Virginia is boring. Not totally boring, more like “boring with a side of excitement on occasion.” Like when you get all A’s on a report card, and your parents offer to take you to dinner at a “fine restaurant”, except you end up at the same restaurant you’ve been going to all your life, and you order the same thing you’ve ordered since you were old enough to order for yourself. By the way, the “restaurant” is Friendly’s, and you’ve been ordering “Grilled cheese with French fries, please, with root beer” since you were seven.
Born on the sixteenth of May, I have had eighteen or so years to explore Virginia. This paper is about my life in my hometown, which happens to be the only place I have ever lived. I would love to say my life is full of wacky and exciting things, but my life is the same as the rest of Virginia… Boring. However, this is only a personal opinion (which I am entitled to) so take no offense at what I say.
I was born with one very long name. This soon changed, as my mother became divorced, then remarried. With her remarriage, my last name changed. That was probably the most exciting part of my life. That simple change meant a different home, a different school, and a different future from the one I could have had with my biological father. My mother had full custody of me, and I have seen my father twice since the divorce. Both times were awkward and I couldn’t wait to get home just so I wouldn’t have to be around this man that I hardly knew. Soon after she remarried, my mother gave birth to my little sister, Elyse. Elyse is now thirteen, and since this paper is about me, and not her, that is where my information about her will stop. Except for the few bitter references I throw in about how I wish I could be her in many different ways. Ok? Also, the year of my bat mitzvah (for those of you non-Jews, that is 13), my mother gave birth to my little brother. He is now five and he is a constant source of amusement for me. Nothing like dinnertime with a five year old to brighten your day. However, if you bring the five-year-old to the aforementioned restaurant, that “Grilled cheese with French fries, please, with root beer” ends up on the floor. I have no contact with anyone on my biological father’s side, so this is the last place he will be mentioned in my paper. Exeunt Father. At this point in time, my mother has wandered into the study and read what I’ve been typing. She is wondering why she is not a large part of the paper ( I think she wants credit for raising me to be the angelic happy child that I am). And I said I’d include her. So here’s my section on mother and her relation to me.
My mom has always been the authoritarian in the family. She sets the rules, makes the bed, and cooks dinner all at once. She has always been the one to set up the high expectations that I can never meet. Well, maybe I can meet them, but I do not feel like I can, and I know that if I did, it would only raise the bar for the future. My relationship with my mother changes every day. Until I was thirteen, she was this beautiful perfect woman who could do no wrong. When I entered my teens, I became extremely critical of my mother, and rebelled against all her rules. The rule I chose to fight the most was the “no dating until you’re sixteen” rule. However, I did not win this war, even though my friends and I did plot many a time a great plan to go out on our dates. The plan consisted of: 1. Telling mom I’m going to a movie with a girl friend. 2. Getting caught walking out of movie theatre with the boy friend.
Ok, so that was not really the plan, but it WAS what happened. This did not please my mom too much, and put quite a strain on our relationship. It was not the only thing to strain our relationship. We had many issues, such as how I wanted to dress in more trendy (i.e. reveal as much flesh as possible) clothing, and makeup. Another issue was my grades (never high enough for her, and she could not believe that I would be happy with A’s and B’s). In a family where an A is the only thing acceptable, earning a B in a class seemed to mean that “B” meant Bad. Only as I have gotten older (and infinitely more mature, ha) has our relationship improved. We are now great friends on good days, and on those days when things are not so great (otherwise known as Report Card Days), we tend to stay away from each other. She and I communicate through our nightly back-scratching and book-reading sessions.
My mother has had a huge impact on the way I view things and how I act. She has taught me that being manipulative is not a bad quality, but only a bad word to describe a certain aspect of my personality. She’s told me I should try and always get what I want, but to hurt as few people as possible in achieving my goals. From her, I have my high expectations of others, and I have become very demanding. I do not, however, have her patience or her green thumb in the outdoors. In fact, most everything (with the exception of a rubber plant I bought at Wal-Mart) I have attempted to grow has died. However, recently (6/14/01) the plant died. Sad, I know. It’s ok, I’m not bitter, but I am very glad that boring old Virginia is not a farming community, otherwise I would be up a certain creek without a paddle. My mother has taught me the value of a book and what knowledge can do for you. She was always there to give me a Band-Aid when I scraped my hands (no doubt in some attempt to do something she’d warned me against) and I quickly learned with her that if you expect nothing from someone, you’ll get nothing from them.
