Preferring My Fantasy Life Once Again

So I've been moving.  

And not the fun kind you do on the dance floor when the bands plays Ring of Fire.  It's the leaving-the-family-home-in-the-suburbs-and-moving-to-an-apartment-in-the-Bohemian/Artsy/Gay/Victorian-neighborhood-in-the-city kind.  

Which shouldn't surprise anyone if you've been reading my blog lately.   

As some of you know, I'm not your average Lacrosse Mom (the new Soccer Mom).  I'm a couch surfer, an Irish stepdancer, a Wilcohead, and a world traveler, including two years in Tokyo.

So it came as a bit of a shock to me the other day when I went to my 5th grader's Author's Academy and read this about myself in his biography:

M's brother is very competitive in sports. His sister is a great artist.  His dad loves sports. And his mom loves the color orange.

The color orange?  His mom loves the color orange?

You see, in my fantasy life my son would have said something more interesting about me such as, My mom loves the color crimson.

So much better, don't you think?

*******************************************

Stay tuned for more on San Francisco and those life-changing events.

posted at Humor-Blogs

Shacking Up With The Boyfriend: A San Francisco Treat

Yes, we ate Rice-a-Roni. Practically every night. We budgeted ten dollars a week for food and Rice-A-Roni was under 50 cents a box.  I worked at a bakery on Geary; he worked at a record store.  

We were 19, Amjad and I. Just one year out of high school and instead of going to college, we were going to San Francisco.  

Living hand to mouth was never more fun.  Amjad would get promotional items from his record store and then turn around and sell them to the other record stores. With the few extra bucks, we'd put on our vintage clothes and go out dancing:

One time we found a Seiko watch on a sidewalk in Berkely and hocked it for ten dollars. Just the right amount to splurge on pizza.

That had been my third visit to the city. The first time I was there I was 16 and in trouble. I flew to San Francisco to meet my aunt and uncle there for one last exploit. When I returned, I made a life-altering decision: get rid of the drug-addicted-loser-of-a-boyfriend and everything associated with him.

I went back to San Francisco two years later--this time with a guy who was into hommus instead of herion.  There were a lot of things I knew back then: I didn't want to college. I didn't want to stay in Toledo.  I didn't want a paint-by-numbers, collect $200, buy St. James Place lifestyle.

This was no surprise to anyone.  

As I mentioned in my last post, I was a bit different from the other kids.  Art, poetry, music--these things set my soul on fire.  When my high school counselor advised I take a higher math class, I'd have nothing to do with it.  I didn't need math, I didn't need foreign language, I wasn't going to college.  I was not, I repeat, I was not going to college.

I was going to live my life (not to be confused with "finding myself".  That, dear Internets, is what I am currently doing).

Yes, I was going to live my life, dammit, and live it now.

Amjad and I loaded up the Dodge Dart and headed west.  We made a brief stop in Venice Beach where we got jobs and rented a room on Electric Avenue from a character actor named Malik. After a month or so, we headed up the coast.  It had been over a decade since the summer of love for most people. But not for me.  I was in love with the city, with the rat-infested bakery I worked in, with the Japanese garden in the park, with my boyfriend, with the Haight, the boot leg albums we got from the record store, the Jim Dine exhibit at the museum, the clear, warm autum of a city that pulsates day and night.

And then a strange thing happened.  A thing that often happens when you're in a strange and exciting place. You discover that there's a whole lot of strange and exciting stuff you don't have a clue about.

So what do you do?  You probably guessed it.

You return home, work in your dad's restaurant and enroll in the local college, because dammit, there are things you need to know about to live your life fully in this strange and exciting world of ours.

Of course, me being the odd kid, the one who talked to her pen, the one who bought the semi-nude magazine cover into English class, the one who skipped school (3x actaully) to stand in line for concert tickets, the one who protested saying the Pledge of Allegiance, the one who...where was I?

Oh yeah, me being me, I did things my way.  College was still not the means of getting a job and buying Park Place.  Continuing my education was a way of enriching my life.  I enrolled and spent two years studying nothing but music, art and dance.  I know, a nightmare tract for you parents of college-bound seniors.  But hey, would you rather have them shacking up with their lovers and dressing like this:

Stay tuned for more San Fran Stories

posted at Humor-Blogs

Why Pens, Prom Dresses and San Francisco

NOTE: This is part of the San Francisco Chronicles, essays on how four trips to San Francisco marked life-changing events.  If you missed My First Time--A Teen in Trouble, CLICK HERE.  If you've come for prom photos, keep reading.

***

I was never like the other kids.  In the second grade my teacher told my mom she was worried about me because I talked to my pen.  True. I even spanked it when it made mistakes.

