The other half of the story

Catholic Charities was extremely rude. They treated me like I was garbage. I am not garbage, and I've never had a problem pointing that out to people. So when the woman on the phone spoke to me like I was less than the dirt beneath her fingernails, I let her know a few things.

I am white.
I am intelligent.
I am drug-free.
I do want my child. I also want my child to have a better life.
And they will never get their hands on my son.

I wasn't done yet, either. I kept her on the phone, letting her know my opinion of her assumptions about me. I asked if she understood how hard it was for me to even make an inquiry. I expressed disbelief in them ever handling an adoption, if this was the way they treated birth parents. I pointed out that my son was a gift, not a burden. And when she grudgingly apoligized, I stated the obvious. I said, "You are the sorriest representative of a company I've ever had to deal with." Then I hung up on her.

That's what happens when a redhead loses her temper.

Comments are down. (sigh)

In reference to the previous post:
Oops, my bad. Pete and Manny created BlogMadness as a non-popularity based contest, where you take your best post from 2003 and pit it against the best post from other blogs. They got 116 entries. Mine is in the "Love" region. At the moment, it's in the "Winners Round 3" part. Go read them! I've found some really good blogs to add to my side bar, you might too. Sorry you can't comment right now. If you'd like to say something you can reach me at randomred (that symbol over the number 2) bitparts (dot) org.

It's been a while

First off, THANK YOU to everyone who has and/or will vote for "The Race War That Wasn't" in BlogMadness. It's gone up against some pretty well known authors, and it's still in the running! Thank you for voting in the spirit of the competition, for voting for the entry you deem best; whether it's mine or someone else's.

Secondly, I apologize for not writing anything recently. I've written all the easy stories; the ones that I've relived often enough in my dreams. Now I'm working on the harder stuff. The tale of the 9 year old prostitute, the times the pervs grabbed me or someone else, the drug dealers, and the ever present violence. Sometimes I wonder why I began this project. Then I remember my friend A, laughing over "And I'm Keeping Your Stick, Too!" and saying in all seriousness, "You should write a book."
Yeah, that's why. To tell the stories that never get told.

Saturday Morning Cartoons

Mom bought a TV Guide from the grocery store every week. Why she did this is beyond me. We got a total of 6 channels; ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, channel 11 and channel 30, which was usually full of static. Channel 11 was, without a doubt, my favorite channel. They showed horror movies late at night, and mom would let us stay up on Fridays to watch. Now that I'm a mother myself, I understand this tactic. If we stay up late on Friday, we should sleep late on Saturday. If we sleep late on Saturday, she won't be awakened at 6 am by the TV. Riiiiight. We were children, filled with boundless energy. We didn't need sleep!

Twice a year, my sister and I would leaf through the TV Guide and decide which Saturday Morning Lineup we would watch for the next 6 months. It was too much trouble to get up off the floor and change channels every half hour, so choosing the right station was crucial. The networks understood this. They would show previews of their new cartoons in the evening during sweeps week. The winter the Smurfs made their debut comes to mind right off. I don't recall how old I was, though the internet agrees it was 1982. We had already explored the new cartoons guide, and couldn't decide which channel to watch that night. Some of the shows looked really good, some looked like garbage in animated form. Whatever we decided on, it was sadly disappointing. We switched channels, found the Smurfs, and were hooked. Yes... That was when cartoons started to really go downhill.

Crappy cartoons notwithstanding, my sister and I got up with the sun every Saturday. We would try to be quiet, but by 9 o'clock mom would be making breakfast for us. Even better than the cartoons was what came on afterward. Wrestling At The Chase. Wrestling rocked! Big strong men in superhero costumes acting out the most delicious dramas. The good guys like Hulk Hogan, sergeant Slaughter and George the Animal Steel, battled stereotypical evil-doers like The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff. Andre the Giant was neither good nor bad, he was more like a force of nature. Once in a blue moon we'd be lucky enough to see him in a "wrestle royale". That's where 20 men fight to be the last one left in the ring. Andre would toss them out like they weighed nothing. Every wrestler had a signature move, and I loved them all. Von Eric had the Iron Claw, capable of delivering a knock out headache. Rowdy Roddy Piper had the figure 4 leg-lock to go with his signature kilt. Adrian Adonis would pause to have his attendants spritz him with perfume before he finished off his opponents. Randy "Macho Man" Savage portrayed a wife beater, back in the day -before it became politically incorrect. He was the man I loved to hate. I also hated "The Millionaire" Ted Dibiase, because he would throw money around, and buy off his matches.

