"Amy," my mother is whispering. "Amy!"
I'm slapping my bare feet against the linoleum floor, which is covered with off-white plaster dust. It doesn't hurt, and the empty, echo-y noise it's making sounds good to me in the office, which is filled with the soft droning of the secretary, the louder singing of the doctor and a substantial grinding sound. It's a crazy noise, and I like to fit in.
"Amy, look."
I slam down my feet one more time for effect and finally look up at my mother, expecting her to tell me to quit it, but she just nods her head towards the wall of the room and smiles incredulously at me. I turn my gaze to the series of pine frames on the wall and feel my forehead wrinkle with confusion.
"Jesus, what is wrong with these people?" in an equally urgent whisper. After more careful consideration of the photographs, which at first looked like standard doctor's office fare, their oddity is evident. The innocent lamb's limbs are twisted and its hooves are excessively and evilly pointed. Lying in the fetal position on what looks like Santa's oversized throne (only made of driftwood), the lamb is the perfect sacrifice for a vengeful orthopedic god. Which is actually fine, because we're at the orthotist's office.
"Where I'm from, we have an expression," the orthotist has re-entered the room, brandishing my old pair of orthotics and oblivious to the streak of white plaster caked onto his cheek. "Never," he lilts in a South African accent. "Never send a boy to do a man's job."
My mother and I look at each other, sharing an identical eyebrow raise and and a single thought: what the hell is he talking about?
"So, you're saying...?"
"These are shit, but I'll do what I can to make 'em better."
He leaves the room again and a second later his distracted singing and the grinding start up again as he resumes work.
"And that one is... what? A caribou?" I point to another photograph of an inelegant, antlered animal seemingly mid-pirouette.
"A moose maybe," my mother counters. "En pointe."
Half an hour later we're walking back to the car, my feet feeling better in shoes than they've felt in a year. It's sunny, and as I swing into the car, my mother cranks up the air conditioning.
"Did that seem a little... well..." She starts backing up and maneuvers toward the highway, leaving her sentence unfinished like a mad lib. ______ Predicate adjective.
"Normal?"
I seem to go to an awful lot of doctor's appointments. Usually it's nothing too terrible, and it's more the quantity of these visits that is staggering. What's also staggering is the consistent quirkiness of the doctors' (and nurses' and other non-M.D. specialists') personalities.
"Um, thank you," I'm telling the apprentice at the other orthotist's office (the one who made the 'shit' pair) as she repeatedly asks Jesus to bless my mother and me. Fingering the large wooden cross around her neck and gazing rapturously at my feet, everyone in that office seems scarily focused. Having listened to three hours about the inherent miracle and beauty of the foot, the effect is not unlike saying a single word over and over again until the syllables seem abstract and non-descriptive. Foot, foot, foot, foot, foot.
"Your feet are very curvy," my physical therapist is rubbing my right foot and making intense eye contact with me. He's filling in for my regular therapist and making me nervous. His resemblance to a guy I used to date is staggering, and looking at him is like looking at V projected 20 years into the future. Copious chest hair blossoming into view, aided by a casually unbuttoned Polo; a gold chain nestles itchily. Striking Italian features and suggestive pink lips smile at me.
"Huh?"
"Deeply arched."
It's not just my feet.
I had the flu all of last week, and in between blowing my nose, went to the doctor a couple of times. My feet are swinging above the floor as I perch on the exam table. My head feels disconnected from the rest of my body, contentedly hovering as I look around the small room. An oversized photograph of two little brunette girls. A bridal portrait, obviously from the 1980's. A three-feet tall photograph of midgets. What? The midgets are wearing carnival-like attire, the man in a royal blue tuxedo with matching top hat and the woman in a sparkly dress previously reserved for ice skaters. A smiling toddler, grazing their chins, stands smugly in the frame. I glare at him, hating him for having the life-size barbies I always wanted but never got.
A petite, intensely cheerful doctor walks into the room. In a high voice, he asks me about my symptoms and then promptly offers to prescribe hydrocodone - a narcotic pain reliever - for my cough. I've never heard of using narcotics as cough suppressants, and remembering the hallucinations and drooling that ensued the last time I took this medication (after my foot surgery), I decline, and he writes me a prescription for something non-addictive.
Later, when I'm filling the prescription at CVS, I tell the pharmacist about how the anti-viral I'd previously been prescribed to shorten the duration of the flu made me throw up.
"Oh yah," he reflects in a slight Midwestern accent. "That'll happen sometimes. Actually, every medication has the possible side effects of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. That helped me a lot at pharm school. On exams, the question would be 'list three side effects of this medication,' and I'd always just write nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Heh."
Is everyone in the medical community born like this? Outrageously, shamelessly eccentric? More likely it's something that develops; the personality that emerges after years of having people defer to your professional opinion.
I'm out at a South Beach club with K, who's just starting medical school. I'm sucking on a vodka cranberry, passively interacting with a group of her friends, who are all also future doctors.
"And so they tell us not to name the corpses," an attractive, dark-haired student is telling what he obviously thinks is his party story, "but I mean come on! We dissect the fucking things for an entire semester. 'Bob' is like my buddy. He's the man!" (Whatever, maybe he was the man.)
So this is how it starts!
The dermatologist who looked at my henna tattoo and smilingly told me that tattoos, to him, meant promiscuity. The orthopedist who slapped my thigh and said 'that sucks!' about my chronic pain. The gynecologist who jokingly squirted KY jelly onto my big toe. The emergency room nurse who didn't bother to tell me that my suspected asthma attack was just a panic attack, and if I calmed down, I'd be fine. Mr. OneNightStand, who asked me, during post-coital pillow talk, if I was ovulating.
And this is where it stops!
"God! Enough! Normal people do not want to hear about the damn corpses over cocktails." The storyteller eyes me with annoyance; I'm ruining all the fun. He shrugs and the conversation shifts.
I saw that look he gave me though. The look that, with a few years of practice, may disdainfully undercut my self-worth, punishing me for not having an M.D., and send me running into the arms of my shrink. Another doctor.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Live Nude Bathers
"Whatever, I just don't get why you wouldn't want to be naked with me in public. I mean, I thought you were straight... it's okay if you're not..."
It's about a year ago during Spring Break and I'm annoyed, lying on the sand at South Beach with an ex and thinking about how much I don't want to be there. It's the kind of day that tourists think they love but true Floridians know is just shy of torture. Cloudless and blazing hot, I'm sweating five steps out of my car's air conditioning, and by the time I get to the shore and spread out my towel, going into the water seems pointless because my skin couldn't possibly be wetter than it already is.
"Amy, how does not wanting to go to the nude beach make me gay? Ninety percent of the people who go there are old gay men."
He's got a point.
"That's fine," in a tone that suggests it clearly is not. "You just don't want to go with a girl. I'll make K go with me. South Beach is topless, right?"
Taking the Brazilian women next to me wearing only thong bathing suit bottoms as an answer, I speedily untie my bikini top and lie back down on my towel, haughtily agreeing with myself that I've just proved an important point.
Declining his offer to help me put on more sunscreen, he shrugs, comments that he's "always wanted to be that guy at the beach with 'topless girl' " and decides to go skim boarding. I snicker openly when he promptly falls on his ass.
I dig into the gritty sand with my toes and force myself not to cross my arms over my chest. I didn't really want to go to the nude beach, I was just in a bad mood and wanted to argue. Now though, it feels like a challenge. And you can't say no to a dare.
But Spring Break is almost over, and K flatly refuses to accompany me. I'm not getting naked alone, so the idea is shelved for a while.
I can't exactly remember how it came up again, but given that ultimately it was two of my sorority sisters who decided they wanted to go to a nude beach with me, it seems likely that it involved a drinking game.
"Never have I ever..." I can hear my friend KT semi-slurring, pausing to think of something she hasn't yet done and take a sip of her rum and coke. "Never have I ever been to a nude beach."
A pause. No one is drinking, claiming to have done it.
"Duuuude, I would so be all over that shit," my friend, nicknamed Fish, puts in. "It'd be... nice." Smirking, clearly envisioning something akin to a porno set.
"Yeah, what's the word?" I tease, eyeing her.
"Classy," we finish together. (It's kind of our catch phrase. Case in point: we were recently at a Burberry outlet, and spying a novacheck thong bikini, Fish pointed out to me that although owning a Burberry bikini would be classy, everyone seeing her ass would cancel that out. So you're saying your ass has no class? I ask. "Exactly.")
"No, we seriously should go," KT says. "It would be sweet."
I don't want to be outdone.
"We should so do it over Spring Break. Haulover Beach is pretty near my house."
It's fine as a drunken idea, or something to joke about, but during Spring Break this past week, as Fish and I tentatively walk onto the sand and are greeted by the sight of a 70-year-old and 250-pound man disrobing, it dawns on me that although I expected this in theory, I never quite realized what it would mean. Until now.
"You have to stop laughing," I elbow Fish, and her giggling segues into coughing. She finally takes a deep breath and we walk south on the sand to find a less crowded spot.
Carefully spreading out my towel, I keep my eyes down as I take off my black beach dress and lie on my stomach, still wearing my bright yellow bikini. Reaching around to undo my top, I feel strangely nonchalant. When I slide off my bikini bottom, I feel even less conspicuous and finally look up.
The first thing I see is Fish, totally naked and reading my little sister's copy of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." I find the juxtaposition between completely unsexy Harry Potter and the dozens of naked people around hysterical. Fish rolls her eyes at me and as I look around I consider that actually, most of these people aren't so sexy either.
The vast majority are men in their 60's and older. Their hairy beer guts dwarf defeated-looking penises.
I'm just for decoration now, the freckly penis perched atop what can only be described as thunder thighs laments.
