I was inspired to write this by Mama Kat’s writing prompt, “something embarrassing that happened at school.”
I was 15 and in sitting in the front row of my 10th grade English class. Suddenly, I felt something — got my period unexpectedly in class. Now, this is something that happens in life, but at that age, I was still learning how to manage things. Even though I was wearing black pants, I didn’t want to stand up because I was afraid people would see, so I acted like everything was just fine.
When class ended I gathered my stuff slowly and left the room last, then rushed to the restroom. Afterwards, I confided in some friends and they assured me there was nothing was visible on my pants because they were black, so that made me feel better.
The next day, the teacher, Mrs. Wierman, a.k.a. the dreadful human who taught me how to analyze Beowulf, came up to me before class. She was a small woman with short, curly gray hair and glasses and she must have been close to retirement at that point.
Kids were getting settled in their seats and chatting to each other when she put both of her elbows on my desk, leaned into me, and hissed, “Did you ‘get sick’ on your chair yesterday?” Her tone was accusatory and I wanted to disappear.
I said, “No, what do you mean?”
“There was a stain on your chair and the person who has this seat after you refused to sit in it. She created a big fuss over it!”
“No, I didn’t get sick on my chair yesterday.”
She looked at me with a skeptical smirk and walked away without another word.
I knew what she meant — there must have been a blood smear on my chair and I didn’t realize it. But I don’t consider that “getting sick,” I got my period, which is a normal thing, and I had a mishap, but I wasn’t sick.
Still, I felt so humiliated that tears came to my eyes right there in class. I don’t think anyone saw, which would have made things so much worse.
I think if she had phrased her question differently and had a less accusatory tone and approached me in a more private manner, it wouldn’t have been so bad. I probably still would’ve cried, though.
What the fuck, though? Like, why even say anything to me? I was shamed because I was a teenager who had an “accident” that came as a normal and natural consequence of being female. Even though it was so long ago, I’m still pissed about how ashamed she made me feel.
If I hadn’t thrown my yearbooks away years ago I would’ve included a photo of her with this post to shame her right back for being such an asshole. But instead, here are my cats Magilla and Kevin playing with a tampon.
If you’d like to share something embarrassing that happened to you in school, I’d love to hear about it!
Lorenn at Lovely and Cozy was sweet enough to ask me to take my readers on a blog tour! (Thank you, Lor!)
It’s called The Blog Tour Award and I have to pick at least four people to do it, too. But first, my responses to these prompts:
1. How does your blog differ from others in your genre?
I’m not even sure what my genre is! When I first started this blog I wanted it to be sort of like a newspaper column. I think it differs from other blogs in that I try to look at larger or deeper issues, or make connections between various incidents or thoughts to form a conclusion.
I guess that’s a complicated way of saying that I don’t really like to write weekend recaps, vacation descriptions, and so on. Even though I enjoy reading other people’s day-to-day type posts, it would take a lot of effort to make mine compelling since I hardly ever leave my house.
So, since my daily life is not all that inspiring, I try to come up with more substantive topics instead. I have a list of topics I want to write about so I’ve keep checking those off as I go along. Sometimes, though, something will happen that’s blogworthy. I just try to keep it interesting not only to read, but also to write.
2. How does your writing/creative process work?
I don’t like to post something just to post it, so it could be a week or two before I come up with something interesting enough to write about. First I write it in my head over the course of at least day, usually more. This involves first mulling it over and then actually writing the post mentally, sentence by sentence, before I sit down to write. It at least gives me a framework to start with, and I tend to do this as I’m falling asleep or maybe while walking Sassy.
Then when I sit down to write, it can take a day or two before I finish it — I tend to write here while I’m doing other stuff so I shift back and forth. Then once I’m done writing, I add photos (all of the photos in my blog are ones I take myself) then make sure the SEO is in place. For that, I often have to rewrite some stuff or just add in words here and there to make it more SEO friendly. I proofread it a bunch of times, rewrite and revise here and there, and proofread again. I put myself though this long, annoying process so you can probably understand why it takes me a day or two to finish one post!
