Quote of the Day

"They was talkin good about this program!"

The sheer incorrectness of it took me aback for a second, and I couldn't figure out what number came next in my Sudoku puzzle. 

She went back to sitting awkwardly in her chair then, sipping her coffee, and staring blankly into space. And its not even as if she was in thought, really. She's just staring. As if the corner of the table has become very interesting. Formica? Sheet plastic? What is this mystical table made of!? 

That woman can NOT have a masters degree. There is no way on this green earth.

Weird Decisions

Jason Murphy was in a play with me when I was in college. I can't remember how or why we started flirting. But I know I was dating someone else at the time. This, of course, seemed an unfortunate fact that meant virtually nothing to me then, as I continually talked to Jason after play practice and continually neglected to mention that I was dating anyone at all.

What I do remember is that Matt Elliston was in the play with me as well, and was the lead, and did that very well, and didn't much make a single blip on my radar at that point. It would be another year before that came to be. 

But about the play. Yes. There was a moderate amount of flirting going on during rehearsals, mostly involving him prattling on and on in his conservative wisdom. This was indeed during the 04 elections. I cringed at every word. However, a week before the play opened I suppose I overlooked his obvious character flaws (what with being on the enemy team and all) and we ended up having our own kinds of rehearsals on the second floor of the business building where there were some conveniently hidden couches. 

We made out for much longer than I would have patience for now. I sold my personality, but nothing really came of it. Not because he didn't want me, but probably because I didn't want him. Maybe because he was a virgin in more ways than one. Because he had college debts and no direction in life. Because he was a singer who was just a little overconfident about his choir experiences to turn me on. And because I felt like I could do better than him. Because kissing him was like walking into a stuffy room with no air conditioning. It was warm, and musty, and slightly uncomfortable. Safe. Benign. Inconsequential. Dull.

And looking back on that now I know that unlike Matt Elliston, he didn't feel spurned. He threw me off the same way. Our connection was hush-hush and when he started dating a girl named Angela who was practically a midget even by my standards, I didn't miss him. 

He married Angela, and one day I saw her buying Frontline at the pet store I worked at during the summer. I called her on marrying Jason Murphy but didn't mention the part where I had had my tongue down his throat and he with short quick breaths had pressed his weight into me so that I fell backwards into a paneled wall once in an elevator. I knew she had no idea. Though maybe she did in another sense, right?

And now I think maybe it's these early, near misses that shaped the relationship-me. I forget about them, but there I was at the time inching my way along, decision after weird decision. Because I now think that was pretty stupid, don't you? Fleeting and fun, perhaps. But it doesn't exactly enhance my romantic resume. Thank god for mutability.

The Mandy Club

(recut 9-13-08)

So last night I go see Justin because Jacob ditched me and I haven’t seen Jonathan (the hippie) in a long time.

As predicted, the minute I get there he’s pulling out a blunt that he’s rolled from his glove compartment. I get in his truck. He hands me the broken window crank and we roll down the windows. He puffs on the blunt and lays it in the ash tray.

“Have you ever heard how loud my speakers go?” 

He cranks up his hippie music and we get to the stop sign. He pulls out a pack of cd’s from the glove compartment. “Just wait until you hear Outcast!”

“What!?” He is yelling over the music. Silence ensues and then suddenly Andre 3000 is apologizing to Ms. Jackson for making her daughter cry. Justin punches the stereo up as loud as it will go and the truck rattles with the bass line. 

People are looking at us through the windows.

Justin looks at me, heavy lidded.

“Awesome,” I say, grinning back at him. Jonathan cracks me up.

Anyway, we get to Fat Willie’s which is the unfortunate name for the pool hall that Justin works at. Thankfully no fat guy named Willie frequents it. I’m sure all the overweight Williams and Bills stay far away and play pool at the bar on Northwest Broad. But regardless of its mildly ludicrous name, Fat Willie’s is where Justin works. So we walk in.

Immediately he’s greeting everyone and introducing me, which I have always appreciated from him. It becomes apparent, however, that Justin’s brain is fucked beyond belief because as he’s yelling at the captain of one of the pool teams, I realize that his words are slurring really badly. For a second, I worry for him. But Justin has always been this way. 

He’s thirty-two and can be both remarkably mature and immature in the same breath. We went through the teacher-education program at the same time, though he didn’t finish. Though that probably had little to do with the millions of brain cells he's killed by doing so many drugs at concerts and on tours and in crappy bars and at home and once, he claims, by eating a whole block of weed as the cops pulled his friend over.  

We sat down at a low table with comfy chairs and watched the rest of Justin’s pool team suck or not suck against this guy named Larry’s team. Eventually Justin got up to play, and I hung out with the previous player, Ferrell, who was apparently 27, worked at Lowes, lived with his parents, and was hysterically funny. He had lost his match, and some of the other players were giving him a hard time about how much we was around and still hadn’t practiced enough to beat the 21-year-old blonde, nerdy guy who had beat him. 

Justin came over after a break. 

“So I just had to talk that guy out of being pissed because some girl was spreading rumors that he was gay.” He gestured at the door where apparently the guy had just left. 

“Dude," Ferrell spit some tobacco into his empty New Castle bottle. "Blame it on Mandy. Just blame it on Mandy, dude! She had a big mouth and she don’t even hang out here any more!”

Justin shrugged and went back to playing. 

“Hey, Mandy doesn’t hang out here anymore?” Someone asked.

“Nope,” and Ferrell took a swig of what I assumed was a different bottle of New Castle. Though the color of the liquids was frighteningly similar. “Yeah, have I mentioned that I’m a new member of the Maggie club?”

Someone laughed. “Yeah, and who else is it? Like John, and… Frank, and…”

“The Mandy Club?” I asked them. 

Ferrell cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah, she’s this slut that a bunch of dudes here have--”

“--Oh.” I said. The Mandy Club? I was horrified! 

“She got you too, didn’t she, Ferrell!”

“Well, it’s more like I just fell into it.”

Thoroughly disgusted, I now had the mental image of Ferrell,with his cheek full of disgusting dip, literally falling into a giant vagina.

Justin won four games in a row against a chubby guy with glasses whose name I’m sure was not Willie and clinched the top spot for the pool team he was captain of, Balls Deep.

Yes. It was a classy day in Murfreesboro.

That Mandy Club was disturbing though. And I wondered if there was a girl somewhere named Mandy who was having a great time with her friends, or riding in her car to a fast food restaurant, or watching the nightly news with her mom. I wondered about this real person who was being torn down and degraded into the punch line to a bar joke, and I wondered if she was happy somewhere, or if she hated herself. Did she even know what she was to them? Could she?

Accessories

"Ask me anything,"

Edward Cullen says to Bella. I am already gagging over my insertion of their sappy, illegitimate bread-pudding-lust-slash-vampire-love names when, for some reason, the pit opens up and I'm in the meadow again.

And this time I'm freaking out because I think, surely I will never fall in love. I'm too self conscious. Or self-aware. Whatever you want to call me. And sometimes, on a particularly bad day, I think I have too many things to hide. Or rather, too many things to reveal to someone later. There are so many skeletons in my closet, and reasons why I am the way I am, that there is NO way anyone (friend, soulmate, what have you) in their right mind would sit there and respond with an, "I don't care. I still want you. You are what I want." You know, regardless of laborious accessories. 

Because I do come with a cute pink Barbie purse full of guilt and the occasional twinge of self-loathing. I even have my own removable coat of fear! Perfect for a night on the town with Ken! What a fashionable girl I am! 

I make this shit look good. 

Now. If only I could buy into Trust-time Barbie instead of Rush-into-things Barbie, maybe my accessories would become a little less hard to carry around. Because, you know, I hear Trust-time Barbie is so much fun that you can actually lose your accessories and still have oodles of fun with her. 

Yes. I did say oodles.

Self-Aware

People sometimes say that to be self-aware is to be really smart. Its an asset, a good thing, to be self aware because you know yourself.

But I think these people are wrong. Because being self-aware really only means that one sees oneself from an outward perspective. You can lie to yourself constantly being self-aware because you try to see what other people see. And you react to things based on what other people see. And what people don't see doesn't exist! And if you can keep secrets, and lie well, it will astound you how fast you can forget or move on from things. Who cares how you feel when other people are happy with you?

Selfish? Or selfless?

Both.
You have selfishly lost yourself and are floating in space, bumping up against things and bruising yourself and your quietly broken edges. You are self-less. There is no self.
But image is everything, and as along as you're candid and honest and aware of how others perceive you, you're perfect. You're self aware. You can see through their eyes and tell them what they see.