Nearby, a man with a large trident tattoo on his back arranges his beach chair and sits down facing my direction, revealing a huge metal genital piercing. It's at least ten times as thick as a belly button piercing and I wonder how it would be possible for him to have sex with anyone. There's no way it wouldn't get ripped out. I cringe as he blithely starts talking to his friend, who has what looks like a thick silver bracelet around the base of his penis, about fetish parties.
"Yeah, I was out with my video camera looking for some action, but there wasn't that much going on. It's 'cause the party was in Boca, which is, you know, just so Boca. Everyone's all, 'I don't want my kids exposed to that shit!' Fuckers."
Fish nudges me and I look to see a wiry bald man slathering sunscreen on himself while doing what looks like a series of yoga poses.
"Creepy; people are not supposed to be that flexible," I whisper.
"No, not him. Him."
To my left is a tall black man wearing nothing but an ipod, jogging determinedly down the beach. Slapping audibly between his legs is the biggest penis I have ever seen. It has to be at least eight inches, flaccid.
"It's just like, too much," Fish urgently intones. "I'd be like, what am I supposed to do with that shit?"
We've been out for around half an hour, so I decide it's time to flip over. Ha ha, ha ha, I can see you naked, I'm thinking. Two fully clothed guys in their early 20's walk by, and I distinctly hear the word 'titty.' Only then does it occur to me: oh my god, all of these people can see me naked. Their membership in an, if not exclusive, than at least previously consciously selected, group of people startles me. I've never felt insecure about my body in a sexual situation. I figure, if I'm naked in front of a guy, he was obviously attracted to me, so I have nothing to worry about. These people, though, didn't buy me drinks or flatter and cajole; they just happen to be walking by.
After several moments of vowing to live at the gym, I relax and acknowledge that actually, Fish and I are some of the most attractive people there. But I also have to acknowledge that no one really cares. Other than a few stares and two guys asking us for the time, people are keeping to themselves. It's a gorgeous day and I'm on Spring Break: what could be better? I feel more comfortable than I do at other beaches, where girls in designer bikinis loudly gossip while preening for the benefit of preppy guys in board shorts and boring tribal armband tattoos. There's a sort of hush at Haulover Beach that's intoxicatingly relaxing.
The cliche 'it's like seeing him naked,' comes to mind, but it seems untrue. The older couple walking in the surf holding hands; the 30-ish woman sitting in a lawn chair reading a Danielle Steele novel; the deeply tanned surfer hosing himself off and grinning. I've seen all of these people naked, but what do I really know about them?
Several hours later, Fish and I trek back to my car.
"I'm wearing way too much clothing right now," she shakes her head.
"For real." I climb into my car and turn on the air conditioning. "So, what do you wanna do now?"
"Wanna hit the mall? They have some really cute dresses at Banana."
"Totally."
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Work in Progress
"As long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential." - Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever
Ugh.
I know I'm being dramatic, and usually I manage to keep it to myself or at least avoid blogging about it. Sarah Dessen is one of my favorite authors, and in that quote she's talking about the perfect love affair; one that exists only in theory. You think you like the guy, you think he might like you, and it's great to think about what might happen. It's easy to work out all of the details in your head and get to moments like your first kiss, or saying 'I love you' in increasingly perfect and impossible ways. Then you might have your first kiss, never hear from him again and realize you were better off just thinking about it.
And maybe if you hadn't told him to go fuck himself when you saw him at a party a couple of months later, you could have been great friends. Personally though, I'm not big on second chances.
"Ugggh... I can't stand him!" my friend is ranting to me on the phone on a Saturday afternoon, the day after we've gone out with some friends. "It's just so annoying how he talks so loudly and gets all up in your face. I just want to scream at him to SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
I wince at her yelling; my cell phone is cradled between my ear and my shoulder and I'm casually re-painting my nails bright Barbie pink with the Chanel nail polish I expensively impulse-bought around New Year's. (I recently found that I could stop biting my nails if I instead painted them and then methodically chipped it all off. It's called replacement, I think?) I'm passively agreeing with her, but then I surprise both of us as I recap my nail polish and sigh.
"I don't really mind him. Actually, I think he's kind of nice."
My friend says nothing, and I feel a creeping puzzlement coming from the receiver. I have to fill the space.
"I mean, I can totally see why you hate him. I just think... you know... that's the way he is, and if you can get past the volume and the constant New York references, he's really funny. He's cute."
A pause.
"I don't hate him, Amy. He... gets on my nerves. I just thought that you..."
"Yeah, I know what you mean. I just..."
"It's okay."
"All right."
"Well, I guess I'll talk to you later."
"Okay, bye."
She's one of my best friends, and it's easy for me to see why she's confused. Usually, if she - or any of my other friends or relatives - hates someone, it's a safe bet that I hate them even more. It's not that I set out to dislike people, it's just that I'm not very forgiving. While my sister L might have, at one point, hated her ex-boyfriend from sophomore year, I still hate him. When my friend K hesitantly told me that she was hanging out with a guy who was once a complete asshole to her, I was not so much appalled as shocked.
"But he apologized," K, somewhat defensively, explained to me, dragging out her words, intoning slowly.
"Good for him! You should have thanked him for apologizing and then politely told him to fuck off. Why should he get to be friends with you after the way he acted?"
We weren't on the same page though. (We rarely are, and I think it's why we get along so well: no conflicting interests.)
"But what does that do for me? I'd much rather have him as a friend than not have him in my life at all."
It's a philosophy that makes me uneasy. If someone is really your friend, shouldn't their behavior be, if not impeccable, then always defensible? It's a nice idea, one that I cling to, but all I have to do is look at my own behavior to know that it isn't true. Should I really have given up that secret in order to impress someone? Was it worth it to make that funny but too cutting remark?
The other night my thoughts drifted to an old friend and how we used to drive around Boca, waiting for something exciting to happen. It never did, but we always had a great time complaining about it and staying up all night talking. She was such a fun person, and gave the best pep talks. If I was having a rough day, I could call her, and without much prompting, she would dish out a 20-minute monologue about what a great person I was. Thinking about it, I had a moment of real loneliness for her that didn't wash away entirely when I remembered our bitter falling out and my cutting her off.
When my most recent ex and I broke up, we didn't see each other for almost five months, and communicated sparsely during that time. It was long enough so that when I did finally run into him, my freshest memories were only positive ones, culled from near the beginning of our relationship. After making very brief small talk, I went back into my house and made myself mentally list all of the reasons why we broke up. I relived each late night argument, a midday shouting match and the despondent phone call that finally pulled the trigger. I felt much worse, but had the gradual realization that I actually didn't hate him.
What the hell?
In the past, my brutal decisiveness and ruthless dismissal of friends was a point of pride. I'm the girl who periodically scrolls through her cell phone contacts and deletes people, enjoying the satisfaction of knowing that I don't have to settle for imperfect friends. Now, it feels more like hypocrisy. So what if K missed my party? I haven't bought her a birthday gift in two years. It feels good not to hate my ex. It's much less time consuming to occasionally remember the good things.
The added gray scale in my black and white thinking initially convinced me that my standards had fallen incredibly low and that I was desperate for friends. It's hard to argue, though, that staying home and feeding my anger is a better way to spend the evening than going out to dinner with a big group of people.
Some relationships can't be repaired, but I'm belatedly realizing that most can be.
Ugh.
I know I'm being dramatic, and usually I manage to keep it to myself or at least avoid blogging about it. Sarah Dessen is one of my favorite authors, and in that quote she's talking about the perfect love affair; one that exists only in theory. You think you like the guy, you think he might like you, and it's great to think about what might happen. It's easy to work out all of the details in your head and get to moments like your first kiss, or saying 'I love you' in increasingly perfect and impossible ways. Then you might have your first kiss, never hear from him again and realize you were better off just thinking about it.
And maybe if you hadn't told him to go fuck himself when you saw him at a party a couple of months later, you could have been great friends. Personally though, I'm not big on second chances.
* * *
"Ugggh... I can't stand him!" my friend is ranting to me on the phone on a Saturday afternoon, the day after we've gone out with some friends. "It's just so annoying how he talks so loudly and gets all up in your face. I just want to scream at him to SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
I wince at her yelling; my cell phone is cradled between my ear and my shoulder and I'm casually re-painting my nails bright Barbie pink with the Chanel nail polish I expensively impulse-bought around New Year's. (I recently found that I could stop biting my nails if I instead painted them and then methodically chipped it all off. It's called replacement, I think?) I'm passively agreeing with her, but then I surprise both of us as I recap my nail polish and sigh.
"I don't really mind him. Actually, I think he's kind of nice."
My friend says nothing, and I feel a creeping puzzlement coming from the receiver. I have to fill the space.
"I mean, I can totally see why you hate him. I just think... you know... that's the way he is, and if you can get past the volume and the constant New York references, he's really funny. He's cute."
A pause.
"I don't hate him, Amy. He... gets on my nerves. I just thought that you..."
"Yeah, I know what you mean. I just..."
"It's okay."
"All right."
"Well, I guess I'll talk to you later."
"Okay, bye."
She's one of my best friends, and it's easy for me to see why she's confused. Usually, if she - or any of my other friends or relatives - hates someone, it's a safe bet that I hate them even more. It's not that I set out to dislike people, it's just that I'm not very forgiving. While my sister L might have, at one point, hated her ex-boyfriend from sophomore year, I still hate him. When my friend K hesitantly told me that she was hanging out with a guy who was once a complete asshole to her, I was not so much appalled as shocked.
"But he apologized," K, somewhat defensively, explained to me, dragging out her words, intoning slowly.
"Good for him! You should have thanked him for apologizing and then politely told him to fuck off. Why should he get to be friends with you after the way he acted?"
