Archive for the 'Once Upon A Time..' Category

Storytellers

July 21, 2008 | Filed under: Blogology, Once Upon A Time..

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”  ~Sylvia Plath

I started blogging not because I thought myself to be a fabulous writer but because I always had the most ABSOLUTELY INSANE stories EVER. That is all in caps because the hyperbole would be through the roof and suddenly a simple story about watching Katherine Harris (who I will dislike with a fiery passion from the deepest part of my soul for a very, very long time) play bumper cars while parallel parking is suddenly a huge OMFG YOU ALL MUST HEAR THIS type moment. Complete with hand gestures and facial expressions and a hearty laugh and then theories about her cracked out driver’s ed teacher and then how she may or may not have run over a squirrel. Little bit of truth and a little bit of lie.

As a writer or blogger or ‘creative whiner’ (which I am totally trademarking) you want stories to be interesting and mind-blowing so that people laugh or cry. I wasn’t going to write about stories today. I was actually going to write about crying in the lobby of the Westin St. Francis while drinking wine out of a paper cup and Angella looking at me like I had just lost my damn mind. Instead I have the esteemed pleasure of telling the awesome story about how I found out my credit card had been used without my authority. Which would have been panic attack inducing from home but when checking into a hotel for five nights in a city that you’ve never been to, you suddenly get the joy of experiencing vertigo. Possibly because it’s midnight and you have no voice and you look like a homeless person carrying all of your bags and wearing a shirt that says ZWAGGLE. And while people in the south are very kind people you can tell that the woman at the front desk is all ‘what the flying fuck is a zwaggle?’ And then you call your father because your mother has disappeared off the face of the earth (when really she’s just sleeping in her perfect summer house on a perfect little summer island and you’re stranded in New motherfucking Orleans at the start of hurricane season) and he’s like “Wait, who is this again?” And then the woman at the front desk can tell that perhaps you might die right there and then on the lobby and hey! now it’s 1:15 AM and you’re fishing around your bag for a klonopin because death is knocking at your door. Of course because of karma nothing too terrible happens and the front desk lady kind of feels bad because you seem to be in a bit of a precarious state and she doesn’t want to have to call a the paramedics to lift your catatonic body off the marble floor so she says “I’ll charge you for one night” right at the time when you hoist your bags back to your shoulders and say “Ok, thank you” and start to walk out the door. She does it not because she has to but because (and I quote) “There was no way in hell that I was going to let you walk out that door”. And when you type those words you will start to cry again because the past five days have been one amazing thing after another and all you can do is mouth thank you because all that god damn wine and screaming over rave music has left your vocal chords somewhat paralyzed. But you are so fucking thankful that you want to give her your first born and name it Sabrina (after her of course).

The next morning you wake up ridiculously late to give a talk on the politics of pedagogy (your favorite topic ever right next to using The Internet for community building) but the first thing you think is “Oh my fuck, I MUST tell The Internet this story”. And so you do.

The end.

The Dumbest Story Ever Told

July 9, 2008 | Filed under: Oh The Stupidity You'll See, Once Upon A Time.., The District Of Columbia

“I always look for a woman who has a tattoo.  I see a woman with a tattoo, and I’m thinking, okay, here’s a gal who’s capable of making a decision she’ll regret in the future. ” ~Richard Jeni

On June 25th 2001, exactly one day after I donned a red cap and gown and played my clarinet in a formal setting for the last time at my high school graduation, I moved to Washington, DC. I say that with a tear in my eye not because I am recalling how sad I was to pack up my shit and move to a place where humidity would take you in its clammy hands and immobilize you and suppress your ability to breathe; but because I was so god damn happy to get the hell out of that place. As I recall on the outside I may have cried while crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge but on the inside I was screaming “THANK GOD ALMIGHTY I AM FREE AT LAST”.

I was retelling the story of my Independence Day to coworkers yesterday because despite the oft-crippling fear of The Newness, I still do far better as an independent person, far away from what is most familiar to me. Which is how I lasted six full months in another country with absolutely no one I knew and a one sided grasp of the language. Meaning I could understand what was being said and was fully literate but the only thing I could respond with was “OK!” and lots of head nodding. I was a beacon of brilliance and compelling conversation.

So when I moved to DC, with my new-found freedom I did what any proper 17 year old with half a brain would do when sent 400 miles away: I procured myself a fake ID. Not just any fake ID, as you see, in New York the licenses of yore were made of a more flimsy, cardboard material. This made it easy to write and generally deface said license. With three colored pencils and a simple flick of the wrist, I turned 1983 into 1980 and was on my merry way.

