Wanda needed a back up singer for this one. Strain, and you can hear me.
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say what?
Category Archives: Uncategorized
the time i sang back up with wanda
Posted in Firsts, Schooling, Uncategorized, Work Experience
the time I got a black eye… with the help of my brother
Like many young children I was totally obsessed with my older siblings. I used to sit outside my sister’s door and scream for her to open it and hug me. When she wouldn’t oblige I’d move down the hall to my brother’s room and do the same. Eventually he’d open his door, kick me, yell for my parents to come haul me away, and slam the door in my tear-stained face.
As a result, the attention he did pay me was very important. We used to watch In Living Color together. After numerous episodes featuring Homey the Clown, I was ecstatic one afternoon when my brother filled a soccer sock full of gravel in an effort to replicate the “Homey Sock.”
To my utter delight, he chased me around the yard wielding this death sock like a lasso and bellowing “Homey Don’t Play Dat,” while I ran, just out of reach, screeching bloody murder. Fortunately he never succeeded in actually hitting me, as it would have undoubtedly caused brain damage.
One afternoon we were in the living room throwing a basketball back and forth. I was a gymnast and in between throws I was doing front somersaults on the couch. My brother, bored with our simple game, decided it would be more fun to throw the basketball at my head as hard as he could while I was upside down. He made this decision while I was mid-air.
The ball hit me somewhere in the stomach area throwing me off balance. I landed partially on the couch, partially on the floor, fell over and hit the side of my face on the coffee table. I burst into tears and may have blacked out.
That night my parents came home to discover I had a black eye that took up about a quarter of my face with a small gash right below my left eyeball.
The next morning my black eye had turned from black, to purple with tinges of yellow. I selected my favorite sunglasses; hot pink and black with diamond studs around the rim, and prepared for school as if nothing had happened. Even at nine years old, I’d watched enough early 90′s Lifetime movies to know that when a woman gets a black eye she wears sunglasses to cover it up.
As horrified as my parents were, there was no reason to keep me out of school. I didn’t feel bad. In fact, I was a little excited about demurely revealing my black eye when other kids asked me why I was wearing sunglasses in the classroom.
The morning passed with a flurry of attention from my fourth grade friends. By the afternoon the yellowing bruise had started to spread and it looked as if someone had vomited on my face. I was sitting alone in the hall reading (during ‘Sustained Silent Reading’) when the guidance counselor walked by.
“Hi Mrs. Kelleher!” I said, from behind my dark lenses.
She smiled absently and then did a double take. “Meghan? Why are you wearing sunglasses inside?”
I became bashful and was overcome with the feeling I was doing something wrong.
Mrs. Kelleher leaned in.
“Meghan. Take your sunglasses off please.”
I did. She inhaled sharply.
“Did someone hurt you?”
“I hit my head on the coffee table.”
I suddenly felt like one of those women in the Lifetime movies. I could feel her disbelief, her judgment. I felt dirty, like I was lying, like I’d done something wrong. The thing was, I wasn’t lying and I hadn’t done a damn thing except flip on the couch. But I could tell Mrs. Kelleher didn’t believe me. She thought I was hiding something.
She wanted me to come to her office to talk. But I insisted, no, I was fine. I had actually hit my head on the coffee table. Finally she let it go and I went back to reading.
At home that afternoon my brother gave me the heartfelt apology of a 13 year old not entirely sure if he almost killed his little sister. As a peace offering he let me chase him through the yard with the homey sock.
This time my parents came home from work to find their pony-tailed fourth grader with a yellowing bruise now encompassing half her face, chasing her brother through the yard, and trying to hit him with a sock full of gravel.
At least I was laughing, not crying.