As cartoon quality dropped off, wrestling got better and better. A big part of my childhood involved wrestling, and then; either I grew up, or wrestling just got weird. The managers began playing bigger roles. The best wrestlers retired, and everyone left started looking like body builders. It was a sad day for wrestling when I decided to play outside, rather than watch Wrestling At The Chase.

Everyone Knows To Stay Away From The Pervs

Mom didn't go to the bar. Mom rarely drank, and she absolutely hated beer. She called it "piss water". She looked down on beer drinkers, viewing them as only one step above winos. This kept us pretty isolated from the rest of the neighborhood. All my friends went to the bar to buy cigarettes for their parents. Mom sent us all the way to the gas station. The gas station was a full block away, and to get there you had to pass abandoned buildings and such. Just because an owner doesn't want a building, doesn't mean it is empty. The homeless slept there or used the buildings as shelter. The homeless weren't a threat. It was the pervs we had to watch out for.
The pervs used the abandoned buildings -and the space between them, in the afternoons and evenings. Mom usually needed a new pack of cigarettes around 7:00 pm. That was prime perv time. The pervs would bring their dirty magazines and whack off in the buildings. Some of them needed a more public place to do their business, so they'd use the gravel and glass parking lot between the buildings.

That really sucked for my sister and I, because the parking lot held a short cut to the gas station. If there was even a chance that someone might be lurking in the lot, or the path beyond that led to a hole in the gas station's fence; we would take the long way. Neither of us wanted to get snatched. Snatchings were common, and never talked about.

If you grew up in a good neighborhood, you might not understand. Admitting that you were snatched and violated would be showing weakness. You might as well paint "victim" across your forehead, and be done with it. Weak people got robbed, beaten and raped. Not once or twice, but often. You never, never, never admit weakness in a neighborhood like mine. I think that's why it bothered mom so much when we got robbed. Somehow, we had appeared as victims. After that, we had to be a lot more vigilant. We had to come across as twice as tough as before. We had to convince the neighborhood that there would be retribution on an apocalyptic scale, or live in fear that next time we might be home, and lose more than just stuff. -I know it sounds melodramatic, but it was simply the way things were-

The pervs were another example of the way things were. I never counted how often I saw some perv masturbating in a semi-private part of the parking lot. The boldest perv I remember was standing in the middle of the lot, holding his pants in one hand and his dick in the other. He was looking down at a magazine. When he saw my sister and I, he walked off to a corner, just beating away. He left the magazine behind. We were lucky, he wasn't one of those guys who prefers children. We didn't have to see him look at us and get even more excited, or worse yet, chase us. That happened a few times, too. Being chased by a perv is no picnic.

We had a series of safe doors to knock on. Any of the bikers would have let us in. Also most of the pot dealers, and Tattoo Annie, the neighborhood prostitute. The pervs never chased us very far, though. We never had to knock on any of the doors. At least not for the neighborhood pervs. There were a few incidents being followed by a car...

They never tried the candy bit. Most of them offered money. "Hey, girl. Ya want some money?" Like that's going to bring me anywhere near a perv in a car! Street snatchings you might walk away from. Cars never brought you home.

How did I know this, when no one ever talked about it? I don't know. I think the real meaning of, "You stay away from those pervs." filters into kids through osmosis or something. We just all knew what would happen if you didn't stay away.

Playing With Fire

My sister and I were pretty independent kids. We had to be, since mom came home from work at about 6 o'clock at night. We were intelligent and well behaved. We knew when something was a bad idea. But knowing a thing and heeding your own advice on it are two entirely different things. As a result, my sister and I made some mistakes.

Most were minor, like putting a roast in the oven and then going outside to play. That's how I learned meat shrinks, just like in the cartoons, when you let it cook for too long. Minor disasters included letting the tub overflow, ignoring the dog when she needs to go outside, and hiding crackers in the sofa -so mom wouldn't know you were eating junk. (side note: A box of crackers at Tru-Buy was 44 cents. That's some cheap eats, there. I ate a lot of crackers)

Sometimes, however, my sister and I made some major mistakes. We snuck out of the house and bet on the drunks leaving the bar. We went joyriding with people we barely knew, and once, we set the recliner on fire. It was a complete accident, of course. Neither of us were stupid enough to burn the furniture on purpose.

