Saturday, February 8, 2014
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
over &out
ENTERPRISE VILLAGE OR THE GAPS IN BETWEEN
you'll get a raise
"Best Life Ever Week," is over. Oprah tells us how to make the most out of 2009, what kind of vibrator to buy, why she gained sixty pounds, the cure for credit card debt. In it's aftermath, we are left with just the pieces. I am not the target audience, but I don't really give a shit this. This is all for me, all for me, all for me.
Still sifting through ancient artifacts of my own life, I scan photographs from age 10-17. Someone next to me points out that I looked older then-- in some way, at sixteen I looked older than that I do now. And I did really, it was like my face had aged too quickly, or my body had developed too early. I want to say how I was older then, how we were fending for ourselves, how at one point we were almost literally raised by wolves, but I don't say anything-- I just shrug, laugh a little, keep eye contact, you know sometimes stories are not worth telling unless you can start from the very beginning. Unless you can say "In 1985, I was born in a blizzard," unless you can say "In 1995, I was more reasonable than I had ever been," unless you can say "2005 really was 'The year of virgin sacrifices' until you've run out of decades. But who has twenty years? Who has twenty minutes?
The 5th grade was like magic. There's this sign on one of the subway cars that says something like "You remember your first grade teacher's name- who will remember yours?" My 5th grade teacher was Mrs.Uhl. In her classroom we read Where the Red Fern Grows and Old Yeller and all I wanted was a dog. If I believed in God during the fifth grade, I would have prayed for a puppy. But I was so practical at this point, if I recall correctly I either tried to reason with- or black mail my father. This could have been the most practical part of my whole life, the most reasonable year ever.
We went to Enterprise Village- this place the size of a shopping mall where you spend a day, have a job, get a paycheck and train your 10 year old body that this is society. You see, in the fifth grade I went to work with my classmates. I had the career that I had been pining before- being on television on The Home Shopping Network. I didn't care that the person who got the manager position for my store made fifty cents an hour more than I did, because I was going to be a star on the big screen. Or, I guess the little screen, in a simulated society. I was smug about the whole thing as I passed my classmates who were working at Blockbuster or McDonalds, I did not make eye contact with them, because ah, I had arrived, I had arrived and they had not. We went through a day of tasks like balancing our checkbooks and cashing our pay stubs( I spent most of my paycheck at Eckerd's Drugstore on a Caboodles make-up kit.) We were all grown up, this was the real world.
And I remember thinking, "you know- this is really great, this is really awesome." And in you know, in 1995- I could get out of bed in the morning, I could go to work &balance my checkbook. I could excel in society, no matter how simulated it was.
Still sifting through ancient artifacts of my own life, I scan photographs from age 10-17. Someone next to me points out that I looked older then-- in some way, at sixteen I looked older than that I do now. And I did really, it was like my face had aged too quickly, or my body had developed too early. I want to say how I was older then, how we were fending for ourselves, how at one point we were almost literally raised by wolves, but I don't say anything-- I just shrug, laugh a little, keep eye contact, you know sometimes stories are not worth telling unless you can start from the very beginning. Unless you can say "In 1985, I was born in a blizzard," unless you can say "In 1995, I was more reasonable than I had ever been," unless you can say "2005 really was 'The year of virgin sacrifices' until you've run out of decades. But who has twenty years? Who has twenty minutes?
The 5th grade was like magic. There's this sign on one of the subway cars that says something like "You remember your first grade teacher's name- who will remember yours?" My 5th grade teacher was Mrs.Uhl. In her classroom we read Where the Red Fern Grows and Old Yeller and all I wanted was a dog. If I believed in God during the fifth grade, I would have prayed for a puppy. But I was so practical at this point, if I recall correctly I either tried to reason with- or black mail my father. This could have been the most practical part of my whole life, the most reasonable year ever.
We went to Enterprise Village- this place the size of a shopping mall where you spend a day, have a job, get a paycheck and train your 10 year old body that this is society. You see, in the fifth grade I went to work with my classmates. I had the career that I had been pining before- being on television on The Home Shopping Network. I didn't care that the person who got the manager position for my store made fifty cents an hour more than I did, because I was going to be a star on the big screen. Or, I guess the little screen, in a simulated society. I was smug about the whole thing as I passed my classmates who were working at Blockbuster or McDonalds, I did not make eye contact with them, because ah, I had arrived, I had arrived and they had not. We went through a day of tasks like balancing our checkbooks and cashing our pay stubs( I spent most of my paycheck at Eckerd's Drugstore on a Caboodles make-up kit.) We were all grown up, this was the real world.
And I remember thinking, "you know- this is really great, this is really awesome." And in you know, in 1995- I could get out of bed in the morning, I could go to work &balance my checkbook. I could excel in society, no matter how simulated it was.
