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.

A brief history of orthodontic hell

I just got all four wisdom teeth out and was reminded of the last time I faced off against mouth molesters.

I have a completely rational terror of orthodontists.

Or, for that matter, dentists, oral surgeons, periodontists, any sort of man in my mouth (heh heh.)

Non-mouth doctors don't give me the slightest shiver. Draw my blood? Cool, I wanna watch. Remove a tumor on my shoulder? Cool, show it to me. Put my feet up in stirrups and scrape me? Well, no one really enjoys that but it doesn't scare me. Stick your hands in my mouth?

Oh, hell no.

I had some really busted teeth as a wee R. Grace. Lil Watz so kindly described my mouth as "looking like a mangrove swamp." For those who've never ventured to Indonesia, mangroves are known for their gnarled, twisted roots jutting out from the murky, silty waters. If that wasn't enough, Lil Watz often compared me to a babirusa, a southeast Asian deer-pig with giant curling tusks that grow up over its lips and make it foul-tempered.

I think what I love most about my brother is his sweetness.

Needless to say, I started getting my mouth fixed as soon as my adult teeth barely got rooted in their jagged place.

First, I had a plastic night guard with a scary metal bar across the teeth. It did little good besides adding to the litany of reasons I could barely sleep at night as a young lass. X-rays reveals the holy grail of ugly ducklingdom: an overbite AND a retracted lower jaw. Overbite times two. Ooog-ly. When I hit the ripe age of ten, the orthodontist of my hometown said in no uncertain terms that the only way to fix my jaw was to break it. Intensive surgery to break my lower jaw, set it, and wire it in place for two months.

Breast implants would have been less complicated.

There I stood, trying to be a poised, interested young adult, having a mean old man tell me he was going to break my face. And weave it shut with wires. I listened to the list of things I wouldn't be able to do with my jaw wired shut in horror. How would I eat? What if I got a stomach bug? How would I answer all the questions in class? And the most terrible thought of all...

What if finally, finally the boy across the street realized I was the most perfect girl in the world and he wanted to kiss me?

I couldn't kiss a boy with my face all broken and bruised and wired shut.

I mean, gross.

Clearly I had my priorities straight as a pre-tween. I started sobbing in the orthodontist's office. Nuclear meltdown sobs, full body hysterical heaving and hyperventilating. I was so ugly. So ugly they were going to having to rip my face apart and make me even uglier (with the vague promise of the perfect smile somewhere in the hazy future. Like when I was fiften? That was SO OLD, god). This was just, without a doubt, the end of the world. And to top it off, I was not "using my grownup manners" in front of an adult. The horror.

Lady Mother dragged me out and I never saw that mean old man again. I hope they tarred and feathered him.

Then we moved to ~a bigger city~ and the torture began anew.

My new dentist is a wonderful man, actually. Quite jovial, the typical reminders to floss more and that I should probably get my wisdom teeth out before they started causing me problems (the second piece of advice I didn't follow because I was a teenager and therefore invincible. Yeah yeah yeah, he told me so. And if I ever eat mashed potatoes again I might start sobbing.) but a nice chap. Then, there was my orthodontist.

He scared the bejezus out of me before he even opened his perfectly clean and shiny mouth. He looked like the sort of elderly gentleman that would invite you and your wacky friends to his abandoned mansion for a dinner party, and if you could survive the night you would win a million dollars. But your chances were slim. Or maybe I just associate people with large, perfectly white teeth with homicidal tendencies. Whatever. He also possessed the most frightening eyebrows I have ever seen, at least half an inch thick and snow white. Like fuzzy wuzzy caterpillars... from hell.

So Dr. M as we shall call him, diagnosed me, yet again, as clinically ugly. There's probably a medical term for it, but that's the gist of things. Once Lady Mother told him in no uncertain terms that they were not breaking my jaw, he devised an equally vile plan: front braces and the Herbst appliance.