But what my teacher labeled as odd, I thought of as imaginative.  And perhaps later, as rebellious.

And this Imaginative/Rebellious Nature got me into trouble more than a few times.

In junior high school I got reprimanded for bringing in a cover from Life magazine with two semi-nude people on it.  My Alcoholic of An English teacher loved it and pinned it on the board. The principal, did not.

Nor did the principal love the bare midriff I wore to school one day. He called my mom and the three of us had a meeting in his office.  "You are supposed to dress for school as you would dress for a job," he lectured us.  My mom replied, "And what if she were working as a belly dancer?"

Yep.  Now you know where I get it from.

In high school I got in trouble for not saying the Pledge of Alliance during the National Honor Society Induction and for wanting to write an article for the school newspaper on the Marijuana Coalition.  I was the news feature editor, after all.  And decriminalizing marijuana was news.  And a damn good idea.

I also got in trouble for skipping school one day so I could go up to Detroit--50 miles north--and stand in line for tickets to Paul McCartney and Wings.

Somehow the principal found out and tried to suspend me.  Mom, my co-conspirator and chauffuer,  came to the rescue again.   She wrote a letter:  "If boys can skip school on the opening day of hunting season to kill those poor baby deer, my daughter can surely miss school to get tickets for one of the greatest bands in the world." 

Music was my life back then.  And also art and poetry.

So is it any wonder an odd girl like me would wear this dress to her senior prom?

No I wasn't that odd.  I did go with a guy--a Jeep worker, much older of course and broke.  We couldn't afford to get our photo taken, but that is the dress I wore.  Notice the cool bangle bracelets on my upper arm?  It's all about the accessories, isn't it?

Anyway, because one prom is never enough, two years after high school I went to another in solidarity with Poetry Pal and his date. This time my boyfriend (who also worked at Jeep) and I could afford a photo:

Notice I'm wearing a pearl bracelet?  I dropped the beads and bangles for a 40s Vintage Look. 

But skipping school or refusing to wear a traditional prom dress aside, an even more significant sign of my rebelliousness was my refusal to take college-bound classes in high school.  

You see, I didn't need them.  I wasn't going to college.

I was a smart girl and my counselor advised me to take advanced math and science and foreign language.    I wasn't having any of it.  

I took four years of art, four years of English and three years of journalism.  I wanted to feed my passions, not prepare myself for what? To be another cog in the wheel?  Hell no.

I think now that the reason I had no interest in attending a university was simply because I didn't want anyone else dictating what I should learn and when I should learn it.

Which is why after high school, when other friends went for further education, I went for further adventure.  My BBF and I hitchhiked out west for a month.

  

See that suede fringed coat?  God, I miss it.

Yes, that was the decade of long hair parted in the middle, hippie clothing and hitchhiking.  

Big sunglasses.  They're back.

My Friend and I made it up to San Francisco to meet up my now-deceased buddy (pictured with me above in the prom dress).  It was my second visit to the city.  

I remember this Odd Hippie Rebel dancing in front of the Greyhound bus station off of Market and having a bit of fun with the street performers near the Wharf, but I'll leave the details to another post.

Notice the poppy?  I'm not too cool to support the veterans, you know.

So what happened next?  You might think after her big adventure some sense would come to a smart girl--that she'd see the need to continue her education.

Not this smart girl. 

After I returned I worked in my dad's restaurant, and the next summer I returned to San Francisco again. This time to shack up with my boyfriend:

No, not Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac.  His name is Amjad.

FOR OTHER PROM PHOTO PARTICIPANTS, VISIT THE HOSTS STILETTO MOM,

BLISSFULLY CAFFEINATED

***************************************************

Stay Tuned:  Shacking Up With (or Shagging Up) The Boyfriend--A San Francisco Treat

posted at Humor-Blogs

Why I'm A Better Mom In My Fantasy Life

Because in my fantasy life, Teen doesn't come to me before my morning coffee and proudly parade his Facebook page with beer quotes in front of me:

"Yes, madam, I am drunk. But in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.
Winston Churchill 

It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth.
George F. Burns 

I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day.
Frank Sinatra 

And in my fantasy life, Teen doesn't laugh in my face when I lecture him on how things he posts on the internet for the world to see could effect how people think of him or even his chances for getting a decent job. 

And in my fantasy life, I'm not a Hypocrite Mom who posts things on the internet for the world to see that could effect how people think of me or even my chances for getting a decent job.

And in my fantasy life, I certainly don't own a t-shirt like this:

Stay tuned:  Shagging Up With The Boyfriend--A San Francisco Treat

posted at Humor-Blogs