Long-distance twins

It’s my 30^th birthday tomorrow, which means it’s also my twin sister Joy's 30^th birthday tomorrow.

I know...GET OUTTA TOWN!!!

Do you remember how people used to ask us all the time if we had the same birthday??

“Ya’ll are twins?? For real?? You got the same birthday???”

Really, that was the number one question, followed by “do you have the same mom?” and “do you have the same dad?”

("Yes, we're just like regular sisters, only we were born at the same time.")

For the past three years, however, we’re asked a new question: how can you and your twin live so far apart? 

They mean New Orleans to South Carolina.

And I don’t really have an answer. It sucks. It sucks about as much as it would if you lived away from your sibling and best friend at the same time. 

And…your therapist. 

And your personal comedian. 

But when you plan your life in a particular place, you sacrifice things.

Joy and I talk on the phone every single day. Seriously, and on the proper phone.

We Facetime sometimes, but I don’t want to see her face because it makes me miss her too much, and I don’t want to see my face because Facetime makes it look like my forehead is running away from my body.

Joy and I talk like a couple in a long-distance relationship. 

We scold each other when one of us doesn't call the other back in a timely manner, or scold the one responsible for us not talking daily. 

Ha.

“Ummm…excuse me, I did call you back, yes I did, I’m going to check my outgoing calls!” 

I remember when we separated time zones for college, when I went to South Carolina and she went to Baton Rouge. (How the tables have turned…)

It was hard then, too, and I kept for a long time a hilarious note she wrote to me saying, “Our official call day is Sunday!”

Hahahahahahahahahaha

Yea, Sunday and every other day of the week.

And this was years before we had cell phones.

Joy actually missed class one day talking me out of a freakout because she couldn’t leave the landline/dorm room. Haha. Dorms.

When I studied abroad in Spain, I bought a cell phone and paid $1 euro per minute…PER MINUTE…to call Joy in Baton Rouge.

Sure, it was cheaper using a calling card at a pay phone which I did, but drunk Jenny thought euros were really Monopoly money and I blew a lot of (pre-paid) cash on long-distance calls to Joy. Worth it.

When we got our first cell phones as sophomores in college, our mom signed us up for unlimited calling to each other’s phone, and for good reason. We checked the settings on our phones one day to see how many hours we spent talking to each other and it was literally thousands. 

Thousands of hours.

Joy and I don’t text, though. That’s one quirky thing, since in general I text more than I talk on my phone. But, for us, texting would just be a lesser version of talking.   

We only text each other when we’re at work and/or in a pinch –“What’s your address I need it for 401k shit” or “Your SSN ends in XXXX right???”

(For those that are curious, we have the same social security number except for the last four digits. But that’s probably not that weird.)

Also NOT weird?? That our birthdays are on the same day.

AND THAT DAY IS TOMORROW!!!!!! AHHHHH!!

Joy told me on the phone this week that she’s feeling "uneasy" about being 30 years old, to which I responded, “Oh, so you think I’M old??"

This is the same script as anything else we say to each other that is self-loathing.

"It's so annoying trying to find jeans. My body is so awkward."

"Oh, so you think MY body is awkward???"

"I have crow’s feet around my eyes in that picture.”

“Oh, you think I have crow’s feet?”

Hahahaha (ca-caw ca-caw)

But guess what??? 

We don’t have to be long-distance twins for our birthday this year because JOY IS FLYING TO NEW ORLEANS TODAY!!! I haven’t seen her since January!

I hope she brought some new clothes with her. Ha. (Yes, twins share clothes, duh.)

In college, we didn’t always spend our birthdays side by side, but that’s because there are spring exams and your birthday doesn’t always land on a weekend.

But for the better part of the last decade when we lived together in South Carolina and since I've moved back home, there was never any question that we would spend our birthday together. 

Delta Airlines loves us. 

And I’m dying with excitement to pick her up from the airport tonight. Best. present. ever.!!! 

Best of all, we won’t be talking to each other on the phone at all this weekend! 

No more missed calls, no more speaker phone while one of us brushes our teeth – “I AM listening! IM brushingmyteefyoureonspeakerffffone”

NO! This weekend, we’ll get to talk to each other face to face!!! The way it was supposed to be!!! The way God intended!!

I hope someone asks us if we have the same birthday. 

Or the same social security number.

:)

Love you, Joy.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

Today's Toolbag Tuesday is dedicated to whoever set off the bombings at the Boston City Marathon yesterday.

Whoever that is, is Toolbag number one in my heart.

But today, let's talk about Bob. 

