Heh. It's been how long since I last updated?

Despite the cuteness of the picture, I think it's time to bury this blog.

Updates if I feel like 'em. I probably won't.

I don't like cheese.
- posted by Christina @ 9:31 PM

 
Bits & Pieces
Seeing how it's been about 2 weeks since I posted, I thought I'd post some bits and pieces. Also, have decided to admit what the lies were. In the comments.

When I was young and it rained, I took a coffee can to school, filled it with (fairly) dry dirt and rescued the worms from pavement and worm stomping children. They always burrowed to the bottom of the can.

Mrs. Chidichimo was my third grade math teacher. Little old Japanese lady. I always rushed through my math tests because when you finished early you got to marbalize paper. I just found out she's only 52 today. She looked that old 16 years ago.

There was a boy named Marcus I had a crush on in 3rd grade. I once tried to kiss him but he punched me in the arm and I ran away.

In second grade, my older brother Patrick called me a fucker in front of the bus stop. Other people were mean to me the same day. I told my teacher and she made a huge deal out of it. I ended up really embarassed.

I was always terrible at keeping secrets. In fifth grade, Ponte Khalili told me one. I don't remember what it is, but I never told.
- posted by Christina @ 8:17 PM

 
Bingeing (Or Why I'm So Fucked Up Today)
Around 7th grade, I blew up.

I mean, not literally, I didn’t explode, but around that time, I gained a tremendous amount of weight. Part of this weight was the fifteen pounds everyone puts on around 11, for puberty, which is quickly lost as the body stretches. Most of it wasn’t.

When you’re young, fat, and in middle school, you hate yourself. You keep eating because it’s something that makes you feel better.

I was never one of those kids who snuck food into school, or anything. My lunches were always simple- fruit, cookies and a sandwich. I usually ate the fruit during morning recess. I’d go home and have a couple of cookies.

Until all of my friends abandoned me, and I was alone. My family got one of these sandwich maker thingies, and I’d go home and make myself a grill cheese. That didn’t help anything and I got larger and larger.

One of the things that astounds me now is when I look at pictures. How big I was, and I never thought I was. I knew I was fat, but still… I’m astonished at how much I’ve slimmed down in appearance, though I’ve done nothing but gain weight since then.

It isn’t surprising I retreated into a world and watched the Power Rangers. I ate cookies and drank juice ad wrote stories about death and abuse and thousands of horrible things and found them all exciting. I’m still not sure why. I wrote one story about ghosts, rape and death for a Girl Scout Interest Patch. My troop leaders read it and were tremendously concerned, worried that I was sending a message. Really, those were the images in my head, the ones I found exciting, that intrigued me.

I was the chubby girl at the drama camp, the one who was always cast as the maid or the mother (or in one case, both). The girl who was sick through most of auditions for a play, but it was my elective for the semester, so I ended up cast as a couple of guys. (Because there are never, EVER any men in drama classes) At one point, I played the stereotypical fat girl. That did hurt, but I don’t know what I would have done if he cast someone else.

This was about the same time of Monster and the drama surrounding him. I found a group of friends who later turned on me (9 months. Faster than the 6 years for my elementary school), school spread rumors I was a lesbian (how right they were. Oh well), and I called a popular girl who was always mean to me a bitch. This was one time to (I thought) my best friend. How she found out, I can guess, but that confrontation in the parking lot was… frightening.

No one is ever from a group of outcasts. We all acknowledged each other, but stayed separate. The guys I liked and tried to talk to found me immensely annoying. I’ve yet to figure out how to talk to them.

There were a few times I knelt in front of a toilet and stuck my finger down my throat. It never worked. I had to become a lush to learn how to vomit on command. I was afraid I would be bulimic until I met one. After hearing about the Stanford clinic, I decided that was a bad idea.

