Last night I dreamed I was playing Scrabble with the cast of Seinfeld, that I was shopping for Chinese dolls, that I was locked in a showroom with vacuum salesmen. Normally I would've woken up thinking What the hell? but this morning it seemed just right, exactly perfect, and not so strange at all.
The last week of my life has been bizarre. I have been asked to give lap dances. I have served heaps of fish frys. I have walked over the Rainbow Bridge into Canada. I have seen a stripper launch her naked body onto a pole and pretend-whisper to one of her stripper friends who is sitting in front of the stage, I am so wasted right now! I have seen a cat break its way out of a cat trap outside a bar at 1:00 AM. I have had flowers left on my car while I was at work.
There have been moments over the last few days where I've felt very much like this is a joke, that someone must be taping this, maybe making a Lifetime movie of my life, or at least scouting material for a campy new musical, something that will be all pink and glitzy, where Bebe Neuwirth plays a small-town girl turned college instructor turned summertime waitress who sings vibrant numbers like "Ain't This a Kick in the Pants?" and "Where's My Coleslaw, Bitch?: A Love Song from Customers" and "There's Something Sexy (About an Apron Full of Singles)."
It's hard to process everything--all the new people and things--and it's hard to get over the comparisons--between the old restaurant and the new; between my grad school life and post-grad school life--but I'm working on it. I'm trying to find my footing in my new routine. I'm trying to find words to write, trying to finish my book, and trying very hard not to panic because a lot of this feels familiar, like I've lived this summer before. It wouldn't be the worst thing, I suppose, to have a deja vu summer, but I just have to talk myself into it. Slowly, slowly, slowly. Slowly and surely, I can talk myself into it.
Showing posts with label snippet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snippet. Show all posts
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
The Things We Believe
The other day the Wily Republican and I got to talking about harems. Really, we were discussing the perks of being royalty, and he seemed to think that having a harem was an excellent fringe benefit.
I told the WR that when I was little I'd wanted to belong to a harem. Back then, I had these opulent, full-color cartoon books that retold all the best old tales, and one of the books was about Scheherazade. In that book there was page after page after page of willowy, tanned women draped in pink and purple and green veils, in tiny garlands of gold coins. I could imagine the way they sounded when they walked into a room, swishing, clinking. I wanted to be that kind of girl. I wanted to command attention when I breezed through archways. I wanted to lounge around on satin pillows and eat fruit and be amused by trained monkeys. It sounded like an okay life, but I didn't quite realize the implications of the harem. I didn't quite realize these ladies had a function other than being pretty and being audiences for monkeys.
The WR found this to be amusing. I'm sure the thought of me at seven years old, running around and draping hankies into my jeans so that I too could swish when I walked into a room, was pretty amusing. So he laughed.
"Yeah," I said. "It is funny what we'll talk ourselves into believing as children." Which reminded me of something else, something worse, something more moronic that I'd believed when I was young. But instead of being founded from something I'd read, this other belief sprung from something I'd watched.
I was eight years old when John Travolta and Kirstie Alley starred in Look Who's Talking. I was little. I was impressionable. I was stupid.
In the beginning of the movie, Kirstie Alley is locked in a passionate embrace with her boyfriend. They are about to have some sex on top of his big mahogany desk, but at eight years old, I didn't understand that was where this was going. I just saw the kissing, and that was something I did understand. When two people loved each other, they showed that love by kissing. Fine. But what happened next I did not understand. Not at all. The editing of the film shows the two kissing and then cuts directly to a shot of sperm racing toward an egg.
Oh my God, my eight year old brain thought. That's how a woman gets pregnant! By French kissing a boy!
Needless to say, that made me very nervous. People were always kissing on television, in movies, even out in the real world. I wasn't sure they knew what they were getting themselves into. After all, that sperm was pouring from the boys' mouths into the girls' mouths, and that meant that, in a matter of weeks, those girls could be sporting beach-ball size lumps under their tank tops. It seemed too dangerous to risk. So I made myself a promise right then and there. I would never, ever, ever, ever French kiss a boy unless I was certain I wanted to have babies with him.
I'm not exactly sure when I came around to thinking that this particular train of thought was inaccurate, but I do remember it took a long time. My mother tried to talk me out of it once, after I'd told her I had no interest in kissing a boy because I didn't want to make any babies. She tried to tell me that kissing didn't automatically mean baby, but I informed her that she didn't have to protect me. I told her I'd seen Look Who's Talking, and I knew what was up. My mother, I'm sure, had to walk out of the room then to go have a good laugh at my expense.
I would assume it took years of listening to snippets of conversation from the high school girls on the bus, listening to the boys in the lunchroom, and listening to things my friends had learned from older siblings for me to finally shake the belief that if I locked lips with a boy I might become a young mother, the kind that was always making tearful appearances on Oprah and Sally Jesse Raphael. And thank God for my coming out of that phase. Thank God. If I'd somehow continued on in my sheltered way, I would've missed so much goodness, and it took me long enough to get to that sweet point in my life as it was.
I told the WR that when I was little I'd wanted to belong to a harem. Back then, I had these opulent, full-color cartoon books that retold all the best old tales, and one of the books was about Scheherazade. In that book there was page after page after page of willowy, tanned women draped in pink and purple and green veils, in tiny garlands of gold coins. I could imagine the way they sounded when they walked into a room, swishing, clinking. I wanted to be that kind of girl. I wanted to command attention when I breezed through archways. I wanted to lounge around on satin pillows and eat fruit and be amused by trained monkeys. It sounded like an okay life, but I didn't quite realize the implications of the harem. I didn't quite realize these ladies had a function other than being pretty and being audiences for monkeys.
The WR found this to be amusing. I'm sure the thought of me at seven years old, running around and draping hankies into my jeans so that I too could swish when I walked into a room, was pretty amusing. So he laughed.
"Yeah," I said. "It is funny what we'll talk ourselves into believing as children." Which reminded me of something else, something worse, something more moronic that I'd believed when I was young. But instead of being founded from something I'd read, this other belief sprung from something I'd watched.
I was eight years old when John Travolta and Kirstie Alley starred in Look Who's Talking. I was little. I was impressionable. I was stupid.
In the beginning of the movie, Kirstie Alley is locked in a passionate embrace with her boyfriend. They are about to have some sex on top of his big mahogany desk, but at eight years old, I didn't understand that was where this was going. I just saw the kissing, and that was something I did understand. When two people loved each other, they showed that love by kissing. Fine. But what happened next I did not understand. Not at all. The editing of the film shows the two kissing and then cuts directly to a shot of sperm racing toward an egg.
Oh my God, my eight year old brain thought. That's how a woman gets pregnant! By French kissing a boy!
Needless to say, that made me very nervous. People were always kissing on television, in movies, even out in the real world. I wasn't sure they knew what they were getting themselves into. After all, that sperm was pouring from the boys' mouths into the girls' mouths, and that meant that, in a matter of weeks, those girls could be sporting beach-ball size lumps under their tank tops. It seemed too dangerous to risk. So I made myself a promise right then and there. I would never, ever, ever, ever French kiss a boy unless I was certain I wanted to have babies with him.
I'm not exactly sure when I came around to thinking that this particular train of thought was inaccurate, but I do remember it took a long time. My mother tried to talk me out of it once, after I'd told her I had no interest in kissing a boy because I didn't want to make any babies. She tried to tell me that kissing didn't automatically mean baby, but I informed her that she didn't have to protect me. I told her I'd seen Look Who's Talking, and I knew what was up. My mother, I'm sure, had to walk out of the room then to go have a good laugh at my expense.
I would assume it took years of listening to snippets of conversation from the high school girls on the bus, listening to the boys in the lunchroom, and listening to things my friends had learned from older siblings for me to finally shake the belief that if I locked lips with a boy I might become a young mother, the kind that was always making tearful appearances on Oprah and Sally Jesse Raphael. And thank God for my coming out of that phase. Thank God. If I'd somehow continued on in my sheltered way, I would've missed so much goodness, and it took me long enough to get to that sweet point in my life as it was.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
The View from Our Place
We went the classy way. Instead of writing something like Blow me! on the cake, we decided to just identify the reason for its being. Here are the fruits of my frosting piping:
And the view. Oh, the view. Does it get any better than penis cake and Niagara Falls?
And the view. Oh, the view. Does it get any better than penis cake and Niagara Falls?
Friday, May 25, 2007
If He Ever Says the Phrase "Pee Pee Head" to Me Again, I'm Going to Cut off My Ears
This is the first thing out of my father's mouth when he walks through the door tonight: "What are you going to do with those? They're too big."
He's talking about the cake I'm making for Becky's bachelorette party tomorrow night. In less than twenty-four hours there's going to be a group of girls in Ontario, Canada who are going to a bunch of strip clubs and drinking a bunch of duty free alcohol and eating a bunch of penis cake. Penis cake that I lovingly made. Penis cake that, unlike the one that showed up at my twenty-fourth birthday, doesn't have the herps.
When my father leans over to examine the raw materials of the to-be cake--two eight inch rounds and a 13x9 sheet cake--he looks concerned. "You'll need to make those smaller," he says.
I already know this. But it's disconcerting to hear my father comment on the testicle size of a bachelorette penis cake. Mainly because I don't ever want to discuss penises--fake or otherwise--with my father. It's enough that I've had to listen to twenty minute discussions between he and my brother about the agony of getting the down-there business caught in a zipper.
But even though it's wrong and dirty and gross, I call my father into the room when it's time to shave down the outer edge of the rounds. "Help," I say. "Want to cut them for me?" I am nervous about taking too much, about chipping away at this cake's dignity.
My father hands me a cereal bowl. "Should be about right," he says, and it is. The fact that he knew this so easily is also disturbing.
The next time my father saunters into the kitchen--Deadliest Catch is on commercial--he looks at my progress and nods. I have the shaft cut out, the balls whittled down. There is, however, one important thing missing.
"Are you going to give your cake a pee pee head?" my father asks.
I am holding a knife when he says this. It's a miracle I don't chop my ears off right then and there. While I've never thought about it before, it's completely clear at this moment that the phrase pee pee head is a phrase a father should never say to a daughter.
"Dad!" I wail. "Gross!" But then I motion to the leftover cake scraps. "And you don't have to worry," I tell him. "I'm on it."
Twenty minutes later, after carving and positioning and frosting, I have the final product on the giant platter my father sawed for me. (Here's your penis platter, he'd said after bringing it in and setting it in the kitchen.) I call my father in, gesture to the finished product.
"That," he says, "is a magnificent dick cake."
Oh, and it is. It's a straight shooter, smooth, ample in both length and girth. It's a blank canvas just waiting for filthy sayings to be piped onto its shaft with decorating icing. That, however, will have to wait until we get to the hotel room and it doesn't need to be moved anymore. It's going to be glorious.
He's talking about the cake I'm making for Becky's bachelorette party tomorrow night. In less than twenty-four hours there's going to be a group of girls in Ontario, Canada who are going to a bunch of strip clubs and drinking a bunch of duty free alcohol and eating a bunch of penis cake. Penis cake that I lovingly made. Penis cake that, unlike the one that showed up at my twenty-fourth birthday, doesn't have the herps.
When my father leans over to examine the raw materials of the to-be cake--two eight inch rounds and a 13x9 sheet cake--he looks concerned. "You'll need to make those smaller," he says.
I already know this. But it's disconcerting to hear my father comment on the testicle size of a bachelorette penis cake. Mainly because I don't ever want to discuss penises--fake or otherwise--with my father. It's enough that I've had to listen to twenty minute discussions between he and my brother about the agony of getting the down-there business caught in a zipper.
But even though it's wrong and dirty and gross, I call my father into the room when it's time to shave down the outer edge of the rounds. "Help," I say. "Want to cut them for me?" I am nervous about taking too much, about chipping away at this cake's dignity.
My father hands me a cereal bowl. "Should be about right," he says, and it is. The fact that he knew this so easily is also disturbing.
The next time my father saunters into the kitchen--Deadliest Catch is on commercial--he looks at my progress and nods. I have the shaft cut out, the balls whittled down. There is, however, one important thing missing.
"Are you going to give your cake a pee pee head?" my father asks.
I am holding a knife when he says this. It's a miracle I don't chop my ears off right then and there. While I've never thought about it before, it's completely clear at this moment that the phrase pee pee head is a phrase a father should never say to a daughter.
"Dad!" I wail. "Gross!" But then I motion to the leftover cake scraps. "And you don't have to worry," I tell him. "I'm on it."
Twenty minutes later, after carving and positioning and frosting, I have the final product on the giant platter my father sawed for me. (Here's your penis platter, he'd said after bringing it in and setting it in the kitchen.) I call my father in, gesture to the finished product.
"That," he says, "is a magnificent dick cake."
Oh, and it is. It's a straight shooter, smooth, ample in both length and girth. It's a blank canvas just waiting for filthy sayings to be piped onto its shaft with decorating icing. That, however, will have to wait until we get to the hotel room and it doesn't need to be moved anymore. It's going to be glorious.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
What There Is to See
It was late that night, probably past two A.M. I was driving home from my boyfriend--Keith's--house, and I was driving the back way. I'd decided no, I didn't want to take the winding expressway home. Instead, I wanted to duck through the hills and valleys of what is, in winter, the capital of western New York ski country.
I had a soft spot for the back roads. After all, Keith was always driving me home that way. The road cuts through hills and pitches up and over their crests. There is one hill that is particularly troublesome--if you don't get a good run going up it, you swear you'll start sliding backward, swear your car will do an extravagant backflip like a clown car at a circus, like some Warner Brothers cartoon.
But that night on the way home I had a fine start up the hill. I made it up and over without a problem, and when I glanced behind me I could see the lights of the fading towns spinning and spinning into the darkness. I had to turn my eyes forward then because once I made it over the hill, I had to stop at a small looping crossroad.
And I did. I looked to my left to see if there was any traffic coming, but what I saw was not traffic. What I saw there, standing next to the stop sign was a pale young boy--eleven, maybe twelve--and he was looking at me. He was feet from me. He didn't move. He didn't seem startled. He didn't seem to want to hide from view, like he was trying to avoid being caught doing something troublesome out there at the stop sign in the middle of nowhere. I wanted to scream. But instead I slammed my foot on the gas and dove over the next hill to get away from that hill, that stop sign, that boy.
Mainly because I'm not entirely sure he was alive.
There was absolutely no reason for a boy that young to be standing next to a stop sign as casually as if he were waiting for a bus or a friend or a ride to school. Not at two A.M., not ever. The only reason to be out at that stop sign at two in the morning was to make mischief. But what was there to vandalize? Stretching out in front of him was nothing but night and fields. The only thing there was that stop sign, and what can you do to a stop sign when you're a twelve year old kid who can't even reach the words STOP? If you can't reach, then you can't attack the sign with a hammer, nor can you spray paint things like being a bitch, Mom! beneath the STOP.
I didn't look back. I couldn't look back. I didn't want my suspicions confirmed either way. I didn't want to see the kid still standing there, leaning up against that stop sign, and I didn't want to see the pale white moon of his face suddenly vanished into thin air. I just drove as fast as I could away from there.
For weeks, for months, I avoided those backroads at night just so I wouldn't have to confirm the reality of that moment. What did it mean if I drove that way again, and again there stood a boy in the moon-white light of two A.M.? Did it mean there was a serious sleepwalker in this tiny town? Did it mean there had been some accident years ago, right there on that corner, and every night the boy stood at the sign thinking about what could have been different, what should have been different?
I didn't want to know. I still don't want to know. But today I drove those hills again, looking for restaurants that might want to hire me as a waitress. Today I passed that stop sign twice--on the way to and on the way from that town, one of my favorites--and each time I stopped at that corner I looked to the left and studied the area very carefully. I was looking for tiny mementos: a wreath of dried flowers, a tangle of weathered ribbons, a teddy bear lanced to the telephone pole that stood nearby. I was looking for things a mother or a father or a sister would leave in memory of someone who was lost, a little boy, a son, a brother. I was looking for things that said, I miss you, I love you, come home.
I didn't find anything, though. But I couldn't stop thinking about that night and what it might be like if I got a job at a restaurant over that hill. What kinds of things would I see late at night as I drove home through the countryside with my apron pooled on the seat next to me, with the car windows rolled all the way down? Would I see that little boy again? Would he still be there, looking out across the hills and the winking lights wondering how he would ever get to where he needed to go, or would I be the only one stopped at that sign and wondering the same exact thing?
I had a soft spot for the back roads. After all, Keith was always driving me home that way. The road cuts through hills and pitches up and over their crests. There is one hill that is particularly troublesome--if you don't get a good run going up it, you swear you'll start sliding backward, swear your car will do an extravagant backflip like a clown car at a circus, like some Warner Brothers cartoon.
But that night on the way home I had a fine start up the hill. I made it up and over without a problem, and when I glanced behind me I could see the lights of the fading towns spinning and spinning into the darkness. I had to turn my eyes forward then because once I made it over the hill, I had to stop at a small looping crossroad.
And I did. I looked to my left to see if there was any traffic coming, but what I saw was not traffic. What I saw there, standing next to the stop sign was a pale young boy--eleven, maybe twelve--and he was looking at me. He was feet from me. He didn't move. He didn't seem startled. He didn't seem to want to hide from view, like he was trying to avoid being caught doing something troublesome out there at the stop sign in the middle of nowhere. I wanted to scream. But instead I slammed my foot on the gas and dove over the next hill to get away from that hill, that stop sign, that boy.
Mainly because I'm not entirely sure he was alive.
There was absolutely no reason for a boy that young to be standing next to a stop sign as casually as if he were waiting for a bus or a friend or a ride to school. Not at two A.M., not ever. The only reason to be out at that stop sign at two in the morning was to make mischief. But what was there to vandalize? Stretching out in front of him was nothing but night and fields. The only thing there was that stop sign, and what can you do to a stop sign when you're a twelve year old kid who can't even reach the words STOP? If you can't reach, then you can't attack the sign with a hammer, nor can you spray paint things like being a bitch, Mom! beneath the STOP.
I didn't look back. I couldn't look back. I didn't want my suspicions confirmed either way. I didn't want to see the kid still standing there, leaning up against that stop sign, and I didn't want to see the pale white moon of his face suddenly vanished into thin air. I just drove as fast as I could away from there.
For weeks, for months, I avoided those backroads at night just so I wouldn't have to confirm the reality of that moment. What did it mean if I drove that way again, and again there stood a boy in the moon-white light of two A.M.? Did it mean there was a serious sleepwalker in this tiny town? Did it mean there had been some accident years ago, right there on that corner, and every night the boy stood at the sign thinking about what could have been different, what should have been different?
I didn't want to know. I still don't want to know. But today I drove those hills again, looking for restaurants that might want to hire me as a waitress. Today I passed that stop sign twice--on the way to and on the way from that town, one of my favorites--and each time I stopped at that corner I looked to the left and studied the area very carefully. I was looking for tiny mementos: a wreath of dried flowers, a tangle of weathered ribbons, a teddy bear lanced to the telephone pole that stood nearby. I was looking for things a mother or a father or a sister would leave in memory of someone who was lost, a little boy, a son, a brother. I was looking for things that said, I miss you, I love you, come home.
I didn't find anything, though. But I couldn't stop thinking about that night and what it might be like if I got a job at a restaurant over that hill. What kinds of things would I see late at night as I drove home through the countryside with my apron pooled on the seat next to me, with the car windows rolled all the way down? Would I see that little boy again? Would he still be there, looking out across the hills and the winking lights wondering how he would ever get to where he needed to go, or would I be the only one stopped at that sign and wondering the same exact thing?
Friday, May 11, 2007
Long Live the Little Queens
When I was seventeen years old and a senior in high school, I announced I was going to enter a pageant. The Tulip Festival Queen's Pageant, to be exact. It was a part of the annual spring celebration that takes place in the town where I went to high school. Each year when the red and gold tulips yawn open along Main Street, a long train of carnival attractions roles into town. A midway is set up in the town parking lot, and it is dotted with funnel cake and taffy stands, with super slides and merry-go-rounds, with water pistol and dart games.
The Queen's Pageant is one of the biggest events of the three day extravaganza. It's like a mini-Miss America pageant for senior girls, just without the bathing suits. There's a dance routine, a talent competition, a gown competition, and a question and answer session.
And when I announced I wanted to enter the pageant, my parents and brother and Ex-Keith (then Boyfriend Keith) all looked at me like, Really?
I understood their looks. It wasn't my thing. I knew that. And even to this day I'm not exactly sure why I wanted to do it. I just know that one morning I woke up and said, "Well, I guess I'm going to do this."
I even surprised myself when I went to the informational meeting and came away still interested in going through with it. When I'd first stepped into that room, I figured there was a distinct possibility that I would leave thinking, Ha. Yeah right. But I didn't. Instead, I left thinking, Bring it on.
While it might take years of extensive therapy to suss out the real reasons behind why I did it, I can offer some possibilities. First, I wasn't fat anymore. Second, I had my first real boyfriend. Third, I was feeling better and sassier than I ever had before. Fourth, I was coming off a pretty bad heartache, and I think part of me wanted to strut around a stage, maybe get my picture in the paper. I figured the boy who broke my heart would see me in the paper and think about how good I looked, and then he would be filled with a sucking-gaping-awful-evil blackness because he'd done me wrong and hadn't made me his own.
But before I could grace the pages of the hometown paper, I had to face the competition. A handful of my friends were in the pageant with me, but so were a lot of the girls who'd sat court in the Very Popular zone back in middle school, back when people lived and died by those rankings. These were girls who'd had rumors spread about them in fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade--rumors that had them losing their virginities, getting pregnant, and being knocked around by their Very Popular boyfriends. In middle school, these girls were little queens, and I was the court jester.
A lot of that didn't matter anymore, but our histories were still there, still weighing heavily on our shoulders as we took to the stage the first time, as we stood in front of our dance coach, as we got the news that our opening number was going to be the most difficult opening number ever seen at the Queen's Pageant. We were going to be swing dancing. And that's when our histories bore down on us. Or maybe just me. I'd never had a single dance lesson. I'd never been that girl who spun circles in a pink tutu or, later, a leopard print leotard. But a lot of the girls standing next to me had. They'd danced at least some or all of their lives. I was screwed.
Everything else I had down. Dress? Check. It was floofy and my favorite color: purple. Talent? Check. I'd originally planned to read a fiction piece I'd been working on, but the powers that be thought it was too morose in subject matter (it was about the end of the world due to nuclear war) and it was nixed in favor of some poetry about Adam and Eve. Q & A? Check. I was like a little rockstar because I knew a lot of big words, and there's nothing that pageant judges like more than a girl who sounds like she knows what she's talking about.
Here's what I know about the dancing, though. I sucked. I sucked bad. I was always shrieking Sorry! to the dance instructor and the other girls when I messed up. Here's another thing I know about the dancing: I only ever did that routine perfectly twice, and, luckily, those two times were in front of the audience. After we'd done it for the last time ever, I remember feeling an immense amount of relief because I'd never, ever, ever, ever have to do it again. To this day, when our song comes on I still cringe a little inside.
But the pageant wasn't only about talent, pretty dresses, and smart-sounding responses. It was about community service, too. It was about being a mover-and-shaker. It was about being devoted to the western New York area. So, part of our obligation as Tulip Queen Candidates was to rove around the area, attending local Kiwanis meetings and mingling with the important men of small towns. We wore satiny little dresses and sat through plated meals of macaroni and cheese and casserole served up in the back room of local wing joints and restaurants. Part of the Kiwanis members' duty was to judge us. They were supposed to watch our table manners, assess our friendliness, and discern how poised we were.
We didn't go as a group, but we didn't go alone either. The powers that be split us up into pairs. Patty, who was still my best friend at this point, was my partner. We attended two dinners--both of ours were at smokey wing joints whose dining rooms smelled like old wood panneling and cheap beer--and at these dinners, Patty attempted to make me look bad. It was cutthroat, this competition. Patty was determined to come off more poised than I was, which wasn't really a hard task since I was just coming into my poise. But she was always finding ways to cut me down. When a grizzled old man I was seated next to asked what I was doing after graduation, I told him I was going off to college to be a English major. The man asked if that meant I wanted to be a teacher. Patty, sensing a way to capitalize on the conversation, leaned over and smiled at the grizzled man. "No," she said. "She doesn't want to be a teacher. There's not really one profession an English major prepares you for. I'm going into political science, though. I'm going to be a lawyer. I'll have a music minor, too. I sing and play flute."
This was some serious stuff. These dinners with the Kiwanis members, who would go scribble down their perceptions of us after the dessert course, were terrifying. After all, how did you make a good impression? How friendly was just-the-right-friendly? And how did you come off as poised? For me, I figured my poise shone through when I didn't kill my best friend, when I didn't stab her with a salad fork, when I didn't run us off the road and into a tree on the way home, even though I was very interested in impaling her on a tree branch.
But there wasn't much time to obsess about how well or not well those dinners went. The talent part of the competition was a major to-do for most girls. Me, I was easy. In the way of props, I asked for a fake tree and a bench. I sat on the bench under the fake tree and read my poetry. Other girls, though, didn't have it so easy. Some required fireworks--not real fireworks, of course, but things that were advanced for a high school production: music, projectors, sets.
One of the girls did a skit to "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." Another had a trellis and a projector for her interpretive dance to a Shania Twain song. Patty, always a fan of drama, had scripted a special note to be read before she went on. She wanted her performance--she was singing "Unforgettable"--to be dedicated to her just-born nephew, her middle sister's child. This sister--unwed and young--had slept with and been impregnated by a boy who then turned out to be gay, a boy who hightailed it out of state with his lover as soon as humanly possible.
Hers had been the most uncomfortable baby shower I'd ever been to. Patty's family was religious, and none of the situation really sat well with them. People were bone-white and dead-quiet at that party. Amy and I sat in a corner and tried not to say anything inappropriate, which was surprisingly difficult, given the situation. It was hard to accept that Patty's sister was just-graduated and pregnant. At the shower all I could think about was this one night the sister had come home from a date with the boy who would eventually get her pregnant. They'd been out walking, she said. It started raining. The air was thick and heavy with the smell of spring and blooming flowers. They were standing underneath the dripping branches of a lilac bush, and that's when he kissed her. It was the most amazing thing, she'd said. The most amazing feeling ever. At the time she told us that story, I hadn't been kissed. In fact, I was a long way off. But I felt something tug inside me. I knew what she meant. I could imagine the perfectness of that moment. I could imagine how everything smelled and tasted and felt like love.
But at her shower, I wasn't thinking about the loveliness of that anymore. I was thinking, Isn't it funny to go from there to here? But the drama wasn't about to end there for Patty's family. A few months later, both Patty's sisters would be hit by a drunk driver. Her pregnant sister went into labor and delivered that night.
And it was that fragile boy who was the feature of the slideshow that Patty had playing behind her as her voice skimmed over the notes of the old Nat King Cole song. A lot of people thought that was sweet, that was cute, that was precious. But I couldn't help think about the way Patty had looked when she sold me down the river over a plate of macaroni and cheese. I couldn't help but think about the cool smile on her face, the sly brush of her eyelashes against the hollows under her eyes, the way her voice came out as practiced as a weathered CNN anchor's. That was a girl who wanted to win, and she wanted it bad.
And it's not that I thought she was happy about what happened to her sisters and the baby, but I did think she was interested in the edge it could give her. There seemed to be a new confidence in her. It showed in the way she held herself, in the way she treated people. She knew she had a human interest story with bite. She knew she had a story that would look good in the paper, a story that would have audience members reaching for tissues as the photos rolled across the screen and she purred through the song's throaty notes.
But even as much as she thought her story was the golden ticket and her way to the crown, it wasn't. Just like my poetry about Adam and Eve wasn't my way to the crown. We both watched as one of the other girls--a girl who'd donned tap shoes and skittered across the stage the way she'd been doing since she'd been born--accepted the crown and took her victory walk clutching a dozen roses to her dress.
However, my vantage point was a little different than Patty's. I'd somehow managed to snag the third runner-up--a feat that had me crying as soon as the curtains snapped shut and all the girls gathered round to congratulate the court and the newly-crowned queen. I just couldn't help myself. I didn't realize until that moment how much I had riding on the results. I didn't realize how much it would mean to me to find a spot in the court, to actually get my picture in the paper, even if it showed me with puffy, tear-splotched cheeks.
While I stood on the tiered platform with the other runners-up I felt a little bit invincible, a little bit like this moment was trying to tell me there were better things to come, like I was going to find out that the things I wanted might come just a little bit easier now that I felt more capable to seek them out. And while I clutched my own roses to my dress and smiled into the flash of cameras, I thought about the night at the Kiwanis meeting, about Patty leaning over and informing the room that mine was a silly degree, a silly dream, a silly thing to want. While I stood there, I hoped whoever was taking pictures for the local paper was catching my smile the way it felt on my face right then. It was a smile whose angle and strength and earnestness was saying We'll see about that, won't we? We'll just see about that.
~~~
And, to celebrate that this weekend is, in fact, Tulip Festival weekend in the old hometown, here are some pictures of my pageant year:
This the show opener. Each girl ran out on stage, chirped out her name (Hi, I'm Jess!!!!!) and then got in place for the swing dance.
Here we are in the middle of the opening number. The circled girl is me, and, yes, I admit that I am wearing gross khakis and a too-big shirt. I thought it was cute at the time. I now recognize the error of my ways. The arrowed girl is Patty and Patty's This Smile Is Way Too Big to Be Sincere smile.
My jazz hands were working overtime.
Here's a washed-out picture of me doing a tour of the stage during the gown competition.
One of the perks of being a Tulip Queen contestant? Getting to ride around in a sporty borrowed car. The only problem with mine was the convertible top wouldn't go down, so I had to hang out the window to toss candy and wave.
Here I am accepting the flowers after being named to the court. If you look to the right, you can see Patty distracting Mary and Becky. It's possible she's saying something like, "Her? You've got to be kidding me!"
The Queen's Pageant is one of the biggest events of the three day extravaganza. It's like a mini-Miss America pageant for senior girls, just without the bathing suits. There's a dance routine, a talent competition, a gown competition, and a question and answer session.
And when I announced I wanted to enter the pageant, my parents and brother and Ex-Keith (then Boyfriend Keith) all looked at me like, Really?
I understood their looks. It wasn't my thing. I knew that. And even to this day I'm not exactly sure why I wanted to do it. I just know that one morning I woke up and said, "Well, I guess I'm going to do this."
I even surprised myself when I went to the informational meeting and came away still interested in going through with it. When I'd first stepped into that room, I figured there was a distinct possibility that I would leave thinking, Ha. Yeah right. But I didn't. Instead, I left thinking, Bring it on.
While it might take years of extensive therapy to suss out the real reasons behind why I did it, I can offer some possibilities. First, I wasn't fat anymore. Second, I had my first real boyfriend. Third, I was feeling better and sassier than I ever had before. Fourth, I was coming off a pretty bad heartache, and I think part of me wanted to strut around a stage, maybe get my picture in the paper. I figured the boy who broke my heart would see me in the paper and think about how good I looked, and then he would be filled with a sucking-gaping-awful-evil blackness because he'd done me wrong and hadn't made me his own.
But before I could grace the pages of the hometown paper, I had to face the competition. A handful of my friends were in the pageant with me, but so were a lot of the girls who'd sat court in the Very Popular zone back in middle school, back when people lived and died by those rankings. These were girls who'd had rumors spread about them in fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade--rumors that had them losing their virginities, getting pregnant, and being knocked around by their Very Popular boyfriends. In middle school, these girls were little queens, and I was the court jester.
