1988

I’ve never been one to march to anyone else’s drummer. I didn’t follow trends. I wasn’t part of the “in” crowd. I did things my own way and was quite content. Nobody pushed me to do drugs. Ok, there was that one time, but that’s a story I’ll write later. (Spoiler: I didn’t do it.) Last night, I was thinking about my seventh grade year for a few reasons. Boring ones, I assure you. But there were a few highlights from seventh/eighth grade I thought I’d like to share.

First of all, I was alone my seventh grade year. Separately, all three of my best friends had moved away at the end of sixth grade. Living right next to a military base, we were used to seeing people come and go every year. However, only one of those three friends was military. Anyway, they were all gone, so I was left to fend for myself the next year. You may not know this about me, but I’m rather anti-social. (Ha, like that’s a shock.) I’m not a joiner and I don’t make friends lightly.

One major event during my seventh grade year was that I fell from one of the chin-up bars. I’d always been one of the tallest in my class, so I was on the tall chin-up bar. I somehow let go and fell straight down. Landed on my tailbone. It was the least fun I’d ever had on a playground. I spent a good deal of the next few weeks in the nurse’s office. Lots of times I had to be picked up early from school. I was a real pain in my mom’s rear, who had to take off from work every time I called to come get me because I couldn’t sit in those hard desks, I’m sure.
I’ve said I knew I was different from other kids. I didn’t know any other kid who liked going to the office supply store. I loved it. I could spend hours in there. Smelling the…whatever. Old dust do you think? Once, I spent my hard-earned allowance on a roll of tickets. What use did I have for tickets? None, whatsoever. But I was more interested in them than candy. So my next big purchase from the office supply store was a briefcase. Again, what use did I have for it? None.

I carried it with me everywhere. Eventually, I'd take it to school filled with candy I'd bought at the neighborhood convenience store to sell at school. That ended abruptly one day. I was out on the front lawn before school started, doing my thing. A few kids came around. Then a few more. Suddenly I looked up and there was a huge crowd. Like you'd see around a fight. People started pushing and stuff, and I got more than a little scared. So I decided to close up shop. Somebody hocked a lugie in my hair from behind me. I was beyond done. And was kinda getting concerned about getting caught selling candy with all the attention I was drawing.

I went back to just being the weird girl with a briefcase. And then my mom came home with some wallpaper sample books someone had given her. I decided to jazz up my plain brown briefcase. I taped pieces of wallpaper I'd cut out of the books to the front of my briefcase. Interesting southwestern pattern and shapes. They did not go with the brown. But then, neither did the wallpaper, really.

So yeah, that was me. And while the wallpapered briefcase was the strangest thing I did, it wasn't by much. I remember another purse I carried that year was lime green. The only reason I'm sure it was the same time-frame is that I'd caught one of the handles on the doorknob when I was walking out of the library one day. It was hooked over my arm, under my books and I fell. Right on my bruised tailbone. Not my finest day.

Fake It 'Till You Make It

Once upon a time, I worked for a perfume company. It was knockoff stuff that we sold on the streets. You've prolly been approached by someone in a parking lot selling perfume before, right? Well, I'm sure it wasn't me, but that's the kind of thing I did.

It was a great time, not very great income. There was this kind-of pyramid-scheme thing going on. It was a mess. But I learned a lot. The company broke my shell/pushed me out of my cage/whatever metaphor you like...

Here's how it worked. First, there were the mandatory training meetings to learn about the product. Funny how from lunchtime on day one, the class size kept shrinking. Ok, not funny ha ha...

But we were out in the field that first week making money. Right on the spot. They checked out a box of perfume to you and you had a dollar amount to turn in for each bottle sold. Sometimes they'd run a special or something and you'd get a break after selling so many.

Your profit was whatever you could talk someone into. I'm not a seller. It didn't take long for me to realize that. But now I know one thing I don't like. And knowing I'm bad at selling tells me I'd be bad at prostitution, for example, so I don't have to bother trying that.

Ok, so now that you have these newly acquired selling skills and all this perfume stock, what next? Why, you take your show on the road, of course! I had a car and lots of free time. So go I did.

We'd travel to Oklahoma sometimes. But my favorite trips were to south Texas. We'd hit college towns and make some money. Or border towns. Whatever, wherever.

To save money, we'd all stay in one room. Usually 6-8 people. One time, I remember 14 people in one room. Someone slept in a bathtub. Lots of people brought sleeping bags. It was craziness. But youth = stupidity and we were happy.

One trip, 6 of us had gone somewhere. There were 2 girls, so we shared one bed, and 4 guys. I think two may have shared the other bed, or maybe they were too insecure, so three slept on the floor??? The boss decided to graciously take the floor. He was sleeping between the two beds. I had this short-set that I was sleeping in that night. It was from Victoria's Secret, but it wasn't like that. It was plain cotton with the words Victoria's Secret stitched across the shirt. Anyway, someone across the room asked me what my shirt said. I held it out so they could see. Now I was getting in bed, so I wasn't wearing a bra. Didn't think twice about showing someone my shirt. What I had forgotten was my boss, lying on the floor 4' away. He got a clear view up my shirt. I was embarrased, but not too badly.

Until he brought it up at breakfast the next morning. When we met up with another group. I had a red face through the whole meal. Thus the story of the time I accidentally flashed my boss.

After doing the selling thing for a few months, my parents were less than enamored with this company. I was supposed to quit and stop going on trips. But I was 18 and having fun. I wasn't eating much. Breakfast every day, but then I'd snack on oranges and pretzels the rest of the day and was fine. 6 oz. of pretzels in one hand and 6 oz. of fruit in the other is a balanced diet, right?

