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nine to the head.
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9

Idiots, Imbeciles, & Morons

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let people talk, I don't care. I'm gonna prove to you daddy that I ain't no squaaaare

Thurs|11.14

In the last years before graduation, there were usually four of us: me, Mena, Birdie, and Nicki. Mena and I were the base, Birdie and Nicki were sometimes. There had always been a third, occasionally a fourth, with Mena and me. They were her friends, and were dropped and replaced every so often. I was quiet and not as wild as some, and though I was a good friend, sometimes she needed more wild than I could possibly offer.

I was allowed other friends in school, but not after. That was Mena's time (unless she wanted to do something alone with the third or fourth). And by "allowed" I mean only that I knew this, and didn't make waves. I had grown up with being expected to just know things, and somehow I usually knew them.

Sometimes I would go over to a different friend's for dinner, and it would be met by Mena with a few days of coolness ("Miss you? Who are you?") mixed with alarming insecurity, and I would have to re-earn the best friendship with endless hours of watching her prepare dinner or do her hair, while reaffirming my commitment to her ("Did you have more fun at Tina's than you have with me? What did you do? Did you like that better than being here? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?").

I don't know why I did it. She was my best friend. I'm probably just remembering the hellish boringness of it all, because I know we had fun, too.

Nicki was from California, and lived with her grandmother. The story was that schools were better here, and that was why she'd moved, but since the anecdotes she told about her mother usually involved them getting stoned together, it was possible she'd lost custody of Nicki to Nicki's grandmother.

Nicki was about sex; she'd slept with lots of boys and men and was constantly looking for some action. Her eyes nearly rolled to the back of her head when she talked about it. If she wasn't fucking she was eating, if she wasn't eating she was getting stoned, and if she was doing none of those things, chances were good that she was asleep.

Birdie was about being pregnant. She always thought she was, and would touch her abdomen with equal amounts of encouragement for the little creature and fear that it really existed, but so far, not pregnant. Her on-and-off boyfriend, Steven, was frightening and unknown to me. He was locked up, or hiding out, or running away, or showing up at school in the middle of the day just to hang out with his friends, and he only spoke to Birdie, never to us. I wasn't sure why she was with him, but I didn't asked. I knew that there was something between them that I just didn't get.

Birdie lived with her father and older brother, and their house was within walking distance of Mena's house, so sometimes we hung out there, but usually we were at Mena's.

Mena's parents didn't come home until 5:00 or 5:30. It was her job to cook dinner and pick up the house when she got home, and she hated to be home alone, so it was my job to come over after school, and we were joined by Birdie or Nicki or both, but sometimes neither, because those three hours were considerably boring and I was the only constant who stuck through it.

I remember teaching myself patience during that time. I thought it was a good lesson for me, to just sit, and listen, and watch, without needing anything of my own. I learned to sit through anything. I probably left my body at times. I was so unbearably bored, and yet I tolerated it, and why? Why? Because Mena wanted me to? How is that a reason? Where was my spine?

Mena was unable to stop doing her hair.

I meant to talk about this certain party, but I needed to introduce Birdie and Nicki in order to do it, and now this is just so involved that I'm obviously not going to get to the party.

And right now I feel so disgusted by how I spent my formative years that I think I'll just go to bed.

I'm probably not seeing her clearly. I feel guilty about being so subjective in my storytelling, and that Mena has no say in how she's portrayed. Not that I want to give her one; I would probably just bow to her version. Why even talk about this?

Having said that, I'll pick up some other time with, "Mena was unable to stop doing her hair." Because it is FASCINATING.

MOTORING! WHATS YOUR PRICE FOR FLIGHT!

Wed|11.13

He sat next to you in science but he wasn't your partner. Jean was your partner. Tom was his partner. They sat on either side of the two of you, and you two sat next to each other. He was cute. But you were a one-man woman and you waited until your crush on Angelo Sala had ended before you focused on him. Ben. Ben Hughes.

He was at parties at the mill. You hoped he would hit on you. You took his picture during lunch when you were taking everyone's pictures. He had glasses, straight black hair to the middle of his neck, dark brown eyes. He was quiet, thin, ethereal.

You loved him.

His faded jeans, beige workboots, the way he walked, held his pen, his face when thinking, his rare smile.

You were used to unrequited crushes. That was how it worked best for you. You didn't know why, or that there should be a why. The boys you dated were rough and indifferent, if you could call being groped in the woods a date, but the boys you loved were untouchable, beautiful, sacred.