A lot of that didn't matter anymore, but our histories were still there, still weighing heavily on our shoulders as we took to the stage the first time, as we stood in front of our dance coach, as we got the news that our opening number was going to be the most difficult opening number ever seen at the Queen's Pageant. We were going to be swing dancing. And that's when our histories bore down on us. Or maybe just me. I'd never had a single dance lesson. I'd never been that girl who spun circles in a pink tutu or, later, a leopard print leotard. But a lot of the girls standing next to me had. They'd danced at least some or all of their lives. I was screwed.
Everything else I had down. Dress? Check. It was floofy and my favorite color: purple. Talent? Check. I'd originally planned to read a fiction piece I'd been working on, but the powers that be thought it was too morose in subject matter (it was about the end of the world due to nuclear war) and it was nixed in favor of some poetry about Adam and Eve. Q & A? Check. I was like a little rockstar because I knew a lot of big words, and there's nothing that pageant judges like more than a girl who sounds like she knows what she's talking about.
Here's what I know about the dancing, though. I sucked. I sucked bad. I was always shrieking Sorry! to the dance instructor and the other girls when I messed up. Here's another thing I know about the dancing: I only ever did that routine perfectly twice, and, luckily, those two times were in front of the audience. After we'd done it for the last time ever, I remember feeling an immense amount of relief because I'd never, ever, ever, ever have to do it again. To this day, when our song comes on I still cringe a little inside.
But the pageant wasn't only about talent, pretty dresses, and smart-sounding responses. It was about community service, too. It was about being a mover-and-shaker. It was about being devoted to the western New York area. So, part of our obligation as Tulip Queen Candidates was to rove around the area, attending local Kiwanis meetings and mingling with the important men of small towns. We wore satiny little dresses and sat through plated meals of macaroni and cheese and casserole served up in the back room of local wing joints and restaurants. Part of the Kiwanis members' duty was to judge us. They were supposed to watch our table manners, assess our friendliness, and discern how poised we were.
We didn't go as a group, but we didn't go alone either. The powers that be split us up into pairs. Patty, who was still my best friend at this point, was my partner. We attended two dinners--both of ours were at smokey wing joints whose dining rooms smelled like old wood panneling and cheap beer--and at these dinners, Patty attempted to make me look bad. It was cutthroat, this competition. Patty was determined to come off more poised than I was, which wasn't really a hard task since I was just coming into my poise. But she was always finding ways to cut me down. When a grizzled old man I was seated next to asked what I was doing after graduation, I told him I was going off to college to be a English major. The man asked if that meant I wanted to be a teacher. Patty, sensing a way to capitalize on the conversation, leaned over and smiled at the grizzled man. "No," she said. "She doesn't want to be a teacher. There's not really one profession an English major prepares you for. I'm going into political science, though. I'm going to be a lawyer. I'll have a music minor, too. I sing and play flute."
This was some serious stuff. These dinners with the Kiwanis members, who would go scribble down their perceptions of us after the dessert course, were terrifying. After all, how did you make a good impression? How friendly was just-the-right-friendly? And how did you come off as poised? For me, I figured my poise shone through when I didn't kill my best friend, when I didn't stab her with a salad fork, when I didn't run us off the road and into a tree on the way home, even though I was very interested in impaling her on a tree branch.
But there wasn't much time to obsess about how well or not well those dinners went. The talent part of the competition was a major to-do for most girls. Me, I was easy. In the way of props, I asked for a fake tree and a bench. I sat on the bench under the fake tree and read my poetry. Other girls, though, didn't have it so easy. Some required fireworks--not real fireworks, of course, but things that were advanced for a high school production: music, projectors, sets.
One of the girls did a skit to "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." Another had a trellis and a projector for her interpretive dance to a Shania Twain song. Patty, always a fan of drama, had scripted a special note to be read before she went on. She wanted her performance--she was singing "Unforgettable"--to be dedicated to her just-born nephew, her middle sister's child. This sister--unwed and young--had slept with and been impregnated by a boy who then turned out to be gay, a boy who hightailed it out of state with his lover as soon as humanly possible.
Hers had been the most uncomfortable baby shower I'd ever been to. Patty's family was religious, and none of the situation really sat well with them. People were bone-white and dead-quiet at that party. Amy and I sat in a corner and tried not to say anything inappropriate, which was surprisingly difficult, given the situation. It was hard to accept that Patty's sister was just-graduated and pregnant. At the shower all I could think about was this one night the sister had come home from a date with the boy who would eventually get her pregnant. They'd been out walking, she said. It started raining. The air was thick and heavy with the smell of spring and blooming flowers. They were standing underneath the dripping branches of a lilac bush, and that's when he kissed her. It was the most amazing thing, she'd said. The most amazing feeling ever. At the time she told us that story, I hadn't been kissed. In fact, I was a long way off. But I felt something tug inside me. I knew what she meant. I could imagine the perfectness of that moment. I could imagine how everything smelled and tasted and felt like love.
But at her shower, I wasn't thinking about the loveliness of that anymore. I was thinking, Isn't it funny to go from there to here? But the drama wasn't about to end there for Patty's family. A few months later, both Patty's sisters would be hit by a drunk driver. Her pregnant sister went into labor and delivered that night.
And it was that fragile boy who was the feature of the slideshow that Patty had playing behind her as her voice skimmed over the notes of the old Nat King Cole song. A lot of people thought that was sweet, that was cute, that was precious. But I couldn't help think about the way Patty had looked when she sold me down the river over a plate of macaroni and cheese. I couldn't help but think about the cool smile on her face, the sly brush of her eyelashes against the hollows under her eyes, the way her voice came out as practiced as a weathered CNN anchor's. That was a girl who wanted to win, and she wanted it bad.
And it's not that I thought she was happy about what happened to her sisters and the baby, but I did think she was interested in the edge it could give her. There seemed to be a new confidence in her. It showed in the way she held herself, in the way she treated people. She knew she had a human interest story with bite. She knew she had a story that would look good in the paper, a story that would have audience members reaching for tissues as the photos rolled across the screen and she purred through the song's throaty notes.
But even as much as she thought her story was the golden ticket and her way to the crown, it wasn't. Just like my poetry about Adam and Eve wasn't my way to the crown. We both watched as one of the other girls--a girl who'd donned tap shoes and skittered across the stage the way she'd been doing since she'd been born--accepted the crown and took her victory walk clutching a dozen roses to her dress.
However, my vantage point was a little different than Patty's. I'd somehow managed to snag the third runner-up--a feat that had me crying as soon as the curtains snapped shut and all the girls gathered round to congratulate the court and the newly-crowned queen. I just couldn't help myself. I didn't realize until that moment how much I had riding on the results. I didn't realize how much it would mean to me to find a spot in the court, to actually get my picture in the paper, even if it showed me with puffy, tear-splotched cheeks.
While I stood on the tiered platform with the other runners-up I felt a little bit invincible, a little bit like this moment was trying to tell me there were better things to come, like I was going to find out that the things I wanted might come just a little bit easier now that I felt more capable to seek them out. And while I clutched my own roses to my dress and smiled into the flash of cameras, I thought about the night at the Kiwanis meeting, about Patty leaning over and informing the room that mine was a silly degree, a silly dream, a silly thing to want. While I stood there, I hoped whoever was taking pictures for the local paper was catching my smile the way it felt on my face right then. It was a smile whose angle and strength and earnestness was saying We'll see about that, won't we? We'll just see about that.
~~~
And, to celebrate that this weekend is, in fact, Tulip Festival weekend in the old hometown, here are some pictures of my pageant year:
This the show opener. Each girl ran out on stage, chirped out her name (Hi, I'm Jess!!!!!) and then got in place for the swing dance.
Here we are in the middle of the opening number. The circled girl is me, and, yes, I admit that I am wearing gross khakis and a too-big shirt. I thought it was cute at the time. I now recognize the error of my ways. The arrowed girl is Patty and Patty's This Smile Is Way Too Big to Be Sincere smile.
My jazz hands were working overtime.
Here's a washed-out picture of me doing a tour of the stage during the gown competition.
One of the perks of being a Tulip Queen contestant? Getting to ride around in a sporty borrowed car. The only problem with mine was the convertible top wouldn't go down, so I had to hang out the window to toss candy and wave.
Here I am accepting the flowers after being named to the court. If you look to the right, you can see Patty distracting Mary and Becky. It's possible she's saying something like, "Her? You've got to be kidding me!"
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Sixty-Two Down & Thirteen More To Go
I've been grading research papers for the last four days. They have to be done and back to my students by tomorrow, so the end is in sight.
But until then, let's meditate on the goodness that is Buffalo hockey:
I love that man.
But until then, let's meditate on the goodness that is Buffalo hockey:
I love that man.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
Working Girl
I need a summer job. The semester ends soon, and I'll be officially unemployed until the end of August. I've been preparing for this since last summer, since before I got my university job, back when I was convinced I was going to have to wait tables full time or work at the local credit recovery agency for the rest of my life.
Anyway, I've been preparing. It's been hard to prepare. Each day I have to wake up and say to myself, You are only two months away from waiting tables, you are only one month away from waiting tables, you are only weeks away from waiting tables. Some people--mostly my parents--think I'm being too dramatic about it. They think it's no big deal, no big shake. They don't understand why it would bother me to go back to waiting tables after receiving a terminal master's degree, after I have been hired on as an instructor of college English. My mother especially thinks I'm being a baby about it. When I ask her how she'd like it if she had to wait on one of her students she says she'd like it fine. What's the big deal? she says.
The big deal is this: it's one of the world's most uncomfortable experiences to wait on one of your students--to bring him a nice steak dinner and an extra potato when his father asks it, even after he says, No, no, it's okay, Jess, you don't have to! because he feels weird, weird, weird that the girl who just spent fifteen weeks teaching him how to string together coherent sentences is standing in front of him with a coffee pot in one hand and a bottle of ketchup in the other. I did that while working banquets in Minnesota. I don't ever want to do that again.
The chances of that happening now, though, are slim. I live very far away from my university, and the places I'd wait tables are places my students wouldn't be likely to go. This makes me feel slightly better about returning to the world of serving, to a world where men think it's okay to talk about your nipples as if you aren't standing in front of them, refilling their water glass.
It makes me feel slightly better, but not entirely better.
My father thinks I'm crazy for not driving to the restaurant where I used to work and asking for my job back. You know the place! he says. You know the menu and the people and the way things work! And it's true. I do know those things. I can still hear myself reciting the list of potato choices (We have baked, fries, curly seasoned fries, cottage fries, or potato salad!), and I can still see myself sucking up to all the cooks on the off chance that I will really screw up someday and need them to make me food that I forgot to ring in, and I can still myself sitting at the bar and counting out a filmy stack of ones onto the slate counter.
