I've bowed to peer pressure and switched this blog to li88yinc.com, hosted by wordpress. I'm only a few months into this thing, so I figured I may as well make the switch, primarily for ease of use.
I hope I don't regret it.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Places I've Lived part 11 (in which I get happy)
203 Rivington St., #2K
New York, NY
I remember the day I decided life was great. I was unemployed, which was great, I was doing freelance theater tech, which was extremely aggravating, and also pretty great. I'd been working on a show at The Flea. It was 2003. I'd been living in New York for less than a year. I was walking up Broadway from Tribeca. The winter sun was bright and shone warmly down at my face. I realize with a shock: I am happy.
Happy was new. Happy was unexpected. Happy was in spite of everything that could make me unhappy. I realize suddenly that I feel attractive. I’d never really felt attractive before. I felt good in my body. One day perusing records in a Princeton record shop with my mom I realize that I am not self-conscious anymore. It is like a thunder clap of recognition. I whisper to my mom “mom, I don’t feel self-conscious anymore.” And she says “oh honey, isn’t it great?” And we giggle. And we buy records.
I’d never taken time to grieve for my friend Val who died at 21 in 2000, I’d been too concerned with what Dave needed, with that which was making him very personally miserable. So I tell him “listen, I’m going to fall apart. You’re going to have to hold things together.” I don’t believe that he can do it, but he does it, he doesn’t do it the way I would have done it, but it doesn’t matter, because it is done. I let go of everything I was holding on to. I stop trying to get through the night and instead try to get through the day, then without worrying too hard about it, I start thinking about next week, and then next month, next year, and the year after. I think about what I want my life to be like. Things don’t always go how I would like, we’re short of money, we argue all the time, but it doesn’t really matter. I don’t hold it in my heart. It doesn’t make it hard to breath, not all the time.
We have really lovely friends. We go on trips, like our annual Fourth of July four-day weekend parties at a friend’s family’s lake house. We have ridiculously good times and make complete asses of ourselves and it is wonderful. We drink excessively and stay up late looking at the moon, or playing cards, or setting up the chairs as though the back porch is a stage and performing for each other. Guitars are brought out on the regular, monologues are remembered. We all cook for each other and sleep in and clean up together. I make french toast, and veggie pastas, and introduce a bunch of midwesterners to steamed clams. There are fire works. There’s a game called Chair, that is a very bad, dangerous game, where you sit in a plastic lawn chair and try to flip over backwards. It is delightful. We swim in the lake, we burn in the sun, and kayak out to see the fireworks. Someone sets the lawn on fire. There’s no connectivity, so we connect with each other. We don’t share a bunch of deep secrets or profundities, we just actually relax. I learn to relax.
I have friends in theater, and they are fucking talented and smart. Matt Korahais is our friend, and we’d known him a few years back in Philly, but run into him again in New York. Dave and Matt and I start doing Sticky together. It’s a fucking blast. We don’t wait for permission, we just do stuff. We stand on tables at bars and tell stories to people who want to hear them. We meet people, and read new plays, and write them. We march against the war, we take 2nd Avenue with Transit and shut down the 59th Street Bridge. Dave starts acting at The Flea and I get to see him in new plays, get to see him coming out of himself, starting to be himself, after a long depression that started with his mom’s illness. I start to think: we are gonna have fun again.
We do. We have fun again. We go out. Our Lower East Side apartment is our home base. The place is small, it has bugs, it is over-priced, but that is all irrelevant. When we move in we buy a king sized, white, bed sheet to be the curtain for the big, triple window in the bedroom. The first thing we do, after signing the lease but before we even move in, is sit on the bedroom floor, each of us with a needle and thread, and stitch the top of this bed sheet. We thread the curtain wire through it and have sex on the floor. We always mean to get a different curtain, but it stays there the whole time we do. For both of us, we live here longer than we've ever lived anywhere: 7 years. The building has a roof deck from which you can see the entire city. When the blackout comes in 2003 the whole building brings drinks to the roof and watches the city turn dark.
We go to RAT conference in Argentina with Gabby Schaffer and Nick Fracarro and Matt and a bunch of other people. It’s a fucking great trip. We go to a theater conference, we perform our piece of the MacBeth Project in Rosario and stay at The Savoy. We never want to leave The Savoy. We want to write novels there and live out our days in a Malcolm Lowry-esque haze. We are ridiculed by other Americans for being too American. We like it. We decide America is ours. We decide we fucking love America and it belongs to us as much as anyone else. I lose my voice and end up with a fever at a commune called Villa Aldea. The communers offer me some horse penicillin. Dave instead calls a cab to take us to Buenos Aires before the rain closes off the dirt road. We approach the metropolis in the pouring rain and after a week in the pampas it is glorious. He gets me to an ER where they take some x-rays and get me some proper antibiotics. We spend a few days in a suite where I eat ravioli con jamon y queso and watch Seinfeld with Spanish subtitles, while recuperating.
We are in Buenos Aires for two weeks, the first with Matt, when he emerges a few days later from the pampas, the second just Dave and I. We meet a guy named Manuel. We tell him Matt is our attorney, because we’re all really into Hunter S. Thomson. When Matt goes home, Manuel says “you must feel much more relaxed now that your attorney is gone.” Dave and I spend Christmas together in Buenos Aires, and it is one of the best times of our lives. We hit the deck when the gunfire starts on Christmas Eve. We looks out at the city from the balcony. It feels great to be far away from everything and to still feel solid and meaningful. We try to get to Uruguay but we keep getting to the boat dock too late. We wander Buenos Aires, and go to clubs with Manuel. I like being out of the country. My mom misses us and picks us up at the airport.
Our friend Pete starts dating a girl named Ali and we meet her at Rachel's birthday party at Larry Lawrence. Pete says “Ali does theater, you should talk.” I find this incredibly annoying, but we chat, we hit it off. I’m pretty sure she hates me. I always like that in a person. When Matt moves on to other projects, Ali jumps in and starts producing Sticky with us. She and I become great friends.
I meet Eduardo Machado and he opens the big wide door to grad school. I study with him and Kelly Stuart for three years. I really love school, and feel glad that I get to focus so much time on writing, and learning things. I meet some excellent people at Columbia, and am glad to know them. I feel smart, and good about things. My marriage is a mess, but I realize that I don’t have to perceive it that way anymore. Dave and I are different people, we are capable of making different choices, his choices don’t have to define me; mine don’t have to define him. When I make this realization, that he is not me and I am not him, we are able to come together as two individuals, as opposed to two people who see everything lacking in themselves reflected back in the form of another human being. I realize that he has a bunch of things that he has to work out for himself, but that they are not my things. It feels good to let those things go, and I think Dave is grateful to have them back. He gets to own his misery and sort it out for himself. We get to know each other again. Neither of us is who the other thought we were. We'd both changed, and we had alot to catch up on.
I get frustrated. I don’t know what I want from my career. I try out wanting different things, but none of it’s quite the right fit. I try to just do my work and trust that it will be what it will be, it will be received the way it will be received. I struggle with choices, with choosing the thing I want later over the thing I want right now, even when I want the thing right now really, really bad. I don’t quite feel like I’m carrying such a big weight around. As my mom would say, I take some rocks out of my knapsack.
I finish school having earned an M.F.A. It feels like a real accomplishment, like something I did on my own, on my own terms, and in my own way.
We start talking about having a baby. We are not ready to say yes, but we are not ready to say no, either.
New York is my home. The world of ideas is my playground.
New York, NY
I remember the day I decided life was great. I was unemployed, which was great, I was doing freelance theater tech, which was extremely aggravating, and also pretty great. I'd been working on a show at The Flea. It was 2003. I'd been living in New York for less than a year. I was walking up Broadway from Tribeca. The winter sun was bright and shone warmly down at my face. I realize with a shock: I am happy.
Happy was new. Happy was unexpected. Happy was in spite of everything that could make me unhappy. I realize suddenly that I feel attractive. I’d never really felt attractive before. I felt good in my body. One day perusing records in a Princeton record shop with my mom I realize that I am not self-conscious anymore. It is like a thunder clap of recognition. I whisper to my mom “mom, I don’t feel self-conscious anymore.” And she says “oh honey, isn’t it great?” And we giggle. And we buy records.
I’d never taken time to grieve for my friend Val who died at 21 in 2000, I’d been too concerned with what Dave needed, with that which was making him very personally miserable. So I tell him “listen, I’m going to fall apart. You’re going to have to hold things together.” I don’t believe that he can do it, but he does it, he doesn’t do it the way I would have done it, but it doesn’t matter, because it is done. I let go of everything I was holding on to. I stop trying to get through the night and instead try to get through the day, then without worrying too hard about it, I start thinking about next week, and then next month, next year, and the year after. I think about what I want my life to be like. Things don’t always go how I would like, we’re short of money, we argue all the time, but it doesn’t really matter. I don’t hold it in my heart. It doesn’t make it hard to breath, not all the time.
We have really lovely friends. We go on trips, like our annual Fourth of July four-day weekend parties at a friend’s family’s lake house. We have ridiculously good times and make complete asses of ourselves and it is wonderful. We drink excessively and stay up late looking at the moon, or playing cards, or setting up the chairs as though the back porch is a stage and performing for each other. Guitars are brought out on the regular, monologues are remembered. We all cook for each other and sleep in and clean up together. I make french toast, and veggie pastas, and introduce a bunch of midwesterners to steamed clams. There are fire works. There’s a game called Chair, that is a very bad, dangerous game, where you sit in a plastic lawn chair and try to flip over backwards. It is delightful. We swim in the lake, we burn in the sun, and kayak out to see the fireworks. Someone sets the lawn on fire. There’s no connectivity, so we connect with each other. We don’t share a bunch of deep secrets or profundities, we just actually relax. I learn to relax.
I have friends in theater, and they are fucking talented and smart. Matt Korahais is our friend, and we’d known him a few years back in Philly, but run into him again in New York. Dave and Matt and I start doing Sticky together. It’s a fucking blast. We don’t wait for permission, we just do stuff. We stand on tables at bars and tell stories to people who want to hear them. We meet people, and read new plays, and write them. We march against the war, we take 2nd Avenue with Transit and shut down the 59th Street Bridge. Dave starts acting at The Flea and I get to see him in new plays, get to see him coming out of himself, starting to be himself, after a long depression that started with his mom’s illness. I start to think: we are gonna have fun again.
We do. We have fun again. We go out. Our Lower East Side apartment is our home base. The place is small, it has bugs, it is over-priced, but that is all irrelevant. When we move in we buy a king sized, white, bed sheet to be the curtain for the big, triple window in the bedroom. The first thing we do, after signing the lease but before we even move in, is sit on the bedroom floor, each of us with a needle and thread, and stitch the top of this bed sheet. We thread the curtain wire through it and have sex on the floor. We always mean to get a different curtain, but it stays there the whole time we do. For both of us, we live here longer than we've ever lived anywhere: 7 years. The building has a roof deck from which you can see the entire city. When the blackout comes in 2003 the whole building brings drinks to the roof and watches the city turn dark.
We go to RAT conference in Argentina with Gabby Schaffer and Nick Fracarro and Matt and a bunch of other people. It’s a fucking great trip. We go to a theater conference, we perform our piece of the MacBeth Project in Rosario and stay at The Savoy. We never want to leave The Savoy. We want to write novels there and live out our days in a Malcolm Lowry-esque haze. We are ridiculed by other Americans for being too American. We like it. We decide America is ours. We decide we fucking love America and it belongs to us as much as anyone else. I lose my voice and end up with a fever at a commune called Villa Aldea. The communers offer me some horse penicillin. Dave instead calls a cab to take us to Buenos Aires before the rain closes off the dirt road. We approach the metropolis in the pouring rain and after a week in the pampas it is glorious. He gets me to an ER where they take some x-rays and get me some proper antibiotics. We spend a few days in a suite where I eat ravioli con jamon y queso and watch Seinfeld with Spanish subtitles, while recuperating.
