Looking back on my HS days with the benefit of hindsight, I see a confused young girl with little in the way of self-esteem who wanted desperately to fit in, to wear “that hat of belonging.” I was a cheerleader even though I felt like I had little in common with the other girls and even if I secretly gravitated toward the poetry and theater crews. I admired the “punk kids” who had the courage to wear whatever they wanted and have cool hairstyles (hey there, Jerry, you listening? Did you know I admired you?). I longed to be different, too, to show myself as a distinct personality…but not too different because that would have been what they call “social suicide” in the movie Mean Girls. I wish I knew then what I know now about individuality and sense of self, but unfortunately that lesson would take years for me to learn.

And so my memories of High School are not great, but not terrible, either. I didn’t love it and I didn’t hate it. The person I was then is just the person I WAS then. I don’t know that girl anymore, but I do have compassion for her (unlike some of my friends, who love to throw my cheerleading/jockiness in my face in a seeming attempt to humiliate me for something that I will NEVER be ashamed of).

I attended my 10 year HS reunion, too, but I made the mistake of drinking a little too much beforehand (in a misguided attempt to endure what I thought would be painful) and didn’t really enjoy it. I was determined to have a good time at this one, especially since I was coming from so far away to attend.

I harrassed my three best friends from HS for months in advance, threatening them under pain of death to be my dates. You’ve already “met” Amy and Scott in previous blogs. Jerry is an artist, check out his work.

Since it’s nearly impossible for me to find clothes here that fit me, I ordered this gorgeous dress online at www.unique-vintage.com

Front

Back

Closeup of bodice

I was nervous, since the dress was a size 10. I’d been working out and losing weight, but size 10? The measurements were right, but could I actually be a size 10 again? Holy crap. I was having it shipped to my mom’s house and wouldn’t get a chance to try it on until 3 days before the reunion. What if it didn’t fit? And what if the shoes I ordered online to go with it didn’t fit? Or didn’t look right with the dress?

Whatever would I do?

I mean, how many artists do you know? How many painters, how many writers, how many musicians? Who aren’t substitute teachers or waiters, or telemarketers on the side? There are relatively few people with his kind of talent combined with drive, who can eat and pay rent by doing what they love to do. If I did not absolutely and totally love who he is with everything I am, I think I might envy him.

I met him when we were in high school, and even then I recognized his talent for what it was, as flighty and misguided as I was. He taught me everything I know about integrity and honesty.

His band, Local H, is now on Day 2 of a week-long set of sold-out shows at Chicago’s Beat Kitchen.

Local H is a band comprised of my dear friend Scott Lucas and Brian St. Clair, (of Chicago’s Rights of the Accused and the wondrous Triple Fast Action).

You might be familiar with one or two of Local H’s songs without even knowing it: Bound for the Floor (which can be found here) or Eddie Vedder (which I can’t find anywhere that I can link to, but trust me, you’ve probably heard it).

This week-long series of shows is a kickoff to a US tour in support of their newest album, Twelve Angry Months, a concept record of 12 songs representing each month in a year of overcoming a major relationship breakup.

You can see if they’ll be touring anywhere near you at LOCALH.COM – The Official Local H Website.

I’m unbelievably sad and envious that I will not get to see them live at ANY of these shows. I would be singing my bloody guts out to every song, if I could.

These are just two incredibly talented, laid-back, down-to-earth, normal guys who happen to frickin’ rock.

Check out these dynamite photos, all taken by the gifted Matt Birhanzel of ShatterTheLens.com > Home

I gave Rivergirl the same Blogger homework that I drew, just to make it easy on us both and to deflect a bit of attention from the fact that I’m only just now turning it in. Those of you who live in the First World won’t understand, but I have this to say to those of you who live in the First World: Bite Me. Live with CableMenos for a few weeks and then come talk to me.

