Archive for Growing Up
Show & Tell: In which I meet an International Film Star
Posted by: | CommentsGather round and sit criss-cross-applesauce for Show & Tell, hosted by the lovely Mel of Stirrup Queens. Find more circle time people on here blog, here.
Every-other August, my dad’s parents would fly my family from Denver to Houston. Gamps would pick us up in the Cadillac with the air conditioning, or sometimes the white Oldsmobile station wagon, then drive us three hours east to Lake Charles, Louisiana. We’d stay with them for two of the hottest, most humid weeks of the year.
Luckily, their house was on Prien Lake, a large salt water body full of fish and shrimp and crabs and petroleum refinery run-off. We children couldn’t have cared less about being poisoned. All we wanted to do was stay cool and have fun.
The first several days were a blast, full of swimming and waterskiing and catching crabs off the warf. When the weight of the day was too heavy for even 10 and 5 and 2 year olds, we’d lay, gap-legged on the air conditioned sun porch, my brother and sister playing games and me reading my grandma’s endless Danielle Steele library and beginning my sexual education.
Inevitably, by the end of the first week, we’d be bored. Usually our whines were met with our parents’ requests that we go outside and play. The two-screen movie theater offered short relief. The mall was nothing to speak of, but I’d walk it with my cousin Nancy or my Lake Charles friend Annette. Atari hadn’t been invented. The Internet was still a glimmer in Al Gore’s eye. VCRs? No such thing. Bor-ring. You can only get so waterlogged before becoming a puddle of misery.
Until one day, Ganny asked if we’d like to meet a movie star.
We piled into the Caddy, stopping in town to pick up Annette. The Caddy took a little bounce as we sped across Kiss Me Quick Bridge on the way to the bayou. There, we found the shrimp restaurant where the star was making an appearance. We got into line and waited. And waited and waited. And then we saw him. Or was it her?
It was the International Film Star, Benji! We were so excited! To see a dog! Who had been in a movie! And done all sorts of tricks and stopped bad guys!!
As you can tell from the photo, I am the only one who thought it was cool. My brother Billy has perfected the Fuck You look at age 5. My sister Katy, age 2 here, obviously needed a nap. My friend Annette is distracted by something shiny to the left as she fingers her “personally autographed” photo of the star. Benji cannot drag his/her gaze away from the tantalizing view of tons and tons of raw shrimp being unloaded just over there.
It was a thrill.
The other day, I ordered Benji on Netflix and watched it with Lauren. When I was a kid, I LOVED that movie. Today, not so much. But Lauren loved it, and when I showed her this photo of Momma, just a couple years older than she is now, with the International Film Star, I rose up at least one notch on the scale of maternal coolness. Or maybe a half-notch.
I also once hung out with American Idol finalist Ace Young in the VIP area of a strip club and somewhere have a photo of him leering at my tits. My tits were covered, by the way. I don’t think I gained any cool points for that one.
Stuck up
Posted by: | Comments“I guess I figured you were one of those spoiled girls, you know, stuck up.”
The irony of this statement, made by a friend who confessed he was surprised by how I really am now that he knows me better, is how much of my life I’ve spent just wanting to be accepted into the circle. Of course, I’ve been obsessing about his comment, because that phrase–stuck up–strikes a particular nerve in me, the one that flares to remind me I’ll never fit in anywhere.
As a child I was painfully shy, so much so that I could not pick up the phone and order a pizza, or skate up to the counter at Skate City and order a Coke. Just the thought of speaking up in class caused what I know now were mini panic attacks. I had friends, but they were usually the ones who approached me.
I was an awkward kid, kind of funny looking, sometimes mistaken for a boy, quiet, bookish even. I was a smart kid, and eager to please. When kids were mean to me I took it hard, and personally, integrating their teasing and–in the case of my neighborhood nemesis–bullying to mean that I was too weird to fit in. The transition to middle school was particularly hard for me due to the entire neighborhood of kids shunning me by following the bully’s lead. That was the first year I thought of killing myself. I was 11. Sixth grade was hell on earth, comprising some of the most painful social experiences of my life. I still get joy to this day knowing that the “cool girl” who refused my Valentine’s Day card because she “doesn’t take presents from geeks” is a complete loser, as is the bully (who asked to be my friend on Facebook. Really?). Justice!