It wouldn't be horrible, but it would be strange. It would be contrary to what I was hoping and assuming on my last day of work. That night after I clocked out for the last time, after I had my last post-shift-drink, after I had appropriately nuzzled every boy I loved (the cooks, the dishwashers, the bartenders), I walked out thinking See ya! Adios! Au Revoir! I walked out thinking, I'll never have to do that again. I foolishly thought that once I got my terminal master's degree, life wouldn't be a struggle anymore. I wouldn't have to have some crappy part-time job that involved flipping salad bars, washing down a patio, zoom-brooming the carpet where some parents let their baby toss half a container of gummed-down Saltines.
While working at the restaurant, I'd secretly felt sad for the girls who came back to work after graduating college. They had full-time jobs--they worked as teachers and social workers--but they were still driving to the restaurant and slipping into long black aprons, they were still floating beer-loaded trays on the palms of their hands, they were still asking people how they wanted their fish fries done--battered, broiled, or breaded?
I knew why they were still working at the restaurant. I wasn't stupid. While these girls made decent money at their full-time jobs, it was hard to give up that extra money even two shifts of waitressing brought. They might be able to walk out with $300 in their pockets, and that money could go to all the best things in life: wedding funds, vacation funds, clothing funds.
But it didn't stop me from thinking, God, I hope I never have to do that.
Well, I've got to do that. I'm coming back, fully degreed, with a decent resume and decent accomplishments for someone my age. But I've got another of those muggy summers in front of me--a summer where I come home with aching legs and a pocket bulging with dollars, a summer where I'll have waitressing nightmares every week (I forgot to bring table 52 extra tarter sauce! I never brought table 32 their water! I can't remember where to find the computer!)
Yesterday I went around my little country town and I applied to a few places that have an atmosphere, menu, and clientele that won't throw me into a never-ending spiral of depression, a spiral of Where did I go wrong?! I haven't yet convinced myself to go back to my old restaurant, to become one of those girls I'd felt sorry for three years ago.
But yesterday I got to sit down and interview with one manager--a young girl, probably younger than me, who sported a nose ring and a earrings made out of turquoise feathers.
You could tell I made her nervous. "Do you think I'm doing an okay job with this interview?" she asked me. "Maybe I should practice on people who already work here. Maybe that'll make me feel better about it."
There was an ant or a spider crawling on the table as she was saying this. I didn't want to flick it because I thought it would embarrass her--after all, what did that say about the cleanliness of where we were sitting? What did it say about whoever wiped down that booth? I also didn't want to look closer because if it was a spider, I'd be pinned to the booth by a crushing tumble of fear and revulsion, and she might very well think I was psychotic, that I had some sort of mental disorder than kept me from functioning like a regular member of society. I just smiled and told her she was doing a fine job, that it was very standard, that she was asking pretty normal questions in a pretty normal way. I ignored the spider-ant.
When she fanned open the application I'd filled out, she looked for quite a long time at the education section. "Wow," she said. "Wow, that's a lot of stuff to list. You're really overqualified for this job."
And that's when I had to do something very, very hard. I had to plaster a smile to my face and look her in the eye--without sighing, without reaching for a knife and gouging it into my eye--and tell her that was a very nice thing to say. "Thank you," I told her. "Thanks very much."
Anyway, I've been preparing. It's been hard to prepare. Each day I have to wake up and say to myself, You are only two months away from waiting tables, you are only one month away from waiting tables, you are only weeks away from waiting tables. Some people--mostly my parents--think I'm being too dramatic about it. They think it's no big deal, no big shake. They don't understand why it would bother me to go back to waiting tables after receiving a terminal master's degree, after I have been hired on as an instructor of college English. My mother especially thinks I'm being a baby about it. When I ask her how she'd like it if she had to wait on one of her students she says she'd like it fine. What's the big deal? she says.
The big deal is this: it's one of the world's most uncomfortable experiences to wait on one of your students--to bring him a nice steak dinner and an extra potato when his father asks it, even after he says, No, no, it's okay, Jess, you don't have to! because he feels weird, weird, weird that the girl who just spent fifteen weeks teaching him how to string together coherent sentences is standing in front of him with a coffee pot in one hand and a bottle of ketchup in the other. I did that while working banquets in Minnesota. I don't ever want to do that again.
The chances of that happening now, though, are slim. I live very far away from my university, and the places I'd wait tables are places my students wouldn't be likely to go. This makes me feel slightly better about returning to the world of serving, to a world where men think it's okay to talk about your nipples as if you aren't standing in front of them, refilling their water glass.
It makes me feel slightly better, but not entirely better.
My father thinks I'm crazy for not driving to the restaurant where I used to work and asking for my job back. You know the place! he says. You know the menu and the people and the way things work! And it's true. I do know those things. I can still hear myself reciting the list of potato choices (We have baked, fries, curly seasoned fries, cottage fries, or potato salad!), and I can still see myself sucking up to all the cooks on the off chance that I will really screw up someday and need them to make me food that I forgot to ring in, and I can still myself sitting at the bar and counting out a filmy stack of ones onto the slate counter.
It wouldn't be horrible, but it would be strange. It would be contrary to what I was hoping and assuming on my last day of work. That night after I clocked out for the last time, after I had my last post-shift-drink, after I had appropriately nuzzled every boy I loved (the cooks, the dishwashers, the bartenders), I walked out thinking See ya! Adios! Au Revoir! I walked out thinking, I'll never have to do that again. I foolishly thought that once I got my terminal master's degree, life wouldn't be a struggle anymore. I wouldn't have to have some crappy part-time job that involved flipping salad bars, washing down a patio, zoom-brooming the carpet where some parents let their baby toss half a container of gummed-down Saltines.
While working at the restaurant, I'd secretly felt sad for the girls who came back to work after graduating college. They had full-time jobs--they worked as teachers and social workers--but they were still driving to the restaurant and slipping into long black aprons, they were still floating beer-loaded trays on the palms of their hands, they were still asking people how they wanted their fish fries done--battered, broiled, or breaded?
I knew why they were still working at the restaurant. I wasn't stupid. While these girls made decent money at their full-time jobs, it was hard to give up that extra money even two shifts of waitressing brought. They might be able to walk out with $300 in their pockets, and that money could go to all the best things in life: wedding funds, vacation funds, clothing funds.
But it didn't stop me from thinking, God, I hope I never have to do that.
Well, I've got to do that. I'm coming back, fully degreed, with a decent resume and decent accomplishments for someone my age. But I've got another of those muggy summers in front of me--a summer where I come home with aching legs and a pocket bulging with dollars, a summer where I'll have waitressing nightmares every week (I forgot to bring table 52 extra tarter sauce! I never brought table 32 their water! I can't remember where to find the computer!)
Yesterday I went around my little country town and I applied to a few places that have an atmosphere, menu, and clientele that won't throw me into a never-ending spiral of depression, a spiral of Where did I go wrong?! I haven't yet convinced myself to go back to my old restaurant, to become one of those girls I'd felt sorry for three years ago.
But yesterday I got to sit down and interview with one manager--a young girl, probably younger than me, who sported a nose ring and a earrings made out of turquoise feathers.
You could tell I made her nervous. "Do you think I'm doing an okay job with this interview?" she asked me. "Maybe I should practice on people who already work here. Maybe that'll make me feel better about it."
There was an ant or a spider crawling on the table as she was saying this. I didn't want to flick it because I thought it would embarrass her--after all, what did that say about the cleanliness of where we were sitting? What did it say about whoever wiped down that booth? I also didn't want to look closer because if it was a spider, I'd be pinned to the booth by a crushing tumble of fear and revulsion, and she might very well think I was psychotic, that I had some sort of mental disorder than kept me from functioning like a regular member of society. I just smiled and told her she was doing a fine job, that it was very standard, that she was asking pretty normal questions in a pretty normal way. I ignored the spider-ant.
When she fanned open the application I'd filled out, she looked for quite a long time at the education section. "Wow," she said. "Wow, that's a lot of stuff to list. You're really overqualified for this job."
And that's when I had to do something very, very hard. I had to plaster a smile to my face and look her in the eye--without sighing, without reaching for a knife and gouging it into my eye--and tell her that was a very nice thing to say. "Thank you," I told her. "Thanks very much."
Sunday, April 01, 2007
In the Meantime
You can always tell when I've gotten a new batch of essays from my students. Things around the blog get real quiet. It's just that when I have one hundred papers sitting on my kitchen table, there are very few things that can make me want to write, to turn a phrase, to be coy and witty and charming. Student prose is lethal. It grabs at your throat, it seeps into your brain, it sucks at your very will to live. The way some students treat the English language--so carelessly! so recklessly!--can depress a person like nothing else.
So if I'm quiet right now, know that's the reason why. I'm whittling down the pile, and I have about twenty more essays to read before putting this group of papers to rest.
In the meantime, this is for Diana, who, when she heard that my father had unearthed some early photos of me, wanted to see what I looked like when I was a little girl:
So if I'm quiet right now, know that's the reason why. I'm whittling down the pile, and I have about twenty more essays to read before putting this group of papers to rest.
In the meantime, this is for Diana, who, when she heard that my father had unearthed some early photos of me, wanted to see what I looked like when I was a little girl:
Friday, March 16, 2007
News from L'Etoile du Nord
I am in Minnesota.
I arrived in Minnesota on Wednesday night, hours and hours later than I was supposed to. My flight out of Buffalo was canceled and the only thing the airline could do was give me a shrug, a grin, and a new ticket to, well, Atlanta. From Atlanta I would get on a plane to Minneapolis, they said. Doesn't seem right that you've got to go south to go north, they said, but it'll have to do. Then they told me I had to go out to the baggage claim, find my luggage, and check in all over again, and go through another bout of security--where, it turns out, I would be subjected to special selective screening and made to stand in a box that blew bursts of stinging air at me ("Close your eyes tight!" the security guard yelled to me as the doors swung closed) to see if any chemical particles blossomed in the air off of my clothes, hair, and skin. Afterward, my carry-on was torn apart and everything in it (camera, makeup, books, tampons) were swabbed and tested for explosive residue. It was a lovely day.
Since arriving, though, I have done the following things:
1. Watched Matt puke out the door of a moving car.
2. Gossiped over black beans and rice.
3. Eaten Jell-O shots that were molded in a deviled egg holder.
4. Drank cocktails from 4:00 PM to 2:00 AM.
5. Wrote limericks about Greg, scabies, skanky ladies, and all sorts of other things.
6. Learned new slang for vagina (quinny)
7. Watched Katy use JP's earrings as tassels such.
8. Petted the cornrowed head of a Midwestern farm boy.
9. Was yelled at by a man who owned a tattoo parlor.
10. Ate spiral mac-n-cheese at 3:00 AM.
11. Kept warm underneath a blanket (decorated with goldfish dressed up as sharks).
12. Had the new day greeted by Led Zeppelin on a hi-fi.
13. Ate 1,000 cream cheese wontons at my favorite Chinese restaurant.
14. Watched a certain someone turn all the ceramic duck ornaments in Target so that they appeared to be engaged in activities that would make any of us need to go to confession.
