Ages of Me

When I was one: My room was yellow.

When I was two: My parents stuck me in my crib when there was company over and I could hear them all laughing out in the living room, so I screamed my lungs out.

When I was three: I thought the packets of flower seeds at the nursery looked nice, so I started stuffing them into my pockets. My mom caught me.

When I was four: I thought on the morning of my birthday that because I was now four, I had magically grown tall enough to see over the kitchen counter.

When I was five: My kindergarten class ordered those plates where the kids drew pictures on a piece of tissue paper, then the papers would be sent in to the company, which would laminate them to plastic plates. I was the only kid in the class whose parents declined to buy one, so I had to return to my seat with a flimsy tissue paper drawing of my family and tears in my eyes while all the other kids were showing off their plates.

When I was six: I went to a Catholic school until this age. My mom transferred me into public school after this time because I and this kid from England named Justin made loud pig noises during mass and our teacher kicked us out of the Our Lady of Saints parade. My mom's view was, "My daughter would never make pig noises during mass. If my daughter can't be in the parade, then she doesn't have to go to this school anymore."

When I was seven: I was hanging out with my dad in a pizza joint called Shakey’s. Westworld was on the TV monitor, and the part when Yul Brynner’s face melted scared the crap outta me.

When I was eight: I punched my best friend Josh repeatedly in the side at recess, perfecting the kidney punch, as I called it. I also embezzled money from the class treasury and got caught. It’s kind of a wonder I don’t have a record today, what with the stuff I did before I was ten!

When I was nine: I got surgery in my mouth to correct a receding gum-line, by way of grafting skin from the top of my mouth onto the gums along the bottom front. They used a weird chewing gum-like substance to cover the stitches on my hard palate. In my sleep, I swallowed the substance, commencing bleeding in my mouth. When I woke up, I couldn’t even speak because of a giant clot of blood in the back of my throat.

When I was ten: I ate a lot of Burger King onion rings with my sister. Later that evening, we sat in our room farting and laughing at the stench. Our mom came in to say good night, and physically reacted to the entity that was our farts, unable to cross the threshold of the room.

When I was eleven: my next best friend Krystal, her brother, and I entered this abandoned house nearby, reputed to be the illicit dwelling of this kid we went to school with’s family. There were what seemed like seventeen television sets and tons of porn. I think this part is my imagination, but I recall a scary looking guy with Graves disease lingering in the house when we were. We ran.

When I was twelve: Treating your bangs with a curling iron and shellacking them with AquaNet was quite popular. I sculpted my hair in such a manner and thought it was such perfection that I maintained it for like three days, liberally spraying it whenever it seemed like it would wilt (fat chance of that, I should have bought stock in AquaNet). My older cousin came to visit, and after much proselytizing, convinced me to wash it all out.

When I was thirteen: I had a crush on this kid named Brian, who I heard had a crush on me. Our crushes consisted of ignoring each other throughout the school year except to team up to surreptitiously throw staples in our classmates’ hair.

When I was fourteen: It was a hot summer day. My brother Zucchini, who was eight, and I were picking blackberries in the elementary school field near our house, while our sister Melon Head (eleven) was practicing soccer in the junior high field, also nearby. When we had had our fill of picking, we decided to go see what Melon Head was up to. When we arrived, we showed her Zucchini’s purple-stained hands, and in my best stricken voice, I said, “He can’t feel his hands!”
She took one look and flipped out. “You could have frostbite!” Never mind that it was eighty-plus degrees out in the middle of summer. We couldn’t take it any more, and started snickering. “This is not a laughing matter!” She continued, “you need to go home and show mom right NOW!” Finally, amidst our by this time very apparent giggles, she realized we had our picked blackberries with us, and that it was August.

When I was fifteen: I started taking ballet. I still occasionally choreograph dances in my apartment.

When I was sixteen: I started an underground magazine (later called the Back Wall after the favorite pop quiz torture instrument of our Current Events teacher) that by my senior year grew to include about thirty subscribers (including above teacher), a staff of writers, and regular features. I even got called into the counselor’s office to debate my freedom of speech. It’s fun to look through the old photo-copied issues now.

When I was seventeen: Sherri and I became obsessed with the ouija board my mom used to have when she was a kid. We started holding séances, replete with candles and a steady stream of teenagers climbing in and out my bedroom window at all hours. My parents were tolerant, to say the least.