Posted in Family Insanity, Parentals, Schooling, Uncategorized, Wardrobe
Tagged basketball, black eye, bruise, chase, childhood, education, elementary, guidance counselor, gymnastics, homey don't play dat, homey the clown, kid, reading, sibling rivalry, siblings, youth
the time i became a romantic
I was on the playground in first grade, and girls were organizing themselves into groups to go behind this big oak tree and see Dusty’s penis. Dusty was a pudgy kid with a shaved head and an unintelligible little boy country accent. At six years old, he’d found his calling, and all the girls were reaping the benefits.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the first or second group selected for viewing, so I had nothing to do but use the playground for playing. I was pissed too, standing there in my culottes and Keds, watching the oak tree beyond the clearing. Girls were coming out from behind it in droves, whispering and cackling, screaming ‘Eww’ and falling all over the place having just viewed Dusty’s junk. I wanted to see what the big deal was, but there was a very specific selection process and I had to wait my turn.
Instead, I got roped into a game of tag that encompassed a big playground structure full of platforms and balls and jungle gym stuff. I was reticent to get involved in something else –I didn’t want to miss my chance to see what Dusty was all about—but I quickly got immersed in the task at hand, running around, screaming and tagging people.
There was this boy, Zack, on my team and he was pretty cute but I’d never really noticed him before. The game was getting intense and somehow he and I ended up stranded on a platform at the top of this big jungle gym thing looking down at our cohorts being ravaged on the playground below. We were alone and nearing the point of surrender, not really sure what to do. 
For a second, I thought I was Rapunzel. I wanted to let down my golden hair so we could both climb down it. There was only one exit from the platform—a fireman’s pole that went all the way into a sand box roughly fifteen feet below. Our enemies had noticed us at the top of the platform and were rapidly ascending the far side of the structure. I looked desperately at Zack. What were we gonna do?
He took in the situation and then, in the ultimate Prince Valiant move, snaked one arm around my waist, reached out and grabbed the fireman’s pole, pulled me close and launched us both down it.
Time stopped for an instant.
I was Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. I was in a forest wearing layered dresses and I had porcelain skin and real breasts (not socks), shoved into a bustier and long flowing hair that I could toss around, and no bedtime, or homework, or forced vegetable consumption. I was in a fairytale. I was the fairytale.
Zack and I made it down, a pile of child’s limbs thudding to a halt in the sandbox, tearing away before the other team could catch us.
Recess ended but, for me, it had just begun. I stared, starry eyed at Zack as he ran over to the water fountain wiping his muddy palms on his shorts.
I never saw Dusty’s penis. Shortly thereafter he was busted and his peep-show practice terminated. I was bummed, but a year later, I saw this other boy’s and decided it was something I was in no hurry to see again.
However, my experience with Zack, I couldn’t wait to replicate.
Posted in Epiphany, Firsts, Schooling, Uncategorized, Wardrobe
Tagged bustier, clearing, dusty, elementary school, fairytale, fantasy, fireman, first grade, flowing, fun, jungle gym, kids, learning, north carolina, penis, playground, pole, recess, romance, sandbox, slide, socks
the time i was a hot mess dot com in london… part 1
When I was nineteen I studied abroad in London and fell in love with a Welsh barrister. Jon lived in a flat near Buckingham Palace with his sister, Felicity, who was excruciatingly posh. She wore little boots and had shiny hair and nostrils that flared ever so slightly when she was making a point.
I was awestruck and somewhat terrified of Felicity, who Jon lovingly referred to as, “Feliss.” He was twenty-five and she was twenty-one and, in retrospect, it was probably a little unacceptable for one’s older, mid-twenties brother to be dating a teenager. But Jon dated me and I smiled timidly as I felt Felicity watch me, tolerate me, keenly observing my oddly idiotic American tendencies.
When I started spending the night regularly at their flat, I knew I wasn’t imagining Felicity’s resentment. In the mornings, I would stay in bed while Jon went to work. (I only had class two days a week.) Hours later I would groggily sit up, warming my face on the slice of grey London sun that peeked through the French doors, only to be blasted into consciousness by the motion-detecting theft alarm erupting from outside Jon’s bedroom.
I’d stumble blindly into the hall, the earsplitting siren beating nails into my skull, until I found the keypad and punched off the alarm. It seemed that whenever I spent the night, Felicity set the alarm in the morning. It was perfect, really. A seemingly well-intentioned effort to protect their flat was an excellent mask for the “fuck you, child girlfriend” that roused me each day.
One night around 3am Jon, my friend Gretchen, and I stumbled back from a bender. I collapsed in the bedroom while Jon set up Gretchen’s cot in the den. After a million years I screeched, ”If you don’t come in here and fuck me right now, I’m gonna ralph all over you!”
Jon didn’t reply, so I waltzed back into the living room where he was staring at Gretchen with confusion saying, “Ralph? What does ralph mean?” As I opened my mouth to explain, I felt my stomach rising into my throat. Launching myself back down the hall, I barely made it to the toilet before the blue and purple meaty pasta sauce and liquor combination (this was also the first and only time I drank Absinthe) came sailing forth.
Several minutes later I managed to finish barfing, slip out of my clothes and stumble from the bathroom to the hallway. Just as I opened my mouth to scream the definition of “Ralph,” I came face to face with Felicity. She stood in her doorway, wearing her white Ralph Lauren silk bathroom and rubbing her eyes, her hair shining in the lamplight. I cowered for a moment, hoping she didn’t see me, but there I was, a drunk lump, two feet in front of her, wearing neon rainbow thongs with bows and a blue lace bra.
I gummed my lips together in an effort to explain, but she beat me to it with,
“Feeling a bit ill, are we?”
I wish I could say that screeching about screwing her brother while appearing in my redneck underwear with vomit smeared on my face, was the end of my embarrassment.
But, no.
Three days later, I outdid myself.
Posted in abroad, Humiliation, Schooling, Sexy Time, Uncategorized, Wardrobe, Work Experience
Tagged barrister, buckingham palace, embarrassed, england, hot mess, london, love, nineteen, posh, redneck, royalty, study abroad, teenager, the UK, thongs, travel, wealthy, youth
the time i discovered the adult onesie
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina is the ultimate redneck getaway, and when I was fourteen my family went there to vacation. As we passed billboards for South of the Border (a decidedly racist ‘resort’) and Jesus Christ, (yes, there are entire billboards devoted to Bible quotes) I grew increasingly excited about spending some time in this white trash Mecca.
Like many southerners who move to other parts of the country, I have a love/ hate relationship with the south.
I both loathe and celebrate my roots—relishing the iced tea, array of accents and slow sweltering summers,
while hating the rampant closed mindedness and militant Christianity.
Of course, every part of “the south” is vastly different and as far as I was concerned Myrtle Beach was like visiting the circus.
It turned out to be everything I wanted and more; huge Ferris wheels, bumper cars, tourists with no teeth, vats of cotton candy consumed by people of unparalleled obesity, tattoo parlors on every corner and a fabulous selection of mullets, skullets and chullets drinking Ice House beer while bobbing in Jacuzzis with women clad in Budweiser bikinis.
Yet, of all this sensory magic, the following takes the cake.
I was picking up sea shells during a late afternoon walk with my mom when I spotted a woman. She was bending over, about 30 feet ahead of us, making a very specific shell selection. Possibly in her mid-thirties, she had a leathery tan and bleached blonde hair preceded by several inches of black roots (later rocked by SJP in Sex and the City). It was her clothing that nearly stopped me dead in my tracks.
She wore a large piece of blinding neon pink, yellow and green tie died fabric stretched across her entire body. The fabric was sorta loose with openings for the legs and arms and head. A scrunchy coil of elastic connected the fabric across her back. I was trying to figure out what exactly this contraption was when she suddenly stood up revealing a phrase emblazoned in HUGE capitol neon orange letters across her entire front:
“I WANNA SEX YOU UP”
She stood there, eying her shells, in all her tie-dyed glory.
I was looking at a onesie on an adult.
Also, she was pregnant.
I wanted to stop and ask this woman about her wardrobe selection. I wanted to understand, really get, at what point in her preparation for the day she looked in the mirror and thought, “I’m ready.” Most of all, I wished I had a camera.
