Life in a Mouth

I have this memory from when I was three or four: I'm painting a picture of a dreidel (we'll get into my WASP rebellion another time) at an art table with my two best friends, Mariah Pepper and Elizabeth Baker-Jennings, whose sing-songy names I point to as evidence that life will never seem as perfect as it did in preschool. Conversation is at a lull, so I share with them a desire that I've been harboring for what feels like decades (given my age at the time, this probably translates to about one and a half weeks).

"I wish I could live in my mouth"

Elizabeth agrees, she too wants to live in her mouth--or did she mean my mouth? Either way, I brush off her attempt at support. She doesn't get it, I think to myself. She can't envision the dream like I do. 

Clearly, I had yet to learn about some important life topics, such as: flossing, laziness, cause and effect, how my laziness causes poor flossing habits, real estate, the importance of location, odor, etc. 

Thanks to the wisdom I've acquired, I've since abandoned the dream. However, I'm much slower to let go of the memory. It's not that I think it makes me special. I know this anecdote is just one of many products available from the "kids have the darnest thoughts" brand line. 

But this one is my creation, and mine alone. No one else can envision that nightmarish dream quite like I did (that past tense almost make me sad), so--with the help of photoshop--I'm going to pin it down here, in case it escapes from my memory when I start my descent into life's second type of age-induced dementia. 

So why did I write this? What's the lesson in all of it? Ehhhhh. Let's see what I can pull out of my...mouth.

Okay, here:

Even though I've stopped believin', I've got other reasons to keep on brushing.

Eh? Ughh.

Update: I remember what got me started on this! I was looking through some photos I took last summer, and when I stumbled across this one I thought to myself, "gee, I wish I could take a nap there." 

Everybody plays the fool; only some have fun with the role

About a month ago, I exchanged messages with a friend who recently went through a very difficult break-up and as a result was trying to "keep a low facebook profile." (Yes, I envied the wordplay.)

Ah, facebook. You are my b-tch lover. I feel like one look at my profile reads like a telegram describing play-by-play my lack of a real life:

M wrote on Herbert's wall. Herbert wrote back two hours later. M responded within a minute. Herbert never responded. M photoshopped herself into a picture from a social event she did not attend. M quoted Arrested Development in her status again...how original. M is lonely; she posts a picture of her best friend. Someone likes the picture M just posted of her dog.  (I could go on, but self-deprecation quickly transitions from "mildly humorous" to "overwhelmingly depressing.")

I don't take myself seriously on facebook. My name is altered, my profile picture often involves tasteless photoshopping, and I refuse to be in a legitimate facebook relationship. There are a couple of contributing factors for this last detail, but one sure component comes with a story. If you're not in the mood for yet another trip down memory lane, I guess this is goodbye. If you're sticking around, pull up a chair.

Back when I was a freshman in college, I made my high school boyfriend break up with me on Christmas Eve. Odd phrasing? Let me break it down in an annoyingly colloquial fashion:

(cue Wayne's World time-travel music and finger motions)

I called up the soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend and was all,
"Why are you being such a b-tch?"

and he was all,
"I don't think we should have this conversation tonight. Merry Christmas, we'll talk later."

To which I said,
"F that, b-tch! We're having this conversation riiiight NOW."

And then he was like,
"[more refusing to my prodding]...I want to break up,"

prompting my,
"I can't believe you're breaking up with me on Christmas eve--of all nights!--What kind of b-tch would do such a thing?!?"

and then I imagine he rolled his eyes and I whimpered into the phone
"I'm cancelling our relationship on facebook."

...And as I clicked "cancel" and hung up the phone, I remember thinking to myself, well, that was probably one of the lamest things I could've said to end the conversation.
But so it went, bygones, etc.

The next day I posted a picture of a nun-like latin teacher from my high school as my facebook photo and the rest, as they say, is history (well, unless you empty your cache.)

The thing is, I don't think my spiral into unbridled goofdom is confined to facebook. And that gives me mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I feel like I should be growing up and becoming more serious and professional (can you tell I had a reunion this past weekend?)

On the other hand, I don't want to fight the goof. It's who I am.

And you know what? Goofy makes me happy. It makes me laugh, as do farts, put-on nasal voices (an Angela specialty), and this memory I have from Raleigh's 13th birthday party at six flags:

While waiting for my friends to return from their roller coaster ride (whimp, I know) I noticed that I'd been hearing this repetitive thumping noise for the past couple of minutes. I located the source of the noise as soon as I turned around and faced the house of mirrors.

