tell me

Since most of my adult life has been spent thus far succeeding as a professional student, I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by fellow professional students of varying ages ,professional students are seriously eccentric and live life according to their own set of rules. What's the problem? Well, there really isn't a problem if one continues to live in the professional student atmosphere for the rest of one's life but if you step outside the bubble of academia and enter the real world one might discover some habits that are not most "adult friendly". During my first year of being a real adult I've noticed that other real adult do not share some of my habits and currently I'm wondering if these traits are what make me "unique" or some bad habits that I should ditch on my voyage to adulthood.

For example...

1. When is one too old to eat only item or even worse, one food item for dinner? When should I begin to look down on my habit of eating cereal, half a can of re-fried beans, frozen yogurt, laffy taffys or tootsie rolls for dinner? I mean, I never feel like cooking but I am beginning to hear people swapping recipes, describing successful dinners, and table scape ideas and I believe I'm missing the boat on some adult right of passage. Should there really be something green in every meal? My college ways of eating seem so 2006 and I should probably get on with the rest of my age demographic...or then again I could start lying about my age now to delay any future aging. Done.

2. When should one get rid of early twenties household decorations? Martini and margarita glasses, pink fuzzy sorority picture frames, bright plastic glasses from Target, and countless Eiffel towers are fabulous for the young twenty somethings first apartment, but when should the mature mid-twenty year old rid themselves of these cute yet cheap purchases? As I visit my adult friend's houses I see actual homes filled with household decorations from fancy places such as pottery barn or williams and sonoma. These items scream that one has not had children and therefore have disposable income to spend on expensive remade shabby chic antiques. I yet to own such items and feel like I have not been admitted to the adults only club (not the dirty kind).

3. Do I really have to have a garden? When I was in middle school I locked myself out of the house and knowing I would get in trouble for being irresponsible, I thought I would pull weeds so my mom would be too distracted by the gracious acts of her perfect daughter to notice that she forgot her key for the 4,000th time. But did I pull weeds? No, I pulled beautiful lilies I think, lots of them. If there really are colors for thumbs in the garden I imagine mine is the color of death and not remotely any shade of green.

4. When should one stop cussing? I think is probably when one decides to have kids but honestly since I started teaching I've cussed more than I ever have before in my life. Some profanity used to make my conscience hurt but now the s-word is just like saying the words "cup" or "light". Nothing...nadda. Is this very adult like?

5. Is it okay to still listen to pop music? As a "serious" musician this is a major fault. I blame my love of pop music on my uncle Ray and his major influence as a young child. We would jam out to Madonna, Cher, Janet, Whitney, all the requirements for a well-rounded pop education. I studied Mozart, Puccini, Brahms, etc for so long and so many of my friends ride around jamming out to these old timers in their cars. Don't get me wrong, I love so opera but you better believe when I'm in my car alone I'm blasting so totally inappropriate pop music that thrives on using incorrect grammar.

Maybe I'm on the short bus to adulthood or maybe I've found the fountain of youth, who knows. If anyone wants to write a book about the correct steps, I would probably read it. Well read the first couple of chapters but if it wasn't funny I would totally donate it to the books for inmates at St. Peter's. Not playing.

Well I hope everyone has a wonderful adult-like day. Whatever that means. For Natalie's News this has been, Natalie-Corinne.