did I shave my legs for this?

my first “boyfriend” (I use quotations because we were never in fact “official”) was during the period immediately following my remission when I was 18, rocking a bleached buzz cut, and REALLY stoked to be alive. his name was jeff, he was a musician, which I predictably swooned over, pontificating and romanticizing the potential of being an artist's muse, when really he was just getting stoned, taking acid, and hitting random buttons on a pc laptop and fancying himself the next thom yorke. jeff and I first made out on his best friend’s floor after I spent an entire summer lusting after his mysteriously tortured and permanently high hiney, listening to tenacious D and the mildly disturbing sounds of ashley losing her virginity in the next room. I was done for. the romance was unequivocal. 6 months after that, I ended up giving him my cherry on his grandmother’s bed after we had made it roughly 18 minutes into Lost in Translation and he turned to me and said, “so, uh, are we gonna do it or what?"

so, we did it. It was brief, and I remember being vaguely distracted by two things: my grandmother on her death bed having told me she was going to be watching from the ceiling with a bag of popcorn when I lost my V card, and also my little pink socks awkwardly bobbing in the air above us because I thought that you were supposed to stick your legs straight up during a missionary deed. [It didn’t seem to be working, but, give me a break. I didn’t watch a lot of porn.]

after it was over he had me check to make sure I hadn’t soiled his meemaw's linens, and he fell asleep. I laid half awake all night, naked on top of the covers and sometime around 4 am there was a knock on the sliding glass door that led out to the backyard, and and when I looked over, jeff was peering into the room with his hands cupped around his eyes to see. I was totally bewildered. I turned back to the other side of the bed to see that jeff was, in fact, still there and still very much in the buff and unconscious. this could mean one of two things: I had somehow absorbed some of the hallucinogenic drugs by sexual osmosis, or jeff’s twin sam was just perving out on us. I shrieked and tried to cover myself up, sam yelled “oh, shit.” and vaulted over the fence and ran back to the party down the street where he proceeded to share jeff and I’s intimate moment with a big group of dudes who practically owned the rumor mill.

shortly after, I put my clothes back on (I’d worn matching panties, just in case we were to participate in any of the “doing it”) and woke jeff up to tell him I was going home, but I didn’t, I just drove around watching the sunrise in the hilly vineyards in sonoma valley in my mercury sable luxury sedan listening to magnetic fields mixtapes and wondering if I should be feeling anything. all I was really feeling was sort of bummed out that I’d just given it up to a dude who, for all intensive purposes, really didn’t give two hoots about me, and also like I could go for a couple of advil liquigels.

the next day I called my mom into the room when I was doing my makeup out of my purple glitter caboodle case before going out to the shop, my small town’s only answer to a youth center, out in a warehouse in the boonies that was half of dowling magnet factory.

“mom, I’ve gotta talk to you about something.” I stated matter of factly, as I swiped on a second layer of blue wet 'n wild mascara.

“sure.”

“don’t freak out.”

“okay.” she put her hand on her hip.

“seriously, no freaking out.”

“honey, I hate it when you pull this shit.”

“you’re already freaking out…”

“just tell me!”

“I did it with jeff. we used a condom… it kind of sucked. don’t worry. everything’s fine. I just remembered that you’d ask me to tell you when I became “active”.” I punctuated my distaste for such an official term for this as of yet silly act by making a stink face. my mother took a deep breath and absorbed the info, and then spoke.

“really?? with jeff?”

“yes. It was just time. I was seriously the ONLY one. I’m about to turn 19. I was starting to feel like a eunuch.”

“and you were safe?”

“of course. sex ed. duh.”

“well..." she struggled a moment with the appropriate response to this unexpected news, "... thank you for telling me.”

“no prob. I’ll be home before two. bagels tomorrow?”

she shook her head at me. jeff worked at the bagel shop.