(I should stop here and say that the awesomeness of this idea and patting myself on the back and being smug is called ‘foreshadowing’ and maybe one day I’ll tell you the story of what happened to that license)

And with my license I didn’t set out to start drinking, because I wasn’t much of a drinker at the time, I instead – and again - did what any FREE! 17 year old would do; I went out to get my tongue pierced. I found a tongue piercing to be cool and edgy which would in turn make me cool and edgy (I of the clarinet playing and non-drinking flavor of High School student). I could insert a very long diatribe as to the flaws in this logic but at 17 you are in your own little universe and whatever you say goes. You’re practically invincible of course and when you’re 17 and have just moved to a major city from East Bumblefuck, New York, well the world is your oyster. So you deface your body with a large needle. Again, count the flaws in this logic.

Full of adrenaline, I went to get my tongue pierced and was turned away not twenty minutes later due to a very large vein coursing it’s way smack in the middle of my tongue. I think this is why my tongue can reach the bottom of my chin, all that extra blood pumping through it. It’s also why I can tie a cherry stem quite expertly and I’m also a most excellent make-out partner. If said vein were to be nicked I could bleed to death and die and the Washington Post B section would read “17 year old girl with false ID bleeds to death after tongue piercing. Friends say she was a nice girl but such a dipshit”.

I was left dejected but I did what I do best, which is to get what I want, right when I want it. And if I can’t get exactly what I wanted in the first place, I go after the next best thing or I just obsess about it, whine, yell and scream and get it anyway. And my god, I sound like the most charming person on the planet. In lieu of the tongue piercing I decided on a tattoo. Yes! A tattoo! A tattoo would solve all of my problems. And only at 24 can you laugh hysterically at your 17 year old self at 6:30 AM because your 17 year old self was obviously missing a large part of her brain. The part of the brain that does cognitive thinking. The important part.

I walked my ass into that tattoo parlor – Jinx Proof on M Street in Georgetown, they also did my rook and tragus piercing – took out my fake ID, went to the wall of tattoos to pick out exactly what I wanted. The perfect piece that would adorn my body for all eternity. Something that would represent me for the rest of my natural life, forever and ever, amen. And I picked out a motherfucking butterfly. A Butterfly (it’s on my right ankle). An insect with wings that I have zero connection to except that I think they’re pretty. Not even pretty really, but mostly just nice to look at in passing if I happen to stop swearing and drinking and raising hell to notice that there butterfly right by my head.

Here’s a lesson; If telling your parents that you’ve defaced your body with a drawing of a bug on your ankle, start off by telling them that it’s not really that bad. Get them all worked up and worried that you’re dying or pregnant (first words out of my mother’s mouth “ARE YOU PREGNANT!?!?”) and then say, no, I got a tattoo. And then they’ll be too busy thanking God that they won’t be grandparents and/or planning your funeral anytime soon and hugging you because your stupidity will have cost them a grand total of ZERO dollars.

This all occurred seven years ago. I am far cooler and smarter now – or at least I pretend I am – and the minor pain from getting the first tattoo has long passed. I never thought I’d be one of those people who were decidedly unafraid of having needles stuck every which way. Which explains why I get a random ear piercing because I’m bored. Now with some modicum of an identity and something resembling a brain, I am a little bit more prepared and nervous-excited to get my second tattoo. I didn’t think I would get another one but over the last few weeks I’ve had the itch. And then I knew exactly what I wanted and where. It’s fun but more importantly has meaning and reminds me of where I was many years ago and thankful of where I am now. When it arrives you all will be the first to know and all I’m going to say is, no, it isn’t a damn ladybug.

2 Legit

June 29, 2006 | Filed under: Once Upon A Time..

“What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.” ~Cynthia Ozick

It was Mother’s Day and in honor of my mother, my father took Peg, G and I to a hotel restaurant downtown for dinner. Despite my parents divorce years prior, I was never one of those children who wished for my parents to reconcile and live among unicorns and rainbows, so I took it for what it was and enjoyed the meal and the ‘surprise’ that both of my parents had planned for after dinner.

We were enjoying our meals, when my father tapped me on the shoulder and told me to look over there. I looked up and saw nothing. He pressed on and told me to keep looking. He pointed, I looked around and went back to my chicken fingers.

Exasperated, he grabbed my hand and made me move away from the honey mustard and brought me over to the other side of where we were seated. I noticed nothing – NOTHING – out of the ordinary and removed myself from his grip and went back to salivating over my food.

