Two Hearted

Horrifying day filled with meetings and craziness and angry, frustrated people. But also filled with excited, ambitious, dedicated people just looking for ways to do great things.

I'll focus on the latter.

Wore two shoes for the first time in two weeks. And a dress instead of jeans.
Went to work with my hair washed.

Left work exhausted, but enough energy to meet J. at Happy Village for three bottles of Two-Hearted Ale.

Desperately need to write questions for the job interview we are conducting on Friday afternoon, but need to crawl in bed with a book.

Highlight of the day?
Listening to this while walking to the bus stop:

Say it with Dead Flowers

Just Like Me, Last Part (Short Story)

Jane Tomczak wasn't my friend.

After so many years, I can't say if she even wanted to be. Jane might have just wanted to borrow my purple corduroys and white leather, high-top Nikes with the silver swoosh. If she had hoped for a real friend, I let her down.

We were in Junior High and discovering that tiny things, like a minuscule difference in how plump your lips were, could make all the difference in how pretty the boys thought you were. A cowlick could ruin your feathered hair and your popularity standing. Even two girls who fit into the same pair of Jordache jeans could have differently admired butts.

I was also learning that a popular girl (with the right lips, feathered hair and butt) could still be unsure of herself. It was flattering and reassuring to have someone around who wanted to be just like me. It made me feel better about myself to be envied. I was never mean to Jane but that doesn’t make me feel any better. She was an audience and an admirer, not a friend. We both knew who the other kids liked better and I never thought much about her beyond how she made me feel about myself.

The grownups all thought we were friends though. We were in the same Sunday school class and the teacher commented on how alike we were: same age; same straight, brown hair; same fair skin and same freckles on the nose. In grade school, we sat by each other and hung our coats on neighboring hooks in the closet -- Catholic schools were big on lining kids up and organizing them alphabetically. Eventually, we formed a bond around our common interest in boys, Van Halen and eye shadow.

Jane was adopted and her parents were older and strict. Her sister, Jenny, was a burn-out who skipped most of her high school classes, hung out behind the mall and smoked weed. Jane's parent's were determined not to fail with their younger child too. Even though my parents were divorced, I was still a good girl from a good family and Jane was sometimes allowed to come to my house after school. I never went to Jane’s house though, she was not allowed to have friends over.

She loved my bedroom. I had a record player and was allowed to close my door and play Journey Escape, Foreigner 4 and Rolling Stones Tattoo You over and over and over. I was allowed to hang pictures of Eddie Van Halen on my wall. When I was 13, I was even allowed to wear eye makeup and lip gloss. My dresser was covered in bottles of hair spray and jars of goop. After school, when I changed out of my uniform, I pulled designer jeans and puffy sleeved, Joan Jettesque tops out of my drawers. Jane wasn't allowed to do or wear any of those things.

It’s not like I was allowed to run wild or wear whatever I wanted; I fought long, hard battles in the fitting room with my mom to get those designer jeans. She made me bend over and try to touch my toes and she'd try to cram her fingers into the back pockets. She'd tell me they were too tight and send me off to get the next size up. When we finally bought those not-as-tight jeans to the counter, I had to pull out the birthday and Christmas money I had saved. My mom saw no difference(other than cost) between Gloria Vanderbilt, Jordache and perfectly good jeans from JCPenney.

8th grade was a big year for both of us, I started going with my first boyfriend and Jane ran away from home for the first time. She came to my house and when her mom called to see if we had seen her, my mom took her home. She was grounded for much of that school year and I didn't miss her, I had the boyfriend. When Jane started to come by again, she was different. She mostly wanted a place to change clothes and put on makeup before heading to the park to meet her own boyfriend. I could tell she wanted me to be impressed and maybe envious of her for now: he was an older boy, a smoking boy, a boy who drank, a boy who came from a house where the parents were not around much, and a boy with a mini bike. I let her borrow the clothes but I wasn’t impressed or envious. I was different by then too: I had replaced the pictures of Eddie Van Halen with pictures of androgynous male underwear models; my allowance money was saved for Izod polo shirts that I could layer and wear with the collars up; I was wearing skirts down to my ankles instead of tight jeans; and I was even contemplating a short-in-the-back, asymmetrical hair cut to replace my feathered bi-level. I handed over the clothes and never saw Jane (or them) again. It was the summer before high school and we were going to different schools.

During freshman year, Jane ran away again. When her mom called our house to see if she was there, we learned that she had been lying for a long time and saying she was with at our house. Jane Tomczak wasn't my friend and I'm ashamed by how self-centered I was and how little I cared about the troubled, lonely girl that people said was a lot like me. If I ever heard how her story ended, I don't remember now. I assume her parents found her and brought her home.

That year,Bon Jovi's Runaway was all over the radio and to this day, every time I hear it I imagine Jane, on the back of a mini bike, wearing my Jordache jeans, sputtering down a suburban side street.

Shine a Light

For a birthday surprise a friend sent me an Amazon gift certificate. Since I get free shipping at Amazon, I've decided to spread out my purchases and get a new treat every week or two for awhile. First purchase (I can't believe I don't have it already) is Exile on Main Street.

The Horses, the Horses, The Horses ... are on the Track!