We are in Buenos Aires for two weeks, the first with Matt, when he emerges a few days later from the pampas, the second just Dave and I. We meet a guy named Manuel. We tell him Matt is our attorney, because we’re all really into Hunter S. Thomson. When Matt goes home, Manuel says “you must feel much more relaxed now that your attorney is gone.” Dave and I spend Christmas together in Buenos Aires, and it is one of the best times of our lives. We hit the deck when the gunfire starts on Christmas Eve. We looks out at the city from the balcony. It feels great to be far away from everything and to still feel solid and meaningful. We try to get to Uruguay but we keep getting to the boat dock too late. We wander Buenos Aires, and go to clubs with Manuel. I like being out of the country. My mom misses us and picks us up at the airport.
Our friend Pete starts dating a girl named Ali and we meet her at Rachel's birthday party at Larry Lawrence. Pete says “Ali does theater, you should talk.” I find this incredibly annoying, but we chat, we hit it off. I’m pretty sure she hates me. I always like that in a person. When Matt moves on to other projects, Ali jumps in and starts producing Sticky with us. She and I become great friends.
I meet Eduardo Machado and he opens the big wide door to grad school. I study with him and Kelly Stuart for three years. I really love school, and feel glad that I get to focus so much time on writing, and learning things. I meet some excellent people at Columbia, and am glad to know them. I feel smart, and good about things. My marriage is a mess, but I realize that I don’t have to perceive it that way anymore. Dave and I are different people, we are capable of making different choices, his choices don’t have to define me; mine don’t have to define him. When I make this realization, that he is not me and I am not him, we are able to come together as two individuals, as opposed to two people who see everything lacking in themselves reflected back in the form of another human being. I realize that he has a bunch of things that he has to work out for himself, but that they are not my things. It feels good to let those things go, and I think Dave is grateful to have them back. He gets to own his misery and sort it out for himself. We get to know each other again. Neither of us is who the other thought we were. We'd both changed, and we had alot to catch up on.
I get frustrated. I don’t know what I want from my career. I try out wanting different things, but none of it’s quite the right fit. I try to just do my work and trust that it will be what it will be, it will be received the way it will be received. I struggle with choices, with choosing the thing I want later over the thing I want right now, even when I want the thing right now really, really bad. I don’t quite feel like I’m carrying such a big weight around. As my mom would say, I take some rocks out of my knapsack.
I finish school having earned an M.F.A. It feels like a real accomplishment, like something I did on my own, on my own terms, and in my own way.
We start talking about having a baby. We are not ready to say yes, but we are not ready to say no, either.
New York is my home. The world of ideas is my playground.
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| the view from the roof |
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| my sister, her dog, and I, just before my nephew was born |
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| my brother on the roof |
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 |
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| Ali and I reading plays at the lake house |
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| me and brother D |
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| we'd often go visit my Gram on Long Island |
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| me and Carol |
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| me and brother-in-law Jon on New Year's |
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| Ali and Pete getting photo bombed at Belly, first nyc home of Sticky |
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| after we got picked up from the airport after argentina |
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| at the art museum in Buenos Aires |
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| in the pampas |
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| Buenos Aires |
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| Matt and I at Teatro del Rayo |
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| the black out on the roof |
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| the black out from the roof |
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| me and Rachel at the lake house |
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| Matt and Dave and I on the roof |
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| blizzard on Delancey St. |
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| anti-war |
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| eating a burger at the lake house |
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| mexico with Ali. Rachel took this photo. |
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| a real honest laugh. friends in Mexico. |
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| the playwrights |
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| Dave and my sister's dogs |
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Places I've Lived part 10 (kindergarten through 3rd grade)
a condo, North Andover, MA
By the time we lived in North Andover we were a family. We'd decided, and that was that. My step-mother often made a point of saying that she was my real mom, and we all made a point of pretending my mom didn't exist. Except me, but that was my secret. I got good at keeping secrets; until now, basically. My step-mom was only 21 years old. She'd married a man ten years her senior, and his five year old daughter. My dad and I were a package deal, I never had any doubt of that.