I got super-skinny. Which for me, was around 145-150 lbs. What? I'm tall-ish. Anyway, when we'd come back into town, I'd stay with friends so I wouldn't get in trouble at home. I'd come home while my parents were out and get clothes or whatever. My younger siblings were supposed to keep me home if I showed up.

My sister's friend parked behind me in the driveway to keep me there. I just drove out through the yard. They were instructed after that to cut the valve stems on my tires next time I came home. It never got to that. I knew I needed to stop running around like that. And I did. Just not on their timetable. But it didn't take long for me to learn.

Memories of a Cousin

My cousin is getting married soon. I was sending stories about his childhood to his bride-to-be and thought I'd share them with teh interwebs. (I know you read my blog, you can leave a comment to refute anything you think you need to, otherwise, as the older, wiser cousin, my version stands and there will be no more debate about it being your fault!)

We (I) used to bully him into everything. At Aunt Nona's, I remember deleting all the channels off the rotation on the TV because he kept changing it by pressing the buttons on the front of the set. (Clearly, being the oldest and the one holding the remote, I was in charge.) We were supposed to rotate control every half-hour, and I don't recall violating that rule, but we may have. (It was decades ago, who knows for sure?)

Grandma kept us for a summer or two. One day, for some reason, he was chasing me through the house. I didn't look back to see how far behind he was, but as we were running down the hall, I grabbed the living room door and pulled it into his path behind me. He hit it with the heel of his hand and as it was a hollow door, his hand went through. We got in big trouble for that. I said it was his fault because he should have stopped. (Duh, there was a door in his path.) I have no idea why he thinks it was my fault. His hand made the hole, not mine. But yes, more than 20 years later, we still don't agree.

We'd ride our bikes down to see the menagerie around the block all the time. Nothing spectacular ever happened there that I recall. But watching the reyes eat the corn out of their poop was always a treat. (I'll say it for you, um, gross.) Ok, maybe the lion was worth going to see.

There were a few things I didn't mention to her. About going down to the little town library every week or two to check out books. About doing counted cross-stitch. Yes, he had to learn, too. About making those stained-glass things you bake, using little rice-sized colored plastic pieces. And tweezers. About using my dad's prehistoric Legos. They were made of wood (ok, there were some plastic ones, too) they were only a couple of different sizes. And they came with green cardstock for roofs. (I happen to have the giant tupperware container of them in my living room. They will be returning to his possession on Father's Day.)

Every day we'd play with his 'Little People' and matchbox cars and other miscellaneous treasures. We'd put them all in a pile and would draw one at a time to get the best pieces. I'm sure it was fair and we rotated who went first every time. (Actually, Grandma was really big on being fair. Good thing, because we weren't.)

When he was a toddler, he used to drool. A lot. My imitation of him coming in for a kiss was to turn on the bathtub faucet near my mouth. (I told you I was really, really mean. I just thought I was being funny.) He would literally soak your entire cheek. A little bit older, he'd have to stop after a sentence or two (ok, maybe a paragraph or two) and slurp or wipe his mouth so he could finish talking. Especially if he was excited. It was a lot cuter than that sounds. And it was automatic.

One day, we were playing in the back bedroom at Grandma's. He was a little bundle of energy. There were some doors leaning against the wall. He made up this little routine thing. He'd say "Be Prepared" while he jumped and kicked the outer door with one foot. "Be Prepared", jump up and kick the door with his other foot. "BE PREPARED!" And jump up and kick it with both feet. He'd do that over and over. And over.

I’m not sure I remember this one right because he was about 1. I was about 5. I was sitting up with my dad watching The Shining at about midnight. The phone rang. He left and I had to go to bed. The next day the story came out that his mom and dad were driving somewhere – I want to say East Texas – and had run into a bull that was standing in the road. They were in some hospital. I’m pretty sure he only ended up with a scratch or something. The car, perhaps a Monte Carlo(?), was messed up. They ended up fixing it and it was about 4 or 5 different colors after that. (I remember black, red, pale green, primer gray and possibly white?)

The Story of Jen and Lee: Part 1 - How We Met

I was a freshman, Lee was a sophomore. We had one class together, Geometry. Lee says he noticed me because every time the teacher would leave the room, everyone would crowd around me. Looking back, I don’t think it was about being smart. I was good at math, but the other kids were mostly lazy. Duh, they were in high school.

The next semester, Lee wasn’t in my Geometry class anymore, but we had Health class together. Our teacher was the girl’s soccer coach, and our class was opposite a lunch hour, so he had a lot of visitors and we had a lot of unsupervised time in that class. A lot. So there was this group of about 8 of us that chatted in the downtime.



This is some of us (obviously, since I can count) at lunch one day.

Anyway, we got to be friends. We’d talk on the phone sometimes. During Spring Break, my dad had assigned me a research project because I’d failed Art class. Long story. Anyway, back then, my dad worked at the Tandy Center, which was connected via tunnel to the downtown public library. I went in with him to work and spent the day doing research (ugh) the first two days.

One of those days, Lee and his best friend Daniel came to visit. We played all over the place. Watched the ice skaters skate. Spent some time in the arcade. Close to the end of the day, Daniel had bugged off. Lee and I were riding in the elevator in one of the towers. Anyway, he kissed me. It was nice. We got off the elevator and were walking on the main stairs by the ice rink. I remember my knees were wobbly. Yeah, I had it bad.