Well, let's see. I'm 26 now. I spent the last 3 years of my life working as a waitress and bartender. I've had adventures, I've traveled, I've laughed...a lot. I've been someone's hero. I've slept under the stars...but not enough. I've had my heart broken and repaired and broken again. And repaired? I've moved away. I have my own place, my own space, for the first time ever. I have learned to make soup from scratch. I still haven't learned to take things one step at a time. I'm back in school, and I'm happy to report my brain hasn't fermented from the many years it was abused and neglected. I'm still clumsy. I still drive the same car. I still have a pair of the same shoes, and they've walked me back here.

.........................................

Yesterday I superglued myself to a doorknob, and in that exact same moment I realized that across the room, with nothing but a frozen chicken finger and hot stove element, I was lighting the house on fire.

I'm happy to report that nail polish remover is the ying to superglue's yang, and I was soon free to fight my fires with reckless abandon.

I've also learned that tying a shopping bag around a fire alarm will consequently shut it the hell up and allow you to run around with flaming chicken fingers in peace.

Although I chastise myself, and shake my head at my occasional failures at life, I try to tell myself this is a vast improvement over the last time I lit the kitchen on fire.

(That's what I learned the box says to heat pizza pops for 1 minute, not 10. You want to know how to make homemade molten lava? That's the recipe. And I'm still scraping cemented pepperoni off the insides of the microwave.)

And in kindergarten, I ate glue and lit bugs on fire with magnifying glasses.

So I tell myself, I'm growing. I'm progressing. Slowly.

Hmm.