As a side note, until just now when I looked it up on the internet, I thought it was "Herps" appliance. I got so many "HA HA YOU HAVE HERPS-ES" because pronunciation is a lost art in North Carolina. Sorry 'bout it, ya'll.

Herps-es. Heh heh.

The Herbst appliance, probably invented during the Spanish Inquisition alongside the Rack and Thumbscrews, is a medieval torture device forced and screwed into a young tween's mouth to push their lower jaw forward and make them rue the day they were born. It looks somewhat like a set of shock absorbers, with poles that kept coming disconnected and trapping food in your gums for centuries. It's truly hideous, and can be tightened and rescrewed to slowly force the jaw farther and farther forward. It puffs out your cheeks slightly and makes you talk with a lisp.

If you think I'm exaggerating, search for "herps appliance" on the internet and the first thing that comes up is a Yahoo Question asking if it will cause permanent facial deformities.

It really is THAT BAD.

The date was set in stone. I signed the contract (probably in blood), was informed of the potential consequences (severe and irreparable trauma to the social life), ate my last meal, said my prayers and goodbye to my loved ones and...

Dr. M had a heart attack.

He was running a marathon or whatever mouth torturers do for fun and his heart gave out. The day before my appointment.

I WAS SAVED!

Or at least, granted a short reprieve. Six weeks later, he was fully healed (probably because he was part robot) and ready to give me a double dose of misery to make up for my few weeks of extra freedom. Installing the hardware took over and hour and a half of drills, screwdrivers, and wedges of metal shoving and prodding throughout my tiny tween mouth while I lay there, fully conscious and writhing in misery. In the midst of the pain, and blood running down the sides of my mouth, and the air-sucker thing stuck on my tongue shriveling it to the size of a small prune, I fixated on one shining goal in my delusional mind.

I was going to get a slice of pepperoni pizza after this.

I emerged from the operation bruised and battleworn. I met Lady Mother in the lobby, eyes red from tears and mouth red from caked-on blood. I made my request firm and clear. I was going to have a slice of pizza. It was the one glorious hope that kept me going through the pain. I was determined.

"PEEETHHAA." I demanded with a heavy lisp, reopening the few clotted sections as blood probably ran down my face in little rivulets. Lady Mother tried to protest, make me see reason, but I kept repeated PEETHA loudly and more bloodily until she gave up and drove me to the mall's food court.

It was the most painful eating experience of my life. I think I cried with every bite. But I finished the whole damn thing.

I then ate mush for the rest of the week.

At least the worst was over now. The pain only came briefly during "tightening" sessions, where they screwed my lower jaw forward. I could eat whatever I wanted, as long as I could unhinge the bars and scoop out the food caught along my cheeks. The teasing was brutal as I rode the bus with some of the cruelest and stupidest specimens of humanity. My hopes of kissing a boy withered and died. Some day this fugly duckling would turn into a swan... when I was fifteen and an old wizened spinster, past my prime and only able to wistfully look back on the days of my youth. But the worst had passed.

Until they went to remove the appliance.

Dr. M and his lovely aide (who remains one of the most genuinely kind people I have ever met in my life) went to work. The glue holding the appliance to my teeth had to be drilled off. Mini-chainsaws, mini-drills, about three-air suckers, pliers, and so many hands in my mouth. I might have had a major freak out.

It might have been such a bad freakout that twenty minutes in, we had to "take a short break" with the appliance dangling partially out of my mouth, because I was crying so hard I was starting to hyperventilate they couldn't work.

I got my shit together and went back under the knife. I begged forgiveness for whatever atrocities I'd committed to deserve this fate. I steeled myself against the pain, the chipping and whirring and drilling against my teeth and gums until... a sharp, blinding agony spiraled into the soft flesh on the underside of my tongue.

Yes, my tongue is awesome. I can touch both my nose and the underside of my chin with it. So maybe it takes up a lot of space in my mouth and maybe it can be super wiggly, like alien arm syndrome of the mouth. But suddenly it was under attack. The drill had slipped and plowed right into my tongue.

