A Question of Workouts

I am experiencing a crisis of faith. Not in religion or politics or those other silly things people spend all their time debating, but the real important area of my life – jazzercise.

For those who don’t have the pleasure of seeing me in person, it may shock you to know (especially since I used to talk about it all the time) that I haven’t been consistently going to jazzercise for almost two years now. This is because of my knee. It is a fail knee. It should not have passed inspection.

Back in April 2014, while at jazzercise, something went horribly, horribly wrong. I stepped out for a lunge and immediately felt something in my knee hate me. Being me, I finished class. I could walk at first, but the more I tried to power through the evening  the stiffer it became, until eventually the entire knee locked up and I could no longer bend it. This continued for a few weeks with the knee doing better in the morning and consistently getting worse as the day went on. Eventually, I went to a doctor, and per their suggestion did MULTIPLE MONTHS of physical therapy. This didn’t really fix the problem so I went back to the doctor, and they basically said stop doing stuff and rest. And thus began a cycle of me “resting” my knee by doing literally NOTHING for a bit, then trying to strengthen it up, and then just merely walking too much in a day would regress it back to being locked up and sucking at life.

It has been frustrating. And while at this point it’s doing the best so far since the initial incident, that’s because I have pretty much changed my entire lifestyle to avoid doing things that irritate my knee. That includes driving. I now drive entirely with my left foot (don’t worry, I’m really good at it by this point. It’s not illegal, right? I have yet to investigate).

Workouts have been one of the most frustrating parts. When I injured my knee I was at my peak. I was going to jazzercise 4-7 times a week, walking to hit 10,000 steps each day, and starting to do some ab routines at home as well. I looked and felt great. During the first year of injury I tried doing other workouts like swimming or walking that are low impact and were recommended, and I still ran into problems if I tried to do as much as I wanted. I purchased PiYo during one of the good periods, but found that the intense schedule of several days of working out in a row was doing more harm than good. My goal throughout it all was to find something I could do in order to build up the muscles and get back to jazzercise.

I’m kind of at that point now, but it’s still not ideal.

I have been able to walk or do workout videos at home for a few months without setback. Buoyed by this success I went to one jazzercise class in November, and one again this past weekend.

The great news is I could make it through the whole class and didn’t hurt myself. Yay!

The troublesome news is that it wasn’t very satisfying. In order to not hurt myself, I had to modify a LARGE amount of the routine. I thought it would be okay, because as any good jazzerciser knows there is typically both a low-impact and high-impact version of the song. But I’ve never done the low-impact before, so I don’t immediately know what it is. While the instructors will show you the low-impact version, what I found is that several times they do it halfway through the song. I totally understand that with pacing and whatnot this may be necessary. It doesn’t really help me though. I spend the first half of the song rambling about like a buffoon, and mainly just doing side steps because I DON’T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO.

The other problem is that jazzercise is now focusing on several different class types. This last weekend I ended up in a Strength class. This class doesn’t really have the cardio aspect but rather uses the routines you normally have at the end to strengthen muscles. Almost all of the routines were standing. And guess what? Standing legs consists mainly of squats and lunges, NEITHER of which I can do more than a few comfortably.

I suppose I could have tried and figured out something to do on the floor, but that would mean I’m completely messing up the room to go try and come up with my own routine. At which point, why am I even at jazzercise?

What I used to love so much about jazzercise were things like the music, the dancing, the camaraderie, and feeling accomplished with myself for working out. On Saturday, I liked the music and seeing some old friends, but that was about it. I felt more frustrated than anything because I couldn’t do so much of the routine. I felt the same even when I was in the normal class in November, so I’m not sure that’s going to change.

Am I over jazzercise?

I truly hope that at some point my knee will be more stable and I will be able to fully participate again, but for now (and possibly months or *gulp* years to come), I’m wondering if jazzercise IS NO LONGER RIGHT FOR ME.

This feels so wrong to say, like I’m renouncing the beliefs of my childhood.

But here’s the thing, if I don’t feel good about exercising I’m not going to do it.

I know what works for me. I need a routine to follow. I need to be able to modify when necessary without feeling like I’m throwing others off, and I need to have a routine that I modify sparingly, not something where I’m changing basically the entire damn workout. Because I am so unexpectedly social these days, I also need to be able to fit my workouts in when I can instead of going to a dedicated class every night.