My expectations of a father were something that my stepfather has never known. We have never sat down and told each other “This is what I expect of you.” This very fact may be one of the reasons why he and I have not always had the best of relationships. When I was young, we attempted to do the “father-daughter” bonding activities at the YMCA. These activities consisted of joining an Indian tribe (We were of the Apache tribe), adopting silly names (Running Bull and Little Fawn), and making crafts together. Soon the whole “Indian Tribe” thing got old (I think it was after a few of the “tribal meetings” were held at our house..) and we stopped going. Dad (as I call him) is a very busy man, he works all day, comes home at night, eats dinner, and sleeps. That’s about it. We see him on the weekends when he rolls out of bed and down the stairs to read the newspaper. For about as long as I can remember, we’ve gone to Taco Bell on Sundays after Sunday School. This tradition stopped a while ago, actually, but every Sunday I wake up wondering if we’ll go to Taco Bell.
My dad and I are very different people. We don’t like the same foods (me: thick crust pizza, him: thin crust), don’t like the same music (me: what can be called “rock” or “noise pollution” depending on your age, him: a mixture of seventies disco and today’s top 40), and don’t even have the same social habits (me: few, close friends, him: tons of friends). My mom says the reason we argue so much is that we are very much alike. I think she is in denial. However, my dad has taught me some things about life. Such as if you stick with something for long enough, you get to be very good at it (He’s been a stock broker since he graduated from college.). Also, he’s taught me that if you do not constantly get on people about things (as in, I need this done NOW) those very things may not get done.
Although him possessing that very quality leads to many arguments, I see that he often gets what he wants using that tactic. Dad is great for hugs and kisses, for support, and to tell you that he knew that your boyfriend would only hurt you and do bad things when you’ve just broken up with the said boyfriend and are upset. So although I don’t have all that much time with my Dad (who is the only person I really can call “Dad” even though he is not my biological father), the time I have had, such as the million football games and all the Star Trek Episodes we’ve watched (every Sunday night ‘til I was twelve or so, we’d order a pizza from Domino’s, and watch it), and all the tribal campouts we’ve been to, the times have been good.
Good times are not what life has been about though. Certainly not my life, at least. So far, life has proved to be weird. I mean, growing up in the nice neighborhoods that I did, I should have had no problems. You know, like, I have the clothing, have the shoes, have the friends, go to the right school, get the cute car, and graduate with my cute boyfriend at my side. Never had the clothing, never had the shoes (I always had Keds, the cool kids had Pumas), didn’t have the friends (I went to private school, missed third and fourth grade, which apparently was the year when the friends you would have for the rest of your life were decided in public school), didn’t get the cute car (have to pay insurance, gas money) and most likely, won’t have the cute boyfriend at my side when I graduate.(n.b.: I did have the cute boyfriend at my side when I graduated...however, things got all fucked up and then fixed themselves. See the end.) But those are very minor things really, in comparison to those less fortunate. I mean, I could be some kid in Israel who constantly has to worry about his or her house being blown up. So although my problems are not the most pressing issues in the world, they are MY problems, and I feel like they should be given proper attention. I don’t know why, I guess I’m just a selfish kiddo. It’s how I’ve always been though, and chances of me changing are not that great.
As I type this, I’m on AOL, talking to my best friend in the whole world, Sarah. I have known her since forever (don’t ask how long that is, its so long that we remember each other when we were “dorks who took Ballet together”). Sarah really should be the one to write my biography, she knows me better than I do. She knows I have crazy mood swings and that, if left to my own devices, I’d eat Jello for weeks on end. It is ok to say that I am on AOL while I am typing this, because I am always on AOL, and since it is a part of my life, it is germane to this paper. Sarah is close enough to be my sister, she’s the one I go to when I need someone to talk about things that cannot be discussed with mom and dad because no matter how much I wish I could tell mom and dad “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”, it just doesn’t work out that way. Basically, I tell Sarah everything. She is one of the only stable elements in my life that I absolutely love and have no problems with. Sure, we have arguments, but they never end in “I hate you.”
