365 Days of Me

When I was sixteen I became confused about my sexuality. I had just moved to my third high school. The classes were extremely small. I graduated with 40 other kids. Two dropped out to join the rodeo. I am not shitting you. It was hard for me to make friends. I was quiet and ugly in my opinion. Most of the other kids thought I was from the city and couldn’t understand their “country lifestyle”. They didn’t know I grew up playing in the woods my entire life. They didn’t know I loved camping and exploring. Eventually I made friends with a couple of kids who had also moved into the are quite recently. One of them was a beautiful Indian/Italian girl. She had long black hair, killer curves, and a confidence I was jealous of. She would come to school wearing nighties as tank tops, pleather dresses with ripped fishnets, and all kinds of other gothy, sexy clothes. She was an artist like me, but she embraced the lifestyle so much. She had a free spirit and I had a crush on her.

I wanted to be her girlfriend.

I wanted to be her.

I always felt so far away from her even when we hung out. I was a year older and she didn’t hang out with me as much as the other girls in our group. I remember spending nights at her house when her parents were away drinking liquor we found in her barn. Risking the chance that it might kill us. She drove her 4-wheeler at break neck speeds with me on the back through the forest at night. We went out to the road above her house and laid down on the yellow lines daring the night drivers.

A few years later, after I had graduated, after the NAVY, after my first years of college, I went to live with her for a summer in Brookline, MA. It was just a temporary thing as she needed someone to help pay the rent while one of her roommates was away. It with her that I really began to love photography. She photographed me several times. Once nude in the woods (she made the photo into a light switch cover), once wrapped in 16mm film drugged out of my mind (I don’t remember that night), and once painted in pink latex after we had dyed my hair fuchsia. We bubble wrapped her bathroom and I put on these knee high black boots. At first we only did tiger stripes down my body, but eventually we painted it all. We didn’t know how to get it off. I learned the hard way. We stole art supplies from the garbage at the end of the school semester at a college, dug for clothes at a giant thrift store where you buy by the pound, and went ice skating on a chilly day.

so instead I'll let you ask me a question internet.

I was talking to a friend today about Thanksgiving and realized I hadn't posted in a while. So here is my experience with Thanksgiving:

Before my parents divorced Thanksgiving was a big affair at my paternal grandparent’s house. There were my parents and myself, my uncle and his wife, and my aunt and her husband. Eventually all the families had kids and I was surrounded by cousins that were ten years younger than me. Until that time I was the only kid and spent most of my time sitting around watching hockey games with the men. We would have a giant turkey as well as a ham, a dozen side dishes, and plenty of dessert.

After the divorce Thanksgivings got shakey. At first there was the question of going to two dinners, then it was which dinner, then it was do we even bother with dinner. By the time I was in college we didn’t really bother with Thanksgiving anymore. It faded out of my life along with my feeling of family. I had no contact with my father’s side of the family and my mother was not the best as calling. For a long time I would go a year or so without hearing from or seeing my family. The only times I was home was during school breaks when I couldn’t stay on campus.

Dating the man who would eventually become my husband changed all that. His family was very close. They talked almost every other day. His holidays were set in stone family get togethers with traditions and expectations. When I was invited into the circle it made me reach out to my own family. While we are still not the best at family time, we at least make an effort now. I have seen my mother and sister about 3 times this year which is pretty good for us. Thanksgiving was sadly snowed out since we tried to get together the weekend before.

Happy Halloween all.

It was a friend's birthday. We all went off campus to throw a party for him. At the time we all were part of the television club and taped a lot of college shenanigans. My RA showed up, started drinking, and picked a fight with the birthday boy. Later he found out we had a video camera. It didn't matter that we hadn't filmed the fight. He stole my video camera so he could destroy the tape. Unfortunately for him, he was too drunk to open it. I yelled at him. He pushed me. I tried to get the camera back. I might have jumped on his back. He was a foot taller and had 100lbs on me. So it was a long way to fall when he threw me on the ground. He finally got the tape out and tossed it on the ground too. I reached for it and he brought his giant, booted foot down on my hand. The doctor said my thumb exploded from the pressure. There was blood on the ceiling.

He ran into the living room to try to look like nothing happened. I stared at my thumb for a long moment and then screamed: "You mother fucker! You broke my thumb!" I ran in and punched him as hard as I could with the hurt hand. Blood splattered everywhere. All the people at the party thought it was his blood at first. I felt pretty badass.

Then I got 12 stitches in my thumb.

Then when the school didn't throw him off campus my room was broken into.

My car was vandalized.