I’ve found all these things by staying in and using a combination of walking and workout videos I enjoy (Tracy Anderson to name one, which targets all the muscles physical therapy really wanted me to focus on). I still get motivated by talking to others or doing online challenge groups. I was doing this as a placeholder to returning to jazzercise, but at this point, do I even want to return full time?  

And I swear to god if one more person suggests weight-lifting as an alternative, I WILL HIT THEM. OH, YOU THINK NO ONE HAS EVER MADE THAT SUGGESTION BEFORE!?! IN WHAT WAY IS THAT ANYTHING LIKE JAZZERCISE OTHER THAN THE FACT THAT IT IS EXERCISE? WHILE WE’RE SUGGESTING RANDOM ASS EXERCISE OPTIONS, WHAT ABOUT WATER BALLET?!

Oh hold up, that one might actually be interesting… 

The Plagiarism Paranoia

I’m not sure how many of my readers are aware of who AmySchumer is and that she was recently accused of stealing jokes, because let’s be honest, you don’t all have my Buzzfeed addiction. For the purpose of this post it actually doesn’t really matter if you know the whole spiel or not except that this was the catalyst for bringing up yet again one of my semi-constant paranoia’s. I live in very frequent terror that I am going to be accused of stealing creative content.

Not jokes, because I am not a funny, joke-telling person. This really applies to two of my creative outlets: writing and nail art.

Since I started posting fanfiction back in the day (which speaking of, I super need to finish that story I added three years ago and never finished the last chapter. Oops. Any fanfiction readers will know what a bitch move that is) I have been dreading the possibility that someone is going to scream PLAGIARISM. To be clear, I have not plagiarized. I do not steal ideas from people. AS FAR AS I KNOW.

Because in my opinion, sometimes people have very similar ideas, maybe even stemming from the same source. It is near impossible to prove whose idea happened first. This became even clearer when I started getting into nail art. I have a few Youtube personalities I follow, and they often have very similar design. There are SO MANY COMMENTS from fans going back and forth claiming Person A made the video first and Person B is stealing and yada yada that it gives me nightmares about posting something of my own.

But for example, a month or two ago (or maybe longer, time perception is not one of my strong suits) everyone suddenly heard of the glass nail trend. Within like a day, both of my favorite nail people had a video showing how to do glass nails. Do I think they stole from each other? No! I think they saw the trend and created their own version, just like WE ALL DO. How many ideas are wholly and completely original, with no basis whatsoever on any other existing content out in the world? NOT THAT MANY. THAT’S WHY THERE ARE A MILLION MOVIES WITH THE SAME PLOT OVER AND OVER.

One of my designs

I have been debating whether or not to enter a nail art contest recently, and honestly, half of my hesitation is that I don’t know how “original” any of my designs are. They wouldn’t be deliberately copying anyone, but most of my techniques were learned from watching other nail art videos. There would be similarities, obviously. What if there already exists a design that DOES match mine that I don’t know about because I clearly haven’t seen every nail art design out in the world!?!  WHAT THEN?!

Actually, on a smaller level I already worry about this with my instagram account. I’ve been posting some nail pictures and while I tag the artist if I followed a tutorial, again, some of my “original” ideas are loosely based on things they’ve done that I then changed up.

Another set of my nails!

Is that copying? Is that plagiarism? Am I an idea thief? If I don’t even remember a video but then a year later the design re-emerges in my subconscious, am I a bad human being? Is there a magic ratio where if 40% (or more, or less) of the creative content is new, it’s okay?

In case you’re curious, the other half of my hesitation on entering the nail art contest is that it has to be a video entry and I’ve never made a video before other than work stuff. This is despite the fact that several of my coworkers want me to start a video channel for my rage-baking, nail art, and/or retelling of movies as they claim it is hysterical. I will neither confirm nor deny my level of entertainment value. 

Weight For It. No, Don't

I struggled over whether to make resolutions this year. Last year I didn’t, I just tried to cook more at home and eat healthier. I figured since this was more of a general life change and less of a random “I’m going to lose 10 pounds!” resolution I’d stick to it better. Guess what? It’s now 2016, and I am yet again planning to work on cooking more because I totally stopped doing it for the last few months of 2015. So my theory may have been flawed.

