yes please(25)

I stood onstage and did the monkey dance. I put my two fingers up my nose and turned it into a pig nose. I took my other hand and put it up between my legs and grabbed my crotch. I danced and made monkey sounds as everyone clapped. These were the people I wanted to impress. They still are. Who needed a job? I was already my own boss! (Cue my parents gasping.) Money? Who needed money when I was already so rich? (I was very poor. I needed money badly. I borrowed a lot from my parents.)

New York, here I come!





the russians are coming




MY PARENTS STILL LIVE IN THE HOUSE WE MOVED INTO WHEN I WAS FIVE. In my old bedroom are the dried flowers from my prom and a street sign I stole when I hung out with some bad kids for a few months. I loved school. I loved new shoes and lunch boxes and sharp pencils. I would hold dance contests in tiny finished basements with my friends. I roller-skated in my driveway and walked home from the bus stop on my own. We never locked our door. I had a younger brother whom I loved and also liked. I thought my mother was the most beautiful mother in the world and my father was a superhero who would always protect me. I wish this feeling for every child on earth.

Because of this safe foundation, I had to create my own drama. I’m aware many children were not afforded that luxury. Some had houses filled with chaos and abuse, and they learned to keep their mouths shut and stay out of trouble. I was dealt two loving parents, and they encouraged me to be curious. This safety net combined with the small drumbeat inside of me meant I did a lot of silly things to try to make life seem exciting. Our little town of Burlington, Massachusetts, was quiet and homogenous, an endless series of small ranch houses on tree-lined streets littered with pine needles. The only thing we feared was the dreaded gypsy moth. Burlington was sleepy, and to a restless young girl like me it often felt like a ghost town. I yearned for adventure and spent a lot of my youth in my own head, creating elaborate fantasies that felt grown-up and life threatening.

The streets and woods around my house were a perfect setting for fake mischief. I would spend all afternoon pretending I had run away and had to live on my own. I would bring Toll House cookies and a sweatshirt and try to make a fire. I would sneak outside of our house at dusk with a pair of binoculars and search the streets for murderers. I created scenarios in my head that I always managed to escape from: kidnap fantasies where I would wriggle free from the ropes, fire fantasies where I would save my whole family and jump from my window into a snowbank, drugstore-robbery daydreams where I would find a way to connect with the troubled teen and get him to drop the gun. After school, I would eat ravenously and then hop on my pink Huffy bike. The bike read CACTUS FLOWER on the side, and as I coasted down the street, I would pretend I was being chased. Riding fast and helmetless, I would look over my shoulder and pick a random car and decide it was filled with Russians. I would pedal furiously up to the edge of the woods and jump off my bike, stashing it in the bushes. I would pile leaves on top of me and lie very still, imagining how ridiculous those bad guys would feel when they realized they had walked right past me. This was during the Gorbachev/Reagan years, and our enemies had thick-tongued accents and fur hats. “Do you see the girl?” the small and scary boss would say. “Nyet,” the big and dumb one would answer. I would pretend to wait until they were gone and then jump out of the leaves to get to the business of delivering the microchip into the hands of Pat Benatar.

On long car trips, I would make my little brother, Greg, pretend he was deaf while we sat in the backseat. We would communicate in made-up sign language as we sped down the highway, in the hope that a passing car would see us and feel pity for the beautiful family with two deaf children. When you have a comfortable and loving middle-class family, sometimes you yearn for a dance on the edge. This can lead to an overactive imagination, but it is also the reason why kids in Montana do meth.

My best friend, Keri Downey, lived a block away. Her house was a much livelier version of mine. Keri and I met the first day of kindergarten. I was dressed in a cowgirl outfit, which says more about my mother’s wonderful acceptance of my weirdness and less about my fashion choices at that time. Remember, this was still the 1970s, a time when my teachers wore leotards and corduroys and kissed their boyfriends in front of us. My mother was at home, but Keri’s mom, Ginny, worked. Keri was a typical latchkey kid, and her house had that exciting Lord of the Flies feeling of being run by children. Keri had a list of chores and suffered consequences if she didn’t do them. I came from a home where my mother would gently suggest that maybe I could pick up my room if I had the chance. Keri had a police officer dad who slept during the day and was not happy if we woke him up. I had a dad who would snore on the couch as we all stood around him and teased him loudly. Keri had fierce sisters who punched. I had a brother whom I occasionally argued with. The Downey sisters were a tiny gang. They fascinated me. They would fight hard, wrestling around and pulling hair. They would even challenge me to fight, occasionally pushing me into the scrum. One time Keri’s sister threw a set of toenail clippers at her eye and it drew blood. Blood! So exciting! They would torture each other with big emotional threats, and then they would cry and make up and eat a sandwich. They had each other’s backs even when they were talking behind them. Keri would come to my house and luxuriate in the calm and the junk food, and I would head over to her house to watch her sisters in action. I would come back from Keri’s house riled up, like I had witnessed some kind of dogfight. I would talk back to my mom and mess up Greg’s baseball cards and act like I was a real tough piece of business. My parents would send me to my room and I would stomp up the stairs, excited to be such a troublemaker. I would knock over some books. I would kick the wall. I would put on my Jane Fonda workout and really feel the burn this time!