So, the opposite of hate is love, right? You could say I’m in love. I believe it’s love.. But maybe I’m wrong, hopefully I’m not… I guess if I’m writing about my life I’ve got to include who I’m dating, you know? :::::NOTE: This has been updated as of August 4, 2002. I deleted the part about Michael (the guy I was seeing back then) and am just going to add on to the end of this, making everything a lot easier to understand... So keep reading, FUCKERS.:::::
A big thing with me is regret. Almost every decision that I make while I am alive, I will regret in some way or another, at one time or another. Even the ones that lead to situations that could have potentially been very bad. I think, well maybe if I had been there, it would have been different. I am constantly thinking eight million things at once, and even though I say I don’t regret things, I do. It’s inevitable. No one is perfect, and while I can be in denial about how I feel, everything eventually comes out, whether it is me telling someone else, or simply me admitting it to myself.
Anyway, more trivial things about myself, as I really haven’t said that much. My favorite color is red, I like giraffes and jellyfish. I love to play with makeup, and I love to dress up. I look forward to school dances although sometimes I think that they are stupid and juvenile. I love to read. When I read, I lose all track of reality. It is amazing, like I see the words, but as I read them, I hear the characters’ voices in my head, and I see the actions. Every time I read a book, I feel as if I am there. That is what makes reading so enthralling for me. Reading becomes a way to avoid everything I dislike in my life. I become so absorbed in a book that I escape my thoughts and memories and I don’t even hear the things around me. It is the same way with myself and music, or art.
I have played the piano my entire life. This does not mean that every note I have played meant something though. Every time I sit at the piano bench now, it is because I am upset. It has become my haven, the piano room. The carpet is crème-colored, the walls are pale yellow with gold sponge painted onto them. There is a window right next to the piano that I can open so I can hear everything outside. Normally, I play during the night, because, well basically I don’t have time during the day. But sometimes I get a bit carried away and the piano music carries to the rest of the house. Normally my mother will check on me to see if I’m ok, but if it gets too disturbing, she’ll tell me to go to bed. Which really means, go to your room and draw. My mother knows me well enough to know my love of pencil and paper. Or crayon and paper. Or pencil and crayon and paper. Or paint and paper. Basically, art. I’ve always been able to paint. I’m not bragging, note that I didn’t say “I’ve always been able to paint shockingly well.” Because I’m not that great with paint. But I like to, and I can, so I will. Am I telling you enough about me or what?
This whole “autobiography” thing makes me very uncomfortable. I am an intensely private person, and this exercise makes me feel vulnerable. Because now whoever has gotten hold of this knows all about my family, and me, and I know NOTHING about them. I dislike not knowing things about people. I’m a very curious person. People ask me questions, and I will answer with questions, just because I don’t want them to know what I’m thinking or who I am. Not that I am a terrible person or anything, just that I would rather know about other people than myself. A hunger for knowledge has always devoured me, and my topic of interest happens to be humanity. I like knowing how people work, what they think, what their motivations behind their actions are. I would never enter in the field of Psychology though, because I think it would be a bad idea for me. I get very involved in the things I’m passionate about, and I think that I may need to look at things objectively when it comes to a career. I’ve never written an autobiography before, really. So I’m not sure what to write about, and I know I’m being really informal, but there were no set rules about what to write about or how to write it, so I’m just writing and I hope this is graded by what it means and if it is informative, instead of by my grammar and format. Back to my paper.