Thump...thump...thump.

I stood mesmerized as kid after kid ran towards (and then into) what they thought was the maze's end, but was actually just a well-cleaned window. (My apologies for that awkward sentence. I'm too lazy to clean it up.)(Yes, Dad. Like my room.) Bottom line: kids kept running into the wall because they thought it was the exit.

Oh it was magical...but mean of me.

...BUT you should've seen them charge! They thought they had it dooown...and then they went dooown. In my defense, it's not like I could've warned them; they wouldn't have been able to hear me (also, it's hard to gesture when you're buckled over and hardly breathing).

But no, not nice. Bad me. My faux-ly grown-up self acknowledges that. Shame on me for laughing.

Sorry to all those children for cackling at them as they stumbled back into the maze, their foreheads and egos both freshly bruised.

Sorry I'm laughing as I type this.

But here's the thing: 

Despite their bruises, I rest on the fact that those kids probably bounced back, found their way out, and--after a little time had passed--embraced the memory and could laugh about it.

On Angela: It started out Crumby and then turned to mush

So that last post touched on some of my feeeeelings about my peers, as it’s a topic that’s been on my mind lately. I’m almost a year out of college, no longer surrounded by hundreds of people my own age. (Dad, you’re still the coolest, of course.) This shift in company makes me think about the people I miss, and then (for the sake of acting eighty) I begin to reminisce, which reminds me just why I miss them so much.

One of my little goals for this (and maybe next) month is to write about people who are close/important to me. Since I’ve already written about my dog, my sister, and my dad, it’s time for me to do a little branching out.

I’ve been thinking about my friend Angela a lot this week. I started to call her on the afternoon of my stomach-bug incident because I knew that hearing her voice while I waited at the bus-stop would give me something to laugh about as I trundled off to my first class. Unfortunately, mid-dial I saw my phone’s battery flashing a suicide warning and I had to forgo my pre-school (ha?) pick-me-up.

But in case anyone is reading this (ha? Hi, Grover) and doesn’t know Angela, I’ll try my best to describe her.

How do I go about this? I guess I’ll aim for chronologically.

Because she was a grade behind me, our friendship in high school was somewhat distanced. We were in some of the same classes and I’d hang out with her before play/track practice, but we each had our own group of friends from our respective grades.

However, one thing I’ve always been able to appreciate about Angie is her uncanny ability to escort me from crying to laughing, no matter what the situation.

When my dog died sophomore year of high school, unlike the back pats and sympathetic hugs my other friends gave me, Angela’s condolences (and I use that term loosely) took the form of disbelief:

“No it did not. You don’t even have a dog. You’re such a liar.”

…before transitioning to full-on mockery:

“Woof…Woof!” (Yes. She barked at me.)

…after which point I got in trouble for “distracting Angela during class.” (To be fair, I don’t think she believed me when we started the conversation, and it was the first time I had laughed all day.)

Although we rarely talked on the phone during high school, whenever I felt homesick or sad during my freshman year of college I found myself calling Angie.

Everything Angela sees and every person she knows becomes fifty times funnier when she tells you about it/him/her. I really don’t know how she does it, and her humor is impossible to replicate exactly. It’s not a matter of embellishment or mockery. She just has this knack of picking out random quirks that everyone half-notices and finding the words/facial expression/voice to make them all the more hilarious. It’s like she’s full of inside jokes that anyone can join in on.
(Wow. I ended that sentence with not one, but TWO prepositions. Squirm, nerds, squirm.)

But Angela, as passionate and diligent as she is funny, is yet another friend of mine headed off in the direction of medical school.Unfortunately, following her there is not an option.

If nothing else, taking Chemistry 101 my freshman year of college meant that my fingers, soiled with wiped-away tears and "stress crumbs," pounded out weekly “YOU STILL HAVE TO LOVE ME IF WHEN I FAIL” emails to my parents. So I don't think those same hands really belong in an operating room. 

I guess my plea to Angela is not “take me with you” so much as it is “don’t go.” I’m selfish. Don’t feign surprise. I’ve told my friend, the Social Hermit, countless times that I am so jealous he got to spend three of his four years at college with Angela. But I had--what, seven?--years with her before that. I’m greedy. (Again, no fake gasps are in order.)