We weren't on the same page though. (We rarely are, and I think it's why we get along so well: no conflicting interests.)
"But what does that do for me? I'd much rather have him as a friend than not have him in my life at all."
It's a philosophy that makes me uneasy. If someone is really your friend, shouldn't their behavior be, if not impeccable, then always defensible? It's a nice idea, one that I cling to, but all I have to do is look at my own behavior to know that it isn't true. Should I really have given up that secret in order to impress someone? Was it worth it to make that funny but too cutting remark?
The other night my thoughts drifted to an old friend and how we used to drive around Boca, waiting for something exciting to happen. It never did, but we always had a great time complaining about it and staying up all night talking. She was such a fun person, and gave the best pep talks. If I was having a rough day, I could call her, and without much prompting, she would dish out a 20-minute monologue about what a great person I was. Thinking about it, I had a moment of real loneliness for her that didn't wash away entirely when I remembered our bitter falling out and my cutting her off.
When my most recent ex and I broke up, we didn't see each other for almost five months, and communicated sparsely during that time. It was long enough so that when I did finally run into him, my freshest memories were only positive ones, culled from near the beginning of our relationship. After making very brief small talk, I went back into my house and made myself mentally list all of the reasons why we broke up. I relived each late night argument, a midday shouting match and the despondent phone call that finally pulled the trigger. I felt much worse, but had the gradual realization that I actually didn't hate him.
What the hell?
In the past, my brutal decisiveness and ruthless dismissal of friends was a point of pride. I'm the girl who periodically scrolls through her cell phone contacts and deletes people, enjoying the satisfaction of knowing that I don't have to settle for imperfect friends. Now, it feels more like hypocrisy. So what if K missed my party? I haven't bought her a birthday gift in two years. It feels good not to hate my ex. It's much less time consuming to occasionally remember the good things.
The added gray scale in my black and white thinking initially convinced me that my standards had fallen incredibly low and that I was desperate for friends. It's hard to argue, though, that staying home and feeding my anger is a better way to spend the evening than going out to dinner with a big group of people.
Some relationships can't be repaired, but I'm belatedly realizing that most can be.
* * *
"But if something was really important, fate made sure it somehow came back to you and gave you another chance... Events conspired to bring you back to where you'd been. It was what you did then that made all the difference: it was all about potential." - Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Not in This Lifetime
The fact that I read too many trashy novels, mostly targeted at the 13-to-17-year-old age group, has made me a little overly angsty. Sometimes I record events as they're happening to me in cleverly compact catch phrases, mentally adding punctuation and quotation marks. Then I begin to imagine the rest of the story, just to make things fit a little better. If I actually start out the day by inadvertently straightening my bangs in such a way that they stick out at a 90 degree angle from my forehead, I mentally jump in the shower and dry my hair again, perfectly this time, which makes me late for class. I can't find a parking spot in my usual place and have to park in the commuter lot, which is halfway across campus from my class. As I'm hurrying, I trip and get mud all over myself (it's been raining, although not on me), but it looks cute on me, and as I'm getting back up onto my feet, a tall shadow blocks the scorching sun and a gorgeous guy with long eyelashes and a penchant for Polo's reaches down to help me.
In reality I flipped out at the idea of being less than 10 minutes early, grabbed a headband and forgot my umbrella.
It's not really the idea of the gorgeous guy that does it for me in that scenario. What's more appealing is imagining that I'm a different kind of girl; one who is relaxed and confident and has bouncy, shiny hair. Other girls see me and think ooh, look at her! I have to know where she bought that cute top. But when they ask me, I can't remember. It's not the shirt they want, it's my effortless style. But that's not on sale yet at the Gap, so there can only be one of me. Suckers.
Another daydream takes over as I'm walking from one class to another. The bell tower on campus is ringing out a melody I vaguely recognize and label as classical. The temperature is biting (for someone born in Miami), and as I breathe in the cold air burns me, but in a good way. I'm wearing a wool sweater, and the other native Floridians around me are wearing boots and heavy jackets. I'm walking through a beautiful part of campus, filled with red brick buildings and thick trees, and it's easy for the context of the situation to wash out of my mind. I'm walking through Boston. No, somewhere more collegial. Pennsylvania? I have only postcard notions of what these places are really like, but that seems like enough. I'm on a northern college campus, somewhere busy, and I'm speed walking to meet a professor in his office, who wants my input on an important medical -- no, psychological -- study he is conducting. Sure, maybe I am only 21-years-old, but it's obvious to everyone that I have a brilliant mind and a keen sense of observation, not to mention a killer body and a perfected aura of aloofness. I wish I had time to listen to the a Capella group that's taken up on the quad, but as anyone can see, I'm running a bit late.
Why do I constantly fantasize about being late? Is it because I want someone to cry out, flooded with relief as I try to enter unobtrusively through the back door, Oh thank god you're here!
Fifteen minutes early for my next class, I sit on a bench, rub my right foot and inevitably begin to fantasize about the obvious: what if I weren't disabled?
You probably wouldn't notice my slight limp and sturdy footwear, much less the tension held in the stiff second joint of my right middle finger, or in my slightly raised eyebrows. But often, faking small talk with a friend, the intermittent searing pain in my foot is the only thing about which I can think.
Sometimes the pain takes my thoughts in a more vindictive direction, and I send bitter mental messages to passing girls. Your boots look like you borrowed them from your prostitute mother... I didn't know bondage was in this season. Ugh. Why would you choose to wear sneakers? Yours look more orthopedic than mine. Ooh, those shoes are cute. Too bad they still don't detract from your face! I can't sustain it though, and I begin to imagine what I would be like had my fall merely broken a bone rather than shattering my life.
Shoe shopping would be an indulgence rather than an exercise in damage control. I wouldn't see older women and empathize with their careful steps. I'm unburdened by the periodic depression that accompanies the realization that I have no control over my own body. I might be casually doing anything -- planning a night out with friends without worrying about how far away the parking is or letting my sister guilt me into playing racquetball with her. All of the things that were once merely details have worked themselves into unattainable fantasies. Like calorie-free ice cream or my being a famous actress: it's just not going to happen. And sure maybe there is some disappointment, but what's the big fuss? Right?
It's maybe 10 years in the future and I'm looking at old pictures with my mother. There's one of me in my sophomore year at my sorority's formal, wearing a baby pink dress and a lime green knee-high cast.
"Oh Amy, remember when you broke your foot? That cast was so cute."
"Haha, I know! Everything was pink and green for a month."
Feeling uneasy about my self-involvement, I sometimes force my thoughts in the opposite direction. Picturing myself in a wheelchair, I imagine trying to afford a New York City apartment in a building that has an elevator and the way clients would try to avoid staring at me when I greet them at the glamorous public relations firm that has hired me in an effort to appear non-discriminatory.
Then I might see a person who really is in a wheelchair and I realize that I have no concept of what their life is like.
The thing about fantasies is that they don't have to intersect with reality. Isn't escape the point? Who wants to imagine something that's worse? If I wanted to appreciate what I have, I'd maybe go to temple or do community service.
In my mind, I am doing these things. But the inescapable reality is that I'm destined to be myself.
In reality I flipped out at the idea of being less than 10 minutes early, grabbed a headband and forgot my umbrella.
It's not really the idea of the gorgeous guy that does it for me in that scenario. What's more appealing is imagining that I'm a different kind of girl; one who is relaxed and confident and has bouncy, shiny hair. Other girls see me and think ooh, look at her! I have to know where she bought that cute top. But when they ask me, I can't remember. It's not the shirt they want, it's my effortless style. But that's not on sale yet at the Gap, so there can only be one of me. Suckers.
Another daydream takes over as I'm walking from one class to another. The bell tower on campus is ringing out a melody I vaguely recognize and label as classical. The temperature is biting (for someone born in Miami), and as I breathe in the cold air burns me, but in a good way. I'm wearing a wool sweater, and the other native Floridians around me are wearing boots and heavy jackets. I'm walking through a beautiful part of campus, filled with red brick buildings and thick trees, and it's easy for the context of the situation to wash out of my mind. I'm walking through Boston. No, somewhere more collegial. Pennsylvania? I have only postcard notions of what these places are really like, but that seems like enough. I'm on a northern college campus, somewhere busy, and I'm speed walking to meet a professor in his office, who wants my input on an important medical -- no, psychological -- study he is conducting. Sure, maybe I am only 21-years-old, but it's obvious to everyone that I have a brilliant mind and a keen sense of observation, not to mention a killer body and a perfected aura of aloofness. I wish I had time to listen to the a Capella group that's taken up on the quad, but as anyone can see, I'm running a bit late.
Why do I constantly fantasize about being late? Is it because I want someone to cry out, flooded with relief as I try to enter unobtrusively through the back door, Oh thank god you're here!
Fifteen minutes early for my next class, I sit on a bench, rub my right foot and inevitably begin to fantasize about the obvious: what if I weren't disabled?
You probably wouldn't notice my slight limp and sturdy footwear, much less the tension held in the stiff second joint of my right middle finger, or in my slightly raised eyebrows. But often, faking small talk with a friend, the intermittent searing pain in my foot is the only thing about which I can think.
Sometimes the pain takes my thoughts in a more vindictive direction, and I send bitter mental messages to passing girls. Your boots look like you borrowed them from your prostitute mother... I didn't know bondage was in this season. Ugh. Why would you choose to wear sneakers? Yours look more orthopedic than mine. Ooh, those shoes are cute. Too bad they still don't detract from your face! I can't sustain it though, and I begin to imagine what I would be like had my fall merely broken a bone rather than shattering my life.