The reason I was out of cable internet? Still not sure. But a big truck drove down our street the other night and snapped some wires, and then a Cablemas guy came out to hook up the cable of someone across the street, and our guess is he simply unhooked ours to put the new cable in, to save time. The people in the office said they had no idea why our internet didn’t work, but that they would look into ahorita (or “little now,” which should mean faster than ahora, or right now, but it never does mean that, now does it?).

My assignment: Show Some Skin:

How did you get those scars? The one on your thumb is from when you were three and you wondered whether scissors could cut skin. The one on your stomach is from your emergency appendectomy. Your boss figured you had to be in the hospital, because it was the only reason you’d ever be late to work without calling.

Your scars indicate what type of life you’ve lived. Whether you’re athletic, fighting for your health, or just occasionally clumsy, let each scar remind you of the story behind it.

Hold onto your horses, Gentle Reader, for here I give you the rundown of my scars:

1. Left elbow: scar is a small, round circle of burned/grafted-looking skin. This one happened when I was about 7 months old and my too-young-to-have-me mama left me home alone while I slept on her and my dad’s bed. It was raining outside and she had to drive my dad to work. Since I had (allegedly) not rolled over yet, she figured it was OK. She returned to the house to find that I had awoken, rolled over, and fallen between the bed and the room’s plugged-in space heater. I had fairly bad burns on my hands (from trying to push the space heater away from me), but the only scar I got was a small, perfectly-round circle on my left elbow. To this day (and bear in mind, I am nearly 40 years old), whenever my mom asks me to do something I don’t want to do, I find a way to show that scar so that she feels guilty and goes to make me a fruit pie or something with melted cheese. Ah, mom-guilt, how useful thou art.

2. Under my lower lip: I’m a lucky person, my scars are mostly unnoticeable unless I point them out. This one could have been bad. I was pretty small, a toddler, I guess, and running down the sidewalk. I hit an uneven patch and bit it pretty hard, and apparently the two teeth I had in my lower jaw pushed part of the way through the skin just below my lower lip. Probably scared the crap out of my poor mom, but I’m no worse for the wear.

3. Right hand: Small, half-moon shaped scar just below my thumb. I was in 5^th grade and was playing wiffle ball with the deaf/mute girl neighbor that I hardly knew. She went to a “special” school and so didn’t know anyone in the neighborhood, but I was fascinated by her and played with her any chance I got. When I dove for the wiffle ball she hit, I landed in what at first felt like a “pricker bush.” When I stood up and looked in awe at my hand, which was running with blood, I was speechless and wordlessly showed my companion my hand. Since she couldn’t hear, I didn’t speak. She made a grunting sound that startled me into action and I realized that, holy crap, I had fallen on a broken bottle hidden in the grass, I was cut and I was bleeding like crazy. I ran home crying to my mom, who took me to the hospital to get stitched up. I never saw that girl again. I think about her from time to time and wonder if she ever thinks of me.

4. Right knee and right upper thigh: I have a tiny round scar on my right kneecap, received somewhere around the summer after 6^th grade. I was riding my bike one summer along Sheridan Road, almost at the local convenient store, The Cheese Shack, when someone I considered popular called out to me from the other side of the street to get my attention. I stopped so fast the handles shifted and I got caught up between the handles and the bike frame. Right around that same time period, my brat of a little sister plugged in my curling iron and left it burning away in the middle of our pigsty of a shared bedroom. While looking for something under the bed, I sat on it and it burned the hell out of my right upper thigh. That long, purplish scar has pretty much faded to nothing by now.

5. Left eye: I went a looooong time in between scars. My next one happened when I was 20 years old and in the Army, playing on the 8^th Army softball team in South Korea. Early one morning while playing shortstop (not my usual position) and practicing turning double plays, I caught a forceful throw from First with my left eye. Reeling from the impact, I put my bleeding head in my glove and rocked back and forth, willing myself not to pass out. I wound up with a concussion, a fractured cheekbone, and a blowout fracture of my eyeball. By the marvelous luck I’ve had my entire life, I had no serious lasting damage, besides some lingering double vision when lying down watching TV. The small scar, however, does make my eyebrow hairs grow funny around it, and I have a much higher chance of getting glaucoma in my dotage. Like I care what happens in my dotage. I say that now, of course. Because I’m not even sure I know what “dotage” means.

