Reviving Ophelia

Sometime around the fourth or fifth grade, my girl scout troop participated in a sleep over at the Museum of Science in Boston. It was a rowdy night, and my memories of the event are a haze of petrifide dinosaur poo, cutaway models of the reproductive system, and the view of the city skyline after dark.

One memory, however, stands out with crystal clarity: I am lying in my sleeping bag near the "Welcome to the Universe" exhibit, my feet too hot inside my pink Dr. Dentons, my perpetually clogged nostrils making intermittant whistling noises in the dark. It is after the offical lights out. I'm staring at a dimly lit model of the solar system, listening to whispers and giggles in the surrounding darkness. I can't remember what came before this moment, but I know that I have just done or said something incredibly stupid.

I make myself a promise: someday, I will be cool. I will wear a black leather jumpsuit with massive shoulderpads and I will have hair like Max Headroom. I will live in an apartment with high ceilings and concrete floors and a view of the city skyline, and I will never say anything stupid. And most importantly, I will invent a time travel machine. I will come back in time to this very moment, and I will tell myself what not to say, and what not to do, and I will never, ever, have to be embarrased by what a dork I used to be. Because I will have always been cool. This will never have happened.

The Nora of 2007, however, has much more in common with the post-nasal dripping, feety pajama wearing Nora of 1987 than she does with the plastic haired saviour of the future. So, in aid to any future time travellers (I'm not giving up on that leather jumpsuit yet!), I have compiled the following list in order to aid in distinuishing the 10-year-old and thirty-year-old me.

Then:
Mom nags me to clean my room.

Now:
Mom nags me to update my blog.


Then:
I have a disconcerting habit of humming to myself, and live at least half the time in an elaborate fantasy world.

Now:
Hm.


Then:
I am tall for my age, with unkempt hair and a goofy grin I have trouble controlling.

Now:
I'm um, taller?


Then:
My career ambitions vaccillate between artist, advocate for the disenfranchised (mostly kittens), and mad scientist inventor.

Now:
I'm pretty sure I don't have the right degree to become a mad scientist inventor. I had this really great idea the other day for fried beer on a stick, though (you could deep fry beer ice cream! Then put it on a stick! Don't steal this idea!).


Then:
I have trouble finishing things, to the constant frustration of my parents, my teachers, and myself.

Now: