10/3/08-
We had to go to Katherine Zodrow's house to pick up the Girlscout cookies I had sold. I was nervous because Katherine was the best behaved student in Ms. Hollis's class and I always felt as though she was better than me. I kept my posture straight as we waited for someone to answer the door.
My mom went into the kitchen to retreive the cookie boxes (boxes were all over the living room as well) and Katherine started jumping on the couch with her little sister. "Come on!" I politely declined, maybe it was a test? I had never seen this side of Katherine before, and it confused me. Was she always this rowdy outside of school?
9/17/08-
Omaimah was a few years older than me, so I was flattered that she wanted to be my friend at Afton Oaks. I suppose I was one of the older kids there, but I guess I had assumed she would hang out with kids that had been there longer.
One day we played truth or dare on the playground, it was such a teenage game to me. She dared me to kiss a fat Indian teacher that I didn't even know, and I said I wouldn't do it. For some reason the fact that I didn't know the teacher made it much worse. Eventually she said I just had to go up to her and hug her, but I still said no. She told me she would stop talking to me if I didn't, and she kept her word.
She wasn't at summer school that often, but when she did show up I apologized in vain. Once I managed to make her laugh, but she still wouldn't talk to me. Summer was coming to an end, and I would soon forget about her and concentrate on my 4th grade classmates.
7/5/08-
Alex Tribble and I checked Mr. Mansur's email every week, as we were his computer helpers. He picked a girl and a boy to be his helpers for various tasks, but the only one that interested me in the least was the computer position. Luckily no other girl wanted the responsibility, so it was mine for the taking.
The Internet was still in its infancy; scrolling text. Mr. Mansur's password was "gold" something or other, and the emails were never very interesting. Alex and I became somewhat close through our weekly email checks. One day he showed me a pimple he was getting on his chin.
All in all my position didn't mean much, but Mr. Mansur (or was it Alex?) had managed to score us a tour of the IBM facility in town; only the computer helpers were allowed to go. I was very excited about it, I imagined what the building would look like, with huge glass windows and a dark grey modern design. I thought up questions I could ask. Most of all, it made me feel special, as we were the only two students who would get to go. I made certain to wake up early that morning, I didn't want to be late like usual.
My mom got a flat tire that morning. We pulled into the Bronco Tire Shop nearby and waited over an hour for a new (used) tire that fit my mom's Saab. She seemed unconcerned as I nearly broke down in tears, still hopeful that maybe they would wait for me before leaving.
They didn't. And I understood; the company was far away, and I was very late. I had to suffer through the rest of the day in a boring classroom, imagining what I was missing. Alex tried to downplay the field trip the next day. He told me he wished I had been there; that made two of us.
My mom never got another flat on the way to drop me off at school. I've always wondered if my life would be any different if I had gone on the IBM tour.
6/22/08-
As I grew older I cared less and less about approval, and by the time 4th grade rolled around I had conduct cutted my way into my first required parent/teacher meeting. I was angry when I found out about it, Ms. Williamson surely had it out for me. When Mr. Harry asked me about it I shouted something to him as I threw my magenta and purple Spacemakers pencilcase into my cubbyhole. He told me not to take it out on him and I apologized.
On the day of the meeting, everyone went to art class and I had to stick around and wait for my mom to show up. The meeting was agonizing, I felt attacked, and my mom just agreed with everything they said. I was never fond of art class, but I pined for it that day. I could see the "meeting" was going nowhere, so I gave them what they wanted: I started to cry. They let me go to art within a few minutes, and I wiped my tears away and happily ran to art class, taking the shortcut outside. I felt pretty accomplished as I did so.
6/21/08-
One of my favorite games on the old Apple IIs was "Alice in Wonderland." It was an arithmetic game, but it bared little resemblance to the boring "educational" games that I was more familiar with. In part it was luck, you could pull a low or high card, or even go backwards, but for the most part it depended on how quickly you could complete the math problem. The graphics were weird and colorful, in keeping with the original story.
I was hooked on the game and I had never even really seen the movie, or read the book. Adrienne and I worked together to try to beat the older two Seilheimer brothers. One day we beat their high score, but they beat us again a few days later.
I'm not sure if we ever beat their score again, I think we may have. After a while I stopped trying, and had moved on to newer games, like Carmen Sandiago and Loom.
6/9/08-
Piano class was something I looked forward to every week. I struggled with my first song, Mary Had a Little Lamb, but when I was finally able to play the melody and chords together it was as if something in my brain finally connected. I couldn't wait to advance to harder songs. I practiced every week without my mom having to nag me, like the other parents did.
Mrs. A (I don't think we ever learned her real last name) came in one day and exclaimed to her assistant teacher that the money had been deposited. She had a big smile on her face, one that seemed more genuine than when she would say "Yes!" in a Kevin McCallister voice when we played something correctly.
Maybe I should have just ignored it, but it upset me. It appeared as though she was just teaching for the money. She was the person I most wanted to impress during those years, more than my "real" teachers and much more than my own parents.
From then on I would have to play for my own approval, until I unfortunately had to stop taking piano lessons a year or so later.
6/8/08-
During a few weeks in 2nd grade my mom would write me little notes and stick them in my lunchkit with my sandwich, chips, pudding, and Kool-Aid cooler. She would tell me that she loved me and that she wanted me to have a good day, and she would draw a little stick figure or smiley face.
I was so embarrassed by them, I went through lengths to hide them from my friends. At some point I think I told her to stop writing them, and didn't even realize I might have hurt her feelings.
5/29/08-
It was my first tennis tournament at Fondren Tennis Club. I was placed in a group with people I didn't know, and my only friend at the club, a girl around my age named Casen. We were unbeatable at doubles, we smeared kids nearly twice our age and when we shook hands at the end I cockily said "Excellent game."