I tried to make distressed sounds to alert the doctor and attendant that I was in more than the usual you-are-destroying-my-face pain. I was surprised they didn't worry about the extra blood gushing out, burning like the fires of a thousand suns. I might have heard a grunt to stop wiggling so much. I couldn't even fixate on pizza. I prayed the next time the drill slipped it would be through the roof of my mouth, destroying my brain and putting my misery to an end.

I somehow emerged from the removal alive, though not without permanent emotional scarring. The orthodontist left in a huff, probably to terrorize some other small child. I meekly told the assistant that my tongue hurt, and asked if she could look at it.

"Oh, honey, it's probably just the usual bumps and and bruises." I then lifted my tongue to show her the mangled, oozing underside.

"OH GOD, I mean, ummm, oh honey, let me get you some numbing cream and pain medicine." The color drained from her face and she returned with roughly ten tubes of ora-gel and a handful of individually-wrapped aspirin. You know it's bad when the people in charge look horrified.

I went home after applying enough numbing gel to make me a drooling idiot, and pulled my tongue up in front of the mirror to survey the destruction. Sure enough, there was a deep pit in the underside of my tongue, covered in a tough white fleshy scab. Apparently tongues are similar to starfish, and it mostly grew back.

I went back shortly later to get the full set of braces and get diagnosed with TMJ. At a youth group beach trip, my jaw had locked up and could only open a quarter of an inch. I thought I had somehow dislocated it and freaked out accordingly, thus scaring off boys even with minimal metal in my mouth.

If this blog is any indication, I'm a very high stress and high anxiety person, and that leads me to clenching my teeth in my sleep. I could crack iron bars with these chompers. That, in addition to moving my jaw inches out of place, cause a slipped disc in my jaw. The temporary solution? Cutting down an athletic/football mouth guard to fit my mouth while I slept.

I am the one dorky loser who was excited about getting her braces off because that meant RETAINERS! Six years later, and it's probably been less than twenty nights total without them.

Many more months of agony and dweebiness and I finally got my braces off. The saga had ended. And since I wore my retainers all the time, my perfect smile stayed in place. I once burned my gums with those whitening strips, but all in all my oral woes had come to an end.

Until my wisdom teeth started a'wailin. But they're out now and after pain medicine withdraw and infection, I'm in the clear.

And how does this story end for Lil Watz? Mangrove Mouth gave way to Robo-Tooth for a while when I had the metal in my mouth, and he still calls me a babirusa for my foul temper. He had an equally rough time with a crossbite and some horrible device on the roof of his mouth that had to be turned with a key.

Oh, and he wants to be a dentist, so I'll never be able to escape.

The Best Worst Breakup Incident

Back to bloggin and it feels so good.

It was time to break up with my second boyfriend.

I learned a couple things from my dumping the dude incident. Don't ask if he's horribly depressed. Don't believe anything he says. Don't cry. Don't be awkward.

Yeah, still having trouble on the last one there.

This boyfriend, whom we will call Loki for love of all things Norse of course, was a REALLY BIG DEAL. We started dating the day after senior prom. It was *~TrUe LoVe~* or something equally sophomoric. 2gether 4ever.

In high school, 4ever roughly equally 4 months. It was my fun, freewheeling summer before COLLEGE and I was all "mature" and "intellectual" and "moving on." This younger guy (which caused quite a scandal in high school. Dating DOWN? For a GIRL? I am all about breaking social norms, clearly.) had started cramping my style. He couldn't stay out as late. He didn't like the hookah bar. He didn't have a car. Oh, the horror.

I went from no standards to ridiculous unrealistic standards in, what, a year? Oh high school hormones.

So after some incident related to him being unable to attend a really important little speech I was giving, I'd decided enough was enough. I think I wrote out a pros and cons list. I know I cried a lot. This was a REALLY BIG DEAL, after all. But I was resolute. And so the execution date was set.

At Panera Bread.

Ironically, I went on my first date with the Dude at a Panera Bread. I don't go there often anymore, because it is now firmly rooted in my mind as a place of high school heartbreak and romantic despair. But they have some damn good black bean soup.

