If it’s major, hit me on my pager

I am going to get real with you today homies.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Today it’s 1996.  I am 15 years old.  I have a Meg Ryan inspired haircut-which I am not-repeat NOT pulling off well, I weigh 90 lbs, and I’m wearing jnco pants.

To clarify, that would be these:

In my case, my feet were never visible, which I assure you, made me hip. I am lacking boobs and an ass at this point.

Also, I live in the suburbs of Seattle.

So you know, practically Compton.

I have taken up the habit of cruising around in my best-friend’s car, attempting to smoke cigarettes (first time encountering this to be a later post-but let’s just re-emphasize that I am attempting, not really succeeding in smoking said cigarettes), and I have become temporarily obsessed with hip hop.  I have started referring to my friends as my homies, I’m convinced that one can never wear enough eyeliner, and if I could figure out how to slick my hair back into a tight ponytail with just two spirals hanging out on either side, you can bet your ass I’d be doing it (aforementioned haircut-an unfortunate side-effect from my previous punk phase despite my desperate desire to become a ganster-excuse me-gangsta).

I am in 10th grade, I am unpopular, and I have acne.  I also have been ordered by the orthodontist to wear headgear 14 hours a day, which I am rebelliously not doing (and yes mom, I still defend that decision).

So, I’m in my jncos, with a baby-toll tshirt which shows off my belly-button piercing (which I did myself-again, later post…), in my friend’s car, and we are cruising around parking lots in search of anything interesting.

By interesting, I mean boys.  Specifically, cute bad boys.

It says something about the male libido that they’d find me attractive, but the fact that they do works well for me.

This is not prep school readers, this is the ghetto.

Ok, so maybe we all saw Dangerous Minds one too many times, but regardless, here we are.

In a parking lot.  In a car.  Coughing cigarette smoke and trying to chat up boys.

Our vessel is her 1982 Honda.  It was at one time white, it is now various shades of dirt.  The driver door does not open so we both have to enter and exit the vehicle via passenger door.  We have slurpees instead of alcohol because we cannot get our hands on anything more adventurous than sugar-soaked ice.

We are listening to e40.  Specifically, we are listening to this song:

Which is of course, the song of my tenth grade year.  The song which inspired the months of begging my mother for a pager.  To page, to be paged, is the epitome of cool and I desperately want to be involved.

The song is reminding me that I don’t yet have a pager, but it’s also working in my favor because I know all the words and can bob my head slightly along in a bad-ass manner I learned from movies.

I will sit in that parking lot, in that car, in those jeans for the next three months before I decide I’m a rock girl.

A rock girl with a pager.

Love story: or my lack of tits until age 20.

Fifth grade.

Stretch pants.  Side ponytail.  Bart Simpson t-shirt.

Seat next to me occupied by one boy.

The boy.

Blonde hair.  Dimples.  Guns & Roses tshirt.

Swoon.

Seat on other side of me occupied by another boy.

Specifically not the boy.

Jeans. Red t-shirt.  Plastic digital watch used to communicate with ‘spies’.

Wrinkle nose, roll eyes, try to ignore any and all sounds eminating from his desk.

Lean a little closer to the boy to ask a question.

Flip hair.  Twirl pencil.  Smile.

Something hits my face.

It has been launched from the other side.

And then again.

Bouncing off my cheek, a fruitsnack falls onto my desk.

Followed by inane giggling.

Blush away from the boy.

Turn to glare at the other boy.

He is sitting on his package of fruit snacks.

A look of sheer determination on his face.

Breath held, brow furrowed he focuses.

Then, a fart.

Onto a fruit snack.

A fruit snack he then tries to launch at my face.

A fart fruit.

The boy now checking out another girl.

She already has tits.

I don’t.

For the next ten years.

I will attract nothing.

But more fart fruit.

Tequila, a bad-boy, leather, and my brief stunt as a muse

Trouble always finds me when I’m trying to drink tequila in peace.

I was 22, I decided I hated men, and I went out with my roommate to celebrate the recent discovery.

