Things That Shifted My View

Do you ever worry that you're too old to be as profoundly affected by people, experiences, and ideas as you were when you were young? Sometimes I think that all the cynicism we acquire throughout our lives makes it impossible for us to be blown away by someone or something, which I'm guessing is why people seem to become so bored and complacent the older they get. I'm glad I'm not there yet.

At 28 years old, I don't feel finished...I don't feel like I'm done acquiring experiences and having those moments that shift the way I view the world. Lately I'm starting to see that this was an underlying reason why I left a comfortable, five year long relationship in San Francisco and moved back to Los Angeles. I didn't feel finished. I wasn't ready, and I didn't feel like I was having those moments of profoundness anymore...those moments that askew your view of the world just slightly.

Here are some things that blew my mind when I was younger:

Aside from his every-other-weekend stint, my dad would have us a couple weeks each summer, and we'd always drive for hours and hours to some beautiful forest, where we'd camp. During those long drives up winding mountain roads which had no radio reception, we had a choice between listening to the cassette of bagpipe music my dad brought, or Paul Simon's Graceland. I loved this album with all my heart. I still do.

My first crush. This show will always have a special place in my heart.

My mom's huge black Cadillac. Driving from Orange County to Los Angeles for Hanukkah at my Grandma's house. Tucked into the huge, cushy back seat with a pillow. This is what we always listened to. When Dudley Moore died, this is what I thought of.

Roald Dahl was the author who shaped my obsession with books. After my mom read these to me before bed, I started reading and rereading them on my own. It wasn't just the stories I loved - I felt like I knew the characters. I think a lot of my personality, and how I view the world, is based on a handful of books I loved when I was a child.

I don't even have the words to describe my love for Douglas Adams. I've written and rewritten this blurb about six times. There just aren't any words.

Read about the best day of my life here. Ray Bradbury is the main character.

Anything I could possibly say about Kurt Vonnegut would be a cliche. I know I'm not unique in my love for his books, but when I was in high school, and no one else I knew had heard of him, I felt like I had found a buried treasure.

There was a year or so during my adolescence where I read every single book by Steven King. When I'd finish the last line of a book, I'd peel the paperback cover off and hang it on my wall with a thumbtack. I think I had about 13 when I gave it up. His books scared the shit out of me. It was wonderful fuel for my insomnia.

Loved. Just loved.

This was the first record I ever bought. It completely shifted my view. Completely.

I saw this movie again recently and it doesn't really stand the test of time. At 13 years old, though, this movie was amazing. The soundtrack is great, too.

So many great songs and bands that I wouldn't have known about otherwise. Agent Orange, Minutemen, Twisted Roots, Redd Kross, Little Girls. Oof...I loved this album.

Sitting on the edge of my brother's bed after he insisted that I listen to a new album he got. A few seconds into the first song, Little Birdy, and I was floored. I'd never heard anything like it before.

I wore out this cassette in my mom's little Toyota that I'd drive around Orange County without a license. I still think it's one of the best albums ever ever.

First Time I Was Drunk

Aside from a couple sips of wine, snuck from my mom's glass when she wasn't looking, the first time I ever drank alcohol was when I was a bratty, rebellious 14 year old. It didn't end well.

Alissa was two years older than me, and ten years more mature. I had a huge platonic crush on her, and I would take the bus to University Park to hang out with her on the weekends. She was friends with the gutter punks, and had recently had a tumultuous relationship with the coolest of them, so I was privy to all the secrets and gossip about them.

She was tall and beautiful. She had dyed black hair and a little stud in her nose, and I mimed her 20-hole docs which she would wear over ripped tights. Even back then, as a naive kid, I could still sense the underlying sadness in Alissa, but I never really figured out the reasons for it.

Her best friend was Nancy, and I had never met anyone like them before. They were fun and silly, dramatic and deep, and it was exciting just to be around them. The fact that they seemed to like me, to take me under their wing, was an exhilarating feeling.

Her mom was out of town that Friday night, so after Alissa cooked us dinner, we swiped a bottle of vodka from her mother's stash, and headed out into the night. Between drinking the vodka, and throwing up the disgusting mixture of alcohol and pasta a few hours later, the events of that night are lost somewhere in my memory.

I do remember Alissa holding my hair as I puked, and stroking my back soothingly. She sat down on a park bench after I was done, and had me lay down with my head in her lap. The quiet park swayed woozily around me, and I vowed never to drink again. I was about 98% faithful to that vow until I was in my 20's, and to this day, vodka still makes me a little ill.

I have no idea what happened to Alissa. Last I heard, she shaved her head and moved out of California.

Read about my first cigarette.

Jobs That I've Held For the Least Amount of Time

*Two hours into my first day working at a little clothing store in Beverly Hills, I fainted and skinned my knee on the rough concrete floor. This was back in my pre-20's when I often got too excited/nervous and forgot to eat. I'm prone to fainting, and not-eating is the main cause for this. My mom (whom I lived with at the time) had to come pick me up. I still remember lying in bed the rest of the afternoon and my mom taking care of me. I think she made me oatmeal. I never went back to that job after that. I think I was too embarrassed.

*If you don't mind me using an annoying term for a moment; I'm a beauty school drop-out. My main reason for dropping out is directly related to the job I had for three days while in beauty school. I thought I wanted to be a hair stylist, so when I was offered a job as a salon assistant, I quit my boring office job. I spent the next three days washing people's hair, getting yelled at for washing people's hair incorrectly, constantly rolling my eyes to myself by all the stupid shit the stylists said and did, pretending to be friendly and chipper all the fucking time, and realizing I wasn't cut out for this business. During my lunch break on the third day, I sat in my car and cried. I called my boss at the boring office job and she offered me my job back. I took it.

*My unemployment had just run out and my income from waitressing wasn't going to pay the bills without my monthly unemployment check. I was really excited when I got offered the receptionist position at a huge mortgage company, the kind that had ads running on the radio. I was to field all the calls from said radio ads and direct them to the 50-or-so guys that worked as lenders. The idea was that when the guys came in that morning, they wrote their names on a list, and that list would determine what order the calls were distributed. If they missed their call, too bad, they would have to wait for the list to come around again, which sometimes didn't happen if it was a slow day.