...Of course then there's that moment down the line where you realize that you've put your self-esteem through a cheese grater, and you aren't happy with yourself at all. That's when you re-evaluate. Where are you? Peel back all the old paint, the false pretenses, the in-control facade. Where are you in there? Without all the fluff, and the romance, and the trying-too-hard, what is it that your heart really desires?

Pop Secret: Decoded

Just so everyone knows, there are no Pop Secrets in my microwave. There are are no buns in the oven. I have no plans to sue Trojan.

"Ms. Robinson, are you pregnant?"

And no, small children in my classes, I am NOT pregnant.

"Stop walking around like that." Amy, my boss, was looking at me from behind her desk at one end of the classroom.

"Like what?" I had stopped reflexively, mid-walk to the back room where I planned to indulge in just a few minutes of morbid-romantic-fang-fantasy before the 12 o'clock session started. Amy cocked one eyebrow at me.

"Why do you keep holding your stomach like that?"

I looked down. My hands were clasped in front of me, pressed across my abdomen.

"...I don't know. What are you talking about?"

"The kids keep asking me if you're pregnant." She waved her finger at me and pointed. "You need to stop doing that."

"Ugh! Do I look pregnant to you?"

"I don't know, stop touching yourself like you're holding something in and maybe you won't."

"Fine." I grumbled, continuing my walk back to my book, "I'll try to stop looking pregnant. I guess." And I thought, dear God, do I really look that fat?

Amy's comment actually made me think of something that had happened to me just this time last year. I was student teaching at Murray Middle, and one of my eighth graders who was full of good jokes came running by while I was on hall duty.

"Hey, Ms. Robinson! When's the baby due!"

Shocked, I could only gape and cover my mouth, half laughing.

"Kevin!" Ms. Woodridge was always one of those teachers who could yell all day and never go hoarse. "Kevin, get back here! That was rude and totally insensitive!" She had a pointy nose, cropped blonde hair, and she made sure Kevin knew he was a rude little brat the entire time I taught with her. But by the time she got him back to me so she could yell in full force, I was laughing with more intensity than I felt insecure.

The whole thing became a joke, and Kevin brought it up at random intervals the entire time I taught him. I always laughed, but I still didn't understand the origin of the joke.

Today as I was walking around making sure all the kids were working, and occasionally telling them to shut up, I noticed myself doing it. I was walking around "like that." I was resting my hands on my stomach, just above the button of my pants. And suddenly it all clicked for me. I was holding my hands like that only because I don't like to cross my arms.

Why don't I like crossing my arms?

Because when I cross my arms... my boobs look huge.

I tested the theory, crossing my arms for a few seconds.

Yep. I was uncomfortable that way. Cleavage peeked out of the top of my shirt just tad, making me hyper aware of my chest. And naturally reacting, my hands went back to a clasp at my waist.

Damn!

The only reason Kevin and all these kids had ever thought I was pregnant was because I was insecure about my chestal region.

Go figure.

The Truth About Twilight

At a younger age, I found myself unable to eat marshmallow Peeps because they were so darn cute. I would ask for them every year. They'd appear in my Easter basket, I'd open them, and then stare lovingly down at their sugary brown eyes. 

For days.

As much as they did look soft and delicious and ridiculously sweet, I couldn't bring myself to chomp into their gooey little marshmallow bodies. I usually ended up throwing them out or feeding them to the dog after they had dried out, becoming stale and gross. 

And that is what I think of as I read the Twilight books. Ugh. I know, right! I'm just another person roped into the phenomenon that is the vampire-romance-novel. Sheepishly, I carry my 600 page monster book to school with me in my bag and make sure to take it out only in the staff room where none of the students will see me reading gratuitous frivolity. Which are two words that my kids would not, in reality, be able to pronounce. Still, I'm telling you, this book is like a horrific Lil Wayne "song!" It might be lacking substance or meaning, and be totally repetitive, but the hook is absolutely amazing. I just love pulling it apart and looking at it from different angles. 

Thus I present to you angle number A: Twilight is about someone who falls in love with their food. The book is seriously about Bella (the marshmallow Peep) being way too gorgeous to eat even though she is clearly food for her lover. 

Further regarding angle A, I myself would probably fall in love with a plate of bread pudding. 

I would stroke its warm squooshy goodness forever and always, promising never to eat it. I would have to exercise the utmost control, of course, not to eat my soulmate. It would be painful at times. But... our feelings would run so deep!

Reverse Judgment in Cafeterias

            It was breakfast time, and Micah didn’t come with me like he usually did. I had to get my biscuit and gravy fix though, so I was unattached as I walked into the cafeteria that day, and I sat with the friends I always sat with when I was unattached. It’s not like I would normally avoid them or anything. It’s just that they tended to either avoid me when I was attached to Micah, or they were avoiding Micah. It was one or the other. And I figured it out.

           “So where’s Micah and that gay guy?”

            “Gay guy?”

            “That gay guy that wears make up.” Deadpan. He was talking about Micah’s friend Christian. Who was also a good friend of mine, by way of Micah. Slowly they were becoming my only friends.

            “You mean Christian?” I smiled uncomfortably. Since I assumed he was joking, but I couldn’t tell.

            “Yeah. With the eye liner. The gay guy.”

            “He’s not gay.”

            “Well then why does he wear make up?”

            “He has a fiancée. He’s not gay.”

            “Is she a man?”

            “No! –Listen, you don’t know anything about him.”

            And that’s when I knew they avoided Micah. And although Taylor was just one person at the table, no one said anything else. No one said, ‘so what if he is gay, anyway.’ No one even frowned. Did everyone agree with the sick joke?

            Yes, Micah and Christian were oddities. They were beautiful, too. They didn’t wear gray New Balances, and they didn’t have North Face jackets, and they weren’t always the most sociable people, but they were there for me later in March, and they were important to me. And for the brief time I knew them I think I was important to them.

            And Christian was so not gay. His fiancée lived in Georgia and it tore him up to be away from her. He visited her sometimes on the weekends, leaving Micah and I to run around by ourselves. He did believe, in what I assumed was a delusion, that he was a direct descendant of ancient royalty, but he had a tender heart. I worried about him a lot actually. I recall him abusing anti-depressants and muscle relaxers, and Micah telling me he almost called an ambulance once, Christian was so out of sorts. There were good reasons for him being ‘out of sorts’ that I hate I never got to help him with. And it never stopped the three of us from talking about religion, and relationships, and what we would do with our lives. We had in depth discussions on communism and sex. Not at the same time.

            And maybe now I’m guilty of reverse-judgment, right? Maybe I don’t know anything about Taylor at breakfast that day. Maybe he was struggling with homo-sexuality himself, I don’t know. But I know he didn’t win me over right then, because everything that was said after that tasted bitter.  That conversation is exactly how I remember him.

Caveat

Dear Readers,

Ms. Robinson would like to extend a sincere apology to anyone who is, was, or may be offended by her
A) use of profanity
B) sarcasm
C) sexually explicit content
D) attempts at humor
E) inadvertent angst (...disgusted shudder implied)

She endeavors to think of you while she writes, but occasionally feels that true events, however unfortunate, are more important than fable. In addition, she often finds that moderate fabrication may be necessary to relate a good sense of context. It is in this way that Ms. Robinson pledges to you that she will continue to walk the tight rope that is her life in print.

She wishes to remind you that the purpose of her lesser known works is not for them to stand in contrast to any greater works, but to prove that profundity is hidden behind the superficial. That truth is often palpably awkward, and unpopular.

With this, she hopes that you may be able to find the morals to her stories, and the humanity that must remain our strongest tie that binds.

With thanks,

JLRobinson

Why Writing A Blog Is Hard

I just finished writing a blog entry that I now realize I can never post. And I'm starting to think that maybe I'm just a little jaded about some things. I really shouldn't be so hard on people for isolated incidents and things that may only have happened once.

But that's just it though. Everybody sees through their own lenses. And lenses are limiting. One can only see as much as the lens will allow. So when I write a blog and verbally castrate somebody, I'm referring to them through my own personal lens of experience. And let’s face it, I’ve experienced some pretty weird shit.

So sometimes when people (like me) are a little jaded for various reasons, their lenses may be “dirty” from the build-up of various negative experiences. Everything one sees through these lenses is a tad bit cloudy with all the previously experienced gunky build-up. Looking through this dirty lens, it becomes easier for me to get out the big knife. So to speak, of course.

