Alysia

My best friend in grade school’s name was Alysia. We met on the asphalt. No one would play with us so we decided to play with each other. On the metal dragon. It was fun to have a friend. Alysia had a mom and a dad. Her mom didn’t work which meant she made dinners for her family every night. Her mom was really fat and her dad was really skinny. I used to wonder what they looked like having sex. Alysia’s mom liked to eat baked potatoes with non-fat cheese, which I had never had before but I thought it was really cool. Alysia’s dad drove a truck so he was gone a lot. I thought truck drivers were poor but Alysia’s family owned a big house so I figured they weren’t. Sometimes when kids were mean to me at school I would go to Alysia’s house and sit with her mom. I would be all casual like “I was just in the neighborhood” but of course it was during the school day so I figure her mom must have known something was wrong. I had so many absences I almost didn’t graduate. But I’m pretty sure no one wants to hold back a kid in middle school, so I did. Once Alysia was leaving the house and her mom made her fix her socks. They weren’t rolled up neatly. Alysia always looked neat. Her hair was long and she wasn’t allowed to cut it. I think she developed an eating disorder later. In high school her mom called me a bad influence as she laughed over her dinner. It made me feel bad. Alysia and I drifted apart but I still see her on Facebook. She married well and smiles big. Her bones are still too big for her body and she still looks like she doesn’t eat. But she looks perfect and happy and I wonder if she is. And if she wanted to, if she would be allowed to cut her hair. 

Grandpa

I knew two things about my grandpa: he was part Native American and he was an alcoholic. He was also a gambler too but I think that’s part of being an alcoholic. He liked everything to excess. He had an animal’s head in his living room and I used to stare at it. I don’t remember what it was. Oh wait, it was a cheetah. Or cougar? It was a white cat and I felt so bad for it. But my grandpa was part Cherokee and he said the animal was from his mom. He was proud of being Cherokee. He said that’s why he had a flat butt and no hair. His couches were leather and when I slept on them I would wake up stuck with sweat. He had a slot machine in his living room and lots of quarters. His wife got hurt a lot. She broke her neck once. But she didn’t die. She took a lot of pills. She was my mom’s age. My mom and her used to call each other sisters. I think that’s kind of weird. I visited him at work once. He had a big office and I had to go up an elevator to get to it. Before I got to the office there was a table with a bunch of flowers on it. I could tell he was important. He introduced me to a man in the hallway and they laughed and he patted the man on the back. He used to drink scotch on ice and when my mom was with him she would do the same. He lived in Oklahoma and said it was okay to drive drunk there. He used to fall asleep on the couch with the TV on. My mom would tell me to leave him there. When his wife died he got really sad. He would call my mom crying. She would go visit him but I wasn’t allowed to. He spent a lot of time in the casinos. They knew him well and would buy his meals. He said he wanted to die and a few months later he did. 

Mean to Me

Some guy was mean to me today. I was walking my dogs and it made some guy mad. He told me to “control my dogs.” One of them was laying down. He was really angry. He had a salad in his hand and it looked like he was in a hurry to get back to work. I wondered where he worked. He seemed to be really important. I hope he worked someplace shitty where his boss is mean to him. But probably not. He probably was important. I got kind of flustered and I said that I had a right to walk my dogs wherever I wanted. He said one of them touched him. He didn’t like when dogs touched him I guess. I like when dogs touch me. But I guess that’s a personal preference. I said something else to him. I think he was surprised I talked back to him. But, I wanted to do better. I wanted to say something witty. I wanted to make fun of him and make him feel small like he did to me. I wanted to sound really smart and talk about white privilege but end by calling him a dick or something. Mix some smarts with some street. Just so he knew I had range. I could do both. But I was caught off guard. I was thinking of other things. My shoulders hurt today so I was thinking about that. I wondered if I slept wrong or I was stressed out or maybe I’m dehydrated. I thought about what I wanted to make for lunch and how I bought a bunch of fresh vegetables but all I want to eat is the frozen fish sticks. I thought about my sister and how she hates her life and what I could do to make it better. I thought about my belly and whether I look like I’ve had kids even though I haven’t. I thought about my dogs and I wondered why one of them was already laying down. Was she hot? Or sick? Or just tired? Or maybe just lazy. I wondered if there was anything good on tv I could watch while eating my lunch. I like to have things to look forward to. It makes getting through the day a lot easier. I thought about my nails and how I did a good job painting them. I wondered how long until they started chipping and whether or not I could start being the type of person who re-paints them when they look bad. Then the guy yelled at me and I got flustered. And for the rest of the walk, I thought about him. 

