February 22, 2010 Beyond the pretty psychedelia. Beyond the silly things that seem to fall out of my roommate’s mouth. Beyond the Kerouac and the Gallagher brothers. Beyond Beyond Beyond. I am not beyond this. This is eating me alive. A series of events occurred late last night. I’ll happily provide a brief summary if you don’t have the patience to rummage through the forthcoming ramble: I ended up in the hospital last night, then in handcuffs, and finally in the detox clinic where the crazy man who loudly urinates beside the 7-11 and I made acquaintance. Okay, the last part is false—I didn’t have the opportunity to make friends with Burlington’s impoverished as I was utterly alone in a tiny, dark cubicle with a bed like marble. My dad’s here. He flew up from home. I’m situated at a cheap wooden desk. The heat at Comfort Inn is not cooperating. I am flustered, cold, and am currently keeping myself sane with Kid A and my parents’ unfailing love and concern. The consensus is that I should leave Vermont and return home to get myself together. “Did this happen to you when you were eighteen?” Maybe, maybe not. It was my half-birthday last night. Had I been home, we would’ve commemorated the occasion with Make-Your-Own Taco night and cupcakes courtesy of Bloom. In college, I celebrate with cheap vodka. Perhaps some things are best left as a novelty; a special circumstance. How fitting! I’m a fucking special circumstance as well. So I drink. I chase my worries with Red Bull and impulse. I vehemently ignore the fact that I had recently ingested two times the medication my brain, which, at the moment, is deteriorating more and more into oblivion with every swig, is accustomed to. There is an overabundance of serotonin pulsating through my bloodstream and it finds itself being threatened by an obscene amount of alcohol. There is no struggle. My body shuts down. Marla and I are walking to a party nearby. Suddenly, I am sitting. What compelled me to sit down? It’s not a far walk and I should hurry certainly hurry along because my jacket is MIA and the temperature would make the Titanic kiddies cringe. I am sitting and crying. There are bright lights. I am oddly comforted by the navy blue uniforms. I find public safety to be surprisingly unintimidating. They blend well with the night sky. Marla better be on her way now; they will take care of me. I am in an ambulance. “What did you take? How many pills did you take?” What pills? I am not a pill popper. I’m just a little girl far from home and I’m scared shitless. I want my parents and my cat. I want my bed. I want this to all go away. Why is this happening? I had learned to crawl, speak, walk, and run so long ago. At this moment, I only remember how to sob. Even breathing—breathing!—must be aided by an oxygen mask. The lights are so blinding it’s almost violent. The doctor(s) are friendly. They all seem so young. I tell myself that I am in a campus building, perhaps the fire and rescue station, and the doctors and nurses are all students, like me. The police officer pacing outside is really a student, like me. My doctor looks like Doogie Howser and he softly informs me of what I had done. My brain is weeping. I don’t understand why I am in handcuffs. I’m just a little girl who likes to read and write stories, a little girl very far from the comfort of her home, and I am in handcuffs. I am being placed in a police car. Why must I be transported back to campus like a criminal? “I could bring you to jail,” he says with a blank expression. Jail? No. No. No. No. No. Please, please, sir. Bring me back to my bedroom where I can sleep away the pain that I cannot drink away. I am not a bad person! Please, drive me directly to 410 and see the schedule that has been intricately taped above my bed. Look at the letter my mom wrote me before school. She didn’t think I could do it, Officer. She really loves me and wants me to good. Look at the self-help books I have on the shelf and Hopeline’s website forever archived on my computer. “Or I can bring you to a detox center. You will be released once your BAC has gone down.” Officer! No, officer! This doesn’t happen to daughters. My body is on fire. Ignore the hookah and empty beer cans strewn across the floor! Look at this paper, some random paper—I got an A! Sixth months ago, I received this beautiful wooden wall ornament that proclaims in funky, happy text: “The road home is never far!” Downtown is empty. I am coatless, phoneless. I am utterly alone. There’s a garage, like my