To Whom I Owe Who I Am Now

There are certain people that have affected me in ways that have dramatically altered who I am as a person. It is in this blog that I shall take the time to give each of them the recognition I may not give them otherwise.


Mom-
My mom always pushed me to be my best and to not stop writing my stories. Although, I think the road to get there was a bit trying and embarrassing. When I was in forth grade, I was writing in my journal, a story, and it was rather- adult. My mother had gotten into those books on tape recently and there's quite a lot of smut. So being the forth grader that I was, I copied that down, and basically wrote (a detailed description) about two people having sex. My mom was called in with me to the therapist. We all laughed about it a few years later and she always supported my gift of writing. Not to mention, carry me for nine months, slice open her stomach for me, and uh, raise me for sixteen years.


Dad-
My dad may not always know how to raise a sixteen year old daughter or how to be the best father he can be. I know that growing up he didn't have a great childhood and has been trying his hardest to be everything opposite of his dad. I have always loved my dad, in fact found myself jealous of my brother for getting to spend all the time with him growing up. But as I grew up, I realized that I spent the moments that meant most with my father. And now, being sixteen while my mother is off working a 9-5 and I'm at school, staying home with my father isn't always what it's cracked up to be. However, he's my papa as I call him. I'll never have another one, and I'll never love him any less than I do now and I'll always be comforted by the smell of his t-shirts.


Shell-
Shell has been the closest thing to a sister that I've ever had. She's always been there for me as her sister, Stephy, has been there for her. We grew up together, and yeah, we had our fights but who would we be without them? I remember running away from my house one time because we didn't want to separate and we ran to the park near my house. There was a large embankment that we climbed and found a small space where we could lay down and watch the stars. We lay there, holding hands in the dark as our moms were outside screaming our names and our dads drove around looking for us. We finally went home, not wanting to separate. But now, with her being at college, and me still in high school, we've changed maturities, or changed keys as I like to think of it. She's got her boyfriend and her school and her college friends and she has a sister, so what use am I? I have my longings for a girlfriend and my guard and my high school friends and a brother who annoys the crap out of me. And what use is she to me? The sweet relief of someone to listen and help and just be there for me. She always used to be...


Grandma and Grandpa-
My grandparents were always anxious to get me to their house for a weekend or a few weeks during summer. Now, I was always a mommy's girl, and being away from my mom- it was practically death. I remember how I learned my own phone number. My grandmother told me that I could call my mom after dinner one day when I had been crying for a really long time. So after dinner, I grabbed the phone and asked her to call my mom. She looked at me and said, "You mean, you don't know her phone number?" So until I learned my mom's phone number I couldn't call her. It may have seemed like the plague to me but in the long run, it helped a lot. My grandpa was always one for games. He enjoys making sound effects at you, poking your side when he thinks you're not looking and just being happy. If there's anything that makes him happy, its grandkids filling the house, and them asking about his many adventures as a boy and the photo albums he proudly displays. My grandparents have shaped a lot of who I am and I am thankful for that. They also love to read my stories and never judge them. They give me many challenges too, like when grandma asked me to write about her growing up.


Ethan-
He is my best friend and practically soulmate. We would most likely already have married each other in Las Vegas and had a baby named Shaniqua by now if we were straight. Ethan always supports me, no matter the choice. He speaks his mind on things he thinks that I'm doing that are wrong. We fight like an old married couple with nothing left to talk about and love each other deeply. There's not much to say about Ethan because you would just have to see us together to understand what I mean. And underneath our sarcastic shells, we both understand each other one hundred percent. Now if only we were both sane.


Julia-
When I first met Julia, I thought she was weird. But I soon came to realize that we were both weird and I couldn't find a better friend anywhere else. Julia always lends an ear or eye and we  enjoy just venting on each other. And what could be more than ranting about how much boys are idiots? Julia has become the sister I always wished I had. I hope that in the years to come our friendship lasts and that we continue to have our lunches out, after all, she is the pregnant one. (not really, it's an inside joke)


Sam-
Sam may enjoy pushing all my buttons and pissing me off but she's always been one to help with a problem. If she feels like it that is. She was my captain and someone I looked up to greatly. Sam and I shared a love for sarcasm and had similar tastes in viewing the world- it's annoying. We've both had our fair share of stupid people picking on us, me for my mental disabilities and her for being blind. Sam always pushed me to continue writing something that she enjoyed because it entertained her and helped me to become a great captain (or so she says I am).  If I didn't enjoy pushing Sam's buttons back, maybe one day I'll finally stop asking what her favorite color is.