Which is why we all need to take a second and attempt to remove the filter, take off our glasses, and wipe away all the gunk! Because people don’t like putting together puzzles. In this world, you have less than a nanosecond before people begin to form opinions about you, and no one is going to enjoy your presence if they have to dig up their Little Orphan Annie secret decoder ring to figure you out. No one cares about why you’re acting the way you do. They only care about how. Lift the veil! Take off the cloak of superfluous jaded opinions, and really try to see the world whether it looks you back in the eyes or not. Wouldn’t you feel so free then?
I would.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I never meant to hurt your feelings, reader. Sometimes I just want to show you what I see. But most of the time, I want to see clearly. And if you could do me a huge favor and call me out on that whenever you can, I’d actually be grateful. It makes me a better personal historian.

What I Pictured

A couple months ago, my mother had developed a secret group of friends.
“Okay, guys, I'm going out with some people from work,” she'd say in her mom-jeans and open toed high heels.
“You look good,” I'd say back. “Have fun.” She rarely goes out with friends at all; who was I to stop her? Only later when she came back at 9pm would I wonder. Because my mother is the kind of person who wakes up at 4:30 so she can shower, style her hair with an inordinate amount of hair spray and catch a bus downtown for her job on the thirty second floor of a bank. This 4:30 wake up time means she generally passes the hell out at around 7:30 or 8, only she'll be sitting upright in a chair in front of our ever-HGtv-blaring television. The 9 o'clock return from “fun with friends” was a shocker.

At the same time, I kept hearing about a guy on the bus named Alex. She said they rode into downtown at the same time in the mornings. I began to see her shuffle off to another room before taking phone calls from him. Her voice would jump an octave anytime she picked up. So I knew she liked him.

“Oh, I shouldn't like him, honey.” We were at Las Palmas (awesome Mexican food!) and she had decided to share.
“Why?” I pictured another older man. Like my former college professor that she dated for a year and a half.
“Because.” She grimaced. “He's...younger than me.”
I was slightly taken aback. “Way to go, Mom. Woah. Is he cute?”
“Oh, he's gorgeous.” She looked at the stereotypical-Mexican-restaurant mural on the wall, and sighed like a starry-eyed teenager.
“What's wrong with him? Why do you sound so pained?”
“Well. He's quite a bit younger than me.”
“You already said that.”
“Its significant.”
I sighed. “How much?”
“He's nineteen years younger than me.”
“...Woah, mom. Wow.”
It was a shock, but I decided that it was a good idea for her to get out of her shell a little bit. This young guy obviously liked my mom back, which was a little bizarre, but was encouraging. How many times would an opportunity like this arise? I would say. You can't pass something up like that without having just a little bit of fun with it. It doesn't have to be serious!

One night I practically pushed her out the door to meet him. She said she they were going to meet up with a bunch of friends from work at the Starbucks, and it took everything for me to convince her that even though it wouldn't work out with him in the long run, it could be like an experiment. Live a little! I yelped. She clip-clopped out the door.
At ten till midnight, I was a little worried. But I didn't call.
When she got home five minutes later, I knew something was up because she was flushed in the way that I am after someone kiss-attacks my face.
It was then that I pried, and asked questions about what he did for a living.
“He's a painter.”
“Like an artist?”
“No, like a--”
“--guy who paints houses, I got this. Why didn't you tell me his real name was Alejandro?”
“Not everybody who paints houses is foreign.”
“Well then, where's he from?”
“Guadalajara.”
“That's in Mexico, Mom.”
“I know.”
We just stood there for a moment.
“So you guys made out?”
“He kissed me. Yes.”
“...You're all disheveled.” One of my favorite words.
“Oh...” She sighed, shrugging it off, and walked into the kitchen. I followed.
“So did you make out in the car like high school kids, or what?” Because in spite of myself, I could not withhold my grin.

So with more interrogation, I figured out that my mother was “in like” with an illegal Mexican immigrant who worked as a painter and was nineteen years younger than her. She hadn't been going out with friends at all. She had been meeting him and calling it 'a big group from work'. It was a tad shocking. I didn't like it.

And I decided that the difference between me dating Marlon (21, also a painter, Hondureno, crossed the border on foot, had scars to show) and my mother dating Alex was that my mom was different from me. I liked her that way. I didn't want her to have to put up with foreign guys who didn't know how to be gentle. Because most of them don't. They are pushy in a subtle way that I, the experienced daughter, am fully aware of, and I don't want my hopelessly innocent, pure, sweet mother feeling like a used wash rag. It wasn't just foreign guys at all, I just didn't want some strange man adulterating her so that she was wise to all the filth and knows how it works like I do. I'd rather her be blindly afraid of things she doesn't understand.

Intrinsically, I think it mostly made me feel sick to think that I convinced her to embark on that ridiculous thing. I had no idea who that guy was-- she wouldn't tell me! I mean, they rode the bus together into downtown Nashville; I figured he worked at the bank too or something!

Creepy Little Carousel

I am the most scared when I feel disconnected to everyone else. God included. I don't even know what triggers it, but it feels like I'm spiraling. I'll open a book, or I'll hear some phrase in casual conversation, or I'll look down at my plate a dinner, and something about the mashed potatoes unleashes this sucking beast inside me. And I'll seriously feel like I'm falling falling falling and I'm cold and uncomfortable, exposed. Like I've walked straight into Bambie's meadow and I can't get out.

And I think, oh god. And there are a thousand knives in my stomach. And I just want to cuddle up to something warm. My mom maybe? I want to cry out, in the same way you do when the roller coaster starts to be more scary than fun. Like I'm on Holden Caufield's carousel and its spun out of control. I'm clutching the ground, and in reality there is no carousel. There is only the dining room floor. And if I clutch at it and scream, people will think I'm crazy and I'll still be spinning on the inside. No one can stop it. No one but me. No one can even see it, but me.

I hope I’m not the only one who ever feels this way.

Presidential Elections

I barely remember anything from 1992. I was seven. I remember being ecstatic over my brother's enjoyment of his birthday gift, a coloring book. I remember being very disappointed when the activity sheets in my work folder at school piled up so much that Ms. Kolbe just took them all out and threw them away so that I thought I was in a lot of trouble. Amazed, I continued receiving A+ report cards.

I do have one brief memory regarding the election that year. My parents were really pumped about it. And I can clearly recall waking up on what must have been November 5th, 1992, and asking my mom, “Did he win!?” of course referring to Bill Clinton, to which my mother smiled and nodded with a simple “yes” in answer.

At Tusculum Elementary that year, there had been a school wide mock election. Teachers had dragged their classes into the cafeteria and had one by one gotten a vote out of every single child. On election day it had been announced that Clinton had won with a vast majority. Bush had come in second, and Perot was dead last. I can remember making funny Perot faces at my best friend, Candy Wilson. We'd press our ears forward and cross our eyes. It was really only a shade off of the monkey faces we were also rather good at.

So when I woke up that morning and found out that Bill Clinton was president of the United States, I was excited but I didn't really comprehend what that meant. I felt like everything would always be that way. Predetermined and true and good. My parents were smart people, and lets face it, those elementary school kids voted like their parents would, so did I. But my parents were smart, good people, who were right and true. Of course Bill Clinton would win the election. Because good, smart people supported him.

And that sureness carried into my next brush with presidential elections in 1996. My Dad was taking me to Glendale Middle School then. Every morning we'd drive to school past the governors mansion listening to talk radio. My Dad would do this funny impression of Bob Dole that made him sound like he had a stick up his butt, and I'd laugh. “Baaaaaaaab Doooooooole” was not going to win the election. No way. It was going to be Bill Clinton, and it was. We were good people, we were smart, and Bill Clinton was our choice. He was the right choice. And I was 11.

In 1999, I saw television footage of George Bush Jr. I laughed. There was news footage of him getting off a plane and waving. How silly, I thought. I've never even heard of him.
Fast forward to the year 2000. I was 15, and I was a nutcase about forensics. I knew at this point that it was a ridiculously close election, and that George Bush Jr was an arrogant, goofy looking little dude.
Ben Cameron: “Why, girls, why would you ever vote for Al Gore?”
“Abortion!” It shot out of my mouth.
“Economic policy!” My best friend Blair shouted.
“The middle class!”
“The environment!” We were so eager to sound knowlegeable. Eager to have Ben Cameron think we were. Ben was the best speaker on our whole speech team, and was a senior, and a Republican. He worshiped God, Reagan, and the Constitution. Probably in that order.