garage, and I’m being taken into my living room. My living room harbors literature regarding drug addiction and AIDS. My bedroom is so much smaller than I remember. It consists of a single twin bed, a garbage can, and a plastic chair. My entire worth has been diminished to a bed, a trashcan, and a plastic chair. “Go to sleep.” I dream of my friends. Even Lauren and Noah, despite being gone for so long, want to see me. I walk into a large room, so large it appears almost infinite, with windows from the floor to the ceiling and red couches everywhere. Where should I sit? “You’re here!” My friend Mike brushes the cushions onto the floor. “Sit right here where we can all see you! Tell us what happened!” It’s such a sad, sad story you see. Yet I am beaming. They care so much. “It all began about a year ago…” My friends fade into a figure situated on my right. “… I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression.” It’s a girl maybe a little older than I am she’s very pretty. Even her teeth and voice are gorgeous. She nods empathetically. She too struggled with her drug intake, both medicinal and spiritually medicinal. I fail the breathalyzer. As punishment, I go back to sleep. I awake. My time perception is non-existent. There is no window, but I imagine the sun rising above the frost. I wonder whether or not I’m supposed to pee in the trashcan. I slowly open the door and am assaulted by more fluorescent lights and confusion. The bathroom has no mirror I wash my face and dry myself with sandpaper cruelly disguised as a paper towel. In the real world, it’s afternoon. My dad has already boarded the airplane. The cab driver smiles, “Had a bit too much fun last night, huh?” He chuckles. I share the ride back to Essex with an older man, stocky and red-haired. He would have to pay an extra $3 if the driver brought him to CVS to pick up cigarettes. See, his girlfriend likes menthol but he doesn’t. Oh well, he’ll walk the extra four blocks. His girlfriend “insisted” he come home early. The campus regards me as a liability waiting to happen. They assign a woman to watch over me, a babysitter, for the next few hours to make sure I don’t jump out a window. She’s a snarky bitch. Dad is parked by the Virgin Mary statue. His disappointment is made evident by that condescending businessman tone he uses whenever I fuck up. I haven’t eaten all day. We pull into the Friendly’s parking lot. I walk over to him. “Now, give me a real hug,” he says as I am pulled into an embrace that is long overdue. There is a very large mirror in the bathroom. I look drained. I feel nothing. I’m working on a paper. Dad jokes, “Want to quote me?” Sure. “There’s an old Saturday Night Live sketch, way back in the day—first season maybe? Anyway, it’s Chevy Chase and John Belusi and they’re writers for this newspaper. So they’re slaving away and getting fed up because there really isn’t anything worth reporting. Suddenly, Belusi hops up and shouts, “I got it! How about ‘Mad Man Kills People’?!” He grabs a machete located conveniently under his desk and jumps out the window.” Laughter ensues. I find this oddly inspirational.
Anonymous asked: Oh Skankerella. When didst thou escape from your educational institution? When did you move forth into the realm of freedom? Want to hang out and listen to Wu-tang?
All the smartypants collectivity is in my brains. Several months ago. Yes, that sounds wonderful.
I’m back. This will be my new consistency from now on. Much has happened… and that is a very juicy (<— BEST SHIT EVER) much.
September 2002
Jared. It could only be Jared!
The sun streams in through the dusty blinds and illuminates his porcelain skin and gentle profile. He’s such a pale lad that if I stare too long, he blends into the cinderblock.
My eyes move up his torso, past his long neck, and beyond his jet black Caesar cut. He blinks and slowly looks to the right where I’m sitting as he feels my pubescent attraction radiating from my eyeballs. I quickly gaze upward and study one of the three hundred pseudo-motivational posters that adorn my sixth grade English class. To further enhance my fraud interest, I furrow my eyebrows and silently mouth the bullshit inspiration with feigning interest. I nod my head profusely with newfound confidence and understanding:
“Thirty years from now, it won’t matter what jeans you wore. What will matter is what you LEARNED and how you USED it.”
This No Child Left Behind proverb is accompanied with a picture of a polar bear. Polar bears don’t even wear jeans.
