I'm Bloody Right-handed!

You know how you never fully appreciate something until it’s gone?

Let me testify:

Yesterday I went on a bike ride along the boardwalk from about 30^th street in Newport Beach to Balboa. It was great, as imagined. The only thing I would change about the adventure was when I found a porch wall and lost the better part of my right middle fingernail, rendering my right hand temporarily useless. Arguably not one of my brighter moments, but proudly, one of my braver moments - the person I was riding with didn’t even stop (didn't need to) and had no idea how bad my finger was until we got home and I sheepishly asked for a band-aid.

I never realized how right-handed I really am. You know those people who are kind of naturally ambidextrous? Yeah. I’m not one of them. I’m bloody right-handed, both literally and emphatically right now. This whole not really being able to use my right hand is not okay with me. This fingernail better not take the year to heal that some sources say it will.

Let’s defy the odds, or at least the bandages.

In Living Color

Earlier this week I met with a doctor for the first time, and shortly into the visit he started to ask me the general, I’ve heard them a million times, questions. So, to speed things up, in a very efficient, matter-of-fact way, I gave him the run-down of my life. I guess you could say I felt accomplished as I rattled off the details of my life. But in the end, it was strange, or at least, I feel strangely about it.

This got me thinking and here's what I've come up with:

Sometimes the chronology of my life surprises me, but I wouldn’t change it, even if I could. However, I don’t like to be limited to the black and white of the spoken word, or in this case, the ink on my medical chart. Yes, those things undoubtedly contribute to who I am, but they do not fully explain me.

I decidedly will not be limited to a list of characteristics, or events for that matter; however, I will end with one of my favorite, true, black and white statements about me: I’m a survivor.

Backstreet's Back, Alright.

So I graduated college. NBD. As a recent college graduate, I went with my friend (also a recent college graduate) to perhaps the most epic concert of our lives: the NKOTBSB concert (code for New Kids On The Block and Backstreet Boys) at the Staples Center in L.A..

Oh yes. It wasn’t as cool as imagined. It was even better.

After the openers finally finished, New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys stormed the stage and captured the hearts of all women (and the few (whipped) men) in the audience. The setup was perfect. There was a main stage, a catwalk, and then a smaller, secondary stage. NKOTB and BSB took turns on each of the stages and were choreographed into the perfect battle of the bands.

The concert was epic in every possible way. I mean, what’s not to love about boys (more appropriately now, men) singing in harmony, dancing in unison, and hamming it up to the ladies? I dare any woman with a soul, and a warm, beating heart, to go watch a boy band and not melt a little bit inside, or go just a little weak in the knees. I just don’t think it’s humanly, or in this case, womanly, possible.

Which leads me to possibly my favorite moment of the night: Shortly after both boy bands got on stage and started singing, the perfect girlish squeal escaped my friend’s lips. Yes. It was glorious and it vocalized all the torrent of teenage hormones raging inside my not-13-year old body.

Towards the end of the show, Kevin (the oldest member of the original group, who left the band in 2006 to "pursue other interests") magically appeared on one of the stages and happily all of the Backstreet Boys did a few songs as an entire group before the concert officially ended. So now, the Backstreet Boys can fade into my memory as a complete, never tainted boy band.

After experiencing all of it, it's really hard for me to pick a favorite song from the concert. Naturally, being a child of the ‘90s, I already knew and loved BSB, so my favorite song from the concert has to be one of theirs, not the before-my-time New Kids. This narrows the choices, but still leaves me a plethora of worthy options. The Boys would start singing a song and I would realize what I felt I had been missing my entire life and they were now reminding me of, leaving me feeling momentarily satisfied. Until the next song that I had forgotten about and was again blissfully reminded of… With that cycle in mind, I think the happiest, most memorable reminder for me was Drowning.

In the end, here are the things the concert accomplished for me:

- Previously my ‘New Kids On The Block’ exposure consisted of the LFO song “Every Other Time’, with the oh-so-famous line, “New Kids On The Block had a bunch of hits, Chinese food makes me sick…”. Now I’ve heard them sing some of those hits.

- It made the 13-year old inside of me so insanely happy.

- Most importantly, the middle-schooler inside of me can now die a happy woman (Okay. Okay. A happy girl).