3. Why do you write or create what you do?
I’m trying to write a blog that I would like to read, and hopefully others will enjoy it too. I’ve been keeping track of my life in this way since I was 10, when I received a Snoopy diary with a lock as a gift. Over the years, I’ve filled a dozen or more blank books, and I also had a blog way back when, before they were even called blogs. I started my “online diary” on Diaryland back in 2002. It was locked and private and very personal, and only a few people had access to it. I had to stop writing there in 2012 because the wrong person gained access to it. It was actually someone I was in a legal dispute with, and they tried to use some information against me. So stupid. It was disorienting be forced to move away from a platform I’d used for 10 years, but WordPress is a much better spot, so all is well that ends well.
I briefly went to Blogger, then took a blogging break, then I started this WordPress one about six months ago, making it completely public. (I registered the domain and began self-hosting not too long after I started it.) In a creepy twist, the person who caused me to abandon my Diaryland blog now reads this one — I can tell from the stats. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that at first, but now I feel flattered that she continues to be so interested in me and my life! Anyway, because of that, I don’t share anything private here. That situation caused me to step beyond the approach I had been taking (long, personal, confessional posts) and into the approach I’m taking now.
4. What are you working on at the moment?
Other than writing this post, right? Ha ha. Well, I have another post I’ve been thinking about for a few weeks or months that I’ll try to tackle this week. It’s about where we should draw the line when looking at our ancestry. For example, if you’ve been told your whole life you’re one nationality, but then you do some research and find out you’re actually from somewhere else, would you still call yourself the first thing? I think it’s an interesting question and when I write it I hope to get some feedback on what others think about this issue!
Okay, so here are the bloggers I nominate to participate in this blog tour! If you don’t read these blogs yet, you should because these women are great writers and they often give me stuff to think about, or make me laugh, or make me cry, or all of the above. Here they are:
But really, if you read this and want to answer these questions in your own blog, please do so. I’m really interested others’ writing/blogging process. And if I nominated you and you don’t feel like participating, that’s okay!
Here are the guidelines:
Pass the tour on to at least four other bloggers.
Give your nominees the rules and specify the Monday in which they should post their nomination answers.
Answer the four questions about your creative processes, which allows other bloggers and visitors to understand what inspires you to do what you do.
Compose this one-time post on a specific Monday (date TBC by your nominator)
If you wish to participate, share your blog tour on Monday, June 22 (or whenever you get around to writing it.)
I’m excited to give an update to this post from two weeks ago in which I talked about how I could not seem to get into a gym routine and was caught in a vicious cycle of not sleeping and not working out because I wasn’t sleeping. And when I did get enough sleep I made all sorts of excuses as to why I couldn’t go to the gym. I felt like crap.
Well, since that post, I’ve been to the gym seven times! I worked out three times last week and four times this week. I’ve been setting my alarm and Mike has also been making sure I wake up on time.
I had to start out with baby steps to build up to where I was six months ago, and I’m nearly there. This time I’m going to keep pushing myself and building my endurance and strength.
I was always afraid to do too much because I have a pretty weak constitution — I get woozy and dizzy easily, I faint easily and throw up easily plus I have asthma, and exercise seems to trigger these things. But taking small steps seems to be working. For example, I’m doing additional minute of cardio each time, and my body is adjusting just fine.
This is my favorite elliptical machine because I can see the sidewalk on East Passyunk Ave. below.
And I’m sleeping really well and I’m not worrying about dumb stuff anymore. Overall I feel like life is better now that I just buckled down, activated my motivation and made the firm decision to exercise and stick to it. Thank you to those who commented on that post because that’s really what gave me the kick in the ass, plus Mike has been super encouraging too.
When I was working out before, I really didn’t notice any physical changes, and that felt discouraging, so it made me less and less interested in investing the time. But now I realize something: Working out is less about appearance and more about physical and mental health.