Our group won first place, I was in shock because I had never won anything before. The Gatorade tasted particularly sweet that day, I sipped it as I held my trophy.
The second time around I was placed in a different group, we came in 6th out of 6 groups. I was pissed off, and I stopped going to tennis lessons shortly thereafter. I told my mom that the club was getting too full, but I really just hated to lose.
Now I wonder what would have happened if I had continued to play. But maybe it was for the best, my mom was barely making ends meet as it was.
3/14/08-
I was never a fan of group projects, but the Native American project in fifth grade was a blow to my ego. We had to be in groups of three; I assumed I would be with Kristan and Kim, or Kristan and Kristin, but the three had formed a group without me. I had to work alone, and by the time I was called up to chose a tribe all the ones I recognized had been taken, leaving two that none of us had ever heard of. Ms. Nelson must have felt sorry for me when she let me chose the Eskimo, which originally wasn't on her list.
I worked extra hard on my project, and learned a lot about the Innuit, or Eskimos, during those next few weeks. I was happy with my drawings of snow-shoes and sleds, and I showed them to Kristan, Kristin, and Kim while they worked on their project about their less interesting tribe.
I think I got a B, but I didn't care about the grade this time; I was satisfied with my work and I knew I had done it all on my own.
3/11/08-
My mom and I would often go to Sharpstown Mall when I was younger, always through the JC Penny entrance. I was looking forward to purchasing a new Tinkerbell accessory with my allowance money. We ran into Majda in the entrance, with her daughter Abir (who would later become "Abby"). Majda was the wife of my dad's Saudi friend, and my mom hated her. After our brief exchange my mom did an impression of her Moroccan accent, "'Oh, we just finished shopping' yeah, where are your bags?"
JC Penny was the first store to close down, but by that point I was out of my Tinkerbell phase and my mom had started shopping mostly at thrift stores for clothes.
1/27/08-
There was a time when few people knew about Sanrio products, because the only place in Houston where they were available was "Rainbow Fair" in the mall in my neighborhood. My Diddy Doodle mechanical pencil case was a hit at Afton Oaks Montessori, where I initially struggled to make friends for the summer. It generated so much interest that I drew a picture of Rainbow Fair for Jessica, so that her mom could take her there and buy her her own Sanrio pencil case.
She seemed hesitant when Jessica told her she wanted to go to Sharpstown Mall; the neighborhood had been in decline for several years (it would only be a matter of time before Rainbow Fair would close its doors for good). But nevertheless, Jessica showed up the next day with a similar red Hello Kitty pencil case. A few days later my pencil case broke, and I became angry and blamed everyone else for clicking its buttons so much. I was particularly upset that, while mine was in a sad state, Jessica's was still as good as new. Sanrio products used to be my thing, now I regretted having told everyone about my secret place.
1/21/08-
Adrienne spoke so highly of her afterschool gymnastics class, and convinced me and Elisabeth to join her for a free session one day. I was mad that I had to take my shoes off, but I didn't want to walk out either. I immediately noticed that we were the oldest kids in there. I went into it with a bad attitude, not being impressed by anything that they did. At one point one of the three teachers asked a first grader, "Are you a banana?!" in a silly voice; Elisabeth and I rolled our eyes while Adrienne laughed along with them. Maybe the two of us left early after that.
1/3/08-
Occasionally, Adrienne would get picked up early from Extended Day. I later learned that her mom could pick her up at 3:30, but she actually wanted to stay around until 5, something I couldn't fathom. One day, Adrienne asked her mom if Andrea could come home with her. Andrea was black, and Adrienne's dad was unforgivably racist. Her mom shot her a look, and I wondered if Andrea picked up on it. I hoped that she didn't.
1/2/08-
It was a few months into my first year at River Oaks Elementary. They had placed a big table inside near the entrance that served as a Lost and Found. I didn't understand the concept at first, I remember taking a pretty New Orleans keychain (with keys!) at first. I think eventually I figured out that what I was doing was wrong, but I couldn't stop myself. I took a battered pair of ballet slippers; I had always wanted my own pair. Anthony Borecca's mother passed by me as I was stuffing them into my locker, and I shut it quickly when I saw her and nervously said hi. When I was very young I was bad at covering up things I shouldn't do; I would get better with practice.
1/2/08-
Once, in Extended Day, Elisabeth, Adrienne and I saw some girls in their early twenties laying out on the grass. They were laying in a nearby field on campus we weren't allowed to go onto, but from the distance it looked as though they were naked. We ran and told Ms. Loper there were a couple of "butt naked" girls out there. A few boys came running after us.
It turns out they were just in bikinis. Extended Day was painstakingly boring; we did what we could to entertain ourselves.
11/9/07-
I would often look out of my bedroom window at night, past the apartments filled with Mexicans, and I could see a Bank One building in the near distance, with its Texas flag flowing. Sometimes I would see a revolving light, as if from a lighthouse, or hear a train passing. At times I was convinced aliens had landed, and I was scared to look out the window for fear that they would see me.
The landscape has changed considerably since then.
11/4/07-
There was one girl in my Montessori class that nobody seemed to like, and her name was Misty. She had chin-length brown hair, glasses; lanky. "They're talking about me!" was a catchphrase of hers. No one ever talked about her, I don't think.
For a few years later, I would see Misty Cigarrette billboards and think of her, but only for a short while.
10/21/07-
One of the first major assignments in 6th grade was to make a shoebox model after a book on the Accelerated Reading list. I chose to do a model of the food elevator in "Harriet the Spy." It practically fell apart as I presented it, but it seemed as though my idea was admired a bit.
Winter was approaching, and it was a dreadful feeling.
