March 26, 2011

When I was younger, Part I

You know, I always thought I was different. When I was little, I thought it was because I had some sort of untapped magical power. I spent countless mornings lying in my bed wondering if today was going to be the day that I would discover that I could fly or become invisible or move things with my mind. When I was 10, I read the Harry Potter book series and was convinced that on my next birthday, I would get a letter from a giant with a a tattered, pink umbrella.
These things, clearly, never came to pass. Instead, I found myself playing dress-up in my mother's clothes when she wasn't looking and playing the captured princess in my brothers' make-believe games. When I went to school, that's when things really began to come into focus. Making friends with the boys was clearly more difficult than making friends with the girls. I wasn't interested in the same things as the boys, though for the life of me, I did try. On the playground, I would try to get into their games of tag and football and baseball. But the girls just looked so happy in their tea parties under the jungle gym. I didn't understand why it was strange that I wanted to join them. "Why can't I just do what makes me happy?" I thought. When I was four, my grandmother had crocheted  a blanket for me. It was lovely really; green, white and pink. When she gave it to me, I spent hours just staring at the intricate needlework, poking my fingers through the weaving. That spring, I discovered that if I tied the blanket around my waist, I looked just like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Sure, the color was off but I was four, my imagination would fill in the holes.
Every morning, I would wake up, eat my cereal and then tie the blanket around me and spin and twirl around my room. Jacob, the brother that I shared a room with, never seemed to notice my alleged strange behavior, but, he was 6 after all. Jacob was never one to create conflict in the family. Always willing to do whatever everyone else wanted to do, always the one to sacrifice his happiness for the happiness of others. Growing up, he was my best friend. We were inseparable. He was the one that taught me how to pick my nose without making it bleed, how to use the toilet, how to tie my shoes. And when I asked him if he wanted to play make-believe, and told him that I wanted to be the one he needed to rescue, he was all too happy to play my knight in shining armor.
It was never romantic, him saving me, purely make-believe. There was never a kiss shared between us or him sweeping me up in his arms. It was more about him slaying the dragon and chopping the lock that kept me in my cage which was really our mother's laundry basket. And typically, after he saved me, I would suddenly develop some sort of magical power that I would then use to defend us against our enemies as we escaped the castle.
At the age of 5, I had my first experience with shame. I was playing in my room, my blanket tied around my like a skirt and my mother's best friend came over for lunch. I have always loved her. She was a large person; she seemingly was so tall that if she turned her nose to the ceiling, she could lick the tiles. But not only was she large in stature, she had a personality that seemed to fill the room and infect everyone in it. So naturally, when I heard her voice booming from the kitchen, I excitedly ran to her...forgetting all about the pseudo-skirt I was wearing. When my feet touched the linoleum of the kitchen floor, and I saw her eyes widen and look me up and down, I became all too aware of what I was wearing. I remember standing in front of the two women, my mother and her friend, and feeling my face turning as red as a beet, trying my hardest to quickly untie the knot around my waist. My fingers fumbled and clawed in embarrassment.
"Oh! Isn't he darling?" my mother's best friend exclaimed with a wide smile. Her ability to look past the skirt and see something sincerely "darling" caught me off guard. I stopped fidgeting and stood there looking at her. She just laughed, swept me up in her arms and hugged me hello. To this day, I'm not sure why I felt ashamed of what I was wearing. Maybe it was because for the first time in my life, someone had seen a part of me that was reserved for the privacy of my own room. Or maybe it was because I knew that the skirt didn't match the shirt I had paired with it. Who knows? But that afternoon, I took my now very worn out blanket off, folded it carefully, placed it on the floor of my closet and never touched it again.
When my family moved from Dallas to Houston the next January, I didn't even bother to pack the blanket. I just left it sitting in the bottom of my closet, a distant memory of something I never fully understood.