Blair and I went around the school in our home-made screen tees that said “Stay Out of the Bushes! More with Gore!” When the debates were on, I watched fervently. I just couldn't understand the close numbers. And this time it wasn't just my parents' vote that mattered. It was Ben and Blair and I and the whole adult world who could actually vote. And it was public policy decisions and speeches and poor people. It was my trip to the First Amendment Center that year. It was a whole bunch of yuppie religious people who hated Bill Clinton because he had committed adultery, which had nothing at all to do with how the country had faired. It was the religious right at my church and my school who I noticed for the first time couldn't separate church from state or anything else because they were so sure that they were right because God told them they were.

That made me angry for the first time back then. I watched the impeachment hearing and couldn't understand how it could be legal for someone to be fired from their job for cheating on their wife. When the election was over, months after it had been held, I was so disappointed and so mad that such a polarizing figure had been elected that I really became liberal.

Which is why it doesn't make any sense that I went to the most conservative private college in all of Nashville, right? While there, I was spending my time becoming more and more blue.

“What if Hillary Clinton ran for president?” The girls who were suite mates with me were, like most people at the school, ridiculously conservative.
“Like, no body would vote for her, duh.” Karen was blonde.
“Yeah, maybe you're right, Karen. How could anyone vote for her. She's a woman.” Jenna was not blonde, but was unfortunately close-minded.
“I just hate her.” Karen flipped the channel. From my seat on the other side of the room, I started to smirk.
“How could anyone vote for a woman?”
“Wait, Jenna, you wouldn't even vote for a woman if... okay, say she's more qualified and stuff.” My smirk got bigger. We were in for a real enlightening argument here.
“No. Absolutely not.” Jenna crossed her arms from her seat on the couch.
“Why?” I finally piped up, trying to kill my smirk.
“Because,” Jenna intoned, “women are emotional, they have periods, they just can't handle the kinds of policy decisions that men can. Plus, you have to take into account all these foreign relations guys. Hello? Are they going to respect the US if a woman is running our country?”
Why are you in college? I should have said. You're a woman. Why don't you go home and get pregnant and fulfill your purpose as a female, right?
“Would you vote for a black man?” I asked, but she huffed and grabbed the remote.

I went with my friend Miriam from Iowa to a Micahel Moore concert where everyone chanted about turning the state blue even though we knew it would never happen.
I put a Kerry sign in my dorm room window, and within twenty minutes the head resident stopped by to see who owned the sign.
“I just thought it was interesting, is all!”
Bitch.
I bought a sticker for the back of my car that said “God is not a Republican or a Democrat” because I generally went through hell at school. Somebody wrote in paint pen all over my car, and and somebody else printed out a bunch of anti-American garbage about John Kerry and taped it to my window with the sign.

“You know you're killing babies when you vote for him, right?”
What the hell was I supposed to say to that logic?
“Morality is important to me in a leader. I don't know what kind of leader you want, you know, as a Christian, but murder will always be wrong. How can you sit there and support abortion?”
Well frankly I don't know that I wouldn't have one!

It was like a personal attack every day. And even as I woke up at 4am to go onto the quad and plaster the statuesque mascot with Kerry stickers, I felt the rise of everyone against me.
That year when Bush won again, I cried really hard. Web addresses were suddenly difficult to write since I declared the letter W dead to me. But seriously, the world just wasn't simple any more for me. The rules about smart, caring people were becoming completely blurred. Everything was conditional. It really sucked. It felt like there was this weight crushing me. It wasn't just my religion doing what I perceived as turning against me, it was this impenetrable religious ignorance that divided everyone and, at least at my school, isolated me from everyone else.

Today it's the year 2008, and I am too old now to assume that the good guys always win. The spell of childhood assumption has been broken too many times. People in fairy tales don't have to pay bills. And I think when I woke up and saw that Barack Obama was going to be the President of the United States, I cried this time because the weight had been lifted. Most of my adult political consciousness had been characterized by being an underdog. And the faces of these kids at my center saying “a black man is President and I really can do anything” and the hope for people, and the faith in intrinsic good and second chances feels so strong right now.

Thank God for that, right there. This year was the first year I've known I could feel like that about this country.

Candy Wilson became politically apathetic. She smoked a lot of pot in college and I don't know, but I think she might be apathetic about a lot of things, although I'm sure she'd still think Ross Perot impressions are funny.
Blair is still blue. She graduated from college with a triple major and now works in New York City. Economic policy and the environment are still important to her, although her employer does primarily publish Republican works of non-fiction.
Miriam from Iowa married a Republican and they both now make loads of money. Which is why I'm not sure about her blue/red status. She was always wary of Michael Moore, and she actually allowed her husband to serve a Ronald Reagan sheet cake at her wedding, so who knows anymore.
Ben Cameron is still as red as red can be. He married into a both political and religious family, and now occasionally has fun working on Republican campaigns. He may still possibly carry around a pocket Constitution.
The head resident at my old dorm was eventually responsible for my expulsion from said conservative college. I know I'm still bitter, but sometimes I wish I could talk to her about it just to let her know how much that one thing impacted my life. Because its always that one thing that makes the difference. I know that now in my line of work. And frankly thats what this whole freakin blog is about. Because its always that one little thing, isn't it?

Things Will Fall Into Place

In seventh grade teachers started lumping kids in ability groups. Unfortunately, I was not very talented when it came to test-taking and I tested into a mid-level group with kids ranging from Drew Price and Slone Starky, afore mentioned manure shovelers, to Tiffany Nelson who once indicated to me that she touched herself while listening to Usher songs. Rachel Wells was also in my group. She liked to pick at the corners of her books and notebooks and really pick at things in general that had imperfect pieces hanging off. I guess the urge to peel it all away was just too strong.
I sat in the middle front of every classroom and stared at the back of Tiffany's head or watched Rachel peel the labels off of soda bottles and text books. When I wasn't doing that I was writing in my notebook which was really a book I was writing about how much it sucked to be in a mid-level ability group when clearly your brain was at least capable of advanced Language Arts. You know, since you were writing a novel.

Language Arts was the only class in which I knew, without a doubt, that I was being gypped. Aside from my “Penny-lope” incident in which I read an entire text book page aloud pronouncing the name Penelope “Penny-lope,” I was sure that I should have been bumped up to Advanced English. Especially when all of my best friends were in the advanced ability groups, “special” groups J and K. My mid-level group O was just not cutting it. Tiffany and Rachel were sweet, but I missed my best friends. Frankly, I was probably a little bit elitist.
My only ticket out of the slums of group O appeared to come to me one day in English class.

Ms. Anderson was possibly the weirdest teacher I had ever had. She was a slight woman with a delicate frame that was thrown off by the fact that she had a rather less than delicate face. She had a mole that sorta reminded me of my grandmother, and she was always frowning. She wore modest, loose fitting dresses that were bordering on being too big for her, and she never wore any make up. Her hair and skin all seemed pale and drained of color. She looked tired. Washed out. Occasionally I caught myself feeling sorry for her.
She taught Language Arts, and we wrote a lot in her class. We wrote pieces of an autobiography and put them together. We wrote our own poems. I liked her class because I liked writing and I liked the things she wrote back to me in my margins.
“Great dialogue!”
“Most unique birth story I've ever read!”
But as much as I liked her, other kids took advantage of her and pretty much gave her hell. They made fun of her baggy hippie clothes and her mole, and her short faded hair. They were cruel. And eventually there were rumors surrounding an incident with a fat kid named TJ Jackson who thought he was real funny.
TJ had apparently ticked Ms. Anderson off to no end one day in his low level English class, so she took him out into the hallway. Accounts of the incident got fuzzy there because the rumor was that tiny, little Ms. Anderson had shoved TJ up against the lockers and threatened him. Other rumors detailed an actual fight between the two, and that subsequently Ms. Anderson had been fired. But whether or not that was true, she did inform us that she would be leaving before the end of the year.
Just before she left we were completing a short story unit. To my left, Rachel Wells was chipping off her fingernail polish nail by nail. Tiffany Nelson shifted in her seat in front of me. And I decided to myself that I would attempt to escape from group O. I reached down into my backpack and pulled out my spiral Mead notebook with the recycled cardboard cover. I can still remember the multitudinous peace signs in different colors across the front. I was always very particular about my writing materials. I reached down and put the notebook on top of my desk. Rachel Wells finished chipping away at her pinky finger, extended her hand, and chose a thumb to pick at.