I know if Angela were in these grad school classes with me, she’d bring out sides of my classmates I would have never known to appreciate otherwise.

“This is why it’s funny."
"This is why it’s fun."
"This is why he’s a good person.” 

She notices and enhances the positive without being cheesy or preachy. Something I feel like I’m failing to do right now.

I guess I’m just trying to “Angelyze” (oh hey, you like my new word?) Angela. With Angie there will always be more to say, in more ways than one: more humor for her to illuminate, and more things to say about her. But for now, this is the best I can do.

Angie, this is why you’re funny.
This is why I call you.
This is why you’re so adored.  

(Yes, I shamelessly photoshopped myself into this picture.)

Eggzamining: Thoughts from the Nest

(Cheesy title, I know. Please don't PUNch me.)

I recently started graduate school towards getting a degree in early childhood education. Out of all my "when I grow up" aspirations and interests, this stands out as the one with the most concrete career path (at least as far as the near-future is concerned.)

Like many other members of my age bracket, this (laughable degree of) commitment has created some inner anxiety and doubt for me.

Am I signing my life away? Sure, it's only four classes now, but that will spiral into a degree, which will spiral into a job, which could spiral into a life of wondering "what-if?"

To sum up that last sentence, I am already pessimistically viewing fortunes (that I have yet to earn) as misfortunes.

Degree, job, lifetime: One, two, three.

I'm counting (on shaking, nail-bitten fingers) three chicks that have years--some, even decades--to hatch.

Why am I worried? Well, specific to the egg-hatching-chick metaphor, it might have to do with the fact that the only experience I've had with hatching eggs is a gruesome and morbid one.

Our second grade class had an egg-shaped incubator (unlike the normal, rectangular incubators of other classrooms) and as a result, only one of our ten eggs hatched, and the winged creature that cracked its beak through the lone shell of hope emerged with its intestines on the outside of its body.

After hobbling around a sawdust-lined cardboard box for a couple of days, "Pinky" (no, we didn't really name it that -- we were too horrified/young for dark humor) died as peacefully as a chick of its circumstance could die.

But enough about chicks. Well, except for this one. (Yeah, I called myself a chick. A little confidence never hurt anyone.)

In terms of my metaphor-free fears, I guess I'm just worried that I'll settle into a less-than-perfect fit. This is the part when my mom chimes in with something like don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good (a motto that I've abused for most of my life) or you won't know until you try, or something else that I'm not wise enough to predict. And imaginary mom is right. (UPDATE: My dad felt left out of this part. So to satisfy him, I think his words of wisdom would probably be something along the lines of well, you've got to do something--and loitering on facebook doesn't count. )

I guess some of my anxiety comes from the fact that I don't know how much I have in common with my peers right now. Kids, I can totally relate to. They're messy, they've yet to understand certain social conventions, and they half-wish they could still wear diapers. Hello, peers.

However, a fair portion of future early childhood teachers, I believe, are of a gentler breed than my own. This is not an insult, just an observation. All of my of my classmates are women, about 30% of whom wear pink or matching patterns and love cats. Again, no problem with that, just pointing out some similarities and differences (female-ness and cat-personhood, respectively.) Note to cat lovers: I'm not a hater, I just wheeze a lot. (Seriously allergic.)

However, this Tuesday in the middle of my last class I -- the self-declared Toughy McTougherson of the room -- found myself doubled-over with stomach pain as I listened to my teacher talk about the importance of morning meetings. By the time she brought out the "touch and feel" box, I was in my full "bend and weep" position.

By the grace of craft projects, teacher lady announced we'd have a brief break so that she could hand out teddy bear cut-outs for us to decorate. During this time everyone at my table asked me in some way or another whether I was going to pass out. I got a lot of you look really pale and one is it a blood sugar problem?

A woman from another table actually came over to tell me that I did not look good and I should go home. I've had vaintasies of an opposite encounter involving a modeling agent, but that dream died by puberty anyway, so I wasn't discouraged and took what she gave me as enough reason to bolt. And bolt I did, my every footstep echoing "whimp, whimp, whimp" as I shuffled out of the classroom.

The stomach pains and whimpering lasted all night, although the former was more continuous than the latter. From time to time I'd stop my crying, embarrassed by the sound of my own self-pity, and imagine the multitudes of people in far worse pain than myself.