When I was dabbling in online dating (shudder), one of the first messages I got was from a fairly unattractive guy talking about how he'd already planned a date for the two of us for Valentine's Day.

"Good news, I have a limo (ED note: hahahahhahaha) and we're going to Fondouely Yours! (hahahahaha) What time should I pick you up?"

I was so new to online dating that I thought he was serious and envisioned this poor guy on Valentine's Day checking his OKStupid messages for my response, while Jeeves stood nearby. 

"Oh…I'm sorry, I have plans." I wrote. Then I felt bad. This poor guy really wanted to take me out! Now what's he going to do with that limo??!!!

...That is, until I found out another friend of mine got the exact same message. (She didn't write him back.)

Hahahahaha. HE WAS FISHING!!!! 

Just throwing messages to, what, 20 girls? 50 girls??? 

Incencerity will get you nowhere, guy.

Anyway.

Bob, this guy my friend Tess went out with, did the same thing…only he didn't attempt anything cute like a planned date. No. 

He and Tess went out TWICE and did nothing romantic, they just both happened to be at the beach two weeks earlier and talked for awhile, but he MASS TEXTED her one Saturday morning with this message: 

Hey, I dreamt I was watching porn and woke up with my pants around my ankles. Wanna see??

!!!!!!!!!!

?????

A MASS TEXT!!!!!  To, like, 10 numbers!!!!

Dude. 

(In related news, the iPhone doesn't "blind carbon copy" multiple recipients. This isn't Yahoo.)

Somehow Bob thought it was an appropriate message to send to 10 people, including someone who hadn't so much as held hands with him. 

HE WAS FISHING!!!!  

What, whoever wrote back was the 'lucky lady????' He didn't matter who it was, anyone will do??

Gross. 

Tess wrote back all right.

"NO. I DON'T WANT TO SEE" she wrote.

Nine other females got the message.

But what did Bob do?? HE SENT HER A PICTURE ANYWAY! 

Yes, it was a picture of his penis. in bed. making a tent out of his sheets.

(GUYS. STOP DOING THIS.) I can't find one female that wants to see that, let alone ten at the same time.

Tess looked at the phone, disgusted. She hadn't seen Bob in over two weeks, and said she gave him no indication that she was at all interested in seeing him naked.

And that fact that she flat out told him no, which he ignored.

WHEN SOMEONE SAYS NO THAT DOESN'T MEAN YES.

Tess didn't write back, and neither did any of the other mystery numbers in the mass text (MASS TEXT!!) haha.

A week later, Bob texted her - and only her - saying he was sorry, which Tess appreciated. 

Maybe he was still drunk from the night before and was just super horny, she thought. Maybe he wasn't that super disgusting and this was just a minor slip-up.

Yet, hilariously, she was pumping gas one day soon after when she saw Bob drive by. Tess almost waved at him until he cat-called, "Heeeey, pump it! Yea baby!" And drove off. (Ed note: HHAHAHAHAHA)

It was then that Tess looked around and saw that there were three females pumping gas at that moment. He probably didn't even recognize her.

Effing fishermen.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

My friend Julie walked into living room of her boyfriend's dad's house, more scared than she'd ever been in her life. 

She was a senior in high school and had just taken a pregnancy test. 

Her boyfriend Henry's dad didn't get home until late, so they wouldn't be interrupted while they used the bathroom and learned the truth. 

Julie had just peed on the pregnancy stick, her first time taking such a test, placed it on the bathroom counter and walked into the kitchen to wait. 

Henry, also a senior, was nervous as hell even though he told her that NO, it couldn't be real, this is all going to work out fine. 

Julie shook. 

"I can't look!" she said when the five minutes was up. 

"I can't go in there and see that I'm pregnant, I just can't!"

"I'll do it," Henry said stoically, walking to the bathroom. 

That's when, without thinking, Julie ran UPSTAIRS, as far away from the pee stick as possible, hoping to outrun her fate.

She listened for a reaction from Henry downstairs but didn't hear anything.

After five minutes of silence, shallow-breathed and panicky, she slowly walked back downstairs. 

Her heart fell when she saw Henry sitting on the couch, crying. 

"Oh my God," Julie said when she saw him rocking, actual boy tears coming down his face. It was clear what the results were.

She walked over to him carefully, a million thoughts going through her head and sat down next to him on the couch.

"I'm pregnant aren't I?" she asked, tears now forming in her own eyes. 

Henry sniffled and kept looking down, red-faced. 

Julie then bent down to meet his eyes with hers, when a huge smile crept on his face.

