Many years ago, when I was still at that tender age when I could be told what to do without threat of a massive temper tantrum, I used to spend the summers with my Spanish grandmother, Nena, in Austin.
My grandmother, a fastidious woman who photographed and cataloged every single one of her 300 different doll collections, everything from Kachina dolls to trolls, would spend her weekends at those convention-sized antique markets, the same kind that cost an admission fee, the same kind they have everywhere.
And because I was an only child, her youngest grandchild, and completely beholden to her whims, she dragged me along.
Every weekend.
Nothing could have been more boring for me. If someone were to make me, now, watch 15 cooking shows in a row, the effect would have been the same - hands in pockets with eyes glazed over. For hours I would follow my five foot tall Nena around as she talked with the vendors, mindlessly introducing me as she handled every doll, every salt and pepper shaker, every button.
Once, and I remember this quite well, a slim older gentleman sitting in a folding chair, one of the vendors, told me that I looked like a Modigliani painting.
"Oh, don't say that to her." Nena scolded him, "I don't like Modigliani and she doesn't look anything like his paintings, anyway."
Nevertheless, I was flattered. It didn't matter to me that I didn't know a Modigliani from a Picasso at that point, all I knew was that I had been noticed. And, not just noticed mind you, noticed in the same sentence as a famous painter that really cultured people knew about, really cultured people like the ones that I would grow up to be one of one day.
When we got back to her little two bedroom yellow house I immediately looked up who Modigliani was. If you're familiar with the contemporary painter then you're familiar with why I felt less flattered and more like I had been slapped across the face with a dead carp. How, dear god HOW, could my pre-adolescent body look anything like the bodies of these thick, triangular, eye-less and hairy French models?
"I told you." My grandmother retorted, coolly, from the kitchen.
Many years later, by the time I was 18, I could say that I was a recent high school graduate and the owner of my first car. I had 20,000 dollars in my money market account, DELL stock, and, because all of that came to me too easily, a really fabulous cocaine addiction.
The elderly vendor that had likened to me to Modigliani's Jeanne was the last thing on my mind, as were those really cultured people I was so enraptured with in my younger days.
By then I no longer spent summers with my grandmother and I very rarely did what I was told. It was during this time, one brutally hot August night, that I went to a college house party, swallowed about 1/3 of a large bottle of Captain Morgan, danced around a pole while watching myself in a mirror, followed this with another 1/3 of that same very large bottle of Captain Morgan, and ended up passing out on the floor while my friends partied and snorted anything that would go up a straw in another room.
About the time they noticed me was about the time they found me unconscious, wet with my own urine and with my eyes rolling backwards in my head.
Being the close-knit mature underage drug-riddled college freshmen group that we were, they rushed me to the emergency room and dropped me off before anyone had the presence of mind to ask them for any identification.
In case you're wondering, I don't blame any of my friends for what they did. I will tell you, however, that I'm grateful that no one who was at that house party that fateful evening is still a friend of mine right now.
At one point I opened my eyes, the ceiling was whirring by me vertically and I was on one of those tables with wheels being rushed somewhere. In those brief seconds that I was conscious I realized that my shirt and bra were being cut off of me. Frantic, scared, and undoubtedly still obliterated, I started fighting off the five or six people above me with my hands, the same people that were trying to rescue me.
Then, because I'm almost positive they injected me with something to sedate me, I blacked out again.
Several hours later I woke up with an unmistakable taste of charcoal in my mouth, two wire things strapped to my naked chest, and a plastic wrist band. Of course I had no idea where I was or how I had gotten there and the nurse, realizing I had woken up, told me that I should probably leave before anyone started asking any questions.
So I did. I went back to my summer dorm in the strange clothes that I had on and pretended that nothing had happened. Unfortunately for me, my college was in a small Texas town and my uncle, a Methodist minister in that same small god-awful Texas town, found out about the whole incident before I had even made it back to my dorm that morning.
My grandmother, a woman who loved her scotch almost as much as she loved her weed, two things I only discovered after her death, was not exactly impressed with my behavior. I, being the spoiled little brat that I was, was mad at the hospital for not asking me if I had health insurance before they pumped my stomach.
