Perfect Moment Monday: You got it, Jimmy Cliff

Perfect Moment Monday is about noticing a perfect moment rather than creating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.

Once a week we engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. Details on how to participate are at the bottom of this post, complete with bloggy bling.

Please visit the links of the participants at the bottom.

Here's a perfect moment from my week. I hope you'll share yours, too.

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If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know that I made it to the Xanax on Wednesday and actually got on the table to go under the laser at Denver Eye Surgeons.

Yes -- I, Lori, the Biggest Chicken in the World, did LASIK. On one eye. The other will remain uncorrected and will serve as my reading eye.

As you may recall, last Fall over on Mile High Mamas I told about how I came to even consider LASIK. Shortly, I'll post over there my recollection of the procedure itself (with the help of Tami, my sister/driver/unXanaxed repository of my immediate memory), and my evaluation of its benefits.

But here's a sneak preview in the music below. I felt elation as I got up off that table. Not just because my eye was fixed, but because I FACED DOWN A LIFELONG FEAR.

Sometimes I rock (with a lot of help from friends and family).


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To participate in Perfect Moment Monday:

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4. Visit the Perfect Moments of others (from the links below), and let the writers know you were there.

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Perfect Moments.

What Perfect Moment have you recently been aware of? Be sure to visit these moments and share the love, and please come back next week (click to subscribe).






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If I go any deeper I may turn into Hope

If you've been keeping up with my tweets this last few weeks, you know that Season 1 of thirtysomething came in for me at the library.

And that I watched all 21 episodes in a week. And still it was not enough. I also checked out the thirtysomething songbook.

So indulge me with my first ever vlogging effort. I don't have a fancy mic, so you might have to listen hard.

Or maybe not.


For the record, this is what I was aiming for.





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Perfect Moment Monday: Retrospect

Perfect Moment Monday is about noticing a perfect moment rather than creating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.

We gather once a week to engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. Details on how to participate are at the bottom of this post, complete with bloggy bling.

Please visit the links of the participants at the bottom.

Here's a perfect moment from my week. I hope you'll share yours, too.

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I took a trip on the yellow brick road down memory lane this week.

I returned to my college town in Kansas for a class reunion. This sign above the bar gave me pause, because I realized that people not even born when we graduated can now legally drink alcohol.
Let me say a little about my college. It's small -- there were 104 in my graduating class, and just under 1000 students altogether. It's tight -- after so many years, we alums greeted each other with deep affection. It's idyllic -- I hold thousands of happy memories. SO many memories in only 4 years. And the college is inextricably entwined with the town.

The town has remained at a population of about 3500 over the decades. It's a farming and artisan community -- highly welcoming of the transient student population who are invited to retain a claim on the place.

Each odd-numbered year, the town hosts Svensk Hyllningsfest, a Swedish harvest festival that coincides with the college's class reunions. The town has one flashing red light at the main intersection. No green or yellow is necessary -- just red. And even that is shut off during Hyllningsfest, for the parade and for the Swedish Dancers.

The day before the actual festivities (which I enjoyed immensely -- hello fellow Stuga-ites!), I spent time alone, wandering the town with my 80s playlist on, revisiting the scenes of past sins. Such as:

• with my roommate one night, moving a bench from City Hall and putting it in the middle of Main Street.
  
• with the same roommate, grabbing bread carts from behind the grocery store and racing each other in the parking lot.
  
• making out in the bandshell on my 19th birthday with Jim ("making out" is not a euphemism, mom -- I truly did not mess around with Jim).
  
• my pattern of going after the same guy my friend Kathy liked. Three times, we figured.
  
• stealing a couple of dollars from the till at my summer job, just because I could.
• "going to Nebraska," which was a euphemisms for, well, taking a trip of sorts.
• breaking a few hearts.

And the scene of past hurts:

• having my heart broken. More than once.
  
• being on the outside of girl groups. Or at least thinking I was.
• not being able to do the splits for my final drill-team routine. I was the only girl who wasn't that limber. Fail.
  
• two car accidents that claimed the lives of friends.

I got to revisit these scenes of teen/twentysomething angst with mature eyes. Even my imperfections were made perfect.

Fall sunflowers, to and fro.

Svensk Hyllningsfest 2007.

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To participate in Perfect Moment Monday:

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What Perfect Moment have you recently been aware of? Be sure to visit these moments and share the love, and please come back next week (click to subscribe).

