so you think you can tumbl?

I recently read about this guy who, on his 30th birthday, decided to take one photo a day and blog it along with a story about his day. (I was going to link to it here, but now I can’t find it. Sorry, guy.) The photos are really beautiful. There are parks and forests and old people. (You know how photos of old, weathered people are always beautiful. Don’t act like you don’t.) There are bbqs and animals and relatives and nature. There are artsy shots of cabinet doors and big messes and dilapidated houses and rivers and birthday cakes. There are a wide variety of stunning photographs. I was thinking, “I should DO this! Why can’t I take a beautiful photo every day and blog it and write a meaningful story about it?! I can I can I can!”

Last night I realized exactly why I can’t do this. Because my pictures would consist of my laptop, the laundromat, an 8-year-old child watching Wizards of Waverly Place, and a few martinis. Oh, and this:

We shared lollipops and water bottles for the sake of sharing saliva. We asked, “Can I try?” We sat cross-legged, writing our names on each other’s shoes, licking Cheeto dust from our fingers. We stretched rubber bands around our wrists. We chased each other through corn nut scented hallways.  We poured glue on our hands and peeled it off, like layers of skin. Pizza slices were square. Carrots were stubby. We dipped everything in ranch dressing.

We got older. We made lists of favorites. We said, “You haven’t seen that movie?” and raised our eyebrows in disbelief. We imagined where we’d lose our virginity (prom), how we wanted our husbands to propose (the beach). We said we didn’t want to have kids until we had careers and had traveled. We were mean to our mothers and sweet to our fathers. We slammed doors and cut our legs shaving. We said we didn’t know how that got there. We put tampons under faucets to see what they would do inside our bodies. We crammed into dressing rooms. We stole bras and jellybeans. We said, “Love ya.”

We kissed boys, gathering tips from girls who had kissed boys. We used our tongues to write our names on their tongues. In cursive. We popped zits on our chins and caked on cover-up. We exaggerated our sighs. We saved pages for each other in our yearbooks. We linked arms and walked in circles. We hugged after school, before school, before leaving parties. Our parents dropped us off at driver’s ed. We said we wanted to have kids when we were young enough to become their best friends.

We gave hand-jobs in Jacuzzis, under blankets in friends’ living rooms while others pretended not to notice. While we watched Scream. We cried for no reason. We cried for every imaginable reason. We filled out applications. We traded answers. We fought over who got less sleep and who had more homework. We met for salads and to buy jeans. We watched TV shows and chose our characters. We all heard about someone who died. We parallel parked and flirted with each other’s boyfriends. We said, “Love you.”