This meant that every two minutes or so, a guy who was not unlike the Pete Campbell character from Mad Men would approach my desk and either try to get their name moved up, or tell me that so-and-so said they could take his turn (which wasn't allowed), or yell at me because they [were just out having a cigarette, eating lunch, going to the bathroom, etc] and they had missed their call. This coupled with the fact that the volume of calls necessitated at least three receptionists, not just little old me, as well as the fact that I would be emailed a chart every hour showing how many calls I had missed, caused me to start bawling to the office manager a week into the job. She was a total dick about it, so at lunch, I went home and never looked back.

If there's one character trait I possess that I'm proud of, it's knowing when to cut my losses and move on. Okay, your turn: What's job have you held on for the least amount of time?

Why The Question "Hamburger Pie?" Made Me Cry

The only year I strayed from Jewish camp was in third grade, when I chose to accompany my best-friend-since-kindergarten, Laurie, to Girl Scout camp. Since I hated Girl Scouts with a passion, I can't figure out why I decided to skip the camp I loved and attend one that not only was Girl Scout themed, but was also located in the desert, as opposed to one that was mere minutes from the beach.

Before we even got to the campsite, while we were a good two hours into the four hour bus ride to the camp, I realized I had made a dire mistake by choosing to attend this camp. Although we had been excited about it for months, and talked about it with great frequency and enthusiasm, somewhere along the lines I believe Laurie began to see my presence at this camp as more of a hindrance to her than a commodity. When I told her that I hoped she and I were in a cabin together during our bus ride, she casually stated that she had decided to request that I not be in her cabin, as she wanted to make new friends and be in a cabin with friends from years past.

I was dumbfounded, as one of the soul reasons I was even going to this camp was because of her insistence a couple months earlier, and her promises of how much fun we'd have together. By the time we reached camp, her icy demeanour made it clear to me that I was on my own in this mess.

Later that afternoon while at the swimming pool, amidst a huge pack of girls who were screaming with glee and enjoying themselves immensely, I submerged myself underwater so no one would notice I was crying. I still remember what it looked like down there. Blurry bodies from the chest down, while my tears mixed with the overly chlorinated pool.

That night, after settling myself in a cabin of girls who were complete strangers to me, and would remain such the entire two weeks, we went to the cafeteria for dinner. I felt alone and empty. I missed my mom and my family and would have done anything to go home. It was stiflingly hot and dusty, and I hadn't made one friend. While walking the cafeteria line, a tray in my hand with a plate of increasingly disgusting looking food being heaped on by angry looking women, a gruff lady with a hairnet and clear plastic gloves held up the most inedible looking thing I'd ever seen, and asked me in an impatient voice "hamburger pie?". I feverishly shook my head "no", and walked off to sit by myself at a picnic table.

"Hamburger pie" was the most disgusting sounding two words strung together I had ever heard. Something about it, the fact that I would not only never have had to eat it back at home, but would never have even known such a thing existed, not in my home where my mom made the best-ever pancakes-for-dinner, matzo ball soup, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (using fancy wheat bread, natural peanut butter, and jam) made me heartwrentchingly homesick. At that moment, I felt more alone and far away than I've ever felt, before or since.

My First Cigarette

I became fascinated with smoking sometime during 6th grade. I don't know if it was the rebellious gene that had taken a stronghold on me, just beginning to rear its ugly head and giving a hint of what the next five years would bring, or if I had simply succumbed to the relentlessness of the tobacco industry and the not-yet-frowned-upon practice of thinly veiled attempts to attract young smokers.

Whatever the cause, by the time the summer before I entered jr. high rolled around, I had taken to rolling loose tea leaves in paper, and "smoking" my hodge-podge cigarettes in front of the mirror when I had the house to myself.

It looked so glamours to me. I would pose and preen in front of the mirror, taking long drags and pursing my lips so that the stream of smoke lasted longer than I was able to exhale it. It burned my eyes and smelled like hell, but I did it every chance I got. I also loved having a secret. It felt so diabolical...I was a "smoker". I smoked. I felt awesome.

My brother, whom at this point was a Junior in high school, was a trustworthy and faithful companion. So when I confessed my new hobby and budding interest in smoking an actual cigarette to him, he called me immediately when he finally got his hands on some.

I crossed the busy street and walked the few minutes it took to get from my house to my dad's apartment, where my brother had lived since getting kicked out of the house a couple years earlier due to an incident involving his steal toed boot and a wall. Once there, we snuck over to the enclave hidden in the dense shrubbery next to the car port, the one where we would often find empty beer bottles and other traces of nefarious acts having been committed in this hidden den.

He produced a crumpled soft-pack of Camel non filters and passed one to me. He lit mine with a strike-anywhere match, followed by lighting his own. After a few puffs, he stared at me with a quizzical look before blurting out, in a typical big-brother incredulous fashion, "What the hell are you doing?" Turns out I hadn't been inhaling...didn't even know what it was. So when he was finished laughing at me, he demonstrated how to suck the carcinogen infested smoke directly into your lungs, thus taking an actual drag of a cigarette.

I did as he demonstrated. I took a large pull off that cigarette, not having the burden of a filter between me and the tobacco, and swallowed the smoke into my virgin lungs. Then I coughed. I coughed for what seemed like hours, only interrupted by the overwhelming feeling of needing to throw up. I snubbed the cigarette out bitterly, as my brother sympathetically laughed at me.

Do you remember your first cigarette?

Bleeding

Another entry in the "One Good Thing I've Done/One Bad Thing I've Done" file.

One Bad Thing I've Done

The whole thing was my fault, really. I mean, she's the one who threw the first punch, but everything leading up to it is firmly planted on my shoulders. She was my best friend for the majority of my Junior year of high school. She, Dorothy and I would trudge around our school like we owned the damn place. While Dorothy favored the style of those she accompanied to raves every weekend, and I was the thrift store rat who was known to squeeze herself into whimsical vintage children's dresses, Yvette was the resident "Riot Grrrl" and had the lunchbox that took the place of a purse, little barrettes in her bleach blond bob, and chain wallet to prove it.

