For poorer

On the positive side, she thought, you really get to know someone when you have spent some time broke with them.  When there's no money for restaurants and bars and trips you have to be more resourceful about having fun.  Small things--like soy sauce to go on top of the plain white rice--seem like luxuries.  You get good at amusing each other for free.  She had known those things already, but she'd learned something new with this period of poverty.  She had learned what it was like to have someone steal food for her.  The profound gratitude and loyalty she felt when he returned with something to eat and physically put it into her hands when she was hungry and humble and vulnerable...well, that was new to her.  A lot of people didn't understand a lot of things about their relationship, to be sure, and this was one more that not many would comprehend.  But to her loving someone meant nourishing them with food, and when he opened his bag and pulled out what he managed to find, she wasn't sure if she had ever been loved more.

In memory of smells

AKA: A work in progress

In memory of smells

I was a nervous child.

Early on in life I was of the opinion that I had a certain quota of worrying to reach every day, and if I did not meet it bad things would happen to my family and me. Eventually my anxiety became so overwhelming that I had to develop special rituals to calm me. Many of them involved smelling my fingers.

At first, I would touch things and sniff my fingers out of curiosity: dogs, tree sap, bubblegum stuck in crevices and under tables, pizza rolls, Elmer’s glue. There was so much to smell! I would trail behind my mother at the grocery store, happily touching and smelling everything in sight. I was wide-eyed and shy, and had a rather interesting habit of peering out from behind my mom while gazing at strangers and sniffing my fingers. Soon it wasn’t enough to sniff my fingers, and I began burying my nose into everything I could.

I should clarify that I knew this was weird, and—with the exception of my immediate family—I took great pains to hide my habits from others. This resulted in a great deal of covert smelling and in careful restraint of sniffing during the school day that gave way to an uncontrollable onslaught in the evenings. Once my mother walked in on me crawling around the living room with my nose to the carpet, taking in the virtual smorgasbord of scents. “What in the hell are you doing?” she asked in bewilderment.

“Smelling,” I mumbled, continuing on with my business.

Being fixated on everything that was within a 50 foot radius of my nose, I soon became enamored with what came out of it. I designated a corner of my bedroom as “booger corner,” and used it to carefully catalogue the various fascinating shape and sizes that I produced. I meticulously lined them up in straight rows; each row consisted of an even number of boogers. The symmetry and order appealed to me, and I would rock myself back and forth while admiring the thought and care put into the corner. Not surprisingly, my mother found this habit particularly disgusting, and periodically took a scraper and scrub brush to the walls, conveniently providing me with a fresh canvas on which to recreate my masterpieces.

Soon it became important not only WHAT I smelled, but how many times I smelled it. Even numbers—preferably 2, 4, and 8—were very important. The cat food was not appropriately taken in if I only partook in 7 sniffs. Upon my mom’s entry into the kitchen I gave a quick 8th sniff to the cat’s bowl and sat back on my haunches, pretending to innocently contemplate the butter yellow kitchen wall.

After that, my growing fascination with even numbers (except 6) generalized and then things really got out of control. I would walk from place to place an even number of steps. I tapped things an even number of times. I chanted words and sang songs and bit my fingernails and petted the ferret in multiples of four. On my fingers I counted out the number of letters in various words before I would say them. I liked to imagine that this gave me the appearance of a thoughtful, scholarly girl who chose her words carefully.

(To be continued...)

Loving Daniel Webster

After my broken engagement to Jamie Gizzi in kindergarten, I wandered the streets as a single woman for several months, wondering if I would ever love and be loved again. Until the first day of school in first grade, I was convinced I was going to be a spinster for the rest of my days. Then came Daniel Webster.

I’d like to say that it was his charm or personality that first won me over, but truthfully it was his denim jacket. I found the way that he wore it to be incredibly sexy, and I got quivers in the pit of my stomach when he casually slung it on as we got ready for the school bus to come.

One thing I came to appreciate about Daniel was how genuinely nice he was. Most first grade boys were fickle and would turn on you in a moment. Daniel, however, was not like the other boys. He was a good-natured and friendly boy who was nice to everyone. He had wide blue eyes and glasses and a ready smile. At the tender age of 6 I felt like a woman when I looked at him—I wanted things from him that I only partially understood. I wanted to melt.

I would like to say that Daniel and I fell in love. I would like to say that he was as enamored by me as I was of him. We never even held hands. I did, however, chase him around the playground and steal kisses from him whenever possible. I can distinctly remember throwing my arms around him and the feel of my lips on his rosy, all-American boy cheek as he squirmed away from me and tried to run. I wanted his attention intensely, and I was determined to take it by force if he didn’t hand it over willingly.

