My current life coach

The first time we met, I was in a 7.30 am blur and she was adjusting her "comfort" pillow delicately on her now burgeoning thighs. Due to bring in a baby girl in early 2007, LS is the prettiest high schooler since Relma Ubrol, and as determined as a Tamandua anteater. Every Wednesday morning, we trade gerunds and prepositions, modal verbs and battle adjectives with adverbs. Her tired body houses a very alert mind. She uses the word "conflict" and not "war" because she wants to speak better. She also wires the alarm clocks so that her 17 year old boyfriend and father of her child is in school, on time, every single day.

"I want both of us to talk to our baby consistently," she says tipping her mascara-laden eyelashes at me. We talk about the earthquakes in San Francisco, her native Mexico and her upcoming baby shower. Each topic is dealt with ease and precision. Not an extra word, just cool, calm and refreshingly honest conversation.

I am hypersensitive about a lot of things. I am a worrier by nature and I am guilt-ridden to a fault thanks to my desperate need to please everybody remotely connected to my life.
But LS has a clear outlook. When it comes to absolutely everything.
"Mizz B, thatz just too many words and they are all recusant.You have to let go. Don't cling," she smiled, ignorning my popped-eye ridiculous face.
Today, I taught her to gently bite down on her lower lip and exhale. So, it's not "burb", its...?
"VERB!!!" she laughs triumphantly, asking me "affably" to be "apprised" of my chapped lips.