Perfect Moment Monday: Feelings...Whoa, Whoa. Whoa Feelings

Perfect Moment Monday is more about noticing a perfect moment than about creating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.

We gather here once a week to engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. Details on how to participate are at the bottom of this post, complete with bloggy bling.

Please visit the links of the participants at the bottom.

Here's a perfect moment from my week. I hope you'll share yours with us, too.
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Regular readers know that music makes me emote. A lot and often. Good thing I don't have to pay every time I post a music video.

This week while driving, an old song came on, one I hadn't heard in maybe a decade or more. This is a song that, at various times, has brought me to soaring heights with teenage giddiness, and to my knees in desperation.

It all depended on Doug.

I wrote about Doug nostalgically here, and hatefully here (via journal image). Doug was my first boyfriend, and the very first time he said to me the long-awaited words "I love you," it was under the guise of singing this song to me.



(I feel so silly posting this, seeing the very dated video.)

Hearing that song took me back. To the first time a human being not related to me professed love for me. To sneaking kisses near a locker during passing period. To feeling like I'd arrived because a boy wanted to hold my hand in public. To that sweet and angsty anticipation of seeing each other after any absence of more than 20 minutes.

And to the disbelief and anger of yet aNOTHER breakup. To the flopping on my bed and crying for HOURS, knowing that I would NEVER, EVER get over him and love another. To the fear that my life, at 15, was OVER.

But instead of me being the actress in the scene, this week I was the audience. The song evoked in me briefly feelings of euphoria and despair -- the same ones the 15 year old experienced.

If I hadn't been driving, I'd have applauded her ability to feel her emotions so deeply.

But instead I laughed. The show was over and I could encore the actress if I wanted, or leave the theater if I chose.

A perfect moment of reclaiming some power I'd once allowed someone else to take.

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Once you make a Perfect Moment post, you are qualified to place this button on your blog.

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Now. What Perfect Moment have you recently been aware of? Be sure to visit these moments and share the bloggy love.

Show & Tell: Documentarian

Subtitle: why blogging comes naturally to me.

My profiles on Facebook and Mile High Mamas say "Blogging in my head since 1980." Which isn't the whole truth. Yes, I've been blogging in my head, but I've also been journaling on paper.

On my mngm-teenth birthday in late 1979, my dear Aunt D gave me a 1980 desk calendar. I declared it a journal, and have documented every day of my life ever since.

Ladies and gentleman, this is my life:


If you're counting, this is my 30th year or recording each day of my life. Most nights, I just convey the day's significant events (if I've met you or interacted with you substantially, you're probably in there), but there is also room in the back of each booklet for free-form thoughts, struggles and wonderings.

Each year, Aunt D sends me a new calendar for my birthday. For years, it was a Sierra Club calendar. But lately, she's gone all adventurous on me and branched out to new styles. Each one she chooses is perfect for the time.

I am nothing if not easy to shop for.

And now, something that hasn't seen the light of day for 29 years. The very first page of my journal.


I'd like to believe that no one will click to enlarge (how exciting can an mngm-teen-year old's life be?), but I'm prepared that some of you will. Try to overlook the obvious boy-craziness. On the first DAY I mention 3 boys, with varying degrees of love and hate (I can't even remember who Ricky and Randy were, but I've mentioned Doug before).

I can't help but love the girl who wrote this, who ached to be found worthy.

I started this journal because I was certain that my mom had never been a teenager. She had no idea WHAT I was going through because she was born ancient -- 30 at least. I was going to prove to my own hypothetical daughter, someday, that I could empathize with her.

Ha! There's no way my real daughter will ever see these. Not until she's a mom, anyway. Wait, I should rephrase that. Not until she's double the age I was when I started writing.

You can guess what I would grab if my house caught on fire (assuming all the people were safe).

See what the other angst-ridden kids are showing and telling over at Mel's.

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Got something to donate to the "Send Melissa West" tour? Want to buy a donated item? Visit this post.

I'll have mine in June 09.
Want yours, too?
Just click through.

Show & Tell: Cityscape

Mr Roads gave me a C in Art in 7th grade. Ba$tard.

Being an otherwise straight-A student, I took this as a personal affront. It stung so much that I decided I had no artistic talent and I would never again put myself in the position of being judged in this arena (perhaps I am a person of sweeping generalizations?).

My moratorium held up until 5 years ago, when I was invited to a baby shower for MaryBeth. I almost didn't go because it was at one of those (scrunch-up my nose) pottery-painting places, for those, you know, artistic-type people.