Daniel was not in my first grade class; he was in the class across the hall. I lived for the moments when I could be near him on the playground, and I pined for him as I sat in Mrs. Nease’s class completing my math worksheets and taking my spelling tests. As my class marched down the hall in gender-segregated lines to the bathroom, I tried to steal glances in Mrs. Scott’s class to get a glimpse of him. My classmates ran into the back of my skinny, dawdling frame and grumbled in irritation.

“Amie, pay attention,” Mrs. Nease would admonish. “There’s nothing for you in that classroom.”

Oh, but there was! The father of my future children was in there! The person with whom I would sit in a rocking chair on the front porch drinking iced sweet tea as our grandchildren played in the yard was IN THAT ROOM! Laying eyes on him was a touchstone in my day.

When Valentine’s Day came around, Daniel gave me a special card. This was not a run of the mill childhood Valentine with Snoopy or Garfield or cartoon hearts on it—this was a real grown-up card purchased at a card store with his name carefully printed in childhood script at the bottom. Inside the card was a sheet of cloth heart stickers. Stickers! Oh! That boy knew the way to my heart.

That afternoon on the way to the school bus, Daniel offered to let me wear his coveted denim jacket. I will never forget the walk up the hill from the school cafeteria (the “bus room”) to the school bus. I relished the warmth of the jacket from his body, and I was the happiest girl in the world. I reluctantly gave it back to him on the bus, hoping that we would be sitting together and could finally start making plans for our life together. Disappointingly, he proceeded to the back of the bus to sit with his friends and I was left to wonder who would be the one to punish our kids when they were bad. Would he be the disciplinarian? Or would I? Did he like spaghetti? Peanut butter toast? I vowed that Daniel Webster would never eat Hamburger Helper as long as he was my husband.

Unfotunately, Valentine’s Day was the climax of our romance and the rest of first grade proceeded uneventfully. I can vividly remember the last day of school and my anguish at having to spend a summer where I wouldn’t see Daniel at all. I watched mournfully as he got off at his stop and gleefully trotted off to begin three months free of school. Slowly the tears started to slide down my cheeks, and by the time I got off the bus I was full-on sobbing. Christel Andy tumbled off the bus after me, and asked me in a concerned, motherly tone why I was crying. I blubbered out my anguish to her; she didn't laugh as I was afraid she might. She patted my arm and assured me that I wouldn’t always feel this way and that we would still have a fun summer.

I trudged home miserably. For weeks I plotted how I could reach him. I looked up his phone number in the telephone book, and twice I worked up the courage to call him. I can still remember his childhood phone number.

One day when I could take it no more, I sat down to write him a letter. I poured all my love into it, certain that after he read it he would rush to my house and whisk me away to live with him and his parents. I carefully wrote his address on the envelope and ran to the big blue mailbox on the corner to drop the letter in before I changed my mind. Oh god, I felt alive! I was aglow with my courage and ran to Christel to tell her what I had just done. I recounted each step up to the mailing of the letter, and when I finished she asked, “Did you put a stamp on it?” My face fell. No. No, I hadn’t. My letter would never reach him.

I got my first real six-string.

Today and throughout the month of November I am participating in National Novel Writing Month ("NaNoWriMo"). In order to get 50,000 words in 30 days, I figure I need to average around 1650 words per day.

I'm using NaNoWriMo to generate memoir material on as of yet unexplored topics. On occasion I may post bits and pieces here.

It is difficult already, because part of the challenge is not to self-edit--something at which I excel. I'm trying really hard just to let the words flow and not come out like a completed product as I normally would strive for. I am tempted to sit here and explain in detail that parts of my writing that I want to work on, but to be honest, I'm emotionally exhausted. Even just THINKING ABOUT the material on which I'm writing today makes me cry like a baby, and it has worn me out.

Here is a little bit of free-writing that I did as part of my first NaNoWriMo writing. It's unplanned and unstructured. It's more of a collection of memories and impressions than an actual story. But here it is.

* * * * *

Occasionally people will ask questions like, “Where would you go if you could go anywhere?” My head always jumps to the years of approximately 1982-1985. All of my grandparents were there, there were still a lot of bad things I hadn't yet seen, I still believed in Santa Claus, and I still thought I was meant for great things.

On second thought…let’s stick to 1982. Kindergarten in Miss Wilking’s class was a good time for me.

I didn’t know it at the time, because I didn’t know any different, but there was something special about going to my paternal grandparents’ house and being surrounded by my entire family: grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Everybody ate and talked and argued and smoked and laughed all at once. They were a noisy, rowdy, and occasionally raunchy bunch. My grandpa and uncles told dirty jokes that I didn’t understand and didn’t find funny. My grandmother encouraged us kids to eat more tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers and less chips and cookies. And my cousins and I ran through the house, up the back steps, and across the steep backyard and back again, constantly on the move in case we were missing something. There was a feel of excitement in the air.

Negotiations of who would get to spend the night with whom began early, and we planned and coordinated our strategy like seasoned army generals. Crouching on the front porch, away from the earshot of adults, we organized our attack and planned for the fun that would follow our sleepover victory.

