Freaks, Geeks, and Things that Make You "So Gay"

“What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger,” or so my mother believes. This cheery colloquialism is one of those used in an effort to make horrible, hateful things that happen to you seem part of a grander plan and give the hope that once you have pushed through the latest injustice, you will somehow emerge as some sort of super human on par with The Hulk or Superman or something. The truth is that I have been hearing this saying all my life and am still waiting for my honorary super strength or, at the very least, a gold badge.

Most of the offenses I have withstood in my, albeit short, lifetime have been due to a breach of conduct between myself and what is accepted as “normal” in society. I never thought of myself as being abnormal, but then people would hear that I was homeschooled through elementary school (“That means you wear long skirts and don’t know how to talk to people, right??”), or that our family did Foster Care (“But those kids are wild, aren’t they?”), and little by little I began to realize how much I am not like the majority. When I was 12, I had two foster sisters who had severe Cerebral Palsy. It amazed me how people would have no qualms about staring wide eyed at the wheelchairs, and tubes, and drool as we passed them on the street. You could visibly see some people squirm as you rolled up closer to them in a Wal-Mart line up, or wheeled in to sit beside them at a school concert. Rarely would someone who was staring then make the effort to walk over and talk to us, or the girls.

At age 14, my first of two wonderful little brothers was born. To my shock and dismay, this meant that I was just the right age to appear as one of those “Darn Teenage Mothers,” as I chased my brothers up and down shopping aisles, or fed them their bottles while waiting for my Mom at the Dentist. I never expected the snide comments and dirty looks, along with the occasional pitying sidelong glance, that were dished out (mainly by middle-aged women). I found myself often saying loudly things like, “Ok, Baby, let’s go find our Mom!” or “Who loves sister! Yes, you love sister!”.  

Then there was that awkward stage - all through high school - where I was determined to be cool even though I didn’t drink or party: a recipe for success. And let us not forget that wonderful growth spurt which left my limbs flailing and people wondering if I had succumbed to Anorexia (being told that you are “a little too skinny, if you ask me” is hardly more complementary than being told that you are too fat).

 I have been a victim of social stigmas, and most likely so have you. They make us who we are, and give us the bias that we uphold as our truth. I still clarify as often as I can that I am SISTER to my six and seven year old brothers, I am still sensitive of my gangly legs and spindly arms, and if you should even dare to make a Helen Keller joke around me I will make you feel like the lowest person alive. We are all acutely aware of the wrongs that have been inflicted upon us, but are we cognizant of the words and actions that we are inflicting on others? If we are using derogatory words such as “retard,” or saying that things are “so gay,” or taking time out of our day to gawk at the homeless, the disabled, or the just plain different without following up that stare with a kind smile or a simple hello, then we are contributing to the ostracizing of others and adding to the stigma likely already felt by these people. If you would like a challenge, here is one: go out and befriend someone who makes you feel uncomfortable today. What doesn’t kill you does make you stronger, but what they don’t tell you is that it’s a lot easier to make it through the hard times if you have a friend who is willing to go through it with you.

Full of Neglect

    I've been slipping in the blogging department. In addition to four English classes to keep track of, and contributing to the school newspaper, I have reached my limit. However, my plan in the interim is to share some of my articles that I'm putting into the school newspaper along with other pieces I manage to hammer out (for my amusement, if no one else's, haha).

I'm Not Your Girlfriend

           

            If I was your girlfriend I would wax your eyebrow into two. I would make you shower daily and make you change your clothes too. I would pick you out a cologne so I could recognize your scent. I would make you move out of your parents’ basement, and pay your own rent. 

            If I was your girlfriend, I would inform you that sepia tone is through. Nobody wants to see 800 “old fashioned”, self-portrait profile pictures of you. I would tell you to stop quoting others, because your thoughts are as good as theirs.  If van Gogh had only painted Da Vinci, he might have never cut off his ear. 

            If I was your girlfriend, I would tell you to make a move. I would tell you that cleverly slipping my name into lyrics wasn’t actually enough to prove. I would tell you that you were right when you suspected the hidden meaning of the song I sent to you. You were right, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t right of me to say I’d only sent it to cheer you up (you had the flu). 