When I was eighteen: On my last day of high school (before the graduation ceremony), my dad and I took the canoe out for a paddle around Lacamas Lake. We talked about life after school (which I had been somewhat afraid of), and what I wanted to do with my life. It was such a pleasant day, and my dad is phenomenal!

When I was nineteen: My bosses told me i had to start wearing a bra to work. I guess I'd finally hit puberty!!

When I was twenty: I lived in like three separate apartments all over southwest Washington that year. A bit of a whirlwind!

When I was twenty-one: I got married to the wrong person, only to divorce six years later.

When I was twenty-two: I learned how to ski. One of my co-workers was VERY patient.

When I was twenty-three: My sister gave me a tiny striped kitten someone had snuck into her car while she was at work. This kitten lived in a bird cage for a while at Ellen's friend's house, also, before she came to me. She never grew very big, so her name, Little Cat (which I used to yell at her as she played all over my while I tried to sleep), is very fitting. She is the best cat I have ever had.

When I was twenty-four: Sherri and I were driving around, going shopping for the day. We had just left this herb store in Beaverton (the stoner manning the cash register had announced to us, "hi ladies, I'm wearing pheromones today" which I think defeats the whole sneaky purpose of wearing the pheromones in the first place, and anyway, they didn't work as far as we were concerned.) and I was in my car already by the time Sherri started to get in. Suddenly this loud ripping sound filled the air. Sherri's pants had split! Dying of laughter, I unwisely started to pull the car out of the parking space, and promptly hit the rear quarter panel of the stoner's car. I have a nice little dent now, and his rear light cover fell to the ground. I wasn't too concerned about it though, because it was taped on, and also, he's a stoner who wears pheromones. I love chain reactions!

When I was twenty-five: I joined this crazy Wiccan coven and met several of the friends I have now. I still have the indelible image of our Appalachian, extremely obese “little high priestess” falling into the hole dug for the may pole and flashing us her very nasty bits.

When I was twenty-six: I took up Yoga. Unfortunately I have since ceased to do it, but am thinking of getting started again. I'd never been more fit in my life!

When I was twenty-seven: I divorced, and began dating G, my best friend! I also got an apartment by myself for the first time in my entire life, and love it!

When I was twenty-eight: I went to Peru with G. This was my first (and so far only) trip to South America. We took a bus to this town called Ica (it is very close to Pisco, which the recent earthquake decimated). In Peru, vendors sell foodstuffs on the long bus rides. It is not a matter of discretely selecting a sandwich from a basket at the back and getting on with your day, it is a woman who paces the aisle for more than an hour, mumbling "pollo pollo pollo…pollo sand-weech? Pollo pollo pollo…" while the large and heavy hook filled with bags of chips, nuts, pretzels, etc, slides up and down the rail at mach speeds every time the bus lurches to a halt or gets going again. This would only be a minor annoyance, if the bottom bags weren't at head level and didn't speedily slide directly into passengers' heads. Amusingly, Peruvian passengers let this happen, and some will finally decide they want a sandwich after forty-five minutes of in-your-face "pollo-ing."

When I was twenty-nine: We went to Maui and bought a van to live in for $900. After three weeks, we sold it for $1000. So, we had a set of wheels and a place to sleep, and received $100 for it. In Maui, if you leave your car overnight in any semi-vacant location (backs of stores count), in the morning you will find the axles resting on rocks or coconuts (or anything handy), and everything of importance stripped from the poor vehicle. Unless your van has made the circuit, been blessed by Princess Liluokalani of Kanaha Village, and spent four days in the broken down stall of the only U-Wash Car Wash on the island, having its nasty carpet ripped out much to the amusement of the locals. Then, they leave it alone – it's a local vehicle and not a Haole one. Yessirree, we travel in class! (But, I'd rather meet all the interesting, crazy, and/or homeless people wherever I go rather than who the resorts WANT us to see).


When I was thirty: G took me to Mexico for my birthday. We flew in to GDL for a few days, then drove to Puerto Vallarta. On the way there, we saw a guy sleeping on the storage box in the back of a glass truck. He slept through several winding corners that tossed him from side to side, and lots of screeching halts. Amazing. On the way back, I got the trots and spent time on the side of the road about every half hour. I have especially fond memories of the truckers flashing their brights on me.