And there's more goodness to come.
I arrived in Minnesota on Wednesday night, hours and hours later than I was supposed to. My flight out of Buffalo was canceled and the only thing the airline could do was give me a shrug, a grin, and a new ticket to, well, Atlanta. From Atlanta I would get on a plane to Minneapolis, they said. Doesn't seem right that you've got to go south to go north, they said, but it'll have to do. Then they told me I had to go out to the baggage claim, find my luggage, and check in all over again, and go through another bout of security--where, it turns out, I would be subjected to special selective screening and made to stand in a box that blew bursts of stinging air at me ("Close your eyes tight!" the security guard yelled to me as the doors swung closed) to see if any chemical particles blossomed in the air off of my clothes, hair, and skin. Afterward, my carry-on was torn apart and everything in it (camera, makeup, books, tampons) were swabbed and tested for explosive residue. It was a lovely day.
Since arriving, though, I have done the following things:
1. Watched Matt puke out the door of a moving car.
2. Gossiped over black beans and rice.
3. Eaten Jell-O shots that were molded in a deviled egg holder.
4. Drank cocktails from 4:00 PM to 2:00 AM.
5. Wrote limericks about Greg, scabies, skanky ladies, and all sorts of other things.
6. Learned new slang for vagina (quinny)
7. Watched Katy use JP's earrings as tassels such.
8. Petted the cornrowed head of a Midwestern farm boy.
9. Was yelled at by a man who owned a tattoo parlor.
10. Ate spiral mac-n-cheese at 3:00 AM.
11. Kept warm underneath a blanket (decorated with goldfish dressed up as sharks).
12. Had the new day greeted by Led Zeppelin on a hi-fi.
13. Ate 1,000 cream cheese wontons at my favorite Chinese restaurant.
14. Watched a certain someone turn all the ceramic duck ornaments in Target so that they appeared to be engaged in activities that would make any of us need to go to confession.
And there's more goodness to come.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Being Honest
The other day I spent far too much time combing through photos of myself. I was looking through these photos to please my mother, to give her one of these photos so she could pass it on to the boy she wants me to meet and fall for. I had to look at all the pictures with a critical eye, an eye that asked Does that smile make me look fun or schizophrenic? and Does my face look even more horse-faced than usual?
After going through each of my albums and discarding possible photo choices for bad hair days, way-too-toothy smiles, and bad angles, I finally realized what a joke it all was. One photo to sum me up? One photo to convince a guy that I am fun and not completely unfortunate looking? It's too much pressure. Too much. And if I was really being honest, I would send a picture that had much less perfection in it, a picture that showed my true colors. Possibly a picture like this:
That's a picture that says a lot. It says, for instance, Dear Boys, this is what you would have to put up with if you dated me. As is evident in this photo, I like the following things: good earrings and silicone pot holders shaped like pigs. Love, Jess.
It's quite a bit more honest than some of the other pictures I chose. Quite, quite a bit.
After going through each of my albums and discarding possible photo choices for bad hair days, way-too-toothy smiles, and bad angles, I finally realized what a joke it all was. One photo to sum me up? One photo to convince a guy that I am fun and not completely unfortunate looking? It's too much pressure. Too much. And if I was really being honest, I would send a picture that had much less perfection in it, a picture that showed my true colors. Possibly a picture like this:
That's a picture that says a lot. It says, for instance, Dear Boys, this is what you would have to put up with if you dated me. As is evident in this photo, I like the following things: good earrings and silicone pot holders shaped like pigs. Love, Jess.
It's quite a bit more honest than some of the other pictures I chose. Quite, quite a bit.
Monday, March 05, 2007
No Matter What They Say, I Still Think "Purity Balls" Sounds Dirty
I've been grading papers for the last forever. I've been grading papers so long that my brain feels like it's turned to mush. Strings of words dry up on my tongue when I try to speak. I'm spelling things wrong. My thoughts never bloom the way they're supposed to--instead, they just shrivel up in some dank corner of my brain.
Tonight I took a break from the grading to sit in the living room and eat dinner with my father. He wanted to watch the news. I said fine. I would've agreed to anything at that point. He could've said, "Jessica, I'd like to watch a video of a frog being blown up on a hot plate, and I'd like to watch it on repeat," and I would've said, "Sure, Dad. Great."
But he didn't say that. Instead, he flicked to the news, and we watched and chewed and grumbled about things we didn't like. When the anchor came back to throw it to commercial, that's when she gave us the teaser for what was coming up: a segment on purity balls.
"Purity balls?" my father asked. He made a face. He pretended to be shocked and scandalized, like purity balls was the name of some new over-the-counter erectile dysfunction medicine. Who needs Viagra when you can have Purity Balls?!
Turns out purity balls are not so much erectile dysfunction pills as they are excuses to fluff your little girls into poofy gowns, excuses to slip on their patent leathers, excuses to get your husband's tux steamed. Purity balls are really father-daughter dances for the Christian crowd. Girls wear miniature wedding dresses and sign purity pledges. No way, no how are they going to lose their virginities. Nuh-uh. These little girls don't care how cute Tommy McMurray is going to look after the homecoming game junior year. They don't care that they'll say, Okay, Tommy when Tommy says, "Let's go for a ride, you and me." They don't care that he'll put a blanket on the hood of the car and kiss them under the stars until they're so dizzy they can't tell where their bodies leave off and the night sky begins.
The teaser video showed a beautiful blond girl tippy in heeled shoes. Her golden curls cascaded down her back, bounced against the milky fabric of her white ball gown. "I made a promise to God," she said. She beamed. "I'm going to stay pure until my wedding night. My daddy's here to sign a promise to protect me and be a good male role model." And there was dear old dad: towering above his daughter, yanking on his bow tie, looking nervous about all that.
Ick, I thought to myself. Ick, ick, ick.
I tried to picture myself in one of those little-girl-dresses. I tried to picture myself flouncing around with a new purse and a new hairdo. I tried to picture myself telling my father I was so happy he was there to celebrate my virginity with me. We'd get to take our pictures in front of the purity backdrop: a swirly blue background with a wooden cross looming behind us. We'd eat mashed potatoes and carved ham from the buffet station. We'd dance to Frank Sinatra songs sung by a sweaty wedding singer wearing too much spandex. I pictured discussing the significance of the event with my father--which would mean, really, I'd be discussing sex with the man who still makes me uncomfortable if he's sitting in the same room as me when a love scene comes on. I'd be discussing it at twelve years old. Ick.
I'd like to think I would've been a savvier little girl than the ones who get cajoled into going to these purity balls. After all, when we were in high school and my friends were saying I'm not having sex until after I walk down the aisle or Blowjobs are gross, and I'll never give one or On top? Gross. I'll never be on top, I was the one saying, "Well, I'm pretty sure I'm going to give all those things a go, so good luck to you."
Even before I'd been touched by a boy, even before I'd been looked at by a boy in a way that didn't involve revulsion, I still knew things were coming, they were just around the corner, and boy were they going to be good. I'd done my tour of Sunday school. I'd promised to remain faithful and shining and golden for the Lord. I'd let priests smear ash on my head. I'd let them dash me with holy water. I'd gone through everything I was supposed to, but I could still feel reality nagging at me like a canker sore in the farthest, most unreachable part of my mouth. It was an itch that didn't go away.
So I'd like to think I would've been the little girl who would've sat her father down on the bed, put his fancy bow tie away, and told him it was okay, we didn't need to go to the ball, didn't need to make promises we couldn't and wouldn't keep. I'd like to think I would've been the little girl who would tell him there were mistakes to be made, and it was okay. Things would go wrong and I would make the wrong decisions, but all of that--all my mistakes--would be okay. They'd be stupid beautiful mistakes, and they would spin me into the stars, clear up into the chalky mist of the Milky Way, and really, that wasn't such an awful place to be.
But I would've told him we were keeping the dress.
Tonight I took a break from the grading to sit in the living room and eat dinner with my father. He wanted to watch the news. I said fine. I would've agreed to anything at that point. He could've said, "Jessica, I'd like to watch a video of a frog being blown up on a hot plate, and I'd like to watch it on repeat," and I would've said, "Sure, Dad. Great."
But he didn't say that. Instead, he flicked to the news, and we watched and chewed and grumbled about things we didn't like. When the anchor came back to throw it to commercial, that's when she gave us the teaser for what was coming up: a segment on purity balls.
"Purity balls?" my father asked. He made a face. He pretended to be shocked and scandalized, like purity balls was the name of some new over-the-counter erectile dysfunction medicine. Who needs Viagra when you can have Purity Balls?!
Turns out purity balls are not so much erectile dysfunction pills as they are excuses to fluff your little girls into poofy gowns, excuses to slip on their patent leathers, excuses to get your husband's tux steamed. Purity balls are really father-daughter dances for the Christian crowd. Girls wear miniature wedding dresses and sign purity pledges. No way, no how are they going to lose their virginities. Nuh-uh. These little girls don't care how cute Tommy McMurray is going to look after the homecoming game junior year. They don't care that they'll say, Okay, Tommy when Tommy says, "Let's go for a ride, you and me." They don't care that he'll put a blanket on the hood of the car and kiss them under the stars until they're so dizzy they can't tell where their bodies leave off and the night sky begins.
The teaser video showed a beautiful blond girl tippy in heeled shoes. Her golden curls cascaded down her back, bounced against the milky fabric of her white ball gown. "I made a promise to God," she said. She beamed. "I'm going to stay pure until my wedding night. My daddy's here to sign a promise to protect me and be a good male role model." And there was dear old dad: towering above his daughter, yanking on his bow tie, looking nervous about all that.
Ick, I thought to myself. Ick, ick, ick.
I tried to picture myself in one of those little-girl-dresses. I tried to picture myself flouncing around with a new purse and a new hairdo. I tried to picture myself telling my father I was so happy he was there to celebrate my virginity with me. We'd get to take our pictures in front of the purity backdrop: a swirly blue background with a wooden cross looming behind us. We'd eat mashed potatoes and carved ham from the buffet station. We'd dance to Frank Sinatra songs sung by a sweaty wedding singer wearing too much spandex. I pictured discussing the significance of the event with my father--which would mean, really, I'd be discussing sex with the man who still makes me uncomfortable if he's sitting in the same room as me when a love scene comes on. I'd be discussing it at twelve years old. Ick.