On the first day of 7th grade, I had to raise my hand and correct my teacher, who’d called me by my unused first name. She stopped in the middle of roll call and did a double take. “My god, you’re beautiful,” she said, and my life changed in an instant. I became one of an elite group of kids who were her favorites. I got a nickname. The cool kids stopped teasing me as much. I found a group of friends. And boys started to notice me. One day a cute, delinquent-type boy (my weakness, apparently) told me I had a nice ass. It was a moment of pure joy. Ugly duckling becomes swan.
Now proclaimed to be pretty and at least more acceptable by the cool teacher, I was still shy. So I went from being the geek to being stuck up. Because when you’re pretty and shy, that’s the label assigned to you.
I’ve lost most of my shyness with people, except when I don’t know anyone, or I’m in a situation that’s cliquey and I want to be part of the group. Take last Saturday night. I went to two parties: one with a big group of writers and another that was a salsa dancing event. I knew about three people at each party, and because both were noisy, after I’d exhausted conversation with those I knew I stood there, smiling. I was by myself, and my apprehension about not fitting in does on such occasions rear its nasty head.I know that my cover smile–the one that I mean to proclaim “I’m friendly! Approach me!” can come off a bit cold. Maybe I should practice in a mirror to warm it up a little, because Steve has told me that I definitely can look unapproachable. Pretty girl with a cold, uncomfortable smile. I know, poor, poor pretty girl. Sucks to be me. I am convinced, however, that if I weren’t pretty I wouldn’t come off as stuck up. In fact, in a small clinical trial I call those years in the 1990s when I weighed 200+ pounds, more people approached me. Because fat girls with awkward smiles are just awkward, and we are conditioned to pity them.
I admit that in some ways, I am “snobby.” I’ll dance with almost anyone who asks me–once. But if the guy can’t lead or doesn’t keep his feet, I usually won’t dance with him again. I do prefer to be friends with people who either have a similar lifestyle or one I aspire to, which means Steve’s idea of us looking for friends at the Fraternal Order of Eagles or the nearest biker bar doesn’t work for me. I dated a variety of guys, but I wouldn’t marry one who didn’t meet most of my standards. But really, all of this snobbery is not about me feeling like I’m better than these people, but rather me being selective. Judging is what we do as human beings. It’s how we’ve survived for eons. Everyone does it.
So, I’m selective. But I am not stuck up. Damnit.
Visitation
Posted by: | CommentsGrandma taught me the basics of piano during two years in elementary school after I’d begged my mom — pleaded, promised! the world! — to buy a piano. Her mother was a talented musician, played piano for the Denver Show Wagon every summer, accompanied dance recitals and her church choir. On visits to her house, inevitably Grandma–smelling of peppermint Trident gum and Winston Menthols, with her red pin curls and fantastic costume jewelry–led me to the basement where she’d play for me on her upright baby grand piano. I’d dance, twirling through the dust motes until heavy-breathed and damp with sweat. Occasionally we’d do my lessons on her piano, but she usually taught me on the blonde spinnet my mom bought on credit on the condition that I’d take lessons until it was paid for.
Grandma was patient and quiet, forgiving me when I failed to master pieces for weeks. I fought with all my might against practicing (promises out the window) until my mom threatened the true love of my life — ballet class — if I failed more lessons. I endured for two years, secretly pleased about my progression, and about having special time with Grandma that neither of my siblings had.
My sophomore year, Grandma took me up again for about three months, long enough for me to remember that I loathed practicing drills and doing theory exercises, and also long enough for me to master a song that my friend Melissa was working on. Cavatina, by Stanley Meyers, is the theme for The Deer Hunter. I never have seen that movie in its entirety; it was too dark for my tastes. But that song. Oh, the song is just gorgeous, and it’s tricky to play, with its four sharps.
While I can sight read music, I’ve always been a better learner by ear. Having Grandma play the song through, her cigarette curling smoke in an ashtray on top of the spinnet, is one of my happiest memories of her. Meanwhile, my sister–8 years my junior–started lessons, and with that I quit mine. I think Grandma was disappointed, but she never said so.
Grandma was the first of my grandparents to die. In 1997, when I was 28, she and Papa came home from a fishing trip (she could fish the pants off of him) and she fell ill. Her doctor discovered she had tumors metastasized to her liver: colorectal cancer, likely caused by smoking. She died a week after she was diagnosed. She was 76 years old. I bought a navy blue dress sprinkled along the hem with pale blue flowers to wear to her funeral. Blue was her favorite color.