The Bus

When I lived in Baltimore there was a woman on the bus with her two kids. She wasn’t looking at them. One was older and one was a baby. When the baby would cry the older boy would hit the baby. That made the baby cry even more. I stared at them. I wondered why she wouldn’t hold the baby. I wondered what had happened to the older boy. If he had to watch the baby all the time. I thought about the time I threw a door knob at my sister. And how we were always alone. The woman looked at me and then told her boys not to worry about the woman staring at them. She said something mean about me like I couldn’t hear her. I got really mad. I told her I don’t like to see children being hurt. I told her that her son didn’t know how to take care of a baby. I told her that kids don’t know how to be parents. I told her to stop talking to her friend. I told her that if she didn’t want her kids she shouldn’t have had them. I screamed at her. I started shaking. People looked at me. She told me if I didn’t want to see kids get hurt I shouldn’t take the bus. I didn’t know what to say. A full minute later I said the next time I would call the police. She rolled her eyes at me and grabbed her child. She sang a song to her baby. I didn’t look at them again. 

Asian Chicken Salad

At one point my life was really hard. I made rice and canned greened beans and ate that every day. Sometimes I would mix in ground beef. It made it greasy and yummy. I would try and save the ground beef for the rest of the week but it was too hard to wait. Mixed with salt it tasted like a real meal. One that I would choose to eat. If I wasn’t so poor. I’m not poor anymore. I don’t walk around wondering where I could live if I lost my apartment. I have friends now. I am educated. I have prospects. I worked a lot this week so I spent the day shopping. First I looked in a used furniture store. It was a fancy used store. A vintage store. They paint their used furniture so that they can charge more for it. I like how the paint looks so I don’t feel bad paying more. But I had bed bugs once so I am still a little uneasy about it. My desk chair hurts so I need another one. I saw lots of good things but my rule is I only buy what I can’t live without. And what I can carry up my stairs. I have friends now. They would help me carry stuff but I don’t like to ask. So I don’t buy much. I walk to the supermarket and I buy lots of vegetables. Fresh ones. Fresh ones are more expensive but I tell myself I have to put my health first. I stress out a lot. I am overweight. My sister had a stroke. I have to put my health first. I am important too. So I buy the fresh vegetables and some frozen. Because. They last longer. And they’re cheaper. And I stress out when I see food going bad. I think about how I can make a big meal with all the food about to expire. Sometimes I make it but something has already expired and poisons the whole batch. I get really mad at myself. I think about it a lot. It is too stressful. So I need to find the right balance of fresh and frozen. Fresh vegetables crunch though. Like French fries. Maybe that’s why rich people are skinnier. People need crunch. I’m working on it. I treat myself to some frozen appetizers and pre-made Asian salad. No chicken. I worry about the chickens. Where are they kept? Are they sad? So I don’t eat the chicken. I can buy the substitute. I got home tonight and treated myself to a yummy meal. I bought nice wine. I won’t put ice in it like my mom did. So I freeze it instead. I made my frozen appetizers and my Asian salad and I watched some tv. I painted my nails and I felt rich. And I only worried about money a little. But I thought about how much I like greasy ground beef the whole time.

Picture Day

I used to raise my eyebrows when I smiled. It was involuntary. I thought it made my face bigger. Brighter. Happier looking. On picture day I borrowed a blue shirt from my friend. I didn’t have a lot of nice clothes. She didn’t either really but I liked the shirt. I put my hair in two buns. I thought I looked cute. Or at least fun. Which was my thing…looking fun. When my number was called I sat down in the chair. I picked my background. A starburst, I think. The photographer told me to smile and I did. A big one. A fun one. He took my picture and then told me to put my eyebrows down. I tried again. He said they were still raised. So I tried again. He came over and put his hand on my face and pushed them down. Then he went back to his camera and tried to take the picture again. By now I was crying. The people behind me looked worried. The photographer gave up. I went to a corner and let myself sob. I didn’t want anyone to know I didn’t know how to smile correctly. So I wiped my tears and went to class. I picked up the pictures a week later but never looked at them. I hid the pictures from my mom. It might have been in the yearbook but I didn’t buy one. A year later I learned how to smile with my eyebrows down. So I drove by the photographers store and threw eggs at it. 

Heaven

I saw this 20/20 episode about heaven and it really scared me. What do you think happens when you die? All these people said they had been to heaven but they all had different versions of it. Most mentioned a white light, but some said they went down a hallway and some said they walked through a field and one said that she was walking up a huge staircase and there were all these cats and dogs coming down the stairs and they were really happy. And she said she would pull their tails and it would make them even happier. What kind of person goes around pulling the tails of cats? And if you are walking up to the gates of heaven, why are you fucking with a bunch of cats? I don’t think that’s the kind of stuff that gets you into heaven. Some people say that what these people are experiencing is their brain dying. I’m scared to die. I haven’t been the best person either. And do you think that these angels watch you when you masturbate? I don’t want to have to watch people masturbate. Sometimes I think about that as I am masturbating. I guess they don’t care, but still. And what if God is just like a bad boss? You know, you have to sort of do whatever he wants and laugh at his dumb jokes, and you know that when there is a big meeting coming up he is going to get hyper critical and start micromanaging you. And you know you could do the job better than him, but you can’t say anything because he’s super sensitive. Man, I hope it’s a good place. Better than here at least.