6. Right wrist: In my late 20s, I developed a ganglion cyst on my right wrist that made it difficult for me to bend it. I’ve read that in “olden” times, these cysts were called “bible bumps” because the way the doctors would break up the cyst was they would whack the shit out of it with a big bible. Fuck that noise, I got myself a plastic surgeon. I was all high on the happy juice for the surgery, and the doctor amused me later by telling me about two funny things I allegedly did. First, I supposedly said, “Hey, Doc, since you’re already here and in the scrubs and everything, how about you give me bigger tits?” And second, when he was finished and told me he removed the cyst, I apparently asked him to show it to me, which he did. I have no recollection of either of those events, Senator.

7. Both legs: Over the last couple of years I’ve suffered from a number of nasty abscesses on my legs that have grown from minor cuts, scrapes, or ingrown hairs. Several were severe enough to leave round, cigar-burn looking scars that have killed any chance I ever might have had of looking like Barbie.

8. My heart: This is the big one, full of all these scars that can’t be seen, but that have informed every aspect of my personality and my life. Starting with my father’s absence and, well, never ending, my heart is no different from anyone else’s heart: stabbed, cut, stitched, bleeding, bruised, pounded, and torn, but still remarkably young, fresh, strong, proud, loving, determined and full of hope. They didn’t make it a muscle for nothing, y’all.

That concludes my fragile, weak little body’s catalog of scars. Now tell me about yours.

Today I got to thinking about some of the “celebrity” crushes I had when I was a young girl. I’ve assembled a list of the first 18 I could think of, and tried to put them in a rough chronological order from first to last. I’m not revealing any of my current crushes, by the way (Daniel Craig in the latest James Bond movie), so don’t bother to ask.

Speed Racer, you were my first love. Clearly it was your Japanese anime-style, giant eyes that set my little heart aflutter. Plus, you just went so darned fast, and had a sidekick chimpanzee named Chim-Chim. I was so impossibly young then it didn’t occur to me that your cartoon status would keep us tragically separated forever. Sometimes I look back on those innocent days and tears form in the corners of my normal-sized, human, green eyes. Adieu, my darling. Adieu.

The Leif Garrett thingmber clearly the poster I had of him on my dooro darned fast, and had a sidekick monkey named Chim-Chimthose innocent days is inexplicable, and if I didn’t remember clearly the poster I had on my door of him wearing a blue satin jacket, I’d think the entire thing a false memory triggered by repressed psychological trauma. I mean, he looks like frickin’ Farrah Fawcett, for chrissakes. In my defense, I was five years old, what did I know? Could I ever have imagined that he would grow up to be this skeevy character?

Oh, Shaun, I still hold a soft spot in my heart for you, even after all these years. Your outfit is so jaunty, the tennis sweater tossed “devil-may-care” ‘round your shoulders. It wasn’t you who was Born Late, my sweet, it was me. Hey, Deenie, won’t you come out tonight? The stars are dancin’, there’s diamonds in the moonlight/Hey Deenie, you’re the one I’m dreaming of…. Guess who pretended for several years, secretly, that her name was Deenie?

Scott Baio’s recent reappearance/despicable attack on a defenseless world has only served to deepen my shame about the depth of feeling I once held for Chachi. Now immune to his charm, when I look coldly back, it’s apparent that the only thing I ever saw in him was a resemblance to my first love, Speed Racer. But Scott Baio isn’t fit to wipe Speed’s shoes, and I think I knew it even then, deep down.

