The History Of Me

Some might say I was an odd child.  I was social yet quiet.  I enjoyed people, yet I was perfectly happy to spend time alone.  I lived happily in my own world.  I liked to draw and I liked to read and those two activities took up 90% of any time I spent indoors.  I didn’t get into much trouble and if I did, I was stealth about it.

From early on I disliked dolls and enjoyed collecting toy cars and trucks.  I had a train set, which you wound with a key to make a little miniature steam train run around a circular track. I knew the make of every car on the road.  My parents, probably envisioning me fifteen years in the future coming home with a buzz cut and a girl dressed in plaid, started buying me dolls.  When I did finally play with them, it was to strap them to some devious contraption I’d concocted from an old roller skate and I’d crash them into walls, or drop them off of cliffs or run over them with my bike. 
When I was a little older I’d make them have orgies with G.I. Joe, Action Man, and Ken.

I loved being outside and in summer, when it was light till late, I’d be outside from early in the morning till late at night, coming home only if I was hungry or thirsty.  I was tall for my age, athletic and sported scabs on my knees for most of my childhood.  I embraced a challenge. I was always falling out of trees and off of swings.

When other little girls were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, they said “teacher” or “stewardess” or “nurse” or “pop star” whereas my ambition was to be a writer or a truck driver.  I guess those two things go hand in hand!  I’d hand write “novels” in a lined notebook and design my own covers for the outside.  I wanted to travel.  Later I wanted to be a pilot until I figured out I was scared of flying.

I had a big imagination.  I’d ride my bike around and pretend it was a horse, or a car, or that I was on a great adventure, like the sort kids in movies always seemed to have.  I’d climb trees and read among the branches.  I’d act out crazy scenarios in my mind.  I’d carve figures out of Plasticine or clay.

In the summer my grandparents would take me away for weekends by the ocean, in their camper, to give me a break from my more extroverted siblings. I had a strong interest in going places and in the Camper trailer itself.  When I visited their house, I’d pretend the camper was my den.

I’d have mad crushes on boys but they never knew.  I’ve never chased boys.  The ones I’ve had have always just happened, accidentally.  I wasn’t a long-haired, dainty, pretty 12-year-old Lolita that made teenage boys weak at the knees, I was the lanky, messy-haired tomboy who biked everywhere and was taller than most of them.  They never noticed me.  A few years later they were all much taller than me and I had boobs, so the whole dynamic changed.  Despite my huge collection of friends and acquaintances, I was shy but I maintained a wicked sense of humour. 

In my teens I didn’t mind school.  I found it fairly effortless and I was a straight A student.  I had a lot of friends but rarely a “best” friend. I liked my own company. I was interested in languages and screen printing and photography and music.  I rocked quadratic equations.  I sucked enormously at history.  I didn’t mind.

I’d lock myself  in my bedroom in the dark with my headphones on and listen to music.  I mean REALLY listen.  To every instrument, to the vocal, to the lyrics.  I favoured the obscure but I still demanded melody. I thought “mainstream” equated “boring”. 

Things I always had around:  a guitar, a sketch pad. I’d buy vintage clothes from the flea market and alter them to fit me.  I wrote short sci-fi stories. I drew cartoons.

I preferred the geeks to the sporty popular boys.  I wrote my own songs.  I wished I wore glasses.  I dyed my hair pink, then black, then bleached it blonde.

Sometimes I have trouble remembering the old me.  Other times she’s right there in the mirror staring back at me, only now she’s a little more tamed by the bonds of reality that growing up brings. It’s sort of bittersweet.  I’d still like to drive a truck. I still suck at history. I’m still imaginative and in love with creativity. 

I just fall off of swings less often.

Follow This

Everyone’s sure obsessed by “followers”, have you noticed? People have hundreds of followers. And those are just the ones that show up in the sidebar using the Blogger Following option. Which I don’t use. Because I’m special.

Special Ed.

Me, I follow 130 blogs on my Reader yet I don’t count towards anyone’s “followers”. Thanks Blogger. Thanks a lot.

See you reading right now? Yes, you! I probably follow your blog and you don’t even know it. Am I creeping you out now? I’m totally stalking you.

I see people every day trolling for followers like it’s a sign of their self worth and it kind of reminds me of the kid at school who handed out candy because he wanted to be popular. It’s strangely fascinating.