Even to this day, I still have to admit to myself that she was quite annoying. Sure she was fun to be around most of the time, and was incredibly social and outgoing...but, my god, she was as shallow as they come. I used to joke that you could put down the phone during a conversation with her, and when you came back an hour later, she'd still be talking about whatever drama she was currently dealing with. The worst thing though, the thing that made me decide to end our friendship, was the incessant gossiping. It was nonstop, and you could be sure that whatever secret you told her would quickly spread to everyone you knew.

I can't remember why or how it escalated, but I was quite mouthy back then, so I must have pissed her off enough to warrant her approaching me during our morning break where I was sitting with my friends, and punch me in the face. What followed was the first and only real fight I've ever been in. It was over quickly, with a few scratches and pulled hair for both of us. I did get one good punch in, which I still feel badly about.

It was my fault. I was probably mean and flippant, and I'm sure it hurt her feelings when I dismissed our friendship so easily. When I ran into her a few years later at a bar, I apologized and we both laughed it off.


One Good Thing I've Done

I wrote the "one bad thing" part of this post yesterday, and subsequently spent the remainder of the day trying to think of one good thing I've done. Of course there were little things like being there when a friend needed me, putting a quarter in a meter that had run out, feeding a stray dog, etc. But I couldn't think of anything really concrete, something that stood out as more than just a day-to-day nicety.

So this Saturday I'm going to do something I've been contemplating for a few months. I'm going to get my cheek swabbed and my blood drawn in hopes of becoming a candidate for bone marrow donation.

Peace On Earth Was All It Said

I still remember the woody, musky smell they would have inside, when you first cracked them open. Picking the right color was always the hardest part, but it was okay if you chose wrong, because the stickers you had been saving up all year to adorn it would always make it look better. After packing everything inside it, being sure to check each item off the list provided as you carefully laid it in your trunk, you would write your name on the masking tape you had stuck across the top, as that was the rule.

You had been waiting all year for this. So had your sister and, for the first couple years at least, your brother had as well. The taunting at school, never being part of the "popular" crowd, being the ugly duckling, and the weird girl...those things mattered a lot less after you started going to camp every summer. And not just any camp, Wilshire Blvd. Temple Camps; Gindling Hilltop and Camp Hess Kramer to be exact.
There, you always made all the girls in your cabin laugh hysterically late into the night, until one of the counselors on patrol would poke her head in and hiss at everyone to be quiet, before stomping away into the wooded darkness to make-out with her boyfriend, or get high.

You never had a lack of ears to whisper secrets into, or someone to ditch Israeli dance class with to sneak through the woods to the tunnel that lead to the Pacific Ocean. They were the people you had been writing letters to throughout the year. The ones who had their own unhappy or boring lives September through June, who knew that the minute they turned into the parking lot of Wilshire Blvd. Temple and saw the yellow buses idling, waiting to cart a rash of giddy Jewish kids up PCH, they would fit right in, and the year they had been away from their "camp friends" would quickly fade away, as if no time had passed at all.

There were crushes, and first kisses, and your entire cabin plotting with you so that, during the evening song, you'd "accidentally" end up standing next to the boy that you've loved every summer for the past three years...the song where everyone joined hands before singing the Hebrew words that you had memorized when you were five years old.

It felt like the most important thing in the world. All the little dramas and scandals and tears for what felt like the longest two weeks of the year. For these two weeks you weren't the self conscience person that you were the rest of the year. You were cast in plays about biblical characters and had arms slung around you while songs were sung around campfires. You could be whoever you wanted to be, but you didn't think twice about being yourself.

You had your first real boyfriend there...the first of your ex's that would later die in a car accident. Some of your closest friendships were formed there, most of which have become a faded memory, but whose faces you can still picture perfectly.

Coming home was the hardest part. You needed a week to recover, to make your own home seem like it was permanent, and to not feel like that state between between being asleep and waking up. There wasn't praying before meals, and folk songs sung loudly afterward. You weren't surrounded by girls in bunk beds late at night, loudly whispering about the day's events, and life outside of camp. You weren't surrounded by a canopy of trees when you went to temple on Friday nights. Instead, you were bored to tears and stuck in an uncomfortable folding chair. The kids at school didn't understand your heritage, and kids are prone to mocking that which they don't understand.

You didn't walk from your cabin to the dining hall, or to archery class, or up the steep hill to the giant menorah that was on top, giving you a view all the way to the Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica pier with a group of people who learned more about you in that two week period than anyone else in your life ever had. Those were the things you looked forward to all year...the things that made it easier to brush off the bullshit of everyday life.

Loud & Happy

During the last week, which was the first in my new house, I've been confronted with a sound that - once I heard it - made me realize I hadn't heard it in ten years, since moving from Orange County, where I grew up. Now that I live at the end of a cul-de-sac, which is more conducive to children playing in the street, that's exactly what happens everyday, starting around 3 p.m., until around 9 p.m.

When the windows are open in my house (and even when they're not, sometimes) the sound of mariachi music and screaming children waft into my house, filling it with the sound of people living their lives.

I don't know what it was like where you grew up, but in my little neighborhood, immediately upon arriving home from school, or upon waking up in the summer, we'd head outside to the little parking lot which our townhouses encircled, and resume whatever dramatic game or discussion we had been entranced in the day before.

And it was dramatic. I once punched my next-door neighbor Sanaz (who was like a sister to me from around age 6 until about age 15, whom I've barely spoken to since) in the nose, after she kicked me in the stomach during a heated argument. We'd put on ridiculous plays for our patient parents (most of whom were single, working mothers), or play made-up games in one of our houses on rainy days when all our mothers were at work, and we had the run of the house. Once we drew all over Vanessa's kitchen walls, which seemed perfectly okay since they were being wallpapered over the following weekend. It wasn't okay.

Although there were kids who would waft in and then out of our lives, after moving to the neighborhood for a year or so, only to be whisked away by their parents to some other part of the country, never to be heard from again, there were a few girls who were permanent fixtures in my life throughout my childhood. Those girls (who included my sister) taught me how to ride a bike. We were the masters of our free time, those precious hours between the ending school bell at 2:15 p.m. and going to bed late at night. And with little to no supervision or rules, we'd ride around our small town with nary a helmet or curfew in sight.