            I am not your girlfriend for many of the same reasons stated above. Your hair was greasy, your eyebrows too few; your self-portraits too serious, and your confidence too new. It didn’t match my fairytale to be the one to take the initiative. It didn’t match my fairytale to have to coax, and prod, and tease to reassure you that I was there. You never spoke to me first. You didn’t trust my affection for you, and then I didn’t either. You were just a boy with a guitar with songs that spoke for you. But I wish you had actually spoken those words. I wish you’d looked at me and said “Hey, You! I really like you!”

            I was the one who said we couldn’t talk anymore. I could see where we were headed, and I could hear the whispers of your friends. I knew I couldn’t give you what you wanted, so I cut it short. I miss talking to you. I miss daydreaming about you. Though, I don’t miss your brother’s condescending looks, and his idea that I was corrupting you.

            I knew I had to hurt you, but I tried to do it in the quickest and gentlest way possible. I knew I couldn’t linger -  as much as I wanted to. I hope you don’t resent me. I pray you saw my purpose. For what it’s worth, I still carry with me the feeling from that night with the fireworks while we listened to Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s “What a Wonderful World” with one earbud in my ear, and the other one in yours.

Bah bah, bah nah nah, bah bah

                I have a favorite Uncle. I know it’s wrong to play favorites, but this one is mine. My Dad has always been close to his youngest sister, and subsequently we as a family have always been close to her and her husband- my Uncle Gerry. It wasn’t just this familial connection that made him my favorite, it was his attitude towards life and towards us kids. He would talk to me and my sisters about what we were doing, our hobbies and interests, the boys we liked and the ones who liked us. He would take us for drives in his car and play the first five seconds of Shania Twain’s “Man! I feel  like a Woman” over and over and over again to our hearts content.  He laughed big, he cooked big, he played big. When they came to our house it was nothing but eating and laughing. Sometimes the laughter wasn’t voluntary as we were tackled into a massive attack of tickles – but they were always the best of times. 

                When I was twelve  years old my Grandma was making the whole extended family take a formal picture together. I had bought a special dress, and applied my recently purchased metallic pink eyeshadow, and I had curled my bangs with a big barreled curler: the recipe for a knock out ensemble. I remember that morning feeling like nothing was coming together like I had imagined. My eyeshadow didn’t make my eyes sparkle like it was supposed to, my curler put a kink in my bangs that ruined the perfectly cylinder effect, and my pale yellow floral dress with a criss-cross back felt too clingy and awkward on my developing body. I had done the best I could with my limited beauty knowledge, and so with a resentful glance, I stalked out onto the porch to wait for the rest of the family. My Uncle Gerry was out there as well, and I’ll never forget the way he looked at me and said, “You look very beautiful” even as I fiddled with the aura of my bangs self-consciously.  That family picture still haunts me in my Grandmother’s hallway (an excruciating reminder of those tender preteen years), but that day I felt beautiful; because my Uncle Gerry had said so.

                This Christmas has been a rude awakening to the truth of my Aunt and Uncle’s marital relationship. There have been lies, abuse, too much drunkenness, and scores of debt – all thanks to my favorite Uncle. I guess he’s a scoundrel. I probably won’t ever see him again. I can’t justify these things that he has done to my Aunt, because I love my Aunt as well. It is too bad it took her this long to stand up for herself, and it is too bad that even after all this time my Uncle hasn’t figured out how to honestly be the man that we all love and believe him to be. I will miss him; probably because as a kid and his niece, he treated me as he should have treated my Aunt- with respect, affection, love, and a sense of fun.  I wish I knew that he’d come around, and all would be well again. I want to know that there will be a day when we can laugh like we always did.  Most of all I want to jump in the back of his car, roll down the windows and yell with the confidence and gusto of Shania, “Let’s go girls!” and really believe that everything in life will always be as simple as that joy. 

                                           Man! I Feel Like a Woman  - Shania Twain

Fixed to Ruin - Sam Roberts

We're All Gonna Get in a Fight!

                There are many things that may age you; even more that are classified with “coming of age”. Two weekends ago I think I experienced both those things. First on Saturday, I saw my first fight up close with the blood and sweat and petty emotions. On Sunday I almost got in my first fight – petty emotions also included. For a girl who spends a large chunk of her Saturday nights with a stack of books and successive bowls of mint chocolate ice cream, this was an eventful weekend – and did I mention I turned 21 on the Sunday?

