Woke up at eight this morning, called work to see what time I had to be in, found out I'm not working until tomorrow, and blissfully slept until 12.30 when the call of nature woke me.
Now, ordinarily, the call of nature is nothing to write home about -- it happens a few times a day and is really nothing to be concerned about, except today I had some interesting thoughts while answering it.
When I moved into this apartment, I decided my bathroom needed some reading material. That is, reading material more interesting than "Elle" magazine and Peter's "Not Since Carrie" book. So I adorned the back of my toilet with old issues of "Amethyst" (the ones David guest-editted; I figured he'd be pleased to know his legacy has lived on via two issues of a local gay newsletter on the back of my toilet), two poetry anthologies my work is in (for wiping material in case of toilet-tissue shortage...), and a pile of old 'zines.
There was a time when I was absolutely addicted to these so-called 'zines. I really have no idea why, because I had absolutely nothing in common with the creators of these things, not to mention that most of them were really BAD.
It all started in high school when I was kicked off the staff of the school newspaper.
I'd been writing corny little articles about video games and coffee: rambly little pieces in the style of an amateur Dave Barry. The thing was, they were extremely well-met. Teachers read my articles aloud to their classes. People complimented me in the hallways. Strangers called me "That Writing Girl," and asked me stupid questions about where I got my ideas and if I'd help them write their reasearch papers about Nathaniel Hawthorne. For the first time, I realized I had enough of a life to be considered "cool," if I worded things the right way, accentuating my strange habits instead of hiding them, openly admitting that I once made protest posters with my little brother that said "Damn the man, the moon IS green cheese," and used to lie in the middle of the living room at night listening to Rolling Stones records at top volume.
I realized that, when one openly admits that she is different, the respect she gains is tremendous. High schools are full of kids who do weird stuff when nobody's looking, and cover it up in the morning with make-up and after-school activities. High schools are full of adolescent insecurity, and nobody dares admit they're scared. Nobody dares to admit they listen to their parents' old records, or that they were once terrified by a scary movie, or that things other than parties and driving and their friends occupy their thoughts. The person who DOES dare to go against the wave of stiff convention may be called her share of insults in public, but I knew deep down that everybody privately loved me for being a dork. I spoke to people. And even though I was only writing about everyday stuff, I considered myself a rebel.
The rest of the school newspaper was dominated by articles about school sports; opinions regarding the school's policy of "no coats in classrooms" (these opinions were ALWAYS considered radical); poems about leaves and flowers; and the headline, which was always a history of, say, Valentine's Day, if the month happened to be February, or Santa Claus if the month happened to be December. Duh. The editor at that time was named Jen. Maybe it was Beth. I don't know. They were identical twins and I couldn't tell them apart. I think it was Jen. Well, Jen-or-Beth hated my guts. You see, Jen-or-Beth was in charge of writing the monthly articles about the girls' swim team, and the history of Groundhog's Day. And nobody GAVE a shit about the girls' swim team except, of course, the girls' swim team. Certainly nobody gave a shit about a groundhog. The day the paper came out, I always entered home-room to find people busily giggling over my latest exploits with a coffeemaker and a Queen CD. Nobody bothered with Jen-or-Beth's articles, and she knew it.
She approached me in the hall one day and told me to "tone it down." Tone WHAT down? I didn't curse, didn't mention drugs or sex or anything "controversial," in my articles. They were tame as tame could be. They were stories of a girl living on the outskirts of town who had nothing to do on Friday nights and amused herself by trying to master Tetris games and imagining poisonous toadstools being grown in Wegmans supermarkets. This was NOT something that could be toned down. I yelled at her. "Jen-or-Beth, I really don't know what you're trying to say to me; there's really nothing to 'tone down', and really no reason for you to suggest it... If you can give me a specific reason why you want me to change my style, please do..."
Her specific reason was that she didn't like my articles, and she was the editor.
Damn the man.
Naturally, I martyred myself. I went down in a blaze of glory. I told absolutely EVERYONE that Jen-or-Beth thought my columns were too controversial, and that she no longer wanted me on the staff if I couldn't simply write "NEWS" articles. This raised hell, of course. If I remember correctly, there was a petition circulated in order to get me back on the staff. Of course, it would have been much easier than that had I actually been concerned about my status as a columnist. I would have simply gone to the paper's advisor, who was an industrial technology teacher (or something like that), and said, "Jen-or-Beth was mean to me," at which point, Jen-or-Beth would have gotten a good talking-to, and I would have had free reign of pages four and five. And six, if I wanted.
