Cause I'm just a girl, little ol' me

Last weekend, as the Celtics were wrapping up another nail biter against the Knicks, my mom hosted Bible study at our house. One of the parents brought along her teenage daughter and I was tasked with taking care of her and making sure she wasn't bored. Two seconds after meeting her, I was already impressed with her poise and absolute lack of teen fear. Having been in this situation many times -- my Mom telling us we had to take care of a guest -- I was used to younger kids who were either shy or disinterested. Instead, Sam totally just looked at people in the eye, let her big personality fly, and spoke and acted like an adult. If anything, a few minutes after meeting me, she was wondering how I was an adult. I mean, after giving her a brief overview of Celtics history from 1950s to present (just kidding), we settled into the real task of talking about Glee, middle school, and hair curling.

Turns out Sam is an aspiring Broadway singer who already has a career going, and balances school, lessons, and performing. Upon request she will belt out Les Mis or any song in her extensive repertoire. Again, she struck me as very different from the other Chinese children I was used to. Usually you have to cajole kids into doing something. They'll hem and haw before finally getting up to give a half hearted performance. Sam wasn't like that at all. She warned us she was gonna be loud and then stood up and started belting out "On My Own."

I've already booked her as an act in my wedding.

On Sunday I went over to Sam's house for a combined Bible study and birthday party. I didn't realize there would be so many people over, enough for a hired taco stand in the backyard, and dozens of parents and little kids milling around. I don't usually make an appearance at these things because there's nobody my age around, but here I was, a guest of a thirteen year old. Before heading over I had run out to get Sam a copy of Clueless because it was a movie that I thought she needed to see. When I looked at when the movie was made, the release date was two years before she was even born. In EC, I had put a reference to Clueless but my editor had subbed it out because nobody would get the reference. Clearly, she was a hundred percent right.

Movies released two years after I was born: The Empire Strikes Back, Fame, American Gigolo, Friday the 13th, Mad Max, Airplane, Raging Bull, Popeye, and something called Stir Crazy that grossed over a hundred million dollars and starred Craig T. Nelson, Gene Wilder, and Richard Pryor. I was trying to figure out my relationship to those movies versus how Sam would intake Clueless. I guess I'll find out when she watches it. I was also trying to figure out if Cher, Dionne, and Tai were age appropriate. I would make an awful parent because I'd continually push media on children before they were ready for them. "You really need to see Blue Valentine, it's so good!"

When all the singing and Bible stuff started, we went upstairs to Sam's room to hang out with her friends. A couple of girls, probably only a little bit older than me in combined age. One of them was doing a school project where she couldn't talk. We communicated via whiteboard as her younger sister enthusiastically spoke up for her at every opportunity. "She's doing this invisible children thing for child soldiers in Africa!" It reminded me of a link my cousin had shared on her Tumblr, about a high school senior who had faked a pregnancy most of the year as a school project. Kids, they do the darnest things.

I asked them about what sort of books they read, what their hobbies were, and if they were popular at school -- and why. I called all this research but really it was just sort of hanging out with my peer group. I showed them my bubble gum blowing skills, impressed with my hair braiding, and beat them all at Clue ("Professor Plum, with the knife, in the conservatory"). They showed me what sorts of sites they surfed around to online and asked if I had ever cheated on a girl. They also asked why I was living at home with my mom. Ha, good questions ladies. It was like a pint sized Chinese Inquisition.

All of this gave me flashbacks to my childhood. Basically I grew up with George and a whole gaggle of girls. All of our family friends only had daughters for some reason. I've played more house, done more fortune telling with playing cards, and painted more nails than most males have _______. Whatever little boys did from the ages of six to eleven, I didn't do them.

At the end of the night, my mom came upstairs to tell me that we had to go because it was nearing Sam's bed time. Before I left, we exchanged Silly Bandz, my Justin Bieber heart notes one -- courtesy of Des -- for one of Sam's elephants. It was nine thirty.