And now, two baby birds killed with a watermellon-sized stone: selections from "The ABC's of Me," a random Nemerov Seminar Assignment.
And yes, SEVERAL PARTS ARE ENTIRELY FICTIONAL. Or highly extrapolated from the truth. It's a creative writing assignment, guys.
Antidepressants
They don't do a thing for me. Unless you count the side effects. If I'm ever going to get over my depression, it's going to be on my own steam.
Bjork
Her hit single once gave me some kind of sensory seizure. I remember that unmistakable, alien soprano keening against a backdrop of electronic squeals. Next thing I knew, I was on the floor. I've loved her music ever since.
Coming out bisexual
I realized that no one really gave a damn. And I got on with my life. I consider myself lucky.
. . .
Evading The Question
What else is there to do when you don't want to lie and can't tell the truth?
Fetish Scene
It was your typical college party: chips, dips, chains, whips . . .
Genes
Big A little a, brow n or blue, wrinkled or smooth. Blood type. Fur color. I loved to chart them, to make a grid and say the sooth. At last, flawless probabilities. I had earned the right to predict life itself, and the world would never again lack certain outcomes.
But my own Punnet square never quite worked out. Daddy knew it, too, although the math did not come easily to him. He began to slide out from underneath my logic very slowly, as if removing a sleeping child from his lap. The harder I tried to circle my square, the less he fit. And before I knew it, he was gone, leaving half of my family tree infested with question marks.
Then mom got sick. Genetic, they said. I cried. For anyone else, I would have known what that meant, yet my own equation remained inscrutable. I tried to start a new square and work backwards, but lost my will to finish it. I could not record my mother's legacy and call her unpaired suffering my own.
In the end, I gave up Punnet squares for the comfort of a blank page.
Horseback Riding Camp
The only cool thing about being a girl-scout.
Indigo
People have to remember me for something. It might as well be my hair color.
. . .
Kegels
Because I can.
Lerve
Only the most intimate of souls are able to create a functional secret language.
Monster
The first time I tried it, the caffeine made my heart cringe. Now I have to drink one every day just to stay alert.
Needles
I've come in contact with more needles than I'm willing to admit. But if I'm willing to drive one through my own lip without anesthesia, why do I still shrink from a blood test?
Octopi
They're smarter than you think. They also taste great raw.
Pussy Control
Only Prince would have the balls to write a six-minute song called "Pussy Control.” Naturally, I've made it my personal anthem.
Quincy the Iguana
He didn't start off friendly. When I first received Quincy, he'd been cooped up in a chicken-wire cage for seven years and systematically ignored. And boy was he bitter about it. He was a full five feet long, with talons and a razor-scaled tail.
My mom told me to never let him out. I wouldn't have it. I can tame him, I said, as I reached into the cage to stroke the lizard's spiny plates. He crept tentatively towards my hand, looked me in the eye, and bit my finger. I decided that a more gradual approach was best.
So, I began to do my homework next to his cage every day after school. In the beginning, Quincy would fling himself against the bars, trying to attack me. A few weeks later, Quincy would let me stick my hand into the cage, as long as I didn't get within a few inches of him. He let me touch him before the school year was over.
I will never forget the day he let me pick him up. The little bastard waited until he was safely wrapped in my arms to scrabble up my neck, using his claws for traction. I spent the next three hours trying to capture him with a pillowcase. Oh yes, the noble beast will teach man patience.
Raving
Peace, Love, Unity, Respect, right? I didn't find that. What I did find was music. Hardcore Trance. There is no thrill, in my opinion, like tracing electron orbitals with your glow-sticks to the incessant sucker-punch of a fat bass kick.
Smoking
The pastime that says: "I have terminal ennui."
Tattoos
Sometimes I feel like they're my only static feature.
Uterus
If I use mine, it will ‘splode, because I am a mutant.
. . . . .
Wasabi
Nothing beats a dollop of grated chartreuse horseradish on your seaweed and fish-eggs. It cleans out your sinuses. And your episodic memory. Ohio WASABI!
Xenophobia
Brutal - that's the only word to describe it. Sure, if any creed achieves 99.9% majority in an insular area, they grow resentful of "intruders,” but the Mormons of Utah valley took distaste to a new level. When my family finally moved to Texas, the realm of gay-bashing Baptists seemed like Southern Liberal Heaven.
Yuriana Kim
She always acted very strange when I was around. Unbeknownst to me, she competed with my grades and writing skill. At the end of the school year, my friend Cody told me it was obvious. Why else would she hover over my shoulder while I wrote, ask me to proofread her papers, and talk about me incessantly when I wasn't in the room? I don't know, I said. I always just thought she had a crush on me.
Zuke Fest
Back when I lived in Massachusetts, my parents used to take my three siblings and I on a road trip to Vermont every summer. Destination: Zucchini fest. Zuke fest for short. Picture a hundred ex-hippies making herbal zucchini bread and playing the guitar for seven days straight. I came for the frog-pond, the open fields, and the unadulterated evening sky, but I stayed because it was one of the few times I ever saw both my parents relax.
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