Listen to Your Broccoli

Anne Lamott tells us, "Listen to your broccoli, and your broccoli will tell you how to eat it." She's referring to that inner voice that we hardly ever hear anymore.

Today, take a few minutes to be still and quiet. Listen to your inner voice and write what she/he says. That's it. Whatever it is that's in there, let it out..

Hey, you. Yeah. What the HELL are you doing? There is no excuse good enough in the world to ever make this okay. LOOK AT YOURSELF.

There's a treadmill upstairs. Why aren't you on it?

There's a camera in its bag. Why aren't you taking pictures?

There's a million books on the shelf. Why aren't you reading them?

Do you think the world will slow down or stop and wait for you to pull yourself out of this funk? Come on, now. You know better. Nothing and nobody cares about your mood and there are no allowances made just because you don't have the motivation to get off your ass.

There are two dogs that love you, but are bored. Why aren't you walking them?

You finally have some alone time, and you're reading Tweets and looking at other people's photos online. Write your own story. Photograph your own life.

Call that woman you said you were going to call about that job, rather than sit here two hours past the time she asked you to call.

DO SOMETHING. You're getting older by the minute, and you can't get that time back...

Sorry that was so lame. I was letting my broccoli speak to me and then I realized it had a very, very valid point: I have a phone call I desperately need to make that can seriously benefit my future. So, rather than letting my broccoli continue its motivational tirade, I'm going to call that woman!

Oh, and thanks, Broccoli!   
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Bobby

Facebook will be the death of me, I swear. I just can't seem to get rid of it, though. I suppose I should be glad, because guess what happened now...

I got a friend request from a very formal-sounding name I didn't immediately recognize. It took a few minutes to get it to sink in, but then I remembered. And it all came flooding back, memory by memory, hit by hit.

(i'm going to change all the names and then do my best to remember them and keep them straight! be kind!)

My first day of high school, I was in a homeroom with people from all grades. Out of all of them, there was one guy, David, that was pretty cute. I was all about meeting new people and finding the hot boys. Well, turns out David was all too eager to show me around. He was nice, but very, very weird and came from a really fucked up home. But his friends were cute and welcomed me in as part of their group.

They were skaters. Most were drug users. Oh, why sugar-coat it? They were addicts, straight up. They were mostly seniors, although some were juniors. They were into the local music scene, which was something I was trying to learn about. But, the important thing to remember here is that they paid attention to me. I kinda felt like I belonged. It took me a long time to meet everyone, but I found The One on the fourth day of school: Bobby. The complication was that David sort of thought he and I were a Thing, and he was best friends with Bobby. And we all know there's no real way to make that switch, right?

Here's the most fucked up thing of all: I don't remember much else. I don't remember how exactly it happened, I just remember that David got really, really pissed off at me and Bobby both, quit speaking to us, and Bobby and I were a Thing. I also remember being warned multiple times about Bobby from multiple people, but they wouldn't say why. The details on how we got together and all of that, though...totally fuzzy.

As it turned out, Bobby was the school's most prolific drug dealer. A few of his rules were that he didn't do his own drugs, he only dealt with people he knew, he would never use 'hard' drugs, and school still came first. He made excellent grades and made a ton of money. He knew everybody, and when we'd go to parties, he'd lead me around by the hand and introduce me to people, and I felt like a queen because every guy honestly liked him, every druggie wanted to be in his good graces, and every girl wanted him. And he was with me.

Eventually, he let me help him with his business. I spent countless hours wearing latex gloves, helping him tear apart books of blotter paper acid, dividing it into sheets, then individual hits, wrapping them in aluminum foil and then putting them into tiny baggies. It was a time-consuming operation, but we spent those countless hours talking, and really getting to know each other.

As I'm sure you can predict, my education began to take a nosedive. I was all about Bobby. I was cutting school, which he rarely did, to go bowling or to play pool and always get fucked up. He did skip with me a lot, but not all the time.