10/3/07-
For Christmas that year, Kristan got a laptop. I received few gifts, nothing that I wanted, and it depressed me. We celebrated Christmas at my aunt's that year. Andrew got, among many other things, an electric game that zapped you if the loop you were holding touched a metal pole as you tried to make your way through its maze. When Kristan asked me what I got I told her. Realizing that my list was bare, I added the electric twisted pole game and described it in detail. Kristan didn't sound impressed, and Andrew would probably never play with it, but I rather liked the game.
9/23/07-
Cynthia, my only friend at Montessori school, sat next to me on the swings. Since we were the youngest, we usually had to wait until the other kids got tired of the swings to get on, which was rare. I happily hummed the tune to the Bombman level of Megaman as we swung.
One day, I think, we all sang "Under the Sea" from "The Little Mermaid," or maybe I just envisioned this at the time. Or maybe the other kids had and I was too shy to join in.
9/23/07-
Montessori school was fine, I didn't cry every morning when my mom left me there like I did at Kindercare. But during recess, I would sometimes catch a glimpse of the holes in the wooden fence and freeze up. They terrified me, and I couldn't figure out why. I gazed into them, petrified. I told no one of this irrational fear, but tried to avoid them as best I could.
I came back the next year, I was a different, better person now, and had completely forgotten about the holes in the fence. But as I stood there, tickling Martin (the German boy who always wore socks with his sandals), I saw them out of the corner of my eye. I was briefly paralyzed again, and was reminded of the person I didn't want to be anymore.
9/23/07-
Adrienne and I snuck over to the "Big Kids' Playground" at River Oaks a handful of times when no one was there. The "Big Kids' Playground" was what we students called the wooden playground reserved for 4th and 5th graders. For the most part it was comparable to the other, plastic playground, but it had a large rope over a sandy pit. We swung on it for as long as we could hold on; Adrienne broke my record as I cheered her on.
By the time we reached 4th grade, they had torn down the wooden playground and replaced it with another lifeless plastic one. Although we felt cheated, at least Adrienne and I had played on it while we still had the chance. It was a pleasant reminder that it's good to break the rules every once in a while.
9/14/07-
Shireen would give Jennifer mini Cabbage Patch Dolls (ones with blonde hair) because she said they resembled her. I looked on and secretly wished I was her favorite. One day I overheard her and Ms. Rachel comment on a boy eating everything in a pattern. He would take a bite of his food, a bite of his side dish, and then a sip of juice. "He's so good." I started doing the same thing, but I don't think they took notice.
That was the first time around. When I came back for the summer, after a year in a rowdy crowded Kindergarten class in public school, things had changed. Now I was popular, I misbehaved, I didn't care much about approval. One day I had to stand in the corner, Shireen came and saw me and was surprised. She told me I used to be so good, and it made me feel ashamed for the first time in long while.
9/7/07-
We lived with my aunt for a few weeks after my parents divorced. This was after a week or so of living with my grandmother. My cousin had a PlayStation and I was hooked on Pandemonium, a classic among his generic racing and fighting games. I was playing it one day afterschool when he came up the stairs with his blonde friend who looked like a little kid. There was Andrew, in his giant black JNCO jeans. He let me keep playing, as if I were a kid with a mental disability that always got her way because everyone felt sorry for her. I got up and said I was done playing, then went to another room by myself. As they played a racing game, I may have leafed through my Jagged Little Pill sheet music book, even though I never learned how to play any of the songs. The bathrooms at that house always smelled so clean; they further made me feel out of place.
9/6/07-
It was always oddly comforting to think of the sound in my eardrum during an ear infection as ants marching. Likewise, the sound in my head when I was passing out as an egg frying.
9/4/07-
Somehow or another I ended up in the drama elective during the only year of free summer school at River Oaks. We put on a short skit, I had the backstage part of the crying baby. Ms. Gilmore's son Sean suggested I say "Mama!" when the baby was caught but I was too shy to do it.
"Stop! In the Name of Love" always comes to mind when I think of that drama class; maybe there was a reference to it in our skit, but I was probably just on a Diana Ross kick that summer.
8/30/07-
I got called into Dr. Bowman's office during math class in 6th grade. My mom found my writings and, during what felt like an eternity, I had to attempt to explain something I never anticipated (or desired) having to explain.
I came back to math as it was ending, flustered. My friends asked me why I was called to the counselor; I had to think of something quick. I had tears in my eyes when I told everyone my parents were getting a divorce. Mary Lodholz said she was sorry, and I received nothing but compassion. It was true that my parents were getting a divorce, but that wasn't why I was upset. If anything I was happy it gave me a fake reason to tell everyone why I had been in the counselor's office.
8/29/07-
I was in the bathroom washing my hands when I asked Sarah Bailey what her favorite television show was. She told me Sesame Street and I thought to myself that it was such a baby show. I mentioned some of my favorite shows and she told me she didn't have cable and didn't watch TV that much. How we became friends is beyond me.
Just then Ms. Allen came into the bathroom. I had been accused, I think by Yanitza, of writing on the bathroom wall. Earlier I had written something on a piece of paper while I held it up to the wall, but Ms. Allen didn't believe me. Those years, it seemed as though I got into a lot of trouble for things I didn't even do.
8/28/07-
Ms. Hollis put the girls on one side of the room and the boys on the other during our spelling bee. After a while I was the last girl standing, against four or five boys. The other girls cheered me on, I think even Ms. Hollis subtly did so, but I eventually misspelled the word "foxiest."
I think I even knew how to spell it, but I panicked under the pressure.
Throughout elementary school, perhaps even throughout my life, I would feel a similar push/pressure to do something notable not for me but for the female sex.
8/28/07-
Mr. Mansur always treated us like adults, and I enjoyed that about him. He read Monkey Island to us and had us write down the phrases we liked. We later had to write a poem using one of the phrases. He complimented Whitney's poem and she rolled it up and put it into her sock. She was noticeably proud of herself; I didn't think it was such a big deal.