Back in the classroom, we got ready to start the DARE program. We received bright red t-shirts with black font on them (years later I traded shirts with one of my high school boyfriends, opting for a black shirt with red font.) We went to the school cafeteria where speakers came in and told us the woes of doing drugs.
We watched a cartoon about doing LSD. Apparently, if you did this drug, you would be very likely to jump out a building because you thought you could fly, or maybe you'd even kill a loved one.
It seemed terrifying. We went once a week and took some kind of pledge, swearing to remain drug free.
You see, when I was 10 years old, when i was 11- I wasnt going to drugs. I was going to go to Enterprise Village and sit in Mrs.Uhl's class and write short stories about road trips with my family.
That year our class song was "Ironic,' by Ilanis Morisette. We were allowed to listen to it in class- it was a big deal. We played it the morning that special guest speakers were coming in. Two high school students, a boy and a girl. They were there to talk to us about abstinence. I remember wondering if they had sex together, then imagining them having sex. For years I had no idea that sex actually felt good for women- I thought it was something you did to prove something or make someone happy. And they talked to us about STDs and how they were waiting until marriage and all of these things.In the 5th grade, we were not having sex. But I wondered what it would be like with the boy from Blockbuster video, with the boy from Time Warner cable in class. The things we could do at Enterprise Village.
So you see, this is where society tried to prepare us. We would graduate high school in 2003- but we would be abstinent and drug free in 1995. Brilliant.
And then comes middle school. My parents decide at some point-- while mending their own marriage, that it would be best if I went to Catholic School for the next three years. But that's another speech and another story. My mother who denounces God; my father with his four hours of meditation a day and they are sending me out to place the Body of Christ on my 11 year old tongue again. I am furious, but mildly interested. Perpetually bored.
All of the kids at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School have gone to school together since kindergarten. They have formed this bond- "my mom drives an SUV, I am devoted to Christ." And I had spent the last few years with monks straight from the Shaolin temple, with liberal teachers in public schools, the kids in my neighborhood &their mother's who were on welfare &a Jewish couple that had just arrived in the United States after living in a commune in South Africa. I look older than I am at this point, some kind of transformation is starting and something inside of me is just not having this.
And at first I fit in okay, but within a few weeks I become enemy number 1 of the girls in the 6th grade. They made fun of me a lot and I would try and stare at one object in the room, and sometimes it didnt hurt my feelings because I kind of knew- "who are these kids anyway?" but eventually they just ruined my day. I didn't care for the nuns that taught the classes and I missed Enterprise Village, I missed hearing the word "condom", how was I supposed to care so much about Noah's Ark?
At first I fit in okay, but within a few weeks, I become enemy number 1. It starts when I ask a question about Noah's Arc, and it ends a year later. In the beginning I handle being made fun of very well, part of me knows that this does not really matter, but eventually, probably fairly quickly, it just starts to ruin my day. I feel ill very morning, I have no idea how I can make it through another day.
So, I start faking sick. I fake an elaborate stomach flu for weeks, maybe months. You see, I started writing because I started lying. It was as simple as that. It was easy to find an escape. So I'd have my parents drive me to the emergency room in the middle of the night, I'd look at my grandmother's face and I'd wonder about heaven and hell. It's all I heard all day long. We'd walk over to the church. We read no novels for children, no novels for young adults.
The girls in my class actually sometimes talked about how horrifying the idea of any sexual interaction seemed. I'd overhear this, and it of course made me hate them. By now I had developed breasts- not even boobs, but I mean these same things I walk around with today. And I started getting a certain kind of male attention. If a boy in my class made fun of me, I would just stare back at him. I would hold my glare pretty firmly, I don't know what I was doing, but I was doing something.
The 6th grade is a long story, but it ends with my parents allowing me to go to public school for 7th grade. I faked sick for one year and when the summer came, I was a new person. Something happens the summer between 6th and 7th grade- I become very self-aware. I do sit ups in my room. I buy a lot of magazines. Or I guess, I had my mother buy them. I start preparing for something bigger, deciding that this is all just a stepping stone to something else. I wear low cut tank tops and I am pretty boy crazy. By the time the 7th grade starts I make a new boyfriend a week, I still really didn't have friends, I started making a few Toni Bergold &Rachel Tipton, Leigh Sams and other alliances. Prinda and Heather and this whole group. We painted our nails black, we listened to Nirvana albums and 98 Rock and wore flannel shirts with terribly short shorts. I don't remember any academic achievements in the 7th or 8th grade other than Mrs.Rapoli's art class- but ya know, we only had interest in that because of all the boys.