Nathan-
He came here fresh from Las Vegas. Not knowing anybody he ventured into the great unknown called the La Costa Canyon band room and met us freaks. He soon came to love us all because we accepted him without really asking many questions. Nathan is like the brother I always wanted. He's kind and considerate, not to mention extremely funny and easy to get along with. He has helped me through some really hard times and allowed me to vent and cry on his shoulder when no one else would. I can only hope that my friendship with Nathan will get stronger because I basically chained myself to him and he's stuck with me whether he likes it or not. Same with Julia.


Guard Buddies-
I only have five words for you: you guys are freaking crazy! They are crazy but supportive and without their ability to understand that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing, we wouldn't fight as much. But I love them and I like to think they're not planning my overthrow.


Lori-
I would like to give a shout out to my Aunt Lori, who inspired me to keep writing this blog.


So these people have changed me. And they all changed me for the better. 


And they're all crazy, yes, but I love them all in their own ways.


Thanks guys :)

Never Wrong, Always Right

While talking to my friend Victoria, she tried to convince me that I was wrong- about everything. That one, snuggies weren't backwards robes that make people look stupid, two, that the season finale of True Blood would have been better had Alexander Skarsgard shown up in spandex, and three, that the name she picked for one of my characters wasn't as good as what another friend picked. I know, it seems that we only argue over stupid and pointless stuff, but I came across a saying the other day, "I'm willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong." by Samuel Goldwyn. Being her usual self, Victoria didn't really understand what this was saying.

However, the fact was that snuggies ARE backwards robes and are only for moronic people who do not know how to properly use a blanket. They make you look like an idiot and fool when you wear a robe backwards! The season finale of True Blood would hypothetically have been so much better if Alexander Skarsgard had shown up in the pink spandex as told by the book but the way that the season was produced cut that scene out. In the book, Sookie would have gone to a house for a party with Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) who was pretending to be a gay guy. The vampire, Eric, was supposed to protect her from a mythical creature but it didn't go down like that. And, the name she picked, which was Wyatt Alexander, was not as great as Jonah Laithe. So it was more of a personal opinion there because it's my character.

There were some points where I just wanted to give up because I hate arguing with her, it brings us down to a way more pathetic childlike way that I hate to be in. However, trying to tell someone that you don't like their idea as well as another persons, not so easy. Plus, we just clash. So, I came to the conclusion that I am never wrong, but always right. Which yes, to some I may seem wrong but to myself it's not. In truth, nothing is always right or wrong to me, just sure or unsure. And that's about all I'm able to offer, whether I'm sure that's right or if I'm unsure. 

But- I'm always right.

Liz's Melody

I know that with the recent holidays, everything and everyone has been on hyper drive and I myself have ignored the allure of my passion- writing. I'll admit, the holidays excite me, the lights dangling happily from houses and trees twinkling with either rainbow or white lights. Some have certain colored ornaments dangling proudly from their staged spots in windows while others display their family's moments haphazardly. It always made me wonder, why in front of a window? It would take a lot just to start going into an answer for this question. You see, to answer this question, a certain sense of religion must be set deep within me right? Well I do not believe in any religion nor do I aspire to anytime soon or ever. I have oft wondered what creates such devote peoples but I try my hardest not to step on toes so, to flip a bitch as my father says, I shall forget the current course upon which I had set myself.


With the holidays I have found myself even deeper within my sense of the mysterious depths that haunt those in depression. While my mother will ardently claim that I am not depressed, I am merely going through phases, I disagree. I may not know for sure or even claim myself to be depressed, I find myself wading into their depths. I have found therapists before quite antagonizing yet I always felt a certain sense of safety knowing that the secrets I have bottled within myself are safely stored upon tapes for studying and scrutiny. I asked my mother to return to one, I even told her I was depressed. I even went to the lengths of telling my beloved cousin Shell that I was depressed. I wanted to see a therapist, to start making strides in returning to the surface but of course, its my mother. Now I wouldn't say that I was upon the spot to harm myself in anyway besides emotional pain from memories, but I would like to resolve things. Like the death of Kammy. 