We were bored. So we invented a game. We had seen a commercial for a game where you remove pieces from a board until the central piece falls. Whoever makes the thing fall, loses. So we got a bowl full of water and covered it with plastic wrap. We put a penny in the center of the plastic wrap, and then we did the stupid thing. We swiped a pack of mom's cigarettes. The idea was to take turns burning holes in the plastic until the penny fell through. The water was insurance, because we were playing with fire. See how smart we were? It worked so well, we invited some friends to play the next day. We played again the day after. By this time, we were confident in our ability to control the cigarettes we were playing with. Puff puff puff on the cigarette until the end glows bright red, flick off the excess ashes and burn a neat hole in the plastic wrap.

It was my fault. I accidentally hit the cigarette on the edge of the bowl and knocked the cherry loose. I pulled my hand back to drop the cigarette in the ashtray, and the cherry flew up over my head and landed on the recliner. I grabbed a pillow and batted at the spot it had hit. Everyone surveyed the char hole, and we prayed that mom wouldn't notice. We were a little shook up at the near miss, but went back to playing the game. The room was full of cigarette smoke, but it was even smokier by the recliner. As a matter of fact, there was a lot of smoke coming from the burned spot that I thought I'd put out. One of the players declared, "The chair is on fire!" I turned to look, and sure enough; there was flame coming from the corner of the recliner. I grabbed the bowl of water and dumped it on the chair, plastic wrap and all. I either missed the spot, or it wasn't enough water. Everybody both ran to the kitchen for cups of water.
We dumped cup after cup of water on that poor old recliner. It seemed to take forever to stop smoldering, but eventually it did.
Our friends decided it was time to go home. The game wasn't fun anymore. We walked them to the stairs and said goodbye, then went to clean up the cigarette game. There was a nasty smell in the living room. We sprayed Lysol all over the chair, and that helped a bit. It was summer time, so the windows were already open; that helped more.
I blotted at the soggy recliner with towels. When I ran out, I used my winter clothes. I cried as I tried to soak up the water. I knew I was in such deep trouble that I couldn't even imagine what mom would say or do. To give her credit, my sister could have stood there telling me how much trouble I was in, but she didn't. She silently helped me clean up the mess.

Once the chair was as dry as we could make it, we covered it with an ugly orange blanket. When mom came home, we told her we had re-decorated, and showed her the new recliner cover. This was the moment of truth. Mom knows everything. Mom would certainly know the chair had been burned. How could she not know? One whole corner was missing. The house reeked of burned fabric and cigarette smoke. She must know. I was just waiting for the axe to fall.

The fates smiled on me that day. Mom must have been exhausted from work, or something. She declared that it was just lovely, told us she was going to take a nap, and asked if we could make dinner.

Months later, when she took the throw off to wash it, she saw the damage and asked what had happened. I fessed up to playing with some matches and accidentally burning the recliner. She said, "Well that was stupid. Thank God you're both ok." And later she commented, "I'm glad I have such smart daughters. You kept your heads, and I'm proud of you."

Go figure.

Getting Out

I suppose every generation in every poor neighborhood dreams up ways to get out. They all believe that they are somehow better than the generations that came before, and they all think they are the first to plan their escape.

The neighborhood eats these people alive.

Every once in a while, I'll run into someone from the old neighborhood, and we'll discuss the people we knew. Denny was going to be a race car driver. He killed a woman while driving drunk. A week and a half later, he died the same way. T had a good job at Anheuser Busch. He supported his mother, sister, aunts and uncle. What little money he had left over paid for classes at the community college. We really thought T would escape. He still lives in the neighborhood, and his family still bleeds him dry. There were boys who carried weights everywhere they went. They were going to be the next Mr. Universe. Their dumbbells were a symbol declaring, "I'm better than this and I'm getting out!"

They all had their symbols. Nunchucks were for the next Bruce Lee. Greasy jeans were for the next mechanic, and a blue work shirt meant you had finally grown up and gotten a job. The girls flocked to these status symbols, offering up their bodies and praying for babies. For them, it was the only way out. If they could get some guy to marry them, and that guy got out, then the guy would take them out too.