But I don’t want to make resolutions that are negative. Thinking things like “I won’t eat out” or “I’ll stop drinking diet pepsi all the time” aren’t particularly healthy mindsets either. After much debate, I decided I am making resolutions for January. At the end of January I am going to see how I’m doing with them and evaluate for the next month, and so on, and so forth. My resolutions are simple:

1.     Cook at least two recipes a week.

2.     Workout at least two times a week.

These resolutions will come in handy since my family’s weight loss competition is starting once again. My goal with this competition actually is rarely to lose weight, but rather to stay accountable to myself for making healthier choices, because I know for example that staying in all weekend and eating nothing but leftover Chinese food tends to show up on the scale. More importantly, it’s also doing horrible things to my body and organs, but that’s not so easily visible. The scale is.

Which brings me to my real topic of the day. Weight.

I normally avoid talking about anything I know people have strong opinions on, because I like to avoid conflict. But I am getting FUCKING SICK AND TIRED of weight shaming.

Notice, I did not say fat shaming, although that’s deplorable too. I said weight shaming. Because here’s the thing boys and girls. Pay attention, and you’ll notice it’s going BOTH WAYS.

The entire idea of body weight in general is an interesting concept. I say interesting, because basically we’re taking one measurement of a human being and using it to define them. What’s even more interesting about this concept is the fact that weight can only tell you so much. The composition of each person’s body is unique. 140 pounds on me can look completely different than 140 pounds on another girl, even if we’re the same height.

Using a cooking example (since by god I’m going to cook more, just you watch), let’s say a recipe calls for 1 pound of squash. You’re hardly ever going to see that, because, spoiler, THERE ARE DIFFERENT KINDS OF SQUASH. If I use a pound of butternut that’s going to be a very different recipe than if I used a pound of spaghetti squash. Does that pound include the original squash, skin and seeds and all? Is it just the cubed portion? What does that even mean?

So when I’m reading a book and it’s says “she was about 100 pounds soaking wet” as some kind of compliment, I get angry. What does that tell me? Is she short and taunt, with a lot of that weight coming from muscle? Is she taller and looking rather unhealthy? Why does one characteristic mean so much?

I understand that weight IN COMBINATION with other factors can be used to get a general idea of a person’s health. It’s an easy measurement to get, so a lot of times it becomes the defining factor. That’s wrong. Now if you’re over or underweight and have OTHER UNHEALTHY WARNING SIGNS or live a GENERALLY UNHEALTHY LIFESTYLE, that’s something to worry about. However I do believe it’s entirely possible to not fall exactly in the category that stupid ass chart says your weight should be, and still be healthy. So suck it.

 Sadly, people take it a step further and use weight to judge

people in general. This is wrong. Fucking duh this is wrong. What people to seem to get that’s even more wrong is to combat this by DISPARAGING THE OTHER WEIGHT GROUPS.

The thing is, we are so used to judging ourselves in comparison with others, and we see things in black and white. Either being skinny is good, or being curvy is good. So in order to feel good about being curvy, we put down the “skinny bitches.” In order to feel good about being thin, we put down the “fat hoes.” What the flying fuck?

I understand this feeling. I get it too. I’m working on it. It’s all tied in to the problem with women accepting their beauty, which we’ve already discussed. With weight, it can be even harder, because while there is no firm definition of beauty, weight is definable. Being a size two versus ten is definable. And if we’re being told that one of those sizes is better, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing it.

Please don’t. Please don’t for one second think that your weight makes you who you are. If you are using 2016 to make weight-loss related goals, do it as a general part of BEING HEALTHY and for the love of whatever god you believe in, be careful. It is so easy to start with good intentions and become too focused on that scale, so that you’re now easy prey for unhealthy ways of losing weight, body dysmorphia, or an eating disorder.  

It can be a struggle to change this mindset. Watch out for yourself. Watch for how certain media forms or people in your life make you feel. If it’s negative, get away from it. Make 2016 the year you really start to care about and take care of you. 

A Neek Holiday Letter, Because

Dear friends, family, and random strangers,

What up, yo! As some of you (mainly the family) will recall, back in the day I used to send an annual Christmas letter. This was mainly because my mother forced me to, but it was totes popular regardless. No for realz. People loved that shiz.