The day I was born, my mother brought home a dog. She was a wire fox terrier named Heidi. And she was nuts. Absolutely insane, absolutely smart, and absolutely my companion at all times until I was twelve. She would sleep with me, and there was nothing better than feeling her breathing and the funny dog noises she made like she was barking under her breath in her sleep. We were constantly chasing each other, and I saw her give birth to a litter of pups once. We sold most of them, I think there were nine, and two died. It was so sad, to see my mom put the little ones that had died in a shoe box and bury them in the yard. They were tiny, I couldn’t believe that something so alive could just stop being alive. I know it sounds redundant, but I’d never really seen something die ‘til then. I think I was eight or nine. I’d had a dog when I was younger, named Pumpkin, but Pumpkin met death in the form of a car, and I have no memories of Pumpkin, only pictures. But I’d come home to Heidi on school days, and she’d be basking in the sun right in our den, where the sun had fallen on the carpet. I’d lay down next to her and wish I was a dog, so I could play and run like she did all day. Sort of immature of me, but we all have our dreams. Anyway, I’d collapse down onto the warm carpet with her and we’d get to play. Heidi ran with me in the snow, listened to my chatter at night, was the audience to countless plays I would perform by myself, playing all the roles. One of my favorite memories (it’s sort of gross) with Heidi happened in the morning on a day it had snowed. I came downstairs, to let her out in the morning. I was a little out of it, on account of it being morning and me being excited about the snow. So I threw the back door open, totally forgetting to disarm the house alarm. Of course, the alarm begins to blare, and I realize what has happened. At this point, Heidi had gingerly begun to step out onto the snow. She was getting old and her legs were going but the second that alarm went off (and MAN is it loud) she jumped straight into the air. Under normal circumstances, she would have landed fine, but she came down onto an inch of ice, and began to skitter all over the place. She became so frightened and frantic that she just peed and pooped all over the place. Of course, me being like, eleven years old, I found this the height of hilarity. I had to get on the phone with the alarm people and tell them what had happened, and then clean Heidi up. I had so much fun with her, all the time. It was heartbreaking at the end to see her stumble around as her sight faded and she lost her hearing. I remember coming home from school one day to see my mom crying in the kitchen. She told me that she’d put Heidi to sleep, and I raged for days about it, but eventually I saw that she’d done the only possible thing.
I’m always impossibly tired. I don’t think I’ve had a day in the past four years that I’ve woken up and said “Man, I feel wide awake, I don’t want to go back to sleep at all.” I’m a total insomniac, whether for chemical or situational reasons, I just don’t want to sleep. Actually, mainly I can’t. it used to be that reading would help me sleep, but I get so into it now that I will read ‘til four or five in the morning and then look at the clock and say, well why go to sleep now, it would only be a couple hours, its no difference if I don’t sleep tonight. When I was younger, I’d always sneak the flashlight into my bed so I could read under the covers. I remember it would get so unbearably hot under my millions of blankets (I LOVE blankets, can’t sleep without a ton of them) and I would be afraid to come out from under them because I was absolutely convinced my mother would see the flashlight under the door and come racing into the room and spank me or something. I think it was just the fear of getting caught that I disliked. I was never one to accept a punishment with a smile, but who is? Anyway, I’d read and fall asleep and drool all over the books, and of course my mother would find me in the morning with a flashlight and a books in my bed and, well, any moron could figure out what was going on. So I would have to find new ways to read at night, and it became a little game with me, let’s see how many ways we can deceive our parents to further our learning. Probably not the greatest thing for a kid to do, but, at least I was learning something.
I’ve learned a lot in boring old Virginia. There’s a lot to know about it, its history, the people who built it, and somehow, tourists find it all insanely cool. I fail to see how a bunch of statues of dead men and the horses they rode can be entertaining, but hey, that’s just me. Maybe I take it for granted, teenagers these days are supposed to take everything for granted, right? I’m not sure. Some people certainly do. I don’t. However, I don’t pray to god and thank him for it. In fact, I don’t believe there is a god at all. I haven’t in a long time. I have no idea why not, but something about it just does not ring true to me with it, and I will not claim to believe in something that I think is not true. Maybe someday I will believe there is a god, maybe not. But for now, I don’t think there is. My parents are both Jewish, my mom a convert (from Catholicism) and my father a Jew. Now, the information that I don’t have similar religious beliefs as them is very very upsetting. I think up until this year, they’ve just told themselves that it’s “a phase” and that it “will pass.” But it hasn’t passed yet, and I attend services with them on the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) and the Day of Repentance (Yom Kippur). I’m not sure why they make me go, as if they think I will somehow become “a believer” just by being there. Who knows, may as well give it a try, it’s worked for millions of people, the whole “religion” concept. I’ve been really involved with religion before. I’ve gone to Catholic school where we prayed weekly and went to mass each month. I’ve been to Judaic school where we did half the day in Hebrew and prayed daily. But somewhere in the middle, I lost my faith. It was not like I woke up one day, and went “Wow, I don’t believe there’s a god.” I don’t quite know what happened. But it happened and that’s what matters.