All those idiot boys. That's how it was then, a lot of hopelessly devoting myself to thirteen years old. And somehow, elementary school did not prepare me enough for their raging hormones. I don't know if this is a Florida thing, but all of my first sexual encounters happened in backyards. Maybe we hung out there because someone's parents we're home. But the first time I willingly decided it would be okay to let a boy stick his hand down my pants was in a shed, in his backyard. I remember having no reaction to this, really feeling nothing. And the funny thing is that I wouldnt let him kiss me, I felt that if I was actually going to have to be responsive or do something it would be too much. This was my skateboarding boyfriend, who was basically an asshole, but when I was 13, I really enjoyed this. We would listen to the album Nimrod and in 1998, this was the most profound thing I could think of. I always listened to this song on repeat, I don't even remember what it's called but the lyrics went "the world owes me so fuck you," and my parents heard it on repeat so often from beyond my bedroom door that my father could recognize Greenday playing on the radio.
And for me, the best part of all of this was that I looked older. I would look at all the other girls in the locker room during gym class, and I knew that I could go into the world and say I was 16 and get away with it. I didn't know that this almost directly translated as: trouble. I learned how to fit my body through anyone's bedroom window.
I started out high school with "Nobody broke your heart/you broke your own because you cant finish what you start," and I let that turn into fourteen year old boys. I met a boy who actually lived on a street called "Alameda" and I knew it was a sign from God, I knew it was going to be true love, it was going to last forever.
The year 2000 was coming, and I kind of wanted us all to die. The books I read did not help, and middle school had not prepared me for any of this. I did not ask where the transition was, I didn't even think of it. I met Danielle and Ilana and Stacy and Mikey and Kyle and Ian and I formed this huge world around them, around us, I was ready to let out everything. In high school, on my teenage self.
I would have said "fuck you," to The Home Shopping Network. I would have eagerly tried to give the abstinence boy a blow job. You know, in the 9th grade I told a whole lie about a blow job. It was a very elaborate, manipulative thing. The months leading up to the time I actually had sex in- you guest it- a backyard were very scandalous. But you know, I cant tell you if it was natural, if it was some organic process or if we made it that way.
Our parents brought us home books like "Go Ask Alice," and "The Best Little Girl in the World," and I don't know how they expected this to have a positive result, we read these books and we just wanted to emulate them. I wanted to run West to California; my best friends wanted to cut themselves or starve themselves. We all wanted to fuck the neighborhood, but luckily we did not.
When I started high school, it was 1999 and everyone just had just gotten instant messenger. We still talked to boys on the phone, but now we could also talk to them on the internet. I made a livejournal and if you read the original entries they are all about how I hate high school or the things I am doing after school. I desperately tried to smoke cigarettes. We desperately wanted to try everything. We eventually put Sublime on the stereo and then we started to calm down, the advent of Bright Eyes and Saves the Day and other things we could put on mix tapes or sing in unison. It was gradual. It was very gradual.
And if you're wondering why I am telling you this, why I am telling a stranger how I went from being the smartest girl in the 4th grade to wanting to dissolve next to the yellow lockers, it's because I am trying to tell you about the center, the formative years the middle ground that let's us be fine now. I sometimes meet girls who have just moved to New York City, and I watch them do the things that I did when I was 14, I watch them go through the same motions and I kind of feel like I lucked out by purchasing Nevermind 5 times on CD and cassette before I could even have a drivers license. I feel that I lucked out about being in a sense, reckless, before there were major consequences. By the time I was driving, almost all of this had flushed out of my system and I wanted to be the same girl I was at Enterprise Village. My hair might have still been pink, and I can guarantee you that my away message probably left me crying about some boy for years to come, any boy some kid on the street corner who I wanted to turn into salvation. Maybe I saw him on bike or skateboard and wanted to give him my feelings on Jesus Christ- but maybe not.
And maybe if I ever teach any grade, I'll teach middle school. I'll try and put together some pieces about how you're supposed to go from being a child to a teenager. How you go from being 5 to 18 in the 3 years. I remember all of my teachers names- I remember them a lot better than any of the boys from middle school. The ones from elementary school &high school they stick, but when I first grew breasts, when my legs got longer, there must have been a blur. Maybe if I thought it was magic, it was not and maybe if you tell some things, it just doesn't make any difference at all.
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nickswastedlife (75.142.100.200) wrote:Jan. 15th, 2009 09:35 am (UTC)
I love you.
In Enterprise Village I was the Journalist. What a twist.
Monday, November 30, 2009
do you like American music?
do you like american music?
I. MIDDLE NAMES
I know everyone’s middle name because I ask them. Some people ask about signs, siblings, birthdays, years. I ask about middle names. Especially if I note that your left handed. I prefer long first names, manipulations with fingers and men without middles. I like left handed lovers because it is some kind of concept of symmetry which I believe that I alone noted. In fact, I must have invented it.
I have no middle name. I was supposed to pick it myself when I turned 18. I wasn’t supposed to have a “confirmation” I was not supposed to be surrounded by real Catholics. I turned eighteen and I couldn’t think of anything. “Dan-yell-ah Scream-ah” what could go in between that? Everyone’s middle name was “Marie”. I had nothing to work with.
