I always wished, as a child, that I were left-handed, or better yet, ambidextrous. Aside from the obvious benefits of amidexterity — never having to worry about your hand getting tired, fewer chiropractor bills, the ability to impress people at parties — it just seemed that I’d be specialer somehow, and life revolved around being special, you know.

Besides, impressing people at parties — the ability to do so on a moment’s notice — that, alone, would have made me specialer. And being yet another regular, old, right-hander, just didn’t.

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Seventeen.

My life revolved around avoiding food and the obsessive pursuit of clear skin.

The low-backed unitard [I bought for my dance classes] only came out of the drawer on days when my aggressive “bacne” had called a temporary truce.

Benzoyl Peroxide was my loyal friend, but an enemy to my wardrobe, bleaching the edges of my favorite clothes.

I just knew my life would be 1000 times better if only my skin would clear up.

Most days I would have happily worn a hijab.

Hormones create a special kind of torture for young and old alike.

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She didn’t think she was particularly imaginative. That talent was reserved for others, she believed — the Lewis Carrolls and Salvador Dalis of the world. So she wandered her days as if in a windowless, grey hallway, plod, plod, plod.

To her surprise, though, tendrils of color would curl through the cracks between wall and floor. All she had to do was shift her gaze to the baseboard, and twining vines burst forth like kudzu. Before long, the grey walls and ceiling were mere rubble in a blooming forest filled with life.

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It was TWA, I think. Pretty, young stewardesses in bright red caps & mini-dresses. I wore the plastic wing pin they gave me like a treasure, caressing its plasticky goldness. Our food came in tiny, stackable, child-sized rectangular plates. The bathroom seemed child-sized, too, except in height, everything designed to fit in a 3×3 foot box. We got tiny, travel toothbrushes, and stickers, and a coloring booklet with crayons.

Now I see flying as an unavoidable annoyance. Back then it was an adventure.
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8th grade. Mr. Wolf’s typing class, the room abuzz with the hum of 30 electric typewriters. His gruff, booming voice & hulking frame intimidated me, but who couldn’t love a man with actual longhorns welded between his headlights, & a closet full of Jolly Ranchers and $100,000 bars?

Our fingers poised over the keys, hidden by a sheet of paper he’d had us tape to the typewriter, waiting for today’s pop contest to win some inferior chocolate.

“Ok, kids, spell Mississippi backwards – GO!”

The winner was the only one who [thought to capitalize] the M.

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