My Body, I Love

I love my hair. Sometimes, it falls in the perfect way and makes me smile. The color can be a vibrant blond or an even, soothing brown. It's a chameleon. I love my eyes. They're expressive and give away my every emotion. I love my nose and the way it turns up slightly at the end. I love my lips and the way they curl into a smile when I'm truly happy. I love my teeth and the fact that they're perfectly straight without dental work.

I love my shoulders and the way that you can see my clavicle which gives them an interesting shape. I love my arms and how, when I'm all alone and needing love, they hug my body and remind me that even if it feels like no one loves me, I love me.

I love my chest and the way that it rises and falls, keeping time to my life. I love my stomach, especially my bellybutton. If anyone were to have an attractive bellybutton, I would have one.

I love my back. I love that when the world is crushing, and I feel like I can't carry any more weight, it takes the brunt of it and allows my mind to relax just a little bit. I love my bottom, a much needed cushion for my life.

I love my thighs. I love the way that funny feeling I get when the muscles sways back and forth when I jiggle my legs. I love my knees, the way they allow me to run...either from things I fear or to my heart's desire. I love my calves and the fact that if I try really hard and I'm wearing the right shoes, it looks like my knee swallowed a grapefruit. I love my ankles and how they were instrumental in causing me to fall in love with dance. I love my feet, my base, the thing that let's me continue on. They are the things that keep me going when everything is pulling me back.

I love my body.
I love my body.
I love my body.

I hate my body's perfections.

My Body, I Hate

I hate my hair. It never does the crazy things I wish it did. It lies flat on my head, plain, and boring. I hate the shape of my head. It's skinny...almost too skinny. And the circumference is enormous which means that hats are almost always out of the question and cute sunglasses are impossible to find. I hate my eyes. They're not the vibrant shade of green that I want. They're more like murky brownish-green. I hate my nose. It constantly breaks out with acne and is perpetually covered in blackheads. I hate my lips. They're too thin, almost only the idea of lips. I hate my teeth, stained with too much soda, coffee and tea. They're filled with cavities because I refuse to go to the dentist. I hate my chin. It's anything but defined.

I hate my shoulders. They're slender and effeminate. I hate my arms, gangly and weak. They can't even reach down to my toes and can barely lift anything. I hate my chest. It's completely flat and nearly hairless. My nipples are gigantic saucers on a pane of white. I hate my stomach. It bulges forward, jiggly with fat and lack of exercise.

I hate my back. It's plagued with acne and eczema. It hurts constantly and gives me poor posture. There is a distinct lack of dimples right above my bottom which I find so attractive. My spine sticks out in places, which is awkward to look at and to touch.

I hate my thighs. They're rotund and weak like my arms. Sometimes they can barely even lift my body. I hate my bottom. It's flat and shapeless, looking like only an extension of my thighs. I hate my knees, knobby and  strangely hairy. I hate my calves. The hairiest part of my body, they're nothing special with little to no muscle definition. I hate my ankles, constantly dry and cracking whenever I walk. I hate my feet. Unnaturally small with hairs on my toes that I can never maintain.

I hate my body.
I hate my body.
I hate my body.

I love my body's imperfections.

March 18, 2011

Censors

In my junior year of high school I realized that I was a writer. My English teacher, Mrs. Dozier, pushed and pushed me to do better. To find my voice, to be as descriptive as possible, but mostly to be proud of my written words. She was the type of teacher that never gave an A unless she felt the student had truly written to the absolute best of their ability. She never settled for mediocrity and forced everyone of her students to work for their A.

Weeks went by and the highest grade I received on my assignments was a B+. I listed after her coveted A's. And it wasn't until our first assignment of the spring semester that I saw my chance. We were challenged to find a political issue that hadn't already been exhausted by the media (abortion, civil rights, higher/lower taxes, etc.) and argue one side of it. The issue I was destined to write about took a week after we received the assignment to smack me in the face. As editor in chief of the school newspaper, I had been challenged with creating the main story or "the spread" of the newspaper.  Having just attended a conference for high school reporters, and hearing hundreds o personal stories of traumatic childhoods or troubled teenage years, I created a spread entitled "the loss of innocence."

