The Worms that Weren't Incident

Collegetown had a very mild winter this year, and for that I was insanely grateful.
You see, when I hear "Winter is Coming," I think of one thing:

Itching.

It also means Game of Thrones but underneath all that warm fuzziness of bloodshed and sex is scratch, scratch, scratching.

As mentioned in the Awk Squawk about asking a new resident if my treatment would give me flipper babies, I have eczema. It is gross and miserable and hideous. It also get aggravated by lack of sunlight, thick scratchy fabrics and long, hot showers. Those three factors define my winter in a nutshell. Dr. Dad is like a wool evangelist and as a doctor's child I have been sufficiently scared away from the cancer beds. I still don't understand why apartment complexes offer tanning beds as part of their "complimentary services," but you ask the staff for a pack of smokes and they look at you like you're crazy. And lukewarm showers in the winter? When I am paying for heating in my house and always cold? Surely you jest. 

Itch, itch.

These days, I have two powerful aids on my side. I possess super thick miracle cream from the doctor and very very (very very) mild soap. 

However in high school, I was not so lucky. 

First, I did not exactly know what was going on with my skin (Is this puberty? Dammit body get your shit together). Second,  I was the typical teenage girl obsessed with bath products. Super smelly lotiony all-moisture-stripping chemical-overload ground into my epidermis with a loofah? ... but the label says "Midnight Path" or "Brown Sugar Vanilla Bean Cookie Crumble"and who doesn't want to smell like a grocery store? Finally, big chunky (but still close-fitting? I never did figure out high school style) cable knit sweaters were "in." However, being in NC where it only gets legitimately cold maybe one month of the year, these big fluffy sweaters usually went on bare skin.

Or maybe that was just me?

Anyways, I was a senior and high school and AWESOME. Lead in the school play, President of the English Honor Society (nerd) etc. Winter hit and I reveled in turning down track&field because  I was so embarrassingly slow I wanted to focus on theatre. Our Advanced Theater class was a pretty close knit group, mostly because no one else in the school wanted anything to do with us.

A particularly scratchy afternoon in the doldrums of January began to drive me crazy. I had on a pink fuzzy sweater from American Eagle - I remember this specifically because AE was SO COOL but Lady Mother would never spend money on cool name brand clothes. This was before shopping at Goodwill was trendy. She wanted me to focus on things like my grades and personality instead of dressing like the popular kids, that cruel fiend. But somehow, probably through a combination of prolonged whining and Christmas-present-time-mania, I got an American Eagle sweater.

And it itched like the fires of hell mixed with poison ivy.

So I scratched all morning and afternoon, but I would not take the damn thing of because it was AMERICAN EAGLE, for crying out loud! I almost could understand Kate Moss's statement that:"nothing tastes as good as skinny feels," because no relief from the horrible itching would feel as good as the brief nods of approval in the hallway. Beauty is pain, right?

However, there came a point in the late afternoon where I thought I might actually start pulling my hair out just to distract myself from the itching. I figured enough was enough and I would finally cave and-

roll up the sleeves a little bit.

Hah, you didn't think I would actually TAKE OF THE HORRIBLY AFFLICTING SWEATER, did you? That requires a level of common sense not present in seventeen-year-old girls who just want to be cool.

That particular day in theater we had a substitute teacher. Subs were great because we could convince them to do almost anything, like replay the sex-on-the-stairs scene from American History X at least four times in a row before she got suspicious. We pretty much had free reign.

I rolled up the sleeves as far as they would go, revealing three-inch diameter red, scaly, horrible circles of eczema on the inside of my elbows, with smaller circles smattered around my wrists. I tried to discreetly cover them by crossing my arms and sneak some slow, mournful scratches on the cracked desert battleground of my flesh.

"OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT" came a screech from the girl sitting next to me. I honestly don't remember her name or much about her, except she had the prettiest dirty-blond hair I've ever seen. The substitute stopped her droning and everyone swiveled to look at me. I crossed my arms tighter with my hands clamped over the inside of my elbows. Of course, that only aggravated the itching.

Oh, fuck it.

Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.

"OH MY GOD YOU HAVE RINGWORM. R. GRACE HAS RINGWORM. R. GRACE IS GOING TO GIVE US ALL RINGWORM OH MY GOD SHE'S COVERED IN WORMS." The girl was almost hysterical. Everyone stared at the scaly patches on my arms. The substitute looked like she was about to faint.

"Actually ringworm is a fungus, it's not 'worms'."

That was my first response. I didn't think to defend myself, or deny it was ringworm, or assure everyone they weren't crawling with disease and would be detained at Ellis Island because of me. I am so glaringly Dr. Dad's own daughter, I had to CORRECT HER DEFINITION of ringworm first.