"You almost died." She said to me several days later, over the phone in her sad, cool tone. What she said to me that afternoon probably should have made more of an impact on me but what I remember most is the way she said it.
I, being the mature underage drug-riddled college freshman that I was, managed to shout out a completely heartfelt fuck you before she hung up on me.
The next time I heard anything from or about my grandmother it was a cold February day three years later, I was 22, she was waxy and stiff inside of a coffin.
Perhaps there are other people out there that can say the last words they spoke to their only grandparent were "fuck you". If there are, I wish I could meet them, not so much for support but more so out of curiosity.
I'm 27 now and, although I'm not the really cultured person I had always hoped to be, I do love to peruse flea markets for antiques or anything old and worn down - As far as I'm concerned, the more cracked and withered something is the more personality it has. If it doesn't look like it's about to fall apart then I don't want it.
Maybe it's my grandmother, maybe I just like anything that is vintage, but as my roommates and I walked around the antique stores in Chelsea last weekend, I handled every doll, every salt and pepper shaker, every button, every memory. "I love old stuff," I told Stralia as we went inside of yet another antique furniture store. Then I added, "Especially anything that looks like it came straight out of a grandmother's house."
My grandmother, a fastidious woman who photographed and cataloged every single one of her 300 different doll collections, everything from Kachina dolls to trolls, would spend her weekends at those convention-sized antique markets, the same kind that cost an admission fee, the same kind they have everywhere.
And because I was an only child, her youngest grandchild, and completely beholden to her whims, she dragged me along.
Every weekend.
Nothing could have been more boring for me. If someone were to make me, now, watch 15 cooking shows in a row, the effect would have been the same - hands in pockets with eyes glazed over. For hours I would follow my five foot tall Nena around as she talked with the vendors, mindlessly introducing me as she handled every doll, every salt and pepper shaker, every button.
Once, and I remember this quite well, a slim older gentleman sitting in a folding chair, one of the vendors, told me that I looked like a Modigliani painting.
"Oh, don't say that to her." Nena scolded him, "I don't like Modigliani and she doesn't look anything like his paintings, anyway."
Nevertheless, I was flattered. It didn't matter to me that I didn't know a Modigliani from a Picasso at that point, all I knew was that I had been noticed. And, not just noticed mind you, noticed in the same sentence as a famous painter that really cultured people knew about, really cultured people like the ones that I would grow up to be one of one day.
When we got back to her little two bedroom yellow house I immediately looked up who Modigliani was. If you're familiar with the contemporary painter then you're familiar with why I felt less flattered and more like I had been slapped across the face with a dead carp. How, dear god HOW, could my pre-adolescent body look anything like the bodies of these thick, triangular, eye-less and hairy French models?
"I told you." My grandmother retorted, coolly, from the kitchen.
Many years later, by the time I was 18, I could say that I was a recent high school graduate and the owner of my first car. I had 20,000 dollars in my money market account, DELL stock, and, because all of that came to me too easily, a really fabulous cocaine addiction.
The elderly vendor that had likened to me to Modigliani's Jeanne was the last thing on my mind, as were those really cultured people I was so enraptured with in my younger days.
By then I no longer spent summers with my grandmother and I very rarely did what I was told. It was during this time, one brutally hot August night, that I went to a college house party, swallowed about 1/3 of a large bottle of Captain Morgan, danced around a pole while watching myself in a mirror, followed this with another 1/3 of that same very large bottle of Captain Morgan, and ended up passing out on the floor while my friends partied and snorted anything that would go up a straw in another room.
About the time they noticed me was about the time they found me unconscious, wet with my own urine and with my eyes rolling backwards in my head.
Being the close-knit mature underage drug-riddled college freshmen group that we were, they rushed me to the emergency room and dropped me off before anyone had the presence of mind to ask them for any identification.
In case you're wondering, I don't blame any of my friends for what they did. I will tell you, however, that I'm grateful that no one who was at that house party that fateful evening is still a friend of mine right now.
At one point I opened my eyes, the ceiling was whirring by me vertically and I was on one of those tables with wheels being rushed somewhere. In those brief seconds that I was conscious I realized that my shirt and bra were being cut off of me. Frantic, scared, and undoubtedly still obliterated, I started fighting off the five or six people above me with my hands, the same people that were trying to rescue me.