I included 5 stories in which high school students from all over Texas recounted stories from their that emotionally changed them forever. One accounted sexual advances of a father to his daughter, another a story of a boy losing his little brother to cancer, and in the middle of the page, was a story written by me about when I was 13 and I thought I was loved and ended up raped. All the names had been changed to protect the writers and I was the only one who knew the real names so I was only slightly nervous to include my story.

My adviser thought the pieces were powerful and moving so I submitted it to the administration for review. Three days later, I got their edited version and right over my story was a giant red X with a sticky note that said "see me." I immediately walked nervously to the principals office, holding the newspaper in one hand and a note pad for comments in the other.

I sat opposite of the principal, the newspaper spread widely across his maple desk. He gave me a look of complete seriousness, knowing exactly what I came to talk about.

"We can't include a story about homosexuality. Especially gay sex. It's just not appropriate." as he spoke his voice grew quieter and quieter, afraid that someone might hear him.

"So how do we fix it? The paper goes to print today. We don't have time to find a new story."

"Well, why not just keep it heterosexual? Should be simple enough, just change the name; it's already written in first person."

I sat shocked. We could include a story about rape but not homosexual rape. I didn't know what to do or say so I just left the room. Back at my desk in the newsroom, my advisor was pressuring me to send her the final copy of the paper to send to the printer. I knew that if I didn't change the paper, the administration would simply shut us down and there would no longer be a paper but how could I change the story, censor myself because what I had to say wasn't "appropriate?"

I sent the paper with the principals changes. I hated myself for it. I immediately got to work on my paper for Mrs. Dozier writing about censorship in schools and how unfairly students are treated because they're minors. I got my A but the paper still printed the wrong story. Everyone congratulated me on such a moving topic and told me how it really opened their eyes to the situations of others. I took the praise with a sort of half smile, knowing that I had failed myself and gave into my oppressors.

Thinking bak on it, I should have done whatever to took to print the real story. The school would hve done abything to prevet a lawsuit and I probably could have made life easier for other openly gay students. I still hate myself for not standing up to the principal and demanding my rights. But that was five years ago and there's nothing I can do about it now.

Of God

I'm a pretty nostalgic person. I've saved every letter, every note my mother and father have given me. I have movie tickets from every movie I've seen since I was 14 years old. It's kind of ridiculous really. I know that I need to throw it all away and only keep things that are truly meaningful to me but that's the part that gets me; it's all meaningful to me. So I keep it all in shoe boxes in my old closet at my parent's house.

Before I connect my nostalgia to my main point of this story, you should know that I'm not very religious. I say I don't believe in God or any part of Christianity but I find myself praying that things work out okay. I suppose if I'm being truly honest, the only reason I can give to believing in a god is to give you hope that they can control the things you can't. But I digress, I'm not religious but I used to be...and so did all of my friends.

I was raised Catholic and believed in God my entire life. When I got into high school, I started hanging out with kids from my church and this only strengthened my relationship with God. I became highly active in the youth group which was more or less an excuse to hang out with my friends all the time. We went on retreats, attended bible studies, went to mass, and even got together on our own to sing praise and worship songs. We loved God immensely and it bonded us tightly. And frankly, being openly gay, a sexually active gay man at that, was a constant struggle for me. But I was in high school and like every other teenager, I was doing my best to fit in.  I stopped having sex, pretended that my feelings for other men didn't exist and poured my everything into religion. I constantly fought an internal battle of "if acting on gay feelings was a sin, why did God allow me to have them." I often got the reply from the leaders of my church that "it all comes down to free will." but to me, being gay isn't a choice and I knew that I've had these feelings my whole life. I might not have understood them at first but they were there. I felt confused, frustrated, and alone. I felt like no one else understood my struggle to understand God and they could never understand what it was like to have such polar opposites fighting within their body. I felt like a token friend; someone people was nice to because they thought it made the a better, proactive person because of it.