I thought about the people Hayley sees on a day-to-day basis in Malawi, and my embarrassment turned to shame. But then another wave of nausea crashed, and I justified my tears. As the undulating pain began to soften again, I went back to reminding myself of my comparatively cushy situation.

I thought of how much more painful it would be to give birth than to face my situation. My stomach bug was nothing compared to appendicitis, or dysentery, or something really awful, like living with my intestines on the outside of my body. This last thought, of course, invited back the nausea, and so I stopped guilt-tripping myself because the ride was making me woozy.

Once more I was plaguing myself with "what if?" and, yet again, it wasn't helping anyone. So I abandoned my negative thoughts and drifted off into a light sleep.

Safe and warm under my parents' roof, I dreamt of a day when I have the strength to break the eggshell above my head, count the chicks that I've made for myself, and feel genuinely proud of them, external intestines and all.

Golden Memories and Platinum Prophecies

As a member of the lower school community service club, I spent my Friday lunch periods in seventh and eighth grade socializing with the residents of Mount Pleasant, a nursing home located five minutes from my school.

Despite the frequency of my visits, breaking the ice was always nerve-racking for me. Conversation was a gamble. I never knew whether the people at my table would even want to talk, and during conversations I feared I’d stumble into an awkward or painful subject.

During one memorable visit, I greeted the woman to my left by asking her whether she was enjoying the nice spring weather we'd been having.

Without lifting her eyes from the untouched fish in front of her, she sighed and said,

“I’m just waiting for the day they tell me I can leave this place.”

Still optimistic, I tried to rebound by asking her what her favorite season was.

This question prompted the woman to look up from her plate and stare at me, perhaps to verify that she was not speaking to a four-year-old. The look she gave me indicated that now she was waiting for someone to tell her that at least I would leave soon.

Slightly discouraged, I turned to the man on my right and asked him whether he was enjoying his lunch. The topic seemed safe enough, considering he was licking some stray breadcrumbs stuck to the back of his fork.

“I remember you,” he said with a smile.

“You’re Jewish. We talked a couple of weeks ago.”

This was the first time someone at Mount Pleasant remembered me, or at least thought they did, and I didn't want to contradict him.

After all, I was an eighth grader whose social life was experienced vicariously through the characters of TGIF sitcoms. The idea of getting to be someone else, even if only through the eyes of a bald octogenarian, had its appeal. So I murmured an "uh huh," and made sure that my gold cross necklace was tucked underneath my shirt.

When asked, I told him honestly that no, I had not had my bat mitzvah yet. I felt guilty that he was making such an effort to remember things about the girl he thought I was, so I shifted the focus of the conversation onto him.

Soon, he was telling me about how different life was when he was growing up. Some of his friends had faced a lot of discrimination.

"One man was a Jew, such as yourself.”

He leaned in as he said this and gestured toward me with his open palm.

"Yes, jewish..." I dopily replied, bobbing my head.

However, he went on to tell me, his true passion was dancing. Deep wrinkles formed in his cheeks as he asked me whether I knew who Ann Miller was. Not wanting to disappoint him, I told him that her name sounded familiar.

“I danced with her,” he told me proudly.

Once I had learned a little more about Ann Miller, I was able to appreciate the significance of that man's treasured memory.
Dancing was what he loved most, and he was able to do it with one of the best dancers of his time.

My own life isn't devoid of celebrity encounters: I've shaken hands with Jimmy Carter. My friend's aunt was a bond girl. Heck, once I hung out with two kids from ZOOM.

I've flaunted all of these encounters before, but I aspire to have my own "Ann Miller" experience, something I'll still be bragging about sixty years from now.

I can picture myself as an eighty-two year-old somewhere like "Space Mount Pleasant," talking to a nice catholic boy who visits me weekly. I'll admire his yamaka as I ask him if he's ever heard of William Hung. He'll lie and tell me that he thinks the name rings a bell, and I'll boast that we once sang a karaoke duet together.

Then, drifting away from reality, I'll smugly reflect on my proudest memories. Lost in my thoughts, I'll lift my glass of prune juice and say with sincerest gratitude,

"L'Chaim."

The Tracks of My Years

One of my family's favorite home videos is of me when I was about three years old. The video starts out just like many others with my father, the interviewer, asking me what I had done that day. I wobble in front of the camera, scratching the underside of my chin with the back of my hand as I contemplate his question.

"Iiiyuhh…"

I look up to the ceiling, find my answer, and gaze back into the camera.

"…peed in my underpants."