Shoe shopping would be an indulgence rather than an exercise in damage control. I wouldn't see older women and empathize with their careful steps. I'm unburdened by the periodic depression that accompanies the realization that I have no control over my own body. I might be casually doing anything -- planning a night out with friends without worrying about how far away the parking is or letting my sister guilt me into playing racquetball with her. All of the things that were once merely details have worked themselves into unattainable fantasies. Like calorie-free ice cream or my being a famous actress: it's just not going to happen. And sure maybe there is some disappointment, but what's the big fuss? Right?
It's maybe 10 years in the future and I'm looking at old pictures with my mother. There's one of me in my sophomore year at my sorority's formal, wearing a baby pink dress and a lime green knee-high cast.
"Oh Amy, remember when you broke your foot? That cast was so cute."
"Haha, I know! Everything was pink and green for a month."
Feeling uneasy about my self-involvement, I sometimes force my thoughts in the opposite direction. Picturing myself in a wheelchair, I imagine trying to afford a New York City apartment in a building that has an elevator and the way clients would try to avoid staring at me when I greet them at the glamorous public relations firm that has hired me in an effort to appear non-discriminatory.
Then I might see a person who really is in a wheelchair and I realize that I have no concept of what their life is like.
The thing about fantasies is that they don't have to intersect with reality. Isn't escape the point? Who wants to imagine something that's worse? If I wanted to appreciate what I have, I'd maybe go to temple or do community service.
In my mind, I am doing these things. But the inescapable reality is that I'm destined to be myself.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Photoshop
I absolutely despise this video, and I can't believe I had to watch it in one of my classes... even if we are learning Photoshop:
This one is much, much better:
This one is much, much better:
Monday, February 5, 2007
Mr. One Night Standing-Room-Only: Part 2
(part one is here)
Twenty minutes after tipping the shady valet, we roll up to Pleasure Emporium and K directs me to a vacant parking lot right next to the entrance.
I hesitate.
"I don't think we should park here."
"What?"
"I just don't think we should park here."
"Amy, there are tons of spaces here. There's no one around."
"Yeah, and why not?"
"I don't know. Maybe because it's 3 a.m. and we're at a porn store."
"Are you kidding? These are peak hours." K looks at me suspiciously, but I plough on. "There has to be another reason. I don't wanna get towed."
"Don't be so paranoid. There's no towing sign. You'd rather park down the dark alleyway?" (It's exactly like the one my mother always warned me about.) "It will be fine."
Inside is a little different than I expected. The few times I'd been to similar places in Gainesville, it was always accompanied by two or three giggling girls, trying to find the perfect gag gift for a prudish friend. Or once, accompanied by drunk frat boys, who high-fived each other by the lesbian porn while a friend and I decided to wait outside before being piled into someone's truck and mercifully driven home.
The interior of Pleasure Emporium in Miami Beach lacks all pretense. As the sole nervously giggling girl, I stick out in a way that makes the other customers eye me with annoyance.
Oh no, real live girls, a tubby middle-aged man grasping a video garishly emblazoned with "Barely Legal" is panicked-ly thinking as he hurriedly directs himself towards the cash register, his pallid skin glowing beneath the florescent lights.
Near a rack of painful-looking fetish videos, a young couple smile at each other and confusingly exude normality. Suddenly the man's hand slides down from his girlfriend's waist and slaps her hard on the ass. Moderately alarmed, I scamper to the back of the store where K, standing before a wall of vibrators, starts firing questions at me.
"This is so small, how can it do anything? I don't understand, what is the remote control for? Is more power better? Do they sell batteries here? This one looks like an electric toothbrush. The woman on this box is hideously ugly. Is that supposed to get me in the mood? Why are they so expensive, isn't there any other way?"
"Um... your cell phone has a vibrate setting. You'd have to have someone continuously calling you though... um... I guess I can stay up late on Tuesday nights, I have no classes on Wednesdays. My fingers would get pretty tired from dialing though... maybe you could just dial yourself from another phone? Then your fingers would get tired, and that would sort of defeat the purpose of a vibrator... ummm..."
"Amy," K and I are both laughing, and continue to do so until an overly helpful Pleasure Emporium employee strides over to us, brandishing what looks like a key chain.
"Hello ladies." Trying to be slick, but looking straight out of a cheesy night club, complete with a shiny shirt, too much hair gel and acne. "I was wondering if I could offer you some help."
He seems like a nice enough guy, but one has to wonder why he has this job. K starts directing her questions at him, and as he demonstrates the disproportionate power of what I thought was a small key chain, I wander away and try to look inconspicuous.
It's hard to look inconspicuous in a porn store.
Bold and liberated as I like to think I am, the harsh lighting and direct gaze of this guy is making me blush. Maybe I'm only bold when other people are shy? I don't want to think about it, so I reluctantly turn back to K, by herself now, and ready to go.
She pays, and we step outside.
Oh, fuck.
"Hmmm... look at that. My car's gone." As if casually observing.
K sways on her heels a bit and looks from me to where my car was parked, as if waiting for the punch line. I give up on the punch line and start harshly laughing, which then segues into whining. Am I cursed?
The last time I visited K in Miami, she was living in a notably safe area of Coral Gables. Parking my car in front of her house, we went out to dinner, and when we got back at around 1 a.m., I found the front window of my car smashed and a tote bag stolen. It was a cute bag, but I imagined, with satisfaction, the thief's disappointment; it contained a bikini and Vera Bradley make-up bag. Calling my then-boyfriend, with whom I was supposed to spend the night, I discovered that he had fallen asleep and I was stuck. The morning after included pricey towing and a bitter argument; we broke-up about a week later.
A few days before our visit to Pleasure Emporium, I had been showing my friend R around Delray Beach. Spotting a parking space, I decided to make a left turn and put my blinker on, pausing for a gap in the traffic. Angry, urgent honking came from behind me. Whoa, who's the asshole? I just want to turn, I thought to myself. Upon turning and facing glaring headlights and more honking, it came to me: oh wait, I'm the asshole. It was a one-way street. Luckily, I was able to turn into a parking lot before being hit - or arrested - where I was greeted by an hysterically laughing restaurant employee taking out the trash.
"Hey, remember that time I visited you in Florida and you almost killed us?" My friend would ask me later.
"Which time?" I'm not exactly the best driver, but standing outside the porn store, I can't really blame myself.
"God damn it!" K, having progressed from denial, is shouting. "We were only in there for fucking 20 minutes."
We trudge back inside and are once again greeted by the overly helpful employee. Immediately ascertaining what's happened, he's so nice I really regret my previous silent snickering at him. He even offers to let one of us drive his car to the towing lot, but it's out of the question, as neither K nor I can drive stick, and we don't have enough cash.
"Two hundred dollars if we get it tonight?" K breathes into the phone after dialing the towing company. "And $250 if we get it tomorrow?"
Seeing no other options, we call a cab, and while waiting for it, make conversation with the employee.
"Where were we supposed to park?" K muses.
"There's like this sketchy looking alleyway." It figures.
"So what do you do all night?" I ask. He gestures at a television screen showing anime porn with the sound turned off. Ew.
"So do you girls toke up?" Why do people ask me this question so often? Just because I'm with a friend who is buying a vibrator at 3 a.m. doesn't mean I'm high.
"Oh, you're Jewish? You must toke up a lot."
"You listen to ska? Hah. You toke up?"
I'm never sure what the appropriate response is to this question. Yes, I have smoked marijuana in the past, but I really wouldn't consider myself a regular user, and I've never used the phrase 'toke up.' I give my standard answer.
"Umm....." Awkward. It's always taken for an affirmative, and the following sentence is typically either an offer or a request.
A horn blares outside, and thanking our new best friend, K and I exit and slide into the taxi. I'm admittedly a little too paranoid about things, but being picked up from a porn store and riding in a taxi at 3:30 a.m. for half an hour with my female friend while wearing a revealing outfit is not quite relaxing. Being directionally challenged and unfamiliar with Miami roads, I'm convinced that the driver, who is blaring rap music, is driving us into the middle of nowhere.
'Nowhere' isn't a gated community though, and as we arrive back at K's apartment, the whole thing suddenly seems hysterical.
"I could make my own porno, and sell it at Pleasure Emporium." K's the one who's going to be paying for the towing, and we're trying to think of quick money-making schemes to avoid wasting that much money on something that's not clothes.
"Ooh, I have an idea! I could call up Mr. OneNightStand, tell him I'm pregnant, and need $300 for an abortion!"
"Amy, that is the perfect solution! Seriously, it solves everything. I mean, he can afford it. We can even ask for more!"
"Um... I was actually kidding..."
Twenty minutes later I'm halfway into dreaming when K's voice calls me back.
"This turned out to be one expensive vibrator. It better be worth it."
"Hmm... 'I still jerk off manually,' " quoting "The Big Lebowski," but K misses the reference. She shakes her head and repeats what has become my favorite of her catch phrases.
"I keep trumping myself."
Twenty minutes after tipping the shady valet, we roll up to Pleasure Emporium and K directs me to a vacant parking lot right next to the entrance.
I hesitate.
"I don't think we should park here."
"What?"
"I just don't think we should park here."
"Amy, there are tons of spaces here. There's no one around."
"Yeah, and why not?"
"I don't know. Maybe because it's 3 a.m. and we're at a porn store."
"Are you kidding? These are peak hours." K looks at me suspiciously, but I plough on. "There has to be another reason. I don't wanna get towed."
"Don't be so paranoid. There's no towing sign. You'd rather park down the dark alleyway?" (It's exactly like the one my mother always warned me about.) "It will be fine."
Inside is a little different than I expected. The few times I'd been to similar places in Gainesville, it was always accompanied by two or three giggling girls, trying to find the perfect gag gift for a prudish friend. Or once, accompanied by drunk frat boys, who high-fived each other by the lesbian porn while a friend and I decided to wait outside before being piled into someone's truck and mercifully driven home.