But I do! And I pinch my arm with anger and watch the mark fade from red to rosy white with bitterness. I WANT to wear jeans from Limited Too and Aeropostale, but Mom says their too expensive and they probably wouldn’t even fit. Fuck the future. My future internships are meaningless compared to my constant daydreams of prancing around in stretch flares with embroidered flowers and gems. They didn’t make them in my size. In my head, I am a size four. Outside my head, I am eleven years old, chubby, frizzy haired, and brace-faced. I wear lipgloss and silver eye shadow that I tricked my dad into buying for me while Mom was at a Springsteen concert. I’m still a catch.
I like Jared because he’s quiet and unassuming, and I think he could like me.
On the bus home that day, I announce to my friend that Jared is cute. His voice has already begun to change from soprano to baritone and my inner Lolita is on fire.
“He’s alright,” she says, bored.
“I think I like him!” With that phrase exclaimed, I have now marked my territory.
I want Jared to be my b/f. I want our names scribbled on each other’s hands in gel pens. I dream of having his name in my AOL Instant Messenger profile accompanied by our anniversary and an overabundance of hearts.
<3
November 2009
I was born and raised in the Bible Belt. However, due to my general disinterest in all things redneck, oxycodone, and Confederate, I’ve harbored an immense desire to relocate ever since Al Gore lost the presidency.
So, I moved to the Haight-Ashbury of New England and sought comfort within the overabundance of marijuana as well as the mesh-clad homosexual population. Everything was absolutely fagalicious! Despite the colder climate, I found myself warmed up by the sight of cute hippie boys in all their scruffy, dreaded, Cherry Garcia lovin’ glory.
Before I doused myself in patchouli and attempted to lure Mr. Sunshine Daydream in with special brownies, I remembered that I was in this city for a reason and I mustn’t be too distracted. After all, I had a GPA to maintain.
Despite it’s location in such a laid back, disgustingly liberal city, the majority of my fellow students are uppity douchers hailing from prestigious boarding schools and spend their free time drinking boxed wine, exploring the depths of North Face, and skiing. Second in population density are trustafarians. Last but not least, the minority is comprised of authentic, greasy middle classers who like African drum circles and acrylic bongs. These kiddies became my most prized friends.
Jed was a lad whose eyes were much too small and his lips much too big. He knew a guy who knew a guy with mushrooms, so we kept him within close proximity. He was nice enough, although his gaze seemed empty and he didn’t speak often. What I did know was that he, like myself, had read the beatnik literature like anyone else would read Harry Potter. The summer before, he placed his tattered copy of On The Road in his knapsack and ventured across country; he endured constant hunger and slept on benches. By August, he had made it to San Francisco and dosed for the first time with his Kesey lookalike counterpart.
We never blossomed beyond good acquaintances. We smiled in passing; yet as I was studying in the library, he was popping tabs like Tic Tacs. His innocent demeanor was cruelly overcast by his mushrooming (hah, pun) dissociation from reality.
But goddiggity damnit, did I ever find him more and more attractive as the days grew shorter! His copious use of psychedelics and other pills made him all the more rugged and withered a la Pete Doherty. One morning, I nearly pissed myself in horniness when I noticed his stark resemblance to the corpse of my dreams.
Now, do I earn bad karma for indirectly contributing to his bad habits by lusting after the appearances that they created? Whatever dude, the fact that he would flunk out was so silently inevitable that really, all there was left to do was indulge. And indulge I did.
Jed and I found our bodies intertwined and sweaty in a dark dorm that was pulsating with music. I felt my inner 15 year-old hoe become nostalgic for Homecoming ‘06 by this grinding/dancing/third world mating ritual. How did we get here? His breath is heavy on my neck.
The weather is unusually warm and the stars are blinding. Five of us walk beyond campus and into an open valley that overlooks the looming, dark blue mountains. Jed is stumbling and has already thrown up once. I am wearing the yellow sundress that I scored in a Providence thrift shop for nineteen dollars. It’s novelty is forever absent in the dark.
