Spellcheck is Your Tattoo's Best Friend

Some guy walks into a tattoo parlor wanting "Chi-Town" tattooed on his chest in Old English letters. He approves the design on paper, and after it's stenciled on his body before inking. He gets the ink, goes home, and the next day realizes that he got "Chi-Tonw" instead. Instead of showing his love for Chicago, it looks like he's showing his love for the #11 lunch special at Pho-Bac Viet's House of Noodles.

Now, to err is human, and these kinds of errs are all the more so. We tend to skim information we're familiar with, making it easy to miss typos. It's why you have someone proofread for you. The difference being you don't usually have your term paper tattooed on you when you're done.

Spontaneous tattooing can lead to eternal ridicule, people. Just be sure to have that bad boy checked over twice (by people who can spell. and read) before commitment (this also applies to new boyfriends/girlfriends. what a handy rule!).

Procrastination is a Four Letter Word

One thing I've noticed about the difference in attending college when you're 19, and going through it at 29 (oh, and can I emphasize that 29? because with a birthday coming up in May, I've found myself referring to myself as 30, and I'm just not comfortable with that kind of rounding up anymore): procrastination style.

At 19, my procrastination of choice was hanging out with friends, clubbing, drinking, drugs, all generally motivated my not entirely giving a shit. Now that I'm 29 (TWENTY-nine), I actually care about how well I'm doing, and am proud of my 3.9 GPA. But procrastination (aka, That Which I am Queen Of) remains my albatross, now exercised by playing with the dog, reading blogs and watching the season premiere of South Park (damn funny, btw).

Nevermind that I've got a statistics exam tomorrow, I must know more about this:

The breasts are accented with pink ribbons to coordinate with your man's wardrobe

Come on! Daddy Nurser?! I defy you to find one man who even in the privacy of his own home is willing to strap one of these things on. Robert DeNiro in "Meet the Fockers" excepted. Although it's tempting to purchase this and lie in wait for when Husband asks me if I'm going to breast feed. Then I'll whip it out and say, "I'm not - but YOU are!"

Even Worse if it's a Bloomin' Onion

I never thought of myself as a late bloomer. I've always been tall for my age (maxing out at 6' as an adult). I remember clothes shopping before freshman year of highschool and having several salesgirls ask me which college I was preparing to go off to. I've never been seriously carded for cigarettes (when I smoked, as a teen) or alcohol (unless the place has recently been shaken down, in which case even my 65 year old dad has to whip out his ID). I was advanced in reading, etc (your typical first born/only child early advantage - I'm no genius) blah blah blah ... suffice it to say, between my heighth and people telling me I seemed older than my age, I didn't think I'd ever fall into the late bloomer category.

And yet, here I am. Ok, so I'm 'on schedule' for some things - I married at 26 (almost 27), and I have a "career" kind of job. But. I have only just figured out what I wanted to do with my life, and I'm concerned that even that may change. I've figured these things out before, leaving behind me a trail of dead careers and identities. Oh, and did I mention, in the midst of this responsible married-ness and career, that I'm only just now completing college?

I can tell you, my grandfather would be rolling in his grave if he hadn't been cremated and scattered. Perhaps he's creating a furious dust tornado instead. Anyway, as an only child of a family of ancestors from various places (let's just say my family wasn't very discriminatory - if you weren't born in America, you were fair game, nevermind what little Poland and Scotland have in common. drinking?), it was up to me to be the first to attend and graduate college. Others had tried, all had failed. So the fact that I took off after no less than 3 different college attempts after highschool for Los Angeles to, um, pursue some other fancier dreams, would have killed grandpa if he wasn't gone already.

LA was good for me though. I finally figured out what finding yourself is. And I'm pretty sure I can assert with some authority that it does not include the following:
1) saying "I'm going to go find myself"
2) traveling to Europe on anyone else's dime
3) being concious of finding yourself in anyway; in fact, the more you're convinced you're just heading out on your own to have fun, probably the better*

Amazingly, part of finding myself was finding myself back in college, albeit with a full-time job and some good old adult responsibilities. And also finding I'm the idiot who bipassed the opportunity to have mom pay for most of my education while I supported myself part time at Starbucks. A lot of the time? Finding yourself is finding out you're an idiot.

Now I'm almost *cough*thirty*cough*, I'm in my second to last semester of college and feel like I'm almost definitely bound for grad school, having stumbled upon what I really want to do (which is, incidentally, exactly what I'd say I wanted to do if you asked me when I was 16. So basically, a lot of determining if you're a late bloomer or not is how long it took you to complete that circle). Of course, I'm also bound, hopefully, for motherhood (as long as reading about people's infertility problems isn't catching, but my they seem sadly prevelant, don't they?).

So am I a late bloomer? Maybe not in some instances. But when I'm in class, realizing I was actually where the rest of the students were 12 years ago, I certainly feel like one. And I'll admit, it's embarrassing. Although my husband, DJ (for DorkyJew), and I are ready to get started on having a kid so I can recreate all the neat things I'm learning in psych (kidding), the thought of being even a little bit pregnant for my last semester of school is unnerving. Like someone will come up to me with a flyer on repenting at the Wayward Home for KnockedUp Students. And yes, apparently all my anxiety imagination comes from 'Peyton Place'. It's really a standard I hold myself up to.

I figure I'll work it out here. I'm sure there would be plenty of people who could argue being an even later bloomer - "Ha! You think YOU'RE a late bloomer? I'm 74 and feel like I'm just now ready for a husband and some kids!" (do 74 year olds read blogs?) - I'll tell you why I feel like one: every time I look in the mirror, I feel like I'm still 16. (Read: I don't look 16 - I just feel like it). And all that uncertainty, coupled with that feeling that you've got nothin' but time, just floods me. And let's face it. That's a luxury only a 16 year old can have.

* Rule does not apply if your last name is Hilton, Richie, etc