8/26/07-
On the first morning of my first day of Kindergarten, Mr. Talbot came on the loudspeaker and we had to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and sing the Star Spangled Banner. This happened everyday, until two or three years later when they cut it down to just the Pledge of Allegiance. I had no idea what was going on, and I was surprised to that see most children knew both already. I looked at Alexandra Wax, who was not yet my friend, and tried to mimic the words she was saying. By a few weeks into the school year I happily chimed "Jose, can you see?"
It took me over a year until I learned that it was "O, say, can you see?" I never put much thought into the words, I was more concerned with looking as if I knew them by heart
7/1/07-
Ms. Paris invited an African woman to class one day, it may have been the only guest we had that year. She told us a folk story about a cat and a dog, where the dog was the villain and the cat the hero. Then we held hands in a circle and chanted "cats good, dogs bad" while slowly walking together. Some kids (like Whitney) were really into it while others were clearly bothered by what we were saying, but we all chanted along.
5/17/07-
My dad sometimes took business trips in the winter, and I would sleep with my mom. We would pretend that the floor was lava, or that we were sledding down a snowy hill. We often played vocabulary games until we fell asleep.
My dad would return with used Nintendo games, and, for a while, life was pretty good.
2/24/07-
Kristan and I would ride in the back of her parents' sailboat, with our feet sticking out of the sides. The water looked like mercury until it splashed us and it was clear. We passed houses along the lake and discussed which one we would buy when we got "the show". A green and white one caught our eye, and we planned our indoor mini-waterpark before singing Spice Girls songs.
The water still looks like mercury from time to time, but it is indeed clear.
2/24/07-
There were a number of things on my Christmas lists that I never got: an easel, a remote control car, a bike. They all paled in comparison to my desire to own a piano. I took piano lessons after school, following a free trial lesson at Afton Oaks the summer before 3rd grade. I practiced at home, first on a tiny blue Casio keyboard that played only one note at a time, and later on a larger, mediocre keyboard. I must have been the only child in that class whose family didn't own a piano, and likely the only one who begged her mother to pay for piano lessons.
In 4th grade I participated in my first and only piano recital. It was held at a piano shop in the area; I ran around it with Valeria and Elisabeth until Mrs. A's assistant told us how much the pianos cost and that we would have to pay if we broke any of them. Everyone had to bring cookies; no one ate the ones we brought so my mom took them home when we left.
A month or so later I visited Elisabeth's house and was fascinated by the dusty piano in the corner. I sat at it and played in a trace-like state. It was the first time I could sit at a piano and play whatever I wanted, and it is one of my fondest memories.
1/15/07-
Although I liked having time off from school for Spring Break, it was sometimes a burden on my mother because she had to leave me somewhere during the day while she was at work. In 4th grade she left me at a place across from Sharpstown Mall called "Whiz Kids". It was next to the dollar store (the red-headed girl referred to this as "the store") and had cartoon characters painted on the glass walls. I had a bad feeling about it from the start. I had never been acquainted with children in my neighborhood prior to Whiz Kids, and they were very different from what I was used to. Lunch was included in the overpriced charge for childcare, a 10-cent bag of Ramen noodles which I never ate. I imagined the place was named "Whiz" Kids because of the horrible smell that wafted through the air.
All of the children were black, except for the red-headed girl, a brother and sister, and a Mexican girl. I was the oldest by at least 2 -3 years and felt rather silly being there. But the teachers liked me because I was more mature and better behaved than the other children.
During "recess" one day the teacher had the children sing "I am an Abraham" for me, the blond girl was up near the front. I had never heard the song before, but it still gets stuck in my head from time to time.
1/5/07-
I enjoyed going to Dr. Cohen's office, he was always nice to me and my mother, and I liked waiting in the examination rooms covered in children-themed wallpaper from the 60s. He would always tease me and ask if I was kissing any boys, and on the way out I would get to pick a lollipop that said "Dr. Cohen loves you" on the stick.
But one day I noticed that there was a collage of children's photos on the wall across from my examination room, and that my photo was not in it.
12/16/06-
Sometimes my dad would lay in bed and stare at the wall. Once he laid in my bed, staring at my bookshelf. I would ask him what he was doing and he would say nothing, but it always bothered me. And yet, several years later, I would find myself doing the exact same thing.
Soon after my parents had separated, my mother and I stopped by the townhouse, I forget why. I found an open package of Pecan Sandies on the dining room table, and I ate one or two. Every time I see Pecan Sandies I think of that day, I think of my father and his isolated nature that is enveloping me.
11/29/06-
In 5th grade we were required to go to camp for a weekend in October. I looked for an excuse out of it. Brent Carter was able to avoid it because he was dancing in The Nutcracker that weekend, but everyone else, including me, went. Despite the harsh cold, the ghetto black girls that scared me, the disgusting food, the television withdrawal and overall boredom... at night our cabin's camp counselor strummed on her guitar and sung us to sleep. Of course, I can never go to sleep to music, and I took even longer to fall asleep because of the snoring girl to the side of me, but everyone else seemed to fall asleep to her songs. She sang "One of Us" and I recognized it from Joan Osbourne's version that I had heard on the radio (weeks before it became well-known). I told her this the next day and that night she sang it again, "A little girl told me she heard this song on the radio". And it made me feel like everything would be OK after all.
11/16/06-
Extended Day was brought inside when it was raining, so that day we went into Mr. Plumber's classroom and drew all over the chalkboard. Chris Watts starting telling yo' mama jokes and, as it was the first time I had ever heard of this, I was insulted and told on him. Mr. Plumber spent the entire hour or two slouched in his desk chair, whatever we told him he would respond with "ok". I didn't get the satisfaction of seeing Chris get in trouble.