After class I handed my notebook to Ms. Anderson.
“I know you're leaving soon, but I thought you might like to read this.” I was shy back then. I looked down as she examined the notebook and then me. “Its a book I'm working on.”
“Oh, really!” But she didn't look at me like a little kid with a fingerpaint picture. She looked at me like I had some new and interesting information she might need to know. “I might not have enough time to finish it, but I'd love to read your work.”
“Thanks. I mean, you can tell me what you think,” I said. I didn't want her to think I was showing off. “It is unfinished, though, so...”
“I will be glad to read it,” she said. And I smiled and left the room for my last class.
The whole rest of the day I was envisioning Ms. Anderson flipping through my notebook at her home, which I was sure contained at least one cat. I didn't really think about her expression except that she would really be reading it, not just looking at it. She would be thinking the things I had thought. And she would know how I felt.

Ms. Anderson didn't show up for her last day. We were greeted by a substitute, and TJ Jackson ran around the school even more loudly and tactlessly than before, considering that the rumor mill had declared him the reason she had left. Or been fired, depending on who you believed. Kids were quietly celebrating her departure. She was “just weird” to them, and they were glad to see that go.
Near the end of the day I was called in to the office to receive a manilla envelope with my name scrawled across the front. I recognized the handwriting as the same kind that had snaked around the margins of my papers.
Sure enough inside the envelope Ms. Anderson had returned my notebook. Tucked inside the book was a folded piece of print paper on which was a hand typed letter. It was a full page long and read something to the effect of--

“Ms. Robinson,
Little did I know that a future novelist was sitting in my classroom all year. Your writing has always been a pleasure to read, but this story proves to me that you really do have a remarkable way with words. I can not tell you how grateful I am to you for sharing this notebook with me.
As I type this note to you, I should really be packing. You may not know this, but my mother has been sick for some time and I am moving to Nevada to take care of her. Though I will not be at school tomorrow, I do hope you know that your story has been a pleasure to read and has brightened this dark time for me.
Your use of dialogue is well developed, and your command of first person narration amazes me. Your form could be improved upon since the style of your formatting is sometimes hard to follow (quotation marks, paragraph breaks, indention), but I am still convinced that as long as you continue writing, these things will improve greatly.
All of this being said, I don't know exactly what you would like me to do for you regarding the “special” group. Since I am no longer a teacher there, I'm afraid there is very little I can do that will improve your position. Without improved test scores in math it would be impossible for me to do anything but slide you into advanced language arts for the day. This would have no effect on your group letter. Still, eighth grade will offer more opportunities. Be sure to shine like I know you will. Things will fall into place. I wish I could do more.
Unfortunately, now that I have read your partial masterpiece I will have to wait until your book is released and in Nevada book stores to read a completed work of Ms. JL Robinson. I will be sure to look.
Don't ever stop writing. Thank you again for allowing me to read such an outstanding piece of work.
Sincerely,
Mary Ellen Anderson”

I stood in the hallway of Murray Middle School and wished Ms. Anderson hadn't had to leave. That letter was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me. She actually analyzed my writing! She didn't say just 'great job!' or 'wow!' treating me like a little kid who meant nothing. She signed her full name, Mary Ellen Anderson, like she was my editor or something.
I was still reading and re-reading the letter when I sat down in math class next to Rachel Wells. I didn't even look over to notice that she had only one fingernail left to scrape polish off of as she reached down to pick up her cover-less math book. Tiffany Nelson turned around in her seat, waking me from my mental image of Ms. Anderson in a room full of boxes, typing a letter to her twelve-year-old student.
“Did you see Usher on the video awards last night? Mmmm he is so fine!”

I didn't make it into groups J or K. But I would never blame Ms. Anderson for that. Instead, she was right, and things did fall into place. In the 8th grade Mr. Baggett took a chance on me and allowed me into advanced group S. Yes, I was finally with my friends.

I stopped writing the story Ms. Anderson read shortly after I got the notebook back. I think it meant something different to me then.

TJ Jackson, who was not by any means the reason Ms. Anderson left, grew even fatter and I have since seen that he attended TSU, although he appears to be ambiguously gay.

I saw Tiffany Nelson at a gas station near the airport once. She didn't recognize me. She got into a beat up Buick LeSabre and left with two creepy looking guys who looked nothing like Usher. I don't know if she went to college or not.

The cops found Rachel Wells' body on the bottom level of a parking garage near Music Row. She'd apparently picked her last label and instead picked the wrong drug cocktail at a party. They said she'd probably been dumped in the parking garage after she overdosed. She was nineteen, and they used an outdated school picture of her when they reported it on the news.

I don't know what happened to Ms. Anderson. But I kept her letter taped to the back of my bedroom door for years. In a school year where I'd felt like crap for being a supposedly mid-level kid, Ms. Anderson made me feel like I was more “special” and had more purpose than any other kid in the seventh grade. And I carried that feeling with me all through school until I graduated. Until now, even.

That's why I've promised myself that if I ever do publish a book, Mary Ellen Anderson is going to show up right under dedications. And now I know I can't stop writing. Because I'd really like to give her that.

Baby's First Scratch

My cell phone is two weeks old.

As of last night, it is already imperfect.
I guess innocence only lasts so long, right?

Why should the shininess of cell phones?

Even Samsung Sways?

Bah. I am still disappointed

that I am already on my way

to abusing yet another expensive device.

Oh well!

Jordan Howell

The first thing I know about Jordan Howell dates back to seven years ago. I was a junior in high school, and when I entered the House chamber for the second time in Student Congress, I was being demoted. It was the National Qualifying tournament, and Mrs. Barker, our coach, wanted someone in the Senate who would actually have a shot at making it to Nationals. Since my speech-making record hadn't been so hot that year, (nor had it ever, I might add) she sent some speech-happy sophomore in ahead of me even though I was a junior and on my way to being the team captain.

I was sore about it, sort of, but I hated Senate anyway. I hated that feeling of being in a situation where you know you have to speak, but have really nothing to say.

So, that Friday night I started writing around 6 o'clock. I was determined to have at least one speech on each of the four House bills in my hand. If I wrote them out, I could sit there all day, blithely writing in my notebook and speaking whenever I felt like it. I could relax while everyone else squirmed!

So I dug up the info, wrote the speeches, and showed up bright and early. The two guys everyone knew would make it to Nationals that year were Dan Patrick and Jordan Howell. Dan, the afore mentioned gift-hater was from Brentwood, was a Republican, and was a total shoe-in for nationals. Josh, on the other hand, was younger than I, black, from Davidson high school, and was very attractive. At least I thought he was cute. He wore suits well, and he had these little rectangular lenses in his glasses that would now be considered Palin-esque and trendy. He played football at Davidson but was the best speaker on their whole forensics team.

After my first speech it became immediately apparent that writing had been the best idea ever. Other schools' representatives were coming up to me with compliments on my sources and my speech. From there it got better and better. Dan smiled across the room at me, and I rounded out the day at the top of the base.

Before the parliamentarian came in to announce the nominees for best speaker, Josh came over.
“Well you did great today. What's your name again?”
I told him. “And you're... Jordan?”
“Yup! You know, I hope you know you're name is going to be on that list when she comes back,” Jordan said, grinning at me. I blushed.
“Oh, I don't know about that. Thanks though. We all know yours will. You just have such a great speaking style. You did a really great job on that wildlife bill.”
“Thanks!” He said, and the parliamentarian stepped back in. “Best of luck to us both, right?” He grinned again, and my stomach did a little flip.

Sure enough, we had all made the cut, Dan, Jordan, and I. And in another thirty minutes we were all waiting on awards. People were already congratulating Dan, and Jordan's team was abuzz since multiple people from Davidson had been nominated. He winked at me when I turned around to look at him. I smiled.

Somehow that year I became a congress god overnight, and I actually did beat out Jordan Howell and earn my ticket to Nationals with second place behind Dan.

“Well, well, Representative Robinson.” Jordan re-congratulated me, “I've got to hand it to you, I probably should have done more research.”
“Congress is not even my thing!” I exploded at him with glee. It was the biggest deal EVER to me. I had wanted to qualify for the National tournament since day one of freshman year. I just always thought it would be in an Interp category.
“Well maybe you should change your mind on that one, then.”

And I had. By my senior year I was the “incumbent” representative to Nationals. The trip was like a piece of pie cut out just for the taking. I breezed through every congress meet consistently ranking under Dan, though still higher than Jordan. And I didn't think a single thing about it when I qualified again that year. Besides, Jordan was a year younger than me and would have his own senior year to rock it out, and I told him so.

“Yeah, you're right.” He said, “I'm just going to have to settle for next year.” But he said it like he was still really happy for me. He was always like that, always smiling that beautiful grin curving up into his cheeks. And as my team took their pictures outside after the tournament he turned and stood a second watching us before he got on the Davidson bus.