Which wasn't me, according to Mr Roads and the message I'd played in my head for decades.

But my affection for MB was greater than my fear of being judged (really. like anyone would care) and I went to the celebration.

And I found a new passion. I LOVE painting pottery! And I don't stink up the place when I do it.

I don't take the time to paint pottery very often. Which is a shame considering how much satisfaction it brings me.

Today I'm sharing pieces of my cityscape series, which I did in 2004. This was a very stressful time, as Tessa was in the Terrible-Threes (much worse than the fabled twos), Reed was mobile yet fully dependent on me, and Rob was in grad school. I soooo needed this outlet.

The serving plate:

The serving bowl with a tortilla chip: (I could point out that I ran out of time and didn't have a chance to do a third layer of color so it's not as vibrant as I'd like, but that would be Mr Roads talking):


The jumbo coffee mugs (there are only 2, but I took them pix from different angles):



















I think it's time for me to hit the studio again. Any locals want to join me? (Anyone who isn't Mr Roads, that is.)

To see what the rest of the class is showing and telling, go to Mel of Show & Tell.

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I am jealous of Lemony Sarah's DeLurking efforts. Lots of delurkers!

I had many friends visit, but only 3 delurk (thanks to you, you and you -- I'm so glad to get to know you!). Writing is more fun when I have an idea of who is reading. I am grateful to you.

To the rest of you lurkers.....I know you're there. I see your shadow in my metrics. So delurk. Uncloak. Reveal. Make yourself known. Say hi. Please?

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I'll have mine in June 09.
Want yours, too?
Just click through.

De-hyping Christmas

All I wanted for Christmas that year was the fashion show stage on which to perch my Dawn doll.

And I got it. And a ton of other stuff, too. Christmas at my childhood home was always a little out of control, and these days, it's a veritable orgy (my parents still live in the same house and now have 6 grandchildren).

Which is not necessarily a good thing.

Here's what I remember about Christmases as a child: making my list, checking it over daily, wondering if I'd asked for the things that would REALLY make me happy, and then...the Christmas day letdown.

My sisters and I would wait on the stairs until all the grownups got their coffee and my dad got the camera set up. It took 5 hours, I swear (or maybe just 15 minutes).

Finally, we'd scramble up the stairs and behold our loot from Santa. There were ooohs and aaaaahs as we discovered our skate board (Sheri), our Big Wheel (Tami), or our set of World Book encyclopediae (me. Yes, my dorkiness goes way back).

Then we'd go on to the wrapped presents. We had a rule that we'd all focus on one person at a time as he/she opened a present. With grandparents, parents, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins, there was a whole lotta waiting going on.

Eventually we'd have everything opened and settle in for an afternoon of eating and playing with our booty. Wait, I mean trying out our new stuff.

I'd flit between the latest Nancy Drew book and my new spirograph, pick up a random World Book (usually L) and listen to my new groovy radio/pendant. And, of course, put Dawn on her stage and twirl her around.

If I stopped for a moment, I would feel it. And I didn't want to feel it.

The emptiness.

Every year an awful secret thought would pop up: Is this all?

I'd get everything I wanted, but I never felt sated.

I did not lack for any of the "real" stuff, either. I had plenty of love and attention from my parents. I had the same self-esteem that pre-teen girls tend to have. I did not live in lack.

Still, after such a buildup, Christmas was a letdown. Even then I knew the stuff wasn't meaningful in the scheme of things.

I want to save my children from the yule malaise I experienced. So I've come up with these 5 tried and true methods to avoid the Christmas buildup/letdown.

1. Hermetically seal children in their TV-less, wireless-less rooms from October 1 until December 26. If the store is out of hermetic sealant, duct tape will do.

2. Find a hypnotist who will reprogram the kids. Anytime they hear the word "Christmas," they are to forget about presents and ask Mom if they can do a chore.

3. Tell the children that the labor unions have gotten to the elves and Christmas is canceled due to the strike. Luckily, underwear and socks are not manufactured by elves.

4. Explain the new church doctrine: Christmas presents can be purchased only with drachmas. And we're fresh out.

5. Bummer about the USDA. All foreign reindeer are prohibited from entry to our country due to the risk of hoof-in-mouth disease. Maybe next year...

What are your thoughts on the Christmas buildup? How do you temper expectations, if indeed you do?

(Originally appeared at Mile High Mamas.)

Perfect Moment Monday will return after the holidays.