My friend Nathan asked me a few days before Christmas why I kept myself here, in those depths just waiting for the darkness to completely swallow me? I tried to explain to him that I lost Kammy, she held me here, she meant so much to me and how could anyone understand? How could he understand that I had no more good memories to start my accent to the surface? That I didn't choose to be here, I just am. But he swiftly reminded me that he himself had lost his father, that his pain was more than my own yet he picked himself up from the depths he had found himself in and changed his life. That I did indeed chose to be here and I had so much promise within me, so much left to live. That there was hope coursing through my veins, I just wasn't accepting it. I asked him, what is my hope? What is my promise? What future do I have where I am happy? How do you know these things? He told me that I had told him. I laughed silently to myself and he said that if I didn't know the answers to these questions maybe I should wade some more down here and when I figured them out I would know it was all an elaborate chimera. If I only I believed him.


So I did look around in my waters and I found a shimmering light, something that had to mean something. It was almost a flashlight in a completely black room. I swam towards it and found it to be the novel I was in the process of writing, Liz's Melody. It's about a girl named Liz who is a lesbian and lost her lover Maya to cancer. It's about Liz learning to how to move on from Maya's death and help her friends, Chloe, Aly, Lex, and Chris. Upon her journey, her brother Colin struggles with the deafening past and her sister Melanie comes out of banishment with her partner Temprence. They all join together to help Liz realize that no matter how broken she saw herself, each person had a piece of her that they had been gluing together all along, that Liz was never broken. And I believe that if I make an effort to finish Liz's Melody and get it printed, that maybe I will have realized Nathan's advice and I will have realized that I too was never really broken. And I hope that these things will come true.


Please email me if you would like a preview of Liz's Melody.

The Year of My Upheaval

Fourth grade was the year everything changed. In this year, I was almost placid thoroughly, and owed someone for that. It seemed as if I went from being the frugal child I once was, to a follower to a plain weirdo who sat alone at recess. I was supplant to the world and it seemed no cared except my mom. In the third grade I had thrown a giant hissy fit for a substitute teacher. Not knowing what to do with me, she placed me out in the hall where I cried until I felt I couldn’t cry anymore. A teacher whose class was in the computer lab found me in the quad, her name was Mrs. Green. She took me gently to her room, shared some of her chocolate muffin with me, allowed me to help her write the day’s lesson plan on the white board and then returned me to my sub where I was perfectly complacent until the next year. Mrs. Green taught fourth grade and she became my teacher.

Being the very observant person she is, she noticed my struggle for words and grasping things. She brought this up to my mom who had already known about the problems. I sat unaware of what they were talking about in the corner reading. That following weekend we went to my grandparent’s house where the world was always hard to grasp for me. It didn’t matter where we were but I just didn’t get things easily. After one particularly hard evening, I was eavesdropping on my mom and grandparents in the down stairs living room. I heard her say; she has a learning disability and she’ll need to be placed in special education classes, away from all the other kids. I didn’t understand what the words meant at the time but my mom was crying and they were talking about me.

I soon came to realize that these words meant I was slightly mentally handicap with a learning disability. I was placed in special education classes away from all the other children. I spent hours at a time going over parts of speech and simple multiplication problems for second graders while the rest of my fourth grade class zoomed along. This was also the year my personality disorder began to surface and I was forced to take pills to drown out my internal voice. I felt sleepy and sluggish and eventually I needed a bolster within my own head. I stopped taking the medication but it didn’t stop the teasing and laughing. It didn’t stop the name calling or rumors. And it certainly didn’t help me get friends.

I was completely alone. No one cared about me. No one understood my struggles. No one accepted me. And I would soon come to realize that all I wanted was acceptance. I had felt this acceptance that same year when I joined group therapy and met a girl named Kammy. Our attraction was immediate, we were both quietly broken and knew that together we could withstand whatever was thrown at us. We wanted no one to know about our tryst and so we were never caught together in public or alone. The year of her departure was the year of her reveal. Kammy being three years my senior and fifteen when I was twelve announced she was gay. Kam told me she liked women- and she loved me. I was remiss to what it all meant but I understood perfectly when she kissed me that first time.

I immediately wanted to spurn her in that first perfect moment of bliss and I did for awhile. Eventually we couldn’t resist being apart and our era of email began. Kam and I had fallen out of touch by the time I was fourteen and dating my oldest crush, Noam. Do you remember Noam? He was my slave in third grade and we broke each others hearts. Over time this would be something we’d grow quite used to but at this point, we were head over heels and finally able to express it. I had ignored Kam and all her problems. I called myself her best friend and loved her to the fullest of my capacity yet I shunned her thoughtlessly. It wasn’t until I was sixteen that I would understand the error of my ways.