After I graduated high school, after I had come up with my brilliant plan of moving to Ohio to watch the dying, I was in the back seat of a car. It was Amanda McCarthy’s car and Kris King was in the front seat. Amanda will be a successful lawyer; Kris will appear in the face of every tree, every man, every nun, every child. I will lie in the backseat of the car while we drive East down 60— a straight shot from Clearwater to Vero Beach. It turns into a two lane road, you are surrounded by orange groves. The smell, God, that is a wonderful smell. You know why? Because that’s where they make all of your orange juice. They make it on this stretch of road, and I am eighteen, high out of my mind in a back seat.
I am high off of prescription strength DXM— the common ingredient in cough syrup. I’ve taken it in pill format- probably fifteen or twenty capsules that someone stole from a pharmacy. I am high off of the main ingredient in cough syrup because beggars can’t be choosers. I give Kris a bunch of pills too. I am a bad influence. Amanda is on the academic team, and maybe technically so am I. I am a bad influence. We take them in a Publix parking lot. I don’t remember if we get anything from the grocery store. I feel like we may get energy drinks, because in all of these Florida stories, all of the ones where we stay up all night, there are energy drinks.
In cars, in Florida, I like to smoke Newport Cigarettes. I cannot inhale, but I can blow “o’s”. Exceptionally well, even in the wind. Sometimes I tell men I can blow hearts and they believe me. Sometimes I say I can do it in the wind and they believe me. Since turning eighteen (or thirteen, or twelve) I’ve learned that you should not tell people that you do not believe cigarettes are addictive.
You shouldn’t say to someone “I really don’t think cigarettes are addictive”, because they will become furious. Unless they are Nicholas Antonio Velasquez the III and it is New Years eve (2004) they will become furious. If they are Nick, they won’t be able to get addicted either. If they are Nick, they will try too. And everyone will say “how stupid are you?” And you will say nothing but in your mind you will ask “Why did your parents make your middle name ‘Michael’?” in your mind you will say “You didn’t know me when I was 12” because whoever you are talking to, they clearly had it easier. They don’t make jokes about rape and they sure as hell don’t read the paper.
Now— back to the backseat of the car, back to being high and eighteen because beggars can’t be choosers and nothing sounds good between “Daniela” and “Scrima” and Amanda is driving and Kris is saying he can’t feel anything yet. I keep saying “just wait, just wait.” I think I am asking him questions about masturbation. Amanda is stone sober, driving. Amanda has a good head on her shoulders. I swear to you— but this could be a lie— that at the time her favorite band is Matchbox 20. I want to jump out of the car while it is moving, but I swear that’s her favorite band. Everyone’s middle name is Marie; Everyone’s first name is Amanda.
I am begging her to drive to the east coast of Florida, and she has agreed. By the time we get there, to the other side I want to be brought to the water. It feels cold, I remember this. This could be what happens from a poor mans high or maybe there could be a strong breeze. Or maybe it’s because 60 degrees is straight up cold in Florida. But I must go into the water. We get lost, go in circles. Stop at a CVS and park at the ocean. I wade in in a white skirt. If I could go back now, the only thing I would do differently is wade in farther. I would disrobe. But it is the east Coast and the waves are large, the tide is choppy. We do not experience these extremities on the Gulf Coast unless it is hurricane season. But back then it was always hurricane season.
On the drive home, well, I don’t remember much. But I come to a decision. I am lying in the backseat of the car and i am imagining boys from the 1920’s, children actually at a baseball game. And they are all saying “there she goes— look at her Aurora Borealis” and then it hits me. That should be my middle name. Aurora Borealis. How did I not think of it before?
I do not know how I did not think of this sooner. How could it have taken me so long to find a name that would fit?
Let me stop this story for a second. Years later I am living in Brooklyn. I am talking to my friend Skye who is also from Clearwater. I have always thought it was so cool that her name was Skye. In Clearwater we once we saw a band play— I cannot remember— it was a girl singing and she had a beautiful name and we got sushi from Publix and I was jealous of her name and well— let me top this story, because years later in Brooklyn she reminds me of her name.
Her birth name was Ashley. Not skye. Ashley. When she turned thirteen she had her name legally changed to Skye. You know why? Because everyone is named Ashley.
Everyone is named Ashley or Amanda or their middle name is Marie.
But the best part of the story is that weeks later Skye (formerly known as Ashley) is listening to a song called “Hurricane” and she realizes at the age of thirteen that she has made a huge mistake. She should have not changed her name to skye, she should have changed it to Hurricane. Shes lies on the ground in Florida, her mother goes and returns orange drink to Wal-Mart, and she should have stayed an Ashley
Back to the car with Kris King and McCarthy. Back to 2003 and being 18 years old. I have baptized myself in the Atlantic Ocean. I will go to the court house in the morning. I have to pee and Amanda pulls over. I am willing to use the side of the road. I will squat next to all of the oranges. And then I see that there are signs— I swear to you that there are signs that say that there are cougars crossing, cougars. Black cougars or something like that. I imagine being mauled by the animals, pulled into the orange groves. My blood splattering the trees, the fruit. Pulp or no pulp? Do you like it with pulp or no pulp?