I woke up this morning with an overwhelming desire to listen to Patti Smith's Hey Joe. While I was listening, I read a message from my friend J. who was telling me that my last post sent her looking for her B&S so she could listen to Judy and Her Dream of Horses.

It's Horse Day!

While my sister and I were listening to JahDoH, I asked her if she had a girl in her grade that was obsessed with horses. In my grade it Karen G. and I think there is at least one in every grade school class. Karen G. had horse folders, horse shaped erasers, horse pencil cases. She doodled horses and if My Little Pony had been made back then I'm sure she would have owned them all. On the playground, Karen G. always wanted to play horses, a game that involved galloping around and making whinny noises. That's all I remember about Karen G. until, on the first day of 6th grade, she arrived with her unibrow plucked into two, shapely arches.

In honor of Horse Day, I'm not going to gallop to work (although I better get up and go to work soon!)but I'm going to listen to an old favorite instead. I'll listen to the Old and In the Way version on the walk to the bus.



I was talking about that scene (okay, the snakeskin boots)a few weeks ago.

Just When You Thought it Was Safe

I bring you Mick Jagger in a blue velour jumpsuit. I also found this wonderful post about Jagger's Jumpsuit by a blogger named Child of the Moon. She has collected a great group of photos of Mick in jumpsuit glam glory.

I went into this thinking he would not be moving on to the next round. I love the Rolling Stones but jumpsuits are not the first thing I think of when I think of Mick (that would be big lips if you must know). I'm surprising myself though, something about those narrow hips, that skinny butt and the sweaty, hairless chest just screams Put me in a Jumpsuit!

So Mick, you're moving on in the Jumpsuit Olympics and Jean Luc Goddard's Sympathy for the Devil is moving back onto my Netflix queue. My friend C. was mentioning some scenes from that movie the last time we had dinner and I could not remember them. According to Netflix, the movie was Last returned by you on: 09/19/07. My memory must be shot.

The not so Divine Miss M.

Two things reminded me of my 8th grade teacher today: Prisoner Cell Block H and Satisfaction.

Miss M. used to be Sister Mary M. and was bat-shit crazy. She was built like a prison warden and looked a bit like Lou Costello. She also seemed to have a thousand tiny teeth but that is neither here nor there. Rumor had it that she was a tortured and closeted Catholic lesbian who had an unconsummated wish that the friend and roommate she frequently talked about was her lover. I have no clue what was really going on inside but there was definitely something twisted up and festering. She was obsessed with Rock 'n Roll, hell, Satan and sex and spent a lot of time talking about it to 13 and 14 year old kids

On one of the first days in Religion class she had written on the board: FRENCH KISSING. She made us define it for her and told us how we should never, ever do this outside of marriage because it simulated the sex act.

Four years earlier, when my sister was in her class, Miss M. told her that both of our parents were going to hell. Actually, just my Dad was going for sure. Mom could still avoid it if she didn't get married again. I'm pretty sure Mom was going to have to spend extra time in Purgatory though since she must have done something wrong to make her drug hooked husband cheat and leave his family.

Miss M. was a music lover.
She was the choir teacher and, when I was in 8th grade, coordinated the effort to have our entire class sing "On Eagles Wings" at the funeral of a girl who had graduated the year before. The girl had been brutally bludgeoned to death in her home, was disfigured and in an open casket. The choir sat up front and I can still see the curly blond wig in my mind's eye and that horrible song gives me the willies.

Miss M. was also in charge of re-writing the lyrics to songs that we sang on special occasions. Our class song was Journey's Open Arms. The opening line was:

Walking beside you
Into this school
Feeling your hand pressed in mind.

I wish I could remember the rest but all that comes to mind is the line:

I'm nearly grown now
ready for life

Another song, written to welcome a new priest to our school after the prior one went to rehab (again a rumor) was sung to the tune of Hey Look Me Over and had a refrain:

Father Gucci*
You're.
The.
One!

Miss M. was also a music hater.
We listened to a 2-second clip of Stairway to Heaven over and over again. She heard the name Satan in the background, I only heard Peanuts parents talking. I've always been bad at making out lyrics though. This was 1982-1983 and the Ozzy/bat/satanic ritual hysteria was at its peak. We sure heard about it and heaven help the poor kid who doodled a Black Sabbath or Ozzy logo on a folder.

Miss M. really had it in for the Rolling Stones. She demanded to know if we knew who they were talking about when they said "Please allow me to introduce myself?" It never seemed very mysterious to me but she seemed to think our young minds were being tricked into hearing about Satan. She told us that the lyrics to Satisfaction were changed by censors and the song originally used the phrase "I can't get no sex reaction." I remember thinking the censors did us a big favor and "sex reaction" was a pretty unsexy phrase.

At the time, I wasn't particularly interested in any of those bands and thought she was behind the times. I was far more interested in Billy Squier and Van Halen. A year or so later, when my musical tastes changed (or maybe just my friends), I still did not gravitate toward these bands. Instead, the world of U2 and Frankie Goes to Hollywood and New Order started to call.

By the time I came back around to the Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, I wasn't very impressionable or likely to be sucked into a Black Mass. I had thousands of better reasons to love the music than rebelling against Miss M. and all that I'd heard, but I'm not going to feel too bad if part of it is the spirit of rock 'n roll rebellion.



*Name rhymed to protect the real (if not the innocent) and maintain the poetry and flow of the lyric.