"OH MY GOD FUNGUS YOU ARE DISGUSTING WORMS WHY ARE YOU IN THE CLASS"

Well that didn't help matters.

I tried to calmly explain to the substitute that it was just eczema, that it always looks like this, that I wasn't contagious... and she was just a vehemently trying to convince me that I needed to go to the school nurse or anywhere far, far away from her.

Trying to save face, I suddenly remembered I had lotion in my backpack. It was something like "Moonberry Dream Vanilla Blossom" with extra added chemicals and perfumes. Utterly the worst thing possible to put on sensitive skin, with the exception of possibly hydrochloric acid. Possibly.

"Oh look, I will just rub some lotion on it and everything will be better. No worries!" I said cheerfully, as I clenched my jaw and bit back tears of agony as I rubbed the reeking, chemically lotion into my scales, shooting stinging pain up my arm. The flesh puffed up and looked almost oozy, but at least there weren't flakes. My arms were burning. The itching had not died down, it was now just complimented with fire and tingling stings.

But I could tell from the judgmental glares around me that it wasn't enough.

So I slowly, miserably, unrolled my sleeves, encasing my sad battered skin with the rough, irritating sweater. And I sat on my hand for the rest of the class, counting the seconds in my head until I could run out of the room and rip off that horrible sweater once and for all.

Except, it was still an American Eagle sweater. And it was kind of worth it, since that one cute boy told me I looked nice. I might have worn it a couple dozen more times.

The Boy in the Band Incident: Part One - No Pants

This actually turned out to be four stories in one.
Two of them involve no pants.

In high school, I had a thing for experimental freak grunge prog rock shows.

I also had a thing for crazy musicians.

With those two sentences, you already know this is going to end badly.

(I also had a thing for boys with, in retrospect, really gross hair. I have since implemented one of my two hard-and-fast dating rules: NO BOYS WITH LONG HAIR. Always trouble.)

The last year and a half of high school I spent a considerable amount of weekends and choice weeknights at this run down warehouse-turned-venue on the outskirts of downtown. I dutifully paid my "suggested donation" and stood to the side with my arms crossed and my head nodding appreciatively to everything from technical metal to freak folk wailing and chants. This seemed like the ideal hang out for a "cool" teenager, as it was mostly pre-hipster college folks. It seemed a different country from my clean-cut, straight-As, high school existence.

I went to these shows with three main friends: one who drove, one who knew how to attract attention, and one who actually knew some of the bands and how to intrinsically "be" cool. And then there was me - both the motivator and the mom. The moderator and mitigator. Such a problem.

So hip, you guys. I am gonna score me some rockstars.

One night toward the end of junior year we decided to stay out SO LATE (until ONE am, crazy, I know) probably because Lady Mom and Dr. Dad were out of town. I felt hella cool in the polkadot dress I'd found at goodwill that my cool friend had chopped the sleeves of off. I think I wore Keds with it that evening. Top of hipster style, I assure you.

The headlining band that evening was a punk rock group from the southwest who went on to... not do much else, from the looks of their facebook page and myspace. They had a temporary stand-in lead singer who was supposed to be pretty good. The crowd was solid and energetic; the beer flowed (and I snuck it away from my friends and placed it on tables, etc. since we were underage! Eesh, so dangerous!) and the opening bands rocked. The combination of these three elements inspired one cool cat to drunk climb on the stage overhang and take his shirt off and spin it around. This sight caused the drunk college hipsta-bros next to us to remark:

"ahhh man what a wimp / he's not even stripping / that's not the way to do it / get naked or get off / rabble rabble rabble."

I laughed and that caught their attention enough to continue ragging on the poor stumbling (and not-well guarded against falling on top of us and snapping my slender high school neck) drunk who was trying to remove his pants to flail them around. Their heckling got louder, until my friend who knew how to attract attention turned and pierced them with an equally come-hither and die-bitch stare and said:

"Why don't you shut up and go show him how it's done?"

I echoed her sentiments, feeling all I-am-woman-hear-me-roar and giddy off of two cigarettes and being out past 11pm until... they did it. I cheered along, hoping for some hot abdominal muscles or, you know, a decently humorous story to awe all my wide-eyed AP-course-taking friends. Be careful what you wish for.

Something about punk rawk, man, just makes boys want to take their clothes off.

So these two even more drunk boys clamber above the stage and goad the lone drunkerd off to the side. They proceeded to rip off their shirts and jeans, windmilling them overhead to the great shouts of laughter and encouragement until... wait, what are they doing? They've put down their shirts... They're taking off their boxers... are they really going to... is that a.... ? Oh. my. god.