When Star Wars first came out, I was still in my brief, but ill-advised “blonde” stage, plus I thought Han Solo was old (what an IDIOT!), so Luke Skywalker was my guy. I orchestrated many dreams wherein I inserted myself into the Star Wars Saga, as Princess Leia’s little sister, Princess Julie, who got to go on intergalactic dates with Luke (since, in my opinion, Julie was the most beautiful name I’d ever heard) (and also I wouldn’t find out until Return of the Jedi that Leia was actually Luke’s sister) (gross). I loved Luke for, oh, I don’t know, maybe 3 years? And then all of a sudden, I saw him for what he was: a boring, poorly-acted puss who whines about wanting to go over to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters instead of helping his uncle with chores. So then I switched my allegiance to:

And, in all honesty, I can’t say that I’ve ever really gotten over the Han Solo thing. Case in point, our Halloween costumes from just this past October:

Here is where the crushes start to get a little complicated. I know that Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory came out in 1971, but I don’t remember watching it until I was about 7 or 8 years old. My crush on Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka was a little disturbing even then, but it was his ability to see through the bullshit of the jerky kids and into the good character of the poor-but-honorable Charlie that made me love him. His eyes were so kind, and he was so loving and understanding of how hard it could be sometimes to be a kid, especially a kid who didn’t have the right clothes or perfect house. Even later, when I read Roald Dahl’s book, I always pictured Gene Wilder in my mind.

Ok, Richard Dreyfuss in The Goodbye Girl. More creepy crush madness that touched upon deep-seated (but then unrealized) issues of paternal abandonment and a need for attention that would resurface much later in crushes on “real” teachers, drill sergeants, college professors, and others in perceived positions of authority. None of which were ever acted upon, of course.

I think everyone in the free world had the hots for John Travolta in Grease, so I don’t think I have anything to apologize for. I saw this as a double feature with Saturday Night Fever at the Dunes Theater in Zion, IL in 1978. Would you let your kid go to see Saturday Night Fever at 8 years old?

I’m truly ashamed of this one and wish with all my might that I could take it back. IT BURNS!

Ok, the crush was Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles, played by Michael Schoeffling. But since I’m being perfectly honest, I can admit that I had a crush on Farmer Ted, too.

It wasn’t Tom Hulce I had a crush on, it was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as imagined by Milos Forman. I must have watched this movie 150 times at least. I was so revved up about Mozart that I checked out every book I could find about him in the library, and was stupefied by the discrepancy between the real story and the movie, Amadeus. That sound you hear? It’s the still-echoing sound of my heart breaking back in 1985.

David Addison in Moonlighting, NOT Bruce Willis. Please remember that.

I’ve sunk so low now I might as well tell the whole truth: I had my first-ever sex dream about Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing. My skin just crawled off and slunk away and is going to live in the house next door where surely no one has ever had a sex dream involving Patrick Swayze.

Leslie Howard as Professor Henry Higgins in Pygmalion. Another one of those movies I watched ad nauseum. More creepy crushiness; I wanted to be changed, to be different from the person I was. And he was just the man to improve me.

Lloyd Dobler from the last great movie of the 80′s, Cameron Crowe’s wondrous Say Anything. I still love him and will until I’m in my grave. Mind you, I never confused Lloyd with the actor who played him, and have NEVER had a thing for John Cusack.

I loved just about everything River Phoenix did. I find it pretty hard to even look at this picture of him. So beautiful, talented, and young. And dead.

This concludes the first 18 crushes of my youth that I could remember. Who was your crush?

Getting a real tree here would be idiotic, the stupid needles would be off the tree by the time we got it home, so we went looking for an artificial tree. There are two choices here in artificial trees: expensive/kind of crappy quality and super cheap/REALLY crappy quality. We opted for the latter.

Here is our Christmas tree. Hey, what do you expect for a tree that cost 89 pesos?

I actually really like the ornaments we bought, since they are retro and remind me of the vintage ornaments we had on my tree when I was a kid. Plus, they were ultra cheap, like 13 pesos for a box of 6. Woohoo!