Apologies to the St. Louis Bloggers who read me, for the bad timing with the Quinn story. I hadn't checked STLBloggers, and didn't know Mae and Matt got to celebrate a new addition today. Congrats, you two! You're in for a fabulous roller coaster ride!

This is kind of my therapy blog. The stories I write down are simply anecdotes from my life; until I write them, that is. The following story is for me, but I'm willing to share. I'm putting it here for two reasons. 1. It's a story that I want to tell. 2. The woman about whom I'm writing does not read this blog, although her Hubby does. I don't want to bring any pain to either of them. To Mr. J, I plead: It still hurts like crazy, I need to write it out, please understand.

The Mighty Quinn

My best friend and I have been through a lot. Twice we have tried and failed to open a small business. We have taked and laughed and cried, like good friends do. She has carried me more times than I care to admit here. She always has a warm smile and an open door. Always. The story begins with an open door.

N opened the front door to Chasmyn's home, and welcomed me inside. As usual, the place was quiet, homey and spotless. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee was wafting from the kitchen, and her home was a pleasantly warm contrast to the nippy October air. I wanted to find my friend and give her a big, joyous hug. I wanted to share the happiness. Coffee placed a distant second that night.

Chasmyn had called me at around 8 o'clock at night. It was October 20th, 2000. She thought she might be in real labor. Having been there myself I asked a lot of silly questions and decided she might just have this baby in the next 24 hours. I showered to wash away the smell of cigarettes, Chasmyn doesn't smoke. Then I meditated while waiting for her next phone call. It came a little before 10 pm.

I kissed my hubby and hugged my son, telling them I didn't know when I would be back, and drove to Chasmyn's house. I was one of a very few people invited to Chasmyn's home birth. I spent the drive time reminding myself not to say anything stupid or crude. I was born without a faux pas filter, and I never really developed one later, either.

The select group, myself included, sat in the living room drinking coffee while Chasmyn worked her way through the various stages of labor. We had a lot of fun waiting. You could say it was some of the best waiting ever. There was a point where I sagely advised, "You're about halfway through the transition phase. It's the worst, but it will be over soon." Chasmyn responded, "You don't know! You can't possibly know!" And we fell out of our seats with laughter. Well, all of us guests. Chasmyn was too busy to laugh, and I don't think she thought it was funny at all.

The doula was on time, the doctor had gotten lost and was late; but he was there for the important part. He had given himself plenty of time. (There is one doctor in St. Louis who does home births. I expect he's a busy man.)
Chasmyn delivered on a bed with 50 billion pillows, being held by her mother, her hubby, and her closest friends. She would push, and we'd all push with her. Everyone was touching her when she pushed Quinn into the world. (well, everyone but me, I was holding a video camera, and it doesn't matter, I was touching her in spirit)

Quinn was born with a caul, a sign of good fortune for the child. I heartily agree. Anyone with J and Chasmyn as his parents would be fortunate indeed.

I went home feeling blessed by this newborn's presence. I felt I had witnessed the birth of a child who would touch the world. I expected great things of him. I thought about my own birth experiences and recalled the looks of wonder on the faces of my friends, and decided that although my children were special, they were nothing compared to Quinn.

Two days later, Chasmyn called me from the hospital. Quinn wasn't eating. He cried all the time. His breathing was labored and his lips were purple. Quinn was born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, and my best friend was faced with some very tough choices. She could put her 2 day old son on a waiting list for a heart transplant, she could hope he became healthy enough for a series of experimental open heart surgeries, or she could take him home and give him what the doctors called "compassionate care". Compassionate care means caring for your child until they die.

I didn't scream, gnash my teeth, or throw sharp pointy objects at the universe for letting this happen. I didn't even think about that kind of drama until later. Instead, I drove to Cardinal Glennon Hospital. I waited with her family and friends, while J and Chasmyn sat with Quinn in PICU. They were taking turns bringing people to visit their son. Can you believe that? I probably would have been balled up in as corner, rejecting the world. They invited their loved ones to see their son.

