Junior year while walking about campus (in front of Avery by the old Bookie, if you must know) I ended up behind a trio of sorority-ites. They were wearing Juicy fits and North Face vests and Uggs... and their hair looked like it had been styled the night before- though after downing an ungodly number of vodka crans and taking part in a sexual hook up that was probably consensual- it (the hair) looked greasy and matted and really pretty...
The girls chatted with each other, perhaps about their thoughts on the Nobel Peace Prize candidates or the latest ΠΚΑ shenanigans, when they saw someone walking toward them. Someone, I assumed, they knew. And liked.
"Ashley! Oh my God where'd you run off to last night!" The girls squealed, giggling with 'Ashley' for a few seconds before continuing on to class. Ashley seemed nice in a, she-looks-exactly-like-them-so-they-must-be-besties, kind of way.
As Ashley hurried out of earshot, one of the girls cackled. "Ohmigawd... I hate her."
"I know," another one replied, "and she looks like she's fucking retarded or something. That face. It's just like, blegh."
My class was in Bryan, so I had to leave my new friends just when I was starting to like them. I hauled my ass up like 27 steps to my Black Popular Culture class (honestly), sat down in the windowless clock tower room, and wrote exactly what I heard. And what they were wearing. Why?? Because these girls would make such good stereotypical college girl characters. And they make really great awful human beings, too.
Mostly I write about things and people that I've created in my mind, and while that sounds vaguely schizophrenic, it's what 'writers' do. And I'm a 'writer'. I tell myself that everyday- I stammer it internally so that maybe one day I'll believe it and lose the quotation marks... so that one day when I tell people about my chosen profession they won't just look at me, staring uncomfortably as if I'd just asked them to star in my latest porn flick.
I was at my parents house last week doing laundry, because it's free there and they have a pool. And, also, sometimes I steal things like food, furniture and jewelry. Anyway, on this particular occasion while I was lounging on the deck, my book got wet. This was really shocking, as even though I was near a body of water, I did not feel myself in danger of being dampened. I guess I was wrong. I tried to rally and overcome, but it became impossible to concentrate because I couldn't read without thinking every other second, "this would be sooo much more entertaining if I could see the words properly..."
It was then that I decided it was probably a good time to do that 'writing' thing I'm so fond of. I nipped down to the basement, where my parents locked me and my things for several years, and dug out some old notebooks.
After a few hours of scribbling in the sun, a gust of wind fluttered the pages, landing me on a free-write completed many a year ago.
For those of you who had normal classes, I will explain the purpose of a free-write. Free-writes are wastes of time that English professor's lean on when they're too high to teach, or for when they're bored. Or both. You sit at your desk, pen to the paper, and write anything and everything that you're thinking. Just as it comes to you. And if you don't know what to write, you write, "I don't know what to write... I don't know what to write... I don't know what to write..." until you do.
And this, ladies and gentleman, is what I 'wrote':
Places that scare me -
Circus
Fair
Principal's office
Large crowds
Airplanes
Crowded buses
Unfamiliar inhabited places
The circus is a frightening place. There are animals and outfits, make-up and beards, people who are not normal but instead are forced to be 'freaks'. Most of all there are clowns- big and small, each as frightening as the last. Elephants strapped and tied, whipped and saddled.But those clowns. Fuck. What are they hiding? What do they want? Why must someone disguise themselves in ill-fitting, flamboyantly colored pant suits? Why all the make-up? And that HAIR!?! Why do they exist? They have no point.
It smells like a farm/fair/gym. Sweaty people watching parades of livestock, eating their corn dogs & breathing and sweating... in a tent.
I hate Barnum, Bailey, all 3 of the Ringling brothers, though if I saw them on the street I wouldn't know them from Adam... Is that a saying? Would I also not be able to tell Adam? Maybe if he was carrying his rib around, calling it Eve.My leg is caught in my backpack, and I can't get it loose w/out stopping my writing. And now I'm plagued by the inability to think of anything else while my leg is practically suffocating!! I must try to break free.............
Eureka!
My hand hurts like a bitch. Now where did that saying come from? Are women (or female dogs) apt to cause pain? Oh Eve. I hope the apple was worth it.
I imagine this is how Samuel Clemens' notebooks read. He too was mulling around the horrors of Bozo and John Wayne Gacy, when all of a sudden he came up with Huck. And Tom. And his delightful rants centered around Mormons.