EWW EWW OH MY GOD GROSS EWW FREAK OUT NOW.

I shrieked and buried my face in my hands. My friend tried to pry my fingers away from my eyes, whooping along with the crowd.

And that is how I saw my first naked man.

---

To our other side, once the overhead nakedness subsided, another equally enthralling chap engaged us in conversation. He was the roadie for Awesome Headlining Band and bff of the temporary lead singer. Didn't care. He was intoxicated (this a running theme with poserish boys at concerts), a little repulsive, and altogether uninteresting. I mostly ignored him. And then the Awesome Headlining Band came out and I saw the lead singer.

Ba-DING Ba-DING. Two big red cartoon hearts popped up in my eye sockets. My first case of full-bodied rockstar lust.

I was IN LOVE. This boy was beautiful. And he knew how to rock. And his best friend was standing right next to me. Suddenly, I became very interested in everything the best friend had to say.

"Oh my gosh that is so interesting / and you've been touring with them how long / tell me everything about them / oh yeahhh you did mention you were friends with D / ohhh best friends? / ohhh wow cool / so what's it like tell me EVERYTHING / uh huh uh huh / ohhhh the set's over boo"

Miss Emily Post rolled over in her grave from my charming etiquette and conversational prowess.

Right on cue, Lead Singer walked over to talk to his best friend about loading amps or something equally boring. And there I was with my winning smile (probably with scary serial-killer eyes, it took me a while to learn how to tone down my enthusiasm.) wearing my totally cool thrifted dress, and being INTERESTED IN THINGS.

He said something profound (probably: Oh, hey) and I swooned. In the .5 seconds I'd known him I'd fully succumbed to Total Groupie Syndrome* it was baaad. My friends crowded around to chat, keeping the conversation the appropriate level of we're-like-totally-in-college-whatever awesome. I'd completely forgotten his gross friend and zeroed in on every beautiful (and arrogantly pretentious) word falling from his mouth. This wasn't like all of the other bands I'd seen here at the Warehouse. These guys were going to BE SOMETHING and REALLY GONNA MAKE IT. Oh, be still, my heart.

I noticed a shuffling in the corner of my eye.

His drunk friend loudly told some stupid story from an earlier concert, gesticulating wildly with one hand and... undoing his belt with the other? He managed to unhook his belt, mid-story, and started unbuttoning his pants. We stood there in the middle of the Warehouse, actual groupies shuffling around carrying amps, tattooed girls trading alt-rock hookup stories behind us over the haze of American Spirit smoke, and the drunk friend was removing his pants. Nonchalantly. Still telling his story.

I was both horrified and incapable of looking away.

Suddenly, he stopped. He looked down at his pants now approaching his knees (undergarments still on THANK GOD) looked slowly at us girls with gaping mouth and wide eyes, and then to the Lead Singer. He the spoke again.

"Aw man, you gotta tell me when I'm taking my pants off in public. I can't get in trouble for this again!"

He shuffled away, hiking up his pants and muttering curses.

This had happened before? This was a thing? Accidentally forgetting you were removing your clothing... and in front of underage girls, no less? I've read about many types of systematic memory loss, but never in my psychology studies had I seen someone who JUST DIDNT REALIZE HE WAS GETTING NAKED.

And that is how I did NOT see another naked man.

* Total Groupie Syndrome (TGS): Behavior exhibited by typically desperate girls wanting to score with a band member. Nausea-inducing to anyone not afflicted. Symptoms begin with flushed faces, dizziness, uncontrollable batting eyelashes, and excessive giggling. Also earnestly CARING about the band's goals and artistic vision. When not treated with a healthy dose of reality or a well-meaning bitchslap, symptoms can progress to ostentatious flirting, lofty statements and delusions of grandeur and true-love-forever and irrepressible lust. Not to be confused with the even-more-severe "actual love," the onset of TGS is swift, sudden, and may require little or no interaction with the intended target.

(the bangability scale tends to go from lead singer, percussionist?, lead guitarist, drums, and then last and usually least, the bassist. Though now in our ironic, post-hip society, the bassists have suddenly started being in high demand. Thank you, I started that trend.)

---

So does R. Grace end up with her band boy (not likely)? Does the evening end in shambles or hilarity? Will she ever stay up past one again? And how does relationship advice from a chimney-smoke English teacher play into all of this? How does this forever shape our fearless heroine's dating adventures?


I guess you'll have to wait until the next post!


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Post inspired by my jaunt to the Honda Civic Tour last night to see Matt & Kim, MCR, and Blink 182. My middle-school self is still jumping around excitedly. Goodnight loves.