His family was majorly messed up. We'd go to his house after school and his mom would be on the couch, wearing nothing but a tiny little cropped t-shirt and panties. She was very pretty, in a Joan Jett / Kristen Pfaff sort of way. But then sometimes we'd go to his house and we'd open the door and see her naked ass straight up in the air, bent over on the couch, and her boyfriend changing positions to take her from behind. Like she didn't know we were out of school, you know? She was always drunk - very nice when she wasn't taking it up her ass on the living room couch in plain view of me, Bobby, and her youngest son, who was only 10 at the time - and probably had no business trying to raise children. It's no wonder Bobby was cruising down the wrong path at break-neck speed.

Of course, this is when I started using drugs. Only when he gave them to me, at first. I didn't really buy from him (only when i knew he needed the money), and he was really very generous with it. Of course, I took a liking to the feeling and ended up being his best non-paying customer. Well, his and a few other people's, too.

But we spent lots of time together, although not quite as much at school. He was busy with 'things,' and we were on totally opposite ends of the school all day. So, to maximize our time together, we skipped more than we should have, probably. We would sometimes spend the entire day wrapped up in the huge red velvet comforter he had, listening to Kate Bush, Jimi Hendrix, Sarah McLachlan, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and doing everything except actually having sex.

There's the thing.

I was still a virgin. (not technically, because i had been raped that preceding school year, but i was still in major denial and felt it didn't really count) I guess I fucked up by even telling him that, because he refused to be the one to introduce me to the wonderful world of sex. He told me up front: we would stay together as long as he could go without actual sex, and then he'd have to send me on my way. It was a weird position he put me in, because he placed more importance on virginity than I did. I told him I didn't need to be in love with someone to lose my virginity - I just needed to like them enough to feel like they deserved first crack at me. Bobby totally fit the profile, but simply refused to do it.

Eventually, he explained himself. He said that his mother had always told him that a girl will forever love the man to whom she loses her virginity. Bobby said that was too heavy a responsibility, that if someone else took it, and we got back together and fell in love, that it was meant to be, but that he would never take any girl's virginity and thus requiring their eternal affections. Bobby was a true believer in fate. He didn't try too hard to make anything in particular go his way, or whatever. He was a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. What happened happened, it's the Universe's will. He honestly believed that, if we were meant to be, we'd find each other again.

Yes, it was all a bunch of bullshit. Yes, it was borne of a drug-induced haze, from all 3 of us. Try to remember, though, that I was only 14 and was just beginning my high-dive into Hell. I still didn't understand that people don't always make sense - especially ones who are always under the influence of drugs.

Somehow, I ended up getting together with this real preppy douchebag just so I could fuck him. He thought that meant we were together. He wouldn't stop coming by my house (that is a whole other story, though). So, while he went on a family vacation that next week, I went back to Bobby.

And I know it ended again somehow, because that's when I entered the "Jason" phase of high school, but I don't remember HOW. Anyway, it doesn't matter. It will all come to light soon enough.

Bobby and I have been texting each other over the last few days. It's mostly been get-to-know-you stuff with little talk of the past. We did get to talking about my current job and whether or not he knew any of my co-workers from Way Back When, and I brought up the fact that I remember very little of my teenage years - and what I do remember is spotty and out of context and presented in isolation. He offered to help me piece back together what I don't know.

I'm scared to death. I'm scared because there's a part of me that doesn't want to know the truth. There's a part of me that doesn't want to have to feel the same things I felt before, which is probably a big reason I've blocked it - it HURTS. There's a part of me that feels like I absolutely must know everything in order to move forward with my life, but I just don't know. I'm just not sure.

There is absolutely no chance of this becoming a romantic thing. He has a girlfriend with whom he's very much in love, and he lives 3.5 hours away. I've changed quite a bit from the girl I once was, while he seems to have views that haven't changed much - especially with politics - and I just really disagree with them. He did say that I still look the same, but with hair (long story), and that I look really good, and I should call my parents and thank them. Heh. Feels good to hear, because I think he's still gorgeous. (i snuck a peek at his gf's facebook pics where they're together...)

So. Yeah. I'm sorry these posts end up being so fucking long. I just don't know how to be brief...

The Lunchroom

Take fifteen minutes to write about your elementary school lunch. Describe. Remember. Smell. Touch. Who is there? Where are you? What are you eating?