But no. I wanted something better. I wanted rebellion and trouble. I wanted to prove once and for all that the man was holding me down, was holding ALL of us down. I set out to protest. I'd been reading a lot about the 'sixties, had been listening to "damn the man" music (from my parents' era, because after the early seventies, nobody HAD a man to damn anymore... except REM...) and looking at photographs of flag-burnings and police brutality. It all kind of meshed in my head, and Helena Thomas, former columnist of Cat Tales, the Johnson City High School newspaper, threw a fist in the air and, with all her mightiness and utter loser-dom, became a leader.
I had a group of loyal followers already. They were the pitiful, sit-alone-at-lunch kids with their stained sweats and their plastic lunchboxes. They were the kids whose parents still made them listen to James Taylor instead of Pearl Jam. They were the kids who got caught smoking in the South Parking Lot because they had to duck behind other people's cars instead of hiding out in their own. They fucking worshipped me, and I energized myself on them.
I decided to start a newspaper of my own, an "underground" one that used pseudonyms. I gathered a small army of fellow writers, most of whom couldn't dress themselves and one of whom carried a hip flask filled with coffee until his mother yelled at him. I titled the new paper "Jupiter." I made up some stupid story about what the name meant, but it really had something to do with a weird astrology reading I'd once been given. My pseudonym was "Temperance." Like the Tarot card, not the movement.
Response was overwhelming. There were ten articles in the first issue, which I painstakingly typed up and laid out myself, then copied and stapled myself, while Erich, whose parents had been kind enough (heh heh heh) to allow us use of their copy machine, looked on. There were more than thirty submissions for the second issue, and I only used half of them, saving the rest for such time as I had enough money to buy paper enough for all of them.
Almost all of the articles and poems were really stupid. There was no common theme. It was neither a creative writing page nor a punk-rockin' "don't-oppress-me" work. It wasn't that we had no vision; it was that we had TOO MUCH vision. In retrospect, both issues were trash and can rightfully be used as toilet tissue, but at the time, it was scandal. Not just scandal, but APPRECIATED scandal.
Of course, at lunch, I sat in my usual spot in the main lobby, chewing on a Little Debbie and a bag of popcorn, surrounded by my boyfriend (in his typical child-molester trench coat with his copy of "On the Road" in his lap and a cup of coffee at his side), and a couple of "Jupiter" contributors. Few people suspected me and my loser-group of actually organizing and creating the rebel 'zine. A few particularly bright students caught on and asked for extra copies. So did the school principal. As a matter of fact, the school principal asked for ALL the remaining copies of it.
"Is this your paper?" he asked me in his office. "Yes it is," I answered firmly, trying not to shake. I'd never been in trouble in my life, at least not with the school principal!
"Why did you call it 'Jupiter'?" he asked. "Are you 'Temperance'? Why did you start this? What kind of game is this? Are you trying to start trouble?"
I answered honestly, but defensively. The principal ordered me to surrender all my remaining copies (I said they were all gone, which was a blatant lie, as they were all directly below my feet in my bookbag), and forbid me to distribute them any more. I was sent to the superintendent's office. The superintendent looked over the two issues of "Jupiter" he had in his desk, chuckled at the "drug-free school zone" political cartoon, and told me that "Mr. Meehan [the principal] is a crackhead." He said my 'zine was "inventive" and "creative" and "funny," and let me go as long as I promised not to tell Mr. Meehan he'd been called a crackhead. He said he'd "have a talk" with Mr. Meehan.
After being sanctioned by the superintendent, "Jupiter" didn't seem like such a tool of rebellion anymore. Not to mention that I was out of money and had absolutely NO patience for editting and layout. "Jupiter" was over. It seemed like a tremendous waste after everything was said and done. Trips to the office supplies store. Letters mailed out, trips to the post office, bundles of issues sent to out-of-town schools... Meetings with kids who'd already established small zines in the area. Discussion groups about how, exactly, to damn the man without getting suspended. Arguments with Erich over communist dictatorships. Two-dollars-and-three-stamps sent to all sorts of foreign places requesting copies of other people's 'zines. Hours spent poring over other people's work, comparing, contrasting, writing fan letters and asking for assistance getting "Jupiter" off the ground. All ending because the superintendent liked it. Dammit.
I rejoined the school paper with the understanding that I would write whatever I felt like writing and that it would be published exactly as I had written it. The school paper had suffered for readership during my absence. Jen-or-Beth never spoke to me again, although I think her sister might have.
As I sat on my toilet today, reading a 'zine called "Flip Chic," written by a couple of girls I knew, it occurred to me that I ought to write an online 'zine. Just one issue, created entirely by me so I don't have to be called a "dictator" by any stupid assistant editors.
In two days, "Wet Cleanup" will be two years old. I think I'm going to sign off now and start making her birthday present...
~HelenaTemperance*