Sitting at the Irish pub down the street from our apartment, I ordered a round of shots for her and I, and the two of us began discussing why boys were stupid.  I can’t remember the details, but I’m sure it was an inspiring conversation.

Nibbling on a lime slice, I happened to look down the bar.

That’s where I spotted him.

Notebook, guitar case at feet, scotch on the rocks, dark hair, blue eyes, and tattoos.

Normally this would have done me in instantly.  But considering the festivities, I instead ordered another round of tequila and my roommate and I watched him from afar (ten feet down the bar).

Five minutes later my blood was happily flowing to the tune of a mariachi band.

So when Sexy McNogood beckoned me with his finger, I strolled down the bar to say hi.  At least that’s what I meant to say.  But what came out was:

“Hey, I’m out celebrating my hatred of all men.”

To which he responded:

“Interesting, I’m just out looking for a one night stand.”

Tilting my head at him curiously, I muttered: “ok then, I think we’re done here” before returning to the roommate.

Twenty minutes later, he asked for my phone number.

Two days later, he called.

We went on three dates.  On the eve of the third we were doing some hard-core smooching and yea ok-a little over-the clothing heavy petting was beginning.

I still had my jacket on though, to give you an indication of how far things had NOT progressed.

But for reasons still unclear to me now, he took this as an opportunity to utter the phrase:

“I’ve got something I want to show you.”

Standing up, he walked to his closet, opened the door, and asked me to come inside.

Peering into the former master bedroom closet, I saw various toys, whips, leather attire, masks, and some sort of swinging contraption in the corner.

For the record men, this is not the appropriate way to introduce this particular form of extracurricular activites to a potential mate.

As my Romeo soon discovered.

Speechless, I stared at him for some seconds before casually attempting to exit his house.  Muttering something about leaving the iron on in my apartment, I hopped down the stairs, yelled out something about not bothering to call me again, and left the house o’leather.

A month later I was back in the same bar with my roommate.  This time we were celebrating her hatred of men.

It was open mic night.

Out of nowhere tattooed leather man slimed onstage.

Staring directly at me, he began strumming his guitar while singing:

“You were out to hate all men, and I was just looking for a one night stand”

The song lasted about three minutes.

Thankfully it ended in time for my roommate and I to have one last round of tequila.

teenage wasteland: wishing I’d been a punk rocker in my prime

Last Sunday I discovered that when surrounded by London’s original punk rockers, it is difficult to appear cool and collected.

But pear cider helps.

I was invited to a show at the Scala to watch Agent Provocateur, Chiefs of Relief, Bow wow wow, and Adam Ant.

Clearly, my air-guitar skills were no match against the professionals.

I mean really, these were band members from a scene I only wish I had been cool enough (or old enough for that matter) to be a part of.  Trust me, had I been British and a teenager in the late eighties, I would have plaid-skirted it up with the best of them.

As it was, I happened to meet them at 29, over beers, in the VIP bar of the show.  Not a teenager anymore by any stretch of the imagination, but definitely still awestruck to be in the same room as a former Sex Pistol and the many talented punks I was happily watching onstage.

I chatted it up with some of the band members, but tried to remain as quiet as possible for fear that my obvious lack of knowledge regarding music would deem me intolerably boring.  I’m pretty sure I just looked like a groupie anyway, so for the most part the band members ignored me.

I mean seriously, I’m a wandering menace.  They are punk rockers.

My narcissism does not reach so far as to question who is cooler here.  Come on.  There is no question.

-Insert that doe-eyed stare that always gets me into trouble here-

So to report to any of you who still have a place in your heart for the Brit punk scene-let me state, these guys are awesome.

I even got in a discussion about Obama with one of them.  Which I can assure you, I did not see coming.

For the record, musicians are my kryptonite.  Doesn’t matter if they’re old.  Doesn’t matter if I’m not even attracted to them.  They rock, they know it.  I know it.  I end up gazing.

In my next life I am coming back as a rockstar.  Maybe in a Zilla costume, but a rockstar nonetheless.

All the pear cider in the world can’t bring on the confidence of standing onstage, fist-pumping, leg-kicking, and collecting admirers.