“Let me ask pappy and grandmother first. They’ll say yes. Once they say yes, your dad won’t be able to say no.”

“When we play school, I get to be the teacher.”

“You always get to be the teacher!”

“That’s because I’m the oldest and I know how to write in cursive like a teacher.”

“No you don’t! You don’t write real letters—you just pretend to cross t’s and dot i’s!”

I can remember the smell and the feel of the lush blackberry bushes up on the hill in the back yard like it was just yesterday. I can feel the bars of the swingset on the backs of my knees like I am still hanging upside down from them. I can see the rust patches on the swingset, and feel it jump when I swing too high. I can remember the chalky residue the paint left on my sweaty hands. I can hear my cousins’ shouts, and I can see my family down the hill grilling burgers and drinking beer.

The air is hot and sticky—the humid remnants of a summer day in the mountains of West Virginia—and the fireflies begin to come out at dusk. I can still feel their ticklish legs walking around inside my cupped hands, trying to strike the balance between keeping them securely cloistered away and being careful not to crush them. (Once my stepdad thought he would be clever and he squished the butt of a firefly to get the glow-in-the-dark light out. He put in on my finger like a diamond ring as I stared in horror at what he had done and started to cry.) I can hear the rise of the cricket chirps in the grass as the air begins to cool and the night approaches. I am once again filled with the desire to fill a jar with fireflies and take care of them—my own personal night-light forever and always.

The Mailman

At the age of 6 I became obsessed with our mailman.

He was a tall, gray-haired man with kind eyes and—looking back—was likely on the verge of retirement. I decided I liked him immensely because he reminded me of my grandpa. I wanted desperately for him to be my friend and possibly my new grandparent, but he wanted very little to do with me.

I began by waiting for him on the front porch every day. Around 11am he trekked through our yard littered with my Big Wheel and naked Barbies in various positions of fornication. I felt slight embarrassment over the Barbies in the 69 position on the second step, and self-consciously kicked them into the bushes as he approached. He handed me our stack of mail and I beamed and gave him the most polite “Thank you” I could muster. “You’re welcome,” he said simply, and headed toward the next house. Soon this daily ritual became unsatisfying.

I noted that he started his route each morning by getting the mail out of the big blue post office mailbox on the corner, so the next time he arrived I was waiting on top with my legs sprawled on either side of the little door. “Good morning,” he said, as he bent down to unlock the front and retrieve the letters and cards inside.

“Good morning,” I chirped in a sing-song voice, packing all the love and affection into my greeting that I could.

Now we were finally getting somewhere. Soon I would be perched on his lap as he told me stories of his childhood. His wife would be inside baking cookies, and I would be invited to stay in the spare bedroom they had set up just in case a nice little girl came to live with them.

He placed the mail in his truck and hoisted his bag onto his shoulder. I hopped down off the mailbox and began to follow him, sure that my companionship would soften him up. I lagged about 10 feet behind, and waited politely in the yard as he went from stoop to stoop placing letters in the box. Occasionally I would run up behind him and sniff his blue shirt, curious as to whether he smelled of Juicy Fruit gum as my grandpa did. When he paused to sort through the letters in his bag I would surreptitiously pick my nose as I waited patiently and watched him. He eyed me warily and continued along his route. I wasn’t allowed to wander more than a few houses away, so at the Westfall’s place I would wave and holler after him, “Goodbye! I’ll see you tomorrow!” He never answered and never turned back.

One day I was later than usual coming outside, and—to my joy—discovered that he was eating lunch inside of his mail truck down the street. I trotted over to the window and knocked on it. He glanced up at me and then went back to the bologna sandwich and the newspaper he was reading. To entertain him I did cartwheels, jumping jacks, and Pop Warner cheers on the sidewalk next to his truck. I never saw him look up once.

I couldn’t understand it. I was trying as hard as I could and he wasn’t interested in taking me home with him. Why couldn’t he see that I could fill the empty space in his life? In anger and frustration, I wiped a booger on his window and stomped off dramatically. I would have to think carefully about my next step.

On a night when my stepfather was on a particularly cruel rampage, I curled in the corner of my bedroom and tried to think of a way out. I needed someone to take me where no one could find me. Suddenly I knew that the mailman could help me; I just had to make him understand the urgency of my situation.

The next morning I climbed out of bed and tore a page out of my Wonder Woman coloring book. With red crayon, I carefully printed the words, “Mailman, Help me get out. Please. Love, Amie.” I tip-toed out of the house and anxiously waited on the front porch for his arrival. He just had to help me, and I began to cry as I imagined the relief I would feel once I arrived safely at his house.

Like clockwork he arrived with his mailbag, and I thrust my letter into his hand. He looked down at it and frowned. I sniffed and wiped my nose on the back of my shirt, looking at him expectantly. I imagined being whisked away in his mail truck amidst the Publisher’s Clearinghouse winner notifications and the Hills department store sales flyers. He cleared his throat and handed my note back along with a small stack of junk mail. As he turned his back and walked down the steps, I sat down where I was standing and started to cry.