Anywho, I started getting holiday cards this year and after a second of thinking “that’s so adorable why don’t I send them!” remembered that I only get stamps roughly once a decade and so jealously guard them for a slow, purposeful use over time. Also I don’t collect addresses. Also I’d have to write in cards, and my handwriting is atrocious and requires me to really concentrate since there’s no autocorrect. So I realized the next best thing was to create a “virtual” holiday card! Except not really a card, but more of a letter. This is basically an attempt for me to brag on what happened this year. Prepare yourself, because it’s super exciting.

Early on in the year, one of the posts from this blog went viral-ish. This was due to absolutely no effort on my behalf, which is the best kind of accomplishment. I celebrated for days. DAYS! People got a little sick of hearing about it. I have no regrets.

In May I visited my brother and went to the best laser tag place ever. I managed to scar my elbow and actually was the top performer for my team in MORE THAN ONE ROUND (I emphasize this, so you know it wasn’t a fluke).

This came at the cost of my knee pestering me for a few days, but overall the knee struggle has been not as real this year. I am knocking on so much wood right now. You have no idea. Of course all of my major bad knee days have been during vacation (visiting my brother, hitting Universal Studios, going wild in Vegas). Figures.

Speaking of vacation, this year I had what I have deemed the most traumatic experience of my life. I also got LASIK. More on the LASIK momentarily. What was my traumatic experience, you ask? THE FREAKING HARRY POTTER RIDE AT UNIVERSAL STUDIOS!! I screamed, I cried, I almost vomited. Never again.

In comparison, LASIK was crazy easy. Actually it just happened last week so don’t hold me to that if I accidentally blind myself during the continuing healing process. Sure, you can smell the laser burning out your eye and that’s mildly disturbing, but on the other hand now I CAN SEE. #worth

Other things you may have missed this year?

• I received the FUN award at my company this summer, along with some others last week I’m not quite as proud of (Most Likely To Need Rudolph’s Guidance Home After The Party and Most Likely To Bring Their Own Mistletoe).
• I completed NaNoWriMo again! If you have no idea what that means we clearly aren’t really friends, and you should read my friend Erin’sblog for some background.
• I created an Instagram account finally, which is mainly used for nail art. Baby, I was born to nail art. No really, this is like a secret skill I didn’t know I have. Yay for developing new skills!

Was there anything here you didn’t know about yet? Anything peak your interest for further blog writing? Let me know in the comments.

And may your holidays be bright and not filled with Star Wars spoilers! 

Miss Goody Two-Shoes

Whenever I describe my mother to someone, I get a look. It’s a look I recognize, although I never acknowledge it. It’s a look that says, “you realize you just described yourself, right?”

I can understand this, as my mother and I do have a few similarities. We’re both short. We both frequently have reddish hair. We both seem insanely nice and are easily amused. However in my humble opinion there is a huge difference between us.

Remember how I said we both seem insanely nice? Well, my mother is legit nice and adorable and goodness and sugar and all those things. Apparently she was the perfect child. I’ve heard this from several reliable sources (basically all of her siblings, and her mother). She can’t even get mad properly. Sure, if you’re under the age of three, you might be a little intimidated when she starts yelling gibberish. When she’s really mad, there may even be a curse word included here and there. But let’s be honest, for anyone who’s not a toddler, her random outbursts don’t accomplish anything than making you want to pat her on the head and go “there, there.”

For the record, while no one believes this initially, me when I’m truly angry is actually a terrifying thing to behold. Avoid it.

But the main reason I don’t consider myself to be like my mother isn’t because she fails at being angry, but the larger problem: her goody-two-shoes-ness.

My mother is the ultimate goody two-shoes. So much so, that in our family she is routinely referred to as Miss Two-Shoes. The goody isn’t even implied, it’s just known.

I swear too I’m not saying this because the rest of the people in my family are deviants that like to torture each other, and in comparison my mother comes off like a saint. My mother legitimately seems compelled to follow the rules that everyone else feels free to ignore, whether they be actual laws or mere social conventions. 

For instance:

• She is the only person I know who actually comes to a full stop at the guard shack when leaving the gated community where my parents live. The guards barely give a f*** who’s coming into the community, let alone who leaves. She also insisted throughout our childhood on telling them every time a visitor was coming. To be clear on how unnecessary this was, if you smile and wave, or just say you’re going to the pool or ski lodge, they let you through.
•   She is the first to volunteer for her church, her community, or any random cause that comes hither. Sometimes to switch it up she donates. Or does both, and then also “recruit” her kids into it. Every time I call her she’s either canning soup, making candy, or setting up for a fundraising event. If other people aren’t hitting the quotas on candy production, she complains once, feels bad about it, and then makes more.
•  She feels compelled to follow all directions. This includes assembly directions in a box, directions when traveling, as well as signs saying “stay off the grass.” If she is with someone who ignores these directions (like my father) she has a special face of disdain and superiority, indicating that this will end in misery and it will not be her fault since she wanted to follow them (you’d know the face if you saw it).