I like it with no pulp. For the record. Just for the record.
I hold it until the next gas station. I move to Ohio and tell my grandparents. I don’t go to the courthouse because I am still deciding. I turn 19 and my grandmother dies and I loved her more than my own mother and they take out Jackson’s liver and I don’t get a middle name. I don’t get a middle name and I smoke in a car and I wonder if my transcripts will ever be fixed. If anyone will ever have me.
Maybe I all in love, I don’t remember. I could tell you more about cough syrup, about it getting worse. But I won’t.
I will tell you this: I still have no middle name.
I will ask you this: What’s yours? What is your middle name, baby? Tell me. Please tell me. It’s perfectly fine. You can tell me your middle name. You can tell me “pulp or no pulp”
I can lie to you. I blow hearts. I was twelve. I was born. I was in a car. I can you tell the truth. I blow ohhhhs. I was eighteen. The main ingredient in cough syrup. Fiber glass in cigarettes. Someone drowns himself in the ocean. The weather man shoots himself in the face. The hurricanes stop.
What’s your middle name?
I am right handed. I never went to the court house. I turned 19 and it was too late. Are you left handed? What’s your middle name?
I was born too late, you were born too soon. But every time I look at that ugly moon, it reminds me of you. It reminds me of you.
if you wanna be happy for the rest of your life
I was just reading about how whiskeyface cut off all her hair. Cecilia, it has been so hard for me not to do this every time I throw a fit lately. And I've been throwing lots of fits. Not saying that you threw a fit. I think it's easier for you to chop off your locks where as I usually first decide to leave the country.
I also want platinum blond hair as that is my other alternative hair rebellion. (Pink hair is not about rebellion, it's about reaching a state of peace of how much I used to love Nirvana) I think the blondness makes me feel sluttier in a sexy way ---but what the fuck I just learned how to pull off red lipstick a little over a year ago and I really don't need to shake my ass for much of anything these days-- so maybe this mentality should go away along with my misuse of punctuation. Here's to hoping.
I've been taking my feelings out on my hair for a long time. Last year someone broke up with me and my first instinct was to cut my hair, my second instinct was to get plastic surgery. My hair is still long. Did society do this to me or did I do it to myself? Do I get to blame my ego or my id? I'll blame the follicles and myself.
Randy, I still don't understand why I can't get a perm. A good perm. I don't really want a perm what I want is for someone to wash and blow out my hair every day. Like when I worked at the salon. I want fingers running across myself. When it becomes the winter (and to me winter is anything under 57 degrees) I become a beauty invalid. I would gladly let you dress me, bathe me, slip my clothing over my head. It's much more than laziness it's some larger exterior manifestation of giving up.
It'll be so romantic, baby. You can start calling me "Bartelby" and all I'll say in return is "I prefer not to."
Every sentence all the time. Then I'll do it anyway. I'm too tired to fight with anybody. I have a cup of iced coffee (the new kind that is tea bag coffee by Folgers-- every time I say 'tea bag' I still feel like someone is putting balls on my face-- but you should try it out) tea bag coffee, who would have thought.
Today I am going to continue writing my paper about how Homer was a 22 year old Sicilian girl. I mean about how Homer was me. How one line in one book changed my life & flipped my world upside down. But don't fret pet, that's all I am ever looking for. One line in one book that makes me question everything. That makes me get it right. That puts the focus on whats hidden deep behind the mop of teased hair.
Mostly I am Cher in "Mermaids". Mostly I am any female lead who can tease her hair with one hand, sing loudly in the kitchen & reserve special time to cry in the bath tub. Oh universe, if I was only this, if I was only that. Why can't I get a perm that is a perfect blow out every day?
I am sick of my writing with my fingers, typing with my hands. When will my wrists start to hurt? I don't want to sit down and read "Death in Venice" today. There is a hair salon opening right around the corner and I want to apply for a job. I never want to actually do hair. I like selling shampoo. I adore selling nail polish. I like washing heads and taking the towels out of the dryer.
In a past life it is a lot more likely that I was just the Avon Lady and not a 22 year old female Sicilian Homer spinning tales like Shahrazad. I am a Mary-Kay lady with a Pink Cadillac and I tell them in the back seat that I am a virgin every single time. And I know you think you can tell the difference, but if you don't know if you're a "warm" a "cool" or a "neutral" you don't know if this orgasm is fake, these tits are real or if the dye has seeped way too far into my brain.
No-- I'm just kidding. You can tell the peroxide must have penetrated my frontal lobe.