I was dating a guy in college during the spring semester. He had come out of a bad relationship before me and so he told me over and over again that he wasn't ready for a committed relationship. He didn't want to say "I love you" and he didn't want to be exclusive over the summer while we were apart.  I understood and didn't worry too much about it even though I was pretty attached to him. We both agreed to do what we wanted until the semester started again so long as we didn't get serious with anyone else and that we were honest with each other about what we did.

When the summer came I moved in with a friend in Boston. She was very open minded and artistic. We had a lot of fun together. My boyfriend came to visit a few times and we chatted almost every night on the phone or on the computer. After a couple of months the summer was coming to a close and I had to return home.

I don't remember why, but my father was the one driving me home. I was was upset that I would have to spend so much time with him, but then he topped it off by surprising me with the fact that we would be over nighting with his new girlfriend before returning to NY. it was an awful rainy weekend and I was going to have to stay with a woman who I had never met before. I felt awful.

I called my boyfriend to try to cheer up. I figured talking to him would help. I never imagined he would take this very moment to tell me how he was dating an intern at his office and how he thought he was "falling in love with her". He hadn't mentioned any of this to me over the summer. I felt betrayed. What happened to being open and honest? What happened to not getting serious with anyone else? Yeah, it was idiotic of us to make that kind of promise, but I felt he should at least have told me he was dating someone.

It crap icing on top of the crap cake. I hung up on him which was a big "no, no" as far as he was concerned. He hated when people hung up on them. At the time i just didn't care.

That evening I walked alone on the beach near the woman's house and tried to decide if I should throw myself into the ocean. Everyone else was by the house enjoying a bonfire. I didn't know any of them. I didn't want to know any of them. Just like all of my father's other girlfriends, I would never see any of those people ever again. I came across this dead skate and it just summed up my day. Eventually I dragged myself back to the beach house and did my best to not cry.

I had a film class in my first college. I was interested in making films and thought it would be a good introduction course. On the first day of class I realized there was a very good looking guy sitting near me who brought up Akira in discussion. Two things occurred to me:

I was losing interest in my current boyfriend.

I liked anime.

I decided to talk to the guy and he promised to loan me the film the next class.  It was from there that we struck up a friendship.  I harbored a secret crush on him throughout the class, but I was still too down on myself to dump my current and ask the new guy out.

During my second semester I got involved with the theater at my school. I was helping design a playbill for a show they were putting on. As I met with the theater director the guy from my film class saw me and called me over to the stage. He was casting for the show and asked me to act out being suspicious. I shrugged and did my best. Apparently it was good enough for him as he cast me a one of the leads. It was a weird play called The Politics of Sleep. I ended up having to kiss a guy who looked a lot like Dilbert for it. It was awkward and I wasn’t a great actor, but we had a lot of fun with it.

I have since been in a couple more plays with him, become good friends, and grown distant with time. When we graduated, we both went on to the same four year college and my crush never wavered. He never seemed interested though and over time I went through several boyfriends until I met the one I would end up marrying.

My Tattoos

I told my parents I wanted one when I was 16, but of course I would have to wait since legal age to get one is 18. They thought I would forget about it. Instead I tattooed myself. The first one I did was a simple X on my wrist. I wasn't sure I could do a complicated design so I went with easy. I used a plain sewing needle and some ink. It came out pretty good and I have it to this day. While some people have asked if I will ever get it covered up I don't think I will. It makes for a good story.

I tired to tattoo a paw print at the time on my foot. I saw the wolf as my spirit animal and so the paw made sense. It was more complicated than the X, but I was pretty proud of it. Sadly over the years the wear and tear of my shoes has faded it to almost nothing.

On my 18th birthday I reminded my parents that I wanted a tattoo. My father conceded that they had promised I could get one on my birthday so we drove down to the city and I got my first official tattoo (My parents didn't know about my others). If you are a geek like me you might remember the Vampire the Masquerade card game that was originally called Jyhad, before the middle east crisis started. The image was of the logo for that game. I really liked the design. It was a circle of snakes biting each others tails on my ankle.

My second tattoo was of a pair of wings. Considering I was always looking to escape I thought them appropriate. I got them at a tattoo shop a bit north of my first college. We were running a television club back them so I ended up taping some of the process. I don't remember if it ever made it onto the show.

When I was about 11 or 12 my mother moved us out for the first time. We went to live with my grandparents and it was strange but I never really questioned it. I understood why we were leaving my father and I wasn't really torn about it.

One night it started raining. I mean torrential downpour raining. It was amazing. Thunder crashed overhead and you could barely see five feet in front of you. My mother and i went outside and ran around in it. Streams of water ran over our feet and down the hill. It was glorious and exhilarating. I think most parents would have been scared to have their kid out during a thunderstorm like that. Maybe we were crazy for being out there, but I loved it.