When I hear the kids who live in my new neighborhood playing out front, it makes me happy. I had heard neither hide nor hair of such a thing since escaping the suburbs immediately following high school, and I hadn't realized how much I missed it until I heard it for the first time when I moved into my new house. As long as they don't have screaming contests like my friends and I used to, then I'm really happy to be living in such a neighborhood.

Reactions to Death, Part 4

I was 13 when my grandmother died of heart failure (my dad's mom). I've lived more of my life without her in it, than I have with her...but I still remember her very well, and get sad when I think about it too much. Grandma's are the type of people that deserve more than a few paragraphs of description, and my reaction to her death was obviously very painful. So instead, here are some totally random things regarding my grandma, Molly:

-She would never tell anyone her age, or what year she was born in for that matter. I didn't find out until after she died.

-She had the coolest apartment across the street from the NBC studios. It was a little one bedroom that she lived in my entire life. I still remember the stairs leading up to it, and even which step was a little wobbly, so that you had to be careful as you climbed the stairs.

Her apartment was the quintessential grandmother's apartment, in my mind. She had beautiful, old furniture, pretty perfume bottles on her dresser in the bedroom...the kind that had a little rubber handle that you would squeeze to spritz the perfume, and a tiny little kitchen where I don't think I ever saw her cook. I vaguely remember something about her being a terrible cook, although I could be mistaken. I just remember catered breakfasts of lox, cod, and bagels.

-She always had a bowl of those lovely, chalky dinner mints out on the counter. The kind that melt like butter on your tongue. She'd also always have a plastic container of dried fruits, which I'd only eat because it came with this cool little fork, shaped like a pitchfork.

-She worked at a bakery stand in the Fairfax Farmers Market until she died. We'd always go visit her there when we were in town, and she'd hand us some kind of wonderfully huge cookie over the counter. I still visit that stand every time I go to the farmers market, and I contemplate asking the old man who works there if he remembers my grandmother.

-She had bright blond/white hair, and a long and pretty Russian nose. She was beautiful.

-For a week after she died, I scoured the obituaries in the LA Times, determined to cut hers out. It felt wrong not to. When I finally found it, I read it over and over. I still have that tiny strip of paper, 15 years later.

-When she died, my dad let us take one or two things from her apartment that reminded us of her, before all her furniture and belongings were given away. I took her decorative gold tree that would sit in the middle of the kitchen table on a Lazy Susan, which my sister and I would take turns swiveling around, so that the sun would catch on the golden leaves. I've brought it with me every time I moved, just as I'll bring it with me this weekend when I move into my new apartment. It's definitely on the top of my "what would you grab if your house was on fire" list.

the tree, on the left side of my dresser

Winning Numbers

I just went on the California Lottery website to check the winning numbers for yesterday's Mega Millions drawing. It's so silly, I know, but my heart does flutter a little when I have my ticket in one hand, and am waiting for the numbers to appear on the computer screen. This was the first ticket I had purchased in years, and was probably only around the fifth ticket I've ever bought in my life.



My mother has bought a lottery ticket every week since I was a kid. Every. Week. Same numbers every time, too. Some combination of mine and my brother & sister's birthday, coupled with the number that corresponds with the first initial of our names, or something like that. I had them memorized by the time I was ten.



I used to resent her lottery talk, which always started with "When I win the lottery..." and would end with any number of humble, yet fanciful desires. The whole family going on a cruise is one of them, as is her buying us all big houses with little gardens in the front. She and I going to Paris for decedent spa treatments and shopping. Some fancy car another...probably a Lexus. I would get dragged into it once in a while, despite my best efforts at being a bratty little pessimist, "I hate cruises! Lets go to Italy instead! I don't want a big house, I want a little cottage!", etc.



Last week, after overhearing a coworker talk about a recent office pool lottery win, my imagination got the best of me, and I found myself daydreaming about what I would do if I won the lottery. Trips to foreign destinations...places I would probably never get a chance to see otherwise. A little house to come home to, somewhere in the hills of Los Angeles. A cool old car that, unlike my own 20 year old BMW, I wouldn't have to worry about breaking down at any moment. How amazing it would feel to give my parents and siblings enough money to pursue their own humble desires.



I didn't win, obviously, but I'll probably buy another ticket next week. That, coupled with my new appreciation of having big hair like hers (after years of straightening it into submission), makes me worry that I may be turning into my mother.

What's your lottery story?

Punching

It's been a while since I've written a One Good Thing I've Done/One Bad Thing I've Done post, mainly because I've been having trouble thinking of a bad thing that are not so bad that I would be ashamed to write about them. Here's this:

One Good Thing I've Done, Which Could Also Be Considered A Bad Thing, If You're Anti "Violence As A Means To An End"...Which I'm Not In Certain Situations.

We were well into the soccer season when out of the blue, the teasing started. I had little knowledge of her. She was on a different team and went to a different Jr. High, but our teams would play each others once in a while, and we would have practice at the same soccer field once or twice a week. I can't think of anything I did do warrant becoming the subject of her taunting, but I was, none-the-less. Most of the teasing was about my looks, which I was still self conscience about back then, and her taunting was cruel, and meant for everyone to hear.

I don't remember the majority of what she would say to me, but I do remember being embarrassed, and it putting a large dent in my already fragile self esteem. That was really my major problem through much of my childhood; letting what people say get under my skin. Back then, in 7th grade, I was working towards correcting that, and on becoming a more confident person. This was a setback I hadn't expected.

I think the last straw was after practice one evening, as we were all headed to the parking lot to be picked up by our respective adults, when she started up with her teasing from across the field. Everyone could hear it, and I felt my cheeks flush. I looked up to realize that her mother was walking with her, and when her mother saw me, she gave me a smile in the "kids will be kids!" vain. I was livid, and at that moment I decided to do something about it.

That Saturday our team played hers. We won, and despite the fact that she was yelling horrible things at me throughout the game, I had high spirits. I tripped her twice on purpose, while she was running across the field after the ball (I was good at tripping people and making it look like an accident) and then it came time to do the obligatory "good game" high fives once the game ended (where each team stands in a line and high fives each other as the walk by, saying "good game" to each player they pass).