"The Penetration of my Frontal Lobe: An Essay on Hair Color, Epic Poems & The Whores that let them."
Told in 3 parts by Daniela Scrima.
If only my eyes were a little more eye like, I could be "That Girl," too.
& Mom,
How did you get your hair perfect curled like this? More negotiating with the devil? Why not pass that along in my genetic make-up?
Ladies.
whiskeyface cut off all her hair. Cecilia, it has been so hard for me not to do this every time I throw a fit lately. And I've been throwing lots of fits. Not saying that you threw a fit. I think it's easier for you to chop off your locks where as I usually first decide to leave the country.I also want platinum blond hair as that is my other alternative hair rebellion. (Pink hair is not about rebellion, it's about reaching a state of peace of how much I used to love Nirvana) I think the blondness makes me feel sluttier in a sexy way ---but what the fuck I just learned how to pull off red lipstick a little over a year ago and I really don't need to shake my ass for much of anything these days-- so maybe this mentality should go away along with my misuse of punctuation. Here's to hoping.
I've been taking my feelings out on my hair for a long time. Last year someone broke up with me and my first instinct was to cut my hair, my second instinct was to get plastic surgery. My hair is still long. Did society do this to me or did I do it to myself? Do I get to blame my ego or my id? I'll blame the follicles and myself.
Randy, I still don't understand why I can't get a perm. A good perm. I don't really want a perm what I want is for someone to wash and blow out my hair every day. Like when I worked at the salon. I want fingers running across myself. When it becomes the winter (and to me winter is anything under 57 degrees) I become a beauty invalid. I would gladly let you dress me, bathe me, slip my clothing over my head. It's much more than laziness it's some larger exterior manifestation of giving up.
It'll be so romantic, baby. You can start calling me "Bartelby" and all I'll say in return is "I prefer not to."
Every sentence all the time. Then I'll do it anyway. I'm too tired to fight with anybody. I have a cup of iced coffee (the new kind that is tea bag coffee by Folgers-- every time I say 'tea bag' I still feel like someone is putting balls on my face-- but you should try it out) tea bag coffee, who would have thought.
Today I am going to continue writing my paper about how Homer was a 22 year old Sicilian girl. I mean about how Homer was me. How one line in one book changed my life & flipped my world upside down. But don't fret pet, that's all I am ever looking for. One line in one book that makes me question everything. That makes me get it right. That puts the focus on whats hidden deep behind the mop of teased hair.
Mostly I am Cher in "Mermaids". Mostly I am any female lead who can tease her hair with one hand, sing loudly in the kitchen & reserve special time to cry in the bath tub. Oh universe, if I was only this, if I was only that. Why can't I get a perm that is a perfect blow out every day?
I am sick of my writing with my fingers, typing with my hands. When will my wrists start to hurt? I don't want to sit down and read "Death in Venice" today. There is a hair salon opening right around the corner and I want to apply for a job. I never want to actually do hair. I like selling shampoo. I adore selling nail polish. I like washing heads and taking the towels out of the dryer.
In a past life it is a lot more likely that I was just the Avon Lady and not a 22 year old female Sicilian Homer spinning tales like Shahrazad. I am a Mary-Kay lady with a Pink Cadillac and I tell them in the back seat that I am a virgin every single time. And I know you think you can tell the difference, but if you don't know if you're a "warm" a "cool" or a "neutral" you don't know if this orgasm is fake, these tits are real or if the dye has seeped way too far into my brain.
No-- I'm just kidding. You can tell the peroxide must have penetrated my frontal lobe.
"The Penetration of my Frontal Lobe: An Essay on Hair Color, Epic Poems & The Whores that let them."
Told in 3 parts by Daniela Scrima.
If only my eyes were a little more eye like, I could be "That Girl," too.
& Mom,
How did you get your hair perfect curled like this? More negotiating with the devil? Why not pass that along in my genetic make-up?
Ladies.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
let's get a silver bullet trailer & have a baby boy
I loved them because they were always talking with their fists. They were always slamming their hands through walls. They were slamming their hands through each other, and I guess through me too. Sometimes I would cry so hard that I was just screaming my head of on the side lines. I'd rip out anyone's hair because then still, then when the boys were going to jail and we were crying in backseats-- then we still had everything to live for. We had everything to live for but we didn't look at it like that, instead we just thought we'd live forever. And I loved them because. And I loved them because.
And now I don't remember how I loved anyone like that. I can't feel that way at all. It was the most hopeless thing, the most dedicated thing. And now I can't even understand it at all. No part of me wraps my head around it. No part of me raps about it, because we're not even funny more.
I loved them because they meant it, as much as they possibly could have, they meant it. They meant it more than I could ever mean anything now.
I'll just get myself to sit in a back seat and I will talk to all of you like your lips are bleeding too.