Round 2

After the first round of rejections, I'm submitting more of my writing for publication. My friend suggested an online journal called "Bent Pin," and from there I found a link to litmags.org--a site that lists literary magazines, the types of submissions they take, submission guidelines, etc. What a gem! As a result of this I submitted work to both "Memoir (and)" and "River Teeth." Plus, I found other possible destinations for my work if these fall through, including: "New England Review," "Cherry Bleeds," and "Apple Valley Review."

I'm excited.

November 2001

We sat on the edge of the bathtub waiting in silence. I imagined that this could be the moment when everything changed, the point at which we departed from the path we were on and went down another for the rest of our lives. We might look back at this day in the bathroom affectionately, saying, “We freaked when we found out. Remember that?”

After another moment he looked at his watch and said, “Okay.” I bit my lip and got up and went to the sink to have a look.

“It’s negative,” I said quietly.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yeah, negative,” I responded, looking at the test again, just in case it had changed all of a sudden.

He let out a deep breath. “I’m kind of disappointed,” he said softly. I looked up in surprise.

“What?” I asked incredulously.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong—I’m relieved. We can’t handle a kid right now. But I’m kind of disappointed, too.”

'Scratch that,' I thought. 'Maybe THIS is the moment when everything changed.'

An offer

He absentmindedly rubbed my five year old back as he watched a baseball game. My attempts to get him to talk to me were met with distracted one-word answers, and I wanted more of his attention. I only knew one thing that might work—it was what men liked.

I took a deep breath. “You can if you want,” I told him.

“Hmmm?” he asked, not taking his eyes from the television.

“You can if you want,” I said a little louder this time.

This took his eyes from the screen and he looked into mine. “I can what?” I flushed a little, not wanting to spell it out for him.

“You know,” I said simply.

“Hon, I don’t know,” he said. He hugged me and went back to watching the game.

Attempts at "Toning Down the Crazy"

I've been trying to break out of my comfort zone in my writing. I'm trying to write about more present day issues and people. Trouble is, I prefer to cloak experiences in humorous pathos, and all I can come up with at the moment is pathos. With the exception of imitating myself, I can't squeeze a drop of humor out. Maybe I'm not far enough away from these events yet to be able to reflect on them well? Maybe some things just aren't meant to be funny?

I tried writing a piece called "Toning Down the Crazy" and I hate it. It came out sounding like a regular old blog entry or a simple recount to a friend. I need to think about it more. If you've been reading this blog, most of this will already be familiar to you because I wrote about it as I was experiencing it, but here's a stab I took. I don't even have an ending! I just stopped.

* * * * * * * * *

Toning Down the Crazy

I spent some time over the last couple of years losing my shit. It culminated in an ecstatic cacophony from December – February. I thought I was losing my mind. I wasn’t quite sure what was happening to me.

Let me tell you some of the gory details.

I vacillated wildly between crushing depression and hysteria. The depression is pretty self-explanatory, but the hysteria… There were days when the roar of noise was so loud in my head that all I could do was try to calm myself. My childhood patterns of obsessions and compulsions returned full-force. I would drive home chanting to myself—anything to shut off the noise. One day I needed to yell over and over, “I’m sorry,’ she said, “but I have nothing left to give!’” to no one in particular. Another day I found myself rocking back and forth at work furiously whispering Christmas carols to deal with the panic rising in me. I knew perfectly well that my office was a fishbowl and that anyone could see what I was doing. But I didn’t care! I banged out words on my keyboard that day that looked like this:

Dashingthroughthesnowinaonehorseopensleigh
O’erthefieldswegolaughingallthewaaaayyyy
Bellsonbobtailsring
Makingspiritsbright
Whatfunitistorideandsingasleighingsongtonight…OH!
JINGLEBELLSJINGLEBELLSJINGLEALLTHEWAY
OHWHATFUNITISTORIDEINAONEHORSEOPENSLEIGH…HEY!!!

I check my personal email inbox repeatedly, thinking frantically, “Somebody talk to me SOMEBODYFUCKINGTALKTOME! I NEED TO HEAR FROM SOMEBODYANYFUCKINGBODYIDON’TCAREWHOYOUARE.”

I wanted someone’s—anyone’s—words and appearance of normalcy to soothe me.

I became obsessed with the Golden Gate Bridge. I didn’t really want to jump off of it but part of my couldn’t stop thinking about ‘what if?’ I had to read about it and drive to it and stare at it and research it. I needed to know how high it was from the water and how deep it was underneath. (How far could one go?) I needed to watch clips of others jumping off. I was terrified of the thoughts my brain insisted on having but all I could do was go along for the ride.