When we came back to school the following fall we had learned of Mr. Plumber's death. No one wanted to tell us how he had died, but all the parents knew it was AIDS and many tried to keep this information from us. It would be the first of two AIDS deaths at River Oaks Elementary, the second being the assistant principal Mr. Talbot, a tall bald man everyone admired and loved.
9/26/06-
It was Christmas break and I would pass my days sleeping in, watching tv and playing video games until my mom got home. Every Monday through Friday from noon to one I would listen to the lunchtime request blocks on 107.5 The Buzz while I played Nintendo. This was how I first discovered Tori Amos. The block consisted of three songs, only two of which I can recall with certainty: "Cornflake Girl" and an amazing cover of "Little Drummer Boy" that to this day I cannot find a copy of.
I was truly beginning to connect to music at that point in my life. Filled with an insatiable thirst for more, a junkie of radio stations and music videos, the connection between these sounds and my spirit was indescribable and overwhelming. This period would last a few years before sadly and unwillingly fading away, although I still have hope that it might one day reincarnate itself back into my life.
9/17/06-
Although I thought my parents had prepared me as best they could for my first day of kindergarten, what with the pre-packed school supplies purchased days earlier in the school cafeteria and the general excitement after learning that I was accepted into the school, there was one thing that either slipped their minds or was never mentioned to them. I don't think I slept the night before.
And so I showed up and Ms. Paris helped me find my name tag on the board outside of her classroom. Since this was kindergarten, it couldn't just be any boring old name tag. Instead, our names were written on laminated brown teddy bear cut-outs, which were attached to yellow yarn that went loosely around our necks. Teddy bears would be a recurring theme to the school year, as I would later come to find out. I walked inside to see that most everyone had brought a teddy bear to class, like Ms. Paris had requested. I may have been the only child without one. Ms. Paris suggested someone share a bear with me, and I was already starting to feel left out, but before tears could come out of my eyes Whitney came over and let me borrow a second teddy bear that she had brought to class. It was white and somewhat ugly, but greatly appreciated.
A number of other children in the classroom were crying, but for me this was a fresh slate. No longer would I be the little girl in the classroom, the youngest and the quietest, the girl who's name no one knew. That day we were all equals, except now that I was one of the children who hadn't cried I suppose I had a bit of upper hand. Things were beginning to look up.
6/19/06-
I frequented my grandparent's house during my first few months, after my mom got off of maternity leave and struggled to find (or pay for) a sitter. I have no recollection of crying while there. After drinking my bottle of milk I would drift off in the comfort of my grandparents' bed. Sometimes Mima would leave me there alone to stare at the tiles in the ceiling; to determine their pattern. I wasn't exactly alone, I had Colcha wrapped around me.
"Colcha" was one of my first words, but I had no concept of one word for several, similar looking items. To me, Colcha was not every blanket, but rather the old woolen one with pink roses that covered my grandparents' bed. Perhaps for several years it was etched that way in my mind, as my language skills progressed in English alone. I guess you could say that Colcha marked the beginning of my attachment to inanimate objects.
In some way or another Colcha ended up in our house, and in my father's possession after the divorce. I found her in the bottom of the hallway closet the other day, in a sad state. I was afraid to even put her in the washer. But her cigarette burns and faded roses reminded me of Mima in her better years, may she rest in peace.
5/20/06-
Elisabeth invited a few of us over to her house for her birthday party. A sleepover. My father never let me spend the night at anyone's house, and this was no exception. I went with the girls to Baskin Robbins (where Valeria and I asked for the ice cream containers for extra credit in Ms. Nelson's class
[they told us someone else had beaten us to them]) and to the haunted house. But Elisabeth's dad wasn't going to pay over $100 to get all of us in, and I didn't
blame him, so it was back to her house for the night.
The other girls were in their pajamas when my mom came to pick me up. They all tried to convince her to let me stay the night, but to no avail. I came home in a bad mood, I was tired of being the only girl who could never go to sleepovers. I resented my parents for the remainder of the weekend.
That following Monday, I asked Adrienne what I had missed. She told me that shortly after I had left, Elisabeth had asked who was happy that I was gone, and they all raised their hands, except for Adrienne.
Initially I was shocked, but I never doubted if it were true or not. I did, however, doubt whether or not Adrienne had really refrained from raising her hand, as I knew she wasn't the type to want to stand out. But whether she did or not was irrelevant - she was a real friend because she told me the truth, whereas the other girls feigned a friendship with me.
Our days at River Oaks Elementary were coming to a close, and we were all growing up. It was a good time to realize who your real friends were, and to prepare for the future awkwardness that would lie between yourself and the others.
4/25/06-
Four of us sat on the wheelchair ramp handrails, the other girls started talking about what their fathers did for a living. When I was asked, I told them my father owned a grocery store, just as my mother had told me to say. "You mean like Randall's?" Jennifer asked me.
No, not like Randall's. He worked in the ghetto area of Houston far away from River Oaks Elementary, scattered with faded and ripped billboards for Newport cigarettes and textured hair products. Before urban sprawl was common amongst the white middle class, minorities were the ones who were pushed to the outskirts of town. He sold mainly liquor to poor black people for a living, alongside his cousin and Saudi friend that he met during his Aramco days. My mother had lived with him for a year in the house that was connected to the back of the store, where she put up the Christmas tree that stayed up until July. I had practically grown up with him in that store, for the first four to five years of my life it was like a second home to me. I played for free on the Mrs. Pacman machine while the little black boys had to pay. There were two gas pumps in the front of the store that never worked during my lifetime, and no one was in a rush to fix them.