“love you!” I gave her a kiss on the cheek and bolted for the door.

a week passed with radio silence from jeff’s camp, and then I ran into him at the farmer’s market on the square and pulled him aside, where he unceremoniously dumped me over a corn dog from uncle bill’s. he told me we probably took things too far, seeing as he was moving to australia, indefinitely, after the following two weeks to work on a mango farm. he promised to write a song about me, sitting amongst the lush and vast fields of oz, and next I heard from him was in an email 8 months later saying he’d taken ill mid-harvest and caught something that the locals call “mango fever” that involved too many embarrassingly gross symptoms to share. my imagination ran wild with what delirium and oozing pustules must’ve befallen him. my V card had been avenged by tropical fruit!

these days (and after I might add, we attempted to date once more about 3 years ago that was just as ill-fated and entirely ridiculous) jeff and I are on friendly terms and he lives with his albino russian-israeli girlfriend in the east village. he’s apologized profusely for acting like a twat, and I can truly say that any residual hard feelings are null and void. being a teenager is hard enough as it is, and we had to deal with being teenagers in a tiny wine country town where the dating pool was occupied with a couple of tadpoles and the occasional slimy snake. c’est la vie. dwelling causes cancer. (I would know.)

I got a bug to write about the first time I really tried to “date” someone because I feel as if not much has changed, and I’m frustrated. some experiences have been more extreme than others, but my patterns remain. emotional unavailability (thanks, dad), instability, prevalence for infidelity, reach and withdrawal games, and sexual mediocrity have all been themes (and only one such experience offered them all at once!). the next dude after jeff was a manorexic bro from san diego who said he was “worried about my bod” when the condom broke and then refused to go to planned parenthood with me. I dated a male model from utah who drunkenly pissed in my laundry hamper after trying to surprise me with anal one night who ended up giving me scabies. my rebound after Jorge was impotent, shared a great deal of personality traits with george costanza, and lives with his boyfriend in oakland now. I once went on a dinner date that ended with me watching him get dragged off by several cops to the clink, bawling like a newborn, and getting charged with assault and battery because he lost his temper and kind of, sort of, tried-to-kill-his-roommate-with-a-bat. this most recent guy brought me to meet all of his friends one night, then took me back to his place for the first time after 6 weeks of dating, and in the morning upon inspecting his walls, found them practically wallpapered with photos of his ex like a break up mausoleum. what the fuck? am I doomed? would it be best to dip myself in honey and dive into a pile of lesbians? I came back after black.

mixed nuts: xmas 2k8 pt. one

fade in: it was december 24th at 5:45, pitch dark already as the wind whipped through the eucalyptus trees on the farm relentlessly and the fat raindrops assailing the house were drowned out by a cheerful perry como. I was on my hands and knees by the miniature tree decked with miami beach blue lights and iridescent fake snow, wrapping the last of the presents my mom hadn't had time to finish. they were travel coffee mugs for all of the men in the family, which is quite useful considering the average gift you might find under the tree, but easier said than done to actually get covered properly without it looking like someone handed it to a toddler with a ball of yarn, some scotch tape, and some shiny paper with "ho" print on it and told them to go to town. I stared at one of my finished products feeling vaguely unsatisfied with the shoddy outcome and shrugged to myself as I tossed it into a shopping bag with one hand while sipping a glass of pomegranate champagne with the other. we were running late, but that was to be expected.

all of the ruggeri clan were supposed to have arrived at the bromley compound by 6 o'clock sharp, so as to appease the reliably demanding whimsy of the smith family. pete is the eldest grandchild and he's married, in addition to being the proud parent of two young kids who apparently couldn't stand to stay up an extra hour like all of the rest of us had as wee barnes. this isn't the first time or the last that everyone else was given instructions on how to behave that translated to something akin to, "we're not playing favorites, we just like them better." in the suburban on route to the soiree my mom went off on a grumbling tirade, and I, on the one hand, was disinterestedly fiddling with the cap on my peppermint chapstick, as we slalomed our way through the pothole riddled puddle obstacle course that linden street turns into in the wet months.

"really," my mom continued, "who starts a christmas party at 6pm?! who?"

"apparently, we're related to them."

"it's just ridiculous! the sun is hardly down. I'm not even hungry. you know what? we should just keep driving."

"oh, okay, thelma." I laughed, patting her on a padded shoulder. my phone started to ring and I dug it out of my purse to answer it. it was my cousin scott.

"yo, dude. where are you guys? patty's freeee-eeaking out."

"I'm sure she is."

my mom interjected, "tell them we're on our way to vegas."

"scott, my mom says to tell everyone we're headed to vegas and they can all go fuck themselves."

"I'll be sure to pass on the message." he chuckled, "but seriously, where are you?"