"NO YOU'RE NOT!!!! JUST KIDDING!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA I GOT YOU GOOD, DIDN'T I???" he said, wiping fake tears from his face. 

"HAHAHAHAHA YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE LOOK ON YOUR FACE!"

Henry hasn't been heard from since.

-Jenny

The weekend my grass was blue, part deux

Do you, children of the 80s, remember those choose-your-own-adventure books?

Where you read up to a certain point and then they'd be like, "If you want Tarzan to stay in this part of the jungle turn to page 40? 

Or, “If you want Tarzan to look for the golden coconut somewhere else turn to page 63?”

Well allow me write my OWN choose-your-own-adventure book set at the bluegrass festival my friend Meredith and I went to last weekend!!

Yes, technically this adventure started when we decided to drive seven hours again to Florida for the Suwanee Bluegrass Festival.

(It turns out people haven't gotten tired of bluegrass music and are still holding festivals.)

This trip was just as magically rustic as last year’s inagural trip was – camping, eating food from a cooler, swimming in lieu of taking a shower, etc.

But the rain. Oh, man the rain. The stupid rain that comes every time I plan to do something outdoors in Florida (see here. And here.)

But this rain turned out to be the catalyst for our PICK-(IN') YOUR OWN ADVENTURE ADVENTURE (ha), so I’m not going to boycott Florida...yet. 

After a music-filled Friday evening where I met a nice guy (you always meet nice guys at this festival!) 

Meredith and I woke up Saturday morning, bluegrass-hungover, and nervously looked at the top of the tent as rain poured down. 

We crossed our fingers and looked at a radar app on my phone.

Hmmm. A big, colorful splotch was slowly moving over the entire Florida panhandle extending well into Georgia and South Carolina. This was no spring shower.

We ate peanut butter breakfast bars in the tent and contemplated this information.

But we didn’t have to sit long, because the people who camp at bluegrass festivals are the most awesome people in the world, and our campsite-mates had already collected underneath a large tarp, playing music (pickin’), laughing, telling stories and chopping wood. We happily joined them.

It was like a scene from Huck Finn (maybe…if he had a troupe…and a horse head costume...and boxed wine), where 15 of us gathered under the shelter near a river miraculously staying dry while the rain poured down, playing games and toe-tapping.

PROPER PICKIN’!!!!!

And Yahtzee! I played Yahtzee for the first time...AND GOT YAHTZEE!!!

YAHTZEE!!!!

And this is what we did pretty much all day Saturday. Awesome.

I made a ton of new friends and a mental note to dust off my fiddle and learn some chords when I got back home so I, too, could provide entertainment to a group of people in a pinch. 

I also learned a new use for the bag of wine that comes inside the boxed wine.

Box wine pillow!! Perfect for napping!

That evening, during a break in the clouds, the group wandered over to the main stage to hear Old Crow Medicine Show, the headlining bluegrass band, and they were fantastic. 

BONUS: Since the crowd was light due to the rain, we wiggled up to front row with no problem.

We woke up waterlogged on Sunday to the most gorgeous spring day, swam in the coldest river ever, changed clothes and thought about our options.

There were bands still playing the festival that day, but the only stage that was open was the indoor stage. 

Did we want to be indoors?

Did we want to wait at the campsite until the outdoor stages opened again??

Or…did we want to drive to the BEACH????

……

If you’d like Jenny and Meredith to stay in Live Oak, Florida and hear bluegrass indoors, go to page X (at the top right or left of this screen)

If you’d like Jenny and Meredith to drive to a Florida beach, scroll down.

……

BEACH!!! 

We both decided this with very little debate. 

So early Sunday afternoon we packed up our stuff, said goodbye to our new friends (“see you next year!”) and off to the beach we went.

It wasn’t just any beach. It was Grayton Beach, a special beach to Meredith and one I had already been to in a former rain-cation.

Grayton Beach was on the way back to New Orleans, so we figured that since we’d have to drive that distance anyway, why not cut the festival short and catch the sunset on a proper seashore.

And we realized that a bluegrass band we saw at the festival Friday was playing at a bar in Grayton Beach Sunday night.

BLUEGRASS ENCORE!!!!

Two girls on the open road – cheesy but true - we continued our music theme with a Paul Simon CD, windows down, and made it to Grayton in record time, pausing to take in the shore once we saw the endless horizon.

Then we sat on the beach and drank wine and cheers-ed to no rain.

We walked down the street and heard the catchy first set of the band Dread Clampitt (haha) and I could feel the sweet fiddle in my bones when we hit another fork in the road.