If a friend made me laugh to hard I couldn’t stop. It would turn into a hysterical, manical laughter and then—just as quickly—into uncontrollable sobbing.

I would call friends and beg to come over—couldn’t I please just come over for awhile? They always said yes, and often by the time I was supposed to head over I didn’t want to go anymore—couldn’t bear the thought of seeing anyone. So I’d call and cancel.

I found a quote during that time. I don’t remember where I found it or know who wrote it, but ohmygod it was me:

I have a darkness that I have to feed. I have a sadness that grows up around me like a weed. I'm not hurting anyone. I'm just spiraling in. I close my eyes and hear the song begin again...

There were days that—like a fog—everything would lift. I would feel completely normal. “What is my problem?” I would think. “I’m obviously fine. I need to stop acting so crazy. Why can’t I stop? I just need to be tougher with myself.” It felt like I'd managed to fool everyone into thinking there was something wrong with me--my God, what an actress!

Maybe my eventual bipolar diagnosis doesn’t come as a complete surprise, but it confused me. I thought the mania was supposed to feel good! I thought you were supposed to have super-human energy and feel like you could do anything! I just felt like a wayward tornado.

Numero dos!

When it rains, it pours!

Today I got a rejection letter from The Sun magazine for "Hypervigilance." I am happier because this one's an actual letter instead of an email, although they didn't tell me they loved my essay.

Still waiting for: McSweeney's and This American Life. It's challenging to find places to send my work because not everyone wants memoir.

We loved your essay...

Oh, you with the breathtaking eyes...

I got my first official rejection letter today from Brevity for "Narrate My Life."

What a day it's been!

Poised on the brink of something important...a tidbit

I watched him unabashedly, wanting him to notice. He was absorbed in putting drum equipment away and didn’t seem to pay attention to anything going on around him. In true high school girl fashion, I leaned toward Chaunette and said, “He’s so cute.”

Her eyes followed my gaze. “Oh, Eli?” she asked, using his nickname. “I’ve had a crush on him forever.”

“Really?” I asked, with mild interest. I felt no competition here. “Is he nice?”

“Oh, yes. He’s really nice! But he doesn’t say much,” she laughed.

I continued to stare at him, wondering if I could work up the courage to talk to him and—somewhere in the back of my head—filing away the details of this conversation so that I could tell him about it one day and we could laugh together.

Another tidbit

I sat huddled outside the door to the room all the girls were in. I was the only one my age in the shelter—all the other kids were babies or teenagers—and I was achingly lonely. I listened to them laugh and sing along to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” I hated Michael Jackson, and my shyness would probably prevent me from opening my mouth, but I still wanted to be in the room with those girls. Suddenly the door opened a crack, and a suspicious eye was cast on me. I turned toward it hopefully. “How old are you?” came a muffled voice.

I hesitated. Should I lie? “Eight,” I answered honestly.

“Will you tell anyone what we talk about in here?” the voice asked.

“No, I swear,” I answered with as much vehemence as I could muster.

One final question from the voice: “Do you like Michael Jackson?”

“I love him,” I lied while mentally vowing to apologize to God a hundred times later that night.

“Okay, you can come in,” the voice relented. And the door swung open.

Tidbit

I hurled myself against the door in an effort to block anyone from coming into the bathroom, screaming, “No! Don’t make me go home!” The door knob jutted into my ribs as my body collided with the door, and I grunted with pain. I could hear my classmates calling for Miss Wilking. I knew from experience that someone would take pictures of my bruises, and briefly I wondered if I should tell them that I caused this one.

First lines

I did a fun little writing exercise where I came up with the first lines of stories. They may or may not develop into actual stories, but I really enjoyed doing this.

Being my mother’s daughter has resulted in acquired sleuthing skills over the years. There was always a need to figure out what really happened, as her take on the most mundane of events changed dramatically on a dime.

For much of my life I’ve felt the need to have a back-up plan.

My mother saved her happiness for other things.

I was a sorry girl the day my grandpa decided to talk to me about sex.

I picked up the crumbs of advice my uncles dropped like a hungry baby bird.

When I was little I took great pleasure in counting and ordering things. This included everything from books to records to boogers.

The day I kept driving

For as long as I can remember, I have felt the need to have an escape plan from my life.

Recently, I was driving to work and I was immersed in my thoughts and music and I just kept going and going. Eventually there was a break in my reverie and I looked around and thought, Where am I? Where am I going? (Excellent questions, in general, as it turns out.) Nothing was familiar. I had bypassed my exit on the interstate and was heading south for parts unknown.

For a brief moment, I was free.

My mind swelled with the possibilities of where I would go and what I would call myself. Should I have a colorful past or keep it vague and mysterious? Should I make an attempt to let my family know I was alive or just fade into their memories? Where are the best beaches in Central and South America? Would I get the infamous Brazilian wax? Could I support myself by giving diving lessons? Could I learn to scuba dive in the first place? Would I eventually blend in with the locals? How far could I get?

