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!