To this day, I don’t know how I missed ‘it’. The ‘It’, the man that he was trying to show me. Because then the man walked up to our table…completely nonchalantly, as if he and my father were BFFE. How do you miss a man with that unmistakable hair? Shaved on the sides into multiple lines and a little bit left on the top. And those pants?? I should’ve seen the pants from a mile away. They were HIS trademark pants. Gold Hammer pants. My father had been trying to get me to see MC Hammer, but I was too busy being transfixed by the golden fingers and French fries.

He and my father chatted for a bit, while I sat in utter silence, because I ran away from MC Hammer; I ran away like he was going to kidnap me and take me to the great Hammer Mansion where I could have all the chicken and honey mustard my little heart desired. Afterwards we left dinner for our surprise – Boys II Men of course. And on the way there my dear, wonderful father proceeded to stop every other person on the street to inform them that his daughter had just run away from MC Hammer. This is something that I have yet to live down, along with that time that I peed all over our rental car in Orlando.

A few months later, which I would presume to be the end of my Hammer hey day, G and I decided to put on a little show for all of our friends. We donned our very own Hammer Pants – G’s were denim and mine were some strange cotton type thing with neon flowers – and did my personally choreographed moves to 2 Legit.

And Lord, I thought I was hot. HOT: Because there is nothing hotter than a boobless eight year old rolling her non-existent hips and singing ‘Can’t Touch This’.

Jumping

June 16, 2006 | Filed under: Oh The Stupidity You'll See, Once Upon A Time..

“You can be sincere and still be stupid.” ~Charles F. Kettering

Peg had bought me brown Coach boots, and since she rarely buys me anything without putting up a fight, I took it as a sweet gesture: A mother’s love for her daughter despite her addiction to expensive leather. They resembled Tims on crack with the infamous logo all over them. I swear that they are the ugliest things known to man, but I wore them because they were from Coach.

I decided to wear the boots one night while babysitting. Three kids, 4 year old twin girls and a 2 year old boy.

Right before bedtime, the kids were watching television and so I went upstairs to use the little girl’s room. I went into the bathroom and noticed that the door knob had been broken, which the parents had informed me of prior to leaving (Actually, the crazy mother mentioned it in an accusatory tone to the complacent father who scoffed and rolled his eyes. Love is such a beautiful thing.) So, instead of completely closing the door, I left it slightly ajar and went about my business.

While mid-stream, the little boy – Colin - came upstairs sniffling and crying while looking for me and I told him to wait two seconds until I was finished. And what pray tell do you think she-boy did when discovering his babysitter in the potty? He shut the door, with the broken knob, that promptly fell off into my hand.

My heart stopped. It seriously stopped fucking beating and once it started up again, I could hear it in my ears. I was locked in a bathroom, while three children, under the age of five were roaming about the house.

Shit out of luck.

What does a 17 year old do when locked in a stranger’s bathroom? Do you kick down the door? Well, no, because these are strangers, who would probably like to come home to a bathroom door still attached in its rightful place. What did I do? I sat on the toilet with my head in my hands and felt the tears well up. I then stood up and tried to yell at the little boy to open the door: “Colin” bang, bang “See that handle? Turn it.”

Colin cries.

Little girls downstairs; Mesmerized by Barbie DVD.

Heather; prays for a bottle of Shiraz

I turned around and noticed the window and a synapse snapped, for that is the only thing that could have happened to result in a turn of events: Synapse or perhaps a lack of oxygen due to claustrophobia. At any rate, I turned and peered out the window. Noticing a large tree immediately below, but other than that a short drop, which could be well executed by propelling myself over the tree, because no parent wants to come home and find their babysitter in a tree.

After clearing all of the windowsill knick knacks from their dusty homes, I opened the window and said a quick prayer and climbed out. First one leg, then the other until I was holding on the ledge of the window, using every bit of upper body strength to keep myself holding on. I turned my head once more to look out past the tree and quite literally flung myself past the tree and landed with a thud on my feet, arms outstretched, tibia and fibula still intact. I swear on my life that those boots saved my precious size 11 feet.

When I jumped I ran over to where the girls were sitting and started banging on the glass door, but to no avail. I found out later that it was so dark out, that one couldn’t see anything outside from inside. I went over to the neighbor’s house and received the spare key and a look of pity. And when the parents arrived home two hours later, I was sitting in the living room reading up on homeopathic remedies (their book, not mine) and explained the situation that their crappy door knob fixing skills had produced. They laughed and apologized and gave me $5 extra dollars.

$5 dollars, for jumping out the window, though it was of my own volition, it was because of their doorknob.

I was reminded of this situation awhile back during a trip to CVS, when, while with a friend of mine, I saw the mother roaming around the beauty aisle. I was drunk, she said hello and I gave her the magic finger and gave her five dollars back. Though neither situation was none to brilliant, I still found it hilarious all the same.