I mentally calculated the amount of money in my bank account and, upon realizing I could only get about as far as San Jose, I sighed. And turned around.

(This was revised from an earlier piece.)

Planning ahead, repeating: A series of vignettes

I always wanted to go to summer camp, but my family was broke, broke, broke. So I slept in the backyard and ate clover, pretending they were special wild mushrooms I'd found that would give me the power to fly away if I just ate enough. I wonder what the neighbors thought--see the wild-haired little girl in the yard with her pillow, gobbling down grass, desperately wanting it to be enough.

*************************

I used to keep a small bag packed in case our house caught on fire. I wanted my most treasured items at arm’s reach at all times in case I needed to flee fast. I remember one incarnation of my emergency kit was a little plastic suitcase that included my grandmother’s obituary, a quarter my grandpa gave me for good luck before my 4th grade spelling bee, a little red metal truck—not much bigger than one of the Hot Wheels—that came from my dead great grandfather in the event I was born a boy, a rubber mermaid with blue hair that I loved, and a piece of my mother’s lingerie because it smelled like her perfume.

Looking back I’m quite impressed with my emergency kit’s thoroughness because, at present, my emergency earthquake kit only contains a few bottles of water.

*************************

Repetition has always comforted me. As a child, one way I fulfilled this need was by pretending to sell hot dogs. It's still not clear to me why I did this because, for as long as I can remember, I've loathed hot dogs. But when I was upset and alone I would regularly gather up the raw hot-dog-making materials and pretend to sell them for hours.

The green waxy rhododendron leaves from the bush in our front yard made perfect buns. Broken sticks served as the actual "meat" (if any part of a hot dog can be called such). Freshly mown grass played the part of multiple toppings, including relish and sauerkraut. But my personal favorites were the onions. I would scrape white paint chips off our house that badly needed re-painting--and if I were ever to have been caught for this there would have been hell to pay--and break them up into bits for chopped onions. In my neighbor's yard a small dried up well with a lid made a perfect drive thru window.

I prided myself on the quality of my ingredients (each one hand gathered!), the value of my hot dogs (only pennies apiece!), and my unfailingly courteous service. Every once in awhile, though, a customer would get snippy with me. At my hot dog stand, the customer was not always right. When I was unable to reason with them I would take their order, throw it through the drive-thru window into their car, and tell them to go fuck themselves as I’d heard my mother do with various real and imaginary people. Then I would brush the chopped onions off my hands while muttering, "Some people are never happy," and put on a big smile for the next customer pulling up for their order.

*************************

My grandpa and I spent a lot of time together when I was very young. On weekends we often went out to breakfast. We would eat in silence, mostly looking out the window or at the other diners; occasionally we would comment on the quality of the food.

My favorite weekends were those when we went to Shoney’s. If you’re not familiar with Shoney’s, it’s a sit-down family restaurant that has breakfast, lunch, and dinner. On the weekends they were known for their breakfast bar with its endless supply of steak fingers and bacon. I enjoyed the food, but what I really loved was filling out the comment cards.

Part of my excitement was that I was even allowed to fill one out in the first place. My mother never would have allowed this, but my grandpa patiently loaned me his pen and answered my questions about the spelling and meaning of words like “accuracy” and “promptness.” If asked, he would also describe to me his own assessment of the meal.

I was also excited because it was so rare that anyone wanted to hear what I had to say, and here was a restaurant—a corporation—who wanted to know in detail about how my dining experience had been. So I told them. Over and over. I filled a card out each and every time we went to Shoney’s. I related the details of our order down to who had ranch dressing on the side. I carefully and truthfully rated our service and meal and overall dining experience. I reported on the server’s cheerfulness and the cleanliness of our table. I was convinced I was providing an important service. The Shoney’s company had a reliable source on the operations of their store in Bridgeport, WV and, because I loved Shoney’s, my comment cards were invariably glowing.

One day an official-looking letter arrived for me at my grandpa’s house. I squealed with glee when I saw that it was from Shoney’s. I just knew they were writing to thank me for all my efforts, and to encourage me to continue providing them with feedback! I ripped it open excitedly and my grandpa and I read it together:

Dear Miss Ashcraft, it began. How thrilling! How official! We at Shoney’s thank you for your business and your feedback via our comment cards. I knew they were paying attention! We value the feedback of our other customers, too, and ask that you do not complete any more comment cards. Please continue to enjoy our restaurants. Sincerely, Shoney’s

I was crushed and began to cry. I had thought they wanted to hear what I had to say, even if I ate the same meal every visit. I never did fill out any more comment cards at Shoney’s. I was filled with terror that—as soon as I picked one up—gunmen would surround my grandpa and I and haul us off to jail. He was just an old man! He wouldn't be able to handle doing time like I would. I put on my stiff upper lip and fought the urge to comment, knowing in my heart I was protecting our futures.