I didn't see Jordan Howell for a long time after that. I thought I would. Almost immediately after high school I came back to judge tournaments and congress meets on a regular basis. I looked, but Jordan was never there. I finally asked.
“Oh, he's out for the year probably.”
“What! Why?”
There was some hesitation. “He... got suspended from school. But he's been more into football lately anyway.”

Until the end of the year I always thought that surely I would see him at the National Qualifying congress. But when I went, he didn't show. Some ridiculous freshman somehow beat the odds and qualed.

Shortly after this, there was some rumor that he'd been involved with drugs, and then a year or so later, I heard his coach talking to another coach about how he must have 'had it rough at home.' She then related a story about how his mother had once been called in to pick him up from school as a disciplinary measure, and that after the conference with the assistant principal, she was seen in the halls with Jordan slapping him around and generally beating the crap out of him in front of everybody.

I was struck by this news because, god, what a gorgeous kid he was! I would never ever have guessed he'd been in a situation like that. It seemed like a bad movie to me. And I couldn't imagine the embarrassment he must have felt that day in the halls. Davidson was a small town school.

Two years later I was walking across the quad at MTSU, when I saw him standing outside of the Honors dorm with two other guys. His hair was different, but I knew it was the same guy.
“Jordan Howell?” I walked straight up to him. “Didn't you do forensics at Davidson?”
“Yes! Representative Robinson!”
“I'm surprised you remember my name.”
“Of course I do! You're the reason I didn't get to go to Nationals.” That same smile.
“Come on, now. You're the reason you didn't get to go to Nationals. What happened there anyway?”
“Oh.” He looked down for a second. “I just got into some trouble, is all.” Then he brightened, and said, “but I think the reason I remember you is because you were cute.”
“Oh?” I cocked an eyebrow. I had aced flirting 101 since I'd last seen him. “Well, I always thought you were pretty good looking yourself. Have I changed?”
“Not much, I guess. My reasons for remembering you still stand.” Grinning devilishly, and looking ridiculously handsome, he leaned against the brick wall in a GQ-esque pose. God, he was so cute!

We exchanged numbers. I was pumped about hanging out with him, and he actually did call me around 2am a couple of days later, but when I tried to answer it he sounded incoherent. Assuming he was drunk, and because I was already undressed, I went back to bed. He might have called once after that. But I was busy, I guess. I was always busy at MTSU. I still waved when I saw him on campus while he flashed me a broad beautiful grin. With time those calls became un-returnable. And I never really got to hang out with him like I'd wanted to.

The next things I knew about Jordan Howell, I saw via facebook. I noticed he had gotten into and out of a relationship with this girl who looked like she was either A) really a man, or B) someone who had a ridiculous eating disorder.

More time passed, and I also noted via facebook that his name had been tagged onto a picture of two newborn babies. And after some digging, I found out he was the father of the two beautiful twins in the picture, a boy and a girl, by a supposed former girlfriend.

Shocked by this news, I knew there was no way now that I would ever be able to hang out with him like I had planned maybe a year ago. Some contacts were retrievable even after a year's time, but we were too distant now for me to ever use the phone number he'd given me. And it seemed he'd have plenty to do what with being the father of two children.

The last thing I know about Jordan Howell is that in June, later that year, shortly before his twentieth birthday, Jordan Howell put a gun to his head and shot himself. I've never really figured out the details. And I guess I don't really have any entitlement to grief, but it shocked the crap out of me. Those children would never even remember him! And the Jordan who had smiled that million dollar grin seemed so sure of himself, so talented, so confident. And that was two and a half years ago now, and I still don't know what to think because of the finality of it all.

What a waste of a great person.

God, facebook is a horrible way to catch up with people.

New Words

What do you do when someone engages in unhealthy obsession with you? I mean, some people you're like sure! That sounds awesome! But then... its really not.

I guess its just that lately I've been dealing with someone who says they want me want me want me, and whereas I would normally get a kick out of that, its starting to creep me out. I mean, sure its awesome that he's saying all that and he's actually really good looking.

But I don't believe it at all, you know? Not that I don't deserve it. I just think he's wedging me into this uncomfortable position and slapping my name on a whole set of misplaced emotions. He's filling a void with me. He's using me and he doesn't even know it.

There's a Weakerthans song that says “duct tape and soldered wires/ new words for old desires,” and that's exactly what I think is going on. I'm the new word for his old desire. And I'm totally not falling for it.

Cognitive Dissonance

            “Have you ever heard of Cognitive Dissonance?” Eric, whose last name is still a mystery to me, sat a short space away from me in a desk chair, and continued staring a hole through my head.

            “...No.”

            “Well, did you ever play a musical instrument?”

            “I used to play the violin.” I crossed my legs and glanced around the room I noticed couldn't possibly be solely his office. There was a pink bunny on the top of the bookshelf.

            “Well, Cognitive Dissonance is when you play a chord... can you even play chords on the violin?”

            “Okay, I took piano when I was little.” After all, he was an adjunct. Thats why I had gotten him so cheap.

            “Good. So when you play a chord thats all wrong, where the notes don't sound good together, that's dissonance.” I nodded.

            “So my brain is out of tune? Like I'm thinking out of sync?”

            “Yes. And there are two things we can do about that.”

            “Oh?” I crossed my arms. Because here would come the part where he'd say I was fixable.

            “You can either play a different chord, or you can make adjustments to the notes you're playing out of sync so that they sound good--”

            “So, okay, its the same shit.”

            “What?”

            I was annoyed because I had just talked about how I hated being given ultimatums. “You're asking me to choose whether my actions are okay, or whether they're evil and I need to stop.”

            “I said make adjustments.”

           

Kassin, Saul. “Cognitive Psychology” Microsoft Encarta, 2008.

“Sometimes people change their attitudes not in response to a persuasive communication, but by convincing themselves, a process of self persuasion. Cognitive dissonance theory says that people often change their attitudes to justify their own actions. According to this theory, people who behave in ways that contradict their own attitudes experience an unpleasant state of internal tension known as cognitive dissonance. To reduce that tension, they adjust their attitudes to be consistent with their behavior.”

 

            It was 4am and I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom. I had just spritzed myself with air freshener to cover up the smell of cigarette smoke and probably booze that I couldn't smell myself, but knew was there. Looking at myself in the mirror, I wondered if I would gain five pounds from drinking and then going to bed. The circles under my eyes meant I would look even worse in the morning, though. Well, later that morning. I paused. Toothpaste foaming out the corners of my mouth, I stared hard at the left side of my neck. Shit. With one hand I pulled down the collar of my t-shirt. Damn it! There were gray/blue bruises all up and down both sides of my neck in symmetrical lines. The left side was particularly dark.

            I wanted to cry.

            Why the hell did I do this shit? For the sake of variety? I didn't even want to stay out this late. Now I would have to wear collars and turtle necks all weekend and possibly during the week. It wasn't even cold enough! And Breckin didn't even care about me. If I had said, I don't want to come over, he would have said fine. Now I've ruined myself and I can't even cover it up. Breckin doesn't even matter. And he wouldn't even care if he knew I was walking around with him crawling up my neck for the next seven days. Join the crowd, Breckin, really. I should really kick his ass, he wasn't even good at it.

            That night I sat at in the living room and cried because I felt like I was coming apart. I was two people. The girl who was supposed to go to church in the morning at 10am, and the girl who would have slept in since she closed down the bar with a couple guy friends. Well.

 

            So... cognitive dissonance? Yeah, thats a big check.

            But what blows my mind is that I always thought I just didn't agree with the values I'd been taught. I thought they were close minded and simple. And that I was going to be different, in fact I was made to be different. Because I refused to be a lemming, and I believed in experience as opposed to blind faith. And I'm still a little confused here, but I really think that all this time I've been telling myself these things and knowing that I don't believe that at all. Because my values still mean more to me than I let on. My values are why I cry at night when Breckin Ley gives me massive hickeys, and why I feel like escaping to the plains where there's no one but me to feel accountable to.

            Its all a huge lie to myself.

            All this I'm-such-a-bad-girl stuff after Lipscomb was really making me unhappy. But I convinced myself it made me happy because of the way I had been behaving. It was all a symptom.  All the self-hatred and the perpetuation of my actions, the part where I go to Breckin's house or to the bar for no good reason, are my reconciling actions. I am perpetuating my “bad” behavior because just like those people in the psychological study who got paid 1$ to lie, I'm not satisfied by my actions that compromise my values, so I'm going to play like they do satisfy me. I'm going to own my behavior and play like these “bad” things make me happy, since my actions aren't in sync with what my “true” self thinks I should have done. And this way I was tricking myself out of being upset when people looked down on me for getting kicked out of Christian school, or for having too much baggage. I'd be the first to prove it to you that I hadn't made mistakes, oh no, I just had different values.

