“I don't know much about football, but when I see one player take his opponent down with a gruesome flying tackle, I can’t help but have immediate, newfound respect. Any derby girl worth her skates would kill to throw a block like that.”

“What's coming out of the stereo is like a genre unto itself, a charming, fucked-up fairy tale that immediately breaks my heart in all the best ways.I stretch out on the floor with my ear parked next to the speaker, in a trance. I place the album cover over my face to block out any interruption as "I'll Be Your Mirror" seduces me. I immediately add the song to my mental list of top ten songs ever.And as I'm bobbing my head with dreamy abandon, I hear a voice. "Nice choice, DJ," it says.I slowly slide the album cover down past my eyes and look up. My eyes spy his shoes first--paint-splattered brogues. My heart stops when I look at his face. Pale skin, messy black hair, emerald eyes...Senor Smolder! He's eighteen, maybe nineteen. And no, my imagination didn't lie, he is just as devastating now as he was the first time I saw him. Only even more, because he just complimented my taste in music.”

“And I know I'm sarcastic and defensive and I make a joke out of everything and am highly resistant to anything that reeks of sentimental corniness, but I'm giving you my heart anyway because being with you feels like home, and I know you won't break it.”

“And, honestly, if I can give you one teeny, tiny piece of advice, it is this: DO NOT DATE A BOY IN A BAND!But if you insist on blithely ignoring the above wisdom, DO NOT GIVE HIM YOUR BELOVED STRYPER SHIRT. You will never see it again. Trust me. I had to learn the hard way. (And hell yes, it still hurts, but it does get better.)”

“There are girls who are so fierce that wearing pink makes them look that much cooler (especially when paired with black-and-white-striped tights or a skull choker). On those badass vixens, pink becomes an in-your-face dare that says “hey, world, even in the girliest of colors, I’m still cool as hell, so don’t fuck with me.”

“There's no denying Bird-man's well-intentioned heart. He's a good guy, not the type of prick who would take your favorite Stryper t-shirt on tour and bequeath it to some random trollop he hooks up with while conveniently forgetting you ever existed.”

“I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin.And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin.I love movies about “The Big Moment” – the game or the performance or the wedding day or the record deal, the stories that split time with that key event, and everything is reframed, before it and after it, because it has changed everything. I have always wanted this movie-worthy event, something that will change everything and grab me out of this waiting game into the whirlwind in front of me. I cry and cry at these movies, because I am still waiting for my own big moment. I had visions of life as an adventure, a thing to be celebrated and experienced, but all I was doing was going to work and coming home, and that wasn’t what it looked like in the movies.John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” For me, life is what was happening while I was busy waiting for my big moment. I was ready for it and believed that the rest of my life would fade into the background, and that my big moment would carry me through life like a lifeboat.The Big Moment, unfortunately, is an urban myth. Some people have them, in a sense, when they win the Heisman or become the next American Idol. But even that football player or that singer is living a life made up of more than that one moment. Life is a collection of a million, billion moments, tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous, glowing pearl. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies.But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that move-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of use will ever experience.”