We looked at the clock. 

We’d either have to leave the beach at that moment to get to Panama City to spend the night with a friend….or stay the night with a new friend who lived near Grayton, meaning we could catch the second half of the show but had to leave an extra hour-and-a-half early the next morning to get back to New Orleans by 9 a.m. for work.

….

If you’d like Jenny and Meredith to leave now and go to Panama City, go to page X (at the top right or left of this page.)

If you’d like Jenny and Meredith to stay and hear more music, scroll down.

…..

Bonus: the moon sure does look pretty at 4 a.m.

:)

Here’s to next year.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

In my first year in college, when I was traveling home by plane to New Orleans every three months for holidays and semester breaks, I decided I would be SUPER cool and attach a pair of ballet pointe shoes to my carry-on bag.

I wasn't a ballerina. 

I just wanted people to think I was.

"Oh, yea, I'm just going to another…uh, recital," I would have said, had anyone had asked me about the tattered shoes that originally came from my friend from middle school.

It was amusing, fantasizing about my second-life where I was this beautiful ballerina and everyone in the airport knew it as I floated from terminal to terminal to…the Nathan's Hot Dog line. 

No one ever asked me about my formal training during those trips, though, haha, so I don't know how I would have reacted. 

Would I have pretended my old life as a college student didn't exist and replace it with tales of international ballet auditions? 

"I go around the country to observe swans. I'm actually going to Brussels right now!"

That's the thing about traveling alone: it's the easiest way to deceive someone.  

No one knows who you are, where you're from or where you're going. They can't even peek at your phone because it's (supposed to be) in "airplane mode." 

The only real known of a stranger is what seat they're in and, if they've made it through security, they don't have a bomb up their butt. 

Yet, many people take WAY more advantage of this anonymity than affixing scuffed ballet shoes on their bag pretending to be disciplined.

I think some of these "business travelers" have a wiring glitch, where they completely forget their old lives when they're on the road.

Or, you know, they just want to get laid. 

Steve, this guy my friend Mary met on an airplane last year had it all figured out. He was no ballerina, but he was a business traveller, a successful realtor and wore a suit and tie. 

He was traveling to the expensive beaches off Florida to do an appraisal for something, he said. Everything about him was attractive. 

Mary was flying home from visiting her parents back to Florida where she lived and she and Steve started flirting and MILE-HIGH KISSING and pretty soon they had a date to grab drinks after he was done with his "real estate" business.

(She should have asked for a card.)

Steve waxed on for hours about his job and his life in New York City over drinks. He was this perfect bachelor who seemed to have it all. Mary was completely head over heels for him. She wanted to go to New York.

So, she slept with him. She woke up refreshed in his hotel room.

Nothing about Steve screamed phony (as would a simple plié had I been called out for my ballet skills), and Mary got his number and looked forward to the next time he was down in the area for "business."

But he never returned her calls or texts. Mary was confused. 

He had said nothing but syrupy sweet things to her all night! Suddenly he leaves and forgets her completely?

She was convinced there was a connection; that she'd break him of his bachelor-hood and he'd be with her forever. 

SO WHAT WAS GOING ON??? 

Her visions of visiting him in New York and telling everyone the cute story about how they met on a plane - serendipity! - quickly turned to a frown and furrowed brow after days of no response. 

So she took to internet stalking him.

Funny, Steve didn't show up as a major real estate agent when she Googled him. Or…any…real estate agent for that matter. 

WHAT ABOUT THE EXPENSIVE BEACHFRONT PROPERTY??? 

His name was not attached to anything online. A search of his name only turned up random articles from MyAncestry.com.

Hmm. Odd.

Steve said he didn't have a Facebook page (of course he said that) but she decided to look anyway.

And that's where she found him. STEVE, the traveling paper salesman….posing all over his profile with his WIFE and daughters (plural).

A PAPER SALESMAN!!! A MARRIED PAPER SALESMAN DAD!!! 

Mary then texted him something furious about his house of lies and Steve actually responded, saying he'd "explain everything" when he "traveled" back there next month. 

Which he didn't do because he's NOT AN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TRAVELER.

Dude.

What deranged person goes through all that trouble to lie about a very specific second-life??? 

I mean, Steve talked for HOURS about his (supposed) business dealings, BEING A BACHELOR and painted a very clear picture of his glamorous, diaper-free life in New York.

HOURS.

Sure, Steve. And I just got accepted into the American Ballet Theatre.

UGH.

It's people like this that are the real terrorists.

-Jenny