My blank stare tells him I'm ready for the next question. My father delves deeper into the topic, posing his second question, and I nail the answer: peeing in my underpants was "a bad thing."

I then open up about the rest of my day, revealing that subsequent events included wanting to play "Candy Land," playing ball, napping, "having another accident," and finally participating in the interview at hand.

In case you missed it, I'll recap: by three o'clock in the afternoon, I had already peed in my pants twice.

To me it had been just another day in my (supposedly) potty-trained life. To my parents, however, it was cause for concern, or at least further investigation.

First we went to the pediatrician, whose only suggestion that I can remember was that I try going to the bathroom backwards. This helped start a day-long trend among my fellow preschoolers who, thanks to our door-less bathrooms, were inspired by my backwards squat and decided to adopt my experimental peeing pose.

Although I may have gained cool points for my bathroom creativity, I gained nothing in terms of bladder control, and the next step was to have my kidneys tested.

The kidney scan was my first hospital experience since birth. I lay down while a machine with a ninja turtle sticker on it moved above my body, and then I peed when instructed to do so. Afterwards, I got pizza. The result of the scan showed that nothing was wrong with my kidneys, I just didn't like using the bathroom.

What finally got me off accidents and onto the toilet was the looming threat that if I didn’t improve, I’d have to wear diapers.

My parents had told me about these "cool underpants" I could wear while I slept so that I wouldn’t make a mess if I accidentally wet the bed. Excited, I had imagined an undergarment made out of bathing-cap material. Instead, I woke up and found that I was wearing a pair of Huggies “Pull-Ups” training pants. Talk about a horrifying wake-up call.

I’m still just as candid today about my past of peeing in my pants as I was in that home video. My friends tell me that I should consider being less open about that part of my childhood, but I don't see their reasoning.

“What?” I say, “It’s not like I had to wear diapers.”

The Foot, The Mouth, and The Apex

I have this habit, when my mind revisits past embarrassing moments, to uncontrollably mutter one or two words out loud to myself. Today I stood in the shower, trying to wash away who knows what, when out popped “crazy.” And with that, I was one word closer to becoming all the more so.

I think these involuntary verbal sputters are my mind's makeshift attempt to distance my present self from the unreasonable statements and butt-clench moments of my past. Some part of me figures that if time won’t do the trick fast enough, at least I’ll benefit from being [x] many more words away from a choice sentence’o’shame.

Of course, my logical side says sarcastically. Because talking is clearly the solution for your problem. You should really do more talking. 

Yet my optimistically verbose subconscious—a side of me that would probably describe Tourette’s syndrome as “cathartic”— somehow continues to prevail. At twenty-two years of age I’m rattling off interjections more than ever, as if my new words will one day bury all my regrettable past utterances.

So I let myself sputter, because if a word falls from my mouth but no one else is around to hear it, can it really do any damage?

As for the damage that’s already been done, I've noticed that most of my clench-inducing memories must wax humiliating until they reach an apex. After this apex, which is determined by some incalculable ratio of time elapsed to personal abandon, comes the point at which I can begin to forget the memory, or at least start to laugh.

But for certain memories, the apex feels like it’s located somewhere between Jupiter and Uranus. On rough days, muttering a thousand shower-time ‘crazy’s won’t render even a millimeter of space between me and the memory from which I flee.

In such cases, the best I can do is pretend that I don't mind the big toe that's gently pressing on my gag reflex, and hope that the embarrassments that hold my mind captive (or is it the other way around?) aren’t quite as memorable to any of the other people who witnessed them.

High School TicTactics

When I was a senior in high school, the end of first semester was a time of high anxiety. Early application decisions were rolling in, and people like me ('the deferr-ed') were facing the final exam period of our high school careers that still potentially mattered for college.

I sought fun anywhere I could find it, provided it didn't distract my already attention-challenged mind. My solution? Little pellets of sugar.

Armed with my dad's label maker and bulk packs of tictacs, I made little boxes of "medicine" for each subject I had to study (as well as one for break time, for the sake of using all six flavors.)

I coordinated colors and subjects based on my flavor preferences and studying priority; my weakest subjects were paired with my favorite flavors, and "break" was given my least favorite flavor. However, I will admit that the flavors for U.S. History and Irish Literature weren't exactly in accordance with this system, and based on patriotism more than anything else.

Silly? Sure. Tacky? Maybe so. A waste of time? Possibly.
But for all I can tell, it worked.

