Manchild. But in a good way.

Every so often, I feel substantially vivid pangs of nostalgia. I know that people often reminisce about their respective childhoods, but for some reason things stick in this crazy ol' brain of mine. If I see something even remotely resembling something I saw on Sesame Street or Mister Rogers' Neighborhood over twenty years ago, I'm instantly transported back there to the fantastic, WAY simpler times.

When I was a kid, everything interested me. Games. Books. Lamb Chop's Play-Along. Spinning around on the playroom floor and trying to walk through the doorway without falling down. You know, normal stuff. I've noticed recently that there is so much less that interests me. I'll be 26 years old in just over a month, and I've come again to the horrible realization that being a grownup totally blows. All I do is work and come home. Work and come home. Work and come home. It's such a paradox; you're growing up and you long for the independence and regularity of adult life... then you arrive, fully blossomed into a semi-functioning adult, and all you want to do is fingerpaint, eat Lunchables and take a nap at 3:30 in the afternoon.

It is crazy the things that do stick with you though. There's this ancient Sesame Street segment consisting of a completely black background, and a metal track with a red ball. The ball rolls through the track's obstacles in triplicate, teaching its infantile audience how to count to three. I remember having a recurring dream in high school and college of this exact scenario. I'd be dreaming of the red ball and the 1970s synthesized music with the faint tinge of circus-creep, and all of a sudden, I'd sit bolt upright in bed, throw the covers off of myself, and run full speed across the room until I realized I was just dreaming. (I've often said I would be a therapist's white whale, but it doesn't really sink in until I say weird shit like this publicly.)

The most recent catalyst of my unsettlingly accurate memory lane excursion was Kidsongs. I don't know where they came from, but I remember having almost the entire collection, copied to VHS (another throwback entirely) by my handy-dandy mother. I remember the day at Old McDonald's farm with the kid Shawn who liked hotcakes. I remember the day at the theme park where they imagined themselves back in the 1950s, singing Little Douce Coupe on the bumper cars. I remember the strange trip to Sillywillyville, where they met a Flying Purple People-Eater. There was the one where they all said what they wanted to be when they grew up. The one where they played sports. The one at the circus. The one with the bedtime songs.

I was so stricken by all the memories flooding into my cerebral cortex, that I was tempted to purchase the entire set of DVDs on Amazon. Luckily, I came back to the present long enough to stop myself from spending money on crap I don't need. The good news is that at least Amazon HAS the Kidsongs DVDs. They don't even make my favorite Christmas story anymore. Ten points if you can name it. Here's a hint

The other dwarfs//All have pretty names

They won't ever let me play//in their games

Golly gee//and woe is me

And _______//is my name

But for real, how great would it be if we could do the whole... "chocolate-milk, Nickelodeon, playing-outside-until-it's-dark, plastic-Where's-Waldo-lunchbox, and only-going-to-school-to-learn-about-what-a-square-is-or-what-September-means" thing? I'm pretty sure this would be a much more awesome planet to live on.

So I like crafts. So what?

How gay is it if I say: "My crocheting is getting exponentially better"?

I'm not one to perpetuate stereotypes, but I have recently delved into the art of yarn. I went a little crazy at Michael's a few weeks back, and have since collected 2 sets of knitting needles, 7 crochet hooks, and about 12 skeins of yarn. It does assuage my genderbent discomfiture to know that the name of the founder of the store is, in fact, "Michael."

My mother was (and I would guess, IS) an avid yarnist. Over the years, our family has had a large quantity of woven blankets in our possession, and I would be hard pressed to put a tangible number to the macrame Christmas ornaments-slash-decorations are in the basement. She taught me how to crochet when I was still in middle school. She was working on a gift afghan for someone, the hook flying in and out of loops like a precision machine. I was fascinated. I chalk it up to my motor skills having not fully developed yet, because my work was sophomoric and sloppy.

To further perpetuate the stereotype I'm trying to avoid, most of my college friends were female. A lot of these ladies had old souls, and thus they made a highly informal stitch-n-bitch circle. This consisted of my friend Erin (who had been knitting her whole life) bringing a project over to our apartment on a day she was kind of miffed about something. While she complained, she had managed to knit about 12 inches of the scarf she was working on. Needless to say, we were intrigued. We all trucked over to Wal-Mart, bought some yarn and some needles, and she gave us the crash course in knitting.