Whereas I have never considered myself a goody two-shoe because my moral code is all over the place. I don’t want to give examples because that would provide concrete evidence against me, but trust me, there’s some deviousness sitting pretty in my corner.

So you can imagine my surprise when a few weeks ago, I realized that I too might be a goody two-shoes. This was mainly due to NaNoWriMo. If you don’t remember this from previous years, it stands for National Novel Writing Month. I am yet again attempting a novel (which is why there won’t be a surplus of posts from me for awhile). I had a whole month of debate though on whether or not to do it, because the thing is that I have like 5 days where I won’t be able to write because I’m visiting my family. This gives me a condensed writing schedule. While it’s doable, because my friend Erin did it last year, I had doubts.

I was discussing it with my mother, my perfect, goody two-shoes mother, and she suggested I CHEAT by starting A WEEK EARLY. I spazzed. Was I turning into more of a goody two-shoes? Was she now the devious one? What was happening?

After giving it much consideration, I have decided I am NOT a goody two-shoes. You’re relieved, I know. There are a few random rules I follow and stick to, but it’s not consistent, and it probably goes more along with my general insanity and slight OCD tendencies and whatnot. It doesn’t really come from a desire to “do good.”

However, I also have to say that if I was becoming more like my mother, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. We need those goody two-shoes people to make up for those of us that are running amuck and causing havoc.  

The Resting Nice Face Struggle

I’m sure everyone is aware of Resting Bitch Face. There are constantly memes and articles about it out there in the world (I specifically see this on Buzzfeed, as I’m a Buzzfeed addict). Yet what about its counter-part? Resting Nice Face? I don’t think this life ruiner has really been as fleshed out (face… flesh… GET MY WIT DAMNIT!). As someone who has suffered from Resting Nice Face their entire life, I want to call out ways in which it utterly destroys your world. There are many, many examples, but it all comes down to three main issues.

1. People Talk To You

Yesterday I was running errands with a friend, and we had to wait in line for about ten minutes. Nobody talked to us. Well, eventually one of the employees did, but none of the other customers tried to. Ten entire minutes, surrounded by strangers, and nobody was asking where I bought my clothes or making suggestions for my hair or telling me their life story. I secretly reveled in the experience and thought maybe I had hit some sort of turning point in my RNF where people no longer felt the need to talk to me constantly.

Sadly later that day, I went to Target by myself. Literally within five minutes of entering the store, some woman was asking about my boots and then went on to explain about how she has chronic foot pain and so can only wear certain types of shoes but my boots look comfy and might be okay for her.

That’s the thing with Resting Nice Face. It doesn’t matter where I go – running errands, public transportation, on an airplane with headphones and a book – people are GOING to talk to me (unless I’m with somebody whose Resting Bitch Face cancels mine out). And you would not believe the shit they say. Life stories, while annoying to hear over and over again from complete strangers I care nothing about, are not the worst of it. When you have RNF people think they can say or ask pretty much anything and you’ll go along with it. We’re the ones getting random suggestions on how to dress/look/act. We’re the ones getting asked for directions or threesomes. We’re the ones privy to the confessions of adulterers, people who hate their kids, and picky eaters. And when you’re an introvert that only has a certain amount of people interaction allotted for the day, this SUCKS.

2. People Trust You

One of the reasons people with RNF hear some pretty interesting tidbits from strangers is that we look trustworthy. If I was a more horrible human being, this would actually be soooo useful. Because that trust thing extends past random admissions from strangers.

When I was a teenager working at a local book store, somebody found an envelope of cash in the store and gave it to me. For safe-keeping? To find the owner? There was literally no information either in or on the envelope. There was quite a bit of money in that envelope. I should also note that the person who found and gave me this envelope was not a regular customer who could follow up on the conclusion of the random money and there was no one else in the store at the time to verify either (in case you’re wondering, it ended with me finding the customer who had dropped it. I know, sometimes I hate my honesty too). WHO TRUSTS A TEENAGER WITH LARGE AMOUNTS OF RANDOM CASH!?! People who fall under the spell of RNF, that’s who.

