9:03 p.m. - 2005-06-03
\"I Would\" Rant
I would take my phone off the hook at 8:00 p.m., just because I could. I would order pepperoni pizza in the middle of the night. I would set the thermostat at 80 degrees. I would frame my watercolors and hang them in the bathroom. I would walk around in a white ribbed men's tanktop over panties. I would sit on the rug pressing rhinestones onto the pockets of my jeans, watching Mod Squad reruns and feeling brave and lanky like Peggy Lipton. I would wear silver and turquoise jewelry. I would take my son for chocolate dipped cones at the Tastee Freeze. I would read to him all about the Grouch and the Cookie Monster and we would play Candyland and Fish until bedtime. I would write poetry for no eyes but mine. I would buy Playgirl magazine. On weekends, I would go to clubs alone and stand close to the band, moving to the music. I would never be alone for long. That first Easter, my parents were not speaking to me for some reason I do not recall. So I floated some checks to cover baskets and bunnies and we had our own egg hunt without anyone's help. I applied for welfare and felt edgy and dangerous, waiting for my number to be called in a room stuffy with the disenfranchised. I got food stamps and bought a week's worth of steaks. The market checker said snidely, "You people are the only ones who can afford steak" and I felt resourceful and proud and not a bit embarassed. I spent any spare money on make up and hair stuff. I took classes at community college and met a French girl who taught me to play pool. She had fuzzy underarms and ate cold asparagus dipped in vinegrette. She said she enjoyed natural disasters, like earthquakes and electrical storms, and I felt sophisticated and worldly. One Sunday, I met an unattractive guy with stringy red hair walking on the beach. He told me I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and so I drove with my son to visit him all the way in Carmel. I got on the I-5 instead of the 101 and we ended up in Fresno. I was crying in the middle of the highway when some guy whose face I couldn't really see for the helmet rode up on a motorcycle, helped me with the map and casually rode away. Life was honestly like that then. Later the redhead clarified that of course he had meant "beautiful inside", but what difference did it make? I didn't need him to tell me who I was. Obviously he didn't have a clue who I was anyway, because he had purchased a Porche Targa in the hopes of impressing me. I found the gesture needy and distasteful and encouraged him to sell it which he abruptly did. Soon after, I left. Looking back, it is incredible to fathom the kind of power I had with perfect strangers, being invisible for so, so long. No doubt in utter defiance of my parents, I showed disdain for demonstrations of wealth and status. If a guy turned out to be a law student or something like that, I would simply find someone else to dance with. I preferred patches on jeans and scarves on lampshades and madras tablecloths and feathers on straw hats and cotton peasant blouses and writing a bum check rather than feeling obligated to any guy ever again. Above all, I was suspicious of the ones with predictable futures and determined career paths. The ones who would situate me in some beautiful cage until I forgot how to dance. The ones who maybe wanted but didn't need me. I took pride in the fact that I could give myself to whomever I chose, but I could never be bought. And so, nearly a year passed exactly like this. Eleven months of finding out which forbidden items on the menu I just might enjoy. What I would and what I wouldn't do. Who I was and who I wasn't. Sitting on my favorite patch of grass in Echo Park, drinking my favorite Annie Green Springs Peach Creek wine I watched my son ride his Big Wheel. As the lotus blossoms floated gracefully on the lake, over time I came to know. And that which I know, I can never again pretend not to know. Try as I may.
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