I did bring a few of the “special” ornaments I had growing up. My Auntie Judi made this one for me when I was eleven:

This hideous thing is an elf that my mom had on the tree FOREVER, before I was born even. I’ve always LOVED it. The color is faded, I think it’s missing an arm, and the fabric is actually stiff now, but I wouldn’t have a Christmas tree without it. Even when it gets down to just a face, I’ll still put it on my tree.

Allegedly, this ornament was made by my father when he was little. It looks pretty good, though, so I’m thinking the teacher helped him, or I’ve been lied to for years. Anyway, I treasure it. It reminds me of the gingerbread man ornament I made in kindergarten that weighed about 5 lbs and broke every tree branch my mom tried to hang it on. I think my sister, Becky, ate a few bites of it later in its life.

Oh, this ornament. When I was little I gnawed off the little plastic sprinkles on his left leg, convinced it was sugar. I was bitterly disappointed. Looks like I’ve always had an appetite.

That’s it! Pretty brokeass, I know, but poco a poco as they say.

1.      1. Once, when I was a kid and my mom was at work, I put some Tater Tots on a baking sheet, put them in the oven, and went to watch TV until they were done. About three hours later, when I’d completely forgotten about the Tater Tots, I heard an explosion of glass shattering in the kitchen. “SHIT,” I thought, “THE TATER TOTS!!” Sure enough, the little glass window on the oven had shattered and sprayed all over the floor. I shakily turned off the oven and pulled out the baking sheet. The Tater Tots had shrunken from such long, slow cooking that they looked like charred baby teeth. I called my mom at work and told her in semi-truthful detail what had happened. When she asked, suspiciously, “How long did you cook them?” I said, “Uh, well, I kinda forgot about them and they cooked for about 45 minutes.” She said, “Oh, that’s not so bad, that isn’t your fault, it shouldn’t have happened.” So, mom? Sorry about cooking those Tater Tots for 3 hours and blowing up your oven. It’s too late to ground me, nyah nyah.

2.    2. The Tater Tot story reminded me of another kitchen mishap. I was assigned to make the traditional Deviled Eggs for our family reunion picnic. I worked as a late-night bartender at the time, so I got home from work early the morning of the picnic and put the eggs on to hard boil, then sat on the couch to read until they were done. I was awakened by a huge “KA-BLAM!” and to my then-boyfriend saying snottily, “Excuse me, are you cooking something?” Did you know that eggs will explode if they are cooked for so long that the water boils down in the pot? Did you also know that the explosion is forceful enough to send bits of egg and shell into such far-flung corners of the kitchen that you will be finding them for weeks to come? And did you further know that such a thing will ruin an expensive pot owned by your anal-retentive boyfriend who will never let you forget it (or a million other of your shortcomings), until you finally dump his sorry ass?

     3. When I was in the Army, one of my married friends had people over for Easter Dinner. I was only 19 years old and didn’t have a lot of adult cooking experience under my belt, but I had watched my mom cook for years and had made some simple things. Well, no one knew how to make gravy, so Heather to the rescue. “I know how to make gravy, it’s delicious, my mom’s gravy is the best, etc. etc” ad nauseum until finally I was in the kitchen making gravy. I scraped the browned bits, I mixed the flour with the water to avoid lumps, I stirred and stirred. And still it wasn’t thickening. So little by little, I kept adding flour, and adding a little more flour. And then I stirred some more and added a little more flour. And all of a sudden, all that flour solidified at once, and my “gravy” was a white, congealed mass of slightly gravy-tasting flour. You could stick the spoon in it and turn it upside down for a bowl-shaped, warm gravy popsicle. The memory of my shame still sometimes wakes me up in the middle of the night.

->   4.   I never hit my head on the diving board at camp while attempting an inward dive. When I was 11, I told all the kids at Bible camp that I USED to LOVE to dive off the diving board, and that I could even do flips, but since the “head-hitting” incident, I was too traumatized to try again. I was just too afraid to dive off the diving board, period. It feels really good to get that off my chest.

5.     5.   I walked in on Chad and Derek Tompoles’ stepdad in the bathroom while he was taking a shit. His pants were around his ankles and he was reading a Newsweek. That’s all I want to say about this.