Flipping through the rest of the notebook, I found pages (upon pages) of notes from poetry class. The only reason I enrolled was because it was a requirement for my major. It was almost as exciting as say... a slow death. Or, hepatitis.
One of my best received poems was about The Little Mermaid and Barack Obama. Both of them. Together. He says yes we can, she just wanted to be a part of his world... and something else about whozits and whatzits galore... It seems bizarre now, I guess. I'd type out the whole thing for you, but to be honest it really is quite weird. I also once wrote a poem about Wiley Night, but that was for a different class. You see, this is why English majors are freaks! They make us practically vomit verbiage at all times, no matter how ridiculous... and we let them... because we (secretly) like it.
I'm a stand-back-in-the-crowd-and-watch-people-creepily kind of gal. I have hours of footage from high school stockpiled at my parents house. I tried to watch some a few weeks ago but the camera work gave me motion sickness. Elia Kazan I am not, evidently. Oh, and before my level of creep raises to 'uber' in your eyes, my friends knew they were being taped. Except for this one time Jevon and John set up the camcorder in the bathroom where people were changing into swimsuits... (Sorry ABA.)
When I meet someone, I immediately dissect their personality and actions and posture- wondering if they'd make a good 'fictional' character. When something weird happens to me, I make note of it... just in case.
I didn't turn 16 until the last month of my sophomore year of high school, and even then I wasn't allowed to drive because I was a fucking idiot. My friends usually took pity on me, driving me to and fro, making sure I got to school on time and seeing to it that I wasted just as many hours at the mall as they did. I usually hitched a ride to lunch with them as well, but some days... I didn't.
On this particular occasion, maybe I was late getting out of class. Maybe I didn't want to go to lunch. Or maybe... probably... someone forgot me, or didn't have room in their car... or just didn't want me to go. (You know, I doubt that was the case, because I was like a ray of freaking sunshine back in 10th grade when I was a total loser and had a suffocating fear of being my lame, lame self...)
So, I found myself in the cafeteria with Maci and Laura. We stood in line at the sandwich bar, watching with great interest as our lunch was fashioned before our eyes. Mine was on some delicious Kamiakin-cafeteria-sub bread (seriously it was good), with turkey, lettuce, black olives and cheese. I know... I was pretty bold back then, what with the olives.
We sat by ourselves, most likely pretending to be deep in conversation so we didn't have to socialize with the randos taking up the surrounding area. But then, somewhere in the midst of lunch, I felt a hand on my shoulder.
When this happened, I immediately assumed it was the love of my life finally coming to his senses. I figured he realized that even though he's a senior and like, captain of the football team and President of the school, and even though our only real contact were times he drove me home because he was sort of dating my best friend, and even though our lone moments of physicality were when he would pat me on the head saying, "aw, Liz..."----- that this was his come-to-Jesus moment. And right there in the middle of KaHS, he'd declare his love for me. I figured it was gonna be this kind of serendipitous situación... or that the hand on my shoulder was connected to someone I really fucking disliked- who may or may not also be declaring their love for me. Natch.
Before I could turn to see who was gripping my shoulder with such force (it had to be the love of my life... right?)... two things happened. First, the person gripping my shoulder pulled back, leaning across me. Then, the person (a he, I realized at this point) reached INSIDE MY SANDWICH, pulled out the two slices of cheese, let out a shriek, and ran away.
I stared at my cheese-less sub, looking up at Laura and Maci's expressions, their horror mirrored by my own. You know, they probably weren't horrified. Dumbfounded, maybe. But they weren't the ones whose lunch was just violated. No, my friends, I had to carry that burden all on my own.
Seconds after the sandwich molestation, a woman was at my side. "I'm so sorry!" she said, not actually laughing at this point but seeming like when she told her husband and kids that night, she'd be in hysterics... "Tommy's autistic... and sometimes he just can't control himself around cheese!"
I think I nodded or something, completely disgusted. I never ate a sandwich in that cafeteria again, and I really love sandwiches, so, it was a huge blow. It's not that he stole my cheese- he stole my peace of mind.
So I wrote about him. The moment is forever immortalized in a notebook, and now, in the ether.
One day, if you're reading a book or watching a movie or something... and an autistic cheese bandit steals the scene... you'll know I was the one behind it. Either that or someone lifted it from my blog. I have a feeling Aaron Sorkin stalks my every word, so, we'll see.
Oh, and if you see anyone in your likeness, who's saying the things you've said, have no fear. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. :)
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