            Contrary to what you believe, Dr... Eric, here is how I will fix me.

            All I have to do is recognize the voice after I come home from Breckin's as the real me, or the true me. I am NOT a “bad girl.” And I'm seeing now that I never really wanted to be, anyway. I fell into it. The Eifel Tower collapsed under my weight and instead of sitting around in the rubble, crying about it, I stepped back a bit and said, “oh yeah, I meant to do that.” And while I kinda liked being different and knocking down buildings so to speak, it was never supposed to be who I was.

 Its not, and I need to start acting like myself.

            Oh, and by the way, two weeks later I uncovered the fact that Breckin is a Repulican, and was therefore never worth my time anyway.

 

Imaginary (Boy)friends

Daniel Spann had short, slightly shaggy brown hair that he parted down the center of his forehead. He had perfectly creamy skin that seemed flawless and a smile that could light up a room. He was lively, and popular. He always had something to say, and he always wore this beat up old Miami Dolphins jacket that was puffy and slightly oversized.

He was by far the best looking kid in Ms. Hodges fourth grade class.

I had the biggest crush on him ever.

But I was awkward. I was so quiet and afraid of embarrassing myself. And I never said more than three words to him. Even that was only so I could ask where third base was during a kickball game, a question which I now find somewhat ironic. I told Katie Howe that I liked him while riding in the back seat of my mother's station wagon after a play date, and was immediately sorry to have let her in on my earth-shattering secret. Short of my kindergarten romance with the little blond boy down the street, Daniel Spann was the first real crush I had ever had.

Before I go any further, you should know that I was a really imaginative kid. Just before fourth grade, my family moved and I switched elementary schools. Shortly after I was enrolled at Granberry instead of Tusculum, my made-up world exploded to include more than my normal cast of imaginary or fantasy characters. And slowly, I ended up replacing my fantasy world of fairies and my being a yet undiscovered savior of the human race and stuffed animal kingdom with the fantasy world of myself being married to Daniel Shaw.

Yes, we were maybe 20 feet away from each other during class everyday, but I made up a whole personality for him. You know, since I really didn't know who he was. He was completely devoted to my every emotion and would be the first one to come if I was upset or hurt or in pain. Without saying a word he was checking on me. Reaching out and touching my leg while looking deep into my eyes and making sure I was all right. We communicated silently, and, of course, no one could see him or know he was there but me. We were a secret to the outside world. Still, he was next to me always. In the back seat of the car I could look over at him and feel his hand tighten around mine.

Naturally, being my husband, he inherited a role as co-ruler of my fantasy world. Everybody knew who we were. Birds, trees and all things natural and imaginary were beautiful and created just for us. At night he slept with his arm around me (before I ever knew what spooning was), and we fell asleep and dreamed the same dreams.

He became the way I talked to myself. Because I was always talking to him. But no one knew. No one saw; it was all very secret make-believe. Except, of course, for the time Jessica Sawyer saw my mouth moving while walking alone around the playground. She accused me publicly of talking to a pine cone, and I hated her for years afterward.

Sometimes I really wish there were a Daniel for me now. Fourteen years later, I have never really forgotten him. And even after I did forget the details, like how he was so good at playing piano, and the time he stood perfectly still as a bee crawled up his neck and everyone else jumped away screaming, I still remember him more as a feeling that I wish I could have back. I guess in a way I've been searching for him in every guy I meet. That smile and those eyes with that caring way about him and the connection to me where he feels exactly what I feel as he sinks himself into me and we are the center of each other's universe, quietly going about life hand in hand.

But it was my life we were going about then. And the smile and the eyes ironically belonged to someone altogether different. Someone I didn't even know, really. It was innocence and naivete to think that a love like that could be real. Because the Daniel I “knew” didn't have a past, didn't have ex-girlfriends or old unforgotten love affairs, or girls they fell for or were shunned over. The Daniel I knew hardly even fell in love. He was just there, loving me every second. And no one can expect to find that in this world. Thats why imaginary friends die off when the real world hits.

My Daniel ceased to exist the minute Jeff Crews publicly humiliated me for liking him in sixth grade, thus beginning my disenchantment with fairy tales. The complexity of adolescent emotions, and the disillusionment of young adulthood blew Daniel out of the water, out of my mind. And I do know he doesn't exist. But it doesn't always stop me from being disappointed when I figure out how unimportant some people find me.

And for me the ideal is still there on a shelf somewhere. And Daniel has become a piece of furniture in my collection of ideals. He's a reason not to give up.

Cyborgs

There is a Special Education teacher at one of the Ombudsman centers who seems sweet, but can't help looking mentally challenged. She sits around staring blankly into space. She may possibly be a cyborg since I have never seen her eat. However, she does imbibe large quantities of coffee. She has eyes that rarely focus on your face even when she's speaking to you. She sits awkwardly with students, staring over their shoulder and repeatedly tucking her hair behind her ear. She says nothing, just pulls up a chair and sits there. Staring blankly in a new direction.

I think if I were the student I would let her know she was invading my personal space. I think the students are cool with me.

I don't know who would be cool with this Special Ed teacher though. Other cyborgs maybe? The terminator? The governor of California? C3PO?

The Eiffel Tower

"I would still love you even if you did the most horrible thing in the world."

She tells me this as she tucks my seven year old self in bed at the old house in Antioch. In my bedroom with the pink walls and the lime green shag carpet. With my writing nook secured on a cardboard box desk between the dresser and the wall, complete with my own peter rabbit story pretty much copied from the little golden book. 

"Even if I knocked down the Eiffel Tower?"

"Even then."

She would love me, but she would still wonder to herself whether or not she was a good mother. She asked that several times when we my brother and I were growing up. 

"Do you think I'm a good mother?"

Somehow I think I always managed to internalize these questions. Deep down I think I believed it was because of the way I was turning out that she thought she was a bad mother. And maybe it was because of these things that I always took it upon myself to try to be good. I went to church every Sunday even when my father didn't and my brother dragged his feet. I took over my mother's spirit of hold-things-together-while-smiling. And when she was away I picked up the house so my dad wouldn't start yelling when he got home. When conversations turned sour, I knew when to shut up or when to redirect the flow. 

When I turned thirteen I can remember sitting on my bed at night, terrified, telling my mother that the next day I wanted to be baptized after church service. I can remember telling myself that now she could know she had raised us right. Now I was a model for Jack and that surely he would follow in my footsteps. Surely my mom would know I was a good kid and that she was a good mom. Surely she wouldn't worry any more. Time passed. I dated a good guy and I went to good Christian college. And I hated it. 

And somewhere in there I broke. The good guy and I split up. I wrecked my car. I wasn't perfect, and I dated lots of guys, but what my mom didn't know wouldn't kill her.

And then one day she did know. And so did everyone else. I had "issues." Never mind my 3.8 GPA and my job as the campus anchor-lady. My grandfather sat on the edge of my bed and cried. I cried. I had failed. And it was strangely like someone had died. Some part of me, real or facade, that I didn't even understand then went missing. I wasn't a good kid anymore. I was the rebel I had always wanted to be, but there was this nasty aftertaste to it that I hadn't anticipated, and the gaping hole of what I couldn't understand I had lost. 

She's never really asked me if she was a good mom since then. Maybe the question always had more to do with my parents' divorce than with me.

But this big thing, this ace in the hole, was more like a thorn in my side, or a snake bite that spread its venom all over and poisoned everything I had tried to make good. I was flawed, and there was no way I could ever go back.

My brother never got baptized like I did. But I'm not entirely sure what that means anyway. There are things that are never really discussed in my family now. And I can't help but wonder if my mother "still loves me" more when she doesn't have to look at the Eiffel Tower I knocked down. As long as she doesn't see it, it didn't happen. And I don't know what I'm supposed to do about that, because sometimes I feel the same way.

Matt Elliston

Matt Elliston is married now. 

But when I knew him at Lipscomb he was a good looking guy with wide brown eyes, black hair and pale white skin. He looked good with a nice five o'clock shadow, and his arms were thick with muscles that I never saw him use. He was slightly mousy looking with an upturned nose, and he had an air about him that suggested he might approach sex the same way a five-year old approached Christmas morning: wide eyes a twinkle and a grin with much excitement and little understanding. Childlike, even innocent. 