It's Trippy (Memory Lane)

Oh. Muh. Gaaah.
I can't describe how amazing I feel when I look at this picture.
It's like...sparkle meth.

This sensation isn't just visual. I take just one cuh-suh-ree glance and my mouth fills with the hint of a cherry-flavored plastic, like I'm trying once again to eat Caroline's Cherry Merry Muffin doll, or sucking on a "Nurse Barbie" prop lozenge. My olfactory memory whiffs back to birthday celebrations of yore, to those party supply stores and goody bags that smelled like smarties candy and conical cardboard hats.

WIZARD.

When I was a wee lass of four years, my two best friends (Mariah and Elizabeth) and I were obsessed with The Wizard of Oz. It was cooler than milk-water. We each had our own pair(s) of Ruby Red Slippers,* and discussed at length--well, as lengthily as our cavemannish vocabularies would allow--the perfect way to coiffe Dorothy pigtails. The verdict? Begin two side french braid pigtails, ending each right as you tuck under the ear lobe, then curl the free flowing 'tails into spirals. (You're welcome, lazy 'trix or tease'ers. Oh, and respect Dot, won't you please? Put a shirt underneath that gingham apron-dress-hybrid.)

*I know the original shoes were silver, but I think your average four-year-old girl would take Judy Garland's fashion advice over Frank Baum's. Ignore the fact that they're both dead, please.

During my very first sleepover, held chez Elizabeth, she and I decided to watch the Wizard of Oz. Well, I don't know if "decided" is the right word. It was more of a ritualistic act, a shared practice of a beloved and never-questioned Saturday night custom.

"Blessed be thou, O Wizard of Oz,

who gives us the yellow brick road."

...you know, that sort of thing.

As the movie started, we began to bicker about who got to wear her Dorthy shoes. Hellooo, I was the guest. (And, yeah, I had left mine at home--I know: iiiiiiiiidiot.) When our fighting took a turn for the nasty Elizabeth's mother had to intervene, and eventually we came to the agreement that we two gollum-itas would take turns wearing the preciouses.

Me or Elizabeth. (Okay, probably just me.)

So throughout the screening Elizabeth's mother would set the kitchen timer for 15 minute increments and we'd watch the movie, pausing every so often to pass the sweaty little slippers off to the other person. The arrangement seemed perfectly level-headed to me at the time, but I understand now why Elizabeth's mother looked like she was hiding a smirk.

  LET ME TAKE YOU 
DOWN

I think that part of the reason people enjoy drugs (specifically everyone's favorite leafy gateway) is because drugs make you stupider--stupider, like when you were young. When I was little and my brain was still developing, I would get lost in anything that sparkled or contained a wide array of colors. (Hence my smeaghoulish lust for ruby slippers.)

For example: I hated going to the dentist (I was such a unique little girl) but every year the dentist's office would send us this reminder postcard that had seven toothbrushes fanned out against a black background. Each toothbrush was a different color of the rainbow, and each toothbrush head had a perfect 'S' of toothpaste squirted on it whose shade matched the color of the given toothbrush exactly.
You follow? I'll try to illustrate.

+
SSSSSSS 
Bah. This hardly compares to the original.

Oh my heavens, it was amazing. My parents would see me studying the postcard and say something to the extent of,

"Aha, Marg. Hyuk hyuk, You know what this means..."

Then they'd look down at me and promptly try to shake me out of my trance. Heck, they probably could have spanked my bare baby bottom and I wouldn't have noticed, provided they didn't break my gaze in the process.

When I finally did connect the dots between 'pretty postcard' and 'drill-in-mouth-is-gagging-me time,'  I'd whimper and steep in my self-pity until the hypnotic missive worked its magic once more and soothed me back into a pseudo-psychedelic stupor.

...aand that's how kids got high off household objects
when I was growing up.

Airing out freshman memories before they go stale: Part 2

Of the ten people that did make 34^th street’s cut, one who was particularly relevant to my own Pennesis is the character that Street aptly dubbed The Awkward Sophomore. 

(No awkward sophomore pictured, just two awkward freshmen.)

Oh dear Graham Trewgarl*, my very own awkward sophomore, a poem for you:

Graham Trewgarl, Graham Trewgarl

How does your awkwardness grow? 

With goodbye notes 

Full of priceless quotes 

You tape to our doors when you go.