As I was about to pass her, she moved her hand away in an obvious attempt to show me that she didn't want to high five me. I reeled back my fist, and punched her in the shoulder...hard. Very hard. I took all that anger and sadness and those horrible feelings of worthlessness that she had been causing me all season, and delivered it right back to her, in the form of that punch. It felt amazing. Her face dropped, and I yelled some choice obscenities in her face before storming off to join my teammates, who were all ecstatic that I had stood up to her, having witnessed her teasing all season.

I remember her crying, and her mother holding her in her lap as she bawled. My self esteem and confidence grew exponentially that day. I've only punched one other person since then and I'm definitely not a fighter, but I don't regret doing that one bit. She left me alone from then on.

Splitting

When asked the question "are your parents still married?", I give a little chuckle and say "hell no". The reason my answer is so cynical is not because divorced parents are so normal, but because I can't imagine my parents as a married couple. They've been divorced for 23 years of my life, and I can't imagine it any other way.

That's not to say that I don't remember them as a married couple. Out of all the fighting and screaming that must have occurred before their divorce, I only remember one night of hiding under my covers, trying to block out their yelling. Although, it may have been a plethora of nights, and my memory has just condensed them into one single occasion.

Being that I was five years old at the time of their divorce, I only have two single memories of them as a married couple, and they're both happy ones. The first is of them doing an impromptu slow dance in the middle of our kitchen. My mom must have been making dinner, and my dad had probably just gotten home from work. Maybe instead of calling him by his nickname, "Late For Dinner", she had happily greeted him at the door. Maybe instead of being late for dinner, my dad had brought home a bottle of wine, and greeted her warmly when he walked through the door. In any case, they were slow dancing to imaginary music, and I slipped myself between them and stood on my dad's feet, clasping my arms around my mom's legs, so that I danced along with them.

The second occasion stems from my insomnia, which even back then was a problem. After lying in bed for however long, my little mind racing with thoughts, I crept downstairs to find my parents sitting on our comfy, faded couch, watching t.v. It felt very excitingly late at night, although it probably wasn't later than 9 or 10. I snuggled between them, thrilled that I hadn't been reprimanded and sent back to bed. I stayed up with them and watched t.v., a late-night talk show, I believe. We ate cookies, Fig Newtons, if I remember correctly...or perhaps something with carob chips, which my dad was fond of. I must have fallen asleep like that, because I don't remember how that story ends

I do remember how their marriage ended, though. I remember a lot more of the end, than I do of what proceeded it. But that's neither here nor there, because really, I can't imagine my life any other way.

Okay

I used to stick my fingers down my throat and make myself throw up whatever I had just eaten. I've fainted twice because I didn't eat all day. I used to truly hate myself, and while I don't remember ever thinking of myself as "fat", I do remember obsessing about becoming fat. This was all before I was 15 years old. Truth is, until I was 22, I had never weighed more than 107 pounds.

When I look back at how much I used to care, at how much I hated myself and how many things I wanted to change about myself, I get embarrassed. I don't feel even a bit of those things anymore...or if I ever do, I'm quick to correct myself.

I've been writing this entry all day, and I've only written seven lines...although I've deleted about ten more. I don't really want to talk about those things I went through and the abuse I put myself through, honestly. Part of the problem with eating disorders are that people who have them think they're the center of the universe, and that others actually give a shit what they look like, and what they eat and don't eat, and how disciplined they are. I don't think they care, I don't think anyone cares.

I don't think I'm the prettiest girl in the room, nor do I think I'm in great shape...oh god, I'm lying. I think I'm adorable! I don't really care if I'm not! What the fuck is the point of not thinking you're great???

This entry is going no where. I started it in order to document my struggle with eating disorders and crippling low self esteem, and I wanted to somehow impart my wisdom as to how I got over it...but I really haven't got a clue how it happened. I went from not being able to eat in front of guys ever, which would lead to me fainting, to thinking it's sexy for a girl to pwn food and actually enjoy it. I would stare at my ass in the mirror and scrutinize every (imaginary) bump...now I look at my backside while I'm changing and give it a little shake (and trust me, it shakes) for my own amusement.

A good relationship with a person who liked me just the way I was. Having to be a role model for his preteen daughter, and not wanting her to go through what you went though. Becoming friends with a beautiful girl with hips and ass who liked herself the way she was. It didn't happen over night, but it happened, and now there isn't even a trace of the girl I once was left. I feel like I owe it to the person I was years ago, the one who would make mental lists of all the things she would change about herself if she could, to walk into a room and be confident that she's just as cute as anyone else there, to ignore bad pictures of herself and pass them off as shitty angles, to order a burger when she fucking wants a burger, and to just accept that she's stuck with the person she is, so she might as well make the very best of it.

Reactions To Death, Part III

I've tried to write this post about Megan Toughill three times, and it never comes out right. We were close friends throughout high school, but hadn't spoken at all since graduation. I found out about her death when, after googling her name, I came upon her big sister's website and that had a memorial to Megan.

I suppose it's because I'm a Gemini, or because I'm hyper aware of my surroundings at all times, or because I used to be so critical of myself that I would notice every little thing about others, but I remember so many insignificant details about Megan. Her black cheerleader skirt that she would wear with knee socks, converse, and a pink top with a print of that stupid cat with wearing a collar that was so popular in the late 90's. That time she chipped her tooth while trying to take a hit off my sister's glass bong. Sitting in the back seat of Brian Johnson's turquoise, beat-up Toyota on one of many record-buying trips to Vinyl Solution in Huntington Beach, smoking cigarettes and singing along to Circle Jerks and Descendents. All the skate-punks being madly in love with her, and her flippancy towards them. How much I envied her confidence. Her tyrant father. How often she'd say "dude".

She died when she was thrown out of her car onto the freeway while she was driving home, drunk, after a party. I know some of the details because, coincidentally, a friend of a friend was driving behind her, and pulled over to try to help her. He came home with her blood all over his clothes.

I have these fantasies of running into people I used to know and catching up with them...laughing about our pasts together...marveling at how much we've changed. She was always one of those people that I was confident I would have such an encounter with.