And now I don't remember how I loved anyone like that. I can't feel that way at all. It was the most hopeless thing, the most dedicated thing. And now I can't even understand it at all. No part of me wraps my head around it. No part of me raps about it, because we're not even funny more.
I loved them because they meant it, as much as they possibly could have, they meant it. They meant it more than I could ever mean anything now.
I'll just get myself to sit in a back seat and I will talk to all of you like your lips are bleeding too.
I wont dance
Aeneas would have but technology had not yet allowed it so he just walked away and turned to board the fleets. He should have said "see you in hell, bitch" but I guess he didn't think of it at the time. He saw her there anyway--unhappy Dido. Like the rest of us she thought it was a marriage bed. Even Odysseus made the return for the wedding bed. Swatted the suitors away like flies on your prized birthday cake rotting at the picnic table. This doesn't mean that epics have happy endings. This doesn't mean that all heroes are tragic. But there of no use to my reading list unless I can underline their fatal flaw. Shew fly don't bother me. Shew fly don't bother me.They arent break-up words anyway, that's not what I want. It's more like negotiating with terrorists, except I'm the terrorists and the hostage and you have to be the negotiator. You have to convince me to give myself back to myself while meeting my demands.
You can hate me for saying it, but I'm not writing it for you. I'm writing it for the gentleman with sparkling eyes. I'm following the soles of their shoes because they did the greatest job when tearing pieces off my dress. They made the scraps of fabrics into robes and they promise to where them some day soon. They promise to this and they promise to that but it doesn't matter because they don't read this. I don't even have to make them swear. I don't grab their pinky fingers, the ones that I can wrap my whole hand around. I stopped asking anyone to put their hand on their heart.
I say "are you going to fight for me?" I scream "can't you paint my kitchen!" Unhappy Dido &now all she has to is understand destiny and watch cable television.
We fall on the floor in another country. We've made a world wide tour of locking ourselves in bathrooms. Barricading the door as the line pounds from outside and I scream "fuck you! we are dying!"
And he screams "fuck you! we are dead!" And the men who say they mean it, well they don't scream at me at all. They stay rational, they keep their voices steady.
I'm the bad kid in class and you're the teacher that has all the proper training.
I'm the tumor that your doctors can't seem to find but that doesn't mean you get to feel better anyway.
I think our cycles of human interaction are like the phases of the moon. I want to print out the calendars and hang them all over the apartment. The one where it tells you what time the sun rises & sets. Or the one with a joke-a-day. A joke a day calendar on my desk, with my light hair I'll have the world laughing. They'll be slapping their knees saying "you can ask me anything, gorgeous." And I try and remember when the word meant something.
Knock knock?
Who's there?
Can I take out all of your insides?
Can I take out all of your insides who?
Can I take out all of your insides because I already did!
And he just laughed and laughed and laughed.
Different doctors started approaching us, and all for different reasons. One said the disease was in my mouth, the other my fingers. One took out a camera & I spent the better part of four hours asking a paramedic about the lines on my palms. Will I live long? Will I live long? He does that thing that men do when they smile at you and frown at the same time. Knock knock.
Go to the movies and check your e-mail in the kitchen so I can pretend I know the difference between twenty and two hundred dollars.
They're filming a movie across the street. I didn't realize it at first, that the bystanders were extras looking at a car crashed in at the gas station. The men with their cameras and the big white screen. The abandoned gas station which is for me to look at and Buddy to shit on and here comes a crew thinking they are going to make millions.
I am glad it felt real good. I am always glad to hear it. I can hear anything. I leave my ear plugs in all the time now. It's softer that way, I'm not alarmed. I don't jump.
Don't look back in anger.
Ashley is chain smoking more than I have seen her smoke in years. It's been two hours and we've been sitting at the same picnic table with the same group of girls. Our fathers put us up to this. Her father in particular. He decided her life long dream was to be a 2nd grade teacher and because we are tired now, because we turned eighteen and then twenty one and then kept turning ages, we nod our heads. My father has agreed to this because I am in general a disappointment. Both of us are disappointments to our parents but we are good with kids, we are good with the youth.
It's the first day of activities and we were twenty minutes late. We had breakfast with Nick first, which was probably a bad idea. He looked handsome because he was driving a truck.
"Where do you think he got that?"
"Not fucking his. That's for sure."
I am thinking about a dinner I had at my ex-boyfriends. His husband had prepared a meal more elaborate than I could cook. I was twirling the ring on my finger. Why were we in Florida? I thought all roads led to Rome.
Some voice in my head that is maybe my own says "They all lead to U.S 19".
I text Jordan Scott that the paper will be late. He doesn't respond because he probably knew already. I want to call Jackson from a pay phone, but I havent seen one in an over a year. I want to call him because I stopped writing him back. He could still look at me that year, when the rest of them couldnt.