"we're just going to do some rails of cat tranquilizer off of the dash here and we'll be there in five." I sighed. "we're on linden. see you in a minute." as I was hanging up my mom threatened to start a christmas revolt if all the champagne had been imbibed without us.

when we arrived on the scene moments later, I was showcasing my "I don't have to be good, I'm cute" cat sweatshirt to my mom when her boyfriend wordlessly slunk out of the shadows holding a fruit and cheese basket, unintentionally startling me witless. "sorry," he said to me and then turned to my mom, "but I'm not going in there without you."

"we don't blame you." I said, without a hint of irony.

"what's your neice's fiance's name? the monster truck driver guy?" he asked.

"phil." replied my mom.

"phil, phil, phil, phil. how am I going to remember that? phil, like punxatawney."

"that's perfectly fitting, actually." I said, reaching for the front door. "here we go!"

once inside we all began the rounds of pleasantries to all 15 of those who can proudly say we're from the same gregarious irish italian bloodline, plus a few strays that managed to weasel their ways in over the years. I'd been forewarned that my crazy aunt (who usually provides me with all the material I need for holiday entertainment) would be in attendance with her ex-con boyfriend that she had reconciled with after having him dragged out of her house by the cops during a "psychotic episode" just a week before. when I got there her absence was glaring, as she is usually quite loudly terrorizing the company with diatribes of all kinds of exceedingly inappropriate natures, so I asked where she was and peggy threw up her hands in exasperation.

"she's not coming!"

"what?!" I asked, incredulously. this would be the first family dinner sans crazy 'nee 'nee since I was a toddler.

"brian is sick, so she's staying home to take care of him."

"ohhh." I said.

"I can't believe I went to all the trouble to hide the good silver because he was coming over and now she just cancels!"

"you hid the silver, peg?"

"well, you know," she said, leaning in and lowering her voice as well as her eyebrows, "after thanksgiving, I was missing a spoon."

"you were missing a spoon? like a serving spoon?"

"no, it was a small soup spoon."

"how could you tell?"

"well I counted them before and after dinner and afterwards, one was missing."

"that's terrible." I said, backing away, trying to disengage from the cutlery conspiracy and get back to the baked brie. halfway across the kitchen I had absconded with a small plate of hors de oeuvres when my aunt patty stopped me in my tracks, picking up the lock of hair on the left side of my head that bears a pink streak that hadn't yet been debuted to the family members that skipped the turkey day festivites this year. patty has gained notoriety amongst family members for her strict family values that preaches but does not necessarily practice, and also for being the eldest sister of the four aunts with a textbook classic case of self martyrdom.

"what," she paused dramatically to look underneath the hair that she was holding with her thumb and pointer finger as if it was a rotten banana peel, "is this?"

"it's hair?" I replied, cringe smiling. she didn't respond, so I continued, "I'm working at a salon right now, it's just a different look I wanted to try. it washes out."

"that's nice." she said, placing the hair back in place gingerly. "that's nice, honey." I looked over her shoulder to see my little brother giving me an enthusiastic politician's double thumbs up and I crossed my eyes in a silent response.

soon after everyone piled in to the dining room and sat down for prayer that I apparently missed because I had committed my attention to getting the party popper from my plate to open. this year everyone had been served salad that was waiting for them when we got to the table. I pointed to the leafy greens in front of me.

"what's going on here?"

"they're vegetables, christina." said my mom.

"no, that is salad rape." I replied, looking askance at a baby carrot. scott laughed under his breath and patty shot me a look.

"just eat it." said my mom, nudging my knee under the table. I put the crown from my party popper on my head, and the other cousins followed suit. looking down the table to see who was indulging in the holiday headgear was a pretty accurate indicator of the "cool ruggeris" who all gather together after the stuffy ones have departed to participate in the traditional midnight graveyard run. every year we all pile into a van and go to the graveyard to sprinkle vodka and glitter on my dearly departed grandma's grave, and we leave a "bow-quet" of all of the ribbons from the opened christmas presents. arguably the coolest ruggeri of them all, my nana certainly would have approved.

dinner itself was relatively uneventful because of nee nee's absence and the fact that no one had had enough time to get drunk first and the raviolis were soaking everything up. after everyone was sufficiently stuffed (so much so that there was hardly a scrap left on the table) we all retreated to sit around the tree and wait for pete's two babies to hand out the presents, knocking over most of the beverages in the room as they toddled around. I made off with a couple of checks and a black thermal hoodie from patty that appeared to be wearable until I noticed that it had an airbrushed sacred heart surrounded by phantasmagoric floating crucifixes on it. scott was definitely spot on when he bestowed me with a flask that said "hot mess" in scrolling purple letters.