There's more to the story, of course, but I'm done writing about it for now. It hurts too damn much. I'll let you off the hook, though. They opted for the series of surgeries, and Quinn thrived for 2 years and 8 months. He died June 19th. He went in for a comparatively simple valve replacement, and just didn't recover. You can read his story, in his mother's words here

First Boyfriend, First Kiss

In Catholic school, I had earned the nickname "Medusa" for my wildly curly red hair. Some genius in my class pulled one of my bouncy locks one day and commented, "Your hair is like snakes. Medusa!" The nickname stuck, and didn't do a whole lot for my self-image.

Then I transferred to public school, where nobody knew my nickname. I was "the new kid", and it was great. Everyone but me had a boyfriend or girlfriend, so I picked a kid who would be handsome when he finished growing up, and we began dating. For 5 months, we held hands on the bus ride home. That was it. We held hands.
His stop was before my own, so I really only held hands for half the bus ride. Then I'd switch seats and sit in front of my friend Ben. He was a lot more fun than my boyfriend, but he wasn't good eye candy. My boyfriend was cute but clueless. I'd spend half the bus ride listening to stupid jokes, laughing and trying to look interested. The only thing I was truly interested in was getting kissed. I wanted this kid to give me my first kiss. I wasted 5 months of my youth waiting for a kiss that never came. Eventually I asked him if he wanted to kiss me. He said, "No." So I said, "Then I'm going to break up with you." He said, "Good." And that was that.

After the break up, I spent all of the bus ride leaning over the seat and talking to Ben. He didn't tell stupid jokes, he talked about interesting stuff. His world was so different from my own, although we lived less than a mile from each other.

First of all, he had both parents. Secondly, his parents let him do stuff that my mom would never let me do. Like playing D&D or owning weapons. He had a bb gun, knives, nunchucks and throwing stars.

We would yack during the ride and continue the conversation at the ice cream place. The ice cream place was only open in the summer, so we would sit on the picnic bench outside and not be disturbed. We would talk for about half an hour, then Ben would ask me for a kiss. Every day I would scream, "Ew! No!" And every day he would steal my purse and say, "I'm not giving your purse back until you kiss me." I would then kick him in the shin, grab my purse and leave in a huff.
There was no way this guy was going to be my first kiss! He was too skinny. His hair was too dark. And he sniffed all the time because he had allergies. My first kiss was supposed to come from Prince Charming, not some sickly little boy.
Except that sickly little boy began to grow on me. I had so much fun hanging out with him, and the walk home became a very lonely walk indeed. One day Ben snatched my purse and made his request, and I thought, "Why not? You've got to kiss somebody."

So I kissed him.

I thought of soap operas, and tried to kiss like it looked like they kissed on the shows. It was an open mouth, no tongue kiss; and it was no big deal.
I waited more than a year before telling Ben that he was my first kiss.

I suppose persistence pays off.

I changed the date and removed the duplicate comments. If you haven't been here in a few days, there are new stories below my request post.
A Request

I have written enough material for two books already, and I'm not half done with the stories. I've been stuffing the raw tales into Microsoft Word and doing some refining. Some of my stories must absolutely go into the book. I insist on it. :p
These are my favorites, the ones I look back on and laugh or cry (or both)
Drunks
More on Drunks
The Race War That Wasn't
...And I'm Keeping Your Stick, Too!
Shopping
Wednesday Is Dumpster Day
The Sad Story Of Mr. Brown
Biker's Code Of Ethics
Payphone Perverts
Hanging Out aka why poor kids don't go to college
Independance Day
The California Bum
Why You Shouldn't Skip School Warning Potentially triggering rape story
The Neighbors Downstairs

Some of these are integral to the book, some are just writing I'm proud of.

So here's my request. Which stories are your favorites? Which ones would you like to see in the signed copy I send to you loyal 6 readers?

Pre-Neighborhood Santa Story

I rarely got what I wanted from Santa, but I always got something I liked. The last year I truly believed that Santa was a man in a sleigh, making improbable deliveries to Christian children worldwide, was the year my dad left.

He left us while we were at summer camp, and that Christmas I asked Santa for my dad and a house. I actually wrote a letter addressed to the north pole, and mailed it. I wrote about how I thought I'd been good, even with that time my sister and I threw rocks at some other kids in the alley. I wrote how there was no place to play in the room my family lived in at Grandma's house, and I really wanted somewhere to play.
And, of course; I wanted my dad to come back if it would be good for us.