I'd like to think I would've been a savvier little girl than the ones who get cajoled into going to these purity balls. After all, when we were in high school and my friends were saying I'm not having sex until after I walk down the aisle or Blowjobs are gross, and I'll never give one or On top? Gross. I'll never be on top, I was the one saying, "Well, I'm pretty sure I'm going to give all those things a go, so good luck to you."
Even before I'd been touched by a boy, even before I'd been looked at by a boy in a way that didn't involve revulsion, I still knew things were coming, they were just around the corner, and boy were they going to be good. I'd done my tour of Sunday school. I'd promised to remain faithful and shining and golden for the Lord. I'd let priests smear ash on my head. I'd let them dash me with holy water. I'd gone through everything I was supposed to, but I could still feel reality nagging at me like a canker sore in the farthest, most unreachable part of my mouth. It was an itch that didn't go away.
So I'd like to think I would've been the little girl who would've sat her father down on the bed, put his fancy bow tie away, and told him it was okay, we didn't need to go to the ball, didn't need to make promises we couldn't and wouldn't keep. I'd like to think I would've been the little girl who would tell him there were mistakes to be made, and it was okay. Things would go wrong and I would make the wrong decisions, but all of that--all my mistakes--would be okay. They'd be stupid beautiful mistakes, and they would spin me into the stars, clear up into the chalky mist of the Milky Way, and really, that wasn't such an awful place to be.
But I would've told him we were keeping the dress.
Friday, February 23, 2007
A Note for Crazy Dave
I can't help but think that Crazy Dave would have enjoyed leaving his favorite waitresses sexually-explicit notes on these.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Spring Break 2007
This is where I'll be for Spring Break 2007:
I plan to cause as much trouble as I can with these people:
I plan to once again be the girl who let herself be talked into doing things like putting on a spangly dress and hooker heels to pose for her thesis posters while reading a Maxim:
The girl who drives to the big city just to go see a stellar drag show:
It's going to be a Time. A real honest to goodness Time.
I plan to cause as much trouble as I can with these people:
I plan to once again be the girl who let herself be talked into doing things like putting on a spangly dress and hooker heels to pose for her thesis posters while reading a Maxim:
The girl who drives to the big city just to go see a stellar drag show:
It's going to be a Time. A real honest to goodness Time.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Good News for Virgos
In June I'm going to criticize a girlfriend's too-tight pants. On August 11th men won't be able to take their eyes off me. On the 28th of October I am supposed to have an alfresco quickie (suggested location: a golf course after dark).
This information is courtesy of the 2007 edition of Cosmo's Bedside Astrologer, a pull-out from their magazine that predicts the luck in lust and love that will be granted to the astrological signs in each of the twelve coming months.
I love the Bedside Astrologer and all its trashiness. My first year in Minnesota I snipped a copy of the Bedside Astrologer and brought it into the office. I felt the need to share the intimate secrets I was learning about the year ahead, and so I went around the room and asked everyone their sign. Then I read their predictions, their types, their personality profiles.
The Bedside Astrologer told Greg that it was okay to admit he longed to be swept off his feet. It told Katy that she craved a man who could coax out her raunchy side. It told Ryan he was a fiery-type, one who longed to go on adventurous dates like surfing.
This year, the Bedside Astrologer is telling me my best day for love will by July 17th. My best day for sex will be August 14th. Apparently I'm going to have a good summer.
But what I find most interesting--more interesting, in fact, than the month-by-month run-down of my year--is the sections that are devoted to analyzing the men of each astrological sign and the section that compares the signs to see who would be the best lovers and the best significant others.
Awhile back, I confessed to not having a type (except for my obsession with dishwashers and Republicans), but I guess that's not really the whole truth. I have a thing for Virgos. Both Ex-Keith and the Wily Republican--as well as some lesser men--have been Virgos, and those two were my Big Loves. Since I'm a Virgo, I understand Virgos. And because I think I understand them I fool myself into thinking I could predict things about them, that I could understand what they were thinking about me. That, of course, wasn't ever really the case.
But the Bedside Astrologer says that a Virgo-Virgo love connection is good. It can be stable and warm and loving. But that's not really who the Bedside Astrologer thinks I should be with. Virgos, they're okay, but I need someone with a little more pep, a little less anal retentiveness. The Bedside Astrologer has some suggestions. It thinks I should be with a Taurus or, even better, a Scorpio.
The Bedside Astrologer says Taurus boys are the types who would rescue stray dogs. They would be the type to put me on a pedestal. They would also give me something described as "tender nooky."
Scorpios, though, they're the best bet says the Bedside Astrologer. They suggest Virgos marry Scorpios when at all possible because they would have "head-spinning sex." A Scorpio would make a Virgo-girl feel safe.
Important things to note. It's good to enter the new year armed with this type of knowledge. And the Bedside Astrologer doesn't stop there--in fact, it goes as far to tell its readers the special sex trick each astrological sign craves. Pleasing a Taurus man involves light nuzzling and kissing from behind his ear to the hollow of his throat. Pleasing a Scorpio man is all in the build-up. Talking dirty and expressing what you're going to do is the key to making him happy.
And I know these things must be true, must be considered gospel, because when I flipped to the Leo section--just to see if I'd done right by an ex of mine, who happens to be a Leo--I saw that you're supposed to appeal to a Leo's competitive side. The Bedside Astrologer suggested strip poker. And that made me think of that one summer a few years ago when I ended up sitting in a musty kitchen, balancing on a rickety chair that was meant to be porch furniture, and looking across the table at boys who were losing clothes fast as a mean tournament of Euchre raged on. And outside, the frogs were singing and a warm summer rain was beating on the roof of my car. You could hear it through the screen door. You could hear it like it was music, like it was the best thing you ever heard.
The later-on-part of that night didn't turn out so bad, so maybe the Bedside Astrologer is on to something. Maybe it's time I tucked those suggestions away and waited for my Taurus or Scorpio to come find me. Maybe this will be a good year. Maybe things will finally feel right.
This information is courtesy of the 2007 edition of Cosmo's Bedside Astrologer, a pull-out from their magazine that predicts the luck in lust and love that will be granted to the astrological signs in each of the twelve coming months.
I love the Bedside Astrologer and all its trashiness. My first year in Minnesota I snipped a copy of the Bedside Astrologer and brought it into the office. I felt the need to share the intimate secrets I was learning about the year ahead, and so I went around the room and asked everyone their sign. Then I read their predictions, their types, their personality profiles.
The Bedside Astrologer told Greg that it was okay to admit he longed to be swept off his feet. It told Katy that she craved a man who could coax out her raunchy side. It told Ryan he was a fiery-type, one who longed to go on adventurous dates like surfing.
This year, the Bedside Astrologer is telling me my best day for love will by July 17th. My best day for sex will be August 14th. Apparently I'm going to have a good summer.
But what I find most interesting--more interesting, in fact, than the month-by-month run-down of my year--is the sections that are devoted to analyzing the men of each astrological sign and the section that compares the signs to see who would be the best lovers and the best significant others.
Awhile back, I confessed to not having a type (except for my obsession with dishwashers and Republicans), but I guess that's not really the whole truth. I have a thing for Virgos. Both Ex-Keith and the Wily Republican--as well as some lesser men--have been Virgos, and those two were my Big Loves. Since I'm a Virgo, I understand Virgos. And because I think I understand them I fool myself into thinking I could predict things about them, that I could understand what they were thinking about me. That, of course, wasn't ever really the case.
But the Bedside Astrologer says that a Virgo-Virgo love connection is good. It can be stable and warm and loving. But that's not really who the Bedside Astrologer thinks I should be with. Virgos, they're okay, but I need someone with a little more pep, a little less anal retentiveness. The Bedside Astrologer has some suggestions. It thinks I should be with a Taurus or, even better, a Scorpio.
The Bedside Astrologer says Taurus boys are the types who would rescue stray dogs. They would be the type to put me on a pedestal. They would also give me something described as "tender nooky."
Scorpios, though, they're the best bet says the Bedside Astrologer. They suggest Virgos marry Scorpios when at all possible because they would have "head-spinning sex." A Scorpio would make a Virgo-girl feel safe.
Important things to note. It's good to enter the new year armed with this type of knowledge. And the Bedside Astrologer doesn't stop there--in fact, it goes as far to tell its readers the special sex trick each astrological sign craves. Pleasing a Taurus man involves light nuzzling and kissing from behind his ear to the hollow of his throat. Pleasing a Scorpio man is all in the build-up. Talking dirty and expressing what you're going to do is the key to making him happy.
And I know these things must be true, must be considered gospel, because when I flipped to the Leo section--just to see if I'd done right by an ex of mine, who happens to be a Leo--I saw that you're supposed to appeal to a Leo's competitive side. The Bedside Astrologer suggested strip poker. And that made me think of that one summer a few years ago when I ended up sitting in a musty kitchen, balancing on a rickety chair that was meant to be porch furniture, and looking across the table at boys who were losing clothes fast as a mean tournament of Euchre raged on. And outside, the frogs were singing and a warm summer rain was beating on the roof of my car. You could hear it through the screen door. You could hear it like it was music, like it was the best thing you ever heard.
The later-on-part of that night didn't turn out so bad, so maybe the Bedside Astrologer is on to something. Maybe it's time I tucked those suggestions away and waited for my Taurus or Scorpio to come find me. Maybe this will be a good year. Maybe things will finally feel right.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Happy New Year!
The day before New Year's I read that certain Latin cultures believe that by wearing red underwear on New Year's Eve you secure good luck in love for yourself in the coming year. Want to guess what color underwear I was wearing last night?
Here are the night's highlights:
We went to Cole's, where we ate plenty of free chicken wings and drank plenty of double vodkas. All night we were in close proximity to our favorite bartender of all time: Harry. His real name is Marty, but he'll always be Harry to me.
Boys + Beer= This Photo.
Look at that pink wristband on Amy's wrist. It gave us access to the upstairs party room--because we're so VIPs--and all the cubed cheese platters.
The upstairs party room had stained glass windows that showcased the retro Sabres logo.
The upstairs party room also had giant wreaths, bags of balloons suspended in wait on the ceiling, and lots of stacked chairs. Did I mention the cubed cheese?
We didn't spend all the time upstairs, though. We floated downstairs to love up on some other people. Like...
... these boys.
I think this is a picture of Steph saying, "Yeah? Yeah? Let me see what you've got 2007! Bring it on! Want some of my vodka?"
Here are the night's highlights:
We went to Cole's, where we ate plenty of free chicken wings and drank plenty of double vodkas. All night we were in close proximity to our favorite bartender of all time: Harry. His real name is Marty, but he'll always be Harry to me.
Boys + Beer= This Photo.
