Damn Kids

It only looks like I took a week off. While I was doing book stuff, the rest of you were busy giving me a big head. Thank you.

How broke did we get? Well, for entertainment the other day we spent more than thirty minutes making faces into the living room mirror when we realized it created a fun-house illusion that swallowed our noses and gave us big chins. Thirty minutes of Chin Mirror Theatre. Then we just played “You Look Funny Upside Down” for another fifteen minutes. That was followed by “Look How Fast I Can Slide When I’m Wearing These Socks.”

This weekend Little Drummer Boy’s upstairs neighbor had a party. An outdoor, garage-band party. And I got back all kinds of Karma for every time I was ever obnoxious outside. For my thirteenth birthday party, when my friends through me a surprise party and my best friend’s garage band Willing Victims rocked the suburbs of Jackson, Mississippi. For the party Chuy threw where their toilet was broken and we all had to pee outside, littering the front hill of their apartment complex with bits of toilet paper and vomit. For the screaming outdoor fights we had when slumber parties went awry. For the time we played mud football and got covered in fireants, causing even more outdoor suburban screaming.

To add insult to injury, at eleven they stopped playing bad garage band music (“This next one’s called ‘Syphilis!’”), and started their 8 Mile rap-off. Holy Moly, there’s nothing worse than fifteen-year old wannabe gangstas.

“You think you’ve hit the nexus/but my dad, he drives a Lexus!”

The first time I’ve ever really hated Eminem. I hated what he did to my peace and quiet, and then I hated that he made me feel old. I’m the same age he is, he shouldn’t be able to make me feel old.

No, here’s when I felt old. We were sitting on the front steps when the rap-off ended (just the very act of sitting on front steps does imply some kind of elderly position, doesn’t it?) when a group of boys walked by, all talking about how much one Asian kid rocked the mic. Then they spotted us and did that, “Oh, shit! Parents! Don’t show them you’re high!” giggle and snort. My boyfriend insists that one said, “Nah, I think they’re cool.” I’m pretty sure he said, “Nah, they can’t call the school.”

I’m off to my weird job that I’m contractually obligated not to talk about. I’m pretty sure I can tell you what I do, though. I’m a logger for Are You Hot?. A logger means I recap the raw footage they tape for the show, entering it in their database so they can find clips easily when they assemble the episodes. What’s worse than watching Lorenzo Lamas, you ask? Watching nine uninterrupted hours of Lorenzo Lamas. I call it my “chicken suit job.”

Today would have been my parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary.

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