After my fling with Noam, I had met the perfect man and his name was David. We had met through my band director, Ms. Mattison. One day while I was talking to her during freshman year before a football game, David walked in and asked for the mascot uniform. We weren’t supposed to know who the mascot was but this blonde haired blue eyed boy caught my eye and held me there forever. He was perfect and my “only” true love. Towards the end of my freshman year, David and my love fell apart but it was still alive in me. In the middle of my sophomore year, David and I reconnected. I told him of my never lost love and he told me that he felt the same. Only after this did he tell me of his girlfriend that he wouldn’t give up for me because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I was crushed beyond belief. It was the start of that summer, the end of my sophomore year that he shunned me altogether.

It was also the start of that summer that I got an unexpected call from Kam. However, I didn’t answer it because I was too wrapped up in my heart break from David. I told myself that I would call Kammy tomorrow, that I would feel better then. That next night, with Kammy out of mind because I forgot, her step sister, Amy, called me. Her midnight phone call woke me from my peace and shattered my already fragile world. She killed my heart and soul with six words: Kammy’s dead, it was a suicide. My only true lesbian love had killed herself because she felt no one accepted her for being gay. It brought me back to memories of our emails:

“Kam, I miss you beyond belief and I think about the day you left me every single moment of my life. I remember our kiss and what it awakened within my soul. I love you undoubtedly, that I know for sure as well as you do. I love you as you love me, more than just friends but I don’t know if we can ever be. I don’t know if I can accept what that will make me. I don’t know if I could ever accept our love as a reality and until that day comes, I don’t know if I can accept you.”

I seem like a monster, I know. I practically killed the only good thing within my own soul. I know she was thinking of me and those words as she took her life out on her farm in North Dakota with her step-father’s rifle pointed to her face. I know that my face flashed before her eyes as the bullet pushed its way through her brain.

And I know I’ll never have her back.

I know that part of me will always be missing.

I just haven’t been able to search within my own soul to see what’s damaged beyond repair during the year of my upheaval. 

Holiday Parades and Gingerbread Houses

Each year, the La Costa Canyon High School Maverick Brigade marches the Encinitas Holiday parade. We all put on our uniforms, decorate our instruments and off we march down the 101 and play Santa Meets Sousa and enjoy ourselves as our baton twirler Kelly, twirls fire. Seems enjoyable right? A perfect experience? Wrong. Dead wrong. I’ve factored out the cold weather for us Southern California residents, the rain occasionally and the humiliation of a horrible performance by the Color Guard. I’m sure you all enjoy seeing us march up and down the street in our “dolly parton’s” or show uniforms spinning flags or holding LCC letters. Yet, this is the one time of year I hate.

My freshman year we wore our show uniforms which looked like Shamu. They were supposed to be masks because our show was entitled Music of the Night based off Phantom of the Opera but it didn’t turn out that way at all. There were nine of us all together and our coach at that time thought that you could fit five in the front and four in the back while spinning six foot flags. He was obviously wrong. I was placed at the end which was a mistake right there. If I had moved my flag at all, I would have hit either the person next to me each and every time along with all the people in the crowd. So I held it. I then called yelled at for not performing. It was something that I believed I was right in. And I was.

Sophomore year we were in our dolly parton uniforms which were old school baton uniforms. They were modest at best, came all the way up to our necks, like turtle necks without sleeves. They were forest green with a stripe of white. The skirt was forest green as well. They wouldn’t be the dolly partons without the gold sequin edges on everything. My captains, Sam, Liz and I wore these as we were the only ones left of those first nine. We held LCC letters on wooden dowels. Our letters were made out of Styrofoam, supported with sheets of cardboard and painted green and gold. Due to the cold, we had white long sleeve shirts on underneath, thermal tights and at least five pairs of socks stuffed into our cowboy boots. It was quite an experience. If I had to claim having fun at any of these, I would pick this one.