When Papa died 3 years later, Grandma’s piano became mine. It was appraised, and we learned it was built in the late 1890s. The company had gone out of business in 1921, the year Grandma was born. She and Papa had bought it used in Texas in the late 1930s, just after they were married and before they moved to Denver, hauling it along with other belongings in a trailer behind their Plymouth. I’ve moved that piano several times now. Its mahogany case is dinged. Lauren added colored smiley stickers to the ivory keys at the beginning of her lessons, 2 years ago now. She, too dislikes required practice but secretly is proud of her progression.
I still pull out my sheet music and play every once in a while.On Saturday, after Lauren’s lesson, I had a song running through my head, and I realized with a start it was Cavatina. I dug through the piano bench and pulled out the fading photocopied pages, sat down, arranged my fingers. I stumbled through it a few times–left hand only, right hand only–and finally played the whole thing through. Halfway through to the coda, I felt the hairs stand up on my neck. I became overwhelmed by the scent of Winston Menthols and peppermint Trident gum. And I started to cry. I could feel Grandma sitting next to me on the bench, just as she had more than two decades ago. I stopped and turned to Steve, who was sitting on the couch.
“Do you smell that? Do you feel that?” I asked him. He said no. I told him, “I just had a visitation. From my Grandma. She just came by to say hello.”
It was the first time that Grandma have visited since Lauren was born, when I felt–and smelled–her presence one night as I was nursing my infant. And now I’m thinking about her, missing her for the first time in years. And turning back to the song, and the musical skill, she so graciously taught me all those years ago.
She ran, and I found her
Posted by: | CommentsWhen I was born, my mother named me Heather. She loved the beautiful resiliency of those purpley-pink, stalky flowers. Somehow she knew I would need this flower’s characteristic ability: to withstand shock, to adjust easily to misfortune.
As she birthed me, she was 19 years, 3 months and 10 days old. She was just a girl–a girl whose father abused her, whose moods ruled her life. She had fallen in love with the singer in the band, and then she was pregnant. And terrified. And broken. Her mother tried to convince her to abort me, but she would have none of it. She found an agency, signed a contract. She knitted me a yellow blanket. Something to remember her by. And on June 13, 1969, when I was two days old, she ran.
I spent a week in the nursery. I imagine myself as a newborn, eyes milky blue and barely open, waiting for someone to hold me. Wanting my mother. Did I cry? Or was I in too much shock from being abandoned to make a sound? The woman who adopted me, who I call Mom, says I was a good baby, quiet, smiling. Never any trouble. If I was good, if I didn’t cry, did the nurses hold me except to feed me? Did that first week without loving touch set up my lifelong craving for skin-on-skin contact?
My adoptive parents didn’t know I already had a name, so they named me Christy Lynn and called me Lynn. They didn’t know about the yellow blanket; it did not come home with me. All they knew was they wanted to be parents. After seven years of trying, they gave up and decided to adopt. That is how I came to be in their family.
In the meantime, my birthmother moved to Aspen to make skis, sailed the ocean, had a son, became a massage therapist and moved to Maui. She thought of me around my birthday, but she made herself forget the exact day I was born. She never told the singer in the band about me, in fact had graduated from high school a semester early, before her belly grew round. She thought he never knew. But he did, because her brother let the secret slip, told him that she was living with a doctor, nannying his children. The singer would drive to the doctor’s neighborhood to lurk across the street in the hopes of seeing her, of confirming she was all right. He never knew if I was a boy or a girl. He only knew I was born in June.
He joined the Army, went to Europe, but not Vietnam. He was lucky, because in 1969 not many 19-year-old boys avoided the jungle. He fell in love with a Brit, had a child–a son. They broke up. He moved home, dealt with addiction, kept writing music and singing. He lived in Denver for a long time, not far from me, until settling down in Alabama and finding Jesus.
When I was a kid I would lay in my bed and make up stories about how my real parents met, how they were torn apart and forced to leave me in the hospital. I imagined my mother was a beautiful princess, and that I looked just like her. I am pale with hazel eyes. My family is dark. Family pictures are like that Sesame Street game: Which of these things is not like the other.
When I was 10, my mom mentioned she had a little information about my birthparents, but she didn’t think I was ready to have it. I knew it had to be in the gunmetal gray lockbox hidden on their closet’s top shelf. When I had opportunity, I pulled my mom’s vanity chair over, climbed up and took the box down. Inside, among my dad’s Army medals, was a yellowing piece of paper folded in thirds. Typed on that page was everything known about who made me. I devoured the words: Mother-5-7, 115 pounds, strawberry blonde hair, brown eyes, liked to read and swim. High school graduate. Ancestry: English and French. Father-6-0, 180 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, an artist and high school graduate. Ancestry: Slavak and Scot.
