(I’ll let you guess which was most painful and awkward.)

In the video letter, I talked to my grandparents, filmed my dad tickling my mom and my mom pretending to hit my dad, showed off the tricks I had taught my parakeet, played a piano recital piece, and demonstrated how I could play a duet on the flute with myself, with the help of my handy tape recorder.

I played duets with myself by recording one part and playing it back while I played the second. That is how lonely I was at thirteen.

I also played tennis alone by hitting a ball against the house.

I generally don’t like to think about my early teen years. I squirmed the whole time I watched the video letter. There I was, in all my thirteen-year-old glory, my hair messy and my clothes baggy and ill-fitting and my glasses enormous, recorded for forever and played back in front of my family and my husband (who lived in Texas during the worst of the teen years).

But the funny thing is, as embarrassed as I was watching the video, I know I didn’t see myself like that then. At that point in my life, I was rather blissfully unaware of myself and of the teenager’s desperate need to fit in. I hadn’t gotten the memo yet. But I would, soon. In the year that followed the filming of that video letter, I lost my best friend after a slow drift apart (namely hers–toward more popular friends). I was on the verge of becoming intensely self-conscious, but I wasn’t quite there yet.

The video ended, and I laughed it off, and everyone seemed fine. No one seemed to notice how painfully awkward I had been–or, they didn’t care. Jesse thought it was cute. I realized that I was the only one who cared about my hair or my dorky shirts.

Later that weekend, we “interviewed” my grandmother on video, recording some of her memories. At the end of our interview, we asked if she had any closing advice. She thought for just a moment and said, “Just be what you already are.”

Just be what you already are.

How I wish I could rewind, visit my thirteen-year-old self and deliver this advice. Just be what you already are.

How I wish I could save her the years of trying to change herself, of trying to fit in. Getting contacts and straightening her hair and fussing with makeup and buying new clothes and smiling with her mouth closed because she doesn’t like her teeth. How I wish I could tell her, the people you’re trying to impress don’t care, and in fifteen years you won’t care about them.

Because the people who really matter think the frizzy hair is kind of cute.

This is a lesson that continually surprises me, one I don’t quite trust to be true yet. But I hope with time I will keep learning it. Until then, I’ll repeat it to myself, a mantra: Just be what you already are.

Last night, we watched a documentary about Allen Ginsberg.

Jesse has this wild curly hair, and right now he’s gone too long since his last hair cut, and it’s looking wilder. And then I realized: glasses. If Jesse had some cool glasses–thick frames, not too narrow–he could look a little like Allen Ginsberg.

He would need to wear more black, of course, to complete the poet-genius look. A handful of good button-down shirts to enhance the irony, to make a statement about The Man. Maybe a string of long thick beads could be added later on. I’m not into beards, so I think we could leave that part out.

I told all this to Jesse over breakfast this morning, and I think he thought I was joking. In time, however, I think he’ll see the brilliance of my idea and come around. In the meantime, I think I’ll make him an eye appointment…

We set off early for Boston, the first of two stops we’d make on our way home. After checking into our hotel, the Westin across from the Boston Public Library (Hotwire.com! I’m telling you!), we took off walking, stopping into an Irish pub for lunch. We split an order of Fish and Chips and a big steaming bowl of macaroni and cheese with Tasso ham. The macaroni was delightful, creamy and really quite sophisticated for being macaroni and cheese, and the fish and chips were perfectly crispy and mild.

Fueled up and ready to go, we hit the streets and headed for the Freedom Trail, a self-guided walking tour to a bundle of historic monuments and sights like:

The Granary Burial Ground, where Paul Revere’s remains reside:

Some of the oldest gravesites I've seen. Graves from the 1600s, 1700s, and I can't even think that far back. I kind of love the decorations.

The Old North Church, of one-if-by-land fame:

And a bunch of other places. In between historic sites, we ducked into Italian groceries to peer at homemade pasta and dozens of cheeses. We stopped at a huge Border’s just for the heck of it and passed a large outdoor market.

A giant macaroni noodle. Why not?

By evening, I was beat. All the walking plus a fitful sleep the night before and driving through Queens had me pretty pooped. We wandered around Back Bay and then decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel.

On the way back, though, we saw a girl with curly hair listening to an iPod, and I took off my sunglasses and turned to Jesse and said, “That is not Dana Sigmund.” And he said, “Oh yes it is.” I couldn’t believe it! Dana and I knew each other in college. She was in Sigma Tau and was VP the year I was president. She took over the club after I graduated. She’s remarkably similar to Miriam—she’s ridiculously cute and friendly and intelligent, and she’s got this fabulous curly hair that never, never looks bad.

After chatting for a few minutes in absolute shock, and in my shock completely forgetting to get a picture (Erin! For crying out loud! Get a picture!), we parted ways, Dana off to grocery shop, and Jesse and I off to find something cheap to eat (we were feeling the expenses of the trip, psychologically, though we were prepared financially for the cost).

In the end, we were completely lame and got fast food. I know. It wasn’t even good fast food. Burger King for him and Wendy’s for me (they were next to one another). We got it to go and walked our bags of fast food back to our fancy hotel, because apparently that’s how we roll, and then we ate at the desk in our room and then watched a movie we’d already seen and then went to bed. Goodnight, Boston.

The Atlantic Wire: Iran Bans Mullets

“In an effort to rid the country of ‘decadent Western haircuts,’ the Iranian government has unveiled a new list of state-sanctioned hairdos. Unfortunately for some, mullets, ponytails and eyebrow plucking didn’t make the list.”

I think I’ve spent most of my life believing they were the same person, but, it turns out, they are not.

(My Uncle Tim can also rock a mustache. Just wanted to throw that out there.)