I am planning to send my kids to summer camp.

I always wanted to go to camp myself, but my family was broke, broke, broke. So I slept in the backyard and ate clover, pretending they were special wild mushrooms I'd found that would give me the power to fly away if I just ate enough. I wonder what the neighbors thought--see the wild-haired little girl in the yard with her pillow, gobbling down grass, desperately wanting it to be enough.

Dirty Barbies [*revised*]

[Note: This is the first thing I ever wrote a couple of years ago, and I've been meaning to add onto and revise it forever!]

Like many little girls, my evolving understanding of human anatomy, sexuality, and the complexities of relationships were reflected in my Barbies.

For quite some time, I didn’t have a Ken doll and my Barbies were all lesbians. If I wanted a male figure I was forced to create imaginary ones or else to play at a friend’s house so as to take advantage of her Ken-doll-possessing good fortune. I often ended up at my friend Katie’s.

There were pros and cons to playing at Katie’s house. On one hand, she had fancier Barbie accessories than I, such as the dream house and the pink corvette. She also owned a cute little pink nightie that was sure to get Barbie laid. Much to my initial dismay, however, Katie wanted her Barbies to do devious things.

“Let’s play like my Ken sleeps with another Barbie and you divorce him,” she would always suggest. At first I hated this.

“Can’t we just play like they love each other and take a vacation together?” I would counter. Katie dismissed that as boring and we usually ended up doing things her way. I found I got into it very quickly.

We’d dress up one Barbie all slutty-like: in a short skirt, tight sweater, and high heels. She would saunter casually up to Ken, place an ever-rigid, outstretched arm on his, and say, “Hey baby, wanna come over to my place? My parents aren’t home.” Ken, of course, was always game. He practically panted as he followed her eagerly back to the Dream House.

We only had a vague understanding of what Ken and Slutty were supposed to do together. We knew it was wonderfully bad and involved being naked with a lot of moaning. We also had very little concept of the seduction process. “Let’s pretend the air conditioner is broken and it’s really hot, so they can’t stand to wear their clothes,” I would suggest. So Ken and Slutty would lounge together naked on a little plastic couch with their legs sticking straight out in front of them.

“Can I lay on top of you?” Ken would ask hopefully.

“Sure!” Slutty agreed.

In our earliest dirty Barbie adventures that’s as far as we ever got. As our learning expanded and our bravery grew, Ken and Slutty experimented with different positions. There were little “clack-clack” noises as naked, plastic body parts eagerly rubbed together. Slutty’s legs usually ended up straight up in the air as she assertively instructed Ken as to how to please her. Irrespective of the scenario we enacted, Slutty always ended up pissed off and throwing Ken and his clothes out the door. “And stay out!” she would huff, angry and naked. Meanwhile, Wife Barbie would be stuck at home blowing wisps of frazzled hair out of her face. She was fed up with her life that consisted of three filthy, screaming kids, an old wood-paneled station wagon, a dog with chronic diarrhea, a burning dinner on the stove, and a husband who didn’t make her feel like a woman anymore.

One Christmas, I was thrilled to get my very own Ken doll. I was dismayed, however, that he wasn’t a “normal” one with a painted-on helmet of yellow hair. Instead, he had a sort of white man’s frizzy Afro of synthetic hair that framed his chiseled features like a puffy cloud. While I was now able to enact my own dirty Barbie scenarios, I was increasingly disappointed with naked Ken’s flesh-colored, painted on underwear over his vague hump for a penis. But I came up with a brilliant plan.

I cut off his hair close to his head and glued it onto his crotch. I sat back to admire my work. I realized that Ken’s new pubic hair only told part of the story of what was down there, but I was still immensely satisfied with the results. I pulled on his pants not really realizing how ridiculous he now looked with the hairy, bushy bulge that now made them too tight. Tendrils of hair curled up and over his elastic waistband: a tantalizing promise of what was to be found underneath.

I rushed into the kitchen to show my grandma what I had done, proud of my ingenuity. She was talking to my great-grandmother, and waved me away while silently mouthing the words “I’m on the phone.” I tapped my foot impatiently for a moment, and then decided I couldn’t wait any longer. No verbal explanation was really needed, and I was eager to get back to my bedroom to explore all the possibilities Ken’s new pubic hair offered to the ladies in his life. I thrust Ken in front of her face and flashed her by pulling down the front of his pants so that his fluffy, black, and still glue-damp pubes dramatically burst forth.

“Oh, my God!” she cried. “Mom, you won’t believe what this child has done!” I was dismayed to see that some stray tufts of damp hair fell into clumps on her lap. I quickly realized the magnitude of my error, and ran with Ken back into the bedroom to hide. Soon afterward his glorious hair disappeared and I was left with an awkward-looking Ken with a bad haircut and a scaly crotch.