When I’m older I don’t want to struggle to get up a flight of stairs or hail a cab to go three blocks. My sister Laurie is a great role model — she’s always been fit but she took up running a few years ago in her 50s, and now she runs 5ks all the time and has done 10-milers too.
Whether it’s cardio at the gym, martial arts, boxing, running, weights, whatever — I want to commit myself to physical fitness because it’s one of the best things I can do for myself. And although I will probably remain my puny self, the strength and confidence I’ll gain will be worth every bit of sweat.
Who’s with me?
I took a photo of myself while doing cardio each time I worked out over the last week! These are the most unflattering photos ever but I took them initially to send to Laurie to show that I was there, then I kept doing it. (The makeup I’m wearing is from the day before that I didn’t remove before bed because I’m a dirtbag.)
I hope nothing happens. I hope I’m safe. I hope I don’t get hit by a car. I hope I don’t get attacked. Do I have my license? Because if something happens the cops will need to know who I am.
The thoughts that run through my head when I leave the house alone are so ingrained that I’m barely even aware that they’re there.
The vulnerability that I subconsciously feel, and I’m guessing other women feel, came to my attention once I began to imagine what it would be like if I were Andre the Giant. You know, the 7 foot, 4-inch tall, 520-pound now-deceased actor and professional wrestler best known for his role in The Princess Bride. He was also the subject of a skater street art campaign across the east coast throughout the ’90s, and to this day some stop signs and other stuff in Philly still bear the “Andre the Giant has a posse” stickers. (Doesn’t he look like NJ Governor Chris Christie in the photo above?)
Anyway, if I were Andre the Giant, I doubt I’d worry about my physical safety when I left the house alone. People would probably be afraid of me! I’d feel powerful and invincible and confident.
I described this to Mike over the weekend and he suggested I take self-defense or boxing classes at the boxing gym at the end of our block. I do like that idea, but even if I do take classes and I become stronger, I’ll still be puny. A puny woman with some vague muscle definition if viewed in the proper light. There’s no way I’d ever become a massive, strong, tall, powerful human being no matter what I do.
But, even though I can barely carry a bag of groceries from the car to the house, last night I was reminded to appreciate myself for who I am, feeble limbs and all.
Around 8 p.m., Mike, Sassy and I went out back because we smelled smoke and thought something was on fire in the alley. And, the back door closed behind us and locked. The front door was also locked, as were the front and back windows. Fuck. We had nothing on us, no cell phones, no wallets, not even any shoes. (We never found the source of the smoke, by the way.)
I said we could walk to my nephew’s house about eight blocks away and get our spare key from him, but that’s pretty far to walk while barefoot on filthy sidewalks after dark.
Then Mike saw that the basement windows were open. He managed to slide the screen over, giving us access to the house — if one of us could manage to squeeze through.
We have a rowhouse and so the basement windows are nearly level with the sidewalk out front. We stood out there and looked at the window opening.
“Do you think you can fit in there?” he asked doubtfully.
“Yeah, I can, I’ll make it work,” I said. I had to! There were no other viable options.
I sat down on the sidewalk and scooted forward so my legs were in the window, resting on a tiny shelf beneath it. I had nothing to stand on — there are built-in shelves under the windows but I couldn’t feel them or see them. My hips were a little too wide to make it through without twisting on my side, so I did that, and became a contorted pretzel squirming to find some footing so I could pull the rest of me in. I wondered if anyone was watching and if we’d be pegged as burglars.
Finally my foot reached the top of a small flat-screen computer monitor on a table next to the shelves and I didn’t want to use it, but I had no choice. I put my weight on it and, grasping the windowsill, untwisted myself, then jumped down onto the floor of the basement.
“I’m in!” I called and I ran upstairs to let Mike inside.
For once in my life, my puny size actually saved the day. Imagine that. Rather than the one needing help, I was the helper! I was the hero for like five minutes!
And this is Sassy, my 15-year-old puppy and interspecies life partner. She's my proofreader, too, so any errors in this blog should be blamed on her. (RIP Sassy, 2000 - 2016)
3 Comments