I think there's this illusion kids have about their parents and caregivers, and I think it's one they need to have. We believe that our parents and caregivers have their shit together, and that when they appear to not have their shit together, that is the aberration. I'm realizing now that nothing is smooth. The times when everything is going well at once: when you're happy with your work, when your husband gives you butterflies just by walking through the door, when all your bills are paid, the bed is made, your kid's nose isn't running, you've got a vacation planned, you're wearing your favorite jeans, you had a great night out with friends, and your mom just said she was proud of you; those are the rarer times. You can't trust tomorrow, but if you don't plan for it, it will suck. You have to count on something that isn't real, and will it to be real, and then make it happen. I this is what's known as faith.
I thought my step-mom had her shit together. I thought she was so together that she made me and my dad be glue too. It felt like the next stop was everything I ever dreamed of. She loved me for real, and she didn't have to. She chose my dad, but she chose me, too, and she always made sure I knew it. She wanted me, and this meant everything.
She and my dad were planning for our future. They did what you're supposed to do: they bought a place. If I had this place now but where I live instead of the north shore I would be thrilled. Two bedrooms, eat in kitchen, large living room with a balcony. It was small, but so was our family, so it worked out, and I'm into simplicity.
We'd been living in Lawrence, my dad and I, in a duplex. Janet moved in at a certain point, much to the dismay of her Irish American parents, who thought me and my dad were pretty much bad news from day one. I think they grew to like us, and I got pretty close to Janet's mom, who was always a real dear to me. Her dad would always have a chocolate bar in his pocket for me.
The timing is hazy for me, but I came back from a visit to my mom's in NYC and we didn't live in Lawrence anymore. We lived in this condo in N Andover. I'm sure the schools were better, and I can see how that would have been a big reason for the move. My dad and Janet picked me up from the airport and said they had a surprise for me. I was super excited! We got to the condo, and because I was 6, I just didn’t get it. We’d already lived in an apartment, what was the difference? Looking at it from a grown-up perspective, I can see how different it was. They were newlyweds. They’d moved from an apartment to their own home. They were starting their lives together. It was fresh, it was theirs, and it could be mine too. But kids are self-centered; kids have to be self-centered. Being a kid is really hard, and to grow up into a non-completely-freaked-out adult, you need to be able to take some things for granted, like your own personal safety, knowing that tomorrow there will be food, shelter, that the people who take care of you will keep taking care of you. A new home didn’t mean that much to me, but the canopy bed, with which my new room was furnished, meant a great deal.
It was a blue canopy bed, with white and gold posts. I had filmy rainbow curtains, and a Holly Hobby watch, which I still have for some reason. This is where I learned to tell time, and where Janet taught me to tie my own shoes. This is where I said "shit" for the first time, when I stubbed my toe on some hard wood furniture. I was so scared while Janet and my dad tried not to laugh. This is where I got strep throat, and refused to take my antibiotic pills. I sat in the kitchen chair and couldn’t swallow them. My father got so frustrated, and scared, what with my 104 degree fever, that he said “if you don’t take those pills I’m going to shove them down your throat.” I thought, I didn’t know that was an option! I took a pill between my thumb and forefinger, reached all the way to the back of my mouth, and dropped it down my throat. This is still how I swallow pills.
I went to an elementary school in North Andover, and my best friend was Katrina. Her parents were divorced, too, and she also lived with her dad, and her older brother. Once we were on the half-moon style jungle gym at recess, and Katrina looked stricken.
Katrina
Don’t get down.
Libby
Why not?
Katrina
My mom’s here.
We both looked over to the entrance of the school, and a woman stood there, with the secretary from the Principal’s office, and waved, and smiled.
Libby
She looks nice.
Katrina
Whatever you do, don’t get down.
We stayed up there. We wouldn’t get down. The next thing I remember is Janet and I sitting on the step outside the gym. I recall this being the moment when Janet told me about sex, but she said later that's not what happened. What definitely happened is that my dad and Janet said I wasn't allowed to be friends with Katrina anymore. This was so unfair to me. Katrina and I talked about it while playing Kate and Ally in the little grove of trees at recess. I'd never seen the show, and Katrina always made me be Kate. We agreed that it wasn't right for people to decide who your friends could be, and that we could still be friends at school and my parents wouldn't know. It strikes me now that Katrina's favorite show was about two moms with no dads.