Sorry, I'm back. I promise I was not typing in tongues; I just jumped the poetry gun (which is no doubt a weapon made of wildflowers, English Breakfast tea, and latent sexual angst.) 

A little backstory: As I said, Graham Trewgarl was our hall's very own awkward sophomore. He had a pretty big room across from Mo's and kept to himself most of the semester, entertaining the occasional guest who would stop by to play video games and talk in muffled tones (or so I gathered from my post out in the hallway.)

However, as first semester began to wind down, Mo coaxed Graham Trewgarl out of his lair (ironic considering traditional hibernators' seasonal patterns.) 

I discovered their budding friendship one afternoon when I came to wake Mo up from her daily nap with the serene sound of my eating her goldfish (a beloved daily ritual for both of us, I'm sure) and found, much to my surprise, Mo already awake and chatting with Graham Trewgarl! It was awkward and somewhat unnerving. I probably lost at least 7 ounces during that period. 

The friendship got a bit weirder  remained the same when Graham confessed to Mo that he had slightly more-than-friendsy feelings for her. Although Mo didn't reciprocate his feelings, they continued to hang out, and we all got to know Graham Trewgarl a bit better.

However, sometime around winter break Graham Trewgarl announced that he was taking a semester off to work on various movie sets and would not be rejoining our hall second semester. We each said our awkward 'oh no's, and I'd like to think they were all heartfelt. Sure, he would avoid us sometimes, and yeah, he wasn't a champion chatter, but he was still a part of our breakfast-club-on-ritalin-and-sports-scholarships hall. We all thought we were sad to see him go...until we got the goodbye notes. 

Typed onto strips of paper that he taped to each of our doorknobs, Graham Trew's goodbye notes were kind of like a white man's fortune cookie. Except, instead of a fortune, these texts were either insults, compliments, insults veiled as compliments, stamps of approval, or messages to the extent of "Everyone else got a note, don't worry about it. Bye." And unlike a cookie, they almost always (see exception "Julie" below) left a bitter taste in their recipients' mouths.

The highlights that stand out in my mind are: 
(keep in mind these quotes are from memory)

Mo’s:
"So I told you I liked you. Way to avoid me for the rest of the semester."

Elise’s:
"You are so loud. Loud in the bathroom. Loud in the hall. Loud with your voice. Damn, girl. Why you so loud?"

Mine:
"You’re nice—almost too nice."

Tiffany's (my asian roommate):
"We both know there are too many white people on this hall."

(blogger's note: Dear Graham, You are white. You're white! Is that the real reason you're leaving? To reduce the number of white people on our hall? Because, um, you're white, Graham Cracka. It’s like those girls who say they “don’t like girls.” All those assumptions you make about/use against other people could just as easily be thrown back at you. Finally, and more to the point, you’re white.)

Julie’s:
"Wow, I really wish I could’ve spent more time getting into a deep conversation with you. You seem like a great person and I’d really like to make out with you once you and your long-distance boyfriend have broken up."

(okay, so maybe part of this quote is "subtext," but anybody at a 5th grade reading level could see what was written between those lines.)

Now, I realize that said notes were written almost four years ago, and Graham’s opinions may have changed considerably since then, but that does not make them any less hih-lar-iii-oooous. Especially given that said letters were distributed en masse and left like valentines (minus candy--boo) and call Elise "loud" and Julie "perfect" and me "too nice" with italics, which is a font detail that takes extra time, kind of like the extra time he's probably spent thinking about how he's going to knock Elise or me out because we're just a little too conscious for his liking. 


But it's cool because, as I mentioned in the previous post, earlier that semester (by the grace of Jordan's still-in-high-school girlfreak--I mean, girlfriend) my trusty little cell phone and I had already weathered brain assessments (a little too tumor-free), face makeover plans (a little too not-on-fire), and speculation about the size of my vagina (a little too not-little.) No comment on the validity of these claims. Especially the last one. Eyes up here.

So it's cool. Our bridge is not burned so long as my facefire doesn't set it off and that's highly unlikely because I've placed the bridge across my giant vagina so that people don't fall in when they visit the area ("The Grammill Canyon," I think is what the locals call it) and even if our bridge does burn, the brain tumor is likely to wipe out any memory of why I might not want to be friends with him, so I think worst case scenario is that we, Mr.Trewgarl and I, have ourselves a fresh start.

Nice. Almost too nice.