Santa was kind of like God to me, you could ask for anything, but you would only get what was good for you.

Christmas rolled around and Mom, J and I walked to Midnight Mass. It was one of my favorite parts of Christmas, because we got to stay up late and we got to open one present when we came home. Midnight Mass is a high mass. You get 2 priests and 6 altar boys. One priest swings the censer, filling the church with pungent grey smoke. The other priest would sprinkle the crowd with Holy Water from what looked like a silver microphone. The unlucky altar boys carry candles, the lucky ones carry either the Bible or the Monstrance.

We got to chant in Latin while getting high on incense fumes. By the end of Mass, you could barely see the exit. Mom always translated the Latin. I wonder now, how many people she pissed off with her running monologue. I wonder how many she educated, too.

After Mass, we walked the 2 blocks to Grandma's house. There was a point where the houses receded from the sidewalk, and you could see Grandma's front yard. Sitting in Grandma's yard that Christmas was a house.

I thought it might be an incense induced vision. I thought maybe I was dreaming. I thought it was definitely not for me. I squashed my excitement with that thought. Of course it wasn't for me. It was for one of my cousins or something. They always got nice gifts. I tried to pretend like it was no big deal. I tried really hard to be happy for my cousins. It was Christmas, after all; a time of joy and giving. I could afford to give happiness to someone else.

I had myself pretty convinced by the time we reached the steps up to the yard. Then one of my Uncles came outside and said, "You missed it! Santa came by and left this for a pair of good little girls." I thought, "M and D will be very happy." and summoned up a smile. My uncle said, "There's a tag. Let's see who it's for."

Lo and behold, it was for my sister and I. It was the most beautiful house I'd ever seen. I was made of cardboard, with a working door and cut out windows. It had a pointy roof and everything. In that moment, I believed in Santa with all my heart.

The end of the story
I didn't get my dad for Christmas. In fact, I never got my dad. I don't particularly want him anymore. We did eventually get an apartment, and I had room to play again. What I really got that Christmas was a message. Two, actually.
The house, (a collaborative effort of all 5 uncles) was a message that my dad would not be coming back, and it was ok because I would have a home without him. I loved that house.
The other message, I was given on Christmas morning. Amongst the pile of presents for everyone in the family were 3 paper bags. They had mine, my sister's and mom's names on them. I got a nice doll. Mom got work clothes.
The bags were put together by the ladies at Church for the "unfortunate". I knew because I'd helped mom and grandma make bags like that every Christmas and Easter for as long as I can remember. That was when I realized we were poor.
I hated those bags from the moment I saw them.

Discovering Drugs

When I was 14, I was invited to a party in the downstairs apartment. I asked mom if I could go. She said ok, because I would only be right downstairs. I met Kenny out on the porch, and he told me he thought I was old enough to "learn how to party" and that was why he had invited me. We went inside and he introduced me to his friends while mixing up a screwdriver.

This was my first real drink.
Growing up Catholic, I'd had wine at church; but that is no more than a sip. Growing up with an Italian family, I'd had watered wine at holiday get-togethers. I had never had vodka before. Before the party was over, I was totally plastered.

I walked around sipping my screwdriver and chatting with Kenny's friends. They spent a lot of time talking about their cars. Pretty soon, my screwdriver was all gone. Kenny noticed my empty glass and brought me another drink. He asked me if I was having fun, and I politely responded, "Yeah, this is great."
I smiled up at him while thinking the party was dumb. The radio was playing annoying hard rock; I preferred top 20 stuff. The guys only talked about things that didn't interest me. I was bored, but I felt I should live up to Kenny's supposition that I was old enough to party. I didn't want to let him down.

The party got much better when the alcohol hit me. Things became interesting. I realized I didn't have to care about the rusted-out piece-of-shit that somebody was "fixing up". I could let them talk, and just enjoy watching how they lit up whenever they thought about their car. The range of emotions on these guys faces was amazing. I found myself surrounded by guys telling me all about their cars, and through that, themselves. I could see that some of them would always be losers, and some of them would be able to stick to their tasks; eventually resulting in a nice looking car.

