Okay, so it's been a couple days--but better late then never right?
3.) Laundromat elegance. This is not technically a childhood memory because it took place in my late teens, but I thought it was appropriate. Any list of this sort would not be complete without mentioning Sara. Sara is my best friend and has been since the day I met her while waiting for the bus in second grade. There are SO many memories that I could mention here, all containing our shenanigans, but that is another list for another time.
When I was 18 Sara and I moved into our own place together. We were VERY poor, the type of poor where I was stealing candy from my work for meals and sara was going on dates for dinner and then living off of the left overs for a few days. It all sounds dire, but we had so much fun! We were the queens of making simple things fun. We did all sorts of stuff. We wrote plays and acted them out, spent whole evenings thinking of pranks to put on our answering machine, went on 2 a.m. slurpee and beef jerky runs, and danced all around our apartment for no good reason other than it was Tuesday.
Sara hated doing laundry. She seemed to hate laundry as much as I hate cleaning the bathroom. In fact, sometimes when she ran out of clothes she would just say "screw it" and buy more instead!! Which I happen to think is pretty awesome. We would often have two HUGE mounds of clothes, one of them mine and one of them hers. She had a cat "Figaro" who hated me for some unknown reason. He knew my scent and when he was feeling especially bitter towards me, he would circle around the clothes mound, walk right over Sara's clothes, and pee all over mine. That cat was like Cujo. In fact, that was my nick name for him. One of my shirts could be on the floor, laying directly next to one of hers and that little bastard would position himself perfectly to make sure his urine stench landed ONLY on my stuff.
Anyway, laundry day was a big deal. First of all it required massive amounts of organization and muscle power. On top of that, we had to spend money to do it and when it comes to more ramen noodles or a clean bra, sometimes you have to improvize and wash your bra in the sink.
After organizing ALL of our clothes into the appropriate piles, (and I mean every stitch of clothing we owned at that point), we would realize we had nothing in our closets to wear TO the laundromat. Except of course for the one or two super fancy dresses that we never wore and had stuffed at the way back of the closet. So what did we do? We utilized that shit! We used laundry day as an excuse to dress up to the hilt. I'm talking heels, hair dos, full make-up, and all the fixins. It was always quite hilarious to see the looks on people's faces while I was playing pacman (for 25 cents)in my bridesmaid dress. Doing laundry with sara became quite a fun event, but of course that is totally how we roll. :)
4.) Getting arrested. The first time. When I was about 13 or so, I was hanging out at this place called "Coffeehouse Gibehrti". Or just "The Coffeehouse" for short. The first time that I went there, I remember the feeling that it was very intoxicating and full of wonder. It seemed to be buzzing with life, mystery, and drama. It was full of so many interesting people too. It was like all the freaks started coming out at night and gathering in this little place. There was lots of laughter, poetry, darkness, and also some scariness and utter delusions. Most of the people there were a lot older than me. At least already in high school or in their twenties, but they seemed to accept me right away. I immediately starting going there every chance I got. I went after school, on the weekends, etc... Eventually, a couple of my friends started coming along with me as well. Mostly Amanda, Brooke, and her brother Gregg. It is there that we met a couple of nice gentleman, seemingly harmless, much older, who would hang out with us every now and then. I will spare their names. At the time it seemed really cool that they wanted to hang out with us, but now it just seems creepy.
One night in the summer, we decided that we wanted to go to the fair and stay out and meet up with these guys, one of whom seemed to have an unhealthy infatuation with Brooke. We of course couldn't tell our parents what we were doing, so we lied. I lied and said that I was staying at Amanda's house, Brooke lied and said she was staying at my house, and Amanda said she was staying at Brooke's house. It seemed like the perfect cover. We went to the fair that night, where we met these two guys. We all went to Shoney's afterwards, and then sat and talked by the river in the manor parking lot. Another one of our notorious hang outs. Besides smoking ciggarettes underage, we weren't even doing anything noteworthy besides talking.
To our disdain and our surprise, at about 3 am or so, a cop car pulls up and starts asking us a bunch of questions. To make a long story short, we all get hauled away in an cop car. This was very scary for us all, especially me...as I was still living with Hitler at this point (reference previous blog entry), and I thought for sure that he would stake me in the heart and feed it to the wolves once he found out I got arrested. We all got mug shots, finger prints, the real deal. They totally put the fear of God in us, but especially our parents, when they painted the guys we were hanging out with to be dangerous drug abusers and violent criminals. (Although it turns out that one of them HAD been previously charged with sexual assault)
If I remember correctly, Brooke got a pretty light punishment which consisted of her being banned from seeing me for like two weeks. Amanda's mom slapped her so hard that it echoed across the river when she came to the police station. And I'm pretty sure she was grounded for a little while. While I was basically sentenced to prison for SIX months! My punishment was the notorious sentence writing, a list of chores to complete every day when I got home from school. A very LONG list. No guitar. No television. NO music. AND Hitler made me write a letter to all of my friends parents from school, his collegues at work, and my distant family members telling them how rebelious and irresponsible I was. Yes, he sent them. Humiliating and unnecessary punishment, but it did work. I never did that shit again.
As far as court, we were all sentenced to community service, which we all served by helping out at the library. This was actually fun for me, as it was the only time that I really got to see my friends. We would pass little funny notes to each other and stuff. I don't remember what happened to the two guys.
5.)My Lilac Heaven. I have always been the dreamer type who likes to wander around. I would spend long periods of time by myself outside as a child. I used to have a huge oak tree in my front yard and I remember climbing way up high on it to look at the stars at night. I would go on walks and adventures in the woods by myself, always looking to discover something. It seems I just wanted to feel happy and free and I always seemed to feel like that the most when I was outdoors. Every place I have lived I have had a special "spot". Some place that I like to go to and sit, think, just BE. From the age of about 8-15, I had several different spots. But the one that I remember the most fondly was by this blessed, incandascent, ethereal cluster of lilac bushes.
In the spring time there was this thing called the "Lilac festival" and many of the houses on my street used to participate in it. The point of course was who could grow the prettiest, lushest, and most fragrant lilacs. Oh, it was heaven on earth walking home from school with that smell in the air. They were everywhere. And pieces of lilac would get swept away by the wind or rain and blow across the ground.
One day while I was walking through the woods, I saw in the distance this cool looking circle of trees, so I decided to study it further. I discovered this beautiful creek and if you walked along the rocks that lined it you landed in an enormous pile of lilac bushes. It seemed pretty far from anywhere, so I felt safe. I used to go there and sit, mostly in the afternoon reading books, thinking, or sometimes taking naps. That is, until I got caught. Apparently the place I had staked was actually someone's property. I was very sad to let it go, but I never went back. I also never forgot it. Lilac is still my favorite smell.
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