Teeth

When I was in third grade, I knew a kid named A.J. who had buck teeth, and they were pretty damn gross. They weren't gross by virtue of the fact that they were buck teeth, and even if I thought buck teeth were gross I wouldn't have much room to talk, as my teeth were slightly worse than this:

Now they've gotten better. That's a current picture. There are very few pictures of me grinning.

What made A.J.'s teeth so nasty is that the constantly visible two front ones were covered in a thin orange layer of... something. Nobody ever talked about it, or made fun of him, and he wasn't even particularly mean or nice or popular. It was just a taboo. One did not speak badly of A.J. Jenkins' teeth.

Maybe I'm wrong. I'm not known for being particularly observant, and I have literally slept through at least two hurricanes, so it's possible that A.J. lived a hellish life full of torment and derision. But if he did live that life, he lived it where I could not see.

Except for one day, and it sticks out in my memory like a sore thumb. I'm sure everyone else in that class can remember it, too.

A.J. made Justin Silverman mad. I don't know how; I don't know why. All I know is that he got Justin so mad that he stopped in the middle of activity time, raised his face to the sky, and screamed with the fury of a thousand Viking warriors "A.J. is a weirdo with stuff on his teeth!"

And then everybody was like:

And then nobody ever spoke of it again.

How to be a hoarder.

Today I cleaned out my completely overstuffed wardrobe. I pared it down to what I consider my must-haves and I still have more than I can fit in my drawers and closet. This is totally why I don't watch Hoarders or any other show whose main plotline is "We go to some crazy person's fucked-up messy house and try to take all of their shit," because I see the way those people cling to their two-year-old gum wrappers, and then I look at my two-year-old gum wrapper that I got from a Mississippi Braves baseball player and cringe. I have had, have now, and always will have, more worldly possessions than I could possibly hope to handle.

It wouldn't be so bad to clean out my room if it wasn't full of so much FAIL.

For instance, I danced for ten years. It was awesome, I had tights and a leotard and a stiff-ass bun, and nothing else mattered. I danced around campus to get to my classes, I danced solos in recitals, and I was, if I dare say so, pretty fuckin' good. Then I tried to go en pointe, meaning that I had to buy eighty dollar shoes made of satin and what might as well be fuckin' wood, and then I had to try to stand on the exact tips of my toes wearing those shoes. It was painful, and that in and of itself would not have stopped me, as I pride myself on being a member of the fairer sex, a benefit of which is that I naturally have a high pain threshold for birthin' babies. Aside from being painful, however, dancing en pointe turned out to be physically impossible for me. I could get up to the tips of my toes and stand there for a little while, but I couldn't walk en pointe, or dance very effectively, because my feet would bend forward and basically melt out of the shoes. This wasn't the most surprising thing, as I am really flexible, and I can do things like walk with my toes curled under my feet, like this kid:

I have always had trouble with strength because of this flexibility, but often both my teacher and myself had attributed my problems to the well-known fact that I was lazy. When my feet started popping out of my shoes in a perverse bow-shape, though, everyone agreed that it would probably be better for me if I quit, because I was a great ballerina, but if I couldn't go en pointe there was not much... point (haha).

So today I opened a drawer, and ten years' worth of worn leotards and tights full of runs spilled out, and in getting rid of them it felt as if someone was ripping pieces of me out. But I can't hold these things hoping to start back up again. I know I never will.

There were a lot of clothes in that drawer, but I found some other things, too. I found a whole fuckload of shame sitting in the corners and settling to the bottom, because I feel like I'm not woman enough to somehow get past what I know to be a congenital disorder in how my body works. I'm still looking at what I know to be an impossible goal, and thinking that if I could just stop being so fucking lazy I could get there.

But now I'm rid of it. I just don't have it sitting around my room, so it's not like I can pull out my old sports bras and sit on the floor and cry on them anymore (Not that I ever did that. What? Why are you looking at me?!)

Though I still have my pointe shoes. Years from now, some organizational expert or presumptuous therapist will pull them from a pile of dead cats and gum wrappers and look at me with an expression of pity.

All-Nighters and most-nighters and why I'm not dead

I'm really lazy. I know it, everyone knows it. My mom, my dad, anyone who has ever had to work with me or has commissioned art from me knows good-and-goddamned-well that I'm about as lazy as you can get. And it's ok; I do chores and stuff, and get things done (eventually), and all in all, aside from the odd day spent in bed, I do what I should.

I also procrastinate. Is procrastination a symptom or cause of laziness? I don't know. I'll find out later.

That was a pretty cheap joke.

But I have stories about laziness and procrastination that are just craaaaaaazy (not really), and a little fun (not fun).

Like the time when I was a freshman and I had a Latin presentation to make that I had had a month to do, and then I spent that month not doing it. And then I scrambled on the night before it was due to find four sources and make the twenty-slide power point on Roman architecture and draw a blueprint of a Roman villa, and by the time I was done it was thirty minutes past when I would normally wake up, and I had twenty left to take a bath and get out of the house, and I cried because goddamnit the only reason I did this stupid architecture project is because I thought I could channel my architect grandfather's spirit and make it easier!!!!