Need a more recent incident to convince you? I swear to god, while I was traveling frequently, a woman in the airport gave me her baby. I did not know this woman. I had not been talking to this woman, but her baby was staring at me a lot (another side effect of RNF). She had to go throw some stuff out and wash her hands. So she randomly had me hold her baby as she wandered off to do those things. She wandered OUT OF VIEW to do this, while I sat there holding a stranger’s baby. This is a true story, and sadly one of many wherein people have trusted me purely because my face radiates goodness and honesty.  

3. People Take Advantage of You

Of course the flip side of the coin is when people think you’re trustworthy, they also assume you’re trusting. People with Resting Nice Face look like easy marks. That’s the truth of the matter. You may have noticed those people at kiosks stop us every time we walk by. You really think they’re the only ones that try to take advantage of RNFers?

It can be little things. A RNF is more prone to being the table the waitress ignores during a busy rush, the person who gets cut in line, or the coworker that always has the extra projects dumped on them. We’re the ones the mechanics try to convince the car will explode unless we buy these five things. Apparently to many people, Resting Nice Face equates to “I Don’t Say No” face. While this may not be true, and a RNF may be entirely capable of sticking up for themselves, the fact of the matter is we get put in more situations where we have to say no.  Mercy on the poor soul who has Resting Nice Face AND says yes to everything (I think that would be my mother).

People push their luck with RNFs. Strangers start talking to you, and then realize “hey, her face still looks nice! She is totes okay with me continuing to talk. Maybe I should also pat her shoulder. Ooh and smell her hair.” They keep going and going until you finally reach the boundaries of politeness and have to pull out your jazzercise kickboxing moves (or whatever you go-to-get-rid-of-creepers move of choice may be) while the whole time YOUR FACE STILL HAS A PLEASANT EXPRESSION.

The struggle is real my friends. The struggle is real. 

#WritingDate - Watch (A Wedding Gone Wrong)

It's that time of year again - National Writing Date Day! Once again I made a date with my dear friend and wonderful writer Erin to set some time aside and just write, write, write. Erin provided us a few prompts. The first prompt we both did. The prompt was: 
There's a nail salon near you that never seems to have customers. You discover the real purpose of the business.

This one got away from me a bit. I may hide the resulting stories in the corners of my mind until I'm ready to grudgingly acknowledge it, but Erin's version is available here. 

For the second hour we did separate prompts. Erin's was:
You've been on the road driving for almost twenty hours. At 2 am you drive up to a restaurant that's open all night. Describe the experience and the people you see.

Her story is here!

I liked this prompt:
A fight breaks out between a bride and groom in the middle of a wedding. What happened?

And thus, a story (a completely unedited story so bear with me here) was born...
  

Watch

 

The little girl was flawlessly adorable. I couldn’t believe how tidy she looked. I had only been babysitting for a few months, but kids were never that clean. I looked around to try and identify her mother. The girl was standing by herself near the gifts, swirling around her skirts, but I was pretty sure the mother wouldn’t be far off.

Sure enough, a few tables away I saw a woman watching her. The woman was also flawless, which was why I assumed she was the mother. They didn’t really look the same. The little girl was lighter. Lighter hair, lighter skin, and she seemed like one of those genuinely nice children. The mother was dark and glamorous, but she also looked like she’d be perfectly happy ruining your life just for the fun of it. She screamed money though, and I wasn’t exactly making the big bucks right now for the families I babysat for.

It all depended on the little girl. I made my way towards the gifts, pretending to be startled when she almost danced into me. “I didn’t see you there.” I leaned down with a smile. “What are you dancing to?”

She blinked back at me with the prettiest blue eyes I had ever seen. The color seemed familiar, but hers had such dark lashes that they stood out more than usual. I wasn’t sure if she was scared at seeing a stranger, or had been told not to talk to anybody. I continued to smile.

“I’m dancing to the music,” she finally said shyly.