Then, because I'm almost positive they injected me with something to sedate me, I blacked out again.
Several hours later I woke up with an unmistakable taste of charcoal in my mouth, two wire things strapped to my naked chest, and a plastic wrist band. Of course I had no idea where I was or how I had gotten there and the nurse, realizing I had woken up, told me that I should probably leave before anyone started asking any questions.
So I did. I went back to my summer dorm in the strange clothes that I had on and pretended that nothing had happened. Unfortunately for me, my college was in a small Texas town and my uncle, a Methodist minister in that same small god-awful Texas town, found out about the whole incident before I had even made it back to my dorm that morning.
My grandmother, a woman who loved her scotch almost as much as she loved her weed, two things I only discovered after her death, was not exactly impressed with my behavior. I, being the spoiled little brat that I was, was mad at the hospital for not asking me if I had health insurance before they pumped my stomach.
"You almost died." She said to me several days later, over the phone in her sad, cool tone. What she said to me that afternoon probably should have made more of an impact on me but what I remember most is the way she said it.
I, being the mature underage drug-riddled college freshman that I was, managed to shout out a completely heartfelt fuck you before she hung up on me.
The next time I heard anything from or about my grandmother it was a cold February day three years later, I was 22, she was waxy and stiff inside of a coffin.
Perhaps there are other people out there that can say the last words they spoke to their only grandparent were "fuck you". If there are, I wish I could meet them, not so much for support but more so out of curiosity.
I'm 27 now and, although I'm not the really cultured person I had always hoped to be, I do love to peruse flea markets for antiques or anything old and worn down - As far as I'm concerned, the more cracked and withered something is the more personality it has. If it doesn't look like it's about to fall apart then I don't want it.
Maybe it's my grandmother, maybe I just like anything that is vintage, but as my roommates and I walked around the antique stores in Chelsea last weekend, I handled every doll, every salt and pepper shaker, every button, every memory. "I love old stuff," I told Stralia as we went inside of yet another antique furniture store. Then I added, "Especially anything that looks like it came straight out of a grandmother's house."
Good God your writing is incredible. I'm always grateful of how much you share, as I'm sure all your readers are.
Posted by: john turningpin | January 25, 2009 at 11:29 PM
I don't think I have any readers anymore :-[
But I have you, and that's all I need!
Posted by: tokyo cowgirl | January 26, 2009 at 12:53 AM
I agree with JT, this is an amazing post. I've already read through it 3 times and each time some new and careful detail catches my eye.
Posted by: GEG | January 26, 2009 at 01:05 AM
You haven't lost everyone, and they will all come around. How do you think I get all my news of what you've been up too.
Posted by: dani | January 26, 2009 at 09:19 AM
>I have you, and that's all I need!
Sweet. :)
You see what I did there? I took your comment about my reading your blog and turned it into something else entirely. I'm clever like that. :)
In all seriousness, I'm really glad to see you back and blogging, and hope you're doing OK. Tokyo is a rude bastard and probably doesn't miss you so much, but I do. Take care over there.
Posted by: john turningpin | January 26, 2009 at 09:22 AM
What a post, lady. You terrify me and move me at the same time.
I cannot believe that hospital just let you walk out like that...that's crazy! I mean, maybe it was for the best, but wow...who does that?
You make me think of my own daughter, now a mature, underage, booze-riddled college freshman. I hate these years.
Posted by: Candy | January 26, 2009 at 11:08 AM
I am here too, I agree with everyone its a great post. Growing up, I loved Modigiliani, but I can see now that a young person would be offended by the comparison. Anyway, I too love vintage household items and antiques and collecting old crap. I am drowning in clutter here in London. I need a bigger flat!
PS. I'm still trying to sort out my dates, will let you know as soon as possible.
Posted by: London Girl | January 26, 2009 at 04:16 PM
This is a great post, and seeing as everyone else seems to agree, I am just going to add in that I miss you and am sad that we won't be able to see each other when you come back to visit. :(
Posted by: keitorin | January 28, 2009 at 02:57 AM