Me, I don’t have many followers and that’s really ok. I looked today precisely for this post and I have 26 followers on my main blog here. But you know what, they’re 26 QUALITY followers. I mean I’d rather have 26 freaking awesome, creative, fabulous followers than 200 bargain basement followers, with cooties, you know? When I get my pimped out Airstream? All 26 of you magnificent beasts are invited to help me christen it with debauchery.

Hmmm. Wait a minute though. My Google Reader stats tells me I have 97 people actually subscribed to the shite quality prose that I write. Isn’t that crazy? So actually I have 97 quality, awesome, creative, fabulous followers. I’m not sure I can fit 97 people in an Airstream. The debauchery will have to spill out into the yard! Bring your own chairs. And beer.

*note - I now appear to have guilted 2 of you guys into becoming followers and am at 28. I can achieve my dream of my own private Waco, sooner than anticipated! Unless you're totally fucking with me to mess up my figures. Jezebels.


I wonder who came up with the term “followers” and didn’t find it totally creepy? They couldn’t just have gone with “blog buddies” or “friends” or “interested parties”?

So hi followers! I’m like Charles Manson. Only without the beard. Or the murder in my heart. Or a penis. Or the crazy eyes.

OK, I have the crazy eyes…

Memories (Is a Really Dreadful Song)

I think everyone has a person or character in their life who was a small part of their conscious, every day existence for a while, who then suddenly vanished from their life as effortlessly as they entered it, never to be seen again and who you haven’t thought about more than a small handful of times since they went.

Something God and I were talking about the other day made me recall an old man I used to see around my neighborhood as a kid. He used to fascinate me and the other kids and I talked with him often, but one day he just wasn’t there anymore and I haven’t thought about him since, until now.

My conversation with God went something like this:

God (imitating some moose or walrus or something): *GRUNT* that’s the sound he made. 

Me: Oh. That noise reminds me of something. When I was little I used to hang around this old guy who made that exact sound. 

God: Uh…what? 

Me: He was always in the woods, grunting. 

God: …You hung around with some old guy in the woods who grunted a lot? 

Me: Yeah, he used to grunt really loudly while he was doing his thing. 

God: ???? 

Me; Oh for goodness sake, it was nothing like THAT. He grunted when he was stacking his wood. 

God: Excuse me? 

Me: He was always chopping wood. With an axe. And he’d stack it in piles. 

God: Have you ever considered therapy?

See, I grew up in the woods. Before you all go thinking “That explains EVERYTHING!” I was NOT raised by wolves or a strange new age cult, it’s just that our house happened to be among the trees, near the river on the edge of the woods. It was a great place to grow up, open space, trees to climb, no traffic or people, just long days of adventuring and being outdoors. And this old man would often be there with his axe, chopping and grunting, grunting and chopping.

As an adult you might be somewhat wary of an unwashed, old, grunting dude who skulked in the woods with an axe and who talked to children, but as a kid you don’t see anything suspicious or unreasonable about this, so we started going over and asking him intelligent things like, “what are you doing?” and “What’s your name?” and stupid stuff like that.

He was a man of few words but he was always polite and he’d answer our questions gracefully. Gradually, like kids do, everyone lost interest but I kept talking to him every day. Sometimes, when I was out walking my dog, I’d take him a sandwich or a cookie and ask him about various things and he’d sit back and talk. He got a real kick out of my dog too which made me like him even more. I got the feeling he didn’t have any family anymore and liked the company. He wasn’t creepy or dubious or anything like that, but he wasn’t quite all there either. We’d stay for ten minutes or so then I’d wave goodbye and head home.

Strangely enough, when I saw the movie “Slingblade” for the first time, it was like a jolt from the past - Billy-Bob Thornton’s character reminded me big time of that old man. He was an older version but the same simple, sad, somewhat sweet personality. You know, apart from the whole murder by Kaiser Blade, thing.

Nowadays if a kid talks to some old guy in the woods, someone’s on the phone with the police before you can blink. Back then everyone knew about the old guy and that he was harmless and no one batted an eyelid, except now and then to chide us not to bother him and let him do his work. Back then it was conceivable that something could still be innocent and harmless.

I wonder what happened to that old man? Did he stop coming round because he died? Got sick? Moved someplace else? Did he know that someone, all these years later would be wondering about him? Life’s full of ships that pass in the night, but just sometimes, some of them stick with you as a reminder of who you once were.