I kept walking, wondering, never knowing, and a few seconds later the woman gathered her shells and headed on down the beach.
Nowadays the adult female onesie is all the rage. My friend Stephanie just got me one for my birthday (solid black, no words) and I see ladies rocking them all the time.
In the same way she set the precedent for the SJP roots exposure, I secretly credit “I Wanna Sex You Up” pregnant woman for bestowing the crude template for the modern onesie on the world of mainstream fashion.
The south is a lot more progressive than you think.
Posted in Epiphany, Firsts, Sexy Time, Uncategorized, Wardrobe
Tagged adult, beach, childhood, fun, growing up gambling, I wanna sex you up, myrtle beach, onesie, sex and the city, shells, south carolina, south of the border, summer, vacation, walking
the time i should have gotten my ass kicked
Middle school is like a war zone and my school was in it to win it.
It was the mid 90’s during the height of the Tupac/Biggie feud and my peers had designated the left side of our 7th grade hall “west side” and the right side “east side.”
Every day when classes changed all the students — black and white, male and female– would run into the centrum and start screeching ‘west side’ and ‘east side’ and throwing up their best attempts at gang signs. I participated, not just because everyone else was, but because I had a huge crush on Anthony, one of the instigators of this little gang simulation.
Anthony was about 6 feet tall, black and looked like he was 20. I met him in 2nd grade and since I’d hit puberty he’d been paying me special attention.
Unfortunately, Anthony already had a white girlfriend who didn’t really want him getting another one. Brandi had a perm, braces and an attitude that would not quit. When Anthony dumped Brandi and started “talking” to me, Brandi expressed her anger by screaming obscenities at me in the hall.
I’d scream right back, calling her bitch and ho as she repeatedly threatened to beat me up. Sometimes my friend Rebecca, who was a center for the basketball team, would report things back to me that Brandi said at practice. This would only fuel my anger. Brandi and I kept screaming at each other for several weeks but she never actually pulled a punch. I genuinely believe she was scared of me.
Then one day I was sitting in social studies class when I heard a scuffle outside and then a scream. In those days fights were as common as the class bell but that didn’t lessen the desire to witness one going down. Undeterred by our teacher, the class ran out into the centrum and joined the dozens of other students that had torn out of their seats to see who was getting beat up this time.
There was Brandi, standing in the middle of the hall, holding this girl Amanda by the hair. Amanda howled as Brandi used her free hand to punch, slap and claw Amanda’s face. Then Brandi let go of Amanda’s hair, kicked her to the ground and started pummeling her. Brandi picked Amanda up again—by the hair—and went for her face, this time beating her with an open handed fist.
Amanda was helpless, squawking and screeching but not quick enough to get in a single punch, scratch or even kick. Brandi was like a wild animal unleashed. Her movements were rapid, methodic, precise. This was no fight. It was a full on ambush and Amanda didn’t stand a chance.
People began laughing and inhaling sharply and I wasn’t sure why until I noticed Amanda’s pants. She had peed herself.
Finally some teachers sauntered over and broke up the fight, dragging each girl separately to the office. I stood there totally shocked wondering, Why wasn’t that me?
Later Rebecca met me at my locker. She told me Brandi had been dying to beat the shit out of me for weeks but that Rebecca had intercepted and told Brandi that if she ever touched me, she’d have to deal with Rebecca.
At age 13, Rebecca was 6ft 1 and stronger than any girl I knew. Nobody fucked with her. I was speechlessly grateful, staring at the spot on the floor thinking how easily I could have been the one peeing myself.
The bell rang and the throng of students throwing up gang signs disappeared into their classrooms.
I never did date Anthony but 2 weeks later he and Rebecca got together. They dated for six months, which, for middle school is like an eternity.