"you don't know what you want (it may take you years to find out)"

Before I met Carrie, I always thought of myself as the bad influence when it came to my friends. Yvette's first cigarette, Whitney ditching class, Barbara smoking weed with high school boys under the bridge of the dry riverbed...these things all happened because of my, if not pressure, than encouragement.

I couldn't say exactly when it was that I turned bad. It was somewhere around the halfway point of 7th grade, I believe. It wasn't any one instance, or any person that influenced me...I think I was just waiting for a moment to revolt against the shy, awkward person I was throughout elementary school. I had been rejected by the pretty, popular girls for so long, and had coveted their lives to an obsessive degree. I went from wanting those things (long hair, trendy clothes, hip parents) to outright rejecting them. And rejection, at least in a small suburb where everyone has known you as a timid dork for your entire adolescence, translates to full on rebellion.
This includes, but is not limited to:

• at-home body piercings
• homemade tattoos
• enthusiastically taking drugs that your peers wouldn't try for years (long after you had learned your lesson)
• engaging in elicit acts with older boys which would subsequently take you years to realize that you had been taken advantage of

While some of these things are fun and made you feel young and alive, the majority are things that, once you outgrow that phase, take you a long time to convince yourself that those mistakes don't define you as a person, and an even longer amount of time to stop being ashamed of the person you were.

Carrie was just one of the many damaged, colorful friends I had during my initial foray into rebellion at the tender age of 13, although she had a lack of empathy and a flippancy which I hadn't encountered before. While the majority of my 7th grade class were mostly familiar faces, faces I had known since kindergarten, Carrie was brand new. We became friends quickly (something so much easier to do when you're young) and before long would spend the majority of our time together.

Her family life was so weird, and to this day I'm curious about her story, one she kept very guarded and only gave me snippets of after we had smoked a joint or drank a couple stolen beers. Carrie and her little brother and baby sister were obviously of Hispanic descent; her dark skin, black hair, and pretty eyes that always had the look of expertly applied eyeliner (even though she didn't wear any) were evidence of that. But her parents...man, her parents were nuts. White, Christian, working middle class types from the Midwest...they were strict and secretive and didn't trust me immediately. Their mistrust wasn't something I resented though...I ran with it, and used it as an excuse to not feel guilt when Carrie and I would scale her roof, after her parents had gone to bed, to run wild in the safety and quietness of a suburban night, basking in our youth, which felt like it would last forever.

She had been adopted, and her biological parents...were dead? I think that was how it went. I remember snippets of the story she told me about her childhood in South America...having to flee the small town she lived in? something about a invasion? or an accident? I don't really remember. All I have in my memory are the scenarios I pictured as she told me the story, and they don't have a clear narrative...just the image of people running away.

She moved away as abruptly as she had arrived. It was a succession of events, each one adding fire to the last; suspended for smoking cigarettes at school (with me), caught out way past curfew (with older boys), drugs found in her backpack, a boy found in her bedroom, etc. I eventually learned my lesson, figured myself out, and subsequently straighten my life out. Maybe it's because of her traumatizing childhood, or her parents who just didn't understand how to raise a teenager, or possibly her powerlessness over the direction of her life due to outside forces, but I don't think she ever had a chance. She crosses my mind every now and then, and I always get a sinking feeling she didn't fare well in the long run.

I suspected it at the time, and now I know it to be fact; adolescence sucks. All the money in the world wouldn't convince me to go back to those unsteady years.

Tag...I'm It!!! (part 6)

See the rest of the questions here.

Three jobs I have had:

1. When I was 22 I worked as a lunch lady. Yeah, my title was a lot fancier, but that's basically what I was. It was one of the most fun jobs I've ever had. Every morning and afternoon I'd drive a few blocks to a larger school to pick up breakfast, then lunch. Then I'd go room to room passing out food and collecting money. It always got really rowdy when I came in.

The school was a small, alternative K-12 that was created for children who for whatever reason had a hard time in a normal school. There was a kid with Tourette's, a large number of kids with ADHD or who were bipolar...kids in gangs...living in foster or group homes...little kids with already-tough lives. It was hard for me at first. The school was very small so I had a lot of contact with the kids. It was the little kids that I got attached to. Besides a few bad eggs, most of the little ones were really sweet and had obviously been thrust into a world that they couldn't comprehend; uncaring parents, drug use, abandonment, misfiring synapses, etc.

There was one little boy who became very attached to me. I bought him a copy of James and the Giant Peach, even though he said he hated reading. He lived in a group home, and didn't have many possessions. I inscribed the book with a little note, which I think is essential when giving a book as a gift. I wonder if he still has it.

2. My first job upon moving to Los Angeles was at a little clothing store on Melrose called Funky Diva (yeah). I was made the assistant manager despite my limited retail experience and zero experience managing people. Although the weekends were crazy-busy, the weekdays would pass slowly, sometimes with only one or two customers coming in the entire day. Luckily I worked with some really awesome girls. We would spend hours talking about our pasts, analyzing each other's current relationship drama (I was 18 so there was a lot of drama), trying on clothes, stealing clothes, and blasting music.

I worked there for eight months before I left for a better paying job. My feet hurt every day, due to my poor choice of footwear coupled with having to be on my feet for 8+ hours a day. I had an awesome wardrobe, though...and a couple close new girlfriends, none of whom I kept in touch with (I'm really bad at that, for some reason...but I'm working on it).

3. My first job upon moving back to Los Angeles after my 3 1/2 year stint in San Francisco was for a psychologist in Beverly Hills. This man, by far, was the craziest person I have ever met. His office was a tiny, two room affair, which I would often sit alone in for hours wondering what the hell I was supposed to do. I never, not in the three or so months I worked for him, had a clear concept of what my job was. I'm pretty sure he just liked having a young girl around in order to bolster his ego. And, my lord, he had an ego. He's the epitome of my reasons for not being interested in dating a Jewish guy. An overly confident, ego maniacal, sexist, oblivious, exhausting narcissist...that's what he was.

When I quit the first time, after the first few confusing weeks, he responded by offering me a $5 an hour raise, which I accepted. The second and last time I quit, after a couple months of more confusion, coupled with blatant and creepy sexual harassment, we got into a screaming match. I still get the creeps when I think about him.

what's the best/worst job you've ever had?

Tag...I'm It!!! (part 5)

Read the first four questions here.