 But I have used my old trick of giving you a taste of the punch line with no story (this is how I rope my brother into my “boy problems” stories). Well, it all came about because that weekend was indeed Halloween weekend. I may not be one to party hardy but I will take any excuse to dress up, and it seems as the years go on those opportunities become fewer and farther between.  So Saturday night was the big party in the city I live in. Hundreds of people come out to what is called the “Monster Mash”, usually already drunk and ready to become even more so in attempts to seduce one of those slutty fairies, fish, elves, pumpkins, cats, giraffes, angels, etc (really, the list wouldn’t end. There were even three slutty deviled eggs).  I am consistently sober in these intoxicated situations, but I have a rule that if I am not having fun sober that I should not be there. So at 11:30 p.m., I wasn’t having fun and I was sitting outside waiting for my ride dressed as an Escaped Barbie (with the wires on like I had ripped from the box – it was funnier in person). Not twelve inches from where I was sitting, two guys who looked to be friends were suddenly in negotiations of who was going to throw the first punch.  The one guy claimed to not know what the fight was about, but he also didn’t walk away. As I quickly collected my Barbie accessories and shuffled to the side, fists were shoved into faces, knees into crotches, elbows into ribs, and then a guy was down and getting blood and spit pounded out of his face. Luckily I had attracted two other guys while sitting outside (nothing like a dressed up single girl all alone that brings out the heroic in the inebriated) who eventually ran over and separated the others.  My ride showed up within the next five minutes and I went to bed thinking that fights in real life look just like they do in the movies.

The next day was my birthday, and that night I went to a concert by Sam Roberts with my sister and some pals. We made sure we were there early and rushed to be at the very front, right by the stage. Half-way through “Fixed to Ruin” my sister and friend were slammed into me with a look of apologetic shock on their faces.  Two verses later the same guy was leaning all his weight on my friend as she tried to push back. I like to think I am a relatively peaceful person. In high school I heard it said that people knew they had done something really wrong if I was angry about it. I like to live up to that reputation. On that note, I must have been born with a justice complex; and in that moment when some sweaty, drunk, long-haired dude was impressing his weight on the passive back of my friend - I had had enough. So I shoved him back into his group of slobbering friends, and when he rammed into us again I pushed him right back. The effectiveness of this strategy is questionable, but every time he would lurch forward and fly into us, I would use all the strength I had to fly him away from us again. You might say, “Well, what did you expect being in the front?”, but it wasn’t that everyone was moshing and we were the only ones wanting to chastely bob to the music; it was only that guy and his two bleary eyed friends who continued to disrespect the people around them by attacking them in their drunken fervor. In my opinion, I paid for the ticket (or rather, my Mom did as a birthday present. Thanks, Mom) and I should be able to enjoy the concert from wherever and in whatever fashion I choose. Those guys have the same right,  if they wanted to thrash around dancing, that’s their prerogative; when they start moving out of their own space and wrecking the experience for others – that’s when I get mad.

It’s a funny thing when you express your anger in aggressive actions. I can see why people get into fights and like fights. Every time that that guy slammed me forward, my shove back was stronger. and with more impact, and more satisfaction in some deep part of me. Maybe it had just been a couple of rough weeks with a lot of stresses that I could not control, and this was just transferred anger; but by the end of the concert my mind was daring this wreck of a guy to push me one more time – ONE MORE TIME. I wanted to throw a punch. I wanted to mess him up.

Well, maybe it was divine providence, or maybe I really did intimidate him enough that he wasn’t going to bother us anymore. Either way, the last five songs of Sam Roberts we were able to enjoy at our own pace. I was glad that I had finally “won”, but still pretty annoyed that I had to spend the majority of this experience bracing myself against attacks and distractions from the wonder and thrill of live music.  I was surprised at myself for wanting to get in a fight so bad - maybe in the end I wanted to teach humanity a lesson, but honestly, it would have sufficed to just teach that one drunk a lesson. 

Next time.

And His Hair was...PERFECT!

“So, my policy is mostly just do what I do, and try and make sure my hair always looks good,”

                I would put these words of my wiser friend in my “Words to Live By” feature, but it’s too good a quote not to discuss. There is so little control in life. Right now I am sitting at home with a mountain of homework, and a blaring cold that is refusing to get better. No control over that. BUT- even in the midst of the most blazing of blaring colds, you can still make sure your head is perfectly coiffed. That is some control. Minimal, but sometimes just enough control to hurl us onwards towards whatever it is that we keep desperately trying to catch up with. I am a person with real dreams, but no real strategy. All I can do is, “…just do what I do….” which may not seem like much, but at the end of the day when my picture is taken for the Archives of Anonymity, at least my hair will look darn good.

                                          Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon