Small Town Wren

I’m going to Guatemala.

Yes, you read that right. I’m going to Guatemala. I bought the plane tickets earlier today, which is incredibly exciting. I’m going to do a week of Spanish immersion with my sister in Xela. This is the first time I’ll be leaving the United States for any appreciable amount of time and to any place that isn’t, like, Canada. I’m psyched! I don’t even know what else to say beyond “EEEEEE!”

So about that Mono…I’m starting to feel a lot better. I’m still having my sicker-than-anything moments, but I feel okay more often than I don’t. I finally have enough energy to do more than sit on my sofa in a sad, sick, stupor watching Law & Order reruns.

Which is nice, because it’s just in time for my first spring break! One of the perks of being in a teacher-education program and working in a public school is that I get two spring breaks. I’m out of classes this week, and at the end of March I’m out of work for a week, and most of my classes that week have been cancelled. It’s nice to have professors who work in the same sector.

This whole mono thing started several weeks ago when my sister threw her birthday party at Delilah’s that she didn’t attend due to having mono. We still had the party though, and I went, and had my last huzzah before I got mono. Well, since we’re both feeling up to being people again, we went into the city for a makeup party at Tavern. This was the first time out I’ve ever had to buy a drink for myself. I guess one out of four is still okay, but not what I’m used to. For record: at the first party, I paid exactly $0 and got 2 glasses of wine, 4 shots, and a gin & tonic. I don’t really drink a lot, but when I do, I drink whatever is bought.

Also for the record: the drinks at Tavern are awful and overpriced. Regardless, we had a good time. Lots of friends showed up, a game of impromptu charades was played, and there was lots of random fake-dancing. I also got to show off the arrows I’ve been drawing on my fingers of late at work to help redirect my buddy’s focus.  They were definitely used in the night to point out random things to a bunch of drunk 20-somethings. I’m just glad I didn’t get groped by the bros who weren’t in our group. Random gropings from bros is probably the biggest reason why I don’t go out very often.

I have been neglecting my blog for some time now. It turns out I’m pretty diseased. Considering I’m trying to take as few sick days as possible and still get to all of my classes (one of which is in finals right now), it has left me with very little energy to do much else.

You know it is bad when even your mother is concerned by just how much TV you’ve been watching and not much else beyond it. We’ll see when I make a return to regular posting, but as of now, I’m sick with that dreaded disease Mono.

I either got it from or gave it to my sister. She was even more of a mess than I was for awhile. She hibernated for a week while the whole family moved her out of her apartment. Me? I’ve just felt awful for two weeks now and don’t have the ADD energy level to which I usually have access.

Almost three years in the making, I finally finished The Beauty Myth in the wee hours of the morning. It’s just a shame that the most dated part of the book is the last chapter. It is an artifact of a past that already seems like ancient history.

The Beauty Myth was originally published in 1991, when I was four. The vast majority of my life has been spent in a world where Naomi Wolf’s rallying cry had already been heard. I think I’m much better off for it, too. The way my mother approaches her body and the way I approach mine are in two completely different categories. The biggest feature of note is that my mother flat out refuses to leave the house without any makeup on; it’s an odd day when I leave the house with makeup on.

I never bought into it. I was always part of the rebellious crowd, but somehow the parts of the myth that latched on to my sister and my peers never found its way to me. I don’t know if it’s because I never wanted to feel like anyone but myself, or if it’s because I’ve spent half of my life with some form of overt baldness. It’s hard to feel shame for your looks when all of your shame and self-consciousness is rooted squarely in your hair.

Or maybe it is because I was blessed with a naturally slim figure and a rightly colored face. It was a running joke at my boarding school: I’d devour six plates of food at dinner and the health services ladies would still think I was anorexic. They weighed me constantly, and lectured me on how eating is good for you, thinness isn’t everything. They had no idea I held the candy arsenal in my dormitory or that I routinely won eating contests against the burliest of the burly men on campus.

This isn’t to say weight hasn’t been a big part of my life. My mother had to defend herself when my elementary school thought I wasn’t being fed due to being so underweight. I ate ice cream every night and was part of that dreaded “Clean Plate Club” at dinner. When I shot up to 5′7″, girls began poking at my sides in the locker room and asking me how I did it. I didn’t know. I still don’t know.

A lot of it has to do with my mood. When I am happiest, I tend to weigh more. Depression makes me drop the pounds as if they were nothing. I started this past summer out at 145 pounds. Depression clubbed me over the head in September and by mid October I was hovering at 123. While the sadness has eased its grip again, the new medications I’m on are of the sort that make you lose weight. I’ve lost two more pounds in the past week. I haven’t seen 120 since I was 16.

It frightens me. I don’t like being this skinny. Once you are of a certain thinness, the pressure is on to keep it. People tend to leave you alone though if you’re even 5 pounds heavier than that thin. I’m not anymore, though. My skinny jeans are just straight legs now, and I have to belt them in so tight to keep them up. I eat, but the weight keeps falling.

I still have fake blood under my fingernails. It’s really wedged in there and I still haven’t been able to dig it or wash it out.  No worries: it compliments my bruises well.

I must confess, I did not spend Halloween in my small town. I flew to New York City to visit friends and attended the Best Party of the Year: Hallowmas.  Hallowmas is the show the World Inferno/Friendship Society plays on Halloween every year, and it’s always pretty awesome.  This year was no exception.

My sister and David (previously mentioned) have been going for years. I joined in while I still lived in New York. I couldn’t dream of missing it this year, and flying across the country with my sister is always a trip. It started out with a Toasters show and ended in a pool of sweat, exhaustion, and euphoria.

I broke my stagedive virginity at this show. Three times. The feeling of leaping into the hands of total strangers, praying they will catch you, is a total exercise of release. You relinquish control and judgment and just fly. And when they catch you, and suddenly you are swimming above a moshing crowd, all fear is gone. You are entirely in the moment.

That is why I love mosh pits so much. It is all those reasons and more. You cannot fight the pit, only let it take you where it will. No one has control of the pit; it is the sum of it’s parts. You dive in and just go. Yes, you will get bruises, and I have many, but they do not hurt. It’s total surrender.

This Hallowmas brought the return of old friends and meeting of new. Max came to this show, and he’s been at ever Inferno show I’ve been. New friend Eoin was introduced and I hope he will return again soon. My sister and friends found him in London. It’s just a shame that the day after had to be spent calling out some people for questionable morals.

Photo courtesy of Konstantin Sergeyev.