VOTE 4 ME, my sister, my cousin, my dog's chew toy...

You know I love you guys. I do! I love your baby pics, your food pics, your mid-winter-I'm-in-Hawaii-toes-in-the-sand pics and your almost-3 a.m.-drunk-song posts. Totally love. And like, like, like. But then there's THE VOTE.

Please don't be mad when I call you (us) out on this. Because it's not your fault. Or mine for that matter. We've all been totally manipulated by the all-powerful survey monkey. Herein lies the problem:

Just the other day, I found myself on the edge of clicking a link to get to a link that would allow me to click to vote for the friend of a friend for god-knows-what. Seriously. I almost did this. I'm not even sure what stopped me. Perhaps it was the fresh air that blew into my office and brain at the very moment of clicking to a link to click to a link to..whoooooooosh. 

My next thought was: why? No, really, why? Who is Suzy? What does she do? And why in God's name would I vote for her?  

Yes, my dear friends and followers, we actually make completely uninformed decisions that may or may not have important consequences, like someone getting a kajillion scholarship dollars, getting on a national television program, or winning a pink stuffy. Or even perhaps, electing a Prime Minister. EVERY DAY. Uninformed. Every day. 

I understand that some of it is the point and power of social media. I believe anonymity plays a role. I also think we want to like and be liked. To show we care. And there is, of course, what I like to call: LAZI-ASS-NESS. It's just so darn easy. Click, link, click, VOTE. Phew, my social and political contributions made for the day. Time for Tims!

My dilemma? I still want to support you and yours. Vote for you and yours even. But now that my slippery slope has hit the buffer, I realize I need more from you. Tell me why it should be you. Or yours. Pretend you're Justin Trudeau and you want to lead the Liberal party. Because I'm already on your side; you just need to push me over the wall. 

Class of '88

Thinking of you lovely, fresh-faced high school seniors, gearing up for the big grad. The dresses, the tuxes, the dances, the dogwoods...the dates. Yes, it is that time of year and it is your time to shine. Enjoy yourself; you deserve it. Try not to kill yourself too; your parents deserve that.

I'm also thinking of us oldies, perhaps not as fresh-faced and nearing a different definition of "senior" but gearing up this season just the same. Gearing up for the high school reunion.

While my big 20 was almost two years ago, there is a new crop of reunioners heading to the gyms and tanning salons in a town near you. Right now. 38+-year olds hoping to wow their former classmates and crushes with their narrow waists and broad accomplishments. My advice to them: do it, go 2.0 or go home! You do want to look and feel your best when you see your old friends and flames but here is something else I'll share: it won't really matter in the end because in no time, you'll feel like you're with the people that know you best. Like your family, except that they won't hold things against you or make you feel guilty. But I digress.


However weird and nervous I felt at the start of my 20-year high school reunion, the most unexpected thing happened, I felt home. I felt like I had walked through the front door of a home I had built 20 years earlier, and although slightly embarrassed by the shag rug and velvet "paintings", I was relieved to see that my favorite chair and big comfy couch were right where I'd left them. I sunk into my old friends like they were cushions that knew my shape and form. My high school friends were memory foam and they felt damn good.

There are many reasons why this lovely old home and its contents took me by surprise. I may have built it 20 years ago, but I was no craftsman; some of the floors were slanting and I had written on some of the walls and thrown up in the toilet more times than was reasonable. I didn't always make the right colour choices or install things correctly. I had hung cheap drapes in a few of the rooms. I broke some of the dishes, on purpose.


But this house didn't care. Not one bit. It knew I wasn't perfect. It wasn't perfect either. It also hadn't actually noticed some of that lame stuff I had done. We had both aged and we had both grown into ourselves. My old friends are the people that will always know me best not only because we began the building of our future selves together but also because we spent many years with just each other's foundations and learned to love them, cracks and all.

When we signed each other's yearbooks at the end of that June, 1988, most of us knew we might never see each other again, and some of those people I probably never will. But if you get a chance, even at the ripe old age of 38, find the key under the mat and let yourself in. Go home.


Congrats, Class of 2010.


Love,
the Class of '88















Remember this one?

	Naked Eyes - Always Something There to Remind Me .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine