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© 2004-2008 Linda Escaip
"I may be grumpy, but I like you."
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The Suns and Moons of the Grumpiest Girl in the Room.
Welcome to my journal, cheesepuff.
Never The Girl 1-Nov-2004 9:12 p.m.
I am just not cool. You are. How does it feel? In my mind, you are slick and smooth and sure of yourself with every step. In my mind, I am the town spaz; the girl no one wants to invite to their fucking slumber party because she farts or something, or has to wear a back brace that freaks everyone out.
Why am I that girl? Am I really? I would have myself think so on days like today. I woke up grumpier than all fuckout, pretty sure I was going to take down this fucker and never type another word. Had myself convinced I have nothing to say, and who cares anyway? My mom, that's who. So, there.
I have felt this way pretty steadily since I was a kid. On my first day of fifth grade I decided I was ugly. I don't think I had ever really considered whether or not I was pretty, but on that day it became clear which planet I came from, and it wasn't the right one. Tawny and Sporto, on the other hand, had flown in from the right one. When they entered the almost-full classroom that first day, all the energy shifted to them. One boy did a cat call, others just stared and nudged each other. The girls looked on with alacrity, filled with the hope of becoming friends with these starlets of the fifth grade class.
Sporto had no detectable personality or heart. Perhaps she kept them hidden? I don't know, all I know is I never witnessed them. Tawny was pretty certain the sun and stars all twinkled inside of her own butt. Her head never moved a millimeter when she walked, unless she was to look to one side or the other, which involved a robotic shift that was carried out with such precision that it must have been performed by someone maneuvering an intricate, alien-crafted remote control device. It was as if she had taken the "walking with a book on the head" posture exercise about 563 steps too far. They both scared the living shit out of me. They possessed this seemingly mesmerizing power over everyone, and I found myself dipping and slipping into the well of crazed interest in what they were like beneath their flawless surfaces.
I used to get my sister to play "Tawny and Sporto" with me. Please don't tell anyone I just said that. Yeah, I always got to be Sporto, because in my eyes Sporto was just physical perfection. My sister, got to be Tawny. We would make up these little scenarios, like maybe Tawny and Sporto involved in a soccer game, or Tawny and Sporto on the handball court. Any old thing, really, as long as I got to be cool and pretty and famous like they were.
They were the sort of girls who never went through that awkward physical stage where parts of your body look like they were maybe molded out of Silly Putty by a two-year-old child with an evil side. They appeared untouched by the crueler aspects of adolescence. I, on the other hand, felt like a circus freak and wondered why my skin did not glow, why my forehead was covered with zits, why my hair didn't feather the way everyone else's did.
That same year, Rashy Vitolini called me "big nose" during a handball fiasco. My face had not completely grown into my nose, and she had noticed. If she knew, then surely everyone else knew, and that meant Tawny and Sporto. I was mortified. My mom made me go to school anyway, with my nose. But then I started washing my hair every day and blowing it dry with the hairdryer, to the point where I could smell burning hair. I'd scorch it until it was good and straight, just the way I wanted it. I arranged it with some barrettes and became happy with what I saw in the mirror. Boys started paying attention to me, which I liked yet didn't like at the same time. But I was never doing it for the boys; I wanted to prove to myself or anyone that I was not invisible, or a piece of garbage. But doing things from the outside-in has never worked for me, so my success was short-lived.
And I have carried with me into adulthood that feeling of not being cool. I have never been the girl everyone wants to be friends with or fights over. Remember fighting over friends? I have been the token this or that, but never the girl. I wonder what it's like on the other side. I wonder whether there really are sides.
I'm hungry as all fuckout. Thank you to Boo in Wisconsin for the introduction to that most heavenly word. Fuckout. It makes no good sense to me and I love it with the savage love of a drunken sailor. I'm off to eat and redefine the meaning of cool.
Linda
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