This Friday, I shall reach the age of 43. I did not ever think I would get this old, but be damned if it didn’t happen. So, in honor of that occasion, in about nine days (more or less; I don’t like math, and thus am not counting) I am going to Mexico with four of my closest friends. We shall drink tequila and Coronas with lime, and sit on the beach, and talk about all the things we’ve learned—and a helluvalotta things we haven’t learned yet, but are willing to try and and discover. In honor of that, my birthday, and just because I have reached an age where I can do some things solely because I feel like it, I have decided to share some things I’ve learned with all of you. I know. You’re thrilled.

1. Do not give digital equipment of ANY kind to any child over the age of 12. Should you make this mistake, you will discover that NO, you cannot boogie like you think you can, even fueled by tequila and poor judgment. Just remember: children and digital equipment=bad.
2. Disco was NEVER a good idea, even back in the 1970s. It’s an even worse choice when you are nearly 43 and drinking tequila. You are NOT the dancing queen. There is digital proof.
3. If you drop a cell phone into a Frodka (Fresca and Vodka) chances are it will not survive. (Don’t ask. I’m not even sure how I did it myself.)
4. If you keep your store of Diet Dr. Pepper out on the back porch, because it’s really cold out there, and then it gets even MORE than really cold, there is a good chance that the cans will explode and you will think someone is shooting at you when you hear that noise. Even worse, when your heart slows down and gets back to normal, if you bring the cans in, and put them in the sink, hoping they will thaw, and ONE explodes in there, the DOG will think you are hunting him, and will hide for hours, and sulk. He will think that the one person he loves the VERY VERY MOST is trying to kill him with flying frozen shards of Diet Dr. Pepper. (My apologies to Stormy the Wonder Dog. The only thing I hunt for is my keys. I was NOT trying to kill you. And even if I was, flying Diet Dr. Pepper would not have been my weapon of choice. I’d have gone for an Uzi.)
5. A wild weekend when you are nearly 43 is not the same as a wild weekend when you are nearly 21. A wild weekend of 43 usually ends around 11 p.m., instead of 5 a.m. The only reason I am awake at five a.m. these days is because I have to pee. The bladder is not as strong as it used to be.
6. A wild weekend at nearly 43 is not terribly exciting. It involves dance performances, and birthday parties for 16-year-olds that just yesterday were two, and walking around your house asking you, “Nana, gum? Nana, gum?” These days, they want the car keys. Fuck the gum.
7. Speaking of gum, Stormy the Wonder Dog likes gum. It is not pretty.
8. If you get the hiccups, and you are over the age of, oh, twelve, YOU HAVE HAD TOO MUCH TO DRINK.

So, there you have it. Apparently, I have not learned a lot in my life. I’m sure I’ll think of some more later, but for now, I have this to say. Dance Teachers do not hold their liquor. Dance Teacher, stay away from the Tequila. Thank you. That is all.

Melissa Senate, author of The Breakup Club, and a bunch of other wonderful novels, is here visiting us on Trapped. While I am not going to FORCE her to stay here, I did want her to get a taste of what it is like to be Trapped. So, I asked her to answer the following questions. They are below, for your reading enjoyment.

1. If you had to be “Trapped” somewhere, where would it be?

Rome, sipping the world’s best cappucino and spending my days in the Vatican Museums, marveling at frescos.

2. If you could pick your “Trapped” companions, what three people would you want with you, and why?

My husband and our son because I love, love, love them. And a good babysitter.

3. If you could only pick five books to be “Trapped” with, what would they be?

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery; Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen; The Portable Dorothy Parker; Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott; Birds of America by Lorrie Moore.

4. What ONE famous person would you absolutely NOT want to be “Trapped” with?

Simon Cowell.

5. You can bring three things from your “former” life to “Trapped.” What would those three things be?

A good book, my laptop, and Morningstar Farms soy bacon.

6. Where is one place you absolutely would NOT want to be “Trapped.”

A loooong flight without a book and a chatty seatmate.

So, there you have it! Thanks for playing Melissa. Trappees, I have read Melissa’s first three books, and am really looking forward to this one! I recommend you check her out.

Recently, according to a story in The Salt Lake Tribune, the city council of Kanab, Utah, a picturesque Southern-ish Utah town where many a John Wayne movie was filmed, adopted some sort of resolution in an effort to ensure that Kanab remains the kind of town it was WHEN John Wayne was visiting there. And long before that.

The resolution, drafted by the conservative Sutherland Foundation, is pretty scary. (Who are these people?!)

The nonbinding resolution - drafted by the conservative Sutherland Institute - calls marriage between a man and woman “ordained of God” and urges homes to be open to a “full quiver of children.” It also encourages young women to become “wives, homemakers and mothers” and young men to grow into “husbands, home builders and fathers.”