There was no music playing at the moment. My aunt had instructed the musicians to wait until her first dance before playing anything. My mother had argued, saying it was weird for the guests to be eating in silence. The groom, my now uncle, had agreed. Aunt Beth had stayed firm though. She said it was because they were paying the band by the hour, which swayed Dan to her side since it meant less money. Especially after she had bought the wedding dress. That had been a battle right there. But I knew Aunt Beth. It had nothing to do with the money. She wanted the entire night to be her moment, one right after the other. Having no music beforehand would make it even more noticeable when her and Dan emerged soon for their first dance.

“Well, it’s a lovely dance,” I told the girl. She smiled slowly. “May I dance with you?” I was surprised but pleased when she nodded. I wasn’t sure she’d let me.

Copying her, I started twirling my skirts around. Even though I wasn’t in the wedding party, Aunt Beth had insisted on picking out my dress. Hideous wasn’t the right word. Old-fashioned worked if I was being polite. My mother had protested once or twice on my behalf but then gave in, as she always did. Dan had been surprised to find out my mother was the older sibling.

The woman was watching us both dance now. I was staying a few feet away from the little girl. I didn’t want to look like some kind of creep. I suppose I could be talking to my cousins or sitting with my grandparents, but if one more person said something nice about Aunt Beth I was going to scream. She wasn’t nice, she was a controlling bitch, but apparently one wasn’t supposed to say that about their aunts.

The little girl stopped dancing. “There’s no more music,” she told me solemnly.

I nodded. “That happens. Thank you for the dance.” I started to walk away.

“Will you come sit with me?” she asked before I could move. I hesitated. Aunt Beth had been very particular on her table arrangements, but it did look like there was an extra place at their table.

“Of course,” I said with a smile. What the hell.

I followed her back to the table. Apparently I had passed the test, as the little girl was now chattering on and on about her dress and how pretty the wedding was, and did I like the flowers at the table? Her mother gave her an adoring smile as we walked up. “Did you make a friend, sweetie?”

“Yes, mommy!” She gave her a quick kiss then sat down, smoothing out her skirt, before patting the chair next to her. “Here, sit with me.”

First I stopped and smiled at the mother. “Hi, I’m Madison.”

She shoed me over to the seat. “Go ahead and sit down. Ella seems to adore you.”

“She’s a very sweet girl,” I smiled. This was always a good line. Mothers liked their children getting complimented, and Ella was still at that age to like being praised. Babysitting had taught me that both mattered. Even if the kids liked you, if the parents didn’t, you weren’t getting the job.

Before the woman could say anything, the music started playing. I rolled my eyes as Aunt Beth and Dan walked in to applause. She had even arranged a few of our other relatives to toss petals in the air as they walked to the dance floor. I thought I was going to be sick.

I turned away. To my surprise, the woman was also grimacing. Was there someone else out there that recognized Aunt Beth for the catty bitch that she was? Or maybe she didn’t like Dan? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t remember seeing this woman at the ceremony to know where she was sitting.

“How do you know my aunt and uncle?” I whispered as they started the first dance. Ella was dancing in her seat and ignoring us, clearly enjoying watching the couple.

The woman paused. I sensed that she was choosing her words carefully. “I’m a friend of Dan’s. He might have mentioned me before. I’m Stella.”

I hated people that named their kids after themselves, but I didn’t comment on it. I remembered hearing about a Stella. Not from Dan, but from Aunt Beth.

“Oh, yes,” I murmured. Thank god, Ella chose that moment to speak up.

“Can Madison and I go dance, Mommy?” I marveled at how well behaved she was. At that age, I would have been tugging on my mom’s skirt for attention. She would be so much better than some of the devil kids I watched now.

“Not yet, sweetie. Uncle Dan has to finish dancing first before other people are allowed to. That’s how weddings work.” Ella nodded as if that made sense to her. Maybe it did. It didn’t make sense to me, but my mother also said I was bitter about marriage because of her divorce. Of course I was. Now my dad had a new family and I had to start saving money for college, otherwise I knew I wouldn’t be going.

I was eager for the dances to finish so I could get away from the table. Now that I realized who I was sitting with, I was a little less eager for Aunt Beth to see me flaunting her seating arrangements. She hated Stella. She had complained about Stella more than once. She thought that her and Dan were too close, and that Stella always talked down to her.

Soon enough, the dances were done and Ella got her wish to go back to the dance floor. I figured Ella was a safe enough bet. Aunt Beth knew I liked kids, and I had never once heard her say anything about Ella, so I figured she must like her well enough. She pretty much only talked about people to complain about them.