"Yeah kind of, but it's smaller"
Booger, a store regular, would be the first person I personally knew who died. But it wouldn't phase me then. I want to say my dad helped pay for the coffin, but I can't say this for sure as my memory fails me. One day someone came into the store with a gun to steal beer. That night, my mom told my dad that from then on he should just let them take the beer and not try to fight it, because a few cans of beer aren't worth dying over.
"My mom likes shopping at Randall's". Jennifer's response sounded stupid at the time, too. But it got us off the subject of what our dads did for a living. I was relieved that I wouldn't have to answer any more questions about the "grocery store".
Eventually the store would be run solely by my dad's cousin and his wife, who would then sell it to another Arab and buy a dollar store with the money. I heard that the Arab who bought it thought he had won the lottery and burned the store down to get the insurance money. But as it turns out, he matched only 5 of the 6 numbers, and his insurance had been canceled much earlier. Every time I think about The Store existing as dark ashes on an abandoned lot it makes me want to cry. Where do the black people buy their beer now?
4/15/06-
At that moment my mother told me to pack up my things, we were leaving. Leaving the house, and my father (who had left for the casino that weekend). She never explained why. I would spend the rest of my formative years thinking she divorced my father because he had a gambling problem (and always doubting). Practically the whole extended family had come to help us load boxes into my uncle's pick-up truck, my cousin had a stupid smirk on her face the whole time. There was a point when we questioned taking all of the dishes; it was my grandfather who insisted we take all that we could.
But none of this really affected me, at least not as much as what I felt when I went down the stairs as we were leaving. The juxtaposition of the ugly copper carpet against the cut of the entrance of the stairs and the dark brown handrail. It would be the last time I would go down those stairs in our house.
I was both right and wrong.
They say a man's home is his mind. I lost mine a long time ago.
2/28/06-
I grew up watching (among many other things) Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Tales From the Crypt, The Hitchhiker, endless B-movies from the 50s and 60s...
That probably explains a lot
There was one episode of Alfred Hitchcock that particularly stirred me. A man had been in a car accident that rendered him totally paralyzed, although he could still think and see clearly. He eventually realized he could move his pinky finger, but it wasn't enough- He was presumed dead and buried alive. I was six years old and petrified of something similar happening to me. I told Whitney and my cousin about the episode. It might have shaken them a bit but they didn't completely understand, they didn't watch the 46 antagonizing minutes of it. It was just TV, though, and the more thought I gave it the more I realized that in real life the nurses would check for a heartbeat before assuming someone were dead.
But he was dead. When I figured this much out my obsession with it ceased, although the fear still lingered in the back of my head. Is that what death is like? Is that what awaits all of us? Is Eternal rest just a fantasy? Perhaps that fear never really went away.
2/4/06-
All of my memories from Kindercare are horrid. My mother would drop me off and I would immediately cry as she left, every single time.
One day I had a dangerously high fever. They took me into the kitchen where they stripped me of my clothes and put me in a plastic tub with icy water. I doubt I ever cried so much in my life. Soon I saw my mother through the bar opening of the kitchen, and continued to cry. Years later, I would mistakenly remember this incident as the beginnings of the meningitis of my infancy.
2/4/06-
I was 8 or 9 years old and still getting ear infections. It was probably my last one; definitely the most painful. My mom and I waited in Walgreens while my prescription was being processed. I lied stretched out on the chairs and cried quietly. I had on my ugly purple and lime green fleece jacket that looked like a boys' jacket. At that age I was somewhat preoccupied about my clothes and accessories being too boyish. As I lied crying, a little boy walked up to me and looked me in the eye, then left a few seconds later. I felt embarrassed to be crying in front of someone so much younger than me. It made me feel even worse
2/3/06-
Adrienne's house in the Heights was light blue, decrepit, rented. They hadn't yet lived there for a year. That day we had taken her new skateboard and a sturdy rope (or something that did the trick) and took turns pulling one another down the sidewalk. Except it didn't work as planned, we eventually let her little brother Aaron sit on the skateboard while we pulled him, and moved out to the street as the sidewalk was too bumpy. We came inside and ate thin-crust pizza. Her house smelled like cat pee, and would only get worse throughout the years. My mom came to pick me up in her Saab; black, decrepit, paid for in cash (used).
1/26/06-
It was summertime and that meant a few months with my friends in Afton Oaks Montessori School (a different Montessori school than the one I had gone to before starting kindergarten). This was now my second summer there, and whereas in the previous year I was the new kid, this time around I had an established friendbase and everyone respected me. We were all seated at two long tables, drawing and coloring. Two parents were touring the school, to decide if it would be good enough for their daughter (who wasn't there that day). None of us were informed of the tour, but I was a perceptive child and I knew what they were doing there. I didn't want any new kids. The mother complimented me on my picture, "That's a beautiful drawing you have there." I ignored her. Besides, I knew she wasn't being sincere.
About a week later the new girl came. The other children were generally unfriendly with me my first few days at the school [I was blamed for someone's fart while we were watching a clown performance on my first day], and things continued as usual. There was something about her face that I didn't like, but I suppose I wanted a more legitimate reason to dislike her. Then Megan Ashley, my black friend who was two or three years younger than I, told me that the new girl had criticized Megan's drinking cup for being similar to her "baby brother's". I got in her face about it- no one messed with my friend Megan Ashley. For the next few days the other kids were on my side as well. She didn't last long at Afton Oaks.
1/8/06-
Jennifer Thompson considered me her friend. I wasn't too fond of her, but her house was big and pretty and her mom was our Girls Scout troop leader. On Jennifer's seventh birthday she had received a lot of gifts. Although my gift to her cost only $5 (from Pic N Save), I had trouble parting with it; I wanted my own dish set like the one I had given her. She invited me to her house a few days after her party. I carried a home-made detective set inside of my backpack, filled with things I had seen the characters on Scooby Doo use [the one thing missing was an inflatable raft], or things that I had seen in my cousin's detective book for children. We made telephones out of plastic cups and string, recorded finger prints, and when we searched for clues we went outside to look at her dog who was locked up in part of her backyard. He barked loudly and jumped up against the chicken-wire door. Later, Jennifer's mom played Pictionary with us. She opened the wrapper to the game that Jennifer had gotten for her birthday days earlier. By the foot of the stairs lay a stack of most, if not all, of the gifts she had received. All in their original plastic wrappers and untouched. And there was the dish set I had given her, with the happy little blond girl on the box.