First Kiss

My dad didn’t have any money when I was growing up. Or now. Or ever. But he wanted to live in a house. So, he rented. At first my sister and I shared a room and my dad lived in the second bedroom. Later, my dad moved into the room with us and we got a roommate. The roommate was a man and he had a son named Colin. Colin and I would build forts with sleeping bags and blankets. We would stay in the fort and tell each other stories. His dad must have been poor also. I guess. Colin’s dad moved out and one day Colin showed up at my school. I was mean to him because he knew me in a different way than other kids did. So I told him to stay away from me. And he did. In high school we became friends. I don’t know how. I was popular then and nice to people so it seemed reasonable I would have been nice to him. He was a “dirt” which meant he hung out on the front lawn of the school. I floated between the dirts and the quaddies, the hippies and the jocks. We went to prom together when I was a fifteen and he told me he liked me. I was scared and I told him I just wanted to be friends. I liked Sam and Sam liked Alysia so eventually Sam told me not to come around anymore and Colin was my shoulder to cry on. Colin and I eventually held hands but I didn’t know how to kiss and I knew he did so I was scared. One day he came over after work and laid on top of me. I told him I had just eaten meatloaf so we couldn’t kiss today. A few days later he told me that I needed to let him kiss me or else we could never be together. I closed my eyes and put my lips together. He kissed them quickly. I felt like I was going to throw up. He said it was a start and ran out of the car. I knew what we had done was not real kissing. He dumped me a few days later. 

Dogs

I have two dogs. They are pretty adorable. Not like ooosty cutesy adorable. They are big dogs. Man-sized dogs. I mean, if I wanted to I could fight those dogs. But I don’t. I love them. When I walk down the street people stare at me. I mean, here’s me. A petite, baby-faced, young woman with these really big, aggressive looking dogs. I feel like it’s probably a turn on. For guys. Girls too. It’s unexpected. And I own it. I give a sly smile and keep walking. But my dogs are also super friendly. So if someone stops my dogs will go up to them and wag their tails. They’ll lick their legs. Try and kiss their mouths. And people will be so surprised that these scary looking dogs are so friendly. Then they’ll look at me. And I know what they’re thinking. They want it. I’m kind of a dog park celebrity. It’s not only that my dogs are cute and huge…which they are. I believe I’ve said. But they are so happy. Infectiously happy. So people think I take care of my dogs. Which I do of course. I make their food actually. It’s pretty expensive and it takes a lot of time. But it’s worth it. I sprinkle in some vitamins. And mix in cod liver oil. I have a few dog beds. I like one in each room. But they usually sleep on the couches or on my bed. Sometimes I have to sleep on the floor if I get to bed after them. If I try to move them they look at me. Kind of a confused and shocked look. I had a bad childhood so I just let them sleep. Sometimes I take their pictures as they sleep. Then I look at the picture as I’m looking at them sleeping. They make me happy. They’re the only reason people talk to me. I don’t know what I’d do without my dogs.

Skinny

If I were skinnier. Believe me. Things would be different. I don’t try very hard to put myself together now. If I’m going to work I might put on some makeup. Mostly because when I need to fake sick I can just take it off. I don’t know if I should find it insulting that people think my natural face looks like a sick person’s face. But I don’t worry about it. Because I fake sick a lot. I can’t fit into the clothes I want to buy. I’m not sure if I have a sense of style anymore. If something fits I buy it. When I catch myself in a reflecting door I get upset. It’s obvious that I don’t try very hard. I like my hair. It’s really shiny and if I use the right shampoo it is quite manageable. I cut it once. Real short. I looked like a lesbian. Which I guess was kind of nice because I didn’t feel like men were judging me anymore. It was like they knew that I wasn’t for them so they just didn’t see me. If they think I’m for them and I don’t measure up then they’ll tell me. Once a guy in a truck rolled down his window and told me to “lose some weight.” Or maybe he called me a fatass? I don’t remember exactly but it made me cry. I thought I looked nice that day. I hate to have my bubble busted. So I don’t try anymore. I have a nice face. I know it’s pretty. A friend told me once he’d have sex with me if I lost weight because I have such a pretty face. He was very handsome. I was flattered. And hurt. But I’d definitely buy nice things. If I was skinnier.