Anyways.

We were grabbing a bite to eat before I had a meeting for a church youth thing and he was headed out to the beach with his family for a week. We sat down at a high table. I couldn't eat. My face was all red. Moment of reckoning.

"I think we should break up." Okay, see, that was good, I didn't say anything bad. "I mean, you know, you just, things keep going wrong and plans keep falling through and you don't care enough about me and I'm going to college anyways and I mean since you know I think it's not like ummmm..." and then I dissolved into a rambling idiot. No mention of death, though, so that's a tiny victory.

He nodded and said he understood, and sat there red-faced, looking at his food. Okay. Simplest breakup ever. Phew. Nothing awkward about that.

Then Dishwasher Bro came up to us.

Dishwasher Bro went to our high school and was somehow vaguely related to our group of friends. He might have worked tech on a play once? I know he had a gross makeout sesh with one of my friends that left her covered in bite marks in the back of her car. Anyway, he thought we were friends.

"R. Grace! Loki! Ahhh man it's so cool to see you guys. Y'know, I'm really glad you guys are staying together even though R. Grace is going off to college. You're like, my favorite couple ever. You just like, work. An inspiration, yo. I love you two."

Except we had just broken up less than two minutes ago.

Not only was I the cruel girl who had just ended a *~TrUe LoVe~* relationship, I'd also let down all these people who believed in us. Thought we were going to make it. Storybook romance, a love for the ages, all crushed because I wanted to suck face with some hazy nameless college guy in the near future. I made people stop believing in love.

We stared at each other and then him, both bright red. I would have burst out laughing at the ridiculous timing, except I was too busy thinking about how my world was crushed and I was in the throes of hearthbreak and despair and I would never believe in love again. I think Loki spoke up.

"Well, actually we just broke up. Ummm. Just now."

There was an awkward pause, where any sane person would have quickly excused themselves and apologized later. Luckily for this story, and unluckily for me, Dishwasher Bro is not all entirely sane.

"Ahhh man," he said, turning to my just-now ex, "That's so rough. I'm sorry, man. You know how girls are. Terrible. Damn, man, that must be really bad. Sucks. But I mean, she's going off to college so now you've got all that single time. Look, bro, if you want to hang out some time, let me know. Girls, man. Awful."

I'M STILL A FOOT AWAY THIS ENTIRE R.GRACE/GIRL-BASHING RANT.

I now sat there, open-mouthed and publicly shamed as a heart breaking whore. I mean, what about my feelings? I still felt bad. Where was the "you guys are the best couple forever" friendliness and adoration that had been poured out mere seconds before? Now I was a villain, a fiend, lumped in with every other two-timing gutter slut.

Gratefully, it was time for us to depart for our various commitments. We hustled out of the restaurant before my character could be trashed any further and had a tearful goodbye in the parking lot. That was it, then. I was through with relationships. Love was a lie. I was a heart-breaking vixen. Alone in the world.

I started seeing a cool community college boy a week later. He wore shoes that flipped out to rollerskates.

Needless to say, we got back together two weeks later... at least for the last three weeks of the summer. But that's a story for another time.

The Too-Skinny Freshman Incident

I am rather slender.

Or, in another word, bony. All elbows and knees and sharp edges. Nothing feminine and curvy. I didn't get boobs until college, and they are still rather disappointing. In short, not only am I lacking in social niceties, but I look awkward too.

No time was this more apparent than my freshman year of high school.

I had the trifecta of dorkdom going on: long, stringy, what-do-i-do-with-it hair that I roped into a tight ponytail atop my head 30 seconds after emerging from the shower, glasses in subtle giant ovals (before hipsters made it cool) and orthodontia from hell. I mean, braces and a Herpz appliance? Really? That appliance looked like shock absorbers in my mouth.

But once I got it out, I kind of missed it, because then I didn't have a tangible excuse for why boys weren't kissing me.

Anyways.

Not only did I have the trifecta of dorkdom glaring like a beacon to bullies, but I grew about four inches over the summer. Upward. And since I'd started being a hardcore cross country superstar (I couldn't even type that phrase without wheezing. Pausing this post for a gatorade break.) the rest of me hadn't quite caught up with the new height.

Now I wasn't just a bony, four-eyed, bracefaced dork. I was a bony, four-eyed, bracefaced skeleton.

My first day of school I arrived twenty minutes early, to be certain to find my Art 1 class on time and get a good seat. So of course I wandered around with increasing panic and urgency until I found my class with less than 30 seconds before the late bell. I ran in (because GOD FORBID you be late for a class in high school) and found only one seat left.

I sat directly in the middle of a table of wannabe gangstas and a handful of ultrajocks.

They were going to gut me with a paintbrush.

But Art 1 turned out to be an almost welcome relief from the rest of navigating high school. They mostly left me alone to my work, too busy talking about "their bitches" or "getting high" to tease me. When I did venture to ask them a question or contribute to their conversation (I think my first contribution was: Hey guys, what's a shank?) they eyed me warily like maybe I was a narc in dweeb's clothing. They would respond briefly and go back to what they were doing. After a couple weeks, they realized I wasn't taking first period Art 1 to ease off a hangover, but because I was actually INTERESTED IN THE SUBJECT (oh the shame) and they started asking me questions (uh, hey R. Grace, who's Picasso?) and admiring my work.

The rest of the school day was not as full of diversity and harmony.

Somehow, the zoning change between middle school and high school placed all the jerks that teased me on the bus in my high school, and all my friends and comrades in another high school across town. The jerks were never the most popular kids, being to fat or pimply or stupid to reach the top-tier. They were hanger-ons, only kept around for their jester qualities for the reigning social monarchy. And jesters need a target.

"You're really skinny." A jester peered over at me in the cafeteria the first week. "Too skinny. Are you anorexic?"

It took me a minute to respond, as my mouth was full of double-stacked peanut-butter-jelly sandwiches.

"What? No." I had snuck a second Little Debbie Marshmallow Supreme in my lunch. Haha Lady Mum making me pack my own lunch. Dessert is its own food group.

"I don't think you can be that skinny without being anorexic. You should eat more." And so it began.

The jesters were convinced I was an "anorexic" and would call me out on it. Frequently. And loudly. This was never done out of concern or worry about my well-being, but thrown around like a slur. Another thing to make me a freak, a weirdo, clearly something WRONG WITH ME.

These accusations were best when I was eating a bag of cheetos. Meanwhile, Princess Barbie could be eating celery and carrot sticks two tables down, and what is she called? "Totally Bang-able."

Jesters would harass me at lunch, give me all their gross leftovers and tell me to eat because I was too skinny. On at least two occasions, after I went to the bathroom during lunch a jester asked me if I'd just puked up my lunch. And make retching sounds at me.

"Oh guys, stop it!" Princess Barbie or Skipper would roll their eyes if the boys' teasing got above their general background hum of superiority. "Stop picking on her. Honestly." Condescending but significant glance at me, as if they were doing me SUCH a favor and if I had a problem I should REALLY get help.

To which my response should have been: Bitch, I will make a shank out of your carrot sticks and skewer you. I know how!

But back to Art 1. I actually enjoyed my table between the talkative thugs and jocks. Ninety minutes of not being picked on every morning! When the first 6-weeks ended, people were given the opportunity to shuffle, but most of us stay where we were.

Except Ron.

Ron was the most detestable type of jester: A hanger-on of the hanger-ons. Pale, scrawny with a belly, mousy hair, and no discernible skill or talents (he didn't even live in a cool neighborhood, gosh), Ron rehashed everyone else's jokes to try to create some puny self importance.

Ron moved closer. And one morning, decided to start in on me.

"God, how much do you weigh / Like eighty pounds / Do you never eat / What a freak / Why don't you eat more / what's wrong with you / You're way too skinny / You should eat / No really how much do you weigh I bet it's less than 80 pounds / What is wrong with you?" And on and on, in a nasally, obnoxious voice. I bit my lip. Now the "Haha R. Grace is an anorexic" joke would be on the thugs/jocks' radars and they would tease me too. They've both certainly spoken ruthless about dem btichez before. My 90 minutes of peace and occasional lesson in street fighting and the drug trade would turn into the rest of the school day: A tirade of everything that was wrong with me.

I didn't notice anything unusual at first. One of the football players stood up. HUGE guy, star of the team, definitely in art to waste some time. I thought he was going to turn something into the teacher.

"Hey yo, Ron?" He asked, towering above. Ron smirked and I steeled myself not to cry. Great, here we go, the approval that feeds the cycle of jackassery. Goodbye, prison tips and hello skinny freak girl.

"Don't you EVER ask a lady about her weight. What the hell is wrong with you, man? You never, ever, talk to a woman about her weight. Some people have serious problems with it and you could make it worse. God, didn't your parents teach you nothin? You treat a lady with respect and you don't comment on her weight."

He sat down and returned to his work. I wanted to applaud.

Ron shut up for the rest of the semester and the "anorexic freak" rumors stopped almost immediately.

I went back to my artwork and lessons in ebonics and sneaking an extra snack pack in my lunch.

The Sick Skiers Incident

I am addicted to caffeine.

I get worse headaches around 5pm from a day without caffeine than a night of drinking. I get more irritable and weepy without caffeine than PMS in high school. I get more homicidal rage without caffeine coursing through my veins than Hannibal Lec- okay, you get the picture.

I drink maybe two of three sodas a day. Or starbucks in the morning and two or three sodas later. The folks at my corner starbucks not only know my name, but my drink preferences depending on the weather and how tired I look, and major life events. I went there religiously first semester at 7:30am before my movement class, spending ungodly amounts on flavored, sugared, chocolatey espresso concoctions. I think they liked me because I was never like "soy, skim, no sugar, extra crushed iced, pretentious blah blah blah" but usually "can I get extra whipped cream? Of course I want WHOLE milk." They took pity on my at Starbucks because it was 1) always ungodly early and 2) after a bad breakup, and expensive coffee was one of my few comforts. Which the baristas heard about. In detail.

Anyways, free Sbux publicity aside, I know how bad caffeine is for you, being Dr. Dad's kid. I know caffeine addiction is a hop, skip and jump away from being a dope fiend. Yesterday I'm asking my friends in the drama department for an extra quarter so I can get a soda before rehearsal; next week I'm Marion from Requiem for a Dream doing ungodly things on a coffee table for more heroin. It's a vicious cycle.

I tried to quit, once. I really did. This is my harrowing story of recovery and descent back into madness.

New Year's Eve my sophomore year of high school: I decided to give up caffeine. Namely, soda and coffee.  At this point I drank maybe four or five cans a day, and it was seriously messing with my sleep and bladder. at 11:59pm, I ruefully drank the last few gulps of orange soda in my can. I wished the flavor would linger forever.

The first couple weeks were brutal. The irritability, the mood swings - I was going through actual WITHDRAW. The headaches were the worse - not completely debilitating like a migraine, where you know if you just pop some excedrin you can sleep it off. These headaches lingered, gnawing at the back of brain. It would be so simple to cure them, I thought... just a couple sips of soda. No one would know. But I held firm. In my weakest moments I - dare I say it - allowed my mom to brew me black, black tea. It didn't really count, I thought, sipping it greedily like a strung-out junkie at a methadone clinic.

I also developed the attitude often seen in recovering addicts or, more similarly, people who have picked up a new dieting craze. OH! The health benefits! I feel like a new person! The world is my oyster! Everything that was wrong in my life was because of soda! Why isn't everyone giving up soda! They must be weak - I must spread the word! I am so much better than all these poor saps still fettered to the yoke of caffeine addiction!

