Yeah, I’m surrounded by comedians. At work, I get the web programmer greeting me with a smile and a “Hey! How’s my favorite girl in the art department today?” I always smile back and tell him, “Great! But I’m the only girl in the art department.” “Well, that’s why you’re my favorite!” After work, it’s a little bit different. The human encyclopedia likes to water down familiar songs by singing them with twisted lyrics: Fairy tales can come true, it…
Seventh grade was scary. It was bad enough that I had to go to school at an entirely different campus and that I had to have six teachers instead of one. Worse, they threw in kids from other grade schools and neighborhoods, and everyone else was bigger than me. The worst yet, P.E. (physical education) was a required class on which I actually had to be graded, which took the fun out of all the sports. To top it off?…
He thinks I’m cute. I think he’s wearing rose-colored glasses. He thinks that because of the way that I look and sound, I get away with a lot. I think that because of the way that I look and sound, no one takes me seriously. Case in point: he compares me to a doll. A doll. Tiny Tears with the “rock-a-bye eyes”—to be specific—because I fall asleep soon after I lie down. “I don’t,” I say. “You do,” he counters….
I am not a girly girl. I like men, I have hip-long hair, and I wear lipstick. That’s about the extent of my femininity. My wardrobe consists mostly of jeans, sweatshirts, and athletic shoes; and they are all comfortably durable and at least 10 years old. And I hate shopping. I really, really hate shopping. Which is why all of my clothes have been around for three presidential terms. That, and I’ve never really needed to buy a lot of…
Heather was an alto with dirty blonde hair and crooked teeth. She wanted to be a pop star. One day, she came by one of my dance classes and watched. It turned out that she was choosing four of us to approach later, and I was one of the four. The other three were Tanya, Latrina, and another girl whose name I completely forgot. Tanya once dated a major league baseball player who gave her a super expensive formal dress…