Dork Olympics

I am entering myself in Topcat's challenge to see who has the dorkiest picture of herself. Here is a list of my current competitors -- go check them out before you tell me I win:

1. Stacie at Heere, Storkey Storkey
2. Maya at Gemini Girl
3. Pam at Bloodsigns
4. Flicka at Vacant Uterus
5. Dora at ISO the Golden Egg
6. Topcat's sister Rex
7. Topcat herself, here. (But, of course, she is disqualified from winning the Dork Medal.)
8. Evil Stepmonster

Remember when I lamented the time my mom allowed her friend to take me to the barber? Well, this was the result.

Yikes! Have a sudden urge to poke your eyes out?

A few years later, there was this:
You'd be serious, too, if you were wearing wool and plastic on a 98 degree day. The higher the hat, the higher the fashion.

And I was just so cool with my Farrah hair, Morticia skin and Mick lips:

Why don't you enter yourself? Dig up your dork and enter.

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Tessa took a photo of me yesterday because I was asked to join the Mile High Mamas as a regular blogger. Woot! And coincidentally I am featured today as October's Blogger of the Month. Please visit my interview and comment so they think I've shed the dorkiness and can bring some measure of popularity to the site (thanks already, Melissa!).

My favorite photog, Mary Beth, wasn't available on such short notice, but I think Tessa did a great job.
Afternoon light and photo-editing work wonders, don't they?
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Have you entered the salsa giveaway yet?

And soon it will be Perfect Moment Monday. Are you noticing your perfect moments?

My Spiritual Yin and my Political Yang

Recently, Furrow wrote a limerick about me. It is one of my most prized virtual possessions:

This new-agey blogger named Lori
Has insights that make me cry, "Glory!"
But she hides a surprise:
Though she writes of third eyes,
She's Republican down at her core, see?

(links mine, not Furrow's)

To fully appreciate my ongoing balancing act, start by reading this post, where I explain my political development.

As for my spiritual emergence, here's the scoop.

I grew up with asthma and severe allergies.* Family lore has it that when I was a baby, my mom was baking chocolate chip peanut cookies in one end of the house while I was napping in a closed room in the other. I swelled up like the Michelin Baby, and erupted like Vesuvius from all ends. Further investigation revealed allergies to everything. Every single one of the 44 stick tests that pierced my skin at age 5 showed over-reaction by my hyper-vigilant immune system.

Fast forward through several near-anaphylaxis episodes. In my 20s, after spending a year in Japan, I returned with a rare condition in my lungs (aspergillosis, if you care to look it up) which was a reaction to a common mold. The choices the Dr Pneumo offered me were:

• (1) stay on steroids for the rest of my life
• (2) try an experimental drug that had not been approved in the US; or
• (3) have a lobectomy, partial removal of my lung.

Options 2 seemed too risky, Option 3 seemed too drastic, and Option 1, well, in a fit of cosmic irony, I didn't choose #1 because I was worried about its effects on fertility. Ha!

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About this time, when things looked particularly dire, I met Ethel. I was hired to be her replacement as Program Director of an adult learning network. She was leaving, well, just because.

In my interview, I remember asking her, "So what are you going to do?" "I don't know," she replied. "Travel?" I pressed. "I don't know," she answered, again. "Will you look for another job?" I began to feel as if one of us was very dense. "I don't know," said my new personal koan, with a patient smile.

I kept pushing and asking because I just didn't "get" her degree of living in the moment and her willingness to allow inspiration to precede movement.

She did not travel and she did not find another job. She lived in her little crystal-filled cottage, an oasis of grace in a bad part of town. She offered energy-healing sessions and taught energy-work classes. She honed her skill of watching patterns -- in people, in societies, in the stock market, in nature. She grew her own food, tended her flowers. She embodied, to me, an earth mother.

And she offered me Door #4, which allowed me to eschew all three doors offered by Dr Pneumo.

During the next dozen years, until she finally did begin to travel, Ethel showed me another way of looking at health and wellness. She became my teacher, and is the closest thing I've met to an ego-less person.

With her guidance, I healed my lungs. I brought up and released issues of sadness. I released my immune system from its Rottweiler-style of defense. I released and released and released.

And I am much better. Physically, emotionally, and energetically. What that really means is that I am more conscious, more mindful and less fearful.

Later on, Ethel helped me deal with infertility and adoption, as well as my ongoing release of victim issues (boy, do they seem to come from a bottomless well).