I held it up triumphantly, and scott, feigning a resigned apathy said that he was ready to be part of the problem.

"no, no, scott. this is merely a solution." I said, thanking him.

soon the great divide came about and the family sects began to break up and start planning their escapes, so jack and my mom and I piled into the car and headed home for our private swanson party before the graveyard run.

when we got back we opened another bottle of champagne and jack was on the couch playing with my mom's geriatric miniature weiner dog, mitzie. mitzie is a nervous creature, weighing in at about 7 lbs. and she was never properly house trained, so she (and the apartment) often quite literally smell like shit. this was not the case tonight.

jack smelled the dog and made a face but the following question wasn't what I had expected:

"why does mitzie smell like raid?"

"oh, I sprayed for ants earlier." replied my mom, matter of factly, "don't lick any surfaces in the apartment."

"or the dog, for that matter!" I said, casting a sympathetic gaze in mitzie's direction. she shivered before launching herself off of the couch and running to the sliding glass door to bark frantically.
---------------

to be continued...

nom nom nom

I am, once again, in my mother's new studio apartment in sonoma, after having a frenzied day of panicked phone calls to dentists and family members because of one of my capped teeth snapping nearly in half on a god damned french fry from orphan andy's at 3am the previous night. I half expected to be forced to run around looking like a methed out jack-o-lantern for the next 2 months for lack of resources as far as mobility to transport myself to the only dental office that allows me to pay as I am able to pay. surprisingly enough, once the phone tree was alerted, I received word that my estranged dad had willingly offered to drive me to and fro, and my emergency appointment had been scheduled a mere 23 hours later. it was heartening, to say the least.

and here I sit, clutching a bag of frozen edamame beans to my face in the dark, ironically (and painfully enough) not to the tooth that is broken, but to a different tooth that will require a root canal in the immediate future. toothache pain isn't comparable to any other pain I've experienced aside from when I had a nasty case of gallstones in my junior year. it's a pain that sears into your brain and halts any activity other than an insistent urge to ease the stabbing, gut wrenching horror at any cost possible. I have taken 4 advil liqui-gels and 3 aleve in the past hour and I'm only just now beginning to be able to see straight. toothaches have given me heart palpitations, deprived sleep, caused consumption of endless canisters of vicodin, and at times caused me to slam my head into a wall for lack of any options left. toothaches... ain't nothin' to fuck with.

the work I've had done in the past is mostly if not completely caused as a side effect of chemo and radiation that without a doubt saved my life. in the big picture, it's certainly a small price to pay to still be sitting here, motor skills intact, gently bombarded by the remarkable sound of thousands of crickets in the countryside on a warm summer night. but still, I can't help but be uneasy. the unsettling memories of cancer treatment that I prefer to leave in deep recesses that I only may visit unconsciously aside from inappropriate jokes at dinner parties, are presented in droves. I suppose I'm realizing that a large part of the reason that I haven't touched the organic beginnings of material for a manuscript all of these years is because I haven't been ready to truly process them. also, my relationship with jon was damaging in ways I was blind to during the throes, in that I was belittled and discredited for how far I have come from the bottom by someone whose respect I thought I had. I've never been in a situation where someone I trusted took merciless potshots at my jugular, and have never given so much of myself to receive nothing in return but callousness. (if you hadn't heard... I'm "weak".) I've got a month left sharing the house with him and my uncertainty and fully justified distrust appears to be a surefire one way fast track to bat-shit crazy, but I'm going to hang in there. I wonder what our future dynamic may be, if he wants one, if I want one. is it possible to remain friends after being smoked out of your beloved dream apartment like a jilted gopher? is it possible, after everything that has happened, and whatever the month of july holds? inconsequential, I guess... lovers come and go, but in my experience, it's 30/70. no man, no cry.

in more cheerful news, I'm in the process of securing myself an internship with wholphin dvd, a division of mcsweeney's publishing house. this is a-maz-ing. more news to come on this as it develops!