God. Bless. Punk. Rock.

Taming the lioness

He looked like Johnny Depp.

He was writing in the corner of the coffee shop.

I was 22, I was single, and he was smoldering.

It was a recipe for disaster.

Donning his white t-shirt, faded jeans, and leather jacket, the perfectly messy bed-head and unshaven chiseled jawline were far too overpowering for my bad-boy prone nature.

When he sauntered over and gave me the napkin with his handwritten poem, smiled, and asked me to dinner, I stammered a yes while gazing doe-eyed at him.

silly doe, you have no idea what you're doing...

 

For the record this was not the first nor last time my idealism would get me into trouble.  But that is neither here nor there.

Three days later I met him at a restaurant.

Donning stilettos, dark jeans, a sexy top and my own leather jacket I met up with Casanova at a bar.

It took him approximately two minutes before it began.

At first I didn’t think I had heard him correctly, so like an idiot I leaned in across the table.  Pressing his lips next to my ear, the guy I had gazed so longingly at whispered this into my ear:

“What’s it like knowing you have the attention of every man in this room?  What’s it feel like to be a woman with that much power?”

Leaning back and glancing around, I double-checked my outfit.  No one appeared to be noticing me.  The restaurant was near campus, so the place was crowded with hot girls, I was hardly a rare commodity.  Keeping a safe distance from his cigarette whispers, I responded:

“No one here is looking but you (clears throat, blushes a bit-silly young Ryan).  So should we order some wine or-‘

I got that far before he unleashed an intense monologue.  Shakespeare could not have written a longer pile of metaphorical nonsense.  During this speech, I slowly lowered myself in my chair-willing the table to come to life and eat me in one solid, painless bite.

The opening line was barked with such intensity I did a double take at my formerly sexy tablemate:

“Ryan, you are like a lionness”

Clearing my throat, I tilted my head to one said and began to ask a question but was instantly interrupted again-

“Every man in this room.  Every one of them, including me, is your prey.  You move, we watch.  Wanting to be devoured.”

Let’s take a moment to note his voice was loud.  Seriously loud.  Loud enough that now people were starting to stare.

I’m pretty sure most of my fellow diners just wanted their chicken wings to arrive, but his volume made them turn their heads-which convinced him of his initial interpretation-that they gave a damn about what he said.  Not true, but lets just agree-this guy was delusional.  The sauntering bad-boy (who was rapidly becoming a typical freak my magnet loves to attract), seemed to picture me as this creature:

Stoic, graceful, proud. Ability to kill in an instant.

With growing embarrassment, I was feeling more and more like this version of his story:

Naive, idiotic. Maintaining ability to follow moron to dinner.

When he started referencing the primal nature of fornication as if he were the first man to conclude this theory (neanderthals the underworld over simultaneously turned in their graves); I left to go to the bathroom.

I couldn’t bring myself to sit staring at him while he uttered words like raw, natural, wild, and animalistic in reference to what he had hoped would be our after dinner plans.  Each whisper was so creepily rehearsed I was sure he’d given himself a peptalk in the mirror earlier in the evening.  Locking eye contact, he tried to stroke my cheek with his forefinger while proclaiming his desire to ‘tame’ me.

Wrong girl Tarzan, wrong girl.

I called my best friend from the bathroom, scheduled the appropriate emergency phone call for five minutes later, and returned to the table.

At this point I had been in the restaurant a total of ten minutes.

He may have looked like Johnny Depp.

He may have been a writer.

But even at 22 I could tell-this tribesman was far from warrior.

Boxed wine, Doc Martins, Braces, and an RV

Hologram Doc Martins, yellow plaid pants, white wife beater, braces, acne, body resembling a twig, short boy hair cut my mother convinced me would be a good idea: welcome to my fourteenth year.

Twas the year a ouija board saved me from severe punishment.

Let me explain.

My friend Monica and I convinced her mother to let us throw a slumber party in the vacant RV sitting in their driveway.  Her mother thought we wanted to feel like we were camping, but in reality we had discovered the stash of boxed wine kept in the garage, and desired the proper venue to explore the joys of drinking alcoholic grape juice from a spout in peace.