->  6. One Sunday afternoon in the 5^th grade, when I went to the Park Roller Rink, I stuffed my brand new “training bra” that I had begged for with little round balls of toilet paper. As I skated around and around the rink, one of the balls slipped out and fell to the ground. I just kept skating, right into the bathroom, where I pulled out the other ball of tissue, took off my skates, got my things, and went home.

          7. While we’re on the subject, the reason I got the training bra in the first place is because the stupid boys at school used to play a stupid game, where they’d point to locations on a girl’s back and say, “North, South, East, West, Equator.” When they said “equator,” they’d snap the girl’s bra strap. Funny right? Except when one of the little bastards did it to me…when he got to the “equator,” he said, “equator…equator…equator,” and mimicked snatching at thin air. I mean, I had no boobs, what did I need a bra for? I thought that “training” bra meant that if only I had that bra, it would train my body to grow the boobs I so desperately wanted. In any case, my mom finally gave in, so I got a miniscule white lace “bra” with a little blue flower. I wore it proudly to school, with the tightest t-shirt I had, to show the straps. Now what do you think happened? Of course those little pricks made fun of me for having bra straps without the accompanying boobs. I took the bra off in the girls bathroom at school and on the way home, I stuffed it into a knot on the big oak tree on my block, so I’d never have to see it again.

     8. I can’t think of an 8^th thing.

I choose Ginger, Julie A, Pamplemoose, Purple Dragonfly, Char, Rob Schwager, Libby and John, and Alicia. Sorry, guys. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.

That 17^th year, I was in acting class and had to “act” out the scene where George and Mary are sharing the telephone, listening to Sam “Hee Haw” Wainwright’s call. I use the term “act” loosely with regard to me; I was quite possibly the worst actress known to Zion-Benton Township High School history, which came as a great shock and disappointment to me, since I was such a good liar then and wanted with all my heart to be an actress.

My partner in the scene was a guy in my class I’d just met a few months earlier, and someone who had quickly become my favorite person. He was an excellent actor, and I really feel sorry for him that he got stuck with me. We had to actually kiss in class at the end of the scene, which of course made all the kids giggle. He was a boy with coarse, thick hair and I remember my cheeks tingled for the next period afterward from his beard stubble. I didn’t concentrate well the entire rest of the day, and even remembering how I felt makes me blush. That Christmas, he rode his bicycle to my house on a frigid night and gave me the present of “It’s a Wonderful Life” on video. It remains one of the best gifts I’ve ever received.

Every time I watch the movie, I historically start crying at the scene where Mr. Gower the druggist is sad and drunk because his son had died and slaps young George, who cries out, “I know you feel bad…don’t hit my sore ear again,” etc. Last night was a different story. I started crying at the very beginning, when the voices of George’s friends and family are praying for him. By the end of the movie, I was exhausted from all the crying, but felt so uplifted and happy and hopeful.

Recently I’ve been in better contact with my old friend, the boy who gave me this movie as a gift. He had been going through a very rough time and had nothing but terrible things to say about himself. It rankled me, the way it always rankles me when someone says something bad about my family or other people I love. So last night as I watched this movie, I found myself thinking of all of the ways in which this friend had changed my life for the better, for the ways in which his life has mattered to mine. “Each man’s life touches so many other lives.” How could he not see how important he is? He is the boy who rode his bicycle from another town on a freezing night to give me the gift of this wonderful movie, and he better never forget it.

As I bawled my way through the last minutes of the film, I made a promise to myself that the next time I feel depressed or worthless, I am going to rent this movie and watch it again. Because no man is a failure who has friends.

 Here is a picture of Danny and me in 1972.  This is before we lived in the crappy apartment on Sheridan road, which means there were actually OTHER places I lived before there, but I don’t remember them very well and so can’t write about them.

