Humanity: Raw & Unfiltered
When I was seventeen I dreamt of a great big life filled with a glass house on the beach, diamonds, pretty bad boys, fancy designer duds and superfluous superficial things. Today the horizontal worry lines that magically appear on my face while I sleep are the brutal reminders that there Read more
The hair there keeps coming back, pushing through, endlessly, as if there is a message they have been trying to get to you, years now. But you’re good at your job of pulling out and cutting down. Wouldn’t it be a shame to quit? Suppose in some strange rebellious moment Read more
If you had told me I’d be going to my high school reunion with a cast on my arm, I wouldn’t have believed it. After all, I was still in recovery mode and doing physical therapy following hip surgery a couple of months before. I could almost picture going to Read more
Since the day I could count, my brother and I battled dozens of times in family tournaments of Monopoly. Before each match, he would confront me with his antagonizing, big-brother, I-am-the-boss-of-you tone. “Ready to lose another game of MO-NOP-O-LY, Dave-IT?” Expecting an inescapable wrestling hold if I refused, I gave Read more
I’m the archivist of my mind
But I lack the proper training to keep a clean house
Still, I believed I needed to look good to be happy. I worked out like crazy and tried to hide my bad teeth, which had been further damaged in a bicycle accident. Even after I found a great boyfriend who convinced me to get help for my eating disorder—probably saving my life in the process—I hated looking in mirrors.
I’ll never know if my mother thought that she might have had a cross dressing pre-teen son, or maybe she just thought that I was just a theatrical kid. After a quick costume change out of my denim bugle boys and into her brazier and favorite silver and turquoise jewelry, I was the most fearless little girl on the North Side of the Bronx, and that helped keep me alive.
Decades ago, when I was in elementary school, I did have a few genuine friends. However, the so-called cool kids swiftly kicked us to the bottom of the totem pole and successfully labeled us as faggots to the entire school. When I moved to Florida in 1979, my world did improve. However, because of my grade-school trauma, it wasn’t easy to make real friends. In High School, I was acquainted with dozens of kids from every social group, but I didn’t have the phone number of one friend to rely upon if my car broke down.