Yeah. No, totally.

          It's a little after midnight. It's been an eventful day.

          This morning: I go to the doctor's for a routine physical. Normal enough. A nurse thinks I'm a teenager because I "look so young!" Another nurse tells me that she doesn't wear her wedding ring because it snags on things and gets caught in the rubber gloves. "I get hit on a lot," she says, "but I tell them, 'I'm working right now.'"

          Then: I go to an Irish pub/restaurant with my mother, and a girl dressed in an Irish dance costume (very glittery and metallic and colorful) is hiding in the bathroom, waiting to come out to perform for a few hours. "I always get like this," she says, referencing her nervousness. "Even if I'm just dancing for old people."

          This afternoon: I go shopping with my mother. We stop at a dance apparel store so I can pick up another set of ballet slippers (my old pair is more hole than shoe). Just being back in that environment, charged with dancers' nervous energy, makes me edgy and high-strung.
          We spend the rest of the afternoon at the mall, which makes me feel hopelessly suburban.

          Tonight: My brother and father join us for dinner (an early birthday dinner, seeing as I won't be home until well over a month after the actual event). My brother and I make obscure jokes that make our parents raise their eyebrows in puzzlement. A woman at the table over talks her date's ear off in a seemingly unbroken monologue ("... so I called the police .... I got an eye infection .... I told that boy that he shouldn't .... and my brother said to this lady ...").
          In the car on the way back home, my brother and I discuss the phenomenon of our generation's tendency to actively listen to conversation by saying, "Yeah. No, totally."
          It's the "No, totally" part that I found intriguing. It's how we respond to opinions and statements of fact alike. It's like we grew up expecting to be disbelieved. Like we don't think others believe that we understand viewpoints or experiences not our own. It's funny - if you listen to a conversation, someone will almost invariably say that phrase.


          Yesterday, I was bad and indulged in my addiction. One year has elapsed since I last got a new pair of glasses. My glasses are still new. And yet, I couldn't resist. I ordered another pair. I can't help it! Glasses are my vice. They'll be mailed to me when they come in from the lab. I'll be pathetically checking my mail every day.
          I don't have a problem or anything. Okay, so I do. Things happen.
          Yeah. No, totally.