i want to uppercut a punkass.

Once upon a time, on a tan couch that I purchased at a garage sale for $75, in my first apartment (for which I had purchased the couch), I decided to be a punk.

I had just sent a beautiful boy home for good, a boy who knew me and loved me and wanted to be with me, could offer me a comfortable life, a boy who - ostensibly - wanted marry me. He told me that all other boys were assholes and he made fun of ugly girls, and I knew that meant that he was my ticket out of victimhood.

When I closed the door, I had a visiting gray cat and empty space in front of me, space that had once been dedicated to him but during which I was now determined to fuck up in all possible manners. I wanted to be a fucking PUNK and DRINK and do DRUGS and BAD THINGS. If you know me, you likely also know that most of those things did not happen.

What happened was a kind of slow punkery and fucking up, and I can only see it now, looking back. I fucked up in the opposite direction. I didn't let go and loosen up; pulled my internal strings so tight that they snapped and I burst, but quietly, and gradually, and isn't it fitting that I fucked up my plan to fuck up?

Did I do some exquisitely stupid shit? Absolutely. Would I take it back? Never. Not for the 20 pounds that I wish I didn't have on me, not for a guaranteed quota of sunny days on the beach with friends and a delicious breeze. Whereas Sunshine Sugar Punk was an aspiration two years ago - or whenever I started this blog - I'd like to think I've earned it now. Even if it's dumb. Maybe if I ever open a bakery, that's what I'll call it. And for Alyssa...it'll have a doormat that says FUCK THAT SHIT.

in. print.

I saw my words in print today.

It was just my local newspaper, the Acorn, and I wasn't credited. But that's my photo. And that whole big article? I wrote it. Two months of press releases, and I'm finally published. It's a big little thing.

I met all those kids, too. I talked to them, and they told me what they liked to do and how they got the idea to use their iPhones to make flash cards instead of writing everything out on paper. (FIFTH GRADERS HAVE iPHONES.) And you know why they said they did it? Because it helps them learn better and lets them study anywhere. Also, and I quote, "It's a really great way to save paper!" They were sincerely concerned about preserving the environment, and I would like to think this means that for every particle of self-centered laziness they absorb as a generation, they're also learning to protect the things that are important and irreplaceable.

These kids were not bullshit. They were excited to tell me what they were doing and how they were innovating and how it was helping their classmates learn, too. And now there's a story about them, and it's in a shitty little local newspaper, but it's my story, and my hometown, and that photo is on the front page, and they got a whole page all to themselves. Minus ad space of course.

Those are good kids. And I knew it was a good story.