Countless scarves, ipod sleeves and heartbreaking pullouts, I realized that I had never learned how to complete a project. I could loop and pull and knit and purl and half-double crochet until I was blue in the face, and I would never have a finished product.

So I gave up.

Then one day a few weeks ago, while meandering through Michaels on Clark, I came across their yarn sale. I bought 5 or 6 skeins and a hook, picked up a few free pattern instructables, brought them home and started chaining my life away.

Round 1: Ch 49 Whoo hoo!

Round 2: Turn, dc in 2nd ch from hook, [dc in next st, Ch 1] across. Uh... what?

Round 3: Ch 1, turn, 4 hdc in same st, ch 5, skip next 2 st, 38 Fpdc across, ch 5, skip next 2 st, 4 hdc in same st. YOU WILL LOSE 6 ST. ohmygodmakeitstop...

It is at this point when I grab my trusty computer and go to the handy dandy google search to decipher this bizarre code. And thank god for technology. While more often than not, I curse the developments that have led to the decline of human interaction, I have a difficult time remembering when everything under the sun couldn't be found on either Wikipedia or Youtube or some other e-source.

Wikipedia brought me to entire websites devoted to crocheting and knitting and I chose to ignore how sad it was that there were entire websites devoted to crocheting and knitting. These sites told me what the crazy letters mean. Youtube showed me how to translate the crazy letter code words into actual practice. And lo and behold, I'm almost finished with my first project! A washcloth. It's pink with white and beige accents.

Screw it. Over and out... and proud.

I feel the earth move...

It's interesting how much your life can change over a certain amount of time. In just a year, I have been given several new opportunities. The natural occurrence of these opportunities has resulted in what can only be described as a complete uprooting and repotting of my life. I have been taken out of the trampled garden of my post-college life and replanted in a nice greenhouse in the Hamptons, a beefy gardener named Javier tending to my every need.

Okay, so I'm not a rare orchid. But I feel like a completely new person than I did a year ago. I lived in a hovel in New York City, I was a couch surfer with no true place to call home. I was unemployed for a much larger percentage of my time out of college than I care to remember. My bills weren't getting paid. I didn't feel in control of my life.

I reflect back and I think of the major plot points of my lifemovie. I can't be sure if it was my cousin, my parents' friends' daughter, or my 7th grade best friend who ultimately saved my life. I saw my cousin, in the chorus of Once Upon a Mattress when she was in middle school. My parents' friends' daughter was some sort of lion-type animal in a bizarre children's retelling of The Wizard of Oz or Little Red Ridinghood or something. And my best friend in 7th grade broke plans with me one day because he had to go to drama club rehearsal. Either of these three things sparked my interest in theatre. This, in turn, inspired me to take theatre classes in high school. In these classes, we took a handful of trips to North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, MA where I saw professional theatre for the very first time. I graduated high school and progressed to Westfield State College, where I met Jack Shea and majored in Theatre Arts. Excelling in this program allowed me to participate in the American College Theatre Festival, where I met Bridget Sullivan, the Associate Production Manager at North Shore Music Theatre. This connection ultimately led me to a career opportunity at NSMT after I graduated college. During my time at NSMT, I met Ben Raffalli, a young actor who raved about this magical place called Stagedoor Manor. Stagedoor is a performing arts summer camp in upstate New York. At Stagedoor, I met the most gifted and talented young performers that impressed upon me a renewed faith in what the human spirit can be. Also at Stagedoor, a fellow staff member became a best friend, and that best friend became the man I plan on spending the rest of my life with. While at Stagedoor, he and I decided to move to Chicago together. I moved to Chicago after camp and miraculously landed a temp job at one of the fastest-growing online companies this country has ever seen. Within months, I am hired full time with salary and benefits. This, in turn, means that I have successfully been paying all my bills on time while living comfortably in between.

So whoever is responsible for that lovely abridged version of my life: Thanks. You rock my socks. Like I said, it's interesting how much your life can change over a certain amount of time.