1/8/06-
I overheard Ms. Hollis telling another teacher about the previous night's lottery. She was building the story up as only an old southern lady could. When she got to the part about her husband not believing her I interjected-- "Oh, did you match 4 numbers?... Yeah, so did Adrienne's dad. You won $101 right?" I sure burst her bubble, as she put it. I enjoyed doing so in those days.
12/1/05-
It was autumn. My aunt was in the passenger's seat and my cousin Andrew and I were in the back. We hid down as low as we could so that the aliens wouldn't be able to find us. It was one of many times that we had played make believe; when his older brother wasn't around he would play with me. Today we have no common ground and find ourselves in an awkward position on the rare occasions that we see each other.
11/27/05-
Pinky and Vivi chirped as I read them a story about birds. From time to time I would tell them to be quiet and listen. My mother had purchased the 1950s reader for me, there were analytical questions at the end of each story. My birds sat in cages that were placed side by side at the foot of the stairs. And they sat close to each other to keep warm in the winter.
But no matter how hard I tried to keep my birds happy I could tell they weren't completely satisfied. My mom would occasionally put their cages in the patio so they could get some fresh air and sunlight. One day she dropped Vivi's cage. In a mad rush Vivi found her way out of the patio before I could get to her. I called her name hoping she would come back to me, but deep down I knew that would be the last I would see of her. From below she looked like any other soaring grackle, but she was my yellow cockatoo- she was different and special and I loved her. I loved her, but I kept her from soaring.
For a few weeks after the incident I would hear her whistle and look out the window of my room. Dejected
10/17/05-
The entire forth grade class was sent outside one day, to partake in stupid group activities on the blacktop. The boys were in one team and the girls in another. We had to divide ourselves by some physical characteristic and then see if the other team could guess what the characteristic was. The girls decided to divide by hair color, something I tried arguing against but to no avail. The boys by eye color. I realized soon enough (after realizing that arm hair color was incorrect) that the boys had divided themselves by eye color; for some reason none of the other girls had. [I had noticed that originally the boys had divided themselves by skin color]. I said what I thought and Mikey went to Mr. Muller and repeated what I had said. "Out of all of you girls, Mikey was the only one who figured it out". Obviously, I felt cheated.
It was the second time Mikey had gotten credit for my ideas. The first was when we were 5 years old and testing to get into River Oaks Elementary. She was dressed in a frilly red dress and blatantly jutted herself over the round table to look at my answers, several times. Mr. Talbot, our proctor and soon to be our vice-principal (who would die of AIDS a year before the gathering at the blacktop), most likely noticed she was cheating. Especially when I said something about it in the middle of the test. But he did nothing, and admitted Mikey into the school, because of the pull for more minority students.
9/26/05-
Whitney's dad had driven us far that day. I didn't know where we were going; it might have been a surprise. There were wooden walls, everything was jumbled. But amidst it all were some beautiful animals. Whitney picked out a friendly, grey cockatiel. It pooped in the cage on the way back to her house. We placed the cage on the dining room table and tried to teach the bird some words while petting it. I was probably jealous (it would be a short time before my mom would buy me Vivi), but overall I was happy. It was a good day.
9/26/05-
Ms. Hicks had stepped out for a moment, we were seated at the foot of the risers in music class. The conversation turned to religion. Some seemed to be proud of their denomination, perhaps felt they were better than others. I was asked what religion I was. "Christian". Apparently the answer wasn't good enough, but I had never heard the words "Catholic" or "Presbyterian" in my life. And I couldn't recall ever having gone to church, but I think I said we went every so often. "Well, I believe in God...", we all concurred and ended the conversation, maybe because Ms. Hicks had returned.
9/25/05-
We all gathered around Claudia as she lay squirming on Mr. Mansur's classroom floor. None of us knew what was happening, seconds earlier she was fine and laughing as usual. I initially thought she was trying to be funny, but after a while I became concerned (and scared). Urine started seeping onto the floor.
She came back a day or two later, seemingly normal; we all wanted to know what had happened. She said it was like seeing black with a few bright colored lights. Perhaps she had no recollection of it and wanted to give us some sort of answer. And maybe the Devil exists and manifests itself in seizure form.
9/16/05-
It had been a few years since I had made the transition from the small, private Montessori school to River Oaks Elementary. We still passed by my old school from time to time in the car. That day I had told my mom that the quality of the school must have been going down, "Because I just saw a black kid leave."
My mom was probably embarrassed by my comment, even a little angry with me. She corrected me. But I was just telling her what I assumed she would have thought had she seen him leave.
8/6/05-
Ironically it was my father who had taken me to tour the Montessori school he deemed unnecessary; my mother was the one who paid the tuition for the next two years. It was a small school, I was used to the overwhelming, large open space of Kindercare. Maybe not used to. I saw some of the children's work on display in one of the hallways, maps of Europe. Italy looked like a boot, but I didn't know it was Italy then. I was looking forward to making a similar map, but I never did.
Shireen asked me what my name was. I either didn't answer or said it quietly. "She's shy". My dad had on his black and white jacket that I saw him wear that day when he went for a walk at 6AM three years ago [no one saw me sit on the balcony of the abandoned apartments I would go to before sun rose, to write my dreams and wait for the school bus to come.] It turns out her daughter's name was also Aisha, spelled differently.
