Vampire Cigarettes

There was this pretty girl who starred in a vampire movie that we made in our high school film class. I was in that film too, sort of. I was the clapboard girl, the take one/take two person. Usually these people aren’t on screen, but the joke was on me. I learned later in a big way how much of a cow I look like when I chew gum.

The day the vampire movie screened in the school’s auditorium, I discovered that they had included me in the footage. My huge face took over the screen while I clapped that board, fiercely chewing, blasé as hell. The audience was hysterical. It was comic relief in intervals throughout the film. I guess the teacher thought it would be funny to include it. Yah, thanks pal!

Back then I smoked a pack of cigarettes a day – I smoked, chewed gum, suffered angst…  I bummed cigarettes from the vampire star of that movie sometimes. “How much do you smoke,” I asked her. “Two packs,” she said. “Two packs?!” A pack was too much, but two packs seemed over the top, especially for someone so young. We were 16, 17 years old. I had an uncle who smoked a carton a day, but he was much older and had mental illness. It probably gave him some kind of relief. At my exclamation, the girl explained that it was because she gave most of her cigarettes away.

Really?

That sticks with me to this day because it was so generous of her. Maybe that’s why she was the star of the film and I was just the cow chewing gum clapping the board. There were other kids I had grown up with who were generous, thoughtfully buying x-mas gifts for friends, nicely wrapped bottles of perfume, gift bags with trinkets of jewelry in them.

I admired this behavior. But gifts, for other kids? Not me. I probably did buy gifts for friends but only because I felt pressured. These other kids seemed to be doing it freely.

My spirit has shifted, I’m pleased to say. And I realize that giving isn’t just about material things, it’s about giving time, effort, presence. It takes me out of myself, especially when I get too self-centered. I don’t force give though – ha! It has to be organic.

I learn so much from others on this issue – the people who have helped me. I have a few great examples of friends who give thoughtful gifts and help other people, and there’s my aunt, an amazing woman with boundless energy that she uses to volunteer at organizations. My aunt doesn’t go around bragging about it either.

Yeah so, I need to erase some of that bad karma I created when I was younger. Anything I can help anybody with? – No, never mind, seems I’m not available — hahaha!

One Day in the Life of Sandee Denisovich

I love saying this as a way to outline a day in my life.  It’s my tribute to Solzhenitsyn.  I don’t mean to diminish the meaning of the book, which is about a Soviet prisoner.

Either way, here’s one day in my roach infested life:

number A – Saw my friend J. who goes to the nudie beach.  I’m planning to go with.  Only thing it costs 45 fucking dollars to take the ferry there.  He says he’d pay, but does that mean I’d have to, you know, put lotion on his buttocks?

number B – I thoroughly enjoyed hugging a man with a southern accent who smelled like cigarettes.

number C – I planned to come home and unfriend someone on Facebook.   Though we were just acquaintances, I thought we had a mutual interest in each other’s lives.  But while this person is ‘liking’ up everybody else’s posts, they have yet to ‘like’ anything I post.  I have other FB ‘friends’ who ignore me, but with this person it’s rather curious.  It would be fine if they hadn’t acted so friendly and interested when I used to see them.  Wull, anyways, I’m trying to sell books and FB is my poor ass attempt at marketing — when I feel like it.  So when I got home, I decided, maybe I won’t unfriend them just yet.

number D – I got a sweet gift from a blogger — but if I told you what it was I’d have to kill you.

number E – Okay so, I watched a man and a woman emerge from a single unisex public toilet — hubba hubba!

number F — I’m ‘watering’ my neighbor’s apartment while he’s away.  It’s all clean in there since he married his girlfriend.  And I think she threw all his cookies away.  I was planning on grabbing a few but when I looked at the shelves where he usually keeps them, there weren’t any.   I mean — this man stocked up on cookies like he was a Keebler elf — it was insane — once I counted 15 packages of cookies.  So I just dropped off his mail, watered the plants and got the hell out of there.  I did stare at his liquor bottles, tempted to open one just to smell it, but as people who know me know, I need to stay thirty yards away from liquor because it turns me into a damn Gremlin.  The cool thing is that he finally got rid of that furry toilet seat cover.  I HATE anything furry in the bathroom, especially in the vicinity of the toilet with all those bacteria and microscopic organisms — ew!  My ex had one and I was always uncomfortable in his apartment because I knew there was one in the bathroom.

number G — I read this great post on the Outlier Collective about cellulite! Made me proud to have it!

G’night!

Oblivion and *penis

I saw my friend outside of the bar, taking a break from drinking to smoke cigarettes.  I hadn’t seen him in a while.

‘Hey you.  You drinking these days?’  He says.

‘Nah,’ I told him.

We used to stay in the bar until daylight — what a waste of time.  We even ate our dinner at the bar counter.

My friend’s an ex-cop.  He’s pretty tough.  He looked out for me when we drank together, way back when you could smoke in bars.

‘You were so bad ass,’ I said when I saw him.  When I got drunk he’d bring me home and be a gentleman about it.  At some point we were “romantically” involved.  Some “romantic involvement” I remember, some I don’t.  Shame.  But anyway — I miss that lifestyle when I want to glamorize it, because I’m an asshole.  It was pathetic, going around in circles, obsessed with drinking.

I wasn’t there to experience what should have been good times because I’d be drunk, blacked out.  Sorry to be a drama queen, but I’m lucky I got away from it with my life.

This video from the movie Shamus reminded me of then.  I would be in the Burt Reynolds’ role, minus the penis and mustache – though, sometimes I think it’d be nice to have a penis.

By posting the video, maybe I am glamorizing the lifestyle, because Burt Reynolds is a sexy bastard, but when I actually imagine myself in this position, it’s sad – especially when it happens more than once.  Like, grow the hell up!

After a night of cavorting, Shamus gets up — no shower — just puts his funky ass clothes back on…ah, memories.  Check out the way he looks at the shoe – haha!

* “PENIS” was just a cheap trick to get your attention I’m afraid. 

Simon

I think of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and the roles we play in tribes.  I thought I’d be Simon in the tribe.  Simon goes off alone.  He’s prophetic and dreamy.  I think Simon goes into a cave and when he comes out, the bad tribe thinks he’s a beast, and spears him to death.  That’s me, I say.  I’m misread, on the periphery, and subjected to being lambasted by people who are afraid of where I’m coming from.

But I looked honestly, and this is not easy, but I believe I would’ve been in the bad tribe.

I acted out as a child.  While there was love and encouragement, we were raised by adolescents.  My mom was 18 and my dad 22 when I was born.  I also became very sick which devastated my school life.  My mom taught me to read when I was three and I was in special progress classes but couldn’t concentrate after the illness.  My parents might have done more if they knew better.  They gave me a wonderful childhood however.

But I became rebellious, destructive and mean.  I wanted to be bad, to test limits.  I remember rounding up kids to leave school to go to Pathmark to steal candy.  Our families had money to give us, but once I got kids together to beg for money in the street.  Another time I lied about the teacher collecting money for something and stole from kids in my class.  Tyrone found out, popped out from behind a car, punched me in the head and followed me home to tell my mother.  This was all at around the age of eight, and there were other things I did.  I also did mean things to kids that I’m embarrassed about.  If I smoked cigarettes I would have been a bonafide street urchin.

After surgery for my illness when I was 12, I befriended the main stream kids.  They put me in check and I became docile and unsure of myself — they were the majority.  I couldn’t be the wild little pirate anymore.  I knew instinctively that being with these girls was a cocoon of protection, even though I was on the periphery.  I later became an alcoholic then recovered which helped me to grow as a person.

As an adult I’ve been sited on my job review for integrity.  One manager said she thought that I was a class act.  My mom calls me Saint Sandee.  While my core personality from childhood exists — my curiosity about death and mystery of life and my blunt approach – those negative traits were mutable and transient, though that mischievous acting out may be manifested in my extreme views and sometimes severe criticism.

I just hope to continue to nurture that part of me that people gravitate to.  I want to be tactful, sympathetic, loving, generous and forgiving.  I guess now, this is why I relate to being Simon.

Black Bobby Pin in a Socket

I’m at my sister’s.  She has a four year old and a one year old.  She has all the sockets covered.  I think she could do a lot more to child proof the house — enclose both children in a plastic bubble like in the movie — I’m totally neurotic and would do this if I had kids.  That’s why I don’t have any — no that’s not why I don’t have any.  I never wanted any because I just never cared to be a mother. Period. It’s too hard, with covering up sockets and what not.

In the 1960s we didn’t have all this awareness and consciousness about this and such.  You’ve seen those funny little pieces about how the kids of yore didn’t have child seats in cars or bike helmets, etc.  My mother was having a shindig in the living room back in the 60s and I waddled back into my room and plugged the socket with one of her huge black bobby pins.  She happened to be walking down the hall and saw me as I just recovered from the shock of my life.  What did she do?  Probably just pat me on the head before lighting up a another cigarette and smoking up the entire apartment with her friends.  Yep, she smoked, like a chimney when I was growing up.  My brother and I didn’t have asthma either — I’m not saying this was okay.  Just saying.