I excused myself to take a bathroom break, and received the shock of my life. I passed the mirror. Being staggeringly drunk, I didn't realize it was a mirror at first.
I saw a stunningly beautiful girl, and stopped to look at her. I hadn't seen this girl at the party, she must have just come in. Then I recognized my freckles on the girl in the mirror. It was me, and I was beautiful!
I spent a lot of time looking at myself. I wanted to go home and see if I was pretty in that mirror too, but I didn't want mom to know I was drunk; so I stayed and played with my newly-discovered attractiveness. I let one of the guys start kissing on me, and then we were laying down on the couch kissing. I was really relaxed and it felt good. About the time the guy had gotten a hand down my pants, Kenny came to the rescue. He lifted the guy by his shirt and said, "Dude, She's 14."
The guy fled from me like I had started sprouting roaches.
I became very embarrassed and went home.

A few months later Kenny introduced me to pot. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I believe Kenny was trying to teach me the ways of the world in the safest way possible. He slowly opened my eyes, and stayed with me to keep me out of trouble. I suppose I should be grateful. He put a lot of effort into watching over me. I think he did it because he was head over heels in love with my sister. I think he didn't want her to get hurt by seeing me get hurt. I know I didn't start doing stupid things until I'd changed my circle of friends.

The most valuable thing I learned from Kenny was "Just say no thank you." The people doing drugs are fine with that. The usual response is, "More for me!"

Snow

Poverty looks like peeling paint on wooden windows, broken glass patched with tape, flat tires, and barren yards where even the weeds fear to grow.
Poverty smells like stale beer, cooked cabbage, urine and Roach-Ex.
Poverty feels like despair. Day in and day out, it seeps into you and weighs you down.

Snow is everything that poverty is not. Snow is white and sparkling, it covers everything and weighs practically nothing. I have always loved snow. I love watching it drift in the air. I love watching it coat the world. I love clearing the sidewalk, and I love playing in it.

My sister and I would build snowmen in the back yard, because they would be safe there. If we built them in the front yard, the snowmen would get knocked over and the remains would be thrown at passing cars. We went sledding on cardboard boxes until my sister found a real sled at a yard sale. And we threw millions of snowballs.
The boys in the neighborhood would shove rocks in their snowballs before throwing them. We got revenge by dipping ours in the gutter and making slush balls. All of us threw things at the busses. We would hide behind cars, with a stash of snowballs and bombard the bus as it came down the street. It gave us a feeling of power to smack a snowball against the bus window, where some working stiff was resting his head.
I never attacked the homeless people, but a lot of the other kids did. Woe to the hapless bums on a snow day. The neighborhood kids would run at them with their arms full of rock encrusted snowballs, and bombard the poor fellows. The homeless would inevitable hunch their shoulders and wander away. They never fought back. Perhaps that's why I didn't take part in the game. I couldn't see the fun in attacking someone less powerful than myself.

One year we had an honest-to-God blizzard. The total snowfall that week was more than 2 feet. The kid next door dug snow tunnels all over his yard. He was out there most of the day, moving snow.
I was so excited. Finally enough snow to build an igloo! I grabbed the snow shovel and made a giant mound of snow in the back yard. Then I couldn't figure out how to turn a mountain of snow into an igloo. I thought I should make the snow a little denser first, so I smacked the mound with the shovel to firm it up. Then I had a small, dense mound. Hmm. I added more snow and tamped it down again. My mound was not noticeably larger.
Eventually, after several hours of work, the yard was half empty and I was the proud owner of a 5 foot high flat-bottomed snowball. I went inside to have some hot cocoa and think about this. Sometime during the snow moving, I had come up with a brilliant idea. When snow is a day or so old, it gets a layer of ice on the top. If I could create a layer of ice, I would have a see through igloo. How cool is that?
I took a cup of water outside and poured it on my snow mound, but everything the water touched turned to slush. This clearly wasn't working out as I'd hoped. Never one to give up easily, I filled the spray bottle mom used for misting the plants, and tried spritzing the snow mound.
Better.
It still turned to slush, but not as much. I spritzed the entire mound and went inside for the night. I was cold, my mittens were wet, and I was thinking the whole thing might have been a waste of time. The next morning, my snow mound had been trampled by the kids who lived downstairs.

I have since learned the mechanics of building an igloo. I went about it in entirely the wrong way. :)