Five Places I Have Lived

1. I was born at Cedar Sinai in Los Angeles, and from there I was taken to my family's home in Van Nuys in a tiny house on Atoll Ave. I only lived there for the first three months of my life, so I don't really remember it. I have an idea of what the house and the neighborhood looked like, but I'm not sure if that's just my brain taking the things I've heard about the place over the years, and making it into something that actually existed.

2. I grew up in a three bedroom condo in Irvine, a suburb of Orange County, CA. Our house had been built, along with the rest of the planned community, sometime in the mid 70's. We had the same brown, shag carpeting throughout the house the entire time I lived there...about 16 years. In the laundry room there were marks on the door frame, charting the growth of my siblings and myself. We continued to mark our heights on our birthdays until we moved out. It became kind of a joke with us, although I think it also had something to do with nostalgia. The new owners, who bought the house after the bank foreclosed, painted over our timeline. I loved that house. I'd even move back to Orange County (gasp!) if it meant living in that house...maybe.

3. The first time I ever lived on my own was when I was 19. I had been living in Los Angeles with my mother and grandma since graduating high school and I had just received my worst heartbreak to date (which has yet to be surpassed, thankfully). A few of the girls I worked with at a vintage store in Santa Monica invited me to move in with them to a place on San Vicente Blvd. The place itself was bad enough; it had originally been a built for a business...upstairs was a large living room, a shabby kitchen, and six small rooms with ugly florescent lighting. Not one of the rooms had a closet, and there was only one and a half bathrooms to share between the six of us. Although the $325 per month rent was a bargain, I was unequipped to handle living with five girls all with varying degrees of crazy, and moved out after only three months. I've only kept in touch with one of the girls.


4. From the crazy-house, I moved into a two bedroom apartment in Hollywood with my friend Janet. She was a nice girl, and I'm sorry to say, I was kind of a shitty roommate. The building we moved into was a 10-story piece of crap, located in a sketchy neighborhood overlooking the 101 fwy. If you craned your neck just-so and peered out the filthy living room window, you could see the Hollywood sign.

I had a large bedroom with a mattress on the floor, and a mural of multicolor squares which I had painted on the wall. The building was so damaged from an earthquake that if you stood on one side of my bedroom across from someone else you'd be taller than them...then if you switched places you'd be shorter than them, all fun-house like.

Our upstairs neighbor had a penchant for blasting techno at 8 in the morning, every morning. I had a retail job at the time, and tended to stay out late, so being woken up at 8 a.m. to the sound of drum and bass was more than I could handle. I snapped one morning and took a broom and started banging the end of the handle on the ceiling. The music stopped and we screamed expletives at each other for a bit (I hadn't had much sleep that night). I heard his front door slam and footsteps down the hallway stairs, followed by a knock at my door. I grabbed a large knife from the kitchen, which I clutched in my shaky hand while I opened the door. An older gentleman was standing there with an apologetic look on his face, which wasn't what I was expecting. He told me that it was his son who played the "godforsaken" techno and who I had gotten in an argument with, and that he was sorry. I thanked him and did my best to hide the knife, which I was embarrassed about having in the first place, behind my back. I moved out a month or so later.


5. C (my ex) is the first and only boyfriend I've ever lived with. When we met he was living in a house in Panorama City, which is in the armpit known as the San Fernando Valley. The house had belonged to his step grandmother until she was carted away to live the last remaining years of her life suffering from Alzheimer's in a hospice.

The house was a two bedroom cottage built during the post-war boom, back when developers barred nonwhites from purchasing homes in the area. I never liked being alone in that house as it was spooky, and had the odor of someone slowly going insane and losing their grip on reality. There were two playrooms in the large backyard, built to look like little cottages. They had been built for C's step mom when she was a child, but over time had turned into a place to store junk and for large spiders to lurk. I hated looking into the backyard at night, and would do my best to avoid doing so. It sounds like I hated that place, but I really didn't...I actually loved it and it holds many nice memories for me.

Bad Luck

Ammond was the first boyfriend I remember my mom having after my parents divorced. She wanted to have the house painted, and he came recommended by her coworker. They were having an intimate relationship before the living room was done. By the time he was finished with the bedrooms, he had firmly planted himself in our lives. We all loved him. He was younger than my mom, probably around 40, and he was a cowboy from some small town in Texas. He was patient with us kids, even though we were obnoxious. My mom was happy around him, but I don't think he lived up to her ideal of what a man was supposed to be (she's always had a pipe-dream of being a trophy wife). He moved back to Texas to be with his two young boys, and we never heard from him again. I still remember the sound of his voice, and his southern drawl...I was fascinated with it.

She met Bob through some singles function at our temple...or someone from our temple set them up, I don't know. He had two kids that were younger than us, and that was the first time I ever experienced what being a big sister would have been like. Bob was incredibly uptight...the definition of anal retentive. He was an avid runner, and my mother became one, too. She and I would wake up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday or Sunday, and meet Bob at one 5k or another. We'd all run together in the beginning of the race, then I'd fall behind and meet them after. He bought her a nice pair of running shoes for her birthday one year. I can't remember why they broke up. I think he didn't want to get married or something. I was never very fond of him anyway, and I didn't like how controlling he was towards my mother.

I don't remember where she met Phil, but on their first date they were held up at gun point in the parking lot where they had just eaten dinner. He told my mom he was wealthy, and not long after that first date, they were engaged. She would gaze at the giant diamond ring he had given her all the time. I remember how often she would Windex it and, being a mouthy teen at that point, how often I would make fun of her for it. None of us liked him, and we didn't hide that fact. She didn't want him to know that she smoked weed with us, but when he walked into our bedroom and we were smoking out of a three foot bong, she knew she couldn't scold us for fear of us revealing her secret. He said that once they were married, we would all move to a big house in Scottsdale, Arizona...but before that could happen, she found out that he had spent what little money he actually had on that diamond ring, and was now flat broke. To her credit, she gave him the ring back. As much as I didn't like him, I felt bad that my mother didn't get what she so badly wanted.

Fabella was her personal trainer at the gym by her work. He was black and insanely muscular. He still lived with his mother, but my mom lived with her mother, too. They dated for almost a year before she told him a very personal secret about herself, one that took a lot of courage to tell him...he dumped her for it.