And I hated that. The world is not innocent, and I couldn't stand the way his view of romance was so smooth and clean and reliable when I clearly knew it wasn't. Even as he drove me down the backroads of Green Hills trying to explain to me how much fun he would have making love to his wife whoever she ended up being, I couldn't listen to a word of it. He was so full of ideals. All of which I knew weren't true!

It didn't help that Ben Roller's Tau Phi crew looked at Matt's crew like they were space aliens. It didn't help that Michael Metzger smiled at me from his seat on the floor during chapel. It didn't help that all these people looked at me strangely when Matt brought me a rose after chapel on Valentine's Day. 

"Oh. Thank you. How sweet!"

But after I put the rose in my backpack with the bud sticking out, I noticed Michael and his friend Chandler milling around on the bottom bleacher of my section, and I ditched Matt for them. We went down to the side of campus by the road and smoked cigarettes.

Matt never contacted me again except to look sadly over at me during chapel, and once to send me a three page letter in my mail cubby about how much I was selling myself short. His friends wouldn't talk to me either. They gave me looks like I was a leper. Like I had made my choice. But I was having too much fun, and in the end the looks didn't last very long because by the time Michael and I were an item, I had reached the beginning of the end. Of that chapter at least.

CK "fits" in

Anytime someone says something about Dirty Santa gifts or Gift Exchanges or any annonymous gift giving thing, I always think of my sophomore year of high school and how I went to the Brentwood Forensics Christmas party.
David Larder, a senior, kept calling me CK because I was wearing this ridiculously small almost child-sized shirt that had 'Calvin Klein' written across the front. I now look back and interpret this as a nod to the boobs he would have had to eye in order to get that name for me, but oh well.
I hadn't wanted to do the Dirty Santa gag, but somehow was convinced that if I didn't get something I would be weird. So at Target in Antioch earlier that week, I was chided by my mother into buying a tiny photo album. This is because we didn't have lots of money, and a 5$ maximum was put on my budget. Sulking about the album, I picked up some pop rocks in the line on the way out and hoped that my gift would blend well into everybody elses.
These days I look back and wonder why I didn't just pick up a copy of "Everybody Poops" and be done with it.
In any case, my gift ended up being picked next to last when the party finally rolled around, and though I was nervous the entire time gifts were being chosen, I managed not to give away the fact that mine was one of the two remaining gifts.
Dan Patrick picked my gift. He was the same age as me, and had enjoyed a lot of success in debate, earning him the reputation of being a really funny guy who was even a little cute.
Which is all why it hurt so much when Dan openedly groaned.
"Ew, a photo album. Yay." His sarcasm was at a high point.
"Awww." The crowd of Brentwood kids felt genuinely sorry for him, apparently. He rummaged around the bag.
"At least there's some pop rocks." And he opened the candy, and they called the next number.

It really shouldn't have hurt my feelings, but it embarrassed me. I just knew everyone was wondering what lame person had bought a photo album as a Dirty Santa gift. And I couldn't figure Dan out after that. I always saw him as rude. I always remembered the photo album that I was sure he must have thrown away the minute he got home.
And I never fit in with those Brentwood kids.
Standing in the middle of Jenny Martin's parents' three story house in Chenoweth, Calvin Klein shirt straining across the boobs that at least I got noticed for, I felt like I really didn't belong there at all. Why had I even come? I hardly knew these people. I didn't grow up like them in a mini-mansion with comfortably aloof parents. I wasn't going to Yale next year like Jenny was or to UPenn like David was. And its not like the rift was economic, it was totally unidentifiable. Its like the more I tried to fit in, the more I felt insecure.
And you know, it was like that my whole life until after much worse embarrassments, when I came to realize that it was all in my head, and that there wasn't really anything to "fit" into at all.

Action Figure Party

You can ask my mom if you need proof, but the first thing I ever asked for for Christmas was a Ninja Turtle action figure. It was 1990, I was 5, and had just started kindergarten. According to my mother, I wanted my own action figures because the boys wouldn't let me play with them unless I had my own.
And I was very specific about what I wanted! At the time, popular releases like "Disguised Turtles," and "Wacky Action" turtles annoyed me. I wanted a Raphael, and I wanted him plain, just like he was on the show and in the movie. And it wasn't until 91' when I got a "Storage Shell" Raphael that I was completely satisfied, and even then my interest had begun to wane.
Why? might you ask?
All right... confession time.
I wanted to be April. And the long and short of it is that I pretty much wanted to play out some Ninja Turtle romance in my head where April got together with the brooding Raphael and made turtle babies. However, since there was really only one readily available action figure version of April a la 1987 (I think anyway) I kind of gave up on her.

Flash forward a few years or so, and I was an 8 year old who was really into the Batman cartoon series that aired after I came home from school. My grandmother would make tuna fish sandwiches for Jack and I, and we'd sit in our living room's matching salmon colored recliners watching Animaniacs and Batman. Most notably, I was completely entranced by the dynamic between Harley Quinn and the Joker. In particular, there was an episode called Harley and Ivy (1993) in which Harley Quinn was kicked out of the Joker's group somewhat violently. Yet immediately, she remarks how much she misses him already, and sets off to prove her worth.
I have this memory of being completely in love with the episode because in my head it was a love story. I was sure that the Joker called while she was at Poison Ivy's house and begged for her to come back. I recalled that he even came by to swoop her up, to reclaim her! And that the reunion seemed deliciously sweet. Plus, I was genuinely mad at Ivy for interfering in the reunion of the two.
Well. I recently viewed said episode via my brother's XBOX Live and was somewhat let down to find that I actually agreed with Ivy this time around. Harley's middle name really must have been "Welcome" because she WAS a freakin doormat.
SHE was the one who called him in a weak moment. He didn't call her! And the only point at which he indicated even missing her was when his lair, or whatever, had become a mess, the hyenas hadn't been fed, and he didn't have any clean socks! And I suddenly found it ridiculously ironic that I had somehow romanticised the most feminist episode of a Batman cartoon I had ever seen.

Fast forward another 8 years, and I'm sitting in English class this time falling in love with Stanley Kowalski (and Marlon Brando) basically for the same reasons.
Savage guy, who is probably an alcoholic, but who selfishly wins Stella over every time despite Blanche's efforts and in spite (via the film version) of the fact that Stanley may have actually raped Blanche.
And I'm totally not kidding. The whole "Stellllaaaa!" scene really turns me on. I mean, even the neighbor is "protecting" Stella who is actually pregnant with Stanley's (probably gorgeous (mmm, Brando...)) kid, and he calls up that he "wants his girl to come down with him!" and Stella almost compulsively walks down the steps where he crumples face first into her chest.

What can I say, I like the sensational, I guess. And I know you think I'm going to make some parallel about how I've chosen a zillion Stanleys and Jokers and brooding Raphaels or even, though I didn't think of it before, Casey Jones's. But don't get me wrong. I'm pretty damn sure I'd never be attracted to Mitch aka Karl Malden of Streetcar, and the point is I really think that through the last little bits of my continual metamorphosis, I have shape shifted from the dreamy Stella and the doormat Harley and the amorous April-I-created-in-my-head to become the feminist Ivy, and the smart/career-girl April, and yes, perhaps I'm even terrified/guarded Blanche sometimes.

I'm not soft anymore on the outside. I don't run up to what I want baring all and saying here! here! and totally not expecting the falcon kick that follows. As falcon kicks do follow. I don't have as much blind faith in the inherent goodness of humanity anymore. Maybe I lost that faith particularly late, and THATS why I have so many bruises. But is it really so wrong to believe in people? There's nobility to that, isn't there?

Later in the Ninja Turtle comic series there is a whole plot development where April and Casey, married by this point, become distraught that they can't conceive, and soon discover that deadly nano-robots have been injected into April's bloodstream and are threatening her life. I laugh at this now because as much as I wanted to be all cute and domestic with some superhero for a spouse, I don't think I really would have warmed to the nano-robots attacking my brainstem idea even with the conception twist thrown in.
And in all honesty, the brutal lovers and the superhero lives can just stay put behind my television screen. Because whoever I end up finding to fight off the nano-robots in my bloodstream is going to be equally in love with me, and baring his own fleshy undersides, and I will NOT falcon kick him to the chest. I won't even kick him out of my underground lair! There will be no mystery and no secret identity. And no drinking problem. And no disturbing the peace, after I've consented to have your child, by continually screaming my name at the bottom of a fire escape.
Instead it will be admiration, high regard, protection, wonder, blithely sound, and endearingly ardent.
You know, just in case you wondered.
Also. I think turtle babies would probably look ridiculous anyway. The kid would need a mad crazy IEP.