Boobs

A few weeks ago in acting class I saw two different women’s naked breasts.

I wasn’t even that surprised. I think that was more shocking than the breasts themselves. I just sat there, in my seat, staring at naked nipples and wondering when the scene will be over so I can go have my Sunday evening pizza.

I guess I’m jaded.

The old me would have blushed, sunk into her chair, and went home and wrote in her journal about the trauma. The adult me eats pizza and thinks about doing it herself the next week.

I revisited the old me for 33 hours this past weekend. I went home to North Dakota where the only exposure I have to deal with is from the weather. The trip was to attend the wedding of one of my best high school friends. I was an usher – a job that threw many good, solid, gender-role-upholding North Dakotans for a loop.

They’re just lucky I didn’t flash a boob.

I need to pause here and say this: Originally, this entry started out as a funny commentary about what it was like to be in the Midwest again. How quaint, unchanged, and old-fashioned all the people were. How lucky I am to have gotten out of there.

It would have sounded a little like this...

A guy in the airport bit into a Big Mac and made a noise that was comparable to one he probably makes when he's naked with a woman, a country song ringtone twanged on a cell phone, a man sat across from me reading a bible, and everyone was wearing jeans. I’m home.

It was going to be pretty funny (if I do say so myself.) I was pretty proud of the sassy, witty, educated observations I had made. I had eagerly scribbled them down on the back of my flight itinerary and laughed quietly to myself as I waited to board my connecting flight from Minneapolis to Grand Forks.

But something happened in those 33 hours.

As I was flying back to LA, I reread my original thoughts. And I didn’t like them.

Maybe it’s the fact that I had groaned like the man with the Big Mac when I bit into the mashed potatoes with meatballs and gravy that we ate for the wedding supper.

Maybe it’s the fact that I still say supper.

But as I sat rereading those funny thoughts, all I could think about was how pretentious I sounded. How high-and-mighty I was being. So what if the guy next to me on the plane had no concept of how expensive rent was in LA? I have no concept of how expensive spring wheat is.

But in the end, I think the deciding factor was that I had an amazing amount of fun.

Seriously, it was a rip-roarin’ good time.

In fact, it has been quite a while since I have felt so loved, so welcome, and so free to have two slices of cake.

I got the pleasure of seeing seven of my classmates (which is more than half my graduating class) and countless old teachers, mentors, neighbors, and friends. I was surrounded by people I loved – and who loved me. The whole wedding was a love-fest of drinking, reminiscing, and remembering why my little town – as much as I wanted to break away – was a great place to first experience the world.

So this once funny entry about crazy North Dakota has turned into a love letter to my home state. Mushy, and nauseating, and full of clichés (especially that doozy of a line about ‘experiencing the world.’)

As I was boarding the plane to come back to LA, it seemed that North Dakota had one more thing to teach me. A young man turned to his friend and said excitedly:

“And than I took a shot off her bare titties!!”

I guess North Dakota really does have everything LA has.

Even boobs.