Eventually, I went to college and discovered that The Church wasn't as welcoming without my group of tight knit friends there to protect me. I fell away from my faith and was only reinforced by the fact that my friends from my golden days with the church were slowly losing their faith as well.

Now, as I listen to songs about Jesus or the love of God, I remember those times fondly. I feel nostalgic for the times when I could spend time with all of my friends enjoying the things that bound us so tightly together. I don't miss the fight going on in my head, I don't miss the guilt or the sense of obligation. But I miss the simplicity of that life. I miss how easy it was to blame everything on God, good or bad. I literally had no responsibility for my actions. I felt free to do as I pleased because I trusted that God would take care of eveything. I only realize now that I was extremely lucky.

Reading reading reading

Since I was little I've had this affliction for reading anything and everything. I truly believed that it was the gateway to everything. Often I would sit in the car and read every single sign we would pass. I'd crane my neck and stare behind us in order to read signs we had passed. Eventually, I resigned to just reading the signs that caught my eye which were inevitably street signs due to their bright green shade and clear Helvetian font. As I grew older I began to notice the advertising ploys of certain companies. For instance the arrow in the word FedEx to imply speedy delivery. Or the two people eating a chip over a bowl if salsa in the Tostitos logo. I also noticed perceptively unintentional typography like the fact that in the Jack and the Box logo, the "o" and the "x" were connected to look like a fish. I grew apt at recognizing logos even without the brand names on them. I knew the shapes of every fast food restaurant logo and can recognize nearly every clothing store brand symbol. It's completely nerdy and useless but whatever.

I noticed another unintentional message similar to the the Jack and the Box fish the other day at my stop downtown. A catering truck was parked across the street with the phrase "the preferred foods of chefs." but there, in the middle of it all was a red line underlining the letters "err." maybe because I'm so used to reading everything or maybe because I used to e an English major but I took this to mean that for one reason or another, their food was flawed in someway. I couldn't shake the message that choosing them would be an error of some sort. I giggled at the logo and imagined the ad executives that designed this laughing as well as they sent their tiny red line off to be printed all over the merchandise, quitting the next day.

March 2, 2011

Orange

One of my favorite things to do us eat mono chromatically. And one of my favorite colors to eat is orange. There are a million foods that are orange in color and no one ever notices. But only the best ones cone covered in some sort of sugar or fake cheese product.

After a pretty lucrative day at work, I walked across the street to the convenience store and picked out a snack: Cheetos, orange soda, and orange slices. I was elated. Not only had it cost me less than four dollars but now I had reason to skip lunch and eat a late dinner with my roommate, S.

When I left the store, my orange meal in hand, I spied a particularly attractive hipster sitting on the bench at my stop. Ashamed, I shoved my food into my bag, slid my green plastic sunglasses over my exhausted eyes an did my best to look cool. He had long, unkempt hair that barely touched his shoulders. His bright orange shirt displayed some band I had never heard of but the best part was his skin tight black jeans. It was all I could do to keep from sitting uncomfortably close to him and stare openly. I couldn't help but make the correlation that he was wearing an orange shirt and the fact that I loved to eat orange things all the time.

He got on the bus that came before mine and it was as he stood that I noticed his many flaws. He was about a foot and a half shorter than me and as if to mock his deformity, his apparent skin tight jeans were only skin tight because he had been sitting on the folds of fabric. Now they hung loosely from his hips like giant cylinders ha replaced his legs. As he waited to board the bus, his now extremely baggy pants billowed in the breeze. His face underwent a complete transformation going from smooth and impeccable to a face covered in blackheads and dirt. I was astonished at how quickly he had become unattractive. And also how shallow I was being. But I didn't really care; I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of a bus window and saw how stylish and cool I looked and I knew: I'm a hottie and he's not so it's my job to judge him.

