I have no fucking idea what I was thinking when I dyed my hair so many times with kool-aid that it looked like fruity-pebble-vomit, but that was me at 13 through most of my teens. When you live in South Georgia in the Bible belt, you really don’t have to try too hard not to fit in. In essence, all you have to do is denounce God (check), vocally hate high school football or any kind of football (check), and mock country music at every turn (check, check, and check). But I’m a firm believer in driving the point home. That started at a young age. In my makeup bag, you would likely have found black lipstick, blue lipstick, black as night eyeliner, a few joints, and a myriad of “smoky” eyeshadows. In my closet…a full selection of baggy clothes including diy pants, thrift store specials, and band tees (all horrible metal). I was undoubtedly a walking series of awkward moments crafted from my intense rebellion of everything Southern.
I was living with my father the drug dealer/welder at the time all this started. In my defense, I was, if you haven’t read any of my other blogs, raped while he was on a drug run one weekend for which he vehemently blamed me. How is a kid supposed to deal with that immediately following the divorce of her parents coupled with years of physical and mental abuse? I don’t think there’s any way to deal with it well, so my choice, seemingly, was to get weird with it.
I mean, I covered my school notebooks in mugshots of Marilyn Manson…without the makeup. That kind of
weird.
Some days I faked drunk at school to cover up being stoned. I made friends with people who, like me, didn’t manage to really fit in anywhere else. We could have been the Misfit Toys from Rudolph. I skipped classes. I cussed at other kids who dared threaten or bully or even mock the few friends I did have. I didn’t go to football games or dances or do extracurricular activities. By all accounts I was Ally Sheedy from the Breakfast Club with Judd Nelson’s weed stash. I still made all As and graduated with honors in the top 10% of my class, but that’s only because social skills aren’t part of the grading requirements. If those were added, I surely would be a high school dropout.
The awkwardness didn’t exactly stay behind once I left my teens either. Being awkward, I am also a magnet for it as these following tidbits will show:
In a discussion about phone sex, a guy jokingly uttered the phrase, “I’m going to fuck you on a goat, girl.” Years later, that phrase is what he used to successfully find me on Facebook.
Once while heavily making out with a date, I slid my hands inside the back of his jeans to grab his ass. He pulled away from me and said, “I have a hairy ass.”
I have actually made the statement, “Even I wouldn’t blow Michael Bolton in a truck stop bathroom.”
Hugs from me always look like this:
I thought it would be a good idea to let my ex-husband and a girlfriend be my roommates for a little while when they needed a place to stay, But, then, she came to me for relationship advice…
I wrote a couple of things about guys I had dated/sexed on a social media website I was on… They weren’t exactly flattering, and the two guys in question found and read them and (of course) contacted me about them.
I also wrote something about coworkers of mine. I referred to them as The Bitch Twins because they were really fucking awful. At the time, I didn’t realize how much time they spent stalking me online. One of them found what I had written and told my boss about it.
I volunteered for a period at a mental hospital on the forensic unit. The very first day in a group therapy lesson, a patient (consumer/client) started furiously masturbating under his shirt and staring at my tattoos while a very angry lady talked about being ripped from the Garden of Life and being forced to live among the houseplants. I refused to look at either one of them.
My ex’s newest girlfriend was helping me paint my son’s room one weekend. She found some things left behind by my ex and his old girlfriend (the one he lived here with for awhile). I was honest about whose things they were. I mean, given that he has a son, I was pretty sure she understood he had a sex life before she came along. Unfortunately, she was under the delusion that he existed in a bubble of sexlessness, however, because she immediately ran from the house shaking and crying.
My dryer is broken, but I use a clothesline to dry my clothes anyway. It saves on my power bill. Occasionally, though, when the weather is rough, my best friend/roommate’s mom will let us use her dryer. She always insists on folding up the clothes before we get back to pick them up, though. Once, I forgot to check for things I would rather her not see in my laundry and she folded a pair of crotchless panties.
I think that probably says everything anyone ever needs to know about my awkwardness, so I'll just leave it with you trying to imagine my friend's mother as she recognized (or wondered about) what she was folding....
You are awesome and hilarious!
ReplyDeleteHilariously awkward. ha.
DeleteOh I love this. So much.
ReplyDeleteThe kool-aid never worked on my hair :-(
I gotta admit, I did cover my notebooks with the names of every local band-punk and ska of course-and thought glitter was just as essential as water those days.
Now...I need to watch The Breakfast Club.
The first band I ever saw live was Less Than Jake!
DeleteI was 16 at the time and the friends I was with were kicked out for getting too violent in the pit. That's a whole story of awkwardness all to itself.
DeleteI apologize if this double posts-I was having issues.
DeleteAnyway-saw Less Than Jake @ Warped Tour. NOFX, Anti-Flag, Flogging Molly & a whole bunch of others I 'loved'!
Oh mosh pits, how I'm still terrified of you!
I don't think I'd know any one new now though because I'm old and lame...and awkward ;-)
Great. Now I have a visual of Michael Bolton in a truck stop bathroom. Thanks:) I love that you've embraced your awkwardness.
ReplyDeleteNow picture him singing When a Man Loves a Woman in that bathroom...
Deletehaha
Just, awesome :)
ReplyDeleteSomeone pointed out on Facebook that 30 years ago today, March 24, 1984, the Breakfast Club met for detention. And my awkward moment was I read it that the breakfast club met with "ME" for detention thinking the woman who posted it was being delusionally funny and the voices in my head corrected me.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, you are hilariously funny. I was cursed by a woman who fit the way you described yourself in high school, her name was Angelina, so my friend who was cursed with me and I both refer to it as the Curse of Angelina. Between that and reading where you denounced God when I'm kind of in a religious predicament where I am counting on God to help me, I really was probably your toughest audience and you had me laughing and enjoying the read. I'm so sorry you went through everything you did, but it sounds like you picked up the pieces and carried yourself home pretty well. Better than I ever could have. Even though we disagree about God, fashion (I'm still wearing the nice red sweater and purple sweatpants I was wearing when I wrote my blog post), and probably music (you don't strike me as someone who listens to Ice Cube and Beethoven), I would have been friends with you in high school because I was misfitty too and I liked cussing people out who were threatening my friends. I just cussed them out like a gangsta. A white country gangsta. Like Awww he elll naw, someone hold my math homework, this biatch be trippin...
My music tastes these days might surprise you :) I have been known to put my ass into it when Ice Cube is played. Ha. Is that an awkward sentence? I think it probably is. I used to go to sleep listening to Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, but more or less I listen to a lot of garage rock/blues and something called fuzz metal and stoner rock even though I'm not really a stoner anymore. You should really give Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears a shot. They're one of my favorites and I bet you'll come back and thank me. Ha.
DeleteThank you for the compliments, though. It means a lot to know I could make someone laugh despite our differences.
As one of those misfit toy friends, you covered really well. And I don't believe for a second that you had a hairy ass.
ReplyDelete