So . . . I Might Be Slightly Neurotic (RE-POST from 5/20/18)

I wrote this blog post a year ago, and it still rings true. Enjoy this re-post from May 20, 2018!

Early in our marriage, I called my husband, Dan, at work. I had found our interior door, the one inside the garage, wide open, and I refused to go inside. I parked the car in the driveway and waited outside until he came home from work. It was pouring rain.

I don't exactly remember this incident. But Dan does. He thinks it's funny. I think it's a little crazy.

"To be fair, you had just moved in. It was a new house and a new neighborhood," Dan said while I listened and worried about my mental health. "I felt bad for you because you were scared of intruders, and you were soaked. But I also thought it was kind of weird."

"Is that when you realized you had married a crazy person?" I asked.

"No, I already knew that."

I can be neurotic.

But I can also step back and say, "Man. That was crazy of me. I'm glad I'm not like that now."

That objectivity has to count for something resembling mental stability.

As a kid, I had a recurring dream that a guy dressed in dark clothes would enter my room at night. If I was sleeping on my stomach, without a blanket or sheet covering me, he would stab me.

Even into my early adulthood, I avoided sleeping on my stomach without being covered because, you know, a blanket would totally prevent me from being stabbed.

Then, there was the other time early in our marriage that the airline lost my luggage, and Dan came back from the lobby only to find me in the hotel room crying and hyperventilating into the phone.

"I know it's not your fault! I know you didn't do this. I'm just very emotional right now!" I was sobbing at the dispatcher.

Boy, I'm glad I have better coping skills nowadays.

Maybe . . .

When the CD player in my classroom opens and closes over and over, I don't think, "My CD player must be wearing out."

Instead, I think, "It must be the music room ghost," which is a real thing and not neurotic at all.

When Dan and I returned home one evening and discovered that the twenty-year-old VCR/TV combo in our bedroom had turned on by itself and was making strange noises, I assumed that someone broke into the house, turned on the television, and left it on before stealing nothing and exiting the premises.

When the fence door swung open because of the wind, I immediately thought someone sneaked into our backyard.

Not too long ago, Dan and I were lamenting the way the steam from our shower had caused our ceiling to mildew.

"Maybe we should let open the door to let the steam out while we shower," Dan suggested.

"But how can I leave the door to the bathroom open while I shower? I don't want Norman Bates to kill me."

Sounds logical to me.

Just last week, I tried to close the garage door, but it popped back up like it had sensed something underneath it.

"I thought a person, or maybe a cat, slipped in. Hopefully, nobody's hiding in there," I told Dan.

"It's more likely that the garage door sensor was out of alignment, or you pressed the button twice."

"Yeah, I don't think so," I said. "You're going to be sorry when you find a scary man, or maybe a starving cat, in our garage."

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Treefort After 40 (Kind of)

I have been trying to write a "Treefort After 40" post for two months, but I have been so busy with spring concerts. My plan is to revisit my Treefort experience after school gets out for the summer and really dive into how I partied like a rock star at age 41. (By the time I get around to writing it, I'll probably be 42.)

Until that time (if it ever arrives), here is some insight into how I survived Boise's Treefort Music Fest after 40.

Armed and ready . . . but with a wristband. (I don't really like guns.)

Street Tacos on the curbside

Just SOME of the bands we saw: Built to Spill, Madisun Proof (my former student!), Liz Phair, Naked Giants, Summer Cannibals, and mewithoutYou

Braving the elements . . . We'll stand in the rain. We don't care. #ThisIs40Something

A little Oscar Wilde never hurt.

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Ain't It Good To Know? (RE-POST from 4/9/17)

My choir performed their final concert of the season this week, and I was reminiscing about all of the pretty music they have sung over the years. Here is a blog post from 2017 recounting one of my Grace Jordan Choir memories. Enjoy!

Every year, I choose one pop song for my choir to sing. Usually, I choose a song the kids recognize, like "On Top of the World" by Imagine Dragons or "In Summer" from Frozen. (No "Let It Go" in our repertoire so far.)