So that, my friends, is how the curse of my lungs led to the blessings in my life.

I mentioned in part 1 of this post that my two sisters join me in the very small club of New Age Republicans. We took different paths to the granola-crunching (no nuts, please), but we each got there. Sheri and Tami, I invite both of you to guest post an entry here on your own journey (double-dog dare you!).

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* Energetically, the lungs are the place where we hold sadness. Allergies are defense systems gone haywire. And speaking of defense systems, I once figured out that my mom was pregnant with me during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I wonder if I carry some of the collective fear engendered by the Cold War.

Spirographica

We have a winner for the latest round of Lori's Childhood Trivia. But before I get into that, I want to second Melissa's declaration of Fess Up Week, which "takes delurking one step further. " As Mel says:

"So, since I tell you all sort of interesting tidbits from inside my head, it feels like a fair trade to ask you who you are. So let me know that you read this post and then you can go back to reading without commenting. And feel free to ask others on your own blog to fess up this week. Though I'll admit this here--if you are on my blogroll, I read you. Either regularly or irregularly, I am on your blog. See, it's not so hard to fess up."

So, Michigan, Ontario, Eugene, New York, UK, Oklahoma, India, Illinois, Massachusetts, California, Libya and people from other places who read but haven't commented, please delurk just long enough to let me know you read.

Confession is good for the soul, don'tcha know.

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So now I have to figure out how to say "mojito" in French. Any guesses?

Niobe, currently in Paris, popped into an internet cafe on the River Seine (Rive Gauche or Rive Droite?) during her lunchtime and guessed correctly, Spirograph.

I have a bittersweet relationship with Spirographs. I found them endlessly fascinating. I loved creating different designs with such small tweaks. I think that even as a young child, it appealed to my growing understanding of cause and effect, as well as relationships. How two gears fit together determined the how a thing came together. Small changes on one end meant a completely different outcome. The symmetry and colors kept me making more, more, more.

But I also associate spirographs with being sick. The year I was 5, I was in the hospital three times with pneumonia. I can still recall the devastation I felt each day when visiting hours were over and my parents had to leave. I was in an oxygen tent, which not only kept me isolated and wet (it was very humid in there, and the sheets were always cold and damp), but also I had to watch my mom walk away through the distortion of the clear and dewy plastic. As a grownup, I know now that my mom's heart must have been breaking as well, but at that time it just felt, each night, like my world was ending.

People sent lots of gifts to me while I was in the hospital. Many of them were Spirographs.

Do you have a particular memory of a Spirograph?

HeidiM found this for us:











Created by Anu
Garg.

And maybe this will help you search your memory.

And for more spiro-fun, click here.

You're so vain. You probably think this post is about you.

He was 19, two years older than I. Because I had been a band-weenie in high school (flute, thank you very much), it was quite a social promotion for me to wear his letter jacket at our small college. He -- the artist, the poet, the football star, the Paul McCartney look-alike -- he was interested in little ol' freshman me.

"Paul" and I were together less than a year. We began dating in late fall and broke up some time during the summer when we were home in our respective cities and he met a new girl. But in the early part of the summer, I received beautiful poetry written for me, devotions of undying love. Real handwritten letters in my mailbox. It was an endless summer and a painful fall.

Fifteen years later, he looked me up and began emailing me. He was going through a divorce, and I knew that such a thing can prompt a person to take stock of his past. We corresponded for a few months, and our interactions culminated in a phone call where I gently slipped in (in case he had begun wanting to become more than "old friends") that I was very happy in my marriage. The call ended and he never contacted me again.

Fast forward almost another decade to now. Soon I will be traveling to his city. I read in our alumni magazine that he has gotten remarried and has two step-children. He and his wife own a business, and I find an email address for it (not him, specifically). I write him a brief email congratulating him on his new family and business, and tell him I'll be in his town on a certain date. Would he like to have coffee?

I have reconnected with many old friends -- male and female -- from past eras of my life. Sometimes I have been the seeker and sometimes I have been the found. I have appreciated these opportunities to revisit situations from my teenage and naive self with my now grown-up eyes. I have valued the chances to reclaim bits of my spirit I may have allowed others to stow away.

I was prepared for Paul to respond "Sure. There's a Starbucks at Main and Broadway. When is good for you?" I was ready for "No. This really isn't a good time for me. Sorry." I was even ready for, "Do I know you??"

