Memories, Part 1

I remember...

Losing a spelling bee in elementary school because I forgot to say "Capital A" at the beginning of April.

Performing "Espana" on Clarinet at one of my first music recitals.

Shopping for an elf costume, and playing an elf in the Christmas play at my school.

Seeing the trailers for The Man In the Iron Mask, then getting my mom to take me to see it, then buying a shirt of it after the movie, and swearing I looked so cool in it.

The first time I heard Switchblade Symphony, their childlike lullabies going through my head and feeding my already wild imagination with images of dollhouses, long avenues of candy coated houses, cathedrals, churches with pretty gardens. Spending most of my childhood in my head, and liking it that way very much.

Seeing the lead singer of Warrant perform at the Hi Fi in Lakewood, OH, and feeling the live music surge through my veins and making me feel so alive.

The first Goth(ic) friends I had. I can't even remember their names. But I had so much in common with them, like listening to Kittie and the Smashing Pumkins, and we were all going to this art camp, making linoleum block, and other such art

Going to the Gravity Games for the first time, when it came to OH, and seeing Elisa Steamer, who I remembered as one of the only chicks on the Tony Hawks game series, skate. She wiped out, but that was sort of funny.

My science fair project. It wasn't nearly as flashy as the other kids'. It was about water displacement. The only things I had were a Gerber's baby botten, a huge bowl, and a lot of water. Everyone kept coming up to me asking me what my project was about, because there wasn't a single piece of information explaning it anywhere.

Me and my other classmates thinking we were the shit for buying a lot of of books from Scholastic, and bringing back our orders to our desks triumphantly.

Liking a white boy, Brent, only to have him fall from the prettier, and white girl in the class, Lynnea.

My first pets. I stole them from off the street. But i'm sure at least two of them belonged to other people. One of them was locked in my basement, pregnant. I'm sure that was no mistake. It was a grey tabby, who later gave birth, naturally, to three healthy grey babbies, with one or two not coming out alive. I also had an orange tabby, and a black cat. But they were both males and didn't get along, so we ended up putting the black one back out on the street.

Drawing incessantly when I was younger. Being so good at drawing people's faces, especially those dudes in the black metal bands because there features with makeup on are so easy to draw.

Being an avid fashion designer, drawing bathing suits and Gothic clothes some of my peers at this camp, and the camp counselors as well, said they would wear.

Being very liked in elementary school. Going on field trips to either Great Escape or Six Flags, and trying all of the rollcoasters, even when they made me feel like I was gonna hurl.

Being young and writing, weird nonsensical nursery rhyme shit.

Reading about Greek Mythology, Ovid, Elizabeth Barett Browning, Emily Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, Anne Rice, some Stephen King, Dean Koontz, reading about the emperors of Rome, about Nzingha,

Being young and rejecting urban culture as fervently as I could, and indulging myself in what was for me, modern riot grrl: Kittie. Not wearing dresses and trying my best not to look pretty. Shredding my shit. Wearing hoodies, and wearing this long ass grey coat in the middle of summer. The latter really bugged my mom.

Seeing Orlando, Cyrano De Bergerac with Gerard Depardieux, and this documentary on Louix XIV and Versailles, and just falling in LOVE.

Old school martial arts movies, Five Deadly Venoms, Return of the Five Deadly Venoms, Kid with the Golden Arm, anything with Angela Mao, other chick action actresses, and of course Bruce Lee.

Playing the Final Fantasy series like it was my second life. Being so enmeshed in the game, yet so disenchanted with my own life cause it wasn't nearly as eventful.

