This is why the English language is so funny sometimes: (courtesy of Dictionary.com)

abecedarian: [noun] (ay-bee-see-DAIR-ee-uhn)
1. One who is learning the alphabet; hence, a beginner.
2. One engaged in teaching the alphabet.

Although just a tad late, the age of 26 is the Age of Awakening. An excerpt:

Many times we get bogged down with feelings that we can’t do something because we are not smart enough, we don’t have enough money, we are physically weak, or our health is not good. These feelings are our greatest enemies because they prevent us from achieving history-altering,-attention-rabbing,-world-changing accomplishments be making us feel that we are not in control of our lives. Determination, discipline, and perserverance are qualities that will make us successful in surmounting our wildest dreams. You can be a millionaire, you can travel across the world, and you can make the world a better place.

First you have to believe it. Then you just do it.

Sometime between 1 p.m. yesterday and 10 a.m. this morning, someone decided that the blue plastic recycling bins outside my apartment building were no longer welcome and must be burned to a crisp. One managed to escape the blaze and has now taken refuge on the other side of the garbage bin, but the other two are just a black mess of burned papers and and a huge puddle of melted plastic. Nothing survived except for the wheels.

What puzzles me is when it would have been done: I left at 1 p.m., and I’m pretty sure I would have noticed it had it happened before then. My apartment sort of faces a fairly well-used street, so I doubt that it happened during the daylight hours. I got back around 1 a.m., and I sleep with my windows open, so I think I would have heard the fire trucks had it happened between 1 a.m. and 10 a.m. Which leaves sometime after the sun went down but before 1.a.m, which might explain why I saw the lights on in the two apartments closest to the recycling bins when I got home last night.

It also makes me worry a little bit about the neighbourhood I live in.

When I was twenty-three and visiting Maine for our family reunion, several of us took a trip down to the local bar, which just happens to be owned by the long-time companion of one of the relatives. After several pitchers of beer (and some hilarious games of horseshoes), we closed the place and went to say goodbye to the owner. She chatted with us for a few minutes, then turned to me and said: “I wasn’t really sure I should serve you when you came up to the bar.”

Confused, I asked the obvious question, “Why?”

“Well, because you are only fifteen!”¹

“No, I’m twenty-three.”

“No you’re not!”

“Yes, I am.

“No you’re not!”

“Yes, I am.

“No you’re not!”

“Yes, I am. Would you like to see my driver’s license to prove it?”

She accepted my story but I could tell she had her doubts regardless.

Flash forward almost three years to tonight. While at the wedding of friends from work, I was asked how old I was by one of the groomsmen, who vaguely remembered me from the Stag and Doe about a month ago for the same couple.

“Twenty-six.”

“Twenty?”

“No, twenty-six.”

“Oh, good. When we were serving you at the Stag, we were a little worried that maybe you weren’t old enough to drink”.

?!?!?!??!?

What it is about me that screams “underage teenager”? The groomsman tonight made a vague comment about me “dressing young” at the Stag and Doe. I can’t actually remember exactly what I was wearing other than jeans (I remember because the thread on the inside button unraveled and it fell off), but I presume it was probably a t-shirt, with a sweater on top. It was a stag and doe. You get drunk and dance. Was I suppose to be wearing a business suit?

Most women would probably be happy being told they look several years younger than their age. Perhaps in a few years I won’t mind it, but right now I’d like to look my age. Because I really don’t want to be picking up nineteen year old boys.

¹Part of my really wants to know, if she really did think I was only fifteen, why on earth did she serve me? Even if I am family, the legal drinking age is twenty-one.

The kiwi lays a one-pound egg. The kiwi only weighs six pounds. That’s one big egg.

Your eyeball is its full size when you are born.