There’s no real conclusion to this piece, but then, there’s no real conclusion to this chapter of my life. I will never have washboard abs, be comfortable in a bathing suit, have a body I’m really and truly happy with. I remember Angie who went down 10 sizes in the three years I knew her, when she wrote that she looked in the mirror and thought everything would be great if she was a size 12. Now she’s a size 12 and thinks everything would be wonderful if she’s a size 8. I’ve thought about some things- the anorexia laxatives, diet pills, just not eating… I’m always afraid of what people might think. This was one of the reasons I started smoking. It hasn’t worked, but then, neither has regular exercise.

But on the bright side, now I can call myself fat or hear something call me fat without bursting into tears. I might want to punch them, but there’s always a solution for people like that. Comfort food.
- posted by Christina @ 8:56 AM

 
Stupid Teacher #2- Mrs. Mitchell
I haven't talked about Stupid Teacher #1 (Ms. Nieh) yet. I'll save that scab on my psyche for a later date.

I was so happy when I found out I had Mrs. Mitchell for my fifth grade teacher. I thought she did a lot of fun projects. Then I found out she was a shrill, bitter harpy.

I'd bought a ream of purple binder paper because I thought it was pretty and different. It was a lavender color with light pink lines. It was one of those sickeningly cute Lisa Frank things. After about a month or so of always using it, she took me aside and told me, "No more purple paper. I want your homework on white."

We had a biography project around December, where we read a biography and did a report on them and a faux wax museum. There were the biographies of famous people that focused on them as children (so as to engage the young folk), which I rather enjoyed. I did Louisa May Alcott and used the Christmas tree light switch as the button which started my spiel. Mrs. Mitchell did not approve, and told me to create one out of folded construction paper as most of the class had been.

Later on in the year, there was a certain hour after lunch that was math time. I want to say around 1:30. This involved getting up and getting books and switching things around and stuff like that.

"All right, everybody, let's do math now!"
"Nah!" I replied with my usual infectious good nature.
"Who did that? Who did that nah?"
I guiltily raised a hand to about ear level.

I had to write her a letter of apology for this incident. I was of course, very angry about this, and so didn't sound apologetic in the slightest in the letter. I was of course, about three quarters of the way to tears for most of the incident, since I've never been very good at keeping dry when angry or upset. It probably went something like:

Dear Mrs. Mitchell,
We were about to do math and you said "It's time to do math now!" And I said "nah!" I meant it as a joke. You wanted to know who did it. I let you know. I'm sorry that this upset you so much, but I honestly meant it as a joke. I don't see what was so wrong about it.
Sincerely,
Christina

MRS. MITCHELL IS A BITCH.

Remember, I was about 10. That took up a whole page. A whole, white page, not a purple one. So then, my mother got a phone call. "What I wrote at the bottom was completely inappropriate."

Now, my mom doesn't remember that part of the incident, or indeed most of the incident at all. But this was one of my first adolescent acts of rebellion which proceded things like needing to shave armpits or buy bras.

That was also the year that I had some sort of viral thing where I spent about a month out of school watching day time television and trying to wake up. Even then I had my day time lin up, and they were mostly courtroom dramas then as well. After that, Mom put me back in school for half days for most of the year. They tested me for everything- mono, Lyme's disease- there was one time when they needed five vials of blood and the only vein they could find was on the very edge of my elbow and took forever. I swung my legs in pain so much I ended up kicking the technician. I know what the virus was now. It was probably laziness. I still have the same debilitating fatigue now quite often, usually when I can get enough sleep, strangely enough. Coffee usually solves it. The other problem was I missed the aforementioned math classes because of the absences and afernoons. The result of this was my mother being convinced I didn't know how to multiply and divide fractions when I really and truly did. We did it the year before, and as everyone knows, my memory is freakish.

I think it was the prolonged absence which helped Mrs. Mitchell cooled down. Still, those last few weeks of school were grating, and I just kept thinking about going off to Hillview.

I stand by my past statements, though.

Mrs. Mitchell was indeed a bitch.
- posted by Christina @ 10:48 PM

 
Dancing
I've been dancing for as long as I can remember.

I mean, not like as a baby or anything. I started tap lessons in kindergarden. I tapped for two years and did jazz until 6th grade. I dropped for a couple of years and then took modern two days a week at high school for two and a half years (I left when the easy going teacher left and the more uptight and annoying teacher showed up to go sing in choir 5 days a week).