Breaking the (Chick) Habit

Some people are wretchedly, heartacheingly slow. It's a painful fact. It's a painful thing to have to witness. Especially young women who give their trust to anyone. It literally kills me, emotionally. Like, girls who have, and continue to exist in, abusive relationships with men. In the same relationships where the man goes so far as to "Make them" clock in to and from wherever their day's activities take them. Yet that is the staple of a normal relationship to most girls. It's called mind control, actually. But most of them call it love. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" is all I want to say. How can you call that love? It hurts me personally much more than it should. I guess i'm just an inherent "Softy". But it does hurt me: To see girls used and abused, falling into all sorts of traps soooo easily. Most girls are really ignorant, emotionally. I'm not sure if this is because we ARE the "Weaker sex", as they say. But something makes girls the more vunerable of the sexes. Probably, it's because there is a little bit more desperation in us to find someone who will love us, or, as is the case with most girls, to accept the "next best thing" if we cannot meet Mr. Right. I say "We" like this affects ME. But really it doesn't. I guess i'm just too aware of what's out there in the world. There are people out there who would harm you simply because the opportunity came out of the blue. Lies are man's best friend, and it's all too important for me not to ever give my trust to just anyone, because I could end up on with the short end of the stick.

But I guess I can still relate with other girls. I too would like to find love: The sort of love that could last forever. But my well being is of the utmost importance. I DON'T SETTLE. I'm stronger than most girls, and most girls hate me for it. My favorite and most valued word is "No!". "No, i'm not going to 'Get with you'". And most certainly, "No the fuck I will not fuck you!". "No!" is one of my favorite words. It's a very neccessary word. And contrary to belief, it doesn't make you a "Bad" or a "Mean" person. Girls need to learn how to say, "No!". But most importantly, they need to learn how to say, "Goodbye".

Girls need to learn to see the signs. Of control, manipulation, obsession, etc etc. They spend so much of their lives trying to please their "Man", that they lose sight of themselves, and their own dreams.

Kicking the Habit

There's a girl in the corner, (Rocking back and forth on a chair). She's pale and gaunt, like she hasn't eaten in a long time. She's a light skinned chick(Black/Mixed, I think). She's a thin skeleton of a woman. There are dark circles around her eyes that age her. Maybe not dramatically, but still intensely enough to notice. They make her look like an old hag. She's so pretty...But her prettiness is mirrored by her ugliness: Her bone thin facial features...Her swollen and sunken, almost prematurely wrinkled eyes. Sitting here I wonder if maybe she's got a habit. You know, like maybe she's a coke fiend or something. Or...Maybe she's just stressed out. I think she might have a habit, because almost every time I see her, she's spacing out. She looks every which way, half in a paranoid stoner-like frenzy. Always, she's looking for a cigarette. That is, if she's not dangling one between her slinky-thin fingers. There hasn't been a moment I haven't seen her without one.

Sometimes she joins in laughing with the other girls: Laughing at some ghetto joke, or analogy or metaphor about the life on the "streets" or in the "hood" that they all have known. It is in those moments that she comes alive. She smiles brightly, so brightly, it's like the sun is shining, peaking over, and heating every every nook and cranny of a Las Vegas desert. It's very warm.

Yet...And I don't pretend to know whether or not this is true, somehow I get the feeling that beneath all of the fervent laughter and wide-grinned smiles, there's been a lot of personal trauma. I think she is well-versed in human tragedy. But how she's dealt with it is a different story all together.

It's, I think, my third or fourth day at the Covenant House: A homeless shelter for young adults in New York City. By the second day, I realized how devoid of humanity this place is. There are no rationally thinking, breathing, caring, and loving individualw here. Instead there are drama-inducing bullshitters. I've come here only to, once again in my life, have the people around me think that I think i'm better than them. First it was my neighbors when I was younger. Those fiends who didn't rest day or night, but always followed me around my apartment, banged on my walls, and threw rocks at my door. Then it was the people at my school, who thought that I thought that I knew everything, simply because I knew some things, loved poetry, and had read a lot. Then it was my family, who thought at, I thought that I was better than them because I wasn't pregnant like almost every single one of my relatives were and had been for most of their lives. Alright, well I do think I am better than them. I'm too great a person to have my life ruined by such things.

Here I am...surrounded by El Prego 1, El Prayyygo 2, and El Preeego 10, with all of them thinking I think i'm better than them simply because i'm not el pregnant.