Packed bus

the bus was incredibly packed today. Every seat was filled and at least a dozen people stood, clutching the rails. A man with braces on his teeth but no wire to straighten them. A sphere of a woman. I wished I had picked darker sunglasses. I wanted so terribly to openly stare at these strange people but every time I did, I felt their gaze on mine. I settled on staring at a woman on the opposite side of the bus from me. All I could see was her hair but that's all I really needed. It was fascinating. Jet black and plastic looking. She had braided it into a zillion tiny braids but oddly enough, only part of it. Small, smooth locks pushed themselves between the braids. I wondered if her hairdresser just hadn't finished the job or got lazy halfway through and decided it was a new look that this woman was now destined to rock. Unfortunately however it looked as if she had cut it herself. The layers were chunky and jagged. The way her hair all came to one point on her head made it seen like it was a wig. I could see her, sitting in her tattered nightgown, her wispy hair matted down onto her scalp with sweat, slowly cutting her wig in front of her vanity mirror. As if she came up with a new hair style everyday to impress her friends with.
"why Courtney, your hair is always a vision!" they'd say. They'd compliment her on her ingenuity, her ability to completely adapt her hair to every situation.
I used to think I had this ability, constantly dying my hair, cutting it and then growing it out long. But after one too many hair cutting mistakes and after nearly chopping off an ear, I resolved to only allowing someone with a professional license touch my hair.

It was even more packed in the afternoon. By the time the bus reached my stop at the mall, there was standing room only. It made me think if there were regulations on how many people can board the bus before it's considered a hazard. Anyway, as I was doing my best to watch people without them knowing, I happened to glance down at an elderly woman sitting to my left. She was dressed as well as can be expected: Hawaiian shirt with jeans that rode up her leg when she sat, casual tennis shoes with no socks, a black bag slug over her neck and her hair was pulled up and on top of her head with a scrunchie. I was thinking about the last time I saw a scrunchie and how it must have been at least fifteen years ago, when I noticed a woman to my right. She was dressed entirely in black with gold jewelry. The neck of her dress scooped low revealing a large portion of her breasts. There was a sliver of red poking out the neck of her dress, it was lacy and nearly transparent. Her thigh high boots said "fuck me now" as opposed to the "I like things comfortable" retort from the woman's shoes to my right.

My eyes volleyed between the two women. I was loving the juxtaposition of their outfits and how completely opposite they were. Suddenly, as the old woman was putting a tissue in the breast pocket of her shirt, the top buttons separated revealing her large breasts nestled in a flesh toned bra. At first she didn't notice but after a moment she shrieked and clutched her shirt together. The woman across from her laughed and the woman next to her drolly glanced over. "my shirt's come undone." she whispered to the woman next to her. Trying to help, she held up her backpack in an attempt to shield on lookers while she buttoned up.
"you don't have to hold that thing up, honey. Ain't no body gonna look at that geaser's titties." the woman to my right cackled. Everyone ignored her but she was persistent.
"were you looking, sweetie?"
It took me a moment before I realized she was looking right at me. I couldn't breathe. This is the EXACT reason why I put on my headphones and sunglasses. I didn't want to be bothered, asked for anything or touched. I looked around at the other passengers for help, answers. They just looked back at me with the same blank expressions. I said the first thing that came to my mind.
"mango." what the fuck? Why the hell did I say mango? That's not even close to yes or no or any of the numerous answers I could have given.
"excuse me? Did you say mango?" the slutty woman was staring me down with one eyebrow raised.
"um... No I said, 'hell no.'" I sputtered out the words as if I were an old jalopy about to break down.
"see, Hun? Ain't no body looking at your titties so you just let them air out if they need to." the slutty woman told the still embarrassed woman, seemingly to forget exactly how many people were crammed into the bus. She smiled and sat back in her chair, "now these girls," she added to the sleeping man beside her, pushing up her voluptuous breasts, "I bet he WAS looking at." She looked me dead in the eyes out of the corner of hers. I could feel my face flush and I was beginning to become just like the elderly woman. Again, I resorted to the first thing I could think of: I stared straight ahead and started making a grocery list...
- milk
- plastic bags
- not mangoes

Crossing the Street

I've noticed that when crossing the street at a non intersection, everyone walks like a crazy person. Constantly starting and stopping, zig zagging between cars, it's as if we've never walked a day in our lives and must now manuever these strange extremities attached to our hips.