I remember how smooth the paper felt under my fingertips, how the typewriter keys had struck the paper unevenly, how the ink was slightly smeared. The paper was creased, as if it hadn’t been unfolded in years. It hadn’t been.
I stole it, along with my adoption papers. I hid them in my American Heritage Dictionary under M for Mother. For mine. For me. I took them out from time to time, running my fingers along each short bit of information. My mother liked reading. I liked reading too! My father was an artist. I, too, would become an artist then. The paper became my most prized possession.
But it couldn’t answer the question I most needed to have answered: did my real mother love me? I deserved to know. I had a right to know, I declared, sobbing one day in my sophomore French class. But the State of Colorado had sealed my records. I was not allowed to know who she was, where she was, if she loved me, if she was even alive. I made a pact with myself that I would never have a child until I found her. And I kept it.
I didn’t know about the yellow blanket then. Now I do, because my birthmother told me about it in a letter she sent after I found her in 2001. She asked me if I had it, and I don’t, and I want it so desperately–but not as desperately as I want to have a relationship with her. She is skittish, uneven. She sends birthday cards with crisp $100 bills. I use the money for things that nourish me, that make me feel alive. And she sometimes sends empty replies to my emails. I save them all in a folder. I read them on Mother’s Day.
She keeps her distance. I want to chase her, but I am so afraid she will run again, and that I will lose her if I do. So I let her be, let her set the parameters of our relationship. Because when she sends me those cards, she thanks me for having her in my life. And she signs them Love, Laura.
This post was inspired by a post written by Catherine of Her Bad Mother, Lost Boy, which she read at the Blogher 2009 Community Keynote.
July 4th memories
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Lauren is in a neighborhood parade this morning. “And Momma, guess what? I get to ride my bike and it will be DECORATED!!” I remember the 4th of July in my childhood as being the fun holiday. We kids were usually left to our own devices. The only schedule revolved around when the fireworks would start.
Until I was 8, we lived on a cul de sac. As it was suburbia, there were lots of kids on our street, and it seemed that every July 4th we’d have a parade . We’d decorate our bikes with crepe paper and balloons and we’d dress up–for some reason, my favorite dress up involved this filmy blue nightgown of my mother’s. We’d tell all the parents to come and start the parade. One year I pulled my little brother in a wagon. It felt so important and grown up to have this little parade, around the cul de sac twice.
We kids were also critical to the task of ice cream making. My dad inevitably would have a trip to Grand Junction, on Colorado’s Western slope, the week before the 4th, and he’d stop in Palisade to pick up a bushel of their famous peaches. (In the 1970s, it was uncommon to get them in our grocery stores.) He’d prep them, slipping their furry skins from their sweet flesh, chopping them into rough chunks. He’d let me help measure out the cream and sugar into the bowl. Then, we kids would take turn cranking the ice cream churn on the old fashioned maker. We also had to monitor the ice level and sometimes got to add rock salt to keep the ice a slurry. It took hours and hours–excruciating lengths of time to a 5-year-old–for this ice cream to be finished.
We’d eat hamburgers in the back yard for dinner, then light up sparklers just as the sun went down. It’s amazing to me now that my parents were brave enough to let their small children hold these implements of 3rd degree burns. My dad and his friends–who were younger then than I am now, I’ve just realized–would set off fountains in the middle of the street in a display that was usually more fun, even, than the professional display because it was our own. The kids could light off small things. My favorites were these black tablets that turned into snakes. The whole cul de sac would be littered with spent fireworks in the morning, and the dads would go out with brooms to sweep it all up.
When it was full dark, we’d climb up on the rooftop with bowls of ice cream–so delicious–to watch the neighborhood fireworks show. I remember being very scared of the big thump of the explosions. I felt it in my chest, and it made me afraid I was going to explode too.
Some of my other favorite July 4th memories:
Vail with friends the summer after high school. There were about 9 of us in a hotel room in Avon, and we drank about 9 cases of beer that weekend and made the beer can pyramids to prove it. We got chased by security guards when we were setting off fireworks on the tennis courts. And my best passed out in the bathroom, breaking her front tooth and requiring us to find a dentist in Vail on a national holiday. It was fun!