*Name has been changed...ish

Airing out freshman memories before they go stale: Part 1

Penn’s weekly humor magazine, 34^th Street, recently published an article documenting the ten people you meet freshman year and, oh boy, did it bring back the mems. (What’s that? “mems” isn’t working? Oh, okay.) However, one character from my freshman year experience that did not make the list but definitely made my own "top 5 most emotional moments of freshman year" list (spoiler: the evoked emotion = fear) is a not-so-lady-like lady I'd like to classify as The Jealous High School Girlfriend. 

Jordan was a freshman football player in two of my first semester classes whom, I'll admit, I didn't find terribly hard to look at. However, I had my own long-distance thing going on--just your typical highschool relationship: expired by Thanksgiving, thrown out by Christmas--and I had already made the decision to save any infidelity for my 50s, when I'll go all Mrs. Robinson on some Benjamin Braddock of the future.

Jordan had his own long distance noise, a fact I learned when I suggested that we "study for the test together" and he responded with, "I have a girlfriend." His response struck me as a bit of a non-sequitur. (Let me clarify, I suggested this with my books held nerd-style against my chest, my finger no where near my mouth, and both eyes fully open--not even a squint going, let alone a wink.) 

At first I worried that eight years of all-girls school had impaired my proficiency in late-adolescent innuendos. But then I realized, nope. By saying, "I have a girlfriend," Jordan meant, "I have a batsh*t crazy girlfriend who probably verbally abuses me."

(Actual crazy not pictured)

Lesson learned...a little too late. 

One friday evening I texted Jordan about the homework for that weekend, and he texted back with a response and then some small talk. He suggested we go out to ice cream sometime (bogus for many reasons, one of which being the dearth of ice cream places on campus...unless he meant soft serve in the dining hall, which is tacky at first glance, but appeals to my frugal side.) 

Naturally, I asked him how he was okay with his proposed rendezvous, and yet my suggestion that we study together made him sweat. The next text he sent was something to the extent of "well, you've already turned me down for lunch twice, (sidenote: apparently saying goodbye after someone announces they're going to get lunch = rejected invitation) so I thought you might be more open to going out for ice cream." 

I wasn't exactly sure how to reply, so I sat on my thoughts and tried to shrink them down into 160 characters or less. However, before I could respond, I noticed that he was calling me. "That's funny," I thought. "Why would he be calling when we seem to have this texting thing down pat?" 

Turns out, he rang with somewhat urgent news. Evidently, he had accidentally sent that last message to his girlfriend, whose name also started with M (still, didn't he have a 'reply' option?) and so he was just "warning" me and was "sorry" if I "get some weird phone calls tomorrow," but not to worry because it was "just my girlfriend." Huh. 

Also, this means that when crazyGirlfriend called up Jordan, instead of being like, "woah crazy girl, calm down, it was just a friend...a guy friend...using my phone...to text another guy" Jordan was like, "oh, hey baby. Yeah, about that, here's her name and phone number. Okayloveyoubyyyye!!"

The first call came around four o'clock the next day (I guess that's the time when all the High School bars open) and the calls continued to come all through the night (like a Boyz II Men ballad, only terrifying.) Jordan's girlfriend and her band of cronies filled my voice mailbox with menacing messages that, if nothing else, deserve to be lauded for their creativity. 

A bouquet of some of my favorites, if you will: 

Set my face on fire, brain tumor, big vagina. That's a big pill to swallow, even on a Saturday.

Ah, young love. So passionate.

Although I tried, I couldn't save those messages. My friends and I talked about how hilaaarious they were, but listening to them still made me want to enter the witness protection program. Although those girls really could've used a thesaurus, I've got to hand it to them, their arguments were still persuasive enough to convince me to avoid Jordan for the rest of the year.

I hardly ever saw Jordan after freshman year. However, at graduation this past spring, I spotted him posing for a picture with his (I assume not crazy) Penn girlfriend. She looked friendly and warm as she smiled for the camera. I watched them, my mind blasting back to 3 years earlier, and marveled at how happy the two young adults seemed. 

As the picture-taking continued, Jordan moved his face closer to hers, which was tanned but free of burn wounds. Her mortarboard rested on her blonde head, which showed no signs of tumors or recent surgery, and her gown was average size, no longer or wider than those of her normal-vagina-sized peers. "Good for them," I thought, snapping back to the present. 

And if those two "f*cking get married someday," I can honestly say, good for them.