But I wasn't ready for what I got. Paul wrote back, as part of an email from his wife, "No, I would never meet with you. Never contact us again." His wife's portion says that when the High Ranking Clergyman married them, she and Paul made a commitment not to look into the past. And I should not contact them again.

So, being a polite and non-confrontational person, I will not.

But I would like to ask him/them this: how, exactly, did you go from "coffee" to "breaking the bonds of marriage" in one short email?

Oh, Lord, it's just as well. I bet his Starbucks serves clouds in the coffee.

Alumni of Gynee College

Imagine two sisters, maybe 13 and 15 years old. New to puberty and experiencing all the excitement and anxiety on the road to becoming young women.

Imagine my younger sister, Sheri, and me on a Friday night, trying to stay up until our ticket alarm clock clicked to the magical moment of 11:11 pm. That seemed to us to be the epitome of late.

We were getting silly, giggling about cute Tony in my Science class and mean Kelly on her soccer team. We began talking, as girls often do, about some of the weird, crazy things we'd learned in 5th grade sex ed.

Randomly, we began to name doctors. Sheri grabbed a shoe and talked into it like a microphone. "Dr. Varry, Dr. O. Varry. Please come to the operating room right away!"

We squealed with delight at this new game. I grabbed the shoe.

"Dr. Tourus, Dr U. Tourus. Come to the ER, stat!"

Sheri's turn: "Dr. Tube. Dr Phillip Ian Tube. You are being paged by OB-GYN."

Me (in a British accent): "Paging Dr Vic. Sir Vic's wife is on Line 2."

Sheri: "Dr Doverenkopf, Dr Ben Doverenkopf -- you are needed immediately in Proctology."

The game may have gone on awhile longer, but the names are lost to me now. I remember, though, that we both wet our pants that night and our tummy muscles hurt the next day.

It remains one of the fondest memories I have of childhood.

Yours?

Vocal point

I'm comfy -- no trauma or drama at the moment.

So I'm remembering. Working through past drama. In the word of a very wise counselor/friend, I'm excavating.

The episode I'm working on is from junior high school, alternatively know as "middle school" and a giant petri dish for Lord of the Flies. Does anyone come through this rite of passage unscathed?

My school is exactly 1.5 miles away from my house. District policy allows a bus ride for kids who live more than 1.5 miles away from school, which excludes me. Barely.

Mom, being a concerned and well-meaning mom (and probably, truth be told, giving in to my constant whining about it), has made arrangements with the school district to have a bus transport me, for medical reasons. I have exercise-induced (and everything else-induced) asthma.

The plan, as I begin 7th grade, is for the bus to pick me up at the elementary school that just graduated me, two blocks away. And it will drop me off there at the end of the school day.

The only kink in this plan is that the bus will pick me up AFTER it engorges itself with all the other savages students that live just outside my neighborhood. And it will drop me off BEFORE it disgorges the other beasts boys and girls.

This means I have to run the gauntlet. Twice a day.

Boarding the bus after everyone is settled, I rarely find a seat. Girls are already paired up. Boys are looking for amusement, which they often twin with weakness. They find both in me. I don't like being the center of attention. I avert my eyes. I will myself invisible, but they see me anyway.

They hone in on my vulnerability like sharks to a scab. The name-calling starts on Day 1. "Asthma! Asthma!" Sick Girl!" "What a little wussy girl!" "Hey Wheezy! Can't you even get yourself to school?"

How do they know? Who told them why I was riding?

It becomes a game to put out a foot and trip me. To block any available seats. To see if I will crack.

My pride and joy at this time is a denim bag. I ordered it myself out of a Lillian Vernon catalog. I love it because it has slots for my pens. Don't ask me today why I thought this was cool back then. I just did. It may have looked something like this.

Some of those pens even had my name engraved on them (also thanks to Lillian Vernon). The 9th grade boys delight in plucking my pens out of my bag. They have my name on them.

I endure the trips up and down the aisle for what seemed like the entire year. Odd how one's sense of time at that age has no anchor and no tether. It may have been for only a week or two. Torment messes with the space-time continuum.

I consult with my Dad, who gives me some advice. I put our plan into effect one afternoon as I get off the full bus.

I walk up the aisle as the taunting and taking happen, as usual. This time, though, I pause just for a moment at the front of the bus to address the hostile and surprised audience.

"Stick it up your asthma." I say it clearly, loudly, confidently. Now that I write it, it makes very little sense, but it seemed clever at the time.

I walked off the bus. Alone, relieved, proud of myself.

And from then on, I got to school on my own power.