Junior year (this year) the five of us made presents. It was a three week long process of collecting the boxes, taping them together with extra supports, and then cutting out head and arm holes. We also were spinning giant candy canes. This took five people, two guard members, our band director, Ms. Mattison, and two members from the drumline. They cut PVC pipes that we had in the guard room into six pieces around the same height. They then taped them completely in white and added the red stripes. It took them two hours to complete this process. The day of the parade we spent at least an hour wrapping our boxes in different colors. I was red, so I had on a red thermal tee and wrapped my box in red paper with snowmen. Cassie and Lilianna were green so they wore green thermals and wrapped their boxes in green paper with candy canes. Becca was blue or our “Jew Box” and wore a blue thermal and wrapped her box in bluish silver paper with snowflakes. Victoria was white and wore a white thermal. Because she claimed she couldn’t wrap, we had her ask Ms. Mattison to help. Ms. Mattison ended up wrapping her box and we could all tell that she was pleased with herself at the end of it.

The holiday parades of my past aren’t exciting events, they usually end up being things I hate. I said before that I’d pick my sophomore year as my favorite holiday parade because it was bittersweet. My captains were graduating and I had relied on them for two years and cared greatly for them. We still talk even though they are away at college.

After my experiences with holiday parades, its Christmas time and that means gingerbread time. My best friend Julia and I have made plans to watch movies and bake gingerbread cookies with butter cream frosting. We will hook up our space heater and bury ourselves deep into fluffy white blankets and possibly pick up a cat or two. We may even sit and make a gingerbread house. These have been something my cousin Shell and I have made for a couple of years a while back. We used to make one every year in my dining room. We argued over how to frost the roof and do the windows and doors. I preferred to follow the picture on the box but she preferred to just do it. Shell would always tell me, “You’re not going to live in the damn house, just decorate it!” I never realized before the heaviness of her words.

She was right of course, I could never live inside our gingerbread houses yet it seemed each year that’s all I wanted to do. Perhaps it was the sweetly smell of cinnamon in the afternoon after school along with chocolate chip cookies placed on clean white plates. It was almost the simplicity of Christmas that I loved. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the presents too but I loved the way the air smelled of pine trees and ornaments locked away above the rafters. The smell of stocking and freshly baked gingerbread houses, the pumpkin pies and ribbons. Christmas just smells simple and amazing.

Perhaps I just grew up wishing to live in gingerbread houses watching holiday parades. 

Holidays Upon Ice

I am not one to lie about the troubles my family has had with the holidays. I am a fervent participant in all holiday goings on in our house and therefore am present for most of these mishaps. I am also a fervent supporter of the hilarity that can be found from witnessing these events firsthand.  It really doesn’t matter which holiday, St. Patrick’s, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Halloween, we decorate. Within each of these holidays is a horror story waiting to be told.

St. Patrick’s Day as you have probably already noticed hasn’t been in my good graces for long. So, when we put out our annual St. Patrick’s Day miniature flag, that’s all we do. Nothing would be fun about this if no one got hurt. My father, while attempting to try and replace this flag tripped on the brick wall that leads to our front lawn and well took the mini flag post with him. He had a bruise on his stomach for a few weeks. It was quite entertaining for my brother and I.

One Easter, after my brother and I had gotten our presents from the “Easter Bunny” and had successfully already begun to be bored of them decided it would be no fun to not remember all the fun we had. So off the garage went Matt to search for the video camera. As he was searching, I moved a dining room chair into the middle of the kitchen. With my present in hand, my Wild Thornberry’s dolls, we recreated the Wild Thornberry’s. I should have known this was a bad idea considering the time he flung me into a dresser at my grandparents but alas, I didn’t. Nevertheless, Matt decided to make it interesting and pushed back the chair upon which I sat. Away went me and the dolls and broken was the chair. Part of the broken chair went into my back and I had a long scab there for a few weeks. We weren’t allowed to play in the kitchen anymore. It was all caught on tape too.

Thanksgiving mishaps are my second love, the first being Christmas mishaps. However, this Thanksgiving mom and I got up really early to start making the cake and pie we were bringing. It was fun making a pie with my mom. As I was mixing the cake mix and the pie was successfully in the oven, we didn’t hear the timer, giving the pie and extra forty minutes to bake. Needless to say, the pie caught on fire and turned ash black. That year we just brought a cake.

Ah, Christmas. This year as my dad strung lights, he for some reason unbeknownst to me, had a staple gun in his hand. While he was standing on the ladder, staple gun in hand, he accidentally fell backward onto the carpeting allowing the staple gun to go off. The staple went through most of the tree but hit on string of lights in the fuse. The wires were fried and all the lights were done for. As dad cooled off from his mishap, mom and I took off all the lights (he had been on his last string) and threw them away. Dad and I took a trip to Target, CVS, Longs, Albertson’s, and Walgreen’s to no avail as we searched for clear tree lights. An hour and half later, we’re back with the clear lights. It takes another hour and a half to string them up. He fell off the ladder three other times. It was quite hysterical.