You let him copy from your paper during a test and endured the yelling from Mr. Pugliati. The three of you (Tom, who'd copied from Ben, Ben, who'd copied from you, and you, the one with the answers), stood in front of Mr. Pugliati's desk after class and listened to him shout at an incredible volume ("The axe is going to fall!") as his face turned red and then almost purple, watched him hit the desk with his ruler, and it was so over the top that it made you a little giddy, and you could tell you were about to giggle but thankfully somehow you kept it in until dismissed.

Mr. Pugliati just couldn't be scary. He tried, but he was too good. He loved his kids. He was a volunteer fireman, and he showed the class movies of grotesque car accidents so that you would be more careful, and he described in detail the deaths of older students you knew vaguely who had crashed their cars, or taken too many drugs.

This had made one classmate cry; she had been the girlfriend of one of the boys killed the year before. She ran out of class that day, while Mr. Pugliati described the student's decapitation and other details of the wreckage. He had been first at the scene.

It was enough to turn a girl off driving.

Mr. Pugliati was the first to tell us not to see "Caligula," because he had had to walk out of it and if HE couldn't take it, well. Suffice it to say that ninth graders shouldn't be seeing that shit. He outlined a few key scenes to make his point, and you held off on the movie until college.

Saturday night at a mill party, curly-headed Boing was singing about his blue suede shoes for the amusement of others and you were standing next to Ben. So close. Please kiss me, you thought fervently, and you aimed it toward him, but it didn't take.

Later, Mena told you that he'd raised his eyebrows at her and motioned his head toward you in a suggestive fashion, and she'd mouthed, "Go for it!"

But instead he'd made out with Bonita, while you sat next to them and talked to Mena, pretending not to notice Ben and Bonita kissing, and pretending all kinds of different things.

When you teased Ben about it on Monday, he told you to shut up.

You wondered if they were going out now. Did Bonita touch his hair, and his neck, did she appreciate the shape of his lips? Did she notice the way he started ever so slightly and set his jaw when you said something that shocked or angered him? Did he let her kiss the inside of his wrist?

You imagined touching his flannel shirt, moving your hand to the white t-shirt inside, running your fingers along its collar. Bonita could do that, if she wanted. Bonita could kiss him just beneath his ear. Bonita could hold his hand in the hallway. Maybe Bonita knew his locker combination.

He smelled so good. You knew that just from sitting next to him, in science.

Your second attempt (a non-teasing one) to talk to him about Bonita was met with angry silence. He turned toward Tom and ignored you for the rest of the class. You worked with Jean on your sludge report and tried not to cry. Now he wouldn't even be your friend. Maybe he would start skipping this class to mess around with Bonita in the electrical room. You would never see him again, except maybe in passing, in the hallway, and at parties, sitting in a corner with Bonita all over him, their plastic cups of beer ignored and growing warm.

Your heart actually hurt. You wondered if you were damaging it with emotion. You tried to think about Angelo Sala again, but it just didn't work.

Saturday's party was at the golf course, and Bonita and Ben were nowhere near each other. You stood near Bonita and heard her tell a friend that she didn't really like Ben.

You turned to her, appalled. "But you went out with him last weekend," you said.

"Yeah," she shrugged. "That was just for a night."

You stared at her, feeling cold, and sick. How could she have touched him? How dare she? She didn't even like him! You thought about hitting her. The desire to smack her in the mouth and tell her she had no right to use Ben that way was enormous, but you knew you'd have to explain yourself, and then everyone at the party would know you loved Ben, and Ben would know, and you could never, ever go to science again. Or school, probably.

Later that night, very drunk, you fell down the hill and became covered with grass stains, wet with dew and bruised, but you didn't care. The gall of Bonita overshadowed it all.

that is the part you throw away

Sat|11.09

I don't know what to say. I don't feel like writing. My page is empty, though. Just a lonely leg. A lonely, Parisian leg.

That place is closed now. I got the picture from an sfgate column that perhaps was trying to incite a public outcry (but most likely not) about Glide Memorial owning a strip club and "porno arcade." (teehee. "porno arcade.") I doubt that anyone cared. I know I didn't, at least. The money doesn't know where it came from, as Mr. L. Fishburne says in that movie where he's all undercover and shit.

Anyway, it's closed now.

I always liked that leg.

Okay just one more link. Just one more! District 6 rocks. (Do you see the typo in the first paragraph? Yeah, me too. "Challenge THE mayor." Okay then. [P.S. - what you might consider "typos" on THIS page, MY page, are merely creative grammar choices.])

I always liked that leg.