I was undeterred by these setbacks, however, and quickly set about exploring other sexual avenues for my Barbies to explore. One of the most exciting things to happen in my young life was a trip to the movie theater to see Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, and soon afterward scenes from the entire Star Wars trilogy played out in my Barbie games—especially those involving punishment.

As soon as Ken had arrived on the scene that Christmas, he had tried to lay claim to all the Barbies as if they were his personal harem. But the Barbies had been sleeping together long before he arrived and weren’t eager to give that freedom up or to be told what to do. Despite his own frequent infidelity, Ken was furious when he caught Wife Barbie with her best friend. He immediately took her to court.

The arrival of the trial proved to be a big day. All the Barbies, Cabbage Patch Kids, and various stuffed animals gathered around the perimeter of my bed to view the spectacle. A large Ewok made an unsympathetic and physically imposing judge. Despite her tears and pleas for mercy, Wife Barbie was sentenced to being frozen in carbonite for two weeks and Ken was granted a divorce. The trial attendants left the proceedings with their heads down, feeling sad that pleasures of the flesh could lead to such terrible consequences. I was disappointed with the sentence, too, but solemnly set about implementing the judge’s orders.

I closed the door to my grandparents’ bathroom and rummaged around in the cabinets. I concocted a thick and aromatic mixture of shampoo, talcum powder, bubble bath, and toothpaste. Wife Barbie obediently allowed me to submerge her, and all that was left visible of her were the tips of her nose and chin and her little plastic hands pressed forward in her last desperate act before being “frozen.” The quickly-hardening conglomeration was placed under the basement steps. I dutifully marked the day fourteen days from then on the calendar when her sentence would be complete.

At the end of two weeks I chiseled the newly subdued Divorced Barbie out of the “carbonite” and she was free to resume her life. Crumbles of plaster remained in the corner of her eyes and in her joints from that point forward; they served as a constant reminder of what she had done. None of the other Barbies wanted to interact with her. They averted their eyes when she passed and shunned all her attempts at companionship and conversation. She lived out the remainder of her life in solitude and celibacy, and for a long time patriarchy ruled the once free and sexually liberated Barbies.

Narrate my life

A great deal of my life has been devoted to performing for the imaginary audience in my head.

From a very young age, I had a large number of household responsibilities. I would imagine that it was late at night after the bar had closed, and I was the last one cleaning up after everyone else had gone. I would pause in my sweeping, rest my chin on my hand atop the broom, and gaze sadly off into the distance. I would start to sing Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” in a soft voice:

“He says, ‘Bill I believe this is killing me,’
As the smile ran away from his face
‘Well I’m sure that I could be a movie star
if I could get out of this place…’”

I would imagine this scene as a flashback to my childhood—to the days when I was young and powerless over my life. The audience would know by that point that I’d already made it. While watching the flashback with me sweeping with a broom as tall as me, they’d think, “Look how far she came! It’s hard to believe there was ever a time when people didn’t want her autograph!”

I would perform long, dramatic monologues for imaginary lovers. Wearing a bathrobe and slamming a glass of watery ice cubes down on the table, I would run my hands through my hair with drunken anguish and cry, “But I don’t love you anymore! You’ve hurt me too many times!” He would beg me to stay, saying he couldn’t LIVE without me, but I held firm. “My bags are packed,” I sniffed unsympathetically. “I’m leaving and you’ll never hear from me again.” The audience would marvel at how strong I was being. Other girls might take that man back, but not their Amie!

The audience witnessed the darker times, too. The evil stepfather hated our cats, and liked to make up games to amuse himself.

“See all the cat food on the floor?” he would ask. “Pick it up.” I put on my best stiff upper lip for the audience and picked up the two pieces on the floor and threw them in the trash.

“Okay,” I answered. “I’m done.” (Whew! That was an easy one.)

“Don’t fuck with me,” he would snap. “Pick it up.”

The audience and I caught onto his game simultaneously. I went around, gathering up the rest of the invisible pieces. I would pick up a few and hunt around, certain there were more; then I’d have an “aha!” moment as I discovered some hidden in the corner. As I gather the imaginary pieces in my hands, the audience held their breath, and I carefully watched the stepfather’s face for a sign as to when I could stop pretending to pick up invisible cat foot.

He was tricky, though. Just when his face relaxed and I brushed off my hands to skip off to do something else, his eyes blazed. I backed slowly toward the audience. Through clenched teeth he said, “I told you to pick up the fucking cat food.”

“I did! I will, I will!” I cried.

The audience gasped as he grabbed a handful of my hair and pounded my head against the wall to punctuate each word: “Don’t! Stop! Until! I! Say! So!” He let go of my hair and stormed out of the house. I crumpled to the floor, crying quietly. After a sufficient time had passed to demonstrate my pain, I lifted my chin, and parted my hair from my face so they could see the tears rolling down my cheeks. I stepped into the role of the narrator: “And that’s when she knew she would leave forever,” I told the people in the hushed darkness.