jump.

but oh... if alcohol had been my only addiction. i could've been that sweaty girl in the corner dancing with her reflection in the mirror. yeah, that would have been better.

my first, and to this day, ONLY "long-term" relationship occurred between the ages of 16 and 18 year of age. douggie dated my friend cindra, captian of the dance team, their entire freshman and sophomore year. he was small-town high school attractive, quarterback of the football team, catcher on the baseball team, point guard on our 7-years-running conference champion basketball team.

oh god.

i went over o his house once a week, sat down at the dinner table, and WITHOUT FAIL his mother would serve us steak and potatoes. and all the milk we could drink. except me. i usually drank juice. i think his mom even kept a special container in the fridge just for me.

now, while being the milkman's son may not seem like the job every cool kid in town was jocking for, the fact that douggie's father was the morning glory milkman was CLUTCH in the progression of our retarded high school relationship.

douggie & cindra's relationship came to an end a little before the end of their junior year, and i snaked my way into mr. w's study hall every monday, wednesday, and friday for the entire month of may. douggie and i flirted and joked around i routinely got asked to go back to my own study hall for causing such a ruckus in the math lab. the boys never did their homework because they were all too busy doing mine, and all the girls sat in the back corner talking shit. i wish i could say i was exaggerating for dramatic purposes, and i'm sure i sound pretty damn full of myself, but it's the truth. it was a small town, and i very few female friends, none of whom i am in contact with today.

not that i was anything special to look at. i was average at best, really. i was a ballet dancer so i was too tall and too thin for a northern, beer drinking girl. i went fake-baking, which left me with orangish-tinted skin, and i had bleach-blonde, waist-length hair, and bright green doe-eyes. i hated the way i looked, just like every other adolescent female, and on top of that i was painfully shy and quiet.

but douggie and i got along. we quickly became friends. we shared the same sense of humor, and grew up in the same town so that was enough of a relationship base for my 16 year old self.

one day in early summer, my red and silver dodge pick up truck was parked in the parking lot of the only bank in town, where i went almost daily to deposit the tip i made as a waitress as the busiest pub & grill in town. douggie and his best friend, soda, were on their way home from delivering milk cartons to summer camps all over the northern part of the state. somehow they talked me into driving down hwy 32 to blue ribbon bridge, a small bridge over the lake by my family's lake house where local kids have been illegally jumping for years.

we got out of douggie's truck and stood around looking down at the dingy lake water for a few beats before i did something so uncharacteristic of myself at that point in time. i jumped. i laughed. i yelled at the boys to stop being lame. it was a turning point for me, something someone with a little more sentimentality would call a "pivotal moment in my life."

i dragged my soaking wet body out of the lake, and shook the water out of my long, blonde hair.

"What?" i demanded of the boys as they eyed me suspiciously. as i peeled my wet tank top and daisy dukes away from my sticky skin, i furrowed my brow at them. i wasn't stupid, but i WAS naive. boys didn't look at me like they looked at janie, all boobs and ass and that flat 14-year-old stomach. i was always just a friend of moreen's or a friend of marie's. i never had my own identity in that town. nobody paid much attention to me because honestly, i never paid much attention to anyone else.

but as i stood there, barefoot, ringing out my hair, laughing at their stories about the wild world of milk delivery, i realized that i was being noticed. not for my mediocre high kicks and sloppy pirouttes, but for the way my barely 34-C's curved perkily out from my wet shirt. the way my ribs were so narrow that my bustline went practically concave at my waist; the way my ass, and thighs, which no matter how much i starved myself and puked up my cafeteria lunches, were way too fat to ever be the appendages of a prima ballerina, sprung voluptuously from my short, wet blue jean shorts.

it was a weird feeling, a funny realization. i wasn't particularly funny or good in school. i wasn't smart or pretty and i was horribly un-athletic. but i could make boys narrow their eyes, lick their lips, clench their fists.

douggie poked me in the ribs as we walked back to his truck.

"you're so fun," he glanced at me sideways as he hopped into the drivers seat.