The interior of Pleasure Emporium in Miami Beach lacks all pretense. As the sole nervously giggling girl, I stick out in a way that makes the other customers eye me with annoyance.
Oh no, real live girls, a tubby middle-aged man grasping a video garishly emblazoned with "Barely Legal" is panicked-ly thinking as he hurriedly directs himself towards the cash register, his pallid skin glowing beneath the florescent lights.
Near a rack of painful-looking fetish videos, a young couple smile at each other and confusingly exude normality. Suddenly the man's hand slides down from his girlfriend's waist and slaps her hard on the ass. Moderately alarmed, I scamper to the back of the store where K, standing before a wall of vibrators, starts firing questions at me.
"This is so small, how can it do anything? I don't understand, what is the remote control for? Is more power better? Do they sell batteries here? This one looks like an electric toothbrush. The woman on this box is hideously ugly. Is that supposed to get me in the mood? Why are they so expensive, isn't there any other way?"
"Um... your cell phone has a vibrate setting. You'd have to have someone continuously calling you though... um... I guess I can stay up late on Tuesday nights, I have no classes on Wednesdays. My fingers would get pretty tired from dialing though... maybe you could just dial yourself from another phone? Then your fingers would get tired, and that would sort of defeat the purpose of a vibrator... ummm..."
"Amy," K and I are both laughing, and continue to do so until an overly helpful Pleasure Emporium employee strides over to us, brandishing what looks like a key chain.
"Hello ladies." Trying to be slick, but looking straight out of a cheesy night club, complete with a shiny shirt, too much hair gel and acne. "I was wondering if I could offer you some help."
He seems like a nice enough guy, but one has to wonder why he has this job. K starts directing her questions at him, and as he demonstrates the disproportionate power of what I thought was a small key chain, I wander away and try to look inconspicuous.
It's hard to look inconspicuous in a porn store.
Bold and liberated as I like to think I am, the harsh lighting and direct gaze of this guy is making me blush. Maybe I'm only bold when other people are shy? I don't want to think about it, so I reluctantly turn back to K, by herself now, and ready to go.
She pays, and we step outside.
Oh, fuck.
"Hmmm... look at that. My car's gone." As if casually observing.
K sways on her heels a bit and looks from me to where my car was parked, as if waiting for the punch line. I give up on the punch line and start harshly laughing, which then segues into whining. Am I cursed?
The last time I visited K in Miami, she was living in a notably safe area of Coral Gables. Parking my car in front of her house, we went out to dinner, and when we got back at around 1 a.m., I found the front window of my car smashed and a tote bag stolen. It was a cute bag, but I imagined, with satisfaction, the thief's disappointment; it contained a bikini and Vera Bradley make-up bag. Calling my then-boyfriend, with whom I was supposed to spend the night, I discovered that he had fallen asleep and I was stuck. The morning after included pricey towing and a bitter argument; we broke-up about a week later.
A few days before our visit to Pleasure Emporium, I had been showing my friend R around Delray Beach. Spotting a parking space, I decided to make a left turn and put my blinker on, pausing for a gap in the traffic. Angry, urgent honking came from behind me. Whoa, who's the asshole? I just want to turn, I thought to myself. Upon turning and facing glaring headlights and more honking, it came to me: oh wait, I'm the asshole. It was a one-way street. Luckily, I was able to turn into a parking lot before being hit - or arrested - where I was greeted by an hysterically laughing restaurant employee taking out the trash.
"Hey, remember that time I visited you in Florida and you almost killed us?" My friend would ask me later.
"Which time?" I'm not exactly the best driver, but standing outside the porn store, I can't really blame myself.
"God damn it!" K, having progressed from denial, is shouting. "We were only in there for fucking 20 minutes."
We trudge back inside and are once again greeted by the overly helpful employee. Immediately ascertaining what's happened, he's so nice I really regret my previous silent snickering at him. He even offers to let one of us drive his car to the towing lot, but it's out of the question, as neither K nor I can drive stick, and we don't have enough cash.
"Two hundred dollars if we get it tonight?" K breathes into the phone after dialing the towing company. "And $250 if we get it tomorrow?"
Seeing no other options, we call a cab, and while waiting for it, make conversation with the employee.
"Where were we supposed to park?" K muses.
"There's like this sketchy looking alleyway." It figures.
"So what do you do all night?" I ask. He gestures at a television screen showing anime porn with the sound turned off. Ew.
"So do you girls toke up?" Why do people ask me this question so often? Just because I'm with a friend who is buying a vibrator at 3 a.m. doesn't mean I'm high.
"Oh, you're Jewish? You must toke up a lot."
"You listen to ska? Hah. You toke up?"
I'm never sure what the appropriate response is to this question. Yes, I have smoked marijuana in the past, but I really wouldn't consider myself a regular user, and I've never used the phrase 'toke up.' I give my standard answer.
"Umm....." Awkward. It's always taken for an affirmative, and the following sentence is typically either an offer or a request.
A horn blares outside, and thanking our new best friend, K and I exit and slide into the taxi. I'm admittedly a little too paranoid about things, but being picked up from a porn store and riding in a taxi at 3:30 a.m. for half an hour with my female friend while wearing a revealing outfit is not quite relaxing. Being directionally challenged and unfamiliar with Miami roads, I'm convinced that the driver, who is blaring rap music, is driving us into the middle of nowhere.
'Nowhere' isn't a gated community though, and as we arrive back at K's apartment, the whole thing suddenly seems hysterical.
"I could make my own porno, and sell it at Pleasure Emporium." K's the one who's going to be paying for the towing, and we're trying to think of quick money-making schemes to avoid wasting that much money on something that's not clothes.
"Ooh, I have an idea! I could call up Mr. OneNightStand, tell him I'm pregnant, and need $300 for an abortion!"
"Amy, that is the perfect solution! Seriously, it solves everything. I mean, he can afford it. We can even ask for more!"
"Um... I was actually kidding..."
Twenty minutes later I'm halfway into dreaming when K's voice calls me back.
"This turned out to be one expensive vibrator. It better be worth it."
"Hmm... 'I still jerk off manually,' " quoting "The Big Lebowski," but K misses the reference. She shakes her head and repeats what has become my favorite of her catch phrases.
"I keep trumping myself."
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Mr. One Night Standing-Room-Only: Part 1
"Um... I was actually kidding."
"Amy.... why? Come on, I'd do it for you!"
"K, there is no way I'm actually going to call that kid up, tell him I'm pregnant and need $300 for an abortion. It's just... no."
But we're both cackling a little. It's around 4 in the morning a couple of weeks ago and my best friend K and I are sprawled out on the dining room table of her gorgeous waterfront Miami apartment. Things are funny at 4 in the morning that never seems quite as clever at 4 in the afternoon. My hair has gotten all greasy and my eyeliner is halfway down my face. It's been a long night.
"He deserves it though," trying to pound on the table emphatically and knocking over a shopping bag filled with double-D Victoria's Secret bras. Eyeing them and deciding not to bother picking them back up. "He's such a freak, he owes you."
"I'm not saying that, karmically, it wouldn't be good for Mr. OneNightStand to give me $300. I'm just saying that it has very little to do with my car getting towed and our needing $300 to get it back."
Giving me a last withering glare, and then laughing, K stands up and walks into her bedroom. I follow, and within 10 minutes we're both almost passed out in her bed. I close my eyes, sigh, and think what the hell happened tonight? Car Karma: 3. Me: 0.
Whereas getting dressed for a night out in Gainesville involves putting on a pair of low rise jeans and a cotton tank top, getting dressed for a night out in Miami takes a bit more effort. Checking ourselves in the mirror by the elevator in K's building, we look strangely like sisters. Matching baby doll halter dresses, smoky eyes, tall, dark features, expansive cleavage and long brown hair. (Mine, at just past my shoulders, is business length, but K's qualifies for porn star length -- she could do a topless photo shoot, and with some strategically placed strands, have everything covered.)
When we get to the club, the outside is crawling with people. There are no spots left in the parking lot, and as I turn my car and $12 over to a total stranger in exchange for a ticket stub, tentatively take it as a good sign. Back in high school, K and I had a theory that if we could easily find a parking spot, we might as well go back home because the night was going to be a total bust. If, on the other hand, we seriously contemplated taking a taxi from our parking spot to wherever it was we were going, we knew it was going to be a great time.
K impressively talks and smiles us past the huge line and (huger) bouncer, and we're in. The crowd is oppressive; we shove our way over to the bar, and ordering diet cokes and self-spiking them, start to get a little buzzed. K scans the room for her friends, and seeing a cluster of them nearby, momentarily smiles and then turns to me with the widened, panicked eyes and bit lip that comprise the International Girl Language for: uh oh.
It's Mr. OneNightStand.
Honestly, I don't really care. An acquaintance of K's, we had hooked up a while ago, had a good time and pretty much left it at that. I have no hard feelings about our lack of communication and am indifferent about running into him again. It's clear, though, from the way he greets me with a stiff wave conveniently shielding his eyes from mine that he feels a bit awkward.
Oh my god, that girl is stalking me, I can hear him thinking. I know I'm a stone cold fox, but can't she just move on? I have to get out of here. She drove for hours just to see me.
This is so far removed from the truth it's laughable. Hello? I came to Miami to hang out with my best friend, and I had no way of knowing you were going to be here! And if I did know, I definitely wouldn't have followed. A little bit of awkwardness is understandable, but his complete lack of social skills is leading me to believe that in order to have sex one should be licensed -- having to undergo stringent personality tests, an etiquette class, an ego check and perhaps a gym membership.