He’s holding two girls’ hands simultaneously, myself included, both females completely oblivious. Whoever’s palm remains intact receives intimacy in return. Shitty, shitty intimacy.
Our group disperses and we are completely, utterly alone.
I sit besides him on a rock that overlooks the Earthly masses. No words were needed as his lips ferociously pressed against mine, and I found myself empty and indifferent. He is aggressive and makes no effort to gently coax me into performing oral. To him, it’s a chore as uninspiring as grocery shopping or vacuuming and it must be performed quickly yet efficiently. This is so not romantic. This is a straight up duty. I feel like this blowjob was ordered by a draft card. VIETNAAAAAAMMM!
Is there an imaginary timer that I’m completely unaware of? A threatening tortoise that is making his way to the peak at warped speed? Fuck dis shit. Before I can even protest, boom! Cock in my vag. Well, okay. We’ll consider this charity. The whole thing is over before you can say “Aesop.”
This would happen. I would have completely undesirable sex with an acidhead in the middle of a fucking valley. Whoop de doo. The best part? Well, I had the opportunity to experience a moment that was much, much more awkward than a walk of shame: a walk of shame performed side-by-side. Seriously? Seriously. He remained two steps ahead.
The next morning, I write off our trifling copulation as a bad idea made right by Natty Light. We continue to smile at each other in passing and winter break, as well as his impending expulsion, are drawing near.
To commemorate the holidaze, my friends and I go all out and pick up a bottle of mint schnapps. Yum in my tum! By this point, Jed had officially defined himself as the orbiting eclipse of his roommate/bff, The Acid Empire Provider. He was absent and gray. Despite our previous night, my heart ached for what I had always considered an intelligent, warm soul. He had lost himself. We had loved the same books and the same songs, yet I survived. He did not.
We are merrily drunk. There is a quiet knock on the door and Jed enters the room with a waif smile.
Our tinsel spirit compels us to offer him drink after drink. He and I sit on my bed and exchange witty banter. It is a fraud conversation, but it is all either of us can muster. It is a happy effort.
He rolls a joint; a peace offering.
I put on my peacoat and we walk outside. It’s two in the morning and it seems as though the whole town has fallen into a restless sleep. The snow quietly falls and envelopes us together.
We huddle together and giggle about everything and nothing in particular. I know that this will be the last time we’ll truly be together. No road trips, no reading of Ginsberg out loud, no henna on our hands. This is not for me.
I lull him to a stoop; a peace offering. I kiss him gently. Our cheeks grow red and the roach is discarded.
I walk upstairs, he follows. I turn to him the stairwell. We kiss again, one last time.
“I’m going to bed,” he says with a sad smile.
“Good night.” I turn and walk to my room.
All is well.
____________________________________________________
Where are they now?
Jed was ultimately kicked out of school for poor attendance and failing grades. As a native to the city, he resides in nearby apartments and often goes dorm to dorm in exchange for his acid. He began steadily boning a moocher cokehead who looks like a thumb to commemorate the new year. Last I heard, she is pregnant and Jed is currently looking for a job to provide for his illegitimate spawn.
I am ridiculous. In addition to that, I have a disgusting affinity for felines in compromising positions, Taco Bell, and sideburns.
I reside on the east coast. I was recently kicked out of college. It was the ultimate party foul.
Reading:
Watching:
Listening:
Desiring:
Smelling:
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if my happiness could have talked it would have filled that hotel room with a deafening roar.”
In the beginning, God created this bitch and it was good. She was good. All was just super good.
This bitch fell in love with Barney, and thus her appreciation for that super de duper cute deaf kid was born. Remember him? Well, I sure do. The producers at Barney always seemed to discover the cutest of the most broken children. Freckles? I can dig. Wheelchair ridden? I fucking want.
As the 90’s turned into the century we know and love today, my infatuation for all men awkward has not. Lucky for me, I learned not to limit myself to only the crippled. I have since found love and/or lust in the following:
But wait, there’s more! Follow me and witness whatever remaining dignity I have left diminish with every click of the “Create post” button.
Love always,
Skankerella