While pondering the facial hair of the stars, I was reminded of Brad Pitt, and I did a little experiment.

I give you Brad Pitt, with Tom Selleck’s ‘stache:

Proof that even though Brad will never be a Tom or a Burt, a mustache would still be better than that beard.

Oh, and by the way, here is a website that combines Tom Selleck, waterfalls, and sandwiches. Miriam found this and posted it to her blog. Here’s an example, just to get you started:

Jesse didn’t get it, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why.

And here’s a short film about mustaches a friend of ours made for a local film competition. It won. (You have to stick around for the end credits, which Jesse made.)

The thing, I realized, is this: Brad Pitt is not getting any younger. We’ve only got so many more good years looking at him before he becomes an Old Man. And now he’s wasting the few good years we have left with that beard!

I know. I know. I’m sorry.

Other things you should know:

• The other day, I changed the air filter in my car, got my hands filthy, and felt very manly.
• I have never made pizza dough, but I have used regular bread dough and naan dough to make pizza, both of which turned out surprisingly well. I’ve decided I don’t like pizza sauce, much preferring freshly sliced tomatoes.
• I’m going to learn how to make my own tortillas.
• I want to vacation in Vietnam.
• I love bagpipes.
• And this? This is just stinking funny.

Let’s back up. The past few days have been a whirlwind—fun, nearly every moment of them, but packed. Thursday, I got up early to clean the house, wash linens, make the guest bed (er, futon), pick up a pork tenderloin and some good balsamic vinegar from Harris Teeter, and prep said tenderloin so it could marinate for the rest of the day. I watched A. for the afternoon, playing outside with him and the family’s Australian Shepherd, feeding him peas, and singing to him while stacking blocks. Every time I finish singing him a song, he claps, grins, and says, “Yay! Yay!” I have no idea how I managed that, but let me tell you, with that reaction, I’m singing all the time now. Sometimes, when I forget the words to “Hush Little Baby” (I can get started, but then I forget what order things are supposed to be given…) or run out of alphabet- or farm-themed songs, I resort to Elton John.

Thursday afternoon, about a half hour after I came home from watching A., Beth and her mom Cheryl drove up and we commenced the requisite hugging-and-squealing phase of the visit, which we followed with a house tour (about thirty seconds is all it takes to see the whole thing) and conversation in the living room. We then started dinner, popping the tenderloin in the oven and starting in on the mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, green beans, and bread. Jesse came home and we poured lemon Italian soda into champagne glasses and got out the tablecloth and had ourselves a nice little dinner. Jesse ran out to the store afterward to grab ice cream, which I’d forgotten earlier, and we had brownie and hot fudge sundaes. We stayed up late playing card games and something called Speed Scrabble (fun, fun, fun).

Friday morning, Jesse left for work early and Beth, Cheryl, and I had a lazy morning at home. We took our time getting up and getting ready, and then we set up a waffle bar for breakfast. Aunt Joannie got me this fabulous waffle maker for Christmas, the kind you flip over to make two waffles at once, and it’s red and shiny and, apparently, it makes The Best Waffles Ever. I took my mom’s suggestion and separated the eggs, beating the whites separately and folding them in at the end, and the waffles were light and fluffy but with perfectly crispy outsides. Yum. We improvised a blueberry-lemon syrup and we whipped cream and served the waffles with strawberries and macadamia nuts. Beth had brought a tea called Lady Grey, and we drank nearly a pot of it as we sat around the table, making and eating our waffles, and talking—so much talking!

Beth and I have known each other our whole lives. Our parents lived next door to one another in Nitro before we were born. Then we showed up, three months apart, and we’ve been friends ever since, even though both our families left West Virginia when we were children, even though we’ve not lived in the same state since we were four. Beth is kind and mild mannered and smart. In college, she majored in chemistry and French, and now she works in a hospital pharmacy, in a place so clean she wears a hairnet and cannot wear any makeup for fear it might flake off and contaminate someone’s IV bag. That fact alone puts her job into the category of Jobs I Will Never Do, but Beth does it because she’s not as vain as I am and has a very lovely complexion anyway.

Beth and her mom had to leave in the afternoon, so we took leftover veggie soup to the church and had lunch with Jesse before they headed out of town. After they left, I did a little copyediting and then went shopping. Because it was Friday and because I had a gift card and because it was warm enough to wear a skirt and flip flops, and that made life oh-so-good. At the mall, I found sales and managed to leave with $10 still on my gift card, and I drove to Ulta to pick up some makeup I was running out of (no hospital pharmacy for me) and I kept the windows down, which made my hair unhappy, but I didn’t care, because it made the rest of me happy and my hair is unhappy so often that its desires cannot be taken too seriously.

And then that evening I nearly forgot that Jamie Oliver’s new show was on, but I remembered in time to see three-fourths of it (so good!) and found the rest of it on Hulu today. (You can watch it there if you didn’t catch it.)

That brings us to yesterday, when we got up early and left for Charlotte to help Joannie move in to her new apartment. It’s in a fantastic part of town with a shopping center across the street that has a Target, a Harris Teeter, a movie theater, just about every kind of restaurant you could want, and dozens of other shops, including one that rents out audio books. Lovely! Mom and I cooked chicken fajitas for dinner and we drove around the area to see what we could see and we cooed at Joannie’s cats and tried to reassure them everything was fine, even though they were not quite sure what was going on. Jesse and I left after eight that night and made a wrong turn, which meant we pulled into our driveway about four hours later, just about cross-eyed with fatigue. And Oliver and Gracie were waiting at the door, meowing for dinner, which, they made clear to us, was far too late for their liking.

Look at it in action:

Wow! It flies! Wouldn’t you want hair that could do that?