At first I'm kind of amused by his blind terror, and have no intention of making his night by situating myself in the corner farthest from him. But as the night wears on, his tangible discomfort starts grating on me.
When I come back from a trip to the bar, I find K by herself. Apparently Mr. OneNightStand and friends wanted an early night.
"Which is understandable, you know," K says to me as we make our way to the roof of the club, hoping to find a less crowded spot. "I mean, I'd probably freak out too if a hot girl I hooked up with was nice to me. It would obviously mean she was in love with me and was trying to trick me into marrying her."
I gag a little on my drink and shake my head, smiling. Why do guys think they have a monopoly on casual hookups? So many of them think that if they have sex with a girl, it means she wants to date them. Then the paranoia kicks in and the guy will avoid the girl at all costs, completely shutting themselves off to the option of having a new friend or hookup buddy.
"Better off with your vibrator," I drawl as I finally spy an available space on the arm of a sofa on the no-less-crowded roof deck and sprint towards it.
"Excuse me," a refined Hispanic voice nudges as I sit down. "I have reserved this sofa, and one of my friends needs a seat." I look up at the sparkly girl wearing the is it a skirt? is it a headband? who is tapping her silver stiletto-ed foot at me and feel myself flush with acute embarrassment. But really, why would someone reserve a tiny sofa, and more to the point, how much would they pay?
K is smirking at me, and missing the point, I start to brood about how much I hate Miami. Opening my mouth to start complaining, I'm thankfully cut off.
"So about that vibrator..." It takes me a second but then I'm with her. "I'm kind of curious. Want to go help me pick one out?"
Briefly surveying the club, I grin and we make our way back to my car.
"Amy.... why? Come on, I'd do it for you!"
"K, there is no way I'm actually going to call that kid up, tell him I'm pregnant and need $300 for an abortion. It's just... no."
But we're both cackling a little. It's around 4 in the morning a couple of weeks ago and my best friend K and I are sprawled out on the dining room table of her gorgeous waterfront Miami apartment. Things are funny at 4 in the morning that never seems quite as clever at 4 in the afternoon. My hair has gotten all greasy and my eyeliner is halfway down my face. It's been a long night.
"He deserves it though," trying to pound on the table emphatically and knocking over a shopping bag filled with double-D Victoria's Secret bras. Eyeing them and deciding not to bother picking them back up. "He's such a freak, he owes you."
"I'm not saying that, karmically, it wouldn't be good for Mr. OneNightStand to give me $300. I'm just saying that it has very little to do with my car getting towed and our needing $300 to get it back."
Giving me a last withering glare, and then laughing, K stands up and walks into her bedroom. I follow, and within 10 minutes we're both almost passed out in her bed. I close my eyes, sigh, and think what the hell happened tonight? Car Karma: 3. Me: 0.
Whereas getting dressed for a night out in Gainesville involves putting on a pair of low rise jeans and a cotton tank top, getting dressed for a night out in Miami takes a bit more effort. Checking ourselves in the mirror by the elevator in K's building, we look strangely like sisters. Matching baby doll halter dresses, smoky eyes, tall, dark features, expansive cleavage and long brown hair. (Mine, at just past my shoulders, is business length, but K's qualifies for porn star length -- she could do a topless photo shoot, and with some strategically placed strands, have everything covered.)
When we get to the club, the outside is crawling with people. There are no spots left in the parking lot, and as I turn my car and $12 over to a total stranger in exchange for a ticket stub, tentatively take it as a good sign. Back in high school, K and I had a theory that if we could easily find a parking spot, we might as well go back home because the night was going to be a total bust. If, on the other hand, we seriously contemplated taking a taxi from our parking spot to wherever it was we were going, we knew it was going to be a great time.
K impressively talks and smiles us past the huge line and (huger) bouncer, and we're in. The crowd is oppressive; we shove our way over to the bar, and ordering diet cokes and self-spiking them, start to get a little buzzed. K scans the room for her friends, and seeing a cluster of them nearby, momentarily smiles and then turns to me with the widened, panicked eyes and bit lip that comprise the International Girl Language for: uh oh.
It's Mr. OneNightStand.
Honestly, I don't really care. An acquaintance of K's, we had hooked up a while ago, had a good time and pretty much left it at that. I have no hard feelings about our lack of communication and am indifferent about running into him again. It's clear, though, from the way he greets me with a stiff wave conveniently shielding his eyes from mine that he feels a bit awkward.
Oh my god, that girl is stalking me, I can hear him thinking. I know I'm a stone cold fox, but can't she just move on? I have to get out of here. She drove for hours just to see me.
This is so far removed from the truth it's laughable. Hello? I came to Miami to hang out with my best friend, and I had no way of knowing you were going to be here! And if I did know, I definitely wouldn't have followed. A little bit of awkwardness is understandable, but his complete lack of social skills is leading me to believe that in order to have sex one should be licensed -- having to undergo stringent personality tests, an etiquette class, an ego check and perhaps a gym membership.
At first I'm kind of amused by his blind terror, and have no intention of making his night by situating myself in the corner farthest from him. But as the night wears on, his tangible discomfort starts grating on me.
When I come back from a trip to the bar, I find K by herself. Apparently Mr. OneNightStand and friends wanted an early night.
"Which is understandable, you know," K says to me as we make our way to the roof of the club, hoping to find a less crowded spot. "I mean, I'd probably freak out too if a hot girl I hooked up with was nice to me. It would obviously mean she was in love with me and was trying to trick me into marrying her."
I gag a little on my drink and shake my head, smiling. Why do guys think they have a monopoly on casual hookups? So many of them think that if they have sex with a girl, it means she wants to date them. Then the paranoia kicks in and the guy will avoid the girl at all costs, completely shutting themselves off to the option of having a new friend or hookup buddy.
"Better off with your vibrator," I drawl as I finally spy an available space on the arm of a sofa on the no-less-crowded roof deck and sprint towards it.
"Excuse me," a refined Hispanic voice nudges as I sit down. "I have reserved this sofa, and one of my friends needs a seat." I look up at the sparkly girl wearing the is it a skirt? is it a headband? who is tapping her silver stiletto-ed foot at me and feel myself flush with acute embarrassment. But really, why would someone reserve a tiny sofa, and more to the point, how much would they pay?
K is smirking at me, and missing the point, I start to brood about how much I hate Miami. Opening my mouth to start complaining, I'm thankfully cut off.
"So about that vibrator..." It takes me a second but then I'm with her. "I'm kind of curious. Want to go help me pick one out?"
Briefly surveying the club, I grin and we make our way back to my car.
* * *
Part 2 to follow!
Monday, January 22, 2007
Previous Engagements
Two and a half years ago, when a good friend of mine announced she was engaged, I was appalled. For about two seconds.
"Oh yea... wow... congratulations. Have you um... set a date or anything?" Snickering. Not a chance. Come to think of it, I'd known several couples in high school so madly in love that they'd gotten engaged for about six weeks.
"July second." Less than a year away. Oh my god. Back to being appalled.
My friend gabbed away about reception halls and the fact that her brother would probably try to score with at least two of the bridesmaids while I smiled and nodded and wondered what the hell my problem was. Her then-fiancee is a great guy, they'd been together for several years, came from similar backgrounds, they would both soon be college graduates and would probably have four children and be together for the next 60 years. I had nothing against marriage per se, but always thought about it in a distant mortgage-paying, baby-wiping, nine-to-five kind of way. This was the girl who had, the weekend previously, gone shopping with me to buy about a yard of leopard print fabric and a bikini top to wear to a frat party. The girl who bought me purse-sized airplane bottles of coconut rum and who was openly disappointed with me if I didn't have anything juicy to tell her on Monday mornings. Why would she give all that up?
Eventually getting over myself, I've become fairly blase about the string of friends and acquaintances who have gotten engaged and married over the past couple of years. Until last week, when three of my friends got engaged. Two on the same day.
"Three?" My mother is unimpressed when I call her in moderate hysterics. "Maybe it was New Years' Resolution."
"What? To make me feel inadequate for not even having a boyfriend? Why would three guys I don't even know make a resolution to fuck with me?" Although I said the last two sentences only in my head.
Wait a second, was I jealous? How did I go from being disgusted by the thought of lifelong commitment to a little envious of the security? But it's not like I haven't been with any guys before. And as my mother moved on to telling me about the new sofas she wanted to buy, my mental slide show kicked in.
There was guy who, for a long time, I honestly thought was The One. He would look at me with an expression suggesting he couldn't believe his good luck to be next to me. We'd ask each other important questions about life and tell each other secrets until we were too tired to talk. Going to the beach or the movies with a group of other friends, everyone hated to be around us. We never made eye contact with anyone else.
There was the guy who didn't have to say anything. After meeting me once, he decided he liked me, and told all my friends, told me. Initially not understanding how anyone could feel something so suddenly, he wore me down with persistent smiles, hand-holding, kissing. He made me understand what it was like to be still and happy and uncomplicated.
There was the guy who knew me even before we met, because we felt identically about everything. Finding out new things we had in common every day, we would laugh about it when really...
"Amy, are you still there?"
"Wha? Oh, yeah, sofas. The brocade definitely doesn't mesh with your beach theme. Listen, I have to go. I'll call you later."
I'm not a romantic. The One turned out to be completely immune to me once he crossed the state line to go to school, and even our friendship ended several years after the intimacy did with a screaming fight, an ultimatum and unanswered e-mails. Mr. Happy eventually drove me crazy with his lack of communication and the other guy proved himself to be a bit too much like me with his biting comments and unforgiving attitude.
Still though, I have some great memories, and others with different guys. And with friends. And family. And just myself.