Okay, there’s a few clues here. A FULL QUIVER of children? Wives, homemakers and mothers? Who the hell talks like that anymore? I’m wondering if the Sutherland Institute got caught in a time warp and if you entered their doors, you would find a passel full of harried looking middle-aged men, in lab coats and horn-rimmed glasses, scurrying around with worried looks on their faces, and the only females would be young, single, and answering the phones “Sutherland Institute, please hold. Sutherland Institute, please hold. Sutherland Institute, please hold. I’m sorry, Mr. Sutherland is not in today. His wife just had their fourteenth child and he took some time off to tell his mother-in-law how to take care of the children while his wife is in the hospital.”

It sends a shiver down my spine.

To give credit to Kanab residents, most of them don’t seem all that hot about the resolution. Other than that Baptist minister guy who is excited it won’t encourage homosexuals to come to Kanab.

The Rev. Doug Hounshell says he “thanks God for a community that doesn’t think it has to be ‘gay-friendly.’ ”

“We don’t mean to be mean-spirited,” says Hounshell, pastor of Cliffview Chapel Baptist Church in Kanab. “But the message to a homosexual might be that this is probably not the friendliest town for that type of thing.”

That “type” of thing? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Repressed latent homosexuality. There is NO OTHER REASON for people to be so damned scared of gays. None. Can I shout this from the rooftops one more time? THERE IS NO GAY RECRUITMENT CENTER! This is not something you can recruit for. Please.

As for the resolution, well, as a “non-binding” resolution, how are they going to enforce it? The answer? They aren’t. In short, the ONLY REASON to enact something like this is to tell the world how uptight, repressed, backward, bigoted, short-sighted, and downright stupid you are.

Get a grip, Kanab city council. And kudos to the Kanab-ians who are standing up AGAINST the “resolution.” Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I love friends. After she read my latest blog post, my friend Jen, who writes the fabulously funny Samantha Shaw mystery series, sent me this email.

Hey Natalie,

All this time I thought you were just an ordinary bitch like the rest of us, but now I’ve been enlightened–you are a bitch of a different kind.

So how do I get elevated from ordinary bitch to one of a different kind

Heh. Funny, Jen. Sorry, but this mystery of bitchihood shall remain my deep, dark secret. We BODKs are rather exclusive that way. Plus I have no idea how I achieved it, so I’d rather pretend that I did it on purpose and fool the rest of the world. Did I just say that out loud?

I had another thought. I know, I know, I’m complaining about random snarky comments when I keep throwing in random comments. But bear with me. Is Shangri La aware that James Frey is a GUY? Because she/he WAS comparing me to him, right?

Is James Frey transgendered? Will this set off a whole new set of Internet rumors? If it happens it is NOT my fault.

Sincerely, BODK

My recent rant on the Frey Fray caught some attention, including in a forum of Writersnet.com. Here’s a shout out to Mya, who called my attention to it, and actually is the one who wrote about my blog in the forum. I liked her comments, and hope she will regularly visit Trapped.

But, of course, something ELSE caught my eye when I visited the forum. Of the few comments I read (okay, okay, the few comments THERE) about my post, I found this one really interesting.

Author: Shangri la (—.nsw.bigpond.net.au)
Date: 02-01-06 23:37
Natalie Collins maybe honest in this respect, but she’s a bitch of a different kind.

Finding random snarky comments about me, especially those sufficiently random and vague and confusing enough to make one ask, “WTF?” always make me wonder about the writer’s motivation–and also how much CRACK they were smoking that day. Because, PLEASE, a bitch of a different kind? As opposed to WHAT kind? A kind bitch? A normal kind of bitch? Are there classifications for bitches? See what I mean? It screams “CRACK ADDICTION.” Lord, it’s just so confusing.

So, I showed my friend Karin, who immediately made a connection that some of the rest of you might have made. The Mormon connection. Karin, by the way, knows a few Mormons, but is not Mormon, has never been Mormon, and WILL NEVER BE Mormon (Just say NO, Karin! Do not open the door to those nice young men in white shirts! Look away from the WHITE SHIRTS!). When I showed her the comment on Writersnet.com, without making my OWN comment or giving any editorial of any sort, her response was, “It’s a Mormon.”

See? And I did NOT encourage this. I DID NOT. I did not say one thing about any suspicions I might have. I’m not entirely sure I had suspicions. No Mormon has ever called me “a bitch of a different kind.” I think. Okay, at least not while I was sober enough to comprehend it.

Annnywayyy, all I said was, “What do you think of this?”

And she said, “Mormon.”

So there you have it. If Shangri La IS Mormon, you are not doing yourself any favors. And for God’s sake, PLEASE… why are you hanging out in a writer’s forum? Especially if you don’t know that MAYBE and MAY BE are not even REMOTELY related.

You probably think “alot” is one word, too. WELL it ain’t! You don’t have alittle, so you can’t have alot! So there!