13th
The Simplest Terms, the Most Convenient Definitions
Dear Mr. Vernon,
I accept the fact that I had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was that I did wrong…and what I did was wrong (I mean, in hindsight anyone could see that stealing pot from Dylan’s dad’s underwear drawer and smoking it naked in a hot tub with a bunch of wasted senior citizen hippies is not only wrong but seriously gross, I mean do you know what an old man’s penis looks like? Like a wrinkly baby mouse. Like a candied fig. Not that that’ll stop me from eating them at Christmas.) but I think you’re crazy to make me write this essay telling you who I think I am. What do you care? You see me as you want to see me… in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. You see me as a brain (I mean you do, right, think I’m smart? I don’t necessarily mean socially smart or book smart, or I guess even street smart even though that’s probably the most important, but like my SOUL is smart. Like after I gave Dave a hand job and then we spooned and then I thought maybe his sperm crawled off his dick and between my ass cheeks and up my vagina and got me pregnant and I totally freaked out, I wrote this poem:
“I see glitter in the ashtray where you ashed your cigar.
Sometimes men get what they want.
I stare blindly at your profile as you inhale and cough,
your cheeks caved in, hollow and dark.
The ocean rapes the powdery sand, laughing, lapping.
Dexterity fondles and gropes.
I want to say you weren’t worth my time, aren’t worth my fixation.
That you aren’t different from the rest.
That our conversation didn’t flow like sand from a released fist.
That I never felt a piece of my moon-stricken desert in you, that –
never mind, I’m just saying true things.”*
See? Soul smart.), an athlete (well, okay, truth be told and I’m sure you know this because you’ve seen me run, but I am actually not much of an athlete. For instance, I went silly-stringing on Halloween with Angie – I probably shouldn’t have told you that — and I silly stringed in the open window of this car and then I saw there was a man SITTING IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT! I know! I screamed and me and Angie ran all the way to that 50’s diner that’s run by Asians and hates kids and I was so out of breath and laughing so hard and peed and I had throw away my underwear and fishnet tights in the trashcan!), a basket case (I guess you could argue that thinking you could get pregnant from an HJ qualifies me as a basket case, but I also used to be afraid of the weather. In North Carolina, I was so afraid of tornadoes that any time it was cloudy I wouldn’t go to school, or I’d go home sick. I was the only 4th grader who watched the morning weather religiously. That was the year I told everyone I was half horse and the teacher said I couldn’t hang out with her anymore at recess.), a princess (I know the lyrics to almost all the Disney Princess songs. Not so much Jasmine because I don’t really relate to her but I don’t think it’s because she’s ethnic. She’s just kinda… yeah, it might be the ethnic thing. I like to pretend I’m Ariel and that I have a tail instead of a vagina. If I were her, I would have made Eric become a merman instead. Redheads, right?), and a criminal (Well, here goes: One summer my friends and I broke into a thrift store that gave proceeds to either battered women or retarded people. Or retarded, battered women, I forget. We stole a bunch of clothes. I got an awesome corduroy jacket but then I lost it because of karma. I guess we caused a bunch of people to become battered. Or retarded.) Correct? That’s the way I saw myself at seven o’clock this morning. I was brainwashed.
Sincerely,
The Breakfast Party of One
*actual excerpt from my ‘95 journal