This exultations would usually bring on another withdraw headache, and I'd curl up in a ball on the couch for two hours.

Then came the youth group ski trip. We were going to the mountains of west virginia to go skiing. We got to ride in a big van (I hoped I'd sit next to a cute boy) for hours. It was going to be just the best thing ever.

After some really spicy Bojangles for dinner, we continued our drive north. I finished my water in two minutes and thirstily opened the cooler to grab -

The cooler was entirely stocked with soda.

Not a water bottle or juice box to be found.

I couldn't  just grab a soda. I would be a HYPOCRITE. In front of church friends! Church friends were always doing something naughty, like getting to second base, but never in front of everyone (eww). They would judge me.

"Well," I said smugly, trying to hide the fact that my mouth felt like sandpaper and the can of soda felt so sleek and sinful in my hand."I guess I'll just have to wait until the next stop to get some water. I have given up soda for New Years' and I am going to STICK WITH IT." Cue appreciative gasps from the rest of the kids (and probably eye rolls from the adult supervisors).

Two things happened in quick succession. One of the guys offered to share his water bottle, and a couple of my friends also declared they wanted to give up sodas too. Right then. We could keep each other accountable. Christian friends are all about accountability. It makes you feel superior when someone else screws up. It helps you stick with your goal. Also we got to share a water bottle with a boy.

"Oh ha," we laughed. "Hope none of us get sick! Otherwise we'd all be in trouble."

Cue the owner of the water bottle violently vomiting the entire next day.

Those of us who rode in the van, in such close proximity, looked at each other in horror after the full day of skiing. We had breathed the same air. Touched the same stuff. And for half of us - drank the same water. I might as well have been a 14th-century Snow White and accidentally called a sea of rats to clean my cottage. Sure, things would looks pristine and I would still have my dignity... as I died a vicious death from bubonic plague. We enjoyed our last few hours of life on the way back. I think one of the trip leaders even lead a prayer about how we knew we were going to get sick, but at least make it quick and as painless as possible. Two people in a different van fell out on the way home. Frequent stops.

I thankfully lasted another couple hours, but when I woke up in the middle of Sunday night, I knew I was a goner.

Between vomiting, I shooed away my Lady Mother's offering of soda to settle my stomach with carbonation and help balance my electrolytes (my parents are all about some electrolytes whenever me or Little Watz gets sick).

"Drink this! Ginger ale is good for you. It doesn't count as soda because you're so sick. You need it to restore your electrolytes."
"WOMAN," I shouted as I clung to the toilet. "I cannot give up now just because I'm sick. This is just a test. I can get through this. Get me gatorade. Or ice chips. Soda will not touch my lips. TRIAL BY FIRE (1 Peter 1:7 reference. 1000 good Christian girl points)." I alternate between really mean and really pathetic when I'm sick. "What does it matter? I'm probably going to die... sniff, sniff, at least I'll have remained resolute to my resolution until the bitter end."

I managed to overcome my sickness without a drop of soda. Those of us who drank from the bottle were hit the hardest. One of my friends called me the next day, equally sick and miserable, to admit she had drank some coca-cola to settle her stomach. I felt a little better. Morally. Physically, I think I threw up again.

I kept to my goal until summer came around. It was hot. I was bored. No one really cared that I wasn't drinking soda anymore. I think the first thing I drank was a Pepsi. Nothing significant happened. So I drank another. And another. (Though to be fair, only half the cans. I rarely drink a whole can. I tend to leave them around the house, half drunk, a testament to my presence. One day Lady Mother went around and stuck sticky notes to all of the cans, saying "EXHIBIT A" and so forth. I was not amused.)

I asked Lady Mother to hide the sodas, to maybe deter my cravings. I found them later that day, not so creatively hidden under my parents' bed. Really? What a lame hiding place.

With the challenge and my scruples gone, I returned to my caffeine-imbibing ways without much fanfare. Every now and then, usually on a weekend when I'm off my schedule, a certain gray headache will reach its bitter talons around my frontal and temporal lobes.