FUN.

it was all i wanted. everything i needed to hear and i didn't even know it.

nobody likes to make the first move. most people are sheep; they like to follow. so i started doing what no one else would do - i jumped first.

polacks and toga party

i used to go back up north every summer while i was in college. the bars didn't card, and since i had gone to high school with 95% of the bartenders...or their kids...or grandkids... i hardly ever even got charged for drinks. my best girlfriends would stay behind daddy's bar long enough to dole out enough body shots of rumplemintz to get a bridal party of strippers fucked up...and homemade watermelon shots if jane's alcoholic mother stumbled down from their house behind the bar and deemed us too drunk for straight liquor.

of course, then there was always the beer bong in the back by the jukebox, where country music and classic rock played on heavy rotation.

one weekend my cousin from "the city" came to visit, so i decided to give him a little taste of drinking like a northern girl. we started the night out at my house, with a few stiff margs. my mom made for us, since my dad was out of town and she liked to get a little "crazy". i had a liver of steel at this point, and the alcohol tolerance of our 60 year old alcoholic grandfather because i had spent that summer doing shots of whisky after my double shifts waiting tables at 2 of the most popular pubs and sports bars in town.

so, naturally, i drove my cousin's car the 1/3 of a mile down the road to the bar i had essentially frequented since i was in the 8th grade. it was still relatively early for a friday night, so daniel and i cozied up to the end of the bar and i introduced him to C.A. and jane, daughter and future daughter-in-law of bar owner, and oldest barfly in town...

initiation

the first time that i remember taking of sip of alcohol was my sophomore year of high school. the funny thing is that, growing up in the very northern tip of one of the northern most states in the country, my parents would let me have the occasional sip of their beer or glass of wine. and i know that there was a party in 8th grade where my friends' parents, the owners of the bar where, later on in my high school career, i would have countless, faceless days and nights of endless binges and blackouts and hungover mornings. the most humorous part now is, maybe, how drunk ten 14-year-olds can get off of one bottle of flavored vodka.

however, despite the smattering of questionable socially acceptable alcohol-related firsts, the moment i think of as my first time occurred in the parking lot of a local grocery store, huddled around a bottle of jaegermeister. the air was cool, and my recently high-school-graduated boyfriend lent me his olive green army/navy surplus jacket. it smelled faintly of booze and cigarettes, and had the dampness of a heavy wet towel that had been sitting in the woods too long.

that night, i know more people were in attendance, but in my memories of it now, my boyfriend's best friend is the only other person i remember being there, as he was the one who handed me the dark brown bottle with the bright orange label.

"Have you ever tried jaeger?" dave asked me. i shook my head and smiled, the shy smile of a 15 year old who doens't get out much. the older boys leered and grinned at one another, and as dave handed me the bottle, i felt my palms get sweaty. the stories i heart, the quiet giggles in homeroom on monday morning that i had smiled at quietly but never really got to be party of - it was finally my time. this was my first story. my initiation.

jump.

when you look at me what do you see?

do my tattoos make me a criminal? a whore? a drug addict?

i'd like to say they don't. i'd like to say i can look this way and behave another. but the truth is i'm just like everybody else. the record proves it. the history calls me out on it, like a drunk sorority sister on a sunday afternoon in the dining hall. the truth comes out if you care to take a look.

do the bruises up my arm make you see an abused girlfriend? or daughter? or can you see right through me; realize i'm just another drunk Gen-Y who can't crawl out of the bottle. nobody grabbed my arm and pushed me down the stairs. i pushed myself. the Hornitos. that's what i blame.

my short-term memory loss could just be genetic. but more likely, the substance abuse is what my father passed down to me, like an antique turquoise ring. except i can't just put this up on a shelf. i have to wear it around every day.

a scarlet letter A. for addict. for abuse. for absolutely no chance of ever living a normal, clean life. every day from here on out will be a struggle toward the mean. regression doesn't equal back to the norm. back to the way everyone else feels most of the time. regression equals down. under. back to the black abyss of late night binges and blackouts and waking up the next afternoon with nothing but the headache and dried vomit in my hair to remind me that i'm still not back to where i need to be.