We weren't friends anymore after that.
My new best friend was Sarah. And when I say new best friend I mean my only school friend. Sarah and I painted on my bedroom wall with water colors. We had tea parties with real water from my little blue tea set. We climbed under the covers and took off all our clothes. Sarah and I weren't allowed to be friends anymore after that.
In the summer I would play with the neighborhood kids. I always remember going to bed before the other kids and hearing their voices filter up to my window. I cried and cried, feeling left out, but I was the youngest (next to Vicki's brother, but she was the oldest). Vicki's mom was our troop leader, and for one of our projects we wrote letters for Amnesty International to free political prisoners. In fall we raked up all the leaves into big piles and jumped in them. In spring we made mud pies. When a McDonalds opened up at the end of our street, the parents were pissed, but all us kids were happy about it.
One girl, whose parents were also divorced, and who also lived with her dad, had a Gogo's record and we'd listen to it in her room and dance around. When I asked for a Gogo's record of my own my dad said "no way." Thus began a disagreement about pop music that lasted through the Beastie Boys and My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult and ended with Losing My Religion, Steely Dan, and finally when my dad introduced me to Amy Winehouse.
I had a babysitter when Janet went back to work, earning downpayment money for the childhood home. The babysitter was a high school girl, and her friend's family lived in our building. We watched Luke and Laura's wedding on General Hospital at her friend's house then went for a joy ride with their boy friends. I don't know if they were boys who were friends or boyfriends, but she got fired for taking me on the joy ride.
If it were my kid I'd have had them arrested for kidnapping.
Then we moved.
By the time we lived in North Andover we were a family. We'd decided, and that was that. My step-mother often made a point of saying that she was my real mom, and we all made a point of pretending my mom didn't exist. Except me, but that was my secret. I got good at keeping secrets; until now, basically. My step-mom was only 21 years old. She'd married a man ten years her senior, and his five year old daughter. My dad and I were a package deal, I never had any doubt of that.
I think there's this illusion kids have about their parents and caregivers, and I think it's one they need to have. We believe that our parents and caregivers have their shit together, and that when they appear to not have their shit together, that is the aberration. I'm realizing now that nothing is smooth. The times when everything is going well at once: when you're happy with your work, when your husband gives you butterflies just by walking through the door, when all your bills are paid, the bed is made, your kid's nose isn't running, you've got a vacation planned, you're wearing your favorite jeans, you had a great night out with friends, and your mom just said she was proud of you; those are the rarer times. You can't trust tomorrow, but if you don't plan for it, it will suck. You have to count on something that isn't real, and will it to be real, and then make it happen. I this is what's known as faith.
I thought my step-mom had her shit together. I thought she was so together that she made me and my dad be glue too. It felt like the next stop was everything I ever dreamed of. She loved me for real, and she didn't have to. She chose my dad, but she chose me, too, and she always made sure I knew it. She wanted me, and this meant everything.
She and my dad were planning for our future. They did what you're supposed to do: they bought a place. If I had this place now but where I live instead of the north shore I would be thrilled. Two bedrooms, eat in kitchen, large living room with a balcony. It was small, but so was our family, so it worked out, and I'm into simplicity.
We'd been living in Lawrence, my dad and I, in a duplex. Janet moved in at a certain point, much to the dismay of her Irish American parents, who thought me and my dad were pretty much bad news from day one. I think they grew to like us, and I got pretty close to Janet's mom, who was always a real dear to me. Her dad would always have a chocolate bar in his pocket for me.
The timing is hazy for me, but I came back from a visit to my mom's in NYC and we didn't live in Lawrence anymore. We lived in this condo in N Andover. I'm sure the schools were better, and I can see how that would have been a big reason for the move. My dad and Janet picked me up from the airport and said they had a surprise for me. I was super excited! We got to the condo, and because I was 6, I just didn’t get it. We’d already lived in an apartment, what was the difference? Looking at it from a grown-up perspective, I can see how different it was. They were newlyweds. They’d moved from an apartment to their own home. They were starting their lives together. It was fresh, it was theirs, and it could be mine too. But kids are self-centered; kids have to be self-centered. Being a kid is really hard, and to grow up into a non-completely-freaked-out adult, you need to be able to take some things for granted, like your own personal safety, knowing that tomorrow there will be food, shelter, that the people who take care of you will keep taking care of you. A new home didn’t mean that much to me, but the canopy bed, with which my new room was furnished, meant a great deal.