Sophistication and class have clearly been with me from the onset of my adult personality-as nothing quite screams those traits like an RV and boxed wine.

In addition to acquiring the proper ‘hotspot’ for such a party-we also ached for a place we could invite the two boys across the street over so as to fully showcase our hip and all-knowing ways of the party scene.

They were skater boys.  One of them even had a tattoo, and the other one could play guitar WHILE flipping his long grunge-inspired locks out of those piercing blue eyes.  He was two years older, he was a bad-ass, and he and his friend were most definitely the objects of our affections.  Butterflies flew in my stomach the one and only time he had grinned and me and told me I had a cool name.

Monica and I were fairly certain that enough interaction with the two would eventually lead to true love. But first we had to prove our coolness in order to turn their pupils into tiny pink hearts whenever they gazed upon our subtle yet hip nature.

I’m fairly certain we paced in front of their open garage watching them tune guitars and smoke cigarettes for a good twenty minutes before gathering the courage to walk in and invite them to the party.  Monica did most of the talking, as I was too busy contemplating the oversized studded cuff on my wrist and blushing to manage more than a simple hello.  Though I did chime in to confirm that yes-there would be alcohol in the RV, and yes, she and I would like it if the two of them would show up at around midnight and give a little knock on the door.

I’m sure they thought I was mute, but I was so excited my palms were sweaty and I couldn’t believe that simply telling these two sixteen year old boys that we had boxed wine got them to smile at us like that.  Who knew that alcohol and girls were all boys needed?

There is a naivety to being fourteen that once lost, can never be regained.  But I digress.

At ten o’clock that evening Monica and I decided it would be safe to each have a glass of wine just to take the edge off.  While sipping the warm juice we also agreed to consult the ouija board on any and all love prospects that were likely to occur from inviting the rebel boys over for drinks.

Later on, the boys arrived, drinking occurred, and all eighty-five pounds of me passed out at the table.

The ouija board remained sitting on the formica table until seven oclock the next morning, when I woke up to the sight of Monica’s mother as she walked past the cheap window of the RV.  I could hear her shrill, excited voice chatting with what sounded like an army of suburban mothers and a herd of rumbling mini-van engines.

Unbeknown to us, she had decided to host a garage sale that morning.

Unbeknown to her, there were two very hungover teenage boys sleeping in the RV mere feet from her junk-sale.

Monica and the two boys were in the bed, hungover amidst the carnage of sleeping bags and spilled cheap wine.  I was just piecing together the deep conversation about song lyrics from the night before that I had so desperately tried to look cool in when the door to the RV swung open.  Standing there with one hand on her hip and a huge smile, Monica’s mother yelled out:

Good morning girls!! I need your help out here, busy morning with the sale and all.  Do you ladies want some break-WHAT THE HELL IS THAT DOING IN HERE?!?!?! MONICA, WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU PLAYING WITH THE DEVIL IN HERE?!?! WE DO NOT USE THE OUIJA BOARD IN THIS HOUSEHOLD RYAN, I DON’T KNOW WHAT KIND OF HOME YOUR PARENTS ARE RUNNING, BUT WE ARE GOOD CHRISTIAN PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!

The board had been the only thing her eyes had settled on, and to my complete and total relief she was so furious about it that she slammed the door in my face while sreaming: ‘MONICA, I NEED TO SEE YOU IN THE KITCHEN THIS INSTANT!!’

It was fortunate really, because while Monica dry-heaved waves of stale boxed wine in the kitchen as her mother ranted on about the devil’s magic, I was able to successfully usher the two boys out of the RV and back from the depths of grunge-guitarism from whence they came.

Standing in the RV after they left, I grabbed the ouija board, threw it in my backpack, laced up my Doc Martins, and waited at the sale for my own mother to come pick me up.

My mother didn’t care about the ouija board, but had Monica’s mother discovered the two hormones masquerading as boys in the bed-I am not sure I would have survived to see fifteen.