Posted in Epiphany, Firsts, Schooling, Uncategorized
Tagged basketball, beat down, boyfriends, boys, class, couples, east side, education, fights, friendship, gangs, middle school, school, west side
the time i got hit on by a special ed minor
In college I was a lifeguard at a pool that was notorious for shutting down because someone had pooped in the shallow end. While such incidents are usually attributed to very small children, in our case the #2’s were due to the enticing discounts we provided for the nearby special education camps.
These campers ranged in age from 5 or 6 to well into their 40’s and came with a plethora of needs and challenges. As a young, inexperienced lifeguard, I too felt that life was full of potential dangers and challenges – one being – supervising the deep end swim test which often resulted in an ‘active drowning’ rescue.
One day, as I singlehandedly “manned” this section of the pool, a bus full of campers opened it’s doors and a sea of people with varying mental capacities came charging towards me.
I watched, helpless, as over twenty campers stampeded through the gates and flung themselves into the deep end. I didn’t know what to do first. Blow my whistle? Jump in and try to grab them all at once? Simply walk away?
I saw my co-workers; Juliana on the other side of the pool leisurely applying sunscreen, Eddie asleep on a towel. Did no one see what was happening?
I prepared for the group rescue of a lifetime but just as I was about to launch myself into the murky blue water, I realized that none of the kids were actually drowning. As a matter of fact, they’d all bobbed to the surface and were yelling and screeching and laughing.
At that moment, their camp counselor strolled up to me and asked how my day was going. I slowly pointed at the deep end and she said,
“Most of the campers are autistic so they’re all really good swimmers.”
Wtf?
“Yeah,” she continued. “They have really good instincts and a lot of them just naturally know how to swim.”
Oh. Really?
Later, the lifeguards rotate and I take up post in the shallow end where a lone African American teenager in a life jacket bobbed in the two-foot section. This was more like it. I was relieved to just sit back, relax and chill with this guy. He even giggled a little, which was great, cause I love to laugh.
Juliana had taken up my post, glancing nervously at the campers flailing and screeching in the deep end. I looked at Eddie, who’d gotten off the towel, and was standing near a man with down’s syndrome. The man was climbing up and down the ladder of the slide, crying cause he was too scared to go down.
My one camper giggled and bobbed his head to his own beat. And then he said something.
“What?” I asked.
He giggled and said it again. I leaned in, repeating, “What?”
He shook his head and then articulated clearly and flirtatiously, “Girl.. shutchyo’ mouth.”
I looked around. Excuse me?
“Girl, you nasty.”
What?
“Girl, you so nasty. Shutchyo’ mouth. Girl… you nasty.” He laughed again and I looked around in horror.
“Nasty, nasty. Mm. Hmm.”
Was this kid faking? Was he hitting on me? What?
He said it a few more times, chuckling to himself like he knew something I didn’t. This went on for several minutes and not once did I actually respond. I focused my attention on the man with down’s syndrome, overjoyed when he finally made it down the slide.
The camper in the life jacket continued to address me.
I glanced desperately around the pool, momentarily distracted by the overweight middle aged camper circling the perimeter with an early 90’s boombox hiked over his shoulder blasting The Pure Prairie League’s “Amy” on repeat.
Eventually, thankfully, it was time for the lifeguards to rotate.
I was back to the deep end where my terror was replaced by relief. I watched Eddie take up my post, wondering what the kid was going to say to him. A few minutes passed but he seemed to have no visible interest in telling Eddie that he was nasty.
Then I heard Juliana squeal. She was using a net to fish something dark and solid out of her side of the pool. Upon close inspection she announced, “We got a butterfinger! Clear the pool!” I blew the whistle and she, Eddie, the counselor and I helped herd the distraught kids out of the water and back towards the bus.
Just another day at the office.
Posted in Firsts, Uncategorized, Work Experience
Tagged bathing suit, baywatch, boombox, bus, college, drowning, friends, fun, lifeguards, pool, swimming, whistle, work
what is this thing?
This is a blog about my life. No, not this life silly, my old one. The pre LA one when I learned everything I need to know to function in the non-world super-world I currently inhabit.
This is Growing Up (or throwing up) Gambling
Posted in Uncategorized