the beginning of the end of new beginnings

i fought the heaviness, blinked my eyes, and rubbed the right side of my neck. the blanket scratched my collarbone like a burlap sack, where the oversized sweatshirt didn't quite cover all of y freezing-cold skin. i pulled my knees closer to my body to cover my toes, where that awfulfucking blanket didn't quite reach. at least yoga had done me some good.

i rubbed my eyes and felt the swelling where a wasp had stung my right eye, less than 24 hours earlier. i should've known. the universe was trying to tell me. nothing good can come from going out with a swollen eye. i hadn't had benadryl for over the allotted six hours, and it had swelled back to half-closed; pink and itchy. oozing. or maybe it was just that bed-mat, infested with germs from the last dead-beat female delinquent who had previously spent the night here; cold and itchy and alone.

i heard the door slowly creak open, the clatter of women's holding cell 3 shake with rage at being disturbed so early in the morning.

"Breakfast," the elderly cook squawked at me and the small brunette girl curled up on the other corner of the bench, furthest from the cold, steel toilet and matching sink. the old woman's hoarse voice betrayed what we were all thinking; 6 a.m. is too damn early.

i rolled toward the door and watched as Starr, my holding cell mate, presumably in for petty theft and not her first offense, stood wobbly from her bed mat.

"Do ya'll have coffee?" she rasped.

"No," the old lady answered, and handed her a yellow plastic tray filled with unidentifiable substance, all of the same general color and consistency. i didn't move from my spot on the bench. And then, presumably directed at me,

"Better eat. You don't get fed again till lunch. There's no snacks in jail."

I didn't respond. Instead, kicked my feet to the ground, slid on my plastic-y, orange slide-ons, courtesy of Kerr County, and made the short half stumble, half-crawl over to the door. She handed me the tray and i took it back to my spot, set it down, and stared. No way do i put any of that shit in my mouth. I looked up and Starr was drinking from her carton of 2% milk, facing the dingy white wall with her back to me. I thought of requesting soy milk just to see what that cranky old bitch would say to me. The thought made me laugh out loud, but it came out more like a dry cough, reminding me that the last thing i had to drink was a fruit-punch-flavored Four Loko. too bad i never got to finish it.

i worked up the nerve to pick up my spoon. and slowly lifted a mound of what i deduced to be apple sauce, into my mouth. my stomach turned as i swallowed it and i immediately felt the bile rise up into my throat.

nope.

i pushed the tray away from me and laid back down on the hard, white bench.

but this 4x4 cell block, empty, cold and gray as a raincloud in april, isn't where my story begins. this is where it ends.

damn.

it's the end of the summer. and i haven't posted since june. essentially, this matters to no one but myself, as all my crazy adventures have mostly been lived and, as we all know, memories don't live like people do.

as a brief recap, i suppose, i made some of the most amaaaazing friends. ever. again. i've learned who i can trust. blah blah blah. working at camp has been a really great, humbling experience. kids with special needs will hold a special place in my heart forevaaaa...maybe i'll want to work with them sometime in the future? there were a special few that really made an impact on my life...

that being said, one of the most memorable parts of my summer was my week off after 5 weeks of Handicap camp.

one of the first weeks of camp, maybe after H2 or H3, one of the counselors got fired because he just wasn't...right for the job? i guess that's what they told him. sadly, for so many of us at camp, he was an amaaazing person and friend, so much fun, and i was finally just getting to know him during his last week as a counselor. O was his name, and he is from egypt but goes to school at a huuuuge important school in east texas.

well, when he got fired he decided to go back and live at his apartment for the rest of the summer, rather than go immediately back to egypt. so, during our week off my friend E and i went to east texas to visit our friend. we partied every night, slept all day, and ate free birds like it was going out of style (hint: it's not. midwest, you do not know what you are missing out on. this food is bombbb.)