So I've decided I'm not jealous of my friends' fiancees. And my feelings of inadequacy aren't coming from not having a boyfriend. I am a little jealous that my friends know enough about themselves to commit to being with another person for the rest of their lives. I'm often confused because I'm not sure how I feel about things, or don't know what I want the future to be like.
But maybe the uncertainty is what makes it fun right now. Maybe I'll throw rice and make toasts and let someone else catch the bouquet, smirking because I don't have to have all the answers yet.
I've got time.
EDIT: Keeping With the Theme
Rereading this post, it feels a little too positive. This is, after all, supposed to be eloquently cynical. So here's the coda, a poem I read recently by Dorothy Parker.
Unfortunate Coincidence
By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying --
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
"Oh yea... wow... congratulations. Have you um... set a date or anything?" Snickering. Not a chance. Come to think of it, I'd known several couples in high school so madly in love that they'd gotten engaged for about six weeks.
"July second." Less than a year away. Oh my god. Back to being appalled.
My friend gabbed away about reception halls and the fact that her brother would probably try to score with at least two of the bridesmaids while I smiled and nodded and wondered what the hell my problem was. Her then-fiancee is a great guy, they'd been together for several years, came from similar backgrounds, they would both soon be college graduates and would probably have four children and be together for the next 60 years. I had nothing against marriage per se, but always thought about it in a distant mortgage-paying, baby-wiping, nine-to-five kind of way. This was the girl who had, the weekend previously, gone shopping with me to buy about a yard of leopard print fabric and a bikini top to wear to a frat party. The girl who bought me purse-sized airplane bottles of coconut rum and who was openly disappointed with me if I didn't have anything juicy to tell her on Monday mornings. Why would she give all that up?
Eventually getting over myself, I've become fairly blase about the string of friends and acquaintances who have gotten engaged and married over the past couple of years. Until last week, when three of my friends got engaged. Two on the same day.
"Three?" My mother is unimpressed when I call her in moderate hysterics. "Maybe it was New Years' Resolution."
"What? To make me feel inadequate for not even having a boyfriend? Why would three guys I don't even know make a resolution to fuck with me?" Although I said the last two sentences only in my head.
Wait a second, was I jealous? How did I go from being disgusted by the thought of lifelong commitment to a little envious of the security? But it's not like I haven't been with any guys before. And as my mother moved on to telling me about the new sofas she wanted to buy, my mental slide show kicked in.
There was guy who, for a long time, I honestly thought was The One. He would look at me with an expression suggesting he couldn't believe his good luck to be next to me. We'd ask each other important questions about life and tell each other secrets until we were too tired to talk. Going to the beach or the movies with a group of other friends, everyone hated to be around us. We never made eye contact with anyone else.
There was the guy who didn't have to say anything. After meeting me once, he decided he liked me, and told all my friends, told me. Initially not understanding how anyone could feel something so suddenly, he wore me down with persistent smiles, hand-holding, kissing. He made me understand what it was like to be still and happy and uncomplicated.
There was the guy who knew me even before we met, because we felt identically about everything. Finding out new things we had in common every day, we would laugh about it when really...
"Amy, are you still there?"
"Wha? Oh, yeah, sofas. The brocade definitely doesn't mesh with your beach theme. Listen, I have to go. I'll call you later."
I'm not a romantic. The One turned out to be completely immune to me once he crossed the state line to go to school, and even our friendship ended several years after the intimacy did with a screaming fight, an ultimatum and unanswered e-mails. Mr. Happy eventually drove me crazy with his lack of communication and the other guy proved himself to be a bit too much like me with his biting comments and unforgiving attitude.
Still though, I have some great memories, and others with different guys. And with friends. And family. And just myself.
So I've decided I'm not jealous of my friends' fiancees. And my feelings of inadequacy aren't coming from not having a boyfriend. I am a little jealous that my friends know enough about themselves to commit to being with another person for the rest of their lives. I'm often confused because I'm not sure how I feel about things, or don't know what I want the future to be like.
But maybe the uncertainty is what makes it fun right now. Maybe I'll throw rice and make toasts and let someone else catch the bouquet, smirking because I don't have to have all the answers yet.
I've got time.
EDIT: Keeping With the Theme
Rereading this post, it feels a little too positive. This is, after all, supposed to be eloquently cynical. So here's the coda, a poem I read recently by Dorothy Parker.
Unfortunate Coincidence
By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying --
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Very Professional
One of the benefits of being an upper-level college student is that all of your classes tend to be in the same building. Gone are the days of having to book it halfway across campus from my biology class to my completely unnecessary but required American government discussion section. For the past year, the most I've had to do is climb the stairs and occasionally cross the street. I like it like this.
As my credits accumulate, my circle also shrinks. There are more than 40,000 students at my school, with approximately 650 public relations majors, but there are four or five of us who are always, randomly, in all of the same classes. I like this too. We're friends. With one exasperated look, I can convey to them, who the fuck is this guy? Not every media law case is about porn. A single eyebrow raise says will that dumb girl ever wear more than spandex running shorts and a sweatshirt to class? She looks like she's naked.
Sprinting towards the finish-line for my B.S. in PR, I seem to have stumbled over a couple of courses I tried to forget I had to take in order to graduate. So it was with extreme doubt and a hesitant expression that I crossed the street, turned the corner, ascended the steps and yanked open the heavy glass door of the liberal arts building.
My first thought, upon entering my English elective class titled Modern Drama: DOING IT and situating myself in a desk towards the back corner of the room, was: who are these people, and where do they shop? The public relations department seems to have an unusually high concentration of really good-looking people. More than that, they are all super-groomed. Falling somewhere between preppy and trendy, we understand the value of wearing full make-up and high heels to class. And what's with the hair? This class is midday, surely you had time to shower and blow dry it? Don't you people know that you can buy a straightening iron for less than $30? The times when I choose an extra half hour of sleep over hair care, I always regret it, if only because of my insane jealousy over that girl's perfect bangs, or the other girl's gorgeous new highlights.
All public relations classes begin in the same way. The students assemble in the classroom at least 10 minutes early and flick through various magazines and newspapers while adjusting their lip gloss, checking their vibrating cell phones while rolling their eyes and clicking 'ignore,' gossiping with girls in their sorority or flirting with the token cute boy, and generally giving off an air of smug confidence. Then, also immaculately groomed, the professor enters, throwing down his plush leather brief case (or, in some instances, her oversized Coach tote) and accessing the PowerPoint presentation he's put together. Attendance is taken aloud, and if anyone is marked absent, the class ripples, collectively wondering where the hell this person is. After all, we are all Very Professional. The professor begins a long monologue about his or her extensive educational and professional background, often engaging in vicious name-dropping. Far from being offensive or off-putting, we have all come to expect it now, and an absence of bragging sets off bubbles of doubt regarding a teacher's credibility. Usually, the teacher will then specifically ask each student what his or her goals are for the class, his internships, his career, his life, in which city he wants to live and whether or not he's in it for the money. (He is. Actually, we all are.) Then, lecture can begin in earnest, punctuated by lively discussions because we all want to Kick Ass.
Modern Drama: DOING IT began with a 70-year-old man bounding into the classroom, slamming the doors shut and proclaiming his love for all of us ("my babies!"), the written word, the theatre and extremely liberal politics. Appointing a class "censor" to warn him when he was going too far into a Bush-bashing rant, he skipped bragging and launched straight in to telling us stories about his life. I, however, had missed a step. Dressed in faded jeans, a too short t-shirt and old sneakers, my instinct was to call the campus police and inform them that a bum from Turlington Plaza (a.k.a. activist central/advocacy corner/crazy people hangout) was attempting to teach classes and should probably be sent to sleep it off in a cell up in Starke. Or at least sent to SuperCuts to fix his mop-like iron gray bob.
When did I become this judgemental? It's an important question; one that is partially answered as I doodle Greek letters in the margin of my notebook. But I can't really blame the sorority; it's more of a magnet for already polarized young women. Maybe it's just a facade though, and I can't help but become interested as I hear stories from this man's life.
Apparently, this professor is a civil rights activist, and marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for several years. He's been through riots; attacked with tear gas, cattle prods and guns by ignorant, bigoted people. He runs a theatre program for underprivileged children, and never wants to retire. He leads the class in a meditation exercise he learned from Dr. King, the upshot of which is that it's the process, and not the results, that matter in life. It's about learning to enjoy experiences, and take things slowly.
As the class ends, I feel a bit calmer than normal, a feeling that lasts until I enter my next class, a public relations one in which the professor calls roll by reading off everyone's resumes, which she has previously researched.
I love public relations, and all of the crap that comes with it. I'm fairly sure I don't want to be a touchy-feely English major, and I know I'll never be one of those zen-like happy people who loves the world and walks at a slower pace. But, I think the point is that you can't exist in isolation. The "real world" isn't divided into academic buildings, and that's a good thing (Martha).
Maybe good hair isn't essential, but it sure as hell helps. I've got to find that happy medium. Do they sell those at J. Crew?
As my credits accumulate, my circle also shrinks. There are more than 40,000 students at my school, with approximately 650 public relations majors, but there are four or five of us who are always, randomly, in all of the same classes. I like this too. We're friends. With one exasperated look, I can convey to them, who the fuck is this guy? Not every media law case is about porn. A single eyebrow raise says will that dumb girl ever wear more than spandex running shorts and a sweatshirt to class? She looks like she's naked.
Sprinting towards the finish-line for my B.S. in PR, I seem to have stumbled over a couple of courses I tried to forget I had to take in order to graduate. So it was with extreme doubt and a hesitant expression that I crossed the street, turned the corner, ascended the steps and yanked open the heavy glass door of the liberal arts building.