Everyone knows that Halloween means carved pumpkins right? Well my mom absolutely loves pumpkin carving. There isn’t much to imagine or describe here, but let’s just say that that year, the blood wasn’t fake.

So each year, for every holiday, we have mishaps. I guess it happens to all of us. My parents swear that half of this stuff never happened, but how fun would it be to deny them the real truth. When I remind them of these tales, I see them blushing as they deny it all. It intrigues me more that each year we spend our holidays on “ice” when we all know something bad is going to happen. I think they should just embrace that stuff happens.

It just usually happens to us.

During the holidays.

Kissing Magnets and Chocolate Peanut Brittle

My entire second grade experience was a blur to my excellence. I didn’t care much for the teacher or her other students. I wanted to be free and well, I wanted everyone to obey me. So I spent an entire year planning my total domination of the third grade. However, every perfect plan has one flaw, its doppelganger. His name just happened to be Noam, and he just happened to have chocolate covered peanut brittle. I bullied him into subservience, just an accomplice to my shenanigans that I could blame when something went wrong. What I didn’t expect was to fall in love with him.

It almost seemed wrong but wasn’t that how it was in the movies? A woman marries a man, man becomes King or something. Woman secretly kills man to become Queen. Queen gets a small, nerdy servant who turns into her lover and becomes the new King. But then of course, the new King dumps the new Queen. Our love started off nicely, he’d meet me by the trees at lunch, carry my milk pouch for me and clear my spot on the grass of leaves. The perfect gentleman. Occasionally I’d let him play with worms and bugs that wandered by us but other than that, he held my bag and book as I climbed my favorite tree. Noam would then hand me my book and I’d tell him to go away. And the cycle repeated everyday until he broke up with me.

It shouldn’t have mattered, we were seven! But alas, I missed my fateful assistant. I cowered everyday in my tree, hoping the yard duties would not see me hiding and allow me peace. I mean, I’d just be there again when they left and Candy liked me so she never cared. I sat in my tree, trying to focus on the book in hand only to keep knowing that he broke up with five days before my birthday. When my birthday came, he came up to my tree, handed me a carefully wrapped box and then walked away. Inside were four perfectly round glass magnets with flowers on the inside. They weren’t overly expensive or brilliant, but they filled my soul with so much joy.

At home, I displayed my magnets and would kiss each one every night before bed. My brother, Matt, would hoot and holler and say that I loved Noam. Of course, I would never admit such an act of betrayal to my impervious reputation for being emotionless which in turn helped me to cut in line during lunch, have other kids buy me pumpkin cookies during the holiday season, and quite possibly, a wide berth of freedom. I enjoyed my reputation and my power but what I didn’t enjoy was the loneliness. So I hung up my cold shoulder, and took off my armor. The next day at school, I “made” friends with a group of girls by following them around all day. Most of them found me exceptionally annoying. But one girl, obviously their leader, permitted me to stay, to continue to follow them.

Her name was Jillian and she permitted me much freedom when it came to following them but not quite enough to be part of the group. I guess it was because I invited them all over for a sleepover to which they all attended and found me kissing my magnets downstairs in the middle of the night. Or perhaps it was the time that I told my teacher that my grandmother had a heart attack in a movie theater that weekend when in fact I just saw it on the news. I guess it was just because I was weird.

I think things got worse the day Noam came back up to me toward the end of third grade. He held in his hands a box of chocolate covered peanut brittle and asked me to sit with him on the bench. I obliged, he was becoming quite the little tyrant that I once was. He said that he missed me and my book. That lunch was boring and no other girls treated him with the same respect. I wondered to myself what respect I had given this charming boy. Noam offered me his peanut brittle and I took the box and then left him alone on the bench.

The next day he left a note in my desk: can I come back? I didn’t say yes but I didn’t say no, I just threw it away. When he got to his desk that morning he pulled out a brown paper lunch sack and looked at me expectantly. I nodded in encouragement. He spilled the contents of the bag onto his desk. They were the magnets that he had gotten me. My brother and I had smashed them with a hammer the night before. Noam began to sob for some reason and came over to me. He asked why I had done it. “I’m tired of kissing magnets.” I said. He looked at me puzzled. “And I’m tired of your peanut brittle!” I shouted and stormed off. Yet somehow, chocolate peanut brittle is my favorite holiday snack. In fact, my box is right here.