Look at that pink wristband on Amy's wrist. It gave us access to the upstairs party room--because we're so VIPs--and all the cubed cheese platters.
The upstairs party room had stained glass windows that showcased the retro Sabres logo.
The upstairs party room also had giant wreaths, bags of balloons suspended in wait on the ceiling, and lots of stacked chairs. Did I mention the cubed cheese?
We didn't spend all the time upstairs, though. We floated downstairs to love up on some other people. Like...
... these boys.
I think this is a picture of Steph saying, "Yeah? Yeah? Let me see what you've got 2007! Bring it on! Want some of my vodka?"
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
A Christmas Collage
Here's what Christmas looked like this year:
There were shots with everyone's favorite broad-shouldered Navy boy at Amy and Becky's annual Christmas party. I got so drunk I forgot to take pictures. I got so drunk Becky pointed at me in the middle of the party and screamed, "YOU'RE DRUNK!" and I told her I wanted to tape her saying that because Katy is always saying she can never tell when I'm drunk.
People kissed Santa Abe under the mistletoe. This was pre my eighteenth drink, after which I cornered some of Amy's work friends and started talking to them about the genius of The Handmaid's Tale.
At my mother's Christmas party, we mixed egg nog, vanilla ice cream, and amaretto. I drank so much it made my stomach hurt.
We took the standard Christmas photos in front of the tree. My brother refused to wear anything but his Sabres shirt. What says Christmas more than Ryan Miller's name and number on your back?
I received an injury when I accidentally ran into my brother while trying to execute the "be cute and kiss your brother like you mean it" pose. Mom caught my pain on film.
We made Adam pose with all the smelly things he got for Christmas: air fresheners, cologne, body wash, deodorant. "I think people are trying to tell you something," I said. Note my freakish man hand in that photo.
My father finally got the thing he's been coveting (in addition to the Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner) for a whole year: Sirius Satellite Radio. He spent the morning in his car, hooking it up and listening to his 125 new stations. When I went out to visit him, we tried to tune in the Playboy channel. UPGRADED SUBSCRIPTION NECESSARY, the screen blinked. "Bummer," my father said.
At the annual Pink Torpedo Party we were one member short, but that didn't diminish the number of martinis we drank, nor did it stop the good time gift giving. Here is Anne posing with a spork she got from Steph.
Here are two saucy girls--Amy and Anne--showing off this year's signature drinks: Ruby Red martinis and lime vodka martinis.
Steph also bought us Jell-O shots called Suck-n-Blows, where one person blows into one end of the tube and the other person sucks the Jell-O out. They tasted foul. They tasted like red wine that's been left out in eighty degree summer heat for two months.
Amy may or may not have drank some of my saliva along with the Jell-O.
And here we are, the Pink Torpedoes (minus Becky) in our annual in-front-of-the-tree photo.
There were shots with everyone's favorite broad-shouldered Navy boy at Amy and Becky's annual Christmas party. I got so drunk I forgot to take pictures. I got so drunk Becky pointed at me in the middle of the party and screamed, "YOU'RE DRUNK!" and I told her I wanted to tape her saying that because Katy is always saying she can never tell when I'm drunk.
People kissed Santa Abe under the mistletoe. This was pre my eighteenth drink, after which I cornered some of Amy's work friends and started talking to them about the genius of The Handmaid's Tale.
At my mother's Christmas party, we mixed egg nog, vanilla ice cream, and amaretto. I drank so much it made my stomach hurt.
We took the standard Christmas photos in front of the tree. My brother refused to wear anything but his Sabres shirt. What says Christmas more than Ryan Miller's name and number on your back?
I received an injury when I accidentally ran into my brother while trying to execute the "be cute and kiss your brother like you mean it" pose. Mom caught my pain on film.
We made Adam pose with all the smelly things he got for Christmas: air fresheners, cologne, body wash, deodorant. "I think people are trying to tell you something," I said. Note my freakish man hand in that photo.
My father finally got the thing he's been coveting (in addition to the Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner) for a whole year: Sirius Satellite Radio. He spent the morning in his car, hooking it up and listening to his 125 new stations. When I went out to visit him, we tried to tune in the Playboy channel. UPGRADED SUBSCRIPTION NECESSARY, the screen blinked. "Bummer," my father said.
At the annual Pink Torpedo Party we were one member short, but that didn't diminish the number of martinis we drank, nor did it stop the good time gift giving. Here is Anne posing with a spork she got from Steph.
Here are two saucy girls--Amy and Anne--showing off this year's signature drinks: Ruby Red martinis and lime vodka martinis.
Steph also bought us Jell-O shots called Suck-n-Blows, where one person blows into one end of the tube and the other person sucks the Jell-O out. They tasted foul. They tasted like red wine that's been left out in eighty degree summer heat for two months.
Amy may or may not have drank some of my saliva along with the Jell-O.
And here we are, the Pink Torpedoes (minus Becky) in our annual in-front-of-the-tree photo.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
World's Best Excuse to Dress Like a Pimp or Prostitute
As soon as I got my tickets for the World's Largest Disco I called my mother with a very important question. I wanted to see if she still had a pile of clothes leftover from the 70's—something she'd squirreled away, kept out of some strange love or obsession.
"Are you kidding me?" my mother said. "Gross. Why would I have any clothes left over from the 70's?"
Then I asked about my grandmother's three closets worth of clothes—the ones my mother had to comb through after her death. Surely there had to be something left from the 70's, something my grandmother found too precious or sweet or nice to get rid of. After all, my grandmother was The All Time Greatest Saver of Trivial and Strange Things, a skill she passed down to my mother, a skill that then got plugged into my DNA, a skill that explains why I still have the posterboard from a book report presentation Amy and I did in sixth grade.
But my mother had already donated anything that could've been useful to me. She'd taken bags and bags of my grandmother's old clothes to the Salvation Army. I was on my own with the outfit, but I figured my mother could still be some sort of help.
"What would you have worn to a disco?" I asked. "You know, back then? What kind of outfit would've been your first choice?"
That's when my mother rolled her eyes. "Jessica," she said, "I didn't disco. Disco was lame."
I beg to differ.
The five of us girls—my best girls Amy, Becky, and Steph, and Steph's college roommate Michelle—rented a hotel room for the night and arrived early so we could drink, eat pizza from Buffalo's best pizzeria, and get ready at our leisure:
That's Amy and Becky pre-getting ready. Shortly after this picture was taken there was a flurry of curling irons, aerosol hairspray, and blue eye shadow. We came out looking a little like so:
This is me and my naughty 70's girl pose. Not only am I channeling Jackie from That 70's Show, but I'm also channeling Farrah.
In the middle of doing her own version of 70's hair, Becky had to break it down for us.
A few minutes later, she came out looking like that. So Mary Tyler Moore!
And here's Michelle and Steph, who look so, so cool and aloof.
Becky and Amy did a little pre-disco posing.
Here's the whole group: Amy, me, Becky, Michelle, and Steph. I've come to this conclusion about high-waisted pleated pants: they aren't all that slimming.
The disco was held in the convention center, which was a quick walk down the street from our hotel. This was the same hotel that the Jacksonville Jaguars were staying in since they're in town to play the Bills today. We saw many—and one especially cute one—in the lobby.
We looked as good going as we did coming.
Once we got inside we drank wine from a box, saw some of the best costumes in the entire universe, and stumbled into pimps and sluts and go-go honeys and drunk 70's prom queens and guys who looked like they could've been the groomsmen at my father's wedding—frilly tuxedo shirts and all.
I don't know who this guy is, but he gave me a high five. He also spilled quite a bit of his drink on himself.
After the disco ended, we ran back to the hotel for a quick change so we could continue drinking and dancing downtown. Hot Rob graced us with some of his best white-boy moves.
Becky showed us her stuff, too.
So, really, I can't wait to call my mother and tell her how wrong she was and that discos are many things—including an excuse for every woman in Buffalo to put on dresses that barely cover the crests of their butts—but they are never, ever, ever lame.
"Are you kidding me?" my mother said. "Gross. Why would I have any clothes left over from the 70's?"
Then I asked about my grandmother's three closets worth of clothes—the ones my mother had to comb through after her death. Surely there had to be something left from the 70's, something my grandmother found too precious or sweet or nice to get rid of. After all, my grandmother was The All Time Greatest Saver of Trivial and Strange Things, a skill she passed down to my mother, a skill that then got plugged into my DNA, a skill that explains why I still have the posterboard from a book report presentation Amy and I did in sixth grade.
But my mother had already donated anything that could've been useful to me. She'd taken bags and bags of my grandmother's old clothes to the Salvation Army. I was on my own with the outfit, but I figured my mother could still be some sort of help.
"What would you have worn to a disco?" I asked. "You know, back then? What kind of outfit would've been your first choice?"
That's when my mother rolled her eyes. "Jessica," she said, "I didn't disco. Disco was lame."
I beg to differ.
The five of us girls—my best girls Amy, Becky, and Steph, and Steph's college roommate Michelle—rented a hotel room for the night and arrived early so we could drink, eat pizza from Buffalo's best pizzeria, and get ready at our leisure:
That's Amy and Becky pre-getting ready. Shortly after this picture was taken there was a flurry of curling irons, aerosol hairspray, and blue eye shadow. We came out looking a little like so:
This is me and my naughty 70's girl pose. Not only am I channeling Jackie from That 70's Show, but I'm also channeling Farrah.
In the middle of doing her own version of 70's hair, Becky had to break it down for us.
A few minutes later, she came out looking like that. So Mary Tyler Moore!
And here's Michelle and Steph, who look so, so cool and aloof.
Becky and Amy did a little pre-disco posing.
Here's the whole group: Amy, me, Becky, Michelle, and Steph. I've come to this conclusion about high-waisted pleated pants: they aren't all that slimming.
The disco was held in the convention center, which was a quick walk down the street from our hotel. This was the same hotel that the Jacksonville Jaguars were staying in since they're in town to play the Bills today. We saw many—and one especially cute one—in the lobby.
We looked as good going as we did coming.
Once we got inside we drank wine from a box, saw some of the best costumes in the entire universe, and stumbled into pimps and sluts and go-go honeys and drunk 70's prom queens and guys who looked like they could've been the groomsmen at my father's wedding—frilly tuxedo shirts and all.
I don't know who this guy is, but he gave me a high five. He also spilled quite a bit of his drink on himself.
After the disco ended, we ran back to the hotel for a quick change so we could continue drinking and dancing downtown. Hot Rob graced us with some of his best white-boy moves.
Becky showed us her stuff, too.
So, really, I can't wait to call my mother and tell her how wrong she was and that discos are many things—including an excuse for every woman in Buffalo to put on dresses that barely cover the crests of their butts—but they are never, ever, ever lame.
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