Sounds like an interesting thing to have on your tombstone: “I don’t quite know what happened. But it happened, and that’s what matters.” I’ve always had a fascination with death. No, no, not the “I want to blow up the school and go crazy and kill everyone” type of death. More like, what happens after. What people feel as they die. If they feel anything at all. I like to wonder if I’m the only one who has that type of thought, and I bet I’m not, but I don’t really think it would be a wonderful idea to start a “People Who Think About Death” club at school. Just a thought though. I graduated from high school this past week, it’s very exciting, I’m not sure what will happen this Summer, I just know I’ll do a lot of work. Right now, I don’t have a job, I’ve got to find one though. I mean, the last place I worked was at a fast food restaurant. Sure, it’s fast food, but since when does serving fast food to hungry people become an undesirable job?
Originally, I started working the restaurant just so my parents would be embarrassed and feel guilty about making me work (ok, so I’m petty, but don’t kill me for it) but now I like it. I like it a lot. I like the people there, and I like to deal with the people, even though some of them are crazy housewives who’ve got really messed up priorities. By messed up priorities, I mean “I must feed myself this cruddy fast food right now! And I must feed all ten million of the kids I’ve got in my oversized Sports Utility Vehicle right now too! Because they’ve all got a soccer game in half an hour and god forbid they don’t get their Chicken McNugget Happy Meals!) I’ve really got to wonder what’s wrong with them. Who knows, maybe it’s just a different breed of humans that only exists in Virginia.
Seeing as I’ve lived only here, it is all I know. Thing is, I am not sure how much I really want to escape from it. As boring and historic and close-minded and Republican (I’m a hard core Democrat) as it is, I’m comfortable with it. Yet the fact that I don’t really want to leave Virginia is a characteristic of many Virginians. This amuses me vastly, that I’m becoming the very thing I always swore I’d never become. I know, though, that I will leave home for college in the Fall (Yes, finally, wahoo). When I come back, I’ll see it with different eyes, because I will have lived somewhere else. I both dread and excitedly anticipate college. I dread the thought of sharing a room with someone else (I’ve always had my own) and having them able to touch my things and look through my stuff when I’m not there. I’m excited about no parents, which means no curfew, no rules, no “Are you going out of the house wearing THAT? It’s forty two degrees out!” from the parents. I love that, how they never realized that I too, can read the thermometer. Shocking, I know, but somehow they think that telling me the temperature (which I check as soon as I wake up, to see if I’ve got to scrape the frost off my car) will convince me not to wear a t-shirt. It just kills me though, I wonder if parents all over the place do that.
I guess someday I’ll know what it’s like to be a parent. I want to have two boys and I want to be married when I have them. Not sure what they'll be named... Back to my rambling..I do not want to ever go through divorce, so I’m not getting married until I’m absolutely sure, and if I don’t like my decision ten years after, that’s my problem. But I do not think divorce is the answer, even though my life turned out pretty well so far. Do I have any definite reasons for not wanting to get divorced? No, not really, I just don’t like the idea of it. A lot of things are like that with me, no definite reasons for anything, just the way I feel. I’m very intuitive. I don’t read my horoscope every day, and I don’t believe everything I read when I do read it (and yes, I do, but who doesn’t!?!) but it’s just one of those quirky things I love. Another little thing about humanity, that some people really read their horoscope every day and believe it. Like anything that applies to one twelfth of all humanity is really going to be true… I guess that’s just what I think, and maybe I’m crazy. Oh well, at least if I’m crazy, I keep my room pretty neat, my grades pretty decent, and I care about a lot of things in life. Ok... So all of that was from senior year in high school for a psych class... From there, I spent an insanely obsessive summer with Michael and went off to college... Then everything changed. My life went from routine (wake up, go to school/work, go home, sleep) to unpredictability (wake up maybe?, go to class sometimes? get drunk all the time? break the law in more ways than one could imagine frequently?)... It was hell and it was heaven, to put a cliche to it. I broke up with Michael. This turned out to be one of the best moves in my life. I ended up with a guy named Eric. Eric is so integral to my life that I feel as if losing him would mean losing half of me. Not that I couldn't live without him, as we both managed fine for 18/19 or so years. But... life is better with him. Plans for the future with him? Yes. That's all anyone really needs to know. If you have more questions, just ask. :)
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