She's been with John for quite a while now, maybe two years. He was her boss at the real estate company she worked at. He's tall and painfully thin, with dark circles under his eyes...yet he's attractive in a weird way. They go on trips to vineyards together, and she brought him to my grandma's birthday party this year. I don't think he has any plans to marry her though, but I don't think she has any plans on ending things with him...or the energy to date someone new.

Tag...I'm It!!!

The lovely girls at Polka Dots & Hiccups (they're my age, and I would kinda die a little inside if anyone called me "lady", so I'm calling them "girls") tagged me for my very first time! We all know, at this point, that I'm not one to turn down a chance to talk about myself, so I was very excited to tackle this. Thing is, I also can't seem to give a short, to-the-point answer to any question, so the first question (out of 5) ended up being an entire story. So is it fair if I answer these in segments? Yes? Good.

What was I doing ten years ago?

Eesh...I was about to graduate from high school, and I was terribly relieved to finally be ending my nightmarish public education run. It felt surreal that I wouldn't have to see the same faces day after day, year after year, ever again (the majority of which I haven't).

I was working after school and on the weekends in a little stationary and gift shop in the shopping center by my house. It was boring, but I got to sit at the counter and read books for hours on end, which made me deliriously happy. I read all of Kurt Vonnegut's books in the 8 months I worked there. I would close the shop everyday for 10 minutes or so, enough time to grab a chocolate dipped peanut butter cookie from the candy store next door, and a cherry coke from the grocery store across the way (my teeth hurt just writing that sentence).

I lived with my mom, sister, brother, my brother's dog Kujo, my cat Whiskers, and my sister's cat Fred in a three bedroom apartment, as the condo we had spent the majority of our lives in had to be handed over to the bank the previous year. We were more roommates than family, although I have good memories of the majority of that time.

My sister and I shared the master bedroom and bathroom, which we decorated with our contrasting personal tastes (my Dead Kennedy's poster in the bathroom, her duck-phone that quacked instead of rung on the nightstand between the beds), as well as a smattering of tchotchkes left over from childhood.

I think if I had realized then, as I do now, that that time in our lives would mark the last period of us being together as a family after almost a two decades of being a close unit, dysfunctional in our own special way (a way that would be foreign to outsiders, which made it that much more special), I would have treasured it more. I find it so odd that these people, who were at any given time my closest allies, biggest enemies, most trusted confidants, and constant companions are now people that I speak to maybe once a month (in my brother's case), and whom I open up to less than I do with my coworkers.

That summer, eager to leave the city we had come to know as well as we knew each other, my mom and I moved to Los Angeles, my sister moved with her boyfriend to Santa Barbara, and my brother joined the Marines. A couple months later, since all his ties to Irvine had left, my dad followed me to Los Angeles. I miss it sometimes...not Irvine, but my life ten years ago. Although right now is pretty damn good, too.

Alright...I tag Anh because he has an interesting story, and he's probably the only one who would do this. And also Becky, in honor of her very first blog!

I was a waitress

I used to be a waitress, and I really liked it. The first of the two restaurants I worked at was a little breakfast/lunch cafe in Santa Monica. A "regulars" kinda place, they specialized in all things blueberry...hence the name: Blueberry.

Waiting tables fit my personality perfectly, I quickly realized. I was able to juggle large parties of picky yuppies, coffee refills, screaming kids, and climbing up the flight of stairs with multiple plates of food all with a smile on my face. The best part of the job was that the cooks, a group of loud Mexican fellows, liked me, and therefore would happily cook for me anything I could dream up. I was a student at the time, living with five other girls in a shitty office building-turned apartment off Pico, and even with my mere $325 a month rent, I was barely able to scrape by.

Save for bi-weekly dinners with my dad, and frequent trips to my grandma's house, I think I would have had to survive on lunchables and grilled cheese sandwiches if it hadn't been for Blueberry. At work I would eat blueberry waffles, huge sandwiches, and developed my devotion to black coffee. I couldn't make a mandatory meeting though, due to my school schedule, so I was fired. In a perfect world, I could work at Blueberry for the rest of my life* and make enough money to be comfortable...but being comfortable isn't what waiting tables at little cafes is about...it's about getting by.

I got lucky with my second waiting job. Friends of mine had opened a small, upscale restaurant in the Hayes Valley district of San Francisco. I'd work a busy Saturday night every now and then, but when I was laid off from my high paying boring office job, I started working at the restaurant on a regular basis. This place was classy, and had classy clientele to boot (read: yuppie snobs).

Suddenly I was expected to open expensive bottles of wine table side, and go through the ritual of pouring a bit of wine in one of the party's glass (choosing who's glass to pour the taste in was always nerve wracking for me) so they could approve the bottle (I never had a bottle turned away, which convinced me the ritual was just a way for rich people to feel superior). These were people who thought nothing of dropping the equivalent of a weekend of tips for me...people who knew good service, and expected it from me.

Aside from a couple missteps, I eventually learned how to be a competent waitress in a high-end restaurant...I was actually quite good at it. I was attentive, friendly, efficient, and my skills when it comes to reading people helped me give each party whatever level of attention they desired. Tips were always 20%, at least...and every night the chef (a friend of mine) would make the most extraordinary dinners for the small staff. I've never eaten so well in my life...it spoiled me, really.

But all good things must end, it seems. The slow season started, and despite the good reviews and excellent food, the restaurant wasn't doing well. I eventually returned to a boring office job with a steady paycheck, which was followed a few months later by my move back to Los Angeles. I had fantasies of dining at my friend's restaurant when I eventually visited San Francisco...maybe with my imaginary new boyfriend. We'd sit in the little candlelit dining room with a bottle of wine, stare lovingly across the table at one another as I had seen so many other couples do while skited from table to table as a waitress. We'd be warm as we walked out into foggy San Francisco night, despite the chilly air, because when love is new, you don't have normal reactions to things like being cold and tired.

Sadly, the restaurant closed a couple months ago...and since they were mine and C's "couple friends", I'm not sure if I'll ever see the former owners again. I think that may have also ended my stint as a waitress, which makes me sad on so