In the days before bracelet receipts and unpaid bills, general dissatisfaction, my parents were a sort of team. They worked together to do what was best for me, and I'm still grateful to them for it.
6/21/05-
We had been separated into groups, based on our reading abilities. I was in the most advanced one, Adrienne in the least. We got to pick group names, we called ourselves "The Challengers", my idea. Adrienne was in "The Superstars". The Challengers had read a story and 2 or 3 months later The Superstars were reading it. I loved feeling superior, just not to my best friend. I can imagine she felt worse.
4/18/05-
I hadn't yet beaten Super Mario Bros. 3. My cousin had come over that day and we started playing it and talking, and we decided it would be cool if we spoke a language that no one else understood. So we started a conversation in our new language, at the end we told each other what we had been saying. But for the most part, we already understood each other.
12/18/04-
During one of those Parent Nights at T.H. Rogers, Kristan and I decided to go on the Elementary School playground. It had probably been my first time there. There were other kids there as well, albeit younger. We soon tired of the usual slide, swings, etc, and noticed red pipe-ish things sticking out of the ground, designed in the scheme of the rest of the playground equipment. They were phones! Kristan stood at one and I stood at the other, and I can't remember which of us decided to scream into one first, but in time we were both taking turns screaming as loud and high-pitched as we could. After a few minutes a man came and told us to stop, that people had thought we were in trouble and were worried. I think he had asked us why we were doing it and neither of us could come up with a reason; it just felt so FUCKING GOOD to scream.
11/1/04-
The pink volume of the Children's Encyclopedia at my Montessori school had a section about trees in it. This section had a little game. It was a maze of sorts, you could choose your own path through a forest but only 1 would get you to the end. It went on for pages, I don't know why I found it so much fun. Some older kid introduced me to it. Actually, he introduced someone else to it and I just happened to be watching. At first the maze was a novelty and we all wanted to see the book. The older, popular kids would go first, and I would be last or second to last. Soon the novelty wore off for the rest of the kids, but it continued to enchant me. I would get scared when I went down certain paths, there was something about the drawings that was simply mesmerizing. The Joshua tree was my favorite but a lot of animals and plants were frightening. After a while I learned the path by heart, my finger would go down it and through the pages in seconds. I was safe from harm, I wouldn't fall in the traps again.
A few years later my mom found a few volumes of that same encyclopedia set at a thrift store and bought them for me. Even more years later I casually took a look at the pink one, curious to see if the maze was there. And it still scared and enchanted me, much to my surprise.
10/18/04-
I don't think I was able to make it to Whitney's birthday party that year. I really wanted to go, though. When she saw me at school she gave me the party favor bag. Inside was a pink plastic necklace in the shape of half a heart with zig-zagged edges that read 'Bes Fr' (or was it 't iend'?). I loved that necklace, I wore it every day. A few weeks later I noticed that Kate Bizzell had a similar one on; hers was purple. I asked where she got it and she said it was in the party favor bag that she got at Whitney's birthday party. I was crushed, I wondered how many other people got the same cheapy plastic necklace that I did.
10/17/04-
From what I remember the script was pretty funny. I think Phyllis had locked herself out of her apartment and Rhoda mentioned something about cheese (Natalie Bates was right when she said 'cheese' was funny when we were little. 'In fifth grade it was like "Urkel and cheese... I get it!"'). I played Mary, of course, and I cast 2 of my friends as Rhoda and Phyllis. We rehearsed on the outdoor stage for a while, but they got bored of it and preferred the tireswing to the much needed practice. It really bothered me because that tireswing had been there forever - I was already bored with it and moving on to better things, but I couldn't do it alone.
10/17/04-
The library was so big in those days. Seemed so big. I really enjoyed it at that age, but I generally enjoyed leaving the house for whatever reason. That day my mom went to the small foreign language section. Most of the books were in Spanish (not nearly as many Spanish books as they have today), and very few were children's books, but then she found one for me: a French book about a family.
We got home and sat on the couch. The sun was bright and shined through the venetian blinds; indeed, some of my fondest memories somehow involve the light shining through our blinds. The book was one of those tall picture books they don't seem to make anymore, with an olive green cover. Inside, the drawings were ugly, but likable, memorable. My mom read French so eloquently back then.
We had returned the following week looking for more. But there weren't any, and eventually my mom gave up on trying to teach me French and throughout the years would forget what she knew of it.
10/17/04-
I can't remember whose birthday party it was, but a magician did his lame little act and then we were handed out party favors. There was probably candy and other knick knacks in the bags, but the one thing that really held our attention was the fortune telling fish. It was made out of a very thin red film and the plastic bag it came in had a sort of Chinese theme to it. We held it in the palms of our hands and asked a question to ourselves, the fish would flip a certain way to tell us if the answer was a 'yes' or a 'no'.
That night I sat on the carpet of my room and asked it more questions. I was so fascinated by it, I really believed it to be magical.
10/14/04-
We got out of the car and walked up to the door of my grandparents' house per usual. However, that day (probably in early spring) the upper panels of the house were infested with caterpillars. Ugly caterpillars. So many that it was frightening. The way that they squirmed around appeared as if they were multiplying as they moved.
In some way or another I wound up with the hose in my hand and started spraying water in their direction. Some would fall and wriggle in the puddles that had formed. It was a disgusting sense of power, disgusting because I had to look at them. My cousin (6 years my elder) told me to stop. It was mean, and plus our grandfather had told her that they would turn into beautiful butterflies. "Yeah, but then when they have babies there'll be even more caterpillars all over the house."
She joined me in the killing spree and the next time I went to my grandparents' house they were gone. I had probably forgotten about them, or maybe I was satisfied that they weren't there anymore and felt a sense of accomplishment.
pingo