I despised lunch. At first. The first week of school was the worst, because I was stuck between Jeremy Lawton and Stephanie Silverman. And I had to share a seat with Jeremy. Jeremy was kinda sloppy and awkward and, although I didn't have a problem with boys, I didn't want to be with him. I wanted to be with Bridget, my best friend, but she was in a different homeroom. Stephanie was okay - we were in Brownies together - but I didn't know her very well yet and just wasn't real sure. She was quiet.

My mother was very meticulous about making my lunch for me every day. Part of my back-to-school treat was getting to pick out a new lunch box for each year. Second grade, I had a red plastic Looney Tunes lunch box with matching Thermos. In it, my mother would lovingly place a peanut butter and jelly (always grape) sandwich wrapped up in Saran Wrap. In another baggie I would find a cracker of some kind, which was almost always Goldfish, either pizza or cheddar. If mom was in a mood, sometimes I'd get parmesan. Then, in a third baggie, there would always be 4 cookies. On occasion, I'd find a pack of Twinkies or Hostess Cupcakes. My Thermos always had iced tea in it. Underneath all the food, I'd find a little paper napkin, folded neatly. On many days, I was lucky enough to find a little note from my mother, telling me she missed me when I was at school, or that she loved me, or that she hoped I was having a good day.

I was never embarrassed by those notes but, GOD, how I wish I knew where they were now. I can't imagine that I threw them away. I even brought home the empty baggies and wrap because I hated the bottleneck at the trash can. Why am I getting so choked up about this? I'm just writing...


But Jeremy always had nasty food, like Spaghetti-O's in his Thermos. And the smell overwhelmed my delicate nasal passages and I really just couldn't stand to be near him. Plus, as I've mentioned, he was sloppy. 9 times out of 10 I would go home with some kind of orange stain on the left side of my body. Being OCD even back then, it drove me crazy. As fate would have it, Jeremy and I became best friends and stuck by each other well into the high school years. He never got any cleaner and he probably helped me make some of the worst decisions of my life. But that's not really elementary school lunch, now is it?

The smell in the cafeteria always bothered me. It was like bleach and raw, frozen food. You know that freezerburned smell? Like that, but mixed with bleach and lots of Kid Germs. It never actually smelled clean. It made me think of an awful lot of nastiness, that was just covered up with "cleaner."

I didn't even know what the lunch line looked like from a customer's perspective until I was in 4th or 5th grade. I went through once for a friend who had hurt her leg and couldn't walk. I was appointed the 'helper' and had to go get her tray lunch for her. I pissed off all the kids behind me because I didn't know what to do in line. Well, exCUSE me for having a mom who doted on me instead of just throwing cash at me for lunch!

Each grade level had to eat lunch in a different section of the cafeteria. The youngest grades had to sit closest to the office, and the 5th graders got to sit closest to the front windows and doors. As a result, I have memories from all around the room.

Mostly, though, in 5 years, the most vivid memory I have was of, again, Jeremy and his Spaghetti-O's. His mother had performed superhuman tricks on the Thermos, and he couldn't open it. So he took it to our teacher, Ms. Coote. Who couldn't open it. Who then took it to Mr. Wallace, our science teacher. Who couldn't open it. Who then took it to Mr. McCain, who - guess what? - couldn't open it. Jeremy came back to the table with a very sad look on his face, and a free peanut butter sandwich. And I picked up the Thermos and, just testing it to see how tight it felt, opened it. Our entire side of the lunchroom grew silent as Jeremy proclaimed that "A***** opened it! She opened it!" and nobody could believe it. Of COURSE all the teachers loosened it up for me, but it was still just awesome that I opened it. I became, like, a weird type of freaky hero. Nobody messed with me. Ever.

I'm pretty sure it's been over 15 minutes since I started writing, and I find myself getting quite discouraged. Looking at what a good kid I used to be, it really pisses me off that I became who I am today. I had so much going for me. And to choose to have my career at Ground Zero - the same school that was the stage for the 2-act play that was my downfall - it's like I've made no progress. And that, coupled with an extremely shitty day, on top of the fact that I miss having that little girl relationship with my parents, where I was still a good girl and my parents were still perfect - it's hard. I was so lucky to have a great family and I still do, but...I don't know. I'm miserable, and mommy can't save me. She never could. Fate. It's a bitch.