The summer of my divorce, 2004, I was in full “I am a strong, capable woman” mode, and to prove it I went camping by myself at the base of Colorado’s tallest 14er, Mt. Elbert. I’m not really much of a camper, but this adventure seemed necessary to me, critical even. I found a campsite, put up my tent, started a fire, hiked by myself. In the morning, I climbed Mt. Elbert–on the easier, non-technical side, mind you, but I got to the top. It took me five and a half hours. At the top, I remembered that I had to be in Denver by 4:30 to go to Cirque du Soleil. I literally ran down the mountain. It took me just under 2 hours to get down. I tore down my camp and drove home at about 85 mph, arriving just in time to take a quick shower before my date showed up. I did all that with no help or guidance from anyone–especially not a man. I felt wonderful.
Last July 4th, Steve and I were camping near Taylor Reservoir, and on July 4th, we drove to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been. We hiked along the Gunnison river a while, and I spotted two deer. I also took some beautiful photos. On the way back to camp, we stopped in Gunnison proper, grabbed some Taco Bell, and watched fireworks through the sunroof of my car. It was such a wonderful weekend that included some stuff that is only funny now, like the fact that Steve cannot handle going more than about 9.5 hours without a shower and gets very cranky when he’s “unclean,” so he gave himself a birdbath in a Wal-Mart bathroom. Memories.
Last night, we had BBQ then watched the Glendale fireworks display sitting in the Saab with the top down. Tonight, we’ll hook up with my family for a picnic and to watch the fireworks in Englewood. No major plans, no stress, no gifts to buy. It’s why July 4th is my favorite holiday (outside of Christmas).
Prom-a-Palooza
Posted by: | CommentsThe Stiletto Mom threw down the gauntlet last week, daring others to boldly go where she had in posting devastatingly horrible pictures of herself in high school. (Actually, she looked pretty cute to me.) You have to check out her blog to see the pink taffeta ruffled jobby she wore to prom because her shoulders were too sexy to show (or so her mother thought).
ANYway, last night, I dug out my high school album and scanned samples of my lovely wardrobe from 1983-1987, the good old days of Rangeview High.
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Now first of all, You have to remember it was the ’80s, with big hair, the bigger and more frosted the better. Even that, I have to say I was HAWT in high school. Hawt and skinny and blonde. God knows why I hardly ever had a date. Maybe I was just so devastatingly HAWT none of the boys had the balls to ask me out. But I digress.
The fashion show begins in 1983 with my freshman photo.
Note the bi-level haircut and my natural color. And the Izod. Oh, lord I was so happy to have that Izod, because it meant I was not only HAWT, I was COOL. What you can’t see is that I have absolutely no tits whatsoever. Jody Tabb would sit behind me in class and whisper “Flat as a board! Flat as a board!” Maybe he was trying to get me to flash him my itty bitty titties. Guess, what Jody, joke’s on you because now, I’m a 36 D and you can’t see ‘em nah, nah nah nah nah.
I think he’s in prison somewhere.
Let’s fast forward to 1984.
1984-1985 was sophomore year, my second year on the pom squad. It’s odd that I don’t have tons of photos of me in my uniform, because that’s pretty much what I wore 3 to 4 days a week from the first day of school until mid-spring when basketball season was over. I still have my skirt, which I think Lauren could wear now. Did I mention I was skinny?
I think the rest of my photos are still on the rolls of film somewhere at my parents’ house. She’s notorious for never developing them, and the move before last, I took in a bunch of rolls for processing. Most didn’t turn out, but the one that did was nekkid pictures of my little brother’s girlfriend showing off her pink bits. I don’t think my mom took those. ANYway, the few pictures that did get printed were the ones Ganny, my dad’s mom, took. First up: me in my Baskin-Robbins uniform.
It’s so lovely and brown. Note the lack of bilevel, and the increasing blondness of my hair. Note the expression. I was never meant to be a model–still can’t relax in front of the camera. Also, note the ass-end of the Ford Gran Torino stationwagon, complete with air jacks. This was my first car.
Sidenote to parents of girls: Do not give your daughter a car with a backseat she can stretch out along.
Then we have Ganny’s lovely pictures of me in my BATHING SUIT next to Gus Hendricks, now my FBF (Facebook friends to you novices).
Gus was a hottie I had a crush on, and his dad got transferred to Louisiana, a town right next to my grandparents’. So, he came to visit. Now: check out my legs. Seriously. And when I bought that swimsuit (see the alternating purple and black Vees meant to slim my 24-inch waist?) I thought it made my thighs look fat.
