come listen to a story

so my mom recently posted a lot of old photos on facebook. which is AWESOME. first i would like to share this photo b/c it's really... uhmm... well...

it grabs your attention?

just for clarity's sake, that's brittany, my little sister, in the pink. amber has the minnie ears on. and that's me sportin' the sun dress and what looks like white tube socks.

now here's one that i think shows our personalities well:

i've always been a little goofy i suppose. i really enjoy that dress i'm wearing though and i really wish i had one just like it now. for reals, i would wear that to work. and church. and on dates. because if i wore that dress to work and church i would have lots and lots of dates. guaranteed. i would rock that with some serious heels. and conservative earrings. i'm just saying.

my hat fetish is nothing new. proof:

i really didn't think that was me when i first saw the photo. but now that i look at it i see there is one big eye and one little one... so yeah totally me. ::hahaha:: i guess i was born that way. and here i thought that was from a stroke or something.

it was actually when i was looking at that picture when i was struck by the thought of how odd it is that i'm the same exact person now as i was when the photo was taken. yes, i have more hair, i'm taller and i drive a car now but those are the same eyes looking out. the same two hands. the same smile. the same brain firing. the same shoulders and knees. the same exact little me, wearing over sized accessories. isn't that amazing? my brain has stored a lot of data since then... experiences mostly. a few math equations. a couple of good one liners. some cheesy jokes. a salsa dancing routine or two. an assortment of ideas, judgements, opinions on things that come and go. but essentially i'm that same girl.

doesn't the idea of that just break your heart in a wonderful way?

and one last photo because i want to tell a story about what i'm wearing in it:

so i'm wearing this pajama dress that i looooved. the front had a design of a bear baking blueberry muffins. the great thing about these pajamas was that they came with a matching tiny pajama dress for a doll to wear. which is fine and dandy until you realize you're 4 and you can't remember which is for your doll and which one is for you, so you just put one on and you're TRAPPED. that is the worst feeling in the entire world and even when i think about it now i get a tightness in my chest and i feel all kinds of anxiety. i don't remember how i eventually freed myself from the doll pajamas. maybe i blacked out.

when i was a child i used to get pink eye all the time. i hate pink eye. it's a terrible thing to have happen to you. it's horrifying to wake up and not be able to open your eyes. ughhh. i don't even want to think about it. anyway, i haaaated having the drops put in my eyes because you know what? those suckers sting and you don't understand that as a child. all you know is that you are miserable and sick and your eyes hurts and maybe you can't even open them anymore and what does your mom want to do? she wants you to hold your eyes open while she pours burning liquid into them. uhmm, no thanks. i remember the last time i put up a fight over the eye drops. my mom's room was at one end of the hallway and at the other end of the hallway were the two kids' rooms. so i'm in my mom's room getting the drops in... as soon as i can squirm free i run down the hallway screaming with my eyes closed because they BURN and promptly run full speed into the wall between to the rooms. head meets door jam, elaina meets falling over backwards. never again did i put up a fight with the eye drops. learned my lesson about running with my eyes closed too.

speaking of things you decide when you're 4, that's exactly the age i was when i decided to never eat mashed potatoes again... and i never have. i used to LOVE mashed potatoes. one time for dinner we had roast and vegetables and mashed potatoes for dinner. long story short that night i got sick and spent a lot of time vomiting up that dinner. but that's not when the decision came about. no. the next morning i go to the fridge where i see a tupperware bowl of all the dinner leftovers mixed together which in 4-year-old-elaina-mind looks *exactly* like my vomit and i start the whole puking business up again. no one wants to look in the fridge and see a bowl of their vomit! at any rate never again was i able to look at mashed potatoes and not think, oh look vomit. and so here i am... TWENTY TWO YEARS later... and still i'm like uhh no thanks mashed potatoes, what did you mash them with? your esophagus?!

so here is something funny about the life of elaina currently: people keep asking me if i'm part of the tea party movement. like random people at work and people who don't know me at all. i don't know why. it's not like i run around talking about politics. pssh, i'm not at a point where i can run and talk about it anything at the same time. i have no idea why people think i'm part of the tea party. i really haven't done any research into what the tea party is about. maybe i should... maybe the tea party believes that everyone should be named elaina and be awesome to each other. maybe they hold the same ideals as the wyld stallions... at least the being awesome to each other part... and being from san dimas. because then i would be perfect for the tea party. also, someone called me alex p keaton the other day. and then asked if i keep a picture of richard nixon in my bedroom. to which i replied no, it's reagan.

one last thought: for many years i've had this theory that elaina isn't a proper noun but actually an adjective. you know because people will say things like 'oh you know she's just, very elaina.' and when i was born my parents were like 'oh she's... elaina.' and that's what i think about that.