Two very amusing things happened tonight. I doubt they will translate properly, but I will try.
First, may I now assert that I hate the words "yet" and "shall"? Yes, I may. They are pompous words, and using them makes a sentence seem collegiate -- junior collegiate. In any event:
I attempted to attend a class tonight -- essentially, remedial English, a required course to graduate. Unfortunately, the teacher never showed up, but the amusing event occured whilst (a pompous term I cannot avoid) on the elevator to the seventh floor. There were several people in the elevator, and the person standing in front of me was intimidating. Black hair, random bleached bits and pieces, clothed in all that is hipster, relatively handsome, and wearing headphones. Headphones, ladies and gentlemen, that were blaring -- and when I say blaring, I mean everyone in the elevator can hear -- Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want To Have Fun." I speak little truth, but you must trust me when I say that it took every ounce of strength that I have to not sing along.
The second humorous incident was during the busride home, after the teacher neglected to attend his own class. I was sitting, reading my Anne Lamott novel, and a hipster waltzed in. I am not prejudiced against hipsters. Sometimes, I think of myself as one. I did not have anything against this girl, but I will exaggerate [my perception, not my observation] for the sake of entertainment. In a messenger-girl hat, a puffy vest, and low-rider jeans halo-ed by a star-shaped, jewel-encrusted belt, she was certainly trying. I wouldn't have a thing to say about her, save for her FLY unzipped with a PERFECT view of her UNCOVERED PUBES. OH. MY. GOD.
Red wine makes me feel intellectual. It's a lie; an alcohol-infused lie!
So, this is what I wrote today while at work:
"One time I had a dream in which the words, 'You can't trap the Virgin Mary in a beautiful fence' echoed through the horizon of my subconscious. I think I know what it meant. I am not of the sort that believes dreams are life's version of foreshadowing, nor do I think that dreams can produce epiphanies that a conscious mind cannot fathom. To me, dreams are just an extension of what you've been mulling over.
When I had this dream, which I believe was when I was 16, I was having some severe issues with sex. At 16, you're trying with all your might to grow up, but for every step forward you take, you fall back twice as hard. When I was six, I was molested, though not maliciously, by someone very close to me, although this is something I would not realize for another few years. It was the sort of thing that affects you even if you don't know that it happened. You wonder why making out with boys has no effect on your nether regions, but chalk it up to their lack of experience.
The girls in the neighborhood and I used to experiment with masturbation on each other. One time, my brother caught us and told my mom. She confronted me in the garage -- I remember very clearly where we were, because in hindsight, the imagery was bizarrely symbolic -- and explained that she knew that I was curious and that it was ok to be curious. I remember thinking that it wasn't that I was curious; I Knew what sex was like (sort of), and I liked orgasms. I didn't tell her this, but nodded, humiliated beyond belief, and stepped from the unlit garage into the bright northern California sunshine.
After that, whenever I masturbated using my stuffed animals or rolled-up socks or whathaveyou, I felt so incredibly guilty afterwards. So guilty, in fact, that I would pray to the God that my school had taught me about, telling him that I would never do that again, asking him to please help me to never do that again, amen. When things started to go wrong I would bargain with him, telling him that if he would let me sleep in a little longer, I would stop doing That; if he would help me remember how to spell 'cafeteria,' I would stop doing That; if he could please let my dad not yell at me for spilling chocolate milk, I would stop doing That. It seemed an even trade to me, though I never owned up to my end of the bargain. My dad continued to yell at me when I spilled my chocolate milk, and I never felt like I got enough sleep.
In middle school, when all my friends were having their first kisses, and the grossest thing ever was when Pam got fingered (I asked what that meant and she demonstrated...ew), I had yet to kiss a boy, save for an ill-fated game of Truth of Dare when I acquired a chipped tooh. This continued through my freshmen year of boarding school, when Leanne told me about how her mom caught her sitting on her boyfriend's face ( I asked why she would be doing that. She stared at me like she was looking down the barrel of a gun and asked, Why do you think? What I was thinking was that my brother and his friends used to sit on people and fart on them, but I nodded and figured it out later.) Sophomore year, M.K., the only other girl I knew who had yet to kiss a boy, started regaling me with tales of drunken make-out fests. I think it's appropriate to mention that, throughout this time, I was a rampant masturbator. When I read 'The Gate to Women's Country,' in which women rule the land, men are forced to defend it, and theo nly time the women allow the penii into hteir land is to procreate. Gay men are allowed to run free, but only if they are castrated first. While reading it, I cheered internally and agreed: who needs 'um?
Junior year, I moved home from boarding schol and attended the public school I had moved across the country to avoid. I hated everyone, though they were all pretty nice to me. I hated when the few friends I had acquired boyfriends and started losing their virginity. I myself acquired a Helllo, Kitty! vibrator and kept myself busy with that. It took awhile to figure out exaclty how to make it do what I wanted it to do -- it takes a bit to undo years of humping inanimate objects, but I wanted the affection my friends were getting. I read 'The Gate To Women's County' and Anais Nin and stupid soap opera novels to cheer myself up, but it's not very exciting to sneak out of the house to read a book.
I was so painfully introverted that whenever I would go out, I had no curfew and could do pretty much whatever I wanted. This was thanks in part to my brother, who had worn down my mother's former rules by constantly coming home drunk and stoned, but mostly, my mom was so thrilled that I was talking to people that she let me get away with just about anything. So I started smoking a lot of pot.
When I say a lot, I mean, no more than my friends were smoking, but enough to destroy some serious brain cells. I was stoned from the second semester of my junior year to the end of the first year of college. In high school, though, I only got drunk once, and that was quite enough for me. In the course of one evening, my virgin liver was forced to deal with nine shots of vodka and three shots of a green apple-infused liquor. I threw up for the next two days. When I crawled home the next day, my mum bought me Pepto-Bismal and told me she hoped I had learned my lesson. It was a year before I could drink vodka again.
Sometime after that, I experienced my first booty call. His name was Gabe, and he was a friend of my friend, Peter. We were talking online one night when my mom was away, and somehow I got it into my marijuana-soaked head that it would be a great idea if he came over. So he did. Afer a few boring hours of sitting frozen-solid on the couch, he lunged at me and stuck his tongue in my mouth. I remember thinking, very clearly, 'So that's what a tongue tastes like.' For the next three hours or so, we Made Out, and then Peter called and Gabe left. I still cringe when I think about it.
I didn't make out with boys for a long time after that."
one year ago today: "i wanted to tell her that it gets better, but that means shit when it sucks now." two years ago today: "it is ON, BABY!" and "the difference between me and other people is that when i start a sentence with, 'dude, i got so drunk last night," that's usually the end of the story.'" three years ago today: "and i wouldn't have to get my ass verbally kicked everytime i come home."