Crappy Apartment complex on Sheridan Road and 6th st. in Winthrop Harbor, IL.
Age, about 2.5 or 3 years to about 6 years old. (And mom, my memory is not without its wormholes from this time, so correct me at any time)

After my dad died, my mom lived here with me and her boyfriend Danny in a small, 2 bedroom apartment. It was a red brick, two-building apartment complex on the busiest street in a small village, the kind of place that is a step above an SRO and a step below nearly anything else in the First World. The kind of place that, when driving by it, you feel a little sorry for the people who live there. Me, I was young, so it didn’t matter where I lived. There was a big group of kids who lived there with whom I played, but I only remember two names: Spanky and Claudia. I assume that Spanky was a pseudonym, but I cannot be sure.

Claudia is the one who figures most prominently in my memory. She was four years older than me and had profound mental and emotional incapacities that made her both dangerous and exciting to be around. I can remember, even at my young age, being in absolute awe of her total absence of sense, of her capacity for mindless, terrifying actions. She once dared me to sit in Sheridan Road for one full minute. Sheridan Road was a four lane street with the most traffic you could encounter in our small town. Never one to admit a weakness or back down (even when challenged by the mentally disabled, apparently), I got off the curb and sat in the middle of the far west lane for what seemed an eternity while cars slowed and swerved around me. Thankfully soon (or else this might be a different story altogether), a Winthrop Harbor police car swerved around me and pulled into the complex’s parking lot. The cop got out of his car while I, scared, scrambled to my feet. He yelled at me, “WHERE IS YOUR MOM?!” I shakingly answered, “She’s not home” (total bald-faced lie, even at 5 years old. I was made for this shit). He glowered at me, pointed his finger and said ominously, “Well, Missy, you better NEVER sit in the street again, and I am coming back later to tell your mom what you did.” Then he left. And I spent the next 13 years nervously awaiting his return, always pressing my arms tighter to my side and looking away as police cars passed me in town, waiting for the bust that would never come. But I never sat in the street again, did I?

My mom was very young when she had me, just 19, and when we lived here she still occasionally partied and had a good time the way a young person should. My mom took baths every night and I would sit and chat with her as she bathed. When she was finished, she would sometimes pull the plug out of the drain, stick her big toe in and frantically yell to me, “Heather, oh no, I’m going down the drain…help me, hurry, go get Danny!” Without fail, I would tear into the living room to scream at Danny lying on the couch, “DANNY! HELP!! HELP!! Mommy’s going down the drain!! Mommy’s going down the drain!!” He would just shrug me off and ignore me. Seeing no help from him, I would run back into the bathroom with my little heart in my throat and find, to my horror, the tub completely drained and my mother nowhere in sight. “NO, MOMMY, NO,” I would scream, while my mom snickered to herself with laughter from her hiding spot behind the bathroom door. I’m not proud to say that I fell for this on multiple occasions.

This picture was taken inside the crappy apartment on Sheridan Road. I was getting dressed and my mom grabbed the camera to take a picture of me in my underpants. Since I was and am a modest girl, I screamed bloody murder and ran around the apartment trying to escape her. When I finally realized resistance was futile, I jumped onto the couch. I love how I’m covering my “boobs,” as if there is anything to see.

Next door to this apartment building was a barber shop that had a striped, electric barber pole encased in glass, that moved as if it was twisting up to the top and coming up from the bottom. My sneaking suspicion/hope that it was made of peppermint was cruelly dashed one fine day when I licked it and came up with no more than the taste of stale parking lot dust.

I learned to ride a bike without training wheels in this very dusty parking lot the day before I went to kindergarten for the first time. Danny pretended he was still holding the back of my seat as I peddled wobbily, shaking left and right. When I finally realized he had let go and I was actually a big girl riding a bike with two wheels, I looked behind me and the distance between myself and the people I loved was so scary, I fell immediately and scraped both my knees. Once I got over the indignity of his betrayal, I realized that I loved that strange feeling of fear mixed with exhilaration, so I got right back on and tried again.

More places to come, y’all.