well, my friend E and i had an interesting relationship this summer..? he was the wing leader of my brother unit, so my...wing leader brother i guess, since i was the wing leader of my...wing. right. so, we hung out a lot, on all our nights off and on the weekend. our friendship took a turn...if you get what i'm saying. if not, that's fine too. but people quickly caught on to the idea that we were really close, and had just about the weirdest friendship they had ever witnessed. "no one understandsss usss" was uttered more than once a day when people made comments about our interactions, and lack of interactions during camp hours. ha. so anyway.

the thing about E is that he has a gf back home, that i did not initially know about. well, it maybe wouldn't have made that much of a difference, as we were really only going to be spending this summer together and quite possibly never see each other again. ouch. except, that when his gf found out he had decided to spend his week off with two of his faaaavorite people in the world and not her, pleased she was not. possibly also because less than a week earlier he had informed her of the less-than-socially-acceptable relationship we were engaged in.

so, gf came to O's apartment one afternoon, giving her unfaithful bf an ultimatum: come with me and live, stay with them and die. or something. he made it sound that dramatic. so he left. O and i were sad, but we drank away our sorrows...and such and the next day E came back, feeling sorry for what he had done and acting like such a pussalia i almost couldn't look him in the eyes.

needless to say, E and i's relationship hasn't been the same since then, and as much as i care about him and as important of a person he was in my life for 8 or so weeks...8 or so weeks is only 8 or so weeks of my life. the struggle that i am faced with now is whether or not such a friendship is worth the one-sided effort to keep up, or if giving up and letting go is the healthiest and smartest thing to do. for once, i would like the decision i make when i follow my heart to be the smart decision.

maybe happiness is too much to ask for.

'teach people to be different. that's all!' i shouted after her as the taxi moved off. that is joy. happiness would be feeling satisfied with everything she already had - a lover, a son, a job. and Athena, like me, wasn't born for that kind of life." - paulo coelho, the witch of portabello

i'm feeling rough, i'm feeling raw in the prime of my liiifffeee

whoa, i meant to post a new blog at the end of last week, but now it's been two weeks of events that i've missed updating!

well, i went into camp last monday morning to help set do some set up, a.k.a. folding staff and camper tshirts. while there i met some of the leadership staff who was there already, preparing for training of the rest of the staff. i also met D, a 20 year old from the same town where camp was being held. he wasn't really supposed to be there yet either, so one of our bosses had us start folding tshirts with some of the other volunteers. he was officially the first person i "met", and the first friend i made.

well...fast forward about a week and a half to training week for the rest of the staff. i met a ton of awesome people, the kind of people i love for the fact that we are all there for the same thing. we love to help people, we want to see kids who don't feel like they deserve to be happy have the BEST summer of their lives. it's really amazing to see that there are actually good people in the world, and i work with a whole mess of them.

there are staff at camp from australia and new zealand (which of looooovvvveee, of course), egypt, etc. so great. and all over texas and the south (except for me, haha). there are a whole lot of girls in my unit that i love. anyway...so back to D. apparantlyyy he said some hurtful things about his AL (his boss, essentially) and word got back to her, she told our bosses, and they thought it would be better that he just not be around any more this summer. so he got fired. but not before we (well, he because no one knew it was me) caused the first scandallll of the summer because people saw him and some "mystery girl" walking around camp late at night. hahaha. go me.

so then the first campers came and it was a learninggg experience to say the least. we had 6 girls; 2 with scoliosis, 1 with cp, 1 hearing impaired, 1 double amputee, and 1 girl with the craziest disease i have ever heard of. she was essentially a quad - no use of any of her appendages. she wore diapers and rode around in a wheelchair, which was uncomfortable for her so she was always in pain. it was a challenge with her more than anything, to say the least, and i learned A LOT about myself, my bunkhouse, and what we're going to be able to do this summer which, turns out, is pretty much anything.

last night, on our 24-hour night off, i hung out with some of my co-staff. it was dramatic. there is so much drama between the 150 people who work there than the 4 years that i was in college. good thing i'm used to it. haha. but i heard a lotttt about the drama from last year, got all caught up, and heard about what's already been going on this summer. i still wonder if anyone has heard about me, the "mystery girl", but i don't want to ask. i'm just pretending it's my little secret. haha. speaking of which, i got to chat with D for a bit before bed...