestions!

I rush everything. I never do anything if it is going to take too much time. My dad used to ask me why I didn’t do something, and I’d be all like “It takes too much time!” I’d leave the house with my shoes untied because I wouldn’t want to take the time to tie them. I used to have a problem with brushing my teeth, and even now I just couple my teeth brushing and my shower into the same action. It takes too much time.

Why am I in such a rush? It’s not a rhetorical question, I honestly just don’t know. It’s not like I have something better to do with the fifteen minutes it takes to blow my hair dry in the morning. It just takes too much time. I used to forget to do my homework all the time because I wouldn’t take the time to stop and remember what was assigned. Do you know that it takes too much time to make a bed in the morning?

I know many (of course, not all) of you have a Xanga crush that you’re too shy to admit. 

What it is:

… A crush you have on a Xangan… Duh. You read their blogsite, you understand each other, or the most popular… you just think they’re so dang cute or hot. Pretty self explanatory.

I’m not talking about your boyfriend or girlfriend who happens to have a Xanga, but a crush you developed on a Xangan you met on Xanga.

When I developed a Xanga crush, I told myself, “Are you kidding?! You’re crushing on a guy you saw… online… that you’ve NEVER met before?! Pathetic!”

But I was way wrong.

I was at Port-au-Prince’s main hospital again, checking on how the food we’d delivered was being cooked and taken to patients. I accompanied some volunteers down the pathways of the sprawling hospital complex, past one fallen building and a couple that have been closed off because of earthquake damage, to a set of tents that are temporary home to injured and recovering children. As the volunteers passed out the meals to grateful families, I took time to talk to a few parents.

One of them was 36-year-old Claricia Basaent, mother of two injured children, including 11-year-old Nadine. Nadine sustained internal injuries as their house collapsed around them in the midst of the earthquake, which led to an emergency appendectomy here at the hospital.

It was only the second time since the earthquake that Nadine has had a hot lunch — the first was the day before, when the hospital kitchen started making meals from Mercy Corps-donated supplies. Before this, she subsisted on whatever was brought in by small organizations and volunteer doctors: mostly crackers and other small sustenance.

I asked Claricia where she slept at night. (She can’t stay at the hospital after visiting hours end.) And her smile stunned me almost as much as her answer did.

When I first decided to quit my job at 22 – an age when most people are graduating or have already graduated from college – and enroll in community college in pursuit of my first college degree, my parents were unsupportive from the very start.  This was community college after all; the thirteenth grade, the lowest common denominator of higher education, where the deadbeats who can’t get into real college go.  They had no interest in a son who was joining such an unexceptional group of people.

My mother would eventually lie to her neighbors that I had already graduated, too embarrassed to tell them her son was a community college student.  The night before my finals, she even went so far as to tell me that I would be better off dropping out and getting a job polishing shoes (I would go on to ace my finals in spite of her).  As for my father, when I eventually showed him the straight A’s I had received my first semester, he responded by telling me not to be so proud of myself. “It was only community college,” he said.

Now don’t misunderstand me, I know a good piece of technology when I see one. I’ve used Macs before, both laptops and desktops with OS X, and even earlier Mac OS’s. I’ve got a shiny, high capacity iPod Classic that satisfies all my on-the-go musical cravings. They make good looking, yet still functional products. But their ads, the way they go about revealing their products, right down to the way they design their retail stores all leave a sour taste in my mouth.

I’ve had a fascination with reading for as long as I could remember. Like most things in life, my mother never agreed with my choice of literature growing up. I’d make a bee-line for the library, only to take out stacks of fairy tales, fables, and then Sweet Valley, Baby-Sitters, Christopher Pike, Fear Street. Basic mindless reading to feed this young imagination. If my mom had it her way, I would’ve read every encyclopedia cover to cover and then write book reports on them.

 My dad was a mailman so he’d come home every couple days with a new magazine in hand. Basically, when there’s a change of address, the magazine doesn’t get shipped back to sender but goes to the garbage. Or in this case, it’d be straight in my hands! YM, Seventeen, National Geographic, Allure, Marie Claire. It’s pretty weird when you jump with joy b/c your dad brings home a free copy of Cosmo!

Leisure reading dwindled off around college, but resumed during my travels. Time flies with a book during 60+ hour long bus rides. I’m pretty picky with my books; fluffy and light-hearted don’t really do it for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love mindless movies and non-substance television as much as the next idiot. I guess the difference being that I’m not exerting any energy doing so?

“Xanga is a special place and I don’t think outsiders can really understand that.” — Me

I’ve been writing this post in my head for a few months now and nothing that I have come up with seems good enough for my one year Xangaversary.  Instead of gushing about reasons why I love this place, I will tell you a story.

One day my ex and I were strolling around Target in search of nothing special at all.  I had recently shelled out a small fortune and treated myself to a shiny new iPhone and I couldn’t put it down.  “What are you doing?!” my ex asked after I almost ran into a shelf of CDs.  “Just browsing Xanga,” I said, as if he even had to ask.  “Of course, always on stupid Xanga.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa! I thought.