We constantly look from left to right and back again, never looking ahead for when the curb approaches which will inevitably send us careening onto the median in front of nearly 100 people. It's embarassing, crossing the street. Everything about the act is horrifying and shameful. No one but suicidal lunatics can cross the street with grace, confidence or assurance. It's the lunatics that walk across without looking, not caring if every car has to swerve and slam on their brakes to avoid hitting the loon.

On Writing

I write everyday. Everyday. That's how I know I'm a writer. I wake up and jot down my dreams. I have my coffee and write down how jittery I feel, if some grounds made it into the cup, if it's simply too hot to drink. I write about how reading the paper makes me think of my mother and watching the morning news reminds me of my father. I eat my breakfast an write down the witty banter between me and my roommate. I get on the bus and write about the freaks I encounter and how the views of the city from the highway make me feel like an adult and wish for an office job. I come home and take my dog for a walk and write about the extravagant houses I see and talk about how you can tell a lot about a person by what they put in their front yard. After dinner, I write about my hopes and dreams, telling myself that if I'm not already a celebrity, then I surely would be within the next ten to fifteen years. And as I fall asleep, I quietly take notes on the darkness of my room and how funny the shadows being cast by my window are. I am a writer because I don't know how to speak, eat, breathe without writing it all down first.

Dream day

I was late for my bus because I was intent on finishing the movie I was watching. It wasn't even all that good: Alyssa milano was torn between to guys, an ad executive and a writer. She ended up choosing the writer....okay, I loved the movie but that's neither here not there. The point is, I was late. As I left my apartment complex, I saw the bus pull up to my stop and pause.

"oh thank GOD someone needed to get on." I thought and ran for it. I barely made it, taking my own life in my hands and running in front of the bus before it could pull away. When the driver opened the door, I saw a large black woman in jeans, cowboy boots and a black western shirt, the kind with lassos embroidered on the chest. I reeled back. Where was my usual bus driver? The sweet old man with salt and pepper hair that always smiled and greeted me good morning? The woman just looked me up and down and asked, "well? On or off baby because I ain't got time to wait on your skinny butt." was this the right bus? Did I run to the wrong corner? Where was I? I double checked the bus number and tentatively got on. I dropped my quarters in the machine and muttered an apology for no reason.

At my transfer stop, I had to run again which was unusual. Typically my buses are at least ten minutes apart giving me ample time to walk casually to my stop a block away. But not today. I ran quickly and luckily the bus was stopped at a red light. I gently tapped on the door and the driver, a thin, greasy looking man just stared at me.
"can I get on, please?" I begged through the glass. With a huff, he opened the door. He too wasn't wearing the typical uniform of firmly pressed black slacks and a starched white shirt. He wore a pair of sweatpants, a plain gray tshirt with a bright blue windbreaker. Was today real? Or was I still sleeping in my soft bed back in my apartment? Was I late for work? Why didn't my alarm go off? Everything seemed real but just a little off, just enough to make me question the truth of the situation.

I was staring out the window trying to figure out if I was awake or asleep when I saw a man walking down the street. His wore his jeans down low on his hips, not in a stylish way but in a "these pants are four sizes too big" kind of way. He didn't have any shoes on but he WAS wearing a pair of bright pink polka dot boxers and had curiously taken off his shirt and draped it over his right shoulder. It was a nice day out so I suppose I could understand the want to remove as much clothing as possible and let the light breeze come over your chest and make your nipples go hard with pleasure. I could also understand the need for pants that fit and shoes. Today was definitely a dream day. Freaks.