Through all of this, I never considered myself a dancer. I was never the right shape, and while I enjoyed it, it never seemed like the thing I had to do no matter what. But I was always dancing, whether at the dancer's loft, or in the back yard.

I was a closet improv dancer, you see. I'd go out with a walkman and a tape of Mariah Carey or the Lion King soundtrack, or Enya and I'd have the time of my life. I was never good at the leg movements, but I loved doing stuff with my arms.

In 8th grade, I went outside for one of my nighttime trips and a raccoon started walking up the tree in my backyard. Ran right back inside.

I've always been inhibited about these things, afraid to dance in front of other people. I've only had two dance performances since sixth grade- one a Christmas concert sort of thing I did because I was one of only four people in the class, and the other from a play I was in when I had to perform in a group dance. I hated every moment of the second one, almost as much of the first one.

It took a lot of time to get the confidence to go nuts at 80's night, but once I get started it's usually pretty hard to stop me.
- posted by Christina @ 4:11 PM

 
The Dummy
So, if you read the last post (and judging by all my responses, you haven't), you know I mentioned the lifesize doll I got for Christmas one year. I'm still not sure why.

The dummy has never had a name. I got her in either 3rd or 4th grade for Christmas. My Aunt Nina once owned it along with another dummy that hasn't been put together yet. It was for safety driving at night in the 80's.

I dressed it in my dresses and took pictures of it posed in various places.

Then I had nightmares where it came to life and tried to kill me. It had glowing red eyes and the only way I could stop it was by pointing my finger and shouting "You're a bad dummy."

The dummy was blank and faceless, with cloth ears on the side of it's head. I used to imagine the different faces it used to have and what had happened to it to have lost a face like that. I think I finally decided on either a bad accident or a sin so great that the gods decided she didn't deserve a face. I really don't remember which.

My fifth grade (11?) birthday sleepover, I pulled out the dummy. Someone (I think Tami Efron) found the toy makeup kit someone had given me for a birthday. And the dummy had a face, suddenly. The crude, 11 year old artist kind of face. She got earrings, blue eyes, nose, lips and freckles. She looks like she has a really bad case of chicken pox.

Currently she wears white leggings and a yellow t-shirt from a week long Girl Scout sleepover camp I went to in 7th grade. She's been in the garage since high school or so.

This is one of the many bizarre things from my pretty normal childhood.
- posted by Christina @ 9:50 PM

 
Presenting Jennifer & Katie!
- posted by Christina @ 3:27 PM

 
Well, I was lazy today. Hence, no pictures and blogger is acting annoying. But still, koalas. Well, a koala. Though technically, not a real koala at all. A configuration of stuffing and fake fur with some plastic.

Katie the Koala.

I can't remember when I got Katie the Koala. No, seriously, I can't. I think she just appeared in my life one day. I don't know how old I was when I got her, who gave her to me, or even how much I loved her.

Actually, I don't think I loved her all that much. I seem to recall putting underwear on her head at one point. I really don't remember why.

What memories do you have about a stuffed animal? I've got a story behind the homemade humpty dumpty doll, Jennifer, and the life size dummy I own (that's a whole other post), but it's a story of their owners, the history behind them.

I never had pets, so I never had a doll I could no longer touch because the dog humped it or the cat shat on it. Well, I had a rat (Vanilla) and a mouse (Gus), but they never got out and chewed up the childhood loveys. Or the furniture.

I did photograph Kati as part of a Girl Scout project. Lit from different angles using my brother's green desk lamp which looks it belongs in an accountant's office.

She was also part of the big school I set up in the living room. Every chair in the house facing the piano, and in every chair a stuffed animal. I was the teacher. Probably also I was 8.

She might also have been a part of that series of still lives I did for art classes in 8th grade.

Currently, she's in a green bin in the garage.

AAAAAAAAAAH! Two seconds on google and find Jennifer:


with a better haircut. Scary.
- posted by Christina @ 12:07 AM