I hated Ozzy. It wasn’t his fault. The blame belongs to the man who tried to kill me. Like all mistakes, my entanglement with that man had a before and after. Before him, I was a fan of Ozzy. Ozzy rocked. He was danger and rebellion. For a kid growing up in the 80s, that was more than enough.1989 was a tough year. I played “You Can’t Kill Rock and Roll” from Diary of a Madman repeatedly. I mostly listened to cassettes back then, so every time the song reached the end, I had to rewind and find the right spot in the tape at the beginning of the track. After a while, your fingers learn exactly when to push rewind and play. Do that enough and the tape gets warped enough so that Ozzy sounds like he’s warbling from the bottom of a lake. I had a serious problem with authority figures and that song became another anthem in...
There was a girl with strawberry blond hair woven into a braid that hung down the length of her back. Her blue eyes reflected the sky and absorbed everything beneath it as she sat next to the window in the school bus talking about Supergirl and Wonder Woman. About Spiderwoman and Batgirl and how Huntress had the best superhero costume because she wore a purple suit with a super cool mask.She kept her hands tucked under the school bag on her lap. Kids are less likely to make fun of what they can’t see and this girl knew all about that, so her hands stayed hidden. If they had eight fingers and two thumbs like everyone else's, it’d be different. She couldn’t conceal them all the time, but learning how to avoid drawing attention to them became second nature. A word like "syndactyly" was too strange and confusing for the first grade.Every day, we hopped off the bus at the...
The art award was a big deal. The level of fanfare was off the charts. If you were one of the lucky winners, you’d have some fantastic swag to prove your artistic bona fides, including a Certificate of Recognition, a placement ribbon, and an American flag pin. Yeah, just like the one politicians tack on to their lapels to prove how patriotic they are.Most importantly, it meant getting your picture in the local newspaper.My family did the usual thing. They snapped Polaroids of me proudly displaying my masterpiece. My image was stuck on the fridge, mailed off to relatives, and forever immortalized on a plastic photo mug that sits on a shelf next to my desk as I write this.The theme that year in the Americanism Fine Arts Contest sponsored by the PTA in Mill Village, Pennsylvania was, “Look Out Your Window…”.When I looked out my window, I apparently saw my dog, a spider, and a barn. Or maybe the...
I got the shopping cart for Xmas when I was 3 years old. Immediately, I began planning a shopping trip to 7-11. No, not a grocery store. Just as I would later insist as a stoned teenager craving a Super Big Gulp and risky nachos, it had to be the goddamn 7-11.The adults informed me I could not just wander off on a convenience store expedition on my own. This annoyed me. Stupid adults.Opportunity struck when I was left in the care of my Uncle Jay one afternoon. As soon as he turned his back, I grabbed my shopping cart and made a hasty exit. I still remember when he found me. Red-faced, panicked, and angry, my uncle pulled his car along the curb as I merrily strolled down the sidewalk, pushing my cart, with no idea how to get to 7-11 or anywhere else.“Get your ass in this car.”I got my ass in the car.Uncle Jay was 6’4” and...
I've always had a complicated relationship with writing desks. It seems absurd to say such a thing, because a writing desk is an inanimate object and therefore indifferent, which should make having a relationship with it anything but complicated.But, for writers, or anyone who spends several hours creating at a desk every day, that relationship is important. You have to be able to live together in harmony. Perhaps it's this way with a musician and their instrument. Maybe even more so for them, as they tend to travel with the inanimate object they're having a relationship with, and I generally do not lug my desk along when I travel. Sure, I'm bogged down with pens, notebooks, and tablet, but that's another story altogether.Where I get my real writing done, my final drafts, submissions, blogging, publishing, all happens here, at my very small, very cheap, and very reliable little desk. But it wasn't always this way.My first desk was a thing...
I wore the dress because it was Halloween. One day where we can dress up and pretend to be something that we're not. Something we don't get to be every day. Something more wild. Cooler. Louder.My dress had a newspaper print pattern splashed with neon pink and green. My mom wasn't crazy about it, but I loved it. It was cheap, so I was allowed to buy it when we were shopping for new clothes a couple months before. However, she hardly ever let me wear it. It was too "tacky" and too "loud." But then, Halloween approached and I had a last minute idea. I was now 12 years old and adult enough to dress my own self up for Halloween, thank you very much.I put on the dress. I slipped into my neon green jelly shoes. I sprayed red and black and glitter into my hair, which I curled and teased and sprayed and poofed. I did my...
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