Finally, yet another awkward moment in front of the camera. I was going out on a date Ganny, the eternal matchmaker, set me up on the day Gus left. With a guy who was (still to this day) the WORST kisser on the planet. I only kissed him because I felt obligated. Mushy. Yuck. But I looked cute, huh? I think the white plastic beads from the Limited really make the whole thing work.
My junior year, 1985-1986, The Limited was my favorite store. I actually saved up for this mustard yellow sweater vest (note upturned collar–sweet!). I grew my hair out by Christmas, and PERMED it. Oh yeah! Eating chocolate fondue on the lovely floral couch with me, my BFF and now FBF, Vivian Plummer. She was stylin’ too. Check out the brooch at her neck. Sexy.
My junior year kind of sucked. I went from unrequited crush to unrequited crush. But the worst of it was at Junior Prom. I was so into Scott Osgood. He asked me to Prom. I convinced my mother to buy a $200 pink and white lace dress with a HOOP SKIRT and FINGERLESS GLOVES. Then, Scott went to an FBLA conference and met Margaret. And the week before prom, told me he was taking Margaret and not me. I was crushed. And pissed. So my HS BFF Kristin and I tp’d his car at school with a 24-roll pack of generic toilet paper, purchased at Grocery Warehouse for $1.99. Sweet, sweet revenge. But still, I had a $200 dress, a hair appointment and no date.
Enter, Russ, the school security guard, who told me some guy I didn’t know really liked me and wanted to take me to prom. Eureka! I use this dude as my entry ticket, blow him off and look devastatingly beautiful to make Scott eat his heart out. So I said yes. And Lloyd, who I had never really seen before, showed up wearing this lovely white tails tux with gloves. I made him take off the TOP HAT and put down his cane for the photo. OMFG. Seriously. I almost didn’t get in the car.
The night was awful, except for dinner at Baby Doe’s. After I did my “can’t touch this” walk by Scott and Margaret, I wanted to go home. Suffice it to say, 8 hours and a six-pack of Keystone Light later, I stumbled into my room and swore to wipe the evening from my memory.
Alas, several photos survived.
Now, I want you to take notice of the background, especially the tree. Somehow the tree was sexy. It , like me, was HAWT. Being photographed near The Tree meant it was a special occasion. Evidence:
Forget the fact that I’m completely in shadow. The Tree is in the picture. It works.
Which brings me to Senior Homecoming, with David Bates. He’s the only guy who legitimately asked me to a dance in high school. Sad. He was nice, and guess what? He’s my FBF! In this picture, he is stabbing his finger with the corsage pin. I lost it in the parking lot of Stuart Anderson’s Steakhouse. I felt so bad. That was a very fun date. Check out my poofy bangs, french braid and lovely black bow barette. All my own creation!
I still have this dress. It’s velvet, a size 4 that’s been altered to fit my skinny waist, which is emphasized by a big-ass bow. I remember that the dress came back from the cleaners having been IRONED. Fuck! It was ruined until Kristin’s mom came to the rescue with a steamer. I think that if I took out the shoulder pads and removed the bow, it would look great on me today … once I got back down to 118 pounds. HA!
I’m sure other pictures exist of me in 1986-1987. But these are the best! First, check out the outfit here. To set the scene, my family is on vacation in New Orleans. I am blonde and permed. And bored out of my fucking mind. My brother looks disappointed because my dad just pulled him out of a titty bar. And I’m wearing my most favorite outfit of my senior year: the blue sleeveless turtleneck sweater with a pink tank underneath, pink shorts, white keds and pink flamingo earrings that I stole bought with my employee discount at Stein-Mart. My anklet socks? Ringed with flamingos too. Totally tubular!
And then, came Senior Prom. By this time I was well into my longest high school relationship with Rob Johnson. He was funnier than he was cute, and he turned out to be a cheating piece of crap. But he was 17, so what could I expect? Anyhoo, after the pink wedding cake dress of 1986, I decided to go sexy black for this prom.
Rob went to Smoky Hill, and both of our proms were on the same night. We wound up going to his–can’t remember why. I think because I was in a “fuck RHS” mode. We went to this private dining room for dinner, called the Metropolitan Club, and the waiters served the food under cover, removing the covers with a fluorish. I ate escargot for the first time. The dance was boring, so we went to the hotel room he’d booked. To spare the older generation, I’ll let the story stop there.
I remember buying this dress. I was devastated that it was a size 8. I still had no boobs, but my mom famously said, “Don’t worry, you can buy those.” Check out the ruffles and the bow, man, and my big, big, big hair. I think I used a whole can of Aqua Net to get it to stay like that.
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