The next hour passed fast enough, faster than I was expecting really. The beautiful thing about playing with Ella was that I got to follow her around on her every whim. She was a typical kid, distracted by something else every few minutes. This meant I got to avoid some of the other random duties Aunt Beth thought the family should help with during the reception, and even better, avoid Aunt Beth.

Stella continued to keep an eye on us but didn’t intervene. I tapped into my reserves of patience so that I could continue to appear as the perfect caregiver.

However I realized before too long that not only was Stella watching us, but Aunt Beth was too. I worried for a moment before realizing she wasn’t watching me so much as Ella. I didn’t have too long to wonder why, when Aunt Beth started making her way towards us. Seemingly in response, so did Stella. Dan was across the room talking to some of his college friends, but when he saw what was going on he started heading in our direction too.

Fuck. I had no idea what was going on, but I wasn’t an idiot. It was something not good. Poor little Ella continued with catching the bubbles I was blowing from the table favors. She didn’t seem to notice everyone coming towards us.

Aunt Beth and Stella got to our corner at the same time. Aunt Beth was staring down Ella. She wouldn’t look away.

“Who’s this you’re watching, Madison?”

Ella looked up. “She’s not watching me. We’re playing.”

Aunt Beth gasped. I blinked, and stopped blowing bubbles. It wasn’t like Ella had said anything shocking.

“What pretty eyes you have,” Aunt Beth hissed. I felt compelled to pull Ella back a little closer to me. I had no idea what was going on, but this was starting to sound like a bad kind of fairy tale.

“That’s my daughter, Ella.” Stella spoke up. I think Aunt Beth knew that though. She didn’t look surprised at all. She also didn’t look away from Ella.

“It’s a little funny, isn’t it?” Aunt Beth asked. I looked to Stella to see if she had any idea what Aunt Beth was talking about. Aunt Beth continued. “Somehow I’ve never seen your daughter. Dan talks about her, but I’ve never met her.”

Stella looked composed as ever. “Somehow Beth, I didn’t get the impression you wanted to have much to do with me, or my daughter.”

Dan walked up to the group, putting his arm around Aunt Beth. “Is everything okay over here ladies?” He looked between the two of them. An idiot could see that Aunt Beth was livid about something. Dan wasn’t an idiot. He wisely deflected, and leaned down instead towards Ella. “Hey baby girl, are you having a good time at the party?”

Ella lit up. She had been starting to hide behind my skirts, but now she reached for Dan. “I got to dance! And have cake!”

Dan laughed and picked her up. I gasped. I finally got it. Now that he was holding her, I realized why Ella looked familiar. “Good, sweetie! I’m glad you’re having fun.”

Somehow I knew that Dan didn’t see it. Aunt Beth did, and I could tell right away she wasn’t going to let this go.

“When were you planning to tell me?” She had turned towards Dan and Ella, hands on her hip, clearly in battle mode. The rest of the room was beginning to murmur. The body language in our corner screamed conflict.

Poor Dan looked clueless. “Tell you what?”

“That you had a CHILD with that WOMAN,” Aunt Beth screeched. I winced and looked towards Stella.

She was smiling! What the fuck?

“I don’t have a child,” Dan protested. “And I tell you everything.”

“So you told her about that time we slept together?” Stella asked coolly. Aunt Beth was turning red. I had no idea why I was still standing near this disaster other than morbid curiosity.

Dan spluttered. “That was six years ago, I didn’t think it mattered.” He turned to Aunt Beth. “It’s not like you’ve told me every single person you slept with.”

“Yes, but I have asked you about her MULTIPLE TIMES. You said you were just friends!”

“We are just friends! We’re better as friends!”

I saw Stella wince at those words, and I knew then that the friends thing was not her idea. Ella was looking frightened. I took a breath and pushed my way in. “I think Ella wants to go play. Come here, Ella.”

Dan looked down to hand her to me, and that’s when he got it. I was afraid he was going to drop her. He went completely pale, and then turned haunted eyes back up to Stella.

Stella choose that moment to take her revenge. She swiftly took Ella from Dan’s arms and pushed her towards me. “Go play, Danielle. Mommy will be over in a minute.”

I grabbed Ella’s hand and started hustling her away, but not before I could hear Aunt Beth hiss, “Danielle?”

“What did you think Ella was short for?” Stella said.

I was pretty sure I would not be seeing Dan at the next family gathering.