You Will Never Make It as a Leprechaun

By the time first grade came around, I had grown up from my elementary pranks, I was a real prankster and I could get anyone, at anytime, anywhere. My next victim had been briefed on me, how to “manage” me. Of course, all her attempts at subservience failed her and I remained glorious. Perhaps it was the time we drew animals in class and I commented on my friend Olivia’s cat, “that is not a cat, you can’t draw”. Of course, Olivia cried, who wouldn’t? I walked away pleased that I had been honest with my friend to have a sobbing Olivia and an angered teacher approach me minutes later. The teacher would ask if I insulted Olivia’s picture to which I would be honest again. She told me to apologize, that it just wasn’t nice. But what did she expect me to do? Lie to my friends? That in itself would just weaken my very existence. I promptly responded, “But I’m not sorry, her cat sucks.”

Or maybe it was when we were writing journals and I would only draw pictures on the top of the page instead of actually write. Perhaps I was remiss to the fact that you actually had to write words in a journal or I just didn’t care. Whichever it was happened to work fine for me until I started to write and then well, I just couldn’t stop enlightening the world with my poetic writing. I was a very vain child as you’ve probably noticed. This is not as I am now but then, it all revolved around me, it didn’t matter who you were unless of course, you were my mom.

My mom was always the person in power in my mind, I didn’t care who you were or for how long you were watching me, I listen to my mom. Now don’t get me wrong, I disobeyed her several times over and over but it never changed her status. Perhaps I deserved more severe punishments or parents but my parents are awesome. Trust me though; my mom had her own tactics when it came to my tricks. She always knew when I’d lie because she always told me that it was written across my face. On days when I would stare into the bathroom mirror for hours she knew. And together we both knew that my first grade teacher, well she was just straight up crazy. There were no lies, tricks or jokes about it.

It could have been the times every day when she would pull me out of class and say that she feared that I just wasn’t going to make it to second grade. What did I need to do? Make up some macaroni posters, a few cotton ball sheep? Possibly read a book with three words on each page for homework. Some simple addition maybe? How about taking shorter naps? What did she really expect me to do? What are you really learning in first grade? In kindergarten you learned your rules and your alphabet and were practically already reading. First grade was just where you wrote words and read books while drawing pictures of animals that did not look like cats.

I believe it all began in the month of March, when learning about St. Patrick’s Day. She explained to us that this day was sacred and special because if you lured tiny little men in green with red hair whom we would later in fifth grade come to call Irish, you would get a surprise. That if you successfully captured them that not only would they give you their pot of gold but grant you any wishes you wanted. And so began the Leprechaun traps. Mine was a giant box with many levels painted green with gold coins glued to the outside. Inside it was almost like a condo, it had two levels, and one had two rooms with a plastic cell door that would close if the rubber band was taken off its hook on the wall. Surprisingly enough, none of those doors were triggered. On the first floor, there was a door, and a small pot of plastic gold. The door was triggered to if slightly touched to slam shut and not open. Of course, things never work.

So in the end, the damn Leprechauns took my gold and left tiny sticker foot prints. I found later, searching through her desk drawers, all our pots of gold, and that she was the Leprechaun that got away. When she caught me, I looked up at her and said, “You will never make it as a Leprechaun” before walking away shaking my head as she had done every day. 

Elementary School Safety Scissors

To tell you how all this began would be quite simple. To explain how my world was created. We all know how a child is born, but now I’m taking things way too technically. How all of this began, this entire book, this story that seems like a teenage girl being melodramatic, when in reality, she sees everyone else to be melodramatic. But all this began with a simple attraction, the simple boy meets girl, or reversed. I met this boy in approximately third grade from what I remember. I still adamantly believed in the cootie disease and wasn’t much of– well, much of anything for a seven year old –but mostly, I wasn’t a people person. Of people, I was terrified.

I was small, the normal height for any third grader. My once long blonde hair was now shorter and turning brown with age. I had almost no freckles on my face, a few on my arms though. And while other kids were focused on playing games and finding their birthmarks, I was in a corner, humming loudly to myself and gripping the only birthmark I knew I had. It was a large brown spot on the top of my wrist, and it would have looked like someone spilled coffee on my wrist. It intrigued me; I would ask myself questions I could never answer. They were questions like, how did it get there? Why do I have it? Why is it in that spot? Is that the color my skin could have been? Or was it just me believing in magical realms beyond the fireplace? I never knew.