don't look back

I'm in sonoma for the first time in 6 months, and it's proving to be vaguely familiar, but far from comfortable. the ruggeri compound has shifted and evolved in my absence into an alien configuration, and the home conundrum that all young people are forced to ponder is insistently presented at every turn. the linden street house has been emptied and sits unoccupied on the driveway, wooden shingles warping from the elements' unforgiving wear, and the once impeccably manicured rose bushes lining the perimeter are unfurling into wild, thorny shrubbery. the bunny cages near the chicken pen have sat empty for longer than two decades, but my grandfather still has a flock of 8 hens who keep the need to buy commercial eggs at bay. there's a stool next to the propane tank that has grown a layer of rust so thick that it's hardly recognizable as anything other than scrap metal, whose purpose was to provide an inconspicuous and shady spot for my grandpa to sit while he was shooting the pigeons that would try and pilfer the feed he set out for his roost. the vineyard acreage adjacent, once lush and picturesque is now empty, the weeds creeping in from the field and spreading like moss over the rocky rubble. my grandpa apparently rides his tractor in circles over the graveyard of vines with regularity, and it shows, the terrain rough from being masticated by steel teeth. my room at the main house has been turned into storage for crazy nene, the only remaining signs that I'd ever inhabited those four walls being a nail polish spill stain on the hardwood floor and a forgotten marilyn monroe light switch plate.
visiting renee was more intense than usual, but I couldn't tell if it was because she was on too many meds or off of the ones that keep her in some semblance of working condition. she is wearing sunflower pajamas at four pm, and hasn't been out of the house in weeks except to take the possibly inbred and invariably developmentally stunted black lab to do her business. she pulls me to the closet gleefully and slings a fur coat around my shoulders, and I feel them hunch underneath the surprising weight.
"it's seal skin! you can have it when I die,"she says, "you're the only person who would appreciate it."
"thanks ne."
"your welcome." and with that, she whisks the seal from my back and is on the move again, this time to the back bedroom, where she makes a theatric production of banishing the dog and locking her out in the hallway. she looks at me for recognition and appreciation and I nod enthusiastically. my years of hatred for that dog haven't gone unnoticed.
renee pats a spot next to her on her bed/army cot and motions for me to sit down, and as soon as I do she begins yelling in a sing-song arpeggio,
"I want to suck your NAZI COCK, BERSERKER!"
"so you've been watching a little clerks, I take it?"
"I want to suck your NAZI CUNT, BERSERKERRRR!"
"errr," I hesistated, "I don't think those are the right words... I'm pretty sure actually that it was "would you like some making fu--"
"oh, who cares. its clerks! I'll make my own words!"
I avert my eyes to the gallery of family photos on the wall haphazardly hung with scotch tape, and then she asks me if I wanted to try one of her pills. I shrug and silently decide it couldn't hurt, and watch her meticulously survey the veritable full pharmacy of little orange bottles that sit lined up on the shelf like toy soldiers. her finger stops on a bottle in the middle with the label peeled off.
"oohhh." she coos, snatching the cap off, "these ones are hot tuna good." she hands me a round white tablet that looks like a horse tranquilizer. I turn it over in my hands a few times.
"what is it?" I ask.
"oh, I don't know, it'll make you sleep like a baby, though. it's like an ambi-trazo-butri-nesta-done, or something."
"oh."
"jackie gave 'em to me. she feeds them to her dog."
"what?!" my eyes widen.
"yeah, I know." she chuckles, throwing her hands up, "I keep telling her it's no wonder he lays there playing dead like a zombie all the time!"
"jesus christ."
"SUUUPERSTAR!" sings renee, and she hands me an empty listerine pocket strip container that is labeled in fine point sharpie, NOVEMBER PURSE.
"what's this for?"
"they make perfect pill holders." she watches as I effortlessly slip my canine tranq inside and snap the lid shut.
"see?"
"you're right."

recently, someone in the family had the bright idea of introducing renee to to internet, perhaps to help her keep busy in her bat cave of a bedroom. she divulges to me that she has discovered myspace, and has been avidly stalking my cousin's pages but couldn't click into mine due to the fact that it was private. she wants to know what I'm hiding. I tell her nothing. she asks if she can add me as a friend and I immediately say no, no way. she insists that there's nothing that I could do to offend or surprise her, to which I roll my eyes.

"I do bad things, too, you know." she glowers at me.
"sure," I reply, "the key to getting away with them is not getting caught."