"Remember me?" It will ask with its fizzy, effervescent sweetness. And I will oblige.

Fail nails part 1: The razor toes incident

Yes,  my life is awkward enough that I have not one, but TWO awkward stories relating to fingernails and toenails. This is a toenails story.

I don't understand foot fetishes.

I mean, not that feet are particularly more unsexy than any other part of the body. They're just kind of... awkward,

Is there an awkward fetish? Oh goodness, maybe there's hope that I won't die alone.

Anyways, the scene is senior year prom circa 2008. EVERYTHING MUST BE PERFECT. Not like I had anything stereotypically prom-ish planned, like losing my V-card in the back of a crappy car or winning homecoming queen. I coordinated a big group of about seven friends, all of us with our respective dates, for dinner, promming, and a girls-night-in movie extravaganza after. So of course, a lot of things went disastrous. But those are stories for a different day. Especially that time I had to be cut out of my dress. But I digress.

I went to the drugstore to get fake nails. Bad idea number one. I should have at least sprung for a decent set of acrylics instead of the $5 glue-ons. But I wanted to pretend I didn't have stubby, chewed to the quick stumps. I wanted to be a lady, dammit. Using regular nail polish over them hid the gooey glue patterns underneath, and my fingernails turned out looking pretty nice.

Right next to the fingernails they had FAKE TOENAILS. Bad idea number two for even looking at them. There were some really pretty french-manicure ones. T-minus 6 hours until dinner and prom festivities, and I had no hair appointment or spa appointment booked. My mom, cruel woman, reasoned that a $200 dress and tickets and everything else was more than enough expense for one night. But MOM, think of the facebook pictures! This is supposed to be the MOST IMPORTANT NIGHT OF MY LIFE. No avail. I was Cinderella, with no pumpkin or pedicure. This had to change.

I am no expert in ideal toenail length, so I just grabbed a decent-looking pack. It turned out to be the longest set of toenails in the store. BAD IDEA NUMBER THREE. These things stuck out a good 3/4 of an inch past my actual toes. I though they looked kind of cool in an avant-garde, Alexander McQueen way.

Then us girls had to do the stereotypical arms-in-all corsages picture, followed by the right-foot-in-to-show-off-shoes picture.

"WHAT IS UP WITH YOUR TOES?!"

My good friend the Italian saxophonist laughed. Everyone looked down at my feet. Wonder if there were any foot fetishists in the crowd? They certainly got an eyeful of the bizarre.

"They're fake toenails. It looks like a french manicure."
"THEY'RE SO LONG. AND SHARP."
"Okay maybe they're a little long, but it's prom and I can be outlandish for one night."
"OH GOD DON'T CUT ME WITH YOUR RAZOR TOES! THEY ARE SO FRIGHTENING. THEY LOOK LIKE TALONS. TALON TOES."
"Please stop yelling about my feet."
"RAAAAAZZZZZOOOORRR TOOOOOEEEESSSS."

And so it went.

At prom, we all kicked off our shoes and danced like dancing fiends. Then we got ready to head over to some "after party" that had maybe two bottles of vodka and lots of coca-cola. Soooo badass.

As we were changing into our-post prom gear, I located my heels and put them on, looking at my feet in horror I realized...

Only my big-toenails were still attached. There were eight missing talons, scattered about the dancefloor. The big toenails were the longest, and next to my regular-sized toenails appeared to be vulture claws. Yank. Yank. Those suckers wouldn't budge. I couldn't cover them up with closed-toed shoes because they were TOO LONG TO FIT.

I hobbled off to the afterparty, talons probably scraping the floor at the point, and made an effort to sit at tables or stand in dark corners, lest someone glance down at my feet and run away screaming, fearful that I might claw their eyes out.

After 10 minutes of soaking in nail-polish remover the next day, they finally came off. I have never worn fake nails again... but the italian saxophonist still calls me razor toes.

I am wearing the black shoes. Thankfully most of my toes are hidden by the grass, but can you see that  big toe? TALONS!