My first thought, upon entering my English elective class titled Modern Drama: DOING IT and situating myself in a desk towards the back corner of the room, was: who are these people, and where do they shop? The public relations department seems to have an unusually high concentration of really good-looking people. More than that, they are all super-groomed. Falling somewhere between preppy and trendy, we understand the value of wearing full make-up and high heels to class. And what's with the hair? This class is midday, surely you had time to shower and blow dry it? Don't you people know that you can buy a straightening iron for less than $30? The times when I choose an extra half hour of sleep over hair care, I always regret it, if only because of my insane jealousy over that girl's perfect bangs, or the other girl's gorgeous new highlights.
All public relations classes begin in the same way. The students assemble in the classroom at least 10 minutes early and flick through various magazines and newspapers while adjusting their lip gloss, checking their vibrating cell phones while rolling their eyes and clicking 'ignore,' gossiping with girls in their sorority or flirting with the token cute boy, and generally giving off an air of smug confidence. Then, also immaculately groomed, the professor enters, throwing down his plush leather brief case (or, in some instances, her oversized Coach tote) and accessing the PowerPoint presentation he's put together. Attendance is taken aloud, and if anyone is marked absent, the class ripples, collectively wondering where the hell this person is. After all, we are all Very Professional. The professor begins a long monologue about his or her extensive educational and professional background, often engaging in vicious name-dropping. Far from being offensive or off-putting, we have all come to expect it now, and an absence of bragging sets off bubbles of doubt regarding a teacher's credibility. Usually, the teacher will then specifically ask each student what his or her goals are for the class, his internships, his career, his life, in which city he wants to live and whether or not he's in it for the money. (He is. Actually, we all are.) Then, lecture can begin in earnest, punctuated by lively discussions because we all want to Kick Ass.
Modern Drama: DOING IT began with a 70-year-old man bounding into the classroom, slamming the doors shut and proclaiming his love for all of us ("my babies!"), the written word, the theatre and extremely liberal politics. Appointing a class "censor" to warn him when he was going too far into a Bush-bashing rant, he skipped bragging and launched straight in to telling us stories about his life. I, however, had missed a step. Dressed in faded jeans, a too short t-shirt and old sneakers, my instinct was to call the campus police and inform them that a bum from Turlington Plaza (a.k.a. activist central/advocacy corner/crazy people hangout) was attempting to teach classes and should probably be sent to sleep it off in a cell up in Starke. Or at least sent to SuperCuts to fix his mop-like iron gray bob.
When did I become this judgemental? It's an important question; one that is partially answered as I doodle Greek letters in the margin of my notebook. But I can't really blame the sorority; it's more of a magnet for already polarized young women. Maybe it's just a facade though, and I can't help but become interested as I hear stories from this man's life.
Apparently, this professor is a civil rights activist, and marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for several years. He's been through riots; attacked with tear gas, cattle prods and guns by ignorant, bigoted people. He runs a theatre program for underprivileged children, and never wants to retire. He leads the class in a meditation exercise he learned from Dr. King, the upshot of which is that it's the process, and not the results, that matter in life. It's about learning to enjoy experiences, and take things slowly.
As the class ends, I feel a bit calmer than normal, a feeling that lasts until I enter my next class, a public relations one in which the professor calls roll by reading off everyone's resumes, which she has previously researched.
I love public relations, and all of the crap that comes with it. I'm fairly sure I don't want to be a touchy-feely English major, and I know I'll never be one of those zen-like happy people who loves the world and walks at a slower pace. But, I think the point is that you can't exist in isolation. The "real world" isn't divided into academic buildings, and that's a good thing (Martha).
Maybe good hair isn't essential, but it sure as hell helps. I've got to find that happy medium. Do they sell those at J. Crew?
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Photo-play
I am one of the messiest people you will ever meet, and I'll do pretty much anything to avoid cleaning, organizing or packing. So naturally, while trying to avoid packing for going back to school, when I came across a box of photographs, I paused to sort through it.
Before the advent and accessibility of digital cameras, my mother had a proclivity for taking stacks of pictures and not developing them for up to 10 years after their capture. It is obvious from the contents of this box that she either felt particularly motivated or had a great coupon for developing film, because I range in age from about four to 16 in the pictures.
Snap. I'm 16 and at my junior prom, wearing a floor-length bronze princess-style gown and elbow-length black gloves that I bought at Claire's. I'd bought my dress six months prior to the prom, and if I was having a bad day, I'd lock myself in my room, put it on and literally jump up and down. My best friend C is standing next to me wearing a dress in a similar style and white gloves. My date is her brother, who I have a huge crush on, but who sees me as just a friend. I'm smiling ecstatically, like I can't imagine anything better than that moment.
Snap. I'm four or five, playing on the beach with my two sisters. We're all crouched around a bucket, overturned and concealing what will surely be a crumbly sandcastle. Crumbly because my older sister L is giving a heavy-handed demonstration on how to get the wet sand out of the bucket. What I admire about L is her consistency; 16 years later and she's still telling me how to do it right. My little sister, A, is the happiest. In most photos, she looks like she's about to laugh; excited just to be there, her curly blond hair is frizzing in a cloud around her, and it suits her. I'm in the middle, a little obscured, with a look of intense concentration.
Snap. I'm 15, before the homecoming dance, bent into what I think is a seductive pose, trying to get my mother, who is taking the photo, to laugh. I haven't figured out yet how to style my hair, so it's wavy and a little wild, and accidentally looks great. I haven't figured out how to pluck my eyebrows either, so my would-be come-hither gaze looks more like a fierce growl. Despite the aggressiveness of my face, I look like I'm about to break. Still in denial about my anorexia, my collar bones jut sharply from papery skin. My hip bones are visible in detail and my brief dress shows impossible legs. My thighs have deteriorated to nearly the same size as my calves, and combined with the high heels I'm wearing, the look is almost comic in its proportions. I'm smiling with my mouth closed.
Snap. I'm five, wearing a black jumper, white tights and black mary janes. My arm is broken, and in a sling. I'm at the playground, and I want to hurry up and get the picture taken so I can go back to playing. The photo almost looks like I'm in motion because I'm so energetic and impatient. I can envision myself running around, not too concerned about my arm at all.
What edgingly bothers me about these pictures is the disconnect I feel from myself in some of them. It's been years since I've spoken to C, a friend who once knew everything about me. I'm jealous of my broken arm, and the girl in the photo who is totally confident that she'll be okay; a girl who doesn't yet know what it's like to be undermined by the insecurity of constant pain from an injury.
I feel anchored, though, looking at myself being silly before homecoming. When I look at the picture again, I see determination; a look that's mirrored on the beach in 1989. Flipping through these and the other pictures in the box, there are moments captured that I no longer remember, with friends who I no longer see. Spying flashes of myself in moments of honesty, though, gives me confidence about the future. The feelings don't change, just the circumstances.
How does that song go? Everything will be all right.
Before the advent and accessibility of digital cameras, my mother had a proclivity for taking stacks of pictures and not developing them for up to 10 years after their capture. It is obvious from the contents of this box that she either felt particularly motivated or had a great coupon for developing film, because I range in age from about four to 16 in the pictures.
Snap. I'm 16 and at my junior prom, wearing a floor-length bronze princess-style gown and elbow-length black gloves that I bought at Claire's. I'd bought my dress six months prior to the prom, and if I was having a bad day, I'd lock myself in my room, put it on and literally jump up and down. My best friend C is standing next to me wearing a dress in a similar style and white gloves. My date is her brother, who I have a huge crush on, but who sees me as just a friend. I'm smiling ecstatically, like I can't imagine anything better than that moment.
Snap. I'm four or five, playing on the beach with my two sisters. We're all crouched around a bucket, overturned and concealing what will surely be a crumbly sandcastle. Crumbly because my older sister L is giving a heavy-handed demonstration on how to get the wet sand out of the bucket. What I admire about L is her consistency; 16 years later and she's still telling me how to do it right. My little sister, A, is the happiest. In most photos, she looks like she's about to laugh; excited just to be there, her curly blond hair is frizzing in a cloud around her, and it suits her. I'm in the middle, a little obscured, with a look of intense concentration.
Snap. I'm 15, before the homecoming dance, bent into what I think is a seductive pose, trying to get my mother, who is taking the photo, to laugh. I haven't figured out yet how to style my hair, so it's wavy and a little wild, and accidentally looks great. I haven't figured out how to pluck my eyebrows either, so my would-be come-hither gaze looks more like a fierce growl. Despite the aggressiveness of my face, I look like I'm about to break. Still in denial about my anorexia, my collar bones jut sharply from papery skin. My hip bones are visible in detail and my brief dress shows impossible legs. My thighs have deteriorated to nearly the same size as my calves, and combined with the high heels I'm wearing, the look is almost comic in its proportions. I'm smiling with my mouth closed.
Snap. I'm five, wearing a black jumper, white tights and black mary janes. My arm is broken, and in a sling. I'm at the playground, and I want to hurry up and get the picture taken so I can go back to playing. The photo almost looks like I'm in motion because I'm so energetic and impatient. I can envision myself running around, not too concerned about my arm at all.
What edgingly bothers me about these pictures is the disconnect I feel from myself in some of them. It's been years since I've spoken to C, a friend who once knew everything about me. I'm jealous of my broken arm, and the girl in the photo who is totally confident that she'll be okay; a girl who doesn't yet know what it's like to be undermined by the insecurity of constant pain from an injury.
I feel anchored, though, looking at myself being silly before homecoming. When I look at the picture again, I see determination; a look that's mirrored on the beach in 1989. Flipping through these and the other pictures in the box, there are moments captured that I no longer remember, with friends who I no longer see. Spying flashes of myself in moments of honesty, though, gives me confidence about the future. The feelings don't change, just the circumstances.
How does that song go? Everything will be all right.
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