This year, I found a two-part choral arrangement of Carole King's "You've Got a Friend." I figured the kids wouldn't be familiar with it, but I was in a Carole King mood after seeing the touring production of Beautiful this year. And we kind of claim her here in Idaho.

Carole King's music also resonates on a personal level with me. I mentioned in a previous blog post that the Tapestry album may be one of the reasons I became a vocalist and music teacher.

"You've Got a Friend" holds a special place in my heart. My mother, father, brother, and I went to a James Taylor concert several years ago. James Taylor, who could probably be credited with making the song famous, performed all of his greatest hits, including this one. It was the last concert I remember attending with my mother.

When I introduced the piece to my choir, the kids thought I meant "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story, a totally cute song. I might track down a choral arrangement of it in a year or two.

I started out by playing the choir my Carole King recording. I half-expected the kids to scrunch up their noses. I mean, this song is not even from their parents' generation. It's more than likely from their grandparents' generation.

By the end, the children were sweetly singing along with the chorus. One fifth grade boy was copying all of King's vocal gymnastics with such sincerity, I almost teared up.

"Wow! That is a good song!" the kids exclaimed. "Why don't they play songs like that on the radio anymore?"

I shared my amazement at the kids' enthusiasm with some of my colleagues.

"You've taught them to appreciate quality music," one teacher said. "They recognize the good stuff when they hear it."

In one of my classes, the kids were still talking about the song, and an oblivious non-choir boy started singing, "You've Got a Friend in Me."

"That's a different song. It was written by Randy Newman and from the movie, Toy Story," a choir boy explained to him. "This is a song by Carole King, and it was recorded in the 1970's. Right, Mrs. Duggan?"

Right!

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Dan Shaves His Beard

My husband, Dan, chose his birthday this year to have midlife crisis. It wasn't that dramatic of midlife crisis. He didn't spend all of our money on a red sports car or have an affair with a porn star or anything. But after thirteen years of some kind of facial hair, he shaved it all off.

On Dan's forty-second birthday, I arrived home from work to find him standing in the garage without a beard. 

“WHAT?!” I exclaimed. "WHAT?!"

Dan and I have been married for fifteen years. I barely remembered what he looked like without a beard. I had bought him a Mountaineer Beard Kit for his birthday, hoping he would get his Grizzly Adams look under control. That turned out to be unnecessary.

O. Henry couldn't have written it better.

Dan's beard kept us from getting carded. I don't mean to brag, but I've been known to get carded when Dan and his gray-streaked beard aren't with me.

One afternoon, I was buying Guinness for St Patrick's Day, mostly for Dan, and the clerk asked to see my I.D. (Guys, I'm forty-one years old!)

"Wow, you look fabulous!" the cashier said.

Now it is Dan who looks twenty. How is that possible? I am convinced that his beard stunted his aging process.

Dan's midlife crisis soon became the talk around town, or at least around our small circle of friends and family.

"I heard about the 'Dan-formation,'" one of our friends said one Sunday morning.

"I think he wanted to shave it all off and start over," I explained. "He keeps talking about growing a summer beard, whatever that is."

"Oh yes," our friend, who was donning a bit of facial hair himself, nodded knowingly. "A summer beard is a real thing."

"Except, Dan has forgotten how long it took to grow his first goatee. I don't know if a summer beard is going to happen." 

My aunt posted an article on my Facebook wall about beards having more bacteria than dog fur. Beardless Dan was becoming more and more appealing. 

At work, Dan got all sorts of surprised looks and "Whoa's!"

One co-worker told him, "Don't take this the wrong way," (never a good sign) "but you kind of look like an elf."

"Maybe he means you look like Orlando Bloom," I suggested. "Besides, looking like an elf is a huge compliment coming from a software engineer nerd."

Personally, I think Dan looks even more like Kurt Cobain now. People tell him that he looks like the Nirvana frontman all the time.

And for this forty-one year-old, who came of age in the nineties, that's not a bad comparison.

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.