We don't ask when we climb in, we just pretend, and I sit in the mail. Ashley is going through cigarette after cigarette but Nick and I are at a loss. Despite lack of trying we could never become addicted, the best we get is half a pack between us when we're drunk. It's summer and we're returning from our respected places of living. Nick is the only one that graduated on time so I try not to beat myself up because of his advantage. And he had his fair share of shitty jobs. I hated it when he worked at the movie theatre, and I didn't really believe in him when he worked at the bank but now he is a legitimate journalist. Press pass and everything. Sometimes the three of us get to cover things together, but mostly we are seperated across the country. Somehow-- not because we are fortunate-- just because we are aligned, we still end up in the same cars during the summer. We are going to save the youth and he is going to write it down.
I don't know why Nick is better at filling out forms than I am. I can't decide which one of the three of us is a better writer and that makes me really happy. It makes me really happy because we could all argue both rationally &in fits of hysteria on who does the best job. And in this one case we wouldn't say "me"-- I mean none of us would use the word for ourselves. We would give the credit to someone else.
I order a really sloppy breakfast at the drive-thru. I wonder why I never married Nick and I don't know if it's because he really didn't love me or if he loved me too much. Ashley is wiping napkins down my blouse which my best friend designed but did not sew herself. I keep wearing these tops because finally something is named after me. I look at Ashley's face for a while and for a minute it surprises me. Her cheekbones are very defined, parts of her face are hollowed. She has the thinnest she has ever been but at the same time she doesn't look different to me. We kind of all look how I always saw us.
I text Ilana
"Cheese on blouse- dry clean?"
She responds to tell me her mother is throwing a fit, flying cross country for the millionth breakdown. We are all older, we have all become something but the fundamental things are not different. Nick tells me I look beautiful and I wonder why I didn't marry Nick.
To get to the building we have to keep driving and driving and driving basically to the center of Florida.
"It's not the center, it's the panhandle", Ashley is correcting me. She has her feet on the dash and I tell her in one breath that she will both break her legs and that her toes look really good.
She says "In Ohio, we were chased by dogs," with a big smile on her face. But she is not saying it as the start of something. She is saying it for solace. The story became a novel and it sold. Really, really sold. So many things started selling that it all became surreal. None of us knew the difference.
"Shirt is ruined." Ilana texts back and I am just happy that she has a blackberry because she's always had the shittiest phone. She still refuses to get anything with a touch screen.
I remember writing once that Nick kissed the same way that he drived. I think I was disappointed.
"Can we look at the GPS?" The middle seat is making me uncomfortable, and I don't know if its going to be twenty minutes or two hours before we are at a picnic table of teenage girls.
It surprised me when my father didn't want me to be a teacher after graduation. I figured it was a safe bet and something I liked. It excited my mother too. I think it excited her mainly because she thought this would somehow lead to me having children earlier. Which it would have, before everything changed.
I guess I don't want to get into that year. The year that everyone just stopped talking or left the country. Most of them couldnt look at me in the face. I couldn't blame them but I looked at my face all the time regardless.
When we got there, we were late. I tried to explain to the girls at the picnic table that the feeling wears off but they didn't know what I was talking about. They were young girls and they believed that they knew everything. They believed that this was all a brand new thing, the music, the sex, the boys, the abandon. They believed it was a new thing and well, to them it was. We understood that. Nick was off on a different group and I whispered in his ear that he would have no advice for sixteen year olds beyond "Mariah your on fire" and he just said "yep. yep. yep." I don't know what he did tell them.
Ashley and I passed out the surveys and some of the girls knew who we were. Some of them cared, were excited about it. This alarmed me because I knew if they did like us. They liked us for all the wrong reasons.
I hate when people name their children names that are just words "Destiny" and "Hope" were sitting at the table. I scribble on a 3 x 5 card "is this irony?" to Ashley she scribbles "You want eleven dollar bills Daniela Scrima," breaking the silence and the whole exercise I laugh "but you only got tens??" No one understands.
"Okay girls, I know you don't want to be here. I know that it's the summer and that it's a Saturday and that you are only here because you have to be here. So make the best of this for yourselves. You don't have to trust me right now, you don't even have to believe me. Pretend this is like getting a drivers license".
"I'm fourteen," says a girl named "Autumn". I say with my eyes to Ashley that seasons as names piss me off too.
Ashley goes on, because she is not a 2nd grade teacher and she is better at this
"If I was you," she goes on "I'd start by writing 'I clearly fucked up and this is why' or 'I like the jail where they serve grap jelly."
Nick brings me a Diet Coke which I don't want. I don't feel like we are helping.
I say, "You know when we were your age, we didn't have to write any of this. When we were sixteen and pregnant we had enough goddamn common sense to have an abortion."
The three of us are hoping we won't be asked back. The three of us are forgetting that we don't have a choice either. In the car on the way home I know why I didn't marry Nick. I get the window seat and Ashley accidently burns his arm because she forgets she's holding a cigarette.
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