Right On

I will never be the kind of person who can pull off saying, "Right on." I envy people who can. If I tried to say it a huge alarm system would go off over my head and lights would light up:

To be honest, I've never tried it in real conversation. I know my limits. I've tried it in my head and this is what it sounded like:

Like it was cross-stitched on a kitchen towel in a dusty old kitchen from the 20's and read out loud by Marilla Cuthbert.

I know about four people who say "right on" on a regular basis. They're all pretty different, but they have one thing in common: a kind of laid back, Matthew McConaughnaughey (did I add too many aughey's?) attitude. One's a hipster who writes beat poetry, one's a hippy who only eats "local," one hates hippies and likes rebuilding old cars, one likes Renaissance Faires and living by his own rules.

Here's what I like: playing by the rules, berating myself for every little mistake I make, harboring crippling self doubt, using coupons at JoAnn's, finding new Murder, She Wrote mysteries at used book stores, meeting dogs, baking cookies, being allergic to eggplant, biting my nails, flat-ironing my curls into nonexistence, and watching Big Brother.

None of those things equal a person who can say Right On without sounding like a huge phogna bologna (those two words rhyme, trust me).

Will I ever be able to say Right On? I just don't know. I really doubt it. Maybe someday I'll let my hair curl free, I'll eat quinoa with every meal, I'll snap my fingers at poetry readings, spend an afternoon at a flea market and at the end of the day, when someone tells me about their day, I'll say "right on" and it will sound right (on).*

*I just ruined it, didn't I?