It was a blue canopy bed, with white and gold posts. I had filmy rainbow curtains, and a Holly Hobby watch, which I still have for some reason. This is where I learned to tell time, and where Janet taught me to tie my own shoes. This is where I said "shit" for the first time, when I stubbed my toe on some hard wood furniture. I was so scared while Janet and my dad tried not to laugh. This is where I got strep throat, and refused to take my antibiotic pills. I sat in the kitchen chair and couldn’t swallow them. My father got so frustrated, and scared, what with my 104 degree fever, that he said “if you don’t take those pills I’m going to shove them down your throat.” I thought, I didn’t know that was an option! I took a pill between my thumb and forefinger, reached all the way to the back of my mouth, and dropped it down my throat. This is still how I swallow pills.
I went to an elementary school in North Andover, and my best friend was Katrina. Her parents were divorced, too, and she also lived with her dad, and her older brother. Once we were on the half-moon style jungle gym at recess, and Katrina looked stricken.
Katrina
Don’t get down.
Libby
Why not?
Katrina
My mom’s here.
We both looked over to the entrance of the school, and a woman stood there, with the secretary from the Principal’s office, and waved, and smiled.
Libby
She looks nice.
Katrina
Whatever you do, don’t get down.
We stayed up there. We wouldn’t get down. The next thing I remember is Janet and I sitting on the step outside the gym. I recall this being the moment when Janet told me about sex, but she said later that's not what happened. What definitely happened is that my dad and Janet said I wasn't allowed to be friends with Katrina anymore. This was so unfair to me. Katrina and I talked about it while playing Kate and Ally in the little grove of trees at recess. I'd never seen the show, and Katrina always made me be Kate. We agreed that it wasn't right for people to decide who your friends could be, and that we could still be friends at school and my parents wouldn't know. It strikes me now that Katrina's favorite show was about two moms with no dads.
We weren't friends anymore after that.
My new best friend was Sarah. And when I say new best friend I mean my only school friend. Sarah and I painted on my bedroom wall with water colors. We had tea parties with real water from my little blue tea set. We climbed under the covers and took off all our clothes. Sarah and I weren't allowed to be friends anymore after that.
In the summer I would play with the neighborhood kids. I always remember going to bed before the other kids and hearing their voices filter up to my window. I cried and cried, feeling left out, but I was the youngest (next to Vicki's brother, but she was the oldest). Vicki's mom was our troop leader, and for one of our projects we wrote letters for Amnesty International to free political prisoners. In fall we raked up all the leaves into big piles and jumped in them. In spring we made mud pies. When a McDonalds opened up at the end of our street, the parents were pissed, but all us kids were happy about it.
One girl, whose parents were also divorced, and who also lived with her dad, had a Gogo's record and we'd listen to it in her room and dance around. When I asked for a Gogo's record of my own my dad said "no way." Thus began a disagreement about pop music that lasted through the Beastie Boys and My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult and ended with Losing My Religion, Steely Dan, and finally when my dad introduced me to Amy Winehouse.
I had a babysitter when Janet went back to work, earning downpayment money for the childhood home. The babysitter was a high school girl, and her friend's family lived in our building. We watched Luke and Laura's wedding on General Hospital at her friend's house then went for a joy ride with their boy friends. I don't know if they were boys who were friends or boyfriends, but she got fired for taking me on the joy ride.
If it were my kid I'd have had them arrested for kidnapping.
Then we moved.
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| Christmas 82 or 83 |
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| my first communion |
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| Janet and I and my Gramma Dag on Mt. Washington |
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| my family on the top of Mt. Washington. This picture was in my wallet for years. |
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| Brownie parade |
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