It was not hard to predict where I may be or what I was doing. I would sit or stand in a corner or away from the other kids. I was humming and staring at my wrist or at the other kids. I was predictable. I found noises annoying and people who were mean to me were stupid and automatic enemies. But that sounds like every third grader I’ve met. To be a “normal” kid and to be a “weird” kid was like the age difference of 2 to 17. They were “normal”, they played a laughed and talked, they did normal things. I was “weird”; I was quiet and kept to myself. I was “weird” because I threatened people with safety scissors.

I knew then that people were afraid of me as I know now; it’s almost been my life long advantage. I could threaten moms with safety scissors and still be able to use my blue crayon; I could threaten kids with glue in their hair during nap time for their ABC blocks. I could even threaten the teacher to not send me to the office. Now, many of my tricks worked, I was a devious and frugal child who fed off attention as many kids in kindergarten did, but most of my tricks left me punished. This punishment was always dished out in equal parts by a) the teacher and b) the principal. To say that I had nothing up my sleeve for them too would leave you quite mistaken. See, I could get in and out of every situation, a ninja if you would, a five year old ninja.

After one particularly exciting day of painting, I decided that the meager five year old slaves beneath me needed to be punished and worked to the bone. So I took the meter stick (which was then used as a pointer), grabbed a chair and placed it selectively in the middle of the passage way to where the blocks were and where they had to play. Each time a kid passed my fateful blockade, they were whacked on the head. Kids began to cry and uproar began but those meager kids were nothing compared to my greatness and power known as a chair and meter stick. The teacher, a forty year old woman with white blond hair rushed out to the crying and screaming of her students to yell at me only to get herself whacked on the head.  Nevertheless, the principal was called to haul me away like a tyrant to their execution to where I was promptly sat in a chair next to the secretary and told to, “stay”.

Another one of my passions has always been to disobey adults’ rules, an anarchist if you will. So being told to “stay” was revolting to my glorious five year old tyrant presence. I simply disobeyed and rolled underneath the secretary’s desk while she was out of the room. She came back, yelled at me that this wasn’t funny and then sat back at her desk assuming the principal would deal with me soon. As she filed papers mindlessly and uselessly, I tied her shoes together and when I was satisfied, bit her in the leg. After which, I bolted from the room as she stood, screamed and fell over. Once back in my classroom, all the flames of my tyranny gone, the teacher asked me what punishment the principal gave me, to which I responded, “Oh, he just said not to do it again,” and then sat in my chair as if nothing had happened. 

This Story

This story is about my life and the crazy things that have happened as I grew up. It seems conceited and vain but most things in my life are really crazy and hectic. At first this project started off on me writing a book about certain aspects of my life but as I wrote and the more stories that came up, writing a blog of short pieces seemed to fit best. One of my classmates in English had started a blog quite recently about being a pile and how his friends saw him as one. I found it interesting that he shared this blog with our teacher because we thought of our class as full of them. Now don't get me wrong, I am in no way copying his idea for a blog because I'm bored or need to seek attention from my teacher, I just want to get my stuff out there.

This story started out as a book that would talk about me and how I felt I belonged nowhere and at the beginning I felt that I didn't belong anywhere. But as I wrote and the things that happened along the way, like losing my two guiding lights from high school as they graduated and the love of my pre-teen to early teen years killed herself, I realized through my new found friend Julia, that maybe I do belong. I realized that maybe I don't need to seem like another melodramatic teenager who hates her life because her parents don't like her boyfriend or was caught smoking pot. A teen who wanted to drink and party and explore and just have fun. In all realities, my parents would love it if I got a boyfriend, they'd be happy to watch me go to a party even if it meant there might be drugs and alcohol. They'd be happy because I was and am not a very social person. To those who know me, this seems quite impossible but it's true. I don't think pot is okay even if it you supposedly can't die from it. The thought of beer or tequila or scotch is absolutely revolting to me.

So these are my letters, these are my stories from random places. This is my hidden cabinet, what I rarely share with people and random life points.

So this story, my story, is hoped to bring you immense pleasure and is meant for one thing and one thing only: to be enjoyed.