But you shouldn't blame me for making that excuse, because I was sleep-deprived at the time. At least I got to sleep through Geometry, because I hated that class sooooo muuuch. 

Then when I was a happy apple-cheeked sophomore, I told myself I'd buckle down and do what I was supposed to, and so when I was charged with doing another project that involved power points and word processors and four sources and drawing, I decided I'd get a head start on that one. So I played with the themes and colors and font for an hour and left all the research to the night before it was due. And then I stayed up until two trying to finish, and I did finish.

And I hate microsoft products as a result, because I put the picture there, why don't you keep it there and stop moving it down and to the right!!!! That particular fuck-up cost me (I'm not kidding) 2 hours of time just trying to put the stupid picture where it belonged.

The point is, I procrastinate. I had a blog before this that I procrastinated on so much that it disappeared, and so if I don't show up someday, I've either decided I just don't feel like it, or else I'm just not coming back.

But I promise I won't be dead. Maybe.

It means something now! Yay!

I can't explain my original decision to name the blog, but I can at least connect it to something meaningful afterwards. I wrote a pretty poem to follow my pretty name.

The Gray Ghost of Green-Gate

I have no cheer, not one happy sigh.

My soul doth sore despair.

And to a laugh, I have no like reply

But cold and empty air.

The sullen Green-Gate Ghost am I,

Who trails her silver hair.

I am Green-Gate’s haint o’ the hollow,

And I sneak up beside

The quivering branch ‘neath the nervous swallow

And there it is I hide.

Till someone on my path would follow,

In the twisted tree I bide.

When one does have the great misfortune

To cross my foggy road,

In his jumping ear I mention

Witches, wolves, and toads.

He shrieks, he runs, his face is ashen;

His terror have I bestowed.

Do I do it out of malicious zeal?

Or is it out of hate?

I do it because it’s the way I feel;

Because it is my fate.

I have no cheer, satisfaction’s not real

To the gray ghost of Green-Gate.

I used to be a maiden alive

With living starry eyes,

Destined to be a rich man’s wife

And believe his honeyed lies.

On our wedding night, he showed a knife,

And he stabbed me ‘twixt my thighs.

Did you know, I had loved him so,

Before our wedding night,

There was no place I’d willing go

That loosed him from my sight.

His hair and eyes cast a fair halo

That broke apart the light.

How could I have loved that man?

Demon he proved to be.

He made his vows and joined my clan,

And took the bloodstained dowry.

And I awoke to know again

He’d made a fool of me.

He dumped a girl upon the road,

She who I once had been.

That’s where I set up my abode

In the bend of the twisted tree.

And there she lay, and there I moaned,

To have awoke so ghostly.

I am not good, I am not bad,

But jealousy bear I.

For the life that I once had

Shines brightly from your eye.

To gain back life? The idea’s mad.

No madwoman am I.

Instead of kill, and rob your life

For which there’s purpose none,

I save us both a little strife,

And scare you just for fun.

Then if I see you wield a knife,

I’ll chase you to the sun.

It is an evanescent glee

A little while it lasts.

And when those laughing thoughts far flee,

I’ve nothing but my past.

A ghost is all it can ever be,

The future is outcast.

So I have no cheer, no happy sigh.

My soul doth sore despair.

And to a laugh, I have no like reply

But cold and empty air.

The sullen Green-Gate Ghost am I,

Who trails her silver hair.

I am Green-Gate’s haint o’ the hollow,

And I sneak up beside

The quivering branch ‘neath the nervous swallow

And there it is I hide.

Till someone on my path would follow,

In the twisted tree I bide.

When one does have the great misfortune

To cross my foggy road,

In his jumping ear I mention

Witches, wolves, and toads.

He shrieks, he runs, his face is ashen;

His terror have I bestowed.

I do it not out of malicious zeal.

Nor is it out of hate.

I do it because it’s the way I feel;

Because it is my fate.

I have no cheer, satisfaction’s not real

To the gray ghost of Green-Gate.

Hi there, I'm a blog, and I'm new to the world!

Setting up shop in a blog is probably one of the harder things in a first-world-problems kind of life. The two scariest social situations are, after all, 1) being judged and 2) remaining unknown. Sitting here, wearing freshly applied zombie face paint, a nightgown, and pounds of old Victorian jewelry, I can't help but hope that this will actually amount to something. If it doesn't, I'm a lonely zombie cosplayer, whose attention to detail stops right before shoes, because webcams can't see your shoes. That's not somewhere anybody wants to end up.

 I do lots of tricks, and if you stick around long enough, I may do some of them for you. I like to write, sketch, paint, sculpt, act, sing, pretend to be a hobo, pretend to be mentally ill, read palms and tarot cards, and contort myself into positions that I'm not sure God made the human body for( but it's o.k, 'cause I have hyper mobility syndrome, and could be a circus performer if I wished). So if you like those things, you and I should get along just fine. I also love cats. I love every kind of cat, and I want to hug them all, but I can't hug every cat.

And if you're wondering about the name "Green Gate Ghost", which you're probably not, because a five-minute-old blog usually has zero readers, then you should know that